Started in on Stanley "Out of Darkest Africa", a heavy, thick Volume that is largely concerned with the various English Military campaigns in the Soudan and the Belgian Campaigns in the Congo.

Imperialism at it's finest. But not a book I can carry around, and so I set it aside in favor of this other book I picked up in Creston, which is proving surprisingly good reading and parallels a lot of other "New Thought" or "New Age" books I've come across...

Plus the cover is a hoot:

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And so, by last night the verdict from the Coroner, that it appeared to be "drug related". 

And the Mother in Law confirms that when her brother went to pick up his meds he found S*** behaving strangely, and found himself 15 or 20 Morphine pills short.

Thus the end of summer, and people are quite literally dying to get out of there.

Whether it was intentional or not we'll probably never know. It was, however, very preventable. That workplace is toxic as fuck.

***

C**** is texting me. She's done. Going in today to collect herself and get the fuck out of dodge. She's still aghast that they were trying to open while S*** lay dead in the basement. Don't blame her. It's time. It's overdue. All this circus so that JR can lead his best life, take summers off and collect EI all winter. Who does that leave standing? JR and Me, until the Thanksgiving Long, to run the front of the house. No nonsense about "staying open all winter" this year. Unless, of course, JR wants to commit to it, but he's on his own. In the kitchen, JR's mother and Mister Tickles. There's no word as to how the high school girls are handling this, or even if they've been told.

***

So, at the library now, a quiet moment, and waiting on the text that tells me to come into work early, C**** has quit, and it's time now they start to figure shit out.

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Yesterday, writing, catching up on a lot of sidetracked projects. When the librarian begins to speak, loudly, to customers, on the phone...

At the library...

And I want to tell her "Shhhh", I'm in flow, things are getting done and she's ruining it...

She's the librarian. I can't. And so I abandon projects. 

And today, now, again, at the library, writing up the events of earlier in the day, and there's another wing nut yelling and threatening a bylaw officer for impounding her dog, a Salmo crackhead, loudly, showing how focused and in control she is, telling the bylaw officer the law (she knows, she's from Salmo), how he's breaking the law, and - yet again I'm dying to yell "Shhhhh" but it's become very apparent that there are no more Sacred Places...

 

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Back to work this morning, the boon of the unexpected 3 days off is over, and - well, I'm figuring 5 weeks left, let's get it over with.

But I'm not happy. 

Arriving early, there was rain earlier in the week, intending to search for arrowheads.

SR is outside the basement, on the phone, he's earnestly talking to someone...

As I get out of my car he tells me - "S*** killed himself!!! I just found him in the basement...".

S*** was the head chef, he lived in the basement. And SR describes how he found him, on the couch, slouched over, black, the stench...

So, no suggestion he killed himself, rather an expression of SR's annoyance that he won't be coming to work. From the sounds of things this probably happened after work Sunday. I wasn't there.

Now they're looking for Mister Tickles, the other Chef, doing a "wellness" check and wanting to ask if he wants to work today in S***'s place. Of course they would.

After a spell the ambulance shows up, they confirm he's deceased, minimum 24 hours, now it's time for the RCMP, then the coroner....

SR's wife, in shock, C**** is horrified, JR is in shock and crying. It's a gong show. SR and his wife, they want to stay open, "Life goes on...".

I'm doubting that's going to happen. Eventually Mister Tickles shows up, he's a little calmer about it all than they are, he knows damn well they want him to work, nothing stops them, they're demons...

***

It starts to come together a bit. S***, native, without family, had worked 14 hours Sunday. A big guy, he was exhausted. Dead exhausted. And the Mother in Law, she's worried - she gave him a package to hold for her brother, his meds, morphine. So maybe that was it? She blames herself.

Maybe. S**** liked to party, and his "girlfriend" was also his dealer, talking to him once he mentioned she stopped dealing when her best friend OD'd. A bad batch.

And occasionally she was seen 'round his place. So maybe he didn't stop using, maybe tried to curb his exhaustion... 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe it was just they worked him to death. That place would do it to you. It was a busy day, by all accounts.

***

Talk to another Kitchen worker, A****, who confirmed she'd last received a text from him Sunday night, by Monday morning he wasn't answering.

***

I'd often joked the place was built over an Indian Burial Ground, and now - now it is. Let alone the winding up of the chefs at the beginning of the season, when I told them about the OD's in the staff housing...and I want to ask, if only to cast levity on the situation, if they found any sign of Curtis down in the basement, that chef who went missing under mysterious circumstances in May...but it's too soon. S*** would have laughed.

***

Enough is enough and I want the season to be over. C*** won't make it, will probably quit within the week, the kitchen girls, high school students, they're not going to take it well, we're wasting time until the season is over, the season, this season, the longest one ever, and every one wants it done. 

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