Lester pulled open the front door of his building and walked the short distance to the sidewalk. Here was the bus stop for the 123, a bus Lester had never ridden. Standing slouched on the sidewalk, leaning against the sign, was a man in his thirties wearing dirty jeans, a lumber jacket and work boots that had once been orange and were now almost black with grime. Lester thought about how that particular outfit, minus the grime, had virtually been a uniform for a certain clique in his high school.
A sparse snow was falling, with heavy wet flakes; too heavy to be blown about much by the chill wind that came from the Sherbrooke end of the street and shoved gently against Lester's back as he turned and headed toward St. Jacques. He wondered why the man at the bus stop didn't wait inside the entrance to 2080 Elmhurst, where Lester lived on the top floor, in apartment 8. "Good," thought Lester. He disliked people waiting for the bus inside his building.
He also disliked the bus. It made so much noise as it slowed and stopped in front of the building, or as it raced past, that Lester always had to turn up the volume on the TV set, even now, in winter, when all the windows were closed. In a noisy neighbourhood, nothing made as much noise as that bus, not even the trains that stopped at the adjacent Montreal West train station. And the bus ran often; every ten minutes or so, even at night. It drove fast, too, on this street, but so did everyone, driving at eighty kilometers an hour although the street was only two hundred meters long. It was just one of those streets where people did that; where they peeled out and gunned their engines and drove crazy fast, even though there were lots of kids around during the day.
Lester had been living in Westhaven Village for eight years. Even after all that time, he still felt like he did not quite belong. But he knew his way around, and even now at two o'clock in the morning, he walked with the self-confident strut of somebody who is not intimidated by the filth and human rot that filtered through society and, having to settle somewhere, ended up here.
As he walked, he watched the wet snowflakes fly past him to settle on the wet sidewalk where they immediately melted, or to land on the hard gray snowbank beside the sidewalk, where they did not melt so fast and were slowly covering the old snow with a layer of cleaner white. It wouldn't last, he knew; the temperature had been hovering around zero for days now and, despite the chill wind, these new flakes would disappear and the old dirty snowbanks would continue to shrink until the weather turned cold again.
He stopped and lifted his face to the sky. From this position the snowflakes seemed to fly down at him from an angle, growing larger. He tried, by concentrating, to reverse their direction; to make them move upwards and away; to get smaller. For a second it seemed to be working, and then the illusion disappeared. He faced forward and began to walk again.
He walked past 2070 and 2060, then crossed Trenholm street where it intersected with Elmhurst. Trenholm was the street where Lester's landlord was situated, and where the laundry room was. It was the street where they put all the old people; the "nice" street, where it was quiet and surprisingly clean. Lester had lived there once, but when he approached the landlord the most recent time, asking for an apartment on Trenholm, he had been told that there were no more left. He suspected this was not true; that they did not want him on the quiet street because the last time he lived there he made too much noise and fought with his neighbours. He had only reluctantly accepted the apartment on Elmhurst because it was at the better end of the street, near the train station. No way would he live anywhere else in his landlord's territory.
Back on the sidewalk, he passed 2050 and 2040, and before crossing to the other side of the street he made sure there was nobody lurking in the alley behind the Perrette's store. One time he had walked past that alley and a man emerged and stood too close to him, asking him if he wanted to buy a gun. But there was nobody there this time, so he crossed Elmhurst and regained the sidewalk in front of 2025. He walked around the corner onto St. Jacques, and saw a hooker standing under the awning in front of Perrette's.
Lester had never seen this hooker before. She was black; tall and bosomy with long straight hair. She was quite good looking, actually; she must be new to the trade. Usually they only looked good from a distance; he would see a female form from far away and be intrigued by shape and pose, but once he got close he could see how dirty her clothes were, how scratches and bruises covered the legs that looked so sexy from afar due to the mini skirt and the four-inch heels. Worst of all, how the girl's face would be hard and closed, with lines that suggested she was in her late forties, even if she was only seventeen.
As he passed her he said "Hi," trying to say it in a way that made it clear he was not looking to become a customer; that he was just a guy from the neighbourhood who saw her as a human being; not as prey or garbage. But she did not understand his intent, and she sidled closer, smiled and said, "Hi mister. You wanna trot?"
Lester hesitated for a second. Trot? Then he stepped her way, saying, "No, no, I was just saying hi," and as he said this he noticed that a car had turned from St. Jacques onto Elmhurst and immediately slowed down beside the spot where the girl was standing. But as Lester stepped toward her the car sped up again and drove down the street.
"Aw, you made me miss my dance," said the girl, and she turned pointedly away. "Sorry," Lester said, but she ignored him and he turned and continued walking past the Perrette's, past the filthy Bar Rencontre, and along St. Jacques. Up ahead he could see the big M of the MacDonald's. His stomach growled.
Lester had twenty dollars to last him the next four days, and he'd meant to budget and use it slowly, but tonight his urge to snack had gotten the better of him. He was on his way to blow the twenty on junk food. He had a loaf of bread in the freezer and enough peanut butter; he'd get by. Besides, this was Christmas Eve and he felt like doing something special.
The wind was different here on St. Jacques; it blew right in his face, and he hunched up his shoulders, wishing he'd worn a scarf. The cold snow stung the skin on his face. Each flake seemed to have a tiny icy core. Lester began to run.
He ran past Patricia street, with dreary O'Leary's Pub on the other side of St. Jacques. He ran past Westmore, where the Neighbourhood Watch gathered every night in the summer, glaring at the hookers and pretending to write down the license plate numbers of the johns. This was bad for business, even though the police were not interested in the numbers, but the Neighbourhood Watch stayed home in bad weather, and nobody was there now. He ran past West Broadway where the derelict Coke Factory stood, its windows boarded up for years now. Then he crossed St. Jacques and rushed to the side door of the MacDonald's.
As he pulled open the door he saw a seagull standing on a garbage can, its feathers ruffled up and its head pulled back. It followed his movements with its near eye. Lester thought, "Why do seagulls always look angry?" and went inside.
Ten minutes later the door opened again and Lester stepped out holding a large paper bag. He began his walk along St. Jacques, thankful that the wind was behind him now. As he walked he relished the thought of the feast that he would have when he got home. Chicken McNuggets would be his Christmas turkey this year. He also had a garden salad, a mini pizza, some fries, a Big Mac and a cherry pie. He jingled the change in his pocket, thinking of the two chocolate bars for a dollar nineteen deal at Perrette's.
He crossed St. Jacques and walked past West Broadway, Westmore and Patricia streets. Up ahead, he saw that the hooker was no longer standing in front of Perrette's. "Must have got her dance after all," he thought, "I hope the guy doesn't kill her." He felt glum, thinking that this was more likely than he really wanted to admit, but then shrugged his shoulders. "What am I gonna do, talk her into becoming a stenographer?" he thought.
Lester stopped in the parking lot in front of the Bar Rencontre. On impulse, he turned his head upwards and looked at the sky. There were the wet snowflakes, coming down on him at an angle. Addressing himself to everybody in the neighbourhood, he shouted.
"You people are such a waste! You're the dregs of society, and you're not gonna drag me down! You're the...the...the seagulls of the world, is what you are! Eating garbage off a parking lot and looking angry all the time! Well, I'm not like you! I'm getting outta here someday!"
Feeling better, he stepped forward again, but felt that his announcement had not been complete, somehow. He paused, looked at the sky again and shouted, "But right now I'm gonna eat!" and was about to step forward again when he noticed a big snowflake falling toward him. Too big, and it was growing. He jumped out of the way, and something fell past him with a whoosh and thumped against the ground at his feet. He glanced up, to see if there were any more, then crouched and looked at what had narrowly missed him.
It was a seagull, and it was dead. Sprawled unnaturally upside down, one foot pointed straight out and the other curled up against its body, its mouth open so that he could see the yellow tongue inside. The dead seagull seemed to stare at him from the near eye. It looked angry.
Lester looked back at the MacDonald's, wondering if it was the same seagull. Spooked, he turned and jogged to the Perrette's and went inside. The Tough Midget was in there. The Tough Midget was a pimp and a drug dealer. He was about three feet tall, with curly red hair. His fingers were stubby little inch-long things. Nobody wanted to mess with him. He lived somewhere at the top of Elmhurst, near the Perrette's, where all the crack dens were. Once, Lester was withdrawing money from the bank machine at the other end of Elmhurst, at the corner of Sherbrooke street, and the Tough Midget was standing in the bank entrance because it was raining outside. A hooker came up and knocked on the glass to get the midget's attention, then pulled open the door. She was going to say something to the midget. "Good," thought Lester, "I'm going to find out what the Tough Midget's name is." The hooker stuck her head into the doorway and said, "Hey. Midget. They want you at O'Leary's." So the Tough Midget's name, it turned out, was Midget. Made sense, in a Westhaven Village kind of way.
Lester waited while the tough Midget bought a quart of Bud and a pack of Players. He examined the offerings in the two for a dollar nineteen bin. Lots of Mister Big, some Aero bars, Caramilk and Dairy Milk. Lester took a green Aero, a Caramilk and two Mister Bigs. He counted his change, then grabbed a ninety-nine cent bag of barbecue chips. A feast, indeed. He paid for his purchase and left the store, holding two bags now.
On Elmhurst, Lester walked wide when he went past the alley, stepping off the sidewalk and into the street without realizing it, then hopped back on the sidewalk and looked down towards the train tracks and Sherbrooke street, off in the distance. Nobody was standing at the 123 bus stop now. Lester hoped nobody was waiting for the bus inside his building. He hated walking past them on the stairs, wondering if they were really waiting for the bus, or if they were up to something. Nobody was on the street at all, and no cars were parked on it. It was strange seeing it so empty.
But the wind that always blew along Elmhurst was in his face now. Lester hunched his shoulders again and walked past 2025 and 2035 with his face turned down. The icy snowflakes hit him mostly on the forehead, and he glanced ahead only occasionally. Then he heard a noise, off to his left.
There, in the street, lay another seagull, in a different but equally awkward position as the first. Surprised, Lester stopped. Could it be the same bird? But he heard a thump, and yet another seagull lay on the sidewalk in front of him, its wings spread. He looked up, and saw snowflakes falling down at an angle, growing larger, but a few of them grew larger too quickly, then grew much too large, and turned into tumbling, fluttering dead seagulls that landed with thumps on the street, on the sidewalk, and on the dirty gray snowbanks.
Lester sidestepped and a gull missed him by inches. He ducked under a balcony, but the wind was making the birds come down at an angle, like the snow, and the balcony was not good shelter. A balcony on the other side of the street would be better, maybe. But Lester decided to run for it instead. Run home, it was only a short way. He ran along the sidewalk, past 2055, then leaped off the sidewalk and ran along Elmhurst on the diagonal, trying to find the shortest distance. A seagull hit him on the shoulder. It felt like a slap. But then another hit him on the head, its claws raking adown his face as it fell past. He staggered.
The 123 bus raced down Elmhurst this time, there being nobody to pick up at the stop in front of 2080. It reached eighty kilometers per hour before it passed the sign, and hit Lester in front of 2070. The MacDonald's and Perrette's bags burst open, and McNuggets, fries, salad and chips scattered across the pavement. The larger items stayed in their wrappers and bounced to the curb. Lester was tossed by the impact and landed next to the front step of 2065, where he lay across a dirty gray snowbank that had a broken recycling bin frozen into it.
The bus slowed and stopped at the top of Elmhurst, beside the alley where somebody had once tried to sell Lester a gun. It stayed where it was for a few seconds, and there was no movement on the street. Then it started again, and turned onto St. Jacques and drove away quickly.
Lester lay still. He couldn't move. He saw Elmhurst in front of him, but at an unfamiliar angle because he was lying down. The top of Elmhurst, where Sherbrooke was, seemed to be down near his feet, and the St. Jacques end seemed to be over his head somewhere. His depth perception was all screwy, and he realized he only had one eye open. Rotating his eyeball to look up at the sky, Lester saw snowflakes falling down at him from an angle, growing larger. He tried, by concentrating, to reverse their direction; to make them move upwards and away; to get smaller. It worked, and the cold snow stopped stinging the skin on his face. He looked ahead again, and saw a McNugget on the front walk beside him. He looked for the dead seagulls, moving only his eye, but couldn't see any. He wondered where they'd gone, but then he saw a graceful white form settle onto the street. It was a seagull; a live one. More of the white birds glided to the pavement, where they began to daintily pick up the fries and chips. They tilted their heads to face up to the sky, and swallowed with big gulps.
Lester heard a rustling sound, and a seagull, looking very large because it was so close, landed on the snowbank in front of him. It wore a mini skirt and grimy work boots. It had curly red hair and stubby little inch-long fingers. It craned its neck forward, its beak coming close to the eye Lester could see out of. It turned its head in profile, and the near eye stared at him, angry. It turned its head back and stepped closer, then jabbed its beak straight at Lester's eye. The beak seemed to grow very large, and then Lester could not see anymore.