Just Add Ali

Claire bought a Persian carpet because Ali offered an irresistible price. The carpet depicted a garden or cemetery; there were little crosses in bright pink yarn. It was late winter she had a cold, the carpet was an impulse purchase to brighten things up.

Claire lived downtown in a shabby house with her 9-year-old son Max and covered the mortgage by renting rooms to boarders. She could handle the day-to-day stuff, daycare and groceries, but she sometimes had to scramble to make holiday times special for her tiny family of two. There were lonely times when other partnered parents couldn’t triangulate Clair and her son into their plans and having boarders plus kids around all the time meant she didn’t date. Occasionally Claire longed for something more but mostly she liked the independence and didn’t think any relationship would have lasted anyway.

Sometimes when she showed up on a guy’s radar it was obvious, it seemed to happen most often with Mediteranian guys. There was Ahmen from up the street, a big handsome Egyptian with brown eyes and the best pecs in Kensington Market who turned into a giggling, thumping puppy if she so much as glanced his way. Once as she and Max walked home at dusk, from his roof Ahmen strummed a love song loudly improvising her name into the song. On a disability pension after an accident as a firefighter, he needed pot to stave off his PTSD induced and repellant yelling fits. He often told her they would be great together.

There was Chapado Johnny, who had for years wandered daily along Baldwin Street in a liquor haze, a bottle of homemade wine dangling in flimsy plastic shopping bag. When he saw Claire and he would somehow articulate, “I love you” with a thick-tongued voice and Portuguese accent.

Most guys who courted her had assets, a business or property. She presented an instant solution to some: just add dad and, voila, a nuclear family. Claire was not looking for a husband, but she understood the old world logic, if only she could devote herself to such a simple concept.

Ali’s store was near her house and he lived upstairs. The store window was piled with colourful oriental rugs usually topped with two fat sleeping tabby cats. At first Ali introduced shoppers to his pretty brunette German wife who worked with him in the store but when her daughter went to a German university, the wife got lonely and went back too.

Ali needed helpers to fling back the rugs when he was selling; he gave Max a job on Saturday mornings. Ali came to Claire’s house himself to install new broadloom in the basement. When he finished and she tried to pay him, he looked past her, around her home and refused the cash.

The following Saturday Max came home with an invitation for tea. On Sunday Ali showed mother and son around his tidy apartment, the clean kitchen and the empty bedrooms. There was an entertainment and a sitting area. She could see a roof garden out back over the showroom. He settled Max in front of the TV, motioned Claire towards pillowed furniture. He made chai tea and served it in small glasses with heaps of coarse sugar and sat himself in a rattan chair like a throne. There were little shortbread cookies, pistachios and dates. He explained his situation about his wife leaving, trying to manage the store, living alone and complained he couldn’t sleep.

At the store on Monday afternoon Claire dropped in to give Ali an herbal sleep aid. He looked at the little bottle in his hand then up over the cats, out the window and muttered, “thank you”.

She was surprised a few weeks later at a carpet sale when Ali introduced Claire to his new wife, a tall lady with long blond hair in a flowing orange dress. Ali had been looking for a wife and told the customers that he was moving the store to his wife’s hometown Calgary. Soon the shop was gone. 

A year later the phone rang at Claire’s house, she picked up, “Claire? Hi, it’s Ali. Remember me?”

Claire said, “Ali? From the carpet shop? You don’t sound like yourself.”

The caller defended he was Ali’s brother, also named Ali. Really, was there a brother? She couldn’t remember and she didn’t believe him, although he sounded Persian. She could hear someone else talking quickly in the background.

He went on, “You bought a carpet, right?” He seemed impatient, even frantic. “You know the store isn’t there anymore, we have a truck full of rugs and we’re having a big sale tomorrow.” It was hard for Claire to piece it all together: Ali must have bundled all the carpets into trucks but didn’t he drive them to Calgary? An image of twin trucks streaking on a highway came to mind, one driven by the blond lady in an orange dress and the other by a thrilled and grinning Ali. Or did someone buy a lot at an auction that include sales lists? Or was this his brother? It felt like a trap. Did Ali owe someone money? He had been in the army. Could these be Iranian secret service trying to trap him some way?

Claire stalled, “Give me your number, I’ll phone you back,” she needed time to think.

“My number?” there was more impatient talking, “I can’t find the number. I will call you.” They both hung up.

She waited and was relieved when he didn’t call. Ali never came back to explain.

942 Words

The Tide Of Chapado Joe

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In a downtown world screened off by grapevines, Chapado Joe lived his whole life on grilled fish, crusty bread and cheap homemade wine. He didn’t realize fate would require of him only one choice.

     In the beginning Joseph was thought of as special. He was a polite, good-looking boy with intense eyebrows, dark curly hair and a charming smile. He was popular at high school and his ball hockey team became Ontario Champions; the peak of Joe's success.

     Chapado Joe drank everyday.

     On Baldwin Street loud fishmongers in scale-splattered smocks would call him “Hey Chapado!” to hose the gut-strewn floor or other horrible jobs for a cup of homemade wine. He would collect empties to buy bottles of booze, which you could see sticking out of his dirty, oversized coat pocket. Sometimes Joe would stand in the middle of the street, yelling in a voice so husky it was hard to understand, his arm outstretched with a stubby finger pointing a downwards “I live here”; in halting mini sentences, depending on his mood, “Fuck you" or "I love you". One thing he knew was where to be when the wine came out.

     Often at the bakery, drunk in the afternoon, Chapado Joe would be told to leave. On automatic pilot he’d make his way back to the garden where his family used to live. He would teeter onto a flimsy chair and blearily look at the hands on his lap. Later, sitting there, he would pull his coat over his head and with just his knees and boots showing, sleep.

264 Words

Lucky Emily

Emily was a lucky person. All the ladies at work told her so when she, surprised by her wins, would share coffee coupons or things from the Avon catalogue. However if she expected to win, she wouldn’t get anything, she could not take her luck for granted.

      One blustery evening Emily found two live lottery tickets outside her door. After a solitary,  gloomy supper, while letting out the cat, she noticed the official looking wet tickets blown against her door step.

      Occasionally she’d seen expired tickets blowing in the wind, when disappointed gamblers set the chits free hoping the liberated wishes would come back and bestow better luck next time. Emily didn’t play the lottery, she preferred her risks to be less obvious, but she could tell these were lucky tickets.

      She knew what she’d do if she won sixty million dollars. She would buy all the cottages on a nearby cul-de-sac, build beautiful, sustainable studio homes, a community kitchen and fill the enclave with friends. She would travel and live for a while on every continent, leading a different life in each place. Dress in bright fabrics and laugh all day with someone she loved. She would sail, bike or maybe ride horses everywhere.

      The yellow tickets were slightly damp, and both had a smudged signature that looked as if the author couldn’t write very well. On the back the claims investigating process was described. She had heard about someone who had lost their receipt but still got fifty million dollars without it.

     Nobody would know they were a little further under the doormat. Emily called the cat and went to bed.

285 words

Warrior Mom

We sit side-by-side, mile after mile as I drive an old silver Focus borrowed from Su. With winch window handles and elementary electronics, it’s like the inside of an old purse: stained upholstery, littered with wrappers and tissue. My friend Su hordes her stinky stubbed out cigarette butts in the side door pocket; she doesn’t like to pollute the environment when she pollutes herself.

      She and I are the same height so usually all I have to adjust is the radio station from rock to talk ‘n doc. She’s not here today though so the radio is off, the car white-noising the silence.

      Grey sweat-panted legs beside me are stretched under the dash, the seat reclined and hoodied head turned away maybe sleeping. Like a farmer to her herd, I urge the cars driving around us, redirecting, reacting and giving praise at 140 kilometers an hour. Counting exits, I’m trying to remember, like every other time, if its 16 or 19 which gets us there more directly.

      Cutting across all four busy lanes, on the exit ramp we clique up with other much nicer cars: a sport parent convoy. From here on we’ll travel as a pack, our boys rousing from late nights and dull weeks to fish around for socks and cleats, water bottles and mouth guards; Toronto’s warrior class getting ready to play Saturday morning rugby with a kiss goodbye.

1st Assignment: Intro to Creative Writing: Car Characters:
Warrior Mom 

Bad, Terrible, Worst

The lives of three young men are altered over 5 days in July.

Monday: Kyle rented a room in my house. He’s scraggly with faded jeans, and a skateboard, he’s not a stoner, Kyle’s drug is liquor. 

It was a horrible to come home to a messy house. There was a mess in the garden too: tobacco, ashes, bottle tops, a mini-Ziploc baggie, and a skateboard. A dried up splash of sticky on the back step, Jack Daniels bottle propped against a flowerpot, intact except one corner smashed away; this was the scene of a binge.

It was 4 in the afternoon; Kyle was asleep in his room. Not realizing the party had just broken up, I pounded on his door, until I gave in and tidied up myself.

At dusk, in the garden, my friend observed, “There are two guys in the kitchen?” Two? I went to investigate. 

A stranger was cajoling a befuddled Kyle, dazed by alcohol and lack of sleep. They had met Friday, drank all weekend. Kyle got fired Monday morning and to console him, they had drunk. Dude went to get more booze and here he was, waving a mickey of something in my kitchen, insisting my young tenant pay attention to him and that I stay out of it.

I stepped into him, forcing him backward, past Kyle’s room, out the front door. They tried to justify through the drunk why it’s ok for someone I don’t know, just out of prison (2 weeks), shitfaced, vagrant should be welcome in my house. My point was that Kyle was just a kid, very drunk, who needed to sleep it off, so he could figure everything out including how to deal with me.

I made the mistake of poking one finger to force dude over the property line. I didn’t realized he’d left some things on the front step: a Timmy’s cup with the shards of the JD bottle, unbroken seal and uncracked lid possibly qualifying it for a refund, and a 7 foot, two by four, the crossbar from  sidewalk construction. He freaked!

I yelled for my neighbor to come and ran for the phone to call 911, I saw Kyle crying in his room. It was all happening so fast. Suddenly there were more people on the scene, neighbours in a holding pattern waiting for the police.

Dude ranted; frustration born from irrational alcoholic entitlement. He wandered down the street hitting things, swearing, not calming down, not a bit. Calling 911 again, the operator told me they’d got other complaints about him. 

No police came. Time passed. He was still raving a block away. Tired and worried he’d come back and despite the heat wave, I locked the house up tight. Kyle was already asleep. That’s the last we heard of it.

Tuesday: During the heat wave my son 15 year old son and I walk the two blocks to the local outdoor pool. Having rounded the corner back to our street, we were alarmed when a police cruiser did a “U”ey beside us; another one was doing the same at the top of the street. There was a formation of officers, familiar after the G20 wearing boots, bulletproof vests, carrying shotguns, running down the street. 

An officer holding his arms wide told me “stay inside your house, mam”.

My son anticipated, “Dmitri”. 

We met Dmitri when he was a baby and his parents first brought him home from Russia. A natural athlete, he is big for his age. At odds with his parents, occasionally a police car would pull up at their place. Its impossible to imagine how such a nice family could have problems that could only police could resolve. 

The SWAT darted along the paths to our houses, indeed centering on Dmitri’s house. Some SWAT went trough the open door some went around the back. There were a lot of people gathering, some recording with cellphones.

We all heard it “Get down, get down!” They brought out Dmitri, hands jiffy-clipped behind his back, pushed him onto the cruiser, slapped him on the back of his head when he looked up to gauge the situation, grabbed him by the elbow, roughly shoved him into the back of the car and slammed the door. Just like on TV.

We yelled, “He’s just a kid. He’s in grade 8!” Because of the cuffs, inside Dmitri was turned sideways, crying, he called me. The sitter passed his phone, Dmitiri’s folks were coming. The police shooed me away, in a few minutes the cars and Dmitri were gone.

Dmitri’s parents had left him with a social worker, who had kids and was suggested by their church. The two conflicted when the sitter declared “I need to know where you are” and Dmitri replied, “You don’t live here, so leave” with a shove. I heard the sitter had bloodied his shin, then called the parents, who told him “if he’s too aggressive, call 911”, which he did. 

The only thing different between his call and mine the day before was the gun. Dmitri had gun. An air rifle it’s a BB gun. By the time the police were running down the street, it was already stashed away at the sitter’s place across the road. Dmitri was released without charge and moved to a teen group home, is talking to his folks and visiting everyday. Things will work out for them, he will go to high school, he’ll find something he loves; he will thrive and excel.

Saturday:

The sirens signaled another tragedy. We live downtown in forth-biggest metropolis in North America; sirens and emergency helicopters are normal. When the rhythm changes, we pay attention. It happened the night Sammy Yatim was killed. 

It’s all over the news right now but I suppose it will have died down by the time you read this; Sammy Yatim was a 19 year old, recent high-school graduate, Syrian immigrant, who took a turn for the worse on a streetcar one Saturday night in July. By the time police arrived he was alone onboard. Then a police officer shot into the streetcar nine times and Sammy was dead. You can easily find the video online.

These stories are all wrong: police should have shown up so I could sleep reassured. They should have realized from experience Dmitri was a rational kid. They should have let Sammy stew. At least he’d be alive. 

What if Dmitri in his backyard had a something in his hand, would he be dead now? What about my son and his friends? If they have a bad night, will they be dead? Is anybody exempt from misadventure?

People come here from everywhere, lives unfolding on our doorsteps. It’s our lives too: our children, our families, and our community.

Eulogy For A Junkie

Eulogy For A Junkie, by Venetia Butler, June 19 2013

People are gathering at the Amadeu’s patio because Fred Mamo has died. Amazing really, as long as I’ve known him, for 23 years, he’s been a junkie. I can say it; he’d be the first to admit.

Also known as The Plate, Amadeu’s is a bar and restaurant here in Kensington Market.

One of the first things Sara M. excitedly told me about Fred, coming home one morning years ago, besides his accent and him being a good dresser was he did heroin too, like it was an unexpected bonus: those were our priorities in 1991. He soon disappointed her, so I don’t trust him.

Don’t get me wrong, I used too, it was just he was ever-present at The Plate, seemed smarmy, always dapper, a cheerful dandy, gainfully unemployed, drunk and drugged. For a while, he wasn’t around. Sometimes it happens here.

There was Julian: panhandling in the lane in KISS boots and fancy florescent wigs, a black guy, rumored to be the son of UofT profs, beaten to death.

Paris: selling hot sauce exuberantly on the street, gone overnight to a heart attack.

Bruce: a big man with a big red beard, in a kilt and a tam, he was a window cleaner, the tools of his trade aerodynamically strapped to his bike, going door to door, then gone having killed himself.

Bosh: handsome, East Indian, BFG, with a big dog, wanly smiling one day, dead of an overdose the next, like Handsome Ned.

Amadau: the amicable owner of the bar, having watched his patrons try to poison themselves night after night, year after year, dying prematurely in a car crash.

Jeez, the list goes on and on and on. There aren’t many women on it; we ease the remembrance.

People on the patio will remind each other how Keith Whitaker died. He fronted The Demics who sang the song, that goes “I wanna go to New York City, ‘cause they tell me it’s the place to be.” Someone is still getting royalties from it though I’m told he hated it. He was a “good” cranky guy versus, say, the “bad” cranky ones, (several of whom are on the patio as I write this).

Keith was a serious alcoholic, ex-pat, grungy in the traditional sense, with grimy leather pants, grubby t-shirt, unshaven, terrible teeth, husky voice, ever-present stubby ciggie between gold stained fingers. Flip, honest, self-serving, critical, he’d arrive at The Plate around noon, with a newspaper quartered under his arm as if it were a racing form, then with a cup of tea, in a smoke filtered sunbeam, do the crossword puzzle and scold everyone except his beautiful girlfriend Sue. Usually he was still there long after dusk, evermore vocal with the lubrication of cheap pints, ending the night, after a blowout, staggering to a cab and home on Sue’s arm.

For Sue everyday was a special occasion, with a British accent and prettily made up, she would look deep into the eyes of whatever lonely heart was pouring itself out that evening and make a loyal friend for life. It was high status to sit at Sue and Keith’s table at The Plate.

She was Keith’s support right through to the end. I saw him when the cancer was almost done. He had big lumps on his neck, thighs and torso, remaining teeth gone, he was pale, covered lightly with a crumpled white sheet for modesty on a hot summers night. He died two days later and has been mourned ever since, the events of his life and death repeated into lore at the Amadeus.

I have a personal policy about meeting people at the Plate: do not, DO NOT, smile when being introduced to someone there for the first time. You could end up married to them and only realize years later how your careless nicety had drastically changed your life.

The last time I saw Fred was fairly recently, a sunny day in March. He was crossing the street from the bar to a bakery, well known for street drugs. A gallant lumberjack: he was wearing pressed gabardine pants in a warm colour with suspenders and a red plaid viella shirt. He wore a jaunty hat, Tyrolean perhaps, its colour same as the pants with a ribbon to match the shirt.

He saw me and did this charming Charlie Chaplin one-legged double hop as if he planned to change direction. He had a big sincere, full face-of-delight smile. Then he continued after whoever he’d been following, perhaps R who I gather was his last girlfriend.

For sure he knew then, what we all know now, he was dying of lung cancer; delighted for one day of reprieve, in the sun, in Kensington Market, just doing his thing.

Postscript: I did go over to the Amadeus, much later than invited, around 8:30 when it was still light out. At a table with Adly, Scotty, Shoney, and a lady who had given me $60 when I was down once, but who’s name I’ve forgotten, I recited the first draft and got reminiscences and reminders about Julian, Paris, Bosh, Keith and Sue. A little later at another table I was reluctant, at first, to tell three ladies, all of whom, I think, had been girlfriends of Fred. N.C., S.D., and S.M. (mentioned near the beginning of this article). Each one a tiny bit tipsy, an elegant, composed Toronto dame, with bright eyes and stories for days.

For the occasion S.M. had worn a tiny black chapeau with a showy swoop of feather; perfect for a tujaja at Ascot. She’s carefully she tucked it away for safe keeping until the next time we all mourn on the patio of the Amadeu’s.

December 12, almost 6 months later, its minus 16 degrees out there. I’ve been wearing my parka and freegan aqua Uggs. After a day of meeting with doctors and teachers I was wearily wandering home through Kensington Market carrying a heavy bag of apples when I past the lady who had been so kind to me at the beginning of the summer and just gave me $60 out of the blue. 

I have noticed of late when I passed her she tensed and her spontaneous smile was hesitant. I thought she regretted giving the money. 

Actually it is because in I didn’t name her in this article. She pointed out she’s a KM regular been around for years and she knows some of my friends well. Why couldn’t I remember her name? I apologized and used surgery as an excuse but really its my old habit of not taking information seriously, a snobbery and one-up-man-ship I’ve used for years, I think its pretty common among punks. 

Not very nice to be on the receiving end; her name is Barbette I think, she said it twice I should know.   

I guess she won’t be giving me any money next summer.

Laid off in 2010, I'm Reduced

It’s happened again. Yesterday I started another new employment program and today I’m depressed.
In 2010 my whole department was outsourced to India. Laid-off I’ve exhausted Employment Insurance, got a diploma with Second Career and applied for many jobs. My line of credit stretched after seven months, I applied for Employment and Social Services: Welfare. Since then I built two business plans, I’ve been to the churches filled with secondhand clothes, I’ve sat in waiting rooms watching the jitterrers, hearing the weepers, watching the silence ones acting invisible, who nearly jump out of their skin if you point out their glove on the ground then they flick a grateful smile because you noticed them and were nice.

STEVE ADAMS FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Now, I’m in a pilot job program. The online part has got it all including an avatar to encourage and keep us company. I guess the number of opportunities overwhelms some people and they can’t keep track. More likely we’re helping social services develop a tool to keep track of us, but there is a chance it might work, so we go with skeptical hope.

People understand you better if you show up looking the same everyday. For me a grey denim skirt, t-shirt, sweatshirt; every piece found in perfect condition in the garbage. Shoes? I still have good shoes left over from before; this is my only conscious nod to my old income.

I take food: a piece of toasted bread with nut butter, folded, tightly wrapped in wax paper, two tangerines. Because it’s the first day I plan for a Tim’s along the way. It’s too expensive to buy anything away from home except on special occasions.

My income per month is $650 from a tenant and $650 from the government. $1300 is perfect for my mortgage; I bet you didn’t know people with mortgages could be on welfare? Everything else: food, hydro, heat, pet food, the internet I use to communicate with the program, comes from my line of credit.

And there’s coffee, with tempting institutional baked goods: an under-proofed croissant, (not a mini), oily muffins which moisturize your hands. I wonder if they’ll have breakfast every week, I expect not.

The facilitator seems exciting and reasonable until he declares his own goals for the program: to become manager.

His coworkers sit quietly off to the side. A trim white lady of a certain age in black slacks, a sheer blouse, drugstore jewelry, glasses on top of her head. She’s along for the ride, if the program doesn’t work out, she’ll be back where she started, in the caseworker trenches.

And an Indian lady here for demographics, without the skill-set this job requires, she gives Dylan easy problems to solve.

We sit in rows. Slowly we reveal what got us into this ghastly state: laid off, let go, company moved, outsourced.

Illuminated life stories with hopeful beginnings and unhappy presents. The crème de la crème, lucky enough to be selected based on predictions of commitment and success. If Dylan can make this work, he’ll get to be director of the whole program!

According to the agenda all three facilitators will speak for equal time. In real life Dylan does the talking.

We break into stunned groups. My facilitator has to repeat her question, we not understanding she want suggestions for discussion speakers. We haven’t even talked to each other and we’re going to choose someone to talk to us? I try to work out how they divided the groups, though it doesn’t matter, any way it’s hopeless.

Later, we can’t believe it - we’ll get an additional $100 a month top-up for travel expenses. I’ll walk, I always walk.

In a daze the participants move towards each other, seeking a real human to connect with, a luxury we’ve had to do without on long days at home.

Weekends don’t mean much when you haven’t done anything all week.

I have a few rules to get me through the week: no reading books during “work hours”; it would be too easy to just read it all away. No drinking (actually it’s a plus, I can’t afford booze). Workouts three times a week, no less, no more, see my item about books…

I am often surprised when on the street somebody greets me. Isolated as I’ve become its too late before I realize I could have made small talk. (All my life I hated small talk and now I’m going to create it?)

I still have some old friends, telling me I’m doing great, that I’m resourceful. We have modest meals at home that end early. They send me links to job postings in their buildings, I apply and we never mention it again.

Some friends and family I’ve alienated; I overthink their personal situations, become adamant with unsought-for solutions. Opine when solace is wanted. Will I ever come back and make friends, regain respect?

What does my kid think of all of this? He is aware. The cheque stub, carelessly left beside the computer, turned upright after homework lets me know.

I designed a book recently, for free because I’d have invoiced about the same as my cheque and 100% would have been clawed back. I sent it to the printer today and should feel great and proud. Actually, I feel like a hack.

Trying to recover grace and dignity alone: busy but meaningless, careful but unseen.

Curious, powerful, capable; pushed down, scolded, reduced.