chuma.org

written on May 16 Around 1:00pm

Just before lunch, a homeless person walked with me for a few blocks. It was raining hard, and neither of us had an umbrella. He started talking to me at Queen & John, I was walking south to Metro Hall. He was an Aboriginal person, around 40 most likely. We talked about this & that: he said that his father was very rich, but he wouldn’t give him any money. He said he was from Manitoba: I said I’d never been out west, but I’d been out east. He said that when he was 16 he travelled all across the states, from California to Maryland.

Whether or not his story was made up or real, if he was really homeless or not I’ll never know. When he asked for money, I gave him $2 with little thought. Was I being conned? Did I really help someone, or just bring them $2 closer to their next drug purchase or jug of liquor? I’ll probably never know. But stranger things have happened in the city before, Maybe I’ll find out.

Just now I saw two police offices and two security guards escort a (homeless?) man from the Metro Hall food court. What had he done? It he just wanted to get out of the rain, what’s wrong with that? Strange juxtaposition on the last day of my job.