BATHROOM HUMOUR

My morning started off with a homeless guy asking if he could use the bathroom. He looked like he had been dragged behind a car a couple of blocks. His face was filthy, and his clothes were torn, but at least I couldn’t smell him from where I was.

“Excuse me?” he said, from just inside the door. I was serving someone at the time and was a little distracted. “Can I use the bathroom?”

The angel on my shoulder said, “Be a good Catholic and let him used the damn bathroom – he’s harmless.” But the devil, or at least common sense said, “You’re only asking for trouble.”

Common sense won out. I’ve had to clean up shit off the bathroom floor one too many times.

“Sorry Dude, the bathroom is for customers.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Shit on the fucking street?’ he started yelling.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re going to do in there and whatever it is, I don’t want to clean it up.”

The woman I was serving stood there frigid; Matilda looked over the top of her paper to see if this was going to get ugly. The homeless guy left cursing.

“Sorry about that,” I said to the woman I was helping.

“It’s totally understandable.”

“It’s not that I don’t sympathize with his plight, but they can really do a number on that washroom. Last week someone shoved a pen down the toilet and we had to call Roto Rooter.”

“I understand completely.”

“I don’t know why we don’t have those coin operated washrooms like every other city does. They work!”



Later this old man who lives in my building came in; I showed him how to used the laundry machine. At the time I just assumed he had been so dependent on someone to his house work for him, he never learned to do them himself. He smiles at me whenever he sees me since; but he never recognizes me at the shop. Ollie thinks he has Alzheimer’s.

“I’ll have single espresso,” he said.

Simple enough. Then he started mumbling and pointing at the display case.

“A muffin?”

He shook his head no and mumbled something else.

“Sir, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

Again, he pointed at the display case. This time I stuck my head in, trying to see where his finger was pointing, but he was making circles with it. I started rhyming things off, hoping it would trigger a memory of the words he was trying to say. He’d come up with espresso after all.

“I don’t know why I just can’t keep pointing until you find it.”

“Sir, I’m trying, I really am.”

I sighed and went to serve the next person in line while the old man just hovered in front of the display case.

“A broccoli croissant,” he said.

I wonder my smiles around the building have been cut off.



Half way through my shift someone came up to the counter and said, “I think either someone locked the key in the bathroom, or they died in there.”

I turned to Ollie and said, “Fuck I hate that bathroom.”

I got the spare key and knocked on the door a few times. No answer. I put the key in the lock and the pounded on the door one more time. “Hello?” I shouted. Still no answer. Looking away, I opened the door. It was empty.

People usually leave the key on the sink when they leave it in the bathroom. I checked for it, but it wasn’t there. I looked on the floor, the toilet, on top of the paper towel dispenser…. it was nowhere to be seen. There was a lump of wet paper towel on the rim of the sink and the light was out.

“Great, someone stole our bathroom key.” The woman waiting to use it was right behind me. “Do you want me to change the light first, or can you do what you need to do in the dark?”

“I’ll be fine.”

After she was done, Ollie went to change the light bulb. “I found the key,” he said. “You’ll never guess where it was.” I followed him to the bathroom and looked once more for the key.

“Let me guess…it’s in front of my face, right?”

Ollie nodded yes. For the life of me, I couldn’t see it.

“I give up.”

“Most people don’t look up,” he said.

The key was dangling from one of the ceiling tiles in the corner.

“Mother fuck,” I said.

“And the light was unscrewed.”

“God, I hate to think what else is stashed in here.”

Ollie swung the lid of the garbage can. Both of us looked for needles or blood stained toilet paper. There wasn’t any.

“Probably some homeless guy's revenge for not letting him use the bathroom.”




GarpinBC

GUILTY PLEASURES

On my days off I love to eat chocolate glazed donuts from Maple Leaf Bakery, drowning them with coffee and watching the Today show. The Today Show is perhaps the most destructive guilty pleasure I indulge in. I might get wired on coffee or fat from donuts, but I really feel the Today show is some how “The Man’s” way of oppressing me, the logic being, if I’m too busy drinking coffee, eating donuts, and watching TV, I won’t be paying to attention to what is really going on and doing something about it.

Watching The Today Show is something I have no control over. Every Friday I promise myself I won’t turn the channel to it – that I’ll get right out of bed and take Hawkeye out for a long walk in the park – but I never do. Instead, I ignore the dog’s attempts to get me out of bed, pacifying him with a bowl of kibble and a belly rub. When I’m ready to confront the day, I automatically turn on the television, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is; it really bugs me that I do it, but not enough to stop. The next thing I know, I’m swigging coffee and ripping Katie, Matt, Anne and Al, to shreds. Why do we love watching things that we hate?

The top story was on Steroids in baseball. I wish Matt Lauer had been as aggressive in his interview with this nobody baseball commissioner as he had been on say…the Bush administration with the war in Iraq, or maybe Enron, or things that really matter. I will give him credit for reminding the commissioner that if he or someone else in a high profile position and was repeated caught possessing and consuming an illegal substance, he would lose that position.

It’s all such a load of crap. I love baseball. The summer Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa was an amazing season, but you had to be a moron not to know both of them were on something. Hello? Are people so in the dark about performance enhancers they’ve forgotten what a normal human being looks like? Maybe because steroids are so prevalent in the gay community I’m jaded about “good” bodies; I just automatically assume they came out of a bottle or were injected. It just goes to show, anything is acceptable if it is under the umbrella of professional sports: rape, assault, and possession. If you can throw a ball, or shoot a puck into the neck, the Fraternity of Pricks is there to protect you.

Next, there was an interview with Donald Rumsfeld- AKA: Death Incarnate. How the hell is it I can’t get a job in a call center and this guy is running the Pentagon? When questioned on efforts to catch Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , leader of the Iraqi insurgency he said, “It’s hard.” When asked if the war is breeding terrorists, he responded with, “We don’t know how many of these terrorist schools are out there – they’re secret. “ On catching bin Laden: “We’re on it. You either have him or you don’t. We don’t.” Why not put Chief Wiggum in charge of the war, at least he knows when to ask for help.

From there the Today show began to resemble Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. Katie Couric did a story on women writing marriage proposals to Scott Peterson in jail. And I thought I was desperate. And there was a story on someone putting a lean on Michael Jackson’s Neverland Estate. As much as I hate Michael Jackson, I can’t figure out why everyone is so determined to prove that he’s poor. He owns the fucking Beatles catalogue, not to mention his own; something tells me he’s not doing poorly. Everyone misses a bill now and then.

I cut myself off after the story about the attempt to kidnap David Letterman’s son and nanny. I’m a really big fan of David Letterman; he’s always struck me as a humble guy in awe of his own accomplishments. That’s why it’s so shocking to learn he’s a psycho magnet. I had completely forgot about his stalker in the Eighties who ended up in jail, then an institution, and then finally killed herself in the Nineties. That has to weigh on his mind.

And there you have it. Instead of watching Canadian news and learning more about the Air India trial or what is going on in BC, I was engrossed in the lifestyles of the rich and famous which have little or no impact on my own.



GarpinBC

MY OWN PRIVATE TYRA

There was a twenty-minute gap between our first and second customer this morning. It’s unsettling when that happens. I was done the dishes and the place was pretty clean and I hate just standing there. I wad dying to talk about the Air India verdict with Peggy but thought it best to let her bring it up. The news depresses Peggy; the only news coverage she follows is the Tour de France.

I was dying to tell someone how frustrated I am with the Canadian Justice System. How it’s really starting to look like a Crown Attorney can’t convict a case unless it’s in the defense of the government. Or how a judge could decide that every government witness lacked credibility! Is there something we’re not being told? Had Canada’s safety been threatened if the judge convicted. What the fuck is going on in chambers? And if that wasn’t bad enough, not only did Robert Blake get off for killing his wife, Congress approved drilling for oil in the Alaskan Federal Reserves.

So instead I asked her if she had seen America’s Next Top Model?

“You watch that show?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

“I just assumed that wasn’t your cup of tea.”

“It is and isn’t. But Entertainment Tonight had a preview of one of the contestants passing out, so I had to watch it. I even stuffed my face with a Canadian Maple from Tim Horton’s while it was on.”

“What were you doing watching Entertainment Tonight?”

“I was surfing.”

“So what happened?”

“Of course it was at the end of the show. Rebecca, the girl who passed out, had won the runway competition.”

“The runway competition.”

“You should see the judge. He’s this big poor black nelly queen from the projects and now he’s the best runway coach in the world.”

“How do you know he’s poor and from the projects.”

“Because that’s the rags to riches story. And I’m white and that’s just the way television taught me to think. Besides, a nelly queen who rises to top of any profession is saying something. . But whatever …The prize was and five of her friends got a pair of designer shoes and the losers had to ‘service’ them in the shoe store. So of course It went to right Rebecca’s fucking head, she was all ‘I’m on top and they know it, and this a competition,’ all WWE, and so she made a lot of enemies. Then, in the middle of being judged, her eyes roll to the back of her head and she passes out! Tyra’s waving her hands in front of her face – no one’s doing anything because it’s the first time they’ve been confronted with a real life situation. It was hilarious.”

“Holy shit! Because she didn’t eat?”

“She said it was a condition she had since she was a kid.”

“What condition? Bulimia?”

“She didn’t say. She just said that was the first time she had blacked out in three or four years. She’s probably lying.”

“So was she cut?”

“No, believe it or not, she passed out and she made the cut. The girl with no grace was sent home.”

“Listen to you, ‘The girl with no grace…’”

“We should have a reality show here,” I said. “We can call it ‘Canada’s next Top Barista,’ and we can have contestants from all over the country. And we’ll give them these really ridiculous tasks that have nothing to do with coffee, and judge them on how they do.”
“I’ll get right on that.”

“And I can be Tyra.”

If I were a judge, I would be a lot like Tyra – always looking for the good in everyone, but not afraid to tell it like it is, and benevolent. Unlike the judge in the Air India trial.

GarpinBC

LIVING PROOF

There’s a chalk outline where they’re going to widen the sidewalks at Thurlow and Burnaby in an attempt to get people to stop driving through the intersection. The island on the west side of Thurlow just isn’t doing the trick. As a pedestrian, I get a little ticked off when people blatantly ignore the signs and drive around the island, but not enough to lose sleep on it, if for no other reason, I’ve been in a car trying to get to my place and felt perfectly justified driving through. But I live here damn it.

Is it me, or are there more homeless people on the streets since the Safe Streets Act passed? This morning a guy wrapped in a blanket honed in on me as soon as I put the key in the lock of The Shop. “S’cuse me, S’cuse me,” he half said.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry…” I said, trying to block out his demands, his requests, and his needs. “There’s nothing I can do to help you right now.”

He was up in my face as I turned the key in the lock. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he said. His hair was wiry, springing from his head like plugs; his face, white and clammy. Who knew what the fuck he was on, or why he was wrapped in a blanket at four-thirty in the morning in front of the PayMo. The Catholic in me said I should draw him an Americano from the espresso machine or grab him a slice of banana bread. But you can’t fuck around that early in the morning. Who knew what was concealed beneath that blanket.

“Sorry dude. There’s nothing I can do to help you this early in the morning.” I opened the door just a crack and slid in, locking it behind me. I could see him out of the corner of my eye as I walked into the recesses of the shop, his face against the door, trying to stare me into letting him. I turned on the oven and threw off my outer garments. He had given up by the time I was done putting some music into the CD player.

I was deep into egg washing the croissants when I heard someone banging on the door. At first I thought it was the homeless guy come back for round two, but it was Kermit, on his way home from work at the call center. “Can I have a coffee?” he asked.

“So did you hear I’m moving to Toronto at the end of the month?” Kermit said.

“What?”

“Yeah. I got offered a job there and I took it.”

“Why do I find that unsettling?”

“I understand why don’t you don’t use that green card of yours and move back to the States. I would. Fuck Bush. He can’t stay in power forever.”

“It has nothing to do with Bush.”

“What then?”

“Where ever you go, there you are.”

“Why do I find that unsettling?”

I picked up my new passport from the post office this afternoon. I used my old one for I.D. I took one last look at my old passport before shoving it in a drawer to be shredded. Ironically, I‘m wearing the shirt I had on in my old passport photo. The smile on my face is of a successful person. I had done what I had set out to do – with the exception of a couple things. This was someone who picked up dinner, and bought rounds of drinks; someone who got on planes at regular intervals. Fuck, I really miss that person.

Slowly, the things I brought with me from the States are falling apart or being replaced with new “Canadian” things. Last week I gave my Discman to a girl who works nights at The Shop; she had been reduced to listening to cassettes because she couldn’t afford a new one. Mine has been collecting dust since Craig Valentine gave me his old iPod; how could I let her go without? Soon the only thing left will be the dog.

There’s a part of me that wants to sell what little I have and migrate south with the dog. Right now the idea of being poor in San Francisco appeals to me way more than being poor in Vancouver. At least in San Francisco, you can be poor and anonymous.

“You’ll be back,” I told Kermit as I let him back out onto the street.

“You say to that to everyone.”

“I’m living proof of it.”

GarpinBC

SOMPLACE ONLY I KNOW

I officially became a member of Friends for Life yesterday. It’s something I’ve been putting off for a while now. I had the application for months before I got my doctor to sign it, it was another couple of months before I took it down to Gordon House, and then I postponed my orientation appointment a week. Shallow as it might sound, I hate support groups; getting touchy-feely makes me uncomfortable. The only reason I joined was to get the free massage. I figure if I’m going to have to bear this burden, I might as well get my shoulders rubbed.

The last time my HIV status got me a membership into a club was right after I tested positive. Needless to say I was moving through water for a couple of weeks; everything was happening in slow motion and I could hear people talking but couldn’t understand what they were saying. I remember my friend’s hands on my shoulders guiding me to a doctor’s appointment and getting him to sign a form stating I was HIV. From the doctor’s office we went straight down to the Cannabis Club on Market St.

The line-up to get into the club looked like something out of “Blade Runner.” All different kinds of people using walkers, or in wheel chairs, twitching and limping – most of them with the rainbow flag somewhere on their person. It was middle of the day, and we were in broad daylight. It was rumoured the FBI had the place under surveillance from one of the hotel rooms across the street. I was too high to care.

The club was open for only a few hours a day, so it was always packed. There were two floors, the second tended to be a little quieter. I remember walking up to a bar and looking at the selection of pot that was offered. The prices were high for what you got, but for the most part it was pretty killer pot. We took our little baggies of medical grade marijuana and sat down at one of the tables in a windowed corner. The place was exactly what you would expect a pot club in San Francisco to look like: Old couches and chairs, crystals reflecting the sunlight throughout the room. Ferns.

I remember sitting there, staring into one of the crystals dangling from fish wire, peeling an orange I had grabbed from a one of the barrels stationed around the club, and thinking, “I’m a fucking freak.” And in that moment, the world stopped, and I was able to get on with my life again.

True to form, I put off going to my orientation appointment until the last possible second. And then I got lost trying to find Gordon House. The person who was going to be showing me around was busy with another member, so I was told to help myself to coffee and pastries in the dining room. There was meeting going on in the living room, old ragtime was playing. There was heat emanating from the kitchen. There was something about the way the light filtered through the windows that reminded me of the cannabis club on Market St. The window I was sitting in faced the porch where six or seven people sat, smoking.

I was already wired on coffee, so caffeine was out of the question. I helped myself to a glass of water and stared at two beautiful cupcakes with pink icing; it was like narcissus looking at his reflection in the water. The painting of Gordon House on the wall distracted me. “I wonder if they would notice if I took this?” I thought to myself.

“Are you becoming a member?” someone asked from behind me.

“Uh…yeah,” I stammered, turning to face a man I had just seen on the porch smoking. “Today’s my orientation I guess.”

“It’s a great place. It saved my life.”

I smiled and nodded like a foreigner. I was tempted to say, “Hey, I’m down with the whole HIV thing; I’m not looking for a shoulder to lean on, I’m just here for the massage.”

The next thing I knew someone had their arm around my shoulder and I was being introduced to a dog. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. And then finally, the woman I was meeting with said she was ready to show me around. Once more I felt like I was hallucinating as I was shown into the kitchen and then led upstairs, past more great art. I poked my head into the yoga/meditation room and one of the counseling rooms, and then asked to wait just a little longer in the library. It was like the house in “The Royal Tennenbaums.”

There I sat in the turreted room amongst the books like an apparition. Considering how many people were in the house, the library was quiet. I got up to look at the art and the books and sat back down at the table. “This would be a great room to sit and write in,” I thought. There was so much warmth in that room, it was like being wrapped inside a blanket, inside a cocoon.

We’ll see if I ever actually get around to a message; but it’s nice to know it’s there if I need it.

GarpinBC