***
One of the great things about Montreal is that once you have lived there and walked all the streets from east to west, every nook and cranny holds a memory…. unless the architecture has been removed. Now when I visit town this memory keeps coming back to me on Sherbrooke St., heading East from Greene Avenue. My first thought in that area should be about exhibitions at the Bellefeuille Gallery or lunch at Nicks back in High School Days, but this memory is so much stronger and stranger.
To the uninitiated it should be explained how Montreal is a bit of a criminal town.
There are many reasons for it, the potential anonymity it provides by its size and neighborhood stratification, the acceptance of all sorts of wardrobe, and the zesty love of life of its French population as well as their innate and frequent rebellion against the edicts of Mother Church.. It’s histories during prohibition where bootleggers became millionaires is another factor…. Hey, the list goes on. … but I was brought up in the straightest of environments and as a reaction to the neat lawns and polished floors and white carpets of Snowden, I gravitated to the original neighborhood of my forefathers, the Main.
There as a community of artists we could take over unused but heated ex factories for relatively cheap rent and hang out supporting ourselves on our talents and good looks.
Crime and Art are related in that they are both branches of a tree that gives success to those who break the rules, so artists and criminals often get along well together.
My loft on the Main had many from both sides of the legitimacy veil hanging out and while I didn’t ‘perform’ we all understood our boundries with respect. I mean, I didn’t encourage Satan’s Choice to ‘come by and see the work and get a buzz’ , There was a line and it was easy to draw, there were a lot of people to play with.
One group was the Downtown Junkie Crowd.There were some great and funny people in that group. Diverse. They were often hungry to score they used my studio to relax or to meet friends. It was central and I was loose. … There were always stories. I was a good listener…. and I usually knew who was involved.
I get a call one morning that there was a ‘bad scene’ last night, during some pot deal some guy named Bugger pulled out a gun and shot a friend of mine in the back, twice. Always the artist; knowing he was a Dancer, I immediately asked:” Is he OK? Will he dance again??”
***
Now my friend is in the hospital and this guy Bugger is on the loose in the underground. I start getting the background on Bugger. How bad is this guy?
Well, him so bad that in a tableside conversation, I am told, he got upset and reached across the table and thumbed someone’s eyes out.
All this stuff all happened in NDG on the West side…. so what does this all have to do with my memories of Sherbrooke Street between Greene Ave. and Guy St.?
Well, it’s like this. There was this Black gentleman on the Downtown scene, Freddie B, a real serious and wise man who was a longtime junkie and very well mannered, a friendly guy who radiated an inner strength.
He was the only Black Man on the scene that I knew, he was funny and hip and, from what I could tell, very kind.
I can’t get into all the situations I shared with his presence. Some incidents were legendary like when he revealed his engorged manhood to a future girlfriend who could not ‘parse’ the image input and thought she was looking at a baby’s arm holding an apple… He was sitting down at the time and she was looking for the rest of the baby. Maybe she was a bit stoned.
***
Anyway, there I was on Sherbrooke St one very sunny day driving along with all the windows wide open. At the red light somewhere near Greene Ave a small truck pulls up beside me and there in the drivers seat is Freddie, with some grim no lipped guy beside him in the cabin, just staring straight ahead.
We make eye contact and he grins away at me as we exchange greetings, yelling at each other in traffic. “That your truck?” I ask. “Naw!” Freddie replies,” just a friend’s, doing him a favor” he says, gesturing behind him to the truckbed.
Sticking out of the truckbed is a large Persian style carpet, rolled up and hanging partially over the back lid of the bed. MR. NoLips, the guy in Freddie’s truck, hisses to Freddie that the light has changed and pushes his chin forward to get the show moving again.
For the next ten blocks or so, Freddie and I had a rap between cars about things, old friends and updates etc, as we drove on, stopping at all the lights. Thing about Junkies is that, everything that happens to them is momentous, and that makes catching up a series of mini epics. Eventually I turned off Sherbrooke and watched Freddie and the truck and the carpet migrate down the road.
A few months later I ran into a mutual friend of Freddie’s and mine and as per usual, Freddie’s name came up.
“Oh, did you not know? Freddie got Bugger!” he said like he was telling me our Grannie got a new sweater at Eaton’s. “Whattaya mean” I asked like a civilian. My buddy looked at me and then over all four of our shoulders and said:”Well, Bugger, he was out of control, Bad for the whole scene, so Freddie offed him. Rolled him up in a carpet and ‘poof!’ he be gone!” he said, with a ‘that’s that!’ grin.
“Well,” I replied, I never knew Bugger but I do think I met the carpet once a few months ago.”