Neighbourhood Watch Read online

  ‘With its e-nor-mous land mass, Russia is home to a va-ri-e-ty of races, and the stan-dard for fe-mi-nine beau-ty va-ries wide-ly. Howev-er, there are cha-rac-ter-is-tic traits, such as pale skin, grey-blue eyes, blond or chest-nut hair, plump-ness from lack of ex-er-cise and the se-clu-sion de-mand-ed by win-ters that last seven or eight months. With their pale faces, their de-li-cate fea-tures are some-what fa-ded like the fea-tures of the face of the moon, and these blur-ry lines make for faces with a Nor-dic soft-ness and nor-thern grace.’

  * * *

  ‘Jesus, it’s cold!’

  Meg hops leg to leg, faster and faster. She stumbles, almost falls. The girls smile, Meg too. She’s lost a tooth; there’s a big gap right in the middle. She couldn’t care less. She laughs anyway; it warms her up.

  From the corner of the sidewalk, Mélissa spots her at a distance. She’s there, laughing hysterically. Her mother, laughing with the other girls.

  Night falls. Their day is starting. Fishnets. She must be freezing to death.

  Mélissa slows her step. She wants to see her. She wants to be seen.

  On the other side of the street, Mélissa stops across from the group of prostitutes.

  One of the girls notices her, taps Meg’s shoulder.

  ‘One of yours, Meg.’

  Meg stops laughing and turns toward Mélissa.

  ‘Fuck.’

  Meg looks down at the ground.

  Her mother’s ‘Fuck’ crosses the street and slaps Mélissa in the face. Two sketches of women, frozen, facing each other. Trying to find each other.

  Slowly, like a mountain climber, as if she were scaling a slippery slope, Meg raises her eyes to her daughter.

  Eyes forming a bridge from one to the other, from either side of the sidewalk, they look at each other. Fuck the fifty metres, fuck. Suspended above the world, for another moment, they look at each other. Mélissa is warm. It’s been a long time.

  Meg gently places her hand on her neck.

  From the other side, Mélissa watches the maternal gesture. Tries to decipher it. Cover your neck. She’s saying cover your neck. Definitely, that’s what she means, cover your neck, you’re going to freeze. Mélissa pulls her coat up over her bare skin.

  A car goes by and cuts the bridge in two.

  * * *

  ‘Sure is quiet next door! Bet they drank their pay last night, eh, Dad?’

  The TV is on in the little apartment. The TV people are talking over each other, all jumbled. Steve is crashed on the sofa in the living room smoking, staring into space. He doesn’t answer. In the kitchen, Kevin empties the jar of relish on his hot dog.

  ‘Aren’t you gonna get ready?’

  He yells over the voices. Steve doesn’t hear him. Kevin takes a bite.

  ‘Dad, aren’t you gonna get ready?’

  On the sofa, Steve rouses from his stupor. ‘Mmm.’

  Takes a drag of his cigarette. A long one to impress his kid. It burns halfway down.

  ‘Whoa!’ Kevin says, feigning admiration.

  Steve blows smoke in his face, smiling from the corner of his mouth. ‘Wipe your face. You got relish everywhere.’

  Kevin wipes his chin on his sleeve.

  ‘Jesus, Kevin! Use a dishcloth, for chrissake. You’re not a threeyear-old.’

  Kevin is surprised by his father’s tone.

  Looks at him a moment, frozen. Then heads to the kitchen to grab a dishcloth.

  * * *

  On the other side of the wall, the little brothers are watching Black Vampire. They’ve already seen it three times, but they never get tired of being scared. Mélissa plopped them in front of the screen after playing mother. What she can remember of it. Someone who is there at home, and who appears when you need something. Like when you’re hungry or you’re smelly and it’s bath time. She poured bowls of cereal with banana slices. She even put chocolate syrup on top to make her little brothers happy. So they’d like it. But the chocolate sank to the bottom, and they didn’t even see it. Didn’t taste it. It’s not easy being a mother. Maybe that’s partly why hers left. Because Mélissa couldn’t taste her effort.

  Now Mélissa is tired. Inside, it’s all tired. Doesn’t want to do anything else.

  Her mother’s bedroom is too big with no one in it. The window looks out over the alley.

  It’s snowing outside. Around the street light, it’s like a puddle of light stuck to the sky. There’s a squirrel balancing on a wire, and a few sparrows waiting. Behind them, the sluggish river, ice its shield.

  Mélissa smacks the window. The squirrel doesn’t fall, and the sparrows are still there. She smacks it again, harder. Still nothing. Nothing is moving; it’s like she doesn’t exist.

  Mélissa turns out the light and slips into the big bed. It smells like her mother’s hair. She falls asleep.

  * * *

  Steve has closed the bedroom door, but not completely. As usual, there’s a crack the light comes through. He gets undressed, sighs.

  Kevin, in pyjamas in the hall, approaches on tiptoe.

  Steve opens his closet. Takes out the large pouch. It’s like it holds a secret. The zzzzzzz of the zipper; then, underneath, the red of the costume. Steve puts on the gold pants first. Pulls on the hems so they fall properly. Bare-chested in his winner’s pants. Glances in the mirror. Behind the door, Kevin watches the metamorphosis. His father slowly becomes a superhero. Steve pulls the form-fitting jersey over his head. He looks strong, with his round shoulders and his broad back under the shiny fabric. Just one thing missing. The thing.

  Kevin squirms, impatient, trips in the doorway. Holds his breath. Steve turns. Silence. Kevin, like a statue, stops moving.

  Steve roots around in the large pouch and pulls out the last thing. He holds it at arm’s length in front of him. It catches the light from the street, it catches the whole world; for an instant everything exists through the piece of red fabric that Steve, in a movement that’s perfection, slips over his shoulders.

  The transformation is complete. Big, head held high, with his cape on his straight back: he is the strongest man in the world.

  Steve, his fingers blackened from his last day at the garage, clumsily tries to tie the cape. His fingers won’t do what he wants. He gets impatient. Fuck. The thin tie breaks. Steve looks at himself in the mirror, squeezed into a cheap costume, a bit of string between his fingers. Closes his eyes, holds back tears.

  Kevin tiptoes back to his bedroom. Heroes don’t cry. He slams the door.

  • • •

  Louise jumps.‘Goddamn paper-thin walls,’ she mutters. She falls right back asleep on the sofa, with the stale remains of sex with end-of-day lovers: a porno film drools its light on her. In her room, Roxane is in pyjamas standing in front of the mirror. She delicately holds in her hands the picture of Anastasia, torn from the red book. Her eyes travel from the Russian face to her reflection. She explores all the contours: the roundness of the cheeks, the slight swell of the lip, the curl of the eyelashes. In front of the mirror, a long time, like that.

  * * *

  Kevin in pyjamas, in front of the giant TV in the living room, is plugged into his machine and is shooting little men who run in vain to the four corners of the screen.

  Steve roots around at the back of a drawer, irritated, his cape balled up on the counter.

  Kevin looks at him out of the corner of his eye. Pauses the massacre. A little man is frozen, arms outstretched, exploding, the blood on pause, pooled in the middle of the screen. Kevin approaches his father.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  Steve growls, his head in the drawer. Kevin takes the cape in his little hands. Steve snatches it back.

  ‘Leave that alone. It’s bad enough as it is.’

  ‘What are you looking for, Dad?’

  Steve dumps the contents of the drawer on the floor, kneels, searching.

  * * *

  8:48. The time blinks on the microwave. Steve is kneeling in the middle of the kitchen. Kevin is sta
nding behind him in the dark. The little man is still exploding in a frozen pool of blood, the still screen the only source of light. Kevin’s little fingers, with absolute precision, slide a safety pin through the red cape. Kevin is focused.

  ‘Lift your chin.’

  Steve obeys without flinching.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to use another one just to be sure.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Steve keeps his chin up while Kevin, concentrating, slips a final pin through the red fabric.

  ‘Okay, done.’

  Steve stands up. The cape around his shoulders. Tugs on it. A jab to the right. A jab to the left. Leg lock, right jab, two rough power moves, and Kevin smiles.

  ‘Is it holding?’

  ‘It’s holding.’

  Steve puts on his long black coat over his costume and his winter boots. He opens the door.

  ‘Dad, can I come?’

  ‘No, Kev. Not too often, you know. It’s expensive.’ He pats him on the back. ‘Finish your game and go to bed, okay?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Steve barrels down the stairs.

  ‘Bye, Dad!’ Down the stairs: ‘Kick his butt!’

  The door to the apartment block slams. Kevin heads back into the apartment and goes back to his game. The half-blown-up little man is still frozen in his patch of blood. He looks at him for a moment. It’s all over for him. Kevin, solemn, presses the PAUSE button. The little man finishes exploding, and the blood disappears. Kevin turns off the television.

  Goes into his bedroom, opens his album, the one with the leather cover. The one his mother gave him. Inside, faces of all the wrestlers, with their autographs beside them: SmartFox with his rabid-fox mask, MegaStar in his old electric-blue costume, BadJo that time he grabbed Speedy by surprise. And Big, with his shiny red cape, Kevin sitting on his shoulders. He had won again. Always wins.

  Kevin falls asleep with the album beside him.

  * * *

  From the bowels of the church to the corner of the sidewalk, people are doing their best to exist. ‘Killkillkillkillkillkill!’ Heavy metal music reverberates from the basement to the street. Under the blank screens of the pawnshop, Kelly and Kathy caress each other to the syncopated rhythm of the wrestlers. ‘Killkillkillkillkillkill!’ while in the ring, Big throws Fighter into the ropes,‘Killkillkillkill!’ Under the blank screens, Kelly and Kathy make love.

  * * *

  The sound of a key in the lock. Kevin opens his eyes a little. 00:12. Face pressed in his album. Steps in the hallway. His father’s shadow for a moment in the crack of the door. Behind the shadow, his smell: a mix of sweat and warm beer. Then the sound of fabric that he carefully puts away in his closet, the weary zzzzzzzzz of the large pouch that contains the hero, until next time. A sigh.

  Steve turns out the lights, and Kevin goes back to sleep.

  четыре

  4

  The doorbell rings. Mélissa opens her eyes in her mother’s bed, too big for her. It’s 7:00 a.m. It’s her! She leaps out of bed, throws herself at the door, opens it. It’s the guy for the rent, looking surly.

  ‘I’m here to collect.’

  ‘Collect what?’

  The big man looks around. His little rat eyes roam shamelessly from the living room to the kitchen.

  ‘Collect what?’

  ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He’s not my father.’

  ‘Then the guy who takes care of you. Where’s he?’

  ‘At work.’

  ‘Ah.’

  His rat eyes everywhere again. It’s like they’re boring through the walls.

  ‘Bye.’

  Mélissa shuts the door. Fuck. She looks around the apartment. Old dishes and empty cans, liquor bottles and chip bags, clothes and dvds scattered on the floor. And the two boys sleeping fully dressed in the middle of the living room. Fuck, fuck. Mélissa shakes them.

  ‘C’mon, guys! Get up. We have to clean up before school. Dammit, Francis. You pissed your pants!’

  Mélissa collapses in the middle of the mess. This morning, she would like to disappear. Not forever. She would come back once she is an adult. Once she has grown up, hair untangled, with a job and a house. And a dog. Maybe a dog. The past, the present, whoever wants it can have it.

  • • •

  Roxane is in the living room. Her mother is still sleeping. Roxane is talking on the phone in a hushed voice.

  ‘Hi, Dad.

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Did I wake you up?’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘It’s ’cause I wanted to ask a question. Was Grandma Russian?’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Where’s St. Hippolyte?’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘No, just wanted to know. My teacher said I look Russian.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I just wanted to find out. Go back to bed. Bye.’

  * * *

  ‘Dad! Dad! Wake up!’

  Kevin is in his underwear, bags under his eyes.

  ‘Dad! You’re going to be late for the garage!’

  Steve’s eyes fly open, he snaps up in bed, looks at the time.

  ‘You’re going to be late for work, Dad, c’mon!’

  Kevin climbs on the bed and jumps up and down, a foot on either side of his father. Steve groans and flops back down.

  Kevin stops jumping. ‘ … Dad?’

  ‘Mmm … no work today.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Kevin looks down at his father for another minute. His stubble, the dark circles, the drool from the night drying on his cheek. Kevin gently climbs off the bed and leaves, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  ‘It’s World War Eight, there are 233 clans, and you have to choose yours, your allies, your spies, your vessel. When you start, you have ten more lives, so you don’t die right away. Wanna play?’

  Steve is eating toast, reading the Journal de Montréal. ‘No.’

  Kevin keeps playing alone.

  On a full page, a girl is split open; she’s bathing in her own blood. Her eyes are open. Steve lingers on her eyes. He would like to know what colour they are, but the newspaper is black and white. They could have made an exception for her. Show her eyes in colour, at least for today, I dunno.

  ‘Why’d they do that?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin continues to invade new virtual countries. ‘What?’

  ‘The girl.’

  He asks the question every time. Can’t get used to it.

  Steve lights a smoke.

  ‘To remind you that you’re lucky, or to warn you not to do anything stupid, or to remind you that people are shit. Take your pick.’

  A knock at the door. Kevin hits PAUSE, jumps up, and goes to answer it. It’s the rent guy.

  ‘It’s the rent guy!’

  ‘Mr. Gingras,’ the rent guy grumbles.

  Steve gets up from the table and does up his bathrobe. ‘Hi. I can’t pay you right now. I don’t have the money.’

  ‘Oh. So when?’

  ‘Soon, I’ll get it.’

  ‘So I’ll come back in three days?’

  ‘Yeah. Three days.’

  Steve closes the door.

  He goes to sit down, stubs out his cigarette. Kevin watches him.

  ‘How come you don’t have any money, Dad?’

  Steve lights another cigarette.

  ‘Eh, Dad?’

  ‘ … I don’t have money because I don’t have a job.’

  ‘ … ’

  ‘The garage didn’t need me anymore.’

  Kevin starts the game again.

  Between puffs, Steve starts skating a little. ‘It’s too bad you weren’t at the last match. I had a couple of pretty slick holds.’

  Shoot, shoot, shoot. Kevin isn’t listening.

  Steve goes back to his paper, but he can’t see anything anymore.

  * * *

  ‘Franci
s! Dammit. Put this back. I just put it away!’

  Mélissa picks up everything off the floor and puts it on the sofa. At least it’s not on the floor anymore.

  All the dishes in the sink, all the clothes in the washer, all the leftovers in the fridge, it’s all rotten, it stinks, everything stinks, Mélissa dumps everything on the floor – the food, the pots, her little brothers – she dumps them on the floor and kicks them.

  * * *

  Mélissa is washing the kitchen floor. On the radio, Madonna is singing ‘Like a Virgin.’ The boys are at school but she isn’t going. She’s decided. At least there are some advantages to being on your own.

  The phone rings. Mélissa turns down the radio and answers.

  ‘Hello?’

  A serious voice on the line, a voice that enunciates every syllable, a voice from a world that looks down on hers. Mélissa holds her head up and puts some gravitas into her little girl’s voice.

  ‘This is Mélissa.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Working.’ Mélissa makes her voice curt. ‘Yes, everything’s fine.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘No, there’s nothing, ma’am.’

  The voice on the other end insists.

  ‘Okay, I’ll take it down anyway.’

  ‘( … )’

  ‘Okay, thanks then.’

  Mélissa hangs up. She throws out the paper where she has just written down the number of the bitch from Youth Protection. She should have said: ‘Hello? Bitch from Youth Protection? Oh, yes, my mother’s told me so much about you. No, no, nothing good, no.’ She better not show up here.

  Mélissa turns up the sound, pours diluted bleach on the floor, and mops while dancing to ‘Like a Virgin.’

  * * *

  Steve, in the kitchen, hunched over the Journal. He is deciphering the classified ads. His thick finger runs over the small letters. Small letters that make or break a life.

  He opens a beer, downs it, opens another.

  His thick finger has no more traces of sludge, not even under the nail, not even in the folds of the skin. His thick finger with no personality continues its path in vain over the small letters that ask for everything he isn’t. Not meant to exist.