Donc… Quand est-ce que tout a commencé?
Un jour, Marie-Ève m’a fait remarquer que tout le monde, aussi, buvait trop, ou beaucoup, en tout cas, chez nous – surtout ma mère
Comment vous sentez-vous?
Je suis terrifié. Je suis terrifié d’avoir à parcourir ce chemin, et de tituber devant vous…
Tu n’es plus à tituber; tu es brisé, par terre, et tout le monde l’a vu, déjà. Tu dois ramper, te traîner jusque là-bas, loin en bas, loin en-deçà, en te faisant des entailles à te laisser perdre des morceaux d’entrailles sur les pierres – ou, sinon, il y a pire…
C’est le bon chemin…
Nous avons eu un rire léger; bref.
C’est déjà ça, de le reconnaître.
Avec Carlson, on ne sait jamais; une fois – il me l’a raconté, et j’en ai entendu parler d’autre part, – il aurait bien pu passer par-dessus la rampe du balcon d’un troisième étage, pendant un party avec la vieille gang de notre ancienne école, chez une fille qu’il espérait vaguement s’offrir en spécial, visant l’aubaine. Confus d’abus de bière forte et foncée, il s’était éclipsé après avoir envoyé chier tout le monde avec un seul borborygme sans doute et avait franchi la porte coulissante vitrée, soudain mu par une envie d’uriner. C’était en plein mois de janvier. Un ami l’avait retrouvé plus tard à moitié congelé, les culottes aux genoux, une main crispée sur le scrotum et entre deux doigts de l’autre une cigarette éteinte et cassée, la moitié pendouillant au bout d’un lambeau, rictus figé au visage.
Quelque chose le protège de la mort.
9 nov.’09
Ices High
(“hobo episode”)
I woke up this morning with my head in my ass––achingly bent-back. I had dropped asleep with some nasty stuff on my mind. Something that happened about a year and a half ago that I was suddenly reminded of after quite a while of no thinking about it at all¾no more, did I hope. I had been reading late past midnight, like I do all the time. It’s a scene in the book that must have triggered the recalling, through the mood that gleamed onto me from it––talk about a masterpiece of darkness in the light of shy hope–– : The Lord of the Rings. I take to read it anew from time to time––comfort stuff; though I should have not watched the movies. Curiosity. Sometimes that feeling needs to be left out to dry. Anyway. So in the end, before the One Ring is destroyed, and Sauron therefore also is, Gandalf, heading a small crew of heroes, confronts Saruman, a White Wizard, like himself then, who had slowly been turning deceitful and bad and blatantly betrayed the Council of the leaders of the Free Peoples. His fortress is but ruins; his army of great Orcs has been eliminated; his forges and workshops, crushed and flooded. His power, mostly withered for good. And he has no allies at all anymore, and are getting at last renowned his wacky doings. When he meets him afterwards, Gandalf will offer him to repent and give a hand for reconstruction and for the scouring of what evil is left astray throughout the world––which he’ll refuse in his shattered pride. Enough said; the episode I came to goes thus, a wrestling of force of will opposing the two mages, with “The Voice of Saruman” the frustrated fool’s last but not least might, as he is held captive in his besieged tower. Commanding, Gandalf calls the traitor to show up, and suave yet prickly, foully mean, Saruman tries to sow doubt and rebellion in each heart, at which he succeeds more or less, until comes Gandalf’s turn, who, alone, resists firmly, and then, gathering palabering’s in vain, counterstrikes intently to bring down the shameless foe: “‘I did not give you leave to go’, said Gandalf sternly. ‘I have not finished. You have become a fool, Saruman, and yet pitiable.’” It goes on. Finally, writes Tolkien: “He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice. ‘Saruman, your staff is broken.’ There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman’s hand, and the head of it fell down at Gandalf’s feet. ‘Go!’ said Gandalf. With a cry Saruman fell back and crawled away.”
I can’t really get why, but at once my pulse went wild and my breath short; I felt dizzy, dry-throated and thirsty yet soundly somewhat on the verge of throwing up, like I had smoked a cigarette too quickly––and I remembered in a flash something I wish I had not committed emerging through the feeble fences of denial.
In the summer before this year’s, I was shaking off my student’s mild agony working as a bike courier, rain or shine as it goes, downtown and all-around––the hard life, or not so; the real thing; you sleep fast and well at night, you get back on track, and you get in top shape. One lukewarm, cloudy afternoon in late May, as I had to move up a short distance against traffic on a one-way street, I was rolling calmly on the sidewalk––devoid of pedestrians except for one, who turned out aggressive. Yet another freaking madman. In his early fifties––or, likely, around forty and looking much older thanks to a life of crap, he wore a brand new NYPD blue baseball cap. Stuff got for free or what. His dirty beige pants were loose at the ends. Outdated purple sports jacket, cheap but brand new sneakers, and a dusty khaki fabric pack-sac all worn out and ripped at the seams. I noticed that all afterwards. He was hopping down, close to the street-side parked cars, when I passed him at more than arm’s length, and with no warning he stretched out and hit me on the shoulder, hand open, and shouted, “In the street, the bikes!”
He caught me wrong time. Still on wheels, I turned around.
“In the street, the bikes!” he cried again. “In the street!”
You don’t need say twice. Bark twice. And you don’t need to strike.––I remained speechless.
I was overlooking down on him, standing still, straight up on my pedals, fingers clutched on the brakes. He had also turned, about-faced, now slowly walking backwards with a folly gleam in his eyes––“In the street, the bikes!”––yet he was not crazy, I believe now; only cranky.
You don’t want to step down for that freak, you mind. You don’t want to make it bad.
“In the street! In the street, the bikes! In the street!” Provocative motherfreaker.
I’ll freak him out.
I unlocked my right knee and dropped on my left pedal, smoothly springing forward. He lifted up his weak fists and stopped; I had only to let roll into him to fight. I braked. I wanted to utter something, but he kept shouting as, with his fists back down and walking away, I slid by his side, him head turned, my staring hardily deep into his eyes as for saying, “You’re lucky, bastard, but come and try again, if you like.” I caught a glimpse of some light fear from down under his askew cap––fine, thought
He turned left on Ste-Catherine––shouting one last time––as I went back along. Then, I don’t know what got me; I made my next delivery, and cold anger struck me. I’m always kind usually, unless otherwise needed––but not so mad. I felt a dumb urge to face the freak-ass again and purge him. Oftentimes something like what had just happened happens to me and I don’t even reply. But now, I don’t know why, it was like, no way; you want to hit, you’ll be thanked. What a shame.
I’m lying. Oftentimes I had gotten to want to strike back but had turned away finally, or couldn’t get to find the freak’s track anyhow.
I rode carefully east down Ste-Catherine from corner
He didn’t notice me coming up from behind. I rolled silently past him to his right on the sidewalk that he had just reached and I spoke, “You want to drive me to the street? Right?”
He didn’t let out a sound, but stopped.
I stopped too. I stepped down and let my bicycle lay on its side on the cement, wheels turning free slowly. “Now come,” I groaned.
He stirred up, lifted his arms like before, walking towards me, and I awaited.
“In the street, the bikes!”
As soon as the tip of the fingers of his thrusting hand touched my chest, my fist hit his chin. His jaw snapped, and pieces of his teeth instantly jerked out. I was expecting that blood would leak from the corners of his mouth, but his teeth and gums must have been too rotten already for that to occur at once.
Prior to finding him back, I’d imagined a scenario; I’d thought to myself, picturing me in front of him, saying: “You want to drive me to the street, right?” then firing at him, catching him by the arm as he’d be falling down, and throwing him right away in the middle of the street for his reward––“Off in the street, you go, you!”––When I drew back my right arm and loosened my fist, I had a feeling, the glimpse of a feeling, the shadow of the beginning of a thought that went: I shouldn’t have done this.
How miserable.
I got so angry, at myself as I wouldn’t know then––and on top of it all, the man didn’t fall but froze there, square on his feet––that I took a step forward and threw a direct left piercing past his relaxed-down stomach muscles, and stopped as he fell coughing, aching, struggling for air with sucking noises, and burping.
I might have killed the man. That’s how Houdini died––taken by surprise with a punch in the abdomen. When you do that, you can easily rupture a bladder, tear something inside. Houdini expired within days in horrible pain. I hope the freak died quick. I don’t want to have gotten him to live in his shame; that’d be bad enough.
None of the passers-by did anything––not that I’d been aware of. They probably thought the man deserved it well. Freaking bunch of bastards, they’d be.
Un jour, soudain, j’imagine, j’avais pris conscience de l’absurdité de mes albums imaginaires qui n’allaient jamais se réaliser, j’avais même dû le savoir dès le début, je ne sais plus, et je m’étais mis dans l’esprit d’écrire un roman – ou plutôt j’avais écrit un gros paragraphe impromptu, un soir, en revenant de travailler, sans m’en rendre compte, le paragraphe qui se laisse composer mentalement pendant que je marche et que je transcris de mémoire vive ensuite, avant même d’y penser, et trouvé que c’était riche en matière et bon dans le ton pour une entrée en matière, quelque chose de sombre, d’hypersensible et de spectaculaire – et pourquoi?
L’urgence de la tragédie, sans doute, ce talent. –
puis j’avais travaillé là-dessus longtemps sans aucune discipline sérieuse pour me retrouver avec ça : une douzaine de fragments de longueurs diverses, complets ou inachevés, pas encore inter-reliés ni même ordonnés avec certitude, plus une moisson de notes laconiques et bien-intentionnées, pour un total de quarante pages sur traitement de texte, environ, maximum, à double interligne, et encore une série d’idées de développements figées dans un pur état de projet, sans traces écrites, mais que je n’ai pas oubliées, ou à peine. Je déteste perdre des choses – même des idées qui ne servent à rien, parce qu’elles sont quand même de moi.
Un roman en anglais. Pas pour cibler un éventuel « marché » (Dieu soit méchant!) – dans la création, je me place du point de vue, sick, de l’œuvre d’art, et du point de vue de l’œuvre d’art, je me fous complètement de l’importance ou pas de la population du public – non, mais parce que, pour commencer, sans m’en douter, j’avais écrit en anglais – le paragraphe, comme ça – et aussi parce que, après-coup, c’est sûr, écrire en anglais à Montréal, j’avais besoin d’une réponse, même pour moi-même, et j’avais trouvé un moyen, dans une inspiration, d’intégrer ce fait réel problématique dans la charpente signifiante de l’histoire narrée : quelque chose de conceptuel. C’était un truc de passe-passe formel facile, de la poudre aux yeux bien flagrante, et décevant, finalement, et pourtant le genre d’entourloupette que les prétentieux petits littéraires académistes tendent à confondre suavement avec une certaine manifestation du génie; sauf que ça me permettait surtout de circonvenir une difficulté terminale : je ne suis pas parfaitement bilingue et ça aurait paru noir sur blanc dans mes tournures de phrases malhabiles et dans la pauvreté de mon vocabulaire, et pire, de toute façon, dans ces conditions, jamais un éditeur n’en aurait voulu à moins que…
Admettons donc que le narrateur – qui est le personnage principal – soit un Montréalais descendant de Canadiens-français et issu d’un quartier dur où l’anglais prédomine, comme Pointe-Saint-Charles, par exemple, et qui, symptôme curieux d’un mal-être frisant le trouble de la personnalité schizoïde, entretienne une vie intérieure en anglais depuis l’adolescence malgré sa connaissance lacunaire de cette langue et le fait que sa vie sociale, bien que rendue anémique, se passe toute en français, y compris les études, tout juste abandonnées, à l’université…
Sein du ciel! Je pouvais même prévoir teinter la fable d’un éclat de commentaire politique en filigrane, de critique sociale! Malheureux que j’étais.
Le titre, Ices High, qui m’était venu sur une variation de « Aces High » – le titre, remarqué quelque part, d’une chanson de Kiss, il me semble, ou d’Iron Maiden, je ne sais plus, que je n’ai jamais entendue – est en lien avec la scène paroxystique sur un sommet glacé des Adirondacks en conclusion d’un passage épique surgissant de la mémoire de Doug et que je n’ai jamais écrite.
Essentiellement, ça devait être une histoire d’amour en forme de drame psychologique ou vice versa. Bourrelé de retours en arrière, déjà. Doug est au plus bas de ses bas, déprimé chronique entre élans d’espoirs brefs et raréfiés qui l’amenuisent, mais il a de l’âme en réserve sous la gravité du besoin qu’il a d’apprendre à vivre et à accepter qu’il doit avoir une identité. Ah, oui : il est d’ascendance canadienne-française et sa langue maternelle est le français mais son père, le second mari de sa mère, natif du Sud-Ouest métropolitain, l’a prénommé Doug.
Il fait la connaissance d’Emily, par un hasard que je n’ai jamais expliqué, un petit feu de passion brûle et s’éteint très vite, et autant le couple se révèle mal assorti et la durée complète de leur relation est brève, autant les chocs sont vifs pour Doug et l’expérience lui est catalytique d’un bon début d’éveil nouveau.
Emily, allez savoir pourquoi, se fait surnommer Dot par ses amis. Doug n’aime pas ça. Doug n’aime pas non plus son propre nom parce qu’il lui rappelle constamment que,
in his childhood and teenage years, he had never been given a nickname from his schoolmates: as he puts it, “they were saying ‘dog’ was a pretty good surname––it was just perfect.”
Alors Emily fait cadeau de son premier vrai surnom à Doug : Dot & Doug deviennent Emily & Kite.
Ce genre de fatras marécageux, d’agglutination forcée de petites inspirations dont tous les sens s’emmêlaient. Je n’avais aucune chance de m’y retrouver, discipline ou pas. En définitive, le projet aura été un prétexte, le récit-cadre de la relation entre Doug et Emily, jamais concrètement entamé, m’aura servi d’excuse inconsciente pour expectorer ces scènes mémorielles malignes, transmuées en flashbacks de Doug, nées de mes propres auto-saloperies.
Ices High
(“flowers episode”)
I bought her flowers. While working I had had some dude paying for flowers at my cash and I thought, man, we’re selling flowers. In freaking January. Looked like a great idea. Marie was not doing okay. She still had university class assignments from the past semester to finish, and the new semester had already begun. She was quite in a depression. Blocked, incapable of getting going. Sometimes being a student––that is, a nobody who works hard, often feels isolated, doesn’t get enough sleep and has a pretty chaotic agenda––does just that. Marie had called my name through Windows Live Messenger. “Doug”, she’d typed, “I’m sorry”; “I’m not feeling okay.” She explained. I knew she was having a tough time, but the depth of her present problem I ignored. Freaking hell, did I cry. I tried to give her the props and coach her a little like I could. I let her express herself a lot, asking precise questions, and I encouraged her. I helped her find ideas for her essays and organize them. I told her everything I’d do if I were in her position––as a matter of fact, I had already been quite late on an assignment or two one time, and I get good grades and I’m doing quite alright. Among hints, I urged her to talk plainly to the teachers involved––it was a while since she had last e-mailed them. In the end, she had to have her own way, as I expected––it’s always like that, and I do the same whenever I’m given advice––and I haven’t asked her about that all any more, it was enough. If she’s not done still she will feel ashamed, I think, and if she––well, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask.
When my shift ended, I carefully chose a bouquet full of warm colors––orange, red, and a bit of yellow––when one of the minor service managers––I don’t quite get it, there seems to be a lot––she saw me waiting in line with the flowers, and she was all, “Oh! the lucky one! Doug, tell me do you have something you need to be forgiven for?” “No,” I said, “Maybe something to win.”––And I ran home.
First thing, I put the bouquet in a pot with room-temperature water, then I got online to see if Marie was there. She wasn’t. It’s okay, I thought, I’ll just wait and see. I had plenty of time, and the flowers were alright. Ten minutes went, and she came up. I asked her if she was home. She was at our students union’s premises, but she was about to leave, and she said we could chat again in a quarter hour. I passed the time watching Queen videos online––“Killer Queen” and, mostly, “You’re My Best Friend”. When I like a song, I quickly learn it by heart and I sing it as I’m walking outside. That’s what I did as I went to the dépanneur to buy milk––I freaking don’t know why: “Rain or shine, you stood by me, girl, and I’m happy at home (happy at home!)”. When she got back online, we chatted a little, then I asked if I could come just to say hi, passing by. She asked why. I didn’t want to spoil it, and at the same time I didn’t want embarrass her, so I promised I would only be there for thirty seconds, no more, just passing by, leaving her alone so she could resume work. She was intrigued, she said, and I know that she knows that I––well, that I might have some kind of feelings for her. Finally, I typed, “it’s only because I have something for you”––“nothing”. She said it was fine, that I could come, but she wanted me to warn her beforehand. That is exactly why I asked first if I could come, I answered.
We went on chatting for awhile. I didn’t want to rush anything. From time to time I would take a look at the flowers there behind me. They were alright. They looked really nice, too. Marie told me she was going to take a nap, thirty minutes to an hour. I went on the Internet again to read stuff about Freddie Mercury. Queen have had a hard time being appreciated, particularly in the U.S., because they didn’t quite appeal to young men who preferred rock with a self-promoting and macho attitude lyrically––say, young men who didn’t like it too gay. Critics have pointed to the band members possessing university qualification, to their middle-upper class up-bringing and to their refusal to serve as a voice of the oppressed. What I think is that Freddie Mercury was one of the most honest and open-hearted men to have ever reigned on a stage. I’m talking about an openly gay man who nevertheless has deeply loved the same old girl friend until his death, who dealt with frank emotions in his songs, and who did it brilliantly and positively. If he hadn’t died, we can’t even imagine what he could have done.
When Marie wrote again, she said she wanted to go get a moccaccino and asked if I’d accompany her. We agreed that I would meet her at her place. I put my coat, scarf, toque and boots on, and I took the flowers out of the pot. I covered the bouquet with a plastic bag and put it in one of my textile grocery bags, and I went, feeling strange, but not quite thinking about what I was doing. This was something to make her feel better, and that just had to be it.
She let me in with a great smile. She’s incredible. Even when she’s down she’s always smiling and she laughs easily. She has the kind of face that’s always smiling. Me, when I’m not playing games, one can tell right away the mood I’m in. I guess that has to do with my acting skills––when I feel like letting it show, it shows.
“Well! so, what’ve you brought me?” she asked, looking into my eyes. I avoided contact. “Flowers”, I said, getting them out of the bags. She had quite a burst. She thanked me, smiling like there was no tomorrow. I was focusing on not getting excited––that is, not thinking about anything at all, like I’d just lent her some pen to write something down, or passed the butter. She went to the kitchen, filled a pot with water, put in the bouquet and put the pot on a bedside table in her bedroom, which was just in front of the apartment’s entrance. I didn’t want to look in her room. She couldn’t stop smiling, laughing and thanking me as she dressed up to go. “It’s nothing,” I said. “A small thought. Because it’s not––”; she interrupted me for what, I don’t remember, and I don’t know now what I was about to add. Later, on Messenger, she asked me, “sincerely, the flowers, what was that for?” I answered, most sincerely, that it was for her, because she wasn’t well, to help her feel a little better and that I had seen someone buying flowers at my cash and that it had given me the idea, out of nowhere, like––I think I wrote of sunshine in the winter, though I’m not sure.
Oh, well.
We bought moccaccino in a coffee shop and we walked back together. We arrived to the avenue she lives on through a perpendicular street, in front of a short dead-end. I noticed the green sign reading “CUL-DE-SAC” on the pole of a streetlamp. “Oh, oh,” I said, tongue-in-cheekily, “We’re done. We’ve come to a dead-end.” We split then, her going eastward, me west. I sang “You’re My Best Friend” going on, with nothing else in mind. When I got to the street corner where I was to turn, less than a minute’s walk from my apartment, I decided to make a short stretch to the nearby dépanneur. I got straight to the beer fridge, and I chose a pack of the highest alcoholic percentage crap there was. Now that will taste like nothing, I thought.
I don’t quite know what happened then. I totally lost control. It’s hard to understand why. Something I was feeling about Marie. I know she’s not in peace with herself and that that had been going on for a long time. She’s okay, and she’s about fine generally––except when she goes deeper down like just recently––and she’s a fun-loving person who is at ease in society, apparently, but there is one thing about her: she’s a good friend, helpful to others, but she won’t accept other people’s love or even affection easily, even at all. And I––well, I have a few friends, in addition to her, to whom I can talk when it can be a relief to me, and––well, with her, I have been beginning to feel like really caring for someone. I just can’t explain how that makes me feel––it’s not exactly pleasant.
It is strange, the way she refuses to receive affection. In appearance, she seems to take it first, yet she doesn’t feel like she deserves it so it’s like trying to heat up a block of ice––it melts a little on the sides but the body remains hard and cold.
I guess I freaked it all up semi-consciously in order to prevent myself from getting to be able to expect something that I must have greatly doubted could ever come.
My memories of the rest of the night are all fluffy. I found Marie back online and we resumed chatting as I got drunk fast. At one point I must have opened myself too much and immediately after that, all that had just happened in the conversation went blank in my mind––and I had to admit I had gotten lost in the plot, disintegrating, putting myself under her caring now, I went off like dick wad, pouring tears on my keyboard that have morphed into salty dried crust overnight.
I woke up late and I singed up to Messenger after I’d had a coffee. Marie asked if I was doing better. I said I was quite living up to my own expectations. I knew I must have put things worse than they really were, so I told her that I surely had exaggerated a little. In cold blood, I asked her if I had told her that I love her. She answered yes. I was typing, “that was not an exaggeration”, when her next line came up: “is it false?” and I hit the “enter” key. She sent an emoticon of a smiley giggling with a hand covering its mouth, and she typed that it was funny because it always made her feel strange, to be told that. I wrote that I knew. I had already let her understand that I thought she was quite special, and seen the results.
That was all pretty disastrous. But I was feeling somewhat proud of having been able to say something meaningful, albeit shamefully. I said I was sorry. She said it was alright, and that she would like us to talk about it all live. I said that was fine.
I went to work for the night, and after work I got drunk even more this time, all alone this time, taking care not to talk to anyone online, and yesterday I spoke to a trustable girl friend of mine about it all, and I didn’t lie, I didn’t hide anything, I told about my love, I told all that was, including the drinking part, and it soothed me, it helped make things clear, so now there’s nothing.
*
I had snapped, and it wasn’t going to be long before I knocked the last nail in. Marie and I continued to have conversations. The last thing I would have expected to happen happened: she began to date a guy. Someone I also knew from university, and whom I knew, maybe, would be good to her. I haven’t been jealous the slightest bit. I got to witness it from the outside looking in, having experienced them myself before, those inevitable torments that complicate coupling, making the birth of an arising well-being perverted by its intimate correlate: the fear of loss. Somehow, I was feeling as relieved by Marie’s rejection––for it had finally kept her safe from me––as I was resolved to anticipate a downfall for her that wouldn’t be my doing. Anyway, I kept talking to her because of nothing else than the fact that I appreciated it.––Maybe, also, that made me gain pride, made me exercise in dominating frustration. Then, one night, as we were chatting again on Live Messenger about our respective student’s struggles––tiredness, void, alienation––with her still living through them worse than myself, she let in that, on top of it all, her boyfriend and her were having their first lovers’ fight. I didn’t want to know, I asked nothing; I only wrote, indifferently, that there always is a first time. I really don’t know why, after that, just a few lines down, she struck me straight past the cool face. I certainly hadn’t said anything intentionally nice or kind, in all cases, for I would remember it, but she sent the sun emoticon along with the phrase, “Doug… you enlighten my night.” The reply I made, in a reaction I absolutely didn’t think up, seemingly got lost in the middle of her free-flowing posting––because she does type fast––; in any case, she didn’t answer it nor let on that she had gotten it. My reply was, “you are making me sick”, and I wasn’t drunk this time.
Freaky!
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