Sweetest Days , livre ebook

The Sweetest Days
Jim Bostjancic
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-07-31
The Sweetest Days About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19
About the Author
Jim Bostjancic is a screen and television series writer from Canada. This debut work of fiction is based on one of his unproduced screenplays.
Dedication
To veterans unable to find a place…
Copyright Information ©
Jim Bostjancic (2020)
The right of Jim Bostjancic to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528930727 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528930734 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528966405 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1
A Buddhist monk in Montreal for an ecumenical symposium was in a cab stopped at the foot of Autoroute Ville Marie expressway when he saw someone touched by heaven. The man had a crooked back and was dressed in a tattered suit.
Had a brief case in one hand and was licking a melting ice cream cone with such joy. Innocence, the Monk reflected. This was no osteoporosis, senior. He was a young man. Peter Pan boy.
Gary’s stoop made him look 20 years older from far but close, his blonde hair and baby-face made him appear 10 years younger than his 32. He just polished off a coffee ice cream and was flying high on mocha sweetness.
Moments like these checked degrees of anxiety he experienced better than medication he was prescribed to what psychiatrists described as ‘mental illness’.
The light changed, and the cab lurched forward.
The Monk glanced back at the slouched stranger in his reverie or little world, whatever crooked back standing on the sidewalk was feeling, that was Nirvana.
This was not the Sweetest Day. For one, Gary was borderline diabetic which checked him from eating sugar often. And two, since he was on social assistance, could not afford to but was treating himself to a sweet because he was on his way to applying for a job he felt he had an excellent chance getting.
10 minutes later he was standing on the corner in Montreal’s Little Burgundy neighbourhood, among the row houses painted blue, green, indigo, and red. Residents in this enclave painted the brick exteriors of homes to mirror Montreal’s rainbow of inclusion.
The proprietor of Mr. Bubble’s Car Wash was a portly, Greek fellow in his fifties. Bushy eyebrows. Stained undershirt. Hairy back. He was nursing a cigarillo. Gary found the smoke stifling and coughed. Yet the aroma pleasant. Silently lipping to himself, the Greek reviewed Gary’s application for employment.
“You’re from English Canada? Served in Afghanistan?”
“With Canadian forces,” Gary concurred.
“And your best job since being back is selling ice cream in Winnipeg?”
Gary nodded. Mr. Bubbles, or the Greek, looked at Gary. Suspicious more than confused now.
“Why?”
Gary hesitated. Should he tell him or not?
He decided to be honest. Maybe a Mr. Bubbles kind of guy would understand?
“Panic attacks,” Garry added.
“Panic attacks? What do you mean by that?”
A pang of insecurity befell Gary causing him to hesitate.
If he explained. Was honest, might still win.
“Sometimes when things go on I get very scared. And my heart beats very fast. And it feels like I’m going to die.”
Now that threw the Greek a loop.
What in frigging, damn hell , he thought.
A Montreal Urban Community garbage truck pulled up.
"Go Green’ painted on the sides in French.
There was no concealing Gary’s stressed and pronounced obvious gasp as two strapping sanitation engineers emptied overflowing containers of trash in the rear of the truck.
“What?”
The Greek inquired, puzzled by Gary’s reaction?
“Garbage men.”
“So?”
“They better not be here to take me away.”
“Take you away?”
He’d met his share of jailbirds and kooks searching for employment after being released from the slammer, but this Gary guy and a former army war vet, on top of it, left him beyond baffled. This desperado is way too messed up.
“I don’t know what kind of a head case you are, but I’m not going to be able to hire you, buddy.”
And that was it. The opportunity was gone and replaced by something painful that imbued Gary. Not pain that physically hurt like being punched or kicked. An inner feeling of loss. Dread. Defeat. Death. Just like in Afghanistan. Like war buddies wiped out. His mom gone. Failure to thrive. Reasons he’d always moved on. Gary strode off. Moved pretty quick with pep. Not arrogant or insolent tough, but being ex-military still in shape.
A maelstrom of confusion consumed Gary now.
He stopped. Reached in his suit pocket and produced an envelope. He was only supposed to take these at night because they made him sleepy. He popped the little tablets into his mouth.
Medication designed to do battle and free him from the dudgeon of doom. He hoped it would work in time before he would have to face his social worker and explain the reason why he didn’t get the job. She or the psychiatrists didn’t know when he took tablets during the day, 99% of the time they didn’t work.
The effects of the medication kicked in immediately.
He was getting drowsy. His eyelids got heavy.
He couldn’t think. He had to hide so he could close his eyes and sleep somewhere safe. Forty minutes later the security man shook Gary who jumped—and snapped awake.
“No sleeping – out,” the guard sneered in Quebecois French.
He tried to be polite but learned it was better being a rough dealing with bums who passed out where Concordia University students were supposed to be studying. At 60 it felt good intimidating ne’er-do-wells with the power of his voice.
Gary marched out pronto. He didn’t have a clue what the security man said but could tell by his tone it was uninviting. Gary only understood a few words in French.
Moving to a city where he didn’t speak the language was a good idea. If people said unkind things and you couldn’t understand what they were saying, so it couldn’t hurt.
Montreal. It was the perfect place to try again.
At De Maisonneuve and Guy Street his balance was off.
He was dizzy from untimely ingesting his medication.
The tablets knocked him out and he fell asleep while hiding. He caught a glimpse of a passing clock that read 5:15.
Dudgeon of doom feeling dissipated but his welfare worker was going to be angry because he was 2 hours late.
Lucky the office was only a few blocks from the metro.
The receptionist told Gary his social worker Ms. Jepsen left. He left a message that he’d been unable to obtain the job and the receptionist picked up the phone and spoke in French. Gary didn’t understand what she said but sensed it was not good.
On the other end of the line, Gary’s caseworker Ms. Genevieve Jepsen was furious. Fifty-six years old. An obese woman who always wore loose-fitting dresses to conceal her figure. Clients do not dictate or impose on her by being late and irresponsible in a system that was overwhelmed.
It was further exacerbated for having faith in him only to be proved wrong. Unlike so many of the other young people in their prime destroyed by mental illness, she believed Gary could rise above it.
She wanted to abandon Gary for failing her too.
Upon reconsidering, realised she did not have all the facts.
There was not enough love to go around in the world. She knew that personally. A spinster fraught with weight issues since adolescence. Men ignoring her. Never dating.
Single for years and alone.
Gary observed her while she re-read the notes in his file. Her obesity didn’t register. She was old, he thought. Lots of wrinkles on her face. These lines were not from overexposure to sun or age but battle scars acquired over years fighting for Montreal’s most neglected.
The vast majority losses. Some of those losses broke her heart. The reason why she even took on Gary’s case file was because he was from Western Canada. Did not speak a word of French. A strike against him before he could even be helped. He had been her client for 2 months. Counselled him 30 minutes, twice a week. And he’d been in the hospital twice so far.
Notes indicated he had been discharged from the Canadian Forces. Deemed unfit for service. It was vague and inconclusive. This is the Federal Government, she thought. Doing their fancy dancing.
Passing the buck to provinces or municipalities to deal with the headache. She flipped to the next page of the file. Composite psychiatric evaluations followed him from Vancouver B.C. Eastbound. Calgary—borderline personality. Winnipeg—Bipolar disorder. Toronto—psychotic ideation. Ottawa—schizophrenic.
His collar was skewed otherwise he was clean. Neat. Always in a suit. No smoke stained fingers nor disregard of hygiene with respect to hair, teeth, or body cleanliness. It was evident Gary did not abuse alcohol or drugs like many others. Something was amiss. What was right about him was undocumented. Irrelevant? Unknown?
“Jarry…”
Like everyone else in the cit