LOND HO ADVENTURES PART THREE
DECEMBER 1992
It’s always at this time of year, when the BVS Towers foyer is decorated with gigantic X-mas trees, tremendous silver balls, pink bows, and golden garland, that one hears a barrage of ads on the radio and TV about those ‘less fortunate.’ Apparently these are the people aren’t as fortunate as those who own radio’s and TV’s. Granted, these are people without food for the holidays, but are they not hungry all year around, and not just the third week of December? Whatever. Not everyone considered ‘less fortunate’ is going hungry however, some of them just don’t have enough cash for expensive prezzies for their six kids they made the choice to squeeze out, and even for these kids there are a myriad of ‘toys for kids’ programs; just visit any mall in town if you have a doubt about this. I cannot help to reflect also that if X-mas wasn’t hyped so, if it wasn’t built up by our ultra consumerist society, that those who have a little less than others when the holiday season rolls around would not be so sad, so distressed that their kids don’t have all the latest toys, video game consoles, and two-hundred-dollar-a-pair sneakers, which are by the way manufactured by dirt poor children in fascist countries. People in this country don’t know what ‘less fortunate’ means!

Boxing Day is upon us again and that means one thing: the annual dinner party at the home of Bill’s parents. The two of us had been cashing in on this particular holiday treat for years now and each year the party seemed to get more gluttonous, more extreme and this year would prove no different.
I pull on a pair of well-worn black jeans and a black t-shirt and wandered into the TV room where Bill is watching CNN.
“Right, I’m ready lets go.” I announce. Bill looks up and gives me the once over before grudgingly turning off the TV. He is becoming a regular CNN junky, as to him all other programming on the telecaster is but “fodder for the addle-minded,” and “blatant thieves of my valuable time.” He has a point of course, even with the nearly forty channels we receive with our “free cable” there is scarcely more than two, or three hours a week I ever feel like watching.
“How we getting there?” I axe, knowing the answer already.
A nutty grin comes over his face and he whips out a pair of bus tickets from his shirt pocket.
“Swell,” I say, snatching one of the blue and white coloured transit ducats from his fingers.
Bill picks up the fire engine red phone and punches in the number for Calgary Transit which he knows off the top of his bean to find out for us when the next train is due, meanwhile I pull on my ratty, old, black tweed overcoat with its patched elbows, and dog chains, all held together by every size of safety pin imaginable. I’ve hat the old coat since the tenth grade and was adamant about keeping it no matter what. Every time I visited my parents my mother would try to spirit it away, and toss it onto the trash heap, and every time I would catch her in the act and rescue the old boy from certain doom.
“Seven minutes.” Bill announces, jumping to his feet from the relative cushiness of the Big Giant Leather Chair. I pull on my fourteen hole DMs and cram the ratty laces into the boots, having no time to properly lace them up, as Bill puts on his Canadian Forces Parka and slips into his size thirteen Vans.
We make it to the train platform with seconds to spare and quickly find some seats on the relatively empty train car. I put my boot up onto the empty seat beside me and start to lace up only to have the thing snap. Bill chuckles at my misfortune as I curse the old broken lace, tossing it to the muddy floor in disgust. I finish lacing up as best I can and shake my head. I look up at the signs all around me that warn me not to put my feet up on the seats. “Fuck it,” I say shaking my head. I lean my back against the window and put both feet up, figuring if I had to ride the filthy, stinking, public transit for the next hour or so I might as well be comfortable. There are few things I enjoy less than riding the transit system in this town, with all the bums, and grubs, and gang-bangers, and shit-heels, that frequent it. This time wasn’t so bad however, being early evening on a statutory holiday, which had me thinking that even the dregs of humanity must be spending the holiday season with their families.
After what seemed like twenty years in a Turkish prison, the train is finally slowing and coasting to a stop at the Rundle station. We step off the train into the frigid, dry, December air. It’s the kind of cold that no matter how bundled up you are, no matter how much you try to protect yourself from it, just sucks every last drop of warmth, and moisture from your body, leaving your skin raw, flaky, and dry as tinder, ready to burst into flame at the tiniest of sparks.
Through the glass door, and into the interior of the station proper and lo and behold! This is where all the lo-lifes are hanging out! Four or five “young offender” types with backward hats and big pants are standing in front of a pay phone (which, I suppose they would claim belonged to them) trying to look tough while a couple of smelly grubs are standing guard at the top of the escalator, daring people to walk by without giving away a bunch of their hard earned cash. Bill and I ignore their demands for change and stride past them without even a sideways glace. This seems to enrage them beyond what a polite “no” would have so they start coming on real bold-like with us.
“What? You fucks can’t even answer us? We just want your change!”
Bill turns his head and says over his shoulder: “Change comes from within,” as we push through the second set of doors and out on to the pedestrian bridge that crosses Thirty-Sixth Street and leads to the busses and the parking lot. One of the bums calls out to us as the doors are closing behind us: “Merry fucking Christmas cocksuckers!”
We jump on to our connector just as its pulling away and flop down in some seats near the back. The bus, of course stinks of piss and defeat. There are three other people on the transport with us; one a young, timid looking girl reading “The Vampire Lestat” by Anne Rice, and the others, two grubby looking vagrants. One of them lay sprawled out and unconscious on the bench seat behind the driver in a puddle of his own drool, the second only a few seats in front of us, arguing with himself, his shit-filled trousers stinking up a small section within about a three foot radius of his seat. This poor bastard I actually feel a twinge of remorse for. Clearly he has some kind of mental deficiency, and since the loony bins were shut down, all the patients who had no one else to care for them were cast out into the streets and it was sink or swim. This poor cunt is one of those who had clearly sunk like a stone. What can anyone do? Giving him money wouldn’t help, even if I had any to spare. All I can do is give him my pity, and all the pity in the universe won’t help a shattered mind.
Our stop comes up and we plow through the side doors and into the frozen eve, and just when I think I can take no more of this oppressive cold, we arrive at our destination. Bill’s mom greets us at the door, dolled up to the nines in a red party dress and at least six pounds of Mary Kay make up plastered to her face. In her hand is a martini with two olives that I suspect was not her first, second, or fifth.
“Oh, the boys are here! You made it!” She slurs with delight.
“Mother,” Bill says curtly, pulling off his military greatcoat.
“Hi Bill’s mom,” I say with a mirthful grin.
This makes her cackle madly, “Oh, don’t be silly! Call me Maureen!” She says, slapping me on the shoulder and sloshing some of her martini on to the linoleum. She quickly leads us to the basement where the food spread is located. There is a huge table in the corner of the room with a plastic tablecloth for all the cold snacks. There are trays of bite sized vegetables, crackers of every conceivable type, as well as a huge variety of cheeses, cold meats, potato chips, nachos, and deliciously doughy looking home made doughnuts, some covered with thick chocolate icing, others stuffed to gills with blueberry jelly and dusted with powdered sugar, and last but not least, a giant-ass bowl of hot buttered popcorn. The second table has the hot snacks; Chicken wings in three varieties, (hot, barbeque, and salt n’ pepper) sitting in big, stainless steel serving containers with hot plates underneath. There is another container of the same kind filled to the brim with dry ribs, and yet another teeming with Swedish meatballs. This is more food than either of us has seen in a month. I quickly grab a paper plate and begin loading up while at the same time giving the other guests a courteous nod as Maureen introduces them to me.
My eyes finally stick on the corner of the chesterfield beneath the window where Bill’s younger brother Tommy lounges. It’s been a couple of years since I last saw him, a couple of years, and a couple of hundred pounds. He reclines on his portion of the couch like Jabba the Hutt, his fat fingers in and out of a huge bag of Hostess salt and vinegar potato chips. He stuffs his face continuously, seemingly heedless of the shards of chips that fall from his mouth and fingers, down the front of his stained white t-shirt and on to the floor where they are quickly vacuumed up a plump, black, fuzzy cocka-poo named Cuddles. Woe be to the one that tries to grab a hand-full of chips from that bag! He shall have nothing left to show for his impertinence but bloody stumps where once there were fingers!
Bill grabs a plate as well and elbows me in the ribs, pointing out a lonely looking blonde girl sitting in the corner next to the bar where his old man stood, pouring himself another double dark and dirty rum.
“See that girl?” He nods in her direction.
“What, am I hard of seeing? Of course I see her!” I say, shoving a barbeque drumette into my pie hole. The last time the two of us ate was X-mas day at my parent’s place, so I was feeling a little anxious to get eating.
“Well,” he goes on, “She is the girl from next door that I used to baby-sit years, and years ago.”
I nod my head, impressed, “Shit, how old is she now?” She looks at least twenty-one to me with her long silken hair, bright blue eyes, firm round teats, and long legs stretching out from the hem of her pleated mini-skirt. But maybe I’m just getting my hopes up.
“Nineteen actually.” He says with a rakish grin.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” I say before stripping the meat from another drumette.
With our plates piled high with snacks we saunter over to the bar to get us some much needed libation.
“Sherry to start us off?” Bill axes, innocently. Before I can answer he launches into his best impersonation of “Uncle Monty” from the film Withnail and I. “Or perhaps ‘a small rhesus negative Bloody Mary.’” I pick up the sherry Bill pours for me and down it in one shot before shoving another yet drumette into my mouth. I bite down on the bone, give it a turn, and then slide the meatless thing from my mouth in one quick motion like the chicken wing master that I am.
“Alright, Natasha?” Bill inquires, motioning towards the nearly empty drink in her hand. She looks at her glass and downs the remainder in a single gulp. Bill relieves her of her empty glass and axes: “What are you having?”
“Rye and ginger,” she says a little sheepishly.
Bill expertly whips up Natasha’s drink and hands it to her, all the while pouring a couple of double black rums for us.
I polish off the first plate of foodstuffs and meander back to the serving tables to load up again. I pick some more chicken wings, some of each variety, and a couple of doughnuts. Looking in the direction of the bar I notice Bill chatting quietly to Natasha, he motions over to me, then looks at her, she shrugs non-committaly. I wonder for a second what that was all about before crossing the thin carpet to my empty barstool. Bill jumps back behind the counter the moment I sit down.
“What was that all about?” I whisper.
“Oh, nothing,” he looks around conspiratorially and touches his nose, “I’ll tell you later.”
At that moment there is a great ruckus at the front door.
“That’ll be Lupe,” Bill offers, and within moments his older sister Lupe appears at the top of the stairs, her two brats tromping, and stomping, and screaming behind her. I take a sip of my drink and shake my head. Neither Maureen, nor Bill Sr. were in any way even remotely Spanish and I could never get a satisfactory answer as to why they thought naming their first born “Lupe” was a good idea.
She greets her parents with hugs before she grabs a “Bud” from one of the coolers placed strategically around the room for those who didn’t feel like walking the ten or so steps to the bar. Lupe flops down in a chair and pops the top, the whole time the kids are tearing around the house, screeching and shouting with their Power Rangers action figures. Bill Sr. shakes his head and takes another swig while Maureen attempts to capture the unruly brats one at a time so they can “give Gammy a kiss.”
I wolf back the second plateful of food and am just about to take a sip of my drink when one of the little guttersnipes slams into my legs and punches me in the nuts with all the power of the Red Ranger. The shock of it nearly topples me and half of my delicious rummy cocktail sloshes out on to the bar-top, and my black shirt.
“Sunuvabitch!” I winced, taking a few steps back from the little bastard.
“Sunuvabich! Sunuvabich!” The tiny monster aped, jumping up and down.
“Dewy!” Lupe growled, not moving from her seat, “Settle down!”
“Sunuvabich! Sunuvabich!” He continues shouting, before he kicks me in the shin, while at the same time he tosses the Red Ranger figure over his shoulder.
“That’s enough!” Lupe shouts, throwing her empty beer can at Dewy, beaning him upside the head.
This shuts the bastard up, but only for a second, then the screams, the screams, the screams. Dewy lets out a high pitched squeal that slices through my eardrums like an exact-o knife, then as if somehow wired to his brother’s torment, the other brat kicks in with his own rendition of the “classic fit,” screeching like he’d just had a limb ripped off by a thirty foot Great White Shark.
“That’s it!” I say, grabbing my drink and running up the stairs to the kitchen, with Bill right behind me.
I sit down at the kitchen table that is piled with at least another twenty bottles of booze, and take a long slow sip of my rum.
Bill sits down at the table next to me.
“So it’s all set,” he says.
I finished my drink, “What’s all set?”
He gives me a grin, one even more mischievous than the last.
“Natasha,” he says, “she’s going to come back to the apartment with us tonight for drinks.”
I had to burst his bubble, “That’s all good and fine, but we have nothing to drink back there.”
He glances at the nearly endless variety of bottles spread out across the table.
“What?” I say, “You want us to steal a bunch of booze?”
“Not steal,” says he, “liberate. And not ‘a bunch,’ only two or three bottles. I mean, look,” he points at the table, “there are three bottles of rum, three bottles of vodka, and a load of other shit. You’ve got your back pack, I’ve got the huge pockets on my coat… it’ll be a cinch.”
Before we knew it the three of us were half way down the block, the noise of three partially consumed bottles clinking together with each step. Each footfall bringing us closer to the main thoroughfare and the bus stop. The huge, blue, lumbering transport arrives in a few short minutes and soon we are on our way to the station. The train stinks like a urinal without the odor absorbing white puck, and in a little more that a half hour we are in the lift, carrying us to the thirteenth floor.