Tales from 1011

I set out on my journey,

Followed paths of the damned,

Home so far behind, what lies ahead unknown,

I ask myself,

What am I trying to find?

Dark streets, cold nights, hazy rooms and flashing lights,

My head spins, mesmerized

Girls, on the corner, under the lights

Flimsy dresses, bedroom eyes

Waiting for the man as he drives by

The music booms across the room,

Drowning out the news of a killer on the loose,

As he pulls up, and she steps in.

Men, dressed in black, with their bags of white

Stay in the shadows avoiding the light

Forever waiting for the girls out in the night

A shooting star prepares his final hit

The red and white mix

It squirts out the tip

Then he takes the plunge

And soars so high

Into the sky

Then suddenly ceases to shine

In the night

Where the men in black with their bags of white

wait endlessly

For the girls under the lights

And as the sun rises in the east,

The people in the west

Run and hide

Never seeing

Day from night

The Night Death Came For Owen.

It was a night like any other in October, 2002, I was visiting my friend Krissy at 1011 Lansdown Ave in Toronto. The building had a reputation for violence, and Krissy and I had both learned to trust our instincts when it came to feeling danger on the horizon.

But this night, it wasn't just a feeling.

It was a darkness that crept into the air and settled in our bones like a premonition of doom.

Krissy and I were sitting in her apartment when we both felt it. The hairs on our arms and neck stood up as a chill passed over us and a deep sense of foreboding took hold.

I decided it was time to leave, but when I went to exit her suite and looked down the hall we saw a dark figure slouched against the wall outside the suite at the opposite end of the hallway, past the elevators.

It was dressed in black, we couldn't see a face or any other distinguishing features. But we could feel it watching us.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" I called out boldly, but the figure didn't move or respond. Not even a slight shift of their feet or weight.

The sense of foreboding grew deeper as I began to walk towards it ,mutually morbidly curious and still hoping to avoid the dark stairwell and take the elevator.

The air was thick with dark electric tension, and seemed to grow thicker as I attempted to walk forward, and I could feel my heart racing in my chest.

The sense of foreboding and tension grew so thick I couldn’t continue forward, and I started backing up down the hallway towards Krissy's apartment and the stairwell, half expecting the mysterious figure to give chase, but the figure still didn't move.

As I descended the stairs, lights flickering in and out overhead, I felt like I was running for my life.

I made it to the ground floor and burst out of the building, hurrying to the coffee shop on the cornert, trying to shake the sense of foreboding.

The next morning, there was a coroner's van outside of 1011, and they brought a body out of a suite on the 8th floor. It was the same suite we had seen the figure standing outside of.

The night before, the units resident, Owen, had died. Turns out he had an asthma attack, although he was surround by so called friends, he died gasping for air, unable to breathe as his inhaler had been turned into a crack pipe.

It was as if Death itself had been standing outside his door, waiting to take him.

Krissy and I talked on the phone that morning, both shaken by what we had experienced.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, but at the same time, we both knew the answer. "I think it was Death," Krissy said quietly.

Neither of us had referred to the figure as anything other than 'It', somehow subconsciously acknowledging that this was no mortal.

It's been years since that night, but I can still feel the chill of that dark figure standing in the hallway.

And I'm still fully convinced it was indeed Death waiting to collect Owens soul.

About Precious.

She had been pretty once, perhaps not that long ago, perhaps years ago, at this point it was hard to tell. Precious was tiny, skinny as a rail, her once pretty face was pocked with scabs, and contorted uncontrollably. Her body flailed, her mind no longer her own.

The drugs had taken over long ago, leaving her a shell of her former self.

She was in the basement suite in a run-down building on the corner of Lansdown and Lappin when the knocking and shouting began.

“Precious? Are you in there? Please come out! Your son wants to see you, please Precious, are you in there?” a little old lady stood outside the door of the trap house, her hair wrapped in a scarf, she was a typical plump European grandmother. She needed a cane when walking, and despite her obvious pain and difficulty, had been scouring the neighborhood trying to find her granddaughter known as Precious.

The dealer who ran the house looked out the window and winced, this type of commotion was heat score and unwanted.

He went to the basement where the small pitiful figure was crouched over a candle and a spoon with liquid in it, needles and other paraphernalia strewed about the dirty room. “There’s an old lady outside yelling around looking for you” he says. This barely brings a reaction from the figure, who is fixated on the candle and the spoon, watching the liquid begin to boil “not now” she says “tell her I’m not here”

The dealer frowns. “Perhaps you should go with her, she seems really worried about you, maybe she can get you some help” he suggests hardheartedly.

“I don’t need help, tell her I’m not here” says Precious, as she draws the liquid into the needle, and prepares to inject it.

The dealer nods, shrugs, “whatever man. She’s heat-score, we don’t need this shit outside” he says as he leaves the room.

Outside the old lady is still knocking and calling for Precious, the dealer opens the door and looks down at her “I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t know anyone named precious” he says “I don’t know where she is, but she isn’t here” the old lady frowns. "But I was told she was seen coming here, please check again, she’s in there, I know it!”

The dealer is frustrated now, “Listen old lady, I told you she ain't here, I'm sorry but you need to leave, NOW.”  he squares his shoulders and scowls menacingly.

The frown on the old lady’s face turns to sadness as she realizes she will get no assistance here “Tell her that her son misses her” she says in resignation, “and tell her she can come home, to please come home”

Stone faced, the dealer responds, “I don’t know her, but good luck ma’am” and closes the door.

The old lady shuffles away, leaning heavily on her cane.

A few weeks later Precious is on the 7^th floor at 1011, in a suite occupied by dealers who hold the master key, which had been traded by previous management for an 8 ball of blow. They have access to every suite in the building, the only way to keep them out was to change the locks yourself.

She had been working the streets and using heroin a long time now, and 1011 was a usual haunt for her, offering shelter and easy access to supply within its 23 stories.

The dealers who ran the building had a method to ensure they didn’t get busted; spotters kept an eye out on all entrances and would send a signal via walkie-talkie if anything suspicious appeared.

On this day, a line of SWAT officers were observed snaking across the garage roof and into the back door of the building “5-0 on building, back door, entering now” came across the walkie-talkie.

Precious had just taken a hit of heroin, and was fading into blissful nothingness, the dealers quickly vacated the apartment leaving her there.

Moments later KNOCK KNOCK “OPEN UP!" There is a heavy thud as the door is kicked open and SWAT officers enter.

No one other than them and Precious really knows what happened next, but what we all know is she took a dive out the window of the 7^th floor, landing on concrete and breaking nearly every bone in her body. The hit of heroin she had taken moments before is probably the only thing that saved her.

Everyone thought that was it, we wouldn’t be seeing her again, there is no way she could survive that and end up back here.

But about a year later, there she was, making her way down Lansdowne towards the building, eyeing up cars passing by and giving them a suggestive smile, inviting them to pull over, in a wheelchair.

Eventually the wheelchair was replaced with a walker, and the walker eventually replaced with a cane.

Those who observed this and knew her story marveled at the fact that she had survived, been given a second chance at life, only to end up here again, caught up in heroin, back at 1011.

I don’t know what happened to her ,luckily and by the grace of the gods themselves I made my way out of that building, that lifestyle a long time ago.

But I still think of her and her grandmother, and wonder if she ever escaped the samsara she was caught in.

I had never seen such a hungry ghost of a person before, a stark reminder to myself of what I didn’t ever want to be, and why it was so important that I escape that place and never return.