Rainier Cherries

            I didn’t get much sleep from a little after midnight on Saturday morning till the alarm went off at 5:00. I think I was still upset at the Toronto Transitional Housing Allowance Program for rejecting my application for a housing allowance on the grounds that I’d sent my application in past the deadline, even though a worker had called me after the deadline to tell me it wasn’t too late.

            I got leg cramps during some of my yoga exercises but perhaps that resulted from the lack of slumber.

            I had trouble completely hearing the pitch of my voice during song practice because my left ear was a bit plugged.

            Later that morning I went to the food bank. The line-up was normal for a week and a half into the month. It would probably be longer next week and sill longer the next and then shorten again at the beginning of September.

            The homeless Native woman was still in dreamland to the left of the door, with one bare foot and her black cane sticking out from under her sleeping bag.

            I was behind the big Jamaican woman who never stands in line but always finds a place to sit until it’s her turn to go inside. She was inside the entryway on the built-in window seat.

            The dancing man with the cigar was a little further ahead in line, though I’m not sure if he was really in line for the food bank. As usual, he had his headphones on and was moving to music that I couldn’t hear.

            Muhammad arrived and asked how my week had been. I sighed and he laughed. If I’d stopped to think about his question I’d actually had a pretty good week with lots of good weather for velo riding. But I told him that I’d been having bike problems even though those hadn’t arisen until the day before. My crankset was misbehaving again. It started at the end of June, but I’d fixed it by installing new cotter pins. Last Saturday I had a bent crank ring and ended up changing the cotter pins again just so a new crankset would fit. Then on Friday evening I ended up with the same crankset situation that I’d had at the end of June with the crank arms not rotating smoothly but skipping during each turn. He told me that he had a bicycle in his back yard that I could have for parts and then he said he could give me his number. When I started writing it down he told me the name was “Moe”.

            I asked him if he preferred Moe to Muhammad. He verified that he did because of the reactions. He added that since his full name is Muhammad Ali people often associate him with Mohammed Ali, the boxer. He asserted that his answer is always that the fighter is dead but he isn’t.

            Moe mentioned that he went to Caribana last Saturday but that they’d reversed the route this year so that instead of starting on the Exhibition grounds and ending at Sunnyside Beach, it started at the beach and ended at the Ex, with the result that people had to pay $30 to see the floats. It’s true that they’d changed the direction of the parade but I didn’t quite understand what he meant about not being able to see the floats. I assume people still lined the route and saw the floats as they passed without having to pay. He offered the view that the city is nicer to the Pride parade than it is to Caribana.

            I remembered that Moe had referred last time to receiving a rent subsidy from the TTHAP. I told about my application having been rejected because I was past the deadline, even though a social worker had told me that it wasn’t too late. He explained that he was lucky that he didn’t even have to apply because his worker had done everything for him. He pointed out that he’s in a fortunate position because he was in prison and that an apartment was found for him by social workers even before he was released. He boasted that his landlord couldn’t even bother him with any disputes because everything has to be done through his worker.

            It turned out that Moe wasn’t even there for the food bank that day. He’d just stopped to chat with me, so he headed east and I started reading my book. I moved away a lot because the people ahead and behind me in line were smoking a lot.

            I went downstairs to use the washroom and the entryway smelled like pee.

            An SUV police car drive by and the dancing man started singing “Drugs in my Pocket” by the Monks, though I somehow doubt that song was playing in his headphones. Then he said something about an “overdose of Ex-Lax”.

            A woman and her two children came up the street and pushed the button to cross Queen. The dancing man walked over and handed the mother a roll of candy, similar to Lifesavers. She thanked him and opened it up to give one each to her kids. Then she urged them to, “Thank Wayne for the candy!” They each called out, “Thanks Wayne!”

            I usually see Wayne at least once a day through my window when he stops at the metal oil drum beside the A+ Sushi and Bibim and bangs out a simple rhythm for a while with a stick. I’ve yet to see that guy in a bad mood.

            The food bank opened at least twenty minutes late and when it did there was a protest by the big woman who sits with the older gentleman on the steps of 1501 Queen. When the line started moving she returned to her spot near the front and complained to the doorkeeper about a guy that was far ahead of where he was supposed to be. After a few minutes the man from Guyana, who I’ve seen in Parkdale for twenty years, walked sadly to the back of the now fairly long line while Wayne started singing “Get Back” by the Beatles with his own improvised lyrics about getting back in line. The woman behind me wondered aloud why they were making him go to the back when she’d seen him there when she arrived. She told him that he could go behind me and in front of her. I remember chatting with that guy two decades ago when I first moved into my place above the donut shop. He was quite coherent back then but now he seems to be always in a daze.

            I was still in line at almost 11:00 when Moe came walking back west. He was surprised that we were all still there. He suggested that I call him after the food bank and come over to look at the bike he’d mentioned earlier. I told him that I had to go to Bike Pirates right after I brought my groceries home because there’s usually a big line-up on Saturdays and I didn’t want to have to wait. He argued that I could fix my bike at his place because he had all the tools but I declined. He seemed very disappointed as he left.

            Downstairs I got number 23. Instead of Angie handing out the meat and dairy it was the nervous volunteer whom I hadn’t seen for a while. I put my number in the can as usual, but she asked me what the number had been and fished it out so she could find out if I was there for family or just myself. She gave me a one-litre bag of milk and choice between four eggs, a pack of frozen chicken wieners and a box of frozen breakfast Bagel Bites. The hot dogs looked like the brand of halal chicken wieners that were recalled recently, but I guess since they were frozen they could have been from a different batch. I’d had the breakfast bagel bites last week and though the bacon part was all right, the cheese and egg layer was kind of disgusting. I took the eggs. She also offered me a six-pack of single servings of yogourt, but I saw that they contained Sucralose so I turned them down.

            Sylvia’s vegetable section had a lot of frozen sweet peas. She put five 400-gram bags in my backpack. She also gave me four potatoes, three parsnips, one carrot, an apple, an orange, the equivalent of one onion in two and a bag of Rainier cherries.

            I think I’d seen the muscular young volunteer that was my guide for the shelves once before at the previous location. He barely spoke at all but would just wave his hand in the direction of the items that he was offering. It looked like all the cereal they had were boxes of some kind of Despicable Me themed banana concoction. I commented that it looked disgusting and he pointed to the corner of the shelf where there were a few boxes of Dorset muesli, with raisins, dates, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts and multigrain flakes.

            I skipped the pasta and rice. I might have taken some sauce if they’d had any but there were only cans and a jar of crushed tomatoes.

            There were no canned beans, canned tuna or any kind of soup or broth this time. Instead of jars of sugar infested peanut butter they had restaurant sized individual servings of the same stuff. I didn’t want any of that. I did take a can of grapefruit sections in syrup.

            I found on one shelf a package of Korean seasoned seaweed. They usually come in packs of three at the supermarket, but this was only one. They do make for a good light snack though.

            He gave me a handful of lemon Larabars. I like the Larabars because they are only sweetened with dried fruit, but the lemon is my least favourite. He also gave me a king-size O’Henry cookie bar and a Nature Valley roasted almond crunchy bar. Then like a stage magician’s assistant he waved his hand at the bread to indicate that I should help myself and then he disappeared.

            I took two sliced loaves of brown rye bread, one with seeds on the crust.

            There was once again a shortage of protein at the food bank, except for the peas, especially considering that the litre of milk was sour and that I wasted half a bowl of muesli to find that out. It was nice to see a little more fruit than usual. I don’t recall having eaten Rainier cherries before. They didn’t taste as good as red cherries but their flavour was interestingly wild.