The ThunderBlogs

The traffic signals cycle through the usual colours as some shuffle about on the sidewalks and others wander the street.  As the sun makes its nightly exit, the dynamic of the streets drastically changes. The world shifts from a placid gloom to a frightening, raucous nightlife.

Two police officers exchange disconcerting looks with passersby who don’t fit the usual caricature of a resident of the Downtown Eastside. The officers proceed to question bystanders moving past them and offer strong words of caution.

“I wouldn’t want your camera to be stolen. But more importantly, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” the officer said.

The warning from the police is hardly necessary as expletives and threats fly around the tense environment.

As the police question where I am from and what I am doing in the area, an escalated argument is heard and they rush off, but not before cautioning me once more about the neighborhood.  As the officers race toward the altercation, a car screeches to a halt a few feet away, barely missing an oblivious pedestrian who responded with a silent one-finger salute to the driver and continued diagonally across the intersection.

The incident did not phase the police as they continued toward the altercation. As they passed through the intersection, two elderly women of Asian decent sat on their lawn chairs on the sidewalk and offered colourful advice.

“**** you!” they said and then giggled.  It was unclear if it was at the police, the driver or the pedestrian.

As dusk crept away and darkness entered the streets, people rested on benches in a small park at the adjacent corner of the intersection and found the street lights to the area were all being shut off.  The park goers seemed undisturbed and undaunted by the sudden absence of electricity, but the question as to why the lights were extinguished was the first that leapt into my mind.

The scene just around the corner of Cambie Street presented a even more vivid example of striking economic disparity than the incidents I had just witnessed. The contrast between the decrepit inner city neighborhood plagued by drug addiction and homelessness offered a strange and disturbing juxtaposition to Cambie’s bustling restaurant district replete with fine dining and upper-middle class patrons.