March 2, 2010 Lit Writ

Lit Writ

My Stranger

by Clare Raspopow

It’s actually his low black wheelchair that I see at first, more so than him. GRAPHIC ALEX MANLEY

I rarely pay attention to what’s going on around me while I’m walking. I know this is terrible and may account for the many bruised knees I’ve suffered and fervent apologies I’ve had to make, but it’s a habit, even if a bad one, and I just haven’t been able to break it. So I’m a little astonished when I spot him so far away in the distance. It’s actually his low black wheelchair that I see at first, more so than him.

He’s small. There’s really no other word to describe his stature; his arms, his torso, his legs all verge on miniature. If he could walk he would probably stand no higher than the back of the chair he sits in now. But he can’t walk and his wheelchair seems to make all the other classifications you would be tempted to give him—midget, little person—obsolete.

Staring at him as he advances down the sidewalk on the opposite side of Prince Arthur Street, I’m not looking at his body or the chair or his hands as they pump up and down on the wheels. While he is too far away to make out his facial features, I stare at his head. As he draws nearer I stare at his face, trying to make out his eyes. I know that if I can see his eyes that he can see mine, but I keep looking at his face, as I always do, half-hoping, half-fearing that he’ll see me looking at him. I’m waiting nervously for the day when he stares back, when I’ll see if he remembers me or not.

This man and I have a history; I know him... sort of.

It’s odd how much you can know about a stranger without ever being properly introduced, how much you see when they don’t know or don’t care that you’re looking. We collect little pieces of other peoples’ lives just by virtue of being around to pick them up.
I know how he takes his coffee: cream and sugar.

When I first moved back to Montreal I worked as a barista at the Second Cup on the corner of Milton and Parc. He was a regular there. Almost every day he would come in to get his morning coffee. He’d place his order, the top of his bald head barely reaching over the ledge of the counter, and I would ring him through. After he paid I would walk around the counter with his coffee and head to the condiment bar. His arms were too short to reach to the back of the island where the sugar packets were stored. I’d put his cream and sugar in, stir it, put on the lid and the cardboard insulation sleeve and hand him his drink.

We must have spoken during this time, but for the life of me I can’t remember a single word we said to one another. I worked in that coffee shop over three years ago, and only for a couple of months. Anything we may have said to each other is lost to me at this point.
I know where he lives: La Cité apartment block D.

It’s the same apartment building my best friend lived in for over three years. Needless to say, I was there a lot. I used to see him coming as I was going, or going as I was coming. Despite how often I haunted that building our run-ins were always at a distance. We never shared an elevator, never held the door for one another. I would stare at him across the space, wondering if he remembered our morning ritual or if I was just another face in his daily routine that had been replaced soon after I appeared.

I know where he works: the TD Canada Trust on St-Laurent.

I worked across the street at the Café Républic Restaurant for a year and a half. I can’t say exactly what he does at the bank. He’s not a teller and therefore pretty much out of my range of contact. He works in one of the grey cubicles off to the left when you walk in the automatic glass doors.

I contemplated asking one of the tellers what his name was—I had become friendly with most of them because of how often I came in—but I didn’t want to seem like a stalker. Besides, “what’s the name of the guy in the wheelchair?” just sounded wrong when it was about to cross my lips. I kept silent. I kept staring.

Now he’s 20 feet in front of me and I can hear my heart beating in my ears. Because there’s something I’ve been waiting years to tell him, something I want him to know about me.
When I worked at Second Cup, I worked the graveyard shift. I’d come in at 10 p.m. and leave at seven in the morning. It wasn’t glamourous but the night shift paid better and I had a research job I did during the day. I worked most of my shift by myself. As it got later, the clientele got stranger.

First it was the partiers: the belligerent divas who insisted it was my job to call them a cab, the drunks who could barely get their orders out. Then it was the homeless people. I was happy to let them sit inside or doze on a chair while I did my cleaning as long as they didn’t mind moving when I had to mop the area they sat. They didn’t ask anything of me and I was happy to return the favour. When it got really late, the crazies would come out. Most of the time if you were lucky they would just stand or sit mumbling to themselves. On a bad night you could be in for harassment or death threats.

But early every morning, almost as soon as the sun rose my stranger would arrive in his chair smiling and friendly, there for his coffee, signalling the end of the night and a return to sanity. His was the first normal, happy face I would see most days and I came to welcome the sight of him. For the three months I worked that job he was the best part of my day.

Now when I see him all of this is on the tip of my tongue. I want to cross the street and tell him how much he used to mean to me, how much I appreciated his smile, his civility, his normality. But all I can do is stare as we come even with each other, and then move on.

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