Spadina streetcar, with two pre-teen daughters, Ex bound.

Caucasian male, mid 40s, with shaggy brown hair, wearing a rumpled blue dress shirt, rolled at the sleeves, cargo pants and leather sandals. A small leather bound notebook weights his chest pocket. He has the freshly rosed cheeks of one week's vacation.

Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje (McClelland & Stewart)

Page 78:

What night gave Rafael was a formlessness in which everything had a purpose. As if darkness had a hidden musical language. There were nights when he did not bother to even light the oil lamp that hung in the doorway of his trailer. He reached for the guitar and stepped down the three laddered steps into the field, carrying a chair in his other hand.

After the kids are asleep, his wife beside the fire with her book, he steps off the deck, landing heavy in the sand, and teeters out past the stretch of kitchen light toward the shoreline. Knee deep in surf, he feels the curl against his toes, the tug on his calves. He drops the glass of scotch and wonders when he forgot to stay standing.