A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES
My elderly mother rightly maintains that
she is still in possession of all her marbles. Her pins however have betrayed
her, those matchstick legs are no longer sturdy, and easily fatigued. She
wonders if she should maybe upgrade her tricycle walker to one with a built-in
seat to ease the exhaustion of a lap around the Westmount High School
football field. Mom is angry with herself because she’s all too aware that
she’s no longer capable of doing the things she used to love to do. Once in a
while she flings her cane down an empty corridor in her seniors’ residence and
cackles madly as she strides forth to retrieve it.
When Ann and I visited with her in Montreal last Thursday,
Mom literally ticked off the dead, only four of her friends are still alive.
Her substitutes are the dogs in the neighbourhood, all of whom she knows by
name. Each week the administrators of her residence issue a double-sided
14”x11” paper bulletin detailing upcoming events and the choices for breakfast,
lunch and dinner. One of Monday’s options was pepper steak. Beside it in a
still steady, elegant, convent school cursive was a single notation: “Crap.”
Mom says she prays every day to die that night in her sleep. On the other hand,
she allows that her dreams of life in the wee small hours are incredibly vivid
and wonderful.
Because Mom has always lived in Westmount and my sister
and her family resides nearby, and I used to live proximate to the old Montreal
Forum, Ann and I stay in the west end when we visit, always stomping that same
old ground. Last week was refreshingly different. Montreal is a busy place this summer. The
city is celebrating its founding as Ville-Marie, a Jesuit mission, 375 years
ago. Fifty years ago the future glided into town on a monorail in the guise of
Expo ’67. July 1st will mark the 150th anniversary of our
country’s confederation. The city was also gearing up for Quebec ’s Fete Nationale, which used to be
St. Jean Baptiste Day until the separatists co-opted it for pride purposes.
Preparations were underway for the renowned jazz festival, a street party if
there ever was one. While attempting to book our stay, Ann and I found that
hotel rooms were at a premium and their prices reflected that.
Having lived in Alberta
for 27 years, my knowledge of Montreal
hotels was both limited and dated. In our den in Edmonton , Ann suggested altering our search
parameters and tasked me with filtering Expedia, Trivago and
Fuckknowswhatelse-dot-com. I saw an opportunity for us to maybe change out our
traditional backdrop and embrace other parts of the city during our family
downtime. I rolled the dice on a loft on de la Gauchetiere between Beaver Hall
and St-Alexandre for $168 per night. Rue Ste-Catherine, the Main, Chinatown and Old Montreal were easy pedestrian
destinations. My mother and my sister were 40 minutes’ distant on foot or less
than half that for a cheap cab fare.
Our base space was minimalist industrial,
sparse and bare with exposed concrete walls. Our view from ten stories was the
tops of aspen trees and the belfry of St. Patrick’s basilica. A black water
tower on the roof of a building to the right looked like a lunar landing
module. Across the street was a park, a manicured urban ruin, the rectangular
stone foundation of a long gone 18th century building left intact as
a communal bench. Our building’s face was jagged, like one side of a lightning
bolt. Consequently I could peer into our neighbour’s place. I realized that
whoever it was must be a permanent resident because I could see a guitar on a
stand, books and a very scientific-looking telescope – ideal for gazing into
thousands of downtown windows. The centre of the loft building was a vertigo
void, not quite a courtyard nor an atrium but a deep shaft of real weather. Ann
and I got a kick from the science fiction funkiness; the only drag was that we
had to collect our keys three blocks away from our Loft4U and humping our
luggage through Montreal ’s
narrow humid backstreets after a day of air travel was a mildly infuriating
hassle.
Our location however allowed for a delicate
brush of nearly forgotten touchstones. The outdoor stalls in Chinatown
sold bootleg knock-offs. We wandered through the bazaar and then turned north
once we reached boulevard St-Laurent. Ann and I ate hot dogs in the Montreal
Pool Room. I could see the Café Cleopatra sign across the street, the sleaziest
peeler joint I’ve ever set foot in. I was there once with my late brother; we
were between Ottawa
and Dallas, in town together for the last two hockey games at the Montreal
Forum.
Ann and I also lunched at Marche de la
Villette on St-Paul in Old Montreal, a busy bakery and delicatessen sans proper
personal space. Out on the street I scanned for a half familiar design studio;
one of my first freelance writing jobs was interviewing a gentleman who was
largely responsible for the graphic identity of the ’76 Olympic Games in
Montreal and was later commissioned by Canada Post to design a stamp
commemorating Treffle Berthiaume, the founder of La Presse, a newspaper that still publishes but no longer prints
ink on paper.
Papa Moore, my grandfather, an engineer,
walked the provinces of Quebec and Ontario evaluating the
futures of villages and towns, and whether or not they’d require a telephone
exchange. His office was in the Bell
building on Beaver Hall. “Do you have a place for a hard working young man who
has served his country?” And so my father began his career inside it until he
accepted a transfer to Ottawa
in the early 70s. This succinct tower of stone, this whole damn city, shaped my
life.
Westward ho! We ate dinner in the old
Dominion tavern, once a respite on my lengthy record shop, book store and
newsstand route, and now an upscale eatery. The delight was that nothing inside
had been changed, from the wood and the ceramic tile and the hunting lodge
decorations, so much so that for a brief moment in the men’s room I mistook the
trough pissoir for a sink. Time had passed and I’d forgotten the way things
used to be.
The Canadiens play their home games at the
Bell Centre on de la Gauchetiere. The last game I saw there was against Nashville . I took my
mother. Mom dolled up, lipstick and fur, the way she did when my stepfather
escorted her to Saturday night games in the Forum in the 70s. Mom wanted a hot
dog and a beer, I was delighted to oblige. “Mary Riley, Mary Riley,” Mom loves
people watching but she points at them as she criticizes. Dear God, I’m equally
snide and snippy but I like to think I’m less obvious. Ann frequently shushes
me in public because I guess I should probably think “Jesus Christ!” instead of
muttering it a little too loudly. I can’t hold my peace if I see someone with a
green tattoo that looks infected. And stupid bad haircuts, ninja Hitler Youth,
I can’t cope.
On departure day my sister offered to drive
Ann and me to the airport. My mother, desperate to escape her residence for any
reason, insisted on coming along for the drive. I got into the backseat beside
her. Mom elbowed me in the ribs. I leaned over and down and asked, “What?” She said,
“Nothing, I’m just moving my arm. You’ll shave when you get home, won’t you? I
hate beards.” We took the scenic route through NDG and Montreal West so Mom
could have a look around. She kept pointing at things, shops and businesses she
used to frequent when she was independent; trouble was my left eye was often in
the way.
We were early for our evening flight so
naturally boarding was delayed for almost an hour. And of course flying east to
west against the prevailing winds takes longer. Ann took the window seat. I
squeezed into the middle one. The passenger on my right was Bogart in The Caine Mutiny; he played and fiddled
with a yellow plastic ball for four hours. I couldn’t make out its embossed
logo. I couldn’t concentrate on the novel I was trying to finish, Medicine River
by Thomas King. Someone inserted a hot curling iron into my sinus cavities. My
right nostril leaked like a faucet. My eyes teared up; my ears plugged up. My
back began to ache. My four ounces of complimentary club soda ballooned down in
my belly. I stared down at that fucking yellow ball.
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