Cycling to Asylum

by Su J. Sokol

  When I’m finished reading, I go back and read some parts again, thinking maybe it will sound less bad or make more sense the second time. It doesn’t. I shut off the screen. Daddy’s not asleep. I can tell by the way he’s breathing, or maybe that his body seems all tense.

  “I’m done, Daddy. Here, take the screen back.” I can’t believe how calm my voice sounds. Inside, I feel jumpy and weird.

  He puts the screen away and then turns to me. I think he’s waiting to see if I have any questions. I do, but I don’t think I’ll ask them tonight. Daddy looks so tired. He also looks very young. He is much younger than any of my friends’ fathers or mothers. Plus, he looks even younger than he is. And tonight, for some reason, he looks especially young. Maybe it’s just me thinking about Daddy back then when he was Gabriel’s age, not much older than I am now.

  Daddy’s face seems sad, lonely maybe. I reach over and take his hand, like he was one of my friends. I think this was the right thing to do, because he seems to relax right away. Before too long, his breathing becomes deep and steady and I feel his fingers loosen around mine. He looks just like Simon does when Mommy’s told him a scary story, but given it a happy ending.

  In the morning, we get up very early. I can’t wait to see Mommy and Simon, and I can tell Daddy feels the same way. He seems more like his usual self, too, but I’m still not ready to ask him about what I read. I decide, instead, to talk to him about something else that’s on my mind.

  “Daddy, you and Mommy must be pretty pissed off at Michael’s parents. Even Philip acted like he wanted to bash their heads in.”

  Daddy laughs but doesn’t say anything.

  “But what about Michael? Do you think I should be mad at him?”

  “I don’t think you kids should be blamed for any of this.”

  “It’s true that Michael didn’t plan what happened, but he went along with it. Although after I told him I wanted to go home, he did try to convince his parents to take me back to Montréal. But when they wouldn’t, he didn’t do anything much about it.”

  “What do you think he should have done?”

  “Not given up. Maybe he could have gone on a homework strike, or even a hunger strike. Or just yelled and argued with them more. That’s what I would have done.”

  “So are you mad at Michael, then?”

  “Maybe just disappointed. I still like him, but … I don’t know. The thing is, Daddy, you may not be happy about this, but I still kind of like Gabriel too.”

  Daddy presses his lips together but doesn’t say anything right away. Then he sighs.

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to tell you who you should or shouldn’t like, or that you can’t like more than one boy at the same time. But after what Gabriel did …”

  “Let me ask you something, Daddy. What happened to you … the bad things … is that normal? I mean, is it unusual that bad things like that happen in the world?”

  “It’s not so rare, no. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad in the world. Even worse things than what happened to me.”

  “I had a feeling you were gonna say that. So why do you and Mommy bother? Why do you work so hard for social justice and stuff? Why not just give up on the world, if it’s so bad?”

  “There’s a lot of good in the world, too. Beauty and love and all kinds of amazing things.”

  “Is there more good or more bad?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. You can’t give up on the world, or on life. You gotta keep trying to make things better, to love instead of hate, and to spread that love as much as you can.”

  “But don’t you see, Daddy? You don’t want to give up on the world, even though it’s filled with evil. But there’s way more evil in the world than there is in Gabriel. So why do you think I should give up on him, when there’s so much good in him too?”

  I can see Daddy thinking carefully about what I just said. It’s like he’s turning it around and around in his head, to see how it looks from all angles. He must like what he sees, because finally, a big smile lights up his face. It’s that smile he has that I’ve never seen on anyone else—like a smile you might have if you lived in utopia or something.

  Later, when we’re almost to Montréal, Daddy has us pull over so we can look at the view of the city, Mont Royal popping up in the distance. There’s something kind of exciting about living in a city with a mountain in the middle. But it’s also an island, like Manhattan.

  I’m remembering when we first came to Montréal, how Daddy asked me whether I wanted to take the ferry or the bridge, and I chose the ferry, not knowing at the time what either word meant in French.

  “La navette or le pont?” I ask Daddy now, and I see that he remembers too.

  “You choose,” he answers, grinning at me from over his handlebars.

  “OK, this time I choose the bridge!” I take off. “Meet you on the other side!”

  EPILOGUE

  Siri

  After I got back home, I found out a lot of my friends had been looking for me. I didn’t realize that they cared so much. I guess I was too busy being angry and upset about everything. Even Gabriel had stopped by. He left me a birthday gift—a plant with purple flowers.

  I still didn’t know what to do about him, but I was so busy at school, trying to catch up and get a decent grade in French, that I didn’t have time to worry about it. And we had our interview for permanent residence status, too. I spoke a lot to the government guy, telling him about how great it is when a new country welcomes you, how many friends Simon and I have made and how we both like school. I did it all in French, of course, and Mommy and Daddy looked so happy, it was like they were glowing.

  The greatest thing is that Mommy found a baseball league that has a competitive travel team. When we went to register, they asked us to beam a photo of me. Mommy had some old photos from Brooklyn on her screen, but I wanted her to use something more recent. I look a lot different now, more grown up. So she came up with this photo of me from the winter. It was during that first big storm and showed me throwing a snowball at my brother. The guy who was registering us looked at the picture for a long time. Then he turned to me and asked, “Have you ever pitched? You have a perfect stance.”

  I started to explain how I wasn’t good enough yet, but Mommy interrupted and said, “Siri is an extremely experienced ballplayer. She can play any position and she has an excellent arm.”

  Well, the long and short of it is that they tried me out and now I’m starting pitcher on the house league and I’m on the travel team too, where they sometimes put me in as the closer. The pitching coach of the travel team told me that I don’t throw quite hard enough to be a starter at this level, but that there’s no cooler, smarter, and more controlled pitcher than I am, which is just what you need for the end game.

  Today, when I struck out one of the best batters on the other team with a curvy change-up to win the semi-finals, my whole team picked me up in the air and cheered me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy. Afterwards, changing in the bathroom for our celebration dinner, I had a stomach ache. I wondered if it was from being spun around in the air like that, but I don’t usually get motion sick. When I went to pee, I saw red on the toilet paper and realized that I’d finally gotten my period. I didn’t know what to do, but I remembered the sanitary napkin Mommy always makes me carry in my gym bag. Lucky I don’t need to use it in my glove anymore.

  Simon

  A few days ago, Daddy took me out to Crèmerie Sansregret for ice cream. It was beautiful and warm out, and plus, they have the best homemade ice cream in the world, so I guess that’s why all the bike parking was taken. I looked around and saw a pole where I thought we could lock up. Only problem was that the pole had a “No Parking” sign on it. I went over there anyway, but then all of a sudden, I saw two flics, two cops, walking towards us. I thought about Daddy and I guess I panicked. I was in such a hurry to get away from the No Parking pole that I tripped on the curb. One
of the cops caught hold of my bike while the other caught hold of me. I tried to pull away but she held on.

  “Calme-toi, c’est correct,” she said to me.

  It turns out that when I fell, I had cut my knee and it was bleeding. She got out her first aid kit and took care of it. Daddy stood close by me and watched, but he didn’t say anything.

  When we got inside the ice cream shop, the two cops came in too. I ordered a double chocolate fudge cone, but Daddy said he couldn’t decide what he wanted, so he let the two cops go ahead. The woman cop who fixed my knee ordered vanille-cassis and the guy cop, who had caught my bicycle, ordered the same flavour as I did. Daddy tried to pay for all of the ice creams, but they wouldn’t let him.

  “C’est notre devoir de vous aider,” they explained.

  “Merci. Merci beaucoup,” Daddy said.

  Daddy and I sat down outside to eat our cones. I wanted to eat it slowly and make it last, but it was too good. Plus it melts fast in the sun. Daddy says that’s because it’s good-quality ice cream, which means mostly cream and not mostly ice.

  “Papa, I didn’t know cops liked ice cream.”

  “Of course they do. They have tongues and taste buds and stomachs, don’t they? And they feel the heat just like we do.”

  “I was thinking it was because they were young cops, cadets. They were nice, too.”

  “Yeah,” Daddy said. Then he laughed and kissed me on the top of my head. He seemed really, really happy. We stayed there for a long time, not talking much, just thinking about stuff.

  What I’ve been thinking about is this. What if we had stayed in New York and I had killed that cop who hurt Daddy? Sometimes I think that it’s too bad I didn’t have a chance to do that. Maybe it would save other people from getting beaten up or killed by that same cop. But now I’m wondering what that cop is really like. Does he have kids? Is he sorry for what he did? Maybe he likes ice cream and animals and biking, just like I do. Maybe he felt so horrible about how much he hurt Daddy that he promised himself to never do anything like that again, like how I felt when I broke Keri’s nose. Or maybe he even quit the police and found a new job where he didn’t have to hurt people who didn’t agree with the government. If I had killed him, he’d never have had a chance to be good from then on. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but all in all, I’ve decided it’s better that we didn’t kill him after all, just in case. I guess moving to Montréal saved me from being a murderer. Me and Henry both. I’m going to tell Henry this when I see him this summer.

  Janie

  I told the kids that each of us gets to invite one guest to visit us this summer, and along with that, we each get to have any type of party we want. I let Simon go first. Predictably, he chose Henry. For the type of party, he said he’d have to ask Henry what he thought, but he’d probably want either a pizza party or a game party. I told him not to worry, he could have a pizza-and-game party. I’ve already spoken with Henry’s mom and she’s willing to come with Henry, though neither one of them has ever left New York, let alone the United States.

  Siri had a harder time of it, since she’s loyal enough to still want it to be Michael, but she realizes that this is unlikely to work out. If Michael can’t come, Siri said in her usual resourceful, opportunistic way, she wants to have two friends at the same time, arguing that she shouldn’t have to choose between her two next-best friends from Brooklyn, and that their parents are more likely to say yes this way. Of course I let myself be talked into it. The more the merrier. As for type of party, she naturally chose two things as well—sports and music—because Simon got to have a double theme too.

  Then I went out of strict reverse-age order to go next, so I could beat out Laek. I told my family that I wanted Philip as my guest. Simon remarked, “I thought he was Daddy’s friend.” I told him that he was my friend too. Then Simon looked at Siri, and Siri looked at Laek, and Laek just smiled his sexiest smile and asked me, “What kind of party?”

  Laek

  Janie once told me there’s no such thing as utopia. If this is true, then the comforting corollary would be that there’s no such thing as dystopia either. But I’m not as sure as she is about this. I’m not even sure which truth would be preferable. A world without pain would be a very sweet thing. Might I be willing to pay for this first with a world that’s filled with pain?

  One thing I do know is there’s such a thing as hope. Just as there’s such a thing as despair. And the conditions that give rise to each.

  I’ve been following events in the States. Through the newsfeeds, but primarily through my friends and comrades who’ve continued the struggle there. They’re trying to duplicate some of our successes in Montréal. For instance, the quiet, creative and unrelentingly stubborn occupation by the people of all the critical institutions of our society. Hospitals, schools, food banks, parks, credit unions … People are coming to understand that these things belong to the community. Meanwhile, my experience as an activist from the States has been of greater interest here than I would’ve thought. Yeah, getting an outside view on your society can be useful. And being useful has given me a great deal of satisfaction.

  Seeing how our struggles, our successes, and our momentum can pass from one community to another has lifted my heart. They can spy on us. Jam our communications. Arrest and punish us. They can try to divide and isolate us. But they just can’t keep us apart. Our solidarity and love slip right across their borders. Like those lines aren’t even real.

  Il était une fois …

  “Tell us about the Bicycling Family.”

  “That old story?”

  “Ouais, ouais! Tell about when they went on a new adventure!”

  “D’accord. So one day the Bicycling Family left on a new adventure.”

  “Was everyone there? All of us?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Grandma and Grandpa and Grandpa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aunt Kyla?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even little Annie? And Jérémie? And Zak?”

  “Them too, but they were in bike seats.”

  “But did they find what they were looking for? Did they get asylum?”

  “Yeah, tell us about New Métropolis. Did they finally find utopia?”

  “It’s not about finding utopia, it’s about creating utopia.”

  “But did they? Create utopia? And live happily ever after?”

  “Of course! But lots of things happened along the road. I can’t finish the story because it’s not over yet. It keeps going round and round and round.”

  “Like the wheels of a bicycle?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  The end

  About Su J. Sokol

  Su J. Sokol is an activist, a cyclist, and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. A former legal services lawyer from New York City, she immigrated to Canada with her family in 2004 and now makes Montréal her home. Sokol’s short stories have appeared in The Future Fire, Spark: A Creative Anthology, the TFF 10th Anniversary Anthology, Tabulit, and Glittership: An LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy Podcast. Her debut novel, Cycling to Asylum, was long-listed for the 2015 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

  About Deux Voiliers Publishing

  Organized as a writers-plus collective, Deux Voiliers Publishing is a new generation publisher. We focus on high quality works of fiction by emerging Canadian writers. The art of creating new works of fiction is our driving force.

  We are proud to have published Cycling to Asylum by Su J. Sokol.

  Other Works of Fiction published by Deux Voiliers Publishing

  Soldier, Lily, Peace and Pearls by Con Cú (Literary Fiction 2012)

  Kirk’s Landing by Mike Young (Crime/Adventure 2014)

  Sumer Lovin’ by Nicole Chardenet (Humour/Fantasy 2013)

  Last of the Ninth by Stephen Lorne Bennett (Historical Fiction 2012)

  Marching to Byzantium by Brendan Ray (Historical Fiction 2012)
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br />   Tales of Other Worlds by Chris Turner (Fantasy/Science Ficiton 2012)

  Romulus by Fernand Hibbert and translated by Matthew Robertshaw (Historical Fiction/English Translation 2014)

  Bidong by Paul Duong (Literary Fiction 2012)

  Zaidie and Ferdele by Carol Katz (Illustrated Children’s Fiction 2012)

  Palawan Story by Caroline Vu (Literary Fiction 2014)

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