Underdogs over the Understreets

            While getting ready to go to the food bank on Saturday morning I looked out the window to see what people were wearing so I could assess the temperature. But this time of year it’s very difficult to figure out how warm or cold it is because some people bundle up while others dress lightly. It's hard to discern if some are being overly cautious or too optimistic. I decided on a light scarf under my hoody with my motorcycle jacket open on top. I wore my spring gloves but shoved my winter gloves in my backpack just in case.

            It was raining slightly but it was warm enough that after putting my gloves in my pocket to lock my bike I didn’t need to put them on again.

            The line was short again this week but the only actual person in line was the tall guy in the poor boy cap and the slender woollen coat. I got behind him and he immediately told me that there is an attractive waitress working across the street at Pete’s. I commented that the coffee is lousy there and he agreed but told me that the waitress was worth the trip.

I said the breakfast is fairly cheap there but that for most items breakfast is the kind of meal one can make at home, unless one gets into fancy things like omelettes. I added that I could make those but tend not to unless I'm cooking for someone else. He said that he loves breakfast food and used to make everything, including frittatas. He told me that it used to be a Boxing Day tradition in his home for him to make an enormous breakfast for everyone but now that he lives in a rooming house where his roommates steal his food from the fridge that doesn’t happen anymore.

I remembered him telling me last year that he has food thieves in his place. I suggested that he get hold of a lockable container that he could put into the fridge. He said he didn’t know if one would be tall enough and from what I can tell from searching online, they seem to be longer than they are tall and so one would not be able to store litre cartons of milk. The cheapest one of those on Amazon seems to be about $60 but for $30 more at Best Buy he could get a mini-fridge that would definitely be tall enough for milk and it would solve his problem, except for frozen stuff. It seems though that any thieves would take what they could consume quickly and so they probably wouldn't take something they would have to cook.

When the conversation lulled I started reading “St Julian the Hospitaler”. Julian had left his parents long before out of fear of fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill them. Now Julian is a prince of Occitania and while he is away on a hunting trip his long lost parents have arrived at his castle. The hunting trip is bizarre, as it seems more like a dream than a real expedition. Julian encounters every animal that he has ever hunted. The story doesn't say where he has gone but the hyenas he encounters are only found in Africa. His attempts to kill these creatures are ineffectual as his spear glances off a bull’s hide and the arrows he shoots at birds in trees land lightly on the branches like butterflies. The animals surround him. When he tries to move they accompany him all around, keeping whatever pace he maintains.

I finally decided to ask the guy I’d been talking with his name so I wouldn’t have to refer to him as the guy in the poor boy cap. He introduced himself as “Graham". I told him mine and we shook hands. He thought “Christian” was a good name.

Across the street in front of Pete’s and waiting at the light to cross to our side was a man with a wheelbarrow and two children. The older kid was walking and the infant was in the wheelbarrow. Graham wondered if that was a practical alternative to a stroller. I told him that he was probably coming here to return the wheelbarrow to the Tool Library. Graham said that he should leave the child there as well because they are more trouble than they are worth.

I asked Graham if he has kids and he said, “Three!” He said his daughter is at Western University and both his sons are in Vancouver working for Nintendo. The boys, one in his mid twenties and the other in his early thirties, are too old now to work as game developers and so they have to work in marketing. He said he hears from his kids on his birthday and on Fathers day but that's about it.

An old man with a bumpy and pustulated face that had become enflamed from drinking was crossing Queen Street towards us. His pants were baggy but he had no belt and so he had to walk with his legs far apart to keep them from falling down. Three quarters of the way across he realized he’d dropped his pack of cigarettes and so he went back, even though the light had changed. He stepped in front of a car to stoop down and pick them up and then finished his trip to our side.

Behind me was a tall and large man whispering continuously and quite often he was standing so close to me that it was very distracting while I was reading. I couldn’t make out anything that he was saying although sometimes it sounded like he was praying and other times like he was just talking to himself. The red-faced old man was behind the whispering man in line but had situated himself in the indentation leading to the gate of the narrow laneway between 1499 and 1501 Queen West. He blurted out something without looking at anyone but just in case he was talking to Graham and myself I said, “Pardon me?” He said that it was the beginning of Ramadan and Muslims were praying. I guessed that was his explanation for why the guy behind me was whispering.

I continued trying to read my book when the old guy asked something about Connie Francis.

“Connie Francis?”

He said, “She sang ‘Where the Boys Are’"

“I know who Connie Francis was but why are you asking about her?"

When he indicated the title of my book I understood. I said that “Contes Française” means "French Stories" but I could see how he made the association with Connie Francis.

            “Where the Boys Are" does have a nice melody. I sang the first line of the chorus.

            The old guy blurted out, “Connie Francis was raped by a black guy".

            I said, “I think the issue is that she was raped and not the colour of the rapist”.

            He responded, “You’re right, it doesn’t matter, but she was raped by a black guy”.

            A young man that was passing by tried to sell us a digital cigarette lighter for $5. I’d never heard of such a thing and wondered how it could be charged if he wasn't also selling the cord. He said that it fit any cord with a USB end. He didn’t make a sale but he bummed a cigarette from the old man. Graham was amusedly observed that he was having a hard time lighting the smoke with his digital lighter.

            Graham pointed out that it was Star Wars day, as in “May the fourth be with you”. He said he’d probably be hearing about it all day. I commented that I’m more of a Star Trek fan because there’s a little more science involved. I also find that this idea of a light good side and dark evil side of the force is a little too Christian for me.

            Graham said that he’d read a quote from Stephen King where he said, “Star Wars is about the fight between good and evil but Twilight is about a girl trying to find a boyfriend".

            I couldn’t find the quote about Star Wars but what King said about Twilight is that it’s about a girl’s love trying to turn a bad boy good.

            He wondered what is behind the current obsession with vampires. I suggested that it has to do with fear of AIDS. He didn’t get the connection. I tried to explain that we often associate blood with sexuality but blood is also how AIDS is transmitted and so the idea of freely engaging in a sexual way with another person’s blood is a liberating fantasy.

            I said my daughter went straight from Harry Potter to Anne Rice. The old man suddenly exclaimed, “Lasher! I have that book! I loved that novel!"

            The old man lit a cigarette and Graham got one from him and so I stepped away while they smoked.  I walked a little bit west of where I’d been standing to look at a big pothole that the cars were changing lanes to avoid. I walked back and talked to Graham from a distance about the size of the pothole. He commented on the dilapidated infrastructure of the Toronto streets. I'd always thought that potholes are just caused everywhere by winter conditions but he said that there are no potholes in Mississauga because it’s a young city. He explained that they would have go more than a meter down to remove all the old bricks and cobblestones in order to solve Toronto’s pothole problem.

But a simple search shows that there are potholes in Mississauga. Maybe Graham was being hyperbolic to make the point that there are a lot less potholes in Mississauga. I think the city of Toronto gets thousands of pothole complaints compared to hundreds in Mississauga.

There were quite a few people smoking pot in the line-up. Graham said second hand marijuana smoke gives him a headache.

The line started to move about ten minutes behind schedule.

My volunteer at the shelves told me I could just take one item from above and one from below in the first set of shelves. I grabbed a 550 ml squeezer of mustard and a couple of filled pastries that I felt sorry for because they seemed to have wandered away from the bread section and gotten lost. I have a soft spot for underdogs as far as food is concerned. My helper grabbed me two sweet and salty cashew bars and one peanut butter egg and put them in my backpack without giving me a choice. She did the same with eight individual servings of “fat free” Italian dressing and a single serving of honey. I didn’t even know what she’d tossed into my bag until I unpacked it at home. The chances of me using that kind of low quality “fat free” dressing are pretty slim. Getting back to my own choices, I took a small can of beans with bacon, a tin of organic chickpeas, a can of tuna and two fruit punch drinking boxes.

From Angie’s section I received a litre of 1% milk and a 650-gram container of natural yogourt. They were back to the generic frozen hot dogs for meat and so I didn’t take any. I also had eggs at home and so I turned down the offer of three eggs.

From the bread section I selected a loaf of dark rye.

Graham was ahead of me at Sylvia’s station and he asked for some of the tangerines that he saw. She put a few carrots in his bag and he said, “Those are carrots”. I pointed out that they are both orange. “Good point!” he said.

I got about five tangerines, a head of lettuce, a zucchini and a seedless cucumber.

            So, there were potholes and pot for the line-up but no pot roast at the food bank.

            I took my food home and put it away and then I rode down to No Frills where I bought a pint of strawberries, a bag of three Ataulfo mangoes for $1, a few bags of black sable grapes, six chicken legs for $4.85, a tub of cottage cheese, some yogourt and a container of honey. I only had $1.30 left after paying for everything.

            I had sliced turkey and cheddar with mustard on one piece of toast for lunch.

            I worked on my journal.

            I had two slices of bacon and an egg with toast and a beer for dinner and watched two episodes of Sea Hunt.

            In the first story Mike Nelson is on a remote beach when he rescues a woman named Lili from drowning. He sees mysterious marks on her shoulders. When he takes her to the hospital for treatment an immigration official becomes involved. It has been found that several illegal immigrants have been picked up from the ocean with the same marks. One of them is a criminal named Castro.

Lili refuses to speak to officials but talks to Mike and asks him pay bond for her. She says she can’t tell him anything but will reveal everything at her hearing. He puts her up in a hotel and sleeps on the balcony. Someone removes a spear gun from Mike’s jeep and captures him. He turns out to be Lili’s brother Bela. They apologize but say they have to tie him up. They reveal that they are Hungarian freedom fighters escaping to the United States. They paid someone to transport them on a sea sled but the person cut them loose before getting them to shore and left them to drown in the ocean. That explained the wounds on their shoulders because they had to wear a three-tank lung in order to be transported on the sea sled and the straps had dug into their shoulders. They are waiting for their fifteen-year-old brother to arrive in the same way and so they are worried that the man would also cut him loose. They cut Mike loose and go looking for their brother. Meanwhile as the boat pulling their brother on the sea sled is approached by the coast guard, the captain cuts the boy loose. He gets caught in the sled and sinks to the bottom. The chances of Mike finding the boy would have really been impossible but he finds him and rescues him.

Lili was played by Gerry Gaylor.

In the second story a woman named Kay knocks on Mike’s door and asks him to teach her to skin dive. She says she’s a very strong swimmer but the next day during her first less on he realizes that she’d lied to him about her ability. She tells him that she is an archaeologist looking for proof that Asian sailors came to California centuries before Europeans. She convinces him to give her a chance and she does improve but not enough. After an incident that almost costs her her life Mike tells her he’s through. Kay goes ahead on her own and buys scuba equipment. Mike finds out that her real name is Joanna and her boyfriend in prison has sent her a map of where he hid the diamonds he stole. Mike gets this information from Joanna’s sister and he goes after her. Joanna dives and finds the oil drum and cuts it free from the rope that is holding it deep below the surface. But Joanna forgets everything Mike had taught her about surfacing slowly to decompress. As the barrel shoots toward the surface she is hanging onto it. Mike grabs her in time and pulls her back down, and then he slowly brings her up. The diamonds are recovered but Joanna is not charged.

Joanna was played by Susan Morrow, who was in the movie Cat Women of the Moon.