"Excellent."
"Thank you."
"Before you take your customary time off to celebrate your wisdom,
there's more for you to consider. Let‘s get out of here."
Standing, I put all of my money on the tray, which included a slightly
larger than 15% tip; keeping the overage would have made me look cheap,
while prudence wouldn‘t have fed a parking meter.
As she stood, Bonnie slid the crumpled receipt she had written on
towards me.
"I know what it says," I said, leaving it untouched.
A few steps toward the cash register later, we chuckled at the same
time; both of us were thinking about what Catherine would make of a note
that said, "How do I feel about you?"
Once outside, we headed toward the broad beach at English Bay,
while Bonnie continued making her point about Kent State.
"Your experiences slaughtered your altruistic illusions, which were
defenceless in light of your comfortable and caring upbringing as a young,
white man educated more or less in the heartland of O ntario. Specifically,
your sense of self- importance and naive expectations of continued living
in a safe society were crushed when the press corps abandoned you in
Argentina. After this, you deliberately determined to prosper from others
suffering, by diligently over-charging them for your pain and suffering.
You missed the irony, and contradiction, of acting as they did including
putting others at risk to the extent that you were willing to be injured.
Historically," she motored on, "this has been an all-or-nothing proposition
for both of you: America is dangerous to anyone who dares to confront
their muted fears and unchecked greed, and you are dangerous to me
because I‘m confronting yours. The minor difference between you and
America is that you're further ahead, now that you know you reconstructed
your image from the same rules your perceived enemies live by."
Bonnie waited for me to acknowledge this truth, which I did by
turning a shade of Nordic most often seen on the first weekend of Spring
daylight.
She continued: "You both have experienced how changing
fundamental assumptions is tantamount to committing suicide, but neither
of you have recognized that the deaths are of illusions only."
We crossed the busy intersections of Denman, Davie, then Beach, and
the seaside bicycle route as smoothly if we controlled the traffic signals.
Stepping onto the grassy skirt surrounding the beach, I said, "I can't
imagine the home of the brave and the land of the free seeing it any other
