Chapter Twenty-Three
I walked the streets of Universe City for days on end. I knew where the taxpayer was paying for heated bus shelters as well as the location of a donut shop that would give me a cup or two of hot water. I had knowledge of a certain apartment stairwell that was safe. As I plodded along, I heard in my head, repeatedly, the hallucination saying, “You’ll get yours…” How prophetic can a voice from thin air be? As if they hadn’t gotten enough pleasure from predicting the ending of another chapter in the rags to more rags story mine was becoming, the voices were still with me, trying their best to convince me I was without worth. They commented on my clothing, in particular my green pants tucked into old knee high boots:
“You look like a cat.” “I think he’s Puss‘n’Boots.”
I decided to hitchhike to the city of Regina in the province of Saskatchewan. There was nowhere left to go in Winnipeg. I’d hit bottom as far as a homeless person was concerned and I’d been told to leave there and not to come back. So, with nothing to lose, I left.
On the way to the highway I stopped in the transient friendly donut shop I had been frequenting. Sitting down I ordered a cup of hot water. Beside me two guys were talking about Gordie Howe. One friend informed the other that the man was entering his thirty-second pro season. “That’s a lot of hockey,” I said. They looked at me and went back to their conversation.
Over the radio the dj was giving out the secret to long life. “SShhh, listen, listen,” one of my neighbours said to his companion. “Okay, loyal listeners, here’s the secret to staying around on this planet for a while. It seems a Martha Cooper of somewhere in Ontario, I forget where, turned one hundred and six today. Hurray, Martha! How did she do it? Well, first off, she never married.” There was a general titter in the room. “Secondly she spent a great deal of time living with her brother and sister-in-law. When they died she moved in with their children and then their grandchildren. What is the secret to long life? Stay single and freeload as much as possible.”
The man beside me chortled at first and then guffawed. I said, a little too forcefully for someone who’s only buying water, “She’s just a little old lady.”
“You talk too much,” the burly man said, “mind your own business.”
“And now here’s a classic from 1974, Gloria Gaynor and Never Can Say Goodbye.”
“When are they going to outlaw this crap,” the redneck asked more to the dry, smoky, thin air than to anyone present.
Dog days of winter. Even the birds and animals were in their shelters. I was some way from Winnipeg and, as if it things weren’t glum enough, the blustery wind was in my face, demanding, in wind language, to know what I had up my sleeve. I prayed for a ride. I begged the Almighty to make the wind change. If severity were a problem, I’d settle for a change in direction. If God were in a listening mood, it would be nice if the bitter, confrontational wind would stop trying to convince me to run for cover, as looking around I could see none.
A man stopped around the time I was considering making myself a bed in the manner of the sled dog, that is, lying under a covering of snow in a bid to keep warm. He turned out to be one those old guys who never seem to go anywhere but ‘up the road a ways’. My spirits sagged because it seemed I’d be back outside and cold again before I could even warm my bones. I summoned up a bit of nerve and asked the old man if there were a restaurant or gas station in the area that he could take me to.
“Well,” he drawled, “There’s a gas bar about a mile past my stop, but, well,” he checked his fuel gauge, “I suppose I could take you the extra mile.”
When he said the words, ‘the extra mile’, I was touched. When I was well I believed that the gnarled old man who gave me some of what he valued most, precious time, along with many others who went the extra mile when I was in a time of need, rubbed off a little and made me a better person. At the time I was sick and I knew that I would be warm and that was enough for me.
The gas bar had no restaurant. There was a pop machine and a vending machine that sold chocolate bars, chips and a few apples.
“Who would ever buy one of those apples,” I asked, unaware that anyone was listening. Moved by the spirit of absentmindedness, I was giving voice to my opinion, forgetting that my words were audible to anyone with ears in that cramped, cluttered and mercifully heated, multipurpose rectangle. I turned around and realized that the owner of the sorry business, an unfortunate enterprise whose misfortune was that it was stuck in the very heart of nowhere, was standing there, listening. I felt obliged to apologize, I mean, after all, he was letting me get in from the cold.
When I’d finished prostrating myself he responded by saying, “Don’t worry about it. You’re right; I wouldn’t buy one of those apples. They’ve been in there for ages.” He jingled his keys and laughed loudly. I tried to match his laughter decibel-wise with my own, but I was too flustered and only managed to giggle in a flimsy way.
It became mid-afternoon and I was sleepy and warm. There was a hazy sun in the sky; a yellow globe that gave me the impression that now and then it was taking warmth when no one was looking, instead of giving it unconditionally. I thought it was a good time to be going so I bid the apple man goodbye. The snow crunched a bit as I walked but the wind had died down. The snowy landscape was enticing in much the same way as a flesh eating plant is to its prey. I didn’t want my tombstone to say, ‘He died while admiring the view’, so I walked up and down the highway, trying to keep moving, holding onto warmth as best I could.
A black car pulled over and I ran to it. I was drawn to the car like a bull to the arse of a fat woman in red. I was sure it was warm; it had the presence of a comfortable car even though it resembled a hearse.As I neared the vehicle, someone opened the black, rear door. I shinnied in and was about to speak but one quick look told me to be quiet. By my astonishment you’d think I’d never seen identical twins before I laid eyes on the passenger and the driver in the front seat.
I rudely stared at the two men, oddities of nature; right there in the middle of nowhere. They were dressed identically, black hats, black coats, same shirt collars. The passenger had twisted the rear view mirror a bit and was watching me as I gawked. He turned around.
“Not from around here, are you?” he asked gravely, though I could have sworn a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth, making them twitch.
“No,” I replied, “no, I’m not.”
“Well,” he began, stroking his beard, “We’re Hutterites. Don’t be alarmed; we love the Lord, you know. We’re not some kind of mind control cult or anything. We just choose live a bit differently. If you’re going a ways, I suggest you spend the night with us, in the colony that is. Nobody’s using the schoolhouse, surely you can sleep there.” He looked a question at his companion who seemed to nod his approval.
I didn’t say anything but the voices had started to invade that car like eels in a freshly sunken horse’s head. What had he said, hut, he lived nearby in a hut, a mud hut, what?
“Of course they live in huts, fool…you’re not getting out.”
“Ha-ha. The mudhutter. You’ll be there forever.”
God I hated those hallucinations.
While grace was being said, I was peeking through squinty eyes at a nightmare in the making. Everyone was dressed the same, and would soon be eating off of identical plates and drinking from indistinguishable cups and glasses. The women seemed afraid to look up and I thought that this was so because they felt shy around me or perhaps because of the requests being asked of God. I too bowed my head, wondering sheepishly if God would forgive me for spying on people during prayer.
When we were all seated, I heaped my plate to overflowing and, all smacking lips and fingers, wasn’t in the least concerned with looking like a starved swine at the trough. I hadn’t eaten to excess in a long time and I was going to do so while the food was in front of me. I ate as if it were my last meal. There was so much food and all of it so kind to the palette. That chow was so wholesome you could almost see the building blocks of life in it.
All that food did funny things to my head. I dreamt vividly that night in the schoolhouse that my parents, my two brothers and I were all seated around the table getting ready to eat. We all had beards and we all wore black hats, pants and coats and checked shirts.
“Would you say the grace please, Bob,” my father asked humbly. I heard a guitar and turning around I saw Bob Dylan as he started to sing, “You gotta serve somebody, yeah, you gotta serve somebody, It might be the devil or it might be the Lord…”
Turning back I saw that I was alone with my father who was chewing on a piece of straw. His beard was gone and he was wearing a wide brimmed hat. He was looking at me strangely and then he smiled widely and said, “We kinfolk now, we all be kinfolk.”
I left the colony with a smile on my face. Two days later, I encountered a strange night that stole that smile from me and stayed with me for a long time. Begging rides from Winnipeg to Regina in the winter wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times but that one damned night seemed to be symbolic of the whole experience. It would all be engraved in my mind for years to come. For quite some time, wherever I was, when I had to go out in the cold I would remember it.
What I couldn’t seem to forget was spending the night sleeping fitfully on the bathroom floor of a gas station, perched outside of a small town. It had to have been minus thirty Celsius. I don’t know why the gas jockey didn’t lock the bathroom door that night, but mercifully, he forgot.
It was one of those washrooms whose toilet looks as though it’s never known the abrasive back and forth of a scrub brush. It was a can that wouldn’t have been itself without paper towels strewn across the floor, graffiti on the walls and rust in the sink. Reading some of the chicken scratch therein, I learned who would do what to you for a buck and what her phone number was.
When I lay on the cold floor, I felt the wind come under the door, a steady stream of frigid air invading my sanctuary, my place of refuge. Curling up I did my best to stop thinking about the cold. Eventually I fell into a dubious slumber.
I sat up a few hours later, fully awake and in a panicked state because I‘d heard a chicken and several drunken teenagers. I went out to investigate and found that there was no one there. I was sure that it would soon be dawn.The sky seemed to be lightening up a bit.I went back to the highway and there wasn’t much I wouldn’t have done for a ride. From time to time, I went to the gas station’s bathroom hoping to coax just a little warmth from the cold-soaked porcelain accessories and tiled walls.