| The Lindsay Bucket by Jo Not so very long ago I was in Ontario visiting my parents. I was in Alberta and it was Christmas time. Ha ha - the time for festivities, and I was in a festive mood. I was drinking in this bar and I drained my resources and I asked the manager if I could run a tab and leave my wallet as collateral. He said it was okay, and I partied on. When closing time came, I was slightly impaired but I chose to drive the few blocks home, but that was a mistake. It being Christmas time, the local police were looking for drunk drivers and it wasn't a whole bunch of time till I was netted in a spot check. I was taken back to the station where I had to undergo certain tests like touching my nose and walking a line and the infamous breathalizer. I didn't pass the tests and was found impaired so I had my picture and my fingerprints taken, but then it was time for ID. I didn't have any, so I said my name was Richard Nixon and I was from out of town. They bought this and released me but they impounded the rental car. I got the car back the next day and left for Alberta a few days later. Back in Alberta, I soon forgot about the incident and I returned to Lindsay for the following Thanksgiving. I was walking downtown on the main street, minding my own business when suddenly I was grabbed by the arm. I whirled to see what was up when the biggest cop in the world had me by the arm and says, "We've been looking for you for a long time. Come with me!" So I did as I was ordered and I ended up in the police station jail. The following day was court and now the charges had blossomed from impaired driving to that plus obstructing justice and giving false ID. I was in trouble. For this I received a five hundred dollar fine plus 28 days in jail.T he Lindsay Jail, dah, dah!! It was a dark stone building built around the turn of the century, and looked it. I was taken to a holding cell which was about 4 feet by 8 feet, with nothing in it but a steel sitting bench and one mean looking little man. The kind that scary kids' stories have in them. Well, I went in and took my seat. Just then, lunch was brought. It was weiners and beans and if there is any food I absolutely detest it is weiners and beans - yuk! Now, the only exposure that I've had to the justice system was on tv, and the picture that was painted was that you had to be tough, so when the other guy asked if he could have my food, I said, "No" in no adulterated terms. We started a conversation and I told him of my monu-mental crime, and he told me that he was in for murder. That was all he had to say, and I quickly offered him my meal. After lunch, it was time to me to be taken back to my cell. My cell was on a range. A range is a number of cells clumped together around an area that contains some steel benches and tables that are connected to the floor. A small area that one can stretch in and kill time. In this range there were eighteen other guys. Strange thing about these men is that not one of them was guilty of his certain crime. It would seem that the amount of mistakes made by the law system is insurmountable. I spent twenty-one days living in the bowels of the Lindsay Jail. I got a week off for good time. Cherry Beach by Oswald Phills The sun shines in the morning sky its light rests on all quarters the two black guard dogs like two dusty mats sleep in their junkyard cage on the way to cherry beach the signs are obscure but the way is clear jets streak through the atmosphere with a vapor trail of twin white lines they draw on the empty blue space where sun shines gold and there's no further a tree is planted in the ground touch the ageless music flow on the way to cherry beach with your coffee in a paper cup in hand spread your wings on the travelling wind dance the glittering diamond dance dance to philosophy's music all the way to cherry beach. STRUGGLE Twisting off the cap now. Pouring back a cold one's insane. What have I done to, deserve this fate. Hopeless eyes watching, every move that I take. What have I learned, through my disgrace. What am I doing here, in this foreign place. I've seen the sky burn, in the forges of hell. Heard volcanos cry, as they froze in cocoons. What is going on, am I the mystery. If there's someone out there, please listen to me. If there's someone out there, don't leave me be. I'm all alone in this world of mine. Hidden in a cold glass shell. Ignoring the world as I pass it by. Believing only in me. Therefore refusing, my insanity. So I persist as I please. I survive as I deem, I exist as I see I live only for me. Mankinds supposed sanity, Keeps demons out at bay. Is there another, Another way. Civilization without insanity Is like a car without wheels You need to suffer some So you can heal If there's someone out there, please listen to me. If there's someone out there, don't leave me be. J.A.M. Home is Where the Heart Sings by Carly Svamvour - 1996 In the early hours of morning, the heron patiently waits by the rushes. Just a ripple on the surface of the water will alert him to the presence of fresh fish. For reasons not visibly apparent, it suddenly takes wing and cuts the air, like something shot from the tense string of a bow. That bird doesn't usually fly that fast, thinks the old woman on shore, then sees the sleek, red fox racing along the edge. Panting, the animal hotly pursues the bird's flight. The prospect of a good breakfast is never taken lightly. The old woman understands this; understands it well. Beside the bench where she sits, is her shopping buggy. The beat-up cart is bursting with plastic bags; bags containing all of that which she considers to be valuable and of utmost importance to her existence. From the collection of what appears to be nothing more than mere, filthy rubble, she selects a bag and opens it, inspecting the quality of the contents. She and her voices agree; it is too wet to light a fire and she sits munching from a box containing popcorn, discarded outside the theatre on the previous evening. As she eats, she plans her day. She animatedly argues with the voices, speaking loudly of the decision at hand. ‘I MAY or MAY NOT go to the Village!' In that Village there are bakeries and cafes into which people swarm and emerge, bearing packages that contain pastries and delicatessen items. The high quality of these products, are what makes the area very popular and people who can afford such quality, will travel for miles, just to shop there. ‘Sometimes', she tells her voices, ‘people are feeling good about themselves and their lot and are likely to be very generous'. ‘Sometimes they are not feeling all that good at all', argue the voices and she concedes to this observation. ‘Yes, you are right. Sometimes they are feeling downright miserable, and are likely to give nothing more than a swift kick in the pants!', she cackles, laughing at her own wit. She knows that the bowl of cherries that was once said to be life is not always kept filled with fresh fruit. Often it is almost empty, and at times, acquires an unhealthy, stinking mold. ‘Yes. It may be wise', the voices agree, ‘to stay here by the pond and take shelter'. It is a weekday and not many will be out. Especially today, when the drizzle of rain threatens to become a storm; real weather that's here on business. She tosses the few remaining morsels to the expectant gulls; those ragged creatures who squeal hysterically at her feet, each threatening to annihilate the other, then takes her cart and makes slow but steady progress to the covered tables on the other side of the trail. From there, she watches as the sky cracks open and the light rain is transformed into a hard, cold torrent from hell. She huddles in a corner and draws a blanket around her, trying to ward off the sharp, piercing ache of her bones, and when the horrible screaming, which is the howling wind dies down, she nods off to sleep. * * * Later in the afternoon, the turtles climb onto their logs to bask, exposing their shells to the warmth of a kind sun, which has seemingly changed its mind. The old woman rises from her corner under the shelter and shakes out her blanket, folding it and placing it in a bag, which she returns to the jumbled contents of the buggy. Pulling the cart, she slowly makes her way up the hill, out of the park and out onto a side street. On red, swollen legs, she heavily plods through the rubble of rusted, wet leaves, ambiguously chattering to the voices that continue to ramble inside her head. Heatedly, she argues with the phantoms, berating them with verbal abuse; much of it obscene, and having very little to do with anything that is understood by passers by, who shake their heads in amusement, wondering about sanity and how it escapes one. As she nears Bloor Street, she sings a children's song that tells of the Jack-O-Lantern Jack-O-Lantern that which is such a lovely sight as it sits there in the window looking out at the night. This last, an old nursery-school song, still stored in her long memory, is prompted by the presence of carved pumpkins, not yet removed from the posts of verandahs. Some, though cracked and rotting, are still perched on the stairways leading up to the houses, a few broken, their orange, pulp-lined skins, strewn and squashed in the roadway. A half-bottle of bitters keeps her spirits buoyed and she laughs, kicking through the soggy, dead leaves of Manitoba Maple. Clinging to the pavement, they put her in mind of cornflakes sticking to the bottoms of unwashed cereal bowls. She is lucky today. She finds the corner of Runnymede and Bloor to be unmanned ... or womaned, so to speak. The younger beggars are too lazy, she thinks, to come out in the cold weather. She soon manages to collect a handful of change from the crowds that hurry from the subway station. This small sum enables her to enter the warmth of a McDonalds Restaurant, where she buys a large coffee and two buttered muffins. Happily, and slightly tipsy from frequent pulls on her medicine, she finishes her small meal, then makes her way along the north side, passing fruit and vegetable stands, where she hopes to acquire the means with which to build her next meal. After the sun sets, she returns to her hideaway in the woods. She takes the stolen fruit from her bag. Some has been acquired through legitimate process. The ones that get away; plums, oranges, apples - fruit and potatoes that roll into the street as the hyperactive, distracted clerks re-stock their bins. There are even a couple of just blackened bananas. She peels and eats them first, before they are too far gone. The Doughnut People by Lucile Barker The shop is open 24 hours, as warm as a lover's arms, lit up like a Wild West whore house, and a soul as greasy as the fat they cook the doughnuts and crullers in. It is never empty, never full. The flourescent lights show the makeup caked in wrinkles on the hooker's twenty-six year old face, the five o'clock going midnight shadow of the taxi driver who is mixing benzedine with his coffee. Deals are done at corner tables. The junkies hate the lights in here but they crave the frosted sweetness and the warmth. It is not a good place and the spoons are made of plastic. The washrooms are usually locked so the junkies overdose in back lanes. This is a place to avoid if you are "respectable", "normal". Not the place to take your mother for a quick hot drink before she heads home. No one heads to "home" from here. And maybe on Friday or Saturday night some office girls after the movie try to sweeten the night saving crumbs of time with no interest. The waitress pours, chewing her gum, to the beat of the FM rock station measuring her higrits by pots of coffee, by the bins becoming empty, by the ringing of the filling till. A fat taxi driver suns himself in the flourescent light like a rattlesnake in the sun looking for a hooker with a purse of gold. In another corner, lovers who shouldn't love whisper a silence over cold coffee, while two gays smile cheap lipstick grimaces and hope that two o'clock will bring business A junkie has gone to the washroom, the waitress yawns and steals an eclair. Later she finds the junkie dead, the needle still in his arm. The lovers have left; the police come; the taxis rev in the parking lot. All the cars have lights on top. The police photographer knows it will be bad; he has seen everything and each time it is the first Gray green in the dawn he sips black coffee, wishing he could film sunrises. The ambulance comes and fetches. The waitress doesn't clean the washroom. The neon sign turns in the misty light and the doughnut holes are as empty as the customers' lives. The 50th Birthday By Anna Maki I am fifty today, a middle-aged, pre-menopausal, tired, exhausted from years of double shifts. Home, work, day in, day out, year in, year out, illnesses, dirt, food, garbage, dirty corners of poor apartments, dilapidated houses, offices, toilets, toilet bowls, sinks, tears, stains on glass, plates, furnace, laundry, piles and piles of useless cloth, folding, ironing... Deaths - my grandmother, my grandfather, my dad, my kids - God has taken them all to the cleaners. Sleepless nights, running around cleaning, cooking, cleaning, wiping the dirty bums, noses, hands, teaching how to live, to be nice, kind.... I am tired of all, my kids, my friends, my government, my Oprah show , my postman, my man, all men, all children, old people, all people, of all religions, all races, all genders and all noble cause fighters... I need a rest from it all. Give me a break. I can't afford a retreat, a spa, a cottage. Can I have anything at all?! Today is my birthday, my day and perhaps not many happy returns. My crazy husband can kill me or a crazy whore down the street. How should I honour myself, my work, double shifts since the age of ten, piles of clean garbage, miles of clean housing space, wallpapers, plastering and washing. Should I buy myself a ticket to Hawaii, Bermuda, Alaska, tundra, Greek Island, spa in Karlowy Vary, a cake, the size of all the housing space I cleaned in my lifetime? Cry out all the misery, despair and hurt I felt in all my fifty years? No, no, no money, no strength, no tears left. Today ... I will.. dye my grey hair professionally, for forty dollars for the first time in my life, I had no money, no time and no desire to look prettier than I was. Was I? Yes, I was and still am. My husband got furious once when I, a mother of his ten year old child was asked if that was his daughter too, pointing at me. I do not look fifty at all. When I look at my self in a mirror and cover my hair with a black plastic bag, black hair is my colour. One neighbour told me , you are so pretty even a plastic bag on your head would look pretty. I tried it on. It did not look pretty, but the sweet compliment still makes me feel good. How to choose a hairdresser when one does not have one? I will just wander around town today, trying to find a nice hairdresser. How? I will just go by their faces, then I'd start asking the price, $40 is my limit. I dressed up in a cold winter day and went hairdresser shopping. One place, called Hair Lift System, had a guy asking $65 for female hair and its special care. I left. One place, called Hair Care, wanted $55, a young girl who was just out of her hair care training and embarked on a new specialist course. She seriously examined my head and sized me up, to her I did not look poor enough to pay $55, and she added a special handling of $10 for my length. I decided to look for a hair dresser, a recent immigrant from Hong Kong, China, Phillippines, Russia, Poland or Haiti. I am not a racist, but when it comes to saving some money... I finally found a Portuguese hairdresser who had a kind face, spoke poor English, did mainly male haircuts but was bored sitting and waiting for his male customers. He ventured to colour female hair for the first time in his professional life. "There has to be the first sometimes, first female client", he joked. "What should I do?" "Take this henna and mix it, add some coffee and put it nicely over my hair, all of it, including the roots".... "Roots,? Joots, what is it?". "No, roots" and I pointed to my temples. "O.K. I know how. I will do just as you want. I do my wive's hair". He confided or lied to me. He enthusiastically dyed my hair and placed me in the corner with a pile of old Chatelaine magazines as soon as a male appeared. He told me, "Sit here, my clients are coming." By the time he finished shaving the fat client's skull, with no hair, it was time to wash my hair. I used sign language , the hairdresser got the idea and took me to the sink. Cold water poured over my head. "More?" uttered my hairdresser/barber. "No, no more, it is cold." "Cold enough?" "Yes, a flood of cold red water poured over my shoulders, I ran out of the barber shop into the freezing rain on the street.. Across the road, oh God, my luck, there was another Hair Care. A friendly blonde lady inside nearly dropped dead at the sight of me. She mysteriously quickly led me to the sink to wash my hair. "You went to that idiot?", she asked pouring shampoo. "I am so lucky you are here and you have warm water, what a present! How much do I owe you?" I asked bravely and felt a sharp pain to my stomach. Only forty dollars to split between the 2 hairdressers. I could have bought a bottle of perfume or two nice lamb roasts. Idiot! Women are stupid. Why did I need this? I will catch pneumonia and no more happy returns of the day." "No nothing" said the lady with a mysterious smile. I ran across the street to settle the score with my Portugese barber. "Since it was dying, with no colour", I explained while gesturing, "at least $20". I pleaded hoping to get some compensation for the unexpected beauty parlour aggravation. "No", he shook his head, "Go and ask the lady across the street if she wants money, this is my wife". This was his divorced wife who monitored the electric fuses and water temperature in both buildings. This way she was trying to settle her divorce with her husband. They have been doing it for the past ten years. Many happy returns. |
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