Last Days of Montreal

by John Brooke

  With that, she let the remote control fall to the floor and stomped upstairs.

  “You started it,” he called.

  (But that was a complete and utter lie. And the erotic man can only exist in honesty.)

  He joined her after watching the Expos for another inning. They’d failed to rally. It was hopeless. She had the fan on and was lying naked under a single sheet, propped on her pillows, staring at her book. He knew she wasn’t reading. He couldn’t abide it when she was angry. He dared to touch her hair. “Désolé.”

  It went slowly, as slow as they could manage, neither wanting to hinder the delicate flow. But the scene downstairs, now moved up, began to be transformed; and after a time, she put her book on her bedside table and rolled toward him. Bruce knew he was in the process of being disarmed. De-devilled. He allowed himself to relax, there with the fan whirring, the vertical blinds clacking quietly each time its breezy rotation found them. Yes. It moved to the next level. The erotic man was back. His words became weightless and were answered in kind:

  “So I should put plouc on my passport?”

  “If you are honest.”

  “Are ploucs honest?”

  “Les pires sont les plus honnêtes.” The worst are the most honest.

  “How could that be? Honesty is a virtue.”

  “Not when it makes a plouc.”

  “I see. But if I’m a plouc, does that mean I’m a nul as well?” Another one of hers. He pronounced it in the algebraic manner. It meant a no-one, a nothing…a feeb, a jerk.

  “Nool,” she corrected.

  “Ah, another one with two o’s.”

  “Pas du tout.”

  “Are there a lot of ploucs?”

  “Forget it, Bruce…A plouc cannot have friends.”

  “It’s not fair,” he complained.

  “C’est comme ça.”

  He suggested, “Someone should help ploucs get together.”

  “That would be impossible,” she informed him, fingers now wandering across his belly.

  “What a tragedy. And I guess ploucs smash into telephone poles when they’re walking down the street.”

  “Oh oui, c’est sûr, tout le temps.” Certainly and always. Her fingers reached their destination.

  He was studying her breasts, one, then the other, always interested in the way the tint and texture of her nipples changed as he touched them. “Poor ploucs,” he heard himself murmur. “Don’t you feel sorry for them?”

  “B’en non.” In that deep, incredulous tone as she lifted herself against him, “Why would I?”

  “Ploucs are part of the human race. They are our brothers. Sisters too, I suppose.”

  “And so are murderers and thieves. Dis-moi, Bruce: What is your problem?”

  “No problem. Just curious. Je t’aime,” said Bruce. Then he asked her, “Where did they ever get a word like plouc?”

  “Sais pas. This could be the sound of an empty head.”

  “Yeah…could be.”

  “Mmm…” For now she was bending over him, nibbling in her devilishly tentative way.

  The object of the game was to break the other’s calm. Gentle brinkmanship. Bruce breathed deeply, marvelling, caressing her hair. Her nibble became a lick — a long, languorous lick. Bruce stayed cool, kept his breathing even. Then not so cool. And the conversation ended. But Geneviève held him on the edge.

  “Jesus!”

  “Jesus has nothing to do with it.” She gave him a final friendly lick, then sat up and nestled into position, dead centre, enjoying herself, the fan blowing by…and by again, his fingers dancing, light and quickly on her back.

  Leaving Bruce to hold himself on the edge…Until they were at it together.

  Afterward she stroked his face.

  Making love to a plouc: Bruce wondered, was that the ultimate act of compassion? Or was it strictly a Montreal object lesson: good will and beauty, traded freely, without the baggage of meaning hidden or withheld? “I think you secretly like ploucs,” he said through the darkness. “Don’t you?”

  “Jamais de la vie.” She turned over, searching for a cool spot.

  “Admit it, Gen.”

  “Dors, Bruce…dors.”

  “Sure.” The flesh on her back was pliant, dewy. He knew her logic was beyond reproach — each of her movements one more aspect of the binding element that would always supersede partition, natural loopholes in any language law which any true citizen would always find. In his dream the ploucs and the Péquistes joined hands across the table. Bruce, the erotic man, proposed a toast. A keening fanfare rose above the city walls…

  Bruce woke, startled, to the sound of a siren blaring, tires screeching to a halt. He rushed to the window and witnessed the end of a car chase. The thieves, two of them, left the car and hurried away. They had a dog on a leash that went willingly. The police arrived twenty seconds later: two female officers. Bruce put on pants and went down. He liked the idea of being served by female officers. His doctor and dentist were female now, and he was looking for a female accountant. And there was Jane on the radio, who did the noon-hour phone-in, keeping nervous Montrealers calm. The officers’ shirts were tight against their breasts and he guessed they wore bulletproof vests. Bruce wished there was a reason they would take them off. Their shirts. Well, the night was close and hot.

  The officers asked if the dog was a Chihuahua.

  “Bigger…plus grand,” he told them. He told them it went willingly.

  They said it was the car, not the dog, but it would help identify them.

  Bruce said he would do anything in his power to assist the investigation.

  It was 3:00 a.m. Outside, the officers could be heard in their car, replying to their radio and filing their report. Stoked by the adrenaline of close-to-home crime, Bruce could not get back to sleep. Geneviève, who was partial to crime shows, felt herself heated to a dangerous degree and was delighted by the fact. Smiling, she whispered, “Fuck me, Bruce.” In English.

  So they made love and Bruce wondered if the officers would sense it.

  And if so, would they take action?

  What would the appropriate action be?

  Lying there, Geneviève whispered, “This was very special.”

  “Yes,” whispered Bruce. A little painful too, for a fifty-one-year-old after only four hours’ respite. But he was glad to see her pleased. He added, “I was dreaming of a paradise.”

  “No ploucs allowed in there,” she murmured (in French), then slept.

  He too must have drifted off eventually, because he never heard the rain that came and cleared the air.

  Sunday morning sparkled. They were walking down rue Drolet on the way to the market. Bruce was watching a girl in shorts on a step in a doorway, buckling up her rollerblades. Her legs were golden. Her fine hair tumbled, covering her face. When she looked up and met his eyes, her face was radiant and Bruce knew she would skate like a dream.

  Wham!

  It was a telephone pole — the blow reverberated inside his skull, echoing to the core of him.

  While the girl on the step laughed out loud… Qu’est qu’il est drôle! What a funny man; and who could argue? But Geneviève did not crack a smile. “Voilà,” she stated: “le plouc.”

  There was no blood. The only damage was a budding bump along his struggling hairline.

  Bruce waved to the girl. Then Geneviève took his hand and led him on.

  That afternoon he voted soft, but the soft vote lost.

  But his vote felt right!

  Bruce noted his reasons — which he would share at the next meeting of the group:

  Now he knew for sure the days were precious. And that there was a thread through all the confusion and it was to be followed, softly…sometimes lost — because no thread worth following is explicit…then picked up and followed again. Because it led through the worst of the weather and beyond each time-bound political dream. It was there to be seen, like the sun in the street and a girl in a morning doorway. I
t was there to be spoken…there to be heard; he felt it might be the continuing perfection of pure sound as the human medium. One hung on. One stayed ready. And honest. What you had to do was keep your eyes and ears open for hard things — categorical stands, telephone poles, Baff! Shlak! Zut! et cetera — and keep going.

  Because it led to the house on rue Godbout to the life with Geneviève.

  Because in Montreal, that was the way to live.

  Harvey Hangs a Door

  June, 1998; address-wise, just around the corner from Bruce and his Montreal vision:

  They’re sitting in the kitchen with Mama on a Sunday afternoon. They are talking about love.

  Sophia says, “Claudia, now you’ve found a real man, why can’t you enjoy him?”

  “I am,” she says. “I do.”

  Or she’s trying. And she is trying to accept the fact that Last Days was a fantasy.

  Claudia chose Harvey over Last Days. It’s a fact, says Sophia. Now move forward.

  “But why? What made me do that?”

  “Because you liked him better. You knew he was better for you!”

  “Yes, but…” But love’s cause, its purposes, these things make Claudia nervous.

  Mama doesn’t say a word. Both Sophia and Claudia know how Mama was fooled by Pa.

  But Claudia listens to her sister. She wants to. She knows she needs to. Yes, if she’s realistic about it, she has to concede it probably never could have worked. And yes, she did let it happen. Sophia says that in reality it is always the woman who moves it forward, who says yes or no in her own way. Who lets it happen. And she responded to his eyes — Claudia smiled back at Harvey in that one moment, and it happened. She must have wanted it to. But the point of convergence in Claudia’s life; the roots of it, where it came from; her instinct wants — no, needs to explore…

  “No! Claudia, forget about roots. Forget about the poplars!”

  “Yes.” Although obviously she can’t. Claudia has a way of thinking that is deeply ingrained.

  Her sister is there to help her. Of course she is. Sophia says, “Let’s talk about the pathway, then — the logical progression. There is a logic to love, it’s always there — you only have to see it. And you appreciate the logical approach now, don’t you Claudia? You see how it’s a better way? Not so messy as a story about being married to those trees.”

  “Oh, yes.” It’s comforting. Makes her feel human, really human. And the way it happened — why, it could’ve happened to anyone! That’s a literal fact, according to Sophia.

  2.

  The literal facts are straightforward. (Yes, there is chance at play here. Yes, we’re talking about love. But Montreal is a big city, full of people from anywhere, and it is a literal fact that you never know who might walk by.) What happened was:

  Last spring, Last Days finds her and declares his love. (Finally finds her; he’s been searching for two years, been casing her house since summer…Claudia says she knows.) She tries to resist, but the man has a magnet in his soul.

  He tells her how he sees it: Last Days of Montreal and Claudia, the deathly white woman from the Cartier Bridge. A perfect match: Her knight in shining armour. His own heart’s Miss Montreal.

  Claudia could see it too (and perhaps she had no choice).

  He starts showing up regularly, rolls up the lane in his electric wheelchair, usually with a beer in hand, tells her he needs to be in her life. (He is the difference between “wants” and “needs.”)

  She had not allowed him in the house yet; no, they meet in the lane…The day it happens, they are in the lane. (Claudia’s whole life has happened in the lane!) Last Days brings Harvey with him, his friend from America. Claudia is shy. She’s only ever been to Albany. Last Days is doing most of the talking, telling Harvey about the poplars and Pa and the day on the bridge, and about his friend Miko who died, and his other friend Carolyn who works at the maison de retraite. Then the Anglo who lives down St. Gédéon, who sometimes stops to chat with Bruce who lives next door, he comes up the lane from the park, pushing his little boy in a stroller. It’s nice to see the baby; his name is Lucien. But Last Days starts yelling, giving the guy hell about loyalty and solidarity and all the other things Last Days tends to get going about. And wimps!… It’s the guy’s shirt. A Toronto hockey shirt. Last Days chases him out of the lane and all the way home (he said). He wheels back into the lane an hour later with a satisfied look, a steely gleam in his eye. He says the guy’s name is Donald, and now they’re pals — it was just a matter of setting Donald straight. It’s noble the way Last Days stands up for Montreal like that; but by the time he gets back to the lane it’s too late. Too late for Claudia and Last Days. Claudia and Harvey had met. Harvey had already offered to help Pa hang a door. (Not that Pa reacted.) “Those are the facts,” says Claudia.

  Now she’s with a man who says he’ll show her America. One day soon, Harvey will take Claudia to every major league city in America in his Airstream trailer that’s hooked to his large American car. He hopes… Harvey gets a faraway look in his eye. The romance of it is touching. But does she really want to go to America? What made her make that choice? Why? What is the difference between those two men?

  “I mean, they both have a sense of mission.” Like Pa with his disegno.

  And like Sophia’s Jean-François, with his continuing strategies for an independent Quebec.

  “Yes,” says Sophia, “this is important to a man. But you’re right to go with the doors. It’s great to have a mission, but this a practical world. Don’t push it, Claudia. Accept it. Mama and I both like Harvey. We’re sure you’ve made the right choice.” Sophia’s smile hints at the fact that at thirty-three and counting, and with her reputation, Claudia’s choices have become few and far between.

  Could it be the doors? Harvey is out on the porch with Jean-François at this very moment. They are hanging a door for Pa. Claudia sighs. Right choice. Yes. She is trying to believe it. She knows she should. She leaves Mama and Sophia and goes back outside. It’s an automatic reflex: out the kitchen door, down the steps, through the gate, and along the lane to the poplars. To brood. To weigh it. It’s a literal weight at the core of her now. The real weight of her soul?

  Harvey says, “Hey, lover,” as she passes. Because she is now.

  Claudia tries to smile. She hears a nervous laugh that sounds like it’s not even from her.

  Jean-François is too distracted to look up. Claudia nods to her uncle Pacci who’s fiddling in his garden, to Bruce the neighbour who’s washing his car, and to Fadi and Violette, two kids in love from the quarter, walking, arms draped all over each other. She takes her place in the shade. It is automatic, her retreat to this place, but it could be almost over. She just has to make the leap.

  Not off a bridge; the leap of faith her sister speaks of. The leap of faith into Harvey’s life. The leap of faith to love… He sends another smile her way.

  He loves her, she’s sure of it. He is good at hanging doors.

  3.

  Claudia thinks: I defended him! I defended Last Days from the bottom of my heart.

  Bruce, the Anglo on the other side of the fence — he had obviously talked to that Donald.

  I told him, “No, Bruce, he is not crazy. He’s intense.”

  I asked him, “Don’t you ever feel intense?”

  Yes, Claudia acknowledges that Bruce must have doubts about her too.

  I said, “I see him as a warrior. A man on a mission. His mission is to speak for you. Don’t you feel things — outrageous things, or things of rage, but you never get to say them? You just don’t say them, do you? Right, Bruce? Why? Because your life would begin to collapse. You think them, and you want to say them. In a different world, you would say them. In this world, you go to anger management therapy. Or you suck on a bottle till it goes away. Or maybe it’s the opposite of anger. In that case, you can’t even go to a therapist. You can’t be ecstatic — not truly ecstatic — and survive. They don’t want you to be ecs
tatic, they make sure you won’t survive… Last Days survives. He says whatever needs to be said, he says it loud and plain. Both the high and the low of it… He wants everyone to share the wealth as much as the pain. You have to believe it, Bruce. He is a very sociable guy. Too sociable, when you get down to it. Whatever you’re thinking that you can’t say, Last Days says it for you. He’s an echo, a hyper-echo, and he screams it out for everyone. He’s better than you and me. Yes, of course he’s a lot worse too. That’s his job… For the city. Last Days works for the city. He loves the city! He believes in the city… (Bruce nodded.) He speaks to the spirit of the city. It’s the ugly things, sure, those things that stoke the anger you’re too civilized to rage against. But it’s the beauty you can’t see but want to, too. (Yes, Bruce was nodding; I was getting through.) The beauty you feel might be there. Should be there! Last Days can make you know that it really is. Me, I’m proof. I’m not just weird Claudia who cries in the lane. I’m goddamn Miss Montreal! You know? Has anyone ever called you Mister Montreal? (Now Bruce was shaking his head.) Last Days is the reason I’m talking to you, and the reason you feel the need to talk to me. Need is the key word here, Bruce…We need Last Days. If we need heroes, then we need Last Days, each of us in our own way — you with your Geneviève, me with my pa and my poplars, that Donald with his cute little kid, squeegee kids with their things they can’t handle, the people in their cars who hate all the squeegee kids… Last Days serves everyone equally. They should pay him to do what he does. Because it’s something they can’t and they’ll never do. He’s not part of the program. He’s beyond the pale. Extra-ordinary. Hors context…Totally off the map like everyone is who lives in this world, at least sometime, somewhere inside their soul. Last Days is for the people, Bruce — that’s you and me. Last Days doesn’t care who you are. Last Days is our man…” I went on like this for far too long.

  I was overcompensating in my praise of him. Because I knew I was on the verge of being cruel.

  Maybe Bruce the neighbour could see it. The next weekend he comes out through his garden gate and shares a beer in the lane with Last Days. They seem to be getting on fine — it’s politics mostly, you know how men are — till Geneviève, the Française, snaps at him: “Bruce, qu’est-ce tu fais là?” Bruce goes back inside in short order and she makes him put the padlock on the gate.