Power Forward by Sylvain Hotte

Author:Sylvain Hotte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novel
ISBN: 978-1-926824-61-1
Publisher: Baraka Books

Chapter 5

Vicky could barely handle her mother’s car. At every stop sign and after every red light she popped the clutch and the old heap lurched forward. But now we were rolling, windows down, me slouched down in the back seat, eyes moving from Jess’s blond curls to Vicky’s long, bleached windblown hair. It was like floating on a cloud.

Jessie kept twisting in her seat to offer me gum or a cigarette, which I naturally refused. The sun full in my face, I stared at the brightly dressed denizens of the Basse-Ville that crowded the sidewalks. Quebec City seemed to me to be the most beautiful town in the world. While the Côte-Nord, so far away, was becoming a distant memory. Riding through the woods in my quad, going fishing, the forests and the lakes, had become abstractions far from the happiness I was experiencing at that moment. Nothing else mattered.

Jessie was looking me steadily in the eye. And I held her gaze, smiling nonchalantly. She was incredibly beautiful. She talked about everything under the sun, gesticulating this way and that. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, on account of the wind and the music. But I didn’t care. I was feeling fine.

We whipped around the corner onto Rue du Roi, just about smacking into a cyclist and running over three pedestrians. Vicky seemed oblivious to everything, as though she owned the road, flicking the finger at anyone who dared say something about her driving.

“Here,” I said, “right next to the park.”

She simply looked at me in the rear-view mirror, without a word, finally bringing the old Tercel to a stop right at my door. This girl seemed incapable of speaking.

I got out of the car and went into my apartment like a man on a mission. In my room, I grabbed a pair of black shorts, a white t-shirt and my running shoes. As I still hadn’t been able to get up the courage to retrieve my backpack from big Vince’s office, I decided I’d borrow one of Larry’s. I rummaged through the mess scattered around his bed: pale blue sweats, dirty socks and some gross white underwear with skid marks… Yuck. All that unpleasant effort and still no pack. In the closet I found a backpack on the top shelf. I grabbed one of the straps and pulled it down. A pile of old towels hidden behind it tumbled to the floor. There was a dull thunk, as if something really heavy was inside the towels. As I picked it up I felt a very hard object through the fabric. Unrolling the towels, I found a gun.

It was black, a revolver. The handle was made of hardwood and was missing a whole section; it wasn’t exactly new. The barrel was stubby. On it, you could still read the engraving: Smith and Wesson, .357 Magnum.

I was stunned to find such a weapon hidden in his things, in the room right next to mine. What was he going

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