“Bitch,” Warren said.
Aubrey stared at him for a second, and nodded. “Bitch. She, as much as Munroe, is to blame for our predicament.” He struggled to his feet. “We’ve all got stories like this. We’ve all been victims, haven’t we? Teased for reading books. Beaten up for being smart.” The room took on the hushed tone of a cathedral as we took in his oration. “They were afraid of us, because they knew we had something they could never have, and they hated us for it. They still do. The world is run by grade 3 bullies, and we still cower near our lockers, hoping they won’t see us.”
“I never went to the washroom all through high school,” said August. “Every time I went in, I’d be cornered by Mark Kilfoyle. Fuckin’ asshole. Every day I tried, he was always there, the same thing, pushing me into the urinal from behind, soaking my pants.” August began to hiccup as he relived the memory. “I’d have, hu, have wet myself ruh, rather than go in.”
We all nodded in commiseration. Ben Monaghan was my school’s particular tormentor in that area. He practically lived in the Boy’s Room, the troll of the toilets, giving swirlies and worse to whoever dared enter his domain, before he was expelled for threatening a teacher with a knife. I saw him years later, driving through downtown Winnipeg in a rusted pickup held together with spit and hope, a bumper sticker proudly proclaiming, “Kill a Queer for Christ.” Sometimes, Eric, you really can tell how a person’s going to end up.
“Marshall Wiebe threw my books in the mud,” said Susan, stuttering slightly at the memory.
“John French pants’d me in choir practice.”
“Ashley Blake made my life hell!”
“Blair Wallace set fire to my locker!”
Once unlocked, it couldn’t be stopped. It became a litany of our lurking demons, a communal release of the ogres who chased us down darkened hallways, destroyed our textbooks, gave us facewashes in urine-soaked snow. The fiends who found it obligatory to influence our formative years, transforming us into silent wraiths in school, and maladjusted individuals in adulthood.
“Chad Wilton!”
“Wesley Richardson!”
“Jason Gordon!”
“Vikram.” That was mine. My personal Grendel, only I was too timid a Beowulf to fight back.
“Dylan Merchant!”
“Crystal Perry!”
Aubrey smiled. “Page Adler.”
“Assholes! Kill ’em all!” yelled Warren, leaping to his feet and commencing the destruction of his bookish ottoman. “The entire fuckin’ school. They all pissed on me ’cause I wouldn’t play basketball or football. Excuse the fuck outta me for wanting to read a book, y’know? It’s like my going to math class was a cardinal sin or something.”
“That’s right, they hated you,” said Aubrey. “They still hate us. They see us reading on the bus, and they laugh. We don’t know who won last night’s game, and they pelt us with shit. They hate us because they know we’re better than them.
“We have to strike back, and this is the time! Time to settle the score! We have the ringleader in our sights, and all we need to do is pull the trigger. It’ll be the Mother of all Punishments, the decisive blow to all those who have lorded over us through brawn over brain.”
“What do you want to do, Aubrey?” asked Danae. “We’ll do it, I swear.” I shifted uneasily as I watched her. I didn’t care for the glimmer of madness her eyes had taken on.
“I say . . .” Aubrey said, then stopped and looked at us. The Monkeys were beaming in eagerness, teeth bared in a feral anticipation of blood. This was the true beginning of the end, right here. Whatever Aubrey said, it was hereby the word, and the word was good. And the word was —
“. . . fatwa.” He lengthened the word in a whisper of insanity. “The Shelf Monkeys declare a fatwa on Munroe Purvis.”
That put a stop to things in a hurry. Aubrey might as well have pulled open his shirt to reveal a chest wired with explosives. Someone laughed after a moment, Tracey, I think, but the others and I just sat there, uncertain. I wanted to say something, crack a joke, good one Aub, now pull the other one. Aubrey just watched us, daring us to rebuke. No one doubted he was serious.
“Fuckin’ awesome,” said Warren.
“Are you insane?” I’d like to lay claim to this statement, by far the sanest thing said all evening, but Cameron had beat me to the punch. My tongue had taken leave for a few moments to gather itself together. My throat constricted in preparation for a panic attack. I patted my pockets for a pill, but hadn’t brought any with me. I settled for a lengthy drag from my spliff instead.
“Yeah. Fatwa,” Warren continued, rolling the word over his tongue like an exotic candy. “A price on his head, a reverse Rushdie. Harsh but fair. Maybe we could take out an ad in Soldier of Fortune. Anyone know someone with a gun?”
“Whoa, whoa, Aubrey,” said Burt, flapping away a proffered joint from Warren. “Fatwa? Dude, I’m not that high.”
“Yeah, Aubrey,” said Andrew, putting down his beer, “I mean, fun is fun, but you’re kidding, right? We want to show our outrage, sure, but I’m not about to hurt anyone over it.”
“Outrage?” Aubrey asked. “You want to show outrage, go join the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, I hear they’re planning to picket the store, for all the good it will do. Anyone can protest! That’s what they expect us to do, because we’re weak. Signs and placards, coffee and doughnuts afterward for a job well done. It makes our point, and no one gets hurt, right? Screw that! What are we? Are we those pathetic souls who believe putting a flag on their SUVs somehow makes them patriotic? A bumper sticker stops the war? Wearing a ribbon cures aids? A letter to the editor constitutes a viable form of protest, a point made? No!” Aubrey barged around the room, Monkeys scrambling to get out of his way. “I am so tired of people who mean well. I am tired of people who talk and talk and talk and don’t do anything. This is our time! We have to strike! At his heart! He has offended our beliefs, down to the very core of our being.” He reached toward Emily. “This is your chance, Hagar.”
“For what?” she said, slapping his hands away. “Come on, Aubrey! I miss my job and everything, but fuck you, you think I’m doing something that stupid! Pulling a Rushdie? What, I look like a zealot to you?”
“Hagar —”
“Don’t call me that!” she yelled up at him. “That’s a name we use for fun, it’s not who I am. Don’t you know that? I’m not Hagar, you’re not Quixote, we are all just who we are.”
“Okay, everyone just calm down a little,” I said. “Aubrey’s just venting here, like the rest of us. No one is seriously considering this. This is just the alcohol talking, not you. Fun’s fun, and it’s nice to dream, but we’re none of us killers.” I raised my arms upward, exaggerating a stretch of exhaustion with a complimentary rowlf of a yawn. “Well, I’ve got to work in the morning. I guess I’ll be motoring on. Anyone give me a ride? Danae?”
“Wait, we can’t leave,” Danae said. “Thomas, stay. We need to discuss this. Aubrey, how would we do it?”
A tiny voice piped up from near the kitchen. “Could we try poison?” asked Susan timidly. “Maybe slip something into his coffee before he goes on, something like that?”
“Now that’s thinking big!” Aubrey enthused. Susan shone with pleasure.
“Poison, yeah!” Gavin said. A dismaying number of the Monkeys nodded their agreement. “A few drops, he goes down, BOOM!” He mimed Munroe’s crash to the floor with his arm.
“Do you know anything about poison?” I asked, not without sarcasm. Susan shrugged. “Anyone else here an expert on unidentifiable solutions that kill within seconds and leave no trace? No? Warren, you? Gavin? Muriel? No one watches CSI for pointers? Gosh, I guess we’re all just whistling out our asses.”
“Thomas, it’s just an idea,” Danae complained. “It doesn’t haveto be poison. We’ll think of something to do.”
“We’re not doing it!” I shouted. “Christ, Danae, let’s go already. This is just the marijuana smoke. We can all talk about this af
ter Aubrey’s slept it off.” I grabbed our coats, flustered, tossing Danae’s at her.
She batted it aside. “I’m not leaving. This is important to me, Thomas.”
“No, this is important to him,” I said, patting down my pockets. Come on, just one little pill, c’mon! A Paxil, a Xanax, a Niravam, anything! Why do I ever leave home without my meds? “What, Aubrey, you’re serious? We’re not terrorists! We don’t start holy wars, we sell books! We’re fucking nerds! We fight with words. We don’t do things like this, because we are the ones who’re supposed to know better!” Shit, here come the shakes. I pistoned my arms into my pockets, let the anxiety manifest itself in a steadily tapping foot. “Danae? Can we go now?”
“Aw, Tommy, man,” said Warren. He had somehow gotten behind me, and placed me in a not-quite-affectionate bearhug, constraining me. “Don’t be like this. We’re just spitballin’, y’know? Wishing upon stars, shits and giggles. Sit down, have a beer.”
“Like this? What is this that I’m like? Sober? Rational?” I flailed my legs, knocking over several beer bottles and Cameron, but I might as well have been shackled to a wall. “I am rational, I am so freaking rational now, so let me go!” I shot a heel down, connecting with Warren’s toes. He dropped me with a yelp. I darted across the room toward the doorway before he could regroup. “And don’t fucking call me Tommy.”
“I’ll give you a ride, buddy,” said William, standing. “I’m having fun, but it’s getting a little too intense in here.”
“Can I grab a ride, too?” asked Tracey.
“Me, too?” asked Muriel.
“No prob,” William said, putting on his coat. He walked out to the foyer, calling out as he opened the door. “Anyone else coming? I got a van.” The others began to rise.
“Hey, hold on, wait,” said Danae. She stood next to Aubrey. “Now, let’s not all get angry here, Emily, William, wait . . .”
“Oh, drop it, Danae,” said Emily. “I’m not killing anyone. This is stupid. In fact, I quit!”
“Emily,” Danae said, shocked. “You don’t mean that, honey.”
“Hell I don’t, don’t tell me what to do. My therapist told me to get —”
“Therapist?” Aubrey exclaimed.
“You mean you’ve told someone about us?” Warren groaned.
“Oh, calm down, it’s cool.” Emily huffed in annoyance. “Doctor-patient confidentiality, okay? She won’t tell anyone. Anyway, she’s been telling me for weeks to get out of this. I think she’s right. This isn’t healthy, it’s sick. I need out.”
“But, Haga — Emily, you’re one of us,” Aubrey insisted. He snatched her hands, pulling them to his heart. “How can you leave us, when we need you most?”
“Oh, Christ, will you listen to yourself?” Emily pulled away in distaste. “We need. We need. What about what I need? You firedme, asshole! Who needs this? It was fun, but Aubrey, you’re going off the deep end. And you’re pulling the rest of us in with you.”
“Aw, Emily, it’s not like that,” Susan said.
“It is exactly like that. He’s lost in his psychosis, and the rest of you are just begging at his heels. Lining up like the good little Svengali-ites you are.” Emily grabbed her jacket, hurriedly putting it on. “I’m out, guys, sorry. This is way too fucked up for me. See you around, it’s been fun.” She walked out to the van.
“Emily,” Aubrey said quietly after her.
“Fuck,” said Muriel. “She always was a little flighty.”
“Yeah,” agreed William. “She can’t even tell you’re joking, Aubrey. Who needs her, right?”
“Right,” said Aubrey.
“Yeah,” said Cameron. “Forget her. We’ll talk at the next burning, Aubrey, okay?” He shuffled past me toward the open door. “Aubrey, the next burning, right? Next week? I’ve got a perfect ’tag, you’ll see.”
“Right,” Aubrey said again. He opened another beer. “Burning. Sure. Fun.” He chugged it down. “See ya,” he mumbled between gulps.
I waited until the others had filed past us, shyly saying goodbye as Aubrey waved them away. Danae and Warren stayed where they were. “Tell William I’ll be out in a minute,” I said to Susan. The four of us had the room to ourselves. Danae, I noted with an enormous surge of jealousy, had taken Aubrey’s hand.
“Are you coming?” I asked her. She shook her head, no. “Fine. Warren, need a lift? I’m sorry about the foot, big guy, it was the grass, angries up the blood.” Warren turned his head, engrossed in something on the far wall. Cold shoulder country again. Why was I even apologizing? I turned to Aubrey. “It’ll be better tomorrow, brother. Promise.”
“I thought you were one of us,” he said. “I thought you, of all of them, you I could count on.”
I shook my head, more in frustration than negation. “Look, Aubrey. Danae, Warren. I love being with you guys. But we’re elitists, that’s all, not fanatics. All we are is a club, like chess or curling or Latin. What we do is for ourselves, to make ourselves feel better. We’re not out to hurt anyone, and you know it. What we do is, fuck, it’s great, it’s terrific, I haven’t felt this good in years thanks to you. But there’s nothing we can do. We aren’t a political party. We have no clout. Think about it, we’re weirdos, meeting in a field to burn books. No one would understand it, I don’t understand it, and I love it! We do our best, we tell the world what it should read, we write angry reviews on Amazon and Chapters, we blog to our heart’s content, that’s our place. But we have no power here. None. We, the fourteen of us, we cannot compete with major syndicated television programs. It’s hopeless.” A horn honked from outside, my cue to leave. “We’re all just drunk and miserable right now,” I said, walking out the door. “We’re not terrorists.”
I was almost to the sliding door, the van packed with faces watching my approach. Aubrey called out behind me. “What’s the difference?” I turned and faced the house, the three of them. Perfect strangers only four months previous. Aubrey, Warren, and Danae, the only real friends I felt I ever had, jammed in solidarity in the doorway. Danae had her hand on Aubrey’s shoulder, and Warren loomed behind, his arms comfortingly around the both of them. Danae did not look sad to see me go. “Why can’t we be terrorists, Thomas?” Aubrey asked. “What’s the difference between us and them?”
I thought about this for a second. Given the benefit of hindsight, I should have pondered the question more seriously. But as it stood, my brain still moderately steeped in a syrupy haze of alcoholic fluids and misty intoxicants, I decided instead to be flippant, and uttered quite possibly the stupidest, most damaging thing I’d ever said:
“At least terrorists, they get the job done.”
I might have well signed my own death warrant.
Dinner’s over, and a warm bed now beckons me with the promise of uninterrupted slumber. The mysterious benefactor has laid out clean sheets, and has washed and dried my clothes.
Good night, Eric.
Thomas
From The Toronto Star
MUNROE MANIA COMES TO CANADA
TORONTO — A crowd of hundreds at Pearson International Airport greeted one of American television’s most influential figures, as Munroe Purvis and his entourage arrived in Toronto to begin the much-ballyhooed Canadian tour of his popular syndicated talk show.
Mr. Purvis, jovial and approachable, set about shaking the hands of the throngs of fans that had camped out for hours to get a glimpse of their hero. “Hello, Canada, how’s every little thing?” he asked the crowd, getting a huge laugh in response.
“This is just so incredible,” gushed Martin Bleichart, a computer analyst who drove himself and his family up from Windsor for a chance to get a glimpse of Munroe. “I figured he’d be stuck up, or at least tired from the trip, but he took the time to shake all our hands and let us know that we matter to him.”
“I have to tell you, I am overwhelmed by the passion of this greeting,” a visibly moved Munroe told this reporter. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure anyone would ev
en come out to see us land. I mean, it must be only twenty above, or below, or whatever the metric system says it is up here. But I guess the promise of good literature is strong enough to get people away from the hockey courts.”
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Beginning of the end
Dear Eric,
I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. I mean, any port in a storm is fine in theory, but of all the ports to dock at, why did I opt for port Wacky McNutjob?
This morning, enjoying the first leisurely breakfast I’ve had in months, it suddenly occurred to me that my current sponsor might not be the most, how shall I put this, stable individual. This was at about the time when he asked if I’d be up to a public appearance at the bookstore where he works part-time as a cashier. Perhaps do a reading from the novel of my choice. Possibly lead the congregation in a burning. I tried to refuse gracefully, saying how, while pleased by the offer, it might not be in my best interests, what with my being sought after by the police and all.
He stared at me from across the breakfast table, digesting this. “So, that’s the thanks I get,” he said finally, rising and taking my unfinished plate of Eggs Benedict away. He slid the food into the garbage can beneath the sink, muttering about ungratefulness and risk and hospitality and table manners. I tried to apologize. He said no apology was necessary. He asked me what I wanted for dinner, I said anything would be fine. He said he had to leave, he had to go to the store for supplies , and would I be okay alone for ten minutes or so? I’m italicizing that word to demonstrate the subtle emphasis he put on it. Not supplies, supplies . Not food, not drink, but supplies . What supplies? Corn? Milk? Rope? Handcuffs? Oh my God, I’m in a John Fowles novel; I’m Miranda, and he’s Freddy, keeping me like a butterfly. Or, worse, he’s Annie Wilkes, off to get her axe to chop off my foot, hobbling poor celebrity Paul Sheldon so as to keep him as a personal keepsake. I watched through the window as he walked down the street, waited until he turned the corner, gathered my things, rifled through his bedroom for spare cash, grabbed this laptop, and ran for the nearest bus stop, don’t care where, just take me away.
Shelf Monkey Page 19