Isabella's Faint
Isabella, the longstanding sous-chef, name in full only because nobody knows it, she's not front line, comes in twice a week to make Tiramisu, Oso Buco, do the prep work, she should be retired but...
...she runs into a cardboard box filled with Panettone, the hallways are tight, it struck her just beneath the eye and she imagines she sees blood...
...faints, first off, thank goodness it's not a busy lunch, she's lying on the floor, can't stand the sight of blood (or mice), imagines that she saw blood, there's no blood.
But she can't stand. The salad girl, the owner, they're on to her, we give her time to recover. Take her to the bathroom, show her her reflection - no blood, sit her down in a chair, she can't speak, won't speak, imagining her afterlife as a saint...
Eventually, 3 hours later, she's fit to leave. Doesn't need an ambulance, although we offered again and again, she feels she's fit to drive.
In the evening I reenact the days events for the mirth of the night chef and comrades...
We have a new salad girl, the old one left, she can't look at me and keep a straight face. Always she laughs, this is due, I suspect, to my little merry pranks that I play on her and her helpers. Luciana, older Italian lady, bawdy sense of humour, solid helmet of dyed red hair, sneaking up behind her to pinch her large ass with a pair of chef's tongs, she's screaming "Rape" in Italian at the top of her lungs, the salad girl merely doubles over in laughter...
...or putting a mouse, dead, caught in a trap, in a little container they use for things like cheese or olives, she shakes it up then opens it, sees it dead and curled, panics...
The owner, he quizzes me on this, I explain that I left it for the salad girl, she shouldn't have been nosy, was none of her business, the owner, he understands, it's her fault, the salad girl merely doubles over in laughter every time she sees me, Luciana, she threatens me with death. I shrug it off, you can't please everyone...
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- Category: People
Creepy Dolls and Rosaries
And days, wander around Nelson, there are 5 good bookstores here. By good I mean every bookstore has something you'd want to read, something good you haven't read, 5 good bookstores, in a city the size of Nelson, Calgary hasn't that many good bookstores, not by a longshot. It speaks well of the populace.
I pop into one store, looking, for nothing in particular, the girl working: "Everyone here is on Kootenay Time. Everybody has their own agenda. Things get done..."...I'd asked her about antique watches, not that I'm looking, but she's talking me out of watches. No one here wears a watch.
She refers me to a shop on Baker Street, maybe they have, go to the back, past all the new stuff for sale, and maybe I'll find what I'm looking for...
No, but easily just as good. Creepy dolls and Rosaries...
There's lots more here, religious kitsch, icons, rosaries, candlesticks, it's right up my alley, another discovery behind an innocuous Kootenay Shop.
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- Category: Miscellany
Edgar Rice Burroughs
I found him after the "Hardy Boys", terrible books but as a 7 or 8 year old I loved them. 52 books in the series (at that time), I devoured them all, I remember saving up $5.00 from my paper route to buy the next one at the local hobby store, $5.00, then, was a lot of money.
And after the "Hardy Boys" I cast around looking for the next big thing, reading all manner of books, some bad - I don't remember, some good - "The Four Story Mistake".
And then there was Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan, who didn't much interest me, I knew all about him (I thought), had seen a bad movie about him at the Capitol Theatre when I was younger...and I was put off by the lurid covers, clearly trash books, pulp fiction of the worst sort, but there were the ones about Aliens - the Moon Maiden, John Carter on Mars, and these piqued my interest...I was running out of alternatives...
And so I picked them up and read them and loved them, maybe I was 12, probably younger, read through all the John Carter on Mars, then the Moon Maiden and the rest of them, all of them I thought, he was prolific, even read the Tarzan ones, Tarzan in Pellucidar, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, everything. I loved it. It was complete and utter shit.
...well, not entirely. He was a better author than those working under the Pseudonym of "Franklin W. Dixon", he wasn't patronizing you, wasn't dumbing it down, it was pretty dumb across the board...but pretty well written, pot-boilers, things happened and quickly, he wasn't talking down to you, wasn't an adult writing for kids, this was an adult writing for other adults...
At 20 I tried them again, after reading Nabokov, Miller, others, they didn't cut it, were painful, poorly written, shit...
When I next found them again, about 15 years ago, I picked up the entire series for the boy, as well as "The Hardy Boys", he wasn't into them at all, didn't give them a chance, "I can see why you'd like them, dad..." he'd tell me...ouch!
...and so, at the thrift shop, I find "John Carter of Mars" and "The People That Time Forgot", I pick them up. Revisit my childhood. And my tastes flip again. He's good - comparatively, not to Nabokov or Miller or any of the countless other literary heavyweights, but he paints a good picture, gives a good description, advances the plot, and like any antique author his vocabulary is infinitely richer than any number of the literary 'heavyweights' of today.
...and his language, the symbolism, read it not for the absurd adventure, but for the map of the unconscious, he wasn't trying but he laid it bare, these books, Pellucidar, the People that Time Forgot, they're road maps to the soul, understand these and you can build carefully upon his foundation. Yeah, it was pulp-shit-dross, but it was honest, there was no pretension, and all the symbols of the unconscious and the labyrinthine underworld are laid bare...Freud would have loved him.
"_Kazor_!" cried the girl, and at the same moment the Alus came jabbering toward us. They made strange growling, barking noises, as with much baring of fangs they advanced upon us. They were armed only with nature's weapons--powerful muscles and giant fangs; yet I knew that these were quite sufficient to overcome us had we nothing better to offer in defense, and so I drew my pistol and fired at the leader. He dropped like a stone, and the others turned and fled. Once again the girl smiled her slow smile and stepping closer, caressed the barrel of my automatic. As she did so, her fingers came in contact with mine, and a sudden thrill ran through me, which I attributed to the fact that it had been so long since I had seen a woman of any sort or kind.
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- Category: Books
The Nephew on POF
The nephew, protesting, always, he never goes out. Not enough. This life at the restaurant, 12 hours a day (in his instance, perhaps more like 8 or 9), it's killing him. He's exhausted. Maybe we can go out...?
We go out a fair bit. Maybe every weekend. Wherever he wants, for Pizza, to the Gay Bar, Bespoke, wherever, but he's a short lived memory and it's already Wednesday and as far as he's concerned we never go out. He's on POF, TINDER, spends his time sat at the front desk swiping through possible dates, ones that he finds amusing he calls me over for, gets my opinion, "Big Farm Girl" and "Hefty Little Heifer", reads their profile, knows them, probably from hanging about Cochrane, swipes on...
He had a short lived romance of sorts, "Cross-Dresser", didn't know what that meant, they'd chatted, few days, when finally he asked for "her" number she explained..."You do know I'm a cross-dresser, don't you?", and he did, it was on her profile, only he didn't know what it meant and so she explained...
Humour and a bit of personal tragedy, he really liked her, felt they had a connection, they were getting along, and you couldn't really tell from the Photoshopped and blurred image of her, could you?...And he shows us - the restaurant, the customers, the staff, the texts, her photos, who would have known? She would have been a catch, for sure, if it weren't for those pesky balls...
Friday night, there's a Vodka tasting at J****'s, his old room-mate. I'm invited. "Sure" I say and go home to change. Sober me says stay home, and after a while drunk me confirms my decision. J****'s is a dark place, there are a lot of vices I don't care to indulge or afford. But I'm getting the calls, one, two an hour, until 4:00 AM, something's up for sure and I can't wait to hear the tale...
THE VODKA TASTING
...which involved a couple of other clearly gay Russians and J**** and the Nephew and J****'s current girlfriend, who just happens to be the Nephew's ex-girlfriend, and another ex-girlfriend of the nephew, H****, and as the night devolved they all ended up in the sauna upstairs...the girls, a lesbian performance while J**** and his friend pulled themselves outside of the glass, blurry images, too much blow to participate, really, the other young homosexual contented himself with flogging the Nephew while he tried to stick a dick in, a pretty messed up evening but not entirely unpredictable, "You should have come, bro..." he tells me, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have, am glad for the good night's sleep...
***
He finds a date, shows us her picture, single mom, 20 years old, 3 kids, lives in Forest Lawn, she's pretty, they're due to meet up that evening after work...and as the time approaches he begins to get cold feet, sure, she's pretty, but he should have verified that her photos were current, wants to make sure he's not disappointed, he's got a vague suspicion...we prey upon his fears, laughing at him, "Three kids bro?" I'm mocking him..."That's not a date, that's an orgy...", not a big deal, it's a first date after all, but they're going for dinner, he's got to leave to pick her up...
I'm getting calls again that evening, come on down, join him, all the way until 4:00 AM, I find them on the phone in the morning, I'll get the story when he gets in to work...
"I was trying to reverse, get away, when I saw her, I mean, she was huge, buddy, only my tires were spinning in the snow and the next thing I knew she was at the window, just let herself into the truck..."
From here the night goes predictably, he takes her for dinner, then drinks, too polite to let her down he just gets himself so hammered, spends the night at her place, wasn't sure if they did it or not, she wouldn't let him sleep on her couch but instead hauled him into the bedroom...the next morning he's woken by the children barging in, her mother, cigarette hanging from her mouth, babysitting, popping her head in the bedroom as he sits naked on the bed, just checking that she got home safe...
***
This doesn't dissuade him, the rest of the week he finds time for 2 more dates, both pretty much the same, young single mothers living in Forest Lawn or the North East, one with three children, but her parents have a court order to keep her away from 2 of them, the third, a three year old toddler, watching through the bars of the crib as she pulls him onto the bed...
***
He's a champ, really, and singlehandedly extends the reputation of men as sluts, not that his dates are doing any favours for their gender either, but he always gets drunk, always takes them home, spends the night, a real trooper, taking one for the team...
***
Saturday Night, Gay bar, his pick, he's having a joint outside, it makes him funny, we go back inside when he's done, into the basement, there's a fully bearded man, maybe 65 years old, in a blue dress with a younger 30 something brunette. I don't notice the brunette, her companion, he's garnering all the looks, the Nephew, he sees, falls to the floor, can't get up, he's laughing so hard, I'm trying to help him pull himself together, he's pretty gone for sure, it is funny but maybe not polite to laugh so hard...eventually he gets it together, hauls himself to the bar, begins to talk to them, gets their story...
...they want to buy some crystal meth, apparently they're former addicts, went to rehab together. I know. And we separate, I leave him with his newfound friends, the night is getting late and I should be getting some sleep, the phone, it's still ringing at 4:00 AM, but I know I'll get the story in the morning...
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- Category: Dating
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