The buzzer sounded, loud and piercing, once, twice, three times nothing. JP pressed harder, violently: “Dammit, answer Dammit.” Silence. He leaned hard against the glass with his cheek, his breath condensing and fogging up his black, now crooked, framed glasses. Down around his black leather shoes, wrappers, soiled Kleenex, pop cans, bits of bread for the pigeons mixed with the remnants of hamburger buns, and a dozen or so ketchup splattered fries, among the residue of the comings and goings at the apartment entranceway. This was public housing and looked it, although the hedges, tall and rich forest green, looked solid, healthy and well tended. The people not so much. The plastic Christmas tree inside the lobby was a nice touch, its coloured lights still flickering. It was a warm March day. The orange leather lounge chair, of 60s vintage, beside it was sunken and defeated, a stack of flyers covering the seat, a foot deep. “Combustibles,” JP thought.
With a swoop, the fire that was-to-be flashed across his cortex, temporarily blinding him, and then subsiding. He blinked hard, his sight returned, the fire was out, and then he buzzed hard again. He extended his right leg to kick at an irritating spectator, an empty soft drink cup, that lay on its side, a paper straw protruding, sending it flying limply, its remaining contents, drawn back at him like black bees, splattering his pant leg. He bent over to swat at the attackers, then sighed.
Montgomery knew he was coming. JP had talked to him three times to remind him, including that morning, two times in person and once when Monty called him. Monty never answered calls, but he could make them if prompted on occasion. “I will be there at 8 am. Let me in when I buzz you. It is really important for your case.” JP had to get him to that appointment with the physiatrist, although Monty refused to see a doctor. “Ok, ok, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” JP lied. “I just want to come by and talk to you and we can go for a coffee, Ok.” JP had every intention of driving him to the appointment, and shoving him through the doctor’s door and running off. He had to try.
Montgomery had worked hard as a short-haul trucker for years, but had worked even harder at abusing his mind and body. Whatever the cause, "hard drugs or STDs”, or “both” JP thought, his world was now the habitat of demons and fantastic meanderings, that persecuted him and preoccupied him mercilessly and almost ceaselessly. He only ever admitted to smoking pot in his twenties, and it was conceivable this was the trigger for the paranoia that was severe enough to be easily confused with schizophrenia. “See this, see this,” Montgomery insisted, lifting up a half empty one-litre plastic bottle of cooking oil. His apartment was crammed like King Tut’s tomb without any “wonderful things”.
The old bikes, the stacks of empty picture frames, the garbage bags of what looked like rags or clothes, were all tentative, a prelude to the escape. JP starred at the calendar, nailed to the wall with intensity. The year was “1939”. “Where did you get that?” Montgomery starred back and said nothing. He had probably been fit, perhaps very fit, and of normal height and average weight, when he worked as a driver, but was now shriveled, skin on bone, looking more a scarecrow than a man. He wore a black ball cap, the hair that bristled out and the ragged beard were universal grey. His eyes, black, always reflected stunned-horror or coming fury, when he was this way. They could soften, a little, after about an hour or two with JP and then Monty would become contrite: “Whatever you say, it’s good”.
“He came in here and stabbed it with a steak knife. See all the holes. The knife was in the sink covered in oil. Oil leaked all over the floor, from the stove all the way to the front door when I came home.” The bottle was leaking from what looked like knife jabs, a lot of them.
“Did you report this to police? Why is he doing this to you, it sounds crazy, that’s trespassing?”, referring to Jag the landlord, one of the most persistent of Monty’s demons. JP found that soft ball questions and working towards glimmers of reality worked best. Time in discussion worked best of all, seeming to sweep away the cobwebs of the mind and stir him out from himself. His self was full of Velcro, attaching itself to the real and the unreal without distinction.
Montgomery smiled, his eyes squinting. “The police? The police were following me again. I see them where they park, watching me pass by. I get off my bike. I walk over to the front of their COP car and block it. The windows are open. They hear me. I tell them I know they are watching. I tell them to bugger off! Tell them to leave me alone! They never say anything. They just sit there and don’t move, like mannequins. The car backs away slowly, very slowly, and then they drive off burning rubber in my face. Next block, yes, they radio and then it’s another car. They tell Jag everything. But I know who they are. It’s the same COPs, Nickels for one, and Bhullar, I hate Bhullar, the ones who set me up.”
The shadowy ghost COPS, in their all black, unmarked cruisers, followed him everywhere on his daily journeys by bike across the city, and onto the highway, to Castorville, and back at night, an extraordinary distance. Now, on his mangled legs, he can only manage short distances within the city, if able to cycle at all. In either case, the COPS follow, sometimes by car, sometimes on foot, hugging the shadows, never entering the light. Sometimes Monty could see the ember of a cigarette in the blackness. At night, before the accident, he would return to his green, torn and withered army surplus tent in Martindale Park, in tangles of fallen trees and underbrush, under a canopy of green in the summer, and despair in the winter. “When I’d get back, my tent was all stomped on, all my stuff tossed everywhere. They took it! Sometimes five bucks, sometimes more, but there is always some missing!”
The blue pick up that ran him over on his bike broke both his legs and right arm, fractured three vertebrae and shattered his jaw. He had a punctured lung. The witnesses say the cyclist went through the intersection on a green. He was going slow, struggling to pull a trailer stuffed with what looked like loose metal junk and newspapers. The pickup came up behind him, seemed to turn directly into the cyclist, as if on purpose, as if Monty was invisible. The pick up rolled up the trainer at 60 or 70 km/h, and then rolled up Monty, cartwheeling his raggedy-doll body across the sidewalk and into the brick wall of the bank. He lay their unconscious, moaning, in a pool of blood, his left femur bone visible through his torn pant leg. The driver told police, “I never saw him. He must have been on the sidewalk and pulled in front of me.” The head CT scan showed some bleeding, which soon dissipated, but whatever effects of a brain damage he suffered did not present any noticeable differences in Monty’s cognition. His speech remained clear, his hearing good, his mind as befuddled as ever, his personality, no more, no less paranoid than before.
He is lucky he can still walk. “The pain never goes away,” showing his teeth, like a cornered wolf. The scars were legendary, as if his lower extremities had been roasted on a spit. The light of the reading lamp reflected across JP’s lenses, turning them brilliant hot white and opaque, as he flipped through the photos of Monty’s broken body: “brutal.” There were pins now in the femur and tibia, bilaterally. The trailer was obliterated. The bike survived in surprisingly good condition. It needed a new back wheel, but “they stole it.”
“When?”
“When I was stuck in rehab. They took my shoes too. The insurance company got me a new bike, but it doesn’t have a head lamp.”
Montgomery was now transfixed by the fire detector. “It’s a camera”. JP said nothing. “See this?” pulling out a mess of black cable. I found the microphone. It was behind the fridge. They listen to me, but I know now. They’ve replaced it but I haven’t found the new one yet. I won’t use my phone except to call.
“I wish you would answer”.
“I won’t.”
JP picked up some black and white photographs from the kitchen table, partially covered by a sheet of sandpaper and a torn oil stained page from a bicycle tube instruction insert. The top photo was of a mother and child. The mother’s profile had strong yet elegant features, beautiful really, with dark short hair, gentle natural curls, and tortoise shelled horned rimmed glasses. She was engaging the child with an exuberant and exaggerated smile. The child, probably a year old, maybe less, wore a white bonnet. Hard to say if it was a boy or a girl, but it returned the smile with evident overflowing joy. It would always love its mother. The second photo was of a boy, probably 5 or 6 years old sitting pensively right up against an older man, on a couch. The old man was evidently the little boy’s grandfather. The invisible presence that of the mother behind the camera. The old man was slight, grey, thin, his hair crew cut, with a face shaped like Munch’s The Scream, except boy and old man were expressionless, emotionless, staring blankly at the photographer. The couch was Danish style in teak, the picture frame above them on the wall also contained a silhouette in teak of a Viking ship, of expressionist design, perhaps once the summit of modernist good taste, now tacky enough for the walls of any cheap motel room.
“Is this you?” Monty remained silent placing the leaky plastic bottle in the sink.
JP was back up against the window, “Answer for eff sake.” The appointment with Dr. Krassioukova, the eminent physiatrist (short for physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist), was at 8:45 am, and he had to be on time or there’d be a cancellation fee. Krassioukova, on his part, could guarantee an exuberant and pessimistic pro-plaintiff report, as reflected by his fee: “permanent and total disability”. JP needed the report, and was willing to pay; a report that would contain the doctor’s opinion that Monty had suffered multi-trauma, that the cause was entirely the actions of the negligent pick up truck driver, that these injuries included brain damage and cognitive impairments including his paranoia, that his prognosis was poor and his treatment requirements, near infinite. This would help settle Monty’s case. To perform his side of the bargain, Krassioukova would need to meet Monty at his office, interview him to get a history, review the clinical records and conduct a medical examination. The thought of managing Monty through another two years to trial was a great, big, silent, Newfoundland-sized black dog, following JP everywhere. JP had inherited the file from a departing lawyer who mostly did motorcycle cases and acted for longshoremen, so how he got Monty’s case is a mystery. Monty had elected to keep his file with the firm, for reasons only one of Monty’s demons could possibly explain.
The eastern townships rolled by his window, in the back seat of Scott’s six cylinder blue Tercel, with each serious acceleration mocking a single engine fighter’s take off. “Multicolore”, the word his Grade 2 teacher in French public school repeated for the class with great intensity, and which JP took to this day, 20 years later, as the moment he was introduced to the sacred language of his culture, words that would unlock the mysteries of the world. It hadn’t worked out quite that way, the code being more of a Ukrainian doll, removing the top of one only revealed the top of another mystery, perhaps smaller and more intricate, another puzzle, secret, whatever, another body to be decapitated. The fall colours, especially the flaming reds, were what drew him in. The inevitable comparison between the flaming red of the fall foliage, and the voluminous curly red hair of Scott’s absolutely entrancing fiancé in the front passenger seat were Velcro on JP’s mind. The deep longing, for what can never be, the melancholy, pressed JP’s face against the window, fogging his glasses, pulling away. He drew a Kleenex from his pocket, wiped his glasses, never knowing the micro scratches he was carving into the lenses.
“That’s Brearley’s place!” said Scott. Scott and JP were research assistants on Brearley’s latest textbook on the civil law. Both were invited to Brearley’s rustic home for tea, served by his silvery wife of 40 years, perhaps some swimming and a hike. Brearley always offered this diversion as compensation for the ridiculously low pay the university allowed to his research assistants. JP cast a glance back at the Abbaye de Saint-Benoit-du-Lac, its green roof, peeked with elf like caps, and the rows and rows of windows, looking out, revealing nothing inside but silence. The long, canopeed gravel driveway to Brearley’s cottage, reminded JP of home. He needed to talk, but would he be able to find the right place, the right time. Perhaps when they walked the wide wooded path, while swatting away the last mosquitoes of summer and wretched deer flies, perhaps then the party would spread out a bit and he and Brearley would be the only one’s in each other’s ear shot, along the forested edge of the property. It had once been a farmer’s field, but now was covered with 30 plus years of maples, oaks and white skinned birches, already touching the liquid blue sky. Sarah looked back and smiled at JP, freckled and blushing slightly, which was how she always looked when she smiled. “This is going to be fun.”
“At last!” Out of the fog, that JP squeaked away on glass with his bare hand, a saviour emerged from the East, a plodding Chinese gentlemen, his face buried in a mask to fend off the latest variant. He was heading for the door. “Please, you can do it!”. The man, who must have been in his eighties, although it was hard to tell, paused, stood perfectly still, then looked back from whence he came, the look of someone who has forgotten some thing, or some one. “No, keep coming,” JP whispered. JP thought about pounding on the window to get his attention, but didn’t want to spook him. JP bit his lower lip and waited, and watched, perfectly still. The wait paid off as the gentleman renewed his clomping, painfully slow course towards the door. Unmistakably, no question now, his course was clearly directed towards the door. As he reached the release handle, the gentleman paused to size up JP on the other side of the glass, his eyes losing their blankness and darting up and down. He was then persuaded by the expensive shoes, fancy suit, gold wrist chain, silk tie and dapper trench coat, that this was a man of wealth and status, and not a bum. He was therefore “good”. The gentleman pressed down on the release handle. JP squeezed in, wasting no time, and muscled by and past the gentleman, who grunted in a heavy mandarin accent, “No, No, you no come in, you no live here, police”.
It’s okay",” JP looked back, reassuringly, “I have a meeting!” which sounded official enough. The gentleman accepted his ostensible authority. His demeanor was once again one of indifference. He turned and continued out the door and over the refuse he seemed to try to trap under the legs of his walker.
JP tore down the hallway towards the stairs, towards Monty’s room, one floor down. He threw open the door, which slammed against the wall, leapt four stairs at a time, his trench coat, transformed into more of a cape. As he reached the fire door, opening upon the hallway to room 227, he could see Monty limping in the opposite direction, “Wait!”
“I’m not going!”
“Wait, I just want to talk.”
Monty froze, his back facing JP. Gasping for air, JP slapped his right hand onto Monty’s left shoulder. “Let’s talk. Come on, let’s go outside.”
Sitting on a concrete barrier in the parking lot, Monty listened with extreme suspicion. “Look, we need this assessment. He is on our side, it won’t take long.”
“I’m not letting any doctor touch me ever again.”
“He won’t touch you. He just wants to talk to you,” lying. I’ve come all the way out here. At least come with me for a coffee. Monty moved as if bound by some invisible cable to JP’s words, at least for now. How long before the cable snapped, cut by one demon or another, who could say?
JP stopped for no particular reason at the first restaurant he saw, a Subway. He ordered a breakfast sandwich and coffee. Monty ate half an oatmeal cookie. “Come on, let’s go! I just need to check on something. Then I’ll take you home.” It was no longer time to lie. There was no time to lie. It was about momentum and the hope it would carry him through.
JP parked in front of Krassioukova’s office, at the strip mall. It was off the main drag, near a medical supply wholesaler, but with plenty of parking. “Wait here. Don’t leave,” he told Monty. JP ran in to find the doctor.
“You’re late!”
“He’s here, but he might bolt. You have the clinical records right?”
“Yes”
“You’ll have to rely on the records. My client is not well. He doesn’t like doctors and probably won’t consent to a medical assessment. But come on, it’s pretty clear what he suffered. Take it as my instructions to you to assume the facts in the clinical records. As for the rest, you might just have to get your history on the sidewalk. Get what you can and put whatever caveats you want into the report. I don’t care, but I’ve got to have a report. He is paranoid, really effing paranoid and hates doctors. Come on. I’ll get what I can out of him!”
Krassioukova followed JP out onto the sidewalk with nonchalance. Sure enough, Monty was exiting the car. “I’m not going in!”
“Who said you have to go in? Relax. I know Dr. Krassioukova, he is a good man. You can trust him. He just wants to introduce himself. How are the legs feeling?” Monty sat down on the curb, JP and Krassioukova standing over and around him in a semi circle, blocking his escape.
“Tell him how the Accident happened?
“Tell him what you remember?
“Can you still cycle, walk, how are you with housework?
“Are you scared you may end up in a wheelchair one day?
“Tell him about the pain?”
“What are you taking for pain?”
Fortunately, Dr. Krassioukova was gifted with an exceptionally good memory and made near perfect mental notes of Monty’s responses to all JP’s questions, all of which ended up verbatim in the final report.
“You sure you won’t go inside? You are doing so well.”
“Never.” Monty got back in the passenger side of the car and slammed the door.
“Thanks doctor, do your best.”
image: Dark City by Peter Pound
The cheque was ready, a cool half a million. But Monty was gone. He left #227 one afternoon six months ago and never returned. The only thing missing was his bike, his tent and a backpack. The northside was as good a place as any to start the search. It was cold, wet and damp. A foot of snow had melted in a day and now the rain came down in sheets. JP pulled the hood of his black ski jacket over his ball cap, held it tight, and kept moving, over two prostrate addicts huddled together under a sleeping bag and newspapers. A needle flattened under JP’s left leather shoe. He stepped over countless others that he spotted beforehand. Across the street, were the scarecrows, the hunched figures of the fentanyl addicts, their spines bent, some standing perfectly still with their hands touching their shoes. Others more active, preparing the next injection at their feet, swaying gently.
Before him were the gates of Hell, the last place on Earth anyone had seen Monty. Against a lamp post was the frame of his new bike, the wheels, bike rack and handles long since “borrowed”. Stepping in from the rain, JP pushed at the front door. It was open but wouldn’t budge. There was something on the other side. With all the force he could muster and focus through his left shoulder, the obstruction slid ever so slightly, until JP could ease himself inside. Catching his eye, there on the radiator, was what looked like a piece of Greek art, probably art deco. The statue was about a foot high, in a white ceramic and represented Penelope sitting on a kind of throne, with Telemachus, the babe, on her lap, waiting patiently for Ulysses’ return. Two of her fingers and one toe were missing, but she was otherwise in good condition. JP stumbled onto something at his feet. He pulled out his lighter, which revealed a black blob on the floor, then what was left of a man, on his back, eyes wide open in death. The needle still protruding from his arm. His mouth was gapping at some last revelation.
“Move aside!” The paramedics plunged though the door, driving JP up three stairs to make room. “Narcan!”
“Don’t bother, GP added. “Get out of here, said the short ugly one. “The Orc,” JP thought. The tall one, more of the Elf, injected the naloxone through the man’s clothing into the muscle of the upper leg. To JP’s astonishment, within a minute or two, the man blinked, smiled, and asked for a smoke. JP turned in disgust and walked up the stairs. It wasn’t Monty anyway.
JP worked his way through the feces and garbage and over still or snoring bodies, and the smell of disinfectant and death, till he saw what looked like an open window. It revealed itself onto a fire escape. “That will do.” Half way down the entire structure shook, and seemed to detach itself from the brick and float independently in space for what seemed like an eternity. JP froze. Almost in unison, the stairs stabilized. Dropping the extension ladder at the base, he slid down a few more steps and then leapt to the ground, landing on the edge of a small one person tent.
“Hey, man!” said the voice inside.
“Is that you Monty.”
“Go away! Leave me alone. I’m not Monty.”
Whether it was Monty or not, made little difference. Monty wasn’t going to take the money. He wasn’t going to need the money. Slipping the COPS is all he wanted in life or death and he had achieved that, by melting deep into the bowels of the dark city.
JP stood perfectly still. Far off up the alley was a garbage bin. Through the sheets of rain was vibration and motion, as if the metal of the bin were alive. JP rubbed his eyes. A river of putrid water poured out and over JP’s feet up to his ankles. There was a shriek, then laughter and a distinct shimmering. There was something emerging from the garbage bin, some cursing and recriminations and then more laughter as the ghost like figure, almost certainly a slight female, meandered away, swaying from one side to the other of the alley, almost falling but never quite, toward the headlights at the other end. Another cry. Something sounding like a gun shot or a back fire. Then the headlights went out and there was silence again.
JP held under his jacket the statue of Penelope and child he had commandeered. “Go ahead an take it,” said Jag laughing hysterically (who managed this place as well). “I was going to put it out with the trash anyway.”
This is a work of fiction. Although its form, content and narrative may at times suggest real people, real documents and records, autobiography or that the work is historical non-fiction, it is a product of the imagination. Space and time have been rearranged to suit the convenience of the book, and with the exception of public figures, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s.
to be continued …