Remnants of Old Montreal. Part IV

(www.bears.co.nz)

The unspoken credo in the Department of Management and Logistics was to replace problems of one type with smaller problems of another type. It was the evolution of sacrifice and Mr. Skirts was a high-priest. He solved the pistachio import crisis by negotiating a reduction on toaster tariffs. The cries of the toaster pundits were drowned by the cheers of a pistachio crazed public. Case closed. Mr. Skirts frightened away the bullet train purse snatchers by proposing marshal law. Case closed.

He replaced crises with discrepancies, discrepancies with diversion. Progress. Case closed, case closed, case closed. Somehow the numbers always pointed to a way out. But this time the numbers didn’t work. The remainders overwhelmed the solutions. Mr. Skirts, no matter how hard he tried, or what formula he applied, could not draw up an adequate proposal to decongest the city streets. Meanwhile the turmoil persisted. Triple and even quadruple parking was now common practice on St. Denis. The roads were rank with obstruction and misunderstanding; civil courts were inundated with citizens fighting parking tickets. The city was becoming a giant demolition derby, a war of metal and thin white lines.

Two months had passed when Mr. Skirts received another specially marked brown envelope:

Well?

Bradrick B. Delonte, Mayor of New Montreal

Peanut sat on the windowsill daydreaming. He pushed his paws down slowly on an imaginary detonator, and made deep, growling noises as if Armageddon had come.

“Would you please stop that, Peanut,” said Mr. Skirts.

“Il faut pratiquer.” The bear jumped off the windowsill and performed a neat tuck and roll toward his distressed friend.

“Alors, quoi?”

“I don’t know. It’s not working. It’s just not working.”

Peanut could sense when his companion was desperate to verbalize his trouble. He motioned the man to follow him as he scooted under the desk. Mr. Skirts crouched down and crammed his long limbs into the small crevice of fading intimacy and Star Trek sheets.

“It’s really quite a complex problem,” he began. “There are issues of over consumption, integral to the strong performance of our auto industry. There are issues of big and small. While space in the city has been shrinking, automobiles are one of the few products which are still getting bigger in this digital age. Parking space size has been standard since the 1950’s. But cars today are huge. People seem to want bigger, stronger, safer cars in which they feel a sense of metallic power and security ...”

Blah blah blah, thought Peanut. He does nothing but think of himself and his career.

“... Public transportation is efficient, but entirely lower middle-clas," continued Mr. Skirts. "Driving is a status symbol, no one able to afford it is willing to give it up. … I’m going to propose we modernize the bullet train again. … But we can’t make it too expensive or the lower middle-class won’t be able to afford getting in from the fringes. … I’m going to propose we increase the cost of parking. Perhaps that will discourage some motorists from driving into the city. … But it’s already through the roof, and people continue to pay. … Every day drivers are getting out of their cars and bashing each other with tire irons. Sometimes for as little as a parking spot, or just out of sheer boredom and frustration in a traffic jam. There’s your increase in fatalities. Not just high speed car crashes, but the product of pissed off people wanting to go faster. … It’s such a mess. Did you know that Ford is marketing a new car with protruding spikes? It’s becoming murderous! I bet you’re loving all this, aren’t you Peanut?”

Peanut sat patiently, trying to take in every word. But he couldn’t offer any logistical advice. The bear was fed up and lost in a dream of toppling towers and shattered glass, an intense vision of the cyclical nature of creation and destruction. He extended his paws and pushed down on the imaginary detonator, then tumbled back in exaggerated slow-motion while growling out sounds of screaming mothers and crumbling rock.