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

  Warren’s hands were rubbing the rim of his highball glass. Rick appeared and, to her surprise, handed Karen her second drink of the afternoon. Warren asked, “Feeling better?” and, oddly, she was. And that was the point when Warren yelled out, “Jesus H. Christ, oil just went to $250 a barrel!”

  Warren and Karen sat transfixed, watching a CP24 newscaster interrupt regular news to show images of OPEC leaders fleeing a São Paulo hotel dining room after a large explosion of some sort. The news crawl beneath it reported light crude oil listing on the Dow at US$251.16 a barrel.

  Warren said to Karen, “Is that for real? Holy shit. Just like they said.”

  Rick looked at Karen and asked with genuine amazement, “They? Who’s they?”

  Karen said, “Actually, it was just this one guy named Hubbert.”

  Rick asked, “Who’s Hubbert?”

  Warren said, “Dr. Marion King Hubbert was a Shell Oil geologist who predicted in 1956 that US domestic oil production would peak around 1970 and that global production would peak around 2000.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Warren continued, “That production peak is called Hubbert’s Peak. And it looks like it’s finally happened.”

  As an aside, Karen said, “The 1970s oil shock set his calendar back by a decade. But he was right.”

  “How on earth do you people know this?”

  “It’s kind of weird,” Karen said. “We met in a — God, this is so embarrassing — a Peak Oil Apocalypse chat room.”

  “Man,” Warren said, “wouldn’t Hubbert freak to see oil over $250 a barrel.”

  Rick said, “You mean you two actually did meet in a Peak Oil Apocalypse chat room?”

  Warren said, “Yeah, so what? There are a lot of collapsitarians like me out there.”

  Karen, slightly embarrassed, added, “I was in a dark patch — visiting the doom and gloom sites — we all do that sometimes. God knows there are enough of them.”

  “Look!” Warren shouted. “Look at the crawl: oil just hit $290 a barrel!”

  And then the bar’s power went out, just long enough for everyone to think, Oooooooooooh. And then the power returned, but the TV’s cable connection was dead.

  Rick

  Rick looks over at the high-tipping Mr. Trainwreck now trying to pick up Miss Ginger Ale, or . . . or what, exactly, is going on there? What’s the deal with Miss Ginger Ale? None of her gestures make any sense to Rick; she seems to have some kind of genetic malfunction; she’s like one of those Japanese department store greeting robots he’s seen on YouTube.

  There is a lull in their conversation, so he heads over that way, and Miss Ginger Ale looks at Rick and says, “Did you know that every human being on earth is related to a single woman who existed 160,000 years ago in a place we now commonly call France?”

  “Seriously?” said Rick. “Related to every person on earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man, she must have been one total slut.”

  Mr. Trainwreck snorts, then swallows the Scotch in his mouth and has a belly laugh, which seems to confuse Miss Ginger Ale. But Rick has done his job as bartender — enlivening the lives of his guests — and he walks to the rear of the bar and inspects the ice machine, which has been on the fritz of late. While fiddling with its guts, Rick is, of course, wondering, Where is Leslie Freemont? Is Leslie Freemont bailing on his meeting with me? Rick looks at his phone: Leslie is fifteen minutes late. Where is he! Where is he! Where is he! And for that matter, where is all the gardening equipment that was stolen along with my truck? And for that matter, where is the better version of myself that I’ve been hoping for since high school?

  In moments like these, when time slows to a crawl, Rick wishes he could start drinking again. Man, I loved booze. Booze made me feel the way being in a womb must feel. If fetuses aren’t getting alcohol, what, exactly, are they getting in there that makes the womb everybody’s dream vacation spot?

  Rick catches his reflection on the freezer’s shiny surface. Uh-oh — my teeth! My teeth are dirty! Leslie Freemont will see my teeth and deem me deficient! Rick, like many people, tends, accurately or not, to blame his teeth for many of the perceived wrongs in his life. He slips into the bathroom and quickly overbrushes his molars, and blood drips into the sink’s chipped white ceramic bowl. Rick rinses out his mouth gunk and returns to the bar. When he sips from a cold cup of coffee, his mouth detects a familiar and undesirable taste: that of cooked liver. Huh? Why am I tasting liver? And then he realizes that what he’s tasting is dead blood cells, which is the reason liver tastes like liver, because the liver is the body’s blood purifying system. This observation amuses Rick, but it also reinforces his practice of not eating any piece of meat that once had a job: livers, kidneys, thymus glands . . . wings. Rick will only eat meat meat. Of course, within Rick’s universe of unemployed meat, hot dogs and hamburgers are exempt from his rule, his thinking being that if you chop up something finely enough and turn it into a geometric shape, it will always become quite palatable.

  Rick looks at Karen; her Internet date is clearly tanking. He knows he could put the pair of them out of their misery and discuss the weather with them, but the only way people are going to learn is from their mistakes.

  In any event, Rick likes the way he feels right now and wants to keep it going. It feels like Christmas morning. When he woke up this morning, the day felt different than it normally does. Usually, when he opens his eyes, there are a few glorious moments before he remembers who he is, where he is, and what he’s become. And after that he’s Wile E. Coyote, running off the cliff and suddenly realizing he’s going to pancake onto the desert floor below. And this is when his automatic thinking kicks in, the tape loop along the lines of: Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to wake up this morning. If only I was more awake, more alert, I could look closely enough at the world and a magic revelation would be mine — if only I could wake up just that little bit more. Dammit, I spend my whole life looking and looking and looking at the world, but I guarantee it, the moment I move my head away from my patch of ground will be the exact moment the earth cracks open — and if I’d been watching, for just that one second, I’d have seen the core of the planet, molten and white.

  But wait — today with Leslie Freemont, I will wake up that extra little bit!

  Leslie Freemont will widen Rick’s point of view and make Rick feel good about himself. For example, Leslie says it doesn’t matter where in the universe you are, all emotions are the same, a universal constant — and yes, we as humans get to experience them all. It’s what makes us superior to animals. Leslie is awesome smart. Leslie is like a glamorous train passing through the landscape, people waving at him all the way. Rick, on the other hand, is a bus. People don’t wave at buses. Wait — he’s not even a bus; he’s a stalled car with a flat tire on the side of a gravel road nobody ever uses. And his passenger window is broken and replaced by plastic dry-cleaning bags and clear packing tape.

  Rick looks across the bar and witnesses Karen’s misery. Suddenly he feels magnanimous. He takes pity on Karen, with her obviously awkward chit-chat, and decides to mix her another Singapore sling. He looks up the drink in his mixology book and is newly shocked by the list of ingredients; he can’t believe the crap people used to put in their bodies in the twentieth century.

  As he mixes the drink, Rick’s thoughts return to Leslie Freemont. Won’t young Tyler be proud when he finds out his father has a dynamic new way of seeing the world! Up until now, Rick has been passionless, but the Power Dynamics Seminar System has made him realize how unimpressive his old life was. The Power Dynamics Seminar System is a bright new sun casting a trillion new shadows in his brain, and his Tyler will see him in a whole new light!

  Rick then imagines a magic custody afternoon sometime in the future in which Pam will walk into the room just as he’s telling Tyler about Leslie Freemont. Pam will say something like, “Rick, I’m holding a do-I-give-a-shit-ometer in my hand, and the needle’s not moving. Shut up.
Your afternoon with Tyler is over. Go back to your crappy little basement apartment and get hosed and curse at the universe.”

  Rick takes a sip of the Singapore sling. Rick . . . what the hell! This is not the recurring dream about slipping that Rick has a few times a week. This is real life. Oh dear God, what was I thinking? Oh jeez-Louise, a fourteen-month AA chip right down the toilet. Tyler can never find out about this.

  But the genie is out of the bottle, and the genie is rushing to the reptile stem of Rick’s brain. Instead of feeling buzzy and great, Rick feels weakness and fear and self-loathing and kind of like he’s falling into a hole. He remembers walking through a local graveyard as a child, with three friends. He told them he had the ability to see corpses buried in the ground, that they had a radioactive green colour, and this impressed his friends no end. And then he convinced himself that he actually had this power, and he walked through parks and rode along highways imagining radioactive dead green bodies everywhere. One morning he looked at his face in the mirror and he was green, and he honestly believed he was dead. And that’s how he feels now.

  He pours the drink down the sink, runs to the ice machine, and sticks his head inside, trying to cool the burning shame. The sub-zero mist enters his nostrils, freezer-burning his membranes. His sweat is cold. Leslie Freemont is going to meet Rick at the bottom of a shame spiral; this is not what the day was supposed to be like.

  Work.

  Right.

  Rick mixes a new Singapore sling. Work will save him in the end. He takes the drink to Karen, but her eyes inform him that she no longer needs rescuing . . . perhaps her tide has turned; maybe she’ll score after all. Then Karen and Warren see something on the TV and go all chimpy about, of all things, the price of crude oil. Crude oil? Rick learns that they met in an online crude oil discussion group. Who on earth hooks up in an online discussion group about crude oil?

  And then the power goes out.

  And then the power comes back on.

  And then the TV stops working.

  And then Leslie Freemont enters the cocktail lounge.

  ___

  Leslie entered the lounge like a taller, thinner, studlier version of the Kentucky Fried Chicken colonel: white-suited and platinum-haired, with strong, fluoridated teeth and a Greek shipping magnate’s tan. He sized up Rick at the cash register, reached out his hand, and said, “I’m Leslie Freemont. You must be Rick.”

  Rick had no idea what to say. Everyone in the bar was staring at him. He was not a good improviser and felt a stinging blush come on. “Yes, I am.”

  “Hey, Rick, welcome to the best of the rest of your life!” Right behind Leslie fluttered a personal assistant, Tara, manoeuvring two pieces of wheeled luggage, each with a mind of its own. “Rick, this is Tara. Tara, Rick.”

  Hellos were exchanged, and Leslie said, “Rick, I bet you feel great!” Leslie was like a walking exclamation mark. Everything about him exuded confidence, life force, and energy. Rick wanted what Leslie had, and he wanted it now. He asked, “Leslie, can I get you a drink?”

  “Not for me. But maybe young Tara here could use a pick-me-up — just kidding. Nothing for Tara — she’s on the job. And Tara, be careful with the smaller leather bag there; I bought it at Heathrow and I’m trying to keep it clean for next month’s cruise.” Leslie looked at Rick. “And I was kidding about not wanting a drink. I’ll have what this gentleman here is having.” He motioned to Warren’s Scotch and soda. He stuck out a manly hand to Warren, and then to Karen: “Leslie Freemont . . . Leslie Freemont. Ah, my drink. Thank you, Rick. Wait — I’m one of those folks who has a peanut allergy. In all seriousness, is this glass clean?”

  “Fresh from the shelf.”

  “Merci beaucoup.” He took a sip. “Ah, rich, nourishing booze. With the first drink comes the truth, with the second drink comes wishful thinking, and with the third drink come the lies. What would we do without sweet, nourishing alcohol?” He raised his highball glass and bellowed, “A toast!” Even Miss Ginger Ale raised her glass. “Here’s a toast to everyone on earth who’s ever been eager, no, desperate for even the smallest sign that there exists something finer, larger, and more miraculous about our inner selves than we could ever have supposed. Here’s to all of us, reaching out our hands to people everywhere, reaching out to pull them from the icebergs in which they stand frozen, to pull them through the burning hoops of fire that make them frightened, and to pull them through the brick walls that block their paths. Let us reach out to shock and captivate these people into new ways of thinking.”

  Leslie’s toast took a moment to sink in, but was then greeted by a hearty “Cheers!”

  Miss Ginger Ale said, “I’ve seen you on TV.”

  “You probably have,” said Leslie. “My new TV project airs in the coveted midnight-to-one-a.m. slot, week-nights, in two major North American markets.”

  “I watch your show while I work in my laboratory mouse-breeding facility.”

  That line stopped everyone dead. Mr. Trainwreck got things moving again. “So you have a TV show, not an infomercial?” he asked.

  “Edutainment,” said Leslie. “I like to call it a ‘lifeomercial.’ I’m not on TV primarily to sell — first and foremost, I’m there to fix people’s lives.”

  “Are you some form of doctor?” asked Miss Ginger Ale.

  “No, ma’am, just a humble shepherd.”

  “So you’re an evangelist?” asked Mr. Trainwreck.

  “Not as such,” Leslie replied. “But if helping people in pain is a crime, then I guess you’d call me a criminal.” Leslie turned to Rick. “Young man, Tara and I are on the move today, but we cherish this chance to have met you.”

  “What time is your flight?” Rick asked.

  Leslie raised an eyebrow at Tara, who quickly blurted, “We have to board in ninety minutes.”

  “So,” said Leslie, “I’m afraid we have only a brief moment for a photo. I trust you’re still going to invest in the full Leslie Freemont Power Dynamics program.”

  “Of course,” said Rick, who at that moment would gladly have donated all of his internal organs to invest in the full Leslie Freemont Power Dynamics Seminar System.

  “Wonderful.”

  “Do you have the payment?” asked Tara.

  Rick handed it to her. “It’s cash. Exactly $8,500. You can count it if you like.”

  “No need,” said Leslie, being good cop to Tara’s bad cop. “Come around to this side of the bar while Tara readies the camera.”

  Rick hopped over the bar in one leap, barely missing a Rubbermaid tray containing lemon wedges and maraschino cherries, then took off his apron in one gesture. “I am so stoked!”

  “And your great adventure,” said Leslie, “has only just begun. Tara?”

  Leslie put his arm around Rick and told him to say the word “win.” “It gives you the best smile of all.”

  Tara snapped a digital photo. Leslie grabbed the camera. “It’s a beauty. Good work, Tara.” He pumped Rick’s hand. “Rick, we’ll email you the JPEG.”

  “Thanks, Leslie.”

  Leslie chugged his Scotch. “And now we’re off, and thank you for your commitment to my vision. A FedEx with the full program will arrive at this address in two days.” Leslie looked up at the room. “People — nice to have met you all. Welcome to the best of the rest of your life.”

  And with that, Leslie and Tara were gone, a little bit too quickly, giving Rick just the briefest whiff of suspicion that Leslie’s interest in Rick’s future success and mental livelihood might not have been entirely spiritual.

  Luke

  It wasn’t just the Bake Sale Committee’s pissy reaction to Luke’s Rapture joke that made him reach his tipping point and loot the parish coffers and abandon his flock. Something else happened. When the Bake Sale meeting was over, Luke walked past the out-of-tune baby upright piano and up the rear staircase, which smelled of old textbooks. He went into his office and locked the door. He sat in his wooden chair, which overloo
ked the rear parking lot, where the women were milling about their cars and gossiping, most likely about him. He turned off his cellphone and took his land line off the hook and watched the women leave. Then he looked to the side of the window, where a crow on a telephone wire was having a deep, vigorous preening session, feathers akimbo, groom, groom, groom. After finishing its routine, the crow fluffed out its feathers, pooped, and then yawned.

  It yawned?

  Birds yawn?

  Luke found it interesting that birds yawn. Some people would have us believe that birds and human beings evolved from one common ancestor six hundred million years ago — which would mean that yawning goes back six hundred million years — as does, Luke supposed, preening and grooming and battling for turf and seeking out mates and . . .

  . . . suddenly the idea of sharing a common ancestor made more sense than the thought of being created in six days — more than the notion of Creation itself. Luke’s loss of faith was that quick. He’d always feared it, but he had thought it would be a long, drawn-out process. He should have known it would happen in an instant. From years of tending his flock, he knows that most big moments in life and death are quick — those key moments that define us probably fill less than three minutes altogether.

  The next morning — this morning — Luke drove to the bank and made small talk with Cindy the teller, who had a port wine birthmark on her chin, after which he withdrew the church’s savings and went to the airport to catch the first flight he could get to a big city, which happened to be Toronto, where he now sits with a crazy robot-woman supermodel.

  On his bar stool, his pockets brimming with cash, Luke feels as though he radiates darkness as surely as the sun radiates light. Luke still believes that we are all, at every moment of our lives, equally on the brink of all sins, except that now, in a world without faith, sin has no ramifications; it’s just something humans do.