I can't shake the 'Stranger in a Strange Land' feeling here.
First of all, living on the cusp of the most abject of poverty and yet only a few blocks walk to the west and all the needles, garbage, police, tents, all suddenly disappear. The neighborhood, for sure expensive - mind numbingly so, far beyond what you would guess to look at - but how is it that the poverty hasn't crawled it's way up West Hastings to encamp on their lawns and boulevards?
Everywhere - down here - the grocery, the drug store with more security than cashiers - forever darting after the sketchiest of people that are busy shoplifting or eating the food in the store - a necessity if they're to show even the slightest profit. There used to be a time when this was the job of the police - now, the police are protecting the Gucci Shops, the higher end boutiques, they have no time for the petty crime of East Hastings.
The cafes - largely empty, with free refills, 2, 3, 4 baristas standing around, what is going on here? If all the money they earned went into rent and rent alone they'd be thousands of dollars short each month, let alone stock, staffing, utilities, etc.
I'm talking to the owner of the corner shop - how does this work? With the long hours, extravagant rents, the constant ongoing theft, how does he pay the bills? And he's explaining to me, theft is not a big problem, only maybe $50 a day, sales around a thousand $, and as he's explaining a small dude, sketchy as fuck comes in, wearing Silver Sweat Pants with a pair of matching shorts worn on top, piss running down his leg and through his crocks, I wonder if he chose to wear crocks so he wouldn't be squelching in the warm then cold and freezing piss all day, do people premeditate this? and as we're talking sketchy grabs a coke and makes a break for the door, I stop him with a "Hey buddy, you wanna pay for that?" at which point he's annoyed, "Go ahead of me, that's ok" I say to him, he's grumbling that he intended to pay, slaps a $100 bill on the counter, I'm watching, WTF? And now he's demanding his change in $5.00 Bills, the owner, he's telling him he can't do it, it will kill his float,...
After this the owner just looks at me - this theft, it's more like $500 a day and he doesn't want to say.
What is going on here? There is no business within a mile that can be paying it's rent, have it's doors open, yet here they all are, it's some sort of machine, engine of wealth, finance, that I can't even dimly comprehend, I'm the initiate, there are mysteries here for sure, all of it, this whole world...there is such a disconnect between money and the people who work and earn it, how do they do this? I cannot fathom...
Then go to work at the restaurant.
In Calgary, at the restaurant, we had our millionaires, billionaires even, they could explain how they came into their money, where it came from, they knew their employees, their business, out here? No one I'm sure, there's the large Asian population, silent, they're not talking, you can guess, but it's just a guess, there are the property developers, this I can understand, but - there are countless others that seem to have their pockets full of wads of cash, infinitely deep, and no ready explanation.
The preponderance of Plastic Surgery, reconstructed noses, cheekbones, chins, a little injection into the upper lip, frozen, expressionless foreheads, groups of "upscaled" women, tall, sinewy, vacuous conversations, all made in the same image, the Kardashian template of features stamped across a hundred different physiognomies, ethnicities, varying only in the things that the surgeon couldn't remedy, perfectly beautiful women transformed into sideshow freaks, the old restaurant owner, the Italian Place in Calgary, Him & His nephew would have gone crazy here, a hundred lawsuits a day...
Beauty here always the quest to conform to somebody else's Instagram Ideals.
How did they get the money? Trust funds? Divorces? Inheritances? I mean, there's no way they earned it. It's inconceivable that in any way they 'earned' this, unless you count a lucrative alimony...
There's a table, conversing, right beside bar, I can hear every word...unadulterated this is their conversation: "Shoop moosh bag coke wine Rich Hahahha", there's not even a glimmer of intelligence in a single one of them, not even a properly constructed sentence, and yet here they are spending $1000 on appetizers and drinks, even they, I doubt, could explain how they came to be here.
It's the scam, the con of money in Improbably Large Sums entrusted to the unlikeliest, unworthiest of people.
Christmas Parties, bathrooms filled with couples doing cocaine, other customers complaining, the guy with the coke at the Christmas Party, he's the one getting lucky, he leaves the bathroom first, his date follows a few minutes later having finished powdering her nose, the overtly-self-conscious composure, she's holding it all together, she's fine, nobody knows...
Easily 50%, 80%, 90% of the liquor poured down the sink, they order the most expensive tequila shots, wines, champagnes, leave it behind untouched, order another cocktail, shot, I'm busy perpetually clearing full drinks, none of it even getting a chance to be pissed away, .
Bill ends up at 90K$, for 60 people, add on 20% gratuity, no, they want to leave more, "OK" then yells Chef "Make it 25%".
***
Walk through East Van - Vacant lots, blasted houses, empty, "Worth a Million Dollars", but how, just how? Who would build here, on a foundation of shit, piss and dirty syringes and garbage, on a foundation that amounts to a disease filled cesspool, and building here what would you do? You have acres of the most undesirable neighbors in the world, don't build windows, why would you pay millions to live in a house where you were forever afraid to open your doors and step outside?
I have no clue as to what is going on, and it's creating a sort of dissonance in my head, I'm too new here to just accept it and am perpetually trying to find answers, the initiate into the secret economy...