They're Out There

My friend and I went to a Reggae Fusion dance class this week. I liked it much better than the Street Ballet class.

When we arrived at the studio, a group of squeegy kids (although some of them surely can't be kids any more) hovered at the entrance to the studio stairs. That's where they keep warm between traffic light changes.

We were early. So we stood in the stairwell at the front of the building where there was a big window and looked out onto the corner of Queen and Spadina. The squeegy people had a routine. One of them always stayed in the shadow. Only one went to work on a car at a time, while the others hovered over a little brown puppy wrapped in a coat. They cleaned a car's windshield whether the driver wanted them to or not, even if the driver waved no to them. Despite that, almost all of the drivers gave the squeegy kids something - usually money change or cigarettes.

Today, I went to my pilates class. Parking is always a problem at the pilates studio. I nabbed a parking spot and rushed into the building to evade the wind and cold. Then I looked out the glass windows and saw a man ride up on his motorcycle. He parked and came running into the building too.

As he hurried, he took his helmet off. He had short, white cropped hair. It looked like he usually shaved his head but hair was coming in now. He was roundish, but in that way that doesn't look fat on older people. He must've been over 60. Then he took his leather jacket off. He had on a dark T-shirt under and his arms were fully tattooed. I couldn't make out what was on them as I didn't want to seem too intent on examining his arms in the elevator.

The man could have been a film producer, an artist, a window washer, or a bike gang member.

He followed me into the pilates studio. There in the foyer, he greeted several people and took his pants off. Whew, he had a pair of stretch shorts under. I went into the pilates class after I got changed. The man came in too. He was in my pilates class!

When you don't work during the day, you meet all sorts. But good on him.