Chapter One
Diablo
Dybbuk lives in a shroud of mystery, watching behind camouflage as the
world unfolds. He is wild and free to make criminal moves and engage
in illegal, immoral and odious behavior. Evil is everywhere and
Diablo is part of it. He heard something about 10 Commandments, for
instance. Whatever those are, he's for breaking them. He is in
tireless pursuit of perversity. He doesn't get bored, dismayed, or
confused. He conducts trivial criminal acts mostly and lives for one
intense compulsion. He cannot stop thinking about her. She is
irresistible to his dark, hollow, empty (probably defective) heart.
To keep
moving forward, an inclination of human beings in modern times, also,
something sharks do (move forward), Diablo goes drug store to drug
store to pick up prescriptions and sell the addictive stuff. This
keeps him slip-sliding on a patch of winter ice, spring ice, also,
early autumn ice. He survives by travelling the country to pick up
prescription drugs, welfare cheques, and shady women.
Diablo doesn't addict people to narcotics intentionally. But he would if he had to. The drugs sell themselves. He's not opposed to making people happy. He's not in favor of it either. This he learned from Ronnie the world traveler. Diablo once took shelter in Moosimin, Saskatchewan, where he was born. It is a windswept town on the bone dry prairie,1,500 dusty heads 20 kilometres this side of the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border. There was a bus depot, and a room at Fake Uncle Ronnie's little shack, considered a permanent address by the social services department of the flat province. Munchhausen mom was long gone. He didn't know anything about her. Never knew. She managed to remain invisible to Diablo his entire life. If she was sitting in front of him, he would not know it.
One
of Munchhausen mom's ex's showed Diablo a rare form of tolerance.
Ronnie the world traveller was demented. Ronnie lived a thoroughly
malignant life, prone to fitting people into his surroundings as
needed. Ronnie showed Diablo how to drive a car. Ronnie showed Diablo
how to get a narcotics prescription. Ronnie had the largest
collection of porn mags Diablo (or possibly anybody) had ever seen.
One entire wall of a shed behind the shack was stacked floor to
ceiling with porn mags. This is interesting. This is thousands upon
thousands of porn mags, Penthouse, Playboy, you name it, all the
rest, various presentations of smut going back to the beginnings of
smut, Diablo surmised.
Ronnie
spent hours engrossed in his magazines smoking dope in the shed out
back behind his shack. He had a gas heater. He would reach in and
pull a magazine out randomly. "You know how people lie, and say,
'I buy them for the articles,'" he told Diablo, one afternoon,
finally, flipping pages through a haze of cigarette and weed smoke,
"Not me. I never say it. Never said it in my life." Ronnie
confessed he didn't buy the magazines for the articles because he
doesn't read, because Ronnie has a form dyslexia so severe he cannot
sign his name. He dropped out of grade eight at the insistence of
teachers and administrators who complained they were tired of
preventing his effort to burn down the school. "It's amazing how
useful it is in the medical and financial system when you can't sign
your name and you have a doctor's note to say you need to leave an X
for a signature," and not a very good X. Like, “That's an X?”
Ronnie looked at pictures and consented to fine print nobody was
prepared to read out loud at prescription counters.
An
obsession with pornography might be explicable for a definitive
half-wit in the face of illiteracy.
Another thing with Ronnie is he doesn't
function on alcohol, thus a life-time ban from legal driving
(rigorously enforced, he bragged). Instead he's middle-aged with a
mental handicap, tobacco-stained teeth, and a gigantic morphine
monkey on his back. On the other hand, Ronnie could tell you to the
penny how many rubber cheques he had bounced with a doctor's
permission. And how many, “rooves,” he had to fall off to hit the
worker's compensation jackpot. Ronnie knew other things, such as how
many informants it takes to run a rural RCMP detachment. Also, where
to find those informants.
When
Diablo was cut loose from foster care, he gravitated down Highway 16
from Saskatoon to Moosomin to visit the last house he occupied with
Munchhausen mom. She had been living with
Ronnie in the small house on a dusty corner of outer Moosimin when
Diablo was taken by social workers, and Ronnie lived there still, but
Munchhausen mom was gone.
“Your mother? I don't know, and I thank god every day. She was the most bitter, most vengeful, most hateful monster I ever met. ”
Diablo put up a hand, but Ronnie ignored it, and continued, “And she hated your guts. Said so every day. She called you the Albatross.”
“You're preaching to the lead singer of the choir, Fake Uncle Ronnie.”
“Don't call me that. We are not related. They put her in a straight-jacket with a hood on her head and I never saw her again."
"Yeah well neither did I."
“Count yourself lucky, I am so sorry I met her,” he continued, “She is the most evil cunt to ever darken my door.”
So many people, always the same story, “She makes you look like a fucking saint. The social worker who took your sister out of here whacked on 5 ounces of Benylin Cough Syrup calls her the kind of person who breaks the system.” Does he have to give her credit? And, no, she did not make Diablo look saintly, since he is a form of self-made perfection.
Diablo harboured no delusions. First of all, he knew everybody hated him. He is ready to live with this and agree, openly. This freedom from guardianship is his cross to bear. Everybody has a mother. His happened to be the same one as the Devil's. Diablo heard her say she was an 'old soul' to more than a few buckaroos on various benders over the years while he navigated a childhood of hospitalizations and needless, uncalled for, and often life-threatening surgeries. (Aren't all surgeries life-threatening?)
He had seen her in action up close for 14 years by and large being stuck there to witness a multitude of personality quirks (also known as a 'Legion,' he was told by one quasi-sympathetic Jesuit Priest while on a temporary stop-over at a Rectory, where Diablo was hung up momentarily for an inexplicable reason related to foster care). It's possible she had been around a few thousand years. Even so, he never learned a single thing about her. She might have been Hungarian. No evidence pointed to anything but crazy, and possibly flexible. Fake Uncle Ronnie did say they locked her into the jumpsuit real tight. Sis has a name for Munchhausen mom. She calls her, 'The Executioner,' because Munchhausen mom uses potassium chloride to kill her boyfriends. “If it's good enough for the government,” she says. “Mom, they don't do executions in Canada anymore.”
“'They' don't. The Government of Pandora does.”
Fake Uncle Ronnie let him occupy the shack in Moosomin for a while. "I do not dislike you," Ronnie said, holding a strangely neutral position in relation to virtually everybody else. Diablo was informed about the world in which Ronnie once travelled. Ronnie bragged about being physically fit through most of his life, 5 foot 9 inches tall (one inch taller than Diablo), holding steady at 165 lbs. (20 lbs heavier than Diablo), dirty blond hair sometimes long with a permanent hairline. (Diablo's hair was a rusty frock of tightly matted curls low on his forehead to obscure his sharper features.)
Ronnie scored weed for Paul McCartney one time in Amsterdam, he said. There would be no way to disprove this. It's an odd thing to lie about. This was the single moment in his history that made Ronnie seem like a world traveller.
Ronnie was a roofer on the prairie until he fell off one of the. . . , “ -- rooves,” (perhaps archaic, and not the only thing archaic about Ronnie). He became a permanent ward of the medical system in the flat province, even though he continued, “. . .rooving,” around Southern Saskatchewan. The sum total of Ronnie's wit could be found in one sentence, “Feb-uary is Lib-ary month.”
Diablo saw Ronnie as a cartoon, and a sloth, not simply lazy, but too lazy to bother to think, which was what made him a foil for Diablo's seriously deranged, outrageously psychopathic, and eternally opportunistic Munchhausen mom.
Ronnie dropped consonants. Munchhausen mom whistled through broken teeth. She said Ronnie could take a joke because Ronnie is a joke, “Ask him to say 'battery,'” she cackled. Apparently he drops vowels too. A three-year relationship was the record for Munchhausen mom. Diablo reassured himself that Ronnie was not his father. Their history wasn't long enough. She didn't need men anyway. She used drugs and alcohol and sex to conjure tornadoes of chaos. She didn't take drugs and alcohol and have sex. She needed others to take drugs and alcohol and have sex so she could treat them sadistically and murder them without suspicion.
Diablo had seen her knock off a couple of 'boyfriends,' and this equipped him with a level of prudence regarding personal use of drugs and alcohol. The unspoken truth about Munchhausen mom's disappearance was a life sentence she is serving for multiple murders never proved. Ronnie suggested they put her in a nut ward with a bit between her teeth. “It was her, or me. She lost.” Ronnie credits his survival to his freakishly high tolerance for drugs and especially poison, in particular, Potassium Chloride, “Undetectable upon autopsy," she would say, and cackle, and whistle.
Eventually Diablo was
introduced to one of Ronnie's former partners (in crime), a
businessman in Regina who owns a used car lot in the northeast corner
of the city. Foster is a typical used car salesman, ready, willing,
and able to fleece you to your face exactly the way you expect. The
more he smiles, the more wool you're going to lose, and you stand
there smiling back while he does it. “You got room for four bodies
in that trunk,” is a plaque on the wall of his office, which truly
endeared Diablo to the place.
Diablo
is presently riding in one of Foster's used cars smoking dope on the
way to Regina where he stays at the historic LaSalle Hotel and blind
pig. The historic property downtown on Hamilton Street is a habit of
reasonable comfort (sagging bed springs, no terrible odours) for a
bargain basement price. Diablo often repeats the phrase 'Historic
Property' around the owner because it drives Roger Dubois crazy. The
provincial historic property rules involving the preserving buildings
in Regina put Roger the hotel owner on the fast track to insolvency,
he complains, profusely, with no justification, since Roger bought
the building under those rules, and Diablo finds this amusing.
Diablo works hard to keep the disgruntled owner of the historic property slammed on morphine. One of the owner's daughters' changes Diablo's sheets once a week. After a while he is going to ask her to do his laundry. And he would give her a tip. Don't buy historic property.
Diablo's main
vocation and mode of survival is to obtain prescription drugs and
sell bennies and narcotics on the street. Regina is a small city of
167,000 souls, including those possessed, sold, and under attack by
intensive demonic forces at play in this particular and peculiar
community. This was the way Diablo saw things. He requires a larger
area of operation and Ronnie suggested going inter-provincial. "You
look sick enough to have a thousand doctors chase you with
prescription pads. Too bad your brain isn't as big as your nose. You
need to think bigger. You need to know what they want." What
they want are patients who take drugs. Diablo happens to look like
somebody who needs a lot of drugs and is avidly interested in taking
them. Was his nose that big? Sort of impish, upturned at the end. Yah
it was kind of big. At least Diablo can read a book at the end of
it.
Selling prescription drugs keeps him off the radar of
street drug dealers and their issues selling cocaine and marijuana,
and other drugs like heroin and LSD, and guns and collectives and
insatiable addictions and those complications. Ronnie told him
prescription drugs keeps you off the cops' radar, too, because cops
don't regard pills as illicit generally, within reason. (Filling the
backseat of a stolen 1974 AMC Gremlin with pills from a drugstore
break and enter, well, Ronnie did time for that one.) Doctors don't
worry about pills being addictive. Ronnie has a few cop customers for
his own stash of 482 morphine sulphate pills per month with a street
value of $20 per pill. Ronnie ends up downing the profits.
Ronnie is a strung-out morphine addict. Diablo shakes his head at the routine around defecation. Ronnie is free to roam the ether and atmosphere for somewhere between four days and one week, at which time he has to come down and face the toilet like a man. This is more amazing when you consider Ronnie's appetite. He's a regular at a local fish and chips shoppe on Tuesday night all-you-can-eat. Granted he doesn't eat the batter, but 10 pieces of cod slide down his gullet like a seal or a sea lion or a seagull, or all three. Presumably a day of shitting ensues after the weekly feast of oily fish. Diablo isn't a participant in long term morphine use.
Another piece of cop
wisdom from Fake Uncle Ronnie: a driver in the right-hand lane of
traffic is ignored at all times of day and night. Ronnie lost his
driver's license permanently and would never see it again, and this
was for a specific reason. Ronnie was as bad at driving as he is at
reading, and who knows, maybe for the same reason. But he was correct
about driving in the right hand lane of traffic. Cops drive by like
you aren't even there. You could have a hostage in the backseat tied
up and gagged, flailing at the window, cops wouldn't bother to
look.
The truth of the matter was Ronnie used Diablo as a
chauffeur for several months until Diablo shuffled away to greener
pastures with a fresh driver's license. You cannot say greener
pastures out loud in Saskatchewan without raising laughs the size of
dirt clouds. As if there could be any greener pastures than
Saskatchewan. Ronnie allows him to continue collecting welfare
cheques at the Moosimin address. It's not like a social worker
wanders out to the Manitoba border to check on the whereabouts of the
much younger son of the mother of Satan.
In his daily
endeavours, Diablo acquires Quaaludes, 100mg morphine, Valium, and
speed, anywhere from Saskatoon to Toronto, and lately Talwin and
Ritalin in Winnipeg. Endless comings and goings at odd hours in
highway buses crossing the endless expanse of Canada leaves him
feeling delightfully disoriented. He lives with a master plan, of
course, which comes with a strategic mind developed out of an urgent
need for survival, and the chase of an elusive object.
Diablo reads. There was a reason for this. He learned early in his life that Munchhausen mom was intimidated by reading, so he devoured everything he could get his hands on. He loved doing it in front of her because she would often completely lose her shit and leave the house, and he might not see her for days. He loves reading up on how to cheat. He cheats four provincial governments and countless social workers out of cheques. He cheats countless doctors out of drugs. He is extraordinarily fit for faking disability, and switching identities.
A legacy of
gifts from Munchhausen mom was permanently disabling conditions,
pigeon-chest, double-joints, knobby knees, big ears, a long nose,
FASD, drug habits, nicotine habit, (mostly heroin)-related congenital
damage, and disorders of all sorts that keep on giving in cash to
spend on hookers and travel and a carefree existence. He has several
crash pads across the country. He is overdue to visit his Toronto
'address,' which is a bivouac with Tony and large colony of
cockroaches, located a few blocks from The Brass Rail on Yonge
Street, Diablo's all-time favourite peeler bar.
There are no strip clubs in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. There are strip clubs in Alberta, but Diablo isn't connected in the province of Alberta. There are strip clubs in Montreal. He watched a superbly stacked blonde on St. Catherine's Street dance it up to Funky Town. Diablo's interest in Montreal is strictly to pick up two-year-old Cadillacs and Oldsmobile 98s and deliver them to Regina. Diablo doesn't run a welfare scam in Quebec. Too much hassle about speaking French and explaining where you came from. “I came from my mother and it wasn't pretty. You don't want to hear any details. And you don't want to get me started. Il n'ete votre probleme, unless you conjure it.”
HELLO My Name, Is:
Tiny (name-tag on his chest) is a Jamaican who lives in Toronto in a
dirty yellow bathrobe and a belt with a large hunting knife stuck in
it, and it was an unsightly bathrobe but at least it wasn't pink.
Meeting Tony was 'Luck of the Draw' when Diablo fell off a Greyhound
Bus five days (and 50, 10mg Valium pills) after leaving Regina, he
thinks, with a night spent in Winnipeg and a night in Thunder Bay,
(he thinks, maybe yes maybe no, on Thunder Bay). During the period in
reflection, he cannot say for certain the month, and, don't forget,
memories fade or completely disappear on occasions when you are
involved with drugs, doing them, but there was a sign in front of a
monstrous looking red brick building in St. James district, across
Church Street, not far from downtown Toronto's acclaimed Yonge
Street, longest street in Canada.
“Room For Rent,” was
scrawled (likely, presumably, almost certainly) in blood on a cut-out
piece of brown cardboard, nailed to an ancient faux column of no
particular design, painted in whitewash. The tacky sign nailed to the
non-weight-bearing fake porch-colon was the 'Draw.' The sign was
there to attract Diablo, unmistakably.
He rang the doorbell marked 'manager.' It was functional. The manager had been prompt, "Just tell 'em the manager sent you." He pointed to his name-tag. Diablo leaned in, and squinted, T - I - N - Y? "Tiny, huh? Is that ironic?" About 6 foot 5 inches of solid Jamaican muscle rippled with laughter, "That is an 'O'," he said, glassy dark eyes shining crazy and bloodshot. Tony enjoyed the attention of the large hunting knife planted in his waist belt. The terry cloth robe was tied, by and large, but, thankfully, Tony wore boxers to go with his stocking feet and pearly white teeth.
Diablo received a tour within seconds, entering the south hall, The hideous brick building was three storeys high, on the inside, and, turns out, located on the way to the welfare office. So. Convenient. The halls were dim, the walls were thin. Small, square, box-like rooms lined both sides of the south hall, and both sides of the north hall, on three floors. The hideous building was a warehouse of people, plywood walls separating dozens of raving lunatics, in the manner of separating but containing dangerous and certifiable psychopaths, sociopaths, deviants, and degenerates in a stark, nowhere running maze. It stunk of despair and vermin. It's a place you might expect to find Munchhausen mom running a killing floor, except fake uncle Ronnie was right. She would never see the light of day again.
Tony the manager lived on the 3rd floor, in the back of the building, It was clear immediately upon stepping in the place, Tony was the manager of a human zoo on three dingy levels, and 'the Luck.' Interminable dankness was warmed by an old boiler clanging and clunking from action in the basement to ooze enough heat to keep it occupied under a permanent banishment of sentiment like welcome or contentment. Diablo took paperwork, and left by the north hall. No elevator was available except for an off-limits freight elevator at the rear, used by the owner exclusively, an old Toronto dowager, according to Tony. “To qualify for an emergency welfare supplement from the Province of Ontario, go down the block and across the street.” His instructions had been concrete. It was perfection, wouldn't you say?
Even sleeping 48 consecutive hours on a Greyhound Bus, Diablo managed to keep things straight in his head. Diablo had not been back to Toronto for a few weeks now. The arrangement with Tony allowed a backlog of three months. After that, Tony had explained, he would keep what he got and tell welfare to stop the cheques. Sure ya would, big fella. It isn't hard to imagine a long history of 'managers' like Tony in St. James neighborhood. This is the kind of manager that can dispose of bodies, either with attention of authorities, or without.
It is a short distance to Yonge Street and literally a stone's throw from the welfare office, which Diablo never needs to visit again. His arrangement with Tony came to this: Diablo needs an address to get a welfare cheque. The address is the ticket to the free drugs. Tony read the scam like a book he wrote hisself. Diablo explained to his Toronto landlord, “I will not be back, except to collect my half of the cheque. You can rent the room to somebody less crazy than me.” He had seen enough of the screaming meamies in the building on a single walk-through. Tony agreed to the arrangement.
The welfare office had cemented the multi-thousand dollar deal. “We have to conduct a home visit.” Diablo handed the social worker the address scrawled in pencil on a piece of white cardboard, which was the back of a cigarette package. "Tiny Tony sent me. He recycles a lot of cardboard into literature. Here's some for you."
The welfare office person didn't smile. “Yah, we know. We don't do home visits to this address."
Diablo recalls twisting on the inside wearing a blank expression, acting fast on his feet, searching for the will to live. This was an unacceptable punch in the gut which he was determined to convey to the office clerk.
"It's the only
address in St. James we don't visit," she
added, casually, feeling safe behind bulletproof glass.
"Well
it's the only place," he stammered, "I could find. . , ,"
or wanted to look.
"Come back in an hour with this form
filled in. A cheque will be waiting."
A flabbergasted
Diablo smiled, his mood spiking, giddy at striking the gold here on
Ontario. Like, finding a pirate ship loaded with it. Sure you have
to fight some of the pirates but this was the day he felt the warm
embrace of a concrete jungle called Toronto. No doubt Tony cruised
the hallways half-dressed and menacing everything but vermin. He
probably did a lot of screaming and yelling, but must be laughing
sometimes. Tony sold shitty weed. And he seemed to be an
even-tempered psychopath, generally speaking. That is to say, he
might be miserable or he might be happy. He managed a building with
few if any even-tempered psychopaths. One tour had proven the rules
with unbridled screaming and dress optional in the facility, doors
open, doors closed, doors slamming. Diablo makes rare visits. No
overnights, goes slightly further than by the book of the 'emergency'
social workers in St. James.
Diablo makes an effort to live up
to his name, but it wasn't work. Being diabolical can be arduous and
taxing and challenging, but it is a choice. It is what he wants to do
and he has given this vocation to himself. It was what he needed. It
was the only thing he was gonna get. Everybody knows it. It was
written in the strange contours of his face.
"Can I see
your ID? Uh huh. Well, Darren, we make the cheques out to your
building manager." "Tiny." "Tony, fills out in
this form. You bring it back, and we give you the cheque, which you
take back to Tony." "Tiny."
She reminded him
they do not do 'home' visits to Tony's warehouse. “Yes, ma'am, I
had a tour. The place is as scary as it looks.” She smiled finally,
“I cannot imagine,” she said, and waved goodbye.
Diablo has no reason to be so defeatist all the time, does he? When does the devil ever lose? He worked things out with social workers, and, ultimately, Tony, doing business at a small table in a kitchen/office, in uniquely (for the building) livable quarters on the third floor, at the back of the building. After he filled out the welfare forms diligently, and took the cheque, and returned Diablo's share with cash in 30 minutes, the test run was complete. Best of all, Tony writes letters to a medical clinic around the corner for 'tenants.' This moment rose as negotiations were finishing. It came up because Tony likes valium and never says no to a mickey of Bacardi rum. Diablo learns Tony goes nutty around rent day, and people who turn their backs on Tony are betraying him (or themselves). Diablo doesn't turn his back on Tony. Diablo backs away slowly.
Getting half of a welfare cheque for rent is a dividend. Prescriptions are the core of the business model. He acquires diet pills in Toronto, and a large volume of mild sedatives, mild sleeping pills called Trazzadone, some Mandrax usually prescribed to anxious housewives. Diablo makes runs to Winnipeg for Talwin and Ritalin.
Besides
Tony in Toronto, Ronnie in Moosimin, and the stupefied hotel owner in
Regina, Diablo fostered a few other connections. One was a former
partner of Ronnie, a guy named Foster who sends guys to pick up cars
from Winnipeg or Montreal occasionally, but more often from small
towns near the U.S. border in south west Saskatchewan. Foster is a
bad ass, but he plays himself off as Mr. Goody Two Shoes by
sponsoring victims in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Another connection
was an Indian Diablo met on the streets of Regina with the hookers.
Virgil wasn't a pimp, per se, but Diablo was known to sell one or two
pills on Rose Street, now and again, and Virgil knows this in
explicit detail, down to the stamp on the pill. You might even say
forensic detail. Which begs the question, what else does Virgil know?
Virgil comes to Diablo's
room at the LaSalle Hotel in downtown Regina, on occasion, and, while
he doesn't come alone very often, Virgil does the talking. He says he
doesn't visit the hotel's slum level tavern nor the demon-rich blood
red Rococo Lounge. Too many over-served Indians in one, too many
under-served white people in the other. As it turns out, Virgil took
to distributing pills to girls for Diablo, a lot of pills, way more
pills than he had been selling earlier, so Virgil and his sidekicks
were in and out of the rickety elevator like ghosts. They had a new
hankering for T's and R's, which came in limited supply. Speed was
plentiful (diet pills). Morphine was plentiful. Valium, tons of it.
Sleeping pills. Always.
Diablo's main prop was to present
himself bedraggled and sickly to attract a specific sort of person
into his orbit, fellow losers. From this life, a lack of magnetism.
On this earth, a short run at kicking up the dust. Diablo didn't know
where his personal life-force came from (or went to). Speculating is
pointless, to contemplate in polite company, impossible. It's
off-putting how offended people get when you gab a little about
Satan. Others were too drunk or incapacitated to give a fuck.
Diablo's heedless diabolism grew from a power he was granted by
Munchhausen mom. The power of dismissal. This came directly from his
primary guardian, and since he had no guardian, Diablo was acting
strictly from his own diabolical volition, a disposition which had
been developing throughout his entire life. He noticed the condition
of being guardian-free created a sort of night-vision.
Diablo
emerged from childhood with a profound sense of abandonment. He
longed for it. This was an incubator for remarkably bad feelings. He
made peace with the vacuum but it caused Diablo to act in
manipulative ways. One night, growing up, one of Munchausen mom's
peculiar ex-boyfriends (in a parade before Ronnie) opened the door of
the bedroom shared illicitly with Diablo's budding sister and threw
in a paperback which landed on the grim-looking linoleum floor of the
stark lit room. He remembered how mind numbing cold it was in the
room, as well as the rest of the house, until the arrival of that
book. "What am I supposed to do with that? Burn it?"
"You
should memorize it first, " fake uncle number 10,000 said,
"People should know where the fuck somebody like you is coming
from. How you survive this bitch mother of yours is something
diabolical," he had added, and disappeared for all time shortly
thereafter. Diablo's younger sister on the mattress behind him was
swaddled in blankets and sniggering at the alarming exchange. All in
all she had a good sense of humour. The most dreadful or silly thing
could make her laugh. This time it was The Satanic Bible. Sister gave
him the name Diablo thereafter when he began to read it out loud.
He
and his sister separated during those formative years, by the time he
was 14 and she was 11 (and she was a remarkably and perhaps
exceedingly developed 11 year old). Once he became an adult, Diablo
travelled far and wide mostly by Greyhound and Saskatchewan
Transportation Corp, (STC). He was known to ride the rear seat of a
Greyhound
Bus. He rides STC but those trips are dull. On STC he hooked up with
an occasional farmer's daughter once he figured out the stereotype
was true. Rides in Saskatchewan are of short duration, for example,
leaving no time to get bent or do any drugging of fellow passengers
who ride obliviously through several changes in driver. It was
Greyhound taking him to exotic locales like Winnipeg, Thunder Bay,
and Toronto, and Montreal. He switched to l'autobus for Sherbrooke,
and something else for Halifax. Diablo went east for his big
adventures.
Occasionally he was
shuttling cars for good old boy Foster, sometimes from Montreal, but
he was in Regina presently, which is the base of his operations. He
had taken the literary pimp's advice, modified the beliefs with a
true believer's zeal for exploring one's "own nature and
instincts." Zeal entitles Diablo to interpret beliefs whatever
way suits him, and this book is open to interpretation. He gives
copies to people who appear to have unrealized potential to walk
sideways, speak extemporaneously, act out a character toward an end
suitable to themselves and possibly Diablo, who is ready to take them
to the darkest corner of the darkest side in their darkest moment.
Chapter Two
“I have never
brushed my teeth in my life. Not once.”
“It shows.”
Darrell always has something to say.
“Can you read? I mean wearing those glasses.” Never was it worth hearing,
“Yes, that's what the glasses are for, Darrell,” obnoxious and insulting on a personal level. Brian Zeikle had things to think about, like staying out of prison due to hanging around guys like Darrell. A catalogue of 'character defects' sprang to mind, reflexively, including a few 'peccadilloes' (as his mother would say).
“Penthouse and Playboy? Both? I bet.”
Horrific oral hygiene isn't one of them. In fact, Brian considers himself a dental hygienist. His character defects are subtle and personal, not odious and offensive. Brian visits independent Chinese grocery stores with magazine racks tucked in the back. Brian enjoyed Hunter S. Thompson in Penthouse and Asa Baber in Playboy. Maybe not Hunter S. Thompson. Who likes Hunter S. Thompson? (Penthouse has lesbians, and 'letters.')
Asa
Baber, in Playboy, on the other hand, is a bold and daring writer.
Asa Baber's book 'Land of a Million Elephants' is in the Regina
Public Library. It was an interesting story set in South East Asia,
especially the Vietnam War, which ended about 10 years ago. Asa Baber
wrote it during the war. Brian was younger than that, born Nov 16,
1961. Asa Baber was a US Marine veteran. Brian's eyesight would
exempt him from military service.
“I
prefer to be called Diablo. I am sure I mentioned it.”
“You
did. I am not calling you the devil, Darrell.” Brian visited
prostitutes. No shame in it, except he does it more often since
moving to the LaSalle Hotel, which is an expensive proposition, and
Darrell 'noticed' the traffic one night in the hall. “In case the
cops pull me over, your name is Darrell.”
“Stay in the right hand lane.”
Whatever that means, “I have no idea anybody is carrying drugs.”
Brian has a couple of lady friends who might end up having sex under the right circumstances, Becky, (a home-town acquaintance who came to the city), and a fine-looking Native woman who calls herself, "Twisted." These trysts happen on a casual basis and involve parties being three sheets to the wind. Brian had no relationship aspirations. “You can have Twisted any time you show up with a mickey.”
He's dedicated to drinking
beer. The downtown Sheraton Caravan lounge has tall boys for $2.25 at
Happy Hour, where he is known to find Twisted, and known to buy her a
round. This was more likely to happen when he is under suspension.
There was no shame in that. Except impaired driving charges. At the
end of 25, Brian is self-supporting with average success and quick
recovery from small failures. He didn't have babies to dismiss, nor
serious crimes committed. He is mainly on side with the law, besides
drunk driving and occasional use of marijuana. He figures he might do
something with his life someday. He figures equally he could do
nothing. Meanwhile, he plays the charity pull-tab lottery tickets
sold at the Alano Club or Copper Kettle Restaurant (and licensed
lounge). They feel charitable, those cards, 25-cents each, 5 for a
dollar. The payout is instant and ranges from $5 to $20.
"Got
any spare change?" his 'travel companion,' who says he lives
off and on at the LaSalle Hotel, blurted, “You ain't gonna get rich
on pull-tabs. Those are proof you can addict people to anything,
buddy,” the rusty-haired pigeon-chested fellow in the passenger
seat looked nasty, unkempt, incomplete, as usual.
“Name's Brian. Not Buddy.”
“You are a stickler for names.”
This Rumpelstiltskin comes and goes around the LaSalle Hotel's Rococo Lounge like an unwelcome guest, it seems to Brian, then makes casual yet specific demands for rides here and there based on a purely accidental association with Brian's temporary sponsor in AA, Foster M., who owns Advanced Auto Sales in north Regina. Today's imposition by Darrell was a ride to Moose Jaw in a car owned by Foster which had been loaned to Brian.
They are on the Trans
Canada Highway, "Moose Jaw is the asshole of the world! Regina
is 40 miles up it!" yells the Leprechaun, returning 'up it' from
Moose Jaw. Darrell doesn't need to yell even if the road noise is
factor in the gutless '65 Pontiac Laurentian.
Brian feels edgy
about Darrell, as if something is off-kilter, it's more than a look.
Brian smokes Players Filter cigarettes, and Darrell says they taste
like shit, and smokes them anyway. “You know du Maurier is top leaf
on the Canadian tobacco plant.”
Brian knows Darrell is watching things transpire in the Rococo Lounge when Brian hits on drunk women (not beneath him). Darrell acts like he has the women's best interests at heart when he trumps proceedings with an offer of some drug or another.
"Why do you stay
here?” Darrell asked, one evening at the LaSalle, while they sat at
separate tables in the murky depths of the Rococo Lounge. Darrell
pretends to guzzle drinks while he watches single ladies go past the
point of no return in the dark lounge. Sometimes he would point Brian
in their direction, which Brian never follows. He is able to manage
his own recreational and leisure activities.
"None of
your business. Why do you call yourself the devil?"
"My
sister gave me the name after we had sex.”
Brian does not
bully, even though he has size and agility. He has been a hefty boy
his whole life, and he's in good shape. Brian is non-confrontational.
He is friendly. He is self-conscious about the size of his hands,
looking at them holding the red steering wheel in this crap car. They
weren't fighters' hands. They were big enough to wring this nasty
little fucker's neck. Surely, the bastard deserves it.
Brian was aware of his own
shortcomings, including eyesight. The astigmatism was bad enough to
keep him out of certain positions in sports. He had adjusted to the
infirmity early in his life. He could never pass a test for a
driver's license without eyeglasses. The reason he stayed at the
LaSalle is because he can't live at his sister's anymore. She entered
a serious relationship and the spare room is no longer for rent at
her house on Angus Street south of downtown.
In many ways
Brian doesn't fit in, but he avoids heavy discussions about topics
like politics and religion. There is a reason. The world is a
negative place where it's hard to think positive, so, the solution is
to stop thinking. For example, now is the time of year when snow
turns to slush on the side of the highway and ice lies in smaller
patches on the fields. It's rebirth and renewal and positive. Spring
is in the air on the prairie, tumbleweeds blow before long. Instead
of positive thoughts, however, Brian sits with a freakish source of
negativity which knows no bounds.
He knows people have
non-Christian beliefs. He knows Indians have ceremonies and dance in
circles and drum and it wasn't to please the preachers in Arcola.
Brian believes Native mysticism unfettered by reality. What Brian
believes doesn't matter. His opinion is worthless, so why share
something worthless?
He heard 'traditional' Natives were
shape-shifting. Those days are gone. Brian is reading a book by a
spirit-guide named Silver Birch. He is more than reading it. He is
trying to make sense of his life with it. It was Silver Birch who
informed Brian, “What is, is.” Also, Silver Birch is explicit in
referring to Shape-shifting Indians as a 'bad element.'
And, to be sure, Brian is
going to continue searching for meaning, and leave it at that. No
need to overthink. Silver Birch isn't a Native. He never left Kent,
England, where the tract was printed by a Gypsy publisher and brought
back from the United Kingdom by his mother who bought it from a
street pamphleteer and peddler when she visited London a few years
ago. She said the man had been enchanting, even though the pamphlets
were full of, “balderdash.”
Brian's hometown of Arcola is
a sleepy former Scottish settlement in southeastern Saskatchewan and
the area includes rattlesnakes, and shape-shifting Indians sneaking
around to join the party. They drift in and out like they own the
place, melting to North Dakota or Montana in some kind of dodge from
school, coming back every summer to party at the lakes north of
Arcola.
Therefore what he was hearing from the passenger on
the bench seat in the white 1965 Pontiac Laurentian (belonging to
Foster M. of Advanced Auto Sales on Regina's north end) was pure
aggravation. It was nothing he wanted to hear. Brian didn't want
lessons from anybody who calls himself the devil.
"I
never go west of Moose Jaw," said Darrell, puffing amicably on
another of Brian's 'awful tasting' Players Filter cigarettes, "--
except when I turn left and go southwest to Shaunavon with our friend
Foster and his stepson Randy," Likowsky. "Randy gets his
weed from Calgary. It's hydroponic and it's amazing, Randy is one of
those guys who knows it's not evil to do what you want and do it your
way. Do you know Randy?"
Brian paused, and replied,
"Fucking your sister might not be illegal but it probably should
be."
While he was not considered intellectual by anyone
who knows him, and this includes his extended family, not just
Mother, Father, and sister, Brian was considered thoughtful on
occasion. "Then again, I am not a lawyer."
"No,
you are not. It is illegal. Like cannibalism."
Wow this guy lives to
conjure up the most delightful images. "The only reason I am
with you right now is because Randy is out of dope."
There
was the presumption of risk involved in running with people like
Darrell, and Brian is aware of it, having no criminal record himself,
and intending it to keep it that way. Darrell claimed to be squeaky
clean but this would be a gross interpretation of cleanliness, like,
washing your hands with spit or piss. Superior was how the passenger
made Brian feel. Above the law, and the same way alcohol makes him
feel, like he was in the midst of his own greatness.
Brian kept the ride this
side of the speed limit, which isn't difficult, since the car is
woefully under powered. Brian concentrated on control of the vehicle.
He decided without hesitation to smoke a joint. Sitting at the age of
25, Brian explored the possibilities of a higher power. This
rusty-haired Leprechaun made him feel the need to search for it.
He
drove the Trans Canada east of Moose Jaw back to Regina, a 45-mile
drive. They had fresh coffee from 7-11, and smoked (Brian's)
cigarettes. The passenger is gazing off into the blue sky and flat
fields, absorbed with nothing to say while he rolls a joint. "I
don't usually chain smoke,” he replied, which sounds condescending,
"and not because it's bad for you,” which sounds
sarcastic.
"Not a chain smoker. That's a relief." He
goes by the ridiculous name Diablo. "And I don't drink a lot of
coffee." He likes to talk about Winnipeg. He keeps referring to
it as Drunktown. He said he makes trips to Drunktown to search for
his sister. Brian decided to discourage conversation from Darrell.
Brian didn't know anything about Winnipeg, and he had the common
Presbyterian relationship with his sister. She was older, and he
respected that.
Brian met Darrell at the LaSalle Hotel in the
Rococco Lounge. Roger Dubois owned the hotel and spent most of the
day in the restaurant muttering to himself in some kind of daze at
the front of the historic property, but he made a point of hiring
young, friendly, attractive women for the lounge. One of his
daughters put in a shift in the Rococo. Brian and Darrell spent a few
evenings competing for the attention of a strawberry blonde
bartender/waitress. Mostly Brian faced endless Darrell interjections
on making a 'connection.' This was aggravating as fuck while Brian
was spending cash and Darrell didn't drink a lot of beer but said he
liked the atmosphere of a lounge.
Brian had been staying at
the LaSalle for the past couple of weeks and learned Darrell knew
Foster for some reason he didn't share, probably to do with Randy
Likowsky, and Brian had a car in hand that belonged to Foster, and he
had a day off, thus, spare time, according to Darrell, who asked him
for a ride to Moose Jaw to scare up this weed. Brian was on work
absence from his labourer job. It wasn't serious, he sprained a
wrist, so he couldn't carry lumber today. Brian knew Randy Likowsky
from construction sites, Likowsky had been a glazer at one of the
office buildings Brian worked on downtown. A glazer installs windows
in high rise buildings. Randy made a lot of money working in Calgary
where they had a few more high rise buildings than here in
Regina.
The inevitably skanky drug exchange in Moose Jaw
proved to be a complete fucking pain in the ass to Brian. They
stopped at a house first, and were told to go to a particular bar in
downtown Moose Jaw, where Brian heard the infamous history of Al
Capone and his tunnels under the city for about the one millionth
time. But Darrell said they wouldn't be drinking, which made these
stories tolerable, and somehow, after nagging delays, Darrell scored
his weed. On the return trip, the first thing he did was reach into
his parka's inside right breast pocket and pull out a pocket
book.
"This is for you," he said, and placed a
dog-eared black paperback on the bench seat between them in the 1965
Pontiac Laurentian. It was a used car for sale at Foster's Advanced
Auto Sales. Brian said he would deliver it for Foster, and deliver it
he would.
"Not a big reader? Problem with the eyes?"
"My
eyes are perfect."
"It's the Satanic Bible,"
said the passenger.
"I can read. I don't wish to read
anything about Satan, let alone another bible of it." Brian
glanced down at the menacing pocket book, barely taking his eyes off
the road, but long enough to see the cover was weathered. "Hardly
read it yourself I see."
The devil worshipper
snatched up the book, "I have copies," he sneered, "But
if you don't want it. . . "
"I don't. I don't read
much about Satan."
“Do
not
give
opinions
or advice unless you are asked. Do not tell your troubles to others
unless you are sure they want to hear them. When in another’s lair,
show him respect or else do not go there. If a guest in your lair
annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy. Those are the basic
rules. I learned how to read because it drove my mother
crazy.”
Lair?
Darrell should not be over confident that he won't find himself
standing on the side of the highway. Brian would do it. Especially
since it was one of those early spring days to die for when the tail
end of a Chinook wind arrived in Southern Saskatchewan, and days were
now longer. Brian would be happy to stop and leave this red-haired
lout beside the highway in a warm breeze. He was sure he would see
him a couple hours later in the Rococo Lounge.
"I am sure
the glasses work. The book is not what you think. It's about freedom,
not about sacrificing virgins on altars and black magic, unless
you're into that sort of thing. Mind if I light this?"
The
devil worshipper who went by the name Diablo even though his name is
'Darrell' held up a contraband joint rolled haphazardly yet surely
functionally. He'd done it before.
"No, I don't mind,"
and he might even partake, but Brian was not a big weed smoker. His
mother once told him if he wants to smoke the marijuana he should go
to a country where it's legal.
"There is no such country,
Mom."
"Exactly."
Brian never smoked weed
at home when he was growing up in Arcola. Now it's the mid-1980s and
a lot of people smoked the illegal weed, howbeit, Brian was more of a
beer drinker. Any port in a storm when confronted with the
unexpected, and Brian decided it was necessary to play possum with
this passenger. He imagined rejection of ideas in such a dreadful
sounding book would be a sore point, you know, by design. He had seen
the small, bony, pigeon-chested fellow flinch and retrieve his
property which he was hell bent on giving. While Brian didn't care
about this devil worshipper's feelings, he was non-confrontational at
all times, extremely non-confrontational.
By the time he
re-assessed the fellow at his side, Brian decided Darrell was deeper
into the devil worship than previously understood, and still he was
no threat, but possibly adversarial, moreso than previously
perceived. He was not a whole person. He is misshapen, lumpy in odd
ways, small-frame, large head of burnished red hair, exaggerated
facial features. He was certainly the natural born target of every
bully in the school yard. Brian had stayed back at the tavern in
Moose Jaw where thugs sold Diablo his little baggo precious weed. It
was now smouldering in the front seat and Brian took it and drew in a
large hit.
Since they had been talking about Foster and his
stepson-in-law, Randy Liikowsky, Brian got high and began to cogitate
on Randy's father-in-law, who was acting as Brian's temporary sponsor
in AA.. Foster would not approve of the weed smoking underway in the
Pontiac. Foster was not a big fan of the dope dealing stepson-in-law
either, to hear him tell it. Brian had had a few coffee chats with
Foster at the Alano Club, and once in a while they attended AA
meetings and obviously they had these intermittent chats at the
used car dealership. Foster had lent him this shitbox Pontiac off the
back of his used car lot in lieu of cash payment for running a car to
Shaunavon last week. Brian would drop this car off at another dealer
in Regina at the end of the week.
Foster told tales about his
days as an active alcoholic and flim-flam artist who travelled the
back roads of the Canadian prairie with a few different partners in
crime. He confessed it was one of his defects of character. The
friendly, smiling thieves drove day and night and crashed in motels
and small town hotels. They drove from town to town in southern
Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, and all over Alberta.
They
stopped in any given town and parked on a dirt lane innocuously
around the corner from a general store, and the partner would walk to
the store and Foster would follow a few minutes later. The partner
would enter and say he's passing through town. He might mention his
car is down the road at a gas station getting fixed, or parked at a
hotel where he is staying the night. He would begin to meander around
when Foster entered the store and the two paid each other no mind.
The partner would continue up and down the aisles, mostly near the
back, which Foster explained the loitering would be a distraction to
any store clerk.
Meanwhile Foster went straight to the front
counter, and stood, holding a $20 and began to engage the clerk about
things hanging on the wall behind him or displayed in a glass booth
beside the counter and cash register. Bottle openers were popular. A
pair of sunglasses. A pack of playing cards, "How much are
those?" All he would do is point and ask the price, then holding
a $50 dollar bill, and would continue asking prices of items
surrounding the clerk. He was pointing and waving at random nail
clippers, ballpoint pens, and, "I will take Certs Breath Mints,"
finally, sometimes a pack of cigarettes.
The clerk was anxious
about the partner roaming back and forth near the fridge pretending
to be a shopper engrossed in a task. Then the partner would leave,
buying nothing. Every time. Now Foster had the clerk's utmost
attention. He stood in front of the clerk changing denominations of
the bills, waving hypnotically between his fingers, changing three or
four times from one dollar to five dollar to 10 dollar to 20 dollar
bill.
He finished every pantomime waving $20 to pay for a
pack of Certs breath mints, and he would flop a one dollar bill on
the counter top. Nine times out of ten he received change for $20.
"It's easier with Canadian bills because obviously they're a
different colour. But US bills have presidents." Foster said
rural store clerks had no experience with flim flam artists, aka,
quick change artists. He kept the bills and threw the change in the
trunk. "There were always a couple hundred bucks in quarters
back there. Very incriminating."
On to the next store,
the next town. Tavern opens at 11 a.m.. They came to know every road
to every town, to every main street, and every escape in the three
western provinces of Canada. Brian was informed it was a life in the
past, and informed it was impossible to make amends to the people
Foster had harmed over the years in this professional criminal
activity. He had no idea where the partners were either. "Ronnie
was the best, so stupid even stray dogs and cats had pity on him."
Brian never used the
technique except to prove to himself it works, and soon he was amazed
by how fruitful it was, since cashiers fell for it every time. He
found himself handing money back to clerks with a rueful smile,
wondering it they caught on to what happened. Few ever knew.
The
centre of Foster's life of drunken debauchery paid for by crime had
been Winnipeg. Brian had never been to Winnipeg even though it wasn't
far away. Brian didn't enjoy spontaneous adventures like waking up on
strange sofas in strange cities. He didn't think he had a serious
problem with alcohol, and he wasn't a thief. AA was keeping him out
of jail for drunk driving. Brian's dad had told him Alcoholics
Anonymous might come in handy someday.
