The Man Who Went to Toronto

I miss the man who went to Toronto.

It was in the summer a little more than ten years ago when he left.  He’d been conversing electronically with a woman from Toronto in the years prior to that summer.  She made him an ultimatum:  Come see her to determine what this relationship of theirs was.  And so in the span of weeks he made plans to go to Toronto.

Just like that.  Without taking the time to think and think and think about it.  Without a hint of what might happen once he got there.

He prepared for the trip.  He secured tickets for trains.  He made reservations in Chicago, the solitary layover on the trip.

Then, one afternoon, he stepped aboard the train.  He watched as the train took him from the place of his birth to places he had never been before.  That night he stepped off into the bustle of Chicago.  It felt cooler there.  The humidity had forgotten to follow him from home.  That coolness, along with the rush of people, seemed to make the city feel so very alive.  And then he took a taxi through the bright night to a hotel.

Sleep.  A good sleep.

He woke to a call from the front desk, and he asked them to order a taxi for a return trip to the train station.   A little brown man drove the taxi.

“Where are you going?” the little brown man asked.

“Union Station,” the man who went to Toronto said.

“Plenty of time for that,” the little brown man said.  He added, “See some sights before you go?”

Yes.  The man who went to Toronto was anxious to make it to the train station, but in his heart the man who went to Toronto also wanted to see some sights as long as they could get to the train station on time.

Lake Shore Drive during the bustle of morning rush hour.  Navy Pier.  Buckingham Fountain.  Soldier Field.

“China Town?” the little brown man said.  If only the man who went to Toronto had had more time, but there was a train to catch.

A longer train it was, but one which peeled back the upper Midwest, revealing sight upon sight.  The urban moonscape of the south side of Chicago.  A nuclear reactor just south of Lake Michigan.  Across northern Indiana and through the heart of Michigan.  Battle Creek, where they make all your cereals, and a giant cartoon tiger stands guard.  Lansing.  Flint.  Then, Point Huron, last stop in the US before that long dark dive through the tunnel which connects to Canada.

And that moment in Sarnia on the other side.  In another country.  That moment which defined being in another country.  The officials with their plastic tubs of safety equipment.  The officials with their vests and clipboards.

“Identification, please.”

The man who went to Toronto displayed the official birth certificate showing he had been born officially in the US.  They took down his information, and just like that he was a foreign visitor just like some of the little brown people who shared the train car with him.

Then up through Ontario to London, which is not only in England.  There had been banners in London.  Pennants at a car dealership or tractor dealership.  They had wafted so happily in the late afternoon breeze.  Then Woodstock.  Cambridge.  Finally the place called Mississauga.  Some place that sounded foreign.  It was evening then, and the city, like the other city the night before, lit the night.

Toronto.

There had been the same cool dry feeling as in Chicago, but it was so quiet in this part of town.  Another taxi.  Another hotel.  This time, a much  higher floor.  The man who went to Toronto swore he could feel the building sway in the gentle wind.

And the woman.  In the same building.  A floor up?  A floor down?  It was discussed on the telephone but there would be no meeting that night because it was late.  For breakfast.

The lobby the next morning.  The meeting.

The man who went to Toronto had traveled hundreds of miles for the meeting.

The man who went to Toronto had traveled hundreds of miles for the meeting.

The man who went to Toronto had traveled hundreds of miles for the meeting.

This is written three times just to remember that it was so.  The man who went to Toronto, who had never done such a thing in his life before, did this thing with as little concern as folks who drive to the mall now.

The man who went to Toronto was happy to see the woman.  They had breakfast.  They walked the streets of downtown Toronto where the man who went to Toronto learned about two dollar coins and exchange rates.  They went to a bookstore where he bought a copy of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  And as their first day drew to a close, they boarded a bus that would take them to the woman’s family home, just north of the city.

The man who went to Toronto stayed at the woman’s family home in a bedroom tucked away like a place of his own.

The man who went to Toronto never once stopped to think that he subsisted on the whims of this adventure.  In a foreign land.  With no set transport.  With little money but what he could squeeze from his bank account.  The man who went to Toronto lived day to day at the woman’s family home.  All but strangers except for words on a page or words on a screen.

The man who went to Toronto never once stopped to think that he subsisted on the whims of this adventure.

The man who went to Toronto never once stopped to think that he subsisted on the whims of this adventure.

The man who went to Toronto learned about being a man in different ways.  The man who went to Toronto learned about sharing his life with the woman with carts laden with bags of milk and camping in front of the TV and trips to the bookstore.  The man who went to Toronto learned about growing old in a retirement home.  The man who went to Toronto learned how to entertain children with improvised stories.

Then the man who went to Toronto had to be elsewhere.  Just as some journeys strengthen us, others only put us back in our places.  And so the man who went to Toronto went elsewhere.

I see him sometimes now.  Not often enough.