The word from the street
TONY
“Did I show you this. Actually, I got one for you as well.”
PHILIP
“How’d you get them?
TONY
“Some of the guys from 14 Division took me out for dinner last night if you can believe that.”
PHILIP
“What … they just popped you in a squad car and sped off to the local doughnut shop?”
TONY
“Sort of like that. So after dinner, they gave me one of these things so I just asked them for another one.”
TONY
“Check out my new jacket with a royal colour?”
PHILIP
“Where from?”
TONY
“I was working a the car wash on Dundas, you know the one just up there and I was drying cars. So the supervisor gave it to me. Pretty good, eh?”
TONY
“A cop gave me a ticket yesterday.”
PHILIP
“For what? For being homeless?”
TONY
“Almost. I was standing at the top of the street and this cruiser stopped and the cop gave me a ticket. She said I was panhandling near a bank machine which was an offence. So I asked if I could at least get a warning first, since I didn’t know about the law but he officer didn’t budge at all.
“So today a friend tells me that CFRB radio said that a lot of street people had been ticketed recently for all sorts of things. The guy on the radio said that it costs way more to lock folks up than the city will ever collect in fines. No kidding! I mean, where am I going to find the ninety-six bucks anyway?”
