On Saturday
morning at around 9:45 I went to the food bank. It was another chilly day for a
line-up and so most everyone had marked their places with backpacks, carts or
bags. There were only two people in the general area that looked like it might
be the back of the line. The tall guy in the grey plaid coat with the grey
hoody was someone that I recognized from seeing him several times at the previous
location. He was standing and leaning against the wall of 1501 Queen Street
near where it meets 1499, where the food bank is located. The tall, slim
younger man in the red pirate bandana was moving around ceaselessly while
laughing to himself and making various dramatic hand gestures from time to
time.
I asked the dude in the grey coat
who the last person in line was and he seemed annoyed by the question. He
tensely pointed at the black backpack at the end of the row of bags and carts
and growled, “Right fuckin there!” Since not everyone marks their places in
line, his answer meant nothing to me. I said, “That’s a backpack, not a person!
I’d like to know which person I’m behind!” He barked, “I don’t fuckin know! Why
are you bothering me with these questions?” I informed him that all he’d had to
say in the first place was that he didn’t know. He yelled, “You know what? Fuck
off!” I told him that there was no reason to be rude, since we’re all in this
together. A few minutes later he apologized for his behaviour and asserted more
calmly this time, “I just don’t know who the last person in line is.” Then he
started explaining that some things were setting him off. Indicating the man in
the red bandana, he grumbled, “We got this wingnut bouncin around like a
retard!”
I asked the man in the bandanna who
the last person in line was. He raised his forearms, twisted his wrists inward
and then pointed both index fingers at himself. A little later he was throwing
punches while the man in grey carped mockingly but under his breath, “What are
you? A boxer?” The bandanad guy mimed a golf swing towards the other side of
Queen Street and then giggled like the Joker.
It was a cold day. The guy in grey
told me I could go inside the doorway where everybody else was and get warm. I
shook my head and assured him that they would all be kicked out soon because of
the fire regulations. He gestured toward the entrance to the apartment building
that he was leaning on and informed me that he used to work for the guy that
owns it. He declared that the 1501 owner wasn’t too happy about the food bank
line-up standing in front of his place.
It was also a windy day. Ahead of
the black backpack in front of me were two colourful, reusable shopping bags
from Freshco. I remembered seeing similar bags last time marking the place of
the little Indonesian woman with the embroidered baby blue hijab. A gust blew
one of the bags out into the middle of the sidewalk, so I went to get it and
put it back. A few minutes later it sailed out a little further and so I
retrieved it again. After about ten minutes or so it once gain made a run for
it and I was only able to snag it just as it had cleared the pedestrian area
and was about to start dancing with the vehicles.
As usual, the smoking was out of
control and it was very hard to avoid because the furthest I could go was the
edge of the sidewalk and in any other direction I had to walk a long way before
clearing the second hand smoke.
The guy in the red bandana bummed a
cigarette and had a brief conversation about having not been to the food bank
for two months. It always amazes me how people that appear to be hearing voices
can still have immediate communication in the real world and then seamlessly
return to the internal dialogue.
One thing interesting about the new
location is that the food bank line-up is right next door to the entrance to
the PARC drop-in centre that has its own collection of regular characters. One
stubby guy in a fedora and blue sunglasses, who looked something like a human
version of the big cigar he was smoking came over from the PARC door to our
line-up and suddenly called out, “No smiling! Anybody caught smiling will be
sent to CAMH where there are cheese sandwiches and no drinking or smoking!” Of
course, CAMH stands for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which is
the dumbest name for a mental hospital anybody has ever conceived. It uses two
contexts of the word “for” in one title. How can one be “for” both addiction
and mental health? It should either be “The Centre for Addiction and Mental
Illness” or “The Centre for Mental Health and Non-Dependence”. If I were to go
to CAMH to tell them all of that though they might lock me up.
A little later the guy with the
cigar came back and, with a smile, repeated his anti-smiling warning. Then he
took a very large and antiquated music player out of his pocket, turned it on,
put it back in his pants and began dancing. Never once did he take the big
half-cigar out of his mouth as he cavorted about to music we couldn’t hear,
with his big behind shooting backwards and forwards to the rhythm and (most
comically of all for his body type) while making very delicate gestures with
his hands. I couldn’t help but start laughing. He continued dancing as he went
forward, pushed the button to open the door and then danced inside to take the
elevator up to the PARC offices.
A woman came up and spoke to me by
name, but I didn’t let on that I had no idea who she was. I guess she could
have either known me from poetry readings or from having drawn or painted me as
a model. She asked if this was the line-up for the food bank and wanted to know
what the requirements were. I told her she would need some kind of proof of
limited income and her address, plus identification. I asked if she was on
social assistance but she said she lived off the interest on an RRSP, which was
not sufficient to get by. I suggested that if she brought a statement from her
bank to indicate her financial situation, there shouldn’t be a problem.
As the line was about to move, the
Indonesian woman came back to her place in line, but her bag was gone. I
explained to her that I’d seen it blow away three times and brought it back
three times but hadn’t been looking for the last few minutes. She didn’t thank
me for my help. There was an elderly man holding an identical bag and standing
in line about ten places ahead. She went up to him and quietly took the sac
from him and he just calmly nodded as she returned to her place with it.
The short, grey haired woman who
owned the backpack that was directly in front of me came back to reclaim her
place in line, along with an older man who seemed like her might be her
partner. The guy in the red bandana was standing nearby and making motorboat
sounds by blowing through his lips. The grey haired woman asked him if he would
please cut it out, but he ignored her. As people started leaving the food bank
with groceries, he declared, “I knew there’d be muffins! I’m the smartest
cranberry in the patch!”
Once I was close to the front, the door
person called in the next four, but then said to me and the East African guy
behind me that we might as well go in too.
I was client number 28 this time,
compared to having been number 17 the week before. After I got my number there
was still a line-up for the dairy section. The guy ahead of me asked for pizza
because he’d seen people leave with some, but Angie told him there wasn’t any.
When I approached the counter she told me she could trust me and left to go to
the back. She was gone for at least three minutes and holding up the line. The
vegetable lady was looking to the back and wondering what Angie was doing. She
came back with a large box, which she opened to give me one of the frozen
pizzas inside. There were half litres of 2% milk and I think I was only
supposed to get one but she slipped me another. I received two fruit bottom
yogourt cups, a plastic bag with seven eggs inside, two bags of McCain’s red
potato wedges, and two packages of frozen chilli parathas.
The vegetable lady gave me two
seedless cucumbers, two potatoes and an onion. Then she asked if I wanted to
try something new. I asked, “What’s that?” and she passed me a small bag of
fingerling potatoes. Of course I took it because I like potatoes but I doubted
if I would be trying “something new”. Fingerling potatoes are just a shape and
size of several breeds of potato with no distinct flavour from any other shape
and size of the same strains.
From the shelves I got a box of
Wheat Thins, a box of Fibre 1 chocolate cheesecake bars and three Clif energy
bars: two white chocolate and one chocolate chip.
They haven’t had pasta sauce for
several weeks. This time they had cans of whole tomatoes with herbs and spices.
I got a can of chickpeas; one of sliced mushrooms and another of President’s
Choice sliced clingstone peaches in concentrated juice (they were actually very
good).
From the soup section I took a
carton of beef broth and a can of Campbell’s tomato garden vegetable soup with
pea beans and spinach.
From the shelf with all of the odd
packaged products I selected after much hesitation a box of Knorr savoury herb
with garlic mix. I guess I can use it with the fingerling potatoes.
From the cereal section I took a
large bag of puffed, apparently honey sweetened cereal.
I skipped the bread, since I had
plenty at home.
The only meat gained from this food
bank adventure was what little bit of ham had been smattered on the frozen
pizza.
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