Of Violence and Cliché

by Joudrey, M. C.

  ALSO BY M C JOUDREY

  FICTION

  Etchings in the Dead Wax

  Charleswood Road Stories

  Copyright © 2013 M C Joudrey

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without prior written consent of the publisher-or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency-is an infringement of the copyright law.

  At Bay Press fox logo is copyright © 2013 At Bay Press

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication is available upon request

  ISBN: 978-0-9879665-7-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Jacket illustration and design © M C Joudrey

  Typeset in Fairfield and Century Gothic

  Printed and bound in Canada

  First Edition Spring 2013

  Published in Canada by At Bay Press.

  Visit At Bay Press’s website:

  www.atbaypress.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR ALANA,

  WHO OFFERED ME HER HAND,

  BEFORE I HAD THE COURAGE

  TO ASK FOR IT.

  CHAPTER 1

  May 30th 2006

  Crows in a nearby poplar were laughing at me, for the hell of it. They cackled, cawed and chuckled like humans tend to do from time to time, when they lay eyes on an unfortunate soul. The best thing about being dead is that these types of things don’t get to you anymore. I’m still alive though.

  Everything was wet. The air smelled of minerals and the streets were mirror surfaces. The sky above churned as the laminated leaves gathered raindrops. The door was dry; the awning had kept it so. I reached out to tentatively touch it. Curled emerald paint chips broke from the door’s surface and fell like wounded butterflies until they lay still on the rotting porch floorboards. The painted flecks sat there only a moment, until the wind carried them off someplace to expire. I started to knock.

  “Open up!”

  It had been pouring all morning and hadn’t let up. I was soaked through to the skin. My bruises ached. My cuts were bloated and burned hot.

  My thoughts were jumbled. So much had happened and I was running out of time to figure things out. I put my hands against my temples where I could feel the rhythmic thumping of blood pushing its way through. I massaged my head in attempt to strain the fragments of thought floating in cerebral soup. It didn’t help.

  It’s possible to see enough real life that you’ll want to put your eyes out. I ran my hands over my face and then held them out in front of me; they were trembling. Looking at the old door in front of me, my mind started to recede to some other place. I shook my head. Maybe it was the paint chips, or maybe I had taken the wrong blow to the head and my synapses fired strangely at that moment. Maybe I was just really tired or just overexposed and cold from the rain. Maybe I was just finally realizing that human life is just that fragile, even my own.

  I knocked again, this time harder.

  “Open up, Tracy!”

  I heard her footsteps. The latch turned and the door gave way, releasing just a sliver of light. The smell of stale tobacco skulked through the opening and hit my face harder than any knuckles I’d ever taken. She peeked through the crack. I could see the years tattooed on her face. She squinted back at me without recognition in her eyes, but that lasted only a moment until she looked into mine. My eyes were my fingerprints.

  “What do you want, William?”

  It felt like a lifetime since I had heard her say that name.

  “Just a bed for a few hours.”

  She studied my face. If the apparent scabs and bruising moved her, she did not show it. A cigarette hung loosely from her lips and the ash was in need of attention.

  “It’s been almost seven years,” she said questioningly, but with little enough interest that did not request a response. Then her composure changed and she looked at me hard, her eyes speculative.

  “Look, I’m not here for money. I’m just tired, you know? I could use some rest for a little while. I don’t need anything else.” I shuffled a bit on the doorstep.

  She didn’t speak. She just looked me over again and opened the door all the way. I took the opportunity and stepped inside.

  The place looked the same as my memory of it. Seven years hadn’t done much; the carpet looked a little older and the ghost image burned on the television screen was a little more obvious. The aged brown sofa beached in front of it had stains and cigarette burns riddled throughout the upholstery. I reminded myself I didn’t look much better.

  “You know the way.” She motioned with her arm as she sat back down and stubbed out her cigarette on the TV tray beside the sofa. She lit another. Languid smoke still coiled upwards from the dead cigarette.

  She didn’t look at me and resumed watching whatever was on TV like I wasn’t there. She had changed into her Form, a grey raccoon. For as long as I had been able to see these things, I noticed that most people’s Forms were grey and hers was no different. Then I caught the smell of them; in the corner of the room, two Shrikun stood motionlessly, poised, as they knew her time was soon and greys had always been easy to convert to black. One of the Shrikun looked at me and smiled, if you could call it that. Raccoons are common animals and common animals always made the best Forms for the Shrikun to acquire. They could be used more often than the more unique animals. They were less conspicuous and therefore more desirable.

  I looked back at Tracy, who had reverted to herself again. In the corner, the Shrikun were gone. I made my way upstairs.

  I sat on the corner of the bed and pulled off my wet shirt. The diluted stains of blood and grime had mixed into a dark mahogany colour. I hung it on the bedpost to dry and pulled my socks off. The air felt cool against my feet, which had pruned from being wet all morning. I laid the socks on the edge of the old dresser and did the same with my wet jeans and boxer shorts.

  I stood up and studied my body for the first time in three days. I had two long cuts, one across my stomach and the other down the middle of my left side. Both weren’t deep and had closed. I pulled three small shards of glass from just above my hipbone and set them on the night table. Blood slowly filled the wounds. I had bruising all along my left arm and could feel others along my back. My right thigh had also sustained a cut, although I couldn’t remember the source. As I mentioned, so much had happened.

  There was a small mirror on the dresser, and I picked it up to look at my face. I didn’t look good; it wasn’t just that I hadn’t slept in three days, it was worse. I set the mirror down and sat back on the edge of the bed. The clock on the night table told me it was mid-afternoon.

  I opened my eyes again at four in the morning. I didn’t remember lying down and my body ached as I sat up. The room was dark. The sun had quit and the moon had forgotten to show up for its shift.

  I made fists with my hands a couple of times. I stood up and reached for my shirt. It had dried and smelled foul. As I pulled it over my head, I realized the sleep hadn’t helped much with the pain, but then I hadn’t expected a miracle. Still, my head was clear and that was the thing that mattered most. My socks had coiled awkwardly as they dried, and felt abrasive as I pulled them over my feet. My jeans were still completely damp.

  I went to the washroom and took a piss. I spat in the sink and turned on the water, running my hands underneath the faucet. I cupped my hands to spla
sh a little water on my face and ran my cold wet hand over the back of my neck. There wasn’t much in the rusty medicine cabinet; a tube of old toothpaste and some bandages (which I used) were the only indications of personal hygiene. There were also a few loose razorblades and I picked one up and checked the blade edge with my fingertip. It was still sharp. I pocketed the metallic rectangle as I knew it would work perfectly.

  Coming down the steps, I saw Tracy was still watching the television and it didn’t look like she had moved at all since earlier that afternoon. Did she not sleep anymore? I stopped a moment and looked around again. I could feel my past life crawling like cockroaches behind the old manila-coloured walls.

  I slipped on my shoes and went for the door. As Tracy got up from her chair, I quickly tied my laces, then stood up and looked at her standing in front of me. A part of me wanted her to say something. She didn’t.

  “Thanks,” I offered.

  Her face stiffened when I said it, but then softened, surprisingly. I hadn’t said it in a long time, not to her, not to anyone. She knew this was the last time she would see me and looked me in the eyes. She then turned away and headed towards the kitchen. And that was that. I opened the door and left.

  Out on the porch, the temperature had warmed and the early morning air was stagnant and humid. The rain had stopped but everything was still wet and heavy. My stomach barked at me. Just another thing, I thought, staring out into the foggy dawn. Outside, there were no sounds at all and for a moment, I knew peace. Then I heard the door open behind me. I turned around and Tracy was standing there in the doorway.

  “Open your hand, William,” she said softly.

  I did as I was told and my mother handed me an apple.

  CHAPTER 2

  1994 - The City Lamia

  Lamia came to me for the first time that year, back when the waterfront was still innocent. You could see the Dome from the harbour and they still called it the Dome, before Ted felt the need to spray-paint his bloody namesake on it while the mayor sat back and let him do it. The nest was never quite the same after that, but we owned the game in’93. We’ll always have that.

  The first of the condominiums grew up like dandelions and the gentle breeze off the lake blew the foul seeds of greed into the fertile ground below. The rest of the concrete weeds would soon break the soil and ejaculate forth, robbing everyone of the view of that once great lake, which was now nothing more than alkaline sewage and dead sand.

  But before all this, Toronto still answered to its inhabitants and the inhabitants could still feel their city breathing. She pumped life into all those who believed she was the greatest city in the world.

  Steel rockets barreled freely beneath the earth. The tower was just the tower, and didn’t need lights running up and down its shaft to make it more favorable to its audience. If you listened closely, you could hear it whisper, “Fuck the tourist.”

  Queen Street West still had its pride, with a myriad of little shops and storefronts, and underground purveyors of the strange and weird. It was a home to the fringe, and there were enough characters to gobble it up completely.

  The one thing that still remains the same is that The Horseshoe puts bands that matter on its stage. Everything else has vanished. Today, Queen Street West is merely a bargain version of Rodeo Drive, filled with big box American fashion stores raping the last of our Canadian cool. We should have all shouted that horrible “C” word at them from a megaphone; rubbing in the dirty, degrading little word that only the most morally-amputated individuals say with pleasure, right into their greedy faces. We should have tattooed it right on their foreheads where it belongs in bold black letters: Capitalist.

  There should’ve been a revolution. But there wasn’t and all of us are to blame. We let them have it and didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Today we support them like they were that dealer with the really good stuff. We pay them to advertise their brand’s name on our chests and we walk around as a congregation of happy human billboards.

  The Gardiner heralded the suburbanites forth into a majestic metropolitan core every morning. At night, as the gleaming sentinels grew smaller in their rear views, they would lie to themselves, somewhat convinced that they were better off in the suburbs. They knew better though; deep down they knew the city was the heart and suburbs were cardiac arrests disguised as strip malls.

  Streetcars ground along the King Street tracks; up through Chinatown and the “Littles”, like Italy, Portugal, and India, they carried passengers like veins carry white blood cells towards the source of infection.

  The Leafs were a good team; no one remembers that, but they were, and Joes and Janes could afford to attend the games. The Gardens, God rest its beautiful soul, stands alone and forgotten today like an antiquated Chinese daughter, but back then it housed the kind of patron our great game deserved. Now the Suits own the whole first section, leaving nothing but vacancy in a centre named for some tired, tainted aviation corporation, bailed out far too many times to be worth naming here.

  I lived in this city. I loved this city, my city, my Toronto. Every pulse and pump pushed me into the next minute with fervour. I moved with the madness and was laid down to sleep by the fluorescent glow of the city lights at night. There was a truth to it. I couldn’t ask for more and didn’t want for anything. I had everything I needed, and that’s a life worth living.

  Things were good. That’s a word people use too often to describe just about everything. Truth is, my life was good in the true definition of the word. Good like content, good like loved, good like healthy, good like having purpose. Maybe if things had kept on that way, I don’t know, it could’ve all been different. But chance doesn’t work like that.

  I was 22 that year when she just appeared in front of me. Well, there was more to it than that. There was the accident. I don’t remember much. I was hurt pretty bad. I couldn’t move my legs. They were pinned under me. I remember the left side of my head was itchy so I touched it. It was warm and wet, and when I took my hand away and it was stained crimson. There was an awful smell and a lot of smoke. I must have blacked out for a minute or so.

  I was sleeping, or at least it felt like I was asleep, because someone shook me awake. You know that feeling when you’re at the edge between sleep and waking? You want to stay in the realm of rest but something is tugging at you, trying to bring you back into wakefulness. That’s what it was like.

  When I came to, I fought a valiant war with my heavy eyelids and won. There were flames in front of me and they were rapidly getting closer.

  “You should get out of there.”

  The voice was sweet and soft. It was female. I looked for its origin.

  “I’m over here, silly. Look left.”

  I did as I was told. It was an angel.

  “I’m not an angel.”

  “Do you know my thoughts?”

  “No, but I’ve dealt with your kind before. You all think the same thing the first time.”

  She wore a billowing blue silk skirt that caught the firelight, and the steady breeze folded the seemingly endless loose fabric like waves lapping at the beach. On her waist sat a golden snakeskin belt, but her torso was completely bare and her skin luminescent. Her body was gloriously feminine, with long cascading red hair that glowed like Jason’s fleece, hanging obediently at her back. She appeared human but was far too beautiful to be anything but a deity of some kind. She looked at me and then lowered her eyes, and I followed their gaze.

  “Don’t stare at my tits!”

  I was, and she scolded me in a malicious yet playful manner as though she had tricked me into doing it.

  “Who are you?”

  “I don’t think that’s important right now, do you?”

  I surveyed my surroundings and realized that in only a matter of moments I would be consumed by flames.

  “Can you help me? I’m stuck.”

  “I can’t, not like that.”

  “Why not?”

  I had become angry alm
ost instantly.

  “Anger is good. You’ll need a lot of it. Now if you had given me a chance, I would have explained to you that I couldn’t physically help you. I can cheer you on though.”

  “You’re mocking me?”

  “ A little, yes.” She smiled at me.

  “Why? Why won’t you help me?”

  “As I said, I can’t.” She was nonchalantly inspecting her fingernails.

  I became incensed. Rage overtook me, fueled by her callous indifference to my situation. The flames came closer and I struggled to free my legs. I pushed with everything I had and then I gave up, my legs wedged in, tight as ever.

  “Are you a screamer? I mean, when you start to burn and all. Do you think you’ll wail and moan like a child?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Me? You did this, remember? I wasn’t driving, feeling all sorry for myself. Tsk, never drive under the influence of depression.”

  She smiled at me again. She was enjoying this. I felt my blood boil beneath my skin. I reached forward and pulled at the moulding on the dash that had been forced in on my legs. It wouldn’t budge. I lost control and started to rain my fists upon it, hitting it until my knuckles bled. The large piece of moulding came completely free, and I pulled my left leg out. My jeans had a series of long cuts that ran up the shin and blood had soaked them thoroughly, but having the extra space now allowed room for me to get my right leg free.

  The flames began to engulf the entire area, surrounding me, chewing voraciously through my clothes. I could smell my own flesh burning. I rolled in pain from the automobile into the dirt, and batted at the stubborn flames on my shirt-sleeves. I could hear the woman’s laughter as I fumbled on the ground.

  I fought my way to my feet despite the searing pain in my shins. I felt my anger hemorrhage into fury, and I reached out with my bloody hands, put them around her throat and squeezed with ardent pleasure. She laughed only harder at me. I tightened my grip but it had no effect. She stopped laughing and looked into my eyes.