What's the world coming to

What's the world coming to? He asks, but doesn't wait for an answer. The city is sick, he says. People are sick, he says. It's anarchy. They're on dope. The violence - these video games they play.

They used to go out in rowboats, he says. They used to go to Boy Scouts. I never did but it was a good group. They had their little uniforms. They used to camp in the woods. No one knows about the woods now.

The room smells faintly of cat piss and must. There is furniture everywhere, artifacts of a life or a dozen lives strewn over a worn pine floor. He is cleaning up, he says. He's sitting in an armchair and he has not moved at all. I get terrible fits of coughing, he says. I am always coughing. I have to stay up all night and spit in a cup.

I'd hang onto the place but it's not worth it, he says. Oh yes it's a nice little place, it's the family home. Just our family. Since 1919, he says. My father was a steel worker, he says, but he could hold his own with anyone. Loved classical music.

Did your father go to Queen A, he asks? I didn't know him but somehow I knew that. You remember how it used to be. There was a butcher on Broadview. Sawdust on the floor. There was fish & chips in newspaper. The weeds in the backyard are terrible, he says. Things grow up so fast. I live in Montreal now. It's terrible, he says.

I've got nothing against the Chinese, he says. They are hard workers. I love their art and music. My father was very knowledgeable about music. They keep to themselves. But these days people are marrying with Chinese girls. They're very eager to please but your child would be a Chinaman! I'm not racist, he says. I respect the Chinese.

I could live here again I suppose, I don't need much. I could play the lawn bowling up on the corner. Toronto is a good place, not like Montreal. The people there, they're sick. They don't believe in the Catholic Church anymore and now they're lost, there are people on dope everywhere and the violence.

The place needs work. There's some water damage, but it's nothing. You could fix that up. No one wants to fix it up.

I know who will buy it, I see the kind of man. I can see a big Cadillac pulling up. I can see him coming in here, bursting through the door with his big belly. Smoking a cigar. That's the type. They'll tear it down. I can get what I'm asking for it, I've almost come close. It's a shame. They'll buy it and tear it down.

I could live here. I don't need much. This is a good place. It's a shame to see it go. Once I get it cleaned up, he says. Once I get it cleaned up.

What's the world coming to? He asks, but he doesn't wait for an answer.