Ronny Diehl Media: Vancouver short stories

 

Life in Vancouver

 

Life is often just an idea of how moments of joy should be. We make other plans when life actually happens, just like John Lennon said, or quite said. Having an over yearning imagination definitively will enforce someone to think, or to imagine that life at different time, with different people or in a different location might be better off after all. And what if imagination actually is the force of all existence, the only one that brought humans into humanity. So be careful of what you imagine how life should be and then do not be afraid and hesitate when life comes around and actually is just a glimpse away of your imaginative reality. When you do, you got a serious problem because then you keep asking yourself constantly why you did not make that turn, make that decisive move, did not talk to that lady, did not take that opportunity, did not stay there where you felt existence offered you your place.

Biking around Vancouver is a pleasant thing in the summer. It’s not too hot, not even too sunny. There are better places to move if for the sun. Dwane moved his new shop into East downtown just a couple of weeks ago and the city so many consider the best place to live in shows its darker bright side everyday. Not many outsiders are probably conscious of the fact that this city is a hub for all the lost souls of Canada. They all come here for various reasons, especially the city’s climate and the many institutions and facilities that take care of your stomach to be filled, your sleeping habits that can be served and even your vices that these lost souls have lots of. When you walk, skate or ride around Hastings and Main, the crossroad that exemplifies this scene just like the Haight and Ashbury exemplified the late 60’s in San Francisco, you are suddenly confronted with a life style that any sane human being would find terrifying. The streets are filled by people who either belong into an insane asylum - and indeed there are quite a few that once were in one until that institution had to close and then just send its patients out onto the streets -  a drug rehab clinic or an assisted living. Vancouver looks pretty much the same way with having the same problems like San Francisco. The climate and a system of institutions that take care of the essential needs of the freaks ‘that did not come back,’ in contrast to the origin of the term that meant someone who went to the realm of insanity and still came back sane, brings all these people to the West Coast.

And they wander around the city like zombies in a movie. There is sheer darkness around their eyes. Hope or cheerfulness is an emotion that these eyes have not brought into light for a long time. All the negative attributes of the human condition, fear, anger, greed, fatigue, madness, and lust and so on - sure these eyes will show them. And then you see them walk, walking is something these bodies with their legs are not able to do either, at least not like humans naturally would do. These bodies have been suffering too much, they have been drawn into the habit of alcoholism or narcotics addiction that made them look miserable when they move. Often thin to the bones, barely they are fat, they walk sideways sometimes, often they limp. One can see how difficult it has become to move and walk around. Some of them literally crawl through the streets. Some roll on a wheel chair through the streets. Some roll even backwards on a wheelchair across the Main and Hastings crossroad and then turn around once they reached the other side, this time with shown flexibility, strength and control and one has to acknowledge the fact that there is still a glimpse of hope in the most miserable of all situations. Some just lie on the ground, on the sidewalk, in the halls of First United Church where hundreds are been taking care of night and day. There is a certain air around these people that makes you wonder that darkness is all around and there is a threshold where the human condition becomes something almost zombie like. Maddened eyes of lust and fear look you in the eye when you pass them as to ‘why doesn’t this guy want to fuck me and give me some money for it – would be a sweet fuck though’ - some never even bother to notice you, a woman puking onto the sidewalk that is standing next to an old Chinese man with barely a teeth in his mouth. Chinatown is actually part of the Main Hastings district. Some are panhandling on the sidewalk, some try to sell what they have gathered wandering through town – you see them all over the city with large plastic bags either carrying them over their shoulders or on their bikes if they are smart enough to keep one.

There are hundreds of these poor people lining up in front of a free kitchen everyday, the line reaching the backyard of Dwane’s new shop and house. The gate is locked with a huge lock. Some of them try to read a book while waiting, some argue about something, some just talk, some are just there to catch a free meal and do not bother to wait. Canada is gigantic and there are many ways out there to go and come to Vancouver and on some you even end up hoboing and hitchhiking around the country with 40, 50, 60 years on your shoulder and you just don’t give a damn. But most are dependable on that food everyday. They would not know how to manage to buy proper food elsewhere. They don’t have the dollars, and you need lots in this town. They don’t know how to get a job that would give them the dollars. Competition is high in this town and if you are just one of these thousands hopeless maniacs then there is no job there waiting for you, for sure.

When patient and you wait to almost 2 pm, the line has cut short, is not even there anymore and you walk in, picking up one of the meal vouchers that is given to you on the entrance by a guy that seems not having a history at all. But most do for sure who volunteer in an institution like that. Walk into a large room with around 50 to 60 people sitting on chairs, in rows, in circles, at tables, most seemed bored, hungry, some pretty relaxed, most seemed hopeless. It takes a few seconds to realize that this is a waiting room, the waiting room for the second room behind the glass door where people are actually been served food there. Sitting down next to a lady who actually draws and paints a picture on her labtop. Circles, intermingling within, red and black, she obviously is been doing that for a quite some time. She picks up brush, marker, color with speed and makes her prowess moves along the touchpad. There is a little stage at the backside of the room where a guy with a guitar and microphone who is singing famous rock songs, although with a little twist. It also takes a few moments to pass until it is clear that he does not sing the original lyrics but rather has given the songs a Christian curled meaning. This is a Christian institutions no to forget and the faith has kept these people in hope for the better and obviously these folks who are working here have felt it coming for sure.

There are quite a number of people working or ‘volunteering’ here. One of the guy’s job is to call the next group of people that can go into the cafeteria where the food everyone is waiting for is served. Eventually it is your call and you go in and wait in line again. Lucky you when you came in late, just before closing time. Then it is your first line you been standing in. But it doesn’t take long. One or two minutes and producing the voucher to the lady in her twenties who asks what this book in your hand is about and you say ‘On the road’, ‘Oh great read’ is just another of these moments that the Hobos of the West love and live for. The people behind the counter obviously enjoy what they are doing. Some look in midst of life with their full potential who still might have a history and volunteer for reasons unknown. One guy is especially joyful and talks to everyone, West Coast style, long blondish red hair that grows out of his hat, long nose with quite a few teeth missing, belly that makes him look more bearlike lovable – he definitively has a history. Choosing a place to sit is a good catch. First you think of what would be a better choice, then realize any place is good. All places have  people with thick books of history. None stink though! The food is simple but good. Noodle salad and a Schnitzel type of meat. A few grapes on the side. You taste the love it is made of and this is something that one barely discovers in canteen kitchens. There is a little desert, a cookie, a banana bread or muffin, depending on what you have chosen. The people next to you do not bother you in any way. All are just pleased to be eating and leave with a stomach full of hope.

       

So Vancouver, the magnificent city on the West Coast? I tell you one thing for sure, no where I have ever been in my life, I have encountered a place where thousands of homeless people who almost all have a serious condition of madness or drug addiction wade through the streets of East downtown everyday and try to make their day and with their physicality determine the nature and atmosphere of a whole neighborhood. This is pure horror show for someone who has not been exposed to life, not been living the streets, the streets of Main and Hastings, the street of ‘the needle and the damage done,’ where all that humanity cares for is the next kick, shoot, fuck, booze or if in a better mood, food.    

 

 

 

 

In the frontier myth unimagined

 

Seven weeks of taking ‘FUCK, SHIT, FUCKIN THIS AND FUCKIN THAT, YOU ARE WASTIN MY TIME, HE IS WASTIN MY TIME.’ Seven weeks of change, seven weeks of prosperous harmony, of warm eyes and warm gestures, of hundreds of THANK YOUs and PLEASEs and GOOD JOBs. Seven weeks of wondering how life has brought one into a position of an apprentice learning a trade from scratch, of feeling in sync with the frontier myth, the one that talks about the guy who made his leap to the city near the border close to the frontier, he comes into town with unlimited energies, open to everyone and everything, with a clear goal of making something in life, becoming some’one in life, full of confidence and with the clear idea of moving westward, once everything of the trade has been learned and internalized. He feels that life close to the frontier already is full of limitless options and people full of life and joy for the moment. So he sees himself taking off, of one day taking his pick up – that is the equivalent of the horse back in the old frontier days – and driving it out to the frontier, where the bears live in harmony with the natives, where there is an abundance of nature and restless people that have put their restlessness to an end, out there in the wild. There he can make ends meet, even make himself a little cozy house build with his own hands, with all necessary gear to comfort himself and the wife he always dreamed about having one day. All that is imagined when the opportunity comes around and is taken, so who cares about the SHIT’s and the FUCK’s. The stress level is sometimes high, sometimes all is good and energies run smoothly and everyone treats each other with patience and respect. Work is sometimes hard, hot, noisy, dirty and tiring. Feels good to mess oneself in this. Sometimes its easy going, outside in the open sun with girls being constantly commented on and the 30 year old truck that is driven maniacally through town, always at the brink of killing people just like the one in Spielberg’s first feature film. The girls who are looked after as if that fifty something guy never left his teenage dreams, that of course is a game everyone can play. The music collection is dancy and housy and rocky and grungie and eighty, even eclectic and played loud and enjoyable and weeks long. Another reason to let the moment breath into oneself, and breath out, even though the air is full of metal particles and other fumes that are just part of the job of a welder. The moment they meet and he works his first long day for him, he intuitively knows that something is not quite right here, some kind of human trait that shakes up all wabbles in his stomach. This guy is obviously full of testosterone, energy in constant over heat, and he feels it when he touches the body of this guy - it feels hard like stone. But he keeps on working anyhow, the frontier in his mind and his 20^th century horse pick up too. So finally, the shop is moved into the dark side of town, the one where zombie like human beings stroll through the streets and wait in line at the soup kitchen. He feels his soul darkens down in the new shop doom chamber in the basement after working a week on his own because the sunny boy boss is on a ‘la dolce vita’ vacation mission. The large lofty apartment on the top of the run down house that the boss just bought sheds light into the heart and more work into the hands. But better than working to be doomed. Then the crazy old fool is back from the old world, he clings on the job, even though he has got a much better offer from a different company. But eventually he asks himself why he should take all the yelling, the ‘DO THIS, NO DO THIS NOW, NO YOU HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY, NO LEAVE IT AND DO SOMETHING ELSE BECAUSE IT TAKES TOO LONG’ and all that other crap that engulfs the mind with the feeling of restlessness for no reason whatsoever other than that stressing out for the sake for some other guy’s restless stupidity.

So he moves on, calls the other company and tells them that he made a mistake. ‘Why? Didn’t you say you feel obliged to stick with the old boss?’ Oh yeah, he is a good guy and I like him but he treats me like shit and that makes it even harder’ was his answer. ‘Ok, you got the job.’

The next week is a relief. No more nagging from the back of your mind that you are working too slow and COST TOO MUCH. The work load is clear and self-explanatory even though people make sure what you have to do. No more metal dust that cloaks up your nostrils and stick like glue, no more metal dirt under your finger nails that would not go off even after a 15minute shower, no more constant noise and, finally, saved from the doom chamber. The colleagues are relaxed and do not project any stress whatsoever. No one yells at you. Your schedules are clear and lunch break is often longer than the unpaid 30 minutes. There is no eclectic music collection though. No connection on a deep personal level. No excitement about girls, life stories and projects. There are no fancy restaurants to be taken for lunch and dinner, no classic convertibles to take a ride around town with, no crazy driving and life on the edge of the jet set. He takes it all and rests assured that one day he will build his own house, with all the knowledge learned through his experiences, just like any frontiersmen before him, the real one’s, of course they know how to build a house, that is basic frontier knowledge just like shooting is, and knowing the land and breathing it. He keeps on walking the path, his head straight in front. And he couldn’t care less for having moved on. 

 

 

 

Strollin through Main and Hastings

 

Early in the Vancouver days strollin through the streets of Gas Town and knockin on doors of media companies, run into a guy who conducts interviews with camera and mike and ask questions of what life is all about, bucket lists, helping people, life on the West Coast and such. Keep walkin and you lose track that you just entered the dark zone, the one with the forgotten souls, the swollen stinken cancer of this city. Look at them and feel frightened or just look through the surface and see humanity in the shadow of lost paths. See the opportunity to bring light into darkness; right here light is needed most. Wander back into a café and you meet the same guy from earlier in the day and ask him where to ask to provide help like givin Yoga classes. He knows, he has been workin in this area for years. Go there where he sends you, bike all the way up on Hastings, one block across from Main, walk through the halls of First United church, smell the dirt, the alcohol and human flesh that is not been washed for a long time. Talk with people, find the excitement in their eyes and convince them about your MISSION just like the Blues Brothers did. Be stubborn in the coming weeks and seek contact for the final affirmation. Stick, glue your butt with emails on the path. Go back twice and let them know that you absolutely need to do this even though they did not answer your phone calls or emails. Finally, get the confirmation and show up on the day,

a Saturday,

a nice room has been chosen, a room that radiates good energy, ‘yeah that is because it was used for personal development training for many years,’ two people show up. One is a black guy from the Caribbeans. Shaven head, athletic lookin clothing and body, has the new hyped toe finger shoes on, some shade in his eyes, prominent lips, not so prominent nose, a face nice to look at.  A guy with an easy talk, just like any guy you could meet on a party, at work, on the beach, on a hike. Interested in writing and just came back from a course at UBC this morning. But he lives here, here in this place where people almost not recognizable as people hang around in the halls and along the pathway outside, full of dope and booze and meds and what else, sometimes not able to walk, sleeping right there where they just took their latest shot, he lives here. A woman also joins in. Pale skin, small blue eyes twinkling with light, wrinkles on the big forehead, a tipsy not very attractive nose that widens on its root as if there is something much bigger below the surface just like the way her personality unfolds itself, super curly hair that fall 80’s style, that must have been ‘the time of her life’. The hour passes by fast, the exercises are simple and it becomes obvious that the Caribbean guy has some problems that are not apparent on the surface. His breathing is intermittent, he cannot really keep his eyes closed, he is smooth in his moves but he cannot let go of a pressure that reaches far into an abyss unseen. The woman is doing much better, shoulders are tight though but adjustments are made once told. Simple exercises with a focus on breathing is well received as they say after the class. Explanations on why one wants to teach Yoga and short philosophical ramblings come out naturally. The sun is shining bright into the blue stained windows and leaving the building Saturday just after noon surely does some good. The experience that teaching can be as much insightful as for the students – never was it felt as clear as on this day.

On the following Saturday another room has been chosen, this time smaller but the same type of plastic floor that imitates tiles and is been sittin there more than 30 years, for sure, same side of the building with the sun shining through the windows. The woman shows up again, no one else. ‘We had welfare day yesterday and everybody got pretty drunk. So do not wonder if no one will come today.’ Not to worry. If one person shows up, it was worthwhile to come. A few minutes into the class, a young guy shows up. Blond brownish hair fallen almost to the shoulders, not shaven for a week, he looks sober and fit, physically and mentally. He joins in and also shows difficulty in breathing in sync with the movements. This time, exercises chosen are a bit more challenging, something that will not be so well received in the end. Nothing better than a good feedback! This time less exercises and more time for relaxation. The guy expresses his appreciation after the class as if something magic had occured. It is either his North American style to express a certain exaggerated level of hyper positiveness or he is also coming from some shadowy world that lead him here in the first place.

After noon again, leaving United’s halls, almost falling over some of those in front of the building crack smoking sleeping bums, one’s head is resting on the thighs of another, he helps her holding the pipe, walking down Hastings on a glorious sunny day, wearing a cowboy hat with pride and history, carrying yoga mattress in one and labtop in the other hand, a cowboy of the 21^st century, running into two girls in their late forties who smile at you and you smile back, this is sunny Saturday on a West coast street, you smile at anyone, even on Hastings. They ask you if you have found your savior. ‘Sure.’ Although these type of people most often need to be ignored, with their overaching false wisdom that they found THE ANSWER, you stop and give them space and time to unfold their personality onto you. The blond long haired shorter talking one seems genuine, the other lady is as tall as you, wears sun glasses that hide the truth, grey short hair, she will remain a question mark. The blond one gives you a short resume of her life, three years on Hastings, almost didn’t make if it wasn’t for her one friend that stuck with her until the end although everybody else had givin up on her, and then finally, she got out, got her life back, a job, her kids, and now volunteering and its only because she found Jesus as her savior who forgives her all her sins. ‘Do you have someone who forgives your sins?’ ‘Don’t believe in sins. Not part of my spirituality.’ We talk about life’s purpose and agree that there must be a path chosen to live on.  However, they notice that they got a tough customer in front of them, one that they cannot figure out somehow. Still, they provide a business card with name and number, this is North America and everybody has cards for the sake of networking. Even Jesus needs networking in these days. We say Good Bye and the blond one with German heritage and the surprising ability to speak well in it, will remain an example of how symbols of light deeply internalized into one’s mind and heart bring light into the darkest corners of humanity and miraculously save people from the ride on doomsday avenue that most would have considered a one way ticket.

Step by step closer to shiny downtown. Stop at the war memorial park for lunch. Choose a bench in the shade lookin towads the sun. Eatin sandwich and egg that couldn’t be swallowed this morning, knowing that breathing with full stomach is kontraproduktiv. The super small park is frequented by Saturday strollers from the west side of town and junkies from the east. One in particular is walking in circles along the parks pathway. He definitively would be a patient in an insane asylum under other circumstances. His hair looks as if it has NATURALLY grown into tread locks cut short just below the neck, grown with no intention whatsoever, just formed by oily muddy smelly hands when there was time to sit and reflect with the mind spinning in realms of utter confusion, the spin from the fingers came naturally as a tactile outburst on the streets of Hastings and Main. His fully blossomed beard and the dirty torn cloths make him a perfect looking stereotype of a bum. The strained sad look in his eyes and his mumblings speak for themselves. This guy could be smart and compassionate if saved from being a living dead.  A bummer though.

Another guy with a cowboy hat and sunglasses comes by and smiles. Smile is naturally answered. He says Hello and says something about the nice weather. ‘Life in Vancouver doesn’t get any better indeed.’ The next moment he sits down on the bench. He wears jeans shorts that show off his pale skin, some tattoos, full lips that he habitually sculpts into full circle when he utters words. His voice has a dark pitch that draws attention. He speaks with an overt intention to sound canny and charming, like a radio host or salesman from the Midwest, no idea where he picked that one up. He definitively likes hearing his voice and developed speech pattern. He also definitively is from the east side of town. He probably criss crosses the thin line between sanity and insanity on a daily basis. No doubt about it after a few more lines from the classic rock radio host from Omaha, Nebraska. ‘You know what the worst of the worst things there is? Smokin. Quit smokin two days ago and feel great. Love my life like never have before. And all that chewin gum and other substitute stuff is bullshit. What I do is I eat a little bit of tobacco each day and I’m good. It’s all I need.’ After telling him that tobacco is pretty poisonous and one would die if the amount of nicotine in one cigarette would be injected into a vein, he says that he only eats a gram or so, just to keep him SANE. Then after a few moments passed in silence, he comes up with quite a different topic and rambles about Christianity and how INSANE it is that an entire religion is based on the assumption that one guy died for all people’s sins. There is no other answer than laughter on this one. And it is not because of the fact that people BELIEVE in the bible, it is rather because the two encounters, the cowboy on the brink of walking Hastings into Zombieland and the blond proselytizing lady, saved from being a living dead on it both crossed paths in less than 10 minutes talking about the guy on the cross in the most opposing fashion one could imagine. There are no coincidences in life whatsoever, only opportunities for the mind to unfold its imagination and bringing it into blossom. So what to make out of that one other than laugh on the workings of the laws of perception. 

 

Meeting a today’s frontierman

 

Sun on the eyes and skin throughout the week. This is Vancouver at its best. Staying at a friend’s house in North Van, riding daily to West Van for work. Workin on a parking lot that suffered from too much moisture - a typical problem for Vancouver housing.  The new company is specialized on Waterproofing.

John is a nice guy to work with. When meeting him for the first time, the immediate reaction was that he is laid back and quite an individual with his bald tanned head, deep stingy black eyes and his long grey character goatie that he twirls into one almost feet long braid. Lunch breaks provide time to chat talk. In the mid-seventies, he left home just after he had finished High School. Rode his motorcycle all the way from Ontario to Vancouver and never returned. First he enjoyed the vibes of the West Coast and then took off to Tahiti where he did random jobs like pigging up ‘ocean waste.’ The hotels liked to provide CLEAN beaches for their customers so they told John to pick up all the sea shells, sea cucumber and star fish from their beaches and ocean waters where people were snorkeling through coral reefs. So John tied a canoe to his waist and waded and dived through the shallow waters all day long. What a nice and easy job that was. When he came back after a few months he looked for jobs out in the woods of Northern British Columbia, in the frontier zones of his vast home country. Back then, mining was a profitable business and not this huge enterprise it has turned into these days where gigantic stretches of land are opened up for exploration not only in the tar sand fields of Alberta but also in the Evergreen Forests of Northern BC. John would be stunned by the peaceful emptiness and magnificent beauty of this land, the mountains, the valleys, the glaciers that would carve them deeper and deeper. Up in Stewart, John would witness how a huge lake would drain out within a few hours, a natural phenomenon that would occur every summer when the waters of one glacier would finally crush through the bottom of another glacier that forms a natural barrier/dam for the other leaving giant ice cubes as big as midsized buildings piling up against it. Life up there in the north would convince him that there is nothing better out there, no place like his home country, especially after he took off in the eighties and nineties to work in mining exploration over seas. A new government of the Province changed the laws that made mining more difficult and basically shut down the business. So John followed the business that he had grown into and worked in Africa for five years. There in Niger and Ghana, he became chief of a sampling crew that explored the vast stretches of deserts and rain forests and there he grew accustomed to bribery and the works of the African mindset that was quite different to the one he came from.

But his best memories were the ones that he had in the forest jungles of British Columbia, where sometimes he would work for months sometimes completely on his own, exploring the backwoods, digging holes and taking samples, and, once, after 4 four months coming back to a little town to have a beer with a friend he worked with, they leap into a bar and an average looking woman takes the order and asks the guys what they are here for? ‘Women!’ they both yell at the same time as if they had trained for that answer. A female bartender she was, at the edge of civilization or 'frontier', and she didn’t feel the least intimated by the brawling men that would regularly frequent the only bar there was for hundreds of miles. Coldblooded she said ‘well, you only can find two types of women in this town. They are either good looking and married, or sluts, and you know, not coming from the sunny side.’ And with a big mocking smile she added ‘And I am married, by the way!’   

 

 

A facial operetta

 

Once in a while, people’s faces can offer the greatest of all insights; the insight may not be there yet, the mind still workin on it, grasping its meaning and significance.

Standing in line of BC drivers license office, watch the service attendant who provides info for the customers in line and gives out numbers in case one needs further service like taking a test or something. She has fair black hair that falls back far under her shoulders, her half moon forehead is tanned like the rest of her face - natural tan that comes from her Asian roots that intermingle with some western branches - it’s a rounded face with the cheek bones more prominent than anything else, more like the spotty round nose and spotty round chin. Her Asian eyes glare, they shine a brightness as bright as the sun outside today into the room even though their color is pitch black. She is not overwhelming in beauty, her beauty reveals itself in the act of being, in putting out the within, it’s a celebration of the within, of trained muscles acting out the act of being delighted. Watch her talking with each person one at a time, watch her talking with that lips opening up, the upper lip full of keen knowing and erotic challenge,  forming that strong bow, a bow of confidence in womanhood, watch her puffing her nostrils in humorous joy, watch her frowning her forehead muscles as if to say ‘You should know that but I tell you anyhow’, watch her taking her breath, how she rejuvenates her inner outlook for the next customer in line, she looks at the screen in front of her to the right, she formats it as she does with her inner one, for the sake of the next person, for the sake of the job and for the sake of being here today. She listens and answers all questions in the most gentle and straight forward fashion there is possible in this job, always on the natch and always playing an opera of facial expressionist music, what a joy to watch her. The revelation of deeper understanding comes with her smile that she provides once in a while, not very often though. It’s a natural smile too and now many people would add a BUT at this point which we feel the need to leave out – ask yourself why we do that. Her smile is gentle and provoking, again with that humor that her personality is full of giving out for free if you take your time to see it. Her smile also reveals teeth of utter disparity to her overall act of being. They are not in symmetry to her inner brightness it seems, because they do not have a symmetry of their own, they are assembled in non-linear fashion, in total chaos, small, big, no concurrent line of nature said here is something to think about so better look, BUT ‘better don’t look down,’ to say it like a King, wonder if you get that one, too.