One

"Do you mind if I smoke over there?" he asked.

"No, go ahead," I replied. I hate cigarettes, but at least he asked. Most people don't.

"You taking the B-line?" he asked, pulling a can of beer out of a nondescript plastic bag. "Yes," I answered. The beer fizzed over when he opened it, all over his hand and the ground he was sitting on. Unphased, he took a sip and began fumbling in his bag again, this time producing a small joint and cheap book of cardboard matches.

"You know, I just made fourty bucks in half an hour," he said, obviously proud of himself. "Really?" I asked. He was making the lady beside me very uncomfortable. "I had to really hustle to do it though," he added, pointing toward his squeegee, "see, I smell like ammonia. You can smell it, can't you? I mean, where else would you go and make that kind of money legally? I mean, with good honest work and all? I'm gonna go home and buy myself a nice steak." Steak, the working class status symbol.

The joint refuses to light. His smile was full of gaps and decay as he lit another match. A small plume of smoke wafts up and fills the bus shelter. Pleasant. He begins to speak again. "I can do 58 different voices," he said, "I'm the best in Canada. Name your favourite song."

Mann Mot Mann by Kaizers Orchestra was playing on my mp3 player at the time, and I was tempted to say it. "What's your favourite song?" I asked. He then began to serenade me as Kermit the Frog, Louis Armstrong, Burt Bacharach and Steve Page from the Barenaked Ladies. He was no Peter Sellers, but pretty good regardless. Then he sang a medley of Elton John songs, his face animated with a manic fervour. I was soon beaming from ear to ear.

"See, you're smiling," he said, still chattering away. "That's why I turned down a recording contract. Everyone's offered me one, but the suits wanted 75% of my profits." He looked to me for some sort of approval.

"That's criminal," I said. He continued to talk. And talk.

The last thing he told me as we got on the bus was that he wasn't a drug addict. The needle tracks up his arms made that hard for me to believe. Denial. Perpetually full of shit. It doesn't matter what I think. I just listen.