In December, 1959, a Montreal boy named Joey Cantell rolls out from under his bed and kills a rat with his hockey stick that he will hang in the cup of his mother's clothes-lined bra. Joey worries, he thinks his life is complicated and psychologically compromised by his sharp-tongued mother. He feels threatened and confused and his move to maturity is fraught with false steps and deeply dangerous feelings. He is afraid of his mother. He is afraid of what he might do to her. He is afraid of what she might do to herself. His relationships on his working-class, Montreal street are mostly based on how he relates to his mother and to Celine Lesage, the girl downstairs who is the centre of his fantasies. Between these two women Joey just might discover himself. - 20140424