Hitler, Mao, Harper and Ma

There was no one in Ma's coffee shop but Ma and I this morning. Hot water simmered for tea and hot chocolate beside the pot of coffee. Rain fell outside the steamed up windows. Wallpaper peeled from the walls. I was looking at the race results and wondering if I was a fucking moron for not picking the winner of the previous day's derby. The two horses I thought would go nose to nose as they neared the finish line did so but they were battling it out for third place.

The radio was broadcasting the news. You can learn some things by listening to the news. This morning I was learning not to retire in motherfucking Pakistan. The only other news was about the election. The Green Party leader is touring the country by train. Motherfuck the Green Party.

Ma was sitting in her chair staring at her cash register. She was wishing there was more money in it because her husband had not bet on the derby winner either. "Old man crazy," she had told me when I first came in. "I make coffee like crazy every day and he no bet horse name Krazy Koffee. "Some fucking gambler him!" Ma was hissing, hissing like boiling acid.

Ma caught me looking her way so she poured herself a cup and came over and sat down. "What you think about election Beer? Canada have lot of election."

We both laughed a little harder than a man and a woman usually do when Ma said election.

"You really want to know what I think about the election Ma?"

Poor lady had no one else to talk to this morning besides her husband who was busy in the back cooking up my logger breakfast.

"I think they are all a bunch of lying cocksuckers Ma. You know that. The student council in my high school had more integrity than the whole stinking works of them. And my student council got busted for taking money and using it to buy dope to sell so they could buy coke for grad."

Ma shook her head and told me. "I vote for Harper. He look like Chairman Mao but white."

"You put more thought into who you vote for than most Ma."

She gave me her proud to be a fucking Canadian immigrant look. Ma could vote for Hitler and I would still come in for breakfast every day. She knows that.