it was four thirty something on august 19, 2026 and i had some errands to run before a church barbeque. i needed to develop my roll of film which took me two months to finish and i had just finished the sound and the fury by william faulkner so i was looking for a new book to read during the long car rides at work. the sound and the fury is one of the greatest books i’ve ever read and it has left a permanent stain in my brain that will never come out. i don’t think i’ll ever read something like that again but i went to seekers books and asked the man with the glasses and hat who has been there for me since winter 2022 when i purchased 1984 by orwell to read on the bus so that women would see me. i asked him if he had anything there that would make me feel the way faulkner made me feel and he replied what did you like about it i said the characters he said gabriel garcia marquez i said read that already he said murakami i thought oh gosh is this finally the day i never thought it would come and we walked to the shelf and he showed the wind-up bird chronicle.

runner up for his best work, i’d say kafka on the shore is his best
oh wow okay

i thought the cover was extremely ugly so i shamelesslyish left to see if bmv books had anything else. it did not. no absalom, absalom! no east of eden, no don quixote, no murakami books with better covers so i accepted defeat and shamelessly returned to seekers and as i walked to grab the book with a cover that looked like it was designed in 2016 i said something about how bmv had nothing better and he made a quip and i said what

i said looks like we beat the big boys again but-
that would make you the little boys
yeah.

and he related his quip to mad max 2 thunderdome and how one man was in charge of the pig-supported power grid and i thought wow maybe i should watch that movie and i left.

there’s a bench carved out of a rock facing the value village boutique on bloor and brunswick and i sat there with my new novel hiding the cover ashamed that i was reading a murakami book in public i hoped no one would see me and think i was performative but how absurd, i am A WHITE BOY WITH DOC MARTENS SITTING ON A BENCH READING A BOOK how could i possibly not look performative. THAT’S WHEN I HEARD him AROUND THE CORNER.

RONALD

got any change?
no, sorry
got any cash?
sorry, i don’t carry any on me
…
can i sit with you? mind if i smoke?
maybe if you sit on this side so the wind blows it away
…
ronald, ron, what’s your name
luke, nice to meet you
*fistbump*
how old are you?
i’m 20
i’m 47! 17 years older than you
isn’t it 27?
oh yeah… shit
…
you think you could buy me a shirt after i’m done?
sure why not
i want a blue one, to match the hat
long sleeve? short sleeve?
long. maybe some white on it too.
okay

he started freestyle rapping, describing the situation, observing his surroundings and i tapped my foot to give him a beat, he smiled. it started off strong but he lost it at a certain point “yeah man” there was silence.

wanna share a beer with me i got two
ah… maybe that’s not the best idea i’m a lightweight and i havent eaten and i ha-
*tssk*

i gave in quite easily and we had a clinkless cheers with our lukewarm aluminum cans. i heard the spirit of youth sermons speak in my ear “what are you doing drinking alcohol with a stranger” but i defended myself “you know what i’m actually doing the right thing here. now this man will have less alcohol to get drunk, i am bearing his burden and doing him a favour”

guess how old i am
47
how did you know??
you told me already
oh… yeah

ronald has a 27 year old son who is a paralegal and lives in baltimore with his ukranian “bitch of a mother.” ron says he is the best non-black rapper. better than eminem. i said spit some bars because his freestyling left much to be desired. he did and it was beautiful. the lyrics were deep and profound and his flow was sweet i said wow that’s really good. ron quit writing verses in 2005. “depression.” he has close to 200 of his own verses memorized and i found that astonishing. he asked if i wanted to hear another one i said of course. it was about his struggle with alcoholism and it struck me to my core. for a moment i saw this man in an era before i existed with talent and aspirations and dreams and then i saw him again. i couldn’t tell if it was the same man.

i am uncomfortable with the view of homeless people that most people around me seem to have. they fail to see the humanity in their eyes and further limit a change in their perception by labeling all of them zombies and making silent observations with their eyes to eachother portraying disgust and blame and rejection. i don’t like it. i’ve lived in toronto for 6 years now and 90% of my interactions with these people have been safe and normal and i get that as a man i have the immense privilege to even have these conversations but. i don’t know. i think there’s so much room for discernment and wisdom in interacting with people and i wish things were different. i guess i wish people knew these people are people too. even the contorted ones with minds in other dimensions. even the mean ones. i don’t know.

i pounded down the rest of the warm beer down my throat and asked ron to pull up his pants before we went inside. he grunted and did nothing. we went inside and it felt like being one of those moms on instagram with the cute babies in the grocery store that say hello to everyone except i was with a hammered 40 year old man that was capable of speaking unimaginable offenses. when we were sitting down outside he had already called a woman walking by an “islamic beauty” and asked her to sit with him, so i called upon the lord to bridle this man’s tongue while we were inside the store. the lord answered, and ron’s interactions with people mostly consisted of saying hello. very quickly we found a nice blue shirt that matched his hat and he put it on and looked pretty darn good in it and i bought it and we walked out the store and we exchanged goodbyes and god blesses and i was late for my barbeque.

oh shoot, i thought as i began walking to spadina station. gosh dang it ron i told you i was a lightweight. i felt the beer permeating through my entire body yet pressed on to the east end for this gosh dang barbeque. i wasn’t drunk but it was the closest i had ever gotten and when i arrived i felt as though i was a soldier in an active warzone weaving through these christians and fighting for my life. saying hello to all the people i knew felt an impossible task yet was somehow accomplished. i spent the next 20 minutes between the water station and the washroom trying to flush my flesh clean, i told shaila what had happened and she laughed in my face. the intoxication dissipated after i ingested a burger and the rest of the evening was absolutely lovely. i talked to pastor dan about faulkner and fountain pens and ranted about the decline of christian music and witnessed a debate between two presbyterian pastors and a reformed baptist 20 year old about infant baptism (guess who won) and i stayed late making “crude jokes” with the girls.

when i took the subway home at 11:30 PM there was a medical emergency and after about 20 minutes they decided to cease service on line 2 for the rest of the night, so with no other option i found an ebike and biked from bathurst to dufferin. i had to wake up the next day at 6 am. i got home at 1 in the morning. i went to bed vaguely recounting my day and fell asleep.