In my dreams last night, Stikki Peaches smearing lipstick on a Canadian racing driver. Or was it in a high-end gallery in the Old Town … I can’t remember.
I find myself at the race track, again. You can find horses here, for sure, but then you can find horses in town, too.
Funny how no-one here today backs the winner, maybe ‘cos the form book was thrown out of the window down in the Vieux Port.
This is a full-size Scalextric set, operated by a man with a fake moustache. It’s a Scooby-Doo sport, is what it is – and there goes the thief.
Waved red flags curtail proceedings, whereupon a cold beer buys me and we swap numbers. We will definitely keep in touch.
In the heat of the mid-afternoon, a kind of woozy rapture … out of the races and onto the bridge, in single file down the endless steps to the suffocating subway.
I reappear in the city, into Montreal CBD, scrambling out of the station for some air, on the hunt for sustenance.
Once I’ve de-briefed myself in the basement of my hostel with a beverage and a snackette, I find myself back on the subway – now to the Old Town.
Still wheezing for air, I disembark at Champ-de-Mars, losing myself in tunnels and mezzanines and blind alleys, all illuminated by decadent music and by dissident art.
Around City Hall, through Place Jacques Cartier – named after the person I blame for me being here, and for all of the caricature artists and balloon twisters currently following me around.
I escape to the steakhouse, where – with a concealed grin – I casually ask “Got any salmon?” and am surprised when ten minutes later a large plate of hot food is placed in front of me, containing grilled fish, pistachios, garlic mash, roasted sprouts in bacon and a maple syrup sauce.
I sit in the shadows for this, sunk down in a low chair, around a substantial darkwood round table, swigging opaque beer and exchanging ill-gotten musings and misplaced thoughts from my mind with Jerry Sadowitz.
Hey Jerry, get your own trout!
Obviously, I collapse into the psychedelic shag-pile due to excessive laughter (mainly from a glimpse at the bill), crawl out of the door and drag myself upright – hoping that in doing so I’ve managed to dodge the check.
Outside, fast cars are lining up. Wealth is sauntering around like it owns the joint.
Too much, too much.
Back in the CBD, Crescent Street is a party block … and not sure I was ever invited.
I glance upwards, to see Leonard Cohen looking down on all of this, bemused.
Hey you can sell me all your stories, but spare me the LPs …
… serve me up some Peaches over the cream of maudlin poets – any day of the week.
An Outside World 