Aliss
Patrick Senécal
(Excerpt from the chapter Verrue ou Plus longtemps durera le cocon, plus beau sera le papillon, p. 37-50)
Frankly, the apartment is not as shabby as I'd feared. Okay, it's not the Ritz, that's for sure. The wallpaper is ugly, but in good condition. The floor is not level, but it's made of beautiful hardwood. The furniture is antediluvian, but still usable. The stove and fridge are vomit yellow, but they work. And I am reassured by the bathroom, the room I dreaded the most: tiny, but fairly clean. And since the telephone is included, I already have a telephone line.
I take a big five minutes to tour my home. This is it! This will be my surroundings for at least the next three months! Melancholy and anxiety take the opportunity to sneakily attack me from the rear. Usually, at this time of day, I would be home with Mom and Dad, and we would be getting ready to go out to eat...
Maybe I should phone them.
No, no, it's too soon. Come on there, I'm weakening! Hey there! I have to regain my resolve! Quick, quick, vitamins!
I step out into the hallway. I've got apartment five, on the third floor. I walk past number six. The door is ajar. I can hear music coming from inside. A song that's familiar to me, a super kitschy singer my mother often listens... What's his name?... Jo Dassin, that's it! I stop and listen, amused:
On s'est aimés comme on se quitte
Tout simplement sans penser à demain
À demain qui vient toujours un peu trop vite
Aux adieux qui quelques fois se passent un peu trop bien
[We loved each other when we parted
Simply without thinking about tomorrow
About tomorrow that comes too quickly
About goodbyes that sometimes go a little too well]
One of Mom's favourites, too. God that's schmaltzy! I have no difficulty imagining the tenant: some old biddy who reads Harlequins all day long. Pathetic. Just as I'm about to walk away, I hear a laugh from inside the apartment. A man's laugh, hoarse, old, full of rocks and thorns. So it's a guy listening to that music? A guy who, judging by his laugh, doesn't seem to be in great shape.
And with the laugh comes a smell that tickles my nostrils.
Hash. Good stuff, too.
There's a man who listens to Jo Dassin while laughing and smoking a joint.
I continue down the stairs, perplexed.
I meet a guy coming up. In his twenties. Long black hair in a ponytail. Leather coat. Cute as hell. I can't help staring at him intently. When I like a guy, I'm never shy about letting him know. My friends have always found me pretty forward in that department... Often, the guy feels intimidated and looks away. That makes me laugh. This guy, though, accepts my gaze and even returns a pretty dang lecherous little smile. I follow him with my eyes, surprised, embarrassed and delighted. It's the kind of look that could have taken us a long way if we'd met in a bar! The guy gets to the third floor, goes into apartment number six and I hear him yell:
"Christ! You still listening to that friggin' moron!"
He closes the door behind him.
Does he live there? A good-looking neighbour like that would suit me just fine... And the other guy, with him? His roommate? The laugh sounded old. His father, perhaps?
Outside, I start walking towards Lutwidge Street, probably the main street in the neighbourhood. Across the street, I see the red building, with its metal door.
I absolutely have to find out what's behind that door...
Then I notice, hanging in front of a neighbouring building, six metres off the ground, a huge fake key, as big as a sled, on which is written: LOCKSMITH. That gives me the idea of getting my new key duplicated.
I go inside. A long counter. The walls covered with keys. A lady behind the counter. She is examining a key with a magnifying glass, looking very focussed.
"Hello."
She looks up. A rat's nest of hair. Late forties. She sees me, looks surprised, then smiles:
"Yes?"
"I'd like to get a copy of a key."
She nods:
"And you pick the bes plce for that! Madme Letndre is the nmber one locksmith in the neighbrhood!"
What is that? Is that English? I understood what she said, but I really have the impression that she was speaking all weird. She puts down her magnifying glass and says to me:
"Gve me your key, I'll do it rght way."
What kind of dialect is she speaking? It sounds like an extraterrestrial trying to imitate our language! I hand her the key, watching her steadily, as if I was staring at a cripple.
"Madame Letendre, is that you?"
"Letndre, yes, that's me."
She takes my key, very gently:
"Prfect. It will tke a fw mments."
She busies herself on her machine, with her back to me. It's incredible. It must be some sort of disease that affects pronunciation or something.
"Hre you go. Tht'll be a dollr ffty."
I take the keys and pay. I keep staring at her. She's going to think I'm being cheeky. She doesn't seem to notice, takes the money, still smiling.
"Thnk you, yng lady. Gdbye."
I walk towards the door. Behind me, the locksmith remarks:
"If you nd anythng at ll, cme back nd see me."
"Anything at all? You just do keys, don't you?"
"Is thre anything more imprtant thn a key, miss? It cn opn evrything."
I smile, too, indulgently. She takes her trade a little too seriously, I'd say.
"Thank you, madame. Let... Ummm... thank you, madame."
I leave the shop. Well, well! What a strange woman!
I come to Lutwidge. Find a little restaurant. Eat a baked lasagne. Not bad. The restaurant's practically empty. The waitress is weird: she's absolutely determined to convince me that I don't like the meal.
Coffee and thinking: what should I do my first evening in Montreal? Go out? Go to a movie? To a club? Should I go shopping? None of these things tempt me, really. I'm exhausted. Dead beat. Big day.
So I return to my new home. Unpack my suitcase. Hang up the clothes I brought, put the few books and few CDs on the shelves...
Then I immerse myself in Hygiène de l'assassin [Hygiene for Murderers], Amélie Nothomb's novel. A couple hours of reading.
I hear music. It's coming from next door, number six. Another kitschy tune, from what I can tell. Is that guy smoking another fat spliff while listening to that shit?
I wonder if the good-looking guy from before is with him.
"Turn that down, dammit, or I'm the fuck outta here!" booms a voice, muffled but clear enough.
I have my answer.
The volume is lowered, followed by the same grating laugh as before.
I go lean on the sill of the open window and stick my head out. I observe the street, dimly lit by the streetlamps. Nobody.
A pedestrian goes by. Disappears.
Farther to the right, on the other side of the street, I see the scarlet building. A light is on above the metal door. Red too.
Really makes it look like a brothel.
The extraterrestrial door opens. Ho, ho! I start really paying attention. Who's going to come out? Charles? The doorman? A space invader?
Two men. They stop on the sidewalk. The light from the red bulb is subdued, so they're not easy to make out. In any case, one has a peculiar hat, looks like a top hat.
The two talk for a few moments, Then, with resounding laughter, they walk off together towards Lutwidge.
I return my attention to the red building. It has to be a brothel. And the two guys who came out must be customers.
Does Charles go to a brothel? It really doesn't fit...
I would like to see him again, you know.
I yawn. Ten o'clock, and already tired! Okay, bedtime. Tomorrow, I'll start my new life for real. So for this evening anyway, the switch goes "off."
The bed itself is a challenge. It squeaks, zzzeeek, zzzeeek, it's soft, it's antique, it must have been used during the Korean War... I lie there with my eyes open for a long time.
Little hints of anxiety. Fleeting thoughts of Mom and Dad.
A little fear. A little apprehension.
Come on, that's normal, it's my first night. I have to give myself a little time...
Still, I can't help thinking about my parents. About Brossard. About CEGEP. Then I go farther back. Secondary school. My first boyfriend. Back even farther. My piano lessons. My little elementary school... Already, at eight, I was pretty cheeky... I wanted to try everything...
The big, forbidden tree, in the schoolyard, in elementary school...
We called it that because the teachers forbade us to climb it. Head-strong little me, one recess, was standing in front of the tree and saying to myself: "Go ahead! Climb!" I knew it would get me in trouble, but I wanted to do it anyway. For the hell of it. I know a lot kids are like that, except that me, when I disobeyed, I did it without hiding, in front of everybody. I wore my disobedience proudly.
I was just about to climb the tree when the janitor came. She was a funny woman. She didn't talk to anybody, and always had a sour expression on her face. She looked at me and said, softly:
"Climb if you like, little girl. The important thing is not whether it's allowed or forbidden. The important thing is that you accept the consequences of your acts."
To an eight-year-old girl, it was a funny thing to say...
So I climbed. To the top. On the highest branch, I gloried in my achievement, while below the students looked up with admiration and the teachers shouted at me to come down immediately.
And then I fell! Oh yeah! It was quite a fall! I landed on my arm and snapped it! I bawled like a weeping willow, at the top of my lungs. There was panic all around me. But through my tears and my pain, I noticed the janitor. She wasn't upset at all. She looked at me and smiled. Not a mocking smile, or a moralizing smile, no, no. A smile that seemed, in fact, to be asking me a question: "So, little girl, do you accept the consequences?" I stopped crying almost instantly. I had just understood something.
I spent three weeks in a cast, but I've never regretted climbing the tree. Never. I accepted the consequences.
When I returned to school, the janitor was no longer working there. There were all kinds of stories circulating about her. That she was unbalanced, that she had committed some crime, that she had escaped from prison. Everything and anything. Kids always exaggerate.
From time to time, the memory of that adventure resurfaces. I don't remember that woman's name and barely remember her face, but I remember the situation. I remember the exact words she said to me. I remember her tone of voice. And I'm sure that that encounter of a few seconds, between her and me, had an impact on the rest of my life.
Okay! With all these memories, I don't feel tired at all anymore. What should I do, dangit?
I'll just masturbate, I guess. The relaxing effect is guaranteed. Nothing like a nice digital orgasm to put you to sleep.
I wet my fingers and warm up the motor.
Usually my fantasies revolve around the same theme: three or four guys fucking me at the same time. My fantasies are really slutty. I once told Mélanie. She looked at me with horror. "Aargh! That's diguuuuuuuusting, Alice! How can you find it exciting to think about stuff like thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!" Yeah, I know! Her dream is to get screwed by a stranger on a beach. Hey! That's not a fantasy, that's a postcard!
My eyes are closed. There are four guys around me, with enormous hard-ons... but it doesn't work. It doesn't get me aroused tonight...
So I think again about the great-looking guy from this afternoon, on the stairs.
Suddenly, a transformation: the four virtual men all have the face of the gorgeous guy. Swoosh! I get wet instantly. My fingers go to work. The four clones do things to me... things... Pleasure rises, orgasm is close. Four beautiful faces, four magnificent members, four perverse pairs of eyes, four times the same super hunk, and it rises, rises...
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... bang! There we go! And one orgasm to celebrate my first night in Montreal, one!
Okay. Well then, it's over.
I look at my hand, which is all wet and wipe it heedlessly on the sheets. Masturbating is lots of fun, but it's still just a consolation prize. Until now, I've slept with six guys, and if I compare that score with those of my friends, that makes me a very experienced girl. The guys involved were far from experts in the field, but even so: real is still better than virtual. Especially since I can sometimes achieve a vaginal orgasm. Which is really lucky if I can trust the accounts of some of my friends. Mélanie can't even come with her clitoris, even when she stimulates herself during penetration! That's not very good! She says that she fakes so she doesn't disappoint her boyfriend. Poor Mélanie! She'll have to fake it the rest of her life. With sex and everything else...
Not me.
Even though nothing beats a real fuck, I have to admit that, for manual labour, tonight paid off pretty well. That hunk from before must have had an effect on me.
This would be an interesting challenge: cruising my handsome neighbour. Sleeping with him? Hmmm... why not?
I turn on my side with a chuckle. This is going to be exciting!
The noises continue next door.
I think vaguely of home...
It's taking me a long time to go to sleep.
***
Let's go, get up, get up, off you go! Big day, get a move on! Breakfast and after that, downtown to shop!
The door to number six is still ajar. I'm about to go down the stairs when I hear a voice coming from inside:
"Is someone there? Mario, is that you?"
A hoarse, ravaged voice.
"Mario, is that you, yes or no?"
I hesitate, then finally answer:
"No, it's... it's me, your new neighbour."
"A new neighbour?"
"That's right..."
I take a step towards the stairs.
"Can you come in for a moment?"
Stop again. Hesitate again. Why not? Maybe I'm going to meet my good-looking guy from yesterday! Excellent!
I go in. I find myself in a living room, with the same furniture as mine, except that it's all dirty, covered in dust, stained. Several ashtrays. All full.
"Come here," calls the gravelly voice.
I step into the kitchen. It's filthy. Dirty pots, food-splattered stove, mouldy food all over the place. It smells like a small intestine. I make a face, yuk!
"In the bedroom," the voice persists.
In the right wall of the kitchen is an opening to the bedroom. I go in. No furniture, no bed, no chairs. The guy is sitting on the floor, his back against the back wall. In pyjamas. Well, if you can call his rags pyjamas.
The man is at least sixty. His hair is a dirty white and draped over his shoulders. It looks like those old twisted icicles for Christmas trees. His face had been ploughed by all the tractors of the world. There are so many wrinkles that I can barely distinguish the closed mouth. His nose is long and drooping, a mass of empty flesh.
The man's a wreck.
But in the middle of this disaster, his tiny eyes are calm, clear and lucid.
On the floor, to his right, a radio with a CD player. Dozens of CDs are scattered on the floor around the old man. A pail, in one corner, within reach.
A really strange sight. And to wrap it all up, a not very pleasant smell.
"Hello" I say, smiling, in spite of my disgust.
The wreck, sitting against the wall, one leg extended, the other bent. Leaning against his raised knee, his hand, covered with brown stains, holds a joint precariously dangling between long, bony fingers. The old man's eyes widen with surprise, then he opens his mouth to speak. So he has one. Small, thin. And toothless. A lovely sight.
"You're so young..."
Not a good start.
"Not so young. I'm eighteen."
He takes a toke and makes a haughty face.
"That's what I said."
His voice sounds like a garbage disposal. He takes a long puff on his joint, pfffffffff. He seems to enjoy it.
"So you're living in Pinto's apartment?"
"Pinto? Is he the one who died?"
"Who told you that?"
"The landlady."
He chuckles and scratches his right cheek. Movements among the wrinkles. The chuckle is scary, full of phlegm and dreary years.
"Yes... That's one way to explain it...
"Is he dead or not?"
"Let's just say that she came and got him... Well, not she personally, but..."
"Who are you talking about?"
Another toke. Another moment of bliss. Maybe he's talking about death... The poor bugger thinks he's a poet.
"Okay then. I'm your new neighbour, Aliss. Please to meet you."
"You want some?"
He takes another joint out of his pyjama pocket and hands it to me.
He wants to test me, right? He thinks he's going to impress the little lady, is that it?"
"Yes, thank you very much."
I take the joint. Pick up a box of matches lying on the floor. Light up, under the indifferent gaze of the old guy.
I take a long drag. It's really good hash.
"Quality," I say, trying to look like an expert.
"I only have good stuff."
He digs into his other pocket. Two small plastic vials. Full of pills.
"This is even better. You want some?
Chemical. Hard drugs. I've always felt a certain attraction to them, but at the same time, they scare me...
"No, thank you. Perhaps another time."
"Perhaps, yes."
He puts the pills back in his pocket, with a knowing, superior look on his face.
I take one last toke, then put the joint in the ashtray.
"Okay. I'll be off now. Goodbye."
"Wait! I'd like you to do something for me."
I wait, suspicious.
"I would like you to run a few errands for me. Usually Mario does them for me, but he took off in a huge huff yesterday. I have a feeling he won't be back for a day or two, so..."
"You never run your own errands?"
"No."
"Are you paralyzed?"
Puff. Smoke.
"I prefer not to move too much."
"Listen, I've got a lot of things to buy myself today, so..."
"Wait, wait..."
He rummages again in his pyjamas. Those aren't pockets, they're more like drawers! He pulls out a twenty dollar bill.
"It's not complicated: you buy me twenty bucks worth of food. Nothing to drink, just food. Anything. For twenty bucks.
He hands me the money. I still don't move. He sighs wearily and insists:
"It's no big deal, it seems to me!"
He's not shy, this guy! Not only does he have the nerve to ask me to run his errands, but what's more he tries to browbeat me into doing it! Unbelievable! I've never met so many rude people in such a short time: the Subway Guy, the landlady, the landlady's husband, the waitress in the restaurant, and now him, this old fart! I've had it! I can play this game too! They'll see I can have a sharp tongue in my head too!
"I'm not your maid, you know! Why should I do this for you?"
I expect him to say I'm being selfish, but he doesn't. He looks surprised, puts down his money and thinks:
"It's true, actually... Why would you do this for me?"
I'm so surprised that, in spite of myself, I say:
"Well... Just to do you a favour, that's all!"
The old bag of skin emits a contemptuous whistle.
"That's the most ridiculous reason I've ever heard!"
With those words, he crosses his legs in front of him and leans his wrinkled-lined face towards me.
"Who are you, anyway?"
"I told you, my name is Aliss, and..."
"No, no! I'm asking who you are."
He speaks his words emphatically. Okay! He wants to philosophize now! Don't really feel like it this morning...
"I have to go. Goodb..."
"Stay here, Aliss!"
What? He's trying to give me orders, this old bag-o-bones! I just won't take that!
"Hey, you may be old enough to be my grandfather, but you can't start telling me that..."
"If you buy me food, I'll give you all the joints you want."
I look at him for a long time. He insists:
"It's good stuff this, expensive, you know..."
He looks so smug, in spite of his sorry state, so conceited! How can anyone look so crappy and so pretentious at the same time? Like an Emperor who doesn't realize his throne is a toilet!
I glance at the joint. It's true, it's good shit.
"OK. It's a deal."
He gives me the twenty dollar bill.
"Perfect, Aliss. See you soon."
And paying no more attention to me, he presses "play" on his CD player. I recognize an old song by Francis Martin, the king of kitsch the last few years.
Quand on se donne
À une femme d'expérience...
[When you give yourself
To a woman with experience...]
The old man hums along with the obnoxious chorus, then bursts into laughter, for no reason.
"Nectar!" he mumbles. "Pure nectar!"
Upon which he takes a toke, while poor Francis continues emoting. Obviously, I no longer exist. I finally leave, bewildered. Really friggin' "special," this guy...
I clop-clop-clop down the steps. Those two tokes perked me up.
This Mario, who usually runs errands for the old man, must be the good-looking guy from yesterday. Mario. I'll have to remember that. Handsome Mario...
© 2000 Éditions Alire & Patrick Senécal
To find out what happens next...
