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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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June, later, the summer's begun but today it's off to a slow start. The owner's been around to warn me there's an odd one standing in the doorway to the restaurant, talking up a storm, must be on speed or something...
The owner, he dates himself, there's been a lot of good drugs circulating since speed was invented. I get the restaurant open, a single man, sitting on the patio, he was talking to the odd one outside, listening more like, unable to get a word in edgewise, odd one is off - "YEAH YEAH JUST CAME FROM PROCTOR... HAVE YOU EVER BEEN? ANYWAYS, I HAVE A FRIEND IN KAMLOOPS OWNS A CASINO....", I get the conversations secondhand through the customer, the owner, this one is off his nut for sure, and I'm just waiting for him to come on in and make my day. A beautiful day on the patio, one single customer, orders, waiting for his food...I'm not looking forward to Talkie, nut-job coming in but so far he's content to loiter around the entrance chatting to whosoever swings by...
Finally he enters, only he's running, bolting for the patio, he gets on it and behind him there's an RCMP officer, he's trying to hide himself behind, shield himself with the customer he was talking to outside...
"Hey, hey, what's up, why are you so edgy, I just want to talk..." begins the officer, it's a she, she's trying to calm him down...
This is my first glimpse of him, he's sketchy as all out, crack would be a good guess, way-too-much, this guy stayed too late at the party and finished off all the little baggies, probably a few other drugs in there as well...
"YOU - YOU'VE GOT A GUN!!!" he tells her, hiding behind the chair, and, really, as sketched out as he is his logic is irrefutable, he's right, I want to laugh, hang out, but really I've got work to do and I don't want to be the gawker and so I leave the RCMP officer to do her job. And, really, I'm more than a little sympathetic to the guy, I'll get the details later but who hasn't stayed a little to late at the party and dipped a little too much into the baggy? I'm not one to judge...
The officer, she wrestles him, gets him handcuffed to a chair, he's asking what he's being charged with...
Follow with another 4 RCMP officers, 3 cars and a ghost car, all taking up the parking lot, we're swarming with Cops, a busy day in Balfour...
Exit waiter. The story, as it later unfolds to me, he'd pulled up in a convertible BMW, stolen the day before in Nelson, apparently he'd stopped at 12 Mile for gas, they'd called him in, realized he was in no position to be driving...he'd denied the BMW but he'd pulled into our lot and parked beside the owner so that failed. And now he's being taken into Nelson to chill for a day or so and then go in front of the judge.
I go out while the owner's giving his statement - "So, I guess that means we're still looking for a Chef...".
The RCMP officer, he gets it, he just laughs, I mean, in Balfour we're the biggest users of the police, forever pressing assault charges against disgruntled employees who chose the less than graceful exit, the owner, when the penny drops he laughs as well...
My heart goes out to the guy, even though I wasn't invited to his party I'm with him, who hasn't wanted to go on a crack-addled crime spree, damn the consequences, and 4 RCMP officers does seem like a gross overreaction to a guy just out looking for a good time. And, sad to say, whatever other charges he faces the impaired driving will be the one that sinks his ship...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This is one of a dozen surreal loot drops by Stormy I've endured the past month. The debris piled up and only waited my unboxing, which finally I got around to after a fashion, if only to clean out the car and make room for my rocks. The scrolls, there are a hundred or so to be unraveled, but that as time permits...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A night out with staff, so far I've avoided most of them, the bonfires, the Karaoke nights, but tonight the girls - waitress and chef - have gone to town on their day off to party and arrived far too early at Bloom.
I get the text at work - "We've bought you tickets....bring M***". M*** is the charming one, pleasant, always smiling, a few of our alternative sexual identity waitresses have felt safe enough around him to declare that he's their unicorn. Unlike myself he's intuitively likable.
We arrive, 10:30, still way too early. The club is empty but they're on a tear, by "they" I mean the waitress, a formerly straight but gang-raped-turned-lesbian-who-would-fucking-blame-her is well on her way. I gotta be straight and sober, I'm M***'s ride back.
The night passes, the waitress gets increasingly drunk, you can see why she'd be a mark, she can't hold her liquor, and here - well, it's the safest place in the world, everyone is looking out for her, but elsewhere...
M*** and I, we carry her back to her hotel room, drop her on her bed, then head home.
The next day, working, busy, I'm waiting her arrival. I want to take the piss. You know it. Me, I've had a few of these nights, always, the next morning, "Never again..." I'd tell myself, but she comes upstairs around 3 for a coffee...
"That was the best night out ever..."
Not the expected reaction, but I have to admire it, commit to a course of action and then follow through, damn the consequences and the torpedoes. She's hurting, bad, but, in her mind, and mercifully there are no videos, it was worth it.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A new regular, courtesy of the hotsprings who have apparently barred him. Smaller, slighter of build, tanned, maybe 70 years old, shirt optional, long beard occasionally held in an elastic, a long fringe of hair around a bald pate, anywhere but here he'd stick out like a sore thumb. Here he just sort of blends in...
The first time, a beer, some appetizer, he's telling me he was just at the hotsprings, 7 hours in the pools, he's exhausted.
"7 hours?" I ask incredulously, 7 hours, that's a lot of time to be soaking in a hotpool, I've rarely done more than an hour, 2 tops, but he takes my comment to heart and gets aggressive- "Don't tell me about the hotsprings - I go 4, 500 times a year..."
I'm mentally doing the math, this - well, it's not quite impossible but it's absurd, excessive in the extreme...
He continues in that vein, I stop hearing him.
The next time, sitting, having a Jamesons' on the rocks, a song comes on, it moves him to tears. We've got a playlist, "Oldies", the owner created it, no song written after 1975 ever plays, I stopped hearing it a long, long time ago, but something on it has touched him, he comes up and pays for his $8.00 drink with $4.00 in quarters, tells me how special that moment was, I offer to try and replay the song for him but he looks at me horrified, there's no way I could ever replay that, ever....
I shrug off the missing $4.00, cover the difference, out here, this isn't a rare thing...
The next time I see him, the same again. He sits on the patio, no shirt, no shoes, there should be no service but we're in the Kootenays after all. It's a windy day, I go out to drop him off a menu, he's put a small package on the table, I move it to hold down the menu, keep it from blowing away, he moves it off the menu and tells me tersely - "Don't touch my stuff".
He's an asshole, but it's my job after all...
He orders a Stella, the beer of choice for European trash and soccer hooligans. And pretentious hippies. And bringing it out to him, through the windows of the restaurant I see him fling the menu off the table, it hits the balcony and bounces to the floor. When I deliver the beer and pick up the menu he explains coyly "The wind must have blown it away...".
Come time to pay and he's inside in a frenzy, Did I hear the shots fired? 7 of them! Across the lake! Of course I heard nothing, do I know why? Because I was inside!! There must be a bear! And depending if it ran uphill or downhill it'll be on his property!! And he pays, and, again, he's a dollar short, but I shut up.
I'm tired of paying to serve assholes, he's the classic bad hippy, the one acid trip too many, never came back, his moral elevation, it's failing, there's nothing for him to stand on, he's just an asshole and now he's barred from our restaurant as well, I'm only waiting to tell him in the no-uncertain terms that he's not coming back...I'm a man of infinite patience, but when it expires...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Following the Lootbox for Stormy I waited and waited...
Until, finally, he shows up looking for me on a day off, a smaller parcel, not worth an unboxing video:
Open it up to reveal:
Apparently it's a spaceship, assembled from an old matchbox, Century 21 Keychain, plastic ant, acrylic ball, nickel and wire.
Who would have guessed? Anyways, I prefer the scrolls, they can be flattened out and stored or exhibited, these sculptural pieces take up way too much room. Now, of course, I have to make him something in return...that's how it works...