Player One: What Is to Become of Us (CBC Massey Lectures) Read online

  “Do it.”

  Karen reboots the conversation. “Your family was in the rental car.”

  “Headed downtown. Me. My dad. My sister.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She moved in with her trainer last year. I don’t know.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s no big deal. So, we were the last car out of the lot before they stopped renting. The guys at the counter were making weird faces. I looked at their monitors, and there was an override message saying STOP ALL REFUELING IMMEDIATELY and then STOP ALL NEW RENTALS IMMEDIATELY. Ouch!” The melted ice water smells like Teflon and nickels and dimes as it flows over Max’s scalp, then dribbles down his torso. “It feels like my entire body’s been stung by hornets.” A tear forms in his right eye, clearly visible against his angry crimson skin.

  Luke grabs a bottle of vodka, pours some into a plastic cup, and adds some Coke to it, then places the cup in Max’s hands. “Drink that.”

  “What then?” asks Karen.

  “We didn’t get very far. The police began to barricade all the highway routes to the airport. People everywhere were freaking out, and, like, ten thousand people were trying to get back to the airport to fly home. But, I mean, all the flights were stopped — what were they thinking? There’s no gas anymore. And then suddenly this guy came and pointed a gun at us, and his buddy started siphoning the gas out of our car. There were a couple of cops nearby and they didn’t do anything. This guy just stood there holding a gun, and the other guy drained the tank, and then he made my dad drop the car keys into the gas tank so we couldn’t get away driving on what gas remained.”

  Luke gently lifts Max’s left arm and rinses it with the melted ice water.

  Karen asks, “What did you do then?”

  “That’s when the explosions happened.”

  “What were they?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody does. We saw that the fallout was headed our way, so we tried to run away from it, but it kept changing course and was on top of us by the time we got to this hotel.”

  “Was there no other place to go to for safety?”

  “What — like under an overpass? No way. That stuff is pure chemical. I tried going into the hotel, but it’s locked. Why would they do that?”

  Luke and Karen swap glances.

  “Where are your father and sister?” Luke says.

  “I don’t know. We got separated. We couldn’t see — from the fogginess of the chemicals and then because our eyes stopped working. And the air was so thick. There was no echo, like in a storm. I — I have no idea where they are.” Max begins to cry, and he says to Karen, “I know you. You’re that pretty lady from the plane. I recognized you when I first came in, even with only a little bit of eyesight.”

  Rachel comes in with a bottle and a fresh candle. “I found some more water. I’ll keep looking.” Rachel leaves and Luke says, “Max, I’m going to rinse as much as I can off you.”

  “Okay.”

  Karen looks around as Luke drizzles water over Max. She notices that Rick keeps extra bartender outfits hanging back here. “Try on this shirt,” she says, wrapping Max’s hand around it. “You’re shivering.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m cold.”

  Max manages to put on the shirt, but the pants sting his raw skin and he cries out. Karen sits on a crate and says, “Max, come and sit beside me. Luke, go fetch the iPhone from Max’s cargo pants.” Max puts his arms around Karen’s neck.

  ___

  Karen remembered holding Casey in the hospital five years ago, the first time she’d held her since she was maybe five or six. Holding her child felt nice. Children have weight. They’re warm. You can feel their heart and lungs pumping from within.

  Now Max asked, “Am I going to be blind forever?”

  Karen said, “No, sweetie, your eyes will be fine. And soon all of this will be over and you’ll be home.”

  Max sat beside Karen, his head slumped and resting on her chest. He was a big kid, not fully grown but almost there.

  “I didn’t mean what I said earlier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That bit about not caring about my mother. Because I do.”

  “I know you do, Max.”

  “She just left us. How can someone do that — just leave you, like you’re nothing to them?”

  “People do it all the time. It’s the dark side of people.”

  “I miss her all the time, and she won’t even answer my emails. She pretends she doesn’t know how to work a Gmail account. And then she accidentally cc’ed me about a barbecue she was having the afternoon she was supposed to be at my sister’s violin recital.”

  “Violin recital? My daughter plays the violin.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’s fifteen and going through a goth phase right now. I was worried she’d stop going to lessons because it wasn’t cool or something.”

  “I don’t get the goth thing.”

  “I don’t, either. When I was her age, you had only two choices: popular or unpopular. There are so many things you can be these days.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Karen.”

  “My skin hurts, Karen.”

  Karen almost burst into tears but stopped herself and said, “So, Max, yesterday I went into Subway and bought a sandwich that was totally different from the one I’d normally get. Different toppings, bread, condiments. I got chili peppers and cucumber slices.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And then when I went to eat it . . .”

  “What?”

  “It tasted like somebody else’s sandwich.”

  Max smiled. “That’s funny.”

  “So tell me, Max, why is it that chickens don’t taste like eggs? And why is it that traffic lights are red and green but don’t seem the least bit Christmassy?”

  Max chuckled.

  “I’m a bit drunk. Is this gin I’m drinking?”

  “It’s vodka.”

  “I’ve been drunk before.”

  “Have you, now?”

  “I got bed spins. I hated it. Crème de menthe and rye in my friend Jordan’s basement. But now is different. You know what I wanted?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What I wanted’?”

  “To do before I die.”

  “Max, you don’t need to think that way.”

  “I wanted to get shot.”

  “You what?”

  “I wanted to get shot. And survive. And what I wanted to do after getting shot was to get my driver’s licence and then buy a car, a real wreck from the 1990s, and shoot some holes in its side, because that would be the coolest thing you could ever have on a car. You’d be instantly cooler than if you had a Mustang or Lamborghini.” Max’s face was lit up as though he were six and Karen had allowed him to lick chocolate cake batter from a pair of electric beaters.

  “I’m drunk,” Max said.

  “You are.”

  “My body is on fire.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. It’ll get better.”

  “I don’t know where my father and sister are.”

  “I don’t know where my daughter is, but I know she’ll be okay. You can’t worry that way.”

  Luke came back in. “Here’s the iPhone.”

  “Hand it to me, Luke.” Karen looked at the iPhone. “My boss has this same model. Why don’t I look at some of your pictures, Max?”

  “I can’t see them.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll look at the pictures and ask questions, and you can fill me in.”

  “Okay.”

  Karen fiddled with the screen until she managed to bring up a photo of Max’s father and sister at an airport gate. “You’re at the airport. Where are you from, Max?”

  “Calgary.”

  Karen scrolled ahead. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  “Heather. A real eighties name. My mother likes it.”

  A few shots later Karen came to the photos of h
erself — two taken without her knowledge, the third of her flipping young Max the bird. “And then we come to . . .”

  “You found the photos of you, huh?”

  “Yes, I did.” That last photo was just as funny as Karen had imagined it would be. She smiled. She could sense Luke standing behind her. He had said almost nothing the entire time they’d been in the storage room, but his presence had been strong. She hadn’t felt so reassured by another person since her wedding.

  Max said, “Hold your breath.”

  “Huh? Hold my breath?” Karen asked. “Why?”

  “Just do it. Please?”

  Karen held her breath, and so did Max.

  Max said, “You know, I bet if we froze right here and didn’t move and didn’t breathe, we could stop time from moving forward forever.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I do.”

  Karen looked at Luke, who gestured, Why not? He sat down beside her and took her hand, and the three of them sat there, not breathing, frozen in mid-motion, trying to stop time. And for an infinitely thin moment, time did stop. Heck, thought Karen, time could be starting and stopping all the time, and we’d never be the wiser because we are so utterly time’s prisoners. In the time it took to think these words, time might have stopped for a billion years. How will we ever know it didn’t?

  Karen looked at Luke. Their eyes locked, and Karen knew then that the two of them were connected forever. And then the candle went out, and the room became as dark as the air between two bedsheets.

  Rick

  Rachel — beautiful, glowing Rachel — returns from delivering water and a candle to Karen, Luke, and Max. She scouts the bar for more water. Rick stands guard over Bertis, duct-taped to his chair and lying on the floor, staring up at a ceiling flecked with scotch-taped holiday tinsel remnants. He croaks to Rick, “So, you scored yourself a bit of afternoon delight, huh?”

  “You be quiet. Soon enough you’ll be rotting in prison, and after you die you’ll reincarnate as a prisoner.”

  “The world is prison enough already. And reincarnation is a sham. Could I perhaps have a glass of water?”

  “There’s no water.”

  “Whatever you have, then. And how come you aren’t out back, helping to rinse off Richie Cunningham?”

  “I’m watching out for you. Guaranteed, with someone like you, I stop paying attention for even ten seconds and you escape like Hannibal Lecter and do God knows what.”

  “You spoke of God . . .”

  From the bar, Rachel says, “I’ll get you something to drink. I’m happy to.”

  This offer surprises Rick, but then Rachel is one big unpredictable quirk. Lovestruck Rick plays in his head a mental preview of his life with Rachel: vacations in Kentucky, purchasing white mouse studs; evenings beside a crackling fireplace, listening to Rachel recite pi out loud; perhaps one of those hug machines for whenever human contact is too much for her brain to handle. Rick foresees an odd, unexpected new life, and he decides that Rachel fetching a beverage for a maimed sniper is simply part of that unexpectedness. So he doesn’t protest.

  Rachel busies herself behind the bar, setting three glasses on the counter, filling them with flat Coke, mostly syrup. Seeing Bertis’s rifle still lying on the bar in a pile of bar-mix crumbs, she picks it up and says, “My father once had a rifle similar to this.”

  “Don’t mess with my rifle!” shouts Bertis.

  Rachel walks around the bar to the table that holds the duffle bag and zips the rifle inside.

  From the floor, Bertis makes his summons: “Rachel, my beverage, please.”

  Rachel fetches two glasses of Coke and a spoon, hands one to Rick, then bends down over Bertis to meticulously dole out measured sips of Coke with the teaspoon, as though she were doing a chemistry experiment. Bertis is thirsty and stays silent until his glass is empty, when he says, “Never in my life have I felt more like a white mouse in a lab.”

  At the mention of white mice, Rachel perks up. “Really? What does it feel like?”

  “Huh?”

  “What does it feel like to be a white mouse? I’ve tried to guess, but empathizing with humans is hard enough. I love my white mice, but I don’t know how they actually feel. So you can tell me. This is almost better than starting to believe in God.”

  Bertis calls to Rick, “Buddy, what planet is she from?”

  “Answer her question.”

  “You two are crazy.”

  “We’re not crazy,” Rachel says. “I breed white mice for a living.”

  “You’re a teenager dressed like Nancy Reagan.”

  “I’m dressed like a fertile woman of child-bearing age. And judging by your raised voice, you are either angry or telling a joke.” Rachel heads back to the bar and washes her hands with Purell and a bar towel.

  Bertis says, “This isn’t happening.”

  “Bertis, can we please discuss white mice?” Rachel says, taking a sip of her Coke.

  Rick snickers. “Now you know how we feel when you get all Goddy on us.”

  Bertis changes the subject. “Rick, would you please untape my hands?”

  “What? You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. I have no circulation in them. They don’t even feel like hands anymore. Look at them. They’re white. I’m not asking you something major. Handcuff me to the table, if you like. There are cuffs in the inside pocket of my bag. But I need more blood circulation. And may I remind you that your buddy shot off my toe?”

  “There are cuffs in your bag? How did I miss those? Wait — why do you have cuffs in your bag?”

  “When I set out today on my holy mission, I wasn’t sure what the day might . . . entail.”

  Rachel says, “I think it’s safe, Rick. You hold the gun to his head while I cut the duct tape on his wrists, then cuff him to the table.”

  “Fine. Let’s do it.”

  Rachel opens the bag and locates the cuffs, then kneels on the floor beside Bertis. Rick watches closely, holding his shotgun to Bertis’s head as the duct tape binding his hands is sliced off. Then Rachel slides the table closer and cuffs Bertis’s right arm to one of the legs. The transition occurs without incident.

  “There. I can move my hands. Thank you.”

  “Jesus, all of this craziness, just because oil implodes,” says Rick.

  “Oil is black and thick like sludge, Rick — like the unsaved blood that pumps through your heart.”

  “Okay, Bertis,” says Rick. “I guess we’re overdue for a sermon. Go on, then. I’m all ears.”

  Truth be told, Rick likes the way Bertis speaks. It’s a lot like the way Leslie Freemont spoke, except with a different sales pitch. He likes the sound and the flow of the words.

  Bertis says, “There is no middle ground between belief and non-belief, Rick, no shades, no mid-tones. Surrender all of your logic and theories to blind faith. What is written is true. My words contain no errors, and a man who spreads the word is holy and must be obeyed. And Rick, there is so much you need to learn. For example, men and women are two different animals and must be treated as such. And now that the Apocalypse has happened, more than ever you must accept belief. You must learn to attack moderates — those people who think a middle ground can exist — and feel pity and disgust for people who believe in a cartoon world of peace and love — it only makes them easier to kill. You must choose between death and becoming someone entirely new.”

  “And how will that feel?”

  “It will feel, Rick, as if you died and were reincarnated, yet stayed inside your own body.”

  “You said reincarnation was a sham.”

  “Shush. Your new life will be coloured and perfumed by the sensation of imminent truth. Change your name if you like. Sever all links to the previous world. Disappear from the world completely for months and months. Let those in your life give you up for dead. Let the remains of your former existence be an uninterpreted dream. But remember, you will soon be different, and there aren’t enough w
ords for ‘transform.’ No more excuses for you, Rick: no drugs, no sleeping, no booze, no overworking, no repetition or insulation or efforts to make time disappear. You’re in for the long haul. Can you do that, Rick?”

  “I —” Rick stops for a second. “What’s with the way you talk?”

  Bertis is genuinely taken aback. “What?”

  “The way you talk. Aside from the subject matter, it feels like it’s coming from some different place, or some other part of history. Did you study how to talk like that? Do they teach that in schools — how to talk weird?”

  Rachel says, “Bertis is being poetic, Rick. He uses rhythm and regularity of speech to make you forget about yourself so that his words will have a stronger impact. We were taught to recognize poetry in normalcy training. It’s like music — it’s a powerful way to quickly and effectively indoctrinate normals.”

  Rick thinks this over, smiles at his sweetheart, and says, “Let me guess, Rachel — you don’t understand music either, do you?”

  “No,” replies Rachel. “Much of what normal people think of as art is simply the establishment of repetitive structures that become interesting when they are broken in certain ways.”

  Bertis says, “That’s not true, Rachel. Is that all your new relationship to God is — a pattern to be broken?”

  “It’s a bit new to me. I haven’t thought it through yet.”

  “You’re already in God’s house, Rachel. Now it’s just a matter of locating your room.”

  Rick says, “Get real, Bertis. Humans are part of nature, and nature is one great big wood chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones, and hair.”

  “No!” shouts Bertis. “That is not true. We are beasts, yet we are divine. We have apprehension. We can ask questions.”

  “I thought it was all about believing without questioning.”

  “Ahhh . . . arrogance. Man’s curse. Just you watch, Rick — the world makes cat food out of people who think like you.”

  “What should I be doing, then?”

  “You should be accepting faith, Rick. You should be spreading the good word. You should be etching the good word onto the glass scanning beds of library photocopiers. You should be scraping the truth onto old auto parts and throwing them off bridges so that people digging in the mud in a million years will question the world, too. You should be carving eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe soles so that your every trail speaks of thinking and faith and belief. You should be designing molecules that crystallize into poems of devotion. You should be making bar codes that print out truth, not lies. You shouldn’t even throw away a piece of litter unless it has the truth stamped on it — a demand for people to reach a finer place!”