I have often wondered as I walk on the streets of downtown Toronto on Thursday evenings what memories the streets would leave with someone who is experiencing this area of the city for the first time as darkness descends. Recently I was accompanied by my friend Martha, who has read most of my stories, so she could meet many of the people I have written about. I asked her if she would share her thoughts with readers, and this is what she wrote: 

“He dug a small hole five inches deep and five inches wide among the few blades of grass. A single flame rose from the pit, where he squatted, lighting and relighting his joint.  Smiling, he jumped up to shake hands after the Deacon introduced himself, and then me. “Vince” was tall, wiry, and wearing multiple layers of clothing. He was no more than 18 or 19 years old. The shopping cart behind him contained all his belongings. The Deacon asked how he was doing.‘I’m fine,’ he said, ‘just waiting for housing.’ 

Vince was the first person we encountered that night on the street. He was also the youngest. We walked a long, slow circuit of eight or nine blocks, just steps from the downtown core, where there is always a partying atmosphere, bright lights, and swarms of people.  Here was a stark contrast of quiet, unlit streets and neglected roads, and sidewalks with overgrown bushes. Newly constructed condos towered over the neighbourhood, which crisscrossed a vast park, and a main road artery. Bodies turned towards walls in the shadows of alleyways as we approached. The small crowds who hung out in the park, sharing the long benches, welcomed us with nods, quiet hellos, or outstretched hands eager to shake our own, for no other reason than we waved as we passed through.  

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Our pace slowed as I was briefed on defining moments from the Deacon’s book, on his “street” encounters:  a woman he knew died “right here” on the road while pleading for cash, as a truck came at her in the darkness; a man was struck by a car – “over there” by that wall now bearing his name in memoriam; and “here” is where he met Chilli, a tour-de-force of a woman -- a poet, who died of an overdose on a frigid winter night.

A hand waved to us through a foggy pizzeria window. We stopped for a brief chat with a fellow parishioner outside a heavily gated repair shop and to wish the woman with him, a happy birthday. Crossing the vast intersection, we walked alongside a place of worship, where both young and old had tucked themselves into the enormous south wall’s many broad crevices.  They sat slumped on its ledges, lost in the space of their “fix.”  A young woman held a needle poised for entry into her left arm. 

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Further along the wall, a large group sat on the ground, huddled together on cold cobbled stones and on nearby steps in a tiny courtyard, smoking, drinking, and talking noisily over one another.  As we drew nearer, the Deacon smiled and waved: ‘How are you all doing tonight’  An older woman—likely close to my age—sitting on the stairs, observed me: ‘Do you have a sandwich?’  With deep regret, I spread my arms. I had nothing to give her. Tired, worn, but not unfriendly faces looked us over, and the chatter continued until one shirtless man leapt up from the huddle, gently grabbed my left hand and the Deacon’s right, and loudly shouted: ‘Be!  Quiet!’  In respectful silence, his friends watched as he prayed over us, his eyes closed and his voice booming with intensity.  Then he dropped our hands and vanished back into the huddle and the chatter resumed. The Deacon was radiant, saying as we moved on: ‘Aren’t these the most wonderful people?  What a Ministry!’ Walking back to his car, we smiled as we reflected on Vince’s last words to us just hours earlier: ‘Be careful out there.’ He said it earnestly, nodding towards the end of his street.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20).”