The Nerve

Dope City is different, do not let anybody tell you different, as if anybody would. I was in a health food restaurant on the Drive today when I heard a couple motorcycles rumble quietly up to the curb outside the shop's open door. It was two cops in their big black boots. One of them a guy I grew up in the neighbourhood with by the name of Beef. He has been a city bike cop for years. When he was a kid he was notorious for sticking firecrackers up dogs' asses at Hallowe'en. They walked in, Beef nodded at me and I back at him, and ordered up the same sort of hippy shit I eat as I waited for my food. They did not order any motherfucking donuts. And the motorcycle boys were not fat.

I have not eaten donuts for years. Many years ago I made donuts for a living. I know what is in those things and have watched them lazily fry in their hot oil baths for hours upon hours. If you eat many donuts you are lowering your chances of ever watching the Canucks win the Stanley Cup from zero to less than zero.

While I was eating I read a magazine left on the table by a previous customer called The Nerve. Some of the pages were stuck together with what looked like homemade glue. I thought to myself as I was reading, "The people who write this shit ought to be jailed with Willie Picton."

So I got up and interrupted the two cops having their lunch. Beef said, "What the fuck do you want, Beer?" as I placed the magazine in front of them. I said, "All this magazine is about is dope and perversion. Can't you guys put a stop to it?"

Beef glanced at the magazine and passed it across the scatter of crumbs and spilt coffee on their table to his partner. His partner glanced at the magazine knowingly and said, "I don't make many fucking promises but I'll promise you this - the people who are responsible for this crap will be out of the way before the Olympics."

Beef cracked his knuckles, looked up at me and asked, "So you keeping it clean Beer?" I was not the cleanest living kid when we were growing up in the criminal colony of Sliverville.

I told him, "Clean as a man can in this dirty city." As I walked towards the door I added over my shoulder, "Good thing council changed their mind about banning fireworks for Hallowe'en, eh?"