The Dishwasher

by Stéphane Larue

  Before I had time to finish my drink, Greg was back. He looked furious. He yelled something in Bébert’s ear. Bébert nodded in approval. Bébert tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the door.

  We went for a drive. Greg was barking at Bébert as if we were still at the club, going off on a tangent about some guy named Kovacs. He kept saying that shit didn’t work that way, and he had a bullet in his .32 for that motherfucker.

  “I hope he fucking does show up. I’ll cap him before he hits my front porch.”

  Bébert tried to calm him down, but it was futile. That was when he used a first name: Piotr. It rang a bell. I remembered the guy who’d come in to see Séverine the other night. My ears were ringing. I was ensconced in the back seat, part of the furniture. No one cared that I was there. They just kept drawling on and on about someone I didn’t know. As he drove Greg yelled at passing cars and pedestrians through his windshield.

  I tagged along with them to a house party at a huge apartment on Saint-Denis and Sherbrooke. It was like nothing I’d ever seen outside the movies. The ceiling was hung with streamers and Christmas lights. Every room had a different DJ spinning, and every one was packed tight with party people hopped up on cocaine and pills who’d wandered in from the far reaches of the night. Revellers were dancing on tables, doing lines off any available surface, reaching into little baggies like kids hungry for more candy.

  In the red light of the kitchen two of the residents had set up a bar, selling warm beer and hard liquor in Styrofoam cups with the flair of auctioneers. Two MCs were battling in what might have been the living room. My favourite looked around twenty-five, and was rocking a Proust moustache, a thin sweater, and a bowtie. Coke-bottle glasses framed his beady eyes. With one clever dig at a time, he was chipping away at the other MC, who was swimming in a pyjama-like velour tracksuit and had a deep raspy voice that almost made up for his weak rhymes. I was leaning against the arch between the living room and kitchen. A girl with fire-red hair emerged from the crowd and bumped into me as she weaved toward the bathroom. In her drunken stupor, she was reaming out one of her friends. Then she fell down and got back up, with no help from anyone, and continued her epic journey to the bathroom.

  I came up closer to Bébert and Greg. We bought beers. Bébert knew one of the roommates. Greg was calmer now, even cracking jokes. His moods were hard to follow. He paid for our drinks with a fifty. I thought about my own funds. Even counting my next paycheque, I wouldn’t have enough to print the album cover. I took a long sip of Molson Ex. What good would it do to get my shit together if I couldn’t also get the album artwork done for the band? I needed more money, and I didn’t have a lot of time. I could feel sharp peaks of stress mixed in with excitement. The Casino was open all night. I took another sip of beer and focused on what was going on around me. Bébert had located his buddies from the bar, Doug and Mr. Yankees cap. A girl with a shaved head, elaborately made up eyebrows, and an oversized tank top with a silkscreened Wu-Tang logo kept slipping in and out of the guys’ conversation to do little dance moves. Her name was Nancy, and her arms were cut like a boxer’s. When she talked everyone shut up and listened.

  Other people were gathered around in the kitchen. We pushed up against the counters. They were all jam-packed with empties. Doug was telling a story that I was struggling to follow about the time Bébert pissed on a police car before they were able to get the handcuffs on. I screwed up my courage and went over to talk to Greg.

  “Hey Greg. Uh, sorry. . . ”

  He turned to look at me.

  “Say what?”

  “Do you need anyone?”

  He looked at me for a minute.

  “Do I need anyone? What do you mean, man?”

  “Uh, like for your jobs. Do you need anyone?”

  Greg’s face lit up with a mocking smile.

  “For my jobs, huh?”

  He took a sip of beer and wiped his upper lip.

  “Why you asking? Looking for a little extra work?”

  I was about to say yes when Bébert butted in. He hadn’t missed a word.

  “Yo kid. You already got a job, remember?”

  Greg raised his hand.

  “Don’t interrupt, Burt. Kid’s old enough to make up his own mind.”

  I mumbled something about washing dishes not paying shit, and needing a little extra cash. Greg was listening, clearly amused by my request. He said he was all about making a little extra cash here and there. Bébert looked me in the eye and repeated himself, in an even firmer tone:

  “We’ll have you cooking soon. That’s a better job for you.”

  Even when he was breaking up the fight between me and Rémi earlier that night, Bébert’s tone had been nowhere near that harsh. For a second or two no one said a thing. You could hear the beat, the rappers, the shouts of the party people surging into a roar in the big living room. Greg patted me on the shoulder. The circle regrouped around Mitch. I got the sense he’d known Bébert a long time, that they’d been roommates for a while. In the middle of some story involving moving hash in a sailboat and stolen cars in Chatêauguay, he did a bump off a key and chased it with a sip of beer. Mitch could tell a story with the best of them, embroidering in outlandish details and jokes. Bébert was laughing. Doug just listened with eyelids grown heavy, probably sick of hearing the same story for the hundredth time. Nancy butted in from time to time, to correct a detail. Greg had disappeared. My beer was so warm it was starting to gross me out. I got in line to take a piss.

  Five minutes went by, maybe ten. We hadn’t moved an inch. After a long struggle I managed to finish my beer. I had no idea what to do with the empty bottle, so I just held onto it. Someone from the bathroom lineup went up and knocked on the door.

  “You guys fucking in there or what?”

  Bébert came up to me. After thirty seconds he was done with waiting.

  “Fuck this, let’s go piss outside.”

  I followed him out, feeling dumb for not thinking of it earlier. We had to traverse two tightly packed rooms. The bassline of Biggie’s “Hypnotize” was loud enough to blow the speakers. I could see Greg dancing, with his hands on two girls’ hips.

  We left the apartment and went down the stairs to the front hallway. The street sounds hit us at the same time as the cold. We went into an alley. A guy in a parka was holding up his friend, who was yakking against a wall. It looked like he was crying.

  “Tough night, guys?” Bébert said.

  They ignored him.

  I found a cement wall and Bébert leaned up against a dumpster. The urine sent little clouds of steam rising up.

  “Dude, listen up,” Bébert commanded. “Greg might seem like a nice guy, but he’s not playing on the nice guy team. Don’t ever—ever—put yourself in a position where you owe him. That shit’s not for you.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  He zipped up and spat on the ground.

  “Forget about it, man. It’s as clear as fuck.”

  I sniffled. He looked at me and pointed at me with his index finger.

  “Don’t get into that shit. You’re smarter than that.”

  Bébert was deadly serious, more serious than earlier, more serious than I’d ever seen him before. This was no game to him. We left the alley.

  The two guys we’d seen had turned toward the street and were staring at the flashing red and yellow lights. Two ambulances were parked in front of the party. We walked over. We could see someone pushing through the crowd that had gathered on the front stairway. It was Doug, Knight Templar of the Outer Reaches of Hochelaga, working his way toward the paramedics with a girl in his arms. The one who had bumped into me. Her head was rolled back, her face and throat covered in puke, her hair soaked and plastered to her forehead.

  “Well, looks like the party’s over.”

  “Should we wait for everyone else?�
�

  “Nah, pigs’ll be here any minute. I’m not in the mood.”

  Bébert dragged me to the Lafleur in Carré Saint-Louis for hot dogs. There were a dozen skinheads in line waiting to order. Bébert was as impatient as he’d been waiting for the bathroom twenty minutes earlier.

  “Good thing Greg isn’t with us. Dude can’t help fighting when he sees skins. Once we were drinking at Yer’Mad and he made one of them take the laces out of his boots. You know the white laces?”

  “His laces? Why?”

  “To wrap around his fist and pound the guy’s face to a pulp.”

  “Really?” I asked quietly.

  “Don’t go thinking that’s cool. I’m trying to warn you, man.”

  The line was at a standstill. I thought about the machines. And then the idea of the casino popped back into my head, like an obsession.

  “This is taking too long,” Bébert said. “I’ve got some pizza and a few beers at home. You coming?”

  “I think I’ll get a taxi.”

  “C’mon, man. You can chill at my place till the Metro starts running. You never shut up about how you’re not making enough. Quit wasting your cash, fuck the taxi, and come over to my place.”

  He patted me on the back as we left the Lafleur. The cold was getting wetter. We were a good fifteen minutes from Bébert’s. When we got there his roommate was exactly where he’d been last time: in front of his computer, behind the Great Wall of coffee cups, beer cans, and crumpled bags of chips.

  Bébert grabbed the pizza box from the fridge and tossed it on the coffee table. His other hand held a stack of cans, Milwaukee’s Best. He collapsed on the sofa, groaning with fatigue. He turned on the TV.

  “Yo Pete, are the movies late?”

  His roommate didn’t answer. Bébert picked up the remote. The Reservoir Dogs menu appeared on the screen. He pointed at the sauce-stained pizza box.

  “Eat.”

  I opened a can of beer and took a sip. Bébert ground up some bud.

  “So you and Jade? Went out last night?”

  He pulled out his Zig-Zags and started rolling, one-handed.

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  I took another sip, and stared at the pizza box.

  “Nothing ever works out for me.”

  It was exactly the type of answer that would have pissed off Malik. I missed my cousin.

  “Oh that,” said Bébert, sliding a filter into the end of the joint. “That’s just life, man.”

  There was a moment of silence. My beer had an acidic taste.

  “Are you serious about moving me up to the kitchen?”

  “As soon as I’m sous-chef. Consider it done.”

  He lit the joint. The aroma of skunk suffused the room.

  “When you’re sous-chef, are you still gonna need Greg’s help?”

  “Greg’s help?”

  He took a puff. He was staring at me with half-closed eyes, through a cloud of smoke.

  “Greg’s not helping me. It’s more what you’d call a quid pro fucking quo.”

  “Yeah, thought so.”

  I nodded slowly. He took a big toke and held the smoke in. Then he said:

  “You know I’ve had plenty of chances. And fucked them all up. Sometimes I have to cheat a bit.”

  “You think I haven’t fucked up my fair share of chances?”

  Bébert laughed.

  “I’d be surprised, man. I can see it in your eyes. You didn’t grow up under no rainclouds. That’s cool, totally. No one goes out of their way looking for trouble. No one needs that.”

  I sat up on the couch. I was about to say something but he cut me off.

  “When I was your age . . . I was an addict, took more pills in a week than you’ll do in your whole life. I ran with the biggest crew in Châteauguay, for chemical shit. Trust me. I’ve hung out with enough skids and fuckups to know that ain’t you.”

  “I’ve done some shit too.”

  “Yeah, no doubt. Some heavy shit for sure!” he said, laughing and blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Let me guess, you put a potato in your math teacher’s muffler? Man, you’re smart. You need a break? Need a little extra cash? We’ll get you cooking. But unless you really love it, unless food is your life, don’t get stuck in the kitchen either. Focus on school, your drawing and shit.”

  Bébert snagged a piece of pizza from the box. His roommate looked like he was made of stone.

  “What about you. You like cooking?”

  “I love cooking.”

  “Is that what got you away from drugs?”

  “Can’t say cooking’s gonna keep me away from drugs.”

  He laughed, ashing his joint in an empty can of beer on the table.

  “My mum showed me how to cook. She made me want to do it. I’ve been into cooking since I was a kid. I swore to her I’d open my first restaurant by the time I was thirty.”

  “What’d your mum do? Was she a cook?”

  “Nope. She had an art gallery.”

  “Had?”

  “No idea what she’s up to now. I haven’t talked to her in five years.”

  Bébert threw his cold pizza crust on top of the greasy box. On the screen Steve Buscemi was losing his shit because they were making him be Mr. Pink.

  I couldn’t get the casino out of my head. I tried to imagine what kind of person Bébert’s mother could be. I asked him for a toke.

  “You sure? Shit’s potent.”

  I hoped so.

  Chapter 26

  The next day was misty. A heavy blanket of fog had rolled in to smudge out the whole city and me along with it. I was sore all over. Two all-nighters in a row were taking their toll.

  I took the No. 30 back to Ahuntsic, eating a twenty-pack of Chicken McNuggets to try to get my stomach right.

  I couldn’t face my voicemail until I got home to Vincent’s. There was another message from the Deathgaze guys. Alex’s tone made it clear he wasn’t happy, though he seemed to be restraining his anger. I didn’t have the guts to listen all the way to the end.

  Marie-Lou had left a message too. She wanted to know how I was doing and whether I’d managed to keep my job, then asked me to come by the bar to say hi or watch movies some night. She had something to tell me. I listened to the message twice. Marie-Lou’s voice always made me feel better.

  Vincent wasn’t at the apartment. I had no idea where he was. Probably off making something of his life. I piled up the sketchbooks I’d hidden under the couch, and told myself I’d put them back later. For the time being I couldn’t even look at them.

  I drifted in and out of sleep until evening came, troubled by dreams of searching for a girl, a hybrid of Jade and Marie-Lou. In my dream I wandered through nearly deserted bars linked by a labyrinthine network of hallways reminiscent of my primary school. Every person I encountered was a stranger. No one remembered a thing, no one spat out a word. By the end I’d forgotten who I was looking for.

  I woke up with no idea what time it was. It was snowing outside. Through the window you could see big flakes falling in the lamplight. I felt lonely, sad, and empty. I thought about everything that had happened these past few weeks. I thought about Trois-Rivières. I pulled the blanket over my head and went back to bed.

  In the week ahead I was down for six shifts in five days, without a day off. I’d specifically asked Renaud to schedule it that way. The thing about work is it keeps your mind constantly occupied. Our arrangement worked for Renaud too, since Lionel hadn’t shown up for his third shift. That meant I’d be training, training, and then training some more, as a revolving door of potential candidates made their way through my dishpit.

  First up was Hervé: recovering alcoholic, thin as a reed, quiet as a mouse. He worked as fast as Eaton. The training went w
ell. He promised to come back the next day. We never saw him again.

  After Hervé, Renaud tried out a computer science student named Jeremy, a real chatterbox who saw fit to share every detail of his upcoming internship and the computer programs he’d written to crack RCMP databases. Clearly a natural-born hacker; totally incapable of scrubbing a pan. And the dude just wouldn’t shut up. One minute he was giving me his full availabilities through March of the following year, converted to a precise number of hours, rounded to nearest minute; the next he wanted to know what operating system the bar computer was running. I sent him home after two hours. Renaud pretended to take down his contact info and promised he’d call back, just to shut him up.

  Next up: Jean Charles. Age: fifty. Vocation: professional bullshitter. Now here was a guy who’d been everywhere and done everything. He’d lived in California, Venezuela, Sweden, and Siberia. Been a war correspondent in the Persian Gulf. Was in the barricades at Kahnawake during the Oka Crisis. Had he also found time to sail around the world single-handed, in the Vendée Globe race? Three times. Obviously he knew who was behind the September 11 attacks. He’d just gotten off the plane from Kabul.

  “So why are you washing dishes?”

  “You know, I was a chef in lots of different restaurants. In New York mostly, in the eighties. I felt like getting back to my roots.”

  Sadly, Jean-Charles was also a bit of a space cadet. Kind of guy who leaves a carton of milk in the cupboard, and his car keys in the meat drawer in his fridge. He accidentally threw a broken dish in the garbage bag, which of course split right as we were heaving it into the dumpster. Renaud had to spend twenty minutes explaining that he just wasn’t right for the job. Jean-Charles threatened to sue the restaurant, for damage to his reputation. He knew several members of Parliament.

  After this series of champs came an eighteen-year-old Brazilian guy, Eduardo. Salvation! Eduardo was fresh off the plane from São Paolo, living at his uncle’s until he could find an apartment. Eduardo showed up ready to work, ready for anything, as if his future residency in Canada depended on landing this job. Buspans of dirty dishes emptied in a flash, and no matter how busy it got out front the dishpit was never less than spotless. He was joined by Basile who was sixteen, shy, and punctual as a digital watch. He’d unhurriedly work his way through piles of dishes with mechanical precision, and weather rushes with an astonishing calm. You’d turn around and find your work magically done. Basile was a private school kid like me: he went to Stanislas, where my dad and grandfather had gone, while I was on the South Shore. He reminded me of myself a little.