You see them on the frostiest of Toronto wintry nights, plying their meaty wares, grinning a toothless grin, as they reach down into the cavernous depths to grab your order. You've entered into a bargain with The Meatman.
You can't help but come across them, the WAKULICZs, the HORVATICs, the PACHOLCYZs at the busier intersections in the downtown core: the Eastern European meaty blokes lie in wait in the miniature Icelandic cabanas, prepped, waiting, for you and your hunger to arrive. They long to fill your stomach with sausages from indistinguishable unpromised lands. What is it they do whilst in-between orders? A lot must go through the mind of such a vender, no?
After approaching a slew of these doughy-wrestle-armed fellows over the last month or so, not so surprising was an all around tight-lippedness. I mean the dog gets a bad wrap, right? They've heard all the "pig lips-and-assholes, roach legs and rat pooh, notch-up-from-kitten-food-but-not-real-meat" jokes and urban myths that are out there. What is it they are afraid of? Concerned maybe that I'm only there to make cracks, scare customers away: do they think I'm from the health board? The clipboard, odd questions plus the whirring and clicking of the tape recorder couldn't have helped with any friendly banter I was looking to build with these guys. Was I naïve in thinking that at least one would want to come forth, set us straight, give us the real deal on the heaven and hell of the deal of the glorious hot dog.
Now, these aren't really the kinds of places I'd stop in to lets say, bring a first date: not really a date dining experience, though I admit I've turned to these stands in emergency situations. I mean they really do serve a purpose when you're starving, have lost all mental faculties and healthy decision making about just what it is you're going to put into your body. You might be drunk, or tired, or broke, or desperate.
The only way it seemed to get this scoop was to infiltrate. Lucky for me, I saw a sign hanging at one of these places, HELP WANTED. I couldn't believe my luck. I wrote down my number on a napkin and handed it to him and hoped I'd hear from Mr. **** .
I'm going to get to the bottom of this.
Later that day, he calls me and asks if I have any experience in this line of work. I think back to the wide array of bizarre jobs and freelance work I've done over the years, but, I couldn't recall any…hey wait. I'd helped my dad as a youngster at the odd family BBQ, that must count! I decide it probably won't help me to get this gig to let on that I'm going to be doing a little undercover reporter work. He's a little frantic as the last guy just up and left with no notice, so he's willing to give me a shot.
I arrive with black handlebar moustache and a Slovak accent, ready to divvy up the meats and see just what's behind all this. Before he sets off into the night to make the rounds at the other stands he owns, he tells me in broken English that he's grateful, and appreciates 'the good help of me'. I'm sure I can do this. I've got long underwear and an old transistor radio to keep me company. What's an entire graveyard shift, 1:00am - 5:00am on the streets of Toronto to a young scribe like me, who'll do anything (clearly) to get to his story? I think of the great writer George Plimpton, known for going to extremes, his participatory journalistic escapades infamous to get the scoop. When doing a story on The New York Yankees, he actually went to training camp to BE one of the New York Yankees.
How was this any different?
I would be a vender. The very best vender. Well, okay, a vending type guy who would make it through an entire night.
Hot Dogs are traditionally made from beef or pork (we urbanites pray) or a combination. Unlike many other sausages, hot dogs are always (still praying) cooked before being offered commercially. Unless they have spoiled, dogs may be safely eaten without further cooking though they are usually warmed up before serving. Vegetarian hot dogs and sausages, I quickly find out as it's written on the boxes at my feet, are made completely from meat analogue. MMMmmm: Analogue Meats!! Wickedly mouth watering, I want a bunch. Please sir, may I have another one!!! Meat Analogue, I find out, is also a meat substitute, mock meat, if you will, imitation meat approximates the aesthetic qualities (primary texture, flavour and appearance) and/or chemical characteristics of certain types of meat. This kind of generic lab-like info makes me want to become vegetarian. Tonight. I can't remember a time I've been this close to so much acrid boxed meat. Not in a great while, I tell myself.
The flame from the BBQ is piping hot, so it's my first job of the night to get some doggies going. The first few I'm BBQing are surprisingly yummy but things begin to turn unfunny awfully fast.
Just outside my yellow and red circus-like meat tent, some drunk girls from clubland are giggling, which makes me a little self conscious, my radio cues the kids to come over for some low-rent sleight of hand and Socratic banter. I don't want to asperse, but Miss Mississauga and a score of less pleasant creatures sound and appear like they're under the influence of something more than night air. They don't order anything, just point and call me names. The unkind reek of fresh plastic, propane and sauerkraut are now my enemy as I stand immobilized in an ocean of condiments taking their toll on my newly vegetarian attitude.
I've been out here a couple hours now, my toes are gone and the idea of serving up anything weinerlicious in a bun is lonely, sad and nauseating. I can't bring myself to answer another question about why I don't serve burgers or if there's anymore onions or why I don't have bacon bits and "How do you stand it out here man, you're crazy" isn't helping my already low self-esteem.
I can now tell the difference - with my eyes-closed thank you very much - between defunct unsellable meats that have sat for just too damn long in the absurdly cold night air and ripe for the pickin' edible dogs. A new marketable skill for me? The mind reels when I think of just where I could apply such a skill.
Keith Urban blares out of a car (why?) and these kids who've obviously stolen their daddy's Cadillac for the night yell out their window, "Hey hot dog boy, give me two medium franks and hold the mustard." They think they're incredibly funny. They laugh like hyenas and speed away, leaving me and my meat barn in a dust.
I begin to think funny things. Would wearing a gas mask deter clients comes to mind. If I was really broke and needed cash, could I stand wearing a colossal furry hot dog uniform and passing out sadly out-of-date pamphlets? Can a nostril be construed, thus sold, as meat? I'm losing it. I don't want to let my new boss down, but this experience is disturbing enough to make me use the batmeat phone and say that I am scared and frankly, just plain out of steam.
I've gotten the scoop: the scoop is, if there is one, I have a brand new respect for any man brave enough to withstand sub-zero weather in a carnival-like apparatus for hours on end to support a family who's come to this country to search for The Canadian dream. They deserve a place in some Mysterious Magical Meat Hall of Fame. Here's to them!
Timber Masterson is a writer/actor/TV host-type-fellow who resides in Toronto. While finishing his first book, the mammoth personal-memoir, TimFoolery: Tales of a Third Rate Junkie, Mr. Masterson has been working on putting together his show, Life On Timber Street, organizing his website, and contributing his jazzy heartfelt epistles to such on-line literary journals as Über, Fresh Yarn Salon, Yankee Pot Roast, Girls With Insurance, Ghoti, Purple Prose, Somewhat.org, Wandering Army, 3AM Magazine and The Beat. He is co-producer of a literary interactive gathering called Word Substance Spatula at Toronto's Drake Hotel, that is now on hiatus. Check out his web site, www.TimberMedia.com.