After an hour of walking through the soggy streets, we arrived at an old brownstone storefront sandwiched between two monstrous condos. We could hear Mrs. King’s voice crackle on the old intercom. “You finally made it.”
Her tiny apartment sat above a sewing supply shop. In the storefront’s window, a headless mannequin stood, wearing a patchwork of featured fabrics on sale, with a measuring tape artfully cinching its waist. When the door to her second-floor walk-up opened, we had to back up on the narrow stairwell to accommodate its outward swing. Mrs. King stood there with black dye still processing on her scalp and eyebrows. A stained towel protected her shoulders from the dark trickles down the nape of her neck.
“Hello, Mother.” You kissed her weathered jowls carefully, avoiding the line of ink-like liquid dripping near her ears.
Before I could greet her, Mrs. King took me by my wrist and forced me to stand in front of her. “Let me have a good look at you. Come closer. Yes. I can’t wear my glasses until I rinse my hair, so you have to stand about here. Very nice.” Her arthritic hands squeezed the muscles from my forearms to my biceps to evaluate me. Two deep-brown irises encircled by the blue of a ripe cataract studied every inch of me. The perimeter of my mouth. The balance between my right and left foot. The tiny protrusion of my belly button through my sweater. Then my hair. I gulped, suddenly recalling the sensation of my hair passing through a fine-tooth comb, my own mother pulling and pulling at her mistake manifested in my mane.
“Aren’t you ever handsome.” Mrs. King smiled. She looked at you and playfully squeezed your hand. “Be good to this one. The other one before made me want to scream with his gum-chewing. But this one is a good one.”
You sighed dramatically. “Mother, please don’t start.”
“First there was the boy who was always on a diet. Then the one after that who was hungry all the time but was a . . . what do you call it? What is it called, Evan?”
“A vegan.”
“Yes. A vegan. Kay, tell me. Are you a vegan?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Thank goddess.”
I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep my emotions at bay. I was thankful when a kitchen timer dinged and she broke eye contact with me.
Without discussion, you pulled a chair from the adjacent living room to the kitchen sink, your mother sat down, and you gently rinsed her hair. How did this come to be, Evan? This graceful way between you and your mother? How did love become a language? Become a dance?
I looked around the small space and decided to rest on a depression in the mid-century chesterfield’s upholstery, most likely your mother’s favourite spot. When I felt springs poke through the frame into my buttocks, though, I changed position to the less-worn wooden step stool in the corner.
“I’m sorry we took so long. Those damn protesters got in our way.”
“Nothing wrong with a little protesting,” Mrs. King shouted over the sound of the running water. She wiped moisture away from her eyes with one of her crooked fingers.
“I’m fine with it, as long as it doesn’t get in my way.”
“Evan, dear. They’re not going to give you the heads-up. They’re not going to work around your schedule. They want to disrupt. They want to get your attention that it’s no longer safe to be an Other. That’s why it’s called civil disobedience.”
You expertly wrapped your mother’s head in the stained towel. She used the corner of the towel to absorb water that poured into her ear before tucking the tail into the nape of her neck. “You kids nowadays don’t even know when your world is falling apart, and you don’t even know when it’s necessary to take a stand.” She gestured for you to help her back up to standing. She slowly made her way to the kitchen cabinets and got three floral-printed glasses.
“Back when I was young, it was as plain as the nose on your face when you were being wronged. Take this place,” she said to me while pointing to the four corners of her humble apartment. “I raised my son here. It was the only place I could find where the landlord was willing to rent to us. My husband, God bless his soul, said to the landlord, ‘Mr. Willems, I am willing to give you five months’ rent if you will let us stay here.’ He said yes. It didn’t stop him from pretending we’d only given four months’ rent, but we finally had a place to stay. So when we would march way back then, it was clear what we were fighting for.” She walked to the refrigerator, opened it, took out a bottle of ginger ale and a jug of orange juice. “Today, it’s not so obvious. But you know it’s there. People pretend more. Smile like it’s not a problem, when they still believe the same things about me and my son. I think it’s even more dangerous. Take Mr. Varela next door, for example. Lived above what was a 7-Eleven back in the day. Stayed my neighbour for thirty-two years. The man had to be wheeled out on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to the hospital. Heat stroke. I almost passed out myself last summer. Good thing we’re on the second floor. The floods didn’t affect us much other than some power outages. And I’m familiar with a can opener and a can of beans. I am not a fussy woman. I can live on very little. But the heat wave was unbearable. No one thinks about why those things happen, other than climate change this and climate change that. But it’s also because Mr. Varela is—or was, I don’t know if he made it or not—a Venezuelan man, a Brown man, who was poor enough to live above a corner store with no AC. It’s so complicated, no one is able to see the bigger picture and how it’s connected to the Two Nations, One Vision campaign. They think it’s two separate things. It’s not. But when we marched back in the day, we never marched for people to be polite to us. It was clear as day what we marched for. We marched because we deserved to live.” She poured a bit of ginger ale and orange juice in each glass, then handed it to us. The intense sweetness of the beverage could not drown the sinking, complicated truth of what she was saying that was growing in my stomach. I took several more gulps, and still the feeling remained.
“Tell me, Kay. Tell me all about yourself.”
“He’s a performer, mother.”
“Did I ask you, Evan?” Your knees clamped together at the sound of your mother’s discipline. “Go on, Kay. Pardon my son and his rudeness. He always fancied himself an expert in everything. Can you believe this fool had the audacity to suggest I redecorate my home? Please, Kay. You tell me about yourself.”
I looked at the blue of her cataracts and held my breath before saying, “It’s true. I’m a performer.”
“How exciting. And do you like performing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can see it in your eyes. The hunch of your shoulders. The way you look down at your feet. The smallness of you transforming onstage to be as big as you want to be. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“I am happy you know where your heart is. Not everyone in their lifetime will be so blessed.”
She simply pointed to the refrigerator and you knew to take roast chicken and side dishes from the shelves, heat it up in the microwave and divide it among three melamine plates. Our hearty eating was punctuated every now and then with you giving your mother a tender kiss on the cheek. I could see the beginnings of you, the roots of you, and my heart was singing.
“We’ll try to be back next week, okay?” you said to her as we made our way to the door. The late autumn sun had already set, leaving the home in sudden darkness. You enveloped your mother in an embrace. I stepped forward, wondering if she would allow me to do the same.
She surprised me by cradling my face. “Look at me.” I tried, but in the twilight of the hour, Mrs. King’s face had faded away into a shadow, already a memory. “Be as big as you want to be, Kay,” said the silhouette. I nodded. Even though darkness had obscured my features, I knew she could feel my tears dampening her hands.
Time passed. The weather got colder. You and I fucked on the day of the first frost. We bit each other’s lips into the holiday season. We experimented with who was going to be the big spoon each evening, trying to keep each other warm. Outsi
de the door of my room, the world was changing. Random pat-downs from the police. Random raids of nightclubs we once frequented or stores we once visited. Corner-store staff on their knees with their elbows spread wide, their hands on the tops of their heads, while authorities shook down their tills, toppled over shelves. Sikh men escorted by security out of a subway train during rush hour.
We shrugged our shoulders each time a restaurant refused us service, delightfully held hands and tried our luck elsewhere.
We wove through countless protest marches and political demonstrations to catch a movie, only to be told in not so many words that we were no longer allowed in such spaces, so we would shrug our shoulders again, head home and make love.
We made love after finding out you had lost your job as a graphic designer. We made love each night another one of my drag gigs was cancelled, our audiences dwindling to no one. The world was falling apart, and the one thing we knew we had to do was remind each other who we were.
On the night of the winter solstice, we had made plans for you to finally meet Nadine, in Kensington Market for the night parade. She was my chosen sister, after all.
“Did you try her again?” you asked, blowing warm air into your fists.
“I texted her. I called her and left her a voicemail message. She’s usually the one on time.” I tried my luck again. I jumped from foot to foot to bring life to my freezing thighs while I scrolled through my messages from the inside of my jacket. I didn’t want my phone shutting down in the cold. I looked through Facebook and Instagram for clues as to where she was, but her profile was gone. Did she block me? Impossible. Maybe she deactivated her account after yet another breakup. I took my mitten off my warm hand and placed it on your cheeks at the site of frostbite.
“Let’s join the procession. She’ll text me when she arrives.”
We marched on Augusta Avenue, holding hands alongside the large crowd of painted faces and makeshift instruments, our free hands holding homemade lanterns. The air was like a bitter slap, and I looked forward to the end of the procession, when the effigy would be burned in celebration of the year’s longest night. Last year it was a giant star. The year before it was the word “Glow.” I wondered what it would be this year. The crowd began to form a circle around what was once a concrete wading pool and waited for the big moment. Crude recycled instruments like yogurt-container drums and coffee-can shakers were banged in a monotonous beat as a red-nosed clown approached the effigy and set it alight. The crowd cheered. Some children cried. Many took pictures with their phones. While my numb lips thawed at the sight of the flames, my throat grew hot at the sight of the effigy’s shape. Hay and twine burned brightly in the shape of twenty-foot-tall people joined at the hands. As the flames licked ever higher, the symbol of unity became animated into running, as though fleeing from immolation. I swallowed hard and shook my tingling arms.
Suddenly, I noticed people scurrying away, some frantically scanning their phones and some talking furiously in clusters. You looked around, suspicious. You grabbed your phone.
“Damn it. My battery has died.” I too looked at my phone. It had frozen in the cold and shut down.
I approached a white guy who had looked at his phone, scooped up his screaming toddler and begun walking away.
“Excuse me, sir?” He did not respond.
“What’s going on?” You couldn’t get an answer. I looked around. The effigy was burning, but no one was watching. In clusters people left. They left in a hurry. People swiftly snuffed out homemade lanterns and dropped them to the ground.
In the midst of the confusion, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Where were you?” I asked Nadine. She was frazzled. No hat. No gloves. Her hair was unkempt and untied. I hugged her and her arms were wooden. Her face was paler than usual, her lips chapped. I tried to continue as if I didn’t notice. “Nadine, this is Evan.” Nadine was out of breath. “Evan, this is—” Nadine stopped my hand as it gestured towards her in my introductions.
“Stop. Stop,” she half-whispered. She looked at both of us, her curly eyelashes catching the light of the burning effigy. “President Pryce has just been assassinated.” The breath from her mouth made clouds around her face so thick I was certain we had heard her wrong.
“What?”
“I need you to hide.”
“What’s going on?” You were as confused as me. Both of us leaned in to her face and turned our ears to her mouth hoping for clarity. “President Pryce did what?”
“I can’t explain everything right now, but my dad asked me to pack my bags. I’m leaving for Melbourne tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t understand.” My lips were so numb I could barely speak. “Why would we need to hide if he’s dead? We’re in Canada.”
“That doesn’t matter! Not with the Two Nations, One Vision campaign. We’re not safe, Kay. None of us are safe. This assassination, the protests . . . The more we fight back against everything that president stood for, the more excuses they have to control us. We’re dangerous to them. Do you understand? They’ve been rounding up people like you and me. There are workhouses set up on Ward’s Island already. My dad, through his work, found out about them and he sent me packing.”
“Hold on, if—” You tried to reason with Nadine, whose eyes were as wide as saucers.
“Do you have a place to hide?” she interjected.
You and I looked at each other. Was this a trick question? “My apartment? Your apartment?” I answered half-heartedly.
“No. Not a place you call home. A place where no one will know you’re there. You can’t hide at my place anymore. It’s not safe. People know you in the building.”
“But why—”
“Do you have a place to hide?!”
“No.” I looked at you. We both looked back at Nadine and shook our heads.
“My dad has a connection with someone who can help you. I told him he had to set it up for you or I wouldn’t go to Melbourne with him.” I smiled briefly hearing that. “Listen to me,” she said. Every word was precious. “I need you to remember this address: 72 Homewood Street.”
You took out your phone to make a memo and remembered that your battery had died.
“Do not write anything down. I need you to repeat what I just said. 72 Homewood Street.”
You and I looked at each other again. Was she just being hysterical?
“Do it!” she spat at us in a stage whisper. We flinched. We repeated the address. She continued.
“When you are ready to hide, you will meet someone by the name of Liv there. Can you remember her name?”
I jumped to answer. “Liv. Meet Liv at 72 Homewood Street.”
“If she’s not home, she said you need to let yourself into the backyard and hide among the recycling bins. Do you understand?” We nodded in disbelief. She reached out and melted into my embrace.
“I love you, Queen Kay. Do you hear me? Do you understand how much I love you?” If I had known it was the last time I would ever see her, I would have said, “I love you too.” I would have said, “Thank you for housing me. Thank you for forging that note. Thank you for naming me.” Instead I watched her run towards a Lincoln Continental waiting just beyond a set of yellow metal barriers left behind from the parade. The car drove away, and we were left dumbfounded by the exchange.
I couldn’t feel my face in the cold of Nadine’s sudden and confounding departure. You and I cautiously walked towards a streetcar stop, heading eastbound on Dundas. Had that conversation actually happened? When the streetcar arrived, we tried to get on, but the driver closed the doors in our faces. We waited for another streetcar. Same thing. No admittance.
In the bitter cold, we walked east towards home, occasionally warming our hands in heated bank ATM lobbies. We also tried our luck at each machine, hoping to retrieve some funds using our Verification Cards. Nothing but error messages.
By the time we hit Yonge Street, yet another political march was in full swing. This time it
was almost impenetrable, with Black and Brown folks linking arms. It was hardly a march since the crowd could barely move.
“Jesus. How are we going to get home through this?” You stood on your tip-toes and looked over the growing crowds. “I’m freezing.”
I shook my head at the commotion.
“I mean . . . we’re all fighting for the same things, but I wish they’d at least create a path for people to get by,” you said, trying to speak despite your lips being numb.
We had to push past one group banging on pots and pans and screaming, “FUCK THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT! FUCK THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT!”
A Black woman with forearm crutches spoke as the crowd attempted to march past, her friend helping her be heard by holding a megaphone to her mouth. “Random raids! Denial of access to basic services! Mass deportations! If you’re like me and have been issued a Verification Card, ask yourself, ‘When was the last time I was able to enter the store and buy food? When was the last time I was treated by a doctor?!’” I covered my ears at the piercing treble of the megaphone’s speaker.
In the alcove of one store, a white reporter, lit by a bright light on a stand, held a microphone and attempted to deliver to the camera despite the racket. “Following the assassination of US President Pryce, an estimated six thousand protesters are present here today to march against what some are calling martial law, right here in Toronto.”
We wove through the crowd, past a large banner reading “Two Nations, One Vision: Excuse for Apartheid in Canada.” Two Indigenous women wavered under the weight of its poles, while one of them spoke on a megaphone, shouting, “Genocide since 1492: Forced sterilization! Land theft! No access to water!”
One protester’s sign was a photo of the Canadian prime minister and the American president shaking hands, with red paint splattered over it to look like blood. A series of Brown women held signs with the words “The Far Right on Both Sides of the Border.” A group of Black men wearing red targets on their jackets held up their arms.
You told me to look up. Above us, cops in riot gear stood at the edges of store roofs with their guns at the ready.
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