Once They Were Children

Emily Zbaraschuk

Growing up around the City, the homeless are as commonplace as street signs or traffic lights. They wander through the Superstore parking lot, asking to put away your cart so they can nab its loonie. They stumble into Wendy’s to warm up, lamenting that Jesus doesn’t care. They walk beneath street lamps, their legs thinned to pipe cleaners by heroin, their scantily clad bodies transfigured into profits by pimps. They conduct imaginary symphonies on park benches, the only audience the voices in their head. They huddle on street corners, curse at passersby, remain unidentified at morgues. But for the most part, I only saw them from the corner of my eye, from beneath my lowered brow, always lingering in the periphery. I looked away when they got too close to my car, my wallet, my life.

the $1.50 tongs I’d bought for this exact reason to pick it up. It thudded in the biohazard container.

“See that blue thing there?” Alyssa gestured at a nickel-sized, u-shaped plastic tab sitting nearby. “It’s from the top of the tube.”

For the next few days, as I walked around the City, all I saw were those tabs. Once you knew what to look for, you saw them everywhere, scattered like confetti among cigarette stubs and dried leaves. The detritus of rough living and that pulsing desire to forget. ***

I’d been hired by the City to be a playleader, one of the lucky high school or university students paid to entertain kids at one of the City’s playgrounds. After a week of orientation at the Community Centre—which, hosting the only patch of grass near downtown, was a popular loitering spot for vagrants sharing needles—I was assigned to Middleground Park.

The park’s southern half boasted a waterpark, while its northern half—where I would spend most of my summer—was filled with grassy fields and elm trees. The highlights? A playground with the basics: slides, swings, and monkey bars. About a hundred yards away, a forest-themed splash pad. Behind the splash pad was our home base, a cement storage building coated with grey paint and graffiti.

My first day on the job, I arrived in my blue and white pinny, a pair of flip-flops on my feet and a red lanyard around my neck. Alyssa, my playground partner, came soon after, and we began our safety check. As we strolled through the park, we collected broken glass, a used needle, and a carton of clear liquid. It was likely illicit, stored in a plastic tube the size of my finger and the colour of medical masks. Donning gloves, I used

As part of our daily responsibilities, Alyssa and I had to assemble a yellow and white flag that said “PLAYGROUND PROGRAM TODAY” in bubble letters. Once, we were setting up the flag when an Indigenous woman riding a bicycle on the park’s sidewalks stopped near us. Her belongings were slung in a ratty backpack over her shoulder. She pointed her chin at the metal flag pole lying unassembled on the ground. “Those for beating Indians?”

I glanced at Alyssa.

You’re the one in charge, her widened eyes replied.

“No,” I stuttered. “No, we don’t beat… Indigenous people with them.” Then I added, stupidly, “That wouldn’t be nice.”

The woman barked a laugh and rode off, content with our discomfort. A car honked as she cut through a four-way stop at a diagonal.

On our way back to home base, Alyssa tugged at her ear. “What was that?” she said. “What do you even say?”

I shook my head. What do you say? ***

On a hot day in early August, I was in the storage room, filling out paperwork, when a frumpy woman in a visor knocked on the door. She stood with her legs shoulder-width apart as if she expected me to bulldoze her. “Are you in charge of this place?” And added, before I could answer, “Do you know what’s happening?”

“Is something wrong?”

She gestured over her shoulder at the splash pad. “Take a look.”

All summer, the concrete pad had been ground zero for all sorts of predicaments. Skinned knees. Soaked clothes. Kids stripping down to their birthday suits. If Alyssa or I didn’t spot it first, adults would point out the error with a laugh, always charitable when children were involved. I scanned the park for the usual offenders. “I’m still not seeing what’s wrong.”

She huffed and pointed at a pair of women in the far corner. “There are hobos washing their clothes in the splash pad.”

Laundering was a first, but I’d gotten used to homeless people walking through the splash pad, giants among the screeching children. At first, I thought they simply wanted relief from the heat until, on an overcast day, I watched a man strip down to athletic shorts and shiver under the water. He was bathing in the cold so there’d be no kids running circles, no adults judging a grown man showering in public.

I watched as the older of the two women tried to replace her shirt with a clean camisole without exposing

by JOSEPH MEDERNACH

Digital photography

I took this picture last summer, when camping with my family. However risky it may have been, I had started a stressful retail job and had been going on late-night walks to help me sleep. I noticed the quietness of the world after dark. On this camping trip, near the end of the summer, my father and I decided to go for an evening walk by the lake. The lake looked picturesque, and the emptiness of the beach reminded me of the late-night walks. Maybe you can feel the magic: the calm, quiet, emptiness. At least you can see the beauty of the edge of the day.

herself. She contorted her arms to shimmy the dirty shirt around her waist. “I’ll keep an eye on them,” I said.

“They’ll flash the kids. Tell them to find somewhere else to clean up.”

I watched them distance themselves from the kids laughing as they played tag. “They’re keeping to themselves. Unless they approach the kids, it’s a public park.”

She ended up dragging her kids and husband from the park, shooting daggers and accusatory index fingers my way. All I’d done was follow protocol: we were supposed to let them be unless they posed a threat to the kids. I know she wanted me to tell them to get lost, to return to the West End or the Downtown—at the very least, somewhere where she wouldn’t have to see them. But to me, they didn’t look suspicious. They looked like women clutching the last shreds of their dignity. ***

The kids I’d come to know that summer had potential like puddles and rubber boots have potential. Most of them leapt into the mud trusting that when the fun of splashing was over, someone was ready to help them clean up whatever mess created along the way. Someone would wash the dirt from their clothes, wipe the grit from their face, retrieve their boots from the mire. But with some of them, you’d see glimpses of their parents and start to wonder. When they found themselves trapped, would there be someone to pull them out of the muck? Twenty years from now, would you see them sleeping in an alley off Central Avenue? Would they beg you to spare some change?

There were two siblings, Suzie and Aiden. Their dad dropped them off once. He wore a shirt with “FCUK” written across it. A young woman hung on his profanity-tattooed arm. The rest of the time, their mom brought them to the program. She walked hunched over—two heart attacks, she’d said, and at risk for another if she didn’t “get them out of the house.” With two young kids and a toddler, the summer program was priceless. As I guided her through the form, her hand struggled to control the pencil. Letters staggered onto the page.

Suzie was about to enter grade one and Aiden into kindergarten, yet their words were a mash of mixedup sounds and lisped syllables. They’d get frustrated when we couldn’t understand, but they were sweet kids; I wanted them to be okay. But how do you learn to read when you can barely speak full sentences and have parents who are too tired to listen? What happens if your life is scaffolded with bird nests and you need pillars?

Every day of orientation, our supervisors reminded us how important our work was. For some kids, our program was the only chance they’d get to visit the waterpark. For others, snack time was their only opportunity to eat a healthy meal. And for others, it was an escape from home until school reopened.

All summer, when I stumbled upon those kids, I tried not to wonder too much. I played Home Free and Go Fish. In the background, the police escorted a man out of the park. I decorated cupcakes and paper plate masks, and in the background, a woman naked from the waist down clawed at her arms, at the sores around her mouth; a man drank water straight from the splash pad, too ashamed to ask for a cup. I mended scraped knees and bruised relationships. Always, in the background, that stomach-lurching thought: they were all children once, and then they grew up.