People Park

by Pasha Malla

  SWELLED TO GARGANTUAN proportions on the videoscreens was the face of the boy, pudgy and astonished, the eyes of someone woken from a dream to live that same dream.

  Yes, you, my friend, said Raven, you in the red cap.

  With needless help from Kellogg (a hand on his son’s rear), two Helpers lifted the boy onto the catwalk.

  From the right sort of people, said Raven, the right sort of boy!

  The crowd went berserk with envy and vicarious joy.

  Please, now, silence, said Raven. Come, son. Yes. On the ducktape X. Your name?

  Gip Poole.

  Hello, Gip Poole! Now, Gip Poole, are you the right sort of boy? Do you believe?

  Gip looked at his parents. Kellogg shouted, Say yes!

  Yes, said Gip.

  Raven snapped three times. From the white trunk flew doves, he extended his arms, three landed on the left, two on the right. His expression clouded. He motioned with his fingertips, glared at the trunk. No sixth bird appeared. Snapped three more times. Nothing. The crowd shifted uneasily, the lack of symmetry was unsettling.

  With a shrug, Raven lifted his hands over his head, the doves exploded into a shower of sparks. Kellogg screamed and lunged, a Helper straightarmed him behind the barricade. But Gip seemed less frightened than delighted: all around him fire came sizzling down, and he spun happily as though basking in the year’s first snowstorm.

  THE AIR IN THE cavern felt diluted, sapped. Debbie was bumped from behind. This time the touch didn’t feel sensual, but urgent. People seemed to be congregating with new purpose, someone pushed her — and the whole group heaved and she was swept up, into the tunnel, bodies pressed around her on all sides.

  And now they were running.

  Down they went, zagging left, a hard right — starlings wheeling in a massive flock. No one said anything. The tunnel descended, swerved, Debbie tripped but she was caught and bolstered, there was no room to fall: a mad, wordless stampede down through the dim warrens of the city.

  On they went, and then the tunnel seemed to angle upward again. Debbie’s feet met stairs. She climbed, she was lifted. Ahead a shaft of light shone from some window or opening, and they reached it and burst into the night. The air felt sharp and cool. She looked around: they’d surfaced inside the gates of the Mount Mustela Necropolis.

  Pushed up from underground — disinterred — here they were, a faceless horde, their numbers inestimably fading into the shadows. Everyone had gone still. The only movement came from a shirtless guy in a strange helmet, hoisting a lithe figure atop the roof of a little crypt. This person rose to her feet and swept back her hood: the girl with the handprint haircut.

  Everyone pressed in close, leaving Debbie behind. The Hand moved to the edge of the crypt’s roof, a pastor facing her parish. No one said anything. The silence reminded Debbie of that dreadful empty moment between a screech of tires and the explosion of steel and glass.

  The Hand spoke: Look!

  She pointed east, where a brilliant gloriole floated above People Park — the stagelights fanning up from the common in a silky wash. Then she pointed west: the entire Zone was cast in darkness, lights out all the way from Whitehall to Lowell Canal. And, finally, south: in LOT the Dredge Niteclub glowed in purple strips around its rooftop, the Mews sparkled and gleamed, Mount Mustela glittered like a circuitboard.

  Here it’s just darkness and damp cold, preached the Hand. There it’s all sunshine.

  Voices swelled in dissent — shouts, jeers, someone barked, someone squawked.

  The Hand hushed them, beckoned them closer.

  Debbie, abandoned on the periphery, realized the Hand was whispering. She caught a few chilling words — All their good deeds and dreams won’t save them — and backed away, ducked behind a gravestone, crawled into a scraggle of shrubs, and lay there in the cool wet earth, her pulse throbbing through her entire body, while the Hand murmured instructions Debbie couldn’t hear to the mob among the graves.

  PLEASE, SAID RAVEN, Gip, reach into this trunk and pull out everything you find.

  Gip produced a straitjacket, a half-dozen locks, various harnesses and clasps, leather straps, a length of chain that unravelled, yard after yard, into a pile. While this collected at Gip’s feet, a Helper shuffled onstage — the sketchy character with the facial growth.

  Raven covered his microphone, hissed, Get out of here.

  The guy went scuttling past the trunk and off into the shadows.

  Did that man drop something inside that box? said Kellogg. Pearly? A piece of paper? Pearl?

  Pearl squeezed Kellogg. Pure delight lit her eyes. How about our boy up there, she whispered. Look at him! He’s so happy. Have you ever seen him so happy?

  The chain’s end wriggled clanking onto the stage.

  Kellogg, for the benefit of anyone within earshot, hollered, That’s our boy!

  Raven knelt. Gip, please install me in these restraints. Go on. Begin with the straitjacket. Yes, one arm here, the other here. Now these buckles, there you go.

  Gip did as he was told. Closeups appeared on the videoscreens. Everyone watched.

  Now test the clasps, said Raven. Make sure they’re tight. How old are you, Gip?

  Ten and one quarter, said Gip, yanking at an errant cord. Nearly two.

  Ten and two quarters! Is that more or less than ten and a half?

  Obediently, the crowd laughed.

  Gip straightened. They’re all done.

  Good, Gip! Good. Yes, they’re very goodly tight indeed.

  Isa Lanyess wondered, An escape trick? and Wagstaffe scoffed, You can bet he’s got something a lot more exciting in store than that, and those watching had to agree. Those not watching included Cora and Rupe, flushed into the lightless courtyard of Laing Towers with a dozen co-residents: no one had any power, what was there to do?

  Now, Gip, if you could just step back about five feet — yes, that’s it, a bit farther . . .

  Onto the stage came two Helpers (not the weirdo, noted Kellogg, he’d disappeared) to lower the bound illustrationist into the trunk. A camera swooped overhead and Raven appeared on the videoscreens, a mummy in its sarcophagus.

  While my illustration transpires, said Raven, I will be in seclusion. Let good Gip be your guide. And remember: that which we see with our own eyes is the only true miracle.

  From somewhere: drumrolls, a splash of cymbals.

  The truth is nearly upon you! screamed Raven. I will reveal it from here, like this. Gip, good man, shut me into this box, lock it surely.

  Gip closed the lid. The two Helpers swept up the chains, wound them around the trunk, helped him slide the locks in place. The crowd cheered.

  Kellogg nudged Pearl. That’s our boy!

  Over the loudspeakers came Raven’s muffled voice: Thank you, Gip! Everyone, a round of applause for Gip. Now, if I can direct your attention to the videoscreens . . .

  FROM ITS ONRAMP Guardian Bridge reminded Calum of a woman, knees up and spread, and he smiled a little at the thought of a retreat down the birth canal — what a perfect way to start a new life. Lights ran along the suspension cables in lilting rows reflected shivering below in the water. Above: a starless sky, a faint moon like a pearl lodged in mucky riverbed. Across the Narrows was the mainland, so close.

  From the loudspeakers in People Park Raven implored, Believe, believe . . .

  With a great boom, the bridge disappeared. Where its outline had been traced in lights now hung only the night. For a moment Calum felt he might be falling — but the road remained steady under his feet. He was not floating in space. The bridge wasn’t gone at all. The lights had merely been turned off. He stepped forward: solid ground.

  Calum took another step, another, each one met pavement, and now he was walking out along the pedestrian concourse, gaining confidence. In fact this darkness abetted his escape. He eve
n laughed, though nervously, it was eerie to be moving through such pitch.

  A dozen paces out, twenty, fifty. He reached the bridge’s midpoint — halfway there.

  And back on the island the drums started up again.

  Calum stopped. He turned. People Park glowed.

  My friends, said Raven, his voice echoing, with the guidance of good Gip Poole, and bolstered by your nature, are you ready to believe?

  The crowd roared.

  Do you believe?

  From the thousands in People Park came a frenzied bawling, beastly and primal, hungry and desperate. It chilled Calum. He couldn’t move.

  Then, please, believe, commanded Raven. Believe!

  The drums became thunder — then silence.

  Raven howled, Believe!

  And Calum was swimming in light.

  ON THE VIDEOSCREENS the searchlights swung over the water, the Narrows flowed obliviously along. No structure connected the island to the mainland. No craggy fragments jutted out of Topside Drive, the rest dynamited or concealed. Waves slapped the base of the cliffs on either side. Guardian Bridge had vanished, disappeared — it was gone.

  At first the applause came almost tentatively. Gip, alone onstage, waved. People, emboldened by this, cheered. He climbed atop the white trunk and did a little dance, they looked from him to the screens — there was no Guardian Bridge! — and at once the whole park erupted with joy. People whistled and squealed and roared, the crowd thronged, Kellogg and Pearl fell grinning into each other’s arms — their boy was a star! With little inward flicks of his fingertips Gip enticed the crowd’s worship. Yes, he cried. Now you see the truth! Now you truly believe!

  And here were the fireworks: the skies came alive with streaks of colour that ruptured in monstrous luminescent spiders of blue, green, red, purple, gold. More went up, great sparkling pinwheels, rockets, and rainbows, the reds volcanic, the whites like bursting stars, aquatic blues unleashed from the sea floor into the heavens. When the sparks fell tinkling down, everyone’s attention returned to the videoscreens.

  Raven’s done it, said Wagstaffe. Oh my, said Lanyess. Oh my!

  As he came into his unit Sam checked his third watch. The hands were stuck at right angles. Before he could turn on the TV, the phone rang. He picked up. Adine?

  But Adine was fumbling her way down the stairwell and onto E Street, where the night air hit her face and the world seemed at once to tumble away and close in. She sensed her neighbours out there engaged in a sort of befuddled dance, moving one person to the next to confirm that, yes, the power was out, what had the illustrationist done, no one knew, they should all go to together to the park and see.

  Gip continued to grandstand atop the trunk, ignoring NFLM commands to get down and move offstage. Though few people were watching him now — another burst of pyrotechnics was received with oohs and ahhs. Even his parents failed to notice two Helpers approaching the boy from the wings at a low, menacing crouch.

  Hello? said Sam to the empty line. Time’s machine is broken Adine. Hello?

  A hand fell upon Adine’s arm and she surprised herself by asking, Debbie?

  But no, it was a man, an old man, the hand a gnarled and bony claw. We’re going downtown, he said, the Yellowline’s out, everyone’s walking. Do you need help?

  Adine shook her head. No, she said.

  But, said the man, can you see?

  Yes, she said. I can see.

  He released her. Adine sensed him waiting. Out there was darkness, she knew. Though what was the difference between that and this private darkness? Her work seemed so vain now, so misguided and confused. Fug it, she said. And she took off the goggles. No light came searing in. The street was a sludge of dim, shuddery shapes — a crowd, she realized, squinting. People.

  What a fantastic lightshow the NFLM are treating us to here tonight, said Wagstaffe. Truly a special night for the city, said Isa Lanyess, and a wonderful way to celebrate. And what an honour for us to share it with all of you, watching at home or in Cinecity.

  Hello? said Sam again. No reply. Not even breathing. But the silence was that of a coma, secreting a dreamlife in another world.

  The Helpers scooped up Gip and deposited him, squirming and reluctant, into his father’s arms. Wow, champ, said Kellogg, you were amazing. But the joy in the boy’s eyes had dimmed, replaced with a deadened gloss.

  From the vacuum in Sam’s phone emerged a voice, echoey and faraway. Hello? it said. Sam’s breath caught in his throat. And the line went dead. Sam sat on his couch with the receiver in his lap. Slowly, he turned to look at the armoire, its doors barred and locked, and listened for any sound within. Nothing. Not yet.

  Meanwhile as Adine joined the convoy trooping east from the Zone, and on the roof of the Temple Griggs and Noodles and Magurk cheersed schnappses to a job well done, and Cora dragged Rupe up the inoperative escalator into Blackacres Station, and in his cell in the Temple’s basement Pop hung his head as Havoc — Dack — told him, Enjoy your θtay! and Tragedy/Pea added, You dumb fug, and Olpert and Starx sat numbly watching the fireworks’ reflections shatter in Crocker Pond, and at last the hoodied mob disappeared — back underground? — and Debbie crawled out from the bushes, freed her face from the anorak’s hood, looked across the city and saw the sky was on fire —

  ABOVE IT ALL SPUN the Mayor in her tower, around and around and around.

  IX

  HAT IS WAKING, waking is being born. The sky is pale, not the sky of day or night or dusk or dawn, not clouds, but more a lack of sky. A sky that isn’t there. Or maybe this is what exists behind the sky, now Calum sees what has been there all along. Staggering to his feet he looks up and down the bridge, the road narrows to twin vanishing points in each direction, these distances feel infinite, the horizons look unattainable, as though they’d keep peeling back and away and on forever.

  Calum goes to the railing, looks down. Below shrouded in mist might lie a river, if it is a river it disappears into thicker fog beneath the bridge. If it is a river then the river mirrors the sky, which is to say, colourless. If it is a river its surface is still. There is no current. Were Calum to fling his body off the bridge it would fall in silence and hitting the water not make a splash, if there is water, if not it would fall forever, tumbling end over end, a satellite dislodged from orbit in space.

  So Calum steps back into the middle of the bridge.

  And sits cross-legged on the yellow dividing line, and breathes short hollow breaths. And lays his hands on the knees of his jeans and looks at the palms of his hands, ridged with lines that mean, somehow, fate and love and health and life. He runs the fingers of one hand along the lines of the other. Squeezes the top knuckle of his right thumb. The flesh engorged with what should be blood does not swell purple, and when released no blood retreats, a rosy hue does not return.

  Hello, Calum calls. The word disappears: no echo, no trace, it is as if another mouth has pressed to his mouth and eaten the word, swallowed the word.

  Was there never a word?

  Calum looks at the sky that isn’t quite sky, along the bridge that stretches forever, down at his hands, into the fog that hides what might not be a river.

  Hello? says Calum or does he. Does he say then, Hello?

  Does he say hello does he not say hello has he not then ever said: hello.

  What’s a city without its ghosts?

  Unknown.

  Unknown.

  Unknown.

  — Guy Maddin, My Winnipeg

  I

  ERE WAS THE MORNING barely. Sometime in the waning hours of Friday night, those uncertain moments before dawn, the cloudcover sealed fontanelle-like over the island and snow began to fall. The temperature dropped and when the sun rose it did so with effort, struggling through fog thick as a pelt. Clouds drooped over the island, the sky nuzzled the ground, everything the same dirty white
: the air, the thin crust of snow. Where did earth meet atmosphere, there was no telling.

  It was this faint, hazy morning that greeted Kellogg. Waking felt akin to surfacing from the murky depths of a cave into an even murkier swamp. Outside hung that miasmic mist, and for a moment Kellogg had no idea where he was — and who were these people? and who was he? It took a moment before he recognized the children in the backseat as his own. The woman asleep in the passenger seat was Pearl, his wife, and he was her husband, Kellogg. They were a family, the Pooles, together, on vacation.

  From the huge and vexing and open, Kellogg nestled into the sanctuary of the familiar. He looked from one dreaming Poole to the next, peaceful and perfect. But something nagged at him, watching them sleep. Elsie-Anne, Gip, Pearl, their faces were masks. Who might he be in their dreams, what sort of figure, a hero or villain, triumphant or shamed?

  Though Pearl claimed she didn’t dream, never had. But everyone dreams, Kellogg told her once, they’d had friends over for dinner, he looked wildly around the table for support. Not me, she’d said, and poured herself more wine. She could be lying: maybe her dreams were too weird to share. Or maybe she was oblivious to her own dreams, which was sad. Sadder: what sort of person had no dreams?

  Watching Pearl sleep Kellogg wished for a device with which he could witness his wife’s dreams — and then he could tell her about them. But such a device did not exist. Kellogg looked past her, out the window, where snowflakes like little flames tumbled through the campsite’s lamplight, and replayed the final hours of the previous evening.

  When the khaki-shirted men had escorted Gip back to his parents there’d been something almost apologetic in the way they handed him over — Sir, Ma’am. From that point things petered out: the last firework popped and splattered, the videoscreens shut down, an NFLM rep came onstage and offered a tepid, un-mic’d, Thanks for coming, have a great night, and ducked behind the curtains. The crowd lingered with collective, discomfited confusion — there was a sense of unfinished business. Kellogg, though, remained ecstatic. With deep booming pride he hugged his son. You were amazing, champ, he gushed. Wasn’t he, Pearly? Everyone was watching you. Everyone saw! But the boy seemed distant. He felt oddly limp in Kellogg’s arms. He’s tired, said Pearl, prying Gip away, petting his face. We’ve had a long day, let’s get everyone to bed.