Kindness for Weakness Read Online Free

past Tim Hortons, wishing I had enough money for a doughnut and a mug of hot chocolate. I always brace myself against the cold wind that blows off the lake from Canada, but that never helps. Half freezing, I follow Erie’s shore, which looks empty and abandoned. The lifeguard stands and overturned aluminum fishing boats have been tagged by graffiti and covered in bird shit. I walk by Pangolin Park with its empty ball fields and volleyball pits, and past streets named after strange animals: Ermine, Genet, Lemming, Jerboa, Armadillo, Serval.
    Other times I go to Canadaway Creek to watch fishermen wading into the current, slow-moving brown and green figures blending with the water, becoming a part of it. They wave their lines in circles above their heads like they’re gathering forces or working magic, and I imagine that one day, when I am older, I will buy a set of waders and a fishing pole and join them. I won’t even care if I catch anything; it will be enough to stand among them in the rushing water, a kind of quiet meditation to put mymind at ease and help me remember that the world isn’t such a shitty place after all. Or if it is, it will remind me that I can still come here and forget that I’m hungry and have no friends.
    But today is different because I have money, so I walk in a totally different direction, to Rusty’s Diner for breakfast. The waitress is this pretty twenty-something-year-old with blond hair that’s piled up on her head in a really nice way. She’s not at all like the girls at my school with their low-cut jeans, belly button studs, and back tattoos. She looks good, though, and as crazy as it might sound, I wonder what it would be like to kiss her. She’s got the beginnings of lines at the edges of her eyes, which totally disappear when she smiles, so she looks young and happy, but only when someone makes the effort to make her smile. I’m guessing this doesn’t happen very often at Rusty’s, because some old guy in a highway worker’s uniform is already giving her a hard time.
    “Do you even remember what I ordered? Because it sure as hell wasn’t a Western omelet.”
    She apologizes and takes his plate away as a silence falls over the half-dozen tables. I want to tell that guy to shut his mouth and not talk to pretty women like that. I want to look him in the eye and make him apologize—“Now say you’re sorry, asshole!” But I don’t do anything, because that’s movie stuff and I’m not that guy. I don’t know what to say to make her smile and do that thing where her eyes light up and her face changes just because she’s found a little bit of happiness in an otherwise crummy day. Still, it’s good to imagine, and I get lost in a fantasy where shetouches my arm and says, “James, are you going to take me away from this awful life? I know I’m a little old for you, but I really think we can make it work.”
    Crazy, I know.
    “Are you ready to order?” She’s standing over me with her little pad, and I’m embarrassed because of the stupid shit I have been thinking. “Do you need some more time?” she says.
    “No. I know what I want.”
    She taps her pad, smiling, waiting for me to find my wits and speak again.
    “Bacon and eggs, please. And French toast.”
    “My, you must be hungry. Anything to drink?”
    “Coffee. Black.” I don’t know why I say this, because I’ve never had coffee before. But all the guys at the counter have steaming mugs, and I want to look like a regular guy. She fills my cup.
    “I’ll get your food out in a minute, hon.”
    Nobody has ever called me that and it feels nice, even if she probably says it to everyone. I’d like to say something nice back to her, but nothing comes to mind. Then my food arrives and I dig in because I’m starving, and the guy next to me at the counter, an old-timer in a red plaid shirt and suspenders, slides me a bottle of ketchup and hot sauce without saying a word. I like this, too, and decide it’s a sign