Have to Go, 1985, by TL

From MemoryArchive

Who: TL
What: Have to go
When: Spring, 1985
Where: Toronto

My family of seven traveled 220 miles east from our small Michigan town to Toronto. It was March. We were vacationing. I was eight. I had never scene a city. Skyscrapers astonished me. I couldn't see the top of them as our family Suburban clumisly navigated the streets.

We did lots of things tourist do. We rode the subway. I bought a harmonica in China town. I refused to eat at the Chinese restaurant because the food was foreign and smelled funny. I suspected the meat was derived from alley cats. I pressed my fingers to the glass of storefronts with chickens and ducks hanging in them.

At some point during the trip, my dad and I were walking around the city. I was holding his hand. My dad was looking in the opposite direction of me. He noticed a police officer chuckling at us. My dad turned towards me. I was relieving myself against a building. I had never been anywhere it wasn't OK to pee outside.