24 Hours in Vancouver

Chapter One: Jack Teaman, writer

Rolling wildly
out of Vancouver, and ultimately on the long ride home, I could have
been on my road to Damascus. It’s hard to say for sure, I just
rolled out of Canada moments ago, and burnt into my mind is the wild
time I spent there. Perhaps for some it would not be considered a
wild time, those soldiers of the streets walking endlessly nowhere
and everywhere all the time, or those denizens of strip clubs,
brothels and prisons. But for others, the healthy people, or at
least those who have a semblance of normal modes of living. Really,
who fits into the regular mode of living truly?

Well, I certainly
do not have a standard mode of living. Sure, I have a job, I live
in a house in what I consider the ‘burbs, I drive a four door sedan,
wear a shirt and tie everyday, and I even have the cellular phone.
In short, I have all the qualities of one of those normal people.
It hasn’t always been like this and I hope it won’t always be like
it too. It is merely a stop on the train of life for me, I suppose.
Honestly, I absolutely hate living this life. I enjoy the job, but
the lifestyle around it really hurts, and oddly enough, it is a
lifestyle I would never develop. I don’t even particularly like the
city I live in, or should I call it a village? The people there
would be offended if they heard that, and for that reason I will not
mention its name. I’ll merely say, it rains there for the majority
of the year, which tweaks us out of our minds, and most of the
residents love it so much to them there is nothing outside of it.
There is a huge world out there, I’ve seen some of it, and I can say
with absolute sincerity there are places better than this village.
I am not altogether sure where I would want to live, somewhere, not
there, and I plan to move as soon as I figure it out. I’m not
scared to leave; I’m staying as long as my contract with work lasts,
or for as long as I can take all the rain.

I may leave the
office, and the lifestyle, go back to the old way. A little time
here, a little time there, travel, travel, travel. But as I recall,
that life was aging me in a strange way, and that was the reason I
moved there to work. I suppose the grass is always greener…

So now, I am the
worst kind of person. I look one way, normal, normal life, job,
person, but I feel another way. My way of dealing with it is to
take as many trips as I can to various places, and stay shorter
lengths, as I have to get back to work. And believe it or not, I
really do look differently in each event, like two people, two
faces. I seem to be less sad when travelling. Funny the things we
live with, isn’t it? I live with perpetual sadness. Better than
fear, I suppose.

I drove for six
hours on Monday to get to Vancouver, B.C. That’s right, Canada, I
had never been there, and to cross the border as insignificant as it
may be to anyone who has been to Canada, it was my 28th country.
And I was nervous as I rolled across the border. The guard asked
all of two questions and pushed me through.

The last border I
drove over was a dangerous affair, and I did my part to make it
worse. I was smuggling two out of three things: leather and
crystal. If I would have found a piece of art I really like, I
would have bought it too. It’s funny to think about it now, it
seems unlikely. I was smuggling everyday items from Czechoslovakia
to Germany. It was the time, the early 1990’s, the wall had just
fell, and the westerners’ were exploiting the east. But isn’t that
the way it is, we are a people of exploiters and the exploited. I
loved living in Germany in those days too, it’s right in the center
of Europe and all over was where I went. Germans have a bad rap in
Europe, like we have a bad rap in the Americas, and Japanese in
Asia. I suppose we are the privileged class of the world, the
Americans, the Japanese and the Germans. And everyone of us, I am,
and people like me are the privileged class of our own people.
Really. I would like to say I am independently wealthy, like some
computer guru, or a son of an oil tyrant, but I am not. I am just a
man, a son of a file clerk and a public servant. But I realize now,
the privileged people are not born from money and status, I believe
it is a matter of suffering, and living that makes a person regal.
We’ve been there, I suppose, but some people are wonderful rich with
it, they have concurred it, and have grown into a wonderful
peacock’s tail.

I met Jack Teaman
after about ten cigarettes and a half bottle of incidental wine. He
was looking to buy a few cigarettes from me. I see smoking as a
vehicle to meet people or some sort of comradely, and there was no
way I was about to sell him cigarettes, I gave him two. Since he
was really into giving me the money, I think he thought me rude not
to want those coins. “If you can get me a light, never mind the
fifty cents.”

“A light?”

“I have the
smokes, but no way of lighting them.”

“Aye,”
he said. He was the first person I really had any contact with
other than the people who were providing me services. Those were
the border guard, the woman at the Cecil Hotel, the banker who
exchanged my money, and the bar keep at Brass Monkey who gave me the
wine. Jack had some sort of Londoner accent, but I couldn’t put my
finger on which one. Then again perhaps it was a washed out accent
due to too much time in Vancouver and now he had two accents, two
modes of language and they were at constant battle for supremacy.
Perhaps he had two modes of living too, and that made me appreciate
him all the more. “A light.”

“I’m Jack
Teaman, writer.”

“I’m also a
writer,” I said. And within minute I had a job with him, Dear
Jack, 67 years old, recently separated from his wife. He had an
interesting story, but I didn’t believe any of it. We were on our
way to the Skytrain to go to a pub of his neighborhood to share a
pint of beer and take about how we got into writing at all.

We didn’t pay of
course for the train. We just wandered on, and if we were
questioned, then Jack would be obligated to talk. We got off only
two stops later. No one asked us for the ticket, no one care, and I
felt somehow badly about it. I’m not sure why, I love to get away
with things like this sort of thing, really. In recent times I have
been as rule abiding as possible, and for no other reason than it is
the right thing to do. Occasionally, I’ll do something like get ont
he train and not pay, but does my catholic guilt get me. And I felt
guilty until we left the station.

Two blocks down,
we entered the pub, “This place can be rough, stay close to
me.” And close to him I stayed. At the bar we discovered we
had enough for a beer each. Then to a table we went. “What’s
your back ground?”

“Mostly,
vignettes and fiction, poetry sometimes.” I was the real McCoy
of the two of us. I had my notebook with me, I had been carrying it
all night, and I would continue to carry for several hours more.

“Yours?”

“When were
you born?”

“1972.”

“I was born
in 1932.”

We sipped the beer,
I listened.

“I never did
get an education. Have you been to University?”

“Yes.”

“Leave with
degree?”

“Yes.”
He reached over the table and shook my hand. For the first time
since leaving college, I left that the degree I held really meant
something.

“I left after
grade three.”

“Why?”

“No school.
I was in East London, I’m a cockney.”

“I see.”

“There wasn’t
much left of London then. They were taking child out to go to
school, but I was too young.”

We took a drink,
and I lit his cigarette.

“They’ll kill
you.”

“You believe
that?”

“It says here
on the box, ‘Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease'”

“Bah! I’ve
been smoking since…” he thought, looked up, squinted an eye
and made this strange popping noise with his mouth, “Since I
was 11. They haven’t killed me.”

“Suppose
not.”

“The
Americans were very good to us. They gave us either candy or
cigarettes.”

“Soldiers?”

“There were
Canadians too. They wore our uniforms, just with their flag. I
came here in 1956.”

“To write?”

“Aye, for the
newspaper.”

So, he was a
newspaper man. Got for him. He was retired now, and a pensioner.
His life in the course of a year had gone from worker and husband,
to retired and divorced. Poor guy, I can’t imagine it. So to take
up his time he was writing or trying to write travel video scripts.
That was what my job was going to be. He was convincing me of our
importance by comparing the project to cities in the states I’ve
lived in. Since, Jack and I both share the Pacific Coast, we were
familiar with all the cities.

“What about
funding?” Seemed a good question for a newly employed writer
like me to ask him. In truth, I could careless, our relationship
was nearly over.

“Jim
Pattison.”

“Who?”

“The eleventh
richest guy in Canada.”

“So?”
Like, that doesn’t impress me. Maybe if he said a hugh studio, or
the government or something I would have been impressed. I
discovered later that Jim Pattison is a very wealth guy.

“When did
Frank Sinatra die?”

“April.
April 1998.”

“Well, Jimmy
bought his house in L.A.” Which meant of course he would
gladly fund this project.

He drank down to
the bottom of his glass. I had about a quarter to go, and I was
looking for the escape. If he would only go to the men’s room, or
something. Then, “Say Jack, I’ve got two dollars.”

“Two
loonies?” I produced them. “Stay here, sit tight, I’ll go
get another.” He got up, and before he reached the bar I got
up too. If he were to turn around I would be busted. I was
counting on his focus on the beer and I was right, he didn’t turn
around. Once I reached the door, I ran all the way back to the
train station. I ran away from poor Jack.

All I could gather
from our brief friendship I had with him is that he is a needy and
lonely old man, just separated from work and wife, and perhaps I am
a bad person for leaving him. I can’t take care of strangers,
strange old men on the streets.

Chapter Two:
Foghorn’s

I paid for the
ticket this time.

Needless to say, I
was a little drunk when I got on the train. I wasn’t feeling so
good, the very fact that i drink bothers me. They say that stuff is
hereditary. My father was a very abusive drunk, he’s reformed now,
but my mother and step-father still drink like fiends. If I am to
be a drunk, I want to be like my step-father, drink a little of the
drink and fall asleep in front of the TV. Again, we are discussing
the norm, and regular modes of living.

In a period of a
week, back in my village of a home I had two women ask me if I am an
alcoholic. One said “I always get involved with alcoholics.”
I am still unsure what that means, and I hope we are not involved
and I am not an alcoholic. The second woman is a twenty eight year
old nurse who had come all the way to my village to recover a little
from a coma she’d been. Apparently, she had been a nurse in another
life, and in the life that was killing her and sever addict. She
had tried to kill herself a few times in the past, and really didn’t
want to live.

“Are you an
alcoholic?” She asked as we sat there waiting for the movie to
start. it didn’t matter what I told this woman, as I knew she would
be gone back to San Diego soon enough.

“No, but you
are the second person to ask in a week. Why do you think I am?”

“I was with
an alcoholic for two years and you remind me of him.”

“I see.”

“I thought I
could see through you the other night.”

“What did you
see?”

“Sadness.”

“Sure,
sadness and alcoholism are the same thing.” At least not to
me. You can be a happy drunk and you can be depressed and sober.

“All addicts
are sad,” she said as the movie trailers came on the screen.
This was a conversation I didn’t want to resume after the movie.
And fuck her, I thought as the movie got rolling. She had only met
me twice and we were drunk the first time, and at the movies the
second. She didn’t know me. I stewed about it, and it stewed me
even more that I let suicidal, drug addicted ex-nurse from San Diego
get under my skin. At least she was up front about it, and just
asked. The other woman tells me “I always get involved with
alcoholics.” Like I said we were not involved and I am not an
alcoholic.

At any rate, in
Vancouver, on the SkyTrain I was almost condemning myself for
drinking so much. I was drunk, but what the hell, I wasn’t hurting
anyone, and I wasn’t robbing stores. So, off I was, back to the
Granville station, and to find something more to do with my night.

I considered
patronizing the strip bar beneath my hotel, until I realized money
was something I was not made from. I walked by a bar, and saw a
couple of you ladies at the bar. I almost went it. The next little
club had music, but I would want to drop off the notebook before
going. I was not about to lose this notebook even though it only
had a few pages of material in it. I lost it’s predecessor in a
robbery. There was almost 200 pages of material lost, stolen from
the car. This is one of the reasons why I don’t particularly care
for the place I live. People leave their lawn furniture on the
street for weeks before a parade, and no one steals it, but they
rainey little fuckers will break into an automobile to steal a
notebook. I don’t, don’t want get, and I don’t want to participate.

So I walked on,
clutching the notebook. It is kind of funny, in my hotel room, I
hide all the things I found to be important those worth stealing,
but I took the notebook with me. Well, perhaps I would have some
inspiration to write something, and I had written something small
and something silly over a bottle of wine in Brass Monkey.

A sparsely
populated video arcade appealed to me. I went in to play pinball.
It made me lonely. After two dollars I left, and headed back with a
missionary purpose to the bar where I had seen those two women at
the bar. I was determined to talk to some people, and hopefully
some my age. Don’t get me wrong, Jack Team was a great guy, but
there is only so much conversation I would have handled with him.
If that, as you may have guessed I am not a person who listens real
well, I am a person who waits to talk. And with Jack there would
have been a long wait. Even if his stories about the war were
interesting, he got tiring. At least with the young people, you can
leave them and meet more and no hard feelings, and they are
generally in groups whereas Jack was solitary.

Instantly in
FogHorn’s I was reminded of an old place I went to in college. They
had poor lighting, and were technically a restaurant. Alcohol at
Foghorn’s in theory is incidental to food. Everyone in there was
drinking, no eating involved. Well, there were the peanuts.
Peanuts right out of the barrel, which is why I was reminded of a
bar I knew in college.

I didn’t drink for
most of my college days. But I did go into the campus bar, the
boiler room, a few times. And oddly enough I have only three
experiences there over a period of about two years and each
experience involves a woman named Jodi.

The first one and
I drank each other silly, went to a strip club and then back to my
house. She will forever hold the title of the best one night stand.
Since our drunk day was also our last day of class, we never did
see one another again.

The second one,
worked there. Our relationship was completely strand from the
beginning. I wasn’t drinking at the time and I didn’t smoke. She
smoked like a fiend. She smoked the way I do now, and it is
disgusting. I really liked this woman, I even could have been in
love with her. Things didn’t work out for us that fall, and they
wouldn’t now so many years later, but I do think about her from time
to time. I wish the best for her.

The third one made
me sad. In those days I was a sad person but it was only
occasional, unlike now when I am sad most of the time. She was a
wonderfully sexy thing and all I wanted out of life was to sleep
with her. Like a trophy I suppose, and it was wrong of me to think
this way, and no matter how hard I try it is almost impossible to
look past the conquest part of things. We had a drink at the Boiler
Room one night. She had beer and I the lemonade. We went back to a
basement nest I was living in, and did my best to take off her
clothes and to no avail.

“I can’t.
You’re doing everything right, believe me.”

“Why?”

“I just
can’t.”

“Okay,”
I whispered in her ear and continued with my task. And for a little
while she entertained it.

“I have a
disease.”

“What?”

“Herpes.”
A pause followed, as one would.

“It doesn’t
change the way I feel about you,” I whispered continuing my
kiss on her face, although my hands stopped trying to undo her
trousers. It didn’t change the fact that I thought her a very sexy
creature, and that I thought the sex with her would be out of this
world. But it did change me from wanting it. I would be content to
kiss her and forever think about how wonderful sex with her would
have been.

At any rate, there
was a specific smell around the boiler room, forever of stale beer,
rancid peanuts, old cigarette smoke and old walls.

I took a handful
of peanuts out of the barrel and marveled at the smell of the
Foghorn’s, so much like The Boiler Room.

I ordered a coke,
and tried to make conversation.

I saw her face
eclipse on someone else’s head. She looked pretty, dark, but far
away. She had an Oakly baseball cap pulled down and her hair was
long, it was kind of hard to see her. And I continued to sit and
sip my coke and smoke Export A cigarettes. Next to me on the left
were two women, both strikingly familiar like two I should have
known, and maybe in a previous life I knew someone who looked like
each of them.

I started to think
about things again. I always seem to think about them, random
things and past things and things that will never come. But I was
sitting there thinking about Siddartha and how he didn’t fully live
until he came out of the palace. Conversely, I don’t want to dwell
on my existence, but really… If I lived in a palace where
everything is wonderful, beautiful and perfect, there would be no
way I would ever leave it.

Then, it is about
what you know, right? I thought, if my life had been different
anywhere along the way, perhaps I would never have come this far, or
never had come to Canada. So, I don’t really remember where I am
from. The earliest memories I had where moving around to various
places. i moved around too much as a kid and I never really lived
with too much family. And once I moved to live with my mother, I
never really saw family again. I think she prided herself on living
far away. So that is one reason why I think I travel and don’t
really like it, and why I never live anywhere for too long and why I
don’t form any relationships. If life for me would have been
different, if I could have grown up with a happy family and one who
lived in the same area or community, I doubt I would have even found
myself in Foghorn’s bar on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver,
British Colombia. I laughed at the difference in thought, between
all the Jodis I every knew and the Boiler Room and what if my
childhood was different.

“Hi,” it
was the young thing who smiled at me moments before and let herself
eclipse behind the other head.

“Hello.”

“What’s your
name?”

I told her. And
she told me her name, Kelly.

“What’s your
story?” I asked, I always do. I think I ask to see what the
response is, and not really for the story itself. Perhaps I say it
because someone asked me what my story was, I’m not sure. When I
asked her, she winced a little, moved the chair out and sat in
closer to the bar.

“It’s very
long.”

“What’s the
story for today?” Seemingly an easier topic. If I knew then
that I would be able to tell the story of today with her at that
point maybe I would have obeyed my first thought which was bed. But
much like the whole Jack Teaman incident, I would have to ride this
one to the very end, or at least the end of my comfort.

“You wouldn’t
believe it, eh? I lost my wallet, $300, all my ID and my bus pass.”
And it wouldn’t be the last time i would hear the story.

“That sucks.”

“Especially
the bus pass.”

It didn’t take long
for her to discover my foreignness. Looking on it now, if I lived
in the same neighborhood for any length of time, I would be able to
tell if there was an outsider in it too. By just one look, she
knew. All the way from the United States too. We talked about
Vancouver, her home town and about Toronto, where her father lives.

Another woman came
and sat at my left eagerly listen on. I figured her a friend of
Kelly, and the two talked. Then we talked about the Prairie’s which
I suppose is all the vastness between Toronto and Vancouver. How
would I know? Never even thought about it.

“Where are
you from?” The girl on the left asked, almost annoyed. Kelly
told her. “You have prairies there.”

“Sure, but I
never….”

“You’ve never
been here before?”

“Actually I
just rolled into town.”

“Do you know
Shawn?”

“Who?”

“The DJ,
darling,” Kelly said. And the other pointed past me to this
box looking place above a ladder at the end of the bar. And in it
was Shawn and his discs and a vacant seat for guest.

“Actually,
Shawn and I go way back,” which was completely untrue. “Why?”

“He told me
you were a good friend, and I should come talk to you.”

“I see,”
and I did too. It was either a case of mistaken identity, unlikely,
or old Shawn was trying to get rid of her. My head lowered a
little, and noticing Kelly disappearance became more open to
conversation with the other girl of Shawn’s acquaintance.

“You’ve never
seen Shawn, have you?” She was getting demanding.

“No,”
time for honesty.

She stood off the
chair and began to go back.

“Well, honey,
if you ever get a chance, like if you get a sex change, have sex
with him, he’s great.”

“What makes
him so great?”

“Oh! you just
know, eh?” And she vanished back to her end of the bar. And
alone I was again. I could see Kelly away from the crowd talking to
someone. I was banking on her return, and was not disappointed.

The crowd seemed
to be thinning out. The girl who loved to have sex with shawn hang
at the other end of the bar, and to my right Kelly returned, and
between her and the other woman were plenty of others all friends of
Kelly’s.

“Do you want
to go to the Roxy with us?”

“Are you
leaving?”

“Foghorn’s is
about to close.”

“Really?”

“Class B
place. Only stays open twelve hours a day.”

The small crowd was
getting ready to leave the bar, they were donning their jackets and
gloves, something almost excessive in my opinion, but I was wearing
a scarf. It wasn’t really all that cold outside.

“Ready?”
She asked.

“Are you
inviting me?”

She nodded and we
left. Across Granville we were at the door of The Roxy. There was
a line and a cover. Neither of which we had to deal with, we walked
right in. I was only able to get by due to my hand being in
Kelly’s.

Chapter Three: The
Roxy and Siesta Rooms

I suppose you win
some and you lose some, right? I suppose we can also draw the same
conclusions about life, there are some lives that win and other that
lose. Of course we would all like to be winners, and sometimes we
are. However, I am sure everyone knows someone who has never won,
they have either been sick their whole lives or they have been given
the short end of things forever. Such a way to go through life, and
then there are others who seem to have everything.

There are people
who from the outside have it all, and still they waste away in such
a state that know one seems to understand what could have infected
them. They have turned to addictions or abuse of some sort and
wasted away into nothing, losing everything they were given. Some
are all about self mutilation, tattooed from head to toe, and
pierced like a pincushion, and those to a lesser extent who hide
behind plastic surgery. Ballooned breasts, and fake lips and a
perma-smile with falsely white and straight teeth. And were does
all the self mutilation get us? Somewhere deep inside the Roxy, I
suppose. It was a strange crowd, and I couldn’t put my finger one
it. Like my now three companions we did not belong, but were there
anyway.

The first tanned,
obscenely tanned girl I saw with her blond too bland hair and
plastic tits depressed me. It isn’t attractive, and who is it
attractive too? Some sort of plastic man. Someone who I should
fear.

Five years ago, I
spent the early Denver winter with a plastic woman seven years my
senior. I liked her sometimes because I was never obligated to talk
to her about anything, she never wanted to know, and I was certainly
not obligated to listen to her. She was a sexy thing, I suppose,
supple, but definitely not my type. She was a retired Stripper, and
I imagine she left the scene before I even know what a stripper
really was. She was a smart stripper, if ever there was such a
thing. She invested her wealth. Her first investment was a new set
of breast. And that investment paid for itself. She saved and
invested more, bought a house, a car, and set herself up for a
modest existence for the rest of her life. At 24 years old settled
into a life of hanging out with friends, playing with her dog,
taking a class here and there (Always getting the A) and pursuing
any other interest that might come her way. Her name was Dana, and
I remember how unnatural her breasts felt when she let me touch
them. They were the antithesis of what I would think a woman should
feel like, soft and natural, warm, pleasant. And perhaps she really
wasn’t a cold and unnatural person like I thought she was, I just
didn’t understand her, and didn’t want too, and I will forever have
a view of her that rings of how the breast felt.

I kept seeing Dana
at the Roxy, and women who strived to be like her. I suppose they
all have interesting aspects to their lives and unique stories, like
Dana, but I could never accept them, like I could never accept the
tattooed and pierced people. I may not like myself any more or less
than anyone else, but self-mutilation as such is just unacceptable.
I intend to like myself someday and everything about myself, and I
don’t know if I could live with unnatural things under my skin,
killing me from the inside rotting forever and always in the
self-loathing I had as a youth.

For that reason,
how could I possibly love anyone who has contributed to their own
wounds, scars and ultimate demise? I lived with a fellow named
Josie when I was in Europe. He refused to date a smoker, and you
can imagine how hard a nonsmoker in our age cohort was to find in
Germany in those days. His entire reasoning was that if he were to
fall in love with a person who was steadily trying to kill
themselves, he would eventually be heart broken. I understand after
I left and returned to the states, be began to date an ex-girlfriend
of mine who was a passionate smoker. I never kept in touch with
either of them, but I adopted Josie’s way of seeing relationships,
and I wondered if the Ex ever adopted it too. To further extremes
of the Josie way was what I did, I refused to date a smoker, a
tattooed beast, or someone excessively pierce, someone with
obnoxious gum chewing/ eating habits, or a waitress. That criteria
eliminated everyone. Which is okay, for if I haven’t said it prior,
I have this profound fear of commitment. I have never really been
able to comply completely to a job or to a person, nor really to
myself. In fact, I am only successful with one of these things if
there is an end built into it. I have always had wonderful love
affairs with wonderful people when I am travelling, and the entire
romance, first kiss, heartbreak and all between can occur in a
period of one to two days. I am expert at it.

In the Roxy, I was
looking at three women who would be my most successful lover ever,
and it would be a joy to be with them forever I would stay in
Vancouver, which would be a short as possible. There was of course
Kelly, 19 years old as she had told me, half Filipino, and half
Irish, dark, pretty. Then there was Shawna, the friend, whole five
years before weighed twice what she does now, and I could tell she
was a little uncomfortable around me, and why not. The third girl
was out of the loop. I could tell that if we could get to know one
another she would have been the perfect candidate. She was older
than the rest, but she also had a hugh ring on her finger and
constantly looked at it. I have never seen anyone look and look at
a ring like that. I thought that was only for the fairy tales and
things of that nature. Perhaps every time she looked at it she
could see the lovers face, and I hope he has a pleasant one, she was
a real find, simple, pretty, natural. It was an attractive ring
too.

Or I could venture
away from the group who so gladly brought me in, and find someone
else at the Roxy, they were all waiting for something, and perhaps
an opportunity for love of a foreigner was what they were needing.
It was what I wanted, and I’m sure if the ask was right or the
movements, it could have been anyone.

Instead, I drank a
shot of whatever they bought for me, and stayed with the people I
came with. I listened to them, held my notebook and waited
peacefully for the pool table which we were next to play on.

I talked here and
there, but most clutched that notebook, and what a crazy sight I
must have been to all the drunks there.

Ugly plaid jacket,
scarf still tied, notebook, tall and skinny. Well, whatever, why
would I care about them, I knew I would never see them again.
Honestly, how could I tell if they were looking at me or not, it was
dim and smokey in there.

Kelly rambled on
and on about her job with the telemarketing firm., She got to call
Americans all day long and give away airline tickets for 90 minutes
of their time. A fairly high hourly wage, and it was all under the
table so she could continue to collect her welfare. The married
one, I have forgotten her name, was fiercely interested in what she
had to say. Then the conversation shifted to the other forms of
income in this part of the city which of course was the illegal
institution of drugs. Everybody had something for sale and everyone
bought, and that’s all I could really gather.

It was our turn on
the table.

“Give me two
loonies,” she said. I produced them, and into the machine they
went. No balls came out. We tried again with the Roxy’s money, and
again nothing came out. On the third try the barman gave us a table
closed sign. The table then became our bench and we talked further.
Rather, I listen further. I could have been with old Jack all
night at this rate, and just waiting to talk. Although, there
conversation was interesting to me and something outside of my realm
of knowledge, it was equally as unattainable as Jack’s WWII London.

I looked at all
the pretty people, and all the petty people. Some of them were
truly gifts, at least to look at and a person can not really be
judged by appearance alone. And looking down at my little
acquaintance Kelly, the only person I can say I know in all of
Vancouver and Canada, she looked like a little devil, living life
and having a good time.

With your last
days on Earth, reader, would you be a little devil, living life and
having a good time?

“I don’t
really like drinking,” Kelly said over another drink, and
included me in conversation. The married girl was gone now and it
was the three of us, myself, Kelly and Shawna.

“Me neither,
really.”

“I can’t help
it though, I live upstairs and it goes on like this until 2:30, eh?
and the drunks don’t leave until 3:30.”

“You live
upstairs?”

“Number 31.
You’re in the Cecil, eh?”

“I am
tonight.”

“Do you live
here?” Shawna asked. Kelly explained to her all she needed to
know of my existence and it was in the same manner as she had told
the other girl in Foghorn’s. “I used to live in Cecil. Have
you been in the club.”

“No, but I
like strippers.” We all laughed and I’m not sure why.Perhaps
it was a lie and we all knew it, hard to say, but laughter felt
good.

The bar seemed to
be emptying out, and those who remained seemed only to stumble
around looking for someone they’d seen hours ago and not being able
to find them. I couldn’t really stand staying any longer but I
wasn’t really ready for bed, and I certainly wasn’t ready to say
goodnight.

“I’m going to
bed.”

“No. I’ll
take you breakfast, eh?”

“Omelets,
maybe.”

“There’s
nothing open now, just Taco Time.”

“Tacos sound
appealing, don’t they.”

“We always
eat there at this time of night.”

So Taco Time it
was. Supermeal burritos, mexifries, and soda, on the cooling,
quieting Granville Street. The taxis were lining up across the
street like they always do in front of clubs at closing, like
drunken mosquitos draining the victim of what’s left of their money.
Limos too.

“Hey you see
that limo? That’s my limo, eh? Come on.” Kelly tugged me
around and we headed toward it. Shawna in a fit of something
strange had sad goodnight, I imagine her as some sort of tweeker
strung out on something or other, she apparently had to meet someone
very soon. Kelly and I were alone.

“It’s the
right limo, but that’s not my driver.”

At this point the
streets were filling up with people who I had seen at various points
of the night. People from the first Pub with Jack Teaman, people
from Foghorn’s the Roxy and perhaps the arcade. There were
panhandlers, clubbers and randoms, but aren’t we all randoms really?

Kelly seemed to
know just about everyone. She told me of her relationship with the
place. She’d been living on or around this strip since she left
home at 12, seven years ago. And we were on our way to a phone
booth, she asked if I wanted to go for a ride, perhaps see Stanley
Park.

“Gerry? I
see your limo, eh? and someone else was driving.” And the
conversation began. “Oh! I see you. This young man is my
friend, yeah…” And off she went telling this Gerry all about
me. I had made it to friend status. She made me feel good, I am
and always have been a stranger, an acquaintance, someone who was
just met. There are only a few people around the world who can call
me friend, really. And only a couple come to mind, one in Geneva,
one somewhere on the DMZ of Korea and a dear friend in Denver. All
someplace foreign to right there at that moment. Somehow all of
these friends would not be so surprised by my circumstances, or
appalled as all the people who know me in the village where I live
now. “If you’ren’t busy, take us for a ride, eh?” And as
she finished it, I could see old Gerry on his cell phone wandering
up slowly toward us.

He was
considerable older than I would have guessed him to be by her
description. Actually she’d not described him at all, but I figured
a limo drive of her acquaintance would be young, as young as her and
if not, not even as old as me.

Gerry was older,
thinning, somewhat wrinkled. He had on a cheap suit and a yellowing
blue shirt toped with a clip-on tie. He smiled at me only with
apprehension and resumed talk with young Kelly as they both hung up
their respected phones.

“Meet Gerry.”

“Hi.”

We were introduced.
He was waiting as I thought like all the others to take home all
the drunks, or at least to take them to a home. He stood chatting
with her, and me to an extent. “Here,” he said producing
a folded piece of paper from his jacket breast pocket. “Clean.”
I thought it may be a blood test of some sort, it was something.
The paper looked abused like all the papers we were given as
children to take home and they just got trashed on the way. he had
had this paper for a long time, or perhaps it just got some use.
Then he told us the story of the urine analysis. Apparently the
Ex-wife was trying to prevent him from seeing the children, and he
was not about to let that happen.

Good for him, I
thought. Too many fathers easily give up, or walk away at the first
chance. I think that many of them want nothing to do with their
children. perhaps that is my own conclusion with the life I’ve
lived and things I’ve seen, and I hope I am all wrong. Whatever the
case is, I was very impressed by Gerry for fighting to stay in the
lives of his children. I wanted to say something to him, something
comforting, something poetic. I looked at the paper he gladly
showed off to me when kelly went through the trauma of her day and
how she had lost the wallet on the bus, the three hundred dollars,
the ID and the bus pass. The story had stayed the same every time,
the words were a little different and the catalogue of lost items
only changed order on the telling, depending on who she was telling.

“Can I call
around four?”

“Sure.”
We turned to walk away. “Be careful!” And we were off
down the street, Granville, toward my home. She was passionate
about walking me home something I was very flattered about.

We were
interrupted by a panhandler, “Change?”

“No. Sorry.
No money, today was welfare day too and all my money’s gone. Haha.”
And the old man laughed or something which sounded a bit like it.

“Really?”

“No. What
can I tell him? He can relate, you know.” It was true, he
could. She laughed about it a bit more and danced around me. “Do
you smoke pot?” I said nothing but looked at her. “Oh.”
She’d asked a few times before, and really in our first
conversation a lifetime ago in Foghorn’s I’d even inquired about the
Hash Bars. “Do you want to get high?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can
go to your room, unless we have to pay the guest fee, we can wait
and ride around with Gerry.”

“What’s the
guest fee?”

“$10.”

“If they ask,
I’ll pay it.”

“Can I buy
you something to drink?” Before I could answer she grabbed my
hand and across the street we went. “This is Sami’s all night
market. he used to look after me.”

And into the
market, greeted by Sami we went. He knew her, and was a little
disappointed to hear she had come back down to live in the hotel. I
could tell he looked after her. Like Gerry there was something of
love in his eyes as he talked to her in his broken English. He was
probably Indian although he could have been from Pakistan.

I marveled at his
store, the typical convenient store, I suppose, but he had all sorts
of porno magazines of all titles and all years, new and used. It
was after all Sami’s all night market.

“What kind of
juice?”

“Anything, I
even like tomato.”

“I don’t like
tomato,” she said with the passion of a child. “How about
something normal?” She settled on Orange, fine.

Sami inquired
about a few people who he hadn’t seen in some time. Some were long
gone, disappeared with no trace, others were in prison.

“He’s had
three years already, four to go for that arcade incident.”

“Oh,”
was his reply tallying up the juice and a pack of smokes for her.
“Be good Kelly, come see me.”

“Okay Sami.”
Into the night air we walked the almost deserted street to the
Cecil. Sami had taken care of Kelly in the past. She recollected
the only time she had seen him in four years in a different
neighborhood, completely out of place from this one. I couldn’t
even imagine. perhaps I could.

I spent about
seven years in Denver, being a stranger the whole time, knowing
everyone and no one all the same. I had just left the Mongolian BBQ
one day when the owner, a little man who I talked to every day was
murdered. I was less than a block away when it happened. Shot,
cold dead in his own store, on a tourist strip of town in the middle
of the day. It was on a Tuesday. I can’t remember his name now,
but he looked a little like old Sami.

I felt an
overwhelming love for her at that moment. We lit some cigarettes,
and walked closer to my residence. I suppose it was a love one
would give a caged puppy, or an injured lady bug. I wanted to touch
her and make it all better, perfect, take away all the bad stuff. I
could never help her, I knew it, and how could I? I was waiting for
someone to do it for me. After the next instant I really wanted to
take all the pain away. There were four or five days when she was
13, “And I sold my ass,” she said. And the story got
worse from there.

“Only a
spotter for my girlfriend.” At thirteen, just walking around
with an older more experience prostitute. I never knew they
traveled in pairs. The ones I had seen were alone and the two who I
had talked to worked in the sanction of a legal prostitution system.
One was in Nurnberg Germany, I talked to her only briefly, and the
second was in a cat house in Wells, Nevada. I talked to that one
for several minutes. I learned something from her on that frigid
winter’s night. She told me she has learned only one thing in life:
“You can’t judge someone by their profession.” And I
wasn’t about to judge my new friend Kelly.

“But, it
didn’t last, men are sick, whatever, something about prepubescent,
they wanted me instead.” And that’s where the problems arose,
when all the dirties wanted her instead. So the two black pimps
prostituted her, they took her money. The girlfriend turned on her
too. Pressuring her to work for her, and forcing her to give up the
money to her instead to the pimps. No payment was ever received.
It seems to me if someone sells their body or their soul, if such a
thing exists then the money belongs to that person.

I’ve been
undecided if we really have a soul or not. Sometimes I feel very
soulful and others I don’t. I suppose instead of the current
western thought that everyone is granted a soul at birth, I believe
otherwise. Perhaps, after plenty of thinking and prayer, suffering
and pain we achieve one. Also with that rational, many don’t not
get a soul and will never get one. I am still working on mine. The
prayer part is what I’m lacking these days and sometime I intend to
pray about it more, meditate on it more, and perhaps I’ll get one.

Crossing the
street, Davie Street, I believe, I was certain that if I ever met
someone with a soul, it was young Kelly. Maybe even a woman I once
met under the Colfax Viaduct in Denver. It was during a bike ride
home one day when I saw a couple of boys fishing in Cherry Creek,
just under the Colfax viaduct with a make shift fishing pole. I
rode past them. The afternoon was deepening with stormy darkness,
like many afternoons. I knew I was limited by time. Is it really
possible to out run a thunderstorm on a bicycle?

I passed under the
Colfax viaduct when the rain started. Two things about rain in the
desert, one, it is fast and brutal, two it never lasts. I was wet
enough when I reached the 14th street viaduct. There were others.
There where I decided to stop. Bridge people. The people I see
everyday, like Kelly, I suppose. The people I would see everyday
while speeding past on my bike. But I had stopped, parked my bike
at the furthest edge of the bridge, and I looked out into the rain.

All kinds of
people past, bicyclist, skaters, runners I didn’t feel exactly idle,
but I was.

Under this vast
bridge with me, were a homeless couple, a man and a woman. They were
on the other side of the path, but on the same side of the river. I
can’t remember when this time was, but as we were wandering the
streets of Vancouver, and Kelly whispered the horribleness of her
past to me, I could see the bridge scene clearly in my memory. I
could see her soul, and the I could see the face of the only other
person I’d ever met who had a soul too.

The homeless
couple sat quietly smoking cigarettes and talking, although I
couldn’t hear their voiced over the rain, or the rushing of Cherry
Creek, or the traffic above us. In retrospect it was probably the
creek, it always seemed louder under the viaducts.

I sat down on the
dry dust cement and pulled out a library borrowed copy of Homer’s
The Odyssey attempting the study. Just then a vibrant older
woman cycled up and dismounted. She wore her graying hair up, and
ran her hands over it after she wiped her face of the dirt city rain
water. I looked up to her and smiled, we smiled at one another. I
could tell at my age what an exquisite woman she must have been,
even at her age she was exquisite. Although beauty was not all that
emanated from her, wisdom,a nd intelligence.

Just then the two
boys with the fishing pole rode past us. One of them still had the
fishing pole. As they rode past I asked: “Catch anything?”

“No,” he
replied. I looked back to my new companion.

“I don’t
think there are any fish in here anyway.”

“No, none
good for eating anyway,” she began. “But I think he
realizes there’s a difference in fishing and catching fish.” I
agreed stupidly, smiling. The stiff desert rain was already slowing.
“He had the classic fishing hole, didn’t he? Right under the
water fall.”

I became absorbed
in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn dreams. I put the book away, I felt
more Emersonian then… Searching out nature, and real experience.
The woman and the two boys were real. The others under the bridge I
had no feeling about,save the normal prejudices.

She mounted her
yellow old model Schwinn. I have always had a soft spot for people
with Schwinns. “Ready to go out?”

“I think it’s
stopped enough, If not there is another bridge up the way.”

I watched her ride
away across the wet cement. I stood, looked out into the distance.
I had an appointment to keep as well. I quickly embarked, wallowing
in the moment with the woman, who had left such an impact.

And had she really
left me with the impact then, or has it grown in later days. Or had
it grown up now? There was something with her, some sort of soul.
I wondered if something heinous had happened to the grey haired old
woman too in her younger days, something like prostitution.

“So, it was
only four or five days?”

“Yeah, I went
to them and I said I wanted my money and I wanted out. I’d do
anything to get out. That was the worst thing I could’ve said.”

“What?”

“I’d do
anything.” We quietly crossed the street and the Cecil was
coming into view, half a block away. “He raped me, took all my
money, beat me, and threw me out on the street. I went back and
showed everyone what they did to me. I thought they’d kill him, eh?
and they almost did. he went back to Montreal.”

We rang to get
into the Cecil. I was prepared to pay the ten dollars, we were able
to get by without it and ascended the stairs. “Sometimes I see
these young girls, and I tell them I know a better way, I was there
once, you know? And of the like twenty who I’ve told, only two come
with me.” It brought a smile to her face. She was helping
where so can, and all the more reason why a person like this has a
soul. I can’t think if I’ve ever even helped anyone in my life.

Being
self-absorbed has it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. At least
being self-absorbed there is no way to see the heartache and pain in
the world. Contrariwise there is no way of seeing past self pain
and loathing. I was lost somewhere in between, content with it and
perpetually dissatisfied.

I unlocked the
door, room 401, the Cecil, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Chapter Four: A
night at the Cecil, Room 401

She talked, I
listened. I was really listening, and not the usual waiting to talk
routine. We discussed out problem briefly of not having a pipe or
rolling papers, and some pot to smoke. I hollowed an Export A, see
broke up the bud. I had seen this done long ago and in some other
place, but I couldn’t recall where. I was excited to be doing it,
for no other reason than it had been such a long time since I had
smoked it. It would change my mind on things, I was sure of it and
that was reason enough to do it.

We were quietly in
my room absorbed in doing our respective tasks. Surely we must have
been talking, but I have no idea what we were saying. I thought
about the marijuana days, and laughed a little to myself.

I had laughed a
lot in those days. Even during the depressing times I laughed. I
lived in a dark one bedroom apartment on a street called Poet’s Row.
We lived in the James Russell Lowell, me and Ryan. We had lived
together off and on for several years at that point and both in
college at the time it made better sense than ever to live with one
another. I think we were very depressed in that dark little room
which only had a worm’s eye view of a parking lot. We drank, and we
smoked every day after work and school. We would pass out listening
to CDs every night on the floor in the living room. It was not a
happy time, but we did laugh, perhaps at our sadness or cynicism or
something, maybe our ineptness. It would not last, I knew it
wouldn’t, it never did then, so why not laugh at it, revel in it?
Smoke it away and drink it away, and wake up the next day tight from
the floor sleeping and go to the gym to work off the pent up
aggression? Live all day on campus, have below average
conversations with otherwise intelligent people and thing of all the
love that would come, sometime, someday only to go home and hustle
through the studies to smoke some more pot and drink beers until the
darkness clouded the confusion and pass out again on the floor
listening to Pearl Jam or Blur or Bob Marley or the Beatles? Oh!
How I thought that was living.

Once we moved, we
were better off. Ryan looked better, stronger, healthier, so did I,
we got girlfriends and love made us pass out and not being stoned.
I can’t really remember a time I smoked the stuff since then, and if
I had, well, it wasn’t too memorable.

And here in my
little room above the strip club, with Kelly, a stranger, a street
kid, and soulful creature, I would smoke some more and hope to
change my perception of things, and hopefully for the better. The
better…

Does it really
make it better? I Began to relate a story to Kelly, of a time when
I didn’t do drugs, drink alcohol or caffeine or smoke cigarettes,
and it was a recent time too. I told her about the afternoon when I
met JR, and purchased sanity for $2.68. Well I supposed it depended
on what is bought and an individuals value of money. We laughed
about it, and she wanted to know more.

I’m not sure some
would say that sanity is bought or sold, which is probably true and
still others might say that sanity and it’s dark twin insanity has
absolutely nothing to of money.

I walked into the
thrift store to make some decisions that day. Actually it was a
place a walk up 13th Ave up the street from my house, a walk to
sanity, I suppose.

I had just
finished writing a story. It wasn’t a particularly brilliant story
and I hadn’t spent enough time on it to fall in love with any of the
characters. But once I finished that most beloved of first drafts
(many seldom make it further) I could feel the depression setting
in. It’s the same depression I get after every completion, a piece
of writing, when I seal an envelope or a novel I just finished
reading. They are all of varying degrees, and I knew this one a
simple walk would eliminate, and that walk to me to the thrift
store. I guess that brings us to the question can $2.68 buy sanity?
I would make the decision in the thrift store.

The decision was
easy, amidst all of the silly and out of date books on the shelf, I
simply bought the only five books that were of interest: Edith
Warton’s The House of Mirth, a Norton Anthology, John
Steinbeck’s The Wayward Bus, a late translation of Beowolf,
and John Knowles A Separate Peace. I told Kelly how I was
spending a year reading, everyday writing bad poetry and lurid
fiction and living my room and the library in Denver, the last year
I lived there.

Each of those
books were fifty cents apiece and with tax it was $2.68. But I
wasn’t out of the funk yet. I hesitated in the store a moment
longer after I paid and for no good reason. Then walking out onto
13th Ave I turned my feet home with the five books under my arm.
Some black-hispanic looking guy stumbled out of an apartment
building to the sidewalk with me. He said hello.

“What’s up?”
I asked not expecting a reply. I generally didn’t talk to strangers
in my neighborhood, none of us did.

“I’m high,”
he replied. He was wearing a baggy pair of jeans torn at both knees
exposing the running pants he wore underneath. They were a very old
style of jeans, they were painted all down the front, a late 80’s
fashion. He had on a plain black sweatshirt and a bandanna on his
head.

“Yeah? I once
spent two years that way.”

“You don’t
smoke no more?”

“No brother,
I don’t do anything anymore.”

“Things are
worse when you’re somber.”

“Think so?
I’m happier now,” and we were locked in conversation walking
towards Pearl street on 13th.

My first surprise
was his very western accent, I thought he’d have had a different
dialect, he looked like he was from the caribbean, or something.

By the time we hit
the next block, he had told me about his father. He had a triple
bypass surgery, still living and a recovered alcoholic. “Why
am I talking to you?” he asked. he was in pain I could feel
it. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’ His father had
beat them when they were children. ‘I don’t know man, I can tell
you’ve been through shit, your life ain’t easy, that’s maybe why I’m
telling you this.”

“No one’s
life’s been easy,” I said to him. “Everyone’s been through
shit.”

“That’s
true,” he reflected. “Why am I talking to you?”

“I don’t
know, it’s easier to talk to strangers, and I’ll listen.” And
I did.

We crossed Ogden
street. “Hey let me buy you a drink.”

“I don’t
drink.”

“A cup of
coffee then, I’ll buy.”

I accepted although
the last cup of coffee I drank was in May of 1991 in Ansbach Germany
and I didn’t like it then. It wasn’t the coffee, it was the
company, I guess.

“Hi, I’m JR,”
he said. I introduced myself and we were no longer strangers. Then
half a block away from Cafe Netherworld, our destination he told me
about his passion. He had been an underground fighter, and ultimate
fighter. I couldn’t really see it in him. Not in his gentle voice
and gestures, but there in his scares, both hands and his face. I
just didn’t see it in him, but apparently, at least to himself, he
was successful at it.

He felt like
crying sometimes he said, but the tears wouldn’t come. I told him I
had a similar problem Although I had cried recently over an article
in newspaper about Matthew Shepard the college kid in Laramie
Wyoming who was beat to death. JR had read it too and wanted to cry
but couldn’t. “Wyoming man, Cheyenne. I lived there my whole
life, 31 years, until I came here six months ago.”

“How do you
like it?”

“It’s nice,
like Cheyenne only larger.”

We sat at the
corner of the bar. I ordered a coffee, and he ordered a
screwdriver. I put my books on the bar. Looking between the books
and the screwdriver I thought we all have our additions, and what is
the difference between vices, really? His was the bottle and mine
at the time was books. I suppose they are just a vehicle to the
same destination, somewhere away from reality.

“Where you
from, man?”

“San
Francisco.”

“I’ve never
even seen the ocean,” he said taking a drink of the
screwdriver. “I feel like crying.”

“Plenty of
people haven’t seen the ocean.”

“No man, just
me.” He took another drink. I sipped the coffee. “I
don’t know man, I’m confused,” He sighed. I wanted to tell
him everyone is confused, not the world really but all the people in
it. “You can see it, can’t you, look at me.”

“I can’t
tell.” And I couldn’t. He couldn’t be any more or less
confused than me. He raised his glass. “Down the hatch,”
I mumbled. He drank the rest of the screwdriver whereas I only
sipped the coffee.

He held up his
scared hands in a peace sign “I think you got it,” he
said. “Like maybe you’re my angel.” I was unsure of what
to make of that. No one had ever made me an angel before. “maybe
I’m yours.”

“Yeah,
maybe.” he shook my hand in that brotherly way and he was
gone. I just sat there considering myself an angel. he really did
make me feel good.

I was finishing
packing the emptied cigarette when I finished the story. I laughed
and so did she. It was funny, especially to the two of us. Half
drunk, half tired and half related.

“I don’t go
to church, but I grew up catholic, so it will always be with me.”

“Yeah, me
too. My mother is Irish and my father is from the Philippines, so
catholic.”

“You know
what I’m saying, it’s with you for life. I totally believe in
angels even though I know it’s silly.”

“Me too.”

We laid on the bed
facing each other the ashtray between us and we passed the cigarette
back and forth until it was gone and everything dimmed, even the
conversation.

It was somewhere
the undeterminable time of the lost wallet and her comparing my room
and her room I asked how she came about being on the street at such
a young age.

“I lived with
my grandparents a lot when I was younger. My sister’s eight years
older, I’m the baby. I was supposed to save the marriage. My
grandfather abused me. I didn’t know it was wrong. We lived in
Toronto. We moved her when I was 11, around the age they tell you
about abuse in school. Then my grandparents moved here. I told my
boyfriend at the time. We were kissing and I started crying, all I
could think about was my grandfather. So, I told him and made him
promise not to tell anyone. Like a week later I stood up in band
class and threw my violin, and ran out. When he ran after me, I
made him promise not tell. later that day the school counselor
called me in. He had told.”

“I think that
was the right thing to do.”

“yeah me too.
So i told my mother, it was either him or me. She could throw out
her own mother, they were living with us. And a couple of month we
lived there, then I left.”

“You were
twelve?”

“yeah.”

“No one came
for you, no one helped?”

“No. I lived
with my sister for a while in Toronto, then I came back here.”

“Wow.”

“I just want
a normal like eh? I think that’s why I like my job so much, it’s
stable, eh?”

“Do you like
to spoon?”

“What?”
I pulled her closer to me and held her. “I love to snuggle.”

I tried to smell
her, any smell at all on her, but couldn’t find one. Not even the
smoke smell from the bar. I held her tight and tried not to think
about all the frightful things she’d told me, and I tried not to
think about any of the frightful things in my history. It’s hard to
get away from your own history, especially when your self absorbed
like I am.

“Do you want
to go swimming tomorrow?”

“I thought
you were going to take me to breakfast?”

“After
breakfast.”

“I just
learned how to swim like a year ago.”

“Really?”

“I’d love to
go swimming with you.”

“Good,”
she whispered we were on our way to sleep. “Everyone is so
lazy, welfare royalty, so lazy. No one swims with me…”

Sometime in the
middle of the night to took off our clothes and got in the sheets.
So soft. I curse anyone who had abused this creature of God, and
stewed about it until I fell back asleep. May those abusers, hers,
mine, and anyhow has been abused a child burn hell forever, two
forevers. Hell is too good for them, and there is no justice for
such a person. Fuck them, I thought, they are the most vilest
wrecked people, and there is and never will be any punishment great
enough for such crimes. I wandered over all the possibilities until
I fell asleep. There would be no way to make it better. And Kelly
had forgiven her mother for not kicking out her mother, a difficult
decision she recognized. She had forgiven her mother, be she hadn’t
forgotten. She will never forget, and neither will I.

Chapter Five:
Breakfast on Davie Street

She stirred. The
streets outside stirred. Still stoned, hungover and sick, I
stirred. I kissed the young Kelly. We laughed. We sipped the
orange juice. We smoked cigarettes in bed. We laughed. We planned
the day. We got up.

“Do you have
a brush?”

“No, why
would I?” My hair, so short needed no brush. Fir the first
time I noticed her hair. So thick and black, I could see the
Filipino in it, even the European because it wasn’t complete
straight. Long too, high maintenance long, and I could never have
had hair as long as hers, and I knew by looking at it, it was such a
rats nest after our sleep.

“Let’s go to
my room before breakfast, I wanna change, eh?” And that seemed
reasonable to me. I completely packed before we left my room, I
wasn’t going to come back to it. I was unsure where I would be by
the time I would be going to bed. And really every day should be
like that.

Just thinking
about the prospects of the day turn me on. When I wake up every
morning, I should have no clue what the day brings, and many days it
is really like that. My life had been getting mellow in the past
couple of years and the last year in particular it had gotten
unbearable with stability. When each day comes like any other even
remotely alike then there really is a problem, certain death
already. I would rather waste away moving through a drowning forest
than to be in the same boring place with the same people doing the
same thing day after day after day after day after day. Death after
death after death. Honestly I was dying already with that very
thing.

But imagine going
to bed at night somewhere odd, unusual, foreign and recalling all
the wonderful and freeing events of the day and cataloguing them in
the last waking thoughts of the day. Then waking up the next
morning and knowing that something will happen beyond any wonderment
and comprehension, something to enhance life to perfection. Perhaps
something horrid would happen, and really in the grand scheme of
things perhaps that is okay too. After all it is better to feel
something instead of nothing even if it is teeth.

“Where are
you going?”

“I don’t
know, I might be back, but might not. Wouldn’t want to gather any
moss, bad form, you know.”

“Sure.”

“Do you
remember your dreams?”

“Sure,
sometimes.”

“Had the
strangest dream last night. I dreamt I was on this beach and I was
talking to a crab, well, we were having a conversation. There was a
hugh glass wall, tall, like an aquarium. At one point I asked the
crab if he wanted to be in it. I took a lot of work, but I got to
the top of the wall and I put it in, at which point you were walking
down the beach with Thomas Steele and this girl Karry.”

“Who’re
they?”

“Thom and I
grew up together. He was from England, and when we were 19 the
government deported him. Karry is some random girl I met in a bar
like a month or two ago. Anyhow, you had decided we would go into
Thom’s room. In his room there was a bed and two columns. Once we
were in there the three of you wanted to get into bed. For some
crazy reason I didn’t want to go. What’s up with that? In dreams
you’re always suppose to go, right?” We laughed.

“So, I leaned
against one of the columns and sat down. If I moved this way, the
other column obscured my view from the bed. So I half watched what
was going on. You and Thomas were in each other’s arms, then Kelly
looked at me and smiled, she lifted the sheets and was going to work
on you. I couldn’t hang so I got up and ran out to the beach again.
“

“On the beach
I saw the sun, and I noticed I had wet my pants, and I was hoping
the sun would dry them before you came back. By that aquarium there
were all sorts of logs and things and I was going to find a sunny
spot on them to dry myself. I climbed on one, and then I fell.
Strange isn’t it?”

“Wow, what do
you think it means?”

“I don’t
know, doesn’t mean anything.”

“You don’t
think dreams mean anything?”

“No. Maybe
symbols in dreams, but I think they are just what happens when your
mind fucks with you.”

“Yeah, my
mind fucks with me, eh?”

“Mine too.
Even when I’m not asleep.”

We descended the
stair and wandered out to the street. For such a large city I was
really expecting more movement, more traffic, more people, more of
something, maybe even dancing clowns.

“Today’s
American Thanksgiving, I suppose you know, eh?”

“Yeah, and
why do you know?”

“I work for
Timeshares, an American firm, I get off all the American Holidays.”

“Me too.”
We walked up Granville toward the Siesta Rooms. We were coming up
on the arcade I’d played pinball in the night before. “Here’s
where I played pinball before I met you.”

“Remember
when we were at Sami’s all night market and we were talking about
Tommy, the one whose in prison?”

“Yeah,”
I vaguely did.

“He and three
of his friends went in there one night at closed, killed the man and
took all the money.”

“Doesn’t seem
to lucrative.”

“They got
like three big bags of quarters,” she said gesturing the size
with both arms and then a leg.

“Was it worth
it?”

“You tell me,
he’s in prison.”

I had been in that
very arcade the night before playing pinball, if I’d known, would I
have been in there? Probably, I had eaten in the Mongolian BBQ the
same day the owner was murdered. Although I never went in there
again. I decided after that information I would never go back to
play pinball there. “I don’t think killing anyone is worth it.
I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Me neither.
Have you?”

“Killed
someone?” I was shocked she asked, but was obviously waiting
the response.

The missiles
ejected from some pounding guns ripped across the sky to the other
side. In their flight they lit the darkness like day before they
vanished. In the exact darkness the hugh vehicles of ware tore
across the sand. We talked about them but we could see nothing with
our naked eye. We sat back into the turret and looked into the
thermal sights.

I scanned across
the desert in front of us. McGill put his head against the brow-pad
and fell asleep. I sat there frozen and away looking for the enemy.

It was at that
time I saw them. Three enemy personnel. I kicked McGill.

“Three enemy
personnel, Sgt.” I screamed.

“Gunner,
personnel, co-ax, on my command.” Came his formal order.

I settled his
cross-hairs on the man in the center. His sorry-ass was about to be
my first confirmed kill.

“Gunner-fire!”

Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak

Went the 7.62
rounds at 200 rounds per minute.

I could see the
direct hit in the thermal sights as his companions opened their
wings and flew away.

“Well, Spit,
I think you got the vulture in the middle.”

And you can judge
anyone by their profession, I thought. “I think I may have.”

“Really?”

“When I was
your age, I was in the back of a tank, in Iraq, I shot at a lot of
things, I don’t know if I killed anyone.”

“How can you
not know?”

“You just
can’t, I don’t think I did, and I like to think I haven’t.”

We reached the
Siesta Rooms in time, and the subject by nature was changed. “How
long have you lived here?”

“Month and a
half.”

“Where were
you before?”

“The
suburbs.”

“Really?”

“I lived with
my boyfriend for four years, we lived in a house.” I was very
impressed. She had mentioned him before, and the exact phrase was:
“My ex-boyfriend, for four years.” She said it over and
over like it was new information for me to hear each time. It was
similar to the lost wallet story, and I was beginning to learn it
like me own. I wasn’t offended by it or annoyed, it was just one of
her habits, if she had any in the speech. She did say darling a
little and eh? a lot, but they all did. I could only mildly tell
their dialect over other west coast places of my residence and
history. There were some strange influences too in Vancouver as I
could tell them. There were various English accents, as was
displayed to my by old Jack, there were Frenchy sounding English
speakers and some Aussies too. There were plenty of Asians and East
Indians, but they did really blend into the nuances of the English
dialect in Vancouver, at least not to my ability to discriminate.
It was certainly interesting listening to them, and in some sort of
subtle way, I was hoping I added to the whole blend of spiced
English with my gutter slug accent. If I talked long enough,
someone would surely remind me that we are not brothers or please
don’t call me pallie, I’m not your pal. Whatever, it was
interesting. It was also interesting that Kelly always prefaced the
ex-boyfriend, Dave with my ex-boyfriend for four years. I could
really take that two ways: the first is he has not been her
boyfriend for four years, meaning they broke up four years ago, or
he was a boyfriend for four years and he is now, as in recently, and
ex. I thought of it in the latter sense of the statement and with
the frequency in which she was beginning to talk about him I was
realizing that the latter was true.

We walked up the
warped floorboards in the front stairs and past the desk. “No
guest fee?”

“Not during
the day.” And she pulled out a number of keys on a number of
key rings, unlocked the door and we went in. The room was smaller,
much smaller than mine. They had a bed, and a desk, a couple of
chairs, a refer, in fact the place really looked like a bedroom.
She was sharing the place with another girl. Their bed was smaller
than the one we had shared the night before, and the whole situation
made me laugh. I wondered if the two of them snuggled, probably
women are more apt to do that sort of thing, I thought. I sat in
one of the chairs and watched her pull open her gym bag and look for
some clothes to wear. She brushed out her hair in the midst of the
search and then resumed the search on the outfit.

There were a
number of pictures on the walls, some in frames, others pinned up.
The funniest one was one of those silly barroom looking pinups with
the bust and hips of scantily clad woman. I thought it was odd that
two women having such a thing on their bedroom wall, in fact it
would be weird for anyone to have it other than a teenaged boy.
There were framed paintings, and I wandered if they were part of the
room before the two had moved in or if they were purchased or found
somewhere.

The two did not
have there own bathroom, which made my room better in that way, but
they did have a makeshift stereo with little radios and walkmans and
the like. She had a collection of ten CDs, and some photographs on
a shelf. They were wonderful to look at, a real glimpse into a
person. They had a refrigerator, which made their room superior to
mine. Understandably I was eager too look into the refer: mayo,
mustard (both used once probably) and a half empty cup of coffee,
and since the lid was on it, I imagined mold underneath. The
freezer held the opened box of baking soda. I think every
refrigerator I’ve ever seen has had a box of Arm and Hammer, but I
have never bought one for my own use. It seems odd that a couple of
young girls living in a hotel, with nothing in the refer would have
taken the trouble to buy the baking soda. Who tells us to do such
things or do we do it because a mother or grandmother told us to?
Baking soda, what are it’s uses, I bet they make the industry in an
insidious way by perpetuating the myth that it absorbs smells in
your refer. Well, take out all the nasty crap that hangs out in the
nooks of the appliance and clean it once in a while, no need for the
Arm and Hammer. their refer was unusually clean, I imagine it was
from lack of use, but what do I know, perhaps they stay up late
nights to clean the thing, who knows?

To the left of the
refer, a skin and a mirror stuck in the corner. It was a small
mirror, enough for the face only, and if you are short. I had a
huge mirror in my room, making it superior again. Kelly had spend
time in my room looking at herself, talking about the various stages
her body has seen due to too much beer or too many drugs ant the
random low points. She was a little plump now, but not fat – fit,
really and very sexy. She commented on my mirror at one point, I
think and if I could give her one, I would. Some think it’s vanity,
I don;t think it’s bad. If you makes the looker feel good to look
in the mirror, so be it. I have looked in the mirror before and
seen a face that seemed strange to me, for no other reason but that
it feels strange, and there have been times when I was dumbfounded
by what I saw. And still there were other times when I grew tired
of the face in the mirror, and wondered about a change, although I
would never spend money or energy or anything on plastics, cosmetics
or anything else. I have changes the hair length before, and that
tends to quell the desire for change.

“One needs
nothing more than this, Kelly, I think this is a wonderful room.”
And with that a knock came on the door.

Some weird looking
dude came in. I remembered seeing him the night before in
Foghorn’s. At the risk of being a snob, he looked like the
stereotypical inbred. He looked even worse in the daytime. He was
with some older looking dude. If there was an accent I picked up on
in the time I was in Vancouver, it was the theirs, they talked
funny. The older dud looked like someone from the past, really, an
older hairstyle or no hair style at all. The inbred fellow was
clearly an acquaintance of Kelly’s and he introduced her to the
older fellow. I sat there quietly and no one introduced me. I
wasn’t offended. It seems the older one was looking to buy so pot.
She produced some from her roommates stash and he eventually turned
it down. It was packaged in a neat little bag, the kind a coin
collector might buy a coin in. Kelly offered the acquaintance a
chance to smoke with her, thinking I would turn her down. After
all, right before we left my room I had said I wanted to stay
straight for the day. He had told her he’d be right back, he had
people in his room, and they were about to go somewhere.

“What?”

“Huh?” I
looked up at her, she was staring down at me, I was sitting in one
of two chairs in her room and had been looking at my boots. “What?”

“Where were
you?”

“I was
thinking about this film that I saw once that was just this footage
of a plastic bag drifting around by this corner of a building in the
wind, you know like in an alley or something.”

“Yeah?”

“I feel like
that right now.”

“Good?”

“I’m
unhappy.”

“In my room?”

“No, in life,
in the village I live, you know.”

“Why do you
call it a village, I thought it was a big city.”

“It’s like
one fifth of Vancouver, it’s tiny. I was in Mexico City before I
went there, and Mexico City is pretty large.”

“I thought it
was big when I went there.”

“You’ve been
there?”

“Once, when I
was ten, I was there with the band.”

“You liked
it?”

“No, I was in
the band eh? and I was ten.”

“I’d better
lock the door.” and directly afterward she changed. It was
interesting watching her change, but then I looked at my boots again
and thought of the bag. I couldn’t remember when or where I had
seen it. I thought about it longer and still couldn’t think of it.
I thought about all the little film festivals I’d been to, only
going to see the short films, and still I couldn’t put my finger one
it. I remember it so clearly, there must have been minutes of
footage, and that poor plastic bag lifted in the air and settled for
a moment and lifted again and in circles the whole time just trying
to get free, to go where? Probably to get lodged in a tree. Like
in winter when all the leaves are gone from trees and some many
pieces of plastic, the tattered remains of a bag lodged in them.
What did those bags have in them during their one time use? Maybe
quarters stained with blood from arcades or old ladies groceries:
frozen vegetables and soap. Stuck in trees, stuck. The bag
drifting in the alley captured on film forever is a better way of
going.

Kelly sat down and
began to roll a joint. I watched her with fascination and then I
played with the package of rolling papers when the knock came on the
door again. She had just finished it and opened the door and we
were ready to go again. The few minutes in her room made me both
sad at that mode of living and completely envious at the same time.
I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side.

The analysis of
room comparison made me laugh, we were discussing the greener grass,
and came up with nothing. My room was better for some many reasons,
my won bathroom, a bigger bed, and my mirror. But hers was superior
too, the refer, the music, the homeliness, it was her home, at least
for now, and my room was just a room for a night. But it was my
form, never to stay anywhere too long that really made my grass
green. Who knew what that day had in store for me, for her, us and
the entire population on earth, an new day, a first day and a last
day, for someone, for everyone and for us, me and Kelly.

The knock came
again, she answered it, and the inbred looking guy came in again.
He was rushing us, but he was offering us a ride, and passionate
about it, we left together. In the hallway there was the two guys
I’d seen before and three additional guys, all talking and all
talking in that strange accent. We left the building.

On the street,
walking toward some unknown vehicle I was the last in the pack. I
looked at all of them, shabby, but not too unkept. I looked at the
shoes. I was wearing warm comfortable boots, and Kelly had on boots
too, although they were more worn than mine. The others all had
athletic shoes in various states of wear. Athletic shoes, what a
funny thing for them to have, I thought. I doubted them ever being
athletic not to mention the bad insulation quality they have when
wet.

I was dreading the
car ride with all of them, I just wanted loneliness with Kelly, and
when we got to the plain looking van of the older fellow who refused
to buy the pot, it was clear to me we would have to walk. And so
walking we did.

It wasn’t Kelly’s
pot he had refused, but the roommates. Kelly stated simply how
liberal she was with it, and that was the reason behind her success,
and the lack of success of the roommate. In a world such as ours,
good dealings and good customer service is what keeps them coming
back, really.

I supposed I would
respect a business person, no matter how illegitimate the business
was.

“Sometimes, I
wish I was a drug dealer again.”

“Is it
better?”

“It’s easier.
I get tired going to school, and working. At least when I sold
drugs people respected me. Maybe they just worshipped me.”

“Why’d you go
back to school then?” And again I heard about the ex-boyfriend
for four years. They had built a small empire on selling. And once
hey made the agreement to come off the crystal meth, things got
better, she returned to school, got a job and was able to live a
little more normal life. Although the house in the suburbs, fully
furnished was nice, she came to a point where it wasn’t worth it
anymore.

“He became
very abusive. Calling me shit, eh? And telling me I was nothing.
I went to school and work all day and he did nothing, still does
nothing, and he called me shit. So I stood up to him. I left, I
came back, eh? and still he abused me, so finally I said, ‘if you
hate me so much tell me to leave.’ and he did.” It was
compelling what she said and the manner in which she said it, and
again I felt something stir in me, just hearing her problems and her
strength, and seeing her soul, even if it was laced with all manners
of evil things, she was good really good, alive and strong.

I’ve not met too
many strong people, people with the facade of being strong, but not
too many who were actually strong. “That must have been an
empowering thing to do.”

We walked down
Davie street and soon came to restaurant. “Let’s eat outside,
we can smoke outside.” It seemed reasonable to me, although I
could go all meal without smoking. They had heaters under a glass
roof outside, all of which were not operating. We ate inside.

Sitting down we
took up the menu. The place was reasonably busy for a Thursday
morning. The waitress was loud, and very Canadian, full of
“darlin’s” and “eh?s”.

“Look,”
I began dramatically holding my menu up. “They have Denver
omelets. I lived seven years in Denver, and never once had I seen
the Denver omelet.”

“Really?”

“Never once,
but they are on every menu I’ve seen since.” And I didn’t
order one. Instead I ordered a mushroom and cheese omelet, and
sourdough toast. Kelly ordered eggs benedict. I would have ordered
them too, but they’re too rich, rich enough to make me sick. I
hadn’t eaten in a few days, and my eating habits are really bad as
it was. A greasy breakfast and an empty stomach are okay, but
nothing too rich. I was curious how much of it she could eat.

We talked about
Dave, the ex-boyfriend for four years during breakfast. He seemed
like a real detestable person. I was trying to weigh through it
some, after all aren’t all the ex-boyfriends detestable in someway?
If they weren’t detestable, then they would still be boyfriends.
Dave sounded particularly awful.

Dave was stressed
a little because he was afraid Kelly would blow the whistle on the
operation. They had quite the growing operation in the basement.
Although the entire thing was in Kelly’s name, the lease, the
electricity and everything. If there was a whistle blown, she had
more to lose than Dave. He would of course lose the money,but she
faced jail time. What’s worse? And she no longer lived there.
There was a $100,000 crop about to come in, and Kelly really wanted
half of it, and she doubted Dave would give it to her.

“What would
you do with it?”

“I don’t
know, get started, get away.”

“Where would
you go?” I asked, and we had talked about this before. She
was unsure of where to go, and afraid to go anywhere, this was all
she knew and she reminded me of it every time we talked about it.

“I don’t
know, I don’t know where to go.”

“You can go
anywhere, everywhere. The world belongs to you.”

“Like it does
to you?”

“I suppose,
I’ve never stayed anywhere too long.”

“I afraid to
travel.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’d
probably be alone, eh? and I don’t speak any languages.” I
gave her the language thing, that was real, a real concern, but how
can walking around various places alone be anymore stressful than
the history she had right here in Vancouver, her home?

“It can’t be
worse than anything that’s happened to you here.”

“Yeah, but if
all the stuff happened here, it could be worse someplace else.”
And I gave her that one too, I could see the point. I could also
see why a woman traveling by herself could be intimidating. It
scares some people.

Adam, a guy I knew
once was the same way. He was terrified to leave town, the town
he’d lived in his whole life. He was a great big tall guy, strong
looking, almost intimidating, but he was afraid that he’d get
robbed, or murdered if he ever left. I couldn’t imagine it, such a
strong guy. I suppose it isn’t only women with such fears. The
fears people live with are unreal, which I suppose is what fear
really is, something ureal built into our minds. Kelly was so
afraid to stay in Vancouver, but it was familiar, and too afraid to
travel anywhere. I think if it were up to me, I would take the
unknown.

“Look, the
more you travel, the less things seem different. For instance, I’ve
never been in Vancouver before, and I can tell you it isn’t much
different than anywhere else I’ve been. There are streets and
signs, restaurants and shops. Although the names are different, the
insides are the same. Look, see that beer sign? I’ve never heard
of that brand, but it is the exact same sign as every other beer
everywhere else and it hangs in every restaurant. There really is
little difference when you look at it. If you were to go anywhere
else in Canada, you’d still be Canadian, and if you went anywhere in
the United States people would think nothing of it.”

“My father
has told me horror stories about everywhere he’s ever been.”

“And you’ve
told me horror stories about Vancouver.” We laughed. The food
came, and we ate, quietly. I took the paper napkin and put it in my
lap. Kelly never even touched hers. I could tell by the way she
ate she had been like an animal in the past. She didn’t have any
obnoxious habits, but she did eat with a manner that suggested she
may not eat for a while, and each bite was savored and enjoyed. I
can’t remember the last time I enjoyed any food. It had been
awhile.

As we were
settling down the last few bites she told me about meal tickets,
which from all I could gather where like food stamps in the united
states. Meal tickets, issued by the government were redeemable at
grocery stores and at restaurants. Seems like a fitting thing to
give street kids I thought. Apparently she had gotten too old to
use them, or maybe it was the fact that she now collected welfare
that made her ineligible.

We paid for
breakfast and left. And outside we smoked. We had the entire city
to ourselves for the day and she was determined to show me
everything. And of all the options, I had no clue of where I would
want to go. Honestly I would go anywhere, and anywhere was the
prime destination. I had come to see Vancouver, but I had also come
to learn something.

Chapter Six:
Destination Anywhere

We walked to the
water. English bay. It was like something I had seen before, only
it was impossible, I had never been to English Bay before. It was a
quality of light, low clouds, dark, high clouds, light filtered
light, something dream like something real something I have seen
before, somewhere, sometime, but I hadn’t. Once while still in
college I over heard two psychology students talking, and it was
interesting. Usually we just made fun of the psych students, like
they were more fucked up than us, or something, but these two held
my attention, and I have not one mean thought to think about them.
They were discussing the Deja Vu phenomenon. Apparently on half of
the brian scans the scene, and when the conscious part of the brain
catches up less that a heart beat later the mind gets this eerie
feeling it’s been through this thing before. It has but not in a
dream or in another life, like we might like to think. It had seen
the scene just before. Wild, I thought. And here in English Bay
perhaps that was what was happening to me, although I wanted it to
be like dream I’d head or if there are indeed other lives, past
lives, perhaps I was standing in this light, with this woman or one
like here looking at a similar scene.

There were barges
on the bay and hugh boats, I looked at them relentlessly as we
passed over the bicycle path and onto the beach avoiding the tents
that were there. Who sleeps on a beach in the middle of city, it’s
beyond me. We walked right up to the water.

It felt strikingly
similar to a time, years ago when my grandmother had died and I
walked away from the arguing family to get some peace, I walked to
the river. It smelled the same as this one, and similarly I felt
the same sort of peace and relief.

Nature, Beauty and
Industrialization.

Beauty left
Martinez long ago, when industrialization came. Mother taught me
that Martinez was not a place to be, or to go. I grew to think of it
as some sort of awful wasteland reserved for the steal mills, glass
manufacturers, and other creepy factories. We lived in Oakland,
several miles from Martinez. In my youth, I wouldn’t have even had
know about the town of Martinez if my grandparents didn’t live in
Antioch. Martinez lies between Oakland and Antioch.

Antioch is growing
now and with every house and strip mall the wilderness of the
Sacramento valley vanishes quickly. When I was a small boy Antioch
was still in the process of rusting. The sardine canneries, the
steel mills and the Army post empty of life and activity and became
extinct before I was born. I came to regard Antioch as a modern day
ghost town. My grandparents and other relatives actually became the
ghost to me. They explained the golden days, when people lived
there and worked. Work, as plentiful as the water from the
Sacramento river could spread around for everyone’s well being.
Those days were history by the time I was born in 1972.

The real ghosts
came out in some of my grandfather’s stories. Stories from his
youth, when he first came to California. His stories, set before
the advent of the factories and mills, intrigued me to the point
that I would record them meticulously. I recall all of his stories
as if they were my own.