I have copied the group novel text and moved it to the top so that it does not get forgotten. Please keep adding text.
chapter 2: paragraph 1:
Victoria!
More like Spictoria with all the goddamn Ecuadorian crystal-meth
dealers in their clean-cut American Boy threads lookin’ like Boyz-2-men,
Kidz-On-Da-Blok or whatever – more like Kuntz-R-Us if you ask me…
I know.
You didn’t.
So fuck you Jack AND your mother.
I despise this town.
A million scumbag tourists waddling around nine months of the year,
gaping mouths, necklaced with Sony and Nikon and HP,
looking for ultimate Victoria ‘visuals’ to impress the neighbours
back home in Bejing, Boston, or Brixton.
And the local politico’s with their rare and sad little vices.
I mean deck extensions? Impaired driving?
For christsake, what we need are some stinking reaking SCANDALS.
We need a couple Quebec ‘advertising’ agencies to open up on Herald St.
We need to jet Monica Lewinsky in for a few seminars,
introduce her to Grey Gord,
provide the populace an opportunity some damp and rainy night to hear screams of
“The Campbell’s are coming,
The Campbell’s are coming,
och aye, och aye”
echoing through Francis Rattenbury’s monument to massive mediocrity.
We need corruption, graft, corporate and political filth
overflowing the gutters,
burning up the headlines.
We need some seriously heavy shit happening here,
because I,
look at me you cretin,
you know who I’m fucking talking about don’t you?
I’m talking about you,
yes YOU – look at the finger.
See where it’s pointing?
At you.
Don’t look back over your shoulder, moron,
look at ME.
Look in the fucking mirror!
Great.
Eye contact at last.
Eye contact at last----
----I should have been a movie star.
look at that figure-----
-----I remember---
---about six years ago.
I was going to appear in a short video.
I had no clue what it was going to be about,
I showed up
in my regular street clothes,
and waited for the director to tell me what to do.
We got started,
I walked this way,
I walked that way,
I gesticulated,
I jumped up and down,
I stared up and down,
the director walked around me saying,
"good, good"
Now,
I am not sure how movies are made
but I wouldn't mind betting that
there is some kind of story and planning involved.
Dr acubmas was one of the actors,
(I use the term actor loosely,
not wanting to piss off the ghosts of
really great actors like Marlon Brando)
and he had the only speaking part.
I think he wrote it himself.
At the most inappropriate moments
he would say things like,
"Ageing asian redheads
bulbous and beautiful temptations singing
papa was a rollin' stone
...hospital bedbugs like bukowski and burroughs taping the voices
of the beehive..
queen bee drones on in a sodium bar
made of glass and chewy skin snacks
... in your lab of memories
there must be much forgotten elbow lifting straight into the gullet
of gloomy booze brains calculating the quickest way
to drop thy knickers in an earthquake octopuss soul shaker souflle
...whateverhappened to paulette goddard?"
And then with a disturbing smirk,
he would wait for my retort.
" What the fuck are you talking about doc" I said,
he looked at me as though my skirt was raised
and fired back,
"the imagination is an image-nation
of collective buffoonery and pope-tastic charades
of collective brainwash fear-mongering of the human mongrel
that is our ur-self reptillian conciousness
replicating breeder-like
into concrete cubicles
we call home.
...how many geeks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
What's a light bulb?"
I felt like a fucking idiot,
what the hell was he up to?
" the word is a bird and the bird is a sufi
...a phalanx of feathers falling into the bottomless bowl
of eternity in your well -worn sneaker smell
...if dickless was a bird she would be a carnivirous crow,
a bandy-legged crawdaddy
caterwauling epiphanies in a room made of mirrors
and soot and bandages that smell of marsh-mallows
and burt lancaster's aftershave.
..a dvd made of mud and italian sausage
shoved into the non-bird-like receptacle of digital mediocrity
and fat ass american sailors
who smell like an oily paste of liverpool pigeons
sashaying among the windy currents
that are the voices of the dead..."
I seem to recall that
dr acubmas was called something else that day,
mr pink, or mr blue, or something like that,
anyway,
to get to the point,
I was ready for him this time.
".....and black eyed pees
with death grips on the piles of adult diapers rescued
from the stage of aging rockers,
bleating out their last hurrah with croaky voices,
ageing bodies tied in tight with grandmas corsette,
prancing through the dreams of ancient groupies".
I squeaked.
Acubmas was stunned for a moment,
then gathering up all his powers
to place every word he knew into one gut wrenching sentence,
with spit shooting from his mouth
like the agony strokes at a Saturday night drunkfest,
he hurled his finely sculpted, arrow sharp, put down.
" You cunt" he said.
"I'm supposed to be the writer"
Well,
that was that,
we never made another video------
----I should have been a movie star----
----Eye contact at last----
----quit day dreaming,
now read our lips,
I mean my lips.
We need some seriously heavy shit happening in town
because Dickless Tracy Cowgirl Detective is skint,
and The Cowgirl ain’t happy, doesn’t function nicely when skint.
The Cowgirl ferrets out weakness and deception at times like this,
seeks tainted blood from the most innocent and casual of places.
And from people……
Where there’s blood,
there’s brass,
that’s what the Artist In The Hole said.
It’s time to reach for the Burberry, buckle it up,
feel the Webley deep in the inside pocket bumping against the thigh,
position the trilby, snap the brim like so,
head out into the drizzle,
and check out The Word
at the James Bay Inn.
two days earlier---
Date: Friday, October 25
Location: North Vancouver, B.C.
Time: 16:30
I was in traffic,
waiting in the left-hand turn lane at the corner of the Dollarton Highway and Riverside Drive. Almost in Deep Cove, but not quite.
One thing I noticed while approaching the light,
was a large red sign on the right hand corner,
just off the curb. -- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I had skipped lunch, and was tempted to stop for a coffee and a donut,
but wanted to get back to downtown Vancouver.
I glance at the light, and then at the sign. -- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I'm still waiting to turn left.
My thoughts quickly snap to the Port Alberni location of Tim Horton's.
They offer both inside seating AND a drive-thru window.
No one has appeared in my rear-view mirror.
I glance at the sign again, its distinctive shade of red acting like a magnet for my retinas.
This sign has been strategically positioned so that you don't miss it. -- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
Hmmmm, the left-hand turn light still hasn't turned green.
Do they optimize the traffic flow along the Dollarton Highway
so that you can get in and out of Deep Cove in a breeze?
There is still no one behind me. -- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I must tell you about the 2 half-pound bags of fresh JJ Bean coffee
that are sitting next to me on the front seat.
The inside of my car smells like freshly ground coffee. -- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I want a coffee.
I like Tim Horton's coffee.
I don't need to get back to downtown Vancouver that fast.
Do I need to join rush-hour traffic so soon?
I want a coffee,
and a donut.
I know exactly what kind of Tim Horton's donut that I want. A maple ring.
Clearly this Tim Horton's has a drive-thru.
The sign says so.
I can just drive in there,
place the order,
and get back on the road with my coffee and maple donut,
all without leaving the comfort of the dickMobile!
I take one more look at the sign, and quickly glance in the rear-view mirror.
Someone is a few hundred metres back, but they are coming up to the light.
I decide that going to Tim Horton's is the right thing to do.
I slam the transmission into reverse,
do a quick shoulder check,
and grip the seat-back to my right.
As I accelerate backwards,
and turn the wheel to the left,
the bags of coffee on my front seat roll over,
releasing more of their addictive aroma.
After backing away from the vehicle in front of me,
I head for the right-hand curb, looking left for oncoming traffic.
I pass the large, red, distinctive sign as I go around the corner,
and am pleasantly shocked by the Tim Horton's that I see to my right.
It's not that this Tim's has a drive-thru.
It is a drive-thru.
There is no other service option.
You MUST drive thru.
This location has been optimized for coffee-hungry donut-munchers
speeding by on the Dollarton Highway.
Wow.
This Tim Horton's location has been optimized for me.
I can't help but notice that this Tim's location is a tiny building on a tiny lot.
An attractive, but small popup building
inside a newly paved asphalt loop with a tight turning radius.
Is this a brand new location?
And with an outlet this small, how much selection could there be?
Inventory management must be a huge effort for such a small location.
Perhaps a pared-down menu is offered at this Tim's shack?
I keep to the right,
and follow the white arrows on the ground as I navigate the dickMobile
toward the menu and adjacent ordering microphone.
As a seasoned Tim's customer, I have a pretty good idea of what I want.
I leave the transmission in Drive,
and keep my foot firmly pressed on the brake
while I lean towards the sound coming from the speaker....
"Can I take your order today?"
"Yeah, I'll have a Large Coffee, 2 cream, 2 sugar, and a maple donut
- you got any maple donuts in there?"
"Yes-eh-sir,
will that be a Maple Dip,
or a CANADIAN Maple?"
I am presented with a choice.
I can feel my brain going into over-drive.
I must make a decision.
My car is not in Park.
I like Maple donuts a lot.
The Maple Dip is a long-time favourite,
from back in the days when me and my Dad would eat donuts at the store on Saturday morning.
This is not a particularly difficult decision, but deserves some consideration.
I am faced with Canadian Content.
This is what I call a
"Canadian Content Experience".
I am sitting at Tim Horton's, a Canadian retail empire from Coast to Coast.
The Maple Dip donut topping is icing spiked with maple syrup.
You learned about maple syrup in grade school.
You also learned about maple trees.
Right now, maple trees are changing colour.
The Canadian Maple donut is not only a great donut with maple-syrup icing,
but has been branded by Canadians, for Canadians.
Their marketing team learned about maple syrup too.
So many thoughts, all at once.
Content, content everywhere.
Tim's Canadian Maple takes the Maple Dip to the next level.
It is not a maple-iced ring, but a filled donut with maple icing.
There is some sort of Boston Cream custard tucked inside the donut,
which makes it a particularly sweet and filling treat.
Although I love the Canadian Maple, sometimes the sugar content pushes me over the edge. And I still have a whole evening in front of me.
I just need a little snack.
Something to tide me over, not wipe me out.
"I'll have a Maple Dip!"
"Thanks, that will be $2.31, please proceed to the window."
I slowly release pressure from my brake pedal,
and keep my steering wheel pulled to the left,
wondering why they made the turning radius so tight....
As I pull up to the window,
the clerk has already prepared the coffee,
and passes me the take-out cup.
"Here's your large coffee double-double."
That is Tim's lingo for a coffee with 2 cream, and 2 sugars.
"Thanks."
I put the coffee in my adjustable cup-holder console that I installed below the heater control cluster.
I love my cup holder console.
I bought it at Canadian Tire.
"And here is your Maple Dip.
That will be $2.31 please!"
He passes me a large maple ring, in a Tim Horton's branded individual donut bag.
I place the donut on the seat, and get my wallet out to find some cash.
I see a 5 dollar bill.
That's the blue one.
I get the change,
thank the clerk,
and slowly advance my car down the driveway towards the road.
I get out onto the roadway,
and steer into the left-hand turn lane for my return onto the Dollarton Highway west-bound.
As I wait for the left-hand light to turn green,
I have time to take a few sips of coffee,
and take the first bite out of my Maple Dip.
Ahhhhh......
the dream
The nightmare began with an pre-dawn image of a myriad of red blinking lights and an urge to catch them. My feet are strapped to something making it weird to run after these lights.
Oh, I'm clipped into the cleats on a bicycle.
I catch the lights and the sun rises, boink.
Why can't I stop pedaling?
Minutes turn to hours, the day grows hot.
My legs hurt but I can't stop.
The seat grows smaller and harder with every passing mile.
Where am I going?
The sun starts to droop in the west as my eyelips get heavy,
my legs burn and my ass begs to have this fucking thorn that was once a seat removed.
Why can't I stop and where and I going?
Oh shit I'm back where I started!
two days and 18 minutes later
the word
the crap crawls from the front to the back, here's where the snitches and bitches hang,
suck down booze and flog their goods.
"Get your hand off my arse greaseball and fire me another shot"
The booze stacks on the bar and the waiting begins.
I slip in slick as nine greased inches,
no one moves,
no one looks.
Years ago,
when I first moved to this worthless shit hole,
I spent a lot of time in cafes,
making notes,
listening to fragments of chat.
A favourite place was the BH drive In,
I spent a lot of time there,
listening,
and watching,
'till I was sure something was bent.
The characters,
if you could call a group of sleazebags and hookers characters,
never seemed to change,
and the chat was the same,
day after day,
slowly,
it became clear,
I was shocked that the obvious had taken so long.
This was the portal between life and death,
heaven and hell,
this was where people waited,
arrived, departed,
the interface between different realities,
different levels of waiting.
I was so smug in my discovery
that it never occurred to me,
that I may have the correct interpretation,
but the wrong location.
Years later,
about 18 minutes ago,
two blocks from the BH drive In,
I wandered into, the James Bay Inn.
The place
Alcohol interfaced with lips,
glasses with alcohol,
dreams with reality,
ketchup with chips,
keno with poverty,
alcoholism with sobriety,
circular conversations with each other,
heaven with hell,
death with life,
and a multiplex of parallel universes
with no connection other than waiting.
The place where everything waits.
Toking time,
they're dead, but moving,
crawling towards the outside,
past the glowing exit sign,
turn left,
lean on the wall,
light a doobie,
man thats good,
I watched with out a sound,
Dickless on the job,
these fuckers can't keep still,
gums flapping ,
secrets vomiting over the blacktop of the empty car lot,
I snagged and bagged them,
filed them into my photo memory
and headed for the docks.
The docks were teeming,
third week of the cruise ship season,
giant vibrator transportation for the blue rinse babes
now dockin' and rockin'.
Ageing gigalos,
shit faced since 9.00 am from cocktails and viagra,
pimping their impotance to polyester raisins with waining trust funds.
I smell cash,
trouble follows cruise ships,
cash always follows trouble,
the dark nights here don't wear batsuits.
I, Dickless, the cowgirl detective, quiver, fiddle with my Webley, turn and---
18 years earlier
The boat was small,
surrounded by ocean it seemed really small.
Dad was lying on the bottom,
blood clogged on his forehead still unconcious from the beating,
Mom was dead,
hands tied behind her,
throat cut,
legs broken.
I was 12 years old,
in shock and shaking.
How did this happen?
How did we get here?
I seemed to be in a fog,
is this real?
Am I dreaming?
A pain stabbed through my stomach,
I screamed,
heaved,
and puked.
then I saw it,
a stetson,
a fucking stetson was lying next to dad,
it was on his head,
not dads,
the man,
the man with the ball-peen hammer,
he had worn the stetson.
For a moment the fog seemed to lift,
i could see the man, the cowboy,
he was laughing as he broke her legs.
18 years later
--there he is. No! It can't be,
I have the stetson,
he's older but,
I can never forget the face,
wrinkled,
evil etched like Dorian Gray,
leering and sleezing his way between raisins,
the viagra has worked,
but where to put it?
Pick one.
Pick one.
He still wears a stetson,
not the original,
I wear that,
it was the only thing that left the boat with me 18 years ago.
18 years earlier
I glanced to the left, a motorboat was lashed to the dinghy,
the cowboy looked up, caught my eye, laughed and leaped over the side into the boat,
threw it in gear, or whatever you do to motorboats,
and roared off into the fog.
Mum bled.
I fainted.
3 hours later
My eyes opened,
caked with green scabs they opened to slits,
I was lying between my parents,
their blood mingled and oozed into my psyche.
I was burning up,
my lips were cracked but fresh water was drizzling gently upon them.
"What!
What!
Who are you?
How did you get here?
Where did you come from?
Mum! Dad!"
They were silent.
18 years, 3 hours later
I fingered my Webley,
my gut wrenched,
that fucker was still alive,
still operating,
only now it was cruise ships,
and old farts,
unsuspecting in their cocktail trances and polyester pedal pushers.
Mutton dressed as lamb, ready for slaughter,
and dr acubmas , the demented cowboy, was ready for them.
The place: 4.35 PM
"I need you to pay your tab"
'What"?
"I need you to pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet"
"I'm going off shift, I have to cash in"
"What"?
"I'm going off shift, I have to cash in"
"I'm not done yet, bring me another beer"
"You have to pay your tab"
"What"?
"You have to pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet, bring me another beer"
"I can get you another tab, but you have to pay this tab first"
"What? bring me another beer"
"I can't serve you another beer till you pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet"
"I can start you another tab, but you have to pay this tab first"
"What"?
"I can start ---"
"I heard what you said, this is bullshit, you want me to pay this tab and then you will start me another tab, and then you will bring me a beer"
"Yes"
"But I'm not done yet, bring me another beer on this tab"
"I can't serve you another beer till you pay your tab"
" This doesn't make any fucking sense, I started a tab so that I could drink till I'm done, then pay. Now you want me to pay this tab so that you can start me another tab, then you will bring me a beer"
"Yes! I'm going off shift"
"So give my tab to the new waiter"
" I can't, you have to pay this tab before I can get you another tab"
"Then why the fuck do we have servers, I could have got my own beer from the bar and paid for it each time"
"You can't get your own beer if you have taken a table"
"This is totally fucked"
"Could you please can the language or I will have to call security"
"What"?
"Could you please can the language or I will have to call security"
"Security"?
"Yes Security"
"Shove it up your arse, I'm out of here"
"Security, security, to the front, stat"
The Dog
She's been around a long time,
part of the family you might say,
she was my K9 partner, my drug sniffer, my back protector.
She could sense a lowlife and smell a weapon before a two legged partner could fart.
She saved my life so many times that without her I felt naked.
I am not sure when she became incontinent,
when the house started to smell like dog piss I guess,
dead give away.
Every day at two,
what ever I am doing I head home to wash her arse and change her diaper.
This does tend to put a crimp in the day particularly if I am on the job
and the shit is about to come down.
Stakeouts are unforgiving,
you can't just call time out and fuck off home to take care of geriatric animals.
Talk about Kafka,
my whole life is Kafkaesque.
Custom diapers,
who else has a fucking dog that requires custom diapers?
I had thought about buying adult diapers at the drug store and cutting a hole for her tail,
but fuck,
the shop girl might have thought they were for me.
I might be dickless,
but I ain't clueless.
the dwarf
Standing on the corner of Fort and Quadra in the pissing rain waiting for the lights to change,
a stranger than fiction moment shook me awake.
A mini bus pulled into the parking meter next to the corner.
I had glanced and noticed that it was being driven by a dwarf,
this in itself is not unusual but,
the lettering on the side of the bus exclaimed " The Cowboy Church of Christ".
A few things flashed through my mind,
why is a dwarf driving for the Cowboy Church of Christ?
I probably would have taken no notice at all if it had been driven by a cowboy, but a dwarf.
Has this church anything to do with my "Cowboy"?
Is this some front for his evil goings on?
This was too odd to ignore.
By the way, the dog died.
Eighty two years earlier: 1924:
Dance night in Chicago:
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz band was beating the shit out of Canal Street Blues, Armstrong’s cornet was wailing and punching holes through Johnny Dodd’s clarinet solos as dancing and dealing went hand in hand.
Prohibition, the greatest legislation of the new century, had filled our coffers,
we were rich, we paid off cops and judges, took politicos on the ride.
We were flying, booze and broads, numbers, protection, prostitution, and soon a meeting of the clans,
a bold suggestion,
a corporation,
control the world,
start from chicago,
start from today.
December 1962: office of the attorney general
"Shit Bobby we can't treat these guys this way, they are willing to help us with the Fidel problem, but we have to give them something in return"
"They are going to have to go ligit or we are going to blast them out of existence, we can't have a bunch of escapees from 1920 Chicago running the fucking country, and that's all there is to it"
Texas School Book Depositary,
Dallas Texas,
November 22, 1963,
18.00 Central Standard Time.
Two characters are staring blankly at each other.
”What chance of liff this mortal coin of dread would have”?
“Drat I that this augments my brainpower, do I give take give the bullet for thee”?
“Spit spittoon a toon of timex ticktock ticktock foresay a great and guilded father clock”
“Muck-a-rake and bring me back to tomtomtommygun fire and break the pattern of existance, will you not come forward withr your plotting and your sceming, take the mediscene like a main”?
“O deaththreat give me help to kick your arse from here to hear a scream, a blunderbus or rifleruin mish mash slap dash corned beef hash”
Enter character#3
“What are you two rambling about? We’re here to do a job, we’ve been well paid and I am not going to let you screw things up”
“Good john tommy, you get my drift but loose the way to give some bluing. We too have here-to-fore with golf stick clubbing bring about our task for nooners”
“Eateateat and run the pizzaria down the toilet, stomach rumbling, arse a burning, head a pounding. Skip skip skip a lip, a leg, a dog, a tyger run for willem blayke, that man o blues whilst billie holliday screams the musick of her drug bust”
“Which one of you geniuses has the gun”?
“Aye”
“The telescope”?
“Hee”
“Bullets”?
“Ballots bollocks rollocks horrocks oarlocks forelocks four clocks”
“That bookcase is on wheels and can be pushed to the window and used as a rest for the gun. We wouldn’t want to miss, there are no second chances”
“Chances dances prances nancies pansies fancy foibles liables labels, looks like dewey maybe hewey louie donald ronald dreaming scheming hatching batching bitching glitching babababang. give it too-umm”
“Whos got the sandwich? with the mustard, hunger strikes a blow for breakfast, eggs a gone and grog a gog, pass it over. Tanks”
“We Have a couple of hours to kill, now, let’s go through this one more time”
“Holy shit! What now”?
“Fed my musandwich to doggy, ate the lot and broke my fast, ho ho ho ho and why not?
say I, the dickens gives the spirit to a goy with broken leggins”
“Can we victor ligature him, or is bang bang nicely quicker from this dispense”?
“Hey! Shit for brains, keep your lagging mind on the task at hand.
Pass me the scope, I need to memorize the layout”
“Feed my bulwark to the tinker give us al-aways to hit on target, grace the finger, fateful, faithful, breaker the skull down, mush her braims up”
“How’s the dollar, mush did we get”?
“Thrifty tousand, mony dollars, able now to go to seaman, travel far and always wide. By that dreamboat doris day, move to holywood, lammed of plenty, green and foibled, full of fairies, twits and pansies”
‘Looks like the motorcade will be coming up the street on time.
What time have you got”?
“Don’t bother, I’ll look for myself”
“Treedy tree two fore”
“I said don’t bother, I’ll look for myself”
“Bang bang with dumdum, mush her braims up”
“Another twenty minutes and we will be able to hear the crowd cheering the motorcade, that arsehole doesn’t have a clue what’s coming. How’s number 4, is he set up on the knoll? Will he be able to get in a rapid round? We can’t afford to fuck this up there’s big payola involved and we don’t want to find ourselves on the other end of someones bad temper. Wheel that bookshelf over here so that I can get lined up for a head shot, don’t want to miss, that would really fuck the opera.”
“The greek has to have what he has to have no matter what the cost, can’t keep his dick in his strides. So, make fucking sure that we get this done right or the mother will be after us”
“ Let’s go lie and wait to fore the kill, and bitchen big boots runs to cover, plan to heidi out in austrial, mis-trial, windy, windy city on to chi-cargo. operata singer, sing sing her single, grope and mingle, mangle mangle, she’s a tough bitch, blast the scratched itch”
“Shut the fuck up, I’m thinking. Listen, do you hear? The crowd, the moment. Number two, bring me the fucking scope I have to clip it onto the gun. Speed it up you fucking moron we don’t want to leave it until they’ve gone past. Number one, the bullets, bring the fucking bullets, I can see the limo.”
“FUCK! I missed, I hit him instead”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, leave that idiot Harve to take the rap. FUCK she’s going to be pissed about this.
thirty nine years earlier
"what's the payoff Jimmy, did the mayor come through? "
"It's big, we can keep the prostitution, gambling, protection and booze as long as he gets his fifteen percent and we keep the hits to the lower end of town, he doesn't want blood on his lawn."
eighty two years later
I'm standing in the mall thinking about what I can buy for Christmas, I hate Christmas with all its commercial crap and religious bullshit.
I glance around and spot a bookstore out of the corner of my eye.
Books,
you can't go wrong with books.
I scoot inside and look around,
now it's choices, thousands of choices.
There's a coffee shop in the bookstore, things are looking up, I wonder if it a 'Tims' franchise.
No such luck, it's a fucking Starbucks.
The Americans are everywhere with their 'coffee shop and war against terrorism' mentality.
Fuck it, I need a coffee.
I make a beeline for the counter.
"Hey! Coffee guy. I'll have a large coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the coffee guy "I am a barista, not a coffee guy."
"OK" I say "Barista, I'll have a large coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista " we have tall, grande and venti, we don't have large"
"OK" I say "I'll have a tall coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista "Tall is our smallest coffee, are you sure you want a tall?"
OK! I thought, if I order the one in the middle that will probably work.
"Barista" I say "I'll have a grande coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista "Four shots is very strong, are you sure you want four shots?"
What the fuck is he talking about?
"Barista" I say "Four shots of what?"
"Espresso"
"Espresso! I did not order a fucking espresso, let alone four fucking espressos"
"Sir" says the barista "You ordered a grande coffee double double"
"Yes! one medium fucking coffee with two fucking creams and two fucking sugars"
"Sir" says the barista
"At Starbucks we have shots,
double shots,
tazo chai, with soy,
cappuccinos,
espressos,
and many other types of beverages.
what we don't have, is
'fucking creams' or
'fucking sugars'."
"At Starbucks, you get your own 'fucking cream' and your own 'fucking sugar' from the auxillary table in the fucking corner."
"Barista! I need a shit, where's the crapper?"
"Sir" says the barista. "The washrooms are back through the bookstore, around to the left, into the elevator down to the basement."
'Thanks"
"Sir" says the barista. "When you get to the basement turn to the left and ask the sales associate at the computer for the washroom door code."
'Thanks"
"Sir" says the barista. "When you have the washroom door code, go back around to the other side of the elevator and into the childrens book section."
"The childrens book section?"
"Sir" says the barista."That is where the public washrooms are situated"
"In the childrens book section?"
"Yes" says the barista "In the childrens book section"
Yesterday
canadian road trip, drive-thru agony, coffee and that Tune
Headed out for a quick road-trip north needed coffee, and Tim's was en route. Sat there in the drive-thru, and didn't move for 60 seconds. Got impatient, and had to HX that plan. HX is just a bit of techie jargon that means "Halt eXecution". It means I had to bail from that lineup. I was at the helm, and a parking space was immediately available to my left. Always a tough decision - to bail on a drive-thru. Like it's a drive thru, OK. And if you're not driving, then what's the point. I can see the lineup inside the joint, and it's not so bad.
So I go into the store, and line up for my coffee. Yeah yeah, a bit of a lineup. English: you line up in a lineup. Time to think about what to order. I already know what I want. 2 XL coffees, Double Double. Decide if I want a doughnut or NOT. Time to check out the Feature Doughnut. Hmmm. Glazed Old Fashioned. Right off the truck from Ontario I bet. Oh yeah, that is part of the doughnut distribution network. There's time to think about whether I made the RIGHT DECISION on bailing on the drive-thru.
I look out there. Nobody moving. It does not appear to be working like a standard drive thru. Hmm. What could be going on? Perhaps the drive thru is broken ? Like maybe a microphone malfunction on that squakee-talkie box they got there wired into the driveway ? Weird. Mebee some automotive issue just around the corner where I cannot see. Some kind of major PROBLEM at the window. Like a coffee crisis or doughnut dilemma.
No. Wait. The drive-thru line is moving. And MINE is NOT. What's going on here? Still standing here, so I scan my eyes over behind the counter to see what's going on. Many clerks seem to be in action. Some moving like a glacier. Groan. I asked for it. I wanted a coffee. Oh well.
So my line starts to move, and I feel immediate relief. I need that validation that I picked the right line. Oh the agony. The thrill of it all! What an event for a Sunday afternoon!
So both lines are moving now. It's like a race. I can see the little grey car that was in front of me. He's got his order in. The squakee-talkie is working. The people in front of me are deciding what they want. Coffees. Double Double. I scan my eyes up to the menu board. You know they recently sacrificed some menu space to put in these big, pretty Screens. Broadcast messages on a loop.
Did you know: That Double Double is in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary? It means a coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars.(those fucking starbucks baristas don't know that)
Hmmm. Wow. I did not know that. It brings to mind something I heard on NPR last week. It was a brief commercial advertising the feature in the next show. It was about whether trivia is mind-numbingly useless, or in fact, makes us brighter. Wish I tuned into the programme. But, not a lot of time for talk-radio lately.
Author's real-time observance: The words are coming really fast now....maybe it is the time of day.....or just that it is so damn fun to keystroke a little creative non-fiction.....like this keyboard too...when it comes to technical writing, I wish I could write with this pace....
"I can HELP the next person in line!"
Well, at least that clerk is on the ball. Waking up the next patron in line. Nice work. She should get an Extra-Effort Shown on her report card. It is almost my turn. I can see the BLUE and WHITE VAN outside in the Drive Thru line. THAT WAS MY SPOT. Ok. The dude has placed the order, and is now en route to the pick up window.
The next clerk is poised, so I take a very confident leap forward to the counter. To take my spot in line. To place my order, and get outta there before the BLUE and WHITE van.
The nameless clerk at Tim's starts his script with "Is this for here or to go". I can see his nametag. He shall remain nameless here.
"This order is to go. I would like 2 extra-large coffees, double-double."
The nameless clerk gets a couple of extra large cups and goes for the creamer-machine. Oh yeah, I can hear the double-pumps of cream as they splash onto the inner sides of the take-out cups. He hears the microwave go off behind him while he is reaching for the coffee pot. He calls out to another clerk, "Hey __________, your bacon is done!". I heard the name of the other clerk as he announced it. That clerk will also remain nameless here. There is something to be said for privacy. There is also something to be said for teamwork. And the clerk pouring my coffee was certainly multi-tasking, and very aware of what was going on around him. What a dude. Helping out his buddy, who was way down at the other end of the line. Maybe, just maybe, his buddy, the other nameless clerk, was serving the dude driving the BLUE and WHITE van ?! Was the driver of the BLUE and WHITE van a bacon-crunching, coffee-slurping, doughnut-muncher ? What a shock that would be.
The coffees come up on the counter, and the nameless clerk punches the order into the keypad. He asks for $3.29. I give him a $10.00 dollar bill. For you international readers, that is the purple one we have here in Canada. As I look for the 4 pennies, he asks me "Do you have 4 pennies?". He has already rung in the transaction, and the till is telling him to give me $6.71. I say, "No, I only have 2 pennies." He says "Close enough.". Ok, so, I pass him the 2 pennies, and he makes believe that it is 4 pennies. He gives me back a $5.00 dollar bill (the blue one), and a toonie. Hmmm. Something has gone terribly arithmetically awry with this, but I do not inform him, as I am eager to get out of the shop, and into my truck, so I can see if I got out before the BLUE and WHITE van. "Thanks!"
I go out and get into the truck, and pass the dwarf his terribly hot coffee.
I say "Keep your eyes peeled for a BLUE and WHITE van."
The dwarf says "Why? He's probably in Mill Bay by now."
Hmmm....the time spent in the shop wasn't that long, but was it sooooo long that I indeed had made the WRONG choice? It's like the same choice one makes in the supermarket when deciding which line to take! Oh the retail AGONY of it all! In the supermarket, you can stand there and KNOW that you're in the wrong line, but sometimes, you just WAIT there and stick-it-out. Determined to stay the course. And then what usually happens is this : the shopper in front of you asks for a carton of SMOKES. NO, NOT SMOKES! The smokes are all the way down in the security cabinet under the customer-service counter, and the cashier has to go ALL the way down there and unlock the smokes to get them out.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
As we proceed carefully down the driveway, leading to the exit ramp, we both peer up to the right, to see what is happening at the drive-thru. There, sitting at the window is the BLUE and WHITE van that is sitting in our position! WHEW - we made it out first. YES! Bailing on the drive-thru saved us some time (dozens of seconds at least) and some fossil fuels.
So we got the coffees. And you're wondering, ok, so where's that Tune. What gives ? What Tune ?!
We head over the Malahat in the rain. Lots of rain. Goldstream River quite full. Lots of water pouring off Malahat mountain and into the gutters beside and under the highway. Where's it coming from and where's it all gonna go....the standard things one ponders looking out the window....
It didn't happen until we were past the summit, and going down the other side. Past the viewpoint. Just past the entrance down into Bamberton.
I changed the station on the radio.
We were listening to a jazz program on KPLU, but I punched up something a little more along the lines of classic rock. Something to make this Canadian road trip truly complete. Something to remind us of who we are, and what we are doing with ourselves on this most rainy day, with our terribly hot coffees.
Randy Bachman. Taking Care of Business.
to be continued
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31/12: dickless tracy cowgirl detective: redux
chapter 2: paragraph 1:
Victoria!
More like Spictoria with all the goddamn Ecuadorian crystal-meth
dealers in their clean-cut American Boy threads lookin’ like Boyz-2-men,
Kidz-On-Da-Blok or whatever – more like Kuntz-R-Us if you ask me…
I know.
You didn’t.
So fuck you Jack AND your mother.
I despise this town.
A million scumbag tourists waddling around nine months of the year,
gaping mouths, necklaced with Sony and Nikon and HP,
looking for ultimate Victoria ‘visuals’ to impress the neighbours
back home in Bejing, Boston, or Brixton.
And the local politico’s with their rare and sad little vices.
I mean deck extensions? Impaired driving?
For christsake, what we need are some stinking reaking SCANDALS.
We need a couple Quebec ‘advertising’ agencies to open up on Herald St.
We need to jet Monica Lewinsky in for a few seminars,
introduce her to Grey Gord,
provide the populace an opportunity some damp and rainy night to hear screams of
“The Campbell’s are coming,
The Campbell’s are coming,
och aye, och aye”
echoing through Francis Rattenbury’s monument to massive mediocrity.
We need corruption, graft, corporate and political filth
overflowing the gutters,
burning up the headlines.
We need some seriously heavy shit happening here,
because I,
look at me you cretin,
you know who I’m fucking talking about don’t you?
I’m talking about you,
yes YOU – look at the finger.
See where it’s pointing?
At you.
Don’t look back over your shoulder, moron,
look at ME.
Look in the fucking mirror!
Great.
Eye contact at last.
Eye contact at last----
----I should have been a movie star.
look at that figure-----
-----I remember---
---about six years ago.
I was going to appear in a short video.
I had no clue what it was going to be about,
I showed up
in my regular street clothes,
and waited for the director to tell me what to do.
We got started,
I walked this way,
I walked that way,
I gesticulated,
I jumped up and down,
I stared up and down,
the director walked around me saying,
"good, good"
Now,
I am not sure how movies are made
but I wouldn't mind betting that
there is some kind of story and planning involved.
Dr acubmas was one of the actors,
(I use the term actor loosely,
not wanting to piss off the ghosts of
really great actors like Marlon Brando)
and he had the only speaking part.
I think he wrote it himself.
At the most inappropriate moments
he would say things like,
"Ageing asian redheads
bulbous and beautiful temptations singing
papa was a rollin' stone
...hospital bedbugs like bukowski and burroughs taping the voices
of the beehive..
queen bee drones on in a sodium bar
made of glass and chewy skin snacks
... in your lab of memories
there must be much forgotten elbow lifting straight into the gullet
of gloomy booze brains calculating the quickest way
to drop thy knickers in an earthquake octopuss soul shaker souflle
...whateverhappened to paulette goddard?"
And then with a disturbing smirk,
he would wait for my retort.
" What the fuck are you talking about doc" I said,
he looked at me as though my skirt was raised
and fired back,
"the imagination is an image-nation
of collective buffoonery and pope-tastic charades
of collective brainwash fear-mongering of the human mongrel
that is our ur-self reptillian conciousness
replicating breeder-like
into concrete cubicles
we call home.
...how many geeks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
What's a light bulb?"
I felt like a fucking idiot,
what the hell was he up to?
" the word is a bird and the bird is a sufi
...a phalanx of feathers falling into the bottomless bowl
of eternity in your well -worn sneaker smell
...if dickless was a bird she would be a carnivirous crow,
a bandy-legged crawdaddy
caterwauling epiphanies in a room made of mirrors
and soot and bandages that smell of marsh-mallows
and burt lancaster's aftershave.
..a dvd made of mud and italian sausage
shoved into the non-bird-like receptacle of digital mediocrity
and fat ass american sailors
who smell like an oily paste of liverpool pigeons
sashaying among the windy currents
that are the voices of the dead..."
I seem to recall that
dr acubmas was called something else that day,
mr pink, or mr blue, or something like that,
anyway,
to get to the point,
I was ready for him this time.
".....and black eyed pees
with death grips on the piles of adult diapers rescued
from the stage of aging rockers,
bleating out their last hurrah with croaky voices,
ageing bodies tied in tight with grandmas corsette,
prancing through the dreams of ancient groupies".
I squeaked.
Acubmas was stunned for a moment,
then gathering up all his powers
to place every word he knew into one gut wrenching sentence,
with spit shooting from his mouth
like the agony strokes at a Saturday night drunkfest,
he hurled his finely sculpted, arrow sharp, put down.
" You cunt" he said.
"I'm supposed to be the writer"
Well,
that was that,
we never made another video------
----I should have been a movie star----
----Eye contact at last----
----quit day dreaming,
now read our lips,
I mean my lips.
We need some seriously heavy shit happening in town
because Dickless Tracy Cowgirl Detective is skint,
and The Cowgirl ain’t happy, doesn’t function nicely when skint.
The Cowgirl ferrets out weakness and deception at times like this,
seeks tainted blood from the most innocent and casual of places.
And from people……
Where there’s blood,
there’s brass,
that’s what the Artist In The Hole said.
It’s time to reach for the Burberry, buckle it up,
feel the Webley deep in the inside pocket bumping against the thigh,
position the trilby, snap the brim like so,
head out into the drizzle,
and check out The Word
at the James Bay Inn.
two days earlier---
Date: Friday, October 25
Location: North Vancouver, B.C.
Time: 16:30
I was in traffic,
waiting in the left-hand turn lane at the corner of the Dollarton Highway and Riverside Drive. Almost in Deep Cove, but not quite.
One thing I noticed while approaching the light,
was a large red sign on the right hand corner,
just off the curb.
-- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I had skipped lunch, and was tempted to stop for a coffee and a donut,
but wanted to get back to downtown Vancouver.
I glance at the light, and then at the sign.
-- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I'm still waiting to turn left.
My thoughts quickly snap to the Port Alberni location of Tim Horton's.
They offer both inside seating AND a drive-thru window.
No one has appeared in my rear-view mirror.
I glance at the sign again, its distinctive shade of red acting like a magnet for my retinas.
This sign has been strategically positioned so that you don't miss it.
-- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
Hmmmm, the left-hand turn light still hasn't turned green.
Do they optimize the traffic flow along the Dollarton Highway
so that you can get in and out of Deep Cove in a breeze?
There is still no one behind me.
-- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I must tell you about the 2 half-pound bags of fresh JJ Bean coffee
that are sitting next to me on the front seat.
The inside of my car smells like freshly ground coffee.
-- Tim Horton's Drive Thru --
I want a coffee.
I like Tim Horton's coffee.
I don't need to get back to downtown Vancouver that fast.
Do I need to join rush-hour traffic so soon?
I want a coffee,
and a donut.
I know exactly what kind of Tim Horton's donut that I want.
A maple ring.
Clearly this Tim Horton's has a drive-thru.
The sign says so.
I can just drive in there,
place the order,
and get back on the road with my coffee and maple donut,
all without leaving the comfort of the dickMobile!
I take one more look at the sign, and quickly glance in the rear-view mirror.
Someone is a few hundred metres back, but they are coming up to the light.
I decide that going to Tim Horton's is the right thing to do.
I slam the transmission into reverse,
do a quick shoulder check,
and grip the seat-back to my right.
As I accelerate backwards,
and turn the wheel to the left,
the bags of coffee on my front seat roll over,
releasing more of their addictive aroma.
After backing away from the vehicle in front of me,
I head for the right-hand curb, looking left for oncoming traffic.
I pass the large, red, distinctive sign as I go around the corner,
and am pleasantly shocked by the Tim Horton's that I see to my right.
It's not that this Tim's has a drive-thru.
It is a drive-thru.
There is no other service option.
You MUST drive thru.
This location has been optimized for coffee-hungry donut-munchers
speeding by on the Dollarton Highway.
Wow.
This Tim Horton's location has been optimized for me.
I can't help but notice that this Tim's location is a tiny building on a tiny lot.
An attractive, but small popup building
inside a newly paved asphalt loop with a tight turning radius.
Is this a brand new location?
And with an outlet this small, how much selection could there be?
Inventory management must be a huge effort for such a small location.
Perhaps a pared-down menu is offered at this Tim's shack?
I keep to the right,
and follow the white arrows on the ground as I navigate the dickMobile
toward the menu and adjacent ordering microphone.
As a seasoned Tim's customer, I have a pretty good idea of what I want.
I leave the transmission in Drive,
and keep my foot firmly pressed on the brake
while I lean towards the sound coming from the speaker....
"Can I take your order today?"
"Yeah, I'll have a Large Coffee, 2 cream, 2 sugar, and a maple donut
- you got any maple donuts in there?"
"Yes-eh-sir,
will that be a Maple Dip,
or a CANADIAN Maple?"
I am presented with a choice.
I can feel my brain going into over-drive.
I must make a decision.
My car is not in Park.
I like Maple donuts a lot.
The Maple Dip is a long-time favourite,
from back in the days when me and my Dad would eat donuts at the store on Saturday morning.
This is not a particularly difficult decision, but deserves some consideration.
I am faced with Canadian Content.
This is what I call a
"Canadian Content Experience".
I am sitting at Tim Horton's, a Canadian retail empire from Coast to Coast.
The Maple Dip donut topping is icing spiked with maple syrup.
You learned about maple syrup in grade school.
You also learned about maple trees.
Right now, maple trees are changing colour.
The Canadian Maple donut is not only a great donut with maple-syrup icing,
but has been branded by Canadians, for Canadians.
Their marketing team learned about maple syrup too.
So many thoughts, all at once.
Content, content everywhere.
Tim's Canadian Maple takes the Maple Dip to the next level.
It is not a maple-iced ring, but a filled donut with maple icing.
There is some sort of Boston Cream custard tucked inside the donut,
which makes it a particularly sweet and filling treat.
Although I love the Canadian Maple, sometimes the sugar content pushes me over the edge. And I still have a whole evening in front of me.
I just need a little snack.
Something to tide me over, not wipe me out.
"I'll have a Maple Dip!"
"Thanks, that will be $2.31, please proceed to the window."
I slowly release pressure from my brake pedal,
and keep my steering wheel pulled to the left,
wondering why they made the turning radius so tight....
As I pull up to the window,
the clerk has already prepared the coffee,
and passes me the take-out cup.
"Here's your large coffee double-double."
That is Tim's lingo for a coffee with 2 cream, and 2 sugars.
"Thanks."
I put the coffee in my adjustable cup-holder console that I installed below the heater control cluster.
I love my cup holder console.
I bought it at Canadian Tire.
"And here is your Maple Dip.
That will be $2.31 please!"
He passes me a large maple ring, in a Tim Horton's branded individual donut bag.
I place the donut on the seat, and get my wallet out to find some cash.
I see a 5 dollar bill.
That's the blue one.
I get the change,
thank the clerk,
and slowly advance my car down the driveway towards the road.
I get out onto the roadway,
and steer into the left-hand turn lane for my return onto the Dollarton Highway west-bound.
As I wait for the left-hand light to turn green,
I have time to take a few sips of coffee,
and take the first bite out of my Maple Dip.
Ahhhhh......
the dream
The nightmare began with an pre-dawn image of a myriad of red blinking lights and an urge to catch them. My feet are strapped to something making it weird to run after these lights.
Oh, I'm clipped into the cleats on a bicycle.
I catch the lights and the sun rises, boink.
Why can't I stop pedaling?
Minutes turn to hours, the day grows hot.
My legs hurt but I can't stop.
The seat grows smaller and harder with every passing mile.
Where am I going?
The sun starts to droop in the west as my eyelips get heavy,
my legs burn and my ass begs to have this fucking thorn that was once a seat removed.
Why can't I stop and where and I going?
Oh shit I'm back where I started!
two days and 18 minutes later
the word
the crap crawls from the front to the back, here's where the snitches and bitches hang,
suck down booze and flog their goods.
"Get your hand off my arse greaseball and fire me another shot"
The booze stacks on the bar and the waiting begins.
I slip in slick as nine greased inches,
no one moves,
no one looks.
Years ago,
when I first moved to this worthless shit hole,
I spent a lot of time in cafes,
making notes,
listening to fragments of chat.
A favourite place was the BH drive In,
I spent a lot of time there,
listening,
and watching,
'till I was sure something was bent.
The characters,
if you could call a group of sleazebags and hookers characters,
never seemed to change,
and the chat was the same,
day after day,
slowly,
it became clear,
I was shocked that the obvious had taken so long.
This was the portal between life and death,
heaven and hell,
this was where people waited,
arrived, departed,
the interface between different realities,
different levels of waiting.
I was so smug in my discovery
that it never occurred to me,
that I may have the correct interpretation,
but the wrong location.
Years later,
about 18 minutes ago,
two blocks from the BH drive In,
I wandered into, the James Bay Inn.
The place
Alcohol interfaced with lips,
glasses with alcohol,
dreams with reality,
ketchup with chips,
keno with poverty,
alcoholism with sobriety,
circular conversations with each other,
heaven with hell,
death with life,
and a multiplex of parallel universes
with no connection other than waiting.
The place where everything waits.
The waiting room.
four and a half minutes later
4.00 pm:
Toking time,
they're dead, but moving,
crawling towards the outside,
past the glowing exit sign,
turn left,
lean on the wall,
light a doobie,
man thats good,
I watched with out a sound,
Dickless on the job,
these fuckers can't keep still,
gums flapping ,
secrets vomiting over the blacktop of the empty car lot,
I snagged and bagged them,
filed them into my photo memory
and headed for the docks.
The docks were teeming,
third week of the cruise ship season,
giant vibrator transportation for the blue rinse babes
now dockin' and rockin'.
Ageing gigalos,
shit faced since 9.00 am from cocktails and viagra,
pimping their impotance to polyester raisins with waining trust funds.
I smell cash,
trouble follows cruise ships,
cash always follows trouble,
the dark nights here don't wear batsuits.
I, Dickless, the cowgirl detective, quiver, fiddle with my Webley, turn and---
18 years earlier
The boat was small,
surrounded by ocean it seemed really small.
Dad was lying on the bottom,
blood clogged on his forehead still unconcious from the beating,
Mom was dead,
hands tied behind her,
throat cut,
legs broken.
I was 12 years old,
in shock and shaking.
How did this happen?
How did we get here?
I seemed to be in a fog,
is this real?
Am I dreaming?
A pain stabbed through my stomach,
I screamed,
heaved,
and puked.
then I saw it,
a stetson,
a fucking stetson was lying next to dad,
it was on his head,
not dads,
the man,
the man with the ball-peen hammer,
he had worn the stetson.
For a moment the fog seemed to lift,
i could see the man, the cowboy,
he was laughing as he broke her legs.
18 years later
--there he is. No! It can't be,
I have the stetson,
he's older but,
I can never forget the face,
wrinkled,
evil etched like Dorian Gray,
leering and sleezing his way between raisins,
the viagra has worked,
but where to put it?
Pick one.
Pick one.
He still wears a stetson,
not the original,
I wear that,
it was the only thing that left the boat with me 18 years ago.
18 years earlier
I glanced to the left, a motorboat was lashed to the dinghy,
the cowboy looked up, caught my eye, laughed and leaped over the side into the boat,
threw it in gear, or whatever you do to motorboats,
and roared off into the fog.
Mum bled.
I fainted.
3 hours later
My eyes opened,
caked with green scabs they opened to slits,
I was lying between my parents,
their blood mingled and oozed into my psyche.
I was burning up,
my lips were cracked but fresh water was drizzling gently upon them.
"What!
What!
Who are you?
How did you get here?
Where did you come from?
Mum! Dad!"
They were silent.
18 years, 3 hours later
I fingered my Webley,
my gut wrenched,
that fucker was still alive,
still operating,
only now it was cruise ships,
and old farts,
unsuspecting in their cocktail trances and polyester pedal pushers.
Mutton dressed as lamb, ready for slaughter,
and dr acubmas , the demented cowboy, was ready for them.
The place: 4.35 PM
"I need you to pay your tab"
'What"?
"I need you to pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet"
"I'm going off shift, I have to cash in"
"What"?
"I'm going off shift, I have to cash in"
"I'm not done yet, bring me another beer"
"You have to pay your tab"
"What"?
"You have to pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet, bring me another beer"
"I can get you another tab, but you have to pay this tab first"
"What? bring me another beer"
"I can't serve you another beer till you pay your tab"
"I'm not done yet"
"I can start you another tab, but you have to pay this tab first"
"What"?
"I can start ---"
"I heard what you said, this is bullshit, you want me to pay this tab and then you will start me another tab, and then you will bring me a beer"
"Yes"
"But I'm not done yet, bring me another beer on this tab"
"I can't serve you another beer till you pay your tab"
" This doesn't make any fucking sense, I started a tab so that I could drink till I'm done, then pay. Now you want me to pay this tab so that you can start me another tab, then you will bring me a beer"
"Yes! I'm going off shift"
"So give my tab to the new waiter"
" I can't, you have to pay this tab before I can get you another tab"
"Then why the fuck do we have servers, I could have got my own beer from the bar and paid for it each time"
"You can't get your own beer if you have taken a table"
"This is totally fucked"
"Could you please can the language or I will have to call security"
"What"?
"Could you please can the language or I will have to call security"
"Security"?
"Yes Security"
"Shove it up your arse, I'm out of here"
"Security, security, to the front, stat"
The Dog
She's been around a long time,
part of the family you might say,
she was my K9 partner, my drug sniffer, my back protector.
She could sense a lowlife and smell a weapon before a two legged partner could fart.
She saved my life so many times that without her I felt naked.
I am not sure when she became incontinent,
when the house started to smell like dog piss I guess,
dead give away.
Every day at two,
what ever I am doing I head home to wash her arse and change her diaper.
This does tend to put a crimp in the day particularly if I am on the job
and the shit is about to come down.
Stakeouts are unforgiving,
you can't just call time out and fuck off home to take care of geriatric animals.
Talk about Kafka,
my whole life is Kafkaesque.
Custom diapers,
who else has a fucking dog that requires custom diapers?
I had thought about buying adult diapers at the drug store and cutting a hole for her tail,
but fuck,
the shop girl might have thought they were for me.
I might be dickless,
but I ain't clueless.
the dwarf
Standing on the corner of Fort and Quadra in the pissing rain waiting for the lights to change,
a stranger than fiction moment shook me awake.
A mini bus pulled into the parking meter next to the corner.
I had glanced and noticed that it was being driven by a dwarf,
this in itself is not unusual but,
the lettering on the side of the bus exclaimed
" The Cowboy Church of Christ".
A few things flashed through my mind,
why is a dwarf driving for the Cowboy Church of Christ?
I probably would have taken no notice at all if it had been driven by a cowboy, but a dwarf.
Has this church anything to do with my "Cowboy"?
Is this some front for his evil goings on?
This was too odd to ignore.
By the way, the dog died.
Eighty two years earlier: 1924:
Dance night in Chicago:
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz band was beating the shit out of Canal Street Blues, Armstrong’s cornet was wailing and punching holes through Johnny Dodd’s clarinet solos as dancing and dealing went hand in hand.
Prohibition, the greatest legislation of the new century, had filled our coffers,
we were rich, we paid off cops and judges, took politicos on the ride.
We were flying, booze and broads, numbers, protection, prostitution, and soon a meeting of the clans,
a bold suggestion,
a corporation,
control the world,
start from chicago,
start from today.
December 1962: office of the attorney general
"Shit Bobby we can't treat these guys this way, they are willing to help us with the Fidel problem, but we have to give them something in return"
"They are going to have to go ligit or we are going to blast them out of existence, we can't have a bunch of escapees from 1920 Chicago running the fucking country, and that's all there is to it"
Texas School Book Depositary,
Dallas Texas,
November 22, 1963,
18.00 Central Standard Time.
Two characters are staring blankly at each other.
”What chance of liff this mortal coin of dread would have”?
“Drat I that this augments my brainpower, do I give take give the bullet for thee”?
“Spit spittoon a toon of timex ticktock ticktock foresay a great and guilded father clock”
“Muck-a-rake and bring me back to tomtomtommygun fire and break the pattern of existance, will you not come forward withr your plotting and your sceming, take the mediscene like a main”?
“O deaththreat give me help to kick your arse from here to hear a scream, a blunderbus or rifleruin mish mash slap dash corned beef hash”
Enter character#3
“What are you two rambling about? We’re here to do a job, we’ve been well paid and I am not going to let you screw things up”
“Good john tommy, you get my drift but loose the way to give some bluing. We too have here-to-fore with golf stick clubbing bring about our task for nooners”
“Eateateat and run the pizzaria down the toilet, stomach rumbling, arse a burning, head a pounding. Skip skip skip a lip, a leg, a dog, a tyger run for willem blayke, that man o blues whilst billie holliday screams the musick of her drug bust”
“Which one of you geniuses has the gun”?
“Aye”
“The telescope”?
“Hee”
“Bullets”?
“Ballots bollocks rollocks horrocks oarlocks forelocks four clocks”
“That bookcase is on wheels and can be pushed to the window and used as a rest for the gun. We wouldn’t want to miss, there are no second chances”
“Chances dances prances nancies pansies fancy foibles liables labels, looks like dewey maybe hewey louie donald ronald dreaming scheming hatching batching bitching glitching babababang. give it too-umm”
“Whos got the sandwich? with the mustard, hunger strikes a blow for breakfast, eggs a gone and grog a gog, pass it over. Tanks”
“We Have a couple of hours to kill, now, let’s go through this one more time”
“Holy shit! What now”?
“Fed my musandwich to doggy, ate the lot and broke my fast, ho ho ho ho and why not?
say I, the dickens gives the spirit to a goy with broken leggins”
“Can we victor ligature him, or is bang bang nicely quicker from this dispense”?
“Hey! Shit for brains, keep your lagging mind on the task at hand.
Pass me the scope, I need to memorize the layout”
“Feed my bulwark to the tinker give us al-aways to hit on target, grace the finger, fateful, faithful, breaker the skull down, mush her braims up”
“How’s the dollar, mush did we get”?
“Thrifty tousand, mony dollars, able now to go to seaman, travel far and always wide. By that dreamboat doris day, move to holywood, lammed of plenty, green and foibled, full of fairies, twits and pansies”
‘Looks like the motorcade will be coming up the street on time.
What time have you got”?
“Don’t bother, I’ll look for myself”
“Treedy tree two fore”
“I said don’t bother, I’ll look for myself”
“Bang bang with dumdum, mush her braims up”
“Another twenty minutes and we will be able to hear the crowd cheering the motorcade, that arsehole doesn’t have a clue what’s coming. How’s number 4, is he set up on the knoll? Will he be able to get in a rapid round? We can’t afford to fuck this up there’s big payola involved and we don’t want to find ourselves on the other end of someones bad temper. Wheel that bookshelf over here so that I can get lined up for a head shot, don’t want to miss, that would really fuck the opera.”
“The greek has to have what he has to have no matter what the cost, can’t keep his dick in his strides. So, make fucking sure that we get this done right or the mother will be after us”
“ Let’s go lie and wait to fore the kill, and bitchen big boots runs to cover, plan to heidi out in austrial, mis-trial, windy, windy city on to chi-cargo. operata singer, sing sing her single, grope and mingle, mangle mangle, she’s a tough bitch, blast the scratched itch”
“Shut the fuck up, I’m thinking. Listen, do you hear? The crowd, the moment. Number two, bring me the fucking scope I have to clip it onto the gun. Speed it up you fucking moron we don’t want to leave it until they’ve gone past. Number one, the bullets, bring the fucking bullets, I can see the limo.”
“FUCK! I missed, I hit him instead”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, leave that idiot Harve to take the rap. FUCK she’s going to be pissed about this.
thirty nine years earlier
"what's the payoff Jimmy, did the mayor come through? "
"It's big, we can keep the prostitution, gambling, protection and booze as long as he gets his fifteen percent and we keep the hits to the lower end of town, he doesn't want blood on his lawn."
eighty two years later
I'm standing in the mall thinking about what I can buy for Christmas, I hate Christmas with all its commercial crap and religious bullshit.
I glance around and spot a bookstore out of the corner of my eye.
Books,
you can't go wrong with books.
I scoot inside and look around,
now it's choices, thousands of choices.
There's a coffee shop in the bookstore, things are looking up, I wonder if it a 'Tims' franchise.
No such luck, it's a fucking Starbucks.
The Americans are everywhere with their 'coffee shop and war against terrorism' mentality.
Fuck it, I need a coffee.
I make a beeline for the counter.
"Hey! Coffee guy. I'll have a large coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the coffee guy "I am a barista, not a coffee guy."
"OK" I say "Barista, I'll have a large coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista " we have tall, grande and venti, we don't have large"
"OK" I say "I'll have a tall coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista "Tall is our smallest coffee, are you sure you want a tall?"
OK! I thought, if I order the one in the middle that will probably work.
"Barista" I say "I'll have a grande coffee double-double"
"Sir" says the barista "Four shots is very strong, are you sure you want four shots?"
What the fuck is he talking about?
"Barista" I say "Four shots of what?"
"Espresso"
"Espresso! I did not order a fucking espresso, let alone four fucking espressos"
"Sir" says the barista "You ordered a grande coffee double double"
"Yes! one medium fucking coffee with two fucking creams and two fucking sugars"
"Sir" says the barista
"At Starbucks we have shots,
double shots,
tazo chai, with soy,
cappuccinos,
espressos,
and many other types of beverages.
what we don't have, is
'fucking creams' or
'fucking sugars'."
"At Starbucks, you get your own 'fucking cream' and your own 'fucking sugar' from the auxillary table in the fucking corner."
"Barista! I need a shit, where's the crapper?"
"Sir" says the barista. "The washrooms are back through the bookstore, around to the left, into the elevator down to the basement."
'Thanks"
"Sir" says the barista. "When you get to the basement turn to the left and ask the sales associate at the computer for the washroom door code."
'Thanks"
"Sir" says the barista. "When you have the washroom door code, go back around to the other side of the elevator and into the childrens book section."
"The childrens book section?"
"Sir" says the barista."That is where the public washrooms are situated"
"In the childrens book section?"
"Yes" says the barista "In the childrens book section"
Yesterday
canadian road trip, drive-thru agony, coffee and that Tune
Headed out for a quick road-trip north needed coffee, and Tim's was en route. Sat there in the drive-thru, and didn't move for 60 seconds. Got impatient, and had to HX that plan. HX is just a bit of techie jargon that means "Halt eXecution". It means I had to bail from that lineup. I was at the helm, and a parking space was immediately available to my left. Always a tough decision - to bail on a drive-thru. Like it's a drive thru, OK. And if you're not driving, then what's the point. I can see the lineup inside the joint, and it's not so bad.
So I go into the store, and line up for my coffee. Yeah yeah, a bit of a lineup. English: you line up in a lineup. Time to think about what to order. I already know what I want. 2 XL coffees, Double Double. Decide if I want a doughnut or NOT. Time to check out the Feature Doughnut. Hmmm. Glazed Old Fashioned. Right off the truck from Ontario I bet. Oh yeah, that is part of the doughnut distribution network. There's time to think about whether I made the RIGHT DECISION on bailing on the drive-thru.
I look out there. Nobody moving. It does not appear to be working like a standard drive thru. Hmm. What could be going on? Perhaps the drive thru is broken ? Like maybe a microphone malfunction on that squakee-talkie box they got there wired into the driveway ? Weird. Mebee some automotive issue just around the corner where I cannot see. Some kind of major PROBLEM at the window. Like a coffee crisis or doughnut dilemma.
No. Wait. The drive-thru line is moving. And MINE is NOT. What's going on here? Still standing here, so I scan my eyes over behind the counter to see what's going on. Many clerks seem to be in action. Some moving like a glacier. Groan. I asked for it. I wanted a coffee. Oh well.
So my line starts to move, and I feel immediate relief. I need that validation that I picked the right line. Oh the agony. The thrill of it all! What an event for a Sunday afternoon!
So both lines are moving now. It's like a race. I can see the little grey car that was in front of me. He's got his order in. The squakee-talkie is working. The people in front of me are deciding what they want. Coffees. Double Double. I scan my eyes up to the menu board. You know they recently sacrificed some menu space to put in these big, pretty Screens. Broadcast messages on a loop.
Did you know: That Double Double is in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary? It means a coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars.(those fucking starbucks baristas don't know that)
Hmmm. Wow. I did not know that. It brings to mind something I heard on NPR last week. It was a brief commercial advertising the feature in the next show. It was about whether trivia is mind-numbingly useless, or in fact, makes us brighter. Wish I tuned into the programme. But, not a lot of time for talk-radio lately.
Author's real-time observance: The words are coming really fast now....maybe it is the time of day.....or just that it is so damn fun to keystroke a little creative non-fiction.....like this keyboard too...when it comes to technical writing, I wish I could write with this pace....
"I can HELP the next person in line!"
Well, at least that clerk is on the ball. Waking up the next patron in line. Nice work. She should get an Extra-Effort Shown on her report card. It is almost my turn. I can see the BLUE and WHITE VAN outside in the Drive Thru line. THAT WAS MY SPOT. Ok. The dude has placed the order, and is now en route to the pick up window.
The next clerk is poised, so I take a very confident leap forward to the counter. To take my spot in line. To place my order, and get outta there before the BLUE and WHITE van.
The nameless clerk at Tim's starts his script with "Is this for here or to go". I can see his nametag. He shall remain nameless here.
"This order is to go. I would like 2 extra-large coffees, double-double."
The nameless clerk gets a couple of extra large cups and goes for the creamer-machine. Oh yeah, I can hear the double-pumps of cream as they splash onto the inner sides of the take-out cups. He hears the microwave go off behind him while he is reaching for the coffee pot. He calls out to another clerk, "Hey __________, your bacon is done!". I heard the name of the other clerk as he announced it. That clerk will also remain nameless here. There is something to be said for privacy. There is also something to be said for teamwork. And the clerk pouring my coffee was certainly multi-tasking, and very aware of what was going on around him. What a dude. Helping out his buddy, who was way down at the other end of the line. Maybe, just maybe, his buddy, the other nameless clerk, was serving the dude driving the BLUE and WHITE van ?! Was the driver of the BLUE and WHITE van a bacon-crunching, coffee-slurping, doughnut-muncher ? What a shock that would be.
The coffees come up on the counter, and the nameless clerk punches the order into the keypad. He asks for $3.29. I give him a $10.00 dollar bill. For you international readers, that is the purple one we have here in Canada. As I look for the 4 pennies, he asks me "Do you have 4 pennies?". He has already rung in the transaction, and the till is telling him to give me $6.71. I say, "No, I only have 2 pennies." He says "Close enough.". Ok, so, I pass him the 2 pennies, and he makes believe that it is 4 pennies. He gives me back a $5.00 dollar bill (the blue one), and a toonie. Hmmm. Something has gone terribly arithmetically awry with this, but I do not inform him, as I am eager to get out of the shop, and into my truck, so I can see if I got out before the BLUE and WHITE van. "Thanks!"
I go out and get into the truck, and pass the dwarf his terribly hot coffee.
I say "Keep your eyes peeled for a BLUE and WHITE van."
The dwarf says "Why? He's probably in Mill Bay by now."
Hmmm....the time spent in the shop wasn't that long, but was it sooooo long that I indeed had made the WRONG choice? It's like the same choice one makes in the supermarket when deciding which line to take! Oh the retail AGONY of it all! In the supermarket, you can stand there and KNOW that you're in the wrong line, but sometimes, you just WAIT there and stick-it-out. Determined to stay the course. And then what usually happens is this : the shopper in front of you asks for a carton of SMOKES. NO, NOT SMOKES! The smokes are all the way down in the security cabinet under the customer-service counter, and the cashier has to go ALL the way down there and unlock the smokes to get them out.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
As we proceed carefully down the driveway, leading to the exit ramp, we both peer up to the right, to see what is happening at the drive-thru. There, sitting at the window is the BLUE and WHITE van that is sitting in our position! WHEW - we made it out first. YES! Bailing on the drive-thru saved us some time (dozens of seconds at least) and some fossil fuels.
So we got the coffees. And you're wondering, ok, so where's that Tune. What gives ? What Tune ?!
We head over the Malahat in the rain. Lots of rain. Goldstream River quite full. Lots of water pouring off Malahat mountain and into the gutters beside and under the highway. Where's it coming from and where's it all gonna go....the standard things one ponders looking out the window....
It didn't happen until we were past the summit, and going down the other side. Past the viewpoint. Just past the entrance down into Bamberton.
I changed the station on the radio.
We were listening to a jazz program on KPLU, but I punched up something a little more along the lines of classic rock. Something to make this Canadian road trip truly complete. Something to remind us of who we are, and what we are doing with ourselves on this most rainy day, with our terribly hot coffees.
Randy Bachman. Taking Care of Business.
to be continued