JPod

by Douglas Coupland

  Silence.

  "Ethan, I'm not supposed to tell you, but you might as well know. Kam Fong was hurt by your rejection of his gift."

  "He doesn't even know me."

  "He knew you well enough to give you over fifty thousand dollars worth of premium lacquered maple furniture. Here I am trying to breathe a bit of life into my old side table with Krylon spray paint, while you, Mister Trading Spaces, turn your nose up at a windfall from heaven."

  "I can't believe we're having this discussion."

  "All I'm saying is that he's probably not the sort of person you should tick off. Be nice to him when visits you."

  "What—he's going to be coming here?"

  "Of course he is. He wants to hear from you in person why you snubbed him."

  "When is he coming?"

  "When did you get home?"

  "A few minutes ago."

  "I imagine he'll be there any time now."

  "What?"

  I hear a large purring rumble outside the kitchen window. "Shit. That'll be him."

  "Just don't tick him off any more. He's an important person who can do wonders for your career."

  "In videogames?"

  "Offer him something to drink the moment he walks in. If my business with the Asians has taught me anything, it's the power of a drink the first time you meet them."

  I heard a knock at the door, and when I opened it, I found a chauffeur in an outfit imported from a 1930s drawing-room comedy. "Hello?"

  "You're Mister Ethan?"

  "Yes."

  "Please wait. Mister Fong will be with you in a moment."

  The car was parked at the foot of the stairs, a manly black brute of a machine, of unidentifiable manufacture and era. Precapitalist Red China? India? Munster mobile? A minute passed while the driver conferred through the car's rear passenger window slit. I was expecting Kam Fong to resemble that knife-throwing guy in a bowler hat from Gold finger; instead, when he climbed out of the car, he was a guy a bit older than me—friendly-looking and decked out in Kid robot chic with a shattered hairdo, wearing a set of fawn skin Puma reissued runners worth five hundred bucks—which is to say he looked like most of the kids at work who do low-level coding, the job that lands them the biggest salary and perks. 'You're Ethan?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm Kam."

  We shook hands.

  "Hi. Uh, do you want to come in for a drink?" I was wearing garments traded with his most recent cargo shipment, but if he noticed, he didn't show it. He also seemed to be unfaded by the absence of any furniture.

  "Why don't we go somewhere else?"

  Insert a funeral dirge here.

  "Uh—it's been a long day. I think I just want to crash."

  "No. Come on. What—like I'm going to hurt you? Don't be crazy. You're Greg's brother."

  Nervous laughter.

  "I never meet people who say no to me. I'm a bit curious to see what sort of person Greg's brother might be."

  "I didn't say no to your furniture, I . . ." I don't want to put an oyster shucker through your heart. "Okay. Sure. Let's go."

  We got into his car. "Look, about the furniture, I don't know what Greg told you, but—"

  "Let's not talk about that. Not now."

  "Where are we going?"

  "A club I like. You know, I once visited someone out in the building where you work. Out in Burnaby."

  That was odd. "Really?"

  'Yes. I had to, er . . . influence somebody."

  "Somebody up high?"

  "No. At the bottom of your food chain. In quality assurance."

  "Oh, Q/A. Everybody tortures the guys in Q/A. It's like being hazed for a living. But you're pretty high up the ladder—why would you bother with some kid in Q/A?"

  "His father transferred ownership of several loads of, um, cargo into his name without asking me first."

  "Wait a sec—if his family is so hoity-toity, why does he bother working at all, let alone in Q/A?"

  "He enjoys bug testing."

  "Get paid to play videogames!'It's how they sucker staff into working there every time."

  The car purred towards Kerrisdale. I'd always wanted to visit one of the neighborhood's fabled Chinese nightclubs, where white ghosts like me are never permitted. Sadly, after a few minutes of small talk, we pulled up to a derelict medical-dental office building from the 1950s; my visions of pyramids built of champagne flutes, and costly drinks paid for by someone else, vanished.

  "Here?" I asked.

  "Yes. Let's go in."

  So we entered a cool lobby, lit by a single fluorescent tube, the walls resonating with coundess dental tortures of yore. We passed through oversized cherry wood doors, and then down a hallway to another pair of doors. I said, "You know why videogames make you wait for doors and gates to open between levels?"

  "No, why?"

  "The computer's buying time while it generates the new worlds behind them."

  "Is that funny?"

  "It wasn't supposed to be."

  "I have no sense of humour."

  "Huh?"

  "No. I really don't. I pretend to laugh when I know someone's said something that, from experience, I know is supposed to be funny. To people with no sense of humour, laughing is a very ugly noise. Like my grandfather coughing up a throat-squid."

  "Come on. You must find something funny—"

  "No. Medically, legally, I have no sense of humour. It's a rare variety of autism. It doesn't even have a name."

  More doors.

  "Really?"

  "It's a fact."

  I heard sociable noises behind the final door. "What's in there?" I asked.

  Kam jumped and turned to me while pulling something out of his rear pocket. "Freeze, asshole!"

  I just about had a stroke.

  "Gotcha," said Kam. "Come on in. This is a place I like to visit when I'm in town."

  Kam Fong opened the door, and we walked into the middle of a ballroom dance club. He clapped his hands and a table with chairs appeared. "Cocktail?"

  This was one of those moments when I remember saying to myself in a calm, clinically detached manner, Ethan, you should simply go with the flow.

  "A whisky sour."

  "Two whisky sours."

  We were surrounded by women dressed as Carmelit as and men dressed like bi-curious toreadors. As I'd grown up in this sort of space, I felt quite at home. I decided to push the furniture issue. "Kam, look, about your furniture—it's just that Greg never asked me, and—"

  "Ethan!"

  I turned around. "Dad?" He was dressed in his favourite Casanova outfit, a toreador's cap rakishly adhered to his skull.

  "Ethan, I never thought I'd see you in a ballroom dance club of your own volition."

  "Actually, me neither."

  "You're wearing your ragamuffin clothing. Aren't you getting too old for fashion statements?"

  "It's not just a fashion. It's a—never mind. Dad, this is Kam Fong."

  I introduced him as someone Greg does business with.

  Dad shook hands. "Real estate?"

  "No."

  "Hey, but aren't you the guy who gave Ethan all that great furniture? That was really nice of you."

  "Thank you."

  "Ethan, why the hell couldn't you just enjoy the furniture and shut the fuck up? Christ, Mr. Fong, I have to apologize for Ethan."

  "Apologies accepted. You're quite a dancer, Mr. Jarlewski."

  "Latin and modern. Not professional, mind you, but I nearly got a bronze in the 1999 Snowball Classic."

  "The IDSF Open to the World Standard?"

  "That's the one."

  "You're that Jim Jarlewski!"

  "That's me."

  "This is so exciting! Please, join us for a drink. Ethan, your father is the Jim Jarlewski. Greg never mentioned it."

  "Gee."

  At the far reaches of my twenties, once again I was a ballroom-dance-club orphan. Dad and Kam Fong began talking shop and drinking heavily, while blousy women
in their forties, radiating imminent divorce and sexual despondency, tried to get their attention. At one point, Dad laughed at something, and, in response, Kam Fong delivered a grim flak of ersatz chuckles. He says he doesn't have a sense of humour, but maybe it's just a pose.

  "Ethan, isn't this guy the greatest?" Dad was smitten with Kam's gangster charm.

  "Sure is, Dad."

  "Enough talk, Kam Fong. Now we must dance!"

  The two of them reached out their hands, and each grabbed nearby Pinot Gris— soaked floozies—it was a dance-off.

  If I didn't know better, it would have looked like Dad and Kam Fong were falling in love. However, I'd seen my father batde like this before, and knew it was no different than two ruffed grouse fluffing their feathers in competition for a hen's attention. When their dance-off ended, clapping drowned the room. They returned to our litde table, flush with pheromones and the leftover traces of their respective partners' perfumes.

  "I think I'll be going now," I said. "We're conceptually rejigging a new skateboard game to incorporate a charismatic turde who follows the player throughout the game like a Dr. Watson, offering ongoing banter while logging gameplay statistics."

  If Kam Fong had had a reason for taking me to his club, his male bonding with Dad had long since obliterated it. He was drunk, and obviously mellow. He said, "My people will try to find you some furniture more suitable to your obviously picky taste."

  The music kicked into the Razormaid remix of "Copacabana," and Dad and Kam Fong were back on the floor. I cabbed back to my place, where I slept on the floor after drinking a NeoCitran made with hot tap water. I hoped that God would shake my Etch-a-Sketch clean overnight.

  Limited-edition hollow rotocast vinyl

  Urban vinyl action figures

  Bruce Lee

  vinyl action

  figure

  $55.95

  BeeKing and BugBoy

  Ah Gum and Ah Aun

  Blue Brother Sunni

  Grey Brother Raini

  Anti-Potato Wheel

  Odajima Hitoshi

  Da Team Bronx

  RC-911 figure

  Balzac in Red

  Potato Wheel

  BJ Hammer

  King Green

  CosMouse

  Scarygirl

  Cloudi

  Grind the molten bucket

  . . .

  I found Bree, Cowboy, Evil Mark and John Doe in the cafeteria, feeding on cannelloni stuffed with confit of duck and wild rice. Evil Mark, obviously at the end of another rant, announced, "We're all clones."

  "Huh?"

  "Look at us. We're just clones working for the man."

  "Oof. Take that, Dilbert."

  "Working for the man}" Bree said. "Are you serious?"

  "I was trying for ironic."

  "You're always making these ironic comments that don't quite work."

  "I think we're going to have to add 'humourless' to 'evil' in your nickname. But do tell us, why exacdy are we clones?"

  "Because we all really do dress like junior IT clones."

  "Huh?"

  "Blue or black denim pants—unless you're a senior and over thirty-five, after which point you spot-weld khakis to your lower torso for life."

  "Go on."

  "Dark-coloured long-sleeved outdoor-wear shirts—blue or black preferred. Haven't you noticed how nobody ever allows their forearms to be exposed here?"

  We looked around, and Evil Mark was right. "Spooky."

  Cowboy asked, "Does anybody here at the table speak a dead language?"

  "COBOL?"

  "No. Greek or Latin."

  "Some. Why?"

  "What's fear of exposed forearms?"

  "Popeyedactylophobia."

  Bree said, "Long-sleeved dark-coloured shirts conceal both obesity and scrawniness. They double as pajamas."

  I said, "Stop, I can't take any more of this identity crap."

  "That's easy for you to say," said John Doe. "Now that you have a distinct fashion style with your refugee chic. Anyway"—he and Cowboy stood up to leave—"it's time we hit the malls."

  "Is it Tuesday already?"

  "Tis."

  Tuesday is new shoe day, and Cowboy and John Doe are shoe-heads—cool new sneakers reduce them to drooling Homer Simpsons in a blink. As for Evil Mark, he went off to buy ammonium persulp hate to etch his motherboards at home. I must also note that calling Mark 'evil' may have started off as an arbitrary label, but now we're wondering if he really does make scary shit in his spare time.

  Bree asked me, "How's the Kaitlin agenda going?"

  "It's not. I think she could be worried I'm stalking her and she'll have to relive all that crazed next-door-neighbour nightmare shit again through me."

  "Please. Have you tried talking to her?"

  "No. I haven't even made eye contact with her since I read the Subway site. Have you?"

  "No."

  I was restless but couldn't figure out a good way to shirk my workload. I went online to see if there were any sneak previews of the new Angel—Wednesday is actually new comics day, but sometimes you can track down a tidbit the day before. I heard Kaitlin come into the pod space, and taking Bree's advice, I looked up to say hi, but my face collapsed—she was carrying a box of Krispy Kremes and a bag of the dreaded Taint.

  "Hi, Ethan."

  "Um, hi, Kaitlin." This would have been an optimum moment for her to offer me a donut, but she didn't. I got an instant message from Bree:

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  She's going to

  eat herself

  to death.

  Neither Bree nor I had the heart to announce a Taint-shunning. We settled down to work.

  . . .

  The good news is that BoardX will be keeping a large number of its pre-turtle skating environments, including a massive shopping mall level in which players score points for trashing the place. But given the suckiness of Jeff's character, it's hard to imagine players will still get to raise hell. Personal dialogues with Jeff keep running in my brain . . .

  "Gee, player. That was a super-duper wheelie."

  "Thanks, Jeff. Now fuck off."

  "No can do, player. You're stuck with me."

  "No, I'm not. I have the option to play without you."

  "Not for the first three levels you don't, and even then, my friend, my likeness and name will be embedded in all gaming levels: billboards, signage, windows and street names. Your boss, Steve, has ensured that my presence will be pervasive."

  "There must be a way to kill you."

  "Sorry, player, but no."

  In my mind, Jeff was on his back, a drill press approaching his tender underbelly from above.

  "Excuse me, player," the turtle said, "but did you just have a degenerate thought picture in your head?"

  "Me?"

  "You wouldn't hurt Jeff, would you?"

  "No."

  "I don't believe you."

  "Then don't."

  "I'm going to tell Steve about you."

  "You do that."

  "Ethan?"

  "Whuh . . . ?"

  "Ethan, wake up."

  I opened my eyes: Steve. "Oh. Steve. Hi."

  "I can see that was a doozy of a nightmare you were having."

  He stood there staring at me.

  "Steve, is there something I can help you with?"

  "No. Nothing. Just thought I'd pop by."

  "Okay. . ."

  "How's BoardX going?"

  "It's one smoking game, Steve."

  "It is. And Jeff is going to be a big hit. I can feel it."

  I looked at my screen: "Look! An email's come down the Chute! I'm going to have to answer this one, Steve. See you later?"

  "Righty-o, pardner."

  . . .

  Comics day came and went. Another shoe day came and went. And another comics day followed that—the typical production and consumption cycles that help us survive our dismal, meaningless little li
ves.

  Starting with that first Krispy Kreme box, Kaitlin's been collecting all her fast-food packaging and arranging it into a big stack. She takes cardboard and other greasy items to the bathroom, where (Bree tells me) she treats them with alcohol and another chemical that makes them ungreasy.

  I'm still too freaked out to talk to her. When she comes in with ever more massive quantities of food, the five of us keep our heads bowed as we listen to the endless rumpling of bags and wrappers and clamshell containers and straws hiccupping their way in and out of plastic lids. She's like an alien luxuriously chewing away on a cocooned earthling. It gives us fear.

  Doritos

  Rollitos

  Nacho Cheesier!

  Bite-Size Tortilla Snacks

  JL19

  6 053 14027

  09:51

  Product enlarged to show texture

  300 g

  Ingredients: corn, vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: corn, soybean, or sunflower oil), salt, mono glyceride, cheddar cheese (cultured milk, salt,enzymes), whey, mono sodium glutamate, buttermilk solids, Romano cheese from cow's milk (cultured pasteurized part skim milk, salt, enzymes), tomato powder, whey protein concentrate, onion powder, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, disodiumphosphate, lactose, natural and artificial flavor, garlic powder, dextrose, sugar, citric acid, spice, lactic acid, sodium caseinate, artificial color (including Yellow 6), diso­diuminosinate, dis odium guanylate and non fat milk solids.

  CONTAINS MILK INGREDIENTS.

  made with non-hydrogenated oil

  o 60410 10 03997 2

  . . .

  I won the third floor's intramural Tetris competition, which took place in the conference room this afternoon—a canister of liquid nitrogen! So afterwards we scoured the office for flash-freezables.

  Effects of liquid nitrogen on office items:

  After a while we ran out of possibilities, so we went down and flash-froze puddles by the soccer field, and for the rest of the day everyone talked about Ice-9 from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Anything that lowers productivity is fine by me.

  I caught Evil Mark licking his stapler.