Player One

by Douglas Coupland

  And then Leslie Freemont enters the cocktail lounge.

  ___

  Leslie entered the lounge like a taller, thinner, studlier version of the Kentucky Fried Chicken colonel: white-suited and platinum-haired, with strong, fluoridated teeth and a Greek shipping magnate’s tan. He sized up Rick at the cash register, reached out his hand, and said, “I’m Leslie Freemont. You must be Rick.”

  Rick had no idea what to say. Everyone in the bar was staring at him. He was not a good improviser and felt a stinging blush come on. “Yes, I am.”

  “Hey, Rick, welcome to the best of the rest of your life!” Right behind Leslie fluttered a personal assistant, Tara, manoeuvring two pieces of wheeled luggage, each with a mind of its own. “Rick, this is Tara. Tara, Rick.”

  Hellos were exchanged, and Leslie said, “Rick, I bet you feel great!” Leslie was like a walking exclamation mark. Everything about him exuded confidence, life force, and energy. Rick wanted what Leslie had, and he wanted it now. He asked, “Leslie, can I get you a drink?”

  “Not for me. But maybe young Tara here could use a pick-me-up — just kidding. Nothing for Tara — she’s on the job. And Tara, be careful with the smaller leather bag there; I bought it at Heathrow and I’m trying to keep it clean for next month’s cruise.” Leslie looked at Rick. “And I was kidding about not wanting a drink. I’ll have what this gentleman here is having.” He motioned to Warren’s Scotch and soda. He stuck out a manly hand to Warren, and then to Karen: “Leslie Freemont . . . Leslie Freemont. Ah, my drink. Thank you, Rick. Wait — I’m one of those folks who has a peanut allergy. In all seriousness, is this glass clean?”

  “Fresh from the shelf.”

  “Merci beaucoup.” He took a sip. “Ah, rich, nourishing booze. With the first drink comes the truth, with the second drink comes wishful thinking, and with the third drink come the lies. What would we do without sweet, nourishing alcohol?” He raised his highball glass and bellowed, “A toast!” Even Miss Ginger Ale raised her glass. “Here’s a toast to everyone on earth who’s ever been eager, no, desperate for even the smallest sign that there exists something finer, larger, and more miraculous about our inner selves than we could ever have supposed. Here’s to all of us, reaching out our hands to people everywhere, reaching out to pull them from the icebergs in which they stand frozen, to pull them through the burning hoops of fire that make them frightened, and to pull them through the brick walls that block their paths. Let us reach out to shock and captivate these people into new ways of thinking.”

  Leslie’s toast took a moment to sink in, but was then greeted by a hearty “Cheers!”

  Miss Ginger Ale said, “I’ve seen you on TV.”

  “You probably have,” said Leslie. “My new TV project airs in the coveted midnight-to-one-a.m. slot, week-nights, in two major North American markets.”

  “I watch your show while I work in my laboratory mouse-breeding facility.”

  That line stopped everyone dead. Mr. Trainwreck got things moving again. “So you have a TV show, not an infomercial?” he asked.

  “Edutainment,” said Leslie. “I like to call it a ‘lifeomercial.’ I’m not on TV primarily to sell — first and foremost, I’m there to fix people’s lives.”

  “Are you some form of doctor?” asked Miss Ginger Ale.

  “No, ma’am, just a humble shepherd.”

  “So you’re an evangelist?” asked Mr. Trainwreck.

  “Not as such,” Leslie replied. “But if helping people in pain is a crime, then I guess you’d call me a criminal.” Leslie turned to Rick. “Young man, Tara and I are on the move today, but we cherish this chance to have met you.”

  “What time is your flight?” Rick asked.

  Leslie raised an eyebrow at Tara, who quickly blurted, “We have to board in ninety minutes.”

  “So,” said Leslie, “I’m afraid we have only a brief moment for a photo. I trust you’re still going to invest in the full Leslie Freemont Power Dynamics program.”

  “Of course,” said Rick, who at that moment would gladly have donated all of his internal organs to invest in the full Leslie Freemont Power Dynamics Seminar System.

  “Wonderful.”

  “Do you have the payment?” asked Tara.

  Rick handed it to her. “It’s cash. Exactly $8,500. You can count it if you like.”

  “No need,” said Leslie, being good cop to Tara’s bad cop. “Come around to this side of the bar while Tara readies the camera.”

  Rick hopped over the bar in one leap, barely missing a Rubbermaid tray containing lemon wedges and maraschino cherries, then took off his apron in one gesture. “I am so stoked!”

  “And your great adventure,” said Leslie, “has only just begun. Tara?”

  Leslie put his arm around Rick and told him to say the word “win.” “It gives you the best smile of all.”

  Tara snapped a digital photo. Leslie grabbed the camera. “It’s a beauty. Good work, Tara.” He pumped Rick’s hand. “Rick, we’ll email you the JPEG.”

  “Thanks, Leslie.”

  Leslie chugged his Scotch. “And now we’re off, and thank you for your commitment to my vision. A FedEx with the full program will arrive at this address in two days.” Leslie looked up at the room. “People — nice to have met you all. Welcome to the best of the rest of your life.”

  And with that, Leslie and Tara were gone, a little bit too quickly, giving Rick just the briefest whiff of suspicion that Leslie’s interest in Rick’s future success and mental livelihood might not have been entirely spiritual.

  Luke

  It wasn’t just the Bake Sale Committee’s pissy reaction to Luke’s Rapture joke that made him reach his tipping point and loot the parish coffers and abandon his flock. Something else happened. When the Bake Sale meeting was over, Luke walked past the out-of-tune baby upright piano and up the rear staircase, which smelled of old textbooks. He went into his office and locked the door. He sat in his wooden chair, which overlooked the rear parking lot, where the women were milling about their cars and gossiping, most likely about him. He turned off his cellphone and took his land line off the hook and watched the women leave. Then he looked to the side of the window, where a crow on a telephone wire was having a deep, vigorous preening session, feathers akimbo, groom, groom, groom. After finishing its routine, the crow fluffed out its feathers, pooped, and then yawned.

  It yawned?

  Birds yawn?

  Luke found it interesting that birds yawn. Some people would have us believe that birds and human beings evolved from one common ancestor six hundred million years ago — which would mean that yawning goes back six hundred million years — as does, Luke supposed, preening and grooming and battling for turf and seeking out mates and . . .

  . . . suddenly the idea of sharing a common ancestor made more sense than the thought of being created in six days — more than the notion of Creation itself. Luke’s loss of faith was that quick. He’d always feared it, but he had thought it would be a long, drawn-out process. He should have known it would happen in an instant. From years of tending his flock, he knows that most big moments in life and death are quick — those key moments that define us probably fill less than three minutes altogether.

  The next morning — this morning — Luke drove to the bank and ma
de small talk with Cindy the teller, who had a port wine birthmark on her chin, after which he withdrew the church’s savings and went to the airport to catch the first flight he could get to a big city, which happened to be Toronto, where he now sits with a crazy robot-woman supermodel.

  On his bar stool, his pockets brimming with cash, Luke feels as though he radiates darkness as surely as the sun radiates light. Luke still believes that we are all, at every moment of our lives, equally on the brink of all sins, except that now, in a world without faith, sin has no ramifications; it’s just something humans do.

  Luke sits with the flawlessly beautiful Rachel. The TV screen shows the remains of a Florida zoo recently pummelled by a hurricane. An array of animals and birds stand amid and on top of broken walls and mangled metal, yet none of them knows it’s wreckage; it’s merely the world. Luke feels old and lost. He felt lost when he was young, too, but back then he felt lost in his own special way. Now he feels lost in the same way everybody else does.

  Luke turns to Rachel and asks, “Have you ever had a vision?”

  “I don’t understand your question, Luke.”

  “A vision — a picture in your mind that’s not real life, but it’s not a dream, either — it’s something you see that you know is true and you know is going to happen.”

  “Have you?”

  “Once. Last summer. I was with my sister and her kids, at some lake. The kids were driving me nuts, so I went off on my own and got lost in the scrub — it’s easier to get lost than you think — and I ended up on a sandbar down the lake. I was thirsty, but I didn’t want to drink the water because it probably had bear shit and skunk shit in it, and who knows what else, so I was dehydrated, and I found this sandbar and then, wham! I had this vision. I fell to my knees and I saw a wash of light, and then I saw a fleet of dazzling metal spaceships, like bullets aimed at the sun, and I wanted to walk towards them and get inside one and leave everything behind. I’d had a vision, the only vision I’ve ever had, but it told me nothing and offered no comfort or guidance.”

  “Were the spaceships built by humans or by aliens?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Humans, I think.” He looks at the gorgeous but unreadable Rachel. “Do you believe in aliens?”

  “I think that all subatomic particles are designed specifically to generate life the first moment they possibly can. In our case, it happens to be based on DNA. On other planets, other designs will have occurred. Perhaps stacked rings or some other linear structure. Scientists now believe that life started on earth not just once, but many times, until it continued to become the forms we currently experience. Even if you took a planet full of nitrous sludge and did everything to hinder life’s development, it would still evolve.” Rachel pauses. “Actually, Luke, sometimes I do see pictures in my head — when I’m working in the garage and have been overconcentrating in bright light. They don’t make any sense, but I do see them . . . I once had this vision that a mountainside collapsed and buried me. While I watched it start to fall down, I wasn’t at all frightened. I knew that the weight of the soil and rocks would make me feel safe and protected.”

  Luke’s pupils dilated upon hearing of Rachel’s visions. Something she had said had emotionally affected him. “Does your vision mean anything, you think?”

  “No. Perhaps only that I had curry for dinner and its effect on my stomach is psychoactive. But the landslide dream did make me stop worrying about death.”

  Luke looked at her face closely. “Maybe someday you might become a poet.”

  “I don’t understand poetry.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me, but you probably have other things going for you. I can tell.” Luke polishes off what remains in his glass and sighs. “Rachel, I wish everything would just end. I think I’ve had just about as much of this world as I’m able to take. I’m pooped.”

  “Is that what people call ‘a cry for help’? Should I notify a local suicide hotline of your intentions?”

  “No! Jesus! Have another sip of your drink.”

  Rick passes by, and Rachel looks at Rick and says, “Did you know that every human being on earth is related to a single woman who existed 160,000 years ago in a place we now commonly call France?”

  “Seriously?” said Rick. “Related to every person on earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man, she must have been one total slut.”

  Luke almost chokes on his Scotch, but then manages to swallow it and bursts out laughing. Rick heads off to the back of the bar.

  Rachel looks confused. She asks Luke, “What’s wrong with being a slut? I would think society would welcome fertile women fully enthusiastic about reproducing with a wide variety of genes so as to propagate the species in a genetically healthy and sensible manner.”

  Luke looks at Rachel. “That’s certainly one way of viewing things.”

  “Luke, are you single or married?”

  Luke says, “I’m single,” but doesn’t know if this is the right answer if he’s going to make it with Rachel. Being single is a self-fulfilling situation. Why are you single? Something must be wrong. I’ll pass, thank you. It’s slightly easier for single men than for single women, but it sends out an awkward signal nevertheless. Single means lonely, and lonely is scary, as Luke knows all too well from years of counselling his flock. Luke is lonely, too, but only when he thinks about time and growing old alone. Luke is afraid of getting hurt, but he also knows that if too much time passes you miss out on the opportunity to be hurt by other people. To a younger Luke this sounded like luck; to an older Luke this sounds like a quiet tragedy.

  The TV screen shows more of the trashed Florida zoo, waist-deep in water. Luke once thought time was like a river, and that it always flowed at the same speed, no matter what. But now he believes that time has floods, too — it simply isn’t a constant anymore. Twenty thousand dollars in his pockets, and Luke feels like he’s in the flood.

  Luke asks, “What about you? Single?”

  “Yes. Irregularities in the insula, cingulate, and inferior frontal parts of the brain make me unable to have what neurotypical people such as you call a ‘relationship.’ I enjoy situations that are familiar to me, and if that means having a person around me, then I suppose that’s fine. But it’s not something I crave or seek. I also have 630 people following my ongoing blog on the subject of mouse breeding. One might consider them, if not partners, then friends. They constitute my community.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “But this may change. The brain grows ten thousand new cells every day of its life — but unless you use them, they dissolve back into your brain.”

  “Serves them right,” says Luke. “Okay, Rachel, what do you crave or seek from life, then?”

  “I would like to become impregnated by an alpha male so that I can prove to my father that I am, in fact, a human being and not a monster or an alien.”

  Luke looks at Rachel. “Let me buy you another drink.”

  Rick returns from the bar’s rear area. Luke watches him mix a complicated cocktail and take a sip from it — are bartenders allowed to do that? — then inexplicably pour it out and flee into the back, returning a half-minute later looking like hell. Crystal meth? Crack? Luke thinks, Well, it’s an airport bar. Who wouldn’t? An airport isn’t even a real place. It’s a pit stop, an in
-between area, a “nowhere,” a technicality — a grudging intrusion into the seamless dream of transcontinental jet flight. Airports are where you go right after you’ve died and before you get shipped off to wherever you’re going next. They’re the present tense crystallized into aluminum, concrete, and bad lighting.

  Luke watches as Rick mixes another drink and hands it to Karen — and then oil hits $250 a barrel. Even Rachel’s ears perk up at that news. She tells Luke, “That means a tank of gas for a typical North American–made sedan will cost roughly $300.”

  Luke remembers driving to the airport to catch his flight to freedom. The gas at the pumps back home was a buck and a half per litre. Would they even be open now? Just then, the power goes out. When it returns ten seconds later, the TV is white, fuzzy snow.

  ___

  Amidst all of the action and all the cocktails, what was troubling Luke most was the paradigm shift inside his head. Just yesterday he had believed that after he died he would go to a place called Eternity. Now all he had to look forward to was a paltry place called the future. The future is not the same thing as Eternity. Eternity is everything and nothing. In the future, things that were already happening keep going on, but without you.

  Because Luke no longer believed in Eternity, he had only the future. The day after he died there might be a really huge, terrific party and he wouldn’t be there to attend. A year or two later they might tear down his old neighbourhood and raise skyscrapers shaped like handguns. In two million years, squirrels might have developed frontal cortices and enslaved the world. Who was to say? Luke would never know, because he’d be dead and would have left all known time streams.

  Of course, there was no guarantee that dwellers in Eternity would get peeks back into their pre-eternal world. Luke always did wonder what the point of that would be — so they could gloat? So they could settle bets? So they could see the latest Star Wars instalment? No matter how he looked at it, there remained something petty about Eternals looking backwards. No. Once you’re gone, you’ll never find out who won the World Series, who wore what to the Oscars, or whether your kids went on to cure cancer or murder Girl Guides. Luke is on the cusp of ordering another round of drinks for himself and Rachel when Leslie Freemont enters the building.