The rain finally arrives, real Vancouver summer rain. It is cheque day but the wetness lulls the street into a quiet deserted place. I feel compassion rolling over me, so genuine, my heart opens uncontrollably and I know I am lucky. If I let it all go; it will all come back again. I will be alright.
He is afraid so I will not speak his name. He is simply F. Handsome, gentle, and standing against the edge of loss. Perhaps no one has ever told him that he is loved or that his presence in this world is valuable, that his history has yet been written. We spent the morning spreading a blanket of honesty between us . He is ashamed to tell me that he is living in a shelter, it is as if he believes poverty and homelessness is somehow a shameful act. I am worried that he will end up in the alley, dead eyed, and untrustworthy. I make him promise that he will stay away from the crack, that I can not bare to see him fall. I tell him he is too gentle, and too valuable, these streets are a dangerous place and the softness will kill us both.

我爱你...I love you

Elvis Nelson

Learning about trust and love in the hardest ways possible. Buffy and I hang out, go to a dodge bar, let women fall in love with us, it is all a distraction because we are tired. poor, and just feeling lucky. Sitting friendly, we are understanding something, the music is nostalgic, Hotel California, and for five seconds we are feeling it, girls are dancing cause they feel it too. I keep thinking I am somewhere else.

Elvis Nelson has a green guitar, it is child sized and covered in black felt pen scrawl. We are sitting in the cage listening to him play Bob Marley songs, he is doing it well, but the heart is out of it. I know it will cost at least a dollar, I also know it is a small price to pay. He is letting me take pictures and we all know they are worth more than any words than I can say.

A rat or mouse has fallen dead between the walls, why does this only happen when the heat of summer will make the smell unbearable? I will sleep with everything wide open. I can not bear the scent of death right now.

I lent a man five dollars eight months ago, an event I have forgotten or filed away as useless. He has taken the train from Surrey to find me and pay me back. Calling me blue eyes, he wants so badly for me to remember the exchange. I can't recall, I lie, it is bit like faking an orgasm. Wanting to make amends, seems like so much trouble, but is obviously important. I tell him he is the first one, to return money that I have given. He wants to return my faith in humanity, I tell him it was never lost.

Events

* a shirtless man, moves across the street, a collection of skin pulled tight across bones.
* wheelchairs can be transformed. A variety of bike parts become a recumbant bicycle.
* Alex is pleased to find thirty discarded cassette tapes
* Man like a woman walks by talking to himself.
* Tiny Asian woman in a see thru black and white skirt gives me a handful of green grapes. I
thank her with the few Chinese words I know.
* There is a straw broom that looks brand new leaning againest the buss stop.
* A woman in long black boots and six stitches above her eye is pacing in circles. She reminds me
of a cat that is ready to kill something.

Bill Wong sees me sewing from the sidewalk and comes in, wanting to look around, he is really just curious. I think he is just another dirty pervert. He wants me to fix the torn bits on his bag, he has been looking for a woman who can sew. I am busy but, the afternoon is dreamy, and I know he is full of stories. He removes every item from his bag, carefully, a folded newspaper, bottled water, a pastry take out box from New Town Bakery, two Coffee Crisp chocolate bars, a handful of miscellaneous candies, a small mountain of personal effects. I am positive his hair is artificial, glued to his head. He came to Canada in nineteen fifty one, before I was born, he asserts, when Chinatown was so small it was only four men suntanning. Bill repeats my name over and over while I sew the torn corner of his bag. His head he says has been cracked open four or five times to fix what is wrong, my name is almost the same as his wife's. We negotiate a price for my labour, one apple bun, sixty cents, and the promise of homemade chow mien. His wife's name is Susie Wong.

sharing joys and sorrows

We are buoyant with light and warmth, sitting in the cage smoking cigarettes and drinking beer late into a large beautiful night. What is emerging between us all is fragile, we are pulling the fresh memories and friendships close to our chest, we are all just hanging on. There is history happening all around us, a history that we are manifesting, and for a few hours the wheelchairs, missing limbs, scars and scabs of these streets are forgotten.

A man using crutches runs through the traffic to cross the street. Russell calls his voice filled with joy, he has found a rusted child's firetruck, it reminds him of me. When he arrives the beauty of it all lifts the sadness I was swimming in. It is so amazingly pretty and perfect. It was that moment of magic I was looking for in the day, the one thing that makes that almost imperceptible shift happen.

It is summer and the air smells like a woman's breast, sweet and full of promises. We shed our clothing like shrouds, become friendly when we can feel the wind through fabric as thin as bandages. The ladies from upstairs believe I am a renegade, some sort of woman that they admire but, are a little confused by, they think that I speak Chinese, and behave unconventionally. They are wrong on both counts, conventional is only what we know rarely what we are. The police are everywhere these days, breaking things down, shuffling things around, I can tell when they do a walk through the alley, people emerge like some strange biblical story about a desert or a sea. There is resentment and relief.
The summer makes everyone want to be in love, it is the gentleness that is gliding on air, I am terrified by the joy that can be stripped away. I felt the surrender of love once, I am shy now. I have sat on the stoop, god I love that word, and drank two and half beer, this is building nostalgia in my heart. Tonight there is no one I miss. I do not want to become too comfortable in this place, this place that is lost halfway between everything and nothing. Anger and happiness fly around here like spoiled children all screaming or kisses. There was anger today, which I rarely feel anymore, but I let the night scoop it up and carry it away.