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Taste of Vancouver
The server in the cafe shot me an icy glance the first time “the woman” spoke to me. “Any spare change, miss?” The painfully thin woman said she was hungry and she hadn’t eaten in four days. In her shaky hand, she had a paper bag which thinly veiled a can of beer. Her eyes darted about waiting for my answer and the inevitable shout from the server, “Get out!” I am one of those people who rarely carries cash, instead, relying on a debit card. When I silently mouthed the words “I have no cash,” it was true. Even if I’d had change, the cafe staff obviously didn’t encourage feeding the needy.
This is Vancouver, folks. This is the Vancouver many people never see. If they do see this side of the city, they don’t talk about it and it certainly doesn’t get any coverage in the glossy “Visit Vancouver” brochures. LOML and I have been in Vancouver many, many times. We spend most of our time in an area of extremes. Extreme have and extreme have-not. Honestly, I didn’t know the woman’s story and I wouldn’t even guess what brought her to this point in her life. It was easy enough to see that she spends most of her days out-of-doors. She might be 50 years old. She might be 20 years old. When she whispers to me, “Have a nice day,” I’m not surprised that she’s toothless.
In the two weeks we spent in Vancouver this trip, we see “the woman” many times between East Hastings and Commercial Drive. The ever-present paper bag in hand makes me think she’s way past being hungry for food. I wonder if, when I see her on Saturday, it will be the last time I’ll see her. The server at the cafe came over and quietly told me “We don’t like our customers to feed them or give them money or we’d never get rid of them.” Her words cut through me. The server is probably twenty-something. I doubt she’s ever spent a day “without,” unless she needed to drop a pound or two to fit into her new jeans. Maybe, when she was in high school, she took part in one of those 12-hour hunger events, knowing full well she’d be fed in the morning and go home to sleep the rest of the day away, in clean sheets. Someone cared enough about the server to outfit her with invisible braces on her whiter-thanwhite teeth. I tell the server I hope she only has to wish for a big tip and never has to ask for spare change.
Ah, Vancouver. I’ll never judge the city by the cover on its marketing brochure.
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