Deep Freeze

The city has been in the grip of a cold snap for several days. It began with a blizzard - not one of those picturesque snowstorms with the fat snowflakes whirling about like wedding planners in June, but that mean and stinging hard snow that abrades like powdered glass. The drifts grew, the temperatures plummeted, and now here we are.

The nighttime temperatures have been down in the minus 30s. The meteorologists have been feeding our need for weather drama by telling us how much colder the windchill makes it feel.

Wayne hasn't been sleeping in the car. I'm glad. My recurring vision of stumbling over a corpse has never included the possibility of a human popsicle in one of our parked cars, and I'd like to keep it that way.

There was a man selling Our Voice street newspaper downtown today, just around the corner from Starbucks. He was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning up against a building, with his vendor tag clearly displayed and the papers fanned out in front of him - and a cup for the anticipated twonie. He was wearing a navy balaclava, pulled so that only a small oval of his forehead could be seen. It was pale. There was frost on the top of his balaclava. He had one leg tucked in, and the other stretched out - seemingly clad only in navy sweats, dark socks and black runners. He was wearing a thick navy winter coat, and I had to watch for several seconds before I was reassured that he was still breathing.

When I got home from dropping Candas off at the college, there was a young man ringing our doorbell. He had a shovel, so it was safe to assume he was looking to shovel our walk even though it was more than minus 20. I had done a quick job the night of the storm - shovelling three times in the bitter cold. He was dressed in a similar fashion to the Our Voice vendor, except the newspaper guy had mitts. This young man had bare hands and a grey toque.

We did a quick negotiation in the freezing January sunlight. He was looking to clear the sidewalk, and would do it right down to bare concrete if I had an ice pick and $20. He'd lost his gloves at an earlier shovelling job. I loaned him lined leather mittens, a good ice scraper, and he set to work. While he was scraping, I was inside doing a quick editing job. He worked hard and fast and so it was only about a half hour later that he was done - right down to the concrete, as promised. He gave me back the mittens and the scraper, thanking me for their use, and I gave him $25. I was tempted to offer him hot chocolate, but he was already shouldering his shovel and pushing off to see if he could make more money. I considered giving him the mittens - but I've found the only thing that seems to keep my hands warm is to wear leather gloves with thinsulate inside these fleece-lined leather mittens. Although I bought the mittens at Winners and the gloves at WalMart and they didn't come to more than $25, I don't have time to look for replacements.

I hope he comes back after the next snowstorm. Next time, hot chocolate for sure.

Mackerel Moon

So I'm coming home for dinner between work and a meeting (I would say "sandwiched" but our houseguest has brought home a chicken and cauliflower and salad so dinner is much more satisfying than a sandwich) and I'm walking east past the police HQ when I notice the full moon up ahead. It is lighting a circle of cloud which by day would be giving a wonderful mackerel sky. The clouds are moving quickly, their scaly qualities emphasized in the way they go translucent as they pass the bright moon.

"Hey, bro. Sell me your jacket and I'll pay you later."

He's drunk and his date is cranky. He just fished her discarded cigarette out of the snowbank.

"Come on," she says, pulling him across the street in the direction of the Mount Royal Hotel, where there's a bar. Maybe the tavern of the York has already cut them off.

"But it's a nice jacket," he says.

The jacket is an oversized herringbone wool coat by Dittrich Tailors in Edmonton, vintage 1960s or earlier. I bought it at Value Village last spring for $15. It was made for this climate - heavy and thick and perfect for the minus 40 temperatures we get in the winter.

I'm not selling him the coat. I traded coats with a hooker once - that's another story - and I know a raw deal. I'd rather have my herringbone coat keeping me warm as I watch the mackerel moon.

The Unwelcome "Tenant"

We have two cars out of commission and parked in our back parking lot. One is the 1970 Jaguar XJ6 Series One, and the only thing really wrong with it is the flat tire and the undeniable drinking problem. That car guzzles gas like nobody's business.

The other car is the 1987 Honda Civic in a light metallic blue-grey. The Honda had been cared for lovingly before it came to us in the fall of 2006, and we cared for it almost as well. But in August 2007 it got schmucked by a Dodge Caravan, the frame buckled, and it has been awaiting the decisions of the insurance folks.

The Honda has issues. One window won't go all the way up, and the frame has buckled so the trunk doesn't shut quite right, and the passenger side doors are stuck shut.

Back when we had a Neon, the local vagrants would smash the windows so they could spend the night in the car. The police advised us to use a club on the steering wheel, make sure nothing of value was left in the car, and leave it unlocked.

The Neon was stolen and we bought these two cars with the insurance money. So we keep clubs on their steering wheels and we left the doors unlocked until we found we were attracting tenants. Now the Jag is locked, but we can do nothing about the Civic. And Wayne has moved in.

We've kicked him out once already, and we're going to have to do it again. We can't get rid of the car until the insurance folks say we can; it can't be driven and it can't be secured. And we've made it clear to Wayne that he does not have permission to stay in our car.

The first time I evicted Wayne I made a pile of his belongings: a couple of blankets, some spare clothes, tools, frozen eggs, needles (used and new), a plastic pail with cigarette butts in it. A candle. Lots of garbage. In the trunk there were good work boots and some electrical wire for his job. We had given Wayne several days' fair warning that the insurance adjustor was coming and he needed to be gone.

He's back.

We gave Wayne one meal at Christmas. He came in, ate in the kitchen. Told my other half about how he'd gone into a spiral when his girlfriend was murdered. The murderer hasn't been caught. I think his girlfriend was one of the many locals working in the sex trade.

It's hard not to look at Wayne and see him through my mother's eyes. When I was growing up, my mother would tell me that Indians were all lazy and drunk. She didn't say anything about residential schools, about the drug trade, about sextrade workers being treated as disposable. She probably didn't know - didn't want to know. We lived in Montreal, and the Indians were kept on the reserve.

Here he is. Not too different from dozens of guys we see in this area: a casual labourer with nowhere to live, a substance problem, and out on the streets dancing with the ghost of his murdered girlfriend. And, yes, he's being evicted from our car. Because the car is not a safe place for him. Because it's not safe for us to have Wayne in the car. Because he stole the neighbour's extension cord. Because the car is now covered in broken, frozen egg and when spring comes there's gonna be an awful mess. And I admit to not being smart enough, or kind enough, to help Wayne with the big issues.

I admit it: I am the sanctimonious result of the kid who grew up memorizing Bible verses for the Women's Christian Temperance Union prizes. I do not understand substance abuse and I have zero patience for it, especially when there's a lot of help out there. And I live with the discomfort of feeling I should be able to do something more for Wayne, and being angry that Wayne is so willing to make his problem into my problem.