Last Days of Montreal

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Last Days of Montreal Page 17

by John Brooke


  The yard and lane where he works out his penitence is behind Geneviève’s semi-detached row house in the north end. The place is small and spare, hardly what he was bred to, nothing like he ever expected, in a part of town unknown to him before meeting her. Gen makes her payments with the savings built from her one-woman translation service. Bruce pays for his share of their food and wine, the odd phone bill, and his ticket when they visit her maman in France. His major contribution is the car and its upkeep. The rest of his income is put toward the benefit of his children. Bottom line: he’s in her keeping now. He comes uptown on the metro, staggers home through the snow to the snow. A renewed sense of love lies fallow under the ghostly drifts.

  Some nights the City snow crew comes later, close to midnight, and he watches from the bedroom window as they work along Godbout. A dump truck and a mid-sized front-end loader for the street, the nifty one-man Bombardier along the walk. The thing spins as if it were dancing. Sometimes, lately, there’s a woman at the controls, the first one Bruce has seen in this job. She adds another dimension to the beauty of it — in a T-shirt in the warmth of the cab, hair tied back, cigarette hanging from her lips. As good as any man: a deft touch, threading her way artfully through a cluster of garbage bags, never slowing, leaving less than an inch between her plow and the cars buried along the curb. Watching, his dreams constellate. Bruce feels he knows her. He knows her like a comrade, grinding, pushing, beeping… Fighting the snow.

  The noise of it wakes Geneviève. “Mon Dieu! Now that is something they should have a law against.” She curses, searching under the pillow for her earplugs.

  “You kidding? That has to be the best job in the city. God, I’d love one of those things.”

  “Oh, Bruce. Come back to bed.”

  Geneviève always seems to manage this extravagant concoction of châtain curls and locks spreading out like Monet water, supported by an unfathomable system of barrettes and bows. And when she lets it down at night, it’s something else again. Bruce comes back to bed. He’s lucky…maybe not happy — but lucky, and he knows it.

  In his dream, Bruce slips out and heads for Jarry Park, a quick two minutes away in his sure-treading one-man machine. There, they rendezvous and get to work.

  First thing to do is clear the rinks, something the chronically impoverished City is neglecting. The job is dance-like, the company spreading out, crisscrossing, each spinning on his own length as they reach the end boards, then coming back again, leaving the ice sparkling beneath the moon, waiting for the morning and kids to be inspired. Then all fall into line and depart, moving out into the quarter, shifting into a stepped-out line, or widening it into an equilateral chevron-like formation, highly disciplined, exquisitely coordinated, getting at it, cleaning it up, getting it out of the way. Bruce is their leader, the woman in the T-shirt rolls at his right. He directs with shoulder movements, a raised chin, subtle eye gestures as he works the sticks…no language required when you fight the snow, all in code, forming and reforming, clearing the walk in front of Thu’s depanneur (where Thu once fell in the snow while lugging in a case of chocolate bars, leaving Thu’s stressed-out wife in tears), and Maxim and Favio’s barber shop (where certain men of the quarter patiently await the dawn), then up the ramp to the door of the maison de retraite (so no one need fear the trip to Thu’s for beer or loto tickets). Coming down St. Gédéon and into the lane…Pacci’s parking space is done in a twinkling (and silently, leaving Pacci to his own dreams), Danny Ng’s car is freed. Then around the corner and into Godbout, their perfect work ensures that even the Haitian woman’s children will have no problem at all…ever. Never again with the snow.

  Then they move on, working through the darkest hours of the Montreal night. Oui signs, Non signs, Ici on parle français! — it doesn’t matter, everyone gets the same service. And down all the alleys where the City never goes, Bruce always taking on the most daunting corners, spinning, shoving, braking — fighting the snow to save his soul. As the sun comes up, the quarter’s as clear and dry as a day in sunny June.

  Except Bruce’s part of the lane. “Which leaves me trapped. We can never seem to get to it,” he muses. “Despite all that amazing teamwork, I’m the only one who’s still locked in. The dream is beautiful — but never satisfying. Does that make sense?”

  “What about this woman,” asks Charlotte, “…on this team?”

  “I’ve seen her on our street lots of times lately. She’s very good. Never bursts a garbage bag…total concentration. I think she’s one of those lucky people who has really found her niche. I guess that’s why she’s there…in the dream, I mean.”

  Charlotte’s sigh is a weary one “It’s sexual, Daddy. It’s so obvious. You still haven’t resolved the thing with Mommy.”

  “No, it’s spiritual. Has to do with my sense of self-worth or something. You know I’m going to be fifty in a month. That’s a big thing in a man’s life.”

  “It shouldn’t be. Not if he’s in touch with his feelings.” Bruce’s daughter is studying psychology at Concordia. She says it helps her understand her parents’ problems.

  “Our only problem was our marriage. Now that it’s over, we’re fine.”

  “My professor says denial is the scenic route to hell,” responds Charlotte.

  Bruce gazes out the window of a bistro in Old Montreal, watching the sky as they talk. Lunch with Charlotte is always interesting… But maybe it will snow. They say it won’t. That means it probably will. It looks like it will. “Charlotte, can I be frank?”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I can’t even remember what your mother looks like without clothes on.”

  “The more you sublimate it, the worse it’s going to get. The scenic route to hell, Daddy. And on a pristine winter’s night. Maybe you should come in to one of our workshops. Not that you’d be much of a challenge.”

  “You mean like one of those cadavers in med school?”

  “Kind of, yeah.”

  “Lie there while they all take turns diddling me? No thanks.”

  “You see, it’s all sexual.” Charlotte — who swears she holds nothing personal against Geneviève — suggests experimenting with different sorts of relationships. She has; “and it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened in my less-than-happy life.”

  “What do you mean — less-than-happy?”

  “I’m the child of a traumatic divorce. My whole life is defined by turmoil. Everyone knows that. Except you. You’re so selfish it doesn’t even register.”

  “That’s not true. I take you out for lunch. I pay for your school. I tell you my dreams.”

  “My chances for a happy, normal life are amongst the lowest in the industrialized world.”

  “Life is what you make it,” advises Bruce. Pretty lame, he knows; the possibility of snow is distracting.

  “Really, Daddy, do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

  “No.” Now it’s Bruce who sighs. “Obviously I never do.”

  But he thinks of snow, and snow affects everyone in the industrialized world, and…

  And now here’s some more, falling on the cobblestones along the rue St. Paul.

  A Saturday morning in January. With wind chill, it’s minus thirty degrees. According to the ruler he has attached to the garage door, another thirty-eight centimetres have fallen. The weather lady had predicted twenty-five, maximum. Bruce briefly entertains a wish of finding the weather lady and shaking her. But he lets it go. Charlotte would have a field day with that one. And even if he could, the weather lady will never know the real depth of her mistake. Each man’s snow is personal. He is more wistful than bitter when he complains, “It’s so hard to have faith.”

  “This is because there is no God,” says Geneviève with that dry Gallic certainty.

  “Not talking about God,” says Bruce. “Talking about the snow.”

  Geneviève studies the guide-télé with a grim face. Never mind the snow; she hates the cold. It leaves her without
sympathy for Bruce’s moping.

  “Well.” He pulls on his boots and mitts. “I’m going out to work on it.”

  That afternoon, after three hours in the snow, Bruce is shaken from his nap. It’s his son, jimmie (yes, with a small j), and a girl, come to borrow Bruce’s car. And for some money.

  In fact, Bruce has raised him with the more dignified James, after his own father. The boy started signing jimmie sometime around his seventeenth birthday. Charlotte insists it’s more fallout from the divorce. jimmie says it goes better with his hair — cherry red this time. And his clothes — which are mainly black, always. Bruce is not to take it personally. jimmie has told his grandfather the same thing. He lives with Denise in the townhouse in Lower Westmount. Gen’s house is too small; but, what with the clothes and the music and most of his choices in girls, Bruce suspects she would not offer jimmie a place in her household even if it were the Palace of Versailles.

  jimmie takes off his coat and tosses it on the divan (another thing that causes Gen to bristle). This confirms he’s also looking for money. If it’s only the car, he secures the keys after a perfunctory exchange of recent personal information and leaves. When there’s money involved, jimmie will sit down and have a beer. His girl is called Manon… jimmie’s been going through a lot of girls lately. Her hair’s a harsh turquoise with lacquered ebony edges. Her black uniform is identical to jimmie’s, although she has more metal équipement pinned through her flesh.

  Boots and coats and scarves and gloves well-piled in the middle of the living room, they move into the kitchen. Manon will have tisane instead of a beer. Peppermint’s fine.

  Bruce boils water, sets the pot and a cup in front of her…and the cookie tin.

  The cookies bring a smile. She says, “So you, you are into stocks?”

  “Some of them,” says Bruce.

  “Cool.”

  “Manon’s into currencies,” volunteers jimmie. “Hedge funds?” He looks her way for confirmation and she pats his hand.

  “Tough game,” says Bruce, holding steady. The last one was “into” faith healing. The one before that was pretending to be Marilyn Monroe.

  “It’s not so bad,” says Manon. She sips her drink and adds, “Me, I do OK some months. Toi?”

  “Oh, up and down.”

  “B’en, I can help you if you want me to. You have your machine?”

  “My machine?” His thoughts go straight to his blower, waiting like a dog in the garage.

  “Computer?” Her black-tipped fingers ape a typing motion.

  “Oh. Right. It’s at my office.”

  Manon is rueful. “This could be a problem. I don’t have the right clothes. Mon père, il me dit, jamais comme ça au bureau. Me, I say you don’t need a bureau — just a machine, tu sais?” She mimics the typing fingers again to emphasize her point.

  “In theory,” concedes Bruce.

  Manon gives jimmie a kiss on the cheek and gets up to go to the bathroom.

  jimmie’s habitual mumble drops a tone as he tells Bruce, “She made like $200,000 last month going short on Indonesian money. Rupiahs? Something about squashing a union.”

  “Impressive.” Bruce is determined to play it calm and straight. How else? Father-son is turning out to be much trickier than father-daughter. Despite Charlotte’s one-track mind, the stranger parts of father-daughter can almost be fun sometimes. Father-son only gets stranger, marked by these bizarre challenges for masculine space.

  “Really,” says jimmie. Because he knows perfectly well when his father does not believe him, he adds, “She’s like one of those violin child geniuses…”

  “Prodigy.”

  “Whatever…only with her it’s currencies. Hedge funds.”

  “Doesn’t she go to school?”

  “Sure. She does it at night — on the computer. Her pa does all the business part.”

  “Who’s her pa?”

  jimmie drops a name. “Some big wheel.”

  “I’ve heard of him. Where’d you meet her?”

  “Oh, you know — around.” Where he meets all of them.

  “Well, rich women can be just as nice as poor ones,” advises Bruce. Then father and son stare at each other as they sip beer. Why can’t anything in jimmie’s life be normal? Bruce knows he needs to get closer before it’s too late.

  Manon rejoins them, pours herself more tisane. Bruce now recognizes the features of a man who is indeed a very big wheel, and a hardline one to boot — but on the other side: one of Parizeau’s more vociferous acolytes and still often asked for his opinion by the current Deputy Premier, a man who plays smart and large-scale, no fear at all of those pesky financial details that lurk behind the always-looming Question. If there was ever a father who could show his little girl the tricks of the money-trading game…

  “So,” says Manon, as if aware that she’s the cause of the present impasse, “you have a good month last time?”

  “Could have been better,” admits Bruce.

  She’s concerned. “Really, I can help you if you want. If you don’t mind my clothes I will come down and see you after the school. We do it Tuesday maybe?”

  Bruce feels the back of his neck tightening. He says, “It’s a nice offer, Manon, but I have something on Tuesdays. And you know, stocks aren’t the same as currencies.”

  “B’en oui,” says the girl; obviously they’re not. “But they are still fun, n’est-ce pas?”

  Bruce only shrugs. In fact he keeps well away from currencies. Too risky. Gen has suggested that trading currencies may also be immoral. He looks out the window. The snow has started again and is pelting down. “Wow!” It just pops out.

  It gets another grin. “Oh yeah, I hear you are into the snow.”

  “I don’t know if I’d put it like that. But you have to stay on top of it, don’t you?”

  “Totally,” agrees Manon.

  Now it’s jimmie who abruptly rises and heads to the bathroom. Bruce knows why. Snow is a sore spot with him — and Bruce is prepared to agree with Charlotte on this one point at least. Denise, when they talk, says jimmie never does a thing to help her. She says she just knows she’s going to have a stroke shovelling snow one of these nights while jimmie is in his room, doing whatever it is he does there. “You wanted him,” says Bruce (and, thinks Bruce, you fought tooth-and-nail). Although his ex’s plight always causes a deep twinge. Bruce would love to teach his son about the spiritual healing to be got from cleaning away the snow; but he doesn’t even dare suggest it.

  Instead, as soon as jimmie shuts the bathroom door, Bruce tells Manon his dream.

  Ten minutes later, Manon is staring intently into Bruce’s eyes. “Cool!”

  “C’est quoi, cool?” demands jimmie, sitting.

  “Le rêve de ton père.”

  jimmie rolls his eyes and begins leafing through Gen’s guide-télé, blasé as Manon presses Bruce for more details.

  The snow eases. Geneviève comes down from her nap. Manon is pleased to meet her. Soon they’re gabbing away about her plans to study in France. Bruce, satisfied Gen is OK with Manon, excuses himself. “Think I should do a little touch-up.” Gesturing at the snow.

  Bruce is checking the oil level in the blower when jimmie suddenly appears in the garage, ready to work. He doesn’t have the proper boots but insists on going up on the garage roof while Bruce cleans the patio and dusts the path to the garden gate. Holding the ladder as jimmie climbs down, Bruce turns to see Manon pouring yet another cup. And one for Gen.

  Noticing, Gen and Manon both send a quick smile through the kitchen window.

  Bruce starts up the blower and does a quick up-and-down of the lane. jimmie works the edges with the small shovel. An effective partner. Good anticipation. Nice job.

  “Nice girl,” offers Bruce, passing jimmie the car keys and sixty bucks.

  jimmie says, “Thanks.”

  Manon waits in the lane, chatting with Pacci. Bruce waves. “Salut!” Whoever she is, he feels he might have an ally. Step
ping into the kitchen, he tells Gen, “That was a miracle. His mother won’t believe it.”

  Geneviève is clearing the tea things. “She made it clear he’d better get out there and help if he cared about his fun ce soir.”

  “Well, good for her…You know, he’s got a good sense of it once he gets working.”

  “Ça s’appelle la motivation.”

  “No argument there,” says Bruce. “Did she tell you about her money?”

  “We were talking about love. jimmie is her first Anglo.”

  “I think once you get past the hair and the nails, she’s a very sensitive girl. I mean, she was actually interested in me. And not like Charlotte. She says her papa is a lot like me.”

  “Charlotte has a problem,” mutters Geneviève, moving into the living room and turning on the television: a Columbo rerun.

  While Bruce frets. “I hope he doesn’t develop some weird father-son jealousy thing.”

  “C’est normal, Bruce…Très normal.”

  Between mid-January and mid-February there is a total accumulation of eighty-three centimetres. Bruce fights it every centimetre of the way. Waking up on Sunday the thirteenth, his fiftieth birthday, there are another seventeen fresh new centimetres waiting to greet him. Naturally he wants to get out and get at it. But Gen traps him in her arms. “Pas aujourd’hui, Bruce.” She keeps him there until just before noon, then sends him to the market for bread and pâté. She has invited assorted friends and family over to celebrate the occasion — a buffet starting at three. There’s just no time to do the snow.

  He sips Scotch and welcomes friends and colleagues, his parents, Charlotte…Denise even calls to say good luck. But Bruce can’t help looking out the kitchen window in the middle of everyone’s good wishes. The snow is waiting for him. All this is a diversion. And jimmie hasn’t shown up. Has he alienated his son completely by telling that girl his dream?

  “Don’t worry,” assures Gen, guiding him back to the centre of the party. “Circulate a bit. He promised to come.”

  Bruce finds his dad, shepherds him back to the kitchen and tries to explain his method. The old man listens patiently — after all, it’s his son’s fiftieth birthday party. For his part, he does not do the snow anymore; he has given it to the gardener for $250 a season, and so far, with this winter they’ve been having, it looks to be a pretty good deal. While debating the wisdom of contracting out such an elemental preoccupation, Bruce adamant that he never will, they are distracted by the Beep!…Beep!…Beep! of a truck in reverse. In a moment the rear end of a five-ton van appears in the lane. Bruce thinks it must be for Pacci. Or Danny Ng. A man gets out and begins opening the van door.

 

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