Larry Volt
By the same author
Larry Volt, Montréal, XYZ éditeur, “Romanichels” collection, 1998; “Romanichels poche” collection, 1998.
La dot de la Mère Missel, XYZ éditeur, “Romanichels” collection, 2000.
Copyright © 1998 Pierre Tourangeau and XYZ éditeur
English translation © 2001 Lazer Lederhendler and XYZ Publishing
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher - or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency - is an infringement of the copyright law.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Tourangeau, Pierre, 1951-
[Larry Volt. English]
Larry Volt
(Tidelines)
Translation of: Larry Volt
ISBN 0-9688166-4-9
I. Lederhendler, Lazer, 1950-. II. Title. III. Title: Larry Volt. English.
IV. Series: Tidelines (Montréal, Quebec).
PS8589.O68L3713 2001 C843’.54 C2001-941197-9
PS9589.068L3713 2001
PQ3919.2.T68L3713 2001
Legal Deposit: Fourth quarter 2001
National Library of Canada
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
XYZ Publishing acknowledges the financial support our publishing program receives from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles.
Layout: Édiscript enr.
Cover design: Zirval Design
Cover illustration: Umberto Boccioni, Élasticité, 1916
Printed and bound in Canada
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Larry Volt
a novel by Pierre Tourangeau
translated by Lazer Lederhendler
For Émilie, Max and Laurence
Chapter One
Hoi Anh, 69-70
The army is a rubber. It gives you the feeling of security while you’re being fucked.
Inscription on a Zippo lighter,
Unknown G.I.
So. Here I am, on the ledge of the window in Tess’s office, my feet dangling over the brink of life, between darkness and emptiness, my soul in the void, my heart on hardtack and water, wondering whether or not to plunge into the hurricane that carried it off.
Back of me there’s Julie, crying - she doesn’t let on but I can sense it - wanting me to choose the world of the living, which I haven’t as yet entirely left. There are the others down below, including, at ringside, those astounded bystanders: Oscar and Rashid with his Jennifer Ness on his arm, beside herself because she’s never been so close to someone wanting to burn his bridges to the point of jumping off, never witnessed so many deaths in such a brief span of time, though, actually, mine is still only a possibility. In the corridor, there are those that Julie has managed to fend off for now by locking the door and leaning the bookcase against it: Tess, distraught because she doesn’t want to lose a student or, above all, her job; Pelvisius, afraid for my soul and the reputation of his school. Even Nihil, who can’t stand me, absolutely wants to talk to me. Isn’t it always when you’re about to depart you find friends concerned for your welfare – just when you’re about to move on – they love you so much it’s beyond belief. The fact is there’s no reason for them to get so upset. Or perhaps there is, I really don’t know. Haven’t made up my mind yet.
“I’m getting some air. I’ve got a right to. Can’t even breathe anymore without starting a riot…”
I can hear Julie, who doesn’t find me funny, grumbling gently so as not to provoke me. But I’m on to them, all of them. They can go ahead and jabber, they won’t pull one over me, a straitjacket, that is, I won’t let them.
“Stop moaning like a siren, Julie. I won’t leave you my skin so long as I’m still inside it.”
“In that case get down from there, and you can keep your filthy skin. Who gives a shit!”
Julie has dropped her sweetness. I knew all along it was unnatural, all that honey. At this point she begins to weep. I hear her coming up behind me.
“Watch it! Don’t touch me or I’ll jump. After all, it’s my prerogative to choose my time, isn’t it?”
Her sobs are as long as the violins of Verlaine gathering dust in the attic where the Gentlemen of Saint Suspicius have stashed away evil and the poètes maudits. Still, they couldn’t prevent Tess from putting them - the Symbolists, that is - on the reading list of her literature course. The pressures of modernism. Certain rights they no longer have. Julie’s tears come faster, more so for trying to swallow them.
“Have you got the hiccups or something? There’s really no way of getting a little quiet.”
It breaks out like a wail amid all her sniffling. Heartrending. Totally melodramatic.
“I love you Larry. Stay with me, or take me with you.”
“No, beautiful. If I go, it’ll be on my own. I’ve had all the trouble I can handle. I don’t feel like starting a family in Hell. As for love, you can see where it’s taken me. To the edge. Pretty soon it’ll be up against the wall.”
When all is said and done, there’s no getting around it. Life - so far no one has come up with anything better for killing you bit by bit. I miss Anna, but she’s worse off than I am. Logically, I should stop feeling sorry for myself. But we live in different neighbourhoods, logic and me. So I whine all the same, because if Anna were around I’d let myself get dazzled and forget all that she does to me and all she doesn’t anymore.
I’m on the lip of Hell, where I’ve always been. What’s more, I’ve done whatever’s needed to get comfortably settled in Lucifer’s circle. I’ve even taken on a nom de guerre. It behooves me now to be worthy of it.
Larry Volt, the perfect name for a black sheep, a raging ram. Far better than Larry Tremblay, in any case. With a name like that, even with the beard and the beret, no one would take me seriously in my Québécois Guevara disguise. Whereas Larry Volt hits you as soon as it’s spoken. The true name of a restless martyr, the kind whose death stirs up shit for hundreds of years.
Shit – now that’s something I know about. It’s where I come from, what I’m in, where I’m headed. A mere twitch of my ear is enough to set everyone’s teeth on edge. At home, in class, on the street, in the metro, wherever.
“Larry! Stop! You get on my nerves with those ears of yours