From Call It in the Air
All of Us Walk Around Naked
By: Gregory Light - Oct 07, 2026
(Toronto 1972)
Joey is sitting on a hard Toronto Transit Commission bench, haunting the street-level terminus of the Pape subway station. He is shielded from the hot summer sun by a concrete roof, but the dry heat nudges uncomfortably through the open sides of the bus bays. He feels the sweat slowly collecting under his arms and on his forehead. It is after 11 a.m. He has occupied his spot on the bench since 10 a.m. Waiting. And reading—often the same sentence several times.
Joanna. Joanna, where are you?
With every sound, Joey's eyes dart from the page. Now a bus pulls in nearby to unload a fresh cargo of people, its hydraulic doors opening with a sharp screech, unleashing a blast of the early August heat it also picked up on its route. He carefully scans the line of passengers as they emerge. No Joanna. Like most of the people he has inspected over the last hour, they are dressed for the weather Bathing suits, cut-offs, T-shirts, halter tops, sandals and running shoes. Off to the beaches and islands to soak up the sun. It makes his search easier. Joanna will stick out. As the last passenger, a mother who stopped to mop up her two-year-old's nose, disappears to the trains downstairs, Joey retreats into his book.
"All of us walk around naked," he reads for the fourth time: it was from the second of two books he had snatched from his junk collection earlier that morning. He had not wanted anything too serious, not if there was the possibility that he'd have to wait all day.
The first book he brought along, a recently published collection of essays, entitled A Triple Alliance by Higgins, had been a letdown. The title essay, arguing in favour of a union between Quebec, Greenland, and Baffin Island had been promising ‘junk’, but the following essays had been pretty standard academic fare. Nothing odd, bizarre or enlightening.
Higgins had insisted Joey have a free copy. 'Many of these essays are in your debt,' he said reverently while inscribing the inside of Joey's copy with a quote from one of Irving Layton's poems.
It grew from nothing
Inside me it grew
It grew in my veins and arteries
In my bones and flesh
It mastered my blood.
He added, a profound glance to Joey, 'but it would not have grown without your help. My sincerest thanks, F. Higgins.
Joey was both embarrassed and moved by the inscription. It had been written and offered to him with feeling and good intention. But it also made him wonder what impact he may have had on the final version. Two essays in particular. The title essay, which the author labelled “speculative investigation", and a piece called 'The Aftermath’. Both were severely criticized for an unreferenced ‘clandestine source’. As for the quote (which Higgins said he had jotted down quickly at one of Layton's poetry readings), Joey later found the full poem, titled Silence. It did, indeed, begin the way Higgins had written it, but it ended:
One day I found it curled up
In my skull
Under my useless tongue
Now I have nothing to say
To anyone.
The arrival of another bus interrupted Joey's thoughts. He was attuned to every clink, rumble, and swoosh. Again, a consignment of near-naked sun-seekers disembarked. Still no Joanna. Joey figured the least she could do was stick to her normal routine, a routine which he calculated, entailed her taking a bus from somewhere in the Don Mills area down to the Pape subway station where she would have to transfer to go downtown. Pape station, he determined, was his best bet.
Discreetly back from ‘the Danforth’, five subway stops into eastern Toronto, Pape station was also Joey's only bet. Since his icy telephone conversation with Joanna, he had repeatedly attempted to call her. But she refused even to speak to him, hanging up when she heard his voice.
'Joanna! Wait! Give me a -' Click.
Another time, after he'd asked "why?" softly in his most regretful voice. A pause. He thought he could hear faint, sympathetic breathing and ventured a second, sorrowful 'Joanna, please.'
'It's no good, Joey. I've thought it over. It won't work.' The deadline burned his ear.
The next time he called, he spoke quickly, 'Please, send me a note and tell me what has happened.' Then he hung up. But no note came. He was beside himself with pain. Late one night while setting new records flipping his penny, he finally realized this was what love must be.
'She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.' After a thousand tosses, tails led by twenty-six. She loved him! The next evening, after she'd hung up yet again, he repeated the exercise. This time the victory was slimmer and only because he had continued the session until tails took the lead. The third evening, Friday night, she hadn't been in at all.
The next morning Joey conceded that Joanna might have reason to be upset with him. He also conceded that his behaviour was bizarre but, in a Dustin-Hoffman, The-Graduate, kind of way. But, if it was over, she should have the decency to tell him face to face. He would accept no less. Even if it meant tracking her down. He checked every scrap of paper on which he might have unwittingly jotted down her address. Nothing. She had never given it to him. 'Damn it!' He paced the floor. Gary huffed impatiently. He could not forgive Joey for losing her. “I’ll get her address,” Joey promised.
The next call he made was to the university registrar's office. He declared he was Joanna's father, in Toronto for a brief stopover on route to a conference in the Soviet Union. To add credibility, he prefaced his remarks with a rambling performance about how foolish he felt calling the University for his own daughter's address, droning on about how his luggage, with his address book, had been mistakenly sent to Moscow two days earlier.
'I'll just check your daughter's file,' the woman at the other end of the line said. She had swallowed it. But then. 'I'm afraid we don't have an address in the city for your daughter, sir, just a telephone number,' and she gave Joey the number he had been calling all week.
'No address? You’re positive?'
'An address on Lake Simcoe. Care of a Mr. David Sutherland.'
Joey hung up. David Sutherland. Lake Simcoe. So that had been her address once. Was it becoming so again? Getting in touch with Joanna was that much more urgent. Which is when he pulled out a large map of Toronto and pored over it for an hour. The best point on the map to catch Joanna, he calculated, was Pape station. She had to pass through it at least twice a day. Maybe more. Tomorrow he would wait all day if he had to. And the next day. And the next.
Two in the afternoon and Joanna still had not shown up. Joey had moved to another bench. More shade. The sun had shifted along the first bench like a noxious drunk inching closer to bum money. Eventually, it slobbered uncomfortably onto his lap. And he moved, missing a handful of passengers from the latest bus. The chances one of them had been Joanna were small, but it nagged at him. Already, he was sure he'd missed her, meaning he'd have to wait until she came back through the station on her way home. A minimum, he guessed, of four more hours. And it was all McDougal's fault.
Joey had originally planned to be at Pape station at nine a.m., not too late, but after rush hour which he knew Joanna would avoid. He had foolishly assumed the impeccably reliable McDougal would bounce into his room at nine. McDougal was late. He didn't arrive until almost ten, a sad lethargy sapping the spring of his morning step. He looked utterly shattered and Joey made the mistake of asking him what the matter was.
'Everything.' McDougal flopped into Joey's chair. Then said nothing.
'Okay, what's so urgent you have to ask me first thing in the morning?' Joey pulled his jeans on, hoping George would make it short. He didn't.
'I've met this woman,' he said in a grave tone. 'I know, you think, big deal, I've met all kinds of women. But I swear this is totally different. I mean totally. In the first place, she's American.
'Ah come off it, George. American, give me a break. If she was Turkish or Norwegian or?'
'Okay, maybe so, but I love her. I mean I truly love her. This is it for me, Edwards. This is serious.'
'So why the misery? Doesn't she like you?'
'Sure, she loves me. I'm certain about that, but that's the problem. I mean we love each other.'
'Listen, George, I wish I could help you. In fact, I wish I had your problem; but I don’t, and I can't.'
'Fuck you, Edwards! I'm trying to tell you something important!' The outburst caught Joey as he was going out the door. He sighed and stepped back into the room. But he checked his watch and left the door open to signal that he didn't have much time to spare. To his dismay, McDougal sat down on the end of the bed and dropped his head, drawing Joey back into the room. Silence ensued. Twice George sighed loudly, looked up at Joey, seemed on the verge of speaking, then closed his mouth.
Joey rolled his eyes. He knew McDougal wanted him to drag out every pathetic detail. It was the guy's modus operandi; make even the most trivial situation into an existential occasion by making it painful. 'Aw for fuck's sake, George!' Joey finally shouted, 'I don't have all day.'
'I don't know where to start,' George said slowly.
'Well, start with her name.'
'Sally,' he said followed with another long pause.
'Oh, to hell with this!' Joey turned away. 'I'm late. You can tell me later.' Which is when he spotted his junk collection and snapped up two books from it.
'When?' McDougal jumped off the bed. 'This evening?'
'No,' Joey was hoping to be with Joanna in the evening.
'But this is important, man,' McDougal beseeched, 'I have to talk.'
'Oh, shit! Okay, listen, you can tell me on the way to the subway, but no longer.'
Joey couldn’t shake McDougal until Pape. He virtually ordered the sad figure hovering in the doorway of the train to stay on. "Stay-ay," he said firmly from the platform like one would speak to a puppy. When the train pulled away from the platform, Joey quickly turned, half afraid McDougal would run along inside the car, pressing his face into each window until he was dragged off into the tunnel.
Unfortunately, he hadn't managed to shake McDougal’s story so easily. As he mounted the stairs, it sat in his head, grotesque and black, like a dead fly. And it pissed him off because it reduced the weight of his situation with Joanna. Joey's plan to find Joanna looked like an escapade at a high school pyjama party in comparison.
'It's kind of complicated,' McDougal had said the minute they left Joey's room. 'She's up here looking for her husband, a deserter from the American Marines.' He paused. 'I swear this is the gospel, man.' Joey nodded. 'He's supposed to have come up here in '69. At least that's the last she heard from him; a letter telling her that as far as she was concerned, he was dead and to tell anyone who wanted to know he was dead. Which she did. Told everyone. His family, friends, and even the Marine Corps knew he wasn't and refused to give her any money. You see, she has these two girls who were taken away from her when she became an alcoholic. I mean a real down and outer. But she doesn't drink now. Not a drop. Hell, I felt guilty having a beer in front of her. The last two nights I had orange juice. Fucking weird, man. I mean if you heard her story. Look, I'm not telling it right, but he used to beat her up and she used to get so drunk she'd pass out on the street. When he split, the Social took the kids. Not that you can blame them, I mean they were starving; might have died if the neighbours hadn't reported her. Anyway, when he left, she went to pieces and that's when she hit the streets. Begging, prostitution, drugs, you name it. She was raped, assaulted ... everything.' He paused and looked at Joey. Joey kept walking, his expression neutral, but George quickly read something into it. 'I know you think this is all bullshit. But it isn't. I want you to meet her. I want you to listen to her, man. I mean, the state she was in. Fucking gone. I mean gonnnnne!'
Joey was surprised. Meeting Sally obviously had a major effect on McDougal. By the time they reached the subway, he was repeating and elaborating on the story feverishly. He was so consumed by it; Joey was unable to get in a word. A mere attempt to comment was taken as scepticism and met by a string of "No, you're wrong", "It’s all true", "I promise", "honest", and "I swear". Inside the subway car, McDougal was worse. Refusing to take the seat beside Joey, he latched onto the overhead bar and dangled over Joey like an orang-utan, hopping from foot to foot and jabbering on to the jostling motion of the train.
'So, what am I supposed to do now, eh? She says she doesn't love him anymore. She swears it. But how do I know? She could be using me until she finds this guy. Who's to say once she sees this asshole, she doesn't fall in love with him all over again? Or goes back to the booze. Either way, I lose.'
'What about her?'
'Sure, we both lose. That's what I mean.' His lower lip quivered. 'I mean, I love her, man.'
'Why?' Joey asked. McDougal's lip quivered again. He opened his mouth but didn't say anything. 'Listen, George. I'm not saying the story's not true, but? Wait!' he cut off a looming protest. 'You asked for my opinion and I'm giving it.' George went quiet. 'Let's face it, your track record with women isn't exactly good. Which doesn't mean to say I'm telling you what to do. Do what you have to do. Just don't come to me, looking for a moral justification.'
'Because she doesn't talk about my fingers,’ George suddenly blurted out. ‘That's why I love her. Fucking college women! They go on about them; saying it doesn't matter; using it as a test of their liberalness. Sally doesn't. She's not blind. She can see it’s hideous and she knows I know she can see it, and we leave it at that.'
'Give me a fucking break, George! You use your fingers as a cheap trick to elicit sympathy.'
'So what?'
'So, don't complain when you get it, no matter how cheap.’'
'You asked me why I liked Sally, not why I hated the others.'
'You hate them?'
McDougal slumped into the seat next to Joey. 'Yes, sometimes I do.' In the short silence that followed, the subway hurtled out into the daylight, high above the Don Valley Parkway. The sun, filtering through the trestles of the long, roofed bridge, cast moving shadows on their faces.
'What do you want from me?' Joey asked, aware now of how profoundly unhappy McDougal was.
'I don't know.' McDougal was staring out the window, gazing down into the valley as the subway made its way across it. He watched the cars whipping up and down the expressway. 'To talk, I suppose. I consider you my best friend.' He turned and looked at Joey.
Joey turned away. The words numbed him. No one had said "best friend" to him since Gary had died. He made a concerted effort to ensure no one did; refusing to encourage high school classmates and avoiding contact with others. Eventually, they found other friends. But he hadn't anticipated someone like McDougal might be waiting for him; someone who had so successfully alienated everyone else, he simply assumed a bond with Joey because he saw that Joey was also alone. How did he tell McDougal that he already had a best friend?
Plunging back into the black sheath of the subway tunnel, Joey let McDougal’s remark die without response. There was something about George which demanded silence. And distance. He was the ultimate parasite, fuelling his reserves of energy by feeding off whomever he could, mostly women. If he was not consciously malicious, his sheer moral ineptitude and capacity to relinquish it was frightening. On a good day, he was amoral. He was also selfish, confused, proud, defensive, boorish, obnoxious, and utterly ridiculous. In the dosages in which they were mixed, it didn't make him insane or criminal, just irritating and overwhelmingly sad. But for Joey the most disturbing part of McDougal was the aspects of himself he could comb out. These aspects of his character, which Joanna had protested, plucking them from his personality like lint from a suit jacket, McDougal magnified and thrust in his face.