Louis Shalako
He knows all about it.
He knows all about authority.
He knows all about bureaucrats.
He knows all about pain.
He knows all about pensions, and poverty, and deprivation.
He knows all about landlords.
He knows all about food banks.
He knows all about soup kitchens, and Christmas
Hampers, and one hot meal a day.
He knows all about cops, and doctors and lawyers and
judges, and public health officials.
He knows all about this town.
He knows all about its people.
And he knows all about being written off.
He knows all about tenements, and slumlords, and
walking down the street, numb from the waist down.
He knows all about things that go bump in the night.
He knows all about losing his home.
He knows all about being booted.
He knows all about living in someone’s basement
while he looks for another place.
He knows all about sleeping in his car.
He knows all about hunger and thirst, and the cold
and the wet.
He knows all about the government.
He knows all about the insurance company.
He knows all about it, people—he knows all about it.
He knows all about you, doesn’t he?
He knows all about the Workplace Safety and
Insurance Board.
He knows all about the ODSP and the CMHA and the
OPP.
He knows all about it.
He knows all about the drop-in centre, and he knows
all about your outreach program.
He knows all about a hot drink and one blanker per
customer.
He knows all about Animal Control.
He knows all about men in white coats and carrying big
nets.
He knows all about Tasers and .40 calibre Colts in a
polished leather holster.
He knows all about N-5s and Form Ones and he knows
all about the T-5000 once a year.
He knows he’d better not be late handing that in.
He knows all about his rights—and exactly what all that’s
worth these days.
He knows exactly what he can do about it if he doesn’t
like it.
He knows that nothing, absolutely nothing, is
expected of him—nothing good that is.
He knows all of this very well indeed.
The only thing he doesn’t know is when it all might
end.
He doesn’t know when there might be some relief.
He doesn’t know who might help him, or why they even
should.
He doesn’t know how far he should go—or when he
should go there.
He doesn’t know exactly where to draw that line in
the sand.
He doesn’t know how to talk to you.
He doesn’t quite know how to get through to you
people.
Until he figures that out, he really doesn’t know
much at all, does he?
END