Let's Make A Deal

“The drugs don’t give you a warning sign before they hit, they just sneak up on ya when you least expect it, so always watch out for yourself. You gotta be your own number one sometimes. I guess for some people, that must be part of the fun, right? The unknown, spontaneous fear of something wild happening? Don’t get me wrong, I love doing drugs as much as anyone, maybe more sometimes, but I’m not a huge fan of surprises.

“I research extensively before I try anything new. I really can’t see the harm in knowing what the side effects are going to be ahead of time, or how to properly combat the inevitable comedown. I weigh each hit individually for myself too, because I know exactly what I need to have a good time and there’s no need to take risks if you don’t have to.” I pull my miniature food scale out of my bag and smile warmly at the doe eyed blonde girl in front of me. She looks younger than most of the girls I see, but I’m not one to judge anyone’s bad habits.

“So, what’s your poison?” I ask politely when I’m finally finished my opening spiel. I showcase my stash, subtly channeling my inner Vanna White, by gesturing dramatically at the drugs I have neatly displayed on the table. She lowers her face to the table and glances quickly at each product before turning back to me and reaching for the last of my cocaine this week. If I could, I would roll my eyes because I don’t know if I want to waste such a good individual seller on this clueless looking of a buyer. She holds the sealed bag up to her nose and inhales deeply.

“What are you doing?” I ask, trying my best to use my least judgmental tone of voice while simultaneously reaching for the bag. The last thing I need is this girl ripping the bag or something ridiculous. She pulls it away from my outstretched hands, and that’s strike one for this girl.

“I was told to test it first, so I know it’s good quality.” Her voice wavers and I actually roll my eyes this time. This girl is already at strike two. Does she not know who I am? She sought me out herself, so I would have assumed she understood that my standards are of the highest quality. I do have a reputation in this industry and I’m considering leaving her empty handed, but I just know I can nail this sale for a little extra commission if I play my cards right. Instead I smile brightly at her making sure to show all my perfect pearly whites. I get a monthly cleaning, so i know they’re sparkling.

“First of all honey, don’t you dare accuse me of being sub-par, ever. That’s just rude. It’s really my number one rule and if you can’t even follow that, you’ll have to do business elsewhere okay?” I make a move to collect my things, and like I suspected her big doe eyes get so wide, I’m suddenly in the mood to watch Bambi.

“No, no. I’m sorry. I just thought-“. I raise my hand in the air and cut her off mid-sentence.

“So rookie, you think you’re gonna smell coke through a sealed bag? You think I just carry drugs around that anyone can just take a whiff of as I walk by? No. This should just be obvious really, but it’s okay to make mistakes because you’re clearly new here.”

“I’m not new to drugs. I’ve done it before.” She crosses her arms across her chest and now she reminds me of an absurdly large toddler.

“Done… it? What is IT exactly? The spooky clown? Girl, you’re a freak in the sheets huh?” I laugh generously at my own joke, and frankly I’m a little miffed that she’s staring at me with her mouth hanging open like a street dog with a broken jaw and not laughing with me. Her face is slowly turning red, with little sweat beads collecting on her forehead, so I decide to let it slide for now.

“Sweetie, that’s a joke. You can laugh, nobody is gonna be upset if we have a little fun. I’ve never understood why this business can’t be fun for both our clients and distributors. Anyway, back to the cocaine, yeah? If you’re planning on buying from someone else in the future, you’re gonna look real suspicious shoving a plastic bag up to your nose like that. So instead of insulting your dealer, you’re going to politely request to test the product before purchasing.”

I lay my hands flat out into the air and this time she hands the cocaine back to me.

“And we totally get it girl, drugs are a lot of money and you can’t be wasting money on bad product.” I can tell she’s listening for real now, so I continue my pitch flawlessly, knowing that I’ve already bagged a repeat customer. And trust me when I say we love a nervous, rich girl in this business.

“So, what they’ll do is poke a little hole in the bag, like this” I demonstrate on the ball of cocaine, poking it softly with an old knitting needle I rigged up for this exact purpose. It’s crazy sharp but doesn’t rip the whole bag open, which is really crucial for this kinda thing. Trust me, it’s a real challenge sometimes but everyone’s too proud to admit it.

“Your part is obviously the testing, which really is the fun part if you think about it. Trust me, you do not want to be out here peddling drugs all day. It is exhausting, and we don’t even really get to do the drugs cause then we’d make all kinds of mistakes. Some of us do, of course… but to each their own, right?” She’s got her Bambi eyes back and I’m starting to worry that she’s gonna back out before i even get finished the pitch.

“Anyway! First things first, check the colour. When you think of coke, you think white powder ya?” Her head bobs up and down quickly, but the expression on her face has morphed into pure terror. She’s so scared that I’m wondering if I should really be selling drugs to this naïve of a girl. Alas, it is my job and the show must go on, as they say. Besides, if she gets hooked there’s a new couch I’ve been looking at. I can’t give that money up since my white leather sectional was the rather unfortunate victim of Paintball night last week in my apartment. Looking back, I wouldn’t host it at my house next time. Everyone had a lot of fun though, so I think it was worth it.

“If it’s tinged either brown or a yellow-ish, Do yourself a favour and don’t accept it. It is not worth your money. You just look so adorable, I can totally see someone trying to rip you off because you look so young. Please pay attention honey, I just want to help you ‘cause girls gotta stick together right?” The girls curls bob slightly with a small nod and when she pushes her hair back, I see a promising opportunity.

“Do you always have claws like that?” I grab for her hand and admire the matte black nails, perfectly filed into uniform coffins that she is absolutely pulling off with her outfit. She nods again, looking slightly less Deer-in-Headlights than before and I guess she’s not gonna speak anymore-which is really better for me anyway.

“Sometimes they’ll try and intimate you, like taking out a knife and scooping it out for you, but trust me, it’s all a show. We’re not very scary if we don’t need to be. Just stick your fierce kitty claw right in there and scoop a little out for yourself. They’ll be totally impressed if you take initiative, so try not to look so scared, okay?” I guide her smallest finger into the mound of cocaine and her expression goes from frightened back to pure terror. She has that ugly, open-mouthed gape back on her pretty face. She’s staring at her own hand now and I kinda think she looks more like a donkey than a dog. Poor girl. I continue my pitch regardless.

“If you take a whiff, yes go ahead and smell it now” I encourage her gently, my smile wavering slightly. “If it smells like baking soda, just turn around and leave, okay? People like to cut it with baking soda, so they can make more money by diluting product and they’re just jerks who make people like me look bad. So you shouldn’t be smelling baking soda, but a very clear chemical smell, ya? I’m going to repeat that now. Under no circumstances should you buy drugs if they smell like baking products, okay?” I gesture towards her hand that’s awkwardly floating two feet away from her face. She does the jerky head nod again.

“Okay, so now taste, obviously. Good quality cocaine on your tongue should pretty much feel like nothing because if it doesn’t numb your mouth, it ain’t gonna be a good time. Take a little taste off your nail and before you ask, no you won’t be high with that teeny tiny little amount.”

I watch her expectantly, and I’m really starting to think she’s gonna bail out, which would be super unfortunate since I’ve put in a lot effort for this sale. I can see her mind teetering on the line and I’m pleasantly surprised when she sticks her tongue out tentatively and licks the powder out of her nail.

“Oh! It’s kind of bitter.” She makes a face that scrunches up her nose, and it’s actually pretty cute. I almost feel bad for calling her a donkey now.

“As it should be!” I hit her with my best closing smile showing the full extent of my teeth and a flirty wink to seal the deal.

“I can’t feel my tongue” She mumbles quietly to herself, and suddenly bursts out laughing. “I feel like I went to the dentist” She sticks her tongue out at me giggling, I’m thinking I might have misjudged her. She’s kind of adorable now that she’s calmed down, but I can’t let that distract me when I’m so close.

“Well Bonnie, it was absolutely lovely to meet with today.” I’m already packing my things, including the cocaine in question back into my vintage Juicy Couture satchel. “I do need to get off, so if you change your mind, you have my number, right?” I smile innocently and make a move towards the door.

“Wait!” She calls after me and I know I’m going home a closer. I turn around slowly and look around the room like a clueless retired woman being scammed for her credit card number.

“Oh, did I drop something?” I pretend to scan the floor quickly, playing the part of the non-pushy saleswoman I was destined to be.

“I want to buy today. Now.” She’s reaching inside her bag already and produces the most gorgeous golden Louis Vuitton wallet. It’s so beautiful that I don’t even care she’s using it inside a Coach bag.

“How much?” She asks, already pulling out bills.

“Well, how much do you want silly?” She stares blankly back at me, and I can see she’s panicking. “You gotta tell me what you need, not the other way around.” I touch her shoulder and give her my best supportive friend eyes to let her know I’m looking out for her.

“All of it.” She blurts out. “The whole bag.” I’m not even lying when I say my pupils probably turned into those dollar signs from old cartoons as I beamed back at her. I reach back into my bag and produce the cocaine again.

“Oh, are you sure you want the whole thing?” I ask sweetly, laying it on thicker than an apprentice nail tech doing her first set of acrylics. “Well, you’re in luck. Since you’re such a sweetheart, I’ll give it to you for only $400. I’ll take $50 dollars off, just cause I’m in such a good mood.”

I give her my best smile one more time and she hands over a messy stack of 20’s. I drop the ball of coke on the table without even counting the cash when I tuck it into my bag because I just sold $250 worth of product for $400.

I throw up a peace sign on my way out the door, and this time the smile on my face is real.

---

Nikki McKenzie

Nikki McKenzie is full of sarcasm, positivity and the embodiment of when Jim from The Office looks into the camera. She also likes to write.

Belts and Cars All Fall Down

Some days don't you just wish you had worn a belt?

If you're not already laughing at the image of someone with their pants around their ankles, then you need a serious look at physical humor.

Now, belts and cars. When did cars show up, and what exactly do belts have to do with cars aside from seat belts?

First, you need to hear a little story, not about me, but that I witnessed.

I’ll set the scene. I’m twelve, in the car with my dad, driving down Nathanael Boulevard. Outside it’s autumn, so coats and maybe hats, but there’s no snow and the leaves on the trees are red and yellow.

As my dad and I were driving down the road, there was some traffic. There’s a long line of cars stopped at the light, so we were going to be there a while. I was in the passenger seat, minding my own business when my dad called me.

“John, look over there. That guy over there, are his pants falling down?”

“What?” so I looked over. Down the street from us, there was a man walking towards us. I saw him picking his grocery bags up off the ground and start walking again.

Image courtesy of pexels.com

“You just missed it, his pants were down on the ground,” my dad said.

So, I kept watching him. Our car moves forward a few feet as a car at the lights takes a right turn. As this happened, the man’s pants fell down. All the way. I was shocked. I had actually seen the sight gag of pantsing, but gravity was the culprit.

Now that we were closer to him, I could make out some detail. He looked like he was in his late 50s, early 60s, so retired, I guess. He had on a big puffy winter coat and one of those hats with ear covers and the turned-up brim. He also had four bags of groceries as he walked up the hill, so he had no choice but to stop every time his pants fell. He put the bags down and pulled his pants up. They were grey, and looked like a pair of track pants from across the street. What I couldn’t understand at the time, and still have no clue about today, is why didn’t he just tie the strings on them? Every pair of track pants has an adjustable string. Or, why didn’t he just wear a belt?

My dad thinks it was laundry day, and the man needed groceries but didn’t have any clean pants. I though he was just weird and had walked from his house to the store holding them up, got there and was like, “Damn, my pants aren’t working today.”

You all know how memory works. You forget a lot of things as you grow up; they just become distant events that you wonder about. Did that actually happen? But that one stuck with me. It was maybe a minute or two of time that I was sitting in a car watching him, but that one always stayed with me.

Now then, onto cars.

This happened to me when I was sixteen. I had recently gotten my G1 drivers license, in November. Now it was summer, and a Saturday. I played basketball in house league in the afternoon, but my dad woke me up that morning.

“Let’s go downtown for some lunch,” he said. Being the naïve little brat I was, I agreed instantly, packed my basketball shoes, grabbed my ball and almost jumped into the car.

“You’re driving,” he said.

“How do we get downtown? I can’t take the highway,” I replied, hoping to get out of it.

“We’ll take the airport parkway.”

So I drove downtown and my dad made me park in one of the parking garages, the ones with four levels. We had lunch and walked around. As time went on, I was getting irate because it was getting closer to game time.

As it turns out, my dad was playing spartan. Even though I had my G1, I wasn’t driving a lot and my dad wanted to give me a kick in the ass by making me drive as quickly as I could all the way to my game that day.

So, there I was, a new nervous driver, almost late and stuck in the middle of downtown where traffic sucks. But I also had to leave the parking garage.

We paid for our ticket and drove down to the exit. There’s a machine where you feed the ticket in, then the automated arm lifts up and lets you out. Naturally as I approached there was a line at one of them. But there were two machines, so I went to the other one.

The problem was the second machine was for swipe cards. There’s a yearly fee that you can pay and reserve a spot in the garage everyday, and you get a swipe card. After I figured that out, I had to circle the lowest level of the garage.

The line was longer, and guess what? A lot of people had the same idea I did, and now the line of cars that had to circle around the garage had grown so much that it blocked the actual exit.

Meanwhile, I’m getting antsy because I’m getting later and later for my game. I finally got to the machine, and a guy pulls out in front of me and blocks the way. My dad reached over and honked the horn at him and stuck his head out of the window to yell at him.

Image courtesy of Pexels.com

But it was fine. I could handle that. I’d seen him do that before. But what I didn’t see coming was the next car. Grey Mini Cooper, Quebec plates, black roof, not the removable kind.

After the guy blocking us drove passed, I stuck the ticket in the machine and moved to drive out the gate. But in the second I turned away to feed the ticket, that grey mini cooper had peeled out, cut me off and drove out under the arm.

Luckily I was quick enough to stomp on the breaks and didn’t hit the Mini Cooper. But in that moment, I just stopped. My dad leapt out of the car and disappeared down the street. I later learned that, had he caught up with the Mini Cooper, he intended to kick in his lights and windows. He did not catch the car.

But I was still sitting in that spot, with no idea what to do or where to go. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to me at the time, my dad knocked on my window and had me drive back into a parking spot. He took a few minutes to talk with the service personnel, explaining what happened and that we couldn’t get out without a ticket.

Thankfully the person believed him and, after he took the wheel to drive back, she opened the gate manually for us to leave. This was when I asked and found out what my dad was planning on doing to the Mini Cooper. It was a bit scary, as he was livid and driving quite fast at the time.

On our way back, we drove up Nathanael Boulevard. As I always do when I pass that way, I recalled the old guy without his belt. Thinking about how he must have felt having his pants fall down all the time, especially the first time it happened that day, I likened it to my Mini Cooper incident. That was the moment I got a pantsing, lost twenty bucks and was late to my game…but gravity wasn’t the culprit. It was some asshole Quebec driver.

And some people say they’re good drivers.

---

Nick Rakowski

Nick is a second-year student in Algonquin College’s Professional Writing program. He is an avid reader and writer, and can usually be found hiding in a book. He likes rock music and fantasy books, and one day hopes to publish his own.

A Perfectly Normal Story

IMAGE COURTESY OF PEXELS.COM

Daniel sat deep in thought for a moment as he tried to come up with an answer to a question that had caught him off guard, and he was drawing nothing but blanks. His old eyes were drawn to the sun as it began to crest over the hills, and his expression was impassive despite how hard his mind toiled for an idea.

“Grandad?” A child’s shrill voice broke the silence as well as Daniel’s train of thought. “Is that too much trouble?”

The older man blinked twice before turning back to look down at his grandson, who had taken to sitting cross legged next the older man’s rocking chair. He offered the boy a tired smile. “No trouble at all, son. I’m just having a time and a half trying to think of a funny story this early in the morning, is all.”

That wasn’t entirely a lie. He had hoped that this little reunion at the family farm could help him catch up on his reading and writing. Maybe he could finally get to fixing the barn’s roof after putting it off for so long. But no, instead he had to pan through sixty odd years of memories for a story, or come up with one on the fly. That took time, and time was something his impatient grandkids never seemed willing to give.

“That’s right fucked up, grandpa.” The boy replied matter-of-factly.

Now, the old man couldn’t help but break into a low chuckle at that. Back when he was twelve- years-old, profanity like that wasn’t exactly encouraged when you were in the company of family.

But then, plenty of things had changed between the years of 1998 and 2062. Children swearing up a storm was the least of his concerns.

“Right fucked up indeed, Arthur.” Daniel nodded, before turning his head. “What kind of story would you find funny anyway, kiddo?”

The boy brought a fist up to his cheek and frowned. “Uhm…hm…”

After sitting in silence for a moment, Arthur simply shrugged. “I dunno. Something weird? Something I’ve never heard before, I guess?” The boy shook his head. “I’m getting tired of watching slapstick comedy and listening to embarrassing stories. I want something crazy, grandad!”

“Crazy, eh?” Daniel grinned, an idea taking form in his head. “I dunno, kiddo. I’ve been around for a long while and have lived through some pretty crazy experiences.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “If you’ve a funny story to tell, then just tell it already.”

The older man snorted. “Fine, fuck’s sake. Listen up and don’t make me repeat myself, because this story’s one for the ages.”

“This story revolves around a nightmare I had when I was three or four years older than you.” Daniel began, pushing off with his feet and sending his chair rocking.

“A nightmare?” Arthur asked. “How is a nightmare funny?”

“Listen to what I have to say and you just might find out.” The boy’s grandfather smiled at him, before starting his story…

*

I opened my eyes to a nightmare I will never be able to forget, a nightmare unlike any I’ve ever heard described. So indescribable it was that I’m sure I could’ve brought it to my therapist and she wouldn’t have a clue about what caused it. I didn’t have the sense of falling through nothingness. Nor was I running away from some unseen threat. My teeth weren’t rotting and falling out of my gums. And I wasn’t late for something of great important. No, I was in something else entirely.

“This doesn’t sound like the start of a funny story, grandad…” Arthur started.

“Don’t worry kiddo, it gets better.” Daniel reassured him, before clearing his throat…

I was alone, standing barefoot where the shore met with a boundless sea. My legs were heavy and the water was brushing passed my feet. The waves were as cold as ice, and the water was black. Not “black” like the colour, but black like the absence of light between the stars in the sky. Any effort I made to look up at the sky was met with a distinct sense of vertigo.

“What’s vertigo, grandad?”

“Another word for dizziness, Arthur.” Daniel clarified. “Anyway…”

It felt as though I was underwater, with the sky rippling like recently paddled water, its colour like that of spilt wine. I saw great whales swimming high above, the length of their forms covered in serpentine eyes and gnashing teeth.

When I first tried to take in a breath, my throat and lungs were instead filled with the bitter taste of tannin.

Daniel spun his head towards his grandson and raised his hand before the boy could get a word out. “Tannin is something really bitter. Have you ever had black tea?”

Arthur shook his head. “No, grandad.”

“Ask your mom to buy you some, it tasted something like that.”

“Why didn’t you just say it tasted like black tea to begin with, then?” Arthur asked, before realizing that his grandfather was already talking again…

Confused, I tried to take in another deep breath. Salt water. Now I’m a pretty nervous person to begin with, but when I realized I couldn’t breathe I was absolutely overcome with panic. Again and again I tried to take in the air, and every time I was instead greeted by a variety of different tastes, from the familiarity of cinnamon to the sour tang of lime. It didn’t take long for me to fall onto my hands and knees, desperately trying to take in air that continued to evade me.

“Your life is not but atoms.” A sourceless voice rang out, its words curling around the back of my mind.

The edges of my vision began to blur, and my body started to shake violently. All I could see were my wrists sticking out of the dark cold of the sea, my hands having disappeared beneath the waves. I couldn’t see my reflection, but I knew I was sweating like mad.

“All of your memories are dust,” The voice in the back of my head went on. “While your achievements amount to nothing but shapes; nothing worth understanding.”

One last time, with my heart beating out of my chest and ribs coiling around my empty lungs, I tried to breathe in deep. My mouth filled with the sweet taste of red wine, and my body collapsed into the colourless black of the sea, fully absorbed by its cold embrace. It didn’t take long for my vision to follow after it.

“And the universe goes on,” The sourceless voice fell to the softest of whispers. “Forgetting your existence, as you are but drops of water in a sea of incomprehensible size.”

*

When Daniel turned back to Arthur to see if he was still paying attention, he realized that his grandson had simply been stunned into silence. That silence permeated across the farm for long moment before the boy finally spoke up.

“What kind of fucked up story was that, grandad!?” Arthur sputtered, waving his arms around.

Daniel cocked his head to the side and offered his grandson and small shrug. “You’re the one who asked for a weird story.”

“Weird but funny! Not weird and freaky!” Arthur stood up from his cross-legged position, his voice raising alongside him. “I’m going to have nightmares about this nihilistic crap!”

Now it was Daniel’s turn to be stunned. Not because his grandson had the audacity to raise his voice at his elders. Not because he was ashamed for potentially giving the boy nightmares. No, he was stunned because he was surprised that Arthur even knew what the word nihilistic meant.

“Maybe the nightmares you’ll have will make for a good story too, Arthur!” The child’s grandfather suggested.

“What the fuck is wrong with you grandad?” Arthur cursed. “What made you think that telling this ‘story’ was a good idea…”

And then it hit him. The young Arthur looked down at his grandad and lowered his arms. The boy’s anger was replaced by sadness - pity, even - when he next spoke.

“…You’re off your meds again, aren’t you grandad?”

“You know it, kiddo!” Daniel laughed, clapping his hands together before he threw on a pair of sunglasses, stood out of his rocking chair, and finger-gunned his way back inside the family farmhouse. Arthur, meanwhile, was left to stand there on the porch, dumbfounded by what he had just seen and fearing for when he next had to sleep.

---

Daniel Nebauer

Daniel is a second-year student of the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College with a terrible sense of humour and an interest in all sorts of music. Whether it be due to raw talent or absolute dumb luck, he’s somehow made it this far and is ready to subject more unsuspecting students to his opinions.

I Loved The Devil Once

When I brought Bowzer home, I brought him home in a shoe box. He was just a puff of smoke. Seven weeks old, big blue eyes, and a handful of grey fuzz. I had met him for the first time when he was just two weeks old and had the pleasure of watching him, and his siblings, grow to be a gang of fierce pom-poms. My neighbour down the street had a cat named Boots. She was the local vixen and mother to this very special litter. We would drink beers on my porch, checking out the downtown wildlife as to who could be her baby daddy. Bowzer ended up being my best friend and my babes. He came with me wherever my crazy life ended up. I was young and listless, but we always had each other. One fateful day changed that for both of us, we were to be separated for life. Maybe it was because I grew up and crazy wasn’t my thing anymore, or maybe it was just a long time coming. He was a complete psycho.

My closest friend Jen had finally met someone she liked and I invited them over to dinner so I could meet him. The catch was there wouldn’t be any alcohol involved for me as I was six months pregnant, so my nerves had to be like steel, his on the other hand turned out to be nerves made of wet spaghetti. He was nice, but loved his rye and gingers that night and got a little too loose. Before they even came into the house, I told him very strictly “don’t acknowledge Bowzer, or approach him. He’ll be around but he will go after you. He’s paranoid and anxious, and probably schizophrenic—so just leave him be.” Jen agreed whole heartedly with a wide-eyed nod. She visited Bowzer frequently, checking on him as a kitten while I was working late at the bar. Bowzer always left her with something to remember him by.  Owen was maybe four cocktails in to our dinner and moved on to a glass of red wine (I bought a bottle to pretend I could still swing like the kids) and he went out for a cigarette. As he came back in, Bowzer, our guard cat, was waiting. Being a good boy like I had asked and keeping his distance he mainly observed the intruder, knowing I approved of him helped keep his protective instincts dormant. But Owen made a massive mistake. He thought that it was stupid to think a cat could be such a threat and started mocking him, waving his large arms over Bowzer’s head. I watched on saying “don’t do that, you’re gonna get what’s coming” and “you’ll deserve it.” I’ve seen Bowzer do many things in the last three years. Perch on the top of doors, swaying in balance like a bird in the wind, waiting to swipe at the heads of the passers-by. I’ve seen him corner grown men with ferocious hisses and dominant swipes from his talons. I tried to clip his nails, but when I did he would just sharpen them as quickly as possible on the nearest piece of furniture. Oh, but I adored him.

The stories I have from my short-life with this cat are endless, but I always loved him, no matter the damage. So, Bowzer’s ears start to go back and he crouches down, I perk up from the kitchen to see how bad this gets. Battle face at the ready, Bowzer jumps and screams with fury into Owen’s face, evidently going for the jugular. Owen leaps back and instantly throws his red wine all over the white carpet accompanied by drips of fresh blood. Chaos replaces the candle-lit evening instantly and Bowzer is pissed, yet another one of his psychotic breaks. Owen is in complete disbelief as Bowzer continues to go after him, again and again. Jen is laughing, saying “We tried to tell you, you idiot!”. “He’s just a fucking cat!” Owen exclaims, eyes wide with many emotions, trying to pick the right one in a room full of strangers. Owen was wrong on many levels, but he was mostly wrong about one thing; Bowzer wasn’t just a fucking cat—he was the fucking Devil.

I let Owen collect himself a bit and I eventually got between the two of them, ushering Bowzer upstairs to cool-off in the bedroom. I had been doing that since he was a wee-thing, he’s always had a violent temper. Even at eight weeks old I gave him a treat and he latched on to my index finger with all his strength growling like a dog. That little puff of smoke had so much fire inside. I got him into the bedroom gently and closed the door so he had his own space to shake-off the piss. I came back downstairs and the night proceeded as well as it could, banter about nonsense, like things I’ll never remember as I recall this. An hour or two went by and I was about to drive the two of them home, but I went up to check on Bowzer before heading out. I opened the door to our bedroom and out popped Bowzer, majestic and beautiful, happy as ever to see his Mum. Purring and rubbing up on my legs, we shared a moment as I cooed over him. For the record, no one will ever believe me when I speak of Bowzer as a darling, he was smart enough to never let anyone see his good side, I was the only exception, his confidante. I left the room and shut the door so that Owen and Jen could leave peacefully. Pretty pregnant, intensely sober, and very happy the night was coming to an end, we all hopped into my car, en route to Jen’s downtown apartment.

 I didn’t even make it 5 minutes before getting a call from my partner, Gordon.

“Hey babe, where are you?”

“Hun, I literally just left, I’m at the lights on Strandherd, what’s up?”

“Well as soon as you left, I went to take a piss in our bathroom, and Bowzer attacked me from behind— WHILE I WAS PEEING!”

“Oh shit” I said “that’s, uh, not good.” (naturally awkward).

“Yeah no shit that’s not good, he’s going after Gummy now— I gotta go!”

I yelled into the receiver “I’ll be home as soon as I can!” He hung up.

Gummy Bare was our other cat that Gordon had bought a year before. Hairless and helpless against Bowzer, and now apparently so was Gordon, who had always managed him just fine. I felt panicked and worried this time. Owen was passed out in the back seat of my car and I couldn’t help but hate him. Would it have been better if I had a sign around Bowzer’s neck saying “trespassers will be shot”? Apparently our warnings weren’t enough. Bowzer is not just a fucking cat, I literally cannot stress that further.

Coming home I struggled to maintain the speed limits. This was a matter of urgency that only our family seemed to deal with. I knew it was going to be war when I got there but I also knew I could always defuse the situation and Bowzer would be fine once I got there. Jesus H. was I ever in for a ride.

As I put the key in to unlock the front door, I could hear the screams. Like an alley-cat fight in the middle of the night. I swung the door open and there was Bowzer, perfectly enraged, at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at Gordon and making inconceivable noise in-sync with his lunges. I’d never seen Bowzer like this. Gordon was terrified, clutching Gummy Bare to his chest, both of them in their own pajamas. I left my shoes on, they took way too long to take off with my baby bump in the way, and crept towards Bowzer hushing him and speaking softly to attempt to calm him. I felt like a lion tamer, but I wasn’t capable of being brave. I was utterly terrified as he lunged at me this time, for the very first time. That was what changed the whole game. That one single lunge, that one single hiss. I looked at Gordon and told him to run, run to the bedroom and as quickly as he could— I’d be right behind him. I kept speaking calmly to Bowzer as I took slow steps backwards up the stairs. He was screaming, spitting, slashing his claws at the air in front of me. His black eyes meant only one thing—he couldn’t see me anymore. Halfway up I turned and bolted as he raced after me, going in for the kill. I ripped into the bedroom and slammed the door. I heard him body slam the door as I started to sob, his growls slipped between the cracks. Through the tears, Gordon knew we both knew, but he still said “maybe he’ll have calmed down by morning.”

Twelve hours later, morning arrives and it’s quiet in the house. I go to the door and open it wide enough to get my eye through and as I look down, there he is. The devil himself, nose touching the door, pupils dilated, he never left—he just waited. I wish I could say I made this up. I wish I could say everything turned out okay. We tried to feed him breakfast, but apparently his Whiskas wasn’t alive enough, and he needed to kill something. In that moment, I understood him, he was an assassin and there were never enough kills, never enough to satisfy. So the thrill of the hunt started over. I cried the entire time, I blame the hormones.  Tears pouring down my face, we geared up with oven mitts and towels to protect our flesh. We grabbed a big blanket to capture him to put him in his pink crate I bought for him after he tore through the first one, almost causing a car accident. I always thought he liked pink, apparently not today. After two-hours of turning our house, quite literally, upside down, we had him in kitty jail, ready for transport. He was off to a better place.

Two-months went by and I felt it was time we go and visit Bowzer at his new home. Crazy, I know, but I missed him deeply. Open-Sky Ranch sounds like a clever name for cat heaven, but it’s actually a sanctuary for unwanted animals. The day we dropped him off there, I think it was hour 15 of non-stop tears for me, they were very understanding as Gordon eagerly handed over $250.00 for surrendering him. When we came back I asked the owner of the grounds if Bowzer was getting on alright. It took him a minute to realize who I was talking about, but he perked up and said “Oh yeah! Psycho cat! Sure, yeah, he’s doing great, just loves his wet food let me tell yeah.” Randall, the owner was probably the most generous, caring person I’ve ever met and he had nicknamed my cat Psycho. Awesome.

Randall took us to all the places Bowzer liked to hang out. The burr bushes by the farm field, under the deck with his new one-eyed friend Sylvester, and the eaves of the barn, above the Emu pen. Fitting places for an evil genius. We couldn’t find him outside, so when he brought us into the barn above the Emu’s, there were two green eyes in the dark of the attic, staring down at us. That—there was Bowzer. The only demon I’ve ever loved.

---

Chloe Vincent

Chloe Vincent is an avid reader, aspiring writer, and lover of culture. Being in her second year of Professional Writing at Algonquin College and a new mother there’s always another step to take to get further. Check out her children’s book “The Life of a Pie” at the Connections store and always check back here for more. 

A Meth Addict’s Hazy Trip Across the Country

Photo Credit: iStock

In the early seventies I saved up my employment insurance cheques and boarded a train from Montreal to the West Coast, and spent the next three days and nights detoxing from methamphetamines in the bar car.

My plan was to score some meth - better known on the street as speed - before leaving Montreal, but my drug dealers never showed up at the train station. They were a rather frightful looking couple in their mid-fifties with double rows of track marks on their arms, legs and hands from years of shooting up meth. They also protected the huge stash of drugs they kept in their house with guns propped against the wall near their front door. Although they had already lost most of their humanity, for some reason they seemed to have a conscience where I was concerned. They told me they did not show up with the meth because I was still young enough to have a chance at a better life. They said  the drugs I was ingesting for the past year would be out of my system by the time I reached Vancouver. I am still not sure if they were trying to secure entrance through the “Pearly Gates” of Heaven before the Grim Reaper came calling, or if they were too stoned to get to the station.

I was hesitant to board the train without any meth, because I knew withdrawal symptoms were extremely unpleasant. After being coaxed by my travelling companions, I finally got on the train with only a small amount of mescaline and half the money I had saved for the trip. The other half I spent partying and saying good-bye to my friends. I was accompanied on the trip with Dave and Gaby, a bisexual swinging couple and Bob, a long-haired peace-loving hippie. Other than the fact that we were all in our early twenties, the only thing we had in common was the four of us were speed freaks.

The memories of the train ride are a bit hazy, because we spent most of the next three days and nights in the bar car getting wasted, and experiencing a bad case of the shakes as the meth slowly drained from our system. However, there were a couple of memories that made a lasting impression. The train was rolling along the rails smoothly until all of a sudden we experienced a severe jolt that landed us on the floor, along with a few glasses that went down with us. We found out the back part of the train had derailed. We were stuck for over half a day outside a small town situated near the border of Ontario and Manitoba. We were less concerned the train derailed than the fact the bar car was closed for the day.

There was not much to do in the middle of nowhere, so my friends played Frisbee, while I went exploring. I came across an middle-aged Indigenous woman who looked much older than her years, wearing rags for clothes. She was sitting on the ground outside the small train station drinking a bottle of dandelion wine. She offered to share her bottle with me, so we quickly became friends. I remember some of the stories she told me about her life and how she ended up living on the street. She opened my eyes to how difficult a life it is for people of her culture. When she told me her life story it was in the early seventies, when the residential school system was still at its peak of corruption. She was one of its victims and after years of abuse and loss of self-identity, she could only find solitude with the help of a bottle of booze. I was able to relate to her, as I too was fleeing from emotional and physical abuse at the hands of my adopted mother. Alcohol was her escape plan and mine was meth. Looking at where she ended up made me a little nervous about my future.

Once back on the train we resumed our seats in the bar car. Although my hippie friend Bob was unaware of it at the time, I had a crush on him. I never told him because I did not want to risk losing our friendship, however, fate took over. Apparently, Bob had a lot less tolerance for alcohol than the rest of us. He became violently ill and needed some help. I spent the day holding a plastic bag under his chin and cleaning up his mess. I was always told the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but in this case playing Florence Nightingale for a day had the same effect. I just needed to clean-up what came out of his stomach, rather than putting anything into it. After he was feeling better, he asked me to be his girlfriend because he thought I was the most compassionate person he ever met. Of course, I let him believe whatever he wanted to believe, as long as I won him over.

By the time the train pulled into Vancouver station, we looked like drunken zombies. It was the middle of the night and we were starving and broke. We sat on the sidewalk outside the station and worked out a plan. The next morning we panhandled for a few hours then boarded a ferry to Victoria island, where Dave’s sister lived. We arrived at her house, raided her refrigerator and crashed on the floor for the next couple of days. Because our bodies had just gone through such a metamorphosis we all had serious gastrointestinal problems. In other words, her living room smelled like someone had set off four stink bombs all at once. For some reason, I think she was happy to see us leave.

Before saying our good-byes, we borrowed some money from her that we used to rent a house. We were so happy to find a home, we did not bother to ask what was included in the rent. Apparently, it had all the amenities imaginable. The walls had so many layers of wallpaper that if you got tired of one pattern, you could simply rip it off and in an instant have a whole new look. The house also had eco-friendly air conditioning. There were enough holes and cracks in the walls to never need an artificial air cooling system.

The bathroom was even more unique, because it had its own garden. Grass and weeds, along with the odd wildflower, found their way through the floor boards lending a natural ambience to the decor. As for the bathtub, it was an antique that stood on four legs. In fact, it was such an antique that it no longer produced water from its faucets. We had to boil water on an old metal wood stove in the kitchen and carry it downstairs pail by pail whenever we needed a bath. The problem was that by the time the tub was full the water was cold. Despite all its defects it was home, not only to us, but to many stray cats and dogs. At one head count there were ten cats, a small mutt and a St. Bernard. There is nothing like waking up with a hangover to a menagerie of howling cats and dogs eagerly anticipating their breakfast.

Although I could easily go without nourishment for a few days as a meth addict, I discovered that being straight required a regular intake of food. This meant I needed to find a job. I finally managed to secure a position as a bookkeeper at a potato factory. I applied for the job on a lark never actually expecting to get it, as I had no bookkeeping experience. I later found out that the job was not keeping books for the potato factory, but rather for my boss’s sideline business of horse racing. He was a gambler and a bookie, and needed someone to maintain his records. Because I appeared to be a person who was open-minded, he thought I was perfect for the job. As for my lack of bookkeeping skills, he figured he could easily train me. In return for my expertise, I was paid an hourly wage, given bonuses when he won at the races and fed a meal of potatoes every day.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Hot Knives

While I was still living in Victoria, the Redpath Sugar company went on strike, so we secured as many sugar shakers as possible off restaurant tables. We managed to accumulate a fair amount and stored them in our pantry, until one day a disaster happened. We set-up a two burner stove on the pantry shelf, which we used to heat the tips of our knives to burn hash. We figured this was a bad idea after the pantry went up in smoke and the sugar along with it. Fortunately, the fire department was not far away.

Growing up in Montreal, I had never learnt to drive because the Metro took me everywhere I needed to go. Dave’s brother was willing to give me his old car if I could learn to drive, so he offered driving lessons. After driving around the parking lot a few times he thought I was ready for the road. A few friends got in the back and I sat in the driver’s seat. Feeling confident and eager to show off my new skills, I slammed the gas peddle to the floor and the car took off full speed ahead. Looking back, I think I switched gears and transferred my love of speed from meth to cars. My friends were so terrified, they yelled at me to stop the car so they could get out. I thought I was doing just fine, until I had to slow down and turn a corner. I slammed on the break a few seconds too late, and crashed into someone’s nice white picket fence. Needless to say, my friend refused to give me his car.

Another adventure I had while living in Victoria was on a horse. I was the kind of person that liked to prove I could do almost anything, so when we visited a horse ranch I told everyone I knew how to ride. They were so amazed that they wanted to see this for themselves. So I mounted a full-grown high-spirited horse and took off like the wind. I figured that as long as I gripped the reins I was in control. Little did I know that horses have minds of their own, especially with inexperienced riders. The horse dragged me through hanging tree branches, jumped over tree stumps and refused to stop no matter how much I pulled on the reins. The stableman and my friends thought I was doing great and cheered me on, until the horse brought me in earshot of them and they realized I was screaming for help. The stableman quickly mounted a steed and chased my runawy horse until he caught up with us and safely escorted us back to the barn. My friends still commended me for my bravery, so my pride was not completely squashed

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Pigeon Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

I remained in Victoria for close to a year, but eventually grew bored. Gaby was no longer happy in her relationship, because Dave kept bringing home too many pretty young men and she began feeling like an outsider. As for myself, my relationship with Bob had turned as cold as the bath water, so we decided to leave the guys behind and head to Vancouver. We found a rooming house in Chinatown with a bathroom down the hall, and a window view of a red brick wall. Every morning, we ate breakfast at the local Chinese diner, and resumed using our panhandling skills. Chinatown is part of the Downtown Eastside, which was considered the seediest part of Vancouver for its prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless people and crime. Even though I indulged in meth in Montreal, I had never been exposed to so many ghostly white and emaciated faces desperate to find their next fix. I wanted to get out of the area as soon as possible, but with very little money I could not figure out how this was going to happen.

One morning Gaby and I came across a few hippies in Stanley Park. We stopped to chat with them and after telling them our plight, they invited us to move in with them at their farm in Surrey.  We were a bit hesitant, but considering where we were staying we figured it was worth the risk. I lived at the farm for a little over a month picking mushrooms, while being chased around by their pet goats who had full access to the house.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
A bag of 1.5 grams of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms

The first morning I was there, I was asked to pick mushrooms for breakfast. I proudly returned with a basket full of huge fungi. My new friends laughed when they saw it. Apparently, these were not the kind of mushrooms they requested. They wanted the very tiny ones with the tips about the size of pinheads. I told them I saw a lot of them, but thought they were too small. I was unaware that they wanted me to pick psilocybin mushrooms, not the kind you put on steak. I was amazed, because I only saw these kinds of mushrooms in small plastic bags that I bought from a dealer in Montreal. By that time they had been chopped into little pieces, so I had no idea what they looked like in full form. Growing up in an urban environment, it also never occurred to me they were actually grown somewhere. Although these were not the kind of mushrooms a person would normally add to a pasta dish, my new friends added them to everything. By the time dinner was over, I was not only full, but felt like I was a passenger on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. In other words, I was in psychedelic heaven.

I eventually grew wary of being chased by goats and living in dreamland, and began to get homesick. I decided to head back to Montreal, so I borrowed money for the train ticket and to buy some bread and cold cuts for the trip. As for my friend Gaby, she decided to remain at the farm for awhile longer, because she was enamoured with one of our roommates. This time I did not have enough money to spend in the bar car, so I found a seat in the economy class section of the train. I expected to sit up for the next three days and nights while slowly starving to death, but once again fate intervened. When the train stopped for an hour in Jasper, Alberta, I went to a grocery store to buy some ingredients for my sandwiches, but when I arrived back on the train the bag not only contained the few items I bought, but also hamburger, buns, and hash browns. I do not know to this day if the clerk intended to help me, or if he mistakenly added my groceries to someone else’s bag. I knew the meat would quickly turn bad, so I asked the cook if he could refrigerate it for me. He was quite amicable and offered to cook me a burger and hash browns for dinner every day.  He even served free apple pie for dessert.

Although I knew I was no longer going to starve, I still thought I would have to suffer sitting upright for the next few days and nights. To make matters worse, a pervert a little older than myself sat in the seat beside me. For the first part of the day, I put up with his verbal advances, but when his hands started working their way to my leg I ran out of patience. I went to the conductor and reported him. He said he could not throw him off the train and simply moving me to a different section would not prevent him from following me. His solution was to put me in a sleeper cabin free of charge, where I could lock the door. My journey home ended up being quite pleasant. I had my own cabin with a bed and served a hot meal every day.

When the train finally pulled into Montreal, I still had a few dollars left, so I took a taxi home. I arrived at my front door with fifty cents in my pocket, drug free and a lifetime worth of hazy memories. Wait, did I say drug free? I was once again on my old stomping ground, so how my future would unfold was anyone’s guess?

---

Joan Reddy

Joan is a professional writer, photographer, animal advocate, and environmentalist. She holds a Masters degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto, and a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University, in Toronto, where her thesis focused on Indigenous culture and the environment.

Joan was a photographer and journalist for Metroland Media Group, and has also written numerous animal-related blogs, articles and product reviews for various commercial clients and nonprofit animal organizations. 

When Joan is not musing over words, she can be found on her 'urban farm' cuddling with her three cats and three rabbits.

Happy F!@king New Year

Austrian skydiver and professional lunatic, Felix Baumgartner, once said: “Never accept your limitations—because there are no limitations.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is absolute horse shit, and I will tell you in great detail how I know it’s horse shit. However, before I get into the story, it’s important that I impart you with some vital information about myself. Number one, I am autistic; number two, I have a learning disorder which slows down my ability to process information; number three, I have severe social anxiety. Already we’re off to a good start. Also, for reasons that will soon become apparent, I don’t know anything about alcohol—I’ve never consumed alcohol, I hate the smell of it in all its forms and I often refuse to touch the liquid with my bare skin.

So, it’s only logical that I would hand in my resume for a bartending-slash-waitress job at the local hotel, pub and restaurant. For the purpose of anonymity, let’s call this place Shitcreek Inn. Now, I knew it was a bad idea; I wasn’t stupid, nor was I unaware of the characteristics that would make such a job almost impossible. I just didn’t realise how much of a bad idea it was until I sat down with the ‘boss man’ for an interview. Let us call him Boris.

Boris would have made an extremely imposing figure to anyone. He was a potbellied, meat-faced miser with cold eyes and a protruding nose. The buttons on his wrinkled swamp-grey shirt barely held together across his midsection, and his faded black ‘dad jeans’ pulled tight at the crotch as he sat with knees spread wide across from me. Was I uncomfortable? Yes. But if I walked out of a job opportunity every time a man had made me uncomfortable, then I would’ve never had a job, so I stuck it out.

As he spoke, I detected the distinct tone of condescension in his monotonous voice, but I dismissed it as my distrust towards men like him. However, the alarm bells were going off by the end of the interview, when he informed me that I had the job and inquired as to whether I could work the next day, which was New Year’s Eve 2014. It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. But I agreed to work that shift, though, because I was a poor millennial in mid-recession Britain—and that is how my short-lived bartending career began!

The next day, my first shift at Shitcreek Inn began. Now, the Shitcreek Inn had been in business since the 14th century. It was a Tudor pub with all the cobwebs, cold drafts and weird smells one could possibly want in a period building. The ceilings were held up by old timbers, and the floors were thick stone slabs worn down by five hundred years of patrons passing over them. It wasn’t too bad, all in all, for an English pub. Americans would love it. So quaint and so authentic for a pub in Middle Earth. But once you got into the restaurant kitchen and saw the grease dripping down the vents and the yellow stains on the walls, a shiver travelled down your spine.

I half-expected to find Gordon Ramsay there filming an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. Then, Boris escorted me down a narrow, low-hanging passage towards the food storage room. The passage went down under the road, like one of the air-raid shelters leftover from the war. I knew that much because I could hear cars passing overhead.

It was then, as we turned the corner, that I first became acquainted with the horror cellar, the stinking cemetery for long-deceased food. A fluorescent light flickered above my head, projecting a sickly glow onto the bags of mouldy carrots scattered over the stone floor. In the corner, there stood a lone fridge with several flies perched on it.

Handing me a roll of kitchen paper and window cleaner, Boris instructed me to clean the meat fridge and scrub the floor, as if it wasn’t obvious that the room hadn’t been cleaned in months. Then he was just gone, leaving me alone in the cold storeroom.

I cautiously approached the fridge to get a better look at the slick substance on the floor, where I immediately came to two conclusions. The slick was, in fact, congealed chicken blood, but there was also a fair amount of vomit mixed in and none of it was mine…not yet. I assumed that it belonged to the last poor soul who tried to clean up Boris’ fetid hellscape. But the chicken blood was definitely seeping from the fridge, so I opened the rickety door and peered in.

Honestly, I would’ve rather found a severed head. It probably would’ve at least smelled better. But I didn’t. Instead, I found myself staring into an abyss of slimy grey chicken, thick pools of blood and some other unidentifiable offal floating around in ectoplasm. It genuinely looked like Boris had been keeping ‘The Thing’ refrigerated in there. I thought, How the fuck did this man, who I’d known for all of half an hour, expect me to clean up this massacre? Was I in the employ of a lunatic? Or a psychopath perhaps?

I couldn’t just go up and refuse him, especially if he was indeed a psychopath. That gammon-faced man had me petrified. So, I thought about how I would go about such a mammoth task. Well, first off, I would need gloves if I wanted to survive the night without contracting typhoid, and a clothesline peg to clamp my nose shut. I procured my items and got to work, trying not to breathe while I did so.

Two hours and four rolls of kitchen paper later, after dry-retching alone on the cold cellar floor, I finished the job, comforted by the fact that I had only earned £10 for a job that should’ve been carried out by a biohazard clean-up team.

I emerged from the cellar in disarray, carrying a bucket of blood-soaked rags, as though I’d just been performing ham-fisted amputations on a civil war battlefield. But there was no rest, not even a break for dinner. I was sent straight out to the bar, with dust and blood on my stockings and my hair sticking up in all directions. There, I met the only other employee on shift, a short bald man working behind the bar.

Any logical person would expect some sort of training at this time, given my inexperience in the art of bartending, but this was not the case at all. To my absolute horror, he was clocking off in half an hour, leaving me alone to bartend and serve a three-course meal to a party of 50. It is then, at that very moment, that I realised what both Boris and the departing bartender knew and neglected to tell me—I had been shanghaied aboard a sinking ship helmed by Dr Evil; I had been thrown in at the deepest of all ends.

The party were due to begin arriving soon, before I could even start to understand the cash register or how to pour a beer or how to make a coffee or what the bottles were up on the wall. I felt the familiar signs of a panic attack brewing. First came the hot flashes, then the sweat, then the hammering heartbeat, then the shaking hands. I was hungry, and I needed to toilet, and I needed to get out of there, but I couldn’t. What would my grandfather say if I arrived home, having just quit in the first three hours of my first shift?

“Back in my day, we would’ve killed to clean up lakes of slimy chicken blood for £5 an hour,” he would probably say. “I got my first job when I was five wrestling rabid badgers for the council, and when we got home, our Father would beat us with tree branches,”

No, I could not leave. I would not be defeated by Boris and his evil restaurant. At worst, I thought, the experience would fit neatly in my ‘get out of your comfort zone’ file, between joining a soccer team without knowing how to play soccer and applying to University in the middle of a complete mental breakdown.

By five, the other employee had gone home and the crowds started to pour into the pub. They crowded around the bar like locusts, asking me for drinks I did not recognise in the slightest. I couldn’t even get the cash register to work, let alone serve all 50 members of the party champagne while serving beer to the nightly regulars.

“What whiskeys do you have?” a man standing at the bar inquired.

“I…don’t…know?” I offered, quite literally ready to collapse like a dying star from embarrassment.

“Could we have two red wines?” a woman chimed in.

“Um, yes. Where would the red wine be?” I answered. “In the fridge?”

“No, only white wine is chilled,” she pointed out.

“Right, right,” I began babbling.

“Excuse me, could I get a pint of Speckled Hen?” one of the regulars called out.

“Shall I just get my own wine and you put it through on the cash register?” the woman asked.

“Yes? I don’t know how to though,” I replied, feeling my face get hotter and hotter with each passing second.

I stumbled over to the beer taps and very cautiously poured out the beer without touching any of it. After handing it to the man, he promptly passed it back and told me there was too much ‘head’ on it. The other regulars laughed at me, and I wanted to leap over the bar and strangle them all to death in a fit of unbridled rage. But I didn’t. All I did was check my pulse to check if I was still alive, which I was, unfortunately.

Conveniently, the cash register stopped working, so I braved a visit to the kitchen where I found Boris stalking around with two buckets in his hand.

“There’s something wrong with the cash register,” I said, trying to summon up my voice.

“I suspect there’s something wrong with the operator,” he sneered back as he pushed past me.

I was marched out to the crowd, where Boris corrected the cash register issue with an irritated grumble before vanishing again to his cellar of abominations. But things did not improve in his absence. The humiliation continued for two more dreadful hours, by which point I was drenched in sweat and my dusty, bloody tights had risen up into the most incredible wedgie, but I couldn’t go to the bathroom and fix it. As soon as the bar crowd had petered off, the dinner was on and I had 50 three-course meals to serve on my own.

Unfortunately, the young chef who had been scheduled to make dinner that night suffered a ‘heart-scare’ in the morning, which somehow did not surprise me, so Boris was cooking. Yes, that night, Fawlty Towers met the ninth circle of Hell and this was the outcome.

The guests sat down, unknowingly about to eat whatever mad experiment Boris had been cultivating in his meat fridge. The menu said turkey, even though I thought it looked suspiciously dark, like human spleen in some sort of gelatinous gravy. But the strange meat wasn’t the only food problem.

Diners began summoning me over to take back cold soup and overcooked vegetables, while I was still trying to get the first course out to all 50 diners in the same hour. Being a polite and courteous waitress, I returned the meals to Boris, where I immediately received the full force of his temper through loud, expletive-laden remarks directed at me. His skin had gone from the colour of gammon to a demonic deep crimson, as he glared at me through the greasy haze.

“Get the main courses out!” he barked. “Now!”

I fled from the kitchen without a moment's hesitation, three plates of roast turkey precariously balanced on my sweaty arms. The diners looked up with hope in their eyes as the kitchen door swung open, anticipating the arrival of their long-awaited meal, only to see me, clammy and white as a ghost.

The small dining room before me was packed to the rafters, making it extremely difficult to navigate. It felt like I had walked into an M.C Escher painting with three large plates of turkey dinner. Nevertheless, I pushed towards the table.

“Who ordered the turkey?” I called several times, trying to be heard over the multiple conversations taking place between the diners.

At that point, as if my night couldn’t get any worse, I tripped over a chair and one of the plates fell straight into the handbag of a woman beside me. The gravy spilt on her dress and the turkey slid to the bottom of the bag where it stuck to her phone screen. I’m quite sure, at that moment, that my soul left my body. I had to be clinically dead or in the midst of a horrible nightmare.

Fortunately, the woman did not fly into a blind rage after I had ruined her dress and her bag with a plateful of the suspicious meat and gravy. She seemed to pity me, so much so that she and the other diners volunteered to clean up so I could keep going with dinner service.

The dinner onslaught continued for four hours, until 10, when my shift was finally due to end. Hallelujah! It didn’t, though. In fact, Boris made me stay until 2 in the morning, making my shift 11 hours long. Eventually, the diners migrated away from the dining room and stood around the bar while I cleaned up the mess. They merrily sang Auld Lang Syne, they held each other close and raised their glasses high, counting down to the new year.

Meanwhile, I kept scrubbing a particularly stubborn pool of gravy stuck to the dining table, wiping the sweat off my forehead every so often. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, I thought, why do I keep getting myself into these situations?

“Happy New Year!” one of the diners cheered, holding her champagne glass up to me.

Yeah, Happy Fucking New Year.

(You’ll be delighted to learn that Boris was later fined by the UK government and added to a ‘name and shame’ list for paying his employees under minimum wage. Justice is done.)

---

Natascha Wood

Natascha is a second year Professional Writing student and withered cemetery dweller, born in 1632, in Great Britain.