Edgelands
Exploring Society’s Margins
by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali
EXCERPT
Transience
IVY WAS A PART of a quartet of friends with whom I’d have group calls. The call would end whenever Ivy’s mother, a devout Catholic, had her come downstairs for their daily family prayer. Years later, I visited her at home in Malvern. The prayer room was the first room you saw as you entered the home, and it had a statue of Jesus in one corner and one of Mary in the other. There was a white couch covered in plastic and it held countless stuffed animals in all sorts of colours.
I told her I didn’t have my bank cards or ID and her response was quick:
Let’s go get them renewed then.
On our way, I let it slip that my IDs were still at my family’s.
Oh, that changes things.
What do you mean?
It’s your ID, meaning you can go get it.
It’s not that easy.
Let’s just go to the cops.
I went along with it even though I wasn’t comfortable calling the police on my family. My sister had done it once before and it shamed my stepmother to have cops outside her door for neighbours to see. On the other hand, this friend had rescued me from a life of confinement in the closet, feigning love for a woman. What she suggested carried more weight than any doubt I had.
We walked into the police station, a concrete structure which takes up about an entire city block near Dundas and University Avenues. I explained my predicament to the cop at the front desk, who told us to go to the neighbourhood where my family lived and call the non-emergency number. We were cautioned we might have to wait a while as our request would be queued. We tried our luck and took the subway north to Lawrence West station. I sat nervously on the bus that took us west and worried about seeing people I knew. When we got to the apartment building, a cop met us in under an hour. She listened as I explained my problem. She was sympathetic.
Awful to think these things still happen. I can go up there, but I can’t go into the unit without their permission. Hopefully the uniform will do the trick.
I didn’t blink at her suggestion of intimidating my family. At this point I just wanted my stuff back and her deviousness gave me confidence that it was doable. I was done offering myself as a shield to protect their honour or dignity as they had spent years tearing away at mine. I was still nervous, but I couldn’t let on that I felt anything because I didn’t trust my family. My face couldn’t betray my conflicted feelings. I did this because I felt they left me no choice. If my interests were furthered, who cared what this cop said. If the building’s wagging tongues spoke ill of my stepmother and siblings, all the better. She asked Ivy and I to wait by the elevators while she spoke to my eldest sister. My sister asked her where I was, and the cop called me over.
Listen Fadumo, I need my ID and bank cards.
Mohamed! We were worried. We heard you’d gone missing in London.
The cop spoke firmly. Ma’am, may we come in?
My sister told us to wait until she could get her mother on the phone, made the call, then passed the phone to me in the hallway, just past the elevators. The last time I’d seen my stepmother was when I was put on a plane to London; while I was in London, my father sent her a letter informing her that he was divorcing her and that an imam in the Middle East had dissolved their marriage for him. My stepmother had flown to London in the hopes of keeping me detained while she sorted out the details of the divorce from my father. I was slated to become a bargaining chip in these messy proceedings. Thankfully, Ivy brought me back to Toronto before that could happen.
Mohamed, what’s going on? Why are you there with the police?
Hoyo, I need my ID, that’s all. Where is it?
Tell your sister to get my beauty case. Do you remember the code?
Yes.
Pass the phone back to her.
We waited in the hallway, and I got my bank and credit cards as well as my ID from the beauty case. My stepmother kept all her valuables in it--American dollars, gold, jewelry, documents, etc. I was the only one who had the code as my middle sister was prone to stealing and our eldest was seen as aloof and stupid by her mother.
Before she closed the door, my sister said to call them. It was a bit rich considering she was the one who forced me to come out. I did call but it was the same old shit. She seemed uninterested in my goings-on but only in what I could do for her. I pressed the cards deep into my pocket, relieved that I didn’t have to go through the process of replacing everything. The cop seemed pleased with herself. She gave my friend and I a ride to a strip plaza holding a coffee shop and bus stop for multiple routes, forcing bodies close together on the sidewalk and any available space in the tiny parking lot. This was where people had their videocassettes converted into DVDs, sent money abroad, bought flavoured soda from the islands. Countless eyes were on us after she dropped us off, pulled out of the plaza and waved goodbye.
What if they think we’re informs?
I avoided eye contact with the watching crow.
Who cares? You got your shit.