people / places 3

Victoria, New York, and Montreal

Victoria, BC - February 2016

I met up with Kassy at Dallas Beach by the weird white statue at Clover Point Park. We both lived in Fairfield at the time, and the beach was a short walk away from both of our parents’ houses. She might have brought her little schnauzer - Paco - but maybe she didn’t. I don’t remember.

Usually when we met up in the evenings it was to hang out and smoke marijuana together, but recent schizo-adjacent experiences with the substance had turned me off of wanting to partake. Kassy smoked weed that night, though. She still does, and I still don’t. After hanging out at the beach for a while, we parted ways around 11:30 PM. She walked down Dallas towards Hollywood Park, and I turned down May Street at the cemetery.

Walking towards the intersection of May and Moss, I noticed an older fellow with long hair standing in the middle of the four way stop, staring intensely into the distance. His clothes were a bit tattered, and it was certainly a bit odd to be standing in the middle of the intersection, but people in Fairfield can be weird, so I didn’t think too much of it. He didn’t look in my direction as I walked past him.

About half a block past the intersection, I heard a bizarre sound, similar to the squeal of rubber bike tires skidding to a stop on damp pavement. I assumed a cyclist had come around the corner with speed, and nearly hit him.

I turn around. Instead, I see the man’s body warping. He moves at an impossibly fast speed, completing a full circle that touches all corners of the intersection, without his feet touching the ground or moving his legs. A light trail lingers behind him at his torso height, glowing a bright green-ish yellow in the shape of the circle he just completed.

I run. I sprinted home, and didn’t look back until the basement door was locked behind me. For the rest of the night, I imagined his face popping up in the window, somehow finding out where I lived and coming to get me. But nothing happened. I think he wanted me to see what I saw that night.

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New York City - September 2025

Walking down St. Mark’s Place, I stop at an ATM covered in graffiti. I pull a sticker from my pocket, trying to act like I’m checking my balance while I choose a spot for it, smoothing out the air bubble that formed under the vinyl as I pressed it onto the metal. Turning around, I notice there’s an older guy waiting behind me who actually wants to use the machine. I keep walking, making it the length of the block before I hear a voice call out to me from the front stoop of a building.

“Whatchu write, son?”

There’s no way this stranger could have seen me do that from nearly the other end of the block - and there’s barely any noticeable paint on my clothes. Before answering his question, I asked how he knew.

“Cause you took mad long to hit that sticker and you’re mad toy,” he laughs, extending his hand to offer a dap.

He introduces himself as Jamoe. He’s nearly double my age, and towers over me as he stands up from the staircase he was perched on, monitoring every pedestrian on the block to scope out potential graffiti writers. We talk for a while, interrupted every few minutes by another friend or acquaintance of his walking past. A middle-aged tourist woman walks down the street, and he notices her paint-stained backpack. Between hits of his joint, Jamoe tries to get her attention: “Ayo lady, what you write?”

Eventually, he tells me he’s going to walk to Orchard Street Paint Supply. I should come, he says. As we walk through the East Village, he points out tags his friends have done, tags he thinks are dope, and tags he thinks are whack. We pass by a doorway, and he stops in his tracks. Someone’s tag had clipped him. Without hesitation, he pulls out a paint stick, writing a yellow “Jamoe” overtop the offending tag. Not yet satisfied, he reaches higher for a fresh spot, looking to take a more legible space as well. I stand on the street looking out for cops, and a young woman stops, taking a video with her iPhone as Jamoe animatedly finishes his tag. I snap a photo as well.

“Yo tag me on IG!” he yells as she walks away.

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Montreal, Quebec - August 2025

I check my phone. There’s a new message from my friend Kathy. She’s in town from New York City, visiting Montreal for a few days with her boyfriend Sargent.

“I’m at Parc Lahaie with Syd if you wanna come”

I finish up the size small bowl of poutine that I ordered from Pitarifique. It was not as good as I remember it being when I first visited Montreal in 2017 and stayed nearby on Coloniale Street. Next time I am looking to have Poutine near the Mont-Royal metro, I will probably try Patati Patata instead. I leave the restaurant and go to the dep across the street and buy a six pack of “Sol” beer.

Until now, I had never met Kathy in real life before. We had met on the randomized video chat website Omegle dot com during the spring of 2021, and over the years occasionally spoke over Instagram about interesting things on the internet, unemployment, or writing on substack.

Parc Lahaie was only a few blocks away from Pitarifique.

“I’m pretty close to there right now” I responded.

As I walked down St. Laurent, I started to get nervous. What if I couldn’t find them at the park? What if they saw me before I saw them, and they watched me cluelessly wandering around the park as they laughed? What if I didn’t have anything interesting to say and they thought I was weird?

I had actually met Kathy’s friend Sydney (from Ottawa) a few weeks prior, at a birthday party for my friend Sydney (from Victoria). We had an interesting conversation at the party and I learned that Sydney knew Kathy because she used to date Kathy’s friend Nelson. I had read about Nelson on Kathy’s substack and knew that he lived in Montreal. I felt a little less nervous because at least I had already met one of them in real life before, and maybe she had reassured them that I wasn’t a complete freak.

As I crossed the street to Parc Lahaie, I spotted Kathy and Sydney and Sargent at their picnic table before they had any chance to point and laugh at me. I walked over and sat down with them.