I spent the first two months in Toronto in hostels, but after getting a job and deciding I didn’t really want to carry on getting changed under my sheets or getting woken up by somebody rocking back and forth with a towel over their head in the middle of the room at 3am (THIS HAPPENED), I moved into a room in a house. I answered a Craigslist ad detailing a friendly house for a half decent price and went to have a look at it. The friendly Colombian landlord showed me round and despite not being too impressed by either the house itself or the fact it could take as long as an hour to get downtown, I took it anyway as I couldn’t afford to be picky/couldn’t be bothered looking anywhere else. Mainly the second one.
A fairly big, very woody, typical North American home, 1959 Dufferin Street was near Toronto’s slight shabby Portugese area, with not a Nando’s in sight to redeem it. Two people lived in the basement and had their own kitchen, as well as a washer and dryer that everyone in the house had to use, which was in a room with about 20 years worth of junk in it. The ground floor had a large living/dining/kitchen area with a screen and a projector and one bedroom by the front door. The kitchen had rat poison dishes everywhere, filled with varying amounts of pink granules depending on when the mice were peckish. Upstairs, there was three or four bedrooms and a bathroom, with mine looking out into the “backyard” with it’s scary-eyed raccoons. When I first arrived I put my bag in this room, but was told by the landlord that he told some Russian guy that he’d probably think it was his room. I’ve reimagined the moment I met this guy as if I had the mentality of a commie-fearing American from the fifties to make it more interesting.
He braced himself for a brawl. World War 3. His parents had grown up in theCold War era and had presumably had it hammered into them that all Russians are beasts. Scum. A constant threat to everything you and your Daddy fought for, freedom. And now, one of that generation’s spawn was coming for his space, his freedom. Invading his room and turning it yet another satellite state for Mother Russia. Bringing down the iron curtain on his windows. He wondered what he should use to defend himself. A chair? A table? Too obvious. Perhaps poetic justice. A bottle of vodka or.. a Kalashnikov? No, he didn’t drink and no access to a gun, at best he’d seen a cheap air rifle in Walmart. Maybe just the fist of Uncle Sam, the same one Rocky landed on Ivan Drago‘s face to knock that Commie fuck back to Moscow?! Before he could decide, Andrei popped his head round the door, apologised and moved his bag into the room down the corridor. “He wasn’t a proper Commie anyway,” he decided, “he was wearing glasses”. “Wait”, you’re thinking “Trotsky wore glasses”, but he didn’t know that, so boo to you mate, I’m the narrator.
I spent a lot of time in my room, despite the fact that it was always too hot or too cold. I had a crappy TV which I watched TRULY crappy Canadian TV on occasionally, I also remember blearily watching England limp out of the World Cup to Germany and then going back to sleep depressed (time difference eh). I could just about cope with the freezing Canadian winter, but the heatwave that struck Toronto whilst I was there made staying in the room almost unbearable. I couldn’t open the window and I only had a crappy fan to cool me down; then there was a power cut where I genuinely nearly died. Before it got really hot I also got my own pet mouse. A fast moving dirty little bastard, I could never get anywhere near it and it could get under the doors and to freedom due to being so small. One of it’s mates must have died as well because the room stunk of rotting eggs for a longer than needed period. The room also looked out onto our Rasta neighbours, who seemed to have parties where they smoked weed, played reggae really loud through massive speakers with mental bass in their cars and let their kids run around at like 3pm on a Wednesday.
My housemates were members of a never ending international roundabout. I’m not sure how many different people lived there during the nine months I was there, but it must have been over 20 moving in and out of about eight rooms. There was a theme of French speaking people, including a small guy who was constantly pissed off and after a night out got genuinely angry at me because I temporarily worked at a cinema. At one point, an American brother and sister moved in.. to the same room. She was apparently a 17-year old model and he was “just looking after her as she tried to make it big”. Eeesh. There was also quite a few Asian students, an Irish bloke who I hilariously watched the France-Ireland World Cup qualifying playoff with (as well as the angry French guy) when Henry handled the ball and a extremely Artic-looking Canadian guy, as well as others who I barely saw. The only other Canadian guy who lived there deserves a few paragraphs to himself, so avert your eyes down a line please.
Built like a brick shit house, this bloke was a half-Italian, heavy-metal loving labourer, who had resorted to living in a shabby hotel of a house due to losing his job. He told me he was working in the wilds when he got drunk at a bar and was pulled over by the police as he drove out, accusing the locals of dobbing him in because he had long hair at the time (he now wore a tea cosy on his bald head) and because had darker skin then them moose-n-lumber rednecks. He had made a shitload from his job and had a wife and a kid, but told me that he had tragically lost it all by not being able to drive for work after losing his license, then losing his wife (never explained why) and losing custody of his kid. So here he was, a volatile giant of a man, pissed off at the hand that life had suddenly thrust upon him.
Because I worked late hours at the cinema, I tended to come in late most nights, but this guy was always up on the house PC, a consistent fixture of the living room. Generally a bit smashed on jugs of red wine and half eating his (proper nice) Italian food which he always offered me, he was always up for telling me how the system had failed him and us all. I appreciated his food when I was essentially living on discounted Burger King from work and Pop Tarts, but I could never get a word in when speaking to him as he had all the conspiracies and Illuminati shit ready to trot out at every opportunity. I believe we live in an unfair world and that things are definitely wrong, but this guy apparently knew it all, despite the fact that, to my knowledge, he never left the house. I heard from my Irish housemate that this bloke had nearly knocked out a bloke in the garden after he mistakenly touched his lawnmower at a party or something, but it took until the end of my tenure at Dufferin Street that I witnessed his nutter status for real. Again, I’ve taken the liberty of describing this event in a dramatic style because I’m great. IT’S ALL TRUE!
It was time for the Frenchman to leave, to return to his homeland after unsuccessfully converting the rest of Canada into speaking French (probably). He gathered up his Gallic friends for a party in his temporary castle, but would kindly share the moment with the rest of his subjects and other dignitaries. Merry times were had, the booze was flowing, the music was loud. But one Italian party Grinch locked himself inside his keep, determined not to partake in the festivities. As the time ticked away, drink flowed longer, the music gained louder and the party Grinch gained angrier. But there was no appearance from him, just the sound of his music growing and the odd frustrated bang on the wall.
It all reached a head as the drunken Frenchman put “I’m on a Boat” on at full blast. The party Grinch stormed out of his room and made straight for the Frenchman, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him against the wall, despite being at least a foot taller than him. He was no fan of parody, or boats motherfucker! The atmosphere dropped like a stone, the women burst into tears, the Frenchmen panicked and shouted. Eventually the Italian softened his grip, but his anger did not wain. He ranted and raved at the departing Frenchman, telling him he was not the ruler of the house and he was taking liberties that weren’t his to take. He smashed up a table, slammed a door. It took him an age to calm down, but the damage was already done. The rest of the house lived in fear of his rage until the end of days.
It all reached a head as the drunken Frenchman put “I’m on a Boat” on at full blast. The party Grinch stormed out of his room and made straight for the Frenchman, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him against the wall, despite being at least a foot taller than him. He was no fan of parody, or boats motherfucker! The atmosphere dropped like a stone, the women burst into tears, the Frenchmen panicked and shouted. Eventually the Italian softened his grip, but his anger did not wain. He ranted and raved at the departing Frenchman, telling him he was not the ruler of the house and he was taking liberties that weren’t his to take. He smashed up a table, slammed a door. It took him an age to calm down, but the damage was already done. The rest of the house lived in fear of his rage until the end of days.
A couple of months after this ridiculous incident and when everything had pretty much blown over, this bloke put his big Italian foot in it again. After seemingly befriending a Japanese student who lived downstairs, one night things again turned a bit ugly. He baked a cake which she presumed was for her and her mate, but it turned out he was expecting them to share it. When he found out she’d taken his precious cake all for herself, he hit the roof and apparently threatened her. This led to the landlord stepping in, he locked the door to the basement where she lived so this nasty man couldn’t threaten over a cake anymore and served him with an eviction notice. Annoyingly, that meant that everyone had to use the outside entrance to put some shitting socks in the wash. Apparently he’d only got to live in the house in the first place because he was fixing it up for the landlord, but now the landlord had enough of him breaking up this Benetton advert of a house. He fought back with legal proceedings, but I never found out if he got kicked out or if they made peace, I’d left Canada before it reached it’s climax. Ridiculous.
So that was the house. A strange, wonderful time. Maybe you don’t find any of that interesting or out of the ordinary and believe I must live a pretty dull life now? Well, let me tell you that this was a time that also included other ridiculous events like witnessing the G20 riots, working with a guy who got sacked for being a paedophile, an old man telling me I was a fascist for wearing camo shorts in the streets, a bloke coming onto me on the subway by grabbing his balls and pouting, running through university dorms in my boxers and ketchup smeared all over my torso, throwing up beans and toast also on the subway on new years eve, walking out of a U2 gig before they even started and witnessing a tramp defecating on a church. But I can’t be arsed going into them, read my blog more or ask me about it in real life. I might tell you, but I might be too tired, sorry. Bye.
