Michal started to skip next to Lionel because he was so happy.
“Yes sir, I am a lucky man to have found you, my little buddy. I never knew what the point of me was, you know that? Until you came into my path.”
They passed a funeral parlour on their way, and inside it they were playing a corpse’s favourite song.
Michal got a scholarship to McGill law school. He ran for public office. And later in life when he was a Member of Parliament, people always asked him how it was that he had come all this way. He had grown up with nothing. He had had a single mother who worked ten hours a day at a grocery store. Where did he find the courage to follow this road?
“His name was Lionel. He was a heroin addict. He died of an overdose when I was thirteen years old. He had the biggest heart in the neighbourhood. I still owe him five dollars.”
DAYDREAMS OF ANGELS
On that day, God decided to send ten thousand angels down to a shore in Normandy as there was going to be a terrible battle. The soldiers would need every angel He had in His house. All His most magnificent and awesome angels stopped whatever they were doing and headed down to the seashore. Then God found Himself short of angels. He had to do what He hated to do. He had to send some of the cherubim down to take on some of the tasks that His more senior angels usually handled. It was a shame to have to use the cherubim, the angels that were normally in charge of romantic love. They were sleazy and ridiculous. But what else could God do that day?
One cherub was sent down to Montreal. He was walking around in a tailored suit, with his trumpet case at his side, when he spotted Yvette Olivier beside the merry-go-round and immediately found her lovely. She had on a black jacket that was tight at the waist and flared out at the bottom. She had a bouncy brown bob that she tucked neatly behind her ears. He liked that she had big brown eyes. Angels all had blue eyes, and brown eyes always seemed so simple and honest to him.
The girl’s cheeks and nose were bright pink and her eyes glowed, but she was dancing about happily on her tippytoes. She’d been feeling sick and feverish for the past couple of days and her mother had been fretting over her like mad. Her mother had been continuously saying silly things like this wouldn’t be happening if she didn’t stay out when the sun went down, and this wouldn’t be happening if the girl’s father was here and wasn’t overseas in the war.
Of course none of her mother’s assertions made any sense whatsoever because now Yvette was feeling better. Oh, and she had lost a few pounds, which was something that she had been desperately trying to do for a while. Feeling so good to be up and about, she swore she would never take being alive for granted again. She wanted to go by her friends’ houses and tell them how much better she was feeling. She hoped that everyone would be up for going to a nightclub. She wanted to be picked up and swung so high that her skirt would fly up over her behind and when the boy put her down, she would feel his sweat dripping off his forehead onto hers. Since her body still felt a little bit tired and weak from having lain in bed for so much time, she thought that if she went out dancing, she might wake herself up once and for all.
She had taken a shortcut through the park as the shadows became as long as pulled taffy. There was a cute boy who worked at the merry-go-round and who had told her to come by to see him right before she had taken sick. She hoped that he hadn’t found a new girlfriend, but it was entirely possible that he happened to be as fickle as she was.
Yvette always had a crush on about six boys at a time. That’s just the way that she was. She was always sneaking out to go dancing with them. Her father had put an extra lock on the front door so that she couldn’t escape. Undeterred, she would sneak out her window and would ride her bicycle down a back alley to find a hiding place where kids were playing records and smoking cigarettes.
She was the eldest child in her family and all the others were still very young. They were all crazy about her and they jumped around the house like wild little dogs when she came home. She was so easy to love, always throwing her arms around everyone and singing popular songs from the radio before breakfast. Her father yelled at her before he left that she gave him more trouble than all the other kids put together, but secretly, he had admitted to himself that she was his favourite. He had never in his life met someone who was so free.
She held on to the cast iron gate that surrounded the merry-go-round, waving and laughing at the boy. He didn’t come over, though. She tried calling out to him, but there was no way in the world that she could be heard over the deafening music of the calliope. The sound of the calliope crashed over her voice like a huge wave.
Yvette started stumbling around with the back of her hand on her forehead, trying to pantomime that she had been sick. She looked like a tragic heroine in a black and white silent film, one who had found out that the evil landlord was stealing her home. The boy, who had the very important task of making the carousel turn around and around, still didn’t seem to see her. Or perhaps he did but he wasn’t in the mood to fall for her charms that day. The unicorns and zebras all looked straight ahead in their circular path, refusing to take notice of the girl either.
The cherub did, however. He started to laugh out loud at Yvette’s little performance. He clapped his hands together in a smattering of applause. She was a breath of fresh air. He most certainly had a soft spot for girls who were brash. He hated shy and humble girls.
Yvette turned toward him. She suddenly forgot all about the merry-go-round guy. She considered him for about thirty seconds and then decided: Oh, what the hell. She was going to be in love with this complete stranger for the evening and she would see where it led. She thought he was quite handsome, although she couldn’t put her finger on how old he was.
They walked down the street together. When the cherub told Yvette that he had liked her mime routine, she screamed in laughter. She told him that she went to the movies as often as she could and her biggest dream, although she was sure it was impossible, was to be a movie star. She suddenly stopped in her tracks. Then she started fluttering her eyes as if she were blind, with her hands clasped at her chest. She slowly put out her hand and felt the cherub’s face. She was re-enacting a scene from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. He thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and believe you me, he had seen a lot of things.
There was a little old lady wandering about in her nightgown on the sidewalk across the street. Yvette insisted they go help her. The cherub told Yvette that someone would be along to take care of her any minute now.
“Are you crazy! We can’t leave the poor sweetheart there!”
The cherub waited while Yvette took the old woman by the arm and led her back to her building. The old lady jabbered away the whole time. She smiled at Yvette affectionately and they disappeared into the stairwell. It was a few minutes before Yvette came back down.
“Sorry!” Yvette cried. “I wanted to make sure she was okay. I put her to bed and gave some food to her poor mewing cats and straightened up a tiny bit. I’ll swing by tomorrow to see if she needs anything.”
“Are you done with your good deeds?” the cherub asked.