I’m on the tube platform at Vic Park station when a visual curiosity nudges me out of transit drone mode.
On the wall of the opposite platform is an artist’s depiction of a massive sprawling tree.
Written across it: “Toronto, a city where those with diverse roots can grow and intermingle into a complex and exciting multicultural garden.”
Instead of scoffing (obvious bullocks), I find myself in an uncharacteristically chipper mood for some reason. It’s short-lived, lasting only until I board the subway.
This commute yields a showcase of some the worst this city has to offer in terms of civility.
Exhibit one: a surreal shouting match breaks out between an intimidating, drunk-acting dude and two 20-something black women.
In stereo – and with the pitch out of a Martin Lawrence Big Momma – they wonder aloud why he’s “eyeballin’ so.”
“You’re fuckin’ ugly!” he opines.
Everyone within earshot cringes. It’s horrific.
As in a sandbox scuffle, they’re back and forth about who’s uglier, and even more bizarrely, an innocent bystander, a woman, also winds up getting deemed unsightly.
“What’s this got to do with me?”
The hollering escalates even further when one of the slighted women bellows: “Well, your mother’s a fuckin’ whore and your father is a goof!” And that’s “goof” as in child molester, folks.
The dude is tongue-tied, and the girls get off.
Two throwbacks are the first to loudly break the silence. “I was raised to never tell a woman she’s ugly – even if she is,” says one.
“Yeah, but that one girl looked like a baboon,” counters his pal.
Absolute silence and palpable sadness pervade the car.
Late night: back at the station, homeward bound, I exit the car, and as the train begins to slowly roll away, a middle-aged TTC worker pops his head out the window.
He points wildly at a woman just in front of me. “If I was you, I’d follow that ass. Look at that ass!” She whips her head around and rightly launches daggers with her eyes. Thanks, chump! Somehow, I feel complicit.
sigcino@nowtoronto.com