AVATAR – Cameron’s first draft

I need the moon… or happiness

“This world, such as it is, is not tolerable.
Therefore I need the moon, or happiness, or immortality,
I need something which is perhaps demented,
but which is not of this world.”
- Albert Camus

Ms. Oza’s Neighbourhood

I live in the Verdun borough
of the jolie Ville de Montréal.

Apart from the 3 years I spent in Poche D’Air, Comté de Lotbinière,
I’ve lived here all my life… and I’ll be turning 60 in August.

This means I’ve seen Verdun change quite a bit since the 50s and 60s when the businesses on Wellington Street were thriving. We had a large variety of nice stores, people used to come from all over the island to shop here, we even had 3 movie theatres.

Nowadays we have 3 metro stations, but Wellington Street is hideous and the whole energy has changed for the worse — at least it has in my part of town, near De l’Église metro:

• Ugly graffiti everywhere. Too many pizza joints. Crappy vacant lots.
• There are more deranged souls roaming around. Mounting numbers of loud freaky people. Stabbings in broad daylight.
• Ambulances and firetrucks and police cars come around regularly on account of all the drinking and fighting that go on in an apartment building nearby…

I’m telling you, dear reader, it can be
quite the Twilight Zone at times,
but it’s what I call home.

Naaah, it’s mostly that I’m stuck here.

So while I’m working hard to manifest my brighter future in greener pastures, I thought I’d share with you a snippet of my everyday life in beautiful downtown Verdun Beach — the life of a work-from-home blogger & doodler who calls herself a Certified Giggle Coach and drives an imaginary bus.

The following events happened yesterday…

It’s 3:15 in the afternoon. I’ve been working at the computer for much too long and I need a break. I leave my desk (in the front) and walk over to the kitchen (in the back) to put the kettle on and make myself a pot of tea.

I drink 3 to 4 pots a day.
Peppermint or green.
Decaf only.

I notice there’s a police car parked in the lane in front of my neigh- bour’s yard, and the neighbour in question — a tall, slender, sixty-ish man with yellow grey hair who moved nextdoor 3 months ago — is talking to the policeman sitting at the wheel.

I crack open the patio door just in time to see the guy who lives three doors away — short, scrawny, around 45, with a shaved head and a six-inch goatee — come stomping through knee-high snow, screaming at the top of his lungs PÉDOPHILE! PÉDOPHILE! and pointing an aggressive finger in my neighbour’s direction.

To my astonishment, the neighbour seems unperturbed by the grave accusations being thrown at him and carries on talking to the cop, raising his voice in order to be heard over Goatee Guy’s bark: he’s complaining about the fact Goatee Guy’s car is parked in his driveway.

SIDE NOTE: Goatee Guy has been living in that building
for over 5 years and got along just fine with the previous
nextdoor neighbour who let him use his driveway.

Ticked off by my neighbour’s rant concerning the parking space, Goatee Guy’s language gets more foul and he hurls away about how the neighbour entertains little girls and how he always has his hand down his trousers.

Calm as a pallbearer, my neighbour retaliates dully with stuff like, Ooooh that’s what yoooou think… That’s yoooour opinion…

This puts Goatee Guy in a FURY!

Shaking and drooling, he runs to his car, gets in, climbs out again, and proceeds to spit more profanities at the neighbour who’s walking back to his flat. After the neighbour disappears inside, Goatee Guy stumbles through the knee-high snow back to his own flat.

The policeman — a young fellow with dark cropped hair, no cap, who has remained seated and silent throughout the exchange — moves his car backwards 10 feet and parks it in front of my housing co-op’s yard.

All is calm.

The kettle whistles.

I pour the water
into the teapot.

More screams = Goatee guy is at it again!
I dash to the patio door…

Standing beside his car, Goatee Guy’s waving his fist at the neighbour’s house, hollering how he wants to make sure the WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD knows that he’s a bleepin PAEDOPHILE.

Out of breath and red as a baboon’s behind, he boards his beat-up sedan, slams the door, lowers the window to holler some more, guns the engine — wheels spin, snow flies — and zigzags out of the driveway, onto the lane, and out of sight.

Capless Cop, still in reverse, moves backwards a few yards, then switches to forward and follows on his trail.

THE END

Except this is a very disturbing matter.

So of course I wonder:

• Is it true my neighbour’s a paedophile?
• Will the cop file a report?
• Will they investigate?
• What can I do?

I can’t get this out of my mind…