Fainting in the Line-Up at the Food Bank

           

            Since I had gone to bed so early the night before, I was awake at 4:00 on the Wednesday morning of August 10th. I stayed there and rested until 4:30, at which point it was too uncomfortable to be lying down, so I got up.

When I got to the food bank later that morning, there was a shorter line-up than usual, perhaps because of the heat. It was probably the hottest day so far this year. One of the regulars, who is usually in front of me was sitting on the edge of the driveway. It’s odd that I didn’t think there was anything odd about that. A younger guy was on the phone, but also smoking, so I steered clear. When Margaret arrived and then Julie and another regular who was there this time without her fat little dog, it was revealed that the woman sitting on the ground had fainted just before I’d arrived. She hadn’t just dropped onto the driveway though. She had fallen backwards and slammed her head into the concrete. The younger guy had used her phone to call the paramedics.

Julie went around the front to wait for the ambulance, while the other women stayed with the woman that had fainted. The general opinion was that she’d fainted because of the heat, and that would certainly have been a logical conclusion to come to, because it really was a scorcher. But she had mentioned that she’d had chest pains recently and so I was thinking that she might have had a small heart attack, which, as far as I understand, can look like a fainting spell.

The line started moving, but the women that were supposed to be directly behind me in line were still with the woman who’d fainted. For some reason I felt concerned that they were going to miss their place in line and so I went over to inform them that some of them would be called in next, but they were busy being empathetic, I guess. There were not so many people to jump ahead for them to feel that far behind anyway.

There is a gorgeous woman with a large Afro who works in reception at the food bank lately. Until that day the line-up had always shuffled me towards the other guy, who is friendly, but not as pleasant for me to look at and speak with. She gave me number 14.

When I came back two hours later it was even hotter and I had to move back and forth between shady oases each time one of them became infected with second hand smoke.

It wasn’t long before Joe called for numbers 11 to 20 to come inside.

My number was called by the nervous helper, who seemed less nervous than usual. She asked me how I was and when I returned the greeting she confessed to being overwhelmed by the heat.

From the top of the first set of shelves I had to decide between the evaporated milk and the coconut milk. The seemed the more refreshing choice and I think that proved to be true when I had it with cereal later on.

Further down, out of several possible cracker selections, I was intrigued by a box of “raincoast crisps”, which were cranberry and hazelnut crackers.

There was one sweet and one salty snack at the bottom, and I settled on the cuttlefish chips, even though the ingredients came with a scary list of chemicals.

I skipped the pasta and rice as usual and was only allowed one choice from among the canned beans. I picked the garbanzos, which are the only kind that are good cold. I could just open the can, drain it, toss the beans with olive oil, salt and garlic, and it’s almost a meal in itself for a hot day.

From the canned fish the choice was one can of tuna or sardines. I’d been finding the flavour of sardines to be a little overwhelming lately.

From the soup section I took a box of the roasted onion and garlic beef flavoured broth. She commented that she hadn’t tried that yet and wondered how it was. I had one other at home but hadn’t opened it yet.

The cereal choices were a toxic chocolate bomb with the Batman emblem on the box and the tall, thin box of Dorset muesli, with hazelnuts, brazil nuts, moreish flakes, raisins and dates. When I reached for the muesli, my helper approved and excitedly informed me that she’d seen that it costs ten dollars at the supermarket. I noticed later that the expiry date was four months ago and that some of the brazil nuts tasted a little stale.

In the coveted cool section there was a liter of Natrel milk, albeit caramel flavoured.

There was a container of creamy coleslaw.

A bag of bean sprouts that weren’t rotten this time. They were actually delicious.

Finally, there was some meat, in the form of a package of frozen, spicy, uncooked pork sausages. It seemed like a lot of meat at the time, but they shrank down to half their size when cooked. They were tasty nonetheless.

The guy who works reception was handling the bread section. I took a loaf of sliced whole grain and one of rye, which he informed me was fresh.

The vegetable lady was absent that day. A guy who usually works unloading trucks and packing shelves was taking her place. I got a bunch of what looked like locally grown, but not freshly pulled carrots. He gave me a few potatoes. I took a big head of cauliflower. But the biggest score was a sizable bag of ginger root.

When I got to my building there was a sparrow standing still near the door with its beak on the sidewalk. I thought it was dead, but then it lifted its head and began to peep desperately. Another bird, perhaps its mother, though it didn’t seem much bigger, came nearby and called to it. But there were too many people walking by and so it was afraid to come closer. It looked like it had fallen from the nest and couldn’t fly. I wondered if it would survive this hot day on the sidewalk and somehow get coaxed into flying before it became a roasted sparrow.

Back at home, after putting my groceries away, I had about a half an hour before Bruce March was scheduled to drop by for a coaching session on turning his poetry into song lyrics. I decided to lie down until he called and hoped that he would be late.                                                                                         I managed to get an hour’s sleep before he phoned from Mimico station. I stayed in bed for another fifteen minutes and then got up to do a quick cleanup in the bathroom.

The plan had been for us to go to Mezzrows because he was going to buy me some beer while we worked. I really didn’t feel like going out into the heat again and Bruce only had about three and a half hours before his band rehearsal. These two factors, plus the fact that he doesn’t drink made it seem silly for just the two of us to be going to a bar to work. When he called I suggested that he just go to the liquor store, pick up a couple of cans of Creemore and come up to my place. So that’s what he did.

He came with three cans of Creemore and I drank two of them over the time we were working.

I helped Bruce construct the first two verses of a song from various lines he’d had lying around for years.

When Bruce left, I felt pretty tired from the heat and the two beer, so I took another siesta. I ended up sleeping for three and a half hours.

It was too late and too hot to make dinner, so I just ate the rest of the bean sprouts I’d gotten from the food bank and a bowl of cereal with coconut milk. I did some writing and then went back to bed at midnight.