“Is he doing to be ok?” I ask
“Yes, he will be just fine,” responds a mousy little man with an effeminate voice and hair creeping out around a toque matted down on his head.
I have my doubts; a balding man with teeth long gone from bad habits is slumped on a sea wall bench, head tilted backward, and eyes focused in on another world. The little guy is talking loudly, telling his incapacitated friend to stay awake and also to give him the password for his phone. Is the little man trying to get into the phone so he can call for help or so he can steal it? Debris from the bald man’s scant possessions are scattered all around the bench. Is this a rescue moment or a rip-off moment? I can’t be sure, but mouse man assures me he has everything under control so I walk on.
I find a nice bench facing south, overlooking False Creek. The sun is trying hard to break through the clouds but failing to achieve a dominant victory over the gloom. However, as I look up to the east, the sun comes through with a spectacular consolation prize. The tiny cracks that separate the tightly packed clouds are suddenly filled with light, and the sky explodes with spider web lines of luminary brilliance. As my eyes take in the beauty, my ears are treated to a delight of equal worth. Two bald eagles perching in the towering fir trees next to the old casino go unnoticed until their vocal romance blows their cover, and my ears are treated to a special love serenade. You’d expect these formidable lords of the air to have a terrifying call, but it sounds like a cross between a seagull and a songbird. It’s a magical song.
Something catches my eye and distracts me from the magnificent sky and majestic birds; I see a connoisseur of Vancouver’s baser street stimulants toke up 50 yards to my left. Then he folds in half. From his unnatural position with his butt in the air and his head by his ankles, he sways, wobbles, dips, and bends but miraculously stays on his feet. Suddenly, he stands up straight as an arrow, splays his feet outward, and marches off; he’s part animated toy soldier still attached to the base and part penguin. The waddle march is short-lived after only ten or fifteen steps; he stops to light his glass pipe again, trying desperately to inhale whatever poisonous world-transporting fumes remain. The effect is immediate; his top half bows to the earth once again, while his bottom half remains upright. His filthy oversized sweat pants begin to revolt against their purpose; they ease off his hips and start a downward descent, revealing nothing I wish to see. After a time, he slowly straightens himself and hoists his slumping pants back up within barely reasonable limits of modesty. He stares blankly out over the water, swaying slightly. He is a little man with a big backpack and white tennis shoes. Who is he? Where is he from? What has motivated him to place his mind and body into the grip of a substance that has killed thousands in our city? There is a sky to be awed by and eagles to marvel over; he’s missing out on nature’s high. He turns sharply and staggers off down the sea wall path, punching violently at nothing, causing joggers to take a wide birth around him.
An ambulance further distracts me from appreciating the beautiful morning; I notice it because it veers from the road and begins slowly heading down the seawall footpath in the direction of the toothless bald man who was “just fine.” He is not just fine, is he? I think to myself as I pack up and begin to head for home. I see no sign of mouse man when I walk by the emergency vehicle, but I glimpse the bald guy belted to a stretcher in the back of the ambulance. He’s not moving, and the attendants are not in a rush. I can’t determine if that is a good sign or a bad sign. I notice that the scattered mess cluttering the path earlier has been scooped up, bagged and placed in a heap at the foot of the stretcher. Wherever they are taking this guy, they are allowing him to bring his stuff. That’s a good thing; if he is still alive, then the day hasn’t been a total loss for the poor guy, although something tells me he no longer has his phone.
