"RATEGAN DOES DUNDAS AND SHERBOURNE" CRACKDEAD IZZY

Through his earphones he can hear the howls and cries of the four corners picked up by the remote mike on Izzy’s lapel.The cries for more.The cries of pain, cries of outrage, howls of insult and assault.

Look at my Canadian life; I’m dying in full sight.

Izzy is from Jamaica.He has had a face-freezing crackhead stroke rendering his heavy accent unintelligible.

His life is only about getting crack.

He’ll smoke and be high for about 18 seconds, then the never-ending craving starts again.When Izzy had first started dealing in Toronto, he was a strong man from the island with no fear, driving a Chevy with a Selassie doll dangling from the rear-view mirror.But he can’t stop breaking the number one rule of the dealer.Don’t use.
Always owing, he starts cheating and stealing.The Chevy goes.Then, the stroke.

Rategan first meets Izzy next to a notorious mens’ hostel around the corner, Seaton House.

Seaton House is the biggest homeless shelter in the city - occupancy 700, mostly men.The place is so bitter end, the caretakers have turned into prison guards, the milk of their human kindness all curdled.

Izzy has been barred from Seaton House for dealing.He takes Rategan behind the House to his rented room.It stinks like an armpit.The smell of poverty, the smell of someone who’s given up and doesn’t care.His doctor has told him if he doesn’t stop smoking crack it will kill him.But he can’t stop.He wants to die high and he’s in a hurry.And nothing Rategan brings to the table is going prevent that.

What Rategan learns is that it’s a free society in Canada, one of the freest in the world, and if you want to kill yourself on drugs, nobody is gonna stop you.There’s no real public brake on suicide by drugs, quick or slow.