Louis Rastelli

This is another deleted passage from the early drafts of A Fine Ending, the first of several which delve deeper into the narrator’s day job as well as the francophone side of Montreal. I would have liked to work into the book more about the day job, the francophone side of the city, and the narrator’s family, but it was important for the focus to remain on what was absolutely necessary to flesh out the main story and characters.

These passages were deleted mainly because they weighed down the flow of the book (which was far too long and rambling in earlier drafts). These passages also did not include any of the recurring characters, and mostly touched on themes which I felt were covered elsewhere.

More excerpts involving the characters appearing in this passage will follow.

It was my second annual Employee Party at work, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to pass by and scarf down some hors d’oeuvres while drinking free beer. They held the party in a big tent they put up on the unused parking lot that faces the grassy hill I nap on at lunch.

The year before, I didn’t stay at the party very long, as there wasn’t really anyone to talk to, but this time I unexpectedly ran into an old high-school classmate who worked there as well. All that time, he’d been working just a couple of floors above me and we’d never run into each other. We caught up on things while waiting in one of the huge line-ups for free beer and wine. He made more money than I did, but he seemed to work way too hard for it. He’d been pretty much forced to work full day on Saturdays, too. I told him I’d occasionally have to work very late or bring work home, which I figured balanced out my relative slackness. But my work was a lot different from the technical shitwork he did, and I didn’t envy him for it.

As everybody began getting drunker, and the dance floor started filling up with embarrassingly bad employee-dancers, the conversations got more interesting. I was happy to have a chance to talk with this one guy from Mali who works on my floor.

I asked him about this whole globalization thing, whether he thought it was good that our company went into his country and provided some jobs. I thought it might be a heavy topic to bring up at a party, but to my surprise, he started talking very seriously about the whole thing-even nearly hitting somebody while gesticulating wildly to emphasize a point.

“I don’t like seeing things become more and more the same,” he said emphatically. “It’s different where I come from, but they don’t let it be, they try to make it like here or like anywhere else. They have no reason to make it all the same– they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know what they’re losing.”

In Mali, he told me, the people had the naive idea that becoming more like the West is just plain good. “For a while, they’ll be happy they changed and became like this,” he said, “then they’ll travel and realize everywhere is like this, that it’s nothing special. Before, though, it was special. It was their own way to live, but soon it will be gone.”

I’d assumed that everybody who worked here agreed with what big companies like ours did, except me, but I guess I was wrong. He and I agreed that much of the work companies like ours did was good - building new sanitation facilities and water filtration plants and so on — although he did mention that there was a lot of corruption in the governments over there.

“I’m sure there’s quite a bit at this end, too,” I told him.

A little later, standing in the ever-crowded line for free beer, I was even more surprised to find a crew of people from the accounting department planning to walk down the block to smoke a joint. One co-worker invited me to come along, and when I accepted, the other employees were shocked.

“Not you! We thought you were straight as an arrow!”

I thought that was extremely funny, but I didn’t let on exactly how wrong they were.

“But you always look very professional and serious, Louis,” said one of my incredulous co-workers.

“Well, you guys don’t look the type to be smoking, either,” I said.

“Oh good, we were worried people at the office were starting to notice us.”

“Notice what?” I asked.

“Well, that we go out every day and smoke together at lunch!”

I still couldn’t get over that these accountant types in their 30s and 40s smoked pot at all, much less while at work! Even I wouldn’t consider ever doing that. Not only would it be a waste of a good buzz, but I couldn’t imagine being able to get much work done.

Outside, I learned that one of the people in their crew, Marie, was a young intern from France. She was just in Montreal for the summer, and was the co-worker closest to my age, only a couple of years younger. We started up a conversation with each other right away, and I enjoyed hearing what she thought about our city.

“I love the way people speak here,” she said, and went on to tell me that she’d already picked up a lot of the local expressions (including, of course, our unique way of cursing). It turned out Marie was a big fan of Plume Latraverse, a Québec singer who gained fame in the 70s for being one of the first to sing songs in Joual, the mangled version of French spoken casually by most people here. It took me a little while to get used to the expressions from France that she used herself.

“It’s nice to make friends with someone at work,” I told her, ” aside from my boss. He’s really easy-going and friendly.”

I related a story to her that he once told me, about having been in Paris in May 1968, when the students took over the city for several weeks. He’d been caught in the crossfire between the students and police, and although he seemed to sympathize with the students, I don’t think he was any sort of agitator himself.

“People of my generation don’t romanticize that era very much,” she said. “It’s more just something that people’s parents always go on about.”

Back at the beer tent, the cheesy music was nearly insufferable, but we lined up for more free beer anyway. The other employees I’d smoked up with tried to drag Marie and I onto the dance floor, but we managed to avoid that fate. The company had hired one of those bands that only play at weddings and corporate events like this one, and the music was just atrocious.

I never expected to stay at the party that long. After Marie and I realized we were feeling pretty light-headed from the booze, the joint, and the fact that we’d only eaten hors d’oeuvres for supper, we decided to leave. It turned out she was staying just a few blocks from my place, so we shared part of the bus ride home together.

On the bus, she mentioned that she wished she had picked a different year to visit Canada, because the World Cup was being held in France that summer. Neither of us were soccer fans, except for when there was a World Cup. Most of the games happened in late afternoon, and before I got off for my stop, we pledged to leave work during the Cup to go watch France’s games somewhere.