Worst. Person. Ever.

by Douglas Coupland

  “The Cure changed my life. I remember that shirt. I almost bought one at their July 1993 outdoor concert in Finsbury Park. It’s been one of the great regrets of my life that I didn’t buy it. And now, decades later, fate has given me another chance.”

  “Fate has done no such thing. This is my Cure T-shirt, and you can’t have it.”

  “I remember the complete song list that day: ‘Shiver and Shake’; ‘Shake Dog Shake’; ‘One Hundred Years’; ‘Just Like Heaven’; ‘Push’; ‘Fascination Street’; ‘Open’; ‘High’; ‘From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea’; ‘Disintegration’; and ‘End.’ ”

  “Fascinating.”

  “The encore was ‘Friday I’m in Love’; ‘Three Imaginary Boys’; ‘It’s Not You’; ‘Boys Don’t Cry’; ‘Fire in Cairo’; and ‘A Forest.’ ”

  “Neal, your nostalgia is not going to get you this shirt.”

  “What will get me the shirt?”

  Hmmm … brainwave.

  “Neal, I want you to shag LACEY. That way I can take the moral high road and dump her for cheating on me.”

  “I don’t know, Ray. LACEY’s technically shaggable, but it’s just hard to see pictures of her and me together in my head. And I mean, she’s also just emerged from an epic fuckfest with you. She’s likely worn out.”

  I reached down and rubbed my stomach. “My, this shirt is in amazing condition considering it’s two decades old. It’s vintage, not a reproduction. It was probably left here by some Kiwi missionary with retro musical taste and a hankering for life’s finer things.”

  Neal’s lips quivered. “Okay, Ray, I’ll shag her.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’ve come to your senses.”

  “Now give me the shirt, please.”

  “Not until the deed is done. And there’s one more thing.”

  Neal’s eyes became cold slits. “Yes?”

  “I want that piece of red plastic that was hanging from the outdoor eaves back at the grocery store.”

  “You fucking bastard!”

  “So I’m a fucking bastard. Big fucking deal.”

  Suddenly Neal had me face-mushed-down on the kitchen’s rattan mat, twisting my arms behind my back.

  “You fucking pig!” I yelled. “Let go of me now or I’ll bleed all over your precious shirt. I’ve been known to trigger nosebleeds by willpower alone.”

  “I agreed to shag LACEY, but no, Raymond Gunt got greedy.”

  “Fuck off and die, Neal. My price is my price.”

  There was a noise in a back hallway, and when Neal turned to see what it was, he gave me enough room to wiggle free and grab a white plastic trash vortex chair. I whacked him in the face, making his nose fountain with blood.

  “I’ll fucking kill you, Gunt.”

  “No, you won’t, Neal, because if you get blood on this garment, it’s officially not collectible anymore, and neither you nor nobody else will ever want it.”

  Checkmate.

  I stepped back. “Now hand me that piece of red plastic and I will hand you your T-shirt. I won’t even make you fuck LACEY first.”

  “You are a cruel bargainer, Raymond Gunt.”

  “Just piss off and give me the plastic.”

  I removed the shirt while gazing into a salt-crusted old mirror that sat beside the room’s principal decoration: an orange and black NO SMOKING sign. I was as red all over as a Halloween devil.

  That was when we heard shrieks coming from outside. Neal and I forgot our trade transaction and went to look. A collection of villagers had circled the hotel, armed with baseball bats, car antennas, coconuts and coral chunks. A woman wailed, “Vakubati! Vakubati!”

  I stormed out to confront them. “Now just one fucking minute!” I yelled. “You have some nerve to try to blame me for the problems of this wretched fucking world.”

  They chanted: “Vakubati, take your dreadful fuckpeople and leave our gracious islands now!”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  From behind the angry villagers, I saw two more forms of wrath incarnate emerge: Fiona, dressed as if for tea at Wimbledon, and LACEY, still dishevelled after hours of God only knows what unspeakable things we’d done together.

  Fiona shouted, “Thanks a fucking lot, Raymond! We finally get to visit Eden, and you get us all kicked out!”

  “I did no such thing. These doughy-ankled lagoon rats are living in some ancient era before science or rationality.”

  Fiona used the same X-ray face she had used when she figured out it was me who’d caused Matt Bradley’s death. Her eyes screwed up intensely. “I don’t know how, Raymond, but I know, in some way I’m unable to fathom, that it really was you who started this nuclear war.”

  “Fi, are you totally fucking crazy? And how the fuck can you side with these oily trolls at a moment like this?”

  “Did you, Raymond?”

  “Did I what? Start a nuclear war? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  At this point, LACEY interjected, “Fi, how did the two of you meet, anyway?”

  “How did we meet? Raymond threw an empty lager can at me.”

  35

  Well, then.

  We’ve all been in a pickle at least once in our lives, haven’t we? One is born, one grows up. One gets in a pickle. The pickle is resolved and then one dies. Snap!

  At that point, the Zodiac that had brought Neal to shore offloaded another wave of crew to retrieve their belongings from the hotel, and of course Stuart would have to show up just then, Sarah at his side.

  “Herry Potter, you asshole—now we have to leave the island because of your fuckheadedness.”

  “Oh, hello, Stuart. I’ll thank you not to swear; there are ladies present.”

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Stuart threatened. “Everyone grab your things and get on the bus to the dock. We’re headed to location, and the yacht leaves in one hour!”

  As if in a zombie movie, the show’s production staff converged around from all directions, thus defusing our confrontation with the locals.

  Fiona passed by me, snarling. “Trust me, Raymond, I will find out how you started the war.”

  “I love you, too, Fi.”

  “Come along, LACEY. You can help me pack.”

  LACEY went past, sniffling. “Raymond, I did things with you that I wouldn’t even do with the Russian guys who run the airport limousine service.”

  Then Sarah approached, her face grave. “Raymond, I heard all about your erotic holiday with LACEY. I think it’s terrific that you’re finding love. You richly deserve it.” She sounded like a gracious yet saddened contest loser. Fuck. Any chance I might have had with her was out the window. How to undo this mess?

  I pleaded my case: “No, Sarah, it wasn’t an erotic holiday at all.”

  Cue the chanting natives: “Dreadful vakubati, take your fuckpeople and leave our gracious island, now!”

  Sarah made a brave face. “I have to get my things, Raymond.”

  Being possessionless—I’d long since lost track of whatever I’d brought on this deranged odyssey—I waited out front while people packed. The natives surveyed my every move, brandishing their crude weapons at me. Then I heard a whisper from the front door. It was Sarah. “Raymond, come help me with this.”

  This turned out to be a wheelbarrow-load of Spam-like tinned meats from China. The images on the labels reminded me of, say, the creatures from the Burgess Shale, magically brought back to life only to be slathered in salted goat gelatin and ruthlessly resealed into rectangular tins.

  Oh Christ …

  I was caught in a Spam spiral: that mystical state of mind where one’s brain becomes entirely absorbed by trying to analyze the contents of Spam and/or Spam-like products.

  I thought of nipples—the nipples of all races—pressure-packed into convenient 5.5-ounce tins of—

  “Raymond?”

  “Whuzzat? Oh, sorry, Sarah. I w
as stuck in a Spam spiral.”

  “Oh, I’ve had that happen too. It’s awful, but it always goes away.”

  I stared at the barrow-load of tinned meat. “Sarah, are you sure you want to take this Spam-like food product with us?”

  “We’ll be needing this. There probably won’t be another supply ship for months, if ever.” She smiled at me with her heart-melting Sarah smile. “That LACEY is one lucky girl. I wish I’d made my move when you were still available.”

  “LACEY and I aren’t a couple!” I insisted.

  “It’s okay. Fiona told me all about your fear of commitment, Raymond. There’s no possible doubt in my mind that you and LACEY are together for the long haul. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything that might derail your tender, newly born love.”

  There was no doubt in my mind: LACEY must die.

  The Burgess Shale Formation, located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, is one of the world’s most celebrated fossil fields. At 505 million years old, it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing the imprints of soft tissue. Many of the animals present in the shale have bizarre anatomical features and bear only the slightest resemblance to other known animals. Examples include Opabinia, which had five eyes and a snout like a vacuum cleaner hose; Nectocaris, which was either a crustacean with fins or a vertebrate with a shell; and Hallucigenia, which walked on bilaterally symmetrical spines. Stephen Jay Gould’s book Wonderful Life (1989), brought the Burgess Shale fossils to the public’s attention. He suggested that the extraordinary diversity of fossils indicates that life forms at the time were much more diverse than those surviving today, and that many of the unique creatures were evolutionary experiments that became extinct.

  If we ever wonder what life might look like on other planets, this is where we can see it.

  “First thing we should do is cover the cans so that the natives don’t steal them.”

  “You’re so clever.” Sarah grabbed some laundry from a line and gently wrapped the tins. I couldn’t help envisioning her swaddling our first child. “There,” she said, “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

  My heart continued to melt.

  “Look, there’s our shuttle bus.”

  We walked busward through the protesting carb magnets, with Sarah attempting to bring peace along the way. “Such a lovely place, and your hygiene practices are so refreshing and planet-friendly. The ocean really does know what to do with poo, doesn’t it?”

  Safely at the bus, we stowed the entire Spam barrow in a rear luggage compartment, then hopped on.

  Fiona was already settled at the back of the bus, deeply engrossed in her iPad screen. Good.

  Stuart, still outside, was barking into a military phone: “What do you mean the president wants his Cure T-shirt back? Are these people insane?” He poked a button at the bottom of the phone and hopped inside the bus. He glowered at me. “Oh. I see that Herry Potter is here.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, Stuart, whatever.”

  His attention migrated elsewhere. “Cheryl! Where’s the shot list for tomorrow morning?”

  Sarah was smiling. “It’s so sweet to watch you two act like little boys.”

  “How long have you and Stuart been together?”

  “Three years now. Sometimes I wonder where it’s all going. He can’t seem to make his mind up about things.”

  The bus was nearly full.

  “There are days when I’d really like to maybe start fresh with some new guy, but …”

  She looked infinitely sad. I took her hand and held it tightly in mine. “Don’t worry, Sarah. Things’ll all be good in the end.”

  She started to cry—a brave little tear, one that nearly drowned my soul.

  Huh?

  What was that?

  A tear that nearly drowned my soul?

  That was poetry! Real fucking poetry coming from me, Raymond Gunt! A total raging poet, like in some crap basement club surrounded by starving unfuckables speaking in tongues. Me! A fountain of poetic shit!

  Oi!

  So …

  I made a vow then and there to do anything it took to make Sarah mine.

  To the west, out the window, what might possibly have been the airborne remains of Seoul created the most delightful sunset imaginable.

  Life is good.

  36

  Now …

  I like to think of myself as a kind person. And what is so wrong with being kind? I go through my days trying to do nothing but dispense sweetness and light. Shine, shine, shine! That Raymond Gunt’s a giving soul! And yet what do I get for my kindness?

  There I was, on the bus, off to hook up with the network yacht—easy-peasy—when some troll from catering whisked Sarah away from me to discuss provisioning. Neal came and sat beside me and, as the bus took off, we started discussing the philosophy of love.

  “You know, Ray, a real man is not one who can bed ten thousand women but he who can bed one woman ten thousand times.”

  “Neal, if you’re going to mouth inane platitudes like that, I request that you move your endildoed arse to some other seat.”

  “I just thought it would sound good, like a man on the telly promoting fancy biscuits because … because … because …”

  Because just then, the slightly aged but quite amply endowed blonde in front of us removed a shawl to reveal a profoundly unignorable cocoa-coloured skin tag projecting from her shoulder. It was perhaps an inch long, somewhat meaty, with small but distinct little horns on it, shaped like New Zealand’s North Island.

  “Ray, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Yes, Neal. Yes, I am.”

  “It’s like a nipple gone horribly, horribly wrong.”

  “Christ, Neal, the last thing I need in my life right now is to have nipples de-eroticized. And yet I can’t stop looking.”

  “But, Ray, its colour, its texture …”

  Neal was correct: the skin tag indeed resembled a teat of sorts, not entirely Caucasian—perhaps Vietnamese or octoroon? A tiny chocolate filament sprouted from Auckland and glinted in the end-of-day magic light.

  “Ray, it’s like a biological toggle switch.”

  “Neal, could you stop making your inner dialogue an outer dialogue?”

  “Why don’t you flip the toggle switch, Ray?”

  “What?”

  “Go on, Ray, give it a tickle.”

  “Neal, are you fucking mad?”

  “I’ll bet you it’s one of her erotic fantasies, having a stud muffin like yourself flip her switch a few times in the glow of a Polynesian sunset. I’m a good judge of these things, Ray. I swear, you’d be helping her fulfill her deepest needs.”

  “Neal, there is no conceivable way that tiny squib is in any way erotic.” Staring at the skin tag was rather like being caught in a Spam spiral, except instead of ruining my appetite it was ruining my sex drive. And frankly, it was also deeply creeping me out. It was as if the skin tag had achieved sentience and was staring back at me, plotting my demise.

  “Ray, tell you what: if you flip the toggle, I’ll give you my piece of red plastic.”

  “Why don’t you just do it yourself, Neal?”

  “Because I think you’re the one who needs some sexual healing, Ray, after your epic fuckfest with LACEY. Touching the skin tag will stabilize you.”

  The skin tag continued to stare at me, cunningly, coldly—trawling through my mind for points of weakness with which to attack me.

  Neal continued. “Between you and this sadly disfigured lady in front of us, it’s a yawning vortex of sexual neediness.”

  “Okay. You have a point. But promise me this isn’t some sick voyeuristic thing you get off on?”

  “I promise.”

  “No tricks, either—I flip the switch a few times, and that plastic is mine, no catches or further conditions. And I’m still wearing the Cure T-shirt, so you really do want to stay in my good books.”

  “On my word.”

  An acrochordon, also known as a skin tag or fibroepithelial polyp
, is a small benign tumour that develops primarily in areas where the skin forms creases, such as the neck, armpit and groin. Acrochorda are harmless and typically painless, and do not grow or change over time. Tags are typically the size of a grain of rice.

  The surface of an acrochordon may be smooth or irregular and is often raised from the surface of the skin on a fleshy stalk called a peduncle.

  Skin tags are more common in people who are overweight and in pregnant women. Acrochorda have been reported to occur in forty-six percent of the general population.

  Because tags are benign, treatment is unnecessary unless the tags become irritated or present a cosmetic concern. If removal is desired or warranted, a dermatologist or similarly trained professional may use cauterization, cryosurgery, surgical ligation or excision to remove the acrochorda.

  They’re gross.

  The way things turned out, you’d think I’d single-handedly gang-raped the woman with the skin tag—Shelley, it turned out her name was. These Americans and their puritanical fucking fussiness. I mean, it’s not like I was getting any jollies out of reaching towards the infinitely menacing, cruel and unforgiving incubus of mottled skin that was feeding on her shoulder. And, given the force of evil that was embedded within the vile wattle, it took some guts to do what I did. And I might also add that I was helping Shelley fulfill a sexual fantasy at the same time. Yes, give, give, give. That’s me, Raymond Gunt.

  Eventually, with utmost fortitude, I clamped my right thumb and forefinger on Shelley’s skin tag just at the moment our bus driver chose to run over a drunken Samoan, who quickly came to reside behind the bus’s front right tire. There was a catastrophic bump, and in the blink of an eye, Shelley’s skin tag ripped away from her shoulder, prompting her to shriek like a smoke detector. Dazzling Carrie-esque crimson fountains geysered upward. Shelley dashed for the door, as did our driver. I looked at my hand: in the shock of it all, my finger and thumb had seized up, leaving me unable to drop my newly liberated satanic flesh nubbin.

  Neal yanked me away from the appalling mess on Shelley’s seat back: “Ray, for God’s sake, don’t get any blood on the Cure shirt.”