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I suppose oysters were important… and Verdun followed. Verdun also came first, but it followed too. And that’s fundemental the outline of the entire day.

 

In more detail:

 

I wake up with a hangover, (no kidding), an hour later than I would have if I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour. Nine-ish: about the plan. I lay in bed a little bit listening to the traffic, the day out there that’s underway without me. But I get up. I let myself have a moment of standing in the middle of the kitchen looking at just about nothing and, sucking on a fisherman’s friend, outlining the day ahead to myself. Then decide to head out for breakfast because I know the fresh air will do me good; and I’d been planning to anyway, like I mentioned.

 

What I’d been planning was to go to Beauty’s Luncheonette on Mont-Royal that morning (I’d been wanting to go there since Gerry recommended it at Oliver’s party) but I don’t want to walk that far the way I’m feeling, so I go to Bagels Etc., just three minutes away, instead. It’s another place I’ve wanted to go to—not quite as much, but I’m flexible. Cohen used to go there, apparently—which makes sense, because he’s right across the street. Gerry had also mentioned that in passing (“You could go to Bagels Etc. for breakfast,” he’d said when I mentioned where I was staying), so it feels in harmony with my original intentions.

 

The place is fairly empty. I get a small booth and order an eggs benny with cream cheese and lox with a side of hash browns, orange juice and a lot of black coffee. Figuring that’ll do me up.

 

It’s nattier in here than I expected. Old-movie themed, I get the vague impression, shades of Sunset Boulevard in the decor. Neon and Vinyl, diner-kitsch stuff, but kept up to date and polished rather than the preserved sort of quality you would expect from places that’ve been open since the 1940s. When the food comes, I stare at it more than eat it—the night before and its results have killed my appetite. But I think food will help, or at least it won’t hurt. The food isn’t bad either. Less old-diner than I’d hoped for, more like breakfast places you’d get in Vancouver, but that’s not really a bad thing.

 

Time is also on my mind. While I’m slowly making my way through breakfast, I do another run-through of what the day might look like. The black coffee does help.

 

I had promised to go back to Verdun again today, earlier in the afternoon today, so I’ll do that. … and I need get back in time to meet Matvey at Suzanne for oysters at 5:00-5:30. Let’s call it 5:30 so I have another half an hour to breathe.

 

Part of why I’m out for breakfast rather slapping it together back at the apartment with what’s left in the fridge, so that I’d be out and about quicker—since I wanted to go back to to Wilensky’s, too, and it would be awful to run short of time. (It’s still quite early, so of course I know I WON’T run out of time—but I don’t want to rush either.)

 

I think, also, re: time—I’m just aware there isn’t a lot of it left: I fly out tomorrow... back to work the day after that. It’s a strange feeling. It would be unbelievable if I didn’t know it.

 

I step back outside into the brisk cold and decide to walk the rest of the way up the Main to Wilensky’s, rather than wait for the 55—I don’t feel uncomfortably cold, oddly enough, and the walk would probably be good for me. I put in my earbuds and commence my way. I pass La Chainon and see that’s it has moved up the block; I pass the old curiosity shop that used to sell nazi memorabilia; I pass the block Shawn, Sean & Anae used to live on, look up to where their window used to be; pass the Seraphim Bakery is, still boarded up, still with the marquee up like it just closed the day before; etc; this used to be my stomping grounds, see, so all of this has its own private meaning: the Tim Horton’s at Mont-Royal has a host of memories attached, as does one billboard over a parking lot that I remember having passed by so many times. All years ago, but so many times.

 

Finally, I end up at Wilensky’s, which is open today, and I go in.

 

(Note: I am filling this in quite awhile after the fact. More than is really honest. But. I want to make this chronicle of Montreal complete, even if it’s stretching the definition of a diary entry if it’s written three or four weeks after the fact. Everything after the opening three lines up there were written in Vancouver, weeks later. Today is Christmas Day. Forgive me in this one instance: this trip is too important to me to be left in a fragmentary state.

 

I know I’ve said that before. But it bears repeating because this day is by far the worst offence. I had written one line.

 

Note-within-note: It’s January 3, 2024. I’ve found time to continue.)

 

Wilensky’s is a lunch counter like what they used to have in the old days and don’t have much anymore. Mordecai Richler used to come down and sit here, and it was just about the same—you can see pictorial evidence on the back wall there, where there’s a framed photo of two men seated at the counter in 1932 and it looks exactly the same as it does now. It moved a block since then, and somehow nothing inside managed to chance even considering that

 

I sit down at the fabled counter, order a bag of six sandwiches to go, then give in and order one for here with a cherry cola—it’s not possible to go to Wilensky’s and not have a Wilensky special fresh. With a cherry cola and a side of pickles. No, I don’t care that I just had a huge breakfast, I’m still having it. It’s the same counter, the same people behind the counter, the same pictures on the wall, the same grill, the same everything—this is the comfort of Wilensky’s. It’s a place of great beauty, and it will be a time of great mourning if it ever does die. I hope it does not. I get my bag of take out sandwiches—I’ve already finished the one I ordered for there—put them in my bag, sit for a bit enjoy the last of my pickles and my cherry cola, and then head out.

 

I think I made a call home at about this point. Said hi to mom and grandpa, while I wait for the bus back down at Fairmount and St-Urbain. I haven’t written about it, but I’ve been making a call back about once a day—I do that. Things were bad once, very bad, and it’s a nice thing to be able to keep that communication active.

 

Back at the apartment, I review what I need to have done before I check out at 11 the following day, and I begin to pack. What I want is to finish packing everything today save for what I’ll need in the morning, or stuff that needs to be in the fridge I.E. the sandwiches. Then there’s a few things I’ll have in a re-usable shoulder bag to drop off at Matvey’s and Tim’s, for them to either use or throw away. (They agreed to let me stow my bags at their place for the few hours between when I check out and when I leave for the airport; my alternative would have been to use a service that lets me leave my bags at a shop down the street. I prefer the arrangement where I leave it with someone I know.)

 

This goes mostly smoothly… mostly. One big hitch: the zipper on my larger suitcase sticks when I’m trying to close it, and it looks like it might be completely broken. As I try to tug it, the sealed part starts to peel open like a zip-loc bag. I start going over options in my head, whether I need to run up to La Chainon and buy a new suitcase. But I do finally manage to get it sealed. I relax a little, but know that doesn’t end the situation. What if I need to open it again? What if it comes open on the plane?

 

I go out to a travel place down the block and buy a luggage strap just in case, for peace of mind, etc. …  But I think I’ll be fine. I hope that I’ll be fine

 

Not long after that, before it gets too late—I don’t think it’s even one-thirty—I’m out the door and on my way down the Main to the green line. Twenty-minute walk, but I only mind it a little—I like getting the walk St-Laurent.

 

Okay: my recollection of these messages back and forth over the next are a mess. I made the mistake of going into my phone and looking up when they actually happened and what was actually said—this in fact made the confusion worse, because I’d already written differently. My fault for trying to include too much detail about it. Oh well. Take it for what it is. Here we go—

 

I think it’s by now that Gerry has responded messaged me asking if me if I still want to have coffee today, or if I want to postpone it to tomorrow because its gotten so cold. Coffee: I had almost forgotten that!  I blame the hangover and then every other plate I’m trying to juggle. Somewhere in Mile End, coffee. At first I say tomorrow would be a bit better for me, but then I think about it… I’d like to meet for that coffee, and the cold is not bothering me. My gut after a moment is to get it done today, because who knows how much time I’ll have to do anything at all tomorrow? And so I tell him that. I say that I’m pinging back between the Plateau and Verdun, but that I should have time later on in the afternoon when I’m back from the latter.

 

This all happens as I’m walking down to the green line for those twenty minutes, and its a nice way to occupy the time. I’m still waiting for a reply when I get off at Verdun, and I’m not thinking about it while I’m there.

 

It’s good to be back again. Speaking honestly. He has the week alone, and I’m happy to be company. It’s relaxing. There is no tension between us anymore. Nothing bad of any kind, even when we talk about the bast. It’s good to be able to talk about things of the past as the past, and know they’re left there and we’re humans to each other again, friends, able to know we’ve grown and come back to some place where we can be kind to each other. It means a lot to me that we’ve gotten to this place.

 

I stay for an hour and a bit.  I’d mentioned to him before that I’m going to a birthday that’s nearby later on, Anae’s, and I said I’ll try to come by one last time then. Just slip out of the party and slip over and come and say goodbye, before I fly out. I want to do that—feels appropriate. Every time I come back here, it feels like a little more of me has healed.

 

Then, back in the metro again, zipping back east. I’ve recently heard back from Gerry, and he says “now it is.” What time had I been thinking. I say about half an hour. He says what would work, and suggests meeting at Olimpico as “the most tourist worthy of the Mile End coffee joints. I say sure—hey, I liked it, don’t mind going back. And I’m taking the 55 anyway, just need to ride it further.

 

I’m waiting for the bus at the station by this time. It seems I’ve just missed the bus. While I’m waiting, a snap a few shots of the Chinatown gates and enjoy looking across towards Place-des-Arts. I do a lesson or two of Duolingo. I check the travel time up to there and then the travel time from there back down to Bar Suzanne, so I know exactly when to leave to make sure I get there in time to be in line with Matvey at five.

 

I’m still doing that last thing when the bus arrives, and when I’m sitting down in my seat. Also thinking about how I’ll be pinging back to Verdun again, with Matvey this time because he wants to see Anae too. I am aware of this and of the city as the bus makes its slow way up the Main in the winter twilight. I feel the life of the street outside the window as I pass it by. I feel the rush of things. I’m glad to be here.

 

I get off the bus at Fairmont and walk the couple of blocks to Olimpico. It’s a bit quieter than it was the time I came here on my own, but not by much, so I make sure to drop my coat at a table—I think it might be the same one I took that last time, but I’m not sure. I message to say I’ve arrived and Gerry says he’s a couple minutes behind. He’ll wait outside a minute to finish a smoke, when he gets there. So, I get in line. He comes in the door before I get to the counter, and he joins me there. We talk a little while the last two people ahead of us order, I can’t remember about what. When it comes to our turn, we both coffees and he pays for it. Saying that I can get him back sometime that he’s in B.C.

 

We sit down at the table and talk writing for the next hour. He says that he liked my book. Called it “amusingly introspective.” He asks me about the prose stuff I’m working on. I ask him about the murder podcast he’s doing. I think we briefly talk about the shows he used to work on that I grew up watching. I tell him I went to Bagel Etc, and he says that’s one of his favourites, that he loves the potatoes, and he asks me how the prices for breakfast in Montreal compare to BC because it used to be much cheaper here but he doesn’t know anymore. I say I don’t really know either, than I rarely go out for breakfast at home.

 

Wish I could remember the whole conversation: it was a good conversation. I’m glad I managed to make it to sit down there, go back to Olimpico that evening and sit down over another cappuccino, talk shop while the world milled through the dark out the windows and in the light leading up to the counter. Talk shop, I write, like it’s a normal thing: I’ve spent time with more working writers this week than I usually do most whole years.

 

When it’s time for me to go, he walks back out to the 55 stop on St-Urbain, just outside the minareted Polish Catholic Church that is one of my favourite buildings in the world. We wait there in the cold and the dark, looking northwards towards the underpass to spot the bus arriving. While we’re waiting, I hand him my phone so he can take a look at the poem I wrote the other day in Café Névé, which came up in the conversation in the warm cafe. He reads as he smokes down a cigarette. There’s one scare when it seems like he isn’t going to finish it because a bus appears on the horizon and he hands the phone back—but the bus isn’t in service, so I hand it back. He finishes it shortly before the actual bus does arrive. He asks me to send it to him so he can read it more carefully, promising to delete it when he’s done. I say he doesn’t have to. We shake hands, I board the bus.

 

When I’m sitting down, I send the PDF of the poem. As I do so, I see that Matvey has messaged me to tell me not to rush, that he might not get there until 6. A little frustrating, since I’m on the bus finding out I didn’t have to be yet. I messaging back saying that I’m already on the bus and will be there in fifteen minutes, at 5:30, and that I’ll get us a table and write for a bit. For the best: it’ll be a line, the bartender had said, and it’ll fill up quick. First come, first serve. 5:30 might even be already too late, probably will be, but I wanted my half-hour. I made good use of that half an hour.

 

I look up at see Beauty’s Luncheonette and the mural on the outside wall of it, faces from nearly a century ago that I cannot identify. There where I might’ve been that morning in another life passes by out the window, the bus slowing there for a few seconds as it waits for the light to change at Avenue du Mont-Royal.