Category: Certainties

April 18, 2013.  Mad Journal.  For the incensed, by the incensed.  Five years.  Five years and the space of five long winters since those inebriate trolls sent my life sideways and down.  We will remember and the lessons remain the same.  Bad drives out good and mediocrity loathes talent.  Mediocrity must triumph.  So screw mediocrity.  It can never win.

Today’s headline:  Dr. X Has Been.  That’s right.  Came over for dinner the other night.  Dr. X is an interesting story.  He came back into our lives in the last couple of years after we hadn’t seen him, really, for at least twenty years.  He was around and so were we but we sort of spun out of each others’ sphere.  We have a lot of history with Dr. X but it is old history. Dr. X got married and had a couple of children.  We met his bride, once, years ago.  We knew that for years he has been selling and buying and developing millions of dollars in residential real estate around the west side.  One day we stumble on him in the neighbourhood.  The Real Estate Board building isn’t far from here and it turns out he is frequently in the neighbourhood.  His girlfriend lives across the street from us.  His marriage went bad but he still lives under the same roof as his wife.  Now his older child is at university and his younger just graduating from high school.  He and his family have moved frequently over the years, house to house within his area of operations, you might call it.  We have studied what Dr. X has told us about his life and have concluded that there is something rootless and transient in it and that money doesn’t buy happiness.

Dr. X contacts us after several weeks of not hearing from him and he appears down in the dumps.  He says he is going in for surgery this week.  When he comes for dinner he gives us something of the details.  He had an altercation with his son that led to physical contact and Dr. X managed to stumble backwards on a staircase in the family home where the fight was taking place, tearing the Achilles tendon in his left leg.  He already has a world famous chronic condition that causes his left hand and forearm to tremble uncontrollably, and now this.  We feel for him which is why we thought a free meal of excellent food and a couple of glasses of good wine wouldn’t do him any harm.  He’s an old friend with problems.

His phone rings at one point in the evening and he says he needs to take this call, but doesn’t move from the sofa.  We get a little glimpse into real estate arcanum.

“No.  He owns other properties so it’s not like a fire sale or anything like that…  ”

“It’s all under RS-5 zoning…  ”

“No.  It has to be in the 1.7s before he responds.  What are you people looking for?”

“2298.  Subject this, subject that…  No.  A low-ball is not gonna’ work.”

“If you people are looking for someone desperate, forget it.  This guy is very fair.  I’d like to take your offer tomorrow.”

“Buy the property first then look at the plan.  He wants the land to be separate from the plan.  Do that and you’re looking at going through ten months with city hall…  ”

“Yes.  Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2.4…  ”

“The plan is stamped and ready to go…  ”

“Maybe he’ll go for it.  Maybe he won’t.  But anyway, just write the offer…  ”

“This guy doesn’t want to deal with that.  He’s not desperate.  He’s got other projects.  He wants to enjoy his retirement.  If the price is right, if the bidding is right…  ”

“Dunbar.  The length.  The depth.  It’s still an advantage.  50 by 120 equals more property tax…  It’ll be a new home on a slightly smaller lot…  It’s convenient to stores…  It’s walkable…  There’s a community centre…  ”

“2598.  2518?  No.  Too many low-ball offers and now he wants to just take it off the market…  Again I ask:  Who is your buyer and what are they looking for?”

Good question.  Dr X. leaves surprisingly early.  Last time he was here he stayed and stayed.  We had to give him the rush when it was near midnight.  He moves slowly with his sore foot.  I shake his hand.

“Take care, Dr. X., and don’t worry.  You’re gonna’ be fine.”  States gives him a hug.

April 16, 2013.  We’re driving east on Twelfth past the hospital at about five o’clock in the afternoon.  The sun has just broken through the clouds.  There’s an older white guy in a wheelchair stopped on the north side sidewalk.  He’s wearing a white T-shirt and blue sweat pants, has an enormous gut and a really bad haircut.  His round face is shining in the sun.  I Look a little closer as we pass and see that his left arm has been amputated below the elbow.

“Diabetes, I’d say,” I say to States, sitting beside me on the passenger side.  “And I think I’ve got problems.”  And it’s true.  I think I’ve got problems.  But I don’t have this guy’s problems.

April 11, 2013.  BC Book Prizes Soirée.  ZZZzzzz…  I take the time to drink a Löwenbräu and, knowing no one, and for no reason, leave after less than fifteen minutes.  Well, what the hoot, I went.  I showed the flag.  I scanned the field of greybeards and drove our crippled ship home.  Come on, Esteban.  You only saw one grey beard.  It was that you knew no one.  Even if they unanimously, and they were, they had to be, kind, caring, intelligent human beings passionate about literature, you knew no one.  And you felt you could have a better time on the upper deck than at a bar on Granville Street, with the unknown.  So go.

Earlier Confederate States was applying unction to a slight, temporary blemish, like a zit or something, on her face just to the right of her beautiful mouth, with a Q-tip, at the bathroom mirror as we discuss the situation.  She’s heading in for an evening shift.  She’s in a phlegmatic, doubting mood.  I know why.  Me.  In the last five years I’ve cost her tens of thousands of dollars with my neediness.  She’s okay with it.  She just isn’t immediately buying into my latest brilliant idea.  It’s just an idea.  She’s skeptical.  She should be.

April 10, 2013.  Mad journal.  Get your mad here.  Pouring rain through morning and now it has cleared up.  Windy, cool, but not cold.  The garden here on the upper deck is in bud.  Just back from the computer store I was in Saturday because I finally remembered that this must have been the place, this parking lot, where I abutted the front end of the car up against one of these concrete curb thingys and somehow managed to tear off my front license plate without noticing.  I only noticed yesterday that the plate was missing and have spent the last three days trying to remember how and where this could have happened.  It was some place I don’t usually go, I knew that.  And then I remembered.  It was Simply Computing, a place I’ve only been to twice in the last five years.  They have their own parking behind the building and there was a spot there and I pulled in and on the downward sloping slot inched forward a bit too far, as can happen, and I thought it was just the plastic guard thing under the front bumper that had got slightly hung-up, and I put the car in reverse and backed up about a foot.  If a license plate falls in the parking lot does anybody hear?  Today the plate was nowhere to be found.  I went into the store and they didn’t have it.  No matter.  Monday we’re sending this car on a one way ticket to the Fraser River.  Enough is enough.

April 9 2013.  Rain.  A cool spring and a cool afternoon.  I get the call and go, the four to eleven.  The usual grisly slog and for what?  For the hundred bucks, youth.  It’s sad.  The security guard shows me the little jack-knife slasher he’s taken to carrying.  He tells me he’s been called as a witness for a mug facing charges downtown including for an attempted armed robbery here last summer.  The dolt’s little crime spree included pepper-spraying a gas station attendant that night before he came in here, and then some other piece of idiocy, I can’t remember precisely what, after he left here with no money.  Who are these people?  This perp was white, male, middle-aged with a medium build.  The till jockey, a she, hasn’t been back since this individual stuck a gun in her face.

April 8, 2013.  Should I contact these clowns that sent me a card nearly a year ago telling me they looked forward to reading my submission, but please be patient?  This is an issue.  Just how patient do we need to be around here and what if we’ve spent most of our lives being patient and it’s made no difference?  It’s like the people who’ve said to me:  You’re a good guy, Esteban.  And they’re right.  I am.  But what good has it done me?  I mean, look at me.  Being good has afforded me nothing.  And what, anyway, would be the motivation to be patient any longer either?  Is it not wiser to reflect on the distinct possibility that, as already experienced once with this outfit, and it is a well-known outfit, my submission, which they asked for mind you, has been booted, dumped, barbecued, shredded, misplaced, thrown away, stomped on, lost?  Nobody has a year to sit around on your pleasure, youth, whether you reside in Toronto or anywhere else.  Serious get.  So it continues daft.  I spit on the memory of my literary ambition.  “It is all a darkness”.

April 2, 2013.  Guestworker, airport.  What?  I said guestworker, airport.  The guestworker doesn’t query.  The guestworker goes where the guestworker is needed.  The guestworker goes because the guestworker needs.  The guestworker does not like being needy, but the guestworker is.

So.  Stand around in a wind tunnel ten hours.  Well, a wind tunnel, yes.  What the hell it’s an airport, isn’t it?  No planes come flying through, just buses, taxis, limos and vans.  It’s a service industry scene.  And the baggage cart wallahs wrangling long trains of baggage carts from their collection points back to the International Reception Lounge (IRL), pulling them along riding an electric-powered buggy through the so-called VIP entrance-exit.  It’s a fairly dingy wind tunnel around here, that never sees the light of day.  It’s cold and the concrete is cold, the asphalt is black and there’s a surprising number of cig butts lying around despite the no-smoking signs.  This tunnel could use a bath.  Where are the pressure-washer wallahs?  The walls are dirty and so is the floor.  Very VIP.  But the people are friendly.  There isn’t much for us to do but that doesn’t matter.  We’re here.  We’re on station.  At our posts.  And we don’t care a hoot for nothing.

April 4, 2013.  That was the week that wasn’t.  Paid handsomely for doing not very much at all and axed two days early but paid out in full.  In the aggregate, closer to what I’m truly worth, guestworking or otherwise.  My valuable time, which is all I have.  It was an interesting few days in Airport City, all told, but I’ve enjoyed better pizza.  The seating arrangements were excellent.

March 26, 2013.  Mad Journal.  For the mad, by the mad.  Let’s review.  There’s no tooth fairy.  Your experience is worth nothing.  You’re not special, and everything isn’t going to be okay.  And if someone could help you, wouldn’t they have shown up by now?  So forget it.  There’s no magic wand, no words and no mercy.  And the skin on your elbows is peeling in the aftermath.  Whenever you think things can’t get any worse you open another door and there’s a new staircase, leading down.  You think:  If I get through this nothing will ever bother me again.  But there’s no end to this.  You’re locked in a hard-scrabble existence you never imagined in any of your fantasies.  The difference this time is you don’t know how to fix it.  There’s no situation, no cliché, no correct number of servings of fruits and vegetables that can save you.  You’ve been outed and you’re a loser.  It’s hard.  There’s no grace.  Grace got deported.

So go ahead.  Go through the motions.  Pretend.  Act like nothing’s happened.  You’re still you, right?  Even if it’s not the you you wanted.  You hoo!  It’s still you!  Hello!  You’re still beautiful.  You’re a thing of beauty.  Don’t worry about it.

Take the air.  It’s not a bad day.  Yesterday you survived a four hour briefing and, in spite of everything, today is a good day to be alive.  One more day.  Just one more day and you can fix this thing.  Give yourself a chance.  Renew that library book.  Don’t go into debt to the library.  They’ll come and beat your head in.  Librarians are hard people.  Take it easy.

March 29.  Good Friday.  What’s good about it?  Just about everything.  You nix going out except for groceries and now are in process of soothing the spirit with a nice cheese soufflé you’ve got on the bubble.  The skin is peeling off your hands and you are battling back with deluxe hand cream to combat the dryness.  This goop’s got everything in it except morphine.  The fingers love it.

So the clock rolls and you head into your dumb-ass job.  You are buoyed, somewhat, by the thought that each time you do this it’s one less time you will have to do this.  That’s philosophy for you.  Take a picture.  You’re on the two to nine-thirty and it passes without incident.  No shootings, no stabbings, no grab and dash artistry, no ignorant peasantry out to light your fuse.  The peasants, it seems, have taken the night off.  Good for them. You get through.  Back home the scab about the size of a dime on your lower back the last month finally peels off.  You did nothing wrong and it doesn’t matter.

March 30.  Easter Sunday.  I find a car under the straw of my Easter basket after taking all the candy eggs and little chocolate bunnies out.  But this isn’t a dream of my childhood, is it?  A little plastic car, two-tone, orange body, black roof, just what I wanted.  What ever happened to that car?  There always used to be some sort of additional little treat under the straw of your own, personal Easter basket Easter morning.  If you were lucky.  If you’d been good.