(SUBTERRAIN LUSH TRIUMPHANT CONTEST CNF WINNER 2018)
DESIRE
Three young men walked in from the spring snowstorm, their faces flushed with cold and excitement. One of them said Jesus it’s like fucking Amsterdam in here and the other one said be cool man, just relax. I sat them at a table and told them they had to order at least beer and fries.
That’s how it’s done, I said.
Skala was an institution on Parc Avenue, a fluorescent lit mecca for Montreal’s junkies and students and middle-aged hippies all looking to score. Souvlaki and an order of fries with a quarter of something. Grass. Coke. Heroin. New drugs I’d never heard of. Crack, Ice.
One of the owners was sitting at the bar, watching a television with the sound off and sipping Metaxa from a juice glass. He was not quite 5’4 and on his lined face was a 3 inch scar from a fight a few years ago. He was the smallest, oldest and toughest of the three Greek brothers that ran the place. I’d seen George chase a man out with a baseball bat, break up a fight with a chair.
You be a good girl, he told me my third week working here but by the time I realized he meant don’t do drugs with customers, it was too late.
ECLIPSES
Summer. The lunar eclipse. Everyone was standing outside, even George. I recognized the word moon in English French and Spanish. Some people drunkenly attempted to explain what was going on. It was the sun that eclipsed the moon. No, the earth. The earth’s shadow. But most of us just stood and watched it happen. Someone said the eclipse was a sign, but no one asked of what.
After the eclipse, we walked back into the bar. It was the last few weeks of August, and we were frantic as wasps, collecting up all the sweetness left to be had in the season. Smoke and desire got tangled in my hair, my body was soft and sticky in the heat, lightly bruised, here at the wrist, there at the elbow, from the hands that reached for me, from the men who tried to teach me to say hello and goodbye in Arabic, in Spanish, in languages I’d never heard of. They invited me to do lines in the bathroom or sometimes right off the table and if George wasn’t looking, I did. I got this job a month after my husband left me. I was too sad to be good.
How Skala kept its liquor license so long was anybody’s guess. Some people said George was on the take, or buying protection. George did not seem like a crime boss. Most nights he seemed like one of the regulars, caught in a moment not quite a crisis.
Near the end of the night an old Quebecois man came in, his face a mask of scars, selling pictures of Jesus on gold and red cardboard.
Je Benirai Le Maison Ou L’Image De Mon Coeur Sera Exposee Et Honoree.
I felt like the scarred man was not a great sales representative for a loving God, and also doubtful that money raised after 1 am was going to a church but I bought one anyway. I will bless the house where the image of my heart is exposed and honoured. I taped the cross over my bed to remind myself of what I wanted in this place. To be blessed. To be exposed but also honoured.
MEMORY
I remember riding home in a cab at dawn, listening to Arabic music on the radio as my nose began to bleed. The blood as warm as tears. And waking up in the morning to the paper coke wrappers around my mattress like abandoned origami, sharp-creased bits of porn mags and newsprint. A woman’s open mouth. A help wanted ad. Religious tracts. The taste of drugs and ink and shame as I licked the last bits of cocaine off a piece of paper that promised me eternal salvation.
I remember how my voice shook when I called George and told him I had to quit.
I’m really sorry, George.
What you do? You fuck up everything! George yelled. He paused. OK. OK. You be good girl, and hung up the phone.
