Basabi

Here comes the sun.

It will destroy us.

I had a bad feeling about the trip to Montreal. I'd visited once before, as a hapless nerd in high school who was curious and engaged but also ill-equipped to understand what the city and its people were trying to tell me.

I looked forward to returning as a somewhat less neurotic, awkward nebbish. Whatever I was, I was older.

The problem was the reason for my visit. I had befriended a former pupil of mine, who had moved from our mutual stomping grounds in the West to Quebec years ago. We kept in touch in that casual, vacuous way that social media facilitates, but he had drifted to the periphery of my life, and I was just a small satellite in his social constellation.

Then he decided to get married, and asked one of his friends to be his best man. The friend in question had always struck me as a perfect idiot, but the decision was his, and it revealed something about his taste, but it did not trouble me. His fiancée is very good at being herself, and I quite like her. That makes me wonder if she knows what's ahead, but do any of us have any idea? Just look at the present, and compare it with a past that differs from it dramatically, in which you were mostly at home, and could look forward to more of the same, at least in some respects.

How far are we from that dewy Eden? Pretty bloody far, and it didn't take long, did it? Global trouble is distracting, and debilitating, for the fortunate few. For the rest, well, Dante had plenty of material to work with. I do digress.

Then the friend bailed, claiming that domestic chaos (his girlfriend's son had been misbehaving in school and making dark, sinister remarks that troubled the school counselor, both he and his girlfriend) and some sort of health problem had combined to render him incapable of performing his best man duties. It all sounded flimsy and peculiar to me, but as I mentioned, his taste is his taste.

He asked me to fill in. I've been happy and honored to be a best man before. Incurable bachelors get tapped for this role quite often, as it turns out. I had never been a "stunt" best man, or an "understudy" best man, yanked onto a vacant stage, before. It seemed sort of absurd, but my friend and former pupil was in a jam, so I signed up.

The bachelor party was scheduled to take place in Montreal.

As would seem reasonable, given the global fame of exotic dancers in this fabled city, some arrangements would have to be made on behalf of the groom, in keeping with ancient and enduring customs. Ordinarily, the duty to make such arrangements would fall to a best man, or a reasonable facsimile of a best man, at the very least. Needless to say, while I have grave reservations about the ethical, cultural and political symptom that is exotic dancing, I understood my responsibilities.

But it was not to be. For, in his wisdom, my erstwhile pupil elected to misbehave in a way most offensive to his blushing bride to be. He'd been doing research for the bachelor party, and did something embarrassing and foolish that was not unforgivable, but made her glow with rage. Suffice it to say that he was alone. Online.

Instead of casting him adrift, his intended strictly forbade him to even approach an emporium specializing in the provision of exotic dancing as entertainment. He meekly submitted to her justified outrage, and the "bachelor party" won't merit the name.

In Montreal.

I am not immortal. My chances are finite.

I showed up anyway. He was kind enough to find me a sort of Airbnb from another time. A kindly elder welcomes me, encourages me to take part in activities with the other lodgers and shows me to my quaint digs. She has baked cookies, which are rather delectable. She is patient and gentle with my atrophied, conversational French. Thanks to the cab driver who got me here from the airport and this grey eminence, I get the impression that "merci beaucoup" is pretentiously Parisian, whereas "merci bien" is more colloquial and smoother, like ice fit for skating upon.

Are the digs a bit spartan? Perhaps. Sufficient for a disgruntled stunt best man playing along with spite in his heart? Yes.

Dinner takes place at a beautiful, Afghan restaurant on the plateau. The spiced, grilled lamb did not die in vain. The bread is too good for this world. Montreal is eminently civilized and sophisticated. Couples come into the restaurant with the shining eyes of those who are proud to be engaged in public mating rituals, carrying bottles of wine they have selected and purchased themselves, in advance. They are warmly encouraged to bring them in and enjoy them with their meals. Taste has consequences.

Desultory drinking and chatting ensues. Then, a trudging expedition toward a seemingly fictional destination begins, at the behest of the daft groom to be, my old friend. Many things were spilled on the map in his head during dinner and thereafter. We circle loud, fragrant blocks more than once, weaving between artificial light and real darkness. Passers by are asked for aid in several, inebriated languages. We lose several revelers to frustration and fatigue. We finally arrive at the wrong place, and finding it open, decide it will do.

Having looked around, I leave through the back and burn a thoroughly disappointed cigarette. A hand closes on mine as I am trying to return my lighter to its natural home. Gently, it is guided to a cigarette I have cause to envy right away.

I provide light. "You're lost," she says, "I can tell."

"How can you tell?" I'm relieved that she did not try to initiate a conversation in French. I'm in the semantic kiddy pool, there. I can get by, but I can't say anything interesting.

"You move like you're on invisible stilts. Why are you here?" That's rather aggressive, don't you think? It's stimulating and challenging,

"I'm a fool's stunt best man. Will you help me?"

Look at that smile. I think the key is thoroughly enjoying what you are doing. She's smiled before, to wild applause. She's gotten the job, or the kiss, or the keys, just by smiling.

"You'll have to come down from those things first. I probably can't help you." Quite consistent, that tone. Porcupine. With that smile.

"Are you going to see dancers? I am a dancer, sometimes."

"We cannot. The bride to be was quite specific, and her will is law."

Laughter. Rather sharp, remorseless laughter. The three other people smoking behind the bar or lounge or speakeasy or whatever this dump thinks it is look startled. I think they could do me some serious harm, if perturbed. They're burly and buzzed and barking at one another. Best to keep things calm. I can't grade them.

"Oh, poor children. Mother is cross. Where are they now, your friends?" She puts her hand on my shoulder and exhales a pale cloud into my nostrils.

"Inside, probably engaging in a kind of better living through chemistry that worries old men like me."

She cracks the door behind me and peers inside, assessing things with practiced ease. "Yes, they are over there with Miguel. They will not notice when we leave." She directs me rather firmly toward a sketchy alley behind the bar. I'm as curious as I am frightened. Drinking wine can make you puzzle over the difference until it doesn't matter.

Many people have done things they regret in this alley. Some of them have done them rather recently, and two of them are making the memory right now. Grunting is involved. The alley smells like nachos served in a used diaper. There are some interesting concerts on the horizon, if the walls can be trusted.

"Now, what is your name?" She shoves me, playfully, against the wall. The grunting continues. It is distracting.

"Bill," I tell her the truth.

"You are one of those people who never stops going to school?"

"Yes."

"How smart has it made you, if you are here now?"

"Not particularly, I'm afraid. You know my name, but I do not know yours. Does that mean you've won?" I glance nervously at the grunters. Their crescendo is approaching.

"I am Basabi. I try to enjoy myself, riding the tiger. Do you want to try?" Her grin is feral.

"I'm sure that's a metaphor, but I don't understand it. What are you offering me?"

"Night joy," she says. She kneels, swiftly removes my right shoe and sock and puts my big toe into her mouth, her eyes fixed on mine. She bites my toe, and begins to suck. I feel like the difference between us has disappeared, for a moment. I am surprised by the warm softness of her mouth, and the cruelty of her teeth.

The burly smokers have followed us into the alley. Basabi restores my footwear. My toe tingles, but there is no pain. Their arrival ruins everything for the grunters, who adjust frantically and run. "Don't make us roll you," says the lead oaf. He uses donair sauce as cologne, I think, "just give us everything and we'll go." He pulls an improbably large knife. His friends follow suit.

Basabi glides between me and the oaf. She stands on tip toe and whispers something into his ear. His friends emit a crude sort of primate snickering. His eyes cloud, he turns to one of his friends and stabs him firmly in the throat. The eyes of the victim triple in size, he emits a serpentine hiss and folds, claret bubbling onto his greasy t-shirt. The other friend howls his confusion to the alley and lunges for the lead oaf, who yanks his knife out of his first target and slams it into his fresh target's left ear. Basabi purs and takes my hand. She leads me through the alley to the north.

"How did you do that?" I ask in a rather desperate tone, in spite of myself. A robust rat follows us out of the north side of the alley, seems to remember something and rushes back the other way.

"Some people wait all of their lives to hear a woman say certain things to them. Once they hear them, they become like dogs waiting for commands. You will show me how to speak to you that way, in time."

She is a knight on the chessboard of the Montreal darkness. We follow a quaintly cobbled avenue for a couple of blocks, dart left, run past some unhoused people bivouacking beside a dumpster and advance, then veer left again. I would follow her exquisite behind anywhere. I wonder where the groom to be thinks I've gone?

We come upon an Indian food truck, spicing up a cluster of drunks. The elderly woman spooning butter chicken onto rice in styrofoam catches sight of Basabi as we approach.

"Chedipe!" she shouts, and without ceasing to dole out the grub, she extends the index and little fingers of her left hand upward while folding the middle and ring fingers under the thumb. Her eyes are full of scorn, laced with fear.

"Kuttiya!" Basabi hurls the word like a grenade and picks up our pace.

"Why did she do that?" I'm sure there's little point in asking, but I must.

"It is not always a good thing to be recognized," she replies. She casually adjusts my fly. I have trouble thinking of a reply.

We are slicing across a startled park with its green hair standing on end when a tall, thin man steps into her route and stands pat. His glasses are thick and dirty, his silver locks and beard mad. The pale square on his dark collar reminds me of the taste of dry wafers and the thick sweetness of incense. Basabi giggles derisively and halts.

"Bonne nuit, Père Joseph!" she says, and curtseys. I'm not sure what to do, so I do nothing.

The old man brandishes an antique crucifix that was hiding in his long, dark coat. "Nous t'avons enfin trouvée, sorcière!" he says. The letter "s" sidles awkwardly between his dentures. Four men are coming toward us, two from the east and two from the west. They are all wearing anonymous street clothes and balaclavas. Père Joseph tasers Basabi with a theatrical flourish, never lowering the crucifix, then prevents me from feeling left out.

Everything goes black.

When I come to, I'm zip tied to a drain pipe on the roof of a church. Basabi is beside me, in an identical predicament. My head feels like an egg that is about to hatch. Dawn is simmering. Basabi is gnawing at her zip tie as if it's delicious. I need a drink.

"Help me!" shrieks Basabi, as if I can do anything of the kind.

"How can I help you?" Her eyes are black and frenzied.

"You don't understand," she snarls, almost pulling the pipe away from the brick with a ferocious yank, "the sun will kill us both. I made you like me, last night, in the alley." She looks ominously at my right foot, in the dirt on the roof. My poor toe. A pigeon lands close by and begins to scold us.

Dawn begins, and ends us. Her screams are terrible enough for us both.

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This story was written for the ingenious L.C. Schäfer's spring challenge, the details of which can be found below: