“My biggest problem is about eight inches long. That’s the distance between my head and my heart. I can think just fine, thank you very much. That’s what I do best. Taking the world apart and putting it back together exactly the way it should be. I do this so fuckin’ well that when I’m finished I’m in a fuckin’ room full of nutcases who wanna teach me how to pray for God to fix me. But, you know, he does. Really. He does fix me. These are better days, only that lump of shit that lies eight inches south drives me crazy.”
The little bald man has sat forward, resting his face in his hands. His elbows are on the table beside Donny’s hand. It still chops away even though lists no longer govern what he’s saying.
“You know, when I ask people, y’know, what the fuck should I be like now that I’m no longer like myself, you know what they say? They say, ‘Hey Donny, just be yourself!’”
Donny leans forward, drawing his audience over a nastiness he knows they’ll all enjoy.
“Well, well, well. That’s just never gonna be a good fuckin’ idea, is it?”
The bald man smiles against fingertips that hide his mouth.
“I am a person who wants you to die along with him. That’s who I am.”
The woman across from him feels, along with everyone else in the room, all of the possibilities, the little shiver of Donny. She bisects the upholstery of her cleavage with the table edge. Donny gently drops his hand, transforming it from a karate chop into a coin that rolls across the table and lodges securely in the soft slot of her body. The little bald man sits back and his belly flies like a huge fruit bat out from over his belt. He has grown exited and he speaks.
“Thank you Donny. My name is Mike, and I’m an addict.”
Attention is suddenly dispersed around the room and in this chaos everyone feels a refreshed opportunity to have another shot at being a little more dignified.
“Well, you know, no fuckin’ big deal, this. I was in a tight fuckin’ spot. That was my problem. That’s what brought me here. Not the ‘God this, God that.’ I didn’t wanna become a good person. Fuck no. I just wanted to go from ‘A’ to ‘B.’ ‘A’ happened to be a fuckin’ nightmare where I’m holding the barrel of a gun in some guy’s mouth; but, you know, whatever. Keep an open mind. And ‘B,’ I didn’t even have a fuckin’ ‘B.’ So I come here ‘cause all you fuckin’ people are talkin’ about how people like me get out of a jam. So I’m hangin’ around, and the first few months I’m not shootin’ dope. A good thing. But I’m still bringing a piece to meetings. And I’m keepin’ my distance, with my hand on the piece, thinking, if one of you fuckin’ fags tries to hug me I’ll blow your fuckin’ nuts off, right? But soon I leave the gun at home. I don’t even know why. I guess it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I can’t really see myself using it, so I leave it at home.”
Greg is bored. He’s heard Mike talk about bringing a gun to meetings a thousand times. He knows it’s important that Mike is being honest about this, but, Greg thinks, how come he’s honest about the same thing all the time?
“So I start listening to what you were talking about, and I thought how fuckin’ weird it is that the gun I was packin’ was packin’ up my fuckin’ ears. Y’know what I’m sayin’?”
Several people laugh. Greg looks around irritated, they always laugh at the same shit.
“I get rid of the piece. I start thinking: alright, alright, for fuck’s sake, I suppose I gotta get a fuckin’ job now and . . . and … I do! And I say alright, I guess I gotta call up the old lady and tell her that, no, I’m not gonna blow her fuckin’ brains out. She’s safe, and she don’t even have to believe me,like you said, it’s just true. She’ll figure it out. Dee-dee this and dee-dee that, and pretty soon I notice, I only notice, I don’t understand it, but I see that I go towards ‘B’ by being this nice fuckin’ guy. And I say Holy Fuck! How did I become this person worthy of my son’s respect? This stand-up guy. Jesus Christ! And you tell me to be grateful and I say: fuckin’ right, I’m grateful, I’m grateful all to fuckin’ hell. And you say be grateful to God. Be grateful to God?”
Greg notices his Higher Power sitting in a swivel chair just outside the circle. The Higher Power nods toward Mike for Greg’s benefit, then he flips his hands, giving up, making a psychological face that Greg finds insulting. Greg watches Mike’s mouth open and close around the word fuck and he remembers his boss earlier that day: his face flushed, not with embarrassment, but with the bracing clarity that comes from blowing your load down a volunteer’s throat. Greg fantasizes about being on both ends of the arrangement. He finds that they are touching the same ice cube, equally cold and satisfying. The two men are exchanged by the act, no longer thinking about each other, or sucking each other, but laughing, now, because they are not each other. Greg thanks Mike in mumbled unison with every one else.
Donny, who has been the chairperson, takes the pause after Mike as an opportunity to close the meeting. Mike accepts this, and stretches in his chair before standing and patting himself down. His belly, which continues to win every battle it wages, governs him physically as he stands. Others follow, pushing empty chairs towards the centre of an enclosure that they begin to make with arms tossed around each other’s back. The woman across from Donny pulls her hands down and hops away from the circle.
“Oh. Oh, one last thing — um — oh, yeah. April — addict. The women’s retreat up at the Elora Gorge has been cancelled due to the restrictions that were just announced. Re: the AMPS problem up north. So if you have paid already, contact your Group Service Representative for a refund. That’s me at this group. If you don’t know who your GSR is ask any member. Thanks.”
Greg feels a whimper run across his chest. His feelings about the disease he has have been making ever-tightening circles around him. Not yet inside, but preventing anything from leaving. Greg lowers his head for the serenity prayer, which he pronounces sub-sonically as: “Gaw gra ma tha savanah tee ta set ah ha ah kenna shay, ah tha crash ta shay ah they aka ah tha wistah ta oh the dimffimff.”
The people who have left the meeting are gathering at the rear door of the church, smoking cigarettes and arranging groups that will leave separately and arrive together at a cafe on Queen Street. Greg is standing alone, feeling self-conscious of the fact that his Higher Power is the only one who’ll stand with him. And even then, this invisible being, dressed in black, appears to want to mingle.
On the other side of a tall hotel lobby ashtray that tilts at the edge of the asphalt, Mike is lighting April’s cigarette. April reaches across to hug him, keeping her hips back to accommodate Mike’s leading stomach. He in turn bows his back out between his shoulders to create a cave in his chest where April can store her giant breasts for the duration of the hug. They part smiling, embarrassed and thrilled by the comfort of their touching.
“How long have you been the GSR?”
“About eight months. What’s your home group?”
“Oh, I don’t have one right now, but I’m thinking of joining this one.”
“Great. Let’s go put your name in the ledger.”
“OK.”
April leads Mike back into the building and down the stairs. When they return, everyone will have left, and not wanting to go straight home on a Friday night they’ll go off together to a cafe three blocks west of where the rest of the group has already convened.
April, who has created a safer world for herself, has a test that a man must pass before she’ll spend any time with him. This test is based entirely on the spiritual principles of the program she’s adopted. Honesty. Open-mindedness. Willingness. Tolerance. Acceptance. He must also be able to care for himself completely. She is watching Mike for this now.
Mike carries himself like a gallant caricature of kindness. He makes amends to women whenever God will let him, swooping open doors and laying out well-defined compliments. He listens carefully and smiles apologetically at his own compulsion to solve their problems. He might be the kind of Mr. Right that April has been
looking for.
When April and Mike move in together she will teach him the real thrill of lifelong romance, its enduring pyjama party of dirty thoughts. The delicate gift, the body as an object. But first he must prove that he can be, and not be, her sister.
Greg is standing alone near the top of an alley that runs behind a highrise apartment. Alone. Alone except for a Higher Power who stands under a streetlight, impatient now for his young charge to surrender his increasingly bizarre will. The Higher Power knows that this is a dangerous time for Greg. He has a strange new disease and nobody knows for sure how or when it will manifest itself. The Higher Power leans into the dark and, covering his mouth, shout-whispers: “Greg! Greg! Come on, let’s go have a coffee! Greg!”
But Greg disappears into the dark of the alley. He’s heard something and he’s going to investigate. The noise, coming from behind a dumpster at the far end of the garbage-strewn alley, is human in origin. A crying growl, a scraping sound. Greg stops halfway. Behind him three cars pass noisily by the entranceway and their warm triple swoosh pulls Greg cautiously back a couple of steps. He is frightened by the slurps and rustles he hears coming out from under the dumpster.
“Greg! Greg! Come on! Get out of there! Greg!”
The Higher Power feels a little slighted in being ignored. I shouldn’t have to try so hard. He lowers his head and sighs before straightening his back and arms. He steps into the alley and swaggers for courage as he walks to its dark end.
Greg is standing pinned against the wall, facing the back of the dumpster. The Higher Power is prepared to be forceful. To launch him toward the street by his collar. He reaches out, holding two fingers over Greg’s shoulder, and he looks over his back. He blinks once at what he sees, freezes for a second and then bolts up the alley and turns the corner at full tilt.
A face is a marvellous thing for those who possess it. It is really the only thing that distinguishes us. Not quite enough to recommend us, just a trickster feature of our anatomy that makes everyone appear famous. But still, the face is beautiful. A sensitive sign of obscure integration. And every once in a while that integration is challenged.
Like now, behind the dumpster. A man is lying back against the garbage bags piled there. His face is mask-like sad, with worried eyes and eyebrows angled in an anxious incline. His mouth is pursed in a whistle, sucking saliva noisily as if through a straw. In fact, he has been sucking through straws. He has made straws out of the left cheek and upper lip of a woman who is lying across him, her head cradled in the crook of his arm, protected gently from falling loose on its broken neck. The flesh of her face is raised in turrets, sucked into bloody spouts that are white and new at their tips. Like infant mouths, blind and despairing, they open and close on her frail, dying exhalations. When the man looks up, registering Greg with tiny flecks of light across his black eyes, he gathers the straws in his hand and folds them over, sealing the woman’s mouth. She bucks once, kicking an old coat at her feet, and dies.
14
A Discomfort Of Facts
Julie pulls the hair offher brother’s face.Jimmy squirms a little trying to get comfortable against her thigh. Julie reaches around his front and puts her hand on the glass he holds while he moves around on the floor between her splayed knees. She squeezes her eyes while he puts a little too much weight on an elbow that is pushing just below her hip. Once settled, Julie removes her hand from the glass and Jimmy slurps hard once, clearing the purple ice of colour. They have been sitting on this floor in a tiny clubhouse in the backyard, built by their father, for three days. Their unusually warm spring break had been restricted to the activities of penitentiary inmates seventy-two hours ago when a gang had invaded the Wheelers’ cottage. And on this day their parents had joined Jimmy in his silence, making Julie feel isolated by her willingness to talk. She exercised this willingness by telling Jimmy stories that lasted six or seven hours.
While she speaks Jimmy listens; but he also watches. He watches for germs squishing at the corners of her mouth, or viral clouds near her cheeks. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s looking for, except he thinks with certainty that at some level these tiny invaders must wear pointy leather shoes. White pumps. They’ll have dozens of fat, scrambly legs encased in thick white nylons. He keeps his fingers caged around the straw that he seals tightly with his lips.
Julie is thinking about where she left off. The story is about the Wheelers in the afterlife. Over the course of many hours they have been the rulers of the world. They are the first married superheroes, driving through space in a flying monster truck. They have been reincarnated as fish, teachers, metal detectors and horseflies.
Most recently Julie has, out of boredom, brought them back to Earth as giants who enact a terrible revenge on the living.
“Mrs. Wheeler’s huge head is as big as a truck and her arms are like trees. She stamps on the ground, squashing people. She holds them under her giant shoes, leaning against their heads until they pop like those plastic bubbles of air used in packing crates. She finds this addictive and heads toward the city centre, growing agitated because the population is finite. She finds a main intersection and, grabbing handfuls of waiting commuters, begins to snap open their tiny craniums with her thumb. She moans small satisfactions to herself. Mr. Wheeler, whose hands are as big as horses, is trying to dig the biggest hole in the world. Each scoop of dirt that he drags out of the earth could fill ten dump trucks, and when he tosses them over his shoulder they pass in the sky over people’s heads like giant black clouds. After a full day of digging, Mr. Wheeler is standing in a hole that reaches up to his chest. Around him are tall, tall mountains. Since his day is about a thousand of our years long, people have moved from the dangerous cities away from the maniac head squeezer and have begun to live in caves in the side of the mountain. As night approaches, Mrs. Wheeler returns from the city, wiping her jammy fingers on the front of her dress. She crouches down against the mountain to help her husband out of his hole. In the process they cause a landslide that kills all the people. They decide that it’s time to get some dinner and they wander off. They find a country near the equator that is composed entirely of ruffage and they start grabbing giant handfuls and stuffing their mouths. The salad contains tiny stalks that get caught between their teeth, and they discover that if they clench them hundreds of monkeys, frantic to escape, push the trapped food free. They smile at each other, their lips streaming a dark green juice that carries the bodies of squiggling monkeys off their chins.”
Julie looks up. A car is approaching the cottage. She stretches her neck so that she can see above the windowsill to where the road appears between the trees. The car is going very fast and it sprays stones as it brakes dramatically at the foot of her parents’ driveway. Julie slips out from under Jim. He drops his elbows against the wood floor. Unable to speak, he rolls his glass angrily across to the wall.
“Shhh. There’s somebody coming to see Mom and Dad. Come on.”
Julie grabs her brother’s hand and they sneak out of the clubhouse. Jim resists her. He’s frightened of his parents, more than usual.
He thinks that they’re sick, and he’s right.
The children crouch behind a large green wheel of hose that hangs on the side of the cottage. They hear a door open and a man emerges. Very serious. Mud on his clothes. Is that mud? Julie pushes her brother down and she covers his back with crossed forearms. Listen. She hears an animal, a bird maybe. Something crying across the lake. No. Not across the lake. Nearer. Julie turns her head, her face an inch from the side of the cottage. From in there?
The sound becomes shrill. Louder. It is in there. Julie drags her brother into the bushes across the path. The front door opens and Julie can hear a man yelling. Pursued. She keeps her eyes trained on a small patch of the front yard that she can see through the leaves. The man running. Mom. Dad. After him. She leaps from the bushes to the edge of the cottage. Mom and Dad are chasing him into the lake. The man dives in from the shore and Mom and Da
d fall on each other, howling. Slapping each other. Biting each other.
Mom has a piece of Dad’s cheek between her teeth, and when he turns from the lake she doesn’t let go. Suddenly they stop. They see me. Dad punches Mom under the chin, knocking her teeth from his face. She trips her tongue under the piece of flesh and snaps her mouth forward, catching and swallowing in one movement. With his eyes steadily on Julie her father pushes his wife to the ground and steps toward her. His cheek has a hole where her mom bit him. His eyes are huge and black. Mom springs from the ground, knocking his limp arm out of her way as she breaks into screaming flight. Julie grabs Jim by the arm and they run down a path that goes behind the clubhouse. Where is that tree? Where? Here. She pushes Jim up first on a ladder of tilting sticks nailed to the trunk, and she follows him, trying to force the rungs out with her heel as she climbs.
Something crashes against the side of the clubhouse. A grunt. Growl. It pushes back and something else falls through a bush. Julie covers her brother’s mouth. Her mother steps out of the bushes near the base of the tree. She doesn’t look up. Her husband follows, in a stupor, walking very poorly. He approaches his wife, tries to lean against her, and falls. He lies on his back almost directly under where Julie and Jim are holding each other on the branch of a tree. One of his eyes has been pricked by a twig and the other blinks. His lips slap against the violent, soundless air that he’s forcing through them. He reaches up to point at Julie, but his hand fails, and he grabs his wife’s wrist, yanking her down on top of him. She hunches her shoulders down to his face, and with a single snap breaks both of their necks.
Julie can feel her brother shaking. In fact, she can see it in the leaves around them. Weapon. I need a weapon. She reaches to a small leafless branch and pulls it back. The branch splinters but doesn’t break. Mom rises from her husband. Listening. She turns to find the noise, and her head flops on its broken neck.Julie yanks once, hard, but the branch holds. Mom twirls to face the tree. She lifts her head off her chest and holds it, controlling it in her hands like a remote device. She spots her children. Julie freezes in the monster’s glare.
Pontypool Changes Everything Page 14