James lay on the ground, his lips blue, skin ashen, not breathing. He appeared peaceful, serene, surrounded by an island of his belongings, a black Nike backpack, 2 cheap on the verge of tearing Dollarama plastic disposable bags and a couple of green reusable grocery bags made from recycled plastic bottles and a glass bowl pipe laying near his right hand, fogged with the burnt residue of recent use.
Jody had just gotten off a 12 hour, 8pm to 8am shift, working security in a Downtown office building that from the best of her estimation didn’t actually need overnight guarding. In her head she was making calculations about the $180 she had just earned and to which pile of debt, it would end up being applied to. Turning the corner at the Tim Hortons she saw James laying there.
Jody and James had spoken on a couple occasions as she always stopped into the coffee shop for an extra large, no sugar, 1 milk, on her way to the empty building she was assigned to sit and struggle to stay awake in. The coffee cost $2.19 plus tax which added up to $2.47 rounded to $2.50, ever since Canada eliminated the penny back in 2013. Jody always kept a $1 and a $2 coin in her pocket, so that she could use them to purchase her coffee. James was often sitting outside the front door entrance to the Tim’s and Jody would always give him the 2 quarters she received as change, on her way out. On days when he wasn’t outside Jody’s anxiety would kick in and she would become worried by having to hang on to the 50 cents, so much so that she would often leave it on the bench in the bus shelter, 10 feet away, figuring that as she had seen James staying dry in there during a few rain storms, that maybe it would get to him that way.
Jody had always found Toronto, the biggest city in Canada to actually have a weird small town vibe going on, as despite its large population and ever changing landscape, you would often run into people you knew from other parts of the city or that you met in completely different places. Talking to James, she had discovered that they were both from Timmins and even went to the same high school, though a decade apart. So there he lay to the east of the bus shelter, looking like a Friday night drunk asleep on a Timmins snowbank. Appearing like a ghost of his normal self.
Jody’s security training kicked in as she flung off her work issued backpack and pulled out the Naloxone kit she was issued, in case of an overdose on the corporate property. She quickly unzipped the kit and pulled the nasal opioid reversal drug out of its sealed plastic packaging, tossed the packaging to the ground and stuck the tapered shaft into his left nostril, pushed the red plunger, releasing it into his mucus membrane, where it would quickly cross the blood brain barrier to sit on his opioid receptors. She called out to a passing woman of about 25, who was looking over as she casually strolling past the scene. Jody yelled for her to call 911, to which the woman looked away and kept on walking. “Fucking Cunt”, Jody thought as a man of about 60 walked over with his phone to his ear saying that he was calling 911.
Jody ripped open James’s worn and torn winter coat and started to give him chest compressions, exactly as she had been trained to do. She could feel James sternum give way to her force and heard a muffled cracking sound. With sweat pouring from her forehead, her arms and shoulders in pain she continued pumping blood and oxygen through James body. All her effort seemed to be paying off as James started to make small movements and then suddenly opened his eyes and attempted to raise his head.
Jody stopped pumping James chest and sat back on her haunches feeling both exhausted and elated at the same time. After a few minutes, an ambulance arrived. She told them about her intervention and quickly drifted into the background of sidewalk gawkers and curious people passing by.
Everything is Nothing but Everything 