Minus Forty and the Broken Heater

A low-stakes hustle in the frozen arteries of downtown Winnipeg forces a reckoning with a future that looks a lot like a dead-end skywalk.

The wind didn’t just blow at Portage and Main; it hunted. It came whipping around the concrete corners of the Richardson Building like it had a personal vendetta against exposed skin, specifically mine. My phone said it felt like minus forty-two. At that temperature, hope isn't a concept; it's a physiological impossibility. Your body shuts down the parts of your brain responsible for optimism to divert energy to keeping your liver warm.

I was vibrating. Not shivering—vibrating. A frequency that rattled my teeth and made the duffel bag slung over my shoulder feel like it was filled with lead shot instead of six 'refurbished' block heaters. I checked my watch. Deane was twelve minutes late. In this weather, twelve minutes was a capital offense.

A bus rumbled past, a behemoth of grime and exhaust, its windows completely opaque with frost. The sound of its brakes was a screech that settled deep in your molars. I stomped my boots—cheap combat knockoffs that cracked in the cold—against the pavement. The sound was dull, dead. Like kicking a frozen carcass.

"Move or freeze, kid," a voice rasped.

I turned. A shape bundled in layers of mismatched wool and a garbage bag poncho shuffled past, pushing a shopping cart filled with empty cans. The cans clinked, a metallic wind chime for the apocalypse. He didn't look at me. He just kept his head down, pushing against the wind, eyes fixed on the grey slush.

"Yeah," I muttered. "Working on it."

This was the glamorous life of the underworld I’d promised myself. Grade twelve dropout, two years of drifting, and now I was the middleman for auto parts of questionable origin. It was strictly Noir, if Noir meant freezing your ass off waiting for a guy named Deane who smelled like wet dog and menthols.

I couldn't take the corner anymore. I ducked into the revolving doors of the office tower, the rush of heat hitting me like a physical blow. It smelled of floor wax and humid wool. The transition from the hostile exterior to the sterilized interior was jarring, enough to make you dizzy. My glasses fogged instantly. I was blind, standing in the lobby of a bank tower, clutching a bag of stolen goods.

I wiped the lenses on my scarf. The lobby was marble and silence. Security guards stood by the elevators, looking bored and dangerous. They knew the look. Young guy, heavy bag, eyes darting. I wasn't an employee. I wasn't a client. I was debris that had blown in from the street.

I headed for the escalator, descending into the Winnipeg Square underground. The subterranean city. You could live your whole life down here in the winter and never see the sun. It was a warren of tunnels connecting the skyscrapers, filled with food courts, dry cleaners, and people pretending they weren't depressed.

My phone buzzed. A text from Deane: *Stuck at the light. Meet at the fountain. 5 mins.*

The fountain. Right. The center of the universe. I walked past a florist selling roses that looked too red to be real. The air down here was recycled, stale. It tasted of fryer grease and expensive perfume, a cocktail of despair and commerce.

I needed to calm down. My heart was doing that thing where it skipped a beat and then hammered three times in a row. It wasn't the cops I was worried about. It was the crushing mediocrity of it all. Is this it? Is this the big score? Selling block heaters to a mechanic who lost his license for drinking?

I saw my reflection in a dark shop window. I looked tired. Not sleepy tired. Soul tired. The kind of tired you see in the eyes of the old men playing VLTs at ten in the morning. I was twenty. I shouldn't look like I've been divorced twice.

I reached the fountain area. It wasn't running. It was just a dry, tiled pit in the middle of the walkway. People streamed past, a river of parkas and briefcases. The suit-and-tie crowd moved with purpose, eyes on their phones. The rest of us—the couriers, the cleaners, the hustlers—we moved differently. Shoulders hunched, scanning the perimeter.

Deane was there. You couldn't miss him. He was wearing a neon yellow construction jacket that had seen better decades. He was leaning against a pillar, eating a pretzel with aggressive enthusiasm. Mustard stained the corner of his mouth.

"Sully!" he shouted, spraying crumbs. "My man!"

I winced. "Keep it down, Deane. Jesus."

He grinned, a gap-toothed display of reckless abandon. "Relax. Nobody cares. Look at 'em. Zombies, all of 'em."

He wasn't entirely wrong. The lunch rush was a blur of grey faces. But I cared. I cared that I was standing next to a neon signpost of criminality.

"You got the units?" he asked, wiping his hand on his jacket.

I patted the bag. "Six. Brand new coils. Where's the cash?"

Deane’s expression shifted. The grin faltered, replaced by a look of performative confusion. "Right. The cash. See, here’s the thing, Sully. My liquidity is a little... frozen. Like the weather, eh?"

My stomach dropped. Not fear. Annoyance. Pure, unadulterated irritation. "Deane. We agreed. Two hundred. Cash."

"I got it! I got it," he insisted, patting his pockets. "I just... I gotta move these first. My guy is meeting me in the parkade in twenty. You come with, we do the handoff, you get paid. Easy peasy."

This was the classic slide. The goalposts moving. I should have walked. I should have taken the bag and dumped it in the river. But I needed the money. My rent was late, and my landlord was a guy who used the term 'eviction' like a threat of physical violence.

"Fine," I said. "But if this goes sideways, I'm keeping the heaters."

"That's the spirit!" Deane clapped me on the shoulder. It felt like being hit by a damp towel. "Let's walk. I hate standing still. Bad for the circulation."

We started walking through the skywalk system. The glass tubes suspended over the streets. Below us, cars crawled through the sludge, exhaust plumes rising like ghosts. We were above it all, but trapped in a hamster clear tube.

Deane talked. He always talked. Theories about the city council, about how the weather was a government experiment, about his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. I tuned him out, watching the people.

We passed a group of teenagers skipping school. They were loud, laughing, pushing each other. One of them, a girl with purple hair and a nose ring, looked at me. For a second, our eyes locked. She didn't look impressed. She looked... pitying. Like she knew exactly where I was going and exactly how little it mattered.

I looked away. I focused on the floor tiles. Scuffed linoleum. The history of a thousand boots dragging winter inside.

"You listening, Sully?" Deane asked.

"Yeah. Government weather control. Got it."

"It's the ions, man. Positive ions. Makes people aggressive."

We reached the Portage Place mall. It was emptier, echoing. The skylights were covered in snow, casting a dim, blueish light over the atrium. It felt like an aquarium after closing time.

"Hey," Deane said, stopping abruptly near the food court. "I gotta take a leak. hold this."

He shoved his half-eaten pretzel at me. Before I could protest, he vanished into the washroom.

So there I was. Standing in a dying mall, holding a duffel bag of stolen car parts and a cold pretzel. A true titan of industry.

I looked around. The food court was sparse. A few seniors nursing coffees. A security guard leaning against a railing, staring at his phone. And then I saw her.

Behind the counter of 'Pretzel Twister', wiping down the stainless steel display case. Kyla. Kyla from AP English. Kyla who sat two desks over and used to lend me pens when I forgot mine, which was always.

I froze. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to melt into the linoleum. I was wearing a jacket that was too big, holding illegal goods, standing next to a washroom waiting for a guy named Deane. She was wearing a uniform, a visor, looking tired but... respectable. Normal.

She looked up. She saw me.

Panic. Flight response engaged. But my feet were glued.

She paused, the rag in her hand hovering over the glass. Then she smiled. A small, tentative smile. She waved.

I couldn't ignore it. That would be worse. I walked over, the bag thumping against my hip. I ditched Deane’s pretzel in a trash can on the way.

"Sullivan?" she said. Her voice was the same. Clear, calm.

"Hey, Kyla," I said. My voice cracked. Perfect. "Long time."

"Yeah. Since grad, basically. What are you doing down here?"

"Just... shopping," I lied. "Christmas stuff. Early."

It was February.

She didn't call me on it. She just nodded, wiping her hands on her apron. "Cool. I didn't know you were back in the city. I heard you went out west."

I had. For three months. I washed dishes in Calgary until I got fired for sleeping in.

"Yeah, came back. Missed the... atmosphere."

She laughed. It was a nice sound. It cut through the background noise of the mall's ventilation system. "Right. The atmosphere. The windchill."

"Exactly. Keeps you fresh."

She looked at me, really looked at me. Her eyes were dark, intelligent. She took in the scuffed boots, the cheap jacket, the nervous energy. She didn't judge, but she saw. That was the thing about Kyla. She always saw the subtext.

"You okay, Sully?" she asked. Quietly.

The question hung there. Was I okay? My feet were wet inside my boots. I had fourteen dollars in my bank account. I was about to sell stolen goods for a fraction of their value to a guy who thought clouds were a conspiracy.

"I'm good," I said. "Just busy. You know."

"Yeah," she said. "Busy."

"You working here long?"

"Just for the semester," she said. "Saving up for tuition. Going to U of W in the fall. Psych."

Psychology. Of course. She was going to study people like me.

"That's great, Kyla. Really. You'll be good at that."

"Thanks." She hesitated. "If you ever want to... I don't know, catch up? Not in a mall?"

My chest tightened. A pang of something sharp. Regret? Hope? It felt dangerous.

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe. I gotta run though. Waiting for a friend."

"Okay. See ya, Sully."

I turned away. Deane was emerging from the washroom, zipping his fly. He looked refreshed.

"Who was the chick?" he asked, loud enough for half the food court to hear.

"Nobody," I snapped. "Let's go."

We walked to the parkade. The transition from the mall to the concrete stairwell was another temperature drop. It smelled of gasoline and urine. The Noir perfume.

We went up to level four. The open roof. The wind hit us again, howling through the concrete pillars. A grey sedan was waiting, engine idling, white smoke billowing from the tailpipe.

"That's the guy," Deane said.

We approached the car. The window rolled down. A guy in a tuque looked out. He looked even sketchier than Deane, which was an achievement.

"You got the heaters?" the guy asked.

"Fresh from the box," Deane said.

I handed the bag through the window. The guy unzipped it, poked around.

"These are the 400-watt models?" he asked.

"Standard issue," I said. My teeth were chattering.

"Fine." He handed an envelope to Deane.

Deane counted it. He nodded. The window rolled up, and the car peeled away, tires squealing on the frost-slicked concrete.

Deane turned to me, grinning. He peeled off a few bills. "Here you go, partner. One fifty."

"You said two hundred."

"Market fluctuations, kid. Overhead. Finder's fee. Don't be greedy."

I looked at the bills in his hand. Plastic, colourful Canadian money. It looked like Monopoly money in the grey light.

I took it. I didn't argue. I didn't have the energy.

"Pleasure doing business," Deane said. "I'm gonna hit the casino. You in?"

"No," I said. "I'm out."

"Suit yourself. Stay warm."

He waddled off toward the elevator.

I stood alone on the roof of the parkade. The city was spread out around me. Grey buildings, grey sky, white snow. Steam rising from the vents like the city was exhaling. It was ugly. It was hostile. It was home.

I walked to the edge and looked down. Cars were tiny specks. People were invisible.

I thought about Kyla. *Saving for tuition.* A plan. A future. A straight line from A to B.

I looked at the money in my hand. One hundred and fifty dollars. Enough for rent? No. Groceries? Maybe for a week. A bus ticket out of here? Not far enough.

I shoved the money in my pocket. My fingers were numb. I couldn't feel the texture of the bills.

I went back inside. I walked past the pretzel shop. Kyla was busy with a customer, laughing at something they said. I didn't stop. I couldn't. I wasn't the guy who stopped. I was the guy who kept moving because if he stopped, he'd realize he was going nowhere.

I exited onto Graham Avenue. The bus stop was crowded. People huddled together for warmth, a herd of bison in parkas. I joined the line.

A guy next to me was smoking, shielding the flame with a cupped hand. He looked at me.

"Cold enough for ya?" he asked. The universal Winnipeg greeting.

"Yeah," I said. "It's a dry cold though."

He laughed. A dry, hacking bark. "Yeah. Sure."

I looked up at the sky. It was getting dark. The streetlights were flickering on, casting amber pools on the snow. The snow sparkled. It was actually beautiful, in a cruel way. Like diamonds scattered on a corpse.

I felt the money in my pocket again. It was there. Real. I had survived another day. I hadn't frozen. I hadn't been arrested.

But the cold was inside me now. It wasn't just the wind. It was the look in Kyla's eyes. The pity. The kindness.

The bus arrived. The 16 to Osborne. The doors hissed open. Warmth spilled out, smelling of wet wool and sanitizer. I stepped up, tapped my card. It beeped. Insufficient funds.

Of course.

The driver, a heavy-set man with tired eyes, looked at me. He looked at the line of freezing people behind me.

"Go on," he grunted, jerking his head toward the back.

"Thanks," I whispered.

I walked to the back of the bus and sat down. The seat was hard, cold plastic. I leaned my head against the window. The vibration of the engine rattled my skull.

We moved. The city slid past. Portage Avenue. The Bay. The legislative building with the Golden Boy on top, freezing his bronze ass off.

I wasn't a criminal mastermind. I wasn't a hustler. I was just a kid on a bus with no fare and a pocket full of dirty money.

But the bus was moving. Forward. And for now, that had to be enough.

I closed my eyes. The heat from the vent under the seat started to seep into my boots. A tiny, painful thaw. It hurt to warm up. That's the thing nobody tells you. The freezing is easy. It's the coming back to life that kills you.