From Motel of the Opposable Thumbs. Published by Anvil Press in 2019.

Mark Laba and I took the Yonge
subway downtown because we wanted
to eat lunch in Chinatown. Mark
pretended to have a wooden leg to
make the woman beside us uncomfortable.
(I don’t know if she was; maybe
had a wooden leg.) At Bloor station,
people really poured on. It was so
crowded that we were squished against
each other. At Dundas we poured
out and Mark and I went to Kwong
Chow’s where we had the 85-cent lunch
special: fried rice, chicken balls, chow
mein and consommée soup. We were 15
years old. After we read our fortune
cookies—Mark’s said “You are a well-
respected man”—we went to Village Bookstore
where Marty sold us some poetry books
from New Directions. Back on the subway,
Mark said he liked to drink pickle juice
and when I saw him the next week
he did exactly that.