Three Men Waited for the Bus
Three men waited for the bus at the Queensway Transit Exchange.
I thought back to Charles.
Earlier that evening…
Yum Yum Tree.
Capri Centre Mall.
A large combo.
Curry rice noodles.
Thin.
Fragile.
With a sweet bite.
Chop suey.
Barbecue chicken.
Sweet soy and red glaze.
Steam.
Mall chopsticks.
Charles was frail.
Then my bag hit the floor.
Charles: I’ll get it.
Me: No, I got it.
We talked.
Charles: You live around here?
Me: I used to live across the street.
Me: I’m staying in shelter right now.
I explained.
The apartment.
The landlord.
The maintenance.
The RTB.
The Supreme Court.
The storage lockers.
The housing applications.
Years of fighting reduced to a single sentence.
Charles’ jaw dropped.
We talked about the dispatches.
Charles wanted to read them.
He doesn’t do computers.
The man he was with took a picture of my card.
He said he’d print them for Charles to read.
Maybe these dispatches don’t just live online.
Back at Queensway, I met John.
He was headed to badminton.
We started talking.
John: What are you doing?
I explained what I had already explained to Charles.
What I was doing.
What I was going through.
He listened.
Then he arrived at his conclusion.
John: You’re a journalist.
There are no journalists in China.
There was respect in it.
He took down my web address.
Then another realization.
John: You are homeless?
He told me he pays about fifty dollars a night in residence.
International students pay ten times as much as Canadian students.
Me: How do you afford it?
He seemed serious.
John: I think my dad sold the house.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
John works at a Chinese grocery store near Parkinson Recreation Centre.
A hidden place I’d never heard of.
He offered to give me a tour.
To show me what to buy.
What to make.
How to make it.
I had just finished telling him about mall Chinese food.
John: There is no real Chinese food here.
More in Calgary.
Calgary.
The city where I was born.
Me: I only know two words after my extensive Chinese vocabulary.
Ni hao.
Xie xie.
He smiled.
John: Here’s another “word” for you.
“Bye-bye.”
We say that now from the West.
In the corner sat a man.
The third man.
Hands folded.
Everything he appeared to own balanced around a walker.
John and I kept talking.
Our stop approached.
John stood.
I rolled toward the front.
We waved down the aisle.
Me: Bye-bye, John.
John: Bye-bye, Randy.
John headed to badminton.
I rolled “home.”
Only then did I realize the third man had gotten off before us.
I hadn’t noticed him leave.
I expected to see him later that night at the shelter.
I didn’t.
How many people do we pass every day without knowing what they are carrying with them…
and within them?
Three men waited for the bus at the Queensway Transit Exchange.
One wanted to read the stories.
One taught me a new “word.”
One disappeared quietly into the evening.
For a few stops, our paths crossed.
Then we continued on our way.
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