Pint-Sized Stories

May 12, 2016
The Butcher and the Vegan
Kickin Back Ale-Wellington Brewery
Beet Fries

They call me Patches. I wasn’t always Patches, but jeez, I been Patches for so long now, hell, I don’t know what my real name even is anymore. Course, I do remember: it’s Ray. Ray Giddens. I come out here in 1968 from Nova Scotia.

I come out here to work the steel mills and boy, I got me a job and I worked hard and I did okay, boy. I got me a nice little place down here on Barton Street, so’s I could walk to work. I couldn’t afford no car, but jeez, I didn’t need one. Walkins good for ya anyhow. That’s why I stayed down here, even after things went for shit.

They shut er all down. Well, not all, but enough. Too much. I lost my good job but shit, I ain’t never been proud, so I got another one.

Lotsa the guys thought they was too good to wash dishes, but not ol Ray, no Sir, not me.

I could manage to keep my own place, but not the same one. But that was okay too. I got me a room upstairs here and I been up here ever since. It’s clean, cause I gotta live here and I might not be fancy and all, but Lorraine Giddens didn’t raise no dirty children, boy, that’s for sure. Nope, I keep er clean. I ain’t got much, but I got what I need.

After my good job ended and I moved up here, I didn’t have money for new pants or nothin, so I took some old blue jeans and some scissors and I bought a needle and some thread, down the hardware store. Them stores used to have damn near everything in them, those days. So, I bought a needle and thread and I made me some patches. I took my worst old pair and cut ’em up and put em on the better ones. I only had four pairs of pants, but they all had holes in em, so I made me three pairs outa four.

Lorraine woulda liked that alright.

I got em all sewed up over the course of a night or two. I figured somebody might give a job to a fella with patches on his pants, but maybe not to one with his pants fulla holes.

That’s how I got this job. I was puttin the last patch on the last pair of jeans, and it was a Jesus hot night. I was sittin on the fire stairs to keep from roasting like a Tom Turkey in my room. I was just sittin there with my pants and my needle and my thread, and there was a whole lotta yellin downstairs, all of a sudden.

This young fella in an apron was yellin at Mister Lee. Mister Lee had the Chinese food restaurant I live on toppa, back then.

The young fella tore off that apron and threw it on the sidewalk and then he said something to Mister Lee that I do not care to repeat, cause them was nasty words. I only got my grade six, but I know that was just plain mean.

Mister Lee was mad and yellin himself, but when that boy said those words, I think Mister Lee shrunk just a bit.

It was kinda awkward, cause I was just sittin there and I bet Mister Lee wished I didn’t hear what got said.

He shook his head and he picked up that apron and he shook it out. That’s when he saw me. He looked embarrassed but he didn’t need to be.

I asked him was that his dishwasher and he said it was. I stood up and put down my mending and walked down the stairs. “You want me to wash your dishes?” I asked.

He looked me up and down and then his eyes stopped at my pants. I had on one of the pairs I patched all up.

“You do that yourself?” he asked me.

I told him I had.

“Good”, he said. “You make nice job. Good. I give you five dollars and food.”

Well I thought that sounded just fine. I loved the food smells from his restaurant, but I couldn’t afford it, so I was already drooling a bit. It was delicious. He paid me and fed me just like he told me he would.

Next day, he came up and knocked on my door.

“You do same today?”

“You betcha, Mister Lee,” I answered fast.

“You…what I call you?”

“Name’s Ray”, I told him.

He looked me up and down again, and he got this tiny little bit of a smile on his serious old face.

He winked.

“Okay, Patches, I see you downstairs.”

It stuck. I got treated real good by Mister Lee and his whole family. When the old man died, I cried. He was a good man. I worked for his son and when Eddie sold the place, I worked for the next guy.

I don’t have to any more, but I still sew my own patches on my pants. I’m pretty good at it now.

This bar is the fifth place that I’ve worked at. I wash the dishes and keep things clean. I get treated real good. I don’t have a fancy life, but I have food and a clean room. I have friends downstairs when I want a visit, and I can usually get a nice cold beer on a hot day or a bowl of soup on a cold one.

Patches. All of this because I learned myself to put patches on my pants.

That boy should not have called Mister Lee those names, but I guess I’m glad he did.