Saint of Whales - Chapter I
The full moon hung high in the empty winter sky above Calgary, Alberta, its faint light cascading upon the quiet downtown of the city frozen in the small hours of the morning. Bitter mid-February cold—something best defined by how long one could survive outdoors—held the unsheltered by the throat. Biting wind whistled down empty streets and picked up dangerous speed as it keened across vacant parking lots, while snow and ice crunched and creaked under the tires of the few vehicles traversing the barren cityscape. The sheer and unforgiving cold caught off-guard even those ready and aware of the winter’s blistering capacity. The prevailing attitude of the city—one of dejection and depression brought on by two years of economic collapse that seemed to worsen by the day—only served to deepen the misery brought on by prolonged stretches of unforgiving frigidity. As much as anyone could try and put lipstick on a pig, at a certain point the cold brought to bear the promise of inescapable isolation.
After a night of drinking too many beers at too many bars, Saint Kinfail found himself in the back of a taxi debating with himself as to whether leaving his apartment had been worth it or not. His head rolled back against the headrest while his eyes tracked from one side of the car to the other, watching streetlights leave trails of light across blurred vision. It wasn’t atypical for him to spend his nights alone and under the influence of something. If pressed, Saint would admit to drinking too much, might admit to smoking too much weed or too much hash, might admit to eating mushrooms when and where he saw fit to do so. He would never admit to having a problem with those things, though he might cop to how the behaviours complicated his life. Maintaining a positive mental attitude had never been a strong suit of his, and finding a way to look on the bright side of things seemed a fool’s errand to him, an exercise in futility better suited for grinning idiots than anyone living within the stark confines of reality.
“Where you go? Where your building?”
The clipped phrasing of the taxi driver’s questions brought Saint back from his daze and he rolled his chin forward to the left, momentum pulling his head back from its lolled position. He blinked a few times and licked his lips as he sort-of collected himself.
“I’m up in Bankview. Just up the hill there a bit. Up in Bankview,” he answered, hiccuping and hoping he wouldn’t be sick in the car. He wasn’t entirely sure which bar he was coming from, but the drive wasn’t long and he wasn’t far away. Just a handful of turns and he’d be home before he knew it.
“I have address but which one your building,” the driver asked, circling his finger in the air.
Saint blinked again, and tried to sit up straight. He twisted in his seat to look out the window to his right, trying to focus his drunken stare. Sometimes he figured he should just drink at home, drink somewhere he wouldn’t need to worry about getting around. But, if he sat and drank at home he knew it would be a slippery slope. Leaving his house to drink, he thought, saved him from the dread concept of alcoholism. The last thing he needed right now was to see himself in a different light, to discover a need to redefine his identity or to come to grips with his reality.
“Which bui—”
“It’s that one on the corner there. Just at 14A. 14A and 25th,” Saint said, hoping to defuse the driver’s frustration. Even in his stupor he knew how hard it must be to deal with drunks at almost three in the morning, and he hated being that person, someone drunk enough to make just enough sense to get to a general area but hardly sober enough to provide timely or accurate details for drop-off. But, this time at least, it appeared Saint had done a passable job.
“Twelve dollar, fifty cents,” the driver said.
Saint shifted in his seat to take out his wallet before flipping it open and taking out a twenty dollar bill. He handed it across to the driver upfront and gave a wave to indicate he didn’t need any change. “You, uh, you have a good night, okay?” He said, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door and climbing out.
A wall of cold hammered him in the chest and the face. The withering force staggered him, pushing him back a step. If he hadn’t braced himself against the frame of the car, he would have certainly fallen backwards. Saint collected his feet under him and walked to his three-storey walkup, ignoring the driver’s cussing as he left the door open. He pretended not to hear the door slam and the car squeal away. At the door to his apartment building he unclipped his keys from the belt loop at his left hip. With fingers numb from liquor and cold, he fumbled for the key to the lock. In slow motion, he watched the keys fall from his fingers and into the snow at his feet.
“Motherfuckerrrr,” he whispered as he bent down, wincing as the snow touched his skin. He grabbed his keys and shook off the snow before flipping through to the key for his building and putting it in the lock. With a turn of the lock and a pull of the door, he stepped into the welcomed warmth, shivering at the dramatic change in temperature while he pulled the door shut behind him. With a deep breath, he took a few steps to the stairs and started his way up to his apartment on the third floor.
Once at the top of the staircase, Saint staggered another ten feet and turned to his right, fumbling again with his keys and once more dropping them to the floor. He grunted and crouched down to pick them up, flipping through the ring and standing to unlock his door. With a sigh of relief, he opened the door and stepped in, closing the door behind him and leaning back against it as he pushed his black canvas shoes off his feet, leaving the left shoe by the closet on his left and his right shoe just in front of the door. As he walked down the short hallway towards the living room, he unbuttoned his sherpa trucker jacket and slithered out of the arms. He tried to swing it onto the back of a chair and didn’t bother to pick it up as it fell to the floor. Once in the living room, he unbuttoned his black jeans and held onto his reading chair for support as he kicked with his right leg to free himself, then followed suit with his left. Like his jacket on the floor, he didn’t pay much mind to his pants now being turned inside out, nor his right sock coming off in the process. A few more stumbles and he would be in his bed and that was the only thing upon which he could direct his focus.
Saint pushed the door open to his bedroom and dropped onto his bed, rolling onto his back and shoving his legs under the covers. He pulled the sheet and blankets up, trying to get himself as tucked in as possible while simultaneously trying to fight back the rolling waves of nausea. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, hoping the spins wouldn’t take too long to sort themselves out. If he needed to do so, he could always relocate to the couch and hope for the best. For whatever reason, he slept better on the couch, slept better when his place of rest carried a sense of impermanence with it. As he tried to control his breath, he also tried to push away the unavoidable thoughts of shame that always came with his drinking to a stupor. However, thankfully, with only a few long breaths and corresponding heavy sighs, Saint found temporary reprieve from toxic regret as he drifted into what would be a dreamless sleep.
