Quick note: there is no joke in the title. This really is a sad story that needs to be said, and it's kind of unfortunate that I have to tell it in a blog that is usually about funny stuff and music. This is a downer post, about the social ills of the city I love. It's about homeless people, drug addicts, and all that entails. If you're the type of person who comes here looking for a cheerful, happy story with all sorts of funny insights, you can safely skip this post.
It's a story I'm relating less than an hour after it happened (I got home at 1:15, and finished this post at 2:00 am), and it may be a little raw. But it's Victoria - and not the sunny side that tourists are used to seeing.
I love Victoria, I really do. But it definitely has its fair share of problems.
It started about an hour ago. It was a little past twelve, and I knew I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon - my insomnia was acting up again. But I didn't want to go to bed at 4 am like I've been doing when insomnia strikes, so I decided to get pre-emptive. I was going to go for a bit of a midnight stroll.
It wouldn't be too bad - the snow was gone, and the weather was good, and hey, it's a monday night, so it should all be good, right?
Well, I forgot to take into account that Victoria's been under a blanket of snow for the past week. And then, it rained for two nights straight - this was the first night of decent weather in a week. Meaning - drug addicts and alcoholics would be hitting the street in force.
There was some nice foreshadowing when I watched a security guard chase two addicts out from the eaves of an old health food store on the Vic West side of the Johnson street bridge. He waved his flashlight at them angrily as they jumped into the bushes. It was almost kind of funny - I've seen things like this in Victoria all the time, and I didn't think much about it. But the night got progressively worse.
I was looping back from the Johnson street bridge, and making my way down government street when I had a fun encounter with Victoria's finest - also known as "the drunk on a curb". A well meaning couple were trying to look after a passed out native
* guy lying asleep on the sidewalk, flat on his back. And, of course, a disheveled guy in a trucker's cap was also there, screaming loudly and drunkenly at his friend to "get the fuck up" and screaming at, well, everyone else, too.
I turned the native guy on his side so he wouldn't choke or anything, while the husband thanked me and let me take the lead. He was a nice enough guy, the husband, but I could tell he was way out of his element. Meanwhile, his wife stayed a good fifteen feet away (good call) and was on the phone, calling 911 or something.
I told the drunk friend to stop swearing while I rolled the native guy, which of course woke him up instantly. With the husband's help, we got him sitting upright, and then the guy just leapt to his feet and started wobbling - I had to grab him so he wouldn't fall over and hit his head, while he muttered a bunch of crap about respect and circumstances and other bullshit touchy-feely crap that street addicts spout. Neither the husband or I were paying much attention - he actually looked at me and said "Victoria's getting worse, isn't it?" while the native went on and on. For a moment, I liked him.
And then he left with his wife a moment later, while I was propping up the native, leaving me alone with two drunks - one of them a loud, screaming drunk. That couple suddenly fell a few points in my good books.
An angry drunk afraid of cops. Who then proceeded to ask me for two dollars for cab fare so he could get his friend home (cab fare starts at about three bucks). And his friend, the drunken native, kept spewing gibberish about how the white man doesn't respect him.
You don't say? It's not cuz you're native, pal.
I was there when the paramedics showed up, and I gave them the basic situation as they stepped out into the night. Of course, in the thirty seconds it took for me to talk to the paramedic, the angry drunk had run in one direction, and the drunk who had only a minute earlier been unable to stand had found the reserves to hobble halfway down the block. The Paramedic and I laughed about it, I gave them some more basic info, and I left them to their night and went about my way.
I had to walk by the drunken native on my way home, though. And he proceeded to follow me, wave me down, and try to buy cocaine off me. I told him I didn't have any money I could give him, which he had no problem believing... but he had a hard time believing I didn't have any cocaine I could give him. Or know anyone who might have cocaine to give him. He then muttered one of two things. Either he said: "I'm not trying to be a dick here, I'm trying to be a
man!" OR he said "I'm not saying you're a dick, but you should try to be a
man!".
Neither of which made any real sense, given the context. I basically just shrugged, said "Whatever" in my best "you're an idiot" tone, and went about my way. Sorry, buddy, but when you pass out on the sidewalk and beg others for drug money, you lose any right to say what does and doesn't make a man.
The night wasn't done, though. In the fifteen minutes it took for me to leave that guy on the curb and get to my front door, I was assailed by all manner of Victoria's finest. I had two different people, in two seperate occasions, try to buy drugs off me. I had a hooker asking to "borrow" smokes off me, and who was convinced I was lying when I said I didn't smoke. And I had to walk by a tweaked-out meth addict who was picking imaginary cigarrette stubs off the pavement while scratching the scabs all over her face while her legs kicked out at random intervals.
Every other car on the street was either a cop or an ambulance.
Like I said, I love Victoria. But Christ, it has its problems.
* Okay, a disclaimer. I refer to him as "native guy" mostly so I can differentiate between the two drunks. Yes, there are a lot of drunken natives in Victoria. But I'm not really trying to make some sort of racist remark, here. I've got a large percentage of native in me, myself. The ills affecting the native population BC is pretty horrible, and I get that there's a lot of hardships these people are forced to deal with. But I'm not one of those liberals who will give a drunk or a drug addict a free pass just because they're native - that's the worst kind of racism, in my book.
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