On Saturday there was a smaller group than
usual gathered outside the back of the food bank when I arrived. I assumed that
this was because the monthly social services, Ontario Works and ODSP cheques
had been issued, so some regular food bank clients temporarily had the means to
acquire groceries without standing for a long time in the cold. I asked a small
group that were standing in the middle of the driveway who the last person was
and I learned that it was the large, friendly woman with the glasses.
I
passed most of my time reading “The Thunderbird Poems” by Armand Ruffo. The
poetry was inspired by the life and work of Norval Morriseau, though for the
most part I don’t think it’s very good. It reads more like editorial commentary
in verse form than it does a poetic work of art. This is my second reading of
the book because I plan to write about my idea that writing poetry merely as a
supplement to a given subject will always fail to elevate it. It was cold, so I
took my glove off each time I needed to turn a page and then quickly put it
back on to read.
Not
a single person in the line-up was smoking for most of the time we were
waiting.
Angie
came out to yell at a man that was sitting by the door drinking a coffee. She
told him that he’d thrown something in the wrong garbage can and not to take
food that he didn’t want to eat. Before she stormed back inside she declared,
“And that was your last coffee!” As far as I could tell, what happened was that
he had gone inside to get a coffee, took one of the many pastries available to
everyone, but decided that he didn’t like it, threw it away and took another
one.
There
were two dogs there that day. One that looked like a white German Shepherd was
with a young, tall, somber caregiver over by the fire escape. Whenever anyone
asked questions about the dog, he’d answer in a very low voice in as few words
as possible. The canine was whining nervously and the man complained that it
was because everybody was bothering her. All people were doing though was
looking at the animal from a distance. The other dog may have been a toy poodle
and the woman that had brought it there was not it’s principle caregiver, since
she told “Nina” that later they’d be going to see her “mommy”. She went inside
to get a coffee and came out as well with some kind of golden, crumbly pipe
shaped hollow pastry that I think is supposed to be filled with cream. She
broke off a piece and gave it to the dog, saying, “Your mommy’s not going to
like that I gave that to you!” The dog was very excited and wanted more, but
the woman exclaimed, “Nina, you act like you’re fuckin starving, man!”
A
couple and two kids with a medium sized dog that looked like a rat way ahead of
them on a leash were passing by on the sidewalk. The woman asked them what kind
of dog it was and the female half of the couple answered that it was a Jack
Russell and that he was a handful. The woman commented, “That’s because it’s
smart!” She agreed, saying that it was so intelligent that it was stubborn. I
don’t think the dog was a Jack Russell though, but rather a bull terrier. It
made me wonder if they were walking their own dog if they didn’t even know what
breed it was.
A
car pulled up in the driveway and the African guy whom I’d stood behind in the
line-up the week before got out of the passenger side, put his red gym bag down
behind the other bags to mark his place in line, then he got back in the car
and they drove away.
As the line started
to form there was a guy from the back standing by the door. He explained that
he was just waiting to go in and get a coffee, but when the door opened to let
the first five people in he went right up to the desk to get a number. The
clients at the front of the line called inside to let the desk know that he’d
butted in. I heard it said that he was given a high number for his rudeness.
When I got in I saw
Angie sitting behind the table where they display the pastries. She pointed at
the guy in front of me and shouted, “You’re butting in!” It was the guy that
had left his red gym bag in line and drove off. I don’t know how he got in
front of me.
“Rappers Delight”
came over the radio and suddenly Angie brightened up. She started moving to the
music and exclaimed, “This is the Sugarhill Gang!” They did one of the first
rap songs! Didn’t they Bruce?” Bruce was sitting on one of the now empty
waiting area seats. Without looking up from his reading he nodded. Angie was
smiling widely and moving from side to side. The Jamaican vegetable lady was
laughing with surprise and appreciation at seeing her normally more subdued
sixty year old white colleague grooving to hip hop.
Just as the guy
who’d jumped the line stepped forward to see one receptionist, the other was
free to serve me. I pointed out to him that the guy had cheated the queue. He
said they knew and that it would be his first strike. He assured me that if it
happens again he’ll be cut off. He gave me number 17.
The other intake guy
asked where Angie was, insisting that she couldn’t leave her post. I wondered
why that was important. Maybe she was supposed to be sitting there and guarding
the food from the thieving clients. As I was leaving, Angie was coming back in.
The guy asked what she was doing. She said, “I was taking out some garbage and
giving somebody a piece of my mind!” He said, “Angie, you’ve gotta relax!”
I unlocked my bike
and was rolling out of the driveway when the guy that had butted in approached
me to try to explain himself. I don’t know why he felt the need to explain
himself in particular to me, since he’d jumped ahead of lots of other people.
He said the person had given him a ride but then wanted to go buy cigarettes. I
failed to see how that justified either putting his bag in the line-up and
leaving or betraying everyone that had been waiting in the cold ahead of him.
He repeated the same thing twice though as if it explained everything.
I went home for a
few minutes and ate a bowl of Raisin Bran.
When I got back to
the food bank there was hardly anyone standing outside. At 11:30 the first five
numbers were called but 4 and 5 weren’t even there. He let in three more whose
numbers ranged up to 10. At that point there were just three of us in the
driveway. About five minutes later he called numbers 10 to 20 and I went in.
The seats were full,
the elderly Filipino volunteer called number 14, with no response, then 15,
with no one getting up, then 16, still no bingo until she called 17 and I got
up. I noted that her height reaches between my belly button and my chest. As we approached the first set of shelves I
considered insisting that she hand me my selection from the top according to
what at least one volunteer had insisted to me was the protocol, but I decided
that would be pointless and perhaps a little rude.
I took a can of beef
gravy from the top, a kilogram bag of chocolate chips from the next shelf, the
following shelf just had some kind of pound cake mix which I skipped, but she
gave me a couple of single serve containers of some kind of blueberry puree
snack from the bottom shelf.
I usually pass by
the pasta, rice and sauce shelves, but this time I saw an Alf redo sauce from
President’s Choice so I grabbed it. From among the canned food shelves, which
were well stocked this time, I picked some beans with brown sugar and bacon.
There was no tuna this time but a few jars of natural peanut butter. I had a
jar and a half of that at home, so there was no reason to overdo it. I took a
box of butternut squash soup and since I hadn’t taken much from the other
shelves she said I could have another. From the cereal section the choices were
two sugary kids’ cereals and some single serving packages of Fiber-1, so I
asked for the Fiber-1 and she put three in my bag. She also gave me another
bottle of Aveeno shampoo. I still hadn’t tried the shampoo and conditioner that
I’d gotten the week before because I have other stuff to use up.
I noticed that Angie
was not anywhere to be seen. I wondered if she’d gone home because she was
pissed off or if she’d been sent home. She was replaced in the cold section by
a tall woman in her early middle age that I’ve seen there a few times. She gave
me a half-liter of 2% milk, a half-liter of chocolate soymilk, two small fruit
bottom yogourts and a bag containing five eggs. She directed me to the other
end of the freezer, on top of which was a bin containing three kinds of frozen
ground meat rolled in sealed plastic containers. At the other side of the bin,
with his elbow on the freezer top and with his head leaning on his hand was a
bored and drowsy looking boy of about ten, who I assumed belonged to the woman
I’d just encountered. As I selected the only container of ground pork I told
him that he looked like he needed some sleep, but he didn’t respond.
The bread section
was very well stocked, but I just asked for a small loaf of non-sliced
multigrain bread that looked attractive. I already had some bread at home and
really hate to see it go moldy because I didn’t get through it fast enough.
The vegetable lady
had already divided up her slim selection equally into little fancy black
Danier bags with cloth ties. She handed one to me and it contained five
potatoes, a medium sized yellow onion and a small red onion. Before I left she
asked me if I wanted some bags, so she gave me six of the Danier sacks.
I think that was the
least amount of vegetables I’ve ever gotten from the food bank.
As I headed home I
noticed that my back brakes had failed again. I had planned on going over to
Bike Pirates with my old bike after putting my groceries away, but since this
bike was the most functional I took it there instead. Dennis walked up to me
right away demanding to know where my old bike was. The brakes were a quick fix
but he told me that where I had wrapped my lock chain had it pushing against
the cable and impeding it. I had previously wrapped my cable around the cross
bar but had been told by the guy at Duke’s Cycle that it was the wrong place if
I wanted my brakes to function. Then I wrapped it around my handlebars but with
Dennis telling me that was wrong too I felt like my chain was a refugee being
kicked from place to place. I asked where the best place to put it would be and
he told me around my seat post. With that fixed, I took the Cushing 2000 (I
don’t know what its brand name actually is, but since Nick Cushing gave it to
me, it’s as good a name as any) and brought back the Phoenix to see if we could
get the seat post out.
The first thing that
Dennis did was to soak the bolt on the ring that held the broken seat post in
place in “magic juice”. I asked him what magic juice actually was. He said it’s
really Liquid Wrench. I had to look it up to see exactly what it is and found
that I it’s a type of penetrating oil. He applied it and told me to wait
fifteen minutes, so I went home to drink my cold coffee. When I came back, the
bolt on the ring still wouldn’t turn, even though we tried an Allen key with
more torque, so we soaked it again and I went home again. Since it still
wouldn’t turn when I came back, Dennis brought out an electric drill. I’d heard
that they weren’t insured to use power tools at Bike Pirates but Dennis claimed
that he was allowed to even though clients aren’t. He tried to drill a hole
through the bolt but the bit was not sharp enough. I asked if banging it with a
hammer would help. Dennis agreed that it might, so he told me to get a ball
peen hammer and to start hitting the ring to turn it back and forth. It did
move. Then he got a chisel and we started banging upward to try to move the
ring off the post. That wasn’t very effective but then suddenly Dennis said we
should put the bike upside down on the post because that way I could hammer the
ring downward. Dennis said he had to go to class but that on the way back he’d
stop at the tool library to get a decent drill. He said that I could keep on
banging away until I was tired then leave the bike there and go home until he
returned at 16:00. I kept working around the ring with the chisel and then two
minutes after Dennis left, the ring popped off. I made a few attempts to get
the post out on my own with various grip wrenches but it didn’t work. I decided
to go home until Dennis came back but it didn’t seem right to leave my bike
there on a post when there might be people needing to use the space, so I took
it down. While I was rolling past the kitchen I asked the volunteer who does
most of the cooking if they ever bake cookies. She answered, “Sometimes.” I
offered to giver her a large bag of chocolate chips and she was glad to hear
it, telling me that they bake a very nice banana chocolate chip cookie
sometimes. I told her that I’d bring the bag when I came back.
Shortly after
getting home I went to bed, but first I took a towel from the laundry basket
and laid it down on my sheet so I didn’t have to remove my boots. I slept for a
little over an hour and headed back to Bike Pirates with my bike and a bag of
chocolate chips for their kitchen. The woman I’d handed it to ask me my name
and where I lived. After I told her she asked if I’d like her to knock on my
door when they make the cookies. I answered that it didn’t matter, and then she
nodded and walked away.
Dennis was already
there. He had the idea to turn the bike upside down and to put the post in the
vice, then to try to yank it up. Others though thought that might just crimp
the post and break it off more. Dennis put some magic juice around where the
post was fused to the seat tube and told me to wait another fifteen minutes, so
I took that opportunity to go across to the liquor store to get my two cans of
Creemore for the weekend. I took them home, put them in the fridge and went
back to Bike Pirates. Dennis must have gone for a very long smoke or a washroom
break, because I had to wait about fifteen minutes for him. When he appeared he
tried the same wrenches that I’d tried to no avail. The short, older volunteer
who looks like an elfin Santa Clause arrived and Dennis picked his brain on our
problem. We decided to try drilling a hole through each side of the post, then
to run a cable through and try to pull the post out by pulling upward. This
time Dennis was advised that people might have a fit if he were to use a drill
in the shop, so we went to the back in the work room where it looked like
several project bikes were being stored. Dennis couldn’t make a dent in the
post with the drill from the outside. I suggested trying from the inside where
the surface was more rough but almost immediately the bit broke and Dennis gave
up on the whole thing. Santa had a few suggestions for trying at home. He said
I could soak the post in vinegar or ammonia then plug the hole and turn it
upside down. He also suggested that I just do the slow prison escape method
with a hacksaw blade. He said it might take me a few hours but if I were to saw
through one side of the pipe from inside then the post could just be torn out
afterwards. He gave me a dull hacksaw blade to keep for that purpose. I’m
starting to think that it might be better to just try to find a similar but
bigger frame for fifty dollars at Bike Pirates and use most of the parts the
parts of my old one to build a new one from scratch.
I heated up a piece of the pork sirloin that
I’d roasted the night before, boiled a potato and made gravy from the drippings
with a beurre manié which consisted of butter and flour mixed together and
formed into a dough. I heated up the drippings with an equal amount of water
and dropped little balls of the dough into the liquid. It almost always makes
perfect gravy but in this case it was amazing because the drippings were already
perfectly flavoured by the spices that I’d rubbed into the pork before cooking
it.
I
watched the second episode of Laramie, one of the fifty or more westerns that
were on television in the 1950s featuring cowboys with perfectly coiffed
pompadours as if guys in the Wild West really wore their hair that way. One of
the costars was the great songwriter, Hoagy Carmichael. It looks like he sang
part of a song in every episode, but in this case it wasn’t one of his own but
rather “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. Ernest Borgnine guest starred.
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