People Park

by Pasha Malla

  Kellogg disappeared inside the shirt, struggled to find the arms, popped his head out the top, and announced, Well hello again, Family Poole!

  Gip came down the steps. Mummy, did you find my book?

  I —

  Well obviously not, since you don’t have it. How am I supposed to take over for Raven if I don’t even know what Situation this is? You promised, Mummy, that you were going to come back with my book, I went through that whole stupid Museum with him — he jabbed a thumb at his father — and the Sand City model isn’t even working, it’s just covered in fog like outside, and here you are without my book even though I thought you knew what you were doing, but look, you haven’t even done your job and —

  Pearl’s open palm connected with a sharp smack. The air seemed to fall apart: it was as though a blade had sliced down and guillotined the space between her and the rest of her family. Pearl’s hand shrank to her side, its imprint reddened on Gip’s cheek, the Pooles tableau’d: mother and father and son, Elsie-Anne talked to her purse on the steps.

  Gip didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  Pearl buried her face in her hands, then gathered Gip in her arms. Kellogg checked up and down Parkside West: a family watched from the opposite side of the street. He stepped into their sightline, turned his back, widened his stance. This was private.

  I’m sorry, Pearl said, stroking Gip’s cheek. I’m feeling a little . . . off. I shouldn’t have —

  Well no kidding, Pearly, said Kellogg. I mean, sheesh.

  Gip whimpered. Pearl held him close.

  From the steps: Did Mummy hit Stuppa?

  Kellogg wheeled. Hey! No way, Annie. The Pooles don’t hit our kids. Right?

  But, Dad, I —

  Nope! Gip had a bee on his cheek is all. Can’t ever be too careful! Right, Pearly?

  Kellogg smiled broadly, eyes blazing. And watching his wife and son, their arms around each other, he felt certain that it was not Gip who needed holding. If released, Pearl seemed ready to collapse. And so Kellogg joined the huddle, wrapped and squeezed them tight. Everything’s going to be okay, he whispered. I just love you guys so much.

  THE HAND TAPPED the passengerside window with a fingernail.

  Right, said one of the kids from the backseat.

  Debbie killed the lights and turned onto Knock Street, jostling over the cobblestones. The streetlights were on here, it was disorienting after piloting through the murk of UOT.

  Stop here, said the other kid.

  She parked at the entrance to Knock Street Station. Across the road, the Island Flat Company flagship restaurant, a two-storey complex that occupied half the block, glowed in twin golden stripes from each of its floors. High above the IFC logo flashed, one letter to the next, over a flatlike obelisk. At the edge of forever buzzed beneath in orange squiggles.

  Beside it the NFLM Temple looked abandoned, the flickering bulbs on either side of the S I A I O N sign seemed the faint lifesigns of a comatose patient. Debbie laughed: the windows had been blackedup.

  And another lot north was the Citywagon Depot, a grid of three dozen vehicles, identical and silver and sleek. Each car was plugged into consoles upon which greenly blinked the time: 9:00. Though it wasn’t nine.

  Okay, said Debbie, here we are. I don’t know how you expect to get into the trunks —

  One of the twins, halfway out of the car, said, Let us worry about that, and the other said, Leave the engine running, and they followed the Hand into the Depot, leaving their weapons in the backseat.

  In the IFC’s upper-floor window, two men in NFLM gear were sitting down with trays of flats. There was something familiar about them: one presided over his food with a simian sort of hunch, his partner, lanky and blond-bearded, demurely tucked a napkin into his collar. The stockier man angled his head, jaws unhinged, to stuff a flat halfway into his mouth, while the other deposited unwanted toppings into a napkin and inspected the offal as a virologist might some rare and curious disease. Then he spoke, and though his lips blubbed silently, each s whistled between his whiskers as: Θ.

  Tragedy! Havoc! Snitches!

  In shame and dismay Debbie laid her forehead on the steering wheel, playing the previous two weeks over in her mind: the two men’s sudden materialization, no one had ever heard of them before, their all-round shiftiness, such a performance of rage and militancy — and so it was. But what of Pop, his restribution planifications of the night before alongside these two infiltrators? Debbie had abandoned him. She felt sick.

  A Citywagon’s window exploded in the Depot. An alarm wailed and blared, the car’s trunk flapped open, the shadows shivered with movement.

  Up in the second-floor window of the IFC, Havoc — or whoever he was — cocked an ear like a tracker. Another window smashed, another trunk opened, another alarm joined the first. The other man stood, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, moved to the window, cupped his hands to the glass — and Debbie slid down in her seat, out of view.

  From the Depot: the puff and tinkle of another window knocked in, a trunk opening. The night air throbbed with honks and sirens. Debbie peeked out: the shadows seemed to fracture and shift. Meanwhile, the snitches had disappeared from the IFC’s upper window. What purpose did they serve the NFLM — undercover operatives, provocateurs? They’d comprised a third of the entire Movement, nearly doubled its size! Spies? Even the idea seemed absurd.

  At the restaurant’s front doors the Helpers were accosted by the hostess and held up while the one who called himself Tragedy went digging through his windbreaker. Havoc moved to the window, gazed out, Debbie ducked.

  A voice cried, Calum’s not in this one either! In the sideview mirror Debbie watched the Helpers leave the restaurant and creep across the Temple’s front yard, the shorter man, scuttling buglike alongside his gangly companion, produced a walkie-talkie: Pea and Dack here, he shouted. It’s them!

  At this the Hand rose out of the shadows, illuminated by a streetlight, with the vexed alert posture of a startled animal.

  What happened next Debbie could only process in fragments: a surge of adrenaline — the engine roared — Havoc and Tragedy frozen in her headlights — the car swerved — two men diving out of its path — the Hand and the twins piling into the backseat — Havoc and Tragedy getting to their feet in the rearview — a screech of tires — kids’ voices: Where are we going? Where are you taking us? — and maybe Debbie said something, maybe she didn’t. Then she was swerving north onto F, over Lowell Canal, leaving behind the lighted streets of LOT, swallowed into the sheer slick darkness of the Zone.

  VIII

  Y THAT EVENING the fog had thinned to dewy gossamer. Through it cars and vans and trucks stalled all day down through the belly of People Park were directed along the PPT and east on Topside Drive into the IFC Stadium parking lot. Marching alongside the slow-moving traffic the NFLM provided encouragement: Family-friendly entertainment! — Free rides for all! — Better than sitting doing nothing! — Come on you appleheads, let’s have some fun.

  With Harry bunkered away at their campsite, the Pooles walked west along Topside Drive, and as they passed the Stadium Kellogg said, There it is, and Pearl said, Yup. Helpers directed them toward the entrance to Island Amusements, over which coloured bulbs twinkled in kinetic patterns, back and forth. High above brooded the Thunder Wheel, a huge blank clockface stripped of the time.

  Why are we here? said Gip.

  This is where all the kids are going, said Kellogg. Free rides! See, there’s Mummy’s puking one.

  Why though, Dad? I can’t help from here. Raven’s gone and I’m the one —

  I bet they have flats at the concessions too, guys! What do you say, Annie?

  Familiar has to pee.

  Familiar or you, Annie?

  Same thing. He’s living inside me now.

  Kellogg knelt in front of his daughter. Enough o
f that, eh? It’s getting a little weird.

  While Cinecity hosted entertainment for the island’s eighteen-and-overs, Island Amusements’ free entry was attracting families by the hundreds: with the arrival of each Redline train more parents and their children poured down from Amusements Station, the lot reached capacity, to avoid double-parking along Topside Drive the NFLM allowed traffic onto the pasture reserved normally for vendors.

  Helpers wielding plastic orange batons directed drivers into a grid. One Helper, face as luminescent as his sticks, screamed, Free today, kids, rides’re free! and in a panicked semaphore ushered the Pooles through the turnstiles onto the midway. Here the night seemed to open up and come alive. Everything glowed and sang and burbled and flashed, the air redolent with caramel and deepfry, beneath which festered the porcine stink of the portable toilets upwind by the treeline.

  In a tight, tense voice Kellogg said, Everyone stay close, and took Gip’s hand and, prying it from her purse, Elsie-Anne’s. Pearl drifted alongside, gazing around with astonishment. Everywhere was something: games of chance, the yelps of vendors and hawkers, the booming evil laughter of Broken Hill Haunted House, the Atomic Canyon and Holy Road and Kicking Horse (Love the Horse or leave the Horse, threatened a Helper) rollercoasters whipped and roared and looped to the delighted terrified screams of their riders, over Rocket Falls’ Get shot thru tubes! sign had been posted an apology: SORRY, NOT TIL SUMMER – MGMT.

  Daunting queues threaded from every ride, but the two most impressive led to the washrooms and concession stands. These dipped and twisted so circuitously that newcomers assumed positions beside those at the front. You waiting for food or the toilet, a woman asked Kellogg, and he grinned and told her, Neither yet! The woman frowned and was bumped by a man reeling past balancing a tray of ciders and greasy island flats.

  Annie wants the bathroom, said Kellogg. Pearl?

  She was staring at the Thunder Wheel, its apex lost in the low-hanging clouds.

  Pearl? You want to take Annie, or —

  No, she said, Gip and I will ride the wheel.

  Gip cowered behind his father. The boy’s face was still faintly crimson where she’d smacked him. Pearl reached for him, stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers.

  Great idea, said Kellogg. A chance for you two to, you know . . . Gip? Go on, take Mummy’s hand.

  The hand that hit me?

  Shhh, now, said Kellogg, and nudged him at his mother.

  He joined her grudgingly, watching as Kellogg and Elsie-Anne were folded into the crowds, their spot assumed by a teenage couple lugging unwieldy inflatables won at games of chance.

  Come on, said Pearl, eyes on the Thunder Wheel, and dragged her son across the midway.

  A bored Helper told them, Ride now, you’ll get it solo.

  Pearl looked up: every Thundercloud was empty.

  No view, explained the operator, clouds’re too low. Still fun to go up though . . . I guess.

  Pearl said, Remind me how long the ride is?

  Six minutes, fifteen seconds.

  Exactly?

  Usually each Thundercloud gets less than thirty seconds at the top. But since you guys’ll be alone, I’ll give you five minutes. Quite a while to be up there, eh, kid?

  Gip, what do you think, want to ride it with Mummy?

  But —

  It’ll only take a few minutes. Maybe from way up there you’ll be able to find Raven?

  Gip gave her a skeptical look.

  Okay, said Pearl, we’ll go.

  Congratulations, said the Helper, helped Pearl and Gip board a Thundercloud, buckled them in, and closed the gate behind them.

  AT THE BOTTOM of the Slipway Starx and Olpert Bailie sat in the Citywagon facing Crocker Pond. Or the misty enclosure over it. Despite thinning at streetlevel down here in the park the fog had the opaque gloss of a gessoed canvas. This is good, whispered Starx, just how Griggs said. He led Olpert to the car’s rear and opened the trunk: there was the boy, his hood pushed back, gaping at them with one glassy eye.

  Hold on, Starx said and went off somewhere. Olpert didn’t know where to look — not at the boy, that waxy cycloptic stare, not at the fog, who knew what horrors might appear within it. So he looked up through the hazy ceiling at the darkening sky, the moon nudging into view.

  Starx returned pushing a wheelbarrow lined with a tarp and bags of salt. He set the wheelbarrow down, tore the bags open, dumped the salt into the barrow. Then he brought Olpert around to the trunk, reached in, and took a sneakered foot in each hand.

  Get his top half, he instructed. We’ll wrap him up, the salt will weigh the body down.

  The boy was heavier than he looked, his head lolled against Olpert’s chest, the jaw clacked open, Olpert staggered and dropped his end. The kid’s skull knocked off the pavement with a dull, nutty sound.

  What the fug, Bailie, hissed Starx, and all the way across town sitting on the motionless train at Blackacres Station, with Rupe sleeping in her lap, Cora looked up sharply. Something hitched in her throat. What was happening out there in the dusk?

  Starx scooped up the body, folded him into the wheelbarrow, arms and legs sagging over the sides, and bound him in the tarp. As he was manoeuvred toward the pond one of the boy’s shoes jostled loose, which Olpert fetched and, cradling like a magic lamp, brought to Starx at the end of the launch.

  The boy’s unshod foot dangled, a hole in his sock revealed a rosy coin of heel, and all the way across town the stabbing in Cora’s throat went twisting down into her chest. She gazed out over the roofs of Blackacres to the wall of skyscrapers downtown. Into the twilight appeared the night’s first few stars, and in the moon’s pale light down in the empty pit of People Park Starx said, Help me here, and Olpert tucked the shoe under his arm and took Calum’s feet, the spot of exposed skin clammy to the touch.

  Got him? said Starx.

  It’s because he doesn’t wear shoelaces, said Olpert.

  What?

  That’s why his shoe fell off. Olpert nodded toward it, wedged in his armpit. See?

  Out in the Zone the moon painted everything silver. Rupe moaned in his sleep, and in his face Cora saw his brother’s face, and her heart felt ravaged by little scrabbling fishhooks. The downtown office towers struck her as dominoes, she imagined them toppling, one felling the next until they were rubble.

  Starx said, On three. Olpert nodded. One, said Starx, and as two butchers with a side of meat they rocked the boy, salt sprinkling from the tarp. Cora shivered. Two, said Starx, the body swung pendulously out over Crocker Pond, and back. Rupe woke and said, Ma, are you crying? And Starx yelled, Three.

  The body flew. The tarp unfurled. Salt scattered, arms and legs flailed, and everything disappeared into the mist.

  There was no splash.

  What the fug? said Starx. He toed the water: frozen solid.

  Olpert still held the boy’s shoe. He looked from it to Starx.

  He’s on top of the ice out there somewhere, said Starx, squinting.

  The fog was without depth, a wall of white.

  Starx took the shoe from Olpert, knelt, and slid it along the surface. For a second or two it swished over the ice — then vanished, went quiet.

  Cora said, No, I’m okay. She petted Rupe’s hair, eased his head down to her lap. Go back to sleep, we’ll find your brother tomorrow.

  The mist domed Crocker Pond. Everything was silent.

  Fug it, Starx said. Ice has got to melt sometime. There’s salt out there too, right.

  Olpert peered into the fog. Shouldn’t we go out there?

  But Starx was on the horn with Griggs: Good lookin out, it’s done. What now?

  And now? said Griggs. And now, Starx, B-Squad must disappear.

  WITH THE WAXY white stick Sam marked two bright flecks on the door of the microwave. (Its clock too was locked a
t 9:00.) He pressed his forehead against the plastic, lined up his eyes: a match. Next were the holes. With his ducktaped hand Sam guided the drillbit into the door — a grinding sound, a smell of burning plastic, crumbly twists twirled onto the floor. Sam blew out the dust: two eyes stared back.

  Next, putty. Sam pinched a grey gob out of the container and sculpted a half-inch volcano shape over the left hole, leaving the top open, and then the right, smoothing the ridges. He put his face up to them, the putty nestled perfectly into his eyesockets, he stared into the oven’s shadowy inside and moulded the two little mounds tighter, it was vital that no light or heat escape, or any air get in, and he smeared the putty onto his cheeks and up to his eyebrows, along the bridge of his nose on both sides.

  He felt for the power dial. Found it. Paused. Okay, he said.

  Sam breathed in with a great chest-filling gulp, and out, and thought of Adine’s face after the explosion: that raw pulpy mess, that death mask, that mask of blood.

  The work was about returning to nothing. And as Sam stood there ready to rewind everything, staring into darkness, he wondered when it was over what he would see. Even darkness was itself something — nothing would be like space, in space it was always night. But no, night was something. Nothing was what you couldn’t see. Nothing was the space behind your head — if there was no space, if you had no head.

  OLPERT FOLLOWED his partner into the boathouse, the wood splintered where the big man had shouldered the deadbolt through the doorframe. Starx groped in the dark for a lightswitch, flicked it on: the room was a jumble of nautical equipment, life preservers and flutterboards and oars and paddles and various small watercraft — rowboats, canoes, kayaks, pedalboats in stacks. It smelled of sawdust and mould.

  Starx came at him with a pair of denim jumpsuits. Griggs said to get disguises, he said, handing one to Olpert. Starx’s uniform fell to the floor in a heap of khaki. He had nothing on underneath. Olpert was transfixed: so much man stood before him, everything so broad and fleshy and thick. Wrestling that massive body into the jumpsuit seemed equivalent to squeezing a ham inside a sandwich bag. In the end the pants clingwrapped his calves and the top flopped at his waist.