Saturday was a relatively warm day for February and so the layer of ice
that coats the driveway behind the food bank was visibly melting along its
sunny edges. The sweaty thaw though only served to make the walking surface in
the middle even more slippery. There were a couple of guys standing on the
sidewalk at the entrance when I turned my bike off the street. They had seen me
coming and had moved without realizing they had stepped into the only clear way
in, so they had to move again. “I didn’t know which way you were gonna swing!”
one of them said to me. I chuckled and asked them if they were the last ones in
line. The short man with the extended gut pointed to the young couple standing
in line. It seems I am always either just behind or just ahead of those two.
They seem a little out of place at the food bank and look almost middle class.
They are clean cut, neatly dressed, and though they are not unfriendly they do
not interact with any of the clients unless spoken to. They stand in their
place in line and chat amicably and quietly with one another until the line
starts to move. I stood not far away from their position and began to take out
some books so I could take notes on a couple of poems for an essay that is due
on February 28th.
A short and very
friendly Latino in his 30s arrived and asked me who to stand behind. I informed
him that was me and so he told me I was the boss. A gentleman in his 40s
wearing a baseball came after him and we pointed out his position to him. I was
about to start reading when the man in the cap started telling me that the
Parkdale Food Bank is the most bullshit food bank in the city. He asserted that
all of the volunteers take the highest quality food and leave the rest to us
rats. He assured me that he knows because he has volunteered there but then
said that they have asked him to work there but he’s turned them down. He
claimed that he was there now in secret to observe and then report on them. He
told me that his motto is “look and learn” and that he goes to places like
prison in order to understand them better. He declared that prison life is
extremely comfortable, with free health care, three good meals a day, clean
clothes and a big screen TV. He alleged that it costs the government $100,000 a
year to pay for each prisoner. He added that he knows poor people in Parkdale
who commit crimes just so they can get off the street. Using the example of
Paul Bernardo he maintained that the convicted serial killer has a great life
in prison in Canada but in a third world country they would have been smart
enough to put a bullet in his head to keep him from draining the system. I
asked him, “If prison is so great, why aren’t you there right now?” He answered
that he would be like a caged bird. I argued, “Right, so then it’s a punishment
to have to go there.” I challenged that it doesn’t seem like a very sweet life
to me to be told when to get up and when to go to bed and to not be able to
leave. He started describing further the details of life in a penitentiary that
served more to support my argument than his, such as all the work that inmates
have to do and he internal politics and violence that they have to deal with.
It really sounded like sufficient punishment to me.
As far as the cost of
maintaining each prisoner is concerned. Considering that I live on $10,000 a
year, $100,000 for each prisoner seems unnaturally high. When I looked it up
later I found that he was right about the cost for each prisoner but that is in
a minimum-security prison. The cost for each convict in a maximum-security
facility is about $60,000 higher. Since I doubt if it costs more to maintain
the health and sustenance of the more dangerous prisoners, I can only conclude
that most of the large maintenance expenditure for each prisoner goes toward
security, plus the wages, uniforms, equipment, insurance policies, health plans
and other benefits for the prison guards, maintenance staff, office workers and
administration, including the salary of the warden. Even the government run
prisons in Canada sell things that are produced by prisoners, so I wonder if
they subtract their profit from the cost of the upkeep of the inmates or if
they leave that figure out in order to argue for more funding. I wouldn’t be
surprised if the actual basic cost of maintaining the well-being of a prisoner
is closer to between $20,000 and $30,000 a year after all the other costs are
deducted.
My line-up companion in
the baseball cap went on to recount how he used to go dancing with Jennifer
Dale. Then he assured me that he wasn’t bragging but he also danced with
Kirstie Alley at the Ranch Relaxo when she was an alcoholic. He commented that
she’s as tall as me. He said Whoopi Goldberg was also there because they were
making a movie together and she’s not as tall as I think. I never thought that
Goldberg was tall. I can’t find any evidence that Kirstie Alley and Whoopi
Goldberg have ever made a film together. As far as I can uncover, Alley never
was an alcoholic but she was addicted to cocaine in the late 70s. So if she was
an addict when he met her, my friend with the baseball cap would have been in
his 20s, since he told me he’s now 55. He insisted that he is older than I
think. He looked about 55 to me.
Our conversation moved
to Donald Trump, or as he called him, “That dumbass down in the States!” He
mentioned that a lot of Americans are coming to Canada as refugees, but I
corrected him that most of them are not US citizens. I pointed out that if
people apply for refugee status in the States and then try to do the same in
Canada we automatically reject them. But there’s a loophole that allows
refugees that do not register in the States but cross the border illegally to
apply for refugee status in Canada. He said he knew that.
I offered my view that
Trump is showing signs that he is heading for a mental breakdown. He laughed
and inserted that he’d had a little one the day before during his press conference.
He said something about Trump never having to really work and that’s when a
tall guy in sunglasses piped in. He said he didn’t understand why poor people
always say that the rich don’t work hard and challenged, “How did make his
money if he didn’t work hard for it?” I argued that he’s a billionaire because
his father was a billionaire. I see upon later research that Fred Trump merely
a multi-millionaire in his time but his worth was his generation’s equivalent
of a few billion. But clearly Donald Trump was advantaged by being the son of a
wealthy man and Trump’s most successful ventures have also been in real estate
like that of his father, suggesting that he didn’t have to work from scratch.
I contended that it’s
not really that hard to make a lot of money in this world if you have no
scruples and you don’t care about what you do to other people. An elderly woman
from the West Indies who was standing nearby exclaimed, “That’s right! But they
won’t be happy in the end with what they have!” I was about to counter that
plenty of bad people that get wealthy on the suffering of others live very
satisfied lives, but then the guy in the sunglasses interjected that he wanted
to be rich and he didn’t care what he had to do to get that way.
Our food bank United
Nations assembly moved its discussion to the Middle East. The man in the
sunglasses insisted that the United States is going to eventually drop a
nuclear bomb on one of the Islamic countries. The guy in the baseball cap
demanded to know why he would want them to do that. I interjected that he
didn’t mean that he wants it to happen but that he thinks that’s where things
are headed. I contended that no one would ever use atomic weapons again for
anything other than a threat because the result is too horrible. The man behind
the guy in the sunglasses nodded and said, “Women and children!” I reasoned
that the best the west can do in the Middle East is to let the other Islamic
countries deal with ISIS and stay out of it. The man in the sunglasses pointed at
me and nodded. He posited that the Qu’ran and the Bible are the same but the
guy in the cap said they are not. He informed us that he is a Muslim from
British Guyana and that there is a big difference between the Qu’ran and the
Bible in that the Bible was written by many people while the Qu’ran was scribed
by one man. He did admit that the two books have the same meaning though, at
which point the man in the sunglasses extended his arm to offer his hand but
the guy in the cap dramatically refused. The man in the sunglasses pulled his
arm slowly back and shook his head in disbelief. I was too curious not to ask,
“Why didn’t you want to shake his hand?” He returned, “Because it’s a cop out!”
There’s a late 60s and early 70s expression that one doesn’t hear very often
these days. I got him to clarify that he meant that he never shakes hands with
anybody. He opined that it’s too easy and presented us with his alternative,
which is to put his hands together in the prayer position against his chest and
to bow slightly. That actually seems like more of a cop out to me, and a
pretentious one at that. Later I tried to see if not shaking hands was a
Guyanese thing, but in fact handshaking is very common there. They do
apparently value highly their personal space though they are conversationally
blunt.
The line began to move,
and shortly after the first ten people had been let in, an elderly Tibetan
woman came out and made her way across the ice with the help of the wheel-less
front part of her two-wheeled shopping cart.
When I was finally the
first person in line, the doorman, Danny was talking with the friendly Latino
behind me, who it turned out hadn’t been there in a long time. In answer to a
question about how he’s been, Danny confessed that he gets into a lot of
trouble around the food bank because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I told
him that he was misunderstanding the expression and that “The squeaky wheel
gets the grease” means that unless you complain about a problem, the problem
will not be addressed. He nodded politely, but I don’t think he got the point.
I got number 38, which
seemed excessively high, and went home for about half an hour. When I got back
I asked the inseparable couple if they’d started calling numbers yet. She said
she thought they’d called 5 but he corrected that they were up to 10. One of
the guys who’d been earlier working reception came out and asked for numbers 11
to 16, but no one came forward. He tried out numbers 17 to 21 and one person
made their way inside. He assured everybody that was waiting he’d be right back
and closed the door. I noticed there were people in the driveway with numbers
up into the 90s and that there seemed to be more addicts among the group than
usual. One woman in particular was horribly emaciated.
The door guy kept
calling out sets of five but only a few trickled in. I heard mention of some
numbers being missing at the food bank end, which would explain why I had ended
up with 38. It didn’t take long before I was inside even though the shopping
helpers had yet to call for number 25. As the seats to my right cleared, the
receptionist asked me to move down, but I said I wasn’t going to because people
could easily fill up the seats on either side of me. He surprised me by not
arguing with me and admitted that he thought that it was a dumb rule too and
why would they think that people were so stupid that they didn’t know how to
find an empty seat. He told me that he didn’t make the rules.
My helper was a bored
looking guy who after calling my number barely spoke to me at all. He would
just move down, look at me and gesture with his hand toward each shelf.
Behind all the cake
mixes on top of the first set of shelves I found a package of buttermilk
biscuit mix. The middle part was empty and at the bottom where there are
usually lots of granola or energy bars there were noting but little packs of
stacked taco bowls. I took one, but I think it was mostly because I felt I
should get something.
I skipped the pasta,
rice and sauce shelves. The shelves that usually have the canned beans and
vegetables only had a few cans of beans and I didn’t want any.
The soup section had a
variety of canned and boxed soups, so I took a box of organic chicken broth.
From the next set of shelves I took a can of Knorr powdered chicken broth. From
the bottom he gave me another bottle of Aveeno shampoo, of which I have four
now, plus two of conditioner. From the final shelves he offered me a big bag of
generic multicoloured sugared kids cereal, but I turned it down.
From Angie’s cold
section I got the usual half-liter of 2% milk. Next I had a choice between
frozen ham slices, hot dogs or sausages, so I selected the ham. Then she put
her hand on a tube of Pillsbury croissants and asked, “Are you baking?” I
nodded and answered, “Sometimes.” She put it in my bag and said, “When you’re
not reading.”
There was not much in
the bread section, but to be social I asked the bread lady for some raising
bread. After a bit of searching she surprised me with the only loaf with
raisins that she had.
There was surprisingly
little in the vegetable section as well. I commented, “It’s really thin today!”
She shrugged and responded, “What can you do?” She gave me a few potatoes and
onions but there was a box of something I’d never seen at the food bank before:
dragon fruit. She said she would dig down to try to find me a good one. It
turned out to be alarmingly soft on the outside, but it was fine once those
parts were cut away.
I left the food bank
with a lot less in my bag than usual. I went straight to the supermarket to
balance out the meat, fruit and cereal situation. I got grapes and chicken
drumsticks, plus Freshco had packs of ground chicken on sale for $3.00. Bran
flakes were also on sale for $3.00. The cashier with the box braids was not very
friendly and often isn’t though she sometimes is so I like her. She
indifferently handed me my change and then just turned to indifferently serve
the next customer. At least it wasn’t me.
That afternoon I took a
siesta and so I guess that’s why I didn’t hear the blast two blocks away that
sent two people to the hospital across the street from the Parkdale Public
School where my daughter was in grade two. I was disappointed that I hadn't heard it, but explosions never listen to me.
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