This is not the first time that Audrey has stopped in front of the QUB offices. This is not the first time that she leans over, her head between her two feet, her arms dangling, in a state of almost complete unconsciousness. I don’t know if she’s sleeping, or if she’s just dying on the sidewalk, alone, in front of everyone.
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In the indifference of the people who pass her, people who wonder what to do, if they should intervene.
Finally, Audrey remains alone, in her world. I go out, I look around for the police. At lunchtime, they are elsewhere. The Berri–Ste-Catherine corner is deserted. We make a call to 911. It’s 12:39 p.m.
Photo courtesy, André-Sylvain Latour
Next dose
I’ve been watching her for at least 10 minutes, wondering if I’m going to have to use the naloxone we have at the office. She staggers from side to side, but never falls. Today, I find the courage to intervene. I put my hand on his back. She starts painfully.
“Are you OK?”
“My medication. My medication was stolen.”
I can hardly hear it. The words are on the verge of comprehensibility. They come from far away. From far away. I ask her if we can find more for her, but since she bought them on the black market, it’s impossible. His medication is probably his next dose. She finally managed to straighten up a little. His eyes are glassy. Absent. I can’t tell if she’s in her thirties or fifties. She no longer has any teeth.
She grabs her coat. I bend down and pick up his white plastic bag.
“Be careful, there are syringes in there.”
I look at his hands, dirty and weathered by the cold. I’m afraid she’ll fall on her face because her balance is so fragile. I invite her to sit against the wall, but she refuses. Finally, without saying anything to me, without looking at me, she crosses the street, with difficulty. Fortunately, there was no car.
Infernal universe
The police arrived at 1:22 p.m. They established contact with her. She returned to the street corner and lay down in front of the Berri metro station. A man was sitting with her. I believe both had just smoked crack. How to fly even higher, even further, how to forget an existence like that.
Yesterday, still in the same corner, a man sleeps on the sidewalk. His arms are raised, and his sweater is riding up. I can see his stomach, and the thirty medical pins that close his chest. From the navel to the top. On the right side, another wound is closed with around ten more pins. The sores are reddened. It doesn’t look like a medical operation. More like a rescue operation. This distracts attention from his foot, which also has a significant wound. People who pass him frown. I can’t tell if it’s disdain or pity. He continues to sleep.
Maybe he went to find Audrey in her world, and together they dance to the sound of catchy music. Maybe this party is so good that other local homeless people attend it every day. Maybe once you’re there, you never want to return to the real world.
But I, the party, I don’t see it. I don’t hear it. All that is before my eyes is a woman and a man caught in the hell of drugs, and people who desperately lack the means to help them.
André-Sylvain Latour, QUB radio