Saturday June 9. 6am-12pm.

Steve, Tanaya, and I were on a mission. We needed a place to crash. We walked through some random parks... I don't even know where we were at that point. Maybe at Yonge and Charles? We ended up in the lot near a church called Sanctuary. All the park benches had metal armrests right down the middle, forbidding us to sleep there. So, we laid down some old Metro newspapers and fell asleep.
An hour later, I woke up again, shivering. When you fall asleep, your body temperature falls to the ambient temperature. It was still far too cold outside. Tanaya also woke, and we went off in search of a bathroom. We went to McDonalds, where we bought a sausage McMuffin and split it three ways, bringing the last third of the tiny sandwich back to the still-sleeping Steve.
As the sun climbed higher into the sky, we moved to sleep under its warmth, basking like the cold-blooded reptiles I'd learned about in zoology last term. I wish I were a crocodile, with its dark leathery skin - all the better to absorb sunlight with.
A couple of hours later, we woke again, around 10. This time, we decided to get up and move on before trouble found us. In this game, it was all about escaping some invisible predator. Being one step ahead of an imaingery enemy. We went back to the McDonald's to use the bathroom again before we set off on the day's adventure. Steve went inside first, and when he came back out, Tanaya and I went inside.
Just as we were headed back outside, trouble found us. A policeman walked up to where Steve was sitting on a milkcrate outside the McDonald's entrance. Tanaya and I just stared. What were we to do? We decided to let him handle it.
The cop asked Steve for ID, and his permanent address. Steve kept up the act, going along with the cop's interrogation. No, he replied, the address on his health card was no longer current. He was gonna get written up for something. Panning? Loitering?
"I thought you just weren't allowed to be outside of banks or subway stops," Steve objected. Those were the rules we had been told. Don't pan outside banks or TTC stops.
"Nope, there are by-laws against being anywhere on the street. It's technically against the law for you to even take up space on the sidewalk," the cop replies, between giving short commands on his radio.
Eventually, the cop let Steve go with a warning because he had no criminal record. We were all shocked and shaken by this run-in though. Clearly the boys in blue were out to get us. We had to be more careful.
We spent the next hour just walking. I don't remember where we went, or what we saw. I just know we walked, soaking in the urban culture, trying to blend in, and at the same time, deep down, really not wanting to.
Around 11:30, we began our trek back to the Eaton Centre to meet the rest of our entourage. In Allen Garden though, we saw a mob forming, and billowing clouds of smoke... Barbecue!! We ran across the street and encountered ... (dah-dah-dah) The Holy Spirit On Wheels! No kidding, that was the name of the truck. Street Connection was hosting a free barbecue for people living in the community. We quickly lined up with everyone else. While we waited, we watched the activity going on. The volunteers manning the barbecue were sweating bullets, frantically wiping off their brows on their sleeves while trying not to burn the hamburger patties. It was an especially sunny and hot day, but I felt even warmer inside as I thought of these people spending their Saturdays serving the poor. A van-load of oranges had been unloaded on the grass for families to take home. The three of us looked on with disgust as people picked through the bags for the batch with the least mold. A group of men in front of us were throwing around and playing with a tennis ball of an orange, laughing crudely at the mess it made when splattered on the sidewalk. A lady in a wheelchair yelled at them to throw the orange in a garbage can, and called them lazy when they didn't. Watching marginalized people fight with each other reminds me of a scene in an episode of Family Guy, where Joe's police truck cloaks itself as two homeless people fighting over a wedge of cheese. There's something especially sad about homeless people in disagreement. I guess because, in general they are already shunned by society, yet they can't even get a break from other marginalized people.
A lady walked down the queue asking everyone in line if they knew Jesus. I wouldn't be surprised if people said yes just so she'd go away.
When we reached the front, we grabbed two burgers each, to bring to Hanna, Mika, and Deb. Two little girls also gave us bags of expired Capri-Sun juice to take on our way. I kept telling myself that it was very nice for people and corporations to provide food for those in need, but why was everything moldy and expired? (I couldn't help but wonder for a second if the burgers were safe for consumption.) It's a good thing that food doesn't go to waste, and these people were thankful for whatever they could get for free, but I wonder what it does to a person's esteem to receive only what's rotten and leftover from the rest of society.
Anyway, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. We were very thankful for the burgers, but we were also very late. We quickly ran off to meet our group at the Eaton Centre.