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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 07 April 2024

Hits: 347

And I hear from Mr. Tickles, who's been wintering in Ymir and whom I haven't heard of nor seen in the long wintry 6 months since we parted in October.

He's doing well, as well as can be expected, on his way back from Balfour to Ymir, his car, parked at the Superette all winter now driven across the highway to be fixed since last years accident, and we catch up.

He'd dropped by the restaurant to say hi, they offered him his job back, he could live in the basement, Sean's old apartment, no thanks. He hasn't got work. Ymir - well, he's refrained from meeting the locals, hasn't gotten work, although he got a few months more EI than I had available, largely due to the fact that he'd worked a couple of months at the local dive bar before being fired for being too white.

It happens. East Indians would prefer to work with East Indians, and our government only recognizes discrimination by white people, not against them.

Ymir, not even 250 people, 30 KM SE of Nelson, not much going on in Ymir. So a long winter for him. He's never left all winter. We reminisce about old times, about all the grief I used to give him and all his little trainees, the young 14, 15, 16 year old girls and boys who's first job happened to be that cesspool of a ...

He misses working with me and knowing that wherever he finds work next it's not going to be anywhere near as amusing...

We talk, about how the old restaurant, the new chef got cancer and quit within 2 weeks. A coincidence? I don't think so. 

And about old servers and kitchen staff we knew, news, where available, and asking of a few of the more infamous locals, he has news on one, the crackhead who contacted me to borrow money last fall, set up a go-fund-me to get to Calgary, she's got an Only Fans, and I'm like...?? Her and a few others I know, apparently.

And he's met the new waiter, thought I'd be back there, looked for my puppets behind the bar, no puppets, no Rod, and he was perhaps as surprised I wasn't back as I am that he isn't going back.

We're both overdue for employ, but not at that price.

And we chat the other restaurant, the dive bar, run by a MAGA couple, "managed" you might say only there's nothing approaching management, just the village idiot and his wife calling the shots, him, from a pint of beer at the end of the bar (which entitles him to an equal share in the tips, because somehow he feels he's doing "equal work"), and his wife, who just installed a new camera/microphone/speaker system behind the bar, so she can "manage remotely" and I've heard from staff that her voice will appear out of nowhere, she's on her phone at the Wal-Mart or Dairy Queen checking the cameras, and you know that not only that this is creepy as fuck it's also a big sign that neither of them knows what the fuck they are doing.

Camera's, technology, surveillance, all this technology enables people, restaurants, that are bad at their job to be even worse at their jobs. Who ever heard of "remotely managing" a restaurant? Oh, and she's as well doing "equal work" and claiming her share of the tips, despite weeks going by without a single employee seeing her face. We're both Alumni of Unspeakable Trauma, and despite coming from one of the poorest run joints on the planet there's always competition by those who manage to do it worse.

So, this catches me up with Mr. Tickles, Cathy now is back from California and I'm due to catch up with her, soon, and I'll write about that when it happens...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 03 April 2024

Hits: 403

In a weak moment, outside, I spot the neighbor on the landing above and ask to buy a cigarette. She lives in the apartment directly above me. Petite blonde woman who by some miracle or coincidence is exactly my age. I was introduced by the building manager.

So she's chatty and this is the price you have to pay when you want a cigarette. Personally, I'd like to just buy a cigarette and leave it at that but I don't want to seem unneighborly.

Chat chat chat and glancing through her open door I pause to admire her apartment. Exactly the same layout as mine, only...

Well, god-damn if she hasn't done a bang-up job of furnishing the place. And the place is packed with stuff - book-cases, night-tables, chairs, shelves, pictures on every ledge, of family, "art" of the sort that I'm not a fan of, but her taste is pretty much the same as every other woman of her/my age, and - she's run with it, done great things, the place, cozy, clean, filled to the brim with both possessions and room to move.

She's not trying to come on to me. She wants to see my place, which is out of the question, the "studio" is in complete disarray, paints, pastels, acrylic, oil, watercolor, stacks of tarot cards and books teetering on the desk, the 20 or so candlesticks handy to my situation everywhere, more sand on the floor than on the beach, it's out of the question....

What's going on down there? She's asking, are you getting laid?, you sure make a lot of noise. This can be put down to my drunken staggering about in the wee hours knocking over every precipitously stacked picture frame, book, extraneous pieces of shit I set in the way of progress and getting lucky, a diabolical obstacle course of mine own devising, a pile of shoes at the door, laundry in the bedroom, but these aren't particularly better things to confess to so I simply sidestep the question. 

She's insistent. She's not trying to get lucky, no, but it's been sooo long and damn, who's that woman I keep seeing you outside with? And I have to think, and it clicks, another volunteer from the charity shop, and laugh, nope, nope, nope. 

I'm living in the land of nope.

Finally I manage to escape, go downstairs, smoke my cigarette, save the spare.

***

The night, rainy, pouring, thunder and lightning. Wake up at 3:30, restless, unable to sleep. I still have the spare cigarette.

***

Lie in bed, trying to fall back asleep. It's her turn now to make noise, the wheels of luggage on the floor above, furniture being shuffled, I'm lying there quiet as a mouse, doesn't she sleep?

There's a knocking, a scritching at the door. Damn. Apparently not. 

Answer the door and she's apologetic, she's restless, can't sleep, she wants to look around my place, walks in and seats herself while I get dressed. A horrified look around convinces her of the veracity of my statement, my housekeeping is abysmal. We go for a cigarette. It's now about 4:30. Back inside, now to her place, the reasonable choice, on her sofa. She's straddling my lap fixing my collar, no, she's not trying to get lucky. She's splayed out with her painted toenails hanging over my lap. She's not trying to get lucky but damn I'm tall and handsome. A real fixer-upper. She's lifting her shirt, showing me imaginary bruises.

Now she's on her phone, wants to show me some pictures, artists she likes, "Oooops, I really should delete those..." 

I avert my eyes.

And she tells me, it's a secret, I can tell nobody, her sister, the building manager....

***

We're going to be best of friends and I'm committed to taking her out sometime, someplace, a proper date, committed to helping her get lucky, I can be her wingman, what do I think of her chances?

***

And finally, finally, she heads upstairs. On her own. And this, a new best friend who doesn't want to get lucky but is going to be scratching on my door every night in the wee hours, and what can I do? I'm suddenly open to the idea of a night shift, if only this town had a Denny's or 24 hour waffle house, and I'm thinking, fucking hell, how many times have I been in this position since moving out here, and maybe I need to start wearing a clerical collar, shave my head, don the monastic robes, remove myself from every woman's list of possibilities...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 22 March 2024

Hits: 586

And now, a few days of nice weather and it's begun, the annual migration of the homeless, and I'm wondering how they all get here and where did they come from? Who stops to pick up someone pushing 2 shopping carts filled to the brim with trash, or someone spattered in blood and feces and with the classic opioid stoop?

It kills me because the town can barely afford to feed it's own homeless contingents, the year 'rounders, the locals, without these hundreds of new arrivals. But spring is here and summer not to far behind...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 21 March 2024

Hits: 551

While I'm no longer working there I still get news from the old restaurant. The one in Balfour. That they hired a new chef, brought him out from Cranbrook, moved him into the basement where Sean OD'd, and it took him under a week to discover that he has cancer.

That whole workplace is toxic AF. If anything would give you cancer, this would be it, no doubt.

And that they hired a new waiter, he works doubles all day Thursday and Monday because JR., he has to be in Cranbrook, he's gotten a "Government Job". 

They're making lots of promises to this new waiter, he's going to be manager, in charge, everything, it's his show....

I've heard all this before, but the "Government Job" rather intrigues me, and while I have a theory I think it best to confirm...

I call the mother-in-law. 

Now we're laughing and sure enough she confirms my suspicion. His "Government Job" is that he's on-call to stock shelves at the Liquor Store 3 days a week. BCLB. This is the "government job" his mom is bragging about.

I'm all for work, it is - for the vast majority of us - inevitable. But you get it. And BCLB - at best - is paying him $20 an hour. When he gets work. But it's important he be available for if and when they call. And he's already planned a summer vacation, so the job, well, he doesn't want it to get in the way...

This should be compared to the fact that even in the "shoulder" season - adding together wages and tips, and he'd be clearing very close to $50 an hour. Enough, in fact, that if he leaned into it he wouldn't even need to collect EI in the winter, he could haul the family off to Mexico and winter there. 

Anyways, we're laughing at the absurdity of it all, about how the more shit changes the more it stays the same.

She's got other news related to the family. This is good. What is it?

Well, JR.'s wife has bought a stripper pole. And while I can't say (it's her daughter, after all) I'm thinking they'd better reinforce the ceiling, because there's no way that girl could get 2 feet off the ground under her own power. Maybe if she were on her back, but you don't need a stripper pole for that...

...oh, and she (the daughter) bought a silicon sex doll. Of a woman. They keep it in their bedroom. She's not happy because it's not very good looking...

...and again, you know what I'm thinking, how fucking great is your marriage that you'd rather have a lesbian affair with a Silicon Sex Doll than sleep with your husband, but - and this is the clincher - I get it.

And I'm laughing and laughing so hard, and she's feeding it, more details, absurd, gruesome, and this catch-up-call, it's killing me, and no sooner than I hang up having resolved to make it a weekly thing than I call Cathy - the other Alumni of Unspeakable Trauma, and share with her what I've found out...

Now, time for me to find work so I can afford to take my broke ass back out to Balfour with a bag of popcorn to sit back and enjoy the show...