Hobos

            When I went back to my place after my Saturday trip to the food bank, my landlord was mopping the stairs with some kind of aromaed ammonia. He gave me back the screwdriver he’d walked off with last week and there were two rent receipts under my door. He’d also removed my old refrigerator from the hallway, which is nice because it was in the way. After I put my food away I went back out and rode down to the No Frills at Jameson and King.

            I got more BC blueberries and cherries and a basket of Ontario nectarines. They had a great deal on chicken legs with the back attached for $2.20 a kilo and so I got two packages of four each for a little over $6.00. I got a small pack of sliced turkey and another of ham for $0.50 each. I picked up some cinnamon-raisin bread and a few other things. The dish brush that I’ve been using for years started falling apart and leaving behind bristles that looked like V-shaped fish bones, so I bought two new ones.

            I went to the liquor store to buy two cans of Creemore and the woman ahead of me had so many tattoos all over her face that at first she looked like a burn victim. She told the cashier that her dog had just beaten up someone else’s dog but he’d asked for it.

            For lunch I had one of the sandwiches that my upstairs neighbour David gave me. It was roast beef with fried onions but I added a tomato, some cucumber, cheese and a dill pickle.

            That afternoon I took a bike ride. I don’t know if it was the hottest day so far this year but it sure felt like it. There were thin clouds filtering the sun so that I was casting the ghost of a shadow on the road in front of me.

            At Pape I waited at the light and on the diagonal corner I saw a man in a red bandana with a full grey beard that kind of looked like he might be a retired biker, waiting to cross at the other side. He had a cane in his left hand and he looked extremely unsteady. When the light changed I continued east but I looked back to see that as he began to cross he seemed like he was going to fall over with every step. He would lean heavily on the cane and then swing his forward as far as he could, but then when he tried to catch up with his left, the leg quivered and threatened to buckle. I didn't see if he made it because I had to look ahead and move on.

            I went north on Warden and about halfway between Danforth Rd and St Clair a car slowed down and the driver with the baseball cap and the goatee called out “Gary?” I thought that the guy might be trying to pick me up. Whatever his reasons, I wasn’t Gary so I shook my head and continued on. A minute later he was beside me again and this time said something that might have been "Rono lease". I said, “What?" He repeated, “Toronto police! We’re looking for a guy that looks something like you. Do you have any i.d. on you?” I sighed and took my bike over to lean it against a wall, took off my backpack and dug out my wallet while he pulled over. Whoever Gary was and whatever he’d allegedly done it couldn't have been violent. The cop didn't get out of his car at all and didn't seem worried that I was going to pull a gun out of my backpack and blow his head off.

            I showed him my U of T student card. “Is this where you work?” "Yeah ... No, I’m a student there.” "Awesome! What are you taking?" "English". He didn't respond to that, so I assume it wasn’t his best subject when he was in special ed. “Have you ever been in trouble with the law?” “Of course!” “What kind of stuff?” “When I was 18 some cops planted drugs on me.” “Really!” It’s always the same incredulous response when I tell a cop about what they did to me in 1973. Just once I’d like to hear something like, “That’s horrible! I’m so sorry that happened to you! We’re not all like that!” But their disbelieving reaction proves they are complicit and strongly suggests that they are indeed all like that. He asked for another piece of i.d. and so I showed him my health card.

            He showed me on his phone the picture of the guy they were looking for. I had to admit there was a resemblance but the other guy wasn’t good looking like I am. It was kind of a blonde caveman face, wider than mine and punched in the middle with a big forehead and a similar hairline and length to mine.

            Finally he handed me my identification back, said, “Thanks bud” and drove away.

            I continued up to St Clair, turned right and went south on Elfreda because I’d been distracted and missed Santamonica so I doubled back on the side streets to Clapperton and went south, exploring the streets that ran west to Santamonica. Then I went down Birchmount to Danforth Rd. There are a lot of auto body shops along Danforth Rd and I stopped to take pictures of a mural on the side of one of them.

            I took Danforth to Bloor, Bloor to Ossington and Ossington to Queen and then went home.

            I made two eggs and toast with a can of Creemore for dinner. Just as I was about to sit down to eat, my upstairs neighbour, David knocked on my door to give me a 200 ml bottle of Appleton Jamaican rum. He reminded me again as he does every time he sees me that he’s going to bring the battery for the Sony camera he’d given me. I had asked him a few months ago if he had a charger for the battery and so he took the battery to see if he had a charger. He found out that he didn’t have a charger but never brought back the battery. This time he said he’d bring it down in half an hour but he didn’t. I’m not complaining because it’s not urgent but it is interesting how David does things.

            A group of men and a couple of boys formed a circle in the Dollarama parking lot and were dancing and singing what sounded like an African song while using a big cooler as a drum.

I watched the last episode that I had of The Man Behind the Badge. A hobo that was also an addict was robbing young couples at gunpoint and then hitting the girls if they were pretty. A cop that used to pose as a hobo in a comedy act on Vaudeville goes undercover as a hobo and an addict. He goes to the hobo village near the freight tracks and hangs out till he catches the guy.

I returned to watching the final season of the late 50s Mike Hammer TV series starring Darren McGavin. Episode 29 was about a gambling den, owned by married couple, Doris and Bruce, which has hired a disgraced former private investigator named Murphy as a collector. Murphy is brutal and nasty and Doris hates him. It looks like Murph plans to take over and Doris doesn’t like the way Murph tries to force himself on one of her steerer girls. She tells Bruce that either Murph goes or she does. One gambler with a lot of debts is a businessman named Redmond and Murphy begins to shake him down. He comes to his office and slaps him around and then takes the contents of his wallet. Redmond calls Bruce and threatens to call the police, which he doesn’t want because his gambling den is illegal. Redmond goes missing and his wife goes to ask Hammer to track him down. Hammer gets the description of the tough guy who’d come to Redmond’s office from his secretary and he figures it must be Murphy. He tracks Murphy down and they have a fistfight. They seem to enjoy themselves but Hammer wins. He finds out about Doris and Bruce and goes to see them but they’ve moved their game to an unknown location. Meanwhile Paul Redmond turns up dead in a boxcar. The prime suspect is of course Murphy. Hammer comes back to his office and finds Murphy there saying that he’s innocent and he’s sure Bruce Green killed Redmond. The cops have located Green but have no reason to bring him in. Hammer and Murphy go to get a confession from him. Murphy beats it out of him, which I guess is legal on fifties television. One of Hammer’s last lines is not bad, "It was only a little after ten in the morning but it felt like midnight the day after tomorrow."
            The actor that played Ellen Redmond was uncredited, but she was an attractive woman.

Doris was played by Dorothy Green, who guest starred on a lot of TV series in the 50s and was on The Young and the Restless for four years in the 70s.