“Was that who it was!” Harold laid his knitting down. “Now, I’d wondered that. I was under the impression they were specifically there to look at orchids. I’m sure one of them mentioned a cream coloured orchid with red spots. But you’re saying it was marguerites?”

“I think so…” The anchorman’s mirth bothered me. The ladies did not press charges, he smirked, but they did alert garden staff who had the nude man apprehended. He is known to police and has been placed in custody pending investigation….I felt like penetrating the screen and wiping that dimple off his face.

“Marguerites,” Harold marvels. “Isn’t it amazing how the brain fastens on certain details, and not always the right ones! But how did you know I was here?”

“This is the third hospital I’ve been in today, looking for you.”

—

THIS MORNING I BOARDED the Metro at Berri-UQAM and rode uptown to the fancy prison on Boulevard Rivière-des-Prairies to ask if a blind man named Harold, who was no longer blind, had been sent here.

“What is his nom de famille?” The receptionist chawed green gum. Did all Montreal officials sit behind partitions and expect one to talk to them through half-moon holes so low one had to bend one’s knees and become like a six-year-old?

“I do not know it.”

“Tabarnouche, if you don’t know his name…”

A sign on the partition said Respect Uniformed Personnel. I thought for a split second that it said Uninformed. Then I remembered I was in my uniform. Were we all as uninformed as each other?

He scratched cherries and bananas off a couple of lottery tickets.

A lank-haired woman in the waiting area said, “Maybe they threw him in the lockup.” Her bulging purse was covered in studs. “If he’s harmless.”

“His name’s Harold. Maybe you saw him on the news?”

“I only have Netflix.”

“Harold isn’t a criminal.”

“Neither is Jean-Maurice!” said the woman. “Jean-Maurice is completely innocent.”

“Harold may have committed a small error in judgment…”

“Jean-Maurice wouldn’t squish an ant.”

“Harold’s was a simple mistake such as might be made by any one of the street people around the Y or the Mission…”

“I’d say they’ve put him in the lockup or the Douglas. But they won’t tell you unless you’re next of kin.”