hey jerry...

there's a median at the corner of hastings and cassiar, near the entrance to the second narrows bridge, that was kept clean and tidy by a guy named jerry. cleaner than maybe any other median and section of roadway in the metro area. really. jerry patrolled the median waving and smiling. telling jokes. coming over and leaning in the car window and seeing how you were, then off again to walk the median, waving, smiling and picking up the garbage that collected there.
i first really became aware of jerry when i started working in burnaby more. i would go back and forth across the bridge to go to different studios, suppliers, etc. and would see him there and wonder who he was. after a while i started saying hi and having the odd chat with him while i waited for the light. when i was still smoking i would give him smokes and we laughed about something. eric would come back to the shop saying how he had seen jerry and telling of something jerry said or had done.
when i had my black gmc van that wouldn't fit into my underground at my place on cordova st., jerry began to piece things together. jerry lived on the downtown east side as well. just up the street from me. jerry would see me coming off the bridge exit towards him and when i got in the line he'd say, "hey, lawn order..." and if he could he'd come over and say how he saw my van done in the neighbourhood, and that we were neighbours and that he was hoping to get a new place down there rather than the one he was in. he liked that we both lived down there. "hey, lawn order!"
over the years i gave him drinks and snacks if i had any in the car, smokes, a few pieces of film swag - like t-shirts and hats. everybody did. but he never asked for it. ever. although, one time he did ask me if i could get him some of that rubber edging that goes along walls to help fix up his place. i told him i would try and get him some. in the meantime i gave him whatever else i had with me at the time.
the other day fawn told me jerry had passed away. that she had heard about it on facebook. that jerry had his own page there put up by someone who liked jerry. jerry died of stomach cancer and had had it for a long while and was in some considerable pain. but you'd never have known it.
his life was a bit of a mystery but a story in today's vancouver sun clears up some of that mystery.
i'll miss seeing jerry there. he was like a great constant in the day.
"hey jerry"
"hey, lawn order..."

g. xo