Then we had to fail at Street Smarts. They drove us out to a dangerous street and a man approached me and asked me for money. I didn’t have any, so I offered him my wedding ring.
“All I need is a dollar, hombre,” he said.
“Take it, take it,” I said, dropping the ring into his open palm. “It belonged to my father.”
The crowd, assembled behind a railing across the street, oohed and clapped.
But DeNox one-upped me. When the same actor asked her for money, she kissed him on the mouth and gave him her social security card, which he immediately sold to some hackers who stole her identity. The crowd went wild.
The third and final leg of the fail-off was Marital. Our spouses took the stage in front of an audience and we stood opposite them. DeNox squared her shoulders toward her husband, shrugged, and said, “I’m sorry, honey. But I just don’t find you very interesting anymore.”
In retrospect, this was DeNox’s critical error. See, you can’t just not try—that’s not a fail. The secret to failing is trying your ass off. I’d been trying and failing to tell Liz how I felt for years—I could do it again no problem. I walked up to her where she stood and said, “Honey? I am the spoon and you are the fork.”
My wife’s face contorted. “What does that even mean?”
The crowd began to chant: “Fail! Fail!”
“I,” I said. “I am a tree and you are a cloud.”
“What are you saying?” Liz said. “That I’m fat?”
“Fail! Fail! Fail!”
“You are a virus and I am the same virus!” I shouted.
“Gross, Chris!” my wife said. “What is the matter with you?” Then she stormed off the stage; I didn’t see her again for months. The crowd cheered for me and the host ushered DeNox into the wings. Then he placed a glass trophy in my hands and I tried to lift it over my head. It was too heavy, though; I fumbled it and it fell to the floor and shattered. When I bent down to gather the shards, I sliced my finger on a piece of glass. I held up my bloody hand, and the crowd erupted and sprang to their feet.
That was the winter I gave up writing and prayed. Professionally, I mean—I was lucky enough to get a job in Coolidge’s City Hall, where I worked the prayer switchboard. At the time, I was living with Liz in a one-room underground flat—the “coffins,” they called these apartments—with Liz’s parents, her sister Marie, and Marie’s two sons. That was a bad chapter for Coolidge: The war with Blix was very loud, and resources no more than a murmur. Our electricity was unreliable, and our phones stopped working altogether. We ate mostly paste, drank mostly sorrow. Even so, though, we had more than most other towns. The border to Blix was closed, and Blixers tried every way imaginable to get across. In Coolidge, meanwhile, they were evicting people every day: the very tall, for example, and then the very short, and then the especially nervous, and then anyone who laughed. All this resulted in a flood of prayers. Those outside Coolidge prayed to be let in; those living in Coolidge prayed to stay.
Most nights, Liz worked the night shift at the hospital. Then she’d come home, make me a paste sandwich, and hug me on my way out the door. I’d leave home and ride the train through the subtext to the city center. In those days, the trains were erratic, dimly lit, and extremely violent. The rule of thumb in the subtext was: If you see something, say nothing. I saw one or two fights on the train per day, and I’d seen four people killed. My third week riding the train, I saw someone hanged in the next car over. I pulled my knees closer as the body swayed to the jolt of the train. Say nothing, I told myself. Tell no one. And that’s what I did.
City Hall was different: It was beautiful. All the rooms were bright and warm, and you could use the bathroom down the hall whenever you needed to. My first day, I reported to Seat 9929 in Switchroom 2264667 and my boss, a man named Stevens, sat down next to me to show me the terminal. “Stevens,” he said, extending his hand.
“Chris,” I said.
“Chris—fantastic,” Stevens said. “Good to meet you. You know anything about prayers?”
“A little,” I said.
“You pray personally?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“To whom?”
“To my girlfriend, mostly. When we were first dating, we used to pray poems—”
“So you know prayers can take physical shape. That they have weight, mass.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Well, the prayers you’re talking about—person-to-persons—are small, the size of books or basketballs. The ones we get here, at City Hall? They can be as big as refrigerators. Cars. I once picked up a prayer as big as a rhino.”
“Wow,” I said.
“And we get a ton of ’em,” said Stevens.
“Can I ask what the prayers are for?”
Stevens leaned over on his knees. “Listen, Chris,” he said. “Soon the stories in Coolidge will be fantastic again. Right?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“But right now they’re not so great; we’re still in a pre-fantastic time. So people pray to City Hall for better stories, things we can’t give ’em: stories of food, stories of jobs, all sorts of shit. And these prayers are a problem for the admins. One,” he said, holding up one finger, “they introduce a lot of whining and negativity. Two, they cause damage! They fuck up the paint, dent the siding! And we can’t have that, can we?”
“No sir,” I said.
“So this,” he said, sweeping his hand, “is our prayer filtration system.”
I looked around the giant room. There must have been 500 terminals, each of them manned with someone wearing headphones and staring at a screen.
“These terminals pick up the prayers, scan them, and either accept them—” he showed me the keypad, the buttons that read “accept” and “kill,” “—or kill them before they hit us.”
I looked to the terminal next to me, where a woman with a shaved head and a tattoo of hair kept clicking the “kill” button. “Fuck you,” she was whispering, “and you, and you, and you.”
“Ready to give it a go?” said Stevens.
I nodded and we both put on headphones. Then Stevens clicked on my terminal. I heard two or three prayers simultaneously, until Stevens turned a dial to isolate one. –elp, it said, they’re saying I have to leave Coolidge but I CAN’T, you don’t know what I’ve been through—
“See, now that’s very negative,” said Stevens. “Kill it.”
I killed it.
Stevens clapped me on the shoulder and twisted the dial to find another prayer: What I want to know is—tak—does the Statue of Coolidge hate me? Or people like me? Then the prayor started speaking in another language.
“Wah,” Stevens mock-whined. “Also—she’s not praying in American. Kill.”
I killed it and picked up a third prayer. Great Statue of Coolidge, it began. I just want to say how grateful I am for your wisdom, and your strength, and for taking zero shit from the whiners and losers out there that—
“Ah, now see? That’s very nice. Very sweet. Accept.”
I worked my ass off at that job. Even though there were thousands of operators like me in those rooms, I usually worked nine or ten hours straight without taking a break. There were just so many prayers! And despite our best efforts, downtrodden psalms would still slip through every now and again; we’d hear them ding the side of the building or see them glance off the window. “Fuck!” Stevens would shout. “Focus, people!”
I worked the prayer switchboard for three months—the same three months that Coolidge walled itself off from Geryk and West Geryk. During that time prayer volume increased twofold. Which, from my perspective, was good—it meant more dollars for food and coffin-rent.
Back home, though, everyone was worried—people we knew were disappearing or sick and in need of help. By March most of the stores were cleaned out, and it became more and more difficult to find staples like sandwich paste and toilet paper.
One night over dinner, Liz’s nephew Gerald to
ok a bite out of his paste sandwich and said, “Hey Chris. What’s the—” But the word was muffled—it sounded like “olm.”
“Finish chewing,” Marie told him.
He did so and said, “Swarm. What’s the swarm?”
“The what?” I said.
“These sandwiches are delicious,” said Liz’s mother.
“I toasted the paste is why,” said Liz.
“The swarm,” said Gerald.
“Swarm? I don’t know what that is,” I said.
Gerald looked confused. “Frank at school said—”
“Frank’s a dumbass,” said Gerald’s brother Bruce.
“Language, Brucey!” said Marie.
“But he is,” said Bruce.
“Not in this coffin he isn’t, Bruce,” I said. “Frank is pre-fantastic now, but soon he will be amazing. Right?”
Bruce shrugged.
“Anyway, he keeps talking about a swarm,” Gerald told his sandwich.
The next day began like any other. I went into work, filtered as many prayers as I could, and tried to ignore Amanda, the tattooed hair woman, who made explosion noises—bchoo! bchoo!—every time she killed a prayer.
But then something happened. All of a sudden, my terminal went berserk—instead of six or seven prayers, it showed: all prayers. Thousands, maybe more. Amanda sat up—her screen showed the same. Everyone began shouting. Then we felt a jolt on the far wall, and I saw a psalm smack against the window.
“What the fuck, people!” shouted Stevens.
“It’s an attack,” Amanda said quietly.
Another prayer hit us—so hard this time that a wall caved in—and an alarm sounded. Stevens’s face went white and he started sprinting down the aisle. “Nets!” he shouted, and through the window I saw giant nets raise up around City Hall.
Meanwhile, I tried to kill as many prayers as I could: I am going to freeze out here—and, I would rather die than live like this—and, I am a PERSON of VALUE. Do you hear me? But it wasn’t enough—soon I heard the sound of ripping as the prayers cut through the nets, and then our terminal screens went dark and the lights went out. People started screaming and running in every direction. Then the ceiling collapsed across the room and Everyone deserves happiness! crashed through a window and crushed four operators.
“No!” shouted Stevens, but then he was hit in the stomach by Love wins.
I threw off my headphones and crouched under my desk. Liz, I prayed.
Hey! my wife prayed back. Surprised to hear from you in the middle of the—
I’m in deep trouble here, I prayed. I don’t know—
Where—on the train?
At work, I said. We’re under some sort of attack.
What? she prayed. Is it Blix, or—
A prayer the size of a Volkswagen hurtled through the wall to my right.
I don’t know, I prayed to her. Listen—if I don’t make it back—
What? What do you mean?
If I don’t—
What? she prayed. No no. Chris. Please. Tears came through the prayer. I want to grow old with you in this coffin.
We demand a new, more compassionate—fell through the drop ceiling and Amanda howled in pain.
I prayed, Tell everyone—
WE ARE ALL CONNECTED! DO YOU NOT SEE THAT WE ARE ALL CONNECTED? crashed down on my desk.
I can’t tell you how I made it out of there. Almost every operator up there that day died. But an emergency worker—6822135e, his name was—carried me out. I woke up in a hospital. Why me? I was ready for my story to end right there in City Hall.
Tell everyone it’s OK, I prayed from under the desk. That I love them and always will. That I was SURROUNDED by hope and love. And then the prayers came through the ceiling, hundreds of them, louder and brighter and more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen, and the last thing I remember was their weight on top of me.
It’s not easy to do. Bouchers are nags! If a Boucher shows up at your door, which they do often, start by saying, “Shoo!” or “Git!” If that doesn’t deter the Boucher—if he starts to cry or just stands there—shout “No one loves you!” If you’re lucky, he’ll limp off into the woods.
If verbal abuse alone doesn’t work, you’ll have to be more forceful. You might have to beat the Boucher with a stick. Don’t have a stick? Go to getridofboucher.com. There you’ll find a product called the BoucherBat, which is sculpted exactly the right size to cause the most damage to Boucher’s skull. Hit him once in the head and once in the groin. Alternatively, you might opt for a Boucher Taser, which shocks Boucher with memories. Finally, you might consider Boucher Detectors, which come armed with a Truth Alarm. If Boucher steps onto your property, the Detectors tell him the Truth: that he is alone and always will be. Your Boucher will undoubtedly cover his ears and turn and run from that Truth as fast as he can.
Unless, that is, Boucher is wearing Truth-Blocking headphones. In that case, call The Mothers (1-888-MOTHERS) and report the Boucher on your premises. The Mothers will swoop in, capture the Boucher and send him for re-training: he’ll emerge a Morkan or an O’Malley.
BOUCHER Q & A
How do I know if there’s a Boucher nearby?
Even if you don’t have Boucher Detectors installed, you can usually smell a Boucher from as far as fifty yards away. Most Bouchers have a distinct odor, a mix of sweat and urine. Also, listen for the sound of crying. Bouchers cry at least five times a day.
Why does my Boucher have a hole in his chest?
See “The Unloveables.”
What if I’m married to a Christopher Boucher?
Divorce him immediately! If you’re in Coolidge, you can stop by one of those new drive-thru divorce kiosks—I believe most other states have them now, too. Get to one fast and click “Insta-Divorce.” Under that menu there’s an option to “Divorce a Christopher Boucher.” Click that. And don’t worry for a minute about the divorce’s effect on Boucher; most Bouchers don’t have hearts.
What’s so bad about Christopher Bouchers in the first place? Why are they so difficult to be around?
Who do you think is causing all of this? It’s Boucher who invented the bodywalls, conceived of the Lipolian, assembled the Unloveables, erected the Tetherly, imagined a Suicide, and put his own big dumb fucking head in the sky. It’s Boucher who killed Bellis, who killed the Narrator as well. And this is our revenge. He’ll find no safe quarter, not one ounce of happiness—not in writing, or with Liz, or at the Tetherly, or anywhere else. No one here loves him; no one ever will.
I know that it can be unnerving to wake up one morning and find a Christopher Boucher in your life. By following the steps listed above, though, you can make that Boucher someone else’s problem and return to a life that is serene, productive, and Boucher-free.
To know the story of The Lipolian you’re going to have to go back with me all the way—back to those days of my childhood when I worked with my dad, the best setman in the Pioneer Valley. And I was his assistant his was I and. For years, I worked on some of the trillest books published. Have you read Tarmac, by Trox Dillon? My father built the gravesite in that first scene. The house with the tree that runs up through the floor in Lurie Less’s American Fowl? We crafted that tree out of fiberglass and foam. Or the open-mouth moment in Core Allen’s Lava Lamp? I carved those teeth! I can still remember my dad yelling at me about it from across the page. “Hey, _______!”
“Yeah!” I shouted back.
“Which tooth are you on?”
“I’m three teeth in,” I said.
“Are you kidding me? You should be done by now!”
“Everything OK?” said Allen, pacing on the surface of the page.
“It’s not the fuckin’ Mona Lisa,” my dad hollered. “It’s one scene!”
We weren’t a big shop, like Bergen Sets in New York, which has a forty-person crew, or Backgrounds Ltd, which, Jesus, employs a hundred or more people internationally. But we were respected by the big houses for our reliability and
consistent product. I was a pretty good scenic painter, and a passable draughtsman too, and I don’t mind telling you that I had numerous standing offers—one from Neitherton, another from Achoo! Books—to work as an in-house setman.
My father was the real talent, though—a visionary when it came to sets for short stories, novels, and the occasional memoir. Sometimes he was so gil that he was almost more of a coauthor. I can still remember my dad’s late-night meetings inside the novels of those authors who were blocked or couldn’t find the next scene—how my dad would stand on the blank page with them and dance from corner to corner, trying to explain where a certain building could stand or how the characters might move through the space. Bill Toom told me he never would have written Cold Eye were it not for my father, and Kim Meridian once dropped my dad’s name in an interview. “Far as sets go,” Meridian said, “I believe Bellis _______ has the best eye in the business.”
My father was killed in 2012 when he fell from a set while working on an experimental novel called Golden Delicious. He was inside the book-in-progress, standing on some scaffolding and painting trees, when the scaffolding buckled and collapsed. I was on the ground, maybe fifty feet away, and I felt the ground rumble. I looked up to see my dad reach for a tree branch, and then for the scaffolding, finding nothing and falling forty feet or so. He landed on the page and died upon impact.
His death could have been avoided had the author, Chris Boucher, not broken a cardinal rule of storywork. The author is never, ever, supposed to be writing while the crew is onsite—every booker in America knows that. In the statement that Boucher gave to the traffic cones afterward, he said he hadn’t been writing—that he’d had a sudden “epiphany.” The pages themselves, he realized, could be porous, full of holes. He wrote down the idea—“Just to remember it,” he said—in the margin. As soon as the idea took hold in the fibers, though, the page destabilized, the first holes appeared, and the scaffolding faltered.
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