so i tried to crash a local poet's "random acts of poetry" reading on the arts steps this afternoon (i'd been tipped off by a reporter/friend from the mcgill daily who was going to cover the story), expecting her to stand, leg perched upon the block, and recite the words aloud, gesturing grandly to apathetic poli-sci students and bewildered first years scurrying late to class. she didn't though, much to my disappointment. instead she made the reading a personal experience, approaching "randomly" chosen individuals, and reading them a "randomly" chosen poem, face to random face. i realize now that this is probably a much more appropriate way to read poetry to strangers - grandiose gestures would have shut people's ears and understanding - but i was disappointed because she didn't randomly pick me as one of her audiences. sure, my prior knowledge of the event would probably have ruined the effect she was going for, but still... i wanted to hear poetry. bitch.
i spent the entire bus ride home telling myself that i would make up for not hearing anyone else's poetry by writing a poem of my own. i scanned the blurred sidewalk for subjects; an old man heaving up a hill after the bus and the indifference of the driver and the passengers (including myself) were going to be my inspiration. ready to write and full of stock phrases, i got off the bus and headed down my street. as i approached the house that my apartment is in, i noticed a woman with a beagle loitering in front of my downstairs neighbour's apartment. she was wearing a wide brimmed, black hat and a jacket much too heavy for the warm day. i dismissed her as just-one-of-those-eccentrics-you-see-in-these-parts.
when i reached my door, however, i became aware that she was talking to me, and plucked my headphones out of my ears (of course i hadn't been listening to the sounds of life and the city, everyone knows it's all worthless din). the crazy lady had found a small shaggy dog without a collar, and wanted to know if it belonged to me. i told her it didn't but my french must have failed me because she brought it up to me anyway. just when i thought she was going to shove the dog off onto me, potential fleas and all, my neighbour from downstairs, phil, came out to see what all the hubbub was about. crazy lady asks him if the dog is his, phil says no, and crazy lady tries to shove the dog off on him. i guess she read the reluctance in phil's face, though, because a moment later she suggested the obvious, that she already had a dog and dog food and she could take it until the owner was found. so off crazy lady goes, small shaggy dog under one arm and beagle on a leash in the other. neighbourly chat between relieved phil and i ensues and a few minutes pass. but just as i was telling phil my theory about our upstairs neighbours being dealers, another woman bursts out of the apartment next to phil's, frazzled greying hair flying at all angles and nasty heather gym shorts clinging to her bony thighs, screaming: "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"
phil and i exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two dog bandit abettors, being found out. phil, the native francophone, begins explaining to crazier lady that a woman was concerned for the dog and took it just until the owner could be found, and look, in fact, she's actually just down the street there, with KC in hand, safe and sound.
for reasons that only another mildly insane quebecoise woman could understand, crazier lady grabs me by the arm, and begins shaking me frantically, repeating "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"
when i did nothing in response but knit my eyebrows and point down the street, she commanded phil to go get her dog for her, which, mysteriously, phil actually did.
crazier lady and i watched as phil ran a block down the street to the other woman and, because i needed to fill the awkward silence i said (in french) "Look, your dog is just there. The woman has your dog and you can have him back now. You can get him." well, that's what i thought i said, anyway, but those were not the words crazier lady seemed to hear. something snapped inside of her, and she charged like a mother moose down the street towards her KC, passing phil, and snatched her KC out of crazy woman's arms. i was too far out of earshot to hear what was said then, but i can imagine it was something like "tabernac! bitch!" because crazier lady proceeded to slap crazy lady up and down her torso and kick crazy lady's shins.
phil and i, from different ends of the street, exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two witnesses of a dog-inspired, crazy lady, cat fight. without waiting for the action to end, phil walked dazedly back up the street to where i stood.
"did you see that? where do we live?" he asked, and then said something in french that i couldn't understand.
"j'pense q'elle est une peu folle," i said.
"yeah, i think so," phil replied.
"well, it was good seeing you," i offered.
"yeah, you too."
i ascended the stairs to my apartment, where the key remained in the door. i pushed myself in and locked the door behind me, sank to the floor and let everything out.
no poetry for me today, just an hour of warm and lonely laughter.
