Portraits of Brief Encounters

Run-ins, pass-by's, overhears and introspections with Vancouverites and beyond. www.portraitsofbriefencounters.com | Instagram: @portraitsofbriefencounters

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CELEBRATION OF LIFE

I fell down the hole. It hap­pens. You go in with the inten­tion of send­ing a quick Face­book mes­sage, then forty-five min­utes later you’re still on the inter­net and you’ve ordered all eleven sea­sons of M*A*S*H on VHS from Ama­zon and you don’t even have a VCR. This time I was catch­ing up on the news when I read about Harper’s Fair Elec­tions Act. That nat­u­rally lead me to Googling…

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DELIVER US FROM GREENHEART The boardroom at the parks department was hot, humid and full of media and piles of us skateboarders who were filling the seats and every available space on the floor. We were waiting to speak in opposition of an asinine motion concerning the removal of a well-loved and utilized skatepark. But first there was another item on the docket––the proposed zipline at Queen Elizabeth park. Yes, a zipline. Because it’s always best to have a quick exit readily available at popular tourists spots for when your relatives come to visit and your grandpa starts talking about “all of the damn Filipinos that are moving to town” again. The commission asked you general questions about your company’s proposal like “What does the zipline’s revenue model look like?” And “What will be the environmental impact?” Before lobbing you a softball. An easy homer. “Is it true that 1/10 people who ride the zipline are squealers?” Admittedly it was a strangely worded question but not as strange as your answer. "I’m not sure about that statistic, I mean, this isn’t an episode of Deliverance.” There were two fucked up things about your response. First, Deliverance was a movie starring a sans-mustache Burt Reynolds, not an episodic. Second, you just made a wildly tangential reference to one of the most infamous rape scenes in cinematic history at a public and televised parks board meeting. A few of us gasped. The board voted almost unanimously in favour of the zipline. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #Vancouver #deliverance #savemountpleasantskatepark Originally published @sadmagazine.ca

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PETTY LARCENY vs. A MOMENT OF CONSIDERATION As a security guard you had to have known where the security cameras were. From above they watched banally as you weaseled your way into coat-check, rummaging through the other bar-goers belongings until you found my friend’s bag, unzipped it and slipped his laptop out and took off. Why you didn’t expect that he would report the theft to the bar and that your boss would check the security footage is something I don’t understand. It’s like you purposely missed the last ten steps on a well-lit flight of stairs. You wound up handing over the computer and your job. The bar manager seemed genuinely upset with what happened and personally took a taxi to my friend’s place to deliver the stolen goods. The first thing we found after making sure his files hadn’t been wiped was that you tried unsuccessfully to download Fast and the Furious 7. Was the 7th installment of Vin Diesel mumbling about family and driving impossibly bright sports cars into airplanes really worth all of this? Probably. It is a quality franchise. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #Vancouver #biltmorecabaret #vindiesel #furious7 #turbo #nos #speed3

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QUESTIONS How much enthusiasm is a sign-holder expected to display when on duty? Is there a way to quantify an appropriate level––a gauge? Does it vary between what the businesses are offering? Does a pizzeria require its sign-holder to promote with the same intensity as the cook tossing dough inside? These are all questions that I was genuinely curious about for roughly the duration of a dog fart. Which isn’t very long. But what did sit with me was how you lackadaisically held your arrow shaped sign that read “INSTANT CASH BACK” not in the direction of the H&R Block I had just walked out of, which the logo on your sign would suggest you worked for, but pointed at the street’s sun blasted asphalt. Was this some sort of silent protest against the “man”? A metaphor for the flaws in our capitalist system? A wry wink from someone who believes that the only way to close the income inequality gap is to uproot the existing infrastructure that supports it? Maybe you were just a bored teenager who doesn’t know how signs work? Or was I upset because I just paid an exorbitant amount of money to do my taxes? #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver @hrblock #pizzaandtaxes

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100 seems like an appropriate number of POBE's to thank everyone who has ever read, enjoyed, hated, liked, followed, unfollowed, commented, shared, inspired or supported Portraits of Brief Encounters in any way. I truly appreciate it. And an extra-special thanks to all the people out there eating cheeseburgers in the rain, stepping in dogshit and tracking it into barbershops, arguing with your grandmas over the phone, and publicly falling in and out of love for giving me something to write about. Love, Cole #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #Vancouver @thisopenspace @_itsyash @elliat_ @amandaleesmith @sadmagazine @kohen_witt @vancouverisawesome @booooooom @jdrabs @sophiegram_ @apommier @jstnlngz @saturninewoman @jorobot @kdvsmith @bonebirds @andreataylor425 @mrlauder @mar_killing @amfq @chadvangaalen #Iamgoingoutsidenow

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UP You were sleeping in the operator’s seat of the forklift, arms crossed with the hood of your sweater pulled nearly over your eyes as I walked past. Cars whipped by on Clark St. and I hoped you wouldn’t get in trouble from your supervisor for the public snooze––you looked so serene, like whatever it was you were dreaming about was worth the risk. Were you dreaming about lifting things with your machine? Bringing objects from one area to another? Perhaps moving large mounds of ground beef slapped haphazardly on a pallet to the top shelf of your elderly mother’s kitchen pantry––meat bits flittering to the ground like ashes. Maybe you were raising an entire people from oppression, the forks of your machine tearing skywards through centuries of systemic social and economical prejudice. Or were you speeding down a long, open desert highway, stopping only to move deceptively large and immobile tortoises from one side of the road to the other, securing their safety from the merciless tires of the other drivers who just didn’t give a shit about the gift of life. Whatever was making your eyes jump back and forth like a protracted game of pong behind their lids, I hoped it was worth it, as the man who had been watching you with his arms folded from the large front window of your building began to make his way outside. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #Vancouver #groundbeef #100

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STROLLING Commercial Drive was quiet, dark and damp as I walked my way home. I hoped the lone pair of headlights driving past would slow so the sound of its puttering engine could cut the silence for a little longer. When I turned off onto my street I saw it––an empty baby stroller in the middle of the sidewalk, no baby or parent in sight. This should generally be an eerie omen but I took it as inspiring. What if that baby was just fed up with being a babbling idiot, spoon-fed the pablum of the masses, and had decided to pick itself up by it’s OshKosh B’Gosh booty straps, walk out of that stroller and grow up? Maybe that baby just took initiative? It’s not that hard to form the vowels and consonants needed to call a cab for you and your mother––I can do it. And I probably could’ve done it sooner if I wasn’t held back by the societal confines we place on babies––all the oohing and awing and foam covers on coffee table corners. I spilled beer on the sidewalk while applauding the baby for its courage to overcome. I was imagining it applying online for a job as a software engineer at Hootsuite when the other beer in my pocket overturned, soaking the front of my pants. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #commercialdrive @hootsuite @oshkoshkids

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SATISFACTION ······························································· ACT 1 SCENE 1 It’s nighttime on the street outside of my apartment building. The cherry trees have just blossomed and hang like clustering sprites overtop of us in the moonlight. Enter WOMAN 1, WOMAN 2 and ME. WOMAN 1: (slurring words) Hey! You know this car? ME: No. WOMAN 1: You like this car? ME: I’m not really a Subaru fan––is something going to happen to that car? WOMAN 1: I can’t see into the future, I’m no wizard. Do I look like a wizard? WOMAN 2: (snickers behind the car) ME: (looks closely to confirm that she is not in fact a wizard) No. WOMAN 1: (yelling) Then get outta here! We’re just a couple of muggles out on a Tuesday! ME: (skates off to the entrance of the apartment building) I hear a loud crunch, followed by a booming second impact––this one accompanied by a tinkling of glass shards on the pavement that sounds like a rush of radio static. END SCENE #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #subaru #muggles

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Senior’s Discount I knew the allergy medicine was in another aisle but I couldn’t help but continue scrutinizing the effectiveness of competing antacids by shaking them around so I could watch over my shoulder as you browsed through the condoms. You held an elderly finger out like a divining rod and scanned the surprisingly large shelf, stocked with varieties and flavours I’d never heard of or would dare put on. A shaky digit hovered over a package that boasted it would “deliver warming and tingling sensations to both partners.” From what I understood about the aging process, the body’s skin loosens and sags over time. If you weren’t circumcised I imagine your foreskin would be like a sweater with sleeves too long for the arms––you could probably just tie a knot with the excess and keep your pennies in your pocket. I thought about suggesting it when you found water and grabbed a box of Magnum: Ribbed. Whether due to envy or curiosity, there was never a moment in my life where I wanted to see an old man’s penis more. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #Safeway #trojancondoms #tinglingsensation #selflubricatingrascal #itisjustapenis

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A REAL COMEDIAN It’s not like you came out of the shadows in any particularly menacing way; it’s just startling to see anyone emerge from the shadows as the hour nears midnight to ask if you want to hear a joke. I was still in the midst of locking up my bike so there was no escape without being rude––I had to respond. "How do you find Will Smith in the snow?” There could only be a few directions this one could take and they all seemed to point towards uncomfortably racist. This wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted to walk the ten paces to the liquor store and grab my beer before they locked the doors––now I’d have to play audience to your bigotry. You swayed before me and I stammered some unintelligible protest and braced myself for the ignorant guffaws. "Just look for the Fresh Prints!” You slapped your thighs and laughed, almost doubling over. I was surprised--it was funny. A relief. You introduced yourself and we went inside. I helped you pick out beer and you told the joke to the cashier. He didn’t hesitate like I had and everyone in the store laughed. I had been the ignorant one. My cheeks burned. "Want to hear the one about the Italian child-bride on her wedding night?” You called out as I pedalled off into the night. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #Vancouver #FreshPrince #sensitivitytraining

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It was a string of numbers that looked like they could belong to someone I know or something I was expecting––maybe I’d finally won that all expenses paid cruise. Either way, I didn’t answer and I watched the phone until it stopped vibrating in the same way people suffocating the bedridden with pillows watch the limbs flail until they mercifully fall limp. In the Online message boards dedicated to strange and unknown numbers I found that this one had been vibrating the phones of many others. A few said that these phantom digits belonged to a mouth breather who hung up only after their heady silence had reached peak creepiness. Even more said that the person on the other end claimed to be from Scotia Bank, CIBC or RBC and were conducting surveys that asked personal financial questions but hung up when asked if they could identify themselves. Impostors was the consensus . I thought about fakes and phonies––the teenager from Florida who posed as an OB/GYN for a month without hospital staff knowing; those knock-off Gucci leather gloves a friend had bought in Chinatown and then lost without a care; how I pretend to be up to date on world’s happenings by simply watching The Daily Show––my phone began to shake. Those same eleven numbers. I whispered “fuck off” into the pillow as I watched the legs kick. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #CIBC #RBC #mouthbreather

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LIGHTS The woods seemed to shift and move from the shadows of the near hundreds of people who were drinking, laughing and celebrating in the humid summer night. I’d never heard of someone renting out an entire campground, but they had; and as the first fire pit broke out into flames and everyone around began to dance it was clear it was a good idea. As I made my way back from nature’s urinal I was given a Roman candle by a man who was handing the colourful explosive out like food stamps. I appreciated the gesture but was in no state to operate something that could potentially remove a digit. Then you slid out from the dark of the trees and I passed it off to you. Your eyes grew wide with childlike worry and wonder and you asked sincerely: “Should I?” It was then that a disco ball was turned on in the back of a pick-up and the perimeter of conifers were blanketed in flashing blues and greens. I remembered the handful of mushrooms we’d eaten earlier as your saucered pupils waited for an answer. “Nah, you shouldn’t.” I said and took the firework back and we walked towards the lights. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #slocan #kootsroots #naturesurinal #campdisco Final portrait from the gallery game by @billyholographic .

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EQUUS FERUS CABALLUS PUGNA You, the large man in the tutu, started it is what I’d heard. Apparently you’d been sloppily hitting on the man with the horses head’s girlfriend and then pushed the much smaller equine when confronted. After a brief tussle you were broken up and we all continued dancing. I asked my friend how we ended up here and he shrugged. Early 90’s house music filled every open space of the room. A projector beaming a looped video of an outdoor dance music festival was flashing up on stage, interrupted only by the DJ’s shadowed, herky-jerky movements around his equipment. Then the unfortunately recognizable sound of bone colliding with bone. The crack followed by a thud. The thud being you hitting the floor. Synthesizers kept playing and people kept dancing, only a handful of concerned ravers asking what happened and if your supine body if it was alright. The horseman trotted slowly backwards towards the exit. The blood that trickled from your mouth matched your tutu. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #anzaclub #contemporaryadultviolence #chrisgaines Portrait by @fourhundredml for the gallery game @thisopenspace 1000 leagues ago.

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SUNDAY MORNING The spare helmet was squishing my head and folding my ears closed on themselves. You’d offered me a ride home and as we shot down Main Street I could feel my added weight testing the small motorcycle’s suspension. At breakfast we’d talked art, bad roommates, what friends Tinder had told us we had in common, theorized what childhood issues had led to our server to being so rude and how relieving it was to originally plan to meet each other through the app in order to sleep together and then go for breakfast instead. As we bounced back over the bumpy tarmac I realized that this was what I had needed. Human interaction. Thoughtful conversation. Sure, the prospect of some sort of intimacy was nice, but after months of having none it was more than enough to just see your eyes wrinkle behind your glasses as I told a particularly tasteless joke about the late Patrick Swayze. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #ghostride #sorryswayze Portrait by @amfq for the gallery game 82080 minutes ago @thisopenspace .

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HOLD UP When I first found you hanging on the wall at the second-hand store I knew we would work. Your smooth, black leather was devoid of loud patterns and the slim, dull brass buckle that held your ends together did its job without drawing attention to the delicate region directly above my crotch. But now, after years of abuse and repair our run is nearing its end. And unfortunately it is you, not me. Your holes have stretched too long and are no longer snug with the prong. I went to collect my clothes from the Laundromat and only discovered you hanging open and lazy against my thighs as I left. The couple who run the place have been uncomfortably friendly with me ever since. But your untimely swan song was the afternoon I started the new volunteer job. A job that involves working with children. Children. Thankfully I caught your last act of negligence seconds before entering the building and immediately having the police called on me. Just consider this a necessary retirement. You’ve supported me for so long, let me support you in old age. I can use you to hold that one broken chair together or something. #portraitsofbriefencounters #portraits #vancouver #beliethebelt Portrait by @andreataylor425 for the gallery game a couple months back @thisopenspace .

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ONE, TWO, THREE At six-thirty in the morning shadows have a certain modesty. Yes, they're there, enjoying their last moments on the dance floor; but when the sun slowly rises they don't ask the DJ for one more song. They realize their limitations and call for a cab home. And as I pedalled my way to work, bleary eyed and revelling in the fact that I'd finally put avocado on my sandwich for lunch, I was incredibly thankful for the self-awareness of those shadows. Without it I wouldn't have seen you and your family dart from behind a car and skitter across the road; your young ones getting into a tussle mere feet from my tires. It was then that I truly understood why you liked to work in the night: the darkness was a keen, compassionate and stylish partner. It didn't ask questions and was always up to salsa. I looked back at you one more time before cycling into the loud, clumsy Macarena of day. #portraits #portraitsofbriefencounters #vancouver #raccoonbandit #clumsymacarena #midnightdoodles Portrait by @jorobot for the gallery game a while back @thisopenspace

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STONES Over two-weeks and two return visits and they were all still hard. My judgement was off, like I had been trying to guess my way through a cup and ball trick. I was missing whichever days their flesh would be soft enough to spread over a bagel and consume. I squeezed my hand through the pile of rock hard avocados as if it were earthquake rubble - hoping, praying that my fingers touched tender skin. Multiple people stopped beside me and then promptly left, sighs trailing behind them, seeing what I was doing as time better spent poking the brown spots on bananas or reading the cover of People magazine while in line for the till. Then you squatted next to me and dove your hand into the mess. I let you know the situation and we commiserated momentarily but you kept on digging. What made you so resilient even after I cut the head off of any chance of success? There's no doubt that I also love guacamole but at this point we were just fishing for ghosts. I wished you luck as I finally caved and got up to leave. You thanked me and I saw determination burn in your eyes as your hand continued to root deeper and deeper, and your large, sagging breasts draped themselves over the fruit. #pobe #portraits #vancouver #goodsourceofprotein #deathorguacamole Portrait by #brettbarmby for last week's immersive gallery game @thisopenspace .