Between

South of the border, the City That Never Sleeps raved on. New York City was the capital of the world, hundreds of kilometers away from the streets I knew best in 1999. In the City of a Hundred Steeples, shadows crossed without a Salut or Ça va. Three million habitants slept in Greater Montreal on June 21, the shortest night of the year, the start of the end of a dying age. Yet, I was among those wide awake. Inhale, hold, exhale. Rounding the block, two Belmonts consumed, I looped back to my un et demi in the McGill Ghetto. I typed on a Compaq til the nicotine wore off, and crawled into bed with a Walkman. “Rewind”, “Play” — I fell asleep to the Elgar art song, and dreamed.