Last Saturday
Last Saturday was an odd day. I went to the Montreal International Just for Laughs Festival with my friend Anna. This was odd in and of itself, not that I went, or that I went with Anna, but the festival itself. See, the jazz festival made sense to me, you went, and you listened to jazz. Sure, there was food and a couple street performers, but mostly, just lots of jazz. So wouldn't you expect to find Laughing at the Just for Laughs festival? Well, I'm not sure what I expected, but it was odd. We passed huge crowds of people and act after act of the strangest things...more street performers - the ones that dress up like statues, a bunch of women on stilts, a skateboarding competition, a woman in underwear (and this wasn't an act), a bunch of mascot types with huge heads, people playing chess or checkers...and of course, a lot of very serious and un-entertained faces. I guess, unlike at the jazz festival, you have to pay to see the good acts. Fair enough. But that wasn't the really odd part.
We got tickets to see a series of short films at the Monument Nationale on St Laurent, just south of Ste Catherine. Now, let me just say that Montreal is a very safe city. One of the safest in Canada, in fact, and Canada is either the best or second best place in the world to live, according to the UN, so it must be safe. Sure, there are school shootings every ten to twenty years, and the last one just happens to have been in November, but it's very safe. I've never doubted my safety in this city.
But St Laurent and Ste Catherine combined make for a sketchy area. Think red light district meets angry drunken natives. But it was in the festival area so we slowly meandered over there, arriving perhaps an hour early for our show. There was a little park across the street, with an unoccupied ledge that looked like a comfortable place to sit and chat. We sat there undisturbed for some time, chatting about the things you chat about when hanging out with a friend you don't see that often.
At some point, a group of people, man, a girl (both about 30) and an older woman (maybe in her 40s or 50s), came over and were talking maybe a couple meters away from us. At first, we didn't really pay attention to them. I don't recall noticing their conversation. They may have come and gone a bit, but we didn't really notice, until all of the sudden they were standing right next to us, and the older woman was yelling about how the younger girl doesn't "show no respect" and is a "f***in' b&tch." And the rest is all sort of a blur. I think I was mid-sentence when they inadvertently captured my attention and wouldn't give it back. Anna and I stared awkwardly at each other and I tried to remember what I was saying. But to no avail. We got off the other side of our shiny ledge, and slunk away to another part of the park, where we anticipated that we'd had our excitement for the night.
Again, there were people nearby us who we had paid no attention to, three unruly-looking men in maybe their 50s (it's hard to tell when they just look dirty), when suddenly one man whacked another one, and he fell backwards and didn't move. (Anna only saw the man fall, she didn't even see him get hurt.) For a moment, no one moved. They had gotten a little louder, but I had interpreted the sounds as cheerful banter, so I half-expected the other men to start laughing, or at least to realize that they'd hurt their friend. For a moment, no one moved. The men still standing were expressionless, and then they turned and walked away. The man on the ground lay in a stunned position for a moment, his head held a few inches off the ground. Anna noticed that the back of his head was bleeding, and the blood was dripping onto the ground (which was stone blocks). Finally the man moved to pull his cell phone out of his pocket, as I was offering to call 911 from my own phone. In hindsight, if he had heard me, it's possible that he didn't understand me, because he was speaking French...
At this point, the whole thing got weirder. The rude and angry woman from the earlier argument wandered over and started commenting on the situation. She looked at the man disdainfully and said to us that he was just drunk, and he'd be fine. "Look, he can still talk!" "Look, he's getting out his phone." "Oh, he's fine, the good-for-nothing..."
In the meantime, the man was on his cell phone demanding an ambulance. It didn't sound like the conversation went too well, and at that point, I wished I'd been more forceful with my offer to call, because I suspect they would have been more likely to listen to me...He threw in a bunch of f-bombs, then got up and walked away. "Look, he's walking, he'll be fine, he's just drunk."
Now, I don't claim much expertise on injuries and proper treatment thereof. Many in my readership will certainly be more knowledgeable on the subject. But in my limited experience, it seems to me that head injuries are often treated more seriously than others, and bleeding from the head after hitting what is very likely some very dirty ground warrants at least a brief trip to the hospital. Instead, this man seems likely to spend the night on the street, bleeding from the head and getting infected and all those wonderful things...
And now, this woman believed herself to be our chum. So she asked us where we were from and began to give us what she believed to be the sob story of her life. Her son left her and now he's rude and she doesn't know if she wants to take him back. (Although, from what I could tell, it didn't look like he wanted to be taken back...) She sat down beside me, or rather, nearly on top of me, kind of falling onto the steps we were sitting on to continue observing the man lying down in front of us.
A moment later, she asked if we had any spare change. We told her we were sorry, but we didn't have any (which may or may not have been true, I don't recall). After an appropriate silence, we decided that we had to go and see her show (when in fact, it was still another 25 minutes before it started).
Hurt people hurt people. (I remember the first time I heard Rob Whittaker say that, he went into the detailed explanation of the grammar, so that all the non-english speakers would get it.) It's this vicious self-perpetuating cycle that escalates until it explodes, but when the explosion comes, it doesn't seem very dramatic, because all along the whole thing has been dysfunctional, so dysfunction is expected. The woman and her son are hurting each other, but they still encounter each other because they need each other and surely somewhere, they love each other, as much as they know how to love. The man on the ground in front of us may have provoked getting hurt, but that doesn't excuse the fact that no one will help him. Of course he was angry...who wouldn't be? But what is he left with? A night on the streets with a bleeding head, and the prospect of alcohol to drink away the pain, which was probably at some level the cause of it in the first place.
And whose responsibility is it to help these people? The vicious cycle can only be ended with a great deal of willpower that must come from within themselves. But who will show them that this is worthwhile? And in the meantime, who is meeting all their needs? And what can I do?
We got tickets to see a series of short films at the Monument Nationale on St Laurent, just south of Ste Catherine. Now, let me just say that Montreal is a very safe city. One of the safest in Canada, in fact, and Canada is either the best or second best place in the world to live, according to the UN, so it must be safe. Sure, there are school shootings every ten to twenty years, and the last one just happens to have been in November, but it's very safe. I've never doubted my safety in this city.
But St Laurent and Ste Catherine combined make for a sketchy area. Think red light district meets angry drunken natives. But it was in the festival area so we slowly meandered over there, arriving perhaps an hour early for our show. There was a little park across the street, with an unoccupied ledge that looked like a comfortable place to sit and chat. We sat there undisturbed for some time, chatting about the things you chat about when hanging out with a friend you don't see that often.
At some point, a group of people, man, a girl (both about 30) and an older woman (maybe in her 40s or 50s), came over and were talking maybe a couple meters away from us. At first, we didn't really pay attention to them. I don't recall noticing their conversation. They may have come and gone a bit, but we didn't really notice, until all of the sudden they were standing right next to us, and the older woman was yelling about how the younger girl doesn't "show no respect" and is a "f***in' b&tch." And the rest is all sort of a blur. I think I was mid-sentence when they inadvertently captured my attention and wouldn't give it back. Anna and I stared awkwardly at each other and I tried to remember what I was saying. But to no avail. We got off the other side of our shiny ledge, and slunk away to another part of the park, where we anticipated that we'd had our excitement for the night.
Again, there were people nearby us who we had paid no attention to, three unruly-looking men in maybe their 50s (it's hard to tell when they just look dirty), when suddenly one man whacked another one, and he fell backwards and didn't move. (Anna only saw the man fall, she didn't even see him get hurt.) For a moment, no one moved. They had gotten a little louder, but I had interpreted the sounds as cheerful banter, so I half-expected the other men to start laughing, or at least to realize that they'd hurt their friend. For a moment, no one moved. The men still standing were expressionless, and then they turned and walked away. The man on the ground lay in a stunned position for a moment, his head held a few inches off the ground. Anna noticed that the back of his head was bleeding, and the blood was dripping onto the ground (which was stone blocks). Finally the man moved to pull his cell phone out of his pocket, as I was offering to call 911 from my own phone. In hindsight, if he had heard me, it's possible that he didn't understand me, because he was speaking French...
At this point, the whole thing got weirder. The rude and angry woman from the earlier argument wandered over and started commenting on the situation. She looked at the man disdainfully and said to us that he was just drunk, and he'd be fine. "Look, he can still talk!" "Look, he's getting out his phone." "Oh, he's fine, the good-for-nothing..."
In the meantime, the man was on his cell phone demanding an ambulance. It didn't sound like the conversation went too well, and at that point, I wished I'd been more forceful with my offer to call, because I suspect they would have been more likely to listen to me...He threw in a bunch of f-bombs, then got up and walked away. "Look, he's walking, he'll be fine, he's just drunk."
Now, I don't claim much expertise on injuries and proper treatment thereof. Many in my readership will certainly be more knowledgeable on the subject. But in my limited experience, it seems to me that head injuries are often treated more seriously than others, and bleeding from the head after hitting what is very likely some very dirty ground warrants at least a brief trip to the hospital. Instead, this man seems likely to spend the night on the street, bleeding from the head and getting infected and all those wonderful things...
And now, this woman believed herself to be our chum. So she asked us where we were from and began to give us what she believed to be the sob story of her life. Her son left her and now he's rude and she doesn't know if she wants to take him back. (Although, from what I could tell, it didn't look like he wanted to be taken back...) She sat down beside me, or rather, nearly on top of me, kind of falling onto the steps we were sitting on to continue observing the man lying down in front of us.
A moment later, she asked if we had any spare change. We told her we were sorry, but we didn't have any (which may or may not have been true, I don't recall). After an appropriate silence, we decided that we had to go and see her show (when in fact, it was still another 25 minutes before it started).
Hurt people hurt people. (I remember the first time I heard Rob Whittaker say that, he went into the detailed explanation of the grammar, so that all the non-english speakers would get it.) It's this vicious self-perpetuating cycle that escalates until it explodes, but when the explosion comes, it doesn't seem very dramatic, because all along the whole thing has been dysfunctional, so dysfunction is expected. The woman and her son are hurting each other, but they still encounter each other because they need each other and surely somewhere, they love each other, as much as they know how to love. The man on the ground in front of us may have provoked getting hurt, but that doesn't excuse the fact that no one will help him. Of course he was angry...who wouldn't be? But what is he left with? A night on the streets with a bleeding head, and the prospect of alcohol to drink away the pain, which was probably at some level the cause of it in the first place.
And whose responsibility is it to help these people? The vicious cycle can only be ended with a great deal of willpower that must come from within themselves. But who will show them that this is worthwhile? And in the meantime, who is meeting all their needs? And what can I do?