by Shilo Jones
Michael sets his forehead on his knees, hugs his legs, rocks back and forth, tries not to cry too loud, makes me worry. After a while he straightens, blows his nose, sets a manila envelope on my lap. I tell him I’ve come to hate the things, what good news was ever delivered in a manila envelope, ask him if he’s been successful calorie-restricting Holdout.
He doesn’t answer, tells me the envelope contains an offer to buy me out of Green Lead. Says I’ve become toxic to those who care about me. A living pollutant. I tell him I have an addiction, that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety but community. Michael sighs, says he knows, that’s what makes this so hard, but you can only take a friendship for granted for so long before it ceases to be one. I ask him if he brought me quality drugs. He says no. I say: Then are you here just to hassle and depress me?
There’s a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. I ask Michael if it’s new, that I didn’t notice it before. He says how the hell would he know? I settle in to watch a reality show filmed in some aging movie or rock star’s mansion. The washed-up star is doing an interview in front of a wall of memorabilia. Bobblehead dolls. Trophies. Glassware. The star looks like something long buried and recently exhumed. The sound is turned off. I study the star’s face, making up dialogue to go along with his puffy Botox lips. I tell Michael this is very odd, I don’t remember a television being there last time I woke up. Michael asks if I’m sleeping a lot. I tell him yes.
“You seem fairly together,” he says. “I’m offering you a hundred twenty-two million for your position in Green Lead.”
“Pshaw.” A hand wave.
“If you don’t sell Green Lead I’ll liquidate my position to be rid of you.”
“Pffft, pssss…”
“Carl, I mean it. Stop watching reality TV. It melts your brain.”
“That’s best case. Sell your shares to who?”
“The first person interested.”
The animated corpse on television grins. His teeth are rotted out. “How do people watch this nonsense?” I mutter, completely riveted. Then: “Fine. I’m the first person interested. Na-na-na. I’m offering to buy you out. So there.”
The TV goes to commercial, something about fear-sweat stinking four times as much as normal unafraid sweat and now we have this groundbreaking antiperspirant specially formulated for such a shocking betrayal, why do our bodies hate us so bad, secretly conspire to kill or at least socially cripple us, won’t life be better when we’re finally rid of them, giddy disembodied floating brains, cosmic consciousness, but hey wait a sec isn’t that kinda like being dead? “Do you hear me, Michael Zenski? I’m offering to buy you—”
“What’s your offer?”
I snap my fingers. “A universal big bang of glorious cashola. You happy? That much money.”
Michael smiles. “A billion infinity?”
“And then some.”
“The end of Green Lead.”
“You’ve always overestimated your import, Zenski. Middling, unimaginative micromanagers come cheap. Where’s the remote? Watch TV with me?”
Michael hands me the remote. “You don’t have the financial means to buy me out.”
“I do so.” I change the channel to a reality TV supermodel show. Six half-starved teenaged girls transformed into computer-blurred blobs. I watch for a minute or two, biting my tongue, trying to be a polite communal television-watcher, but then I can’t stand it anymore and I’m like, “Whoa, Michael? Does she look real to you? Because, no? What I’m seeing is a creature that used to look like an actual real if slightly depressed and malnourished human being, but they’ve rounded everything down, removed all unique distinguishing features of humanness, like look at her face? Bejesus! Is that really her face? A flat plane with software-coded objects made to resemble a human’s eyes and nose and chin that they’ve plunked on, like Mrs. Potato Head, but now conforming to some creepy cyborg-imp ratio where the eyes are waaay outsized and the lips are…ahem? Michael? Are you seeing this?”
“Carl, sell Green Lead to me. You’re frightfully close to broke.”
“It doesn’t even look like the same person! Am I the only one seeing this? Have they discovered a new genus?”
“I’m sorry, I thought we could have this conversation, but apparently now’s not—”
“The real question is, why aren’t we on television? If I were on television I wouldn’t need drugs. I’d get high basking in my own computer-generated perfection.”
“That’s the problem. Real life would never feel perfect enough. That’s already the problem. Or one of them.”
“Michael? What is ‘real life’?”
“Stop it.”
“Serious. Look at that one! They erased her nose? Is that sexy these days? Might take some getting used to. I’m game to try. Noses are weird, when you think about it. Is it bone or cartilage or an unsettling interstitial nether? Anyway, because it seems ‘real life’ assumes its opposite—”
“Carl, enough. I only came to offer you—”
“—‘unreal life,’ and I don’t believe it’s that binary anymore, right? That oppressively categorical?”
Michael laces his fingers behind his head, stares at the television. “It might be more like a field? Like a fluid scale or spectrum, with these CGI models being heavily weighted toward the unreal side of things? Or more charitably: the fantastical. Which isn’t necessarily bad—”
“See? Gotcha! Mmm? You’re not that pissed off. You can’t resist engaging me. You find my mind impossibly sexy. Always have. Are you getting…because I am—”
“Seriously, Carl, you don’t have the means.”
“Oh, I do so. Wanna see?”
“The money. Christ.”
“I said I do so have the money. Never forget the Nugget. Whoa! Look at that one! Michael? What’s she supposed to be? A sexy amorphous supermodel nun? Never mind, the concept is kind of hot. I’d kneel on the altar and let her flog the sin out of me. But I can’t believe they pay these CGI guys for this, you? Whatever happened to makeup artists? That was a real skill. Like, actually working with and accentuating the myriad differences of the human form instead of obliterating it with some prewritten software code. Huh-huh, yep, let’s drop the feature icon ‘Oversized Eurasian Eyes’ onto the facial platform ‘Sexy-Lipped Black Person,’ see how that looks, wow, that’s real bleeding-edge super radical you must be so proud of your life’s work YOU SICK FUCKS! HEY CGI GUYS: YOU SUCK AND I’M NOT BUYING! Call me a crank if you want, but jeesh.”
“Crank. Please don’t yell at the television, though.”
“Too lowbrow?”
“Trash. Plus, I have a headache.” Michael turns his chair to face the TV. “Pretty soon the CGI thing will fade. We almost invested, remember? Said no thank you, regressive, male gaze. It was the right call. Soon it’ll be risqué to show someone’s real face.”
“Ha, yeah, like in Victorian times if a woman I dunno had a rip in her stocking and everyone went all crazy abhorred, what’s the horrible world coming to, DEVIL WORSHIP? Michael? Is that your real face?”
“You keep shouting, the nurse is going to sedate you.”
“OVERSEER? Hopefully. But…since incarcerated I’ve been fretting about Satan? Like wondering if I’ve been reincarnated as Satan on earth…but maybe not conventionally-male muscly Satan, but scrawny pubescent Satan? Anyway, the fear seems cyclical? Like rotates from vampires to cyborgs to Satan to religious extremists to spy-spooks? And I think what’s happening is these fears are melting into a single ceaseless lava-terror roiling in my head? And…um, influencing me in not-so-great ways? Because maybe me being reincarnated as juvenile likes-to-party-wet-dream Satan is a response, you know, to living in constant fear? And instead of the fear quieting me, it’s doing the opposite, and making me want to yell louder and party more? Like some kind of survival mechanism? Which OVERSEER says is proof I lack life readiness skills, that there are biiig multinational forces ready to squash or squelch me if I don’t gratefully guzzle he
r PharmaPoison?”
Michael giggles, makes me giggle too.
“Squelch me? Michael? Are you giggling at the word squelch? To both suppress and noisily suck! See how that links to Agency spies and vampires? Whoa! But wouldn’t it be cool if the CGI guys didn’t sprinkle the supermodel’s facial features on at all? For a change? What if they left the girl’s face totally blank, no eyes or nose or mouth, how tech-amazing would that be, just complaisant non-opinionated smooth skin to rub—”
Michael picks up the manila envelope Heather’s lawyer delivered, peeks inside. “Not after the divorce, you won’t have the money, by the way.”
“Never happen. I’m loved. Look at the TV! Eeesh! Who knew our latent ideal of beauty is basically like these indistinguishable walking flesh sacks with feathered hair? Technology’s great: it allows us to fully manifest our self-loathing.”
“Self-erasure.”
I watch Michael watching the television, realize it might be the last I see of him. “Yup. Which is way cool, if you have some kind of bizarro eschatological fetish—”
Michael smiles. “Drench me with that silky eschat—”
“Fucking soak me in it, baby. Smear me—”
“Beat me with your throbbing eschatology. Whip me like a smart-ass schoolboy.”
“ ‘My gawd, he breathed breathlessly, wincing in anticipation, I’ve never seen an eschatology quite like that before…’ ”
We laugh at the TV. After a while I say, “Michael? I miss you. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Heather’s pushing through with the North Van bid,” Michael says. “I talked to Vincent Peele. He’s a slick bastard, but I think he’s getting nervous. Carl? This affects you directly. I’m afraid Bo Xi is going to sniff us out, bail on the deal, and stay hidden. Did you contact Caltrop?”
“I guess I’m having doubts. Must be the sobriety talking. But Bo Xi won’t bail.”
Michael straightens. “How can you be so sure?”
“How much could he wash through the Solstice?”
“Looks like…”
The reality TV show sucks me back in. Twigs and leaves are threaded through a Gia-supermodel’s hair. Gold-dusted cheeks. Eyes burned out. Gia, my love, is that you? Did you trip, fall face first onto a red-hot stove? Oh, that’s the new beautiful?
“Carl? Focus. Bo Xi? I said a couple hundred—”
“Okay, naggy nagster, I hear you. Millions. Even to a man like Bo Xi, that’s not pocket change. He falls asleep thinking about it. If he can sleep at all. He wakes up, boom! First thing in his head. I mean really, it’s probably driving him insane—”
“He’s already insane.”
“Yeah. Two decades funding militias to roam around with machetes and protect his diamond mines? Now look at him. He’s over sixty. Shit’s waning. And the money’s right there…so close…right there…and he can’t have it. Holy heck! Makes my hemorrhoid flare just thinking about it. What do you think he does to keep his mind off the money that’s his and not his?”
Michael stretches, looks for the door. “Last thing I want to think about.”
“Rest assured he does something. And he wants this North Van property more than he wants to live. Michael? I’ve never told anyone this before. Sometimes I feel him.”
“Who?”
“Bo Xi. Like we’re…connected? Not like telepathics but more…I’m like a walking mood ring? My physical self divines the man’s moods from across the Pacific? I feel his horror alive in my bones, like when he’s unhappy with his Peking duck my left kneecap tingles? After what he did to us back in Bute and all these years craving a revenge killing, it’s like an invisible psychic bridge, an alien or extra-sensory tissue has grown to connect us, maybe a new organ we’re yet to discover, hyper-evolution, anyway, yeah, I feel him sense him intuit him whatever and it fucking creeps me out, and that’s how I know he’s coming, for sure, the money’s driving him batty, I feel his madness as a craving for drugs and senseless sexual encounters, it manifests as migraines, dry scalp, bad breath, broken social taboos…sorry I’ve never told you this, it’s cool but scary, psychosomatic link, damn it feels good to finally get this off my chest, forgive me, I’m not entirely to blame though, see, it’s also because of him? That guy? Over there? His fault too? Not only me?”
Michael laughs, asks if that’s really supposed to be Gia.
“Michael? I’m saying I believe Bo Xi sent OVERSEER to sexually intimidate me. Perhaps chemically neuter me. Are you listening? Should we turn this show off? Talk? I feel a breakthrough coming on.”
Another model, maybe a bag lady, dressed in rags torn to reveal smoothed-down breasts and thighs, leaning over a shopping cart filled with empties.
“I understand what makes these shows so attractive,” Michael whispers. “I’m feeding on their hopes and dreams, humiliations and failures.”
“Uh, should we keep watching this? I’m getting creeped out. Are you making a slurping sound? You want me gone, why don’t you stage an intervention? Violate my personal liberty for my own darned good? Because you’ve grown to despise me?”
Michael waves me away. “I’m sorry, Carl, but I honestly hope Heather finally goes through with it. Might be the wake-up call you need.”
I turn off the television.
“Wake-up call? You sententious twerp. I’m on the front lines of a war. A casualty. Lying bleeding out in the muck. Psychosomatically connected to an international criminal psychopath. And you, Mr. Zenski, are bolting for the goddamned chopper.”
“Good god, cut the shit. You had a drug-induced psychotic breakdown. That’s all. Nearly drove over an RCMP officer—”
“Doesn’t sound like me. Mostly pacifist, until it’s no longer convenient. Don’t believe in—”
“Can you please cut the shit—”
“So that’s their story? Won’t hold up, you’ll see. I was assaulted. Tasered in broad daylight. Like that Pole—”
“Christ, Carl. Hannah was at the airport. Your…what? Sixteen-year-old daughter? So please cut the shit!”
I sit up. “That’s the problem, Michael. It’s only shit if you’re looking in from the outside. They wore you down. You’re all out of fight.”
“You wore me down.”
“Fine. Doesn’t matter. You got old. Happens. Heart not beating with the same fiery passion. Spending too much time in the past. The what ifs. You can’t sleep, lie awake wondering what it was all about. You’re white, male, rich, mostly hetero. So you don’t live the effects in your day-to-day. Everything happens over there, way over yonder, to some poor sonofabitch somewhere else. You’re not a moron, not ignorant either wilfully or otherwise, so you’re aware there’s suffering, a whole lot of it, linked directly to you, to us, to this culture we’ve created. But the suffering seems so far away. And who knows? You’ve grown up not trusting the media. Maybe half that shit’s not even real. Maybe it’s not all that bad. For them. And, you worry—because you’ve been reading all the recent limp-dicked bullshit—isn’t it kind of presumptuous, even neo-colonial, to fret over how they’re doing? You know—the poor starving war-torn exploited people? Isn’t that proof of your entrenched agency? And so on? Isn’t it a sign of your privilege, your position in the dominant culture, that you have the luxury of having this conversation with yourself? Oh, you’re implicated. Sure as shit. But so is everyone. So, who cares? Isn’t it better to hang back, not interfere, while they find their own way? Despite the fact that the moment you let up the fight some predatory piece of shit moves in to capitalize? Because it’s not them. It’s you and me! It starts here! But you know what? When it’s all said and done? What have we changed? Not much. Maybe nothing. What’s the point? Am I wrong? As if there could be a conceptualized, coherent end point. Come on! You know there’s no finish line. This fight is forever. And that thought’s exhausting. Whoa! No end to this! Capital’s not human. Doesn’t live and breathe, except through its human pets. And it’s everywhere at once! How can you fight something like that? You�
��re getting up there. Did what you could. Time to put your feet up. But here’s the thing: I am not ready. Am I addicted to drugs? Shit yes. Did I overestimate my ability to deal? Yes. Am I harming myself, everyone around me? Yes. Do I hate myself for that? Yes. But don’t come in here, with your condescending, holier-than-thou, centrist bullshit, and look down your nose like I’m a lost cause. Like I’m subhuman. Don’t denigrate me, make me into your poster boy for failure and defeat. I made the call, a long time ago, in a prison like this one, to get right fucking high. And I’ll make the same call again and again. Just like I’ll keep calling the bastards out, again and again, even as it kills me.” I settle into bed, winded, exhausted. “Now. Turn the TV back on. The world has some splainin’ to do.”
“You were something, Mr. Carl Reed,” Michael whispers. “I would’ve followed you to the ends of the earth.”
“You already did. We took a piss and kept on fucking.”
“Now we’re lost.”
“Who’s lost? I’m not lost. I’m in prison. Again.”
Michael leans into his chair, rubs his eyes. “A kid named Sebastian Price from Lord Byng got a solid shakedown.”
“So?”
“So the man doing the shaking was after Hannah.”
* * *
hannah whre r u??!! answr plz!!
hannah its dad whr r u??!!
hannah im srry its yr dad yes im in jail agan im srry plz contact me
now its urgnt
hannah im frekking out pls contact me
going 2 call cops for real like now
going 2 call cops in 3 mins if u dont get bck
dont want 2 call cops but will vry soon
just say u r ok
just called mom but no answr
call yer mom if not me ok?? but me 2 ok??!!
not angry jst wnt to talk but if u dnt want 2 tlk jst text me & say it and
itll be ok I luv u MORE than u know truly LUV