January 16, 2023 scottcjones 1Comment

Nordstroms in downtown Vancouver is as sombre as a church in the mornings. I know this because I went there in the spring of 2022 to apply for a bartending job. The store’s typically ritzy theatrics – – wide aisles, waxed floors, racks of $180 collared shirts – – are tranquil and gloomy when the store is devoid of people. It was 10:45. Tuesday. I needed to see manager Naomi Byrne about a bartending job, and, hopefully, make a memorable impression on her. I had dressed myself in leftover TV clothes – – vintage shirt with pearl buttons, threadbare Harry…

January 10, 2023 scottcjones 3Comments

So I was up against it in 2022. Up against it in a way I hadn’t been before.  I was broke. Broke as a joke, as my barber likes to put it, annoyingly. I had been living off savings since EP went off the air in 2015. I consulted for game companies from time to time. I was making ends meet, just barely. Then COVID happened. Then my consulting work, because of COVID, dried up. My savings, which had once been an enviable amount of money, ran out of my accounts like sand through an hourglass. I needed to do…

September 11, 2022 scottcjones 3Comments

[One last bit, then we’ll drop this story and move on.] The old shop keeper, chin planted firmly on his chest, frowned theatrically at THIS THING. Frowned as if it was a relation who had wronged him somehow. Perhaps a son who had shamed him in some unforgivable way. Then the bald man – – yes, still frowning – – bit into his lower lip with his espresso-hued incisors.  He glared at his visible affliction – – as if it were not an oversized and neglected hernia at all but a symbol of his own mortality. Suddenly, he lifted the hair-covered…

September 8, 2022 scottcjones 4Comments

“I need-a help,” the old man said. “I have a cheese wheel, you see…” I must have had a confused look on my face. “A CHEESE WHEEL,” the bald man said, speaking slowly and with more volume than was obviously necessary.  Hey buddy, I thought, I’m not hard of hearing.  “I need you,” he said, “to lift a cheese wheel for me. You see… I can’t lift anything right-a now.” He frowned like a sad clown in an Italian opera. With both of his hands, the man grabbed onto – – and, my sincerest apologies if you’re eating while reading…

September 7, 2022 scottcjones

So I’ve been cleaning a bookstore in Chinatown for the past couple of months. On Tuesday mornings. I put on some old clothes, affect a smile, and take the R5 bus to the store, on Georgia Street. I like the work. More than I expected to like it. I like mopping floors, dusting shelves, sorting recycling. It’s good, honest work. I don’t know Chinatown all that well, honestly. Because of Chinatown’s proximity to the misery  of “Tent City” on Hastings and Main, like most Vancouverites, I tend to give this section of the city a wide berth, if I can….

March 15, 2018 scottcjones 2Comments

I was a graduate student in the early 90’s. I attended a university that was built on top of a picturesque hill that was, surreally enough, filled with salt. There were salt mines in the region. On my walks up the surreal, salt-filled hill to the university each morning, I listened to cassette tapes of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. (Both Leonard and Tom were new to me at the time.) I was absurdly young. I was stupid and self-involved back then. I was afraid back then. (*I’m still afraid, but of different things now. Being afraid is a normal…

February 14, 2018 scottcjones 1Comment

I had a girlfriend named Amy in 1993. Delicate features, pale skin, green eyes. Met her in Chicago, in a bar. I was starting graduate school in the fall soon. I asked her to come with me, to take a chance. Amy was an adventurous spirit. She agreed. As soon as I got to the university, I realized that I’d made a terrible mistake bringing Amy here. I wanted to be single, wanted to be free. Still, I went through the motions for a few months. Amy and I found an apartment on Genesee Street. She took a job in…

January 10, 2018 scottcjones 5Comments

Update: Apologies for not posting at all lately. Been busy tending to various things, etc. etc. Most of those things have been constructive things. Honestly? I resent the site sometimes, the way a dutiful parent might resent a child who doesn’t quite turn out the way she expected him to turn out. I always thought he was going to be a doctor! Now he’s just a druggie who sits in a hot tub all day, says this imaginary parent. He never goes out! Just sits at home. Yes, in that hot tub! Doing his crazy drugs! And if he does go…

September 2, 2017 scottcjones 2Comments

The next morning I packed up. Gave the old room a final inspection. So long, crummy motel room. Ordered an Uber for the airport on the motel’s wifi. Then I headed outside. The sun was coming up over the freeway. Hadn’t left yet, but I was already feeling nostalgic for California. So long, California! You beautiful, sun-baked hag, you. There was a black car parked next to the motel’s front office. Was the Uber here already? As I walked towards it, I noticed that the car looked weirdly similar to Tony The Driver’s car from yesterday. Can’t be Tony, I…

August 28, 2017 scottcjones 1Comment

Work was fine. I put in the hours, did what I’d been contracted to do. The job was in an anonymous business park. Big, blank buildings with manicured shrubs out front. The building I was working in was full of people, but I felt alone there. Once the last day was over, I handed in my badge, tried to find someone to say goodbye to. Then I took an Uber back to the hotel-motel. (more…)