DEN MOTHER

October 29, 2004

DEN MOTHER

The West End has become a mini-Sleepy Hollow. Windows and vestibules are ornamented in skeletons and Jack-O-lanterns produced in either China or a grade-school classroom. Indian coloured leaves act like impromptu banana peels on the moistened sidewalks. The apartment fire on the corner of Broughton and Burnaby streets is still on the tips of pedestrian tongues, the burned out upper floors acting as the local attraction like the haunted mansion at Disneyland. While the Boston Red Sox coasted to a World Series victory, small masses gathered at Nelson Park to watch the lunar eclipse above the cadaverous treetops.
In San Francisco, I always associated Halloween with violence. Every year the City would close down the Castro to bridge and tunnel revelers, out of costume, so they could take out their aggressions on the gay community. There were riots, stabbings, and shootings: my last Halloween there, I got a black eye. Vancouver is Provincial by comparison. Sure there are the usual fag bashings, but nothing compared the eight years I spent fearing for my life every October. This year, while I still try and decide if I’m going to dust off the old Superman costume, I was reminded that like Christmas, Halloween is for kids.
“I’m the only person who can take a second job and lose money,” I explained to Neil after I told him I would be needing back the shift I had given up to accommodate my crappy second job. Neil laughed and shook his head, affirming my role as the loveable loser. A couple of hours later he called to ask if I would be interested in doing some data entry work.
“We’ve switched to a new accounting program,” Neil explained. “We need to enter the past year into the computer, and Abbey can’t do it and watch Junior at the same time. You would basically be acting as her fingers. Would you be interested in that?”
“Sure, why not?”
I don’t know Abbey as well as I do Neil, despite the fact I’ve been her employee for almost two years. In that time, she has been pregnant and rearing Junior. We’ll chat briefly when she comes in to do the cash or when we’re out socially; in either case I’m usually fading after a morning of opening the shop, or a little lit. This would be the first time we would spend any significant amount of time alone, working.
Abbey figured it would take three or four days to get the job done. I would open the shop, run home, walk the dog, freshen up, and then come back to the shop to meet her and Junior. From there we would whisk off across to the Georgia viaduct to their modest home in the East End. The work was easy but monotonous. While entered cheques into QuickBooks, Abbey would either be nursing Junior or working on Halloween costumes for her other two sons.
“Want to see the costume I bought Junior at the Dollar Store?” she asked. Abbey ran up the stairs, and then came down a few minutes later. Junior was in her arms, a pair of horns atop his rolling head, a red bow-tie around his neck, and small tail poking from beneath his red vest, looking like a piece of red poo. We were both speechless with laughter, Junior smiling, oblivious.
Although I was burning the candle at both ends, working at the shop, running across town, sitting at a computer and maintaining what little social life I have, I looked forward to my afternoons in the basement with Abbey. It was like being home sick from school. The house was empty but there was no lack of activity. Abbey would field calls from either of The Shops, start dinner, and keeping Junior occupied.
“Would you like a cookie?” she asked. “They’re fresh from the oven.” I devoured two like a little kid.
I’m always telling people I hate children, but it’s a lie. They fascinate me - wish I were still one. Babies make me nervous though, I’m always afraid I’ll drop them or step on them. While I clicked away at the computer, Junior would roll around on the basement floor, taking a stack of cheques from the completed pile and put them in his mouth. Every now and then Abbey would whip out her breast and nurse him in an attempt to get him to sleep. While she was blasé about it, I would squint at the computer screen avoiding her exposed breast.
My last day there, Neil was waiting for us outside the house. He was visibly upset. “This can’t be good,” Abbey muttered under her breath.
“The school called,” Neil said as we got out of the car. “Duncan broke his ankle or something. I have to take him to the hospital.”
As I finished off the last of the data entry, Abbey tried to keep busy waiting for the call from the hospital with the prognosis. She cooed into the phone when Duncan called her for his medical card number. She cleared her throat when she hung up the phone.
“Are you going to be all right?” I asked her.
“Yeah. These things happen.”
I tried cheering her up with the story of the time I broke my ankle free-style wrestling. “I had to sit in the waiting room wearing a wrestling singlet, my foot hanging off my leg while two Asian queens pointed and laughed at me. The nurses kept referring to me as ‘The Wrestler,’ like I were an extra in a movie.” I managed to get a smile out of her. She nursed Junior, and then put him down in the small bedroom near the desk where I was working.
Abbey met Collin at the door when he came home from school to tell him about Duncan. While she was upstairs, Junior started crying in the room. I continued working on the computer, hoping he would fall back to sleep. When he didn’t I looked in on him. Junior was sitting up in the middle of the bed, bleary eyed, looking for his mother. I picked him up and he immediately wrapped his chubby arms around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder. I took him back to the desk with me, supporting him with my forearm beneath his diapered butt, and he started to gurgle in my ear as I continued to work with one hand. It was one of those magic moments, the light filtering in through the window, in a room full of toys and costumes, conjuring images of mobiles and Kaleidoscopes - pure innocence. It was so warm and comforting, like the proverbial womb.
“Awwww,” Abbey said, when she saw me.
The cab ride home was a shock to the system, like jumping into really cold water. I had gone from feeling like a member of the family to being annoyed by the cab driver who had by-passed the viaduct for a longer route, all the time talking on his cell phone. I was tempted to stop the car, and walk the rest of the way, but I was tired, and needed to get the dog out. What had seemed so attainable only minutes before – a house, a business, and a family – was once more beyond my reach.

GarpinBC

FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING

FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING

People are always telling me I look younger than my years, which is pretty amazing considering my diet, my habitual drinking and smoking. As of late, the only exercise I take is dog walks on the beach. Appearances aside, I was dreading my thirty-seventh birthday like a visit to the STD clinic. I don’t own property, have no retirement plan in place, and I’m living in overdraft protection. By today’s standards, I’m a failure, or at least a loser, but I’m a determined failure, which I think, more than makes up for my shortcomings. “If anyone told me this is where I would be at thirty-seven, I would have laughed in their faces,” I’ll offer up, almost as an apology. That said, if you passed me on the street, you would never guess I need a payday advance to cover rent, or that I own more beer glasses to pots and pans. Such was the case when I took myself out to breakfast on my birthday.
My plans for the day were loose at best. Peggy had given me a pair of tickets to, “Joni Mitchell River,” at the Playhouse, but I had been preparing to work at my crappy second job until eleven in the morning. Last Sunday, I had all but quit my second job. “This is isn’t my notice,” I told the General Manager of the restaurant, “but you should start looking at some of those resumes I’ve been putting on your desk.” She called me the night before my birthday to apologize that the job didn’t work out, and that I didn’t need to come in the next day. I was relieved I didn’t have to work, but I had factored my lousy tips into my birthday budget. But money is no object on your birthday.
I hadn’t been to The Elbow Room in years. The last time I was there, I felt the place had lost its charm since it moved to Davie St from the small house it occupied at Jervis and Georgia. The rude service seemed outdated to me, something that had gone out in the Eighties. It was like not being able to finish a book you had read in one sitting, making you wonder what you ever saw in it in the first place. But birthdays are about second chances, and new beginnings; plus we had been talking about pancakes the night before and The Elbow Room was on my mind.
It was raining pretty hard. I put my copy of Jonathon Franzen’s, “How to be Alone,” in a PayMo bag to keep it from getting wet. I hadn’t showered or shaved; I had on my GAP “Yachting” jacket, and my L.L. Bean rubber shoes, everything else were cast-offs from friend's closets.
“Dahling, you look cold and wet,” yelled the Slavic waitress. She was short, blonde and old, her apron reminding me of my mother’s. I half expected her and dry my head off with a towel, vigorously rubbing my hair in that heavy-handed way that European women do. Tough love. “Take a seat here near the kitchen for you to warm up there.” She dropped a cup of coffee from an inch above the table, like I were her husband just coming back from work at the government run farm. “Have you read the rules?” I hadn’t but I knew them: first cup of coffee is brought to the table, every cup after that you have to get yourself.”
Everyone seated in the café looked like business people: black over-coats, laptops and luggage on wheels. Where were the homos? I was the slacker son who lived in his parent’s basement compared to these people. I ordered a six-inch stack of pancakes, a side of two eggs and sausage.
“Have you not eaten in a while Dahling? That’s a lot of food,” the waitress said, not even bothering to write it on her pad.
“That’s just how much I eat,” I said. I was tempted to tell her it was my birthday, but didn’t want her to think I was looking for a handout.
“Where do you put it?” she asked. “Just remember, we make you donate to the Loving Spoonful, if you don’t finish your food.”
I pulled my book out of the PayMo bag, crossed my legs, and settled in with my warm cup of coffee, wishing you could still smoke in restaurants.
“Look at you mister smarty-pants, “ the waitress said. “Doesn’t that look intellectual?"
“It kind of is actually,” giggling at my pretensions.
“Let me look at that.” She took the book out of my hand, pulling it to her face so she could see it. “How to be Alone. What is this? Self-help? You’re alone already; this is it!”
“They’re essays.”
“Oh, essays. That’s different then.”
After she set down my food, the waitress came back to my table with a flyer from Future Shop. “What do you think of this for the man who has everything?” She pointed to the new refrigerator with a TV in the door. I thought I had seen an ad for one on TV but I was stoned at the time and wasn’t really sure if I hadn’t just hallucinated it.
“And then they complain about obesity,” I said.
“It never stops,” she said, throwing her hands in the air.
As ridiculous as a refrigerator with TV in it is, the waitress’ assumption that I had “everything”, was pure fiction by comparison; it was like saying I was a baron or a magnate. “I don’t even have food in my fridge,” I wanted to tell her. But what was the point in that? I didn’t tell her it was my birthday because I didn’t want her to feel obliged to do something for me and I didn’t want her to know I was poor because I wasn’t looking for sympathy. Just to have someone assume you are the man who has everything, made me realize I do. I have everything I need. For now.

GarpinBC

THE PAYMO

Even though it’s the closest and largest super market in the nieghbourhood, I always avoid going to the PayMo for groceries. I’m in there at least three times a week just for work, but when only when I can’t avoid it; I try to send someone for me whenever I can. Last week I was working with a new girl and asked if she would mind running across to the PayMo to buy margarine.
“It’s owned by the Hell’s Angels you know?” she said.
“No, I didn’t. But now that you mention it, it makes sense.”
Open twenty-four hours a day, the store operates like an insomniac trying to stay awake at work. The lighting reminds me of the colour of a fly strip. The walls are beige and green. There is neither rhyme nor reason to how the food is shelved. The staff hates their jobs, just going through the motions, collecting a union wage and benefits. This one guy looks like he woke up in a pool of his own vomit. Kat, who looks and sounds like a character in a Jacqueline Susann novel, has been there for twenty-five years. “It was the summer job that never ended,” she once told me while I making her tea. “I fucking hate it.”
While even corner grocery stores make try and create and air of down-hominess, and freshness, the PayMo makes no such allusions. Everything is just there. The selection is slim and at least a dollar more than every place else. They depend on foot traffic, and there’s a lot of it. They have us by the balls. Still, whenever I go there to shop for dinner, I always manage to lose my appetite.
But then there are those times when you just can’t avoid going to the PayMo.
I had been out at to The Pilsner with Upchuck. I had made a bit of cash at this crappy second job I just started. It had been a long afternoon, and I needed a beer. “Now that you have some cash, it’s time you bought me a beer for a change,” Upchuck said. I figured he was right.
The intention was to go for one beer, and then buy some wet dog food, (because I was too lazy to walk down the hill to buy dry); some hangars for some clothes Spence gave me, and some dinner. Those plans were spoiled when we bumped into Talbert, Franklin and Nester in the smoking room.
“Did you vote?” Franklin asked.
There was plebiscite to elect city council members using the Ward system. It lost.
“No.”
“Did you work today?”
“Yes. Until three-thirty.”
“Well so did I, until three-fifteen and I still found the time to vote.”
“Please, don’t make me feel any worse than I already did.”
I was upset with myself for taking the initiative to vote; I knew everyone at the coffee shop would ask me if I had. On the way to The Pilsner I had been mulling the idea of lying and saying I had. But I’m too honest for that kind of shit.
It was the first time I had hung out with the gang away from The Shop in a while. Well, not if you included Spence’s birthday party the night before. But everyone was really fucked up for that and there wasn’t time to get intimate. Franklin was going on about some performance art he had seen the night before. His face glowed when he talked about it. Nester was avoiding a friend of Talbert’s who kept touching her inappropriately. Upchuck was talking at the top of his lungs as usual.
I ended up spending my hard earned money on beer instead of my shopping list, but I had enough left to buy some dog food. As I walked down the pet isle to pay, Franklin was coming up it. We smiled as we crossed paths and then he ended up behind me in line. Christopher Reeve – pre-injury – was on the cover of people.
“Christopher Reeve is more famous for being paraplegic than anything else he did in his career,” Franklin said.
“No he’s not! I’ll never forget the first time I saw ‘Superman.’”
“What else did he do?"
“There was that time he made out with Michael Caine in, “Death Trap.” And there was “Street Smart,” which launched Morgan Freeman’s career. And who can forget “Monsignor?”’
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I loved Christopher Reeve growing up. I still have my Superman trading cards from 1978.”
“You should sell them on eBay now, while he’s hot.”
“I’m not selling my childhood.”
The cashier looked like she was in a concentration camp. She had little time for anyone she was ringing through. She just wanted it to be over so she could go home and watch TV. Her accent sounded Russian, giving her an aura of tragedy, like Leo Tolstoy had written her. Just as she was about to swipe the can of dog food across the scanner, I noticed the casher behind her. He had a five O’clock shadow but it was sexy. His jaw was chiseled, and he smiled – he actually smiled and talked to people.
“Look at that,” I said, elbowing Franklin.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.”
I saw the cashier look over her shoulder slightly.
I nudged Franklin again, “The cashier looked.”
“Who are you talking about?’ she asked in her Russian accent.
“Who do you think we’re talking about?” I said.
She smiled dryly. She knew exactly whom we were talking about.
“The guy working behind me?”
“No, the sign above your head.”
It was one of the few pleasant experiences I have ever had at The PayMo. No matter how often I go there, I don’t get that sense of recognition. It is a machine, an outfit run by the Hell’s Angels, the employees the bitches, and the customers are the Johns with no place to go. But once in a while, some light shines through the cracks.

GarpinBC

TURKEY AND BEER

I’ve decided I hate Canadian Thanksgiving. This is my second one and so far, it’s never lived up to my eight American Thanksgivings.
My biggest problem with Thanksgiving north of the 49th parallel is I can never remember which day it’s on. I asked several people and still don’t know if it’s on a Sunday or a Monday. Regardless, it’s too soon to be Thanksgiving. It seemed like there was no time to prepare – no time to make arrangements to go somewhere of invite people. Not like I got invited anywhere or have the wherewithal to prepare a turkey dinner. My contribution to a Thanksgiving dinner is my famous cranberry relish, which takes twenty minutes and one burner on the stove to prepare.
Back in San Francisco, we had Thanksgiving at the flat on Belcher St. You could call it an orphan’s Thanksgiving, but it never felt that way. We would usually gather there the night before to start the prep for the next day’s dinner and go over any last minute things that needed to be purchased. Since I don’t cook I was usually the lackey who had to wait in line for hours at Safeway to buy a bag of flour, a pint of whipping cream or just a bag of chocolate chips. The TV would be on in the living room, and the bong was constantly being loaded and passed around. In the back room behind the kitchen, Emme would have her jazz station on, while Daria ran around taking pictures. I was constantly nibbling. Thanksgiving Day proper, people would start showing up around noon to watch whatever movie they were repeating on TBS.
This year I was holding out for an invitation somewhere nice. You know, sitting down at a table and eating instead of balancing a plate between your knees. When none came I tried to hide from it by doing volunteer work. It turns out to volunteer to dole out food to homeless people you need to fill out an application and get a police check and TB test.
The homeless problem in Vancouver is big topic of conversation right now. The Provincial Government is ramming through the Safe Streets Act, which is supposed to stop aggressive panhandling but boils doing to making it illegal to be poor. NIMBYs are meeting several proposed addiction centers with fierce opposition. I find myself getting very angry about it. I’ll admit I’ve had my run-ins with panhandlers but I don’t think they should they should be locked up. I was hoping that helping out on Thanksgiving would make me feel like I’m walking the talk, or if nothing else, make me feel better about what I have; that is the point of Thanksgiving after all.
Against my better judgment I met Ollie for a couple pints at The Pilsner this afternoon. They had set up their holiday patio in the alley behind the bar. There were a couple of tents and some heat lamps; Red Bull had their hands in it some how because there were banners everywhere; even the metal tables had their logo emblazoned on it. Two sips into my beer, Ollie asked, “You sticking around for the turkey?”
“What turkey?”
“They’re having a turkey dinner!”
“But I thought tomorrow was Thanksgiving.”
“Tomorrow is the stat holiday; today is Thanksgiving.”
Just then a guy in a chef’s outfit gets out of a blue and asks, “Is this The Pilsner?”
“Yes it is,” the bar manager shouts back to him and shows him where to take the turkeys. As they were unloading the food and ambulance arrived to pick up a junkie who had overdosed not from the catering van.
Talbert and Upchuck joined us not long after.
“You having turkey?” Upchuck asked again.
“I don’t know. I have this about eating a holiday meal in a bar. It’s kind of depressing isn’t it?”
“But the price is right.”
For one of the first times in months the issue wasn’t money. I just started a second job, and had money enough to go buy myself a turkey breast at the PayMo Foods, if I wanted. It just bugged me that I had no place to go, that I would be served my Thanksgiving meal from a steam tray by and someone I didn’t know while the drunk guy who plays pull tabs every day waited in line behind me. I might as well be homeless. But the smell of the turkeys warming on the gas bar-b-ques were giving me second thoughts.
“Who wants to get stoned at my place?” Ollie asked.
“I do! I do!” I said.
I hung out at Ollie’s long enough for a glass of wine, a toke and insider look at my new favourite show, “Corner Gas.” As the credits were rolling on the show, my cell phone rang. It was Talbert.
“Are coming back for turkey?”
It was the philosophical question of the day.
“I’ll be there in a bit.”
On the way back to the The Pilsner, the streets were filled with junkies and the panhandlers were out in full force. Drunk and stoned I felt right at home.
Upchuck was chatting up some guy in line for a drink when I entered the bar. I walked past without even acknowledging him knowing we would catch up on the patio. I found Talbert playing the new “Lord of the Rings,” pinball machine at the back of the bar.
“You gonna eat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just have something.”
“Why am I obligated to eat turkey just because it’s Thanksgiving?”
“I thought you were hungry.”
“Who said I was hungry? Did I say I was hungry?”
“You’re always hungry. All you ever talk about is food.” Talbert kicked the leg of the pinball machine. “Now look; you made me loose my ball.”
I caught a glimpse of someone’s paper plate loaded with turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, smothered in gravy. It looked and smelled so good, but the black walls and the teddy bear in a sling took something away from the ambiance.
“Do you want me to get you plate?” Talbert asked.
“No. I’ll get it myself.”
Talbert watched me eat my turkey off a paper plate using plastic utensils. “Here’s to Thanksgiving in a bar, “ I said, raising my glass.
Talbert patted my shoulder and said, “ You’re amongst friends. There’s no shame in that.”


GarpinBC