He'd been hanging around all day, since 1:00, I took him to see the Balfour Xmas craft fair, he'd stung me for half my cigarettes, he poked around, got me to buy him a small jar of honey, rummaged through the baked goods, grabbed at cookies and stuffed them in his mouth, when the vendors offered to help him he just points at me, "he's got the money" - a relief for them, as clearly, obviously he won't be paying... After which we head down to the beach, we're going to do some filming, get some footage, we go down behind the BBI, he wants me to go call on a friend of his that lives there, "Sir Lancelot", I ask him, does he have another name...? His mouth filled with cookie he looks at me insolently "I don't know. I always call him Sir Lancelot". I check the apartment, an older tweaker nervously pokes her head out the window, she's probably looking for Sir Lancelot as well, sure enough, she doesn't know him...
Down to the beach, film him, ask him the questions he wants me to ask him, the afternoon is growing long and this approach to the documentary, it's not going to work, his stories are long, tortured, winding, convoluted...maybe I can use some, or a bit of them, but overall it's not gonna work. That's OK, I've got other ideas...Walking back to the jeep he spots Sir Lancelot going into another apartment, tells me to go up and see him, get some cigarettes from him, he rolls his own, and I decline, I'll give BatSh*t the last of mine, buy some more, but I'm not going to be his designated moocher...
I drop him off at the Ferry, home, open the package he dropped off at the Ferry landing for me: 1/2 bottle of Baileys. A quarter bag of rolled oats cereal. A quarter bag of (mercifully) unground coffee. Sammy Davis Jr's belt. An old mitten, or something close, that he swears was Marilyn's favorite cup holder. A couple of scones in a zip-lock bag with jam and a peanut butter thing that he's licked out. And there are the scrolls. These I'll look at in a separate post... Back to work, he's hanging out, waiting me to come back, didn't catch his Ferry, he's waiting on a ride back to Riondel, say, would I mind, I mean, would it be all right if he had some of that cake, he doesn't remember it's name, it's the one that looks like Barbara Streisand's nose... I guess correctly, the night's slow, but it's been an expensive day, what with the honey, cookies, cigarettes, cake, but he's not done, he's just getting started... Sniffing the air..."Mmmmm...what's that smell? I bet it must really lure in the customers..."...and he's smelling the BBQ ribs, today I'm on his side, OK, sure, why not, and I order him an order of the ribs. Smacking his lips he's loving it, top up his coffee, enjoying his ribs, eating them with his mitts still on: "I'll be dreaming about these for weeks to come...".
I remembered, in with an earlier batch of scrolls there was a prediction, "Batsh*t Predicts...Total Grey Cup Score: 49 Points", I give him $5.00 and tell him to make the bet. I mean, I'll split any winnings if he's right, and he thinks about it, not sure what to do, there's gotta be a sport select or something but he has an even better solution, he knows a midget in London, he calls her "Doc", she's perfectly proportioned though, and she lives in Charles Dicken's old house on the Thames only everything in it has been perfectly miniaturized, made just to her height, so to speak, and she had the floor raked towards the river so she could just sluice water through and it would clean it all out...anyways, Doc has a real head for numbers and so he'll talk to her, get her to make a 5 pound bet at Ladbrokes for him...I'm getting documentary fatigue, that syndrome that every documentary maker must get, starting to loathe my subject, you can have too much of a good thing, he's been hanging around far too much, all the time he's telling me all this, I'm not even laughing... *** The next day, he's in again, I give him $15.00 to go over and watch the game across the way, buy a couple of beers there, but he goes off, comes back in an hour, he's spent the money on cigarettes instead, and maybe, maybe, I mean, he's hungry, could I give him $5.00 worth of ribs? And now it's exhausted, my tit of the infinite cigarettes, coffee, food and money, there are paying customers in the restaurant, not the ones I pay to come in, and I hiss at him: "You're like having a 70 year old child..." and he laughs, he gets it, "I've been called a lot worse..."
...after the Grey Cup he's back, Doc pulled it off, the midget living in Dicken's old place in London, his prediction was off by 2 points (total score was 51), but she hedged his bet, covered a 2 point spread just in case, we're in that money, that 5 quid just became £5000, it'll be here soon, but in the meantime, while it's being wired, maybe I'd buy him some more of those ribs?