gonna turn this one into a short story but right now it's kinds working as flash fiction.
VAN CITY
The air hostess brought me four party cans, one after another
before I dropped two sleeping tablets. Twenty minutes later Beano taps me on
the shoulder saying to come to the tail of the plane and look at all the ice.
He asks me why I’m stumbling and I give him two sleepers. The nine hour flight
to Canada breezes by, us with our heads dog-like at the windows and half closed
eyes. Beano starts talking to some contractor who tells us he can set us up
with a tree planting company if we ever go to Alberta. He’s slurring his words
though, the sleepers coming on strong and him going on about how he’s
republican out and out. I interject, try and keep the old boy onside should we
ever decide on Alberta. I don’t remember the rest of the journey. Beano and me head
to the luggage bay after the landing and he goes:
“Jaysus
boy you were slurring your words some bad back there.”
The lad
on the desk at the hostel asks if we want some dried mushrooms. Mexican he says
and scratches his stubble, dandruff in his hair. Just the room I say and Beano
says fuck it, takes two stalks worth heads on them like UFOs. There’s no
elevator to the rooms, I manage lugging a two year visa worth up the stairs,
arms cramped up and raw. Each room has a flag painted on the door, I’m staying
in Argentina with a Swede called Leonard. He’s a fifty odd chap, smell of money
off him too flicking through pages on a tablet. Hello I say, realising how long
it’s been since I used that particular word to greet anyone. Yup, Story, Craic,
newly useless. He smiles and puts his head back to the screen, half eaten apple
there like a medal. I take another sleeper out of my bag wash it back with a
sup of water and my antidepressant. I fire everything into my locker and lie on
my bunk the springs moaning with pressure.
In the
morning there’s still no sign of Beano. I head down to the restaurant for a
free breakfast, rashers me hole, bacon like a bag of tayto. Fucking bagels and
something called wonderbread. The apples are savage though to be fair. The
waiter comes over to me and starts going on about bagels with jelly and cream
cheese. “Cheers” and he stands there eyeing me like the conversations not done.
Okay then he says and fucks off. It’s playoff season and the Canucks are doing
well, a pride parade is due next week and its ten years since they caught
Robert Pickton. They nabbed him before he had a chance to do his fiftieth
prostitute, bits of the rest of them out with the pigs. I walk out onto
Granville St, and there’s two hoores boxing the chops off each other by a
greyhound bus. I watch from a safe distance, they both look crack hungry, one
of them muscled and toned. Square jaw tense as she’s throwing another dig and
then I see it, all because her skirts riding up her leg. The little mickey
head-banging between her thighs. The cops pull in and break it up, stick the
made up fella in the back seat the other one crying out loose teeth.
Van-fucking-couver
sahn.
Likey.
ReplyDeleteSo funny...!
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