Saturday was the first time I’d gone to the food bank for the first
time in two weeks because the previous Saturday I’d needed to study for my
Early Medieval Philosophy exam. I had been also sick with a cold that day but
that probably wouldn’t have stopped me.
I arrived at my
usual 9:45 but the line-up was much longer than usual because this was a day
when they were giving out Christmas turkeys. I was behind a bearded, chain
smoking, bearded man in a wheelchair who has an interesting habit, when
children are walking by, of extending his cigarette as far away from them as he
can reach, I assume so they don’t breathe the smoke.
It was a day that
felt colder than it was because the dampness in the air caused the cold to seep
into the body. A fair number of people had accumulated in the warm lobby beside
the elevator and they only came out every few minutes in small groups to smoke
together. This lobby club makes it difficult to know where everybody really is
in line. Most people mark their places with carts but some people seem to just
establish their positions based on someone else’s and so one never knows if
someone is butting in line or not when they walk up and stick their cart
between two others.
Wayne was there,
though he was uncharacteristically quieter than usual. He kept warm though with
his usual dancing.
Bart, on the other
hand was as loud as ever and the longer we all waited in the cold, the louder
he got and it seemed his absurd ranting got more and more scatological as well.
He frequently referred to both “cocks” and “shit” being sucked by young girls
and there was a reference to fathers being part of the mix as well. One phrase
that he started repeating at a certain point was “the grand pumpkin”. He added particular drama to this phrase and
it sounded like he was a lawyer making his final arguments to a jury,
especially the final time that he shouted, “The Grand … Pumpkin!” and after saying his face took on a satisfied
appearance as if he’d just irrefutably proven someone either innocent or
guilty.
At one point Bart
approached me, addressed me as “Sir” and asked, “Is today the 16th?”
I confirmed that it was and he proceeded to inform everyone that there would be
a Christmas lunch that day at a nearby church that he named. Over the course of
our waiting time several people mentioned this lunch, saying the food is
usually very good and someone actually involved with the church that was
passing informed us that there would also be gifts.
There is a tall and
slim man in his 30s, with doll-like eyes, who is always around the area of the
line-up but is there for the free breakfast at PARC. He walked up on this
extremely frigid day wearing only an open flannel shirt over a Simon and
Garfunkel t-shirt. He looks like his mind is submerged in psychiatric
medication. He is often outside bumming cigarettes without speaking but rather
by holding his two fingers to his mouth and mooning at the richer smoker like a
puppy dog. He approached the chain smoking man in the wheelchair, whose name is
Chico, to gesture his request for a smoke. Chico seemed to be waving him away
but the young man just stood there, silently coveting Chico’s cigarette. I was
passing by while looking for a smoke-free sweet spot and I said to the guy,
“You’re gonna make yourself sick dressed the way you are! You’d better get
inside!” He just looked at me and nodded with his mouth open. When Chico’s
cigarette was half done he handed it to him. So I think that Chico had not been
waving him away after all but had been rather trying to get him to not stand
directly in front of him while he waited for his dregs.
There was a man in
his 70s with a short, grey beard, also waiting for PARC to open at 11:00. He
was wearing just a grey hoody to keep out the cold and he was continuously
walking back and forth up and down the block with one foot in front of the
other, keeping the same pace the whole time. The old man was so skinny that
looked like there was just an empty pair of jeans belted to his waist with a
sneaker attached to the bottom of each leg. During one of the old man’s passes,
Chico suddenly extended his arm toward him to give him his half-smoked
cigarette. The man stopped to take it, thanked Chico and then continued on his
endless, zombie-like walk.
We went past the
10:30 start time, but the food bank did not open. The line-up by this time was
almost all the way to Beaty Avenue. After a few minutes a man in a tan coloured
wool coat, who was about five people behind my position, who was there alone
and hadn’t spoken to anyone before that, suddenly shouted angrily, “They’re
supposed to open at 10:30!” Then he didn’t say anything. Another half an hour
went by with no sign of them opening. I hadn’t noticed that the man that had
shouted wasn’t in line until the burst out of the door of the food bank
entrance, violently kicked the A-frame sign of the Tool Library, shouted and
swore again about how the food bank hadn’t opened at 10:30 and then stormed
down the length of the line to Beaty. After a couple of minutes a big guy from near
the front of the line came walking intently in the same direction. He was
wearing a black balaclava with the lower part of the mouth opening covering his
lower lip and an upwardly tilted cigarette sitting on top of that. Then the guy
that had just kicked the sign came into view as he rode his red bike across
Queen. The man in the balaclava shouted, “Hey asshole!” The red bike headed
quickly up the wrong side of Sorauren.
A few minutes later
we learned that the man on the bike had gone downstairs to complain about the
food bank not opening on time and then in frustration had broken some of the
windows that stand between the food bank and the hallway leading into the food
bank. Someone said that the cops were coming and they couldn’t let us in until
they’d arrived. The guy just behind me in line wondered why they’d called the
police when what they needed was somebody to fix the windows. I agreed that
replacing glass would be a useful skill for the fuzz to have. It would probably
earn them a lot more respect as well. Someone wondered what would be the point
of calling the police since they would have no idea who to look for, but then
another pointed out that there is a camera in the entryway and so he would have
been caught on his way in and out.
By 11:30 the line
still had not moved and the cold had crawled deep into my feet. Many people,
including myself were doing little two-steps to keep warm. A skinny woman in
glasses with long, grey hair came out for a smoke. She appeared to be part of
food bank management, though I’d never seen her before when she told some
people in line that there had been a delay because they had a meeting to decide
how to give out the turkeys. They give out turkeys every year, so why would
they need to delay opening the food bank in order to figure out how to do it?
Don’t they have meetings when the food bank is not open? A woman near the front
complained to her about having to wait so long in the cold and she spat back
that she shouldn’t have come at 9:00 if she hadn’t wanted to wait so long, then
she barked, “It’s not even fuckin cold today!” and then she went back inside.
At one point a guy
at the front turned and called out to everyone, “Food bank line-up, you’re
beautiful!” then he paused and added, “Gangster, not un-gangster!”
It was almost noon
when they started letting people in. The cops never did arrive. When I was near
the front the doll-eyed man came with a freshly scavenged cigarette, stood near
a wall vent to the left of the door. He stood there in the winter air, shaking
like an old washing machine and puffing hard on his fag every other second
until it was gone in hardly any time at all.
When I went down
stairs I saw the two almost identical spider webs of cracked glass with
fist-sized holes in their centres left at opposite ends of the long window by
our shouting friend with the red bike. It’s interesting that of the things that
people smash when they are angry, it always tends to be things that allow for
clear vision, like windows or mirrors. It’s as if the thing that enrages us
most is the seeing itself.
Inside the food
bank there were twice or maybe even three times as many volunteers as usual,
including Sue and Bruce, whom I hadn’t seen working there in a long time.
The choice of
vouchers was for either a turkey or a ham. I chose turkey, but since they would
be open next Saturday I decided to get mine next time. The dairy section was
being handled by the perky high school student with the short and curly hennaed
hair. She gave me two half-litre cartons of milk, three cups of fruit bottom
yogourt, four large eggs and a bag of about fifteen little butter tarts. The
only meat from that counter was frozen chicken wieners because of the fact that
they were giving out the hams and the turkeys as well.
Next to Sylvia’s
vegetable section was a bin full of turkeys and hams. Angie came up to ask if
I’d gotten a turkey. I explained that I’d take mine next week. She told me,
“No, I’m giving you one! Take a turkey and take a ham too!” So I took both. I
wonder if Angie is so generous with me because she always sees me reading and
perhaps it reminds her of her son, who is a schoolteacher. Or maybe she just
likes me. Sylvia asked me for my voucher but I reminded her that Angie had just
given me the turkey. I was thinking that meant that I could get another turkey
next time. Sylvia just shrugged and nodded. She gave me a bag of coleslaw, a
bag of about fifteen organic rainbow carrots, a net of about fifteen onions, a
1.36 kg bag of organic Granny Smith apples and a turnip. Sometimes she
overlooks things and I wasn’t paying attention but I’d earlier noticed people
leaving the food bank with bags of potatoes so I don’t know if they ran out or
if she’d just forgotten to give me some.
I stood by the
first shelf waiting for a volunteer to serve me. Finally I was pleasantly
surprised that my former yoga student, Betina rushed up to fill in the gap. I
think this was her first time it this particular job. It was nice to have her
take me along because it was like we were just hanging out. From the cereal
section, instead of various types of Cheerios, I selected the crunchy bar
granola.
There was lots of
pasta but I didn’t need any and lots of canned tomatoes but no sauce, so I
skipped that section.
There didn’t seem
to be a lot on the soup shelf but I grabbed a carton of chicken broth.
I took what I
thought was a can of tuna from the canned fish/peanut butter shelf. It turned
out to be shrimp cocktail, so that’s okay.
The bean shelf was
well stocked and I took a can of Lebanese fava bean salad.
Betina pointed out
a box containing a bottle of Buffalo style hot sauce and told me that it could
last me a year or two days depending on how much I use it. That may have been
the most obvious thing I’ve heard this year. What’s weird to me though is that
McIlhenny would package one bottle in one box. I guess though that maybe the
bottles would stack and therefore ship more safely that way, with less chance
of breakage.
I selected a carton
of chocolate coconut dairy substitute. I got a sleeve of saltines, though there
were also what looked like Breton crackers as well.
From the bottom of
one rack Betina offered me some “marmalade”. I was hesitant because I have some
honey already at home but she gave me a small handful anyway. It turned out to
be Italian dressing and plum sauce.
Betina admitted that she wasn’t seeing very well and she would often
grab for the glasses around her neck to get a better look at what she was
offering.
On the floor in
front of the last shelf were four 3-litre jugs of cooking vegetable oil. Closer
reading showed that it consisted of canola/and or/soybean oil. I had seen the
volunteer open the box and put them there, not knowing quite what else to do
with them. Betina was surprise by them but just shrugged and told me to take
one.
I gave Betina a big
holiday hug and headed out.
I certainly can’t
complain about the food haul this time around but I think they have some
serious management problems at the food bank to be keeping people waiting so
long in the cold. I am also suspicious as to why “fire regulations” prevent
them from letting people inside to wait where it’s warm. I think sometime soon
I might see if I can interview someone in management there and take a tour of
the facilities so I can know whether or not there are solutions they are
overlooking. The butter tarts were good
though.
No comments:
Post a Comment