Taking The Last Step

Just like that. He's gone. Forever. No more late night calls, spontaneous walks on the mountain, laughing themselves silly until they can't breathe, making fun of the tam tams, the privileged west island and south shore kids who come in on Sundays to feel alternative. Glen would ridicule them behind their backs, aping their pseudo hippie composure, sitting crosslegged in three hundred dollar jeans and playing new djembes they bought from Steve's, badly. A bag of mixed day olds from Fairmont, thirteen for a buck ninety nine, tub of whipped cream cheese and flat of smoked salmon,  Glen and Leo would would grab quart bottles from the dep, share swigs while masterminding their  impending domination of the theatre world, riffing on ideas for festivals and installations, taking the piss out of Cirque and Lepage because hey, who did they think they were. Leo noticed the lump during one evening of too much hash and not enough curry, after two hours of the worst Chekhov they'd ever heard. Life's too short for shitty theatre, Glen lamented as he leaned into the stove to suck back the sweet smoky oil rising up off the knives. Leo saw the knot at the base of the back of Glen's neck, like a walnut protruding from his ring necked tee. Within two weeks Glen would be in immobilizing pain, his effervescent physicality shut down by the metatastisizing tumour. Three weeks, he was gone. Lucien L'Allier is the deepest of the single metro stations, the longest response time for EMS. Glen loved Jesus de Montreal, Arcand's best film, he would say. One final step. Code 900-04 station 250, code 900-04 station 250.