Squeegee City

The traffic was bloody outrageous by the time we reached Montreal, which worked out perfectly for us. Instead of dropping us off in some distant, obscure Francophone district, as Habeeb had planned, he was forced to drop us off downtown. Me and Fernweh had explored Montrèal in years past, though we had ever witnessed the downtown core - we preferred to spend our time in more relaxed areas such as Mont Royal or Anal Bead Village.

Squanch and Hades themselves had never even been in the province, so their eyes lit up in wonder upon stepping foot on French concrete- though I failed to understand why. Downtown Montrèal looked the exact same as any other city: monoliths dwarfed the cityfolk who wandered the streets, claustrophobia ran rampant; cracked streets had aluminum beasts coughing smoke at you.

We'd been deposited in an entirely blue-collar area, devoid of shops and stalls. We were surrounded entirely by office buildings and there wasn't even a French sign for us to compare the rest of Canada to (save for the street signs, formatted a la Rue Sanguinet instead of Sanguinet Road.) Skyscrapers tottered above us, mocking us in the same language that urbanization had always spoken. The only difference between Montrèal and Toronto so far was the dearth of pedestrians (turned out we'd been dropped in pretty desolate part of downtown) and a slight change in the accent on the people who did walk by. Hell, the first few people we saw weren't even speaking French.

We received our first bit of culture shock after me and Squanch hit the street corner so we could make money for booze. The first car we squeegeed rolled down the window, babbled some incomprehensible French pleasantries and tossed us a toonie. We reciprocated with an off-guard "merci." I guess anglophones stand out like sore thumbs when we speak, because the driver instantly flipped her french/english switch and thanked us in English before driving off.

We grinned. It's always a good sign when your first car drops you a toonie. Or a five bill. We weren't prepared for the next half an hour, an onslaught of excited drivers commuting from work to their Friday night festivities who were more than eager to hurl money out their windows. Toonies were tossed left, right and center, loonies were laughing their ways out windows, quarters were clearing air like it was nobody's business. Montrèal really was the squeegee capital of Canada - and, the soon-to-be squeegee capital of my heart.

Hades returned from the liquor store right as we'd made thirty bucks and traffic had started to die down. He was baffled - we'd just made as much money in twenty minutes as he'd make in three hours at work. Introducing someone to a hobo's source of income is always mind-boggling; a newcomer can be presented with fresh cash, can even watch the cash being made, and still fail to believe the simplicity that it comes with. Needless to say, he was glad that he'd traded his stable job for a volatile and unpredictable life on the streets. If anything, he was addled with a bit of regret for spending so many hours in the kitchen at work.

Beer and money in hand, we hopped over the ticket counter at the subway station (just 'cause we had money didn't mean we were going to pay the Man to take us from point A to point B) and took the train towards the beautiful Mont-Royal. We sped from the cavernous depths of the downtown core and readied ourselves to step into the lucid culture of Montrèal.