Tag: window cleaning

I Can’t Wake Up…5

…Just like Woodstock there was the requisite pond. There were already fans playing in the water, peeing in the water, shitting in the water. I decided to avoid the water. There were also tents, conveniently called pavilions scattered willy nilly about the grounds. Hippy entrepreneurs sticking it to the man by charging exorbitant prices for the basic necessities of living in a farmers field with twenty thousand of your closest friends. There were craft pavilions; classes on how to make tie dye pavilions; bong pavilions; know your grass pavilions and not the garden variety type either; the ever popular oxymoronic sounding pavilion on how to take acid safely. It was at one of these pavilions that I ran into Sandy, who was already stoned out of her mind. I think she recognized me as she came over to me and stood in front of me looking studiously at me and at me face. Studying every facet of my facial expressions, I could only imagine the contorted psychedelic images rummaging and racing through the dark and warped cornices of her mind as she inspected the blackheads on my cheeks. She smiled, then grinned, then grimaced, all of the time about five inches separating me from her bulging eyeballs with their dilated pupils.

“Hmmmm” was all she could muster in profound conversation.

I asked her if she brought her bodyguard with her, y’know, the guy with the sawed off shotgun.

“Hmmmm,” was all she could say. Still looking at my facial expressions. Head bobbing from side to side.

“Hmmmm” She lifted her fore finger, pointing it at my face, making imaginary circles in the space in front of my face from my forehead down to my chin.

“Hmmmm” then she giggled, started to laugh then in flash, stopped, grinned and ran off with one of her cohorts.

I turned to Timmy and said “Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s going to be trouble”

We left immediately. The hippy lifestyle just wasn’t for us.

That weekend was something of a turning point for Timmy and I. I don’t know why but just as our business was about to take hold Timmy turned weird on me. He began to stay up very late at night, which was a toxin to our particular line of work. It became increasingly difficult to wake him up in the morning. Night after night he would be up, later then later, sometimes staying up all night long.  I’d ask him where or what he could be doing at that time of night but all he could say to me was, “you know how it is.” I didn’t.

He would sleep in till noon, then two, then three in the afternoon. I couldn’t wake him up. And I was shit out of luck as he had the car and that car was central to our business. I tried and tried to get him out of this funk but to no avail. Finally, after about a month of this, I had had enough. I told him that if he didn’t turn this shit of his around that I would have to go back home. He just shrugged his shoulders, turned over and went back to sleep.

Saying goodbye to Mrs Redfern, Robert and Mr Johnston, I was gone the next day, taking the train home to my shit city of a city.

Timmy stayed on the wet coast for the next forty five years. He is currently retired, unmarried and still stays out all night long. Or so I am led to believe. I have barely spoken to him since. To this day I don’t really know what happened to cause him to act like this. Perhaps it was those tie dye shirts and skirts, or those hippy hippy shakes.

Sandy eventually returned home. Today she is somewhat of a recluse, suffering from various mental disorders. She never married. Perhaps it was the drugs or the drug counterculture that set her off. So sad!

Madness man!

I Can’t Wake Up…2

…The jobs just seemed to come our way: by chance, by rote, or by sheer luck, perhaps madness, although Timmy could really put on the charm. One homeowner, happy with the job we did for him, owned a strip mall in the local area. Would we be willing to take that on? You bet. And on and on she went. Just like that. All the customers that we landed wanted us to come back regularly, say every four to six months. Before long and by word of mouth we had quite the catalogue of clients, our own body of work.

We were working, making money, growing. We would leave our digs every morning around 7am, drive down 4th Avenue by the local am radio station and the Last Chance Saloon, a favourite hangout for the local hippy clientele. I always wondered how they stayed in business for most hippies I came across were always broke, panhandling, begging for loose change. One of my future naval colleagues, he himself a hippy at the time, used to sell pencils in the downtown core of this same west coast city. He was pure Officer material for sure.

Yet here they were hanging out at their Last Chance Saloon, appropriately chilling out in their drug induced Purple Haze of life. The real stoners would crash on the front lawn and terraces of the radio station, which was adjacent to the Saloon, which fronted 4th Avenue. We would pass them every morning on our way to the north shore, stoned, crashed, bellies up toward the heavens, like sea lions on the rocks except there was no squawking, no squealing, no cawing from this crowd as they appeared to be comatose. On our way back to our flat from a hard days work these same stoners, these same dudes, these same mans, were still laid out across the green expanse of the radio station. “Hey man, what a life man. Want a toke?” Good gawd. And if they were really bored or stoned they could go up one block, turn left, walk about a half mile and crash at the local Kool-Aid. Man, what life has to offer to a stoner: from Kool-Aid to the Last Chance Saloon. “What a trip man, dude, toker…yeah smokin dude!” And if they were really, really lucky they could catch up on the morning’s children’s show at the Kool Aid, and tune into the show sponsored by the letter “M:” “yeah man, cool man, hey man, what’s happenin man, chilling dude. No man, the letter “D” doesn’t come on til tomorrow man. Far out!…

I Can’t Wake Up!

…With Scotty gone a new tenant appeared. He was young, brash and a few years older than Timmy and I. He was also a drug user and an abuser of alcohol. Consequently he was often sick and soiled himself many, many times along with the second floor hallway carpet and a great deal of the washroom itself.  He always missed his mark. For me it was getting a bit too much and would soon be time to leave.

What of Timmy and I? Well, our window cleaning business really took off. I could not believe how successful we became in a very short period of time. Perhaps it was because nobody like us had ever canvassed this neighbourhood up until now, given its propensity for rain and heights. Or perhaps other purveyors of our trade felt that there was really no point. When we began canvassing and cold calling potential clients they seemed to come out of the woodwork on our behalf.  Then again, perhaps there was something about these homes that was didn’t quite grasp.

Timmy was good with the gab so I left him to chat things up with potential clients, that being the housewives. When we won over a customer it was my job to look at the place and provide an estimate. Normally I was way under. Inexperience perhaps. On some occasions I estimated a job just by looking at the front of what appeared to be a one floor bungalow or a rancher only to find out later that the house went down three levels at the back. All glass with a cedar beam for separation at all levels. No wonder these people were so anxious for us to take on these jobs. Then again it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to ascertain how these houses were built on the side of a mountain for heaven’s sake. I must admit there were many times where I took my life into my hands, hanging there on the top rung of the ladder, holding against all hope that the ladder would not give way. I operated like some circus performer, acrobat and contortionist all rolled up into one. Often I had to balance myself on the top rung, holding on for dear life on the one side while attempting to wash down, squeegee and dry each of the window frames with my free hand. How on earth I didn’t fall was beyond me. I survived. But my life was only worth about ten bucks!…

House of Horrors…3

…Timmy and I went below and took note of our new digs. A very large room in the basement, half completed and just off of an area where our landlady’s washer and dryer area were plus the furnace room and what appeared to be a cluttered workshop: mouldy and dusty, the air would choke an asthmatic horse. We did have a large bed and there were two dressers for our clothes. Comfortable enough. There was even a spot for my “Heath Kit” stereo system and my records, which we brought out with us from the East. Not much in the way of clothes mind you but definitely my tunes. We set all of this up then decided to leave, find a restaurant, and over coffee and smokes discuss our way ahead from here.

Timmy and I decided to go into business for ourselves: a window cleaning business. As we were discussing this fact I couldn’t help but look outside at the continuous rain, mist and greyness of the place. Well, the sun must come out eventually I thought.  No matter. Cleaning windows would have very low overhead. We already had a car, and a few bucks to tide us over for a month. Buckets, squeegees and sponges wouldn’t cost too much and we had all of the water one could possibly have. It was decided then. We also had to purchase a ladder:  a 20 foot extension would fit the bill.

We left and went out to purchase our inventory from a local hardware store. All in all I do believe the total cost came to about 20 bucks, the ladder being the most expensive item on our list. Ready to rock and roll, but where do we go from here.  We hardly knew our area. We’ll start tomorrow. Let’s explore our surroundings now, which we did that afternoon, bearing in mind that we had to be back at our digs for the 530 chow call.

We decided to focus all of our attention to the residential properties of this coastal city. The northern burbs would be our best chance of success as they had views to die for: panoramic vistas over the city, the English sounding bay, the straits and the gulf islands that were in situ haphazardly to the west and southwest of the city’s core. Added to that was the beautiful green suspension bridge that bridged the gap from the city’s main core and large green canopy of a park of old growth trees then over the city’s harbour approaches and narrows to the northern burbs. These burbs, located to the west and north of the city centre and separated by the extension bridge, skirted along the city’s northern harbour limits. In fact one had to be a mountain goat to navigate the streets of these burbs as they meandered uphill from the lower reaches of the harbours quays and wharves and bay. The area also appeared to be an affluent area of homes with small business strip malls. Although this area presented a considerable drive from our lodgings it was ripe for the pickings.

When we arrived back at our digs a very strange and weird occurrence greeted us. As we came into the house from the back alleyway we could hear a high pitched screaming, clamouring, yelling, wailing and shouting coming from the area of the drawing room. Then silence, for a few seconds followed again by a cacophony of rants and curses.  What on earth we thought as we looked at one another in shocked disbelief. Added to that, as we came into the house, the kitchen was a disarray of blazing, boiling and steaming pots and pans of varying sizes and shape strewn about on the counters, on the stove and by the old fashioned farmers sink. But there was no one there looking out and over this disorganized mess!

We called out. “Mrs Redfern, Mrs Redfern. Are you there? Is everything okay?”

Silence, then more screaming. Silence, then hammering of her fists down on the carpet it would appear.

We tip toed through the kitchen into the hallway that led to the front door and the entrance to the drawing room. We peered into the room itself.  In disbelief we saw a very small, frail Mrs Redfern on her hands and knees peering into the magnified screen of the television set, about two feet away: screaming at the top of her lungs at the inanimate characters emanating from the screen into her living room. It was late afternoon wrestling, early evening back east where the show originated. And there, in full physical dynamism, was the famous and legendary Whipper Billy Watson fighting and wrastling some unknown opponent. Or perhaps it was the Sheik, or Gorgeous George or even Bulldog Brower taking on this giant of a man. Regardless, I got the impression watching this bizarre scene unfold that Mrs Redfern was rooting for the underdog as Watson was the star attraction in those days and, what appeared to us, was annihilating his opponent.

Timmy and I just stood there watching, incredulous as what was going on. It was just too weird a scene to laugh at out loud. There she was, Mrs Redfern, our landlady, down on all fours yelling and cursing at every move and at every blow from the Whipper onto his opponent. Her high pitchiness of a voice hurt the ears while her language would make a sailor blush. I am sure they could hear her back east. Yet here she was, our frail and demur landlady, suddenly transformed into a lioness of fury at some indiscretion, misconception of wrestling insanity.  Added to that she held that same butcher knife in her left hand that we saw when we first met her, at the ready, to disembowel any threat to her sense of wrestling fairness and sportsmanship. Timmy and I retreated ever so slowly so as not to disturb this disturbing scene. We would come to learn that this was a weekly afternoon occurrence in Mrs Redfern’s House of Horrors…