Strangler's Web

My walk last evening was dry, but I had the misfortune of coinciding with Charles "Stickman" McCarthy.

As you look at this Bing Map, he must have just come from the right (i.e., East) along 96th Avenue and then turned to travel 'up' (NorthWest) along the topside of Fraser Highway. My ill luck was that I was proceeding 'down' (SouthEast) along the same topside of Fraser Highway towards 96th Avenue, so he appeared too soon for me to evade him.

Initially I wasn't even sure it was him, for even when I realized the figure had a pole he was walking with, he seemed too slight to be Charles. And there seemed something off-kilter with his left leg or foot as he came my way.

I hoped that my cap would keep me unfamiliar to him as we were about to coincide, but the traffic was coming in my direction and my face illuminated. I saw that his eyes were directed at my face, and his own face suddenly betrayed his recognition of me.

Fortunately I had something of a rush in my favour to get to Save-On-Foods just past 152nd Street, for it closes at 10 p.m., and it was then something like 8:55 p.m. and I was not yet midway between 140th and 144th Streets.

I do feel very sorry for homeless Charles, for I know that he is undoubtedly lonely; but he is generally a time-waster, for he can be too bizarre to have conversations with.

He had a couple of fingers wrapped up with what might have been some gauze bound with duct tape, and he ventured that one of them was broken and the other probably just sprained ─ although he had not had any medical attention. I wondered to him if he had fallen, or possibly been in a brawl?

He sort of chuckled, and then attempted to explain that he had 'something' (I was unable to understand what) in one of his pockets; and then when he attempted to retrieve it, whatever it was reacted somehow ... or 'went off'. This freaked him out due to being caught completely off his guard, and the mysterious result was the injury to his fingers.

Charles is aberrantly intelligent, but seldom have I ever encountered anyone so inept at explaining anything to make it comprehensible.

I had been fortunate in not having crossed paths with him for some weeks, and wondered if even it was possible he had 'moved away', for he had claimed in our previous discourse that a judge was mandating that he needed to relocate somewhere down near Scott Road SkyTrain Station ─ possibly there is some sort of shelter or aid facility in the area.

When I mentioned this, he seemed to be proclaiming that no such predicament had ever befallen him, and he seemed to have no idea what I was speaking of. Then he told me that he had recently had to spend 10 days in jail in Newton, but he was too vague on just why. He then wondered to me if it was possible that they could jail him for life because the cops had identified that he was incapable of taking sufficient care of himself on the streets.

There is a shelter colloquially known as "Foxglove" not too very far from where we were talking (see this Bing Map showing Foxglove's location) that houses the homeless and people requiring substance abuse rehabilitation, but it reportedly has an extremely lengthy wait time for applicants ─ I've heard that it might be a year or more.

However, Charles has been living in this area for possibly five years, so it's not as if he has aught better to be doing than wait for a vacancy. I pointed this out ... and then he launched into an excuse that people have been dying there. Supposedly, they have been getting asphyxiated somehow, and he speculated that the macabre electronic means are about whereby these devices can be activated and somehow stifle the functioning of the lungs ─ had I not ever sensed some pending similar state while out on my walks? I believe that he was implying that these devices are installed publicly in areas along utility poles and such.

Meantime as we talked, I kept impressing upon him the urgency of my errand and the haste I was in. He acknowledged this, but kept desperately coming up with a new topic. He even suggested that he would accompany me, and then set off walking with the pathetically crippled-like pace of some old man scuffling along with very short, rapid steps.

This was not acceptable, for I fully intended to soon be jogging for nearly a half mile to make time, and this was unquestionably beyond Charles' ability, even though he might only be in his 40s at most (I am 75).

I can't recall all of the nonsense he tried to interest me in, but he did propose a fanciful option to having an extension to the SkyTrain being constructed from where it currently ends at King George Station ─ instead of desecrating the environment with the new elevated track's construction, all that was needed (he claimed) was a series of specialized trampoline-like structures in which people could essentially bounce from one to the next and so on, but without needing to apply their own effort.

As I said, Charles gets so damned weird that he can hardly be understood due to the senselessness of his concepts; thus I have the highest reluctance of becoming involved with him when I am out walking. I am not out there to waste my time ─ I am performing walks that I want to get completed in as short a time as I can.

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Time evaporated on me today, so I must bring this post to a fast close.

Suffice here to say that last evening after I was back home and able to use our Android TV Box to tune in a couple of shows for my younger brother and I to watch on T.V., I had to settles for OK.ru for my sources.

First was an Edgar Wallace Mysteries movies from August 1965: Strangler's Web.

It was rather unusual, I must say. I believe that this was the source link.

I had no idea until now that one of the actresses in the short movie was rather famous in the art world ─ she died young, her husband not many years later, and their daughter also was to die as a young adult. The actress was Pauline Boty. I wish that I had known this before watching the movie.

We also watched The Avengers ─ season two's episode 19 ("The Golden Eggs"). I love these quaint old shows with their abominably hoaky fight scenes.

I believe that this was my source for the episode.

I have to stop here. I had a latter afternoon emotional meltdown today, feeling my loneliness and impotence far more than I usually do. This was in fact a bath day, and while I was having it just ahead of 6 p.m., I broke down and shed some tears for a long while.

Early in the evening I resorted to an episode of Superman & Lois ─ episode five ("The Best of Smallville") of season one. The show was my justification for having a can each of Cariboo Malt (8% alcohol) and Bumper Crop Crisp Apple cider (7% alcohol) to numb my sensitivities to some degree. I barely held back from adding a shot of rum to the mix.

Incidentally, my sources were initially this link at M4uHD.net until the video crapped out, even though the audio continued. With less than half the show to go, I finished watching it at this Supernova.to link.

Enough! It is 9:49 p.m., and I must get to bed because I want to rise at 1:30 a.m. to begin readying for a five-mile+ walk ─ and it will be dry out there, finally!