These are the text messages my wife sent to me the other day:
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Rachelle: How’s the pulmonary rehab going, my love?
Rachelle: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that you’re dominating the warm-up exercises!
Rachelle: Yes, you are a natural leader, it’s one hundred percent true!
Rachelle: What’s The Flower Pot?
Rachelle: I see.
Rachelle: So you sit in a chair, and then move one of your legs as if you were lifting it over a flower pot?
Rachelle: What a strange name for an exercise!
Rachelle: Well, I don’t know. Maybe something a little more macho, something like The Grizzly Stomp or The Sumo Crush.
Rachelle: I like The Grizzly Stomp, too. You should write that down and put it in the Suggestion Box.
Rachelle: You already suggested a Cosplay night! Interesting idea, Pickle, but aren’t all the other residents elderly?
Rachelle: I see, that’s good thinking on your part, you can make your oxygen tanks look like rocket packs!
Rachelle: You are very creative, it’s true, and as you say, you are the Wayne Gretzky of The Flower Pot.
Rachelle: Really? The physiotherapist asked you to lead the class yesterday?! How flattering!
Rachelle: Yes, I am sure it was a great honour that everybody else was bitterly jealous of! I’m curious, did you get to choose the music for the work-out?
Rachelle: That’s great! Who did you pick?
Rachelle: Oh.
Rachelle: Well, it just seems like an odd choice.
Rachelle: I didn’t know, Tori Amos just seems weird to me. Complicated, annoying.
Rachelle: Sorry. I am trying to encourage and support you, my love.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: Right in the middle of the stretch she said you had a very small flower pot?!
Rachelle: OMG, That’s hilarious!
Rachelle: I mean nasty, just nasty.
Rachelle: 90 is old, and aging can make people mean.
Rachelle: You’re probably right, that smart-alecky Yvette lady likely had dementia.
Rachelle: Because it’s not your class, honey.
Rachelle: That’s why they wouldn’t let you “expel her from your program.”
Rachelle: Well, I’m glad you put her on notice, anyway, and sorry that everybody is now calling you The Little Flower Pot.
Rachelle: Think of it being like Dear Leader, a term of respect and fear.
Rachelle: Well of course I miss you terribly, but I’m struggling along. Even had a little party last night to fight the loneliness.
Rachelle: Probably less than 25 people, I don’t remember.
Rachelle: He might have been there, not positive.
Rachelle: Oh, you’ll get a kick out of this!
Rachelle: He brought his Porsche over the other day to take Jones for a ride, and Jones just loved it! I’ve never seen him happier! It’s astonishing Pierre doesn’t have any kids because he is just SO amazing with them!!
Rachelle: Yes, you’re amazing with Jones, too.
Rachelle: Sure Jones misses you.
Rachelle: Well, he’s still not really talking yet, so he missing you in a kind of subconscious way, I guess, but I can tell that he really does miss you!!
Rachelle: Tonight?
Rachelle: Oh, Steve needed to take somebody to the magazine awards at some fancy hotel and Jen is out of town, so I have to go as his date. Barf.
Rachelle: He was nominated in two different comedy writing categories.
Rachelle: It is a shame none of your work was nominated!
Rachelle: No, I have no idea why Steve won’t accept your Facebook friendship.
Rachelle: The world is mysterious.
Rachelle: Never mind that though, what are you up to tonight, my Little Flower Pot?
Rachelle: Fish stick night! Yum!
Rachelle: You’re my favourite fish stick, you know.
Rachelle: It’s true.
Rachelle: Don’t ever doubt that!
Rachelle: You will always be my favourite fish stick! xo
A handsome and confident young man, a few years older, approaches them. He’s wearing an expensive leather jacket that looks at home on him, almost accidental. He flips easily between French and English, bums a smoke from the girl and proceeds with an irresistible seduction. It’s a cruel display of power. The North African no longer shimmers or flashes his brilliant smile. His posture collapses and all vitality is drained from his face as the girl, now laughing and alert in a different way, lights her cigarette off of the newly dispensed one held so perfectly in the stranger’s hand.
]]>As I’m not much of a gambler, I was just standing around watching some low stakes cards at a poker table. It was more like an Ex for people with addictions than it was a James Bond film–mindlessly repetitive, ugly in an everyday way and tinged with a bit of desperation. I just stood there hoping not to look too conspicuously like an Out-Of-Towner-Who-Is-A-Little-Scared-Of-Your-City.
After a moment or two a black man in a flashy sweater approached me.
Man: I got to say, that hat really looks good on you.
Me: Thanks, I love it.
The man then shook his head and put his hands on his hips.
Man: No, I don’t much compliment men, so this doesn’t come easy to me, but you really own that hat, man!
Me: Well, I like your sweater!
As I was saying this I sent a text to Rachelle:
Text to Rachelle: The Detroit Brothers really dig my style.
Man: You got some confidence to dress like that, boss!
Me: Well, my wife picked it out for me. She’s a designer– good at hockey, too.
Man: Your lady plays hockey?
Me: She has a wicked shot, great power forward.
Man: You Canadians and you’re hockey, man!
Text from Rachelle: Who are the Detroit Brothers?
Text to Rachelle: Black people!!!
As fate would have it the wife of the guy who liked my hat was sitting at the table right in front of us. She was pulling crumpled ones and fives out of her purse and handing them to the dealer. She turned and faced her husband with a look of surprise on her face.
Wife: Where you been at? I haven’t seen you in 10 hours, don’t you think its right that you come and check on me, maybe be bring me a drink or something?”
Man: (Looking incredulous and spinning around to include me in the conversation.) Where have I been? Where have you been at?! If you’re asking me where I’ve been for the last ten hours, then shouldn’t I be asking you the same question? (Directly to me) Can you believe it?
Me: Don’t get me involved.
Text from Rachelle: What are you doing? Stop it!
Wife: You shouldn’t just be leaving me alone all night. You never know what’s going happen. I’m special.
Man: I can be damn sure you ain’t gonna win nothing.
Text to Rachelle: I’m mediating a domestic dispute at a poker table.
His wife gave her husband the finger and then she sucked it.
Text from Rachelle: Did you just say to them the truth isn’t two-sided, it’s round?
Text from Me: Yes, but I added nigga.’
Me: Well, as they say, the truth isn’t two-sided, it’s round.
Wife: (Looking directly at me in that way) Have you been hitting the pipe? You got crack teeth, I can see that, so you best be minding your own business. I’m trying to play here, understand?
Man: You see what she’s like?
Me: (To woman) My teeth are like this because of chemotherapy, not crack, okay?
Text from Rachelle: Pickle, I’d really like it if you left the casino now and came to the hotel room.
Wife: I don’t care what they from, they be NASTY.
Man: (Facing his wife) You know what’s nasty, you’re nasty!
She looked at him, put her cards down on the table and stood up.
Wife: Oh no you didn’t.
The man waved her off and walked away, and I decided, as Rachelle had suggested, to just return to the hotel room, where for reasons I still don’t quite understand, I told her that I had won $85.
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