The Intersection
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| Living next to a busy intersection had many drawbacks but if you are observant and have a little time in hand along with a good friend owning a busy convenience store in the strip mall, yeah, you would definitely learn to like it, even love it. Since retirement, this has become my new hobby. Looking down from my 4th-floor condo, watching people and vehicles moving around the clock at various speeds and directions has become more than just passing time. Never before I realized that even in the smallest of things there can be a hidden story. Consider the man in the wheelchair who came at least once every other week, in his special car designed for the wheelchair, parked it in a disabled parking spot, came out in his wheelchair, and just sat there on the sidewalk, looking solemnly at the intersection, sometimes for hours. Rola – my Afghani friend who owned the only convenience store in the strip mall, was a living storybook. He would spend most of his day in his small store, talking to people, listening to them, asking questions, and being very observant. From all his customers he picked bits and pieces of stories, mostly about things that happened in and around the intersection. Fortunately for many of us, his customers and friends, he was more than happy to share those stories with us whenever the opportunity came. The wheelchair man came up in our conversation one day during our regular early afternoon social gathering in Rola’s store. That was usually a slower time. Rola took a break from his monotonous work behind the counter, made a pot full of his first-class dark Columbian coffee and we sat around a round table that he had placed in one corner of his small store along with several old chairs, probably picked up from the curb. Rola could do that. Chairs were for sitting, it didn’t matter where they came from. Mahmud, an Indian Muslim who worked as the meat cutter for the Pakistani halal meat store next door, was sure to take his break during that time. Sometimes, Chanduran – the chef and owner of the Sri Lankan restaurant popped up. The pizza place two stores right was run by two Czech brothers – Kael and Kaelan. Sometimes they stopped by. Lin Ching, the middle-aged Chinese-born lady who owned and worked at the saloon was a regular too. Many others showed up irregularly when their situation permitted. Most worked in the plaza. On a good day, you could step inside Rola’s convenience store intending to buy a bag of milk or god forbid – a pack of cigarettes and you could be taken by the assortment of people hoarding around that table listening to Rola – sipping in his cup of coffee with utmost seriousness while telling a story. I’d be surprised if you didn’t forget what you came for and stood there to get a taste of the story. “That man there, sitting on a wheelchair, next to the bus stand,” he pointed out by nodding his head toward the only window in his store which was almost entirely covered with stuff arranged on shelves. But if one looked long enough, through whatever little space was left, it was possible to see part of the man in the wheelchair. All of us had seen him over the years. He was a balding brown man who wore a short beard, and had grown quite overweight since we first noticed him, always wearing an oversized collared half-sleeve shirt and a pair of trousers – both different shades of gray. As we raised our coffee cups almost in unison and sipped, Rola nodded heavily – his signature habit. “Why do you think he comes here and sits like that? See my friends, there’s a story behind everything. Today I’ll tell you the story of this man. What should we call him?” We looked at each other. If he was telling the story, shouldn’t he know his name? “You know, I don’t name names,” Rola sensed the doubt and defended. “Stories are not about names; it is about people. Let’s give him a name – say, Belal. Is that good?” He was overdramatic but we all liked that in him. We all nodded. Belal or John, we would all be fine with either. “Let’s get going with the story, man!” Lin impatiently said. For a hairdresser, she was too restless. I patted her back. Rola didn’t like to be rushed. “Okay, okay,” Rola said with a gesture of his hands. “Let’s get to the point. It gotta be like twelve years ago when he came from one of the Asian countries, I forgot the name. But does it really matter? Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world are coming to this country. They all have situations, stories – something to get them moving, away from their motherland, away from their family, friends, relatives – you know what I mean. So, this guy, Belal, had a good government job, making good money, the system was corrupt but he managed to keep a balance – you know, you got to do what you got to do to survive.” We all nodded. Wasn’t that the one truth that we all could share? I am sure we all had a lot of experiences that were bubbling up into our throats, screaming to come out, but we controlled. You don’t want to interrupt Rola. He might just say, “Okay, let’s hear your stories today.” That had happened before. He got annoyed easily. “Now, Belal met a beautiful girl – all girls are beautiful…” “You mean, ladies,” Lin corrected. Rola looked a little confused. I stepped in. “Adult girls are ladies…we understand. So, Belal was in love. Was she a co-worker?” “How do you know all that?” Mahmud asked the forbidden question. Rola gave him a cold look. “Where’s your patience, brother? All of your questions will be answered when I am done. Okay?” Mahmud laughed. They were good friends. He could afford to offend him. Chanduran wanted to move on. He gave Mahmud an ugly frown. The brothers exchanged glances, smilingly. They knew how idiosyncratic Rola could be. Afghanis were always like that. Headstrong. They had said that to him many times. Rola usually returned the favor by saying something mean about the Czechs. “She was indeed a co-worker,” Rola said, looking pretty serious. This was a good sign. It meant the story was about to get going, finally. “She was pious. Didn’t wanna play love-love games. Tie the knots, let’s have a family. So, Belal goes to his parents and says he loves this girl …lady… and wants to marry her. His parents soon find out her father worked as a police constable. Not a very high-class job there. Belal’s dad was a director in a private company. The social levels were clearly different. They said ‘No’. Clear and loud.” Everybody nodded. Yeah, this was something they were all familiar with, more or less. “Why couldn’t he just go and marry her?” Kael said. “They were both working. Both adults. Why not? Right?” “How can you hurt the parents?” Chanduran said. “They are like gods.” “What did Belal do?” I asked, curiously. “He was the only son. He couldn’t go against them. He tried and tried but couldn’t change their minds. Seeing him so desperate they now went on to find a matching bride for him. Soon a pretty, quiet, and educated woman was found. He objected but nobody paid any heed to him. One fine evening, they were married in a very flashy, expensive ceremony.” “What happened to the other girl?” Mahmud asked. “She took a vow never to marry, never to love,” Rola said, letting out a heavy breath. We nodded. It was quite understandable. The cruelty of the situation! One could only feel disdain for the parents. “I guess Belal then came to Canada with his wife,” Mahmud said, trying to jump ahead. Rola rolled his eyes. “Do you wanna tell the story, brother? Should I stop?” Mahmud cackled. He enjoyed bugging the man. Rola shook his head in mock frustration. “Yeah, the following year. He wanted to punish his parents. The job was also demanding increasingly more dishonesty from him. He was scared. He was mad. He landed here in winter. It was all snow and cold, very cold.” “Ouch! That reminds me of my first winter,” Lin said. “I had seen some snow before but no cold like this. Minus thirty degrees below zero? My bones froze.” This brought some laughter. Rola joined too. “That’s exactly how he felt. He got sick a lot, didn’t get any proper job, living conditions were not great, his savings were going…he was really depressed. He couldn’t go back home because that would mean going back into the fire. Where would be his dignity? He called up his friends and cried. The new country was not very kind to him. You know, it happened to all of us. You can’t expect to go to a new land and to have everything ready for you. Right?” “I don’t even want to start to talk about that,” Mahmud said, with a big smile. “I am still cutting meat for minimum wage. I was a banker back home. But I am not complaining. I am doing fine.” “Yeah, there are a lot of people like you. Respect from me,” Kaelan said. “We are a business family. My dad came here when we were in our teens. We tried different things. The pizza worked for us.” “What about you Chandu?” I asked. The quiet Sri Lankan guy barely opened up. “I came here thirty years ago with a fake passport,” Chanduran said, smilingly. “I was a young man with a college degree. Wanted to come abroad. Did a lot of things. Put all my money into that store. Doing well. People in my community know me. Kids are going to university. I am good.” “Okay, okay, boys. Enough of your stories. Let’s hear about Belal,” Lin barked. “You called us boys!” Rola objected in mock contempt. “We are gentlemen.” Lin threw her hands up. “Just move on.” They all laughed. Lin joined. “You guys are bad boys!” “Okay.” Rola got up,” Let me take care of this customer first.” He left for almost five minutes, which opportunity we took to share some of our own bitter experiences. When he returned, he looked at his watch and sat back in his chair with a little more urgency. The day would soon be rolling into late afternoon when the rush would start. “Where were we? Oh, Belal came to Canada with his family. Right here in Toronto. He was depressed, frustrated, and wanted a way out but was helpless. With time things started to work out for him. He went to college and did a couple of short courses. Got a clerical job in a bank. Wasn’t much but was enough to live a decent life. They had their first baby – a girl. They named her Daisy. Beautiful girl, always giggling. His wife started working in a store. They started to have a life, after some really tough time.” Rola poured some more coffee into his cup. Sipped twice, slowly, while everybody waited. It was quite clear something was about to go wrong in this picture-perfect family – as perfect as it could be under the situation. “Then?” Lin was scowling at him. Could barely wait. “One afternoon, Belal was driving his wife and kid to the Walmart,” he pointed across the intersection, on the North West corner, where the Walmart was located, “nobody knows exactly why and how, as he was taking a left turn a TTC bus ran right into them, mowed the car a hundred feet before smashing it into a light post right there,” he again pointed at a direction little more west to Walmart but out of their view. He shook his head in disbelief. “I heard a noise; I looked and I saw this bus going like a storm. At first, I didn’t see the car. But when I did see it my heart just sank. I ran out. It was a little after noon. Barely any traffic. How could that happen? Oh! I can’t believe I saw that. Even now I wake up at night and think of it. You don’t want to see anything like that.” “When was that?” Kael asked. “We have been here almost eight years now. I haven’t heard about this.” “It happened right before you guys moved in,” Rola said. “Now I remember! I read about it,” Mahmud excitedly said. “But there was no mention of his love affair.” “I have a friend who is a friend of a friend of Belal,” Rola said. “I heard it from him.” Chanduran seemed to remember something as well. “Didn’t the wife die?” “Yes, yes!” Lin almost yelled. “The baby survived! She was in her car seat. They had to cut the car roof to get the father out. Both his legs were smashed. The doctors cut both. Oh! What a tragedy! I felt so bad. So, that’s the guy? That’s Belal? Can we go talk to him?” “No, no,” I quickly said. “He must visit here to pay respect to his wife. We should not interrupt. Let it be.” Lin shrugged. She was sad. “I just wanted to give him a hug.” “People come here for many reasons but with one expectation – to have a better life,” I said, reverently. “But this type of incident really breaks my heart.” The mood in that room suddenly went from curiosity to deep sadness and compassion. We all peeked out of the window and tried to have a better look at Belal, except Rola. Noticing him grinning, I readily knew there was more to it. “What are you withholding, my friend?” I inquired. As we all looked back at him with questioning eyes, Rola smiled broadly. “The story has a good ending, relatively speaking. Remember the lady he loved, who he couldn’t marry and who promised to never marry? After hearing Belal’s misfortune, she broke her celibacy and decided to marry him. She traveled to Canada to look after him and his daughter. I heard things had worked out very well for them.” “With his legs gone, how is he making any money?” Chanduran asked, baffled. “Does the government pay him money?” Rola smiled again. This time a bigger one. “See, brothers, that’s the best part in this story, for me at least. Belal sued TTC and the company finally agreed to settle it outside the court. People talk about all kinds of numbers, but I can tell you, it was not less than seven figures, possibly eight. That’s a hell lot of money, wouldn’t you agree?” There was a momentary silence before Lin broke it with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, God!” We all smiled. Happy for them. |