Breaking Young Divinities

Chapter 2

There were several great adventures that Bradbury and I went on. I seem to recall a trip up the Don River. I'm not sure if it happened the way I remember it, but that doesn't matter. It's the way I prefer it to have been.

It was one of those pleasant, warm, softly-bright summer days that seem unreal when looking back. One of those days that the mind plays tricks upon, replaying echoing memories of laughter, fraternity, and happy plunder. It was post-apocalyptic Animé happiness at its best, down there in that urban wasteland, which really wasn't very bad in the early eighties.

Anyhow, the air blew cool and fresh - this was back in the day before Toronto was choked in a perpetual industrial smog - and we were on our way east, away from the apartment blocks and down toward a leafy upper-class enclave in the shadows of the projects. Here at Parliament and Wellesley Streets there was an invisible curtain that kept the poor and the rabble out of the posh neighbourhoods. Not a single vagrant or addict would be seen east of Parliament, whereas on the west side of the street there were all sorts of questionable types, not to mention the ubiquitous drunks stretched out for an afternoon snooze in the sun.

But us innocent children with our torn jeans and untied shoe laces passed through that ethereal curtain into the posh world of century-oaks that lie beyond. We would spend all day there among the trees, running up and down the streets and alleyways, and visiting the Toronto Animal Farm to look at the pigs and the horses.

In those days my grandmother lived in an old house on Wellesley Street East. Bradbury and I liked to visit the sweet old lady. When the weather was nice she would wear a 1950s-style summer dress. She would greet us with such great happiness, and great warmth, and we'd sit with her on the front porch and drink Coca-Cola from small tumblers, and she'd ask us questions about school, and give me old wet granny kisses, and generally dote incessantly.

It was during one of these visits that we bid my grandmother goodbye and made our way to the Don River. Along the way there was the imposing and sad Necropolis cemetery, with its unpaved sidewalk (to preserve its historical look) and the Animal Farm with its unwashed animals (to insult our delicate urban noses). Through the animal farm one could reach the banks of the Don, a slow moving and dirty looking thing. It has been said that people used to fish there, especially old Jewish men casting their lines in search of sucker-fish. How they ever caught a healthy fish I do not know - back then the river was mostly a moving mass of garbage, and it had the colour of chocolate milk.

That day we got up to the bank of the river. We could see the remnants of the old foot bridge, long since fallen except for its foundations. We began walking north along a dirt path that ran up the side of the river. All sorts of strange plants, one I remember which looked like a type of furry lettuce, were growing along the sides of the river. I am still not sure if these plants had strange mutations and adaptations to help them survive in their dirty surroundings. There was also the constant presence of animal life. Chipmunks, squirrels, large birds, and the very occasional splashing fish or sliding turtle. There was also that other type of life, the variety called feral sapiens. It could be found under the bridges, in the shade of the trees, and all up and down the banks of the river.

One of those wild feral men rambled its way toward us, half drunk in the early afternoon, yammering meaningless alcohol-speak. We looked at the man, a creature really, unsure of what to do. Should we remain calm and passive, and patronize him? Or should we retreat and risk encouraging his aggressive tendencies? The decision was made for us by our curiosity, which kept us planted to the spot. He got so close to us that we could smell him. The wild thing opened its mouth, from whence came many indecipherable sounds.

"We're okay, you?" Bradbury said. I looked to Bradbury for clues as to what I should do.

The creature spoke again, this time employing semi-decipherable words.