Côte-des-Neiges (Chapter VIII)
By: Juan Alberto Cirez
Tags: Technology, Relationships, Fiction, Erotica, Music

THE GLORIOUS SUNSHINE AND THE GATHERING STORM

…I had no romantic designs whatsoever. She was a member of my study group and she asked for my help. Sooner of later, I thought, I may need her help in return. From a purely transactional point of view, I concluded, I was making an investment in the furtherance of my academic goals…Yeah, right. I didn’t believe that either…

Background

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual persons and/or events is purely coincidental. The main character — and narrator — is Alejandro Zurita, a twenty-two year old bon vivant, studying Business Administration at Vanier College in Montréal in the early spring of 1996, just as the dot com boom and the Web 1.0 is about to start…

Author’s note: This chapter is dedicated to “Miss Animus Invictus”, for your inspiration, courage, and “middle finger to the world”. Keep on truckin’, Momma.

Oh every time the phone rings My mind goes

The same dream again. I was flying. I soared across the sky, flying the length of “Calle Primera”, first street, from the intersection of “Respaldo Luperón” all the way to “La Linea”, the train tracks belonging to the local sugar mill, “El Central Romana²”.

I saw our house, with its mismatched tin roof and slanted construction. “El Colmado Guillamo”, the corner bodega. I zoomed past “La Hebanisteria Hustrera”, the custom furniture factory at the corner of “Calle C”, or C street. I looked down at yard and cluttered loading dock area, with its half-finished pile of tables, chairs and the odd armoire.

I crossed the train tracks and stopped at “El Play” the wide open, empty field that marked the boundary between Villa Pereira, El Ensanche Quisqueya and Villa España.

I was high up in the sky, but I could clearly make out the discarded milk cartons we used to fashion our catcher’s mitts, the sticks — of various forms and length — used as bats and the old, moldy socks, filled with rags and bits of newspapers we used as baseballs.

I remember smiling at the sight of piles of chewed up and dried out sugar cane stalks. As the freight trains approached, loaded to the brim with sugar cane harvested from the bateyes, we would run alongside it, hop on board a hopper cart at a blind spot, yank as many of the tightly packed stalks as we could before the train carried us too far.

Once done, we had to jump off, tuck and roll, to join the other kids in gathering the loot. We would pile up the haul and spend the next several hours peeling the stalks with our bare teeth or a homemade knife, enjoying the fruit of our labor: sweet, ill-gotten sugar cane nectar.

The entire enterprise was not without risks, several kids, including some of my friends, had been injured or even killed — pulled down to the undercarriage by the train’s downdraft. An arm or a leg would get caught by the side flange, the whole body would be pulled under and crushed between the steel wheels and the steel tracks.

It could happen at any time, suddenly a piece of loose clothing would get tangled up while either hopping in or jumping out, and that was all she wrote. My father had made it very clear, under penalty of death, that I was not to go near that area. It was both a warning and a threat. One I routinely ignored.

Once hopped up on sugar, we would either play “beisbol” with our homemade gear, or if the winds were favorable, fly our “Chichigüas”, or homemade kites. These we made with coconut leaves’ stems tied together into a six-sided hexagon, and covered with a flattened and stretched out plastic shopping bag.

We would cut rags into long thin strips for the tail and used our mom’s sewing or knitting kit threads as the lines. In my dream, the corner of the field closest to the train tracks was always littered with piles of dried coconut leaves, all with their stems missing.

I looked up, trying to decide whether to turn right and fly over “El Hospital de Salúd Publica”, the public hospital and over to Villa España; or turn left and head on down to El Ensanche Quisqueya. El Ensanche Quisqueya was a sub-division built for the workers of the Central Romana and their families.

If your Dad worked at the Central Romana sugar mill in town — not the bateyes with the Haitian migrant workers — and he was a unionized, full time worker, then “La Associación Romana de Ahorros & Prestamos¹”, the workers’ union’s Credit Union would lend your Dad the money with which to buy a house — provided your family could cobble together the down payment — and, as they say, move on up from the slums.

The mortgage payments were automatically deducted from your Dad’s monthly pay cheque, along with his union dues and other payroll deductions. As long as your Dad did not get “parado”, or laid off — and your family could afford the mortgage — you all could continue calling El Ensanche Quisqueya your home, and rub the noses of the kids on the other side of the tracks in it.

I was about to head on down on “Calle Cazique Caonabo” when a bunch of other kids came out of nowhere and started chasing me. Grabbing my ankles and trying to pull me down to ground. I tried to fly higher and faster but they kept getting closer.

All of the sudden it was night and everything was pitch black. This was not uncommon since the nightly “apagones”, or blackouts were a feature of daily life on Hispaniola. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw a truck full of soldiers, bloodthirsty goons with their guns at the ready, coming to kill anyone violating curfew. I knew I had to run and hide. I tried to dig a hole on the ground but they were getting closer faster than I could dig deeper.

I had to get out of there and hide…but I couldn’t. Oh, my God, they were here. I saw one of them jump out of the truck, his face painted black, his carabine pointing menacingly at me. He was going to kill me, I was sure. Now he was running towards me, screaming, like a high pitched ring.

“Ring-ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring-ring.” Somehow I realized I was dreaming, just as he lifted his weapon to fire it at me — I willed myself to open my eyes and wake up. “Ring-ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring-ring.”

I woke up to the sounds of the house phone ringing on Candy’s side of the bed. I looked over to her, but she wasn’t there. “Ring-ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring-ring.”

“What time is it?” I thought. “Ring-ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring-ring.”

“Did I sleep in?” The bathroom door was closed, but I could see a shaft of light coming through the small space where the door meets the floor. I heard the shower running and realized Candy was already up, getting ready for work. “Ring-ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring-ring.”

I rolled over to Candy’s side, resting my head on her pillow, wisps of her scent drifting by me. I picked up the receiver, not quite sure who would be calling at such ungodly hour,

“Oui, bonjour,” I spoke, in my best, neutral, “Yes, hello. But this better be fucking important” way I tended to use to answer the phone at 6:15 in the goddamned morning.

“Alejandro? This is Derrick. Derrick Hatfield,” came the response. The caller did not need to say more. Derrick Hatfield was my boss’ boss, “Il capo di tutti i capi”, The big cohuna, or Grand Poobah.

He was a quiet, easy going man who liked vintage printed shirts, younger, voluptuous women — with more than a passing resemblance to Anna Nicole Smith — and driving second-hand, dated-but-drivable Jaguar Sedans. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he was loaded.

“Good morning, sir. How are you?” I asked, sitting up and waking the fuck-up in a hurry.

“I’m fine. Listen,” he began. Mr. Hatfield was easy going and polite, but he spoke with the frank assertiveness of someone who knows they have more money than God and the power to compel people to do their bidding.

“Sebastien tells me you’re going on holidays for two weeks,” he continued without waiting for me to answer. “You’re taking your girl to Hispaniola for some fun in the sun, eh?” The transparent double entendre hanging in the air.

“Pinche guevón,” Dirty old man, I didn’t Say. Instead, I answered as evenly as possible.

“Umm, yes, sir. We are leaving tonight at 7:00pm, after work. We return two weeks from tomorrow, on Saturday.”

“Nonsense. Take the day off,” he said. “You stepped up to the plate when Giuseppe couldn’t Cope. You kept the place moving and got the work done without bitching, unlike the other guys,” he added with muted contempt.

“Well, that’s the job, sir,” I assured him. “To get the customers their shipment on time.” I was wondering where this conversation was going. Was I going to get promoted, handed an early Christmas bonus or was he just blowing smoke up my ass.

“Out with it, man. Get to the point!” I yelled in my head. Sensing my impatience, he quickly added,

“Be that as it may, you handled it, so take the day off,” he ordered. “Go and enjoy your trip and when you get back, bring me the receipts. Coloumbe will write you a cheque for the total, Ok?” It may have sounded like a question at the end, but it was not. Mr. Hatfield had given me an order and he expected me to follow it.

“Eh, yes, sir. Thank you!” I said, hoping that what little excitement I had managed to muster this early – and in such short notice – was enough to convince the old coot.

“Don’t mention it,” he insisted. “Have a good time and bring me a large bottle of that Brugal Añejo rhum you’re always raving about. Oh, and a box of that Don Carlos’ Double Robusto cigars. None of that Cuban ‘legacy’ crap. I want the best Dominican stuff they got!”

With that, he hung up and I was left to plan a full day of me-myself-and-I while waiting for Candy to be done in the bathroom. Suddenly I had to drop a deuce real bad, considering what I ate and drank the night before, I thought it best if done in private.