August 11th Memorial

This is a report of the memorial that occurred on August 11th. Written by Jacob Allderdice with photos by Rick Conroy. (note- address was edited out)

I came by bus from Keele and Steeles–took me an hour including a long
wait at Steeles and Martin Grove.

Arrived at 7:30 exactly. It’s a neighbourhood of schools and leafy
trees, some midrise Regent park-style apartment buildings (set back
from the road with lawns) lots of kids playing everywhere, lots of
cyclists (99% on sidewalk), lots of pedestrians–and lots of cars.

No sign of Rick or others. Earlier I had spoken to him on the phone from work; he
was a bit late leaving the Bike Joint and told me to bring a book to
read while I wait. He said two people from the bike pirates were
coming.

I walked up the diagonal roadway to the little street where the murder
happened. On this little street that runs parallel to Martin Grove and
Finch are the front doors to all the houses that “back-lot” onto
Martin Grove or Finch (most of the post-60s Toronto suburbs are
designed with back-lot houses wherever there are arterial roads. It’s
a model you seldom see south of Eglinton, but there are bits of it
here and there. The street where Isaac Morkel was killed, Leslie
Street at Eastern ave, has back-lot houses on it.) It’s worth thinking
about the backlot houses because what they are trying to do is to make
a more human front door–a quiet street to enter one’s home from–at
the same time that they allow more speedy traffic along the
arterials–no driveways entering and exiting every 25 feet, no pesky
pedestrians darting into the road to retrieve errant kickballs, etc.
But the result is the arterials become devoid of humanity and a
friendly face–they become a space to get through on your way to
somewhere else. An anonymous zone.

As I walked up the diagonal lane I caught up with a man walking his
son (age 6 or so) who was riding his bike–you could see he was just
getting the hang of it. I asked the man if he knew where the murder
had taken place. He pointed up the way, to one or another of the
cul-de-sacs that entered off the back street, but said he’s not from
the neighbourhood so wasn’t sure. He suggested I talk to the guy who
was mowing his lawn up at the corner.

The lawnmowing guy had a big job to do. He didn’t really want to turn
off his machine to talk to me, and we spoke above the roar. He pointed
to a big spot on the road and said that was it, that was where the
murder had happened. He said he didn’t know the cyclist, the
man who was shot, but pointed to one of the houses at the edge of the
footpath and said “he lived there.”

I walked back toward the footpath. Coming along behind me was a
middle-aged man who looked a bit (to me; I am terrible with faces) a
little like the man identified as Lennon’s father in the newspaper
interviews. I waited for him to reach me (he crossed out in the road
to avoid me; I walked out toward him) and asked him if he knew Lennon
or where this house was. “I’m not from this neighbourhood,” he said,
but then said “he lived at number xx, not at that house. That house is
where his girlfriend’s mother lives.”

No sign of Rick or the Pirates, so I went and knocked at the door. A
woman about my age came out, with a couple really small kids at her
feet and an older kid in the background. She was talking on the
telephone, but she sort of held it at her chin and asked me what I
wanted. I told her that I was there with a group of people who wanted
to leave some flowers in memory of Lennon. I said we were cyclists and
we worked toward making the city better for people who ride bicycles.
She actually said she’d heard something about this. She must’ve seen
or heard some of the press, but I didn’t ask. I apologized for our not
calling her ahead of time; I said we were a little disorganized and
sometimes did things at the last minute. She was pretty friendly and
the kids were really cute. One of them kept smiling at me. I think one
of them was Lennon’s daughter. I asked if this is where Lennon had
lived, and she said no, it was at number xx. She was on the phone all
this time. Suddenly she said into it “you want to talk to him
yourself?” and handed me the phone.

It was Lennon’s girlfriend. I told her what was up. I said I was sorry
for not getting in touch with her or the family ahead of time. She
said it was fine. She said “god bless you.” I said it to her too.

I asked them if they wanted to come to lay flowers with us at the site
but they said no, they had spent too much time there this past week
already.

I went back out and waited some more for Rick and the pirates. They
finally showed up just before 8:00, when I was thinking about just
putting my flower down and heading home. I was thinking something had
happened. I was about to put some money into the payphone to call Rick
(Yes! a payphone at the corner of Finch and Martin Grove!) when up
they rode, coming west on Finch. Rick had the banner and one of the
pirates (I forget names) had a ghost bike mounted on his front
carrier. They were hot from the ride. It had been a longer ride than
they thought (Rick said he took a wrong turn at one point).

We walked into the backlotted street and looked at the corner by the
cul-de-sac. Rick spoke some words and we had our moment of silence.
Except for the lawnmower it was pretty quiet. We stood right in the
intersection over the pool of blood and for 5 minutes or so no cars
came by. Then we walked back out to the main corner and locked the
ghost bike to a pole there, and left our flowers. Rick took a picture
of the bike.

I got on the 8:18 bus back to Kipling station and was home by 9:45.

It was altogether a more surreal experience than many I’ve had lately.