Death at the Cinema of Love
©Patrick McDonnell 2021
“Last summer, a 59-year-old man died after a chicane at the Cinéma l'amour, on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. A woman who accompanied the victim to the XXX film establishment would have flirted with another man in a couples-only section, and the two men would have come to blows. The fifty years old man died two weeks later.”
Journal de Montreal, December 30, 2018
This morning I was sitting in my favourite cafe in the Eastern Townships, having a lovely brunch while reading the French newspaper, Journal de Montreal, when I came across this tidbit of news of a death near where I live. The Journal had replaced the old “Hello Police” paper which carried all the dirty news in the city. I was already preoccupied with another death of a man whom I had known years ago. This second death perplexed me. But I figured I would find out more tonight at the Homeless shelter. And I did.
Dave (named changed) was still working at the homeless shelter, still mopping floors. He also cleaned up the Cinema d’Amour’s sticky floors. First I asked him about Miss M, a mutual acquaintance. He told me she had moved up north to live with her family working at a café. He said she still had a drinking and man problem.
Miss M had fooled me. I still remember the first day she showed up to work at the shelter. We were put together serving the homeless, and the looks on the homeless men told it all. She had big “you know whats”; a nice pair of blue eyes. She wasn’t hard to look at, with an innocent look. Scottish she said and an artist. She had worked as a short order cook. She was vegetarian. I wanted to protect her.
Stupid me, she knew how to wrap every man around her finger. Even if she wasn’t too bright. I stayed around because she liked talking to me; I guess I was a safe old man. Finally I left when the new boss came in and gave me a hard time. After putting up with the arabs, the mafia would be, and the other dramas in the kitchen. Should I say I saw the dregs of humanity? Or just people who were down on their luck. Tonight I spent 2 hours helping to serve 750 meals, piling on mashed potatoes on 750 plates.
But I was still interested in the death at the cinema d’Amour. Life and death and sex; what a wonderful combination.
The people who go the xxx cinema are not going for culture. No, they are mostly men, who have bulging balls that need to be emptied while watching pornographic films. They hand out tissues to the clients and they sit down in the dark to jerk off, squirting their sperm all over the place. Dave must have a strong stomach to clean up that mess. They also have couples night when guys bring women to have ‘fun’. Evidently that involves the women fucking men, either individually or in orgies. Dave told me the night of the death, a couple came in and sat in the VIP zone, surrounded by men who wanted to watch them fuck. Then the girl at the door allegedly let in a drunk Mexican taxi driver. He saw the woman and touched her breast. The boyfriend took offence getting into a fist fight to the Mexican, who fell down and hit his head on the steel seats. Blood went everywhere. The assailant fled, and a couple of weeks later the Mexican died.
Meanwhile perverts kept gong to the XXX cinema to jerk off. Why they didn’t go to the strip joints where you can touch strippers in private booths for 10 bucks, or even be jerked off by a Russian or Chinese at one of the many “Massage houses” in Montreal? Of course there are the crack whores in the East end or even the free pussy that you can get if you speak some French.
That brings me to the second death. I discovered that my ‘erstwhile’ friend was dead at age 60. He might have had too much pussy or cocaine or both. He was always after me to pick up some university students to fuck or as he expressed it, “I like fucking smart women because I can fuck their brains out.”
Evidently his life style caught up with him from what I read in court documents. He had an American arrest warrant issued for him in 2012, so he couldn’t travel to the states or through the states, even through an airport. He was associating with drug dealers and accused of money laundering.
Now I sit back and watch the human comedy play on. As Shakespeare wrote.;
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
I should add that before death, the old man has an 8th act. He falls for cock teasing young women who play them for fools. Like the old professor, trying to revive his youth in the Blue Angel, there is always a Lola who plays the old man taking his money.
During the meal service at the homeless shelter I served old and young, all races, men and women. They were mostly grateful, because they had seen the bottom of the barrel and any one giving them a smile or recognition meant they were someone. They were worth something. They were seen. I have seen Karma at work. I know that good deeds are repaid. And bad deeds are punished one way or another. Eventually.
