Baril Guerard Jean-Philippe - Sports and Pastimes

Everything is upside down and everything is in its place. Flix-Antoine throws back his fifth shot of Jack Daniels. David leans against the bar, judging everything that moves with undisguised revulsion. Im pulsating, damp, even wet in places, sometimes slipping through, sometimes pushing. The bar orbits around me and I am happy.

Ive reached a higher level, a comfortable one, difficult to maintain, a precarious balance on the stilts of drunkenness. I hold the night high above me in my arms; it is perfect and at risk of sliding out of control at any moment.

I didnt come here to hunt, but prey has thrown itself in my face. A friend of Davids. Right now hes onstage singing Ghost Riders in the Sky, the Johnny Cash version. A song of morals. A song of warning. Stand tall, cowboy, the song says. Or else youre going straight to hell.

Down here, were all going to hell and we know it, no need to warn us.

This is Gabriels karaoke classic, David says, a curled upper lip still advertising his disgust.

David is terribly cool, and so contempt is his natural state. No point in worrying about it too much.

Going to fuck him tonight, I say.

Gabriel? David asks.

If thats his name, yes.

Hes a good guy, he says.

He said weve met, I say. Dont remember where.

The short film you were in. With the sex scene in the shower. He was the director of photography on it.

Oh, right. How do you know him?

This Gabriel, up there bowing. A bit of applause. A guy next to me shouting, giving a thumbs up. I raise my glass.

Way back, high school, David says. Hes the director of photography on my film too. I like him.

Its a good move?

Couldnt say, he says. I havent fucked him.

You might have heard whispers.

I havent heard whispers, he sighs.

David occasionally wants to sleep with me, when hes horny, and he gets a little bitter because we all know that would never happen. Hell be okay.

Events jostle around below me before I have the time to analyze them, I think about what Im going to say and already the words are outside me, someone says something about another round and already Gabriel is licking a drop of Jack from the corner of my lip. I dont really know if Im even that into him but Im turgescent, and I never say no when my body says yes. So I never say no.

I sniff Gabriels neck, his oozing armpit, I notice the top of a tattoo beneath his clavicle, I pull at the collar of his shirt to see the rest: a stags head. I keep whispering into Gabriels ear, bullshit, everything I say is bullshit and I know it as soon as I open my mouth. He must be pretty pleased with me because hes doing a great job of pretending to be interested in what Im saying. If I was someone else, Id find everything Im raving about right now to be completely incoherent and extremely boring.

It strikes three oclock, already the bartender is yelling for us to get out, this is an establishment where they dont know how to live, where they throw people out the door instead of letting them stick around, and so we stick around, someone manages to breach the last call, a last shot of Jack, Gabriel pours it into my mouth, David takes a photo of us.

A blur of motion, red, blue; at the top of the frame, an overexposed white hand pours a stream of whisky into the open mouth of a woman at the bottom of the frame; in the background, dark silhouettes.

I remember that this fucking bar is on the second floor only as I watch Flix-Antoine nimbly fall down the stairs, ending up ass over tits at the door, then, not wanting to open the door that way, trying to get up and rolling again, knocking his head against the concrete, and finally getting to his feet, standing on the sidewalk bowing at us as if it had all been planned out and he was the Nadia Comaneci of drunks.

David says goodnight, he kisses my cheeks too close to my lips, hugs Gabriel, goes down to join Flix-Antoine on the sidewalk. Flix is saying about the after-party, about coke and poutine, but none of these options are particularly tempting to me right now. I grab his shirt to say bye, he reminds me about our climbing plans for tomorrow, leaving at six-thirty. I formally order him to make me come no matter what state Im in because Im going to have to burn off a lot of calories to make up for tonight. He gets in his car and I ask, out of habit, if hes able to drive, as if Im really in a position to judge his abilities. David gets in with him, Flix steers his Jeep like a go-kart, and they disappear, cutting off a bus. If they die tonight in an accident, at least I wont remember having been partly responsible, alcohol has that as a positive. A friend of Gabriels leaves the bar, taps him on the shoulder, shakes his hand, and glances at me with a half-smile before mounting a bike and disappearing.

So. Me and Gabriel then, alone, together, on the street, which street, I dont remember; reading a sign is too much effort for this time of night, for this blood alcohol level.

Im not sober or patient enough to play the hesitation game, the maybe game, to inspire the thought in him that I might yet say no, that hell have to pursue me, insist, plead. I kiss him full on the mouth, a mouth as hot and wet as the air weighing down on our skin, and we walk toward my place. A walk that should take about seven minutes but ends up taking forty, because the alleys, because the nooks, because the darkened street lights.