Remember Crow Fortune and how she showed up, all bald and dolled up at the New Year’s dance before she died? How she commandeered the DJ booth and got on the mic to give some toasts. A toast to Willy Gimp and Chrissy Parsons for her raging addictions and his man-whore martyr complex. A toast to Duke the Puke for keeping his secret identity as a clap-spreading creepazoid so well concealed for twenty years. A toast to Becky Chickenshit for marrying that guy, and playing a supporting role in wrecking her in public for no good reason. And a toast to Peggy Fortune, for being a conniving old bulldozer who managed to bury whatever it is she knows about the disappearance of Smart Alec Spenser good and goddamn deep. Then, good ol’ Crow smiled and told everybody to drive safe and go fuck themselves, and let out a wicked Caaaaaw as she swooped out the back door. That Crow Fortune. She sure was a riot, wasn’t she?

But I’m too sick for swooping and scene-making. I’m lucky to get out of bed, let alone out of the house. Since Christmas, my guts can’t handle so much as the smell of booze, which is a most unfortunate turn of events because my whole plan of living out the rest of my days in a blaze of impulsive, outrageous, scandalicious, truth-bombing glory relied very heavily on considerable doses of liquid courage. That plan also failed to take into account how much energy Parry and Ziggy and Fuzzy would sap out of me. And I didn’t think I’d be so alone.

My big silver moon boots plod through the foot and a half of snow piled up on the road down to The Wharf. Old Betty may have the gaudiest taste in colours known to man, but she knits some cozy mitts. And if I do happen to fall in a ditch, they’ll find me pretty quick, in all my riotous rainbow glory. Mama, ever the pragmatist.

There is not a breath of wind, even down near the water. The brightly shining sun is almost enough to trick you into believing that it might not be cracking cold out. The wharf itself looks too snowy and slippery to be worth the risk of walking my stoned ass up on it today, so I walk my stoned ass down the beach a bit farther and settle for the lower view, closer to the shore. Long, salty spindles of ice cling to the concrete sides of the wharf, pleasantly distorting the graffiti letters beneath them, as the dark blue water gently sloshes around the swaths of opaque slush on its surface. Too early for any nice glacial clampers to have formed, or for any of the big bergs from the ocean to be visible out where the mouth of the Great Bras d’Or calls to the frigid ocean. Up on top of the wharf, out near the edge, a movement catches my eye, a bit of a burgundy blur. Then, a little splash. And another. And another. Snow and ice and stoned ass be damned. I’m nosy.