A continuation of my ongoing collection of literary references to Canada's ubiquitous coffee chain. Zalika Reid-Benta's River Mumma gets to go first because there's a map of Toronto in it that shows the particular location of the Tim's mentioned in her novel.
“I need a phone. I don’t care whose. I just need to look
something up.” “What’s wrong with your phone?” said Mars.
“It got wet. So can I just—“
“Dropped it in the sink?” asked Heaven.
“No—“
“Oh, damn,” said Mars. “The toilet?”
“I fell in the river behind my building last night, OK? Or I didn’t, I don’t know.” Alicia motioned frantically with her hand. “I was kinda blem still.”
“Bro, what?”
“Is that why your hair is already starting to frizz? It hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours, Alicia.”
“What, you and my mom have a WhatsApp group or something? Just lend me a phone, yah.”
“Not me, my data plan sucks,” said Mars. “Maybe you can hop on real quick when we get in the radius of a Tim’s or something.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Finally, Mars spoke. “I’m really trying my best not to lose my shit, and I’m not doing a good job. So what’s going on, Leish?”
Alicia looked around the store, at the eyes that were on them but not actually looking at them. “OK, first, someone has to order something or we’re going to get kicked out.”
“No one gets kicked out of Tim’s,” said Mars, leaning back in his chair. “Mans can hijack a bus, bring it to Tim’s for a coffee, and still not get kicked out.”
River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta
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Motley Crue announced a show in Toronto at the SkyDome (now known as the Rogers Centre) as part of the Dr Feelgood tour. I had to go. I called my friend Kelly, who lived in Toronto, and asked if she would go with me. I then called my mom to ask if I could buy two tickets on her credit card. Those two things secured, I had to figure out how to come up with the money to buy a plane ticket to Toronto. I looked in the newspaper, which was what we did back then to find a job, an apartment or what movies were playing at the theatre. I saw that Tim Hortons right across from my apartment was hiring for the back shift. I applied and got the job. I would be working from eleven at night until seven in the morning, which would give me just enough time to shower and get over to The Body Shop for 9:00 a.m. The pay was $4.35 per hour, minimum wage. When added to the five dollars an hour I was getting paid at The Body Shop, I thought I could save enough for my airfare.from: Scene 7: The one where I meet an even bigger mistake at Tim Hortons
It also shocked me how coddled some of these young lawyers were. They would be devastated if their free parking space was two blocks away from the building. One of the yound associates had a total meltdown one evening because someone had taken her lunch out of the fridge. I mean a real meltdown. I was in my office when I heard the crying. She was in the hallway and some otheryers were around her consoling her. I thought someone close to her had died. I stood there stunned when I realized all this was about someone eating her Lean Cuisine. Jesus, did these people have no sense of real turmoil? I thought of some of the people who I had worked with at Tim Hortons, trying to raise kids on minimum wage and deciding between paying the rent or buying groceries. But for this privileged young woman, someone taking her lunch out of the fridge (ironically, a common occurrence I covered on my radio show years later) was a complete disaster to her.
from: Scene 10: The one where I meet some mean girls
Running Down a Dream by Candy Palmater
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I nodded, and did exactly what hockey players -- especially Canadian hockey players -- are still widely celebrated for. That is, I toughed it out, I gritted my teeth against the pain and went looking for the number of the guy who'd... except there wasn't any obvious enemy. In a real dark night of the soul, perhaps, the enemy never has a face or a number. And perhaps it is this primitive simplicity of the hockey code that explains its grip on the Canadian psyche? Perhaps the "eye for an eye," or, much more aptly, the "tooth for a tooth" logic, and the Darwinian dog-eat-dog philosophy are the Canadian value system? But if so, how to beat what lacks a jersey and a number? Tim Horton, drunk and weary at the end of his career, driving off the highway, or Jean Beliveau, graceful and celebrated all his life long, gritting his teeth against the Reaper. Derek Boogaard downing painkillers against the concussive goon whose jabs never weaken, or Guy Lafleur, in court, wondering what a father can ever do to help his son.
The questions, the doubt, would not begin for decades, of course. At five, climbing up from the grainy surface of a frozen slough, I merely smelled the tobacco and beer, and I trusted.
"Initiation," The Call of the Red-Winged Blackbird: Essays on the Common and Extraordinary by Tim Bowling
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Jimmy ran his palms over his cheeks. "I wanna date myself."
He hadn't shaved in ten months. He told me whenever he got clean-shaven, it meant he'd reached the height of recovery and soon they'd have to turn him out.
Sitting by the windows, we share our four weekly donuts. I've offered to go to the schmancy place on Queen with their bacon & Cap'n Crunch donut, but he wants Tim's.
Jimmy takes the apple fritter, the Boston cream, and the chocolate-glazed. I take the maple dip. Now that we're friends, we know each other's favourites. I always leave the chocolate-glazed for him, even if I pick first. I can get one any time.
Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill
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"You know how those people are," you said, grabbing the box.
Ma's cheeks flushed. Those people? Really? She took a deep breath to calm herself down and said, "You know, Liz. I hired her through word of mouth. I heard she's the best of the best."
Your face shifted. "How is she the best of the best?"
"She ... she worked at the house of the ... the president?"
"The president of what?"
Ma backpedalled. She had forgotten Canada didn't have a president. "I mean, the prime minister."
"Really? Which one?"
"The one ... right now."
"You're kidding me." Ma hated this Canadian expression, which forced her to repeat herself.
"Really. She's the best of the best."
Justin barged in through the front door with his arms full. "Morning, MG! I got doughnuts from Tim Hortons. Hope you're hungry."
The Story of Us by Catherine Hernandez
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At the Tim Hortons, the cashier was much more pleasant than expected when Jade ordered her French Vanilla and croissant in English. Jade had visited Montreal many times, but never alone. Even though she'd taken the mandatory classes up to grade nine, she still spoke no more French than what had been taught in grade three. Once, during a previous trip, a waitress had refused to take her order in English, and she couldn't figure out is the issue was her race or language limitations, as a white woman at a nearby table ordered in English with no issues. Montreal was like that -- beautiful and friendly some moments, cold and isolating at others.
Jade Is a Twisted Green by Tanya Turton
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When I first started thinking about alcohol and its costs, I found a forensic anthropologist. This was a man who had the tools and expertise to determine the total costs. I phoned him to set up a meeting and we met at a Tim Hortons. I explained to him in detail what I hoped he would do. I told him I would help to publish his findings and offered to coauthor any report. I offered to assist in any way that I could, but please, would he do the math? Would he come up with the numbers?
I wanted to find out many things. How many deaths were the direct result of alcohol? What percentage of accidents? How many cancers? How many heart attacks? How many suicides? Could he determine how much shorter a child's life would be because the parents were drinking and not providing proper nourishment during the child's formative years? What is the cost to society for one child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder during that child's life, due to the increased cost to education, should he require a special needs tutor, the cost to social services because he would have problems getting employment, the increased cost to policing when he messed up, to corrections because the justice system has no alternatives but to send him to jail? And the increased cost to health care, including mental health?
Near the end of our two-hour meeting, I was nearly begging, but he refused to undertake this research. I couldn't understand why. Was it too difficult? Too time-consuming?
But, when we were leaving, standing outside in the parking lot, he admitted that he still liked to take a drink now and then.
Because I have been unable to obtain precise numbers of what alcohol costs us as a society, and what the statistics are for alcohol-related deaths, I have been forced to estimate. My estimate remains at one in two. That is, every second person in this Treaty 6 territory is going to die from an alcohol-related death, whether they drink or not. And, I have come to believe this estimate might be low.
Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours) by Harold R Johnson
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Snow day mornings were absolute heaven. My mom and I had a ritual. I would sit in a purple plastic sled and she would pull me through the snow. The destination? Tim Hortons. Marching along, crunch, crunch, her boots sinking, everything covered in white, icicles like spears.
"I'll have a medium with double cream and just a pinch of sugar, not very much, thanks," I would mouth my mom's order at Tims in the mornings on the way to school while she leaned her head out the car window, neck reaching for the drive-three speaker. For me, I liked the hot chocolate.
The sound of the little sled brushing the snow underneath, the steady glide through the barren landscape, offered tranquility, a sense of togetherness. Shut your eyes and you're flying through the universe.
Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page
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Once you've gone mad, you know the way It was 3 a.m., and they did ask, but still, going through the Timmy Ho's drive-thru to grab doughnuts and coffees with the paramedics driving me all the way out to the Chilliwack hospital because the psych ward at St Paul's downtown was stacked to the brim with nutbars and loony tunes was unnecessarily surreal. I mean, come on, there's a time and a place for double-doubles and chocolate glaze, and it's probably not when you've got a suicidal basket case shelved on the gurney in the back. What's true is that they likely couldn't have considered such an early morning snack with any other kind of patient rattling around in the back, and they were sock-monkey tired--five overdoses and one ridiculous car crash already that shift--and I was like a free ride. And also, for the record, I was saying over and over again, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." They didn't get that I was saying it to try to keep the voices calm and carry on because I was scared shitless, thinking a person like me doesn't want to end up in a place like Chilliwack, which is more or less exactly what the physiotherapist said to me when she shook me awake to throw the medicine ball around with the other caw caw cawrazies at 6 a.m.: "A girl like you doesn't want to end up in a place like this."
Mercy Gene: The Man-Made Making of a Mad Woman by JD Derbyshire
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Shit. How is it Sunday already? If Abe had to book a back-up preacher to pick me up, he'll be annoyed. He's wearing his church suit, so maybe he just cut the sermon a little short and skipped after-service fellowship in the foyer. I can taste that scalding caffeinated sludge at the back of my throat.
Thankfully, there's an extra-large coffee from Timmy's and a crumpled paper donut bag wedged into Abe's cup holder, so that's one less reason for him to resent me. I'm jealous of the old man. He got to pregame this encounter with his beverage of choice and I didn't. I couldn't afford any of those tiny bottles of booze on the flights over here, so I'll need to conserve my energy until I can get to a liquor store. I want to ask him to stop somewhere in the city so I can stock up but don't because I can't stand the thought of the quiet judgement that would follow.
Wonder World by KR Byggdin
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Over the past few weeks, Simon had been lecturing me with increasing frequency about my alleged "aversion to kindness." He cocked his head with a pensive expression, and I could see that we were in danger of repeating the waterfall situation.
To sum up: Simon had a car. When he first told me this, I'd said, "Of course you do," and he'd looked at me quizzically and I had not elaborated. It was an old, beat-up Volkswagen Golf in a subdued dark green, with scratchy carpeted seats and gummy cupholders. Occasionally he would pick me up and take me on a kind of drive-through buffet, hitting up Tim Hortons for a breakfast sandwich, McDonald's for hash browns and coffee, and Wendy's for a shake to dump our coffees into, something 6Bites had recently termed a "dirtbag affogato."
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
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The source of the dog whistle was not in the hospital room, as Riot previously thought, nor in the Tim Hortons where he removed himself to avoid Faye. It was coming from inside of him.
Reproduction by Ian Williams
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By early March the accusations Gerald Dove had made against McVicer’s Works mounted. The incidences of allergy, cancer, and miscarriage among our community were eight times the provincial or national average. There were weekly meetings at the one-room schoolhouse, and I went to them. The highway was dark, the stars out at seven. I walked across the new bridge and down the old Bowie Road to the school. It was well lighted, and you could see your breath even though it was crowded. People drank coffee in Tim Hortons cups. There were ice crystals inside the window, and everyone kept on their hats and gloves.
Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards
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The Broken Heart of Winter by Judy LeBlanc
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In North Bay, the bus stopped, and I walked around the parking lot looking for my dad’s car. When I found him, he got out and hugged me. I pressed my hands against his back. I felt his nose against my hair, the soft whistle of his breaths against my head. When his arms loosened, he held me out in front of him, as though making sure I’d come back in the same condition I’d been left. He said, “Look at you. You’re a big-city girl now.”
I mumbled no, no, and then asked him how his drive had been.
Not far from the station, we stopped at a drive-through and he ordered a large black coffee and a box of timbits. He asked me if a wanted a hot chocolate, and I said I was okay.
The roads were good, my father said, though it had snowed quite a lot the few days before. Even so, he turned on the radio, which updated us on the road conditions as we drove upon them.
“Would you pass me a honey glazed?”
The box of doughnuts was in my lap. I picked through them. Hard icing flaked onto his jacket collar.
The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer
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My stepsister Faith is doing great. She's still in Alberta and a supervisor at a Tim Hortons now. She sends me cat videos instead of texts. Sometimes I think she's making fun of me with them but I still like them. She has a boyfriend, of course. A nice-looking guy who always wears those big plaid hunting jackets. Dad had one for a while but Nikki hated it so I think she gave it away. This guy though, he wears it in every picture, and smiles big. Faith looks like she's drowning in him, probably is. Everyone has a person but me.
The Circle by Katherena Vermette
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Farrah gave her memory stick to Carol, who gave it to her assistant, who set it up to play Farrah's presentation on the projector screen.
"There's coffee," Carol said, waving her hand in the direction of a table in the corner, where a spouted box of Tim Hortons coffee and a platter of pastries sat mostly untouched.
"I'm okay, thanks," Farrah replied, holding up her Starbucks cup. "Got my chai latte right here."
Carol wrinkled her nose. "Too sweet for me," she said. "But it must be nice to have a little taste of home for you."
Farrah laughed in the noncommittal way that all non-white women learn to master. Inside her chest, the Fist from which she had learned to hide, in heels and pearls and linen and silk, and all the other camouflage handed down to her by parents who knew what it was to be a target, began to tighten.
'Stories in the Language of the Fist,' in Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese
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I sat in front of the window. I looked around. There were a couple of us on our own, sitting at the few tables, each with a coffee, a pineapple bun, an egg tart, or a bao. The man behind me was reading the Sing Tao and I suddenly wondered where in Chinatown the bak who sold the Sing Tao outside Hat Moon Low, before it closed and was boarded up, moved to. Every morning he meticulously rolled the newspapers in half, wrapped them with an elastic band, and sold them throughout the day. He usually sold out by two or three in the afternoon. And at his feet sat his coffee in a black-and-dark-brown paper cup from Fu La Wa, sometimes from Ding Dong, or Tim Hortons. Occasionally, he'd bring his portable radio with him, listening to the news.
Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes and Christina Wong
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The [fishing trip] invite went out to [Michael] Ignatieff and [Bob] Rae. Now this was a very interesting competition. They had been, for most of their lives, best of friends. Ignatieff famously helped Bob when he was fighting depression as a young man. At the time when people understood very little about that condition, Ignatieff was there for him. They both had impressive careers, and they were each supportive of the other. But now, politics and ambition had come between them. They were now decidedly not-close.
How exciting was that? It was downright Shakespearean. It would make a great piece. The only question out of the gate was which one would drown the other.
Unfortunately, no sooner had the invite gone out, when we hit a snag. Ignatieff wanted to see samples of my work. Not surprising. He had spent the last 20 years living outside of Canada. He famously stated that he returned to Canada regularly to receive honorary degrees.
I knew someone in the Ignatieff camp and he confessed that the real concern wasn't with who I was, but with what I might say. Ignatieff, who was somewhat sensitive to the fact that he had lived outside Canada for so long, was worried I might pull on that thread. His camp was worried that I might give him a pop quiz on Canada and ask him some tough questions like: "What's a double-double?" and "Who's your favourite Canadian recording artist, Steve Fonyo or Terry Fox?"
Ignatieff said no. He was going to run a classic frontrunner campaign and hide.
The Road Years: A Memoir, Continued by Rick Mercer
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