The One Percenter
Toyko was tall, over six feet, but she was slender and athletic. Because of her pedigree and the fact that she was usually the tallest woman, or man, wherever she went, she believed much, too much, was expected of her. Toyko argued with her parents for hours, and the argument was intense, passionate, and heated. Still, by the end of the presentation and the subsequent argument, her father was unmoved, solid as a rock, and refused to advance her the funding for her fitness center and gym. Her father thought she should allow her fitness business to fold and fail. She had already lost enough of his money trying to make her fitness center for women earn a profit. The failing enterprise was consuming too much of Toyko’s time and effort, to say nothing of their money. But Toyko was adamant she could make her struggling small business work; these endeavors invariably took time before they earned a profit. Her father insisted that she was not a people person. In her position at her own business, she could not attract and build a customer and client base. She shouted at her father he did not understand women, especially young women, and their fitness needs. He commanded her to talk to the human resources manager at his wealth management firm, where he and Toyko’s mother were leading partners. He insisted Toyko ask his human resources manager to find a position in the firm, any position, which suited her personality and disposition.
Toyko could barely stifle her fury and anger with her father. He refused to advance her the money she needed to support her struggling small business, yet he had so much money—truckloads of cash—sitting in bank and investment accounts. He did not know what to do with the surplus and did not share his wealth, and did not engage in any philanthropic endeavors. Toyko trembled, shook, and the flesh and cords in her neck and face twitched and quivered, as her anger was uncontrollable. She was furious; she had carefully staged a presentation for her dad, which she had rehearsed for weeks, and he had shut her down, before she could finish.
Toyko left her parents’ Rosedale mansion without saying thanks or goodbye; she abandoned all her good graces and manners because she could never remember being so angry in her life. She hopped into her BMW and drove recklessly along Bridle Path Road. She could never remember driving at such a high rate of speed through her parents’ neighborhood.
When she arrived at her condominium on Bloor Street, she decided to rob her own credit union. She even thought she had plenty of time to rob the Metro Loyalist credit union that afternoon. Her father was a morning person, and she staged the presentation for 7 am, before he went for his flying lessons. Her father was seriously considering purchasing a light aircraft for himself and her mother, as a gift to meet the disgustingly affluent couple’s travel needs, as a rich man’s retirement project.
Toyko had face masks, ski masks, weapons—legacies of the gun nut boyfriend she had dated for several months. Every night, they went to the shooting range and lost themselves in target practice. They tried to outgun each other with accurate shooting at the shooting range, as they fired loaded handguns at target practice, firing bullets at imaginary armed robbers, muggers, burglars, rapists. Now Toyko decided she would rob her branch of Metro Loyalist credit union; she knew the layout, the configuration, the personnel. She had visited Metro Loyalist credit union so many times, as she dealt with operational issues and corporate finance problems surrounding her own small business, her women’s fitness center.
Now she needed an outfit, dark, including a black shirt and black cargo pants, and these were all part of her wardrobe. Even her black balaclava, for downhill and cross-country skiing and winter hiking, was a natural part of her wardrobe. Toyko took the brand-new backpack and decided that she would walk to her credit union branch, because if she drove, she was confident that any getaway vehicle would be readily traceable back to her. Toyko strode purposefully to Metro Loyalist credit union, passing the park where she used to jog and sunbathe, and showed them the holdup note and her handgun.
When Toyko showed them the handgun, she could see the terror and fear in the eyes of the credit union tellers, some of whom appeared fresh out of high school. She felt a certain sympathy, but at the same time, she realized she had a certain job to do, to save her struggling business through a desperately needed cash infusion. She felt relieved she did not need to fire her loaded weapon, but she continued to shout commands at the tellers, until her backpack was filled with twenty, fifty, and one-hundred-dollar bills.
Toyko took the backpack and strode confidently through the back alley of the street until she reached a side entrance to the park on the lakeshore and beach. She went to the washroom of the park, undressed in a locked stall, and left the clothes she had worn during the heist in the wastebasket, stuffing them deep inside the garbage bag.
In the washroom stall, Toyko took off her shorts and crop top and adjusted her bikini top and bottom, which she wore underneath the black outfit. As she exited the changeroom, she slipped on the sandals she kept in a separate compartment of her backpack. She thought she would look suspicious without a blanket or towel, but even there someone had left a cruise ship beach towel in the changeroom. She lay on the beach blanket reading the pocketbook left behind in her gym to read—Roots. She heard the police sirens approaching from the distance but ignored them.
Toyko continued to read Roots in the park until there was no natural light. As soon as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, Toyko saw Miguel—in a black T-shirt and black trousers and steel-toe boots—collect the discarded cans from the recycle bins and wastebaskets. Toyko could not help noticing Miguel, since he seemed fit, strong, and he wore a baseball cap for the Brazil World Cup soccer team.
Toyko felt chilly in the shorts, bikini, and crop top she had worn beneath the black outfit she wore to the credit union. When she arrived at her condominium unit downtown on Bloor Street, she put the backpack with the cash in her bedroom closet. Immediately, she started to regret her actions as she acknowledged the enormity of what she had just done. She felt so depressed she decided to take an excursion to the one place that made her feel better when she felt glum and sullen: The Toronto Islands.
She brought the handgun in her extra-large Coach handbag, which had enough room for a beach blanket and towel. On second thought, she decided to stuff the cash into the Coach handbag. Early in the evening, she took a ride in the antiquated ferry across Toronto harbor.
Then she walked around the island with the oversized leather handbag with the gun and cash. Toyko strolled on the boardwalk and pathway around the island to the Centre Island Beach pier. By the time she walked to that stretch of shoreline it was late in the evening. She walked to the end of the pier. She thought that it was the most romantic place that she knew in the world, with the moonlight shimmering, the waves lapping against the beautiful beach of smooth sand, the vastness of Lake Ontario stretching across the horizon like an inland sea, the serenity, the quiet in the midst of the metropolis with lights and noise and countless residents.
After Toyko first visited the Toronto Islands and Centre Island beach, the summer after she graduated from university, she had a romantic fantasy: this was the very spot where she wanted a man to propose to her. Now as she stood at the end of the pier, she removed the handgun from her handbag. She threw the Gloch over the end of the pier into Lake Ontario, where the pistol made a splash in the chilly fresh water. Earlier, she thought she might use the sidearm to relieve her misery.
Toyko climbed the guard railing and considered throwing herself off the banister into Lake Ontario. Surely, she would perish from the cold and drown in the deep water if she jumped. She stepped down and took the backpack and looked at the cash inside the backpack. Why had she robbed her Metro Loyalist? Her father thought she was of an unsound mind, an imprudent businessperson, to bank at the credit union. He wanted her to bank at a big Canadian chartered bank, the biggest bank, in case there was a liquidity crisis or economic turmoil, another global financial crisis. Toyko’s father thought bigger was better in business. He believed in unbridled capitalism, while she believed in the cooperative philosophy and principles of the nonprofit cooperative financial institution. They were community oriented and put people before profits. The staff and management at the credit union was always warm and friendly towards her and accommodating. They treated her with respect, even though she thought the manager eyed the cleavage of her breasts too closely, even though they could see her fitness business was failing and impacting her personal finances, and she was on the verge of bankruptcy. How had she reacted, in turn? With violence.
Toyko felt horrible, filled with regret and remorse. She climbed back up the railing of the pier. She believed she was ready to hurtle herself off the end of the Centre Island pier, but then that strong-looking athletic man, wearing the same baseball cap for the Brazilian World Cup soccer team, approached her. Miguel was again wearing black, wearing torn jeans, scuffed shoes, a dirty T-shirt, and a weathered, torn baseball cap for the Brazilian World Cup soccer team.
Miguel urged her not to jump, telling her that he had been there himself, that he had considered jumping from the pier into Lake Ontario. Toyko said she was not thinking of jumping; she was merely walking, as if on a balance beam, enjoying the view. Miguel was dragging along a wagon full of recyclables. He kindled the campfire that had nearly extinguished and smoldered with smoke and glowing chars and embers. He built up the fire with scattered pieces of wood, until the flames burned strong and leapt and danced. Miguel said he was a dishwasher at a luxury boutique hotel. His wages barely covered the rent for his basement room; he was paid under the table because he overstayed his visit from Rio de Janeiro after his visa had expired. Sometimes his pay was not enough to last for food until the end of the month. He couldn’t even afford to eat at the high-end restaurant where he worked.
Miguel asked her if she wanted some sushi. She thanked him and said she did not want sushi.
“This is very good sushi,” Miguel insisted, as he handed her a paper plate. “I know this because I made the sushi myself in the restaurant kitchen. The chef loves my sushi and wants me to apprentice.” Miguel continued to eat sushi with his bare calloused hands and fingers, nicked, scarred, as he stood before the campfire, contemplating, viewing Centre Island beach, the full moon, the moonlight on the calm Lake Ontario, from the large pier, which jutted from the shoreline near the changerooms, washrooms, restaurants, patios, and lifeguard stands and rowboats. He continued to stoke and feed the campfire, which he had rekindled.
Toyko gingerly ate a piece of sushi, out of a sense of courtesy; he had persuaded her not to hurtle herself into Lake Ontario, where she would have drowned. She realized it was the best-tasting sushi she could remember eating, Toyko thanked him for sharing his story—and sushi—with her.
She told him about how she first became phobic of swimming in the lake. While she had set several high school swim team records, she had a dreadful phobia of swimming in the lake, which first afflicted her after she failed to rescue a man, intoxicated, who drowned during her first week of work as a city parks and recreation lifeguard. She joked she should have followed the advice of her father, who was always right, and right wing. Dad wanted her to work as an intern at his wealth management firm that summer. Afterwards, whenever she swam in the lake, she flailed helplessly, in a panic, and even needed rescuing herself.
Miguel gave her a hug, and then she noticed how lean and strong he was—he did not seem to have an ounce of body fat—he was all muscle and sinew. She also noticed he appeared grimy and grungy, with an earthy smell emanating from him. Still, she was so grateful for his grip and hold and could not release him. She gave him a few hundred dollars from her oversized Coach handbag, stuffed with the money from the spur-of-moment heist. She told him not to worry, that she was a trust fund kid, a one percenter.
“A one percenter?” Miguel asked. He remembered restaurant customers talking about One Percenters during the Occupy Toronto demonstrations. He had even cooked hot dogs for those demonstrators and delivered them to their encampments in the park near the cathedral down the street from where he lived in his studio apartment.
“The wealthiest one percent. I’m a one percenter by virtue of my parents.”
“A one percenter by virtue of your parents,” Miguel mused. He refused to accept her fifty- and twenty-dollars bills, saying it was her money, and he had done nothing in return.
“You saved my life,” Toyko insisted.
Miguel grunted, shrugged, and prepared to head back to the ferry docks, so he had time to spare before the last ferry of the night departed Centre Island. He shuffled off with his wagon, filled with black garbage bags full of recyclables, through the darkness off the pier, heading through the moonlit night past the changerooms and the outdoor restaurants, patios, and takeout stands, checking the bins for more beer cans.
Toyko took the cash from the handbag and tossed the currency into the fire. She scrapped out the loose bills from the bottom of the handbag and picked up the bills that drifted in the sand around the campfire and hastily added this currency into the blazing fire. She nervously glanced around the dark beach to see if anyone was watching, but the shoreline, boardwalk, the restaurant storefronts and structures were empty.
Miguel turned back at the sight of the fire growing—the smell of money burning in the distance aroused his senses and attention. But he resumed his trip along the pathway through the Centre Islands gardens, serenaded by the hissing water sprinklers.
Toyko watched the money burn as she stood over the campfire, thinking of the vanity of her efforts, the disappointment and fruitlessness of her endeavors. After she poured water from a sand bucket on the fire, she finally followed far behind him through the garden pathways, rained upon by the spraying water from the garden sprinklers, until she reached the ferry docks. They both boarded the last ferry to the mainland. Having sat across from him on the ferry, she looked at him longingly. She could see that she was making him uncomfortable.
Miguel stood up and walked to the gate on the ferry where he waited alongside his wagonful of refundable cans. The ferry docked, and Miguel hastily disembarked. Toyko followed him from the ferry terminal to Bay Street. Just before he carried his wagon with its recyclables in huge black garbage bags down the cement staircase into the subway station, she asked him if he would come home with her that night. She could cook him a meal; they could relax in the hot tub or watch a movie on her wide screen television with a Hi-Fi stereo receiver and speakers with surround sound.
Miguel shook his head constantly and then headed downstairs, easily managing to haul his gear and wagon down the dirty concrete stairwell, which reeked of urine, into the underground streetcar station. She admired his stoic personality, strength, and physicality with his raw chiseled looks. Still, she figured his refusal was for the best, as she realized she had practical matters, which she could no longer ignore or postpone, to address.
In the morning, Toyko called her manager to tell her employees at his gym and fitness center that her business was closing effective immediately. Today was their last day of work at Flex Fitness. If there were any problems or issues, she advised, they should contact her father’s lawyer and accountant. Her father’s hired guns would troubleshoot and manage whatever problems and issues arose. Her father, she realized, would be delighted she was following his advice; after all, he had offered the services of his own hired guns, lawyers, accountants, human resource personnel, even bankruptcy trustees, to shut down her business so she could move on with her life on a course, down a path, of which he approved.
Then, after she cleaned up the gym, and sold the exercise equipment and office equipment at fire sale prices, Toyko retreated into her own world, not leaving her condominium for days at a time. She stopped responding and answering her telephone, voicemail, email, and text messages. As she pondered the moments, meditated upon the present, contemplated her future, and reviewed the past, she had difficulty comprehending the fact she had resorted to armed robbery to attain such a dubious resolution, an enormous complication to her life.
Toyko feared arrest, but every time she saw a police officer upfront and personal, they smiled at her, fawned over her, held the door open for her, waited for her to cross the street, said hello, and admired her photogenic features, her statuesque body. The police seemed clueless as to the identity of the perpetrators of the armed robbery. Even that did not seem a safe supposition, because there was no reporting in the media about the robbery. The tellers and manager at Toyko’s branch insisted she keep her accounts at the credit union. Toyko said the memory of her business failure was too strong and vivid. She appreciated their help in navigating through that financial storm, but she thought it was time to return to the financial institution where her parents banked. After all, she thought, she only opened her accounts with the credit union, which her father considered socialistic, as an act of rebellion against her parents, hadn’t she?
Then Toyko totally withdrew from social life, public life, Toronto society. During the summer, she spent her day at the beach, strolling along the shore, swimming, reading. During the winter, Toyko went to cafes and the library and read. Several times, her parents sent the police to her condominium unit for a wellness check. She grew locs and wore jeans and denim shirts she did not wash for weeks. The only time she frequented any stores or shops was when she got her nose, tongue and lips pierced, at her favorite tattoo parlor on Queen Street West. She stopped visiting bars and nightclubs; stopped dating men, stopped working out at the gym, although she did plenty of walking through the city parks during the winter and cycling during the summer.
Her parents both wanted her to consult a psychiatrist or psychologist, but she refused.
Then one day when Toyko returned from Woodbine Beach, she learned through a call and then a visit from the police that her parents had died in a plane crash. The aircraft her father was piloting crashed in the thick forest near a lake in a remote part of Northern Ontario during a cross-country flying tour. Her father’s lawyer and accountant expressed anger towards her; they had been trying to contact her since they heard about the fatal accident.
Overnight, she went from being a reclusive hipster trust fund kid, a one percenter, as she had joked to her trusted employees, to a reclusive hipster millionaire.
Her parents’ friends called to offer their condolences. Her parents in their relentless and ambitious pursuits became estranged from their families. When Toyko tried to call her father’s cousin with the news, he hung up the phone on her, and Toyko realized she was alone in the world.
When fundraisers for homeless shelters, women’s shelters, food banks, public libraries, hospital foundations, universities, colleges, war relief funds, disease of the month organizations, and public broadcasters called her for donations, she gave and donated funds from her inheritance generously. Toyko left no plea for money from any nonprofit and charitable organization unanswered. This continued after she sold her parents’ mansion and liquidated their investments and retirement funds.
Her father’s lawyers and accountants strongly advised against most donations. Several times they pleaded with her and advised her to stop recklessly giving away money, carelessly donating. They even took measures to block payments, which she overrode to their disdain and dismay. The accountant, lawyer, and financial advisor took their separate turns visiting her in her condominium and advised her to seek mental health counselling, but she ignored their exhortations. When they visited in a pair, and departed, disappointed, she could hear them lowering their voices, as they commented on her body odor and decrepit, tattered clothes and the mess in her living room. They whispered she needed intervention, a social worker, some kind of professional help. They sent the police occasionally to her condominium to check on her. They eventually agreed to write her off as a client.
In a few years, the financial advisor from the trio informed Toyko her account balance was below one hundred thousand dollars, the minimum balance they required in their firm’s investment accounts. They said they were shutting down her account.
Toyko decided to return to her credit union of choice from years ago: she chose the branch of Metro Loyalist she robbed near her own condominium, for which she still received countless offers from pushy realtors.
The accountant visited her personally with the check. They met at a café in the neighborhood near her credit union.
“Your father told me he thought you should return to college and pursue your passion, as a mature student. That was a promising idea then and I think it’s a good idea now.” He raised his coffee cup in a toast.
“This money,” the accountant said, motioning to the check, “should tide you over through that period.” He handed her the receipts for the money transferred to her credit union account. He said that he had not been charging her any executor fees for the past few years. Then they argued over fees, which she insisted on paying, but he refused to accept them, concluding his visit, saying, “Read my lips” before he slowly mouthed the words, “Go. To. College.”
That summer evening she returned to the islands, the Centre Island pier. This time she sat on the beach. Indeed, Miguel, with the baseball cap for the Brazilian World Cup soccer team, was still a regular there at night, binning, scavenging, with his head lamp, checking the bins.
When he saw her, he offered her a slice of homemade pizza from his insulated lunch bag. She remembered the delicious sushi and ate the leftover pizza in the dark of the humid summer night at an abandoned picnic table.
Toyko explained to him what she perceived as her dilemma. She wondered if she should return to college as a mature student. Miguel told her she should; he had thought of doing so himself, but now he could not afford it.
“What if I helped pay for it?” Toyko asked.
“You go and after you graduate, maybe I’ll think about it.”
Toyko asked him if he would take her home that night. But he stared at her incredulously. He asked her if she was trying to get him into trouble. He ended up dragging along his wagon and recyclables ahead of her, as she followed behind him from a respectful distance, so they could catch the last ferry to the mainland.
In the autumn, Toyko enrolled in a four-year program in education and kinesiology at York University. When she finished her degree, a few years later, she went to a teacher’s college for a year. Toyko became a gym teacher on a reserve, a First Nation community in Northwestern Ontario. She even learned to play ice hockey and coached their hockey, basketball, and volleyball teams.
