Downtown London Ontario

The downtown sector is strange in London. Given the size of our population you'd presume some amount of landmarks or points of interest, but, no, it's actually about the same as cities a 1/8th of our total sprawling landmass. There are local shops and restaurants, along with a few quaint spots. That alone makes London downtown feel pretty anemic, not because it's bad(it is but ill get to that) but because you'd expect a lot more for what we are.

And the thing is, that's just its economic shortcomings, in actuality London has somehow managed to not only have a weak downtown sector but has also dragged in the issues of towns we do share our population with; namely a large number of homeless and drug addicts that have nowhere to go.

So walking around Dundas, our "main" Street, you pretty quickly get used to the condensed cacophony of unfortunate souls. I had a man call me a liar and cuss me out when I said I didn't have change(I did have a twenty;) Alongside a wide variety of ghost punchers and hearty screamers, pretty standard stuff all things considered.

To condense my point: we don't have small-town charm and we don't have big-city attractions; we just have shortcomings from both.

That being said, the sheer depth of our problems never, truly, ceases to amaze me. For example, I was trying to catch a bus; specifically, I was walking the length of downtown to transfer from the 6 to the 12; usually one will drop you off right at the other, but since I needed to drop off a package and due to the never-ending construction downtown, I thought it better to pick up the 12 down the road rather than risk detours.

Unfortunately for me, as I turned a corner, I saw... him. He was turned away from me and clearly stroking himself( groin and nipples) and although he was fully clothed I was unable to see if he was rubbing over his jeans or if he had his cock out. Which was a problem because he was doing this 5ft away from a bus stop... my bus stop.

So I just stood there, observing the man's pattern for a moment. Oddly he looked as though he was dancing, a serene look over his face, his eyes were clothed. He turned and I braced myself for a public display of nudity, but thankfully, my gaze was met with only the tightly braced strain of a fully enact zipper. I breathed a sigh of relief, he wasn't gonna be firing off any wild ones. As I was coming to my decision, two less aware young men passed me heading right for the dancer; I braced myself again but they managed to skirt past him without any difficulty. That being said they had an understandably worried, disgusted and surprised look on their faces. The Dancer just continued his solo charade, unbothered.

Emboldened I stepped onto the road and skirted around him myself; stopping a few meters up the road. I wondered what kind of drugs could make a person feel so good and be so unaware. Myself, I've never desired to try such a thing, but out of professional curiosity, it had my attention. It must have been the first time he'd done it, despite his age and hygiene he was experiencing truly something fantastic for clearly the first time.

Annoyingly I had to keep checking down the street; the last thing I wanted was to miss my bus and the second to last thing was to miss him "cumming" towards me. I did my best to avoid his sight line which wasn't hard considering his eyes were closed, but I inadvertently locked eyes with another.

On the far end of the street, where I had come from, there was a young woman with her phone out. Either she was videotaping this man's sad drug tirade or she was in the process of calling the police. The former is fairly scummy but technically within her gull legal right, and the latter was totally justified if not tinged with an air of tragedy.

This man, this Dancer, is clearly broken in some way. Obviously addicted to drugs and potentially without any way or anyone to help him through all of the issues that accompany that. Probably doesn't know where he is, and depending on the drug might not even know who he is. But his life is about to get worse, he is about to be on the sex offenders registry.

What little sympathy he might have had will be lost forever, his life will be unrecoverable; lost to the streets, to the chemicals that invade his mind.

As the bus pulled away from the stop I'm glad I didn't get to see the police arrive.