Story #8
R. Linda:
It be grand to hear from you! I be honoured I entertain and delight you with me true life stories in me quest to become a CNN reporter, LMAO.
I did send me photo out to two requests from the chat room. One promptly stopped writing to me, and the other was someone for whom I had to close me mail for the overly enthusiastic love letters. Therefore, I must be somewhere in between the ugly scale. I never thought I was until the one dropping off the face of the earth, but that seemed to be the only thing I could think of, except of course, me venturing into Born in the UK chat to see what that room was about. There I was treated to one woman's mellow buzz from a glass of wine she was drinking. The one that dropped me happened in and it looked for all and sundry as if I and the wine drinker were an item, when in all reality, I was teasing the bejesus out of her for being a Brit with a drinking habit. All in good fun.
I think I am batting 50/50 with the photo, and should quit while I am still ahead, or am I ahead and not a step behind? Well, doesn't matter I be stuck with this face and I be used to looking at it in the mirror, and I suppose that's all that counts. ;)
I got home last night at me usual time, picked up me mail and started me dinner, when the phone rang. There it was -- an assignment! I was to go to Harvard Square and interview a homeless person, who refused to go to shelter even if it was 3 below and the wind chill off the harbour was fierce. Well, I bundled meself up like you would not believe and off I went.
Upon walking up and down Mass Avenue where I was told said homeless person would be, and near about freezing me arse and fingers off, I happened to spy him shuffling up towards the square. I gave chase as fast as me frozen legs would carry me and with politeness, accosted the man with, "Are you Mr. McCorken?" He stopped shuffling and looked at me all askance and said, "What's it to ya?" His breath warmed me whole self up from the whiskey on it. Staggering back a few feet I shouted, "I'm from the news, can I interview you on why you would prefer to sleep outside tonight instead of go to one of the city shelters?" He looked at me all narrow of eyes and his toothless mouth worked and the spital started to form over the top of his grizzled old lip, and there I was smiling politely back, all the while trying to keep me stomach contents from saying hello.
He scratched his stubby jaw with gloves that had no fingertips and then mumbled something and started to move off. Imagine me surprise, as I ran up to him pencil and pad in hand, and shuffled along with him. I decided to jump in and ask him again why he was so adamant about not seeking shelter. He turned to me and said, "The bus stops here!"
Naturally, I looked around to see if we were at a bus stop, but no, no sign of one in sight. Then he said, looking at me pad to see if I was poised to write, which I wasn't because I was busy looking for the bus sign. "Put yer pen ta yer pad there laddie, and I'll tell it ta ya." On hearing the accent, I thought why couldn't his name be Lavinski, or Tatorini, or Lipshitez, why McCorken? Why a former countryman? Sighing, I put me pencil on the pad and told him to fire away.
"First off, let me tell ya it be colder than a ditch digger's balls in the Klondike. And second of all, those shelters as ye call 'em' are crowded with people with lice on one end and women and kiddies on the other. Now which side do ya think they would be a puttin' the likes o' me?" Just standing there in the icy cold looking at him, I was starting to itch. I said, "I don't have to answer that do I?" He said, "Ye can use yer noggin ta figure it wouldn't be with the women for sure . . . for sure. I don't need no lice I can tell ya that!"
I wrote it all down knowing full well, that this was not going well, and it looked to me like the lice were already in residence. But I thought, well, he wants me to write, and he will clam up if I stop, so jot it down, Gabe. I said, "Mr. McCorkin, not all shelters are that way, surely." And he laughed and said, "Ey they be so and if ya don't believe me you get yersel over ta one and have a lookie see." I said I would, and why didn't he come along with me? We could go to the one of his choice. He said, "Because the bus stops here!"
I looked around again for a bench at least where commuters would wait for the vehicle to arrive . . . nothing! At last, I asked him where on the bus he would be going at this hour? And he said, "Bus? Wot bus?" Perplexed, I read back to him his last statement and he said, "That . . . wot's yer name again?" I told him and he continued, "Gabriel, like yer an angel or sumthin, wot was yer ma thinking?" I said, "Now let's not get personal, I am here to interview you, not the other way round."
"Augh, right ye be. Ok, it be an American expression, ya heard of it surely. 'The bus stops here' and that's what I be saying to yer readers. If I don't want to sleep with a bunch of lice-infested homeless people, I don't fecking have to!"
"Oh," I said, "you mean 'the BUCK stops here'."
He looked at me and said, "Wot-ever." Then he added sarcastically, "Gabriel." He smiled a toothless but mirth-filled grin and shaking his head told me to "feck off" he needed his beauty sleep.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know I didn't get a printable story out of him. I spent two hours in the chilly cold to be told to "feck off." I did look for a bus stop to get back home and wasn't successful. I ended up frozen like a block of ice, me dinner hard and cold in the microwave and nothing else to munch on in the cupboard.
Gabe
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