Canada = Wild Nights … I’ve awakened in a sedated convent, opposite a vacant chapel, across the square from a sacred spaceship – a UFO basilica – opening my curtains in full view to a tribe of slavering meat-eating hordes.
This is not a rehearsal; this is Cap-de-la-Madeleine, on a morning.
Where I find it’s absolutely impossible to eat porridge in the middle of a weekend pilgrimage. Especially when there’s no frickin’ kettle or microwave … what is this, a nunnery?
Can’t even get a brew.
Next I’ll be told it’s just bread and fish at the breakfast buffet.
Under leaden skies swollen with guilt, and rain, I go searching for a downtown, but only get as far as the oldtimer neighbourhood cafe.
I take a seat on a leatherette pew, and almost immediately a host appears, insisting on drawing me pictures of differently-cooked eggs on a pad of paper. I point at the one that looks fried.
Shortly afterwards, some eggs arrive on a plate in front of me and – hurrah! – they’re fried. Not only that, but they turn up with bacon, potatoes and fruit.
The hot water for my tea arrives in a light bulb, which is an idea I’ve yet to have. It’s too early in the morning for this, I’m not switched on yet.
Maybe that’s the point.
Post-meal, my server attempts a conversation in broken English with me, yet all I fathom is that she’s looking forward to visiting a place called Crump, in Europe.
Having never heard of such a place, I question: “… Crump?” to which the response is “Yeeeess … Crruummpp”.
I shift about in a state of uncertainty, and repeat “… Crump?” to which the response again is “Yeeess … Crruummpp!”.
So excited is my host about going to this mythical place, I almost want to go with her … if only I knew what on earth we were talking about.
As I pay my bill beneath the gratuitously large erotic poster which hangs above the counter, I wonder if I have just agreed to go away with my waitress on a fantasy escape.
I’m followed out of the love shack by her eyes, but not by anything else, so I reason I can continue on with my unescorted trip, for now.
I jump in my rental car and drive over the long bridge, which I swear wasn’t there an hour ago, eyes repeatedly checking the rear-view mirror, and on to downtown Trois-Rivieres, which was mainly built last year.
On one side of the sodden square, the closed cathedral. They saw me coming – so they quickly locked the doors, is what I figure.
Properly moody streets, these; deserted, except for the hungover faithful, shuffling around like steadfast zombies, yet not doing a very good job of it.
At the waterfront, Ribfest – preparing to open for business. It’s lost on me.
All I want is for someone to draw me some eggs and then serve them that way, not a table full of trophies proclaiming a best-in-class steak or a consummate rack of ribs or a flawless pulled pork drenched in victorious sauce, or whatever and ever amen.
It’s unduly eerie, wandering through all this high camp barbeque action, at dead-o-clock in the morning, with everything cloaked in a surreal gloom. It’s the most oddest of places right now.
Real wood, real good – my arse (copyright Jim Royle).
I get over myself up the road in the old town, where arty statues are playing hide ‘n’ seek with each other, in full metal gear. I’ve got their number.
At the museum of culture is the beer exhibition, which is enlightening to a point – ie. the moment I realise this storehouse isn’t licenced.
Full of crucifixes, too; and wiseguys.
The other exhibition is a rodeo, where a wide-eyed wooden man is caught in the act of enjoying an equally startled wooden horse – a scene which surely belongs in the beer hall.
Outside, cats and dogs, which follow me all the way to Levis, sometimes overtaking me, in a somewhat bleak journey east along the freeway.
I arrive at my apartment which, as promised, has an impressive top-floor view over the water to a fully-illuminated Quebec City.
Unusually, I’m greeted in the bathroom of my penthouse by a Norwegian Blue.
One of us is stunned, the other is pining for the fjords.
An Outside World 