The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 51: Revolt at the Mugless Mental Hospital in Montreal

Squid whisked me away from Dorval International Airport in Montreal to downtown Montreal in his silver Studebaker. I took my usual suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Sherbrooke Street. After unpacking we went to Thursdays on Crescent Street for a quick Martini and then to an old favourite Greek restaurant of mine on Park Avenue called “Hesso”. After our grilled Porgy with a side of Vleta (greens) Squid explained the goings on at the Mugless Mental Hospital.

The Mugless was the psychiatric wing of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. The Royal Victoria Hospital was the teaching hospital for McGill medical students. It so happened that the United Mutations discovered McGill University accepted three sizeable donations from an anonymous donor for Mugless Mental Hospital “research”. Very noble and altruistic donor!

A disturbing trend of mysterious deaths by suicide struck the Mugless. There was no rush by public authorities nor the Mugless to investigate this alarming trend but the United Mutations, champions of detainees at psychiatric institutes, lent its ears to a deep throat in the admissions department of the Mugless who revealed the donations were from an American non-profit organization, “The Mental Relief Fund”. It wasn’t long before United Mutations forensic accountants traced the Mental Relief Fund to three high ranking bureaucrats at the CIA. Through investigative reporting the media was on the scent of blood. A mid-level sous chef at the Mugless claimed that he was instructed to put white powder from capsules into the food for specific inmates. Poison? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police ordered autopsies of deceased inmates over the period from when The Mental Relief Fund’s initial donation to the most recent Mugless patient death.

Squid had an inside track to the autopsy reports all of which except for 6 noted the presence of significant amounts of LSD in the tissues of the deceased. The United Mutations made the autopsy finding known to Mugless patients before they were broadcast nationally. Squid explained the autopsy results sparking a multi-day riot at the Mugless. The institute was trashed and all staff fled in fear of their lives. Large groups of inmates boarded buses chartered by the United Mutations and held demonstrations at the US consulate in Montreal, Toronto and the US embassy in Ottawa. Molotov cocktails were thrown which were answered by teargas. Then the petrol hit the fire. A United Mutations sympathizer at the CIA revealed the Mugless was administering LSD to certain inmates in a test to determine if it could be a debilitating chemical warfare weapon! An enormous civil unrest event tore through the streets of Montreal. The Mugless was set ablaze, McDonald’s restaurants were vandalized and American tourists threatened. Montreal was ablaze!

Mugless patient numbed out by LSD overseen by the CIA

Squid asked if I would co-ordinate bail teams to liberate incarcerated Mugless patients and get to work on launching a class action lawsuit against yet determined defendants.

I agreed despite my inexperience with class action lawsuits and explained such to Squid who simply said he trusted me utterly and completely.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 54: Meeting with Bernie Maggot and Fleece-Em Investment Management Company

The Greyhound Montreal to New York midnight bus is always a bizarre experience. Invariably Mennonites or Amish are denied entry into the United States. Then that rest stop at Saratoga Springs in New York is like a trip back to a 1950’s diner and the apple pie is almost worth the trip!

I arrived in Port Authority in New York at 08:00 hours and grabbed a taxi to my unit at the Dakota. I ran into Yoko Ono in the elevator and we gave each other a big hug. I didn’t much like her when John was alive but I have warmed up to her lately. I was invited to High Tea the following day with Yoko and that crazy painter friend of hers Kusama something or other?

After a quick shower and putting on the tie and suit I headed over to Bernie Maggot’s office at Bamboozle Towers on Madison Avenue. Maggot was a real dandy in the way he dressed very wealthy, eccentric and just a tad flashy. He later told me his dress style gave some comfort to his wealthy Hollywood clients.

I found Bernie Maggot’s dog in the office a bit over the top.

We had a lunch of octopus curry and seaweed salad. Maggot made it clear on my reputation alone I had the job of general counsel for Fleece-Em Investment Management Company. Maggot had researched me well and knew my sizeable net wealth which he found comforting as if the rich can’t trust the rich he said the world would be going from hell to a handbasket. His previous General Counsel Johnny Beluga had “fallen out of a window” while on holidays to Russia and had met his demise. The Russian police had said a toxicology report revealed he had consumed enough vodka to kill elephant. Strange thing was Beluga was a teetotaller.

My job as General Counsel at Fleece-Em Investment Management Company was to run the corporation to the letter of the law. I had Sally Marigold and Faizal Faizal as my two junior lawyers. The salary was attractive and the work straightforward. Maggot made it clear I was to have no client interaction and was not to act as counsel or give any advice to Fleece-Em Investment Management Company’s fund management subsidiary Desfool & Charlatan High Net Worth Fund Management (Panama) Inc.

Maggot struck me as a nervous man who kept looking out his office window to the Manhattan streets below. He had a nervous flinch and a very guilty look when a police siren sounded below. It was wonderful to have a job dealing with “my kind” for once. No drug dealers, mutants, mental hospital patients and veterans many of whom needed a good shower and lots of deodorant. I was working in a pristine corporate environment clean as a whistle and not a hint of contamination! Oh the sweet virtues of Megacorp!

I had a distinct feeling a new chapter in my life was commencing.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version): Chapter 53: Back to New York to Work with Bernie Maggot

These class actions arising from the “disturbances” at the Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans and the Mugless Mental Hospital took two years to settle. The biggest victory was against the United States Government aka CIA for conducting covert LSD experimentation on certain Mugless patients. Could LSD be used to effectively interrogate “enemies of the state”. The judgment was for $120 million USD divided amongst 24 patients. There was also the judgement against McGill University for facilitating the LSD experimentation and that amounted to $1 with 46 million in punitive damages as the Mugless was part of McGill’s Faculty of Medicine.  The class action against the Montreal Police Force for excessive violence in suppressing the revolts was a $6 million. The Government of Canada settled for $1 and a contractual promise to bring up the standard of care at the Mugless and Queen Fairy based on measurable KPI’s (key performance indicators), including a ban on hot dogs ever being served to patients and the installation of a lawn bowling court at the Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans.

Patients at the Mugless Mental Hospital celebrating their class action victories enabling improved care and damages award for CIA LSD experiments on them

Aside from being totally exhausted there was a restlessness setting in. Yes I was doing society a good turn in bringing to account authorities abusing their power and neglecting their duties. I started giving thought to my wealth and perhaps it was time to move into the social circles dictated by my station in life. In one of my calls with Don Lupara, the father of my assassinated sweetheart Ginevra, mentioned that one of his “moneymen” Bernie Maggot in Manhattan was looking for an accomplished lawyer to assist him running his investment management business catering to high-net-worth clients. I mean the creme da la crème had accounts with him and they were raking in fabulous returns.

I called Maggot and arranged a meeting with him in his ritzy offices in mid-town Manhattan. I had my condo at the Dakota waiting for me and the bad memories of the shooting of my friend John Lennon unfortunately were lurking but not as painful as they used to be.

It was off on the midnight bus from Montreal to New York’s Port Authority.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version): Chapter 52: Revolt at the Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans in Montreal

Not far from the idyllic suburb of Hampstead in Montreal one can find the ageing Queen Fairy Hospital for Veterans. Those Quebec soldiers severely injured in conflicts where Canada was at war were “housed” in the Queen Fairy. Conditions were rather grim with lack of comprehensive physical and psychiatric care. For the past year patients had been complaining about the “stink” of tomato sauce permeating the hospital. It was everywhere they said. It stuck to your clothes and clung to your skin. Due to budget cuts by the Canadian Veteran’s Affairs department the existing kitchen staff were terminated and replaced with cheaper Cuban labour. Cheap they were but skilled they were not. It was hot dogs in tomato sauce over blackened potatoes 4 nights a week accounting for the horrific and ubiquitous tomato stink permeating the hospital air. Lunches were downsized to baloney sandwiches and Kraft Dinner. Fresh fruit was replaced by canned fruit and salads were a thing of the past. Bingo and shuffleboard programmes were canceled. The patient committee sent a strongly worded complaint letter to Pierre Malade the Minister for Veteran’s Affairs in Ottawa. Malade’s response was that the patients were well taken care of. He emphasized Canada would never forget the brave soldiers who “saved democracy” time and time again and if there were any complaints they were manufactured by a bunch of “shell shocked ingratiates”.

Upset Afghani veteran upset by the pervasive smell of tomato sauce and rancid hothorse dogs

Patients rose up in fury setting the hospital on fire and running amok on the hospital grounds. The entire world was shocked to see television footage of half starved and malnourished veterans being beaten by Montreal equestrian police officers. One poor wheelchair bound Korean War was beaten to a bloody pulp. Camera crews managed to enter the kitchen and found out the hot dogs were actually expired “Belgian Hot Dogs” made not with mechanically rendered beef parts but rather with rancid horse meat intended for use by the Ahunstic Dog Food plant.

Again Squid, longstanding a friend with these war veterans, asked me to sue the pants off the Canadian government if they did not improve conditions at the Queen Fairy. Legal action was also to be taken against the brutality of the Montreal police force.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version): Chapter 50: Revolt of the Mutants in Montreal: Hijacked by the Sons of Westmount

During packing up in Naples to go to some undetermined destination I received a telephone call from Squid in Montreal. As you may recall Squid was the top man with the United Mutations and I had worked for the United Mutations in New York drafting the Charter of Mutant Rights. You may also further recall it was in New York I had met Ginevra. Sigh.

I don’t really understand the United Mutations. I know they stand for all oppressed mutants in the world. There are body mutants that are missing limbs or are deformed in some way and there are mind mutants categorised as having some form of mental illness. There are also political mutants oppressed by undemocratic forces. Well the body and mind mutants at the Mugless Mental Institute and the Queen Fairy Veterans Hospital had apparently gone on some sort of rampage and Squid needed my legal expertise to deal with the problem as many of the Montreal Mutants had been arrested and Squid asked if I could bail them out. Not exactly up my alley.

My flight from Naples to Montreal was far from uneventful. Over the Atlantic 5 men in kilts hijacked the airplane proclaiming themselves the “Sons of Westmount”. They were tanked up, fittingly, on Johnny Walker Scotch Whisky and were passing huge quantities of gastric gas caused by too much haggis. For a moment I thought I was on an Air India Delhi Belly flight and it wasn’t pleasant.

The Sons of Westmount were hijacking to draw attention to their cause which was freedom from damn Quebec nationalists who wanted to tear the Province of Quebec away from the loving grip of the British monarchy. I certainly supported their cause but not their methods. Holding innocent passengers hostage is a cowardly way to make a political point. Their idol and rallying call was the memory of James Dentalfloss kidnapped and later executed by Freedom Quebec a rowdy and dangerous group of thugs seeking the independence of Quebec from Canada. They had no demands at hand other a few placards stating, “Long Live the Queen” and “Anglophone Power”.

Come to think of it this was a publicity stunt more than a hijacking. They simply shouted out slogans and downed so much scotch from the duty-free cart they were all passed out when the plane landed in Montreal. The police carted them away and all passengers received a coupon for a free pizza next time they were in Naples. Alitalia break the bank hospitality.

A Sons of Westmount hijacker in disguise

Squid was at Dorval Airport in his silver Studebaker. What was going on with the patients at the Mugless Mental Institute and the veterans at the Queen Fairy Veterans Hospital?

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version): Chapter 49: Good-Bye Naples, Good-Bye Scampia and Good-Bye Don Lupara….for the time being

Seven hours after departing Bucharest I was at my seaside home on the Bay of Naples. Don Lupara called me inviting me to dinner at the “compound” the following day. Perhaps it was my imagination but the scent of Ginevra still lingered in the house that was to be the home of Ginevra and our child. I took a long walk on the beach mostly crying and yelling curses at the ocean at that now crispified Cyclops. I had everything. Cyclops tore it away. I went to pick up a couple of pizzas and a bottle of Piedirossa red wine then turned on the television to watch an unending number of stories chronicling drug gang violence and this was a time that Naples was supposedly at peace!

Don Lupara’s boys came to pick me up and off we sped to the family compound. Malvagia, Lupara’s wife, the sweet old bird she was, gave me a bone crushing hug remarking how thin I was and that I should eat lots of Neapolitan cuisine to fatten up. For Neapolitans food is medicine and it is so irresistible even the terminally ill find it difficult to resist. I hadn’t eaten much in Romania so I was starving and ate like a maniac puffing Malvagia up with pride as she insisted upon preparing all meals despite the fact Lupara could afford Michelin starred chefs! Malvagia’s stuffed veal cutlets could accomplish world peace.

After our feast I waddled over to Don Lupara’s library for grappa and coffee. Nothing like grappa and coffee to clear the mind. Here I was in the room with a vicious killer that executed two teenagers before my eyes yet I loved him like a father. All who loved Ginevra I loved. Isn’t that despicable? Was I equally despicable for terminating Cyclops?

Don Lupara was stooped and in state of exhaustion. With tears rolling down his eyes he thanked me for “disposing of” Cyclops the murdering dog that killed Ginevra. He asked about the fear in Cyclops’ eyes before I pulled the trigger. He had laughed at me and dared me to pull the trigger but I told Don Lupara he had shitted his pants. He showed me Ginevra’s six shooter pistol framed on the wall saying we must never forget.

Don Lupara offered me his business but I refused. He chuckled and said that ordinarily he would have been insulted and killed me but Ginevra would haunt him if he did. After many more grappa’s and tears we said good-bye and in a strange ritual we cut our arms and mixed our bloody limbs together. We were blood brothers…Neapolitan blood brothers to the end and beyond into immortality. My seaside home was mine he said and ordered me to visit every year which on Ginevra’s memory I agreed.

I will miss Malvagia. Her cuisine was always son comforting.

I returned to my villa and cried myself to sleep. I knew that any more involvement in this Scampian narcotic business would come to no good. Time had come to leave Naples, Scampia and Don Lupara. It was back to a mental hospital for me but not as a patient.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous (The Final Version):Chapter 48: Rot in Hell Cyclops! May You Be with the Angels Ginevra

OK so I had our Bombay Blues Whisky travelling road show at the J.W. Marriot Bucharest Grand Hotel’s “Voice of America” grand suite. The Romanians tanked up on Bombay Blues Whisky. In fact, twenty bottles of it for 53 people. They scoffed down pounds of Bombay Fried Okra probably not noticing the inferior Albanian okra available on the market. And that Dacian beauty Corina was there batting her eyelashes coquettishly. Over a tumbler of Bombay Blues she repeatedly said I reminded her of someone she was once madly in love with from Canada.

The next day I took a TAROM flight from Bucharest to Braşov. Ginevra’s six shooter was waiting for me at Chez Greasy Goulash a tacky little goulash joint in the backstreets of Braşov. Don Lupara had sent it to his Romanian mob friends for me to pick up. The hollow point bullets had been filled with cyanide. There was also a semi automatic Romanian job a Cugir 2000. A map was given to me pinpointing the exact location of Cyclops in his luxury chalet in the Carpathian Mountains. Off I went. Thank you to the Strigoi.

At dusk I was at the outskirts of Cyclops compound. I could see him through the window drunk as a skunk fondling two very young half naked girls. His lone security guard was out vomiting in the woods. Too much vodka? It was quite simple. I opened the sliding door and shouted Ginevra’s name and emptied Ginevra’s six shooter into the slime bucket’s head. There wasn’t much of it left. I grabbed the two girls Cyclops had been molesting who were pleading for their life but immediately saw I was not intending them any harm. I poured petrol over Cyclops’ body and one of the girls tossed a match on it. Warming up Cyclops for hell.

Warming up Cyclops for his trip over The Acheron River to Hades

The drunken security guard saw Cyclops fall and ran like a bat out of hell. I sped away to Bucharest with the girls in the back of Cyclops’ rusty Dacia. I cried most of the way back to Bucharest. I had thought revenge was sweet but it was bitter. My Strigoi contact took the two girls and one of his men drove them back to Albania to their parents, their home. Ginevra’s six shooter would be returned to Don Lupara. I immediately boarded a flight back to Naples via Rome. What next?

RKS 2025 Wine: Stoney Ridge Estate Winery 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir

Perhaps there is some comfort looking at this bottle of 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir from Ontario’s Stoney Ridge. Those grapes saw some summer sun and warmth “cold comfort” to Torontonians facing minus twenty temperatures tonight. I prepared a salad tonight and given the deep freeze I had very little enjoyment of it preferring the warmth of pasta.

Gamay Grapes were mechanically harvested from old vines (1998 planting) at the Bucknall Vineyard in the Vinemount Ridge sub-appellation. Harvest came early with the grapes picked on September 20th 2022 at an average 22.5° brix. After fermentation in a single small stainless-steel vat the wine was racked and put into 100% 1-year old American Oak barrels where 80% malolactic fermentation was allowed to occur. After 9 months in barrel the final blend was produced and bottled September 27th 2023.Only 273 cases produced.

Ontario can vint decent Gamay Noir and at times one might ask could it rank with Cabernet Franc as Ontario’s signature grape?

Aroma: Encased in a smoky frame with a plenitude of blackberry, red currant, black cherry and lesser notes of raspberry.

Palate: Surprisingly tannic for a Gamay where one expects a lighter, fruity and easy drinking wine but why be pinned down by stereotypes. Creativity has little patience for typecasting. The tannins divert the senses from the fruit and fruit there is lighthearted cherry, currants and blackberry. Is this a Barolo!

Personality: Think of me as being on the unique side. I rather plead with you to set me aside until 2026 where I may just surprise you and I may cruise very nicely into 2030. Waiting for wine in the bottle can be a fool’s game but give me a break! With risk there can be reward but there could be disaster.

Food Match: Ontario venison but not from Marineland Niagara.

Cellarbility: Hold until 2030 but do not open until 2026.

Price: $23 CDN.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 88/100. Wine Align 87.

(Stoney Ridge Estate Winery 2022 Small Lot Gamay Noir Bucknall Vineyard, VQA Vinemount Ridge, Stoney Ridge Estate Winery, Vineland, Ontario, 750 mL, 12.5%).

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvelous (The Final Version): Chapter 47: Surrounded by Gypsies at Three A.M. and My Eye Spies an Old Flame and a Dacian Beauty

I had two days before my little show in Bucharest introducing Romanian restaurants and liquor distributors to India’s finest whisky (in my humble opinion) “Bombay Blues”. After an early dinner at the Westin’s “Vlad the Impaler’s” bistro style restaurant I decided to take an evening stroll to Herastrau Park a huge park encircling a lagoon. I discovered a charming bistro on the lake and sat at a table on a patio overlooking the lake. I met the owner Sorine and we talked for a bit. Married a few years ago he and his wife voyaged to India for their honeymoon so we had something in common. We had a chat and consumed a large quantity of German beer sitting in tubs of ice by each table. I invited Sorine to my upcoming Bombay Blues reception.

I am going to relate to you a story as my publisher Wuhan Wet Market Publishing keeps inveigling me to keep amusing and titillating readers lest they be bored. I mean haven’t you been excited and thrilled so far? Haven’t I experienced an incredible life you will never experience? Who needs a Hollywood movie when you can read about me! Don’t read my story before you go to bed or you’ll never sleep.

So here we go to get you titillated and you can thank Wuhan Wet Market Publishing for insisting upon me relating to you this story although I think it is hardly racy.

Sorine and I had been chatting up a storm at his bistro whiling the night and early morning away. When Sorine closed at 2 a.m. he said that he would walk me home so off we wended through the park singing Romanian folk songs. I suppose it was the German beer talking but I was singing along in Romanian! A few minutes into our walk through the park a group of gypsies jumped out of the bushes with their musical instruments requesting a “donation”. I wanted to blow these hucksters away but Sorine said shut up or your throat may be slit like had been done to a few tourists each year. So we enjoyed the music paid out some cash and we were on our way.

Corina an operative and a friend from my CIA days in Eastern Europe

The next day while having dinner at the J.W Marriot Bucharest Grand Hotel’s J.W. Steakhouse the sommelier approached my table and asked what wine I thought I might like with my ox steak. Our eyes met and when her beautiful blue eyes stared into mine my knees went weak. It was not wholly because she was the most beautiful women in Romania but rather in my CIA operative days in Bucharest we had a month-long torrid fling, I had met Corina at the Bucharest Ceauşescu Technical Institute. Her father at the time was a recent defector from the Ceauşescu regime so we thought at the CIA she might be useful to us which she was! But I could not blow my Indian travelling salesman cover so I held back at least knowing where to find her. But first I had to avenge Ginevra.

The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned But Marvellous (The Final Version) :Chapter 46: Touchdown in Romania Clouded with Poop Gas: An Angry Gun Barrell Never Sleeps

I left India via New Delhi on TAROM Airlines on the Delhi Belly flight to Bucharest aptly named as so many passengers have the trots from Indian food the airplane cabin reeks of poopy runs!

Arriving on TAROM Airlines with the outskirts of Bucharest below

Part of the “plan” had me darkening my skin with a couple of weeks in the Bombay sun to bleach the Welsh side of me out. Then I grew a scraggly beard and dressed “like an Indian”. If Cyclops and his Russian hoodlums were looking for Ginevra’s fiancée, I did not want to foot that bill. Don Lupara’s local Romanian mafia in a desperate turf battle with the Russians had advised him Cyclops had reduced his security as some 7 months had lapsed since he had fled Naples. He obviously forgot the Neapolitan adage, “An angry gun barrel never sleeps.”

Using a false Indian passport, I passed easily through customs and immigration at the Bucharest Airport. I took a taxi and checked in at the J.W. Marriot Bucharest Grand Hotel. As I had told you I had at one point been working as a CIA operative in the old Communist Eastern Europe which included a stint in Romania canvassing the possibility of a student led uprising to topple the Ceausescu leadership or “butchership” if you wish. Ceausescu was a nasty bastard and his wife Elena was the Doctor Mengele for Romanian children. Both were shot in the head in 1989 when the communist regime was overthrown.

I planned two days in the capital city of Bucharest and then off to Constanta on the Black Sea to host a reception for local restaurateurs and liquor distributors who would tank up on my Bombay Blues Indian whisky and curried shrimp and pakoras. What a crazy bunch of people but in a happy way. Once the whisky was open it began to be consumed in great quantities. The Romanians, once deprived of any reason of gaiety under so many years of communism seemed to want to compensate for the horrific Ceausescu days and let their hair hang down. I can’t say I was flooded with orders but you gotta start somewhere! Constanta, a dreadfully dismal Black Sea resort town. was a morose place full of Ceausescu socialist architecture and sterility.

I flew back to Bucharest for another reception of potential buyers of Bombay Blues whisky, a near attack by gypsies and an encounter with the most beautiful woman in Romania.