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This hostel, it's loud, I've had to change my hours to work around the din & hubbub of a largely babbling clientele.
The TV, frequently on and always too loud. People always coming and going. Smells, the kitchen, some good cooks for sure, accents, some more pleasing than others (usually in languages other than English), it's raining and I need to be writing, studying the menu at work, and it's a challenge here to stay focused, forever and always the burden of other peoples thoughts voiced loudly.
Bunkmates, Steve, still, forever marginal and hanging on by his teeth, selling just enough books every day in Gastown to keep him in the hostel another night. He's growing stressed, increasingly, the rain doesn't allow him to sell, can't make that connection with people, nobody wants to stand and talk to him in the rain.
A small town German boy, here to learn to Ski in Whistler, he's terrified of the city, no bloody wonder, step outside the door of the hostel and you'd understand pretty quickly why. No one comes prepared for this.
And we've a drunk Irishman, he's in all day, then leaves in the evening - returns at 5:00 AM, coughing in the bunk below, he's a tickle in his throat, insensate, drunk, he's come in from where? The meth has irritated his throat, he lies there coughing, hacking, sleep here is precarious, Steve is annoyed, telling him to leave - he doesn't want to get sick, Anti-Vaxxer Steve, how to reconcile this? Afraid of the virus, afraid of the vaccine...
Always here there's the Noise, the traffic, periodic sirens, engines and wheels ploughing through wet streets, the rats in the walls, scratching, and - while I've a place to live I'm missing quietude of the Kootenays.
Work has become an escape.
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And I mean, the longest 2 weeks in the world. I just realized it today - thinking - it was 2 weeks ago yesterday that I fled Nelson in a rumbledown jeep, blazing through floods and landslides on a wing and a prayer to...
Where?
Wherever.
And 2 weeks later here I am. Hope, the disasters, floods, meals at the church and matinees at the cinema. It seems like months, years ago even.
Followed by the trip to Vancouver, 3 days in the Hostel deciding, indecisive. And then - on the computer - looking for, finding a job - all - quite literally - in the same night.
My head spins. Work - a surreal fever dream, "The Cook, The Thief..." lived out in pantomime, imposter syndrome, wandering the Zombie land of East Hastings, Steve, the hostel, the memories crowd my head, make it seem like years have passed when really - it's only been a few short days.
Walking Vancouver, relearning it, I'm not sure I ever forgot, there are everywhere jogs for my memory, Seabus to North Vancouver today, thrifting - expensive, nothing I'm looking for, another white shirt for work, studying the menu...
Time passes.
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Steve, Chapter book, serialized, out every day in Gastown trying to pitch his book, getting in with the university students, going for dinners, being feted.
He's doing well - but - not so much.
He's Anti-Vax, refuses, his intuition won't let him get it, can't get job as a result, and the stress is killing him.
He's not the only one. The Europeans, Travelers, they've all had the jab. The Canadians, not so much...
Steve's come up with a 1 page manifesto that he's selling for $1.00, flogging on the street, to drum up interest in future work.
He's committed to writing one a week. A full page. Different manifesto each week. He's spot-on with the price-point.
We chat, conversation, standard coffee shop brainstorming, no solutions, merely ideas, superficial, skirting the edge of more dangerous topics, don't discuss public health, common sense, modern medicine, science, everything else is fine. I've practiced for these conversations in the Kootenay's, I'm good to go...
Sometimes you just have to listen
***
This self-publishing, not the route I want to go, would require me to illustrate things in my distinctly bumblefuck inept style, but - seeing him do it, I realize it's an option I'd never seriously considered, it's an option on the table and I should work in that direction - just in case. The back-up plan.
***
Meanwhile, Hostel, people come and go. There seems to be a core of regulars - English Acid Dude, moving out - found a place in GasTown, sounds like a deal.
Steve, still here. "Krishna", still here, a few others.
The EuroTrash comes and goes, listen to the most grating accents, no conversations to be had there, don't even try and if they try do not - under any circumstances - reply.
Persian girl, been here a week, looking for a place to live, studying medicine, today's her meltdown. Sitting in the lounge, wrapping herself in her arms, foot shaking. Her boyfriend comes in looking for her - I point. She's in the throes of a full-on panic attack.
***
The restaurant - first "paid" shift last night - there's a formidable amount to know. Every style of wine - cabernet - pinot noir - chardonnay - cab-franc- shiraz - etc, etc - has it's own glass. And - to confound matters further - depending on the room you take your wine in, the glass will vary. Every dish has it's own separate mis-en-place.
Take in the atmosphere of the place. Almost all of the waiters effeminate to an extraordinary degree. I would say "All" - but - I have not yet met them all. They chat - conversations that I can only overhear - bow-ties, scarves, tight-fitting jeans, fitted shirts, brown dress shoes, I'm excluded as a result of my newness, more conservative dress, the cliques that have formed I can't be a part of, and even if I could why would I? Still, it's all - not merely new - it's surreal. This is it. Surreal.
I have perhaps a hundred bow ties. A dozen fitted shirts. Cuff-links, watches, all the accoutrements and accessories - all in lockers across the country. What did I bring with me? Nothing superfluous. A fitted white shirt with a collar that won't close. A pair of black trousers with a broken zipper. A wireless microphone and Bunsen-campfire fuel and bag full of balloons...
***
This morning, coffee, the same place in GasTown, the same as every morning, I can't shake the feeling that I'm a "Stranger in a Strange land" - I've had it for a while - not just me - but - just being here - weird - like "Imposter Syndrome" - not just the job, the being here, even in Nelson - my comfort was only ever skin deep, I'm missing something, can't put my finger on it...
The restaurant will close - Christmas to New Years. I've heard rumors, don't know the dates, but it somewhat throws a wrench in my plans. Do I find a place to live - before? Or after? If after I can abandon the Hostel for a bit, go to Edmonton for Xmas, visit family, friends, save money, or at least spend it with people I know -
***
Time passes.
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It goes without saying that I've never worked anyplace so fancy as this.
The manager introduces himself, French, a proper Sommelier, young, perhaps early 30's, the other staff range in age from early 20's to what I might guess at as late 60's or 70's. I'm paired with a girl working a private party - 25 people.
And I'm schooled. Here, what with the 120 page wine list you don't open the wine. Take the order, let the Sommelier know. They will take care of it.
Absolutely no modifications to food orders without Chef's permission.
You don't touch the food. There's expeditors for that.
You don't make drinks - the bartenders do that.
And I could go on.
Suffice it to say, I'm in over my head - there's more "standing around" and being available than there is actual serving.
The table - they spend approximately $6000, with an automatic gratuity of 15%. For 2 servers - not bad - but - I don't count as a server, I'm on "Observation", unpaid apprenticeship as it were. And even for 1 server - well, factor in the abundant support - Bartenders, Hostess, Bussers, Expeditors, Sommeliers - you get it.
Wait and see.
At the end of the night I'm offered the job. I don't even know what the job is - merely get told precisely what i have to do and do it. This will quite possibly the longest apprenticeship I've ever had in a restaurant. Worth it? I don't yet know. Fingers crossed. But - one down, now to deal with housing and wheels.
And - worse come to worse I can always throw on my resume that I got a job offer from ... - which alone should be worth it's weight in gold.
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Yesterday - apply for jobs online. 7 jobs applied for (I'll get far more traction today on foot). But some slight success.
An interview today. Upscale Italian restaurant. Good, good.
And so celebrating - perhaps getting a little too deep in my cups, this morning everyone looking at you: A French girl accuses me: "You hate all the French!!!!".
Mmmm. Did I say that? Me? Moi? Merely when I'm drunk I like to provoke a bit, in the spirit of lighthearted banter. I'm actually not fussed, probably I was just making a scene. She regards me suspiciously.
Steve, bunkmate, gave me a copy of his book. Autobiographical, the oft-told tale of an abusive father, how he came to be and how he gave it all up, tales of his hitchhiking, 26 pages - self published & printed - 4 pages to an 8X11 sheet of paper, double sided, and somehow in his arrangement he didn't get the pages right and so each page when turned brings you to a different idea or time in his life, then back again. It doesn't make linear sense - sort of a post-modern ramble, done better it could be art - but it doesn't matter, I got the idea, made the appropriate pleasing noises and reviews.
I need cigarettes, and it's late, and I'm done with paying full price, there's cheap cigarettes around, I know, $5.00 a pack, and Steve sends me off to a group of natives down East Hastings who are selling them, so I wander amongst the teetering and addled enquiring, amongst the tarp villagers, no one knows anything, surely they know - definitely they know - I'm not yet - although close - closer - at the point where they're going to trust me, addled as I am, a 7 foot native youth tests my mettle - wrestling me, telling me how tough I am, not at all, not at all, merely sinew & bone at this point, I sit down and have conversations with the anguished at the end of the world, there's an incoherent poetry, a young junkie, tormented and wretched beyond description, telling me of her life - when she had a job, children, a place to live, all gone, all gone, and the glimmers of lucidity amongst the ravings - I could listen to this all night - but - careful, caution, listen too long and you'll be drawn into the depths as well.
I give up on the cheap cigarettes, find a shop, pay full price, back to the hostel, sleep.
I think I slept.
This morning, Steve - sleeping in, always he's asleep in the room - he's pleasant to talk to, discuss things with - but - clearly, given the time he spends in the room - and this room, it's no place to spend time in - he's profoundly depressed.
I'd be as well, only now - at this point in time - I can't afford it.
So now, onward-ho with my day, interviews to be met - and more to be sourced - Step 1: Find a Job - Step 2: Find a place to live - Step 3: Get a Jeep.
And there's quite a few steps in between so I'm off...