Cowboy. Louis Hamelin

the Old Man returned to the back of the building, juggling prize inanities. The half-naked old fool went back to the unstable comfort of his springs, waving his arms as though to brush an entire battalion of demons out of his way. He’d acted in a semi-sleepwalking state, and was now busy realizing how rash his bravery had been. As he was about to pass by me, he snatched a can from a shelf and, waving it as though it were a projectile, turned towards the door, howling furiously,

      “Next time, it’ll be with a 30-30!... BAAANG! With a rifle, I tell you!... BAAANG!”

      The old scarecrow’s backside had been guarded anyhow. Benoît had surreptitiously worked his way into the manager’s narrow office, which he often had to relinquish during the day to Mr. Administrator’s inquisitive pen. A large unglazed window in the wall of that room allowed you to slip into the hallway. Benoît was seated on the edge of a pivoting chair, eyes opened with great difficulty, rifle on his knees. He was stiff as a rail. The Old Man murmured, with a hint of tenderness in his voice, “It’s over, TiKid.... You can go to back to bed, young fella.... It’s over,”

      Outside, the dog was still howling. Benoît returned to his room, leaning the rifle against the wall between stacked boxes of bullets and a dictionary he consulted regularly in the line of duty, since he sometimes needed words to defend himself. And I fell back into the bay-coloured arms of my dreams, as though they were a parenthesis in the long insomnia that was beginning.

      A double streak of grease squirted from the hamburger fried the Old Mans way, and Mr. Administrator suddenly announced wearily, “I’m leaving today.... For Montreal.”

      He’d said this while massaging his jaw. Through the sharp sputtering of the fat, the Old Mans distinct sigh of relief could be heard as he leaned over a cast-iron pan spitting grease. He could keep his position by default. Once again, Mr. Administrator hadn’t dared give him final notice, and he could see this as another reprieve.

      “Another one? Hungry enough for another one?” he bellowed, artistically tossing the beef patty swelling on his spatula. “You’ll never eat better ones, not even at McDonald’s!” he added triumphantly.

      Mr. Administrator looked at him furiously. Heartburn was curling his lips.

      A little earlier, the previous night’s raid had been discussed, a raid scuttled by our very own Old Man’s courageous stand. Breaking his usual silence, Benoît then launched into an epic description of the Old Man’s outburst, giving a detailed vignette of the terror that had stricken the intruders at the sight of this fury. The zeal of his panegyric plastered a delighted smile on the Old Man’s mug, who probably saw this as an opportunity to boost his image in the eyes of the boss. He cleaved the air with his skillet, elated. “Baaang! Nothing but dogs!”

      Mr. Administrator, sullen looking, concealed his face behind the golden back of a large hamburger. He repeated, in a quieter voice, “I’m leaving this afternoon.”

      A prolonged stay would’ve inflamed his ulcer. The previous day, he’d wanted to shake hands with parishioners outside the chapel, following the principle that he’d have nothing to gain by setting everyone against him. But his flaccid paw was left dangling in the breeze, bent like a fish hook. All he got were wary looks. Finally, the Muppet himself, tossing like a Cartesian diver, came over to grab his outstretched hand, only too happy to clutch some protrusion. But Mr. Administrator would’ve preferred to speak with some notable specimen of that crowd which, in recent years, had specialized in being indebted to his business. He looked around, diffident, giving me a worried expression mixed with resentment.

      Id attracted attention to us, though perhaps not exactly the way he’d have liked. They’d quickly carried me out, while the kneeling priest, with Salomé’s help, busily picked up his supply of hosts, swearing. Slumped on the squares lowest step, Id regained consciousness amid a circus of concerned faces more astonished than moved by genuine charity. Every tragedy has its good side, however, and a decent blonde girl, possessed of more initiative than the local average, had, with quiet assurance and self-confidence, wiped my pale face with a dampened altar cloth. I was conscious enough to hear her explain to the others, who were already anticipating my emergency evacuation, “it’s only an allergic reaction, that’s all.... He’ll recover. There’s venom in those tiny creatures, you know....”

      “Who? Him?” an astonished voice cried out.

      “The flies, stupid!” she answered him, smiling at me. “I saw a guy rushed to hospital after being bitten like that...,”

      I couldn’t stop looking at her.

      “A city guy, obviously!” decreed someone else, whom I couldn’t see.

      I’d managed to sit halfway up, “You’re the nurse, I guess?”

      She burst out laughing.

      “The nurse, here, went to school with Armand Frappier. I hope I look a little younger.... No, I work at the hotel,...

      With those words, my boss dragged me off while, in our wake, the Muppet pedalled in the dust,

      He left the following afternoon, other business requiring his attention farther south. He was made for managing from a distance, not for waging battle on the front. He needed a safety margin, a few hundred kilometres between himself and the source of his problems. Deep down, Mr, Administrator was a dreamer. Unlike the two others, he wasn’t continually tormented by an energy that was pitifully down to earth. He needed that distance to maintain his illusions. From the top of an office tower in downtown Montreal, or from a patio lined with uniform flagstones and equipped with a volcanic barbecue, Grande-Ourse could still seem like the reflection of that resuscitated village, that playground for the rich he’d dreamt about one night, covered in his eiderdown.

      CITY COMFORT IN THE MIDDLE OF NATURE

      In fact, Mr. Administrator asked only to be reassured, and was never happier than when his alleviated concerns finally joined the other certainties in his personal collection. When his van disappeared over a nearby hill, the Old Man was beaming, feet firmly rooted to the ground.

      “Sooooo... long! Sooooo... long!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, making useless wide gestures.

      As soon as the vehicle disappeared around the first bend, he breathed more easily, becoming more effusive, settling in more firmly. When his opinion wasn’t asked, he’d crop up behind you, turning the screws in your back. He was everywhere at once, had five hands, bustled about like four monkeys! You’d feel like scratching whenever he wandered nearby. A capuchin, a marmoset, a ringtail monkey, a squirrel monkey! He smelled of suint. Often, while continuously talking to the walls behind which he’d grown proficient at finding us, he’d move slowly, imperceptibly, gently drifting towards the shower stall, his own stench having finally got to him. He took two or three steps backwards, turned around, procrastinated. The idea of leaving the conversation in our pathetic care offended him in the highest degree. He’d cling to his verbosity, it was his wall of protection against the insignificance of the inanimate world, against the outside night.

      “Don’t tell me he’s gonna take a shower?”

      “Course not...” replied Benoît.

      And he came back towards us, went off again, dithered about, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, then jumped on the spot, then backward and forward, following the steps of a complex choreography understood by him alone, moving from the passacaglia to the paso doble without transition and, in the end, as though to yield to a carefully prepared effect, slapping his forehead, totally excited, “Oooh! I forgot to tell you!...”

      The following second, he again gesticulated, throat trembling like a bell, chattering abrasively, spring fully wound, a ridiculous hybrid produced by a deaconess and a leprechaun. He’d stand before us, spewing threats in all directions, choking on his moans, vilifying the thoughtlessness of some, pillorying others. The flow of his words greatly exceeded that of the shower head. He, at least, had no problems with flies, being so well coated with his own sebaceous layer.

      I