Home

They were in front of the Chinese Barbeque House, pushed up against the brick exterior, onto the hood of a black and white, the dogs sniffing at their crotches and shoes. I was on my way home when I noticed this. I was just sitting there, on the bus, listening to the Besnard Lakes on my iPod, trying to think of ways to put off studying for my sociology midterm, writing had crossed my mind, drugs too.

The truth is that I see this all the time. Or, at least, some variation of it. There’s always that hooded figure being forced into the back seat of a cop car, lights flashing, siren off. They don’t even draw attention to themselves anymore. The other day, I was propositioned by a hooker. She asked me, while sitting at a bus stop, if I was interested. I told her no. She didn’t seem phased.

When I walk home at night there’s usually people fighting in the parking lot, sleeping on benches under old coats, asking for change on corners, pulling out their hair in alleys, waiting near trash cans for people to throw out glass bottles, scraps of food, wandering out into the middle of red lit intersections, passed out in the wet grass in front of my apartment building, holding their arms out in front of them to see if they can still balance, peeing next to garbage cans, trying to hold onto that dying fix they spent the last week saving for, those few hours where they don’t remember.

Greyhound

She lingers by my side with her midnight smile, trying to get me to laugh, grin, show a little humanity, a little life amidst the static slumping figures waiting endlessly for that call, for that dry voice on the intercom to tell them to move--we wade through a sweaty fog towards a tarnished transport, an uncomfortable destiny--the seats disappear, gobbled up by a bongo drummer and a young couple with two young children and a pair of wannabe gangsters calling their parents from their cellular telephones, telling them that they'll be home soon, and we're already cramped in our seats as we pull out into the brown night--hurtling over the infinite pavement, I think that we started right over there on the road that slices across the provinces, through tiny towns, open prairies, never coming back to that secret beginning--dreamy lights floating through celestial darkness flow like a river of broken constellations--the driver tells us, from the darkness, that we're broke-down, stuck for a while in the desolate gray morning, asks if there's anyone who's mechanically inclined, if there are any men, and I do my best to fall asleep as the men file off into the night, as she squeezes my hand, as the baby wakes up, babbles incoherently.

floating out to sea with a bottle of red

In case any of you are wondering, and I'm honestly hoping you are not, here's Fiona Staples artistic interpretation of "A leisure-loving dogfox."



Chelsea and I went to a "free pie and sketch" day at Happy Harbor comics, and, while I was standing around trying not to look bored, Fiona, artist for "Done to Death", caught my eye.
"Can I draw anything for you?" She asked.
I tried to tell her to draw Spawn for me, or Thor, or Batman, even fucking Ironman--
"Draw me a leisureloving dogfox," I said.
She squinted at me, like I was crazy, and started to draw.