Gone to Pot

by Jennifer Craig

  Praise for Gone to Pot:

  “Jess is the feisty, funny, opinionated, can’t-keep-her-down-for-long ‘crone’ we all hope to become. In this rollicking tale of desperate ingenuity, Jess shows us that you’re never too old to grow.”

  —Anne DeGrace, author of Flying with Amelia

  “Jennifer Craig’s ‘Jess’ is a lot like her; a wicked Yorkshire lass whose pluck and humor pack trouble into an old kit bag, and this time the bag is bursting with green. Survival of an old crone at her best.”

  —Rita Moir, author of The Third Crop

  “When the going gets tough, the tough get growing. In Jess, the unsinkable centerpiece of Gone to Pot, Jennifer Craig has given us a mother, grandmother, friend, and citizen who is memorable for her humor, resilience, practicality, and irreverence, to say nothing of her green thumb and dab hand with grow lights. It’s a funny novel, and a tender one, that will make you think twice about the possibilities of your basement and will also make you want to visit Nelson, the jewel of the Kootenays, which is lovingly described. I hope we’ll hear more about Jess and her gang. She won’t be going gentle any time soon into any good night, that’s for sure.”

  —Bill Richardson, author of The First Little Bastard

  to Call Me Gramps: Poems of the Late Middle Ages

  1

  Bloody hell, I’ve gone and done it now. I lay in a crumpled heap between a thicket of flower pots, my head cushioned in a marijuana plant, staring up into a 1000-watt light bulb. I struggled to get up. My loose shirt had caught in the pallet that supported the pots—and now me. The more I struggled the tighter the shirt pulled around my throat. Was this to be my end? Either throttled by a shirt or roasted to a crisp by a grow light?

  How did I get into this mess? Two things started it: the fire at the Grizzly Grill; and news of the stock market slump. Crash and burn is how my troubles began.

  My workplace, the Grizzly Grill on Baker Street, was within walking distance of my house. I enjoyed the walk down the tree-lined street, past the lovely old stone church, but that day everything was gray—the grass, the bushes, the trees—all coated with winter gravel and dust. Patches of ice still lingered ready to topple the unwary. How nice it would be to get out of Nelson, to go somewhere warm with palm trees and greenery, to lie in a deck chair with nothing to worry about. But holidays were not for me. Not then. Not ever.

  A fire truck sirened past me. Nearly deafened me, it did. Mind you, with the fire hall just round the corner and the hospital just up the road, hearing sirens where I lived was not unusual. People came out of their houses and began running down the hill. Like a fool I joined them. Why? I don’t usually follow the herd or run on an icy path, or even a clear path, for that matter.

  Then I saw the smoke. A huge ball of black poured out from somewhere on Baker Street and rolled upward and toward us. I ran faster.

  Next thing I was sprawled on the sidewalk. Daft bugger, you should know better than to try to run at all, let alone downhill. A couple of youngsters helped me up and I sat on a wall to get my breath and assess the damage. The young man with his baseball cap on backwards kneeled down to look at my leg. We rolled up my pant leg and watched the knee swell.

  “I’ll be okay,” I told him. “I’ll just sit a minute. You go ahead.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. He stood up to leave, walked a few steps and then turned to call out, “Your skateboard’s under that car.”

  A good laugh always helps. My gammy knee stiffened up and let me know it was having none of it. One grazed hand dropped blood on the sidewalk. I found a tissue in my apron, pressed it on the graze, and then stood up. My pants were covered in gravel. Would it be better to go to work like that or go back home to change and be late? I dithered for a minute and then carried on.

  Limping, I managed to reach the back of the crowd standing in silence at a police barrier. I watched the Grizzly Grill go up in flames from a safe distance. There go my comfy loafers that I got from the thrift shop for five bucks. I would be on the dole now—at my age—but I fretted more over those loafers than my future. They didn’t pinch my bunions like my other shoes.

  Dense smoke made it difficult to see where it was coming from. The smell was terrible, like singed hair, and a roaring noise, like a waterfall, filled the street. The fire truck had its ladder up and from it a firefighter directed a jet of water into the smoke. He looked so tiny in his yellow uniform and helmet standing on top of the ladder, like the toy I gave my grandson.

  I’m not a gawker and my knee hurt, so I began to push my way out of the crowd. “Hey, Jess,” I heard someone say. I turned to see Swan, another waitress at the Grill. “Looks like we’re out of work.”

  “Has it completely gone?” I asked her. “What happened?”

  “Word on Twitter that it started in the basement.” Swan looked up from her cell phone. “Electrical they think.”

  “Thank goodness it wasn’t open yet,” I said. “So no one but Joe would be there.” Joe was our cook and he would have started work earlier, setting up the kitchen and prepping food and all that. “Is he all right?”

  “Dunno. I just got here.” Swan looked at me briefly through her heavy mascara as she continued to text.

  “I might as well go home. But I’ll wait until I know if Joe is okay.” I turned around. “I have to sit down. I fell and my knee is killing me.”

  “Go sit on that bench. I’ll see if I can find Joe.” Swan helped me to one of the benches set in an alcove of low, stone walls. “Back in a flash.”

  Swan had only been on the job about three weeks and was still wet behind the ears. She was a bit daft—sashaying around the Grill like a princess, standing beside a customer’s table with one hip stuck out as if she needed a replacement. She could never remember what the specials were. Waitressing doesn’t give much time for conversation, so I didn’t know her very well.

  I sat, with my knee throbbing, and watched the backs of people all staring at the fire and the firefighters. A policeman in a yellow jacket and bicycle helmet held the crowd behind a barricade and another manned the next junction directing traffic. An ambulance parked on the cross street didn’t seem to be busy, thank goodness.

  One section of the crowd stopped staring down the street as its attention turned to a heavily built woman made even bulkier by a puffy black jacket crowned with a felt fedora-style hat. She waved her arms and shouted, “Behold, the Lord has visited this fire upon you because of your sinful natures. Repent! Repent now before the whole town burns. Turn to Jesus for redemption. Find your path back to—”

  She stopped yelling as a young woman in a red toque shook her fist at her. “Shut up you righteous nutcase. Go back to your cage.”

  The proselyte took a couple of steps toward Red Toque and pointed her finger. “Sinner,” she shouted, “repent your evil ways before the town burns before your eyes!”

  I cheered for Red Toque as the two women faced off. Jesus freaks always got up my nose with their holier-than-thou attitude. The policeman with the bicycle approached them. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was a lot of arm waving before Fedora Hat strode away up the hill, her challenger rejoined the crowd, and the policeman returned to his position.

  A tall, gangly young man suddenly appeared and came over to sit on my bench. He didn’t look at me as he plonked himself down, sat with splayed legs, and stared into space with the kind of dark brown eyes you see in Middle Eastern men. Although he wore a black toque, the sort that’s associated with bank robbers, he wasn’t at all threatening. In fact, he seemed quite gentle with his one earring and one of those little bits of beard they call a soul patch.

 
After a while he leaned back and lifted his left wrist as if to read a watch. Then he shook his head slightly when he saw his bare arm and asked, “Got the time?”

  “Twenty to twelve,” I said.

  He went on staring into space as I looked around for Swan. A few moments later she appeared. “Oh hey, Marcus, there you are. Jess, this is Marcus.”

  She sat down between the young man and me. Marcus stood up and hovered awkwardly before squatting on the wall to one side of us. “Joe’s okay,” Swan said. “They’ve taken him to hospital to check him out. He’s the one who sounded the alarm.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “One less thing to worry about.”

  “Marcus and I are going to Oso for a Java. Wanna join us?”

  I limped up the hill behind them. My knee was hurting badly, but I could still hobble. After a block, Swan looked around to see where I was, and then stopped to wait. She wore an enormous knitted poncho in light brown wool with dark green leaves embroidered on it and from a distance I got the impression that a giant cactus was waiting for me. The poncho swirled over her usual waitress outfit—black jeans and a sweater that showed a layer of her undershirt. That was the fashion, yes, but it looked as if the sweater had shrunk. Why did youngsters want to show their underwear? In my young day, we did our best to hide it. She took my arm and her support helped me the rest of the way.

  Marcus walked on with a gait like a colt that couldn’t control its legs. When Swan and I got to Oso Negro’s, he was at the front of the line ready to order our coffees. The place was packed, probably because it was out of range of the smoke. Swan quickly positioned herself so that as soon as a group looked as if it was about to leave, she could grab the table. I waited with Marcus to help him carry our coffees and his muffin.

  “Well done,” I said to Swan once we all sat down at the table she’d secured.

  Marcus put down the cups with hands as big as a gorilla’s, and as hairy. He pulled off his toque to reveal short blond hair that seemed surprising given his dark eyes and complexion. Fair hair and brown eyes are most attractive, and I couldn’t stop staring at him.

  So far I hadn’t heard him speak other than asking the time. It looked as though I was to be kept wondering when Swan turned to me and said, “Well, Jess, now you’re not working, whatcha gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. Look for a job, I suppose. What will you do?”

  Swan gazed into the distance as she played with the one long strand of hair she had on her head, dyed purple to contrast with her otherwise short black stubble. “Maybe try for a job as a doctor’s receptionist. Or a dentist’s.”

  With the ring though her lip, her eyes so heavy with makeup that you could hardly see them, and her extraordinary hair arrangement—you couldn’t call it a ‘hair do’ as she hardly had any—she’d frighten patients half to death.

  “You’d be good at that,” I said trying to be encouraging. I turned to Marcus who was sitting staring into his coffee cup as if it would reveal his fortune. “What do you do, Marcus?”

  He looked up with expressionless eyes. “Not much,” he managed to utter in a deep, husky voice. “Odd jobs. You know.”

  “What sort of odd jobs?” I persisted.

  He looked puzzled.

  “Marcus is a total MacGyver,” Swan said, coming to his rescue. “He’s a whiz with electrical stuff.”

  “Oh. What do you think started the fire?”

  Marcus grunted “Dunno,” and carried on staring into his cup. Normally I get on well with young men—in fact, better than with men of my own age—but this one was conversationally deficient.

  “Do you two live together?” I asked.

  Swan laughed. “No, I share an apartment with a girlfriend,” she said. “But I help Marcus out quite a bit. What sort of job will you look for, Jess?”

  “I started training as a nurse,” I said. Then added, “In the olden days. Then I got rheumatic fever. It left me with a dickey heart and I had to stop training. But I’ve worked as an aide in nursing homes, so I might look for a job as a caregiver. Someone’s elderly relative perhaps.”

  “Does it pay much?” Swan said.

  “Not as well as a waitress with the tips.” I didn’t tell her it was a lousy job and the last thing I wanted. Sick people leading a purposeless life can be very demanding, and I’d be no better than a servant. Jess, fetch this. Jess, close the window. Jess, take dear Tubby Wubby for his walkies. No thank you.

  “You could just retire, right?”

  “I wish I could, but I can’t afford to.”

  “Don’t you own a house?”

  “Yes, but that’s all I own. No pension or any income.” I enjoyed the attention Swan paid me. I don’t see much of young people outside of work. Marcus just sat and brooded as though we weren’t present.

  “Well it’s one more house than I own.” Swan laughed.

  “We were lucky. My husband and I built a house in Vancouver before prices skyrocketed. So I was able to buy a house here when we split up.”

  “You could take in renters. Lots of students looking for rooms in this town.”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ll think about it.” I had thought about it, but I’d once had a stranger living in the house and I hated it. Fine when you’re young, but you get set in your ways at my age. I’m quite frugal, like most Yorkshire folk, and when my lodger put on the washing machine for two pairs of panties and a pair of tights, I went spare. I showed her how to hand wash—dramatically. She left.

  I liked solitude after being with people all day, and I certainly didn’t want to wait on someone at home or cater to their needs or have the television blaring nonstop. Just hearing someone else moving about in my home put me on edge. But I might have to end up renting a room if I couldn’t get a job.

  “Well if you do decide to rent out, let me know. I can spread the word.” Swan leaned across the table and helped herself to a piece of Marcus’s muffin.

  “Thanks.” I sipped my coffee and looked around. “I wonder if they’re hiring people here?” Everyone behind the counter could still be in school so I wouldn’t be eligible, but Swan might.

  “No chance. I inquired. There’s a waiting list,” Swan said.

  Swan asked if I’d be okay getting home and I thanked her and said it was only a couple of blocks and I’d take it slowly. We parted with promises to keep in touch, but I doubted this would happen. We had very little in common apart from being unemployed waitresses, and most of the time I didn’t understand a word she said. Nor did I shave off half my hair or stick metal in my nose.

  I plodded up the hill to my house. A car’s bumper sticker caught my eye. ‘Shit Happens.’ “You can say that again,” I said to a startled young man as he emerged from the church food bank. He looked at the bumper, then grinned. “Right.”

  The food bank. I had only seen it as a place to contribute—what would it be like to have to go in there? When I was younger and married and had more money, I volunteered in Vancouver’s downtown east side, working with drug addicts, people with mental health problems, lost souls, and plain old poverty victims. These were the sort of people who used food banks. Not me. What would it be like to be hungry all the time or to live as a bundle of clothing in a cardboard box or not to have a daily shower? The thought of ending up like that in my old age—well bugger that for a lark. Not while I had my wits. I could always find a job.

  The phone rang as soon as I got in. “Mum, are you okay?” Jason said. “I just heard that the Grill went up in flames.”

  “I’m fine, luv.”

  “Thank goodness. I was really worried when I heard, though they did say no one was hurt.”

  “I hadn’t arrived when it happened. Good thing it wasn’t half an hour later. Did you hear how it started?”

  “Something electrical in the basement, they said on the news. What are you going to do now?�
��

  “Look for a job, I suppose.”

  “Why don’t you come for dinner? We can talk after the kids are in bed. You know they’d love to see you.”

  “That would be nice.”

  I put the kettle on and went upstairs to change. I liked to look neat at work so I wore tailored black pants, a smart shirt and a short black apron with a large pocket. And flat comfy loafers, of course, that I left at the café. My work clothes went into the laundry basket and I pulled on loose pants and a sweatshirt that were anything but smart. I fished out my Edwardian cameo brooch, the only valuable thing I own, and hung it round my neck from its ribbon. I believe in using things, not hiding them away in safe places. Like most cameos mine had a carving of a woman’s head, the woman representing Ceres, the goddess of the harvest. It’s my good luck charm. My grandmother left it to me. I rubbed it and called on Ceres to bring me abundance—abundance of anything, but money in particular.

  I decided to soak in a bath, something I rarely did, especially in the middle of the day. Mainly because once I got my body into a bathtub, it was a helluva job to get it out again. But the idea seemed deliciously wicked. I needed to have a good think and my knee would like a rest in nice, warm water. At the back of the bathroom cupboard I found a bottle of bubble bath someone had given me for Christmas two years before. I turned the tap to Hot. A squirt of rusty water came out. Then to Cold. Fine: clear water. Back to Hot—and more rusty muck.

  I pulled on my sweats again and went down to the basement. On the bottom step I was safe from the pool of water that would have made a duck happy. “That tank wasn’t even ten years old,” I muttered as I waded across to turn off the water and the gas. How much did bloody hot water tanks cost? That would take care of my holiday pay.

  I slopped upstairs to have a cup of tea and turn on the radio. The news relayed the information that the Dow Jones Industrial index had fallen by some horrifying percentage, resulting in the collapse of many companies. “When it comes to wealth suddenly disappearing, the stock market can be diabolically frightful,” the newscaster said. “Usually this happens in October, but not this year. This year it’s February with its Black Tuesday.”