YA GOT NO HEAT

Jackmartin

This is a story back from the days I was a an apprentice and it just goes to show how innocent we were in our youth. George ( may God rest his soul) called me into the office one cold January day and told me he had a boiler call for me to go on,for some reason ,he had that nasty smirk on his face. The call was for Obees Steam Bath in the middle of the old part of Winnipeg. This building held a lot of historical importance for Winnipeg it was the building where the 1919 General Labour strike was organized. Since that time it had been a number of businesses ,Obees was to be the last. Soooo, I arrive in the mid morning —- thank heavens— go in the front door to be greeted by an old fat hairy guy with what looked like pipe nipple shoved in his face. He was friendly “ what the hell do you want kid” yeah I loved him too. I announced I was there to fix his boiler, but the place was warm? The guy gives me a look like ,deliver me from stupid kids and tells me “ that ain’t the boiler nimrod”, I was starting to not look upon this man kindly. So he levers himself out of his chair and tells me to follow him, I just couldn’t wobble like he did
Prince Charming leads me down a hallway and there were little changing rooms all with a single light bulb hanging down. I thought this was where the clients changed into their shorts, yes I was that innocent. The place stank with some kind of cleaning product and to say I wanted to leave was an understatement. He shows me into the “ boiler room” and there were two old Peerless boilers one standard for single pipe steam the other one was set up for discharge into the steam room. One old Peerless had a Baso pilot assembly that had decided die ,no big deal. I jumped in the truck and drove to the wholesale for a new one. One of the counter guys was making small talk and he asks where you working? I told him Obees Steam Bath where upon he starts to kill himself laughing announcing to the world where I needed the control for ,which broke all the older guys up. I still did not get it%! Returned to the pleasure palace ,got the boiler firing told fats to have a crummy day and left. I went back to the shop ,told George it was fixed ,but I couldn’t understand why everybody thought it was funny. George looks at me with that evil glint in his eye and tells me I had just fixed the boiler in the only “ men’s club” in the city, still didn’t get it. Obees was the victim of arson some years back, seems some people have a hard time with Gay people like I have said I was innocent. I just want to tell the idiot that had his feelings hurt by Obees, the fire you started out of righteous indignation ,damn near killed two people, I hope you are proud of yourself.