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Description
I'm standing in a crowded 33 holding on to a dusty overhead rail. Montréal's December winter is cold and dry outside with a knife-sharp treacherous wind, but inside the bus we wade in fiery Kanuk’s soaked in litres of sweat. With each variations of speed from the dense evening traffic the passengers sway and collide like a giant Newton cradle, shoulders hitting shoulders, transferring momentum but frustration as well. Some wigger sits in front of me with his cellphone in hand, playing music through the speaker. The idiot bobs his head with a satisfied grin while everyone around is clearly upset. They stare and sigh loudly and grumble in turn. Me, I can't help to think I could snap the fucker's neck in one precise spasm, or kick his head through the glass behind him with my knee practically in line with his nose. The thought instantly spawns a short scene in my mind of passengers cheering and exhaling breaths of relief, immediately followed if not overlapped with a variant of them screaming and panicking with expressions of surprise and fear and disgust. Can’t tell which one’s more plausible.
I get out at Bélanger with the skin of my left fist slightly numb from tensing. I try my best not to look at the bobbing teen as the bus starts off and passes me.

It’s been almost a year now since I’ve moved to this neighborhood and I’m starting to like it. The suburban-like calm and quiet, the remoteness while still technically in Montréal, the nice Italian elderlies and their pristine lawns and their cheap plaster lions standing guard at the base of their five steps staircase like it’s the entrance to some grandiose Roman palace. It’s quite a change from Downtown and my former lifestyle. A welcomed change. I’ve even taken this job washing dishes at a lazy Greek fast-food joint not too far from the Stadium. Nothing great but I’d taken any piss bag of a job thrown at me, really.

A few paces from the bus stop there’s a small one-way street toward Bélanger with an unpronounceable name — if only I knew how the hell a double c sounds. You’d think by now I’d know a little bit more Italian. This street, it’s the epitome of the neighborhood’s snobbishness, big white houses with balustrades and terracotta rooftops and cameras embedded in small black bubbles, a whole street for a handful of residences, all nested in the first half and nothing but trees and high hedgerows past the curb. Not a single stranger parked by the side of the road, a small microcosm of interbred rich Italians. I’m pretty sure some day they all just drove by in a minibus and thought to themselves that fucking street is ours. Anyway, it’s a calm street and the quickest path to my apartment.
As I cross the pavement a red sedan on the avenue steers toward me but wavers almost immediately, the driver’s gaze catching the one-way sign. He and I make eye contact for a femtosecond, a fraction of a heartbeat. His window’s opened, his head practically sticking out but there is no music and he doesn’t smoke. He’s got a mean stubble and a tall waffled forehead and I can tell his attention lies more on me than on the road.

I’ve seen this before.

The car picks up speed again and continues down Bélanger, then turns hurriedly at the next street. I run along the sidewalk and enter the last Tempo before the curb. I hide inside next to a tall recycling bin and hope the feeble evening light won’t betray me as a dark silhouette against the polyester sheeting. While I wait for the car I keep telling myself it’s probably nothing. I’m getting old, getting paranoid. This is Montréal after all — people drive like shit, they’re impatient behind the wheel. He hadn’t noticed the sign, I was jaywalking. It’s probably nothing.
Tires are pretty loud in the winter, especially in smaller streets. Snow accumulates, doesn’t get cleared that often, makes for an uneven surface to drive on, one that squeals and crackles under the heft of a car. Kind of reminds me of someone’s weight shifting in a soft leather sofa.
I peek beyond the green bin as the sedan drives by. The man’s looking around confusedly. Looking for me. The fucker’s got a gun, I swear I’ve seen the metal of a nozzle next to the wheel. Quickly I skip to the other side of the Tempo, don’t want him catching a glimpse of me in the mirror. I hear him slowing down and stopping near Bélanger, then just idling. A few seconds come and go while the guy cogitates and frowns I’m sure, then he switches in reverse.
His rear bumper appears, with smoke from the muffler licking the metal. My muscles are suddenly incredibly tense, my eyes unblinking and my teeth ready to crack under the pressure from my jaw. The guy finally comes into view and I rush toward his door right before he sees me. His expression deforms to a wolfish grimace, too much gum around the cuspids, a ton of wrinkles near the chin that seem to form out of nowhere, pupils like tiny singularities. He raises his right fist which now obviously presents a pistol, but I plunge my arms inside the car and grab him. The gesture takes a second to perform, I’m barely conscious of my movements. I’ve practiced it countless times in that basement on Saint-Dominique street, old habits rendered automatic, muscle memory kicking in.
The guy doesn’t have time to react. I lock both arms and twist the gun up. A brief flash of light, a deafening echo and a splash of carmine above him. I fumble to the ground as the car rears uncontrollably onto the curb and crashes to a stop against a lamppost.
My knees hurt from the fall. My breath is ecstatic. I look up to the headlights shining diagonally into the unpronounceable street. Carefully I stand up and approach the driver’s door. The man is dead. I’ve killed again. Instinctively I snatch the gun and fumble for the guy’s wallet. The butt of the gun has been rasped to death, scratched madly with only fragments of a serial number still perceptible. Wallet’s empty. A few bucks, no card. On one of the bills, scribbles from a Bic. Bus schedule, an address. My address.

It can’t be. Somebody’s found me.

The bourgeois neighbors start to poke out from their houses, curious about the quick and sudden bedlam outside. I stuff the gun under my belt and launch myself past the hedges like a rocket, like an out-of-control dragster aiming for a World Record.

Description
I'm standing in a crowded 33 holding on to a dusty overhead rail. Montréal's December winter is cold and dry outside with a knife-sharp treacherous wind, but inside the bus we wade in fiery Kanuk’s soaked in litres of sweat. With each variations of speed from the dense evening traffic the passengers sway and collide like a giant Newton cradle, shoulders hitting shoulders, transferring momentum but frustration as well. Some wigger sits in front of me with his cellphone in hand, playing music through the speaker. The idiot bobs his head with a satisfied grin while everyone around is clearly upset. They stare and sigh loudly and grumble in turn. Me, I can't help to think I could snap the fucker's neck in one precise spasm, or kick his head through the glass behind him with my knee practically in line with his nose. The thought instantly spawns a short scene in my mind of passengers cheering and exhaling breaths of relief, immediately followed if not overlapped with a variant of them screaming and panicking with expressions of surprise and fear and disgust. Can’t tell which one’s more plausible.
I get out at Bélanger with the skin of my left fist slightly numb from tensing. I try my best not to look at the bobbing teen as the bus starts off and passes me.

It’s been almost a year now since I’ve moved to this neighborhood and I’m starting to like it. The suburban-like calm and quiet, the remoteness while still technically in Montréal, the nice Italian elderlies and their pristine lawns and their cheap plaster lions standing guard at the base of their five steps staircase like it’s the entrance to some grandiose Roman palace. It’s quite a change from Downtown and my former lifestyle. A welcomed change. I’ve even taken this job washing dishes at a lazy Greek fast-food joint not too far from the Stadium. Nothing great but I’d taken any piss bag of a job thrown at me, really.

A few paces from the bus stop there’s a small one-way street toward Bélanger with an unpronounceable name — if only I knew how the hell a double c sounds. You’d think by now I’d know a little bit more Italian. This street, it’s the epitome of the neighborhood’s snobbishness, big white houses with balustrades and terracotta rooftops and cameras embedded in small black bubbles, a whole street for a handful of residences, all nested in the first half and nothing but trees and high hedgerows past the curb. Not a single stranger parked by the side of the road, a small microcosm of interbred rich Italians. I’m pretty sure some day they all just drove by in a minibus and thought to themselves that fucking street is ours. Anyway, it’s a calm street and the quickest path to my apartment.
As I cross the pavement a red sedan on the avenue steers toward me but wavers almost immediately, the driver’s gaze catching the one-way sign. He and I make eye contact for a femtosecond, a fraction of a heartbeat. His window’s opened, his head practically sticking out but there is no music and he doesn’t smoke. He’s got a mean stubble and a tall waffled forehead and I can tell his attention lies more on me than on the road.

I’ve seen this before.

The car picks up speed again and continues down Bélanger, then turns hurriedly at the next street. I run along the sidewalk and enter the last Tempo before the curb. I hide inside next to a tall recycling bin and hope the feeble evening light won’t betray me as a dark silhouette against the polyester sheeting. While I wait for the car I keep telling myself it’s probably nothing. I’m getting old, getting paranoid. This is Montréal after all — people drive like shit, they’re impatient behind the wheel. He hadn’t noticed the sign, I was jaywalking. It’s probably nothing.
Tires are pretty loud in the winter, especially in smaller streets. Snow accumulates, doesn’t get cleared that often, makes for an uneven surface to drive on, one that squeals and crackles under the heft of a car. Kind of reminds me of someone’s weight shifting in a soft leather sofa.
I peek beyond the green bin as the sedan drives by. The man’s looking around confusedly. Looking for me. The fucker’s got a gun, I swear I’ve seen the metal of a nozzle next to the wheel. Quickly I skip to the other side of the Tempo, don’t want him catching a glimpse of me in the mirror. I hear him slowing down and stopping near Bélanger, then just idling. A few seconds come and go while the guy cogitates and frowns I’m sure, then he switches in reverse.
His rear bumper appears, with smoke from the muffler licking the metal. My muscles are suddenly incredibly tense, my eyes unblinking and my teeth ready to crack under the pressure from my jaw. The guy finally comes into view and I rush toward his door right before he sees me. His expression deforms to a wolfish grimace, too much gum around the cuspids, a ton of wrinkles near the chin that seem to form out of nowhere, pupils like tiny singularities. He raises his right fist which now obviously presents a pistol, but I plunge my arms inside the car and grab him. The gesture takes a second to perform, I’m barely conscious of my movements. I’ve practiced it countless times in that basement on Saint-Dominique street, old habits rendered automatic, muscle memory kicking in.
The guy doesn’t have time to react. I lock both arms and twist the gun up. A brief flash of light, a deafening echo and a splash of carmine above him. I fumble to the ground as the car rears uncontrollably onto the curb and crashes to a stop against a lamppost.
My knees hurt from the fall. My breath is ecstatic. I look up to the headlights shining diagonally into the unpronounceable street. Carefully I stand up and approach the driver’s door. The man is dead. I’ve killed again. Instinctively I snatch the gun and fumble for the guy’s wallet. The butt of the gun has been rasped to death, scratched madly with only fragments of a serial number still perceptible. Wallet’s empty. A few bucks, no card. On one of the bills, scribbles from a Bic. Bus schedule, an address. My address.

It can’t be. Somebody’s found me.

The bourgeois neighbors start to poke out from their houses, curious about the quick and sudden bedlam outside. I stuff the gun under my belt and launch myself past the hedges like a rocket, like an out-of-control dragster aiming for a World Record.