Even amid all the empties beat a very full heart

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2024 (555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Appearing on my porch one freezing winter day, he shouts through the door I wouldn’t open, “Got any empties?!” His expression tightens into the face I make when I’m hoping the car will start on a frigid morning. He’s a big guy, tall and broad-shouldered, around 60. Thinning black hair pokes out from under a cap bearing the Barkman Concrete logo. “I’m just checkin’ the traplines, know what I mean?” His self-deprecating demeanour is boyish and timid, and he seems like he’d flinch at sudden movements, despite his stature and age. There is a fragility to his voice and expression, a silent “I’m not trying to cause any trouble” declaration.

I’d seen Pete around West Broadway. He’s one of the people who frequents the back lanes, rummaging in recycling bins for one of the alternate currencies of the inner city. There’s a man who lives across the street who owns a couple pickup trucks, and sometimes Pete helps him out with odd jobs to make a little extra money. In the survivor’s uniform of tattered jacket and grocery cart, he walks the same route nearly every day, departing early from his home at the Winnipeg Hotel in order to be the first in the neighbourhood to harvest his daily bread from the recycling bins.

I didn’t know then that Pete would be a regular visitor to my porch. It seems some people have a way of slowly taking up residency in the heart, moving in tiny increments until they’ve made a little nest which would feel empty without them. Pete did this by absolutely ignoring the friction that exists when “haves” and “have-nots” rub shoulders.

To Pete we were equals, and we were equally deserving of goodwill. If he arrived underdressed for the weather, we’d dig around in the basement for an extra coat or pair of mitts. He’d return, a few days later, with tuques for our boys, taken from some church donation bin.

Pete continued to come by for empties over the years, and sometimes just for conversation. He grew up in Thunder Bay, a place he said was “a bad place to be an Indian.” He’s quick to find and relay the humour he sees in the streets, but only guffaws once or twice before covering his mouth like he’s afraid he’ll get in trouble. I wonder what his childhood was like, but I don’t ask.

Over time I got to know Pete’s partner too, and when she was taken by cancer we attended the funeral. When he gave the eulogy, Pete spoke of their relationship through the eyes of a mouse who shared their room at the Winnipeg Hotel. He spoke of there always being someone watching, someone who relied on you, and someone to take care of, someone who acknowledges our existence and exists alongside us, no matter how small or inconsequential. I was astonished by his storytelling skill and resolved to have more in-depth discussions with him on the porch.

But Pete hadn’t been by as much this year, and we hadn’t seen him at all in quite a few months. There are fewer empties to collect now, as the demands of parenting have taken away from regular backyard bonfires, so we assumed he had laid a more lucrative “trapline” elsewhere. But the absence dragged on, and when we happened to see the pickup-truck neighbour last week, we asked if he’d heard anything of Pete.

Despite Pete’s innocence and success in bridging it, there is still space to live completely separated from the poverty and hardship of the “other” West Broadway. Pete passed away in September, and I hadn’t known.

I’ve reached out to some of the social service organizations I know Pete frequented. I’m trying to find out where he was interred, so I might visit, to put down tobacco and tell him I’m sorry I didn’t know he’d gone. And also that I’ll make sure others know that Pete Barkman was here, and that people like him are important, reminding us those we share our city with, the people we may feel don’t belong, are our equals — co-witnesses and co-creators of what we make of this place, for the brief time we are lucky enough to be here.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca