Free October 1970 by Louis Hamelin

just to stand up. He forgot to bring the marriage licence. As it turned out, he’d just misplaced it: he found it stuck between the cushions in the back seat of the Lincoln. They drove off in the car after the wedding, through freezing rain and a hail of confetti, accompanied by the traditional concert of horns, their faces split by Pepsi smiles.
    Honeymoon in the Laurentians, at Colford Lodge, near Lachute. Ginette went into the bathroom to take off her wedding paraphernalia. She had a brief moment of panic when she saw how young she looked in the mirror above the sink. She decided against the negligée that her mother had given her and returned bravely naked to the bedroom. Coco lay stretched out across the bed, snoring like a chainsaw.
    The father-in-law had connections in the Montreal police. That was one thing being in La Patente was good for. Coco joined the force.
    There was the sound of something smashing and a string of curses coming from the kitchen. As she lay awake, waiting for the next crash, he came into the bedroom and fell onto the bed. And stayed there without moving, fully clothed. She could smell his rough, heavy breath filling the room. She shoved him with both hands.
    â€œWake up.”
    Eventually, he opened one eye.
    â€œWhat  . . . ”
    â€œI’m having contractions  . . . Take me to the hospital.”
    He tore three buttons from her pyjama top getting it open, exposing her heavy, swollen, expectant breasts. She gasped as, his breathing cutting through the silence broken only by the clicking of his metal buckle, he knelt above her on the bed and undid his pants. He roughly grabbed the two sides of the pyjama top, tearing them apart, the bottom button flying off into the air in an arc, at the apex of which it seemed to hover for a fraction of a second, like a woodcock over a thicket.
    â€œJacques, no  . . . ”
    Cardinal grabbed the elastic waistband of the pyjama bottoms and with a grunt exposed the incredible moon that rose in the room, as solemn as marble beneath his fingers. The strong biochemical smell rising from her did not deter him. Just the opposite: the intense mucousy emanations seemed to excite him.
    Afterward, he slept where he fell, on the floor, alone, like a dog.
    Before daylight she tried to wake him. At the word “hospital,” he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
    Her contractions were coming in constant waves when Coco, still drunk, climbed behind the wheel of the Mark II and drove them into the night.
    He was promoted to the morality squad. He eventually gave his wife three more children, alternating girls and boys. Work was a universe of illegal houses, gambling, and debauchery, long nights in Montreal. The mayor was a reformed sinner, incorruptible, who had built his reputation on an immoderate passion for decency and upright behaviour. While a young lawyer, he had attacked the Augean stables and accomplished the notable achievement of padlocking the red-light district, then had himself elected mayor and extended his heavy-handed crusade to city hall, where someone was put in charge of explaining the realities of life to him.
    The essential services rendered to Director-in-Chief Salaberry by a certain madame whose establishment in the quarter had reopened, its façade spruced up and its suggestive sign made more discreet, was an open secret in the force. Tenants in cat houses were warned in advance of police raids by telephone calls from a high-ranking officer, as was only right. The men brought in a few hookers to show that they were not turning a blind eye to the corruption that was gaining ground, spreading like gangrene into the legs of the city’s politicians, while the turgidity of the mayor’s speeches increased in direct proportion to his secret and shameful lubricity. So they would bring in a few girls and lock them up for the night.
    Bouncing like a pinball between alcohol and pills, Coco soared up