1950s Game Console

            I smelt it before I felt it on Saturday morning. When I got up I inhaled the odour of cooked air. I walked over to touch the radiator and found that for the first time in my experience the furnace in my building was running in the middle of June. Having gotten used to breathing smooth lubricated air the artificially heated dry gas went into my lungs like sandpaper. It really was cold outside for the season as I could see that no one on the street was dressed for summer, but I don’t think we needed to have the heat on. I think what happened was that we’d left the back door to the deck open overnight and just enough cold air came in to make the thermostat kick the heat on. Once the furnace is on it takes a while for it to go off again. I opened all the windows and my apartment door, allowing a cool breeze to counter the heat but it didn’t work out to a pleasant balance. I could still smell burnt air and feel the heat but I was also getting a chill from the cold air blowing in from outside. After about three hours it warmed up enough outside so the heat went off and it was okay to close my windows.

            While translating the song “Les petits ballons” by Serge Gainsbourg I came up with a line that deviated slightly from the original but it was too good to discard: “nothing makes me fear death / more than your kisses of flame / like firing squad cigarettes / lit up in a chain”.

            It was still too cool for shorts when I was getting ready to go to the food bank but jeans and a tank top with an unbuttoned shirt on top were enough to be comfortable.

            The line-up was slightly shorter than the week before. The young part East Indian guy that I’d chatted with last week arrived just after me but got his bike locked sooner so that I was behind him.

Graham, as usual was about five places ahead. I told him that our conversation about the Lamport respit centre the week before had made me interested in what kind of reaction the residents of Liberty Village have had to the homeless staying on their doorstep. I said I’d found the announcement from when the centre was first being planned and the comments section was very interesting. Those that had lived in Liberty Village for five years or less were dead set against the respit centre while those that had lived in the area seventeen years or more welcomed it. Graham said he understands why the condo dwellers are against it because it really does lower their property values. “Good on them!” I said. He added that they would have to deal with the homeless sleeping around the stadium anyway, so do they want needles lying around all over the place or an organized place nearby with needle disposal boxes?

Graham told me that the respit centre is pet friendly but the homeless people with dogs tend to just let them run around the place ragging their leashes and going through the garbage. When the people in charge remind a dog’s caregiver that the dogs are supposed to be on a leash they get the argument, “My dog is on a leash! Fuck off and give me my food”.

Graham said that he’d gone there for breakfast that morning and the French toast with sausages was very good.

He told me that the social workers at the respit centre have begun the process of helping him find a new place where he won’t have to move his dresser in front of the door before he goes to sleep. 

The twenty-something guy behind me was of the same generation as the guy in front of me and so they had lots in common to talk about in terms of reminiscing about the old days of the first video games they’d played. After they’d described various games I told them that I’d played the same ones when I was a kid but my game console had been a blackboard.

The guy behind me said that he doesn’t have to try to quit smoking because someday he will just find it disgusting and stop. I suggested that it’s not that easy to stop something that’s physically addictive. It may be several diseases too late before he starts to feel repulsed by it enough to give it up. I added thought that it is better to practice self-awareness while smoking than it is to just wrestle with it. It’s easier to quit something when one understands one’s motivations for indulging in it. So one should notice what is going on in the moments when one has an urge to reach for a smoke and understand one’s thoughts and feelings because the mind is always easier to control than the body.

My two young companions also talked a lot about booze. They compared the types of liquor they like to drink and agreed that anything with sugar in it is a hangover waiting to happen.

Two places behind me was a tall young man in a red fedora, who chatted with us and with himself quite a bit. He said that he and his wife pay $1700 for their place and have $7000 a month left over between them and yet they still need to use the food bank. He blamed his wife for wanting expensive things like a laptop, cable TV, wi-fi, etc. I said that because I live over a restaurant I haven’t had to pay for wi-fi for the last five years and I get all my TV shows for free from torrent downloads.

Martina handed out the cards just before opening time and I got number 25.

Downstairs there were more volunteers than usual working. My helper was a middle-aged woman whom I hadn’t seen there before, with dark hair and glasses.

From the top of the first shelf I took a 250 ml bottle of virgin flax seed oil and from the bottom I grabbed a 156-gram bag of blue corn chips. She gave me seven maple-pecan protein bars and four bags of balsamic and bruschetta brown rice chips.

On the shelves further down they had cans of tuna for the first time in a long time. I also got a tin of chickpeas and six watermelon-blueberry drinking boxes.

While I was at the shelves Angie approached me and said that in her section Hunter was going to give me a juice.

On the last shelf is the pasta and rice. When I told my volunteer that I didn’t want any she said, “I’m not a pasta girl either”.

Hunter, the youngest of the volunteers, was minding Angie’s section. There was only soymilk instead of real milk this time and I didn’t want any. I didn’t want the Activia yogourt either. He gave me six eggs and offered me a choice between frozen generic ground chicken, beef patties and a Ristorante frozen Pizza Dolce al Cioccolato. The chocolate pizza seemed intriguing but I anticipated it being sweet. Maybe if the chocolate looked like it was being offered as a savoury ingredient I would have given in to my curiosity, but I went with the beef patties. I reminded Hunter that Angie had promised me juice. At first he didn’t think they had any until he found a 1.65 litre carton of not from concentrate orange juice on the floor.

From the bread section I took six bagels and a loaf of raisin bread.

Sylvia gave me a pomelo, two soft oranges, a couple of onions, a yellow pepper and a seedless cucumber.

From the “take what you want” section near the door I picked a bunch of organic rainbow chard and the four least overripe bananas I could find from a box of homesick handleberries.

It was a pretty heavy haul this time around as was evidenced by the fact that the handle on my President’s Choice shopping bag broke when I was trying to tie it to my handlebar. Fortunately the handle was still attached to the body of the bag and so I just had to tie the ends in a tight knot. While I was doing that a woman got up from the steps where she’d been sitting with a couple of guys that were smoking there. As she walked away they began to tease her about her footwear. On her right foot she had on a big walking cast while on her left she was wearing a little summer sandle. “Nice shoes!” they shouted as she called back for them to “Fuck off!”

After I got home I put my groceries away, threw away the broken shopping bag, replaced it with a spare and headed down to No Frills. I bought a few bags of grapes, a bag of cherries, a half pint of blueberries, mouthwash, some Greek yogourt and a jar of hot salsa.

I had a cheese, cucumber and lettuce sandwich for lunch.

I worked on my journal.

I did some exercises for my butt muscles.

That night I put the rest of the roast I’d cooked a week ago in the oven to make it a little more well done so it would last longer. I had a roast beef sandwich with cheese, lettuce and cucumber and watched two episodes of Stories of the Century.

The first story was about Jim Courtright. He was a former marshal with a reputation for being fast with a gun and had turned to extortion. In the beginning he shoots someone for deciding he will no longer pay protection money. The sheriff of Fort Worth is in his pocket and several businesses are paying his extortion fees, including that of Luke Short, the owner of the White Elephant Saloon and a freight line of coaches. Short decides to stop paying for protection and his wagon train is attacked and wiped out. Short, an inexperienced gunfighter stands up to Courtright and surprisingly beats him in the draw.

The real Jim Courtright was also known as “Longhair Jim” and “Big Jim”. He was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1848. He lied his age and fought for the Union in the Civil War and then wandered to Fort Worth where he became a jailer, a deputy and then a marshal. He married Sarah Weeks and taught her to shoot. They both became sharp shooting performers in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He was elected Fort Worth marshal in 1876. he wore his hair long and wore his guns with the butts facing forward. In addition to brutally keeping the order he ran a protection racket. He lost his third election in 1879 and moved to New Mexico where he held various jobs. In 1883 Courtright was hired by W. C. Moore, a partner in the company to help secure a vast tract of land owned by the American Valley Cattle Company. Courtright might have believed he’d been hired to stop rustlers but Moore led Courtright to the ranches of two homesteaders on the land and Courtright helped to kill them. The manager of the ranch notified the AVCC ranch notified the authorities. At first Courtright helped arrest the other murderers until he was implicated and escaped. Courtright moved to El Paso and sent for his wife and family who’d been in Los Angeles. He moved back to Fort Worth where he became marshal and started once again running a protection racket. Luke Short, the owner of the White Elephant refused to pay. In February of 1887 they faced off in the street. Courtright was drunk and Short claimed to be unarmed. Courtright drew but Short drew first and took off Courtright’s thumb. While Courtright was trying to change hands Short shot him four more times.

The second story was about Milt Sharp, who was a former miner who became a highwayman and stagecoach robber. He’d been caught and imprisoned but escaped. This story begins with him stopping a stage to kidnap a banker. He and his accomplice take the banker to his bank to open the vault. After they rob it they put the banker in the vault. They then go to the home of the banker and hold his wife hostage. In the TV story, when the family’s black maid arrives she asks what’s going on. Mrs Penrose says, “We are being held captive by these men”. The maid says, “Maybe you is, but I aint and she swings her handbag at Sharp, knocking the gun from his hand. This gives the fictional detective enough time to take control of the situation. Sharp is slightly wounded and recaptured.

The real Milton Sharp, with his partner Bill Jones robbed stages carrying gold in California in the 1870s. Sharp was well dressed and courteous while Jones was a brutal slob. They sort of played good robber bad robber on their jobs. Sharp would sometimes return jewellery to weeping ladies and after everyone else was cleaned out he would make a gracious bow before escaping. No one was harmed during these robberies until September of 1880 when Jones shot and killed one of the horses. The stage guar returned fire and killed Jones. Sharp finished the robbery and escaped. Sharp was captured in San Francisco and taken back to Aurora, Nevada in chains. In November 1880 Sharp vanished from the jail along with the seven-kilogram ball that was chained to his leg. He later turned himself in but when he refused to tell the judge where he’d buried all his loot he sentenced him to twenty years. He tried several times to escape and finally succeeded in 1889 and remained free for four years. In 1894 he received a pardon and lived a law-abiding life. About 70% of his gold was never recovered.