Little Jake Gets Charged
8 June 2012
At noon the sky was threatening rain. It had rained earlier and the streets were still wet. The first friend I came across was Serge.
“Hi, Serge, how’s everything today?” He mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out.“Did you say, ‘not bad?’ ” I asked.
“Not yet,” he replied and chuckled.
“Take care, Serge, I’ll see you on my way back.”
“The others are all up there,” he pointed up the hill.
Sitting on the lawn were a dozen of the regulars. Lying on the grass, sound asleep, was Shakes.
Joy came over and said, “I wasn’t panning today because Chuck and I had a big fight. Chili has been staying with us. This morning before she left for school, she took some pills and drank half a twenty-six ounce bottle of Bacardi. We got into an argument and Chuck took her side. She isn’t the one paying half of the bills; I am.
“I packed all my stuff into my bag and set it by the door. Anyway, Chuck got mad and threw my bag across the room. I said to him, ‘I’ve got breakable stuff in there. If anything is broken, you’re in big trouble.’ I checked and everything was okay.
“He phoned me later and asked, ‘Are we through?’ I said, ‘You’re the one who hasn’t been talking’. So, I don’t know what’s happening. I just know that he’s there, and I can’t have the place to myself like I do some afternoons. I could really use some peace and quiet right now.”
I asked, “How is it going with getting your medical card?”
“I don’t know. I’m going through the system, so however long it takes. I really need my meds. I’m psychotic, schizophrenic and I have all these voices going around in my mind. I can never get a good nights sleep.”
I sat down between Ian and Andre who said, “Don’t sit on the grass, it will stain your clothes. Sit on my jacket. It’s dirty anyway.”
“Thanks, Andre.”
Silver said, “Dennis, are you sitting on the grass. Here’s a newspaper. It’s free.”
“He’s not sitting on the grass. He’s sitting on my jacket.” said Andre.
“Oh,” said Silver, “I didn’t see it. I guess you don’t need this then.”
“Thanks, anyway, Silver,” I said.
“Andre,” I asked, “How did everything go, yesterday, after I left.”
“I went to check on Little Jake. There were two bicycle cops talking to him. One was a big muscular guy with tattoos on his arms. Jake kept mouthing off to them. He was charged, the cop gave me a carton of smokes.”
“He gave you a carton of smokes?”
“Yeah, then I got up to leave and he said, ‘You don’t have to go, if you don’t want to, but this guy, meaning Jake, has to move on. You stayed quiet when we asked you to, so we’ve got no problem with you.”
Rocky was throwing up blood in the bushes. Joy said, “Rocky, stop drinking and eat something. I know you haven’t been eating. Here’s a bagel you need something in your gut.” He ate the bagel.
“This is the first thing I’ve eaten in five days,” he said to me.
Ian said, “You know, I inherited a twenty-seven thousand dollar commercial fishing boat. I don’t own it any more. I kick my self for that. My sons will inherit it when they turn eighteen. It’s working now. It brings in about seven hundred thousand a year. I don’t see any of that.
“Marlena wants me to quit drinking, but I explained to her. ‘I can’t just quit like that. It takes time and I need some help, but I’m working on it.”
“You seem to be doing well, Ian,” I said. “You seem to be sober now. Even at Alcoholics Anonymous they stress one day at a time. You’ll get there, if that’s what you want.”
Ian said, Marlena and I were sitting on the sidewalk yesterday. I had just opened a beer when a cop stopped at the curb. I said to him, ‘Officer, this is my first drink of the day. Can I please have another swallow before I pour it out?’ He said, ‘You lift that beer and I’ll kick your teeth in.’ I said, ‘Okay, if you’re going to give me a ticket, go ahead. If you want to go (fight), we can go. It’s fine with me. You put your gun down and we can go right now.’ He just gave me the ticket, but I’m going to see my lawyer. He threatened me and Marlena is my witness. I’ve got a good lawyer. I don’t know why the cop couldn’t have just been polite. We weren’t causing any trouble. He could have said, “Excuse me sir, would you mind pouring out that beer. It’s against the law to drink in public.
“Another cop said to me, ‘Ian, if you shave off that beard and moustache we won’t charge you next time.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? Do you mean that I can walk past you, drinking a beer, and you won’t give me a ticket.’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s what I mean.’ ”
Andre said, “The other night — well I guess it was four thirty in the morning — Shakes and I were wandering around. We went to the Toronto Dominion Bank. Ian, Marlena and Hippo were asleep on the floor. Ian was closest so I said, ‘Ian’. There was no answer so I said it a little louder ‘Ian’. I kicked his pack sack under his head, no response. I kicked a little harder, still no response. Shakes said, ‘Ian, you want a drink?’ and his hand shot up. ‘What do you think? Of course, I want a drink.’ Hippo just said, ‘Fuck off, I want to sleep.’ ”
…
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