Rain has been falling over Cabbagetown all morning.

T. sits beside the window, dressed for the festival, his face already painted. The street outside is empty. There are no children in costumes, no sign that a parade is about to begin.

A cabbage rests on the table in front of him.

He takes it in both hands and slowly pulls away an outer leaf. It comes loose with a soft crack.

“Cabbage Boy!”

His hand stops.

“Cabbage Boy!”

Three boys followed him home from school. He was nine, and everyone at school knew about his mother's garden. Every spring, she planted cabbages behind their house, even though they no longer needed to grow their own food.

The boys had found plenty to laugh about in that.

“Cabbage Boy!”

T. walked faster.

Something struck him between the shoulders. He stumbled, and a cabbage rolled past his shoe.

Behind him, the boys were laughing.

T. turned. One of them pointed at the cabbage.

“Go on, Cabbage Boy. Take it home.”

T. bent down and picked it up. The boy who had thrown it watched him carefully.

T. looked at him, then at the cabbage.

He raised his arm.

One of the boys stepped back.

T. threw it.

Straight up.

The cabbage turned once in the air and dropped back into his hands. He tossed it again, higher this time, and caught it.

On the third throw, he missed the catch. The cabbage hit his knee and bounced sideways. T. lunged after it, caught it against his chest, and nearly fell.

One of the boys laughed.

T. looked at him and did it again, this time deliberately: knee, catch, then a clumsy bow.

Another boy laughed.

T. threw the cabbage higher.

The three boys followed him for the rest of the walk home. They weren't shouting anymore. They were watching.

At the gate, T. caught the cabbage one last time. His mother was kneeling in the garden.

She looked at him, then at the bruised cabbage in his hands.

“What happened to that one?”

T. glanced back at the boys.

“Nothing.”

He handed it to her.

T. pulls another leaf from the cabbage and places it beside the first. Rain taps steadily against the window.

His mother was kneeling in the same garden, her hands dark with soil.

“Why do you plant them every year?” he asked.

“My mother planted them.”

She pressed the earth around one of the plants.

“And her mother?”

She smiled.

“Probably.”

That was all.

She kept planting them each spring.

Until one spring, she didn't.

The shovel remained against the wall, and the patch behind the house stayed bare. No hands went into the soil. No row of green appeared.

T. pulls another leaf from the cabbage. He runs his thumb along its edge for a moment before laying it on the table.

A ball rose above his hands.

Then another.

A ring followed them.

Paint covered his face now, and children watched from the other side of the room. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they stared. He came to prefer the honesty of the second kind.

The balls went up again.

This time, they didn't fall.

T. pulls another leaf away.

Washington was full of white and pink blossoms. People walked beneath the trees with cameras, families paused under branches, and strangers stood together looking upward. Thousands had come outside to see the flowers.

A blossom landed on T.'s sleeve.

He looked at it for a moment before brushing it away.

Flowers had brought thousands of people outside. He wondered what might do the same back home.

T. pulls another leaf from the cabbage.

His hands were in the soil again.

Cabbagetown.

But he wasn't planting cabbage.

Forsythia went into the earth beneath his fingers. When spring came, yellow flowers appeared against the last grey days of winter.

Then came the children in costumes. A small celebration became a parade through the neighbourhood.

And somewhere among them walked a clown.

T. pulls another leaf from the cabbage.

The room returns with the sound of rain against the glass.

He looks at the clock.

The parade is supposed to begin soon, but the street is still empty.

He turns the cabbage in his hands and finds another loose edge. Slowly, he pulls it away and adds it to the pile.

The cabbage has grown small.

He looks through the window again.

Nothing.

T. finds another leaf.

He begins to pull.

Knock.

His fingers stop.

He looks toward the door and waits.

Knock. Knock.

T. puts what remains of the cabbage on the table and gets up.

Four children are standing outside. Their hair is wet, and water runs from their coats onto the step. One of them holds a bag of costumes tightly against his chest, trying to keep it dry.

For a moment, nobody speaks.

The children look at T.'s painted face.

Then one of them asks:

“Can we be clowns?”

T. looks at the four children.

Behind him, the cabbage sits among its scattered leaves.

He opens the door wider.

“Come in.”

YF, August 26, 2026

Note: This story is largely a work of imagination. T., his mother, his childhood, the cabbage garden, the bullying, and the personal events described here are fictional.

The story takes inspiration from Tony Brady (1935–1991), the Cabbagetown entertainer known as Briget the Clown, who founded the neighbourhood’s Forsythia Festival in 1971. Brady’s connection to Cabbagetown and the festival he created provided the historical starting point for this fictional narrative. It is not intended as a biographical account of his life.

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