Worst. Person. Ever.

by Douglas Coupland

  Neal said, “I would never wish to imply that you were anything less than movie star material, Ray. But … you know … an apricot facial scrub and some flesh-tinted crème to cover your gin blossoms might make a big difference.”

  “Gin blossoms?” I was outraged.

  “Well, perhaps it’s just all the fresh air and exercise you get that makes your nose and cheeks shine just ever so slightly red.”

  “I do not have gin blossoms.”

  “See, Ray, a makeover would get rid of all that negative energy. I’m just pointing it out, is all.”

  “Neal, less than a week ago, your entire physical being resembled a dag hanging from a sheep’s arsehole.”

  “Indeed it did, Ray. I’m lucky to have a friend like you to help me pull myself up by my bootstraps and make something of my life.”

  “Finally, a whiff of gratitude.” I looked over to where he was sitting. On a polished walnut table in front of him was a snifter of cognac and what appeared to be a script. “Found something to read for the journey?”

  “It’s the script for the TV show. Bloody brilliant.”

  “Who else is on this plane?”

  “Just us for now. They’re sending it to pick up a group of network executives.”

  I looked out the window: ocean. My stomach cramped … food! “Neal, I haven’t eaten since I don’t even remember. Get me some food.”

  “Right, Ray.” Neal lifted one hand, and the sleekest, most kitten-like flight attendant I’d ever seen appeared. She had a velvety smooth, unravaged face, and a name tag reading ELSPETH. She scurried to me with a tray of dainty little triangle-shaped sandwiches, no crusts, each triangle a different flavour—just the ticket. “Here, some nice posh sandwiches for me favourite patient. Fancy a moistened tow’lette, luv?”

  I grabbed the whole tray of sandwiches and set it on my lap. Elspeth made ever so tiny a flicker of a face at Neal, then scurried away to fetch some tea. It hit me: “Neal, you’ve already banged Elspeth, haven’t you?”

  “Well, you know, Ray, what with you being here in the cabin laid out like a corpse—it made young Elspeth and me want to do something to celebrate life rather than be overpowered by the stench of death. You were wheezing something awful the first hour, too, and it terrified her. So to lighten things up, we made love and we also made an iPhone film of what we thought was your death rattle and posted it online. Amazing smoking hot Wi-Fi this jet has. Let me show you …”

  Neal picked up an iPad, typed COMICAL GEEZER DEATH RATTLE into a search box and held it up to show the results. “Look at that!” he said. “Your death rattle clip is already the number four comical GIF on the West London Morning Shopper’s website! You’re a star, Ray!”

  “Give me that fucking thing.” I looked, and there I was, death warmed over on the gurney. “Make it go away.”

  “Too late, Ray. Don’t get angry. Enjoy the moment. I’ll ask Elspeth to make you a steak Diane or something fancy.”

  On cue, Elspeth arrived with my tea. “Elspeth, guess what?” Neal said. “Our clip of Raymond’s death rattle is the number four comical GIF on the West London Morning Shopper’s website.”

  Elspeth squealed with delight. “I’ll have to email me mum. She’s getting a gastric band put ’round her stomach next week. News like this’ll give her a lift. Poor thing. The council agent had to jackhammer her out of the bedroom. So humiliating. Hasn’t set foot downstairs since before Simon Cowell started on TV and brought so much sunshine into our lives. How rich d’you think that Cowell is, you reckon?”

  Elspeth’s council estate accent was like three raccoons trapped in a Dumpster. I was trying to tune them both out when our jet made a sudden downward lurch. Elspeth squealed anew and ran to the cockpit for information.

  Neal looked out a window and said, “Ray! Look out the window—you can see the Pacific Trash Vortex!”

  “The what?”

  “The Pacific Trash Vortex—that continent of plastic trash you’ve been reading about for decades. Good Lord, it’s big, isn’t it? Travels clockwise. The largest manmade object on the planet. Makes you proud and disgusted about being human, all at the same time.”

  “I’m not going to look out the window at garbage, Neal.” But, of course, how could I resist, especially as the jet keeled westward. I actually couldn’t have turned my head away if I’d wanted to.

  Against the g-force, Elspeth shunted back into the main cabin. “We’ve been ordered to land.”

  “Land? Land where? There is no fucking land to land on.” Was I squealing? Maybe.

  “Wake Island.”

  “Where?”

  Wake Island is a coral atoll with a 12-mile coastline in the North Pacific, located 2,300 miles west of Honolulu, and roughly two-thirds of the way to Guam. It is an unincorporated territory of the United States, and all island activities are managed by the United States Air Force. Access is restricted. Wake Island also contains a missile facility operated by the United States Army and features a 9,800-foot runway.

  I asked, “Who has the authority to make a plane land in the middle of nowhere?”

  “The U.S. government,” said Elspeth.

  “Fucking Americans.” I craned my neck to try and see it. “Where is it?”

  “About ninety minutes away.”

  LAX to AWK = 9h, 5m

  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also called the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is characterized by high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that has been trapped by the current of the North Pacific Gyre.

  Reports have estimated that the patch extends over an area larger than the continental U.S., but recent research sponsored by the National Science Foundation suggests the affected area may be twice the size of Texas; a recent study concluded that the patch might be even smaller. Data collected from Pacific albatross populations suggest there may be two distinct zones of concentrated debris in the Pacific.

  Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from space because it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper water column. Since plastics eventually break down to smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.

  Most people are horrified to learn of the vortex’s existence, but at the same time, it’s kind of awesome to discover there’s a whole new continent on the planet you never knew about before. Life: it’s magnificent!

  18

  Now, I’m obviously a sensitive man who enjoys the fine things in life: food, wine and art—yay art! Art everywhere! Art for everyone, even for useless people! But this love of art notwithstanding, I do wish I were more of a poet. That way, I could properly describe the fiery sunset over the Pacific Trash Vortex—a vision that made my soul frolic like a wee lamb in a meadow. How’s that for poetry?

  “More lamb, Mr. Gunt?”

  “Great idea, Elspeth.”

  Elspeth replenished my ceramic tray with sumptuous lamb curry, and I tucked right in as the trash vortex turned from amber to orange and then to crimson before vanishing from sight. The night sky that then descended had that bright blue light one only sees flying over oceans—daylight with a strong camera filter—and soon we heard a *ding!* and Elspeth told us to get ready for landing. Neal was blithering on about there being something eerily familiar about the shape of Wake Island—he just couldn’t figure out what it was. I assumed his street person’s psyche was reasserting itself after having spent a week away from gutter puke and angry confrontational yobs armed with shoplifted carpet knives.

  The captain came over the PA to ask us to lower our blinds as we approached the island.

  “Lower my blind? Whatever for? I’m not lowering my fucking blind.”

  “Come on, Ray. They wouldn’t ask us to do it if it
weren’t for a good reason. The air force runs this place.”

  Neal obediently lowered his blind while Elspeth lowered the others. I, however, decided to make a stand. “I am going to do whatever I want with my blind. Look—I’m going to Morse code a message to the Wake Islanders.” I began to open and close my blind.

  “You know Morse code?” Neal was amazed.

  “I do,” I said. “My uncle was an amateur ham radio geek.” I continued to send my message to the world:

  2

  After we landed, we taxied to a disintegrating concrete building under a glorious full moon. We popped open the cabin door—ahhhh, the woosh of tropical air, so fresh and good for the soul. As Neal and I inhaled this salty Micronesian syrup, a military Jeep roared up to the plane and slammed on the brakes. Two MPs hopped out, bounded up the stairway and yanked me to the ground, where they slapped me in handcuffs. This was getting all too familiar.

  Neal shouted, “You should have lowered your blind, Ray. You don’t want to mess with these folks.”

  While I was being brutally thrown snout first into the Jeep’s back seat, its driver carried a plastic shopping bag over to Neal and Elspeth. He removed fragrant jasmine leis from it, draped them over their heads and said, “Welcome to Wake Island.”

  Another Jeep pulled up. Although my head was upside down and a seatbelt buckle was digging into my right nostril, there was no ambiguity about the identity of this new arrival.

  “Mr. Gunt,” said Mrs. Peggy Nielson of Kendallville, Indiana, who was now wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. “Maybe next time you’ll lower your blinds.”

  2. t r y a n d m a k e m e l o w e r m y b l i n d s y o u f u c k i n g a m e r i c a n c u n t s

  19

  Okay. We’re all adults here, and we’ve all been in situations beyond our control. Hell, it’s what gives life its spice: you miss a bus, the hot water stops working, a 767 slams into your office tower. When things go sideways, I try to make lemonade out of lemons, as it were. So from my awkward face-into-the-upholstery enforced yoga position in the rear seat, I greeted Mrs. Nielson civilly as she stood outside the Jeep. “Oh. Hello, Peggy.”

  “Hello, Raymond. Here I’m addressed as Lieutenant Healey, Jennifer Healey.”

  “How surprising.”

  “Was it really so hard for you to lower your blind before landing? Your behaviour could be construed as very compromising. We have high-res, high-speed digital film of you on the plane admitting that your uncle was a ham radio geek.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Language, Mr. Gunt. We lip-read everything you said.”

  “To be clear, Lieutenant, I was being insubordinate deliberately as a protest against your government’s ridiculous fucking stance on global politics, which tried to force me to close my tiny little blind on a lovely Pacific night.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Neal and Elspeth, in the meantime, seemed genuinely shocked that the two of us knew each other.

  Peggy—excuse me, Lieutenant Jennifer Healey—replied, “In my twenty-one years with the service, Mr. Gunt, you are the worst human being I’ve ever met. The. Worst. Person. Ever.”

  “Um, Lieutenant, is there any way for your staff to change my yoga position here in the back seat? It’s hard to open my windpipe to reply to you.”

  “Not yet, Mr. Gunt. We’re still assessing your threat level to staff here on the island.”

  “Okay. Could you at least tell me what you were doing in my prison cell in LAX dressed like a soccer mom with a dead meerkat glued to your head?”

  “Those cellmates of ours, Mr. Gunt, were the two most powerful narcoterrorists in the western hemisphere, only posing as parakeet egg smugglers.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Well, regardless, you wouldn’t want to French kiss those two, would you? Cold sores like raw hamburger patties all over their mouths. Come on, Peggy, have a laugh. You’ve got to admit, that is an unappetizing thought.”

  She exhaled a large breath. “In a weird way, I owe you, Raymond. Once your body was carried away, the three of us were able to bond over how awful you’d been—which in turn led them to slip up and give me some information I needed. I may run this island full-time, but those two have been in my gunsight for two decades, ever since I started working for the government. Nabbing them was personal to me, and they’ll be locked up for the next few hundred years.”

  “So I actually helped society.”

  “You might say that.”

  “I even helped you fulfill your dream.”

  She eyed me warily.

  Neal volunteered, “Raymond wants a better world for all of us. You know—children singing in fields full of flowers—ebony and ivory and all that Michael Jackson stuff, minus the pervy bits.”

  From my upside-down position, I looked around me at the cheerless architectural boneyard of crumbling buildings. Time had stopped somewhere in 1971, when Richard Nixon stopped here to take a dump on his way to Guam.

  Peggy—Jennifer—finally spoke. “The war on terror and the war on drugs are the same thing to me, Raymond. Actually, I’m at war with everything—it makes mental bookkeeping easier.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Boys, pick Mr. Gunt up. I want him standing to attention.”

  The MPs hauled me out of the Jeep and stood me up. My legs and arms tingled as blood circulation returned.

  “If you change your attitude, Raymond, I might tell you more about what we here on Wake Island are doing. I promise, it’s fascinating.”

  “Blimey,” said Neal, as if trapped inside a Beano cartoon. “A secret mission!”

  Trucks were roaring about in the background. It was nighttime, but it was also hopping. I sensed something big going on.

  I said, “I’m honoured you’d consider trusting me so much, Peggy. Now, could you please uncuff me?”

  “Not yet.” She called to the MPs. “Boys, toss him into the slammer!” Then she giggled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.” She put on her aviator glasses, which, under moonlight, gave her a Mexican Day of the Dead kind of look. “Lock Mr. Gunt in Sector D.”

  20

  So I was thrown into yet another prison cell. I was actually feeling okay about this most recent incarceration and was planning to catch some shut-eye. But when I sat on my bunk, I found a DVD of Billy Elliot and a remote control. Outside the cell’s bars was a 55-inch plasma TV. Inside the DVD case was a note from Peggy:

  Greetings, Raymond Gunt.

  The DVD is cued to “The Angry Dance” from this most beloved of motion pictures. Perform it tomorrow at lunch in the mess for everyone and you will be allowed to leave the island. Raymond, it has to look like you are trying, really trying. If I don’t think you are trying hard enough, your plane and your friends fly on without you, while you stay here indefinitely to pay for your willfully disobedient violation of the Homeland Security Act. Get cracking, Raymond! Lunch is at noon, sharp.

  Love, “Peggy Nielson”

  Fuck.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGBTFFxOpY

  Imagine being locked in a cage and not only having to watch Billy Elliot, but being ordered to replicate some sort of dance routine—I mean, honestly …

  “Hello, Raymond.”

  I turned around and saw Peggy on the other side of the bars. She looked softer and had makeup on, as well as civilian clothing—one of those muscle dresses favoured by Mrs. Obama.

  “I see you got my note,” she said.

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “Raymond, Raymond, Raymond. You don’t honestly think Homeland Security would swap a possible threat to national security like yourself for a pair of theatre tickets?” Peggy’s crisp, unironic tone reminded me of being on hold with United Airlines. She began twirling her hair. I didn’t like where this seemed to be going.

  “But I must say, your ex-wife is a terrific bargainer. I wanted tickets for the evenin
g performance, but she drew the line at a matinée.”

  “Did she?”

  “Fortunately, back in the cell at LAX, you confided to me where you were going. The moment I heard that, I knew you were mine. There was no way I was going to let your plane pass by my island empire here.”

  “You grounded our flight just for me?”

  “Is that so wrong?” She licked an index finger and then trailed it down her cleavage, and I felt as if someone were walking over my grave. “Don’t be coy, Raymond. You know there’s something between us.”

  Here’s the thing: Peggy Nielson—or rather, Jennifer Healey—is the first nubile woman I’ve encountered since puberty whom I haven’t repeatedly mind-boffed, or even considered mind-boffing. I fought for time and said, “Tell me more.”

  She looked both ways and then came closer to the bars. “In all my undercover years, nobody has ever seen through my Peggy Nielson persona, not one person. Only you.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “But I am. You get me like nobody else ever has.”

  My brain went into Jason Bourne car-chase mode: Reverse the BMW into the taxi queue? Plough forward at triple speed? Haul arse the wrong way on a busy Moscow thoroughfare? Am I willing to mow down a few pedestrians?

  Peggy—no, Jennifer—reached for my shoulder through the bars and caressed it. “I thought we might watch Billy Elliot … together.”

  Christ, this woman really had a massive pulsating lady-boner for me. I needed to start thinking of her as fuckable or I was never going to get out of here. But she had as much sexual allure for me as Mr. Bean. Why, oh why, did she leave me cold when, to be honest, I’ve even mind-shagged Margaret Thatcher—well, come on, let’s be totally honest here, who hasn’t? All you need is the right lighting, a nice bottle of Italian red, shovel-loads of ketamine and maybe one of those autoerotic asphyxiation getups Fiona’s clients are always dying in. I mean, I’ve mind-shagged female restroom logos all around the planet. I’ve mind-shagged the boot at the southern tip of Italy on Google Maps. So to not be able to contemplate getting it up for Peggy/Jennifer was cruelty beyond measure, especially as I was technically now her love slave—and who out there hasn’t wanted to be a love slave at some point or other? But failure to perform carried potentially life-threatening consequences.