Tag: youth

House of Horrors…4

…That evening, at supper, nothing was noted or said about what Timmy and I had witnessed. After what we had witnessed, the whole dinner scene was surreal in its normalness.  We didn’t dare say a word or question Mrs Redfern’s antics, especially with her butcher knife in hand. There we sat, somewhat self-conscious of our surroundings, as we were newbies here. So we sat there on one side of the large dining room table, silent yet polite in our countenance.

Being the first at the table, we could observe the comings and goings on of this household at dinner time. First came Robert. He sat at the head of the table. He introduced himself, we ourselves, telling us without us asking that he had a very important job at one of the city’s daily newspapers. Okay, we thought. But there was something off about Robert that we both sensed but couldn’t quite put our finger on. He was about 40 with a balding comb over scalp of thinning hair. His face was thin, angular, somewhat soft and feminine, but featureless with protruding eyes, a straight nose and pouting lips that surrounded a pouting mouth. We would learn in due course that he pouted a lot. He would never make eye contact when addressing or talking to you. He always seemed to shy away from confrontational opinions and conversations, or questions. Perhaps socially he was a passive aggressive individual although at that time I had no idea what a passive aggressive person was.  He was also extremely boring yet pretentious, the most dangerous type of individual to come across.

Then came My Johnston. He was a young 91. You could tell that he spent most of his life working outdoors in hard physical labour. He looked the part: a face rough hewn and full of wrinkles. Turns out he was in logging all of his working life, a “faller” by profession, extremely dangerous work. He had a thick cropping of snowy white hair, all of it there, but curly on top and on the sides. It was lowly cropped and made him appear years younger than he really was.  He had a square face, a tough and prominent jaw and the bluest of eyes I had ever seen. Indeed, his eyes were so blue and so deep and so crystal clear in their gaze and their outlook that they seemed to draw one into their aura, like some visual, virtual magnet, pulling one deeper and deeper into his soul. I had to give my head a shake. His hands were huge with long bony fingers with palms as hard as granite and as calloused from years of hard, tough, physical work in the bush.

Mr Johnston was of a very high intellect even though he lacked any formal education. What he learned or grasped from this world he acquired from books, from personal experiences, from relationships and from living a long and fruitful life. On the downside however, he had no family to speak of and all of his friends and associates were long dead and gone: just memorial blips or flashbacks of his past occurrences. It must be hard, I thought, to watch all of your friends and acquaintances fade away to a dustbin of personal historical record. And what must have seemed important at the various stages and moments of living a life soon become irrelevant in death in the overall fullness of time.

Finally there was Scotty. He arrived non plussed and took his place not at the table but at the kitchen sink. There he stood, forthright, upright and downright paranoid at something or other that was on his hands, his fingers, or his palms. Scotty only knew. He would turn on the faucet and let the water run over his hands and forearms all the while looking straight out the window mumbling something to himself or someone that only existed in his fragile mind.  Once in awhile he would look down at his hands, at the water cascading over his palms or the backs of his hands, rubbing them for what seemed to be an eternity. It was as if he was trying to eradicate some unknown scourge on his person. Something that only he could grasp or comprehend.  Timmy and I turned and looked at one another, in disbelief, incredulous; words that could not accurately come close in describing how we thought about this latest character in this House of Horrors.

Finally, Mrs Redfern walked over to the sink, leaned precariously toward Scotty then turned both faucets off. This seemed to snap Scotty out of his funk. He turned and took his place at the table. He sat there, looked straight ahead at nothing in particular. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable and not waiting for Robert’s introduction I introduced Timmy and myself to Scotty. He looked at me, then at Timmy, briefly, grunted an acknowledgement I think then returned to his own sense of a warped reality…

House of Horrors…2

…As she stood there, like an aged anorexic, she wielded a butcher knife in her right hand. Up and down it went as she eyed us both with suspicion then queried us as to our business there.

“Hello Ma’m” we said, I said. “My name is John Morrison and this here is Timmy Saunders. We were sent here by the city as they told us that we could get accommodations here. We just arrived from out of town and are looking for a place to stay.”

“Okay boys” she said. “Come in, come in”

We followed her in. She sat us down in the drawing room, looked us over for a minute or two, then smiled and told us we could stay. Price? 50 bucks a month, room and board.  And that was it.

Room and board, 50 bucks each a month? Holy shit, no shit. Yes, yes we said.

“You do know the city will pay the first month for us?” I added.

“Yes, yes I know” she said. “Don’t worry boys. It’s all in hand. They just called me before you called here. Your room will be in the basement. But you’ll have to share a room, and bed. Don’t worry; it’s a big, big bed. And no hanky panky”

Innocent though that we were, this was still a strange thing for both of us. As it turned out it was not a problem. We were not that insecure in the least.

“One bathroom, on the top floor”

“How many people live here I asked?”

“Lets see,” she said. “Dear me. There’s Robert, yes Robert…a very long time resident here that Robert.  Then there’s Scotty. Poor old Scotty. Scotty is kind of crazy in the head but don’t you worry at all because he is harmless…poor Scotty,” she moaned.

“Oh and there is Mr Johnston…ninety one years old now Mr Johnston. But not sure how long he will be with us in this world.  Could go at any time y’know” she laughed, looking at us and wielding that knife.

I looked at her accusingly, suspiciously, and frighteningly at the butcher knife that she still held.

“Then there’s you two, and me.  Just me. My husband died some years ago. This old house is all I’ve got. I sleep on the couch in the drawing room. Yes, yes, and Robert has one of the front rooms, to the left on the second floor; Mr Johnston has the other front room to the right and Scotty lives in the back room, also on the second floor. Nobody is in the attic. Not yet anyway.”

Okay boys. Yer room is down the stairs there. Supper’s at 530. I pack a lunch for you both. Breakfast at 7am.  Will see you then.

That was it…

House of Horrors

We found the accommodations fairly quickly. It was in an old house in the city’s west end not far from the University and not far from the British sounding bay and beach and city park. Funny that beach for there was an extremely large public outdoor swimming pool adjacent to and at parallel odds with the sand and surf of the British sounding bay. It was somewhat oxymoronic to me in having a public swimming pool situated on a beach beside the ocean.

We parked the car on the street and slowly walked up to the front door of the house. We double checked the address to ensure ourselves that we were in the correct location. The house itself looked to be about 100 years old, with some grey beaded glass stucco siding and cedar cladding on its exterior. It had a very large front window showcasing a very large and cluttered drawing room – as they called living rooms in those days. There appeared to be a basement, a main level where we were standing, a second story with two opposing windows followed up with an attic that had a very small window as well as vents. The roof was extremely high, “A” framed, with a very steep angular pitch to it. There was minimal front grass and the steps leading up to the stoop and front door were of the basic stamped concrete pad formation. The front door was large: of wood, dark and heavy. The house was one of many similar designed houses for the area and it was situated on one of the main streets of this community. – Fourth Avenue I do recall.

“Well, here goes,” we both said to no one in particular.

We rang the bell and waited in nervous anticipation. Waited! Waited! We rang the bell again then heard in a very high pitched squeaking female voice:

“I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your horses now, I’m coming” she squealed in an impatient drawl.

We couldn’t see her, only hear her weak lilting voice.

We detected a number of latches, or locks being sprung, about five it seemed, and then the door slowly opened. We looked straight ahead but saw nothing, nothing but a long dark hallway that led into a very old fashioned kitchen with a window that provided light and a view to the back laneway. The air was heavy, musty and badly perfumed. We could hear the TV from where we stood.

“Down here boys.” she whimpered

We looked down, in disbelief. Standing there in front of and below us was an old lady, in her early 80’s I would guess, maybe late 70s. She stood there about four foot eight inches tall, dwarf like and as thin as a waif. Her hair was curly, thinning, multi-coloured and stood up in such a disorganized disarray of hair that it appeared as if she had had electric shock therapy up her ass.  She was heavily made up.  Her lipstick was of bright red in colour but missed her lips entirely.  Same with her eyes. I think they were hazel but it was difficult to tell with her old fashioned rimmed glasses and eye make-up that also missed the mark. Her painted eyebrows were orange brown in colour, crooked and situated well above the upper rim of her specs. She was draped over in a brightly coloured day dress and slippers that had that pom, pom puff look on the slipper tops that were all the rage and fashion in the 1920s. Or so I am told.

The Two Stooges…5

…A few hours later, after a good breakfast and a cleanup, we drove around looking at our new surrounding, although it was hard to see anything in the pouring rain. We decided that we would apply for welfare just to get our feet on the ground. We located the municipal government building, parked the car, and went over to the facility. There was a long line-up from the office’s front door, then down the street, around the corner, and down a block or two. There were old men, old women; young men, young women; many Native Americans, young and old; hippies, young and old; well just a cross section of life itself in this part of the world. Welfare was a disconcerting all inclusive service that was indiscriminate and unsympathetic in its application. It had no pretensions whatsoever with respect to class distinction.  No, welfare treated everyone exactly the same.

And just then a young man came running down from the offices and the front of the line as excitable as one could be. Looking at no one in particular he shouted out for all of us to hear:

“Hey Billy, Hey Billy” he yelled. “I got fifty bucks!”

“Great,” Billy said, “Let’s spend it” some unknown entity answered, eagerly.

We were all excited, for him and for us.

Off he went with his best friend to have a wonderful and insightful day of booze and drugs. Within a day or two Billy and his mate will have run out of the financial juice and be forced to scrounge for scraps and drugs and live on and off the street in the city’s East End, or at least until the welfare’s maven’s call to muster yet again on this avenue of distilled dreams. It was a never ending pendulum rout from want to waste: a cycle of hope of anticipated elixir followed by deep despair. “There but for the grace of God go I” I thought yet here we all were waiting in line together, like seals yelping on a harbour pier, with anxious determination that our applications for approval or continued support from the man will be granted. Unbeknownst to Timmy and I we just happened to pick the worst day of the week to apply for assistance – Welfare Wednesday. Unlike Timmy and I most of these people were already approved. They were waiting for their cheques.

After a considerable wait we finally made it to the front of the line. There, face to face with the government official, we were drilled with expurgatory type questions that seemed to spell impatience or indifference on the part of the agent. There was no compassion or expectation for and on us by him. After what seemed to be an onslaught of useless questions we were directed to an office to wait for the next cull of disingenuous applicants.

We were finally interviewed, but one at a time, separated as if we were common criminals. I, we, explained our situation, basically, homeless with minimal funds. We needed help but only temporarily you see. We wanted to work. Whatever it was, the agent seemed to like us for we were immediately provided with a cheque each for fifty bucks plus a lead on basic accommodation. If we decided to stay at one of the identified flats on the city’s approved list of flop houses the city would pay for the first months rent. We accepted, thanked the man and were on our way. We almost felt like yelling to the world when we left that building: “Hey world, we got our fifty bucks. Now let’s spend it” Yes, all was good with the world.

That was the one and only time in my life that I applied for Welfare. That 50 bucks got us our start in life on the wet coast. I have never begrudged anyone who has gone on welfare for one never knows the individual circumstances or the personal stories that steers one into social desperation and dependency.

The Two Stooges…4

…When I returned home from my first west coast sojourn I was quite vocal about my experiences regaling all who would listen about the majestic awesomeness of the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. I never did tell them about the greyness and soul wrenching loneliness that came over my entire psyche out there like some wet mouldy blanket. It wouldn’t have played very well in a macho sense to say I was really homesick. Yet, by the time spring came along Timmy and I thought about ditching everything we had and heading west to seek our fame and fortune. It never seemed to dawn on me or us that geography was not a determinant for personal success and glory. Going west was just an excuse for us to delay the inevitability of personal responsibility and commitments – growing up. At that age and during those heady days of drug induced comas and out worldly consciousness it seemed like a good plan.

It was a Sunday afternoon. Timmy was over at my place when we decided to go, on the spot. Timmy had a 1965 Galaxy 500 at his disposal, a very large family car with a very big trunk. Enough to hold 4 or 5 spare balding tires, which we felt we would need given that all of the tires on that car were bald. We had sufficient funds for gas, food and smokes. No need for accommodation as our plan was to drive continuously until we reached the coastal city. Hare brained scheme I know but that is how immature dudes like us thought in those days.

I immediately went in to tell my parents that I was off again to the coast, only this time with Timmy. They were non-plussed about this as I think that by now they had just about given up on me and my irresponsible ways.

“What about your job” they asked

“I quit”

So off we went. Of course to hide our fears and anxiety we joked about the whole thing thinking and jesting that the area where we lived was just too boring and flat. We had to find the mountains. So we did.

We made it out there early Wednesday morning, after about 56 hours of driving, taking turns at the wheel while the other slept in the back seat. Lucky for us there were no mishaps. Even our tires held up. The plan now was to find some 24 hour diner and wait it out until the city came to life later in the day.

It was raining… of course it was….