I call Stella and Michael to apologise. I arrange for Stella to pick me up to check my e-mail. I run downstairs to eat breakfast at the Alfresco. Halfway there, I think about turning back for my pen and paper but decide against looking pretentious and foolish at seven o’clock in the morning in a country hundreds of miles from Guyana.

At about 9 o’clock, I get up and head towards the Design Exchange. On my way there, I see perhaps the most macabre and exotic thing since I’ve been here. In the middle of a lonely concrete driveway at the side of the building, overshadowed by some trees, is the body of a dead squirrel. I have never seen a “live” (relatively speaking) squirrel before. Its head is not recognisable and its red entrails are lying just outside of its body, like the cotton bursting out of a stuffed animal.

I am not there for long but the essential colours more than anything else remain in my memory. Red and black against a gray background.

(Riding the rocket)
I do not spend long at the Design Exchange. I go back to the hotel and when Stella comes, we head for the nearest Subway station.

When the train comes, we get in and sit down next to each other. On the walls are posters advertising the routes, there are posters for a ‘save the street children’ fund, there are HIV/AIDS posters and there is one poetry poster. There is also an Incredible Hulk movie poster. I mention to Stella, among other things, that we can catch The Hulk later that night.

When we get off at Eglinton West, we head to her parked car nearby. Inside, the car is scorching hot.

When we are nearing her neighbourhood, I begin to comment on the neat, nice brick houses and the clean, tree-lined streets. She matter-of-factly informs me that this is actually one of the seedier areas of Toronto. I was thinking of Bel Air Park.

Their apartment is the upstairs of one of the brick houses. She informs me that some rowdy Jamaicans live downstairs. In one corner of the small living area, Michael has built an impressive library. From Camus and Sartre and Nabokov to various law texts people the four shelves in his bookcase.

I send a few mails while I drink the beer Stella has brought.

We head quickly back to the subway. I take the time to learn the names of the different stations: Dundas, Eglinton West, St. Claire West, Spadina, Museum, Osgoode, St. Andrew, Union, King, Queen…

(Protest food)
At about 12.30 I am back at the Design Exchange. I listen to a few readings, browse the other country displays and meet several people through the PR talents of Nancy Rickford. A young woman who was at the publisher’s luncheon the previous day comes up to me and offers to buy one of my manuscripts. She doesn’t have any cash so she asks me to follow her to an ABM not far from the Design Exchange.

As she collects her cash, she asks me if I ever had a Big Mac. I say no and she informs that today will not be the day. She is personally boycotting all the large American chain-stores in protest over its recent belligerence on the international scene.

We stop at a Subway and when I enquire whether Subway itself is not a large American company, she replies that it is not as potent a symbol of American hegemony as is McDonald’s.

While we eat, we discuss American imperialism, sandwiches and the craft of writing.

(Writers are not readers)
Back at the Design Exchange, I encounter a bustling Nancy Rickford who wants to know where on earth I’ve been. She literally drags me to the audience area at the Design Exchange and sits me down next to the host, Ramabai Espinet.

Earl Lovelace is reading from one of his stories. After about 10 minutes of a monotonous drawl from the seasoned Caribbean writer, the audience begins to shift. Earl’s forehead perspires a bit. I met Earl some three years before in Trinidad. His reading does a grave injustice to his carefree social talents and his skill as a writer. He looks, frankly, nervous. After an uncomfortable time, Ramabai signals to Earl who condenses his story.

I am up next. I read my most readable piece. I try to focus, as Vic Insanally had coached me, on one person in the audience. There is a middle-aged Indian woman whose face spreads into a smile when I mention Camp Street and the seawall and “the dour look that graces the faces of all female public service clerical staff.” Throughout the reading, I use her as my anchor. I flow.

When I leave the stage, I am ‘mobbed’ politely. Names, numbers, congratulations, where can I get your book. At last the woman comes over to me while another woman is waiting politely behind her. I tell her that she is Guyanese and she says yes and we talk for a while. I tell her thanks for being that face in the crowd. I collect her name and e-mail address and then the other woman comes up to me.

“You know,” she says smiling, “if you had glanced in my direction, you would have seen that I was smiling too…”

(A night on the town)
At about seven o’clock, I am at Stella’s. Michael is there as well as Ahmed Holder, another P.C. person from Michael’s year. We finish off a rich cook-up Stella has cooked and talked about the odd characters from our alma mater, including a skinny girl nicknamed “Chowmein” who had only recently represented Guyana at an international beauty pageant. Stella, a QC girl, is left out for the most part.

At about 11.30, we leave the house and drive around until we find a place to park. We spy an unattended parking lot but we all express doubts about leaving the car there. As we are backing out, a junkie points to a sign next to the parking lot and informs us that parking is free. We thank him and as we file past on the way to the cinema, he collects about two dollars from each of us.

We walk to a bar where we meet up with three of their friends. One of them, Vishnu, leaves and heads to the cinema with us.

We buy four tickets and Vishnu waits outside the theatre in a huge waiting area. Michael goes to the washroom with his token and after a few minutes, he returns and a little after that, Vishnu enters. The movie begins at one o’clock and most of us take turns napping through it.

When we get back to the parked car there is a ticket on the windowscreen. Stella invites me to spend the night at their place but there are some things I have to take care of at the hotel.