A Slight Case of Fatigue by Stephane Bourguignon

Author:Stephane Bourguignon [Bourguignon, Stéphane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, translation, family, divorce, parenting, mid-life crisis, depression, Quebec, TV, La vie, Montreal, Camus, life out-of-control, self-destruction
ISBN: 9780889229174
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 2013-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

15

I ALWAYS SAY I DON’T KNOW why I love him, but it’s not true. Ever since the very first day, when he showed up in the schoolyard with his too-big pants that he kept hitching up—his father couldn’t even be bothered to buy him a belt—his hair falling in his eyes, his rubber boots even when the sky was clear and blue, and his way of looking at ­people sidelong as if they already represented a threat. It was right after Easter holidays, during morning recess. He dropped his bag on the ground and just stood there. The kids walked past him, wondering what he was up to, and Eddy, my future friend Eddy, waited. He wasn’t trying to create any effect at all. He was just being Eddy, eleven years old, hair and pants too long, scruffy from head to toe, waiting for the bell to go into his new school. The girls were watching him, making little ­comments. They were making fun of his appearance, but they already saw something special in him. It was obvious he came from a different world. For the same reason, the boys were eyeing him suspiciously. I knew what was in store for him. Laurent would soon take things in hand.

I saw all this from the window of my classroom on the third floor. My teacher, Madame Drapeau, had decreed that while the other kids were out cavorting in the schoolyard, I had to stay at my desk and think: was it polite to look at the teacher’s bosom when she was speaking to us? I hadn’t answered, but I did think she could have been more ­discreet with those big breasts of hers.

Eddy was standing in the middle of the schoolyard and the other kids were already congregating around him. It was like a dance. Without even realizing it, the boys and the girls had made him the centre of their attention. The movement was subtle, but from where I was ­sitting, it was as if the whole schoolyard had begun to waltz slowly around him. In the distance were the mountains, and the wind was blowing cool air from there. Although I couldn’t see the river that flowed beneath them, I knew it was there. I waited for the end of classes every day the way a prisoner waits for the twenty-fifth year of a sentence, and every day I’d wander along the bank of the river, looking for dead fish, throwing pebbles and, with a little luck, coming across cigarettes or porn magazines some teenager had hidden there. Just catching my breath before going home.

My three brothers, my parents and I lived on a farm at the edge of the village. My fourth brother had hanged himself in the barn the ­previous fall. My father was the one who found him and cut him down. Thirty minutes later, he was still holding him in his arms. If my mother had been there, he would surely have put him down, but she was out.

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