BITCH SLAP

I was having a beer with Ollie at The Pilsner late in the afternoon, when he said, “I have a good work story for you.” We were sitting outside on the new patio the bar had set up for Pride Day which is tomorrow. They put up some metal gates, laid down some astro-turf, and put up some fake palm trees.
“Do you know Madelaine?” he asked me. “She’s a lesbian, kind of short and round, always lipstick. She a writer - a very intense writer.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Anyway ... Madelaine was having coffee with some friend of hers. The friend goes to use the bathroom and spends like ten minutes in there. A line was starting to form, Conrad was at the front of it.”
Conrad is one of the geriatrics that comes in every day, twice a day. When Conrad has to pee, Conrad HAS to pee.
“So Conrad starts banging on the door and there’s no answer, so finally asks Fang to unlock the door for him. I was in the store room putting the order away in the fridge. The door was opened a crack so I could hear everthing, but couldn’s see what was going on - I knew exactly who it was though ...
“Sure enough, Fang unlocks the door and Madelaine’s friend starts freaking out. When she DOES come out she’s cussing up a storm saying how no had the right to open the door on her! A couple of minutes later, Madelaine’s friend is telling Heinz about the incident ...”
Heinz is another geriatric regular - two times a day, every day. I had the unfortunate experience of seeing him naked on Rec Beach in his dress socks and and loafers; the image will forever be ingrained in my mind.
Heinz sides with Conrad. “You were taking a long time; people needed to go to the bathroom. What do you expect?”
Madelaine’s friend obviously expected everyone to wait their fucking turn, because she hauled up and slapped Heinz across the face.
“Fang saw it all,” Ollie said. “He went right over and told her, ‘You had no right to do that!’ And she’s all, ‘I slap men, that’s the way I am!’ And Fang is like, ‘You slap me and I’ll back you with me ring finger.’ Fang has a rather ominous ring on his hand; I’ve been caught on it a couple of times, it’s not fun. “’Get out,’Fang says. ‘Get out and never come back here again!’ Madelaine’s friend got in his face until he said, ‘If you don’t get out I’m calling the cops.’”
Ollie didn’t actually see the slap so he found out second hand what had gone down. The he saw Madelaine consoling her friend outside the front of the shop. “As soon as I saw who it was, it explained everything. I can’t wait for her to make a stink about it.”
I can take or leave Heinz. Like Witch Hazel, he spends so much time at The Shop he thinks he owns it. He once shushed me because I dropped a metal bowl in the sink. He also likes to close the doors when the place is boiling hot. He can be annoying, but he doesn’t deserve to get slapped. A tongue whipping maybe.
The really stupid thing is, he wasn’t even the one knocking on the door.

GarpinBC

CELEBRATION OF LIGHT

Tonight kicks of the “Celebration of Light” the annual fireworks festival that goes on down in English Bay. It’s traditionally a nightmare for those of us who live in the West End. It’s not bad if you have a balcony with a view of the Bay, otherwise the crowds are particularly miserable, if not down right frightening. A couple of fights usually break - someone always gets hurt.
I tend to avoid the fireworks. After a while, they all look the same. My biggest concern was how the dog was going to handle the barrage of blasts overhead. We’re not far from the barge where they launch the pyrotechnics, and I’ve heard stories of dogs having heart attacks from the noise. We have a couple of roof decks on our building that are common areas. I took the dog up to the ninth floor with me so I could watch them and keep an eye on him. The noise wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, muffled as it was by the high rises flanking the shore. The dog seemed to be handling it fine. A few minutes into it I got bored and headed back to my apartment to avoid the crush of people needing the elevators. When we got back home, Yukon curled up around my feet for protection from the noise.
I made a point of getting Yukon to beach in the early part of the afternoon. People have been known to stake a spot on the beach as early as the 3 PM to insure a good view. There were already a couple of shelters on the sand when I got there at one in the afternoon.
This weekend is Gay Pride Day in Vancouver and there’s been a noticeable influx of muscular men in town for the festivities. Little Sisters bookstore is busy with people buying to tickets to overpriced parties and cruises. I can’t afford any of them. As it stands, I’ll be lucky to have thirty bucks to spend on Pride Day.
I was coming back from Ollie’s place in the middle of the afternoon. He got me a little drunk and stoned as always and then we went our separate ways: I, to get dog food, and he to the bank. The streets were crawling with men. It made my skin crawl. Usually, an influx of hot men is considered a good thing, but here I was taking side streets to avoid them. It’s no wonder I’m single. I really need to do something about that.