Online Exclusive: My Dinner With Bob

Read Peter Valing’s original article about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside here.“If you wanna smoke some pot, just knock on my door,” said my gnome-like neighbour one morning as we passed in the hall. What luck! For weeks, my imagination had been preoccupied with the little man and his room. On hot days, he left his door open, and I’d walk by very slowly to get a glimpse of how he lived. What was all the metallic stuff that hung from the ceiling? Why was half the room painted black? Why did my neighbor run extension cords into the hallway sockets? Now Bob had extended an invitation, and as luck had struck twice that day, I knocked bearing a gift.

He didn’t thank me, which was fine because the bag of pot leaves had only cost me two cigarettes. “Where’d you get it?” he asked. “A guy plopped it in front of me while I was sitting in a pub.” He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll see if it’s any good.” Bob was a pot aficionado. By his own account, he hasn’t spent a day clean and sober since he ran away with a carnival at the age of fourteen. That was thirty-eight years ago.

While Bob cooked up the leaves in a shoeshine tin, I began to take mental notes on his room. What struck me first was the view. Bob’s room faced the mountains, which were now silhouettes trimmed by a hundred stars. To the window frame he had attached a workbench. A partially completed model of toothpicks and Popsicle sticks stood amidst a clutter of tiny tools and brushes. “I’ve gotta find some horses for it,” said Bob. He must have sensed my mind working over the mysteries of his place.

He picked up the model and twisted its top. It circled to a music box tune. “I used to operate real merry-go-rounds,” he smiled, revealing two teeth. “And I also operated roller coasters, Ferris wheels, haunted houses…” Carefully he lifted a model of each from a shelf. They weren’t beautiful, but with their glue-dappled joints and uneven brush stokes, they were sincere. “What do you think?” beamed Bob. “Nice work,” I replied.

The compliment inspired Bob to take me on a thorough tour of “The Project.” He disappeared into the hall with his extension cords. “Don’t wanna blow the circuits,” he laughed. Then he closed the door. He popped open two cupboards, which sent the cockroaches scurrying. “Take a toke and listen!” He turned up a dial, and Pink Floyd blasted out from the speakers. The skull chandelier shook. Bob reached into his closet and pulled out a guitar. “Master Igor!” he announced, passing it to me. I cradled Master Igor and admired the hand-painted flames along his neck. “Yep, rebuilt him myself. I’ll have strings on him by October, and then you’ll see a show!”

The Project was being assembled to accommodate The Show. The sound system was in place, as was the light system. Bob flicked a switch and beams of red, orange and yellow fell on the center of the room. “I did lights for KISS, you know.” And then there was the stage: black walls, black ceiling, a blind for the window. Sometime in October, Bob planned to appear on his stage in full Vampire garb. The audience would be seated on the whitewashed side of the room. He had a song list prepared, but he kept it in his head for safe measure.

After taking me through The Project, we talked into the late hours. Well, I asked questions and he answered. For Bob was the Rock Star, and I a Mere Fan. Not once did he ask me anything. It went something like this:

Fan: Where were you born?

Rock Star: Right here on the Eastside.

MF: How long were you in the carnivals?

RS: Thirty-odd years.

MF: How was that?

RS: Awesome. Saw the entire world. I’d recommend it to anyone.

MF: Lots of adventure, then.

RS: Yep. I’ve even got me a bullet scar. (Bob hiked his shirt to reveal a hairy belly with a slight horizontal mark).

MF: What happened there?

RS: One night in South America, some locals wanted to drive the carnival out of town. Our boss prepared us by giving us pistols. When they came, we shot at them. Unfortunately, a bullet grazed me. Hurt like stink!

MF: Why did they want to drive you out of town?

RS: I don’t know. People think carnival folk are bad people – thieves, liars and such. And some are. But people forget that carnival folk make them happy. Ever seen a sad kid at a carnival?

MF: Any kids yourself?

RS: Sure. Five that I know of, and three wives, too.

MF: Three wives?

RS: Yep, wives are easy to come by when you’re working in a carnival. You’re on the road with over a hundred people. And they’re just as easy to get rid of. They reverse the rides, that all.

MF: Reverse the rides?

RS: It’s an old carnival tradition. When there’s a divorce on the road, they’ll put a ride in reverse. That’s how everyone knows.

MF: Do you keep in touch with carnival people?

RS: Yep, lots of them live around here. I visit, they visit. I communicate with them on my CB... And in the summers, some of us go and live in the woods.

MF: In the woods?

RS: Yep, put all my stuff into storage, pack up a tarp, my bow, my fishing rod and go up into the North Shore mountains. Lots of people living up there, you know. Living under the stars, growing dope….

MF: Why aren’t you up there this summer?

RS: Just moved in here. It takes a lot outta ya to get all this gear up to the seventh floor.

MF: Where did you live before?

RS: Another boarding house. But they shut it down. It’s getting harder to find rooms in the Eastside, with all the hotels closing down. But you should have seen my last room! I had it fully soundproofed, a six-layer process using egg cartons. It was awesome! I’ll do the same here soon.

MF: Why aren’t you with the carnivals anymore?

RS: Too many rules these days. Gotta shave, cut your hair, smile all the time. Now it’s big companies that run carnivals. They’re no fun to work for!

MF: Do you do any other work now that you’re not with the carnivals?

RS: Don’t need to. I do fine on my carnival pension.

It took a few days to start questioning what Bob had told me. Carnival pension? At fifty-two? Lights man for KISS? Hunting with a toy bow? I attribute my initial naïveté to three factors: 1) Bob was a wily carny who spun a good yarn 2) I was slightly inebriated 3) Part of me was under the spell of what I would call: “Boarding house mystique.” To me, the boarding house not only provides cheap accommodations for the poor, but has always been a refuge for the genius, the oddball or for anyone out of step with conventional society. It’s a sort of monastery, sans vows. Nietzsche and Bukowski had spent much of their lives in boarding houses. Mozart died in one. Hunger, which some have argued sparked the whole school of modern fiction, was written by a desperate Hamsun in a boarding house. Yes, by accepting Bob without question, I had fallen prey to another romantic whim.

Bob, of course, was no genius. He was eccentric, and there’s something to be said for that. He filled my mind with fibs and tall tales, but in the end I didn’t mind. At least he didn’t bore me stiff. And if the Downtown Eastside provides a habitat for the likes of Bob, than I’d hate to see it disappear beneath wrecking balls poised only to swing and to level.

To read Peter Valing’s original Walrus article about Vancouver, “Not So Down,” click here...