Experiments in Cruelty, Vol. 1

Hey Thomas,

Today I saw a hunchbacked man pushing a shopping cart stuffed with bottles and blankets and it made me think of Old Gary. Remember how he’d smile at everything—or absolutely nothing—and mutter to himself nonstop? One day after school we dared each other to touch him, and when we did he gave us each a can of grape Fanta and smiled with whatever was left of his little black teeth. We chucked those pop cans against the side of my dad’s garage until they spewed purple froth, proof in our minds that Old Gary was trying to poison us. Next time we saw him we kicked him in the shins and ran away, laughing and hollering fuck off you smelly old Polack. Like the way I used to tell my grandma to fuck off, just for the practice. She was senile, so it didn’t matter. Still, the look on her face at what came out the mouth of a ten-year-old. Funny, it never occurred to me that Old Gary had a last name until they put it in the paper years later. Froze to death in the Blizzard of ’77. A week went by before someone saw his cart poking out of a snowdrift and they dug out the body. He was semi-famous around town so there was a bit of a writeup, though no picture. Only a rabbi went to the funeral. Turns out he actually was Polish—did you know that? The article said he’d lost his family in the gas chambers, then came to Ontario on a boat after the war to restart life. By then his mind had already been destroyed from years in Nazi camps. The few who knew him said Old Gary never stopped believing Canada would save him. Like there was any chance of that. But you and I—we turned out okay, right?