The gum thief: a novel Page 8

  Why do I mention any of this? Because of my mother.

  Years ago, I visited my parents' place on a Saturday afternoon. My dad was downstairs, my mother upstairs. My dad and I said hi, and then he called upstairs, "Honey, your favourite son is here for a visit!" and my mother came downstairs, almost skipping like a girl. "Chris, I've made your favourite peanut butter and raisin cookies," she called, and then she saw it was me and the temperature dropped to zilch. "Oh. Hello."

  "Hi to you, too, Mom."

  She stared at me, and-okay, it's not like I haven't done enough shit to merit a frosty reception-but this time was different. She seemed afraid of me, definitely something new, and after a few seconds of locked eyeballs, I realized that something new was going on here. She didn't recognize me.

  My mother's Alzheimer's was more rapid than that of most people with the disease, and it struck her in her late fifties, which is rare but by no means unheard of. One week she couldn't find her car keys. A month later the police phoned to say she'd been found cowering in the women's bathroom outside the Bay cafeteria and had no idea who she was.

  When Mom started wetting herself and that kind of thing, Dad had to get a live-in helper, Dolores, to help out. Dolores was Mexican and treated Mom like a child, which Mom definitely seemed to prefer to being treated like an adult. Six years after it all began, Dad divorced Mom and married Dolores, and by the time Zoe came along my mother was completely gone. She died of pneumonia a month after Zoe's birth, and I really have to wonder why we went to all the effort to keep her going. Were we cruel to elongate her time on earth? Was her life enhanced? Did she suffer-especially on those nights when she'd start hollering and screaming and we couldn't figure out why? And is the world a better place for her having gone through it all?

  The thing with Alzheimer's is that the patient and everybody in their life knows all too well what's happening; the walking-on-eggshells factor is remarkable. Simple lapses such as forgetting a phone number create tension like a storm's about to break, which triggers denial, which often triggers fights and tears. In a weird way, only when the disease is in full expression is there any form of relief. A sufferer forgets who he or she is, and where he or she is-everything. What do they dream of at night? Do they dream the dreams of a fetus? Are they back on fet-ohol?

  Bethany

  Roger, the funniest moment in my short history in this dump of a store happened this afternoon, and you missed it. This middle-aged guy totally lost it in line. Kyle was at the till, and, well, let's face it: God never intended for Kyle to be working at a till. He was meant for other things. But anyway, this guy comes in-forty-five? Dockers. Dorky sage green checkered short-sleeved sports shirt, like something a left-wing politician would wear to a golf course and after waiting in line for a while he starts shouting, "You incompetent brats. For God's sake, if you're a fuckup at your job, either quit or get fired. But don't ask me to subsidize your uselessness with my good will. I am not here to be your learning curve. I am here to pay for my purchase without having to watch you learn new product code numbers every single time you ring in an item."

  Kyle was unfazed by this-he's got psychic Teflon. So he kept on plugging away in pursuit of correct code numbers until he found the right one.

  I was taking down the Halloween displays by the window. Shawn whispered to me, "That's Mr. Rant. He's nuts. He hasn't been in for ages. He can actually be fun if you get him going." So I figured, what the hell, and I asked the guy, "Is there anything else that annoys you, sir-I mean, while we're on the subject and all?"

  And he totally got into it. "Potato skins," he said. "I hate them. They're ugly, they taste shitty, and let me dispel one pernicious myth right now: not only are there no vitamins or minerals in them, they're supermagnets for pesticides, fungicides, larvicides and other agrochemical residues. Restaurants that serve unpeeled potatoes are too fucking lazy to peel them. End of story. Potato skins are pure laziness crystallized into earthly form, and if you want science to back this up, check out recently skyrocketing cancer rates in the intensive potato farming areas of Prince Edward Island."

  I said, "I know exactly what you mean. Potato peels taste awful, and people always try to make you feel bad about yourself if you don't do a little happy dance when they put them in front of you."

  "Finally, someone else who cares."

  "What else bugs you?"

  "Since you ask, I actively dislike people who refuse to own a microwave oven out of a misguided notion of moral or biological superiority. Come on, who the hell do you think you're impressing? Every time you use a conventional oven, you're sucking trillions of wasted megawatts from the national power grid. Microwaves are smart, efficient and good for the planet. And thanks to China, they're almost free with a tank of gas these days. What the fuck is with that country? How do they manage to make shit even cheaper than it is already?"

  "Everything in this store is made in China," I said. "If I think about it too much, I get a queasy feeling. What else bugs you?"

  "Why do restaurants heat your plate before they put your food on it? There always has to be some ass hole with a blow torch in the prep area, scorching the crockery in a warming oven, thus ensuring that when your food arrives in front of you, it will emit too much steam and generate blackheads. Your server will say, 'Mind the hot plate,' and then, after waiting ten minutes for the thing to cool down, when you finally do take a bite you burn your tongue or the roof of your mouth. The whole hot food thing is a scam. Humans were meant to eat food no hotter than the temperature of blood."

  "Amen."

  By now, Mr. Rant was next at the till. I looked at the item he wanted to purchase and said, "I like Sharpies."

  Mr. Rant began talking to his twelve-pack of pens: "How did society ever function without you, little Sharpies? Your nibs have the precise amount of give to create a line quality with character, yet not so much character as to be smushy. Thank you, little pens."

  I told Kyle the product code number, Mr. Rant bought his pens, and then he was gone.

  What a freak, but he made my day.

  Roger, I've never known anybody with Alzheimer's. Can you tell if you're going to get it? Also, how did you learn so much about books and writers and writing? I thought you didn't finish college. I am in awe.

  Speaking of school, I'm thinking of going back. You'll shit, but I think I might like to be a nurse. Thinking of Kyle alone in that room with his dying grandmother flipped a switch inside me. What do you think?

  Before I forget, the other night I told my mother that we were still exchanging words and she said, "You know, maybe Roger's not the ogre I made him out to be."

  I will never understand that woman.

  B.

  Glove Pond: Brittany

  It was hard for Brittany to be both a respected surgeon and the wife of literary sensation Kyle Falconcrest. This evening was a perfect example. Neither of her hosts had, as of yet, asked her anything about her life; they'd clearly dismissed her as ornamental. For the first half-hour after they'd arrived, she'd watched the others talk while a part of her observed Steve and Gloria's strange living room. It reminded her of her grade-two time capsule project in which a small office safe, not unlike those sold at Staples, was filled with newspapers, canned goods, a Walkman, a Nirvana cassette and a flannel grunge shirt.

  Steve and Gloria's living room seemed to have been sealed somewhere between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor's first and second divorce. Magazines on the coffee table touted new fiction by John Cheever. The Plexiglas cover of the turntable in the corner had become fully opaque from dust, while the spines of nearby vinyl records were illegible from solar bleaching. Brittany had also noticed the total absence of any sort of personal imagery-family photos, portraits, drawings. And if she squinted, she could see a slight nicotine glaze coating all surfaces in the room. She had absentmindedly picked up a small figurine from a side table, and it made a small clicking sound as she removed it, severing its decade-long bonds of wax build-up,
dust and stasis.

  Since the mega success of Kyle's novel the year before, Brittany had become accustomed to her new invisibility. During the years Kyle had laboured in obscurity, Brittany had supported him-and had been sure of her place in the world. Now he was famous, and their lives had become filled with expensive trips and meals and visits with the rich, witty and renowned, all of which was beginning to bore her.

  Then Steve had surprised Brittany. Just when she was feeling her most invisible, her favourite writer in the world took almost an hour to provide her with copious, thrilling background information on each of his five novels. She felt drunk with privilege as he spoke and spoke and spoke. It was almost as if he was speaking only to her, ignoring Kyle and Gloria completely. Kyle could never understand Brittany's love of Steve's work nor, for that matter, could Brittany-but love and admiration can't always be explained.

  When Steve had finished, Brittany was dazed and happy. She was mostly content to listen when Steve and Kyle went on to have a manly discussion of literature. When Steve went into the kitchen to see about dinner, Brittany followed him, noting in passing that there seemed to be no evidence of food in the offing. Steve was poking about inside a cupboard.

  "Steve," said Brittany, "do you ever read works in progress?"

  Steve looked surprised. "Sometimes."

  "Kyle has a working draft of his new novel with him. Would you give it a peek? I'm sure he'd love to hear your opinion. It's in his satchel, over with our coats."

  "Brittany, Kyle is such a young writer, and the opinion of an eminence grise such as myself might skew his growth and distinctiveness."

  "I can't help but feel he'd benefit from your reading, Steve."

  "It's better I don't get involved."

  "You are so sensitive, Steve."

  "Now you go join the others while I get dinner cracking."

  "Thanks, Steve."

  Glove Pond: Steve

  Steve's fevered brain was contemplating how to make dinner out of beweeviled pancake mix when young Brittany gave him an excuse to procrastinate. The moment she left the kitchen, he raced to the coat closet and ferreted out the copy of unsavoury Falconcrest's upcoming book from its satchel. Curse him and his new ideas.

  Locked within the warm, breezeless confines of the guest bathroom, Steve began to read:

  Love in the Age of Office Superstores

  Chapter One

  Shimmering amber millipedes of dawn light chewed on the office superstore's blank stucco outer walls. A lone pigeon fell to the parking lot, scavenged for edible grit, found none, then returned to the roof and out of sight, possibly to die of boredom. Formless overcast clouds the colour of Korean paper-shredding machines inched in from the west. In the spotless front sea t of his Chevy Lumina sedan sat Norm. He was no longer young, his pot-belly enblubbered roughly to the extent of a large Thanksgiving turkey. His scalp grew hair like virulent beige bread mould. His hands clasped a Diet Coke filled with house-brand vodka-breakfast and lunch folded together into one meal.

  The car radio played "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go!," a tune from Norm's youth that, in some indefinable way, reminded him that he was a captive of his life's bleak repeat cycle. Other cars pulled into the lot, fellow morning shifters, their vehicles neither new nor spotless: Jettas made from sheets of rusty lace, polio-stricken Corollas from the early 1990s, and late 1980s Chryslers held together by local AM radio station promotional stickers and wishful thinking. Yes, Norm's colleagues had youth, but Norm's maroon Lumina had the capacity to drive across a dozen ecosystems on a single tank of gas without the slightest threat of breakdown. When nuclear war finally arrived and everyone else's shit heap died trying to escape the firestorm, it was in Norm's car that everyone would ride, stylishly and comfortably.

  The vodka tasted harsh, scientific and aggressively cheap. Technically, vodka was made from potatoes, yet Norm suspected his was made by underpaid robots on some distant sci-fi planet where living organisms had long ago ceased to exist, and where the recipe for vodka was the legacy of long-vanished humanoid Elders. Potato like molecules may have entered the vodka making process, but the possibility of genuine tuber content was nil. But despite his vodka's best left-unimagined lineage, Norm required it to survive the day ahead.

  A trailer full of Dell products sat in the superstore's loading dock, ready to suckle the building with its abundance. Norm dreaded Dell Day almost as much-but not quite as much-as he dreaded Office Furniture Shipment Day with its lumbar-destroying monotony of unloading, carton-breaking and inventorying the shipment's contents. Should Norm ever have need of an office-a dream that felt as unattainable as spending a month's holiday with Smurfs-it would certainly not be furnished with an L-shaped plastic/walnut laminated Chinese fibreboard modular desk system graced by a Dell. No, Norm's dream office would contain a simple pine table, a humble bottle of ink and a quill made from a griffin's wing feather.

  One final sip and Norm knew it was time to leave his Lumina. Leaving his Lumina was harder for Norm than getting out of bed in the morning. Preparing to leave his Lumina reminded him of the gestation of a dragon's egg, which sat soft and inert for twenty months, only hardening during the final days before hatching. After one goodbye vodka swig, Norm opened the driver's door a crack and paused as the November air bled into the vehicle and he exchanged the tinny sounds of early 1980s pop music supersensation, Wham!, for cold and discomfort.

  Moments later, clad in his scarlet employee's shirt, a shivering Norm plopped out of the Chevy and limped and hobbled and shuffled and dragged his carcass towards the superstore. Its automated door whisked open with a dry hiss reminiscent of soil being tossed onto a coffin. Instantly, the change in light quality informed his reptile cortex that he was no longer in the natural world. Human faces became cruel Toby jugs of ignorance and buffoonery, with nostril hairs that dangled small, hard rosin nuggets. The uncirculated air prepared to garner its daily load of invisible fart galaxies, which perpetually placed nearby shoppers beneath cloaks of suspicion. Post-it Notes sat in their bins, daydreaming about daydreams. At the ends of aisles I and 2, crisp totems built of reams of bond paper dreamed of one day bearing sonnets and the solutions to string theory, yet in their hearts-if reams of paper can be said to possess hearts-they knew they would, at best, merely tout a daily seafood special or be the unread, unloved third page of an in-house corporate document on earthquake preparedness-and even fates such as these were probably too much to expect. Instead, they would end up as a discarded second draft of a homework assignment on manganese or pollination, badly formatted and crumpled up, tossed into a wastepaper basket alongside lumps of chewed gum, pubic hair trimmings, Kotex wrappers and the lids of cran apple juice bottles.

  Norm stood by the gum racks and the numerous impulse point-of-purchase displays near the front tills. He idly fondled a chocolate stain embedded in his crimson shirt, unwashed from the day before. He cocked an ear, trying to identify the PA system's first musical gem of the day ("Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," by the Police), heard the clatter of a pile of CD and DVD jewel cases falling onto the white tile floors at the store's farthest end, heard the rumble of shopping carts being corralled into their marshalling stalls. He turned around, his midriff jiggling like a Jell-O mould, and tried to decide which brand of gum he was going to steal that morning.

  Dee Dee

  I don't think you're a monster, Roger, and I am not a monster either. I am, in fact, one of those mothers who clips inspiring articles from newspapers, hoards them, and then pounces on her offspring with a stack of twenty-usually when they're in a hurry and their heads are in the completely wrong space to appreciate them. There's that old Kids in the Hall skit where the overprotective mother goes through a new copy of TV Guide to highlight with a yellow marker all of the shows she thinks her son will like. That's me. Or rather, that's me these days. I wasn't always such a good mother.

  Bethany told me about something you wrote, about how animals are the voices of the dead come to speak
to us. I don't know if they're here to console us or to warn us and scare the crap out of us. I like animals. They're better than people. Even when they're mean they're pure, whereas people, when they're mean, are simply lost.

  Did you know that Bethany's stepbrother hanged himself? Oh, that was awful. Devon. He was a lost soul. Bethany found his body. He did it with the twenty-five-foot orange extension cord from the leaf blower, strung on the chandelier in the front hallway. She looked at him for a half-hour before she phoned anybody.

  Chandelier: that sounds so swanky, but it wasn't. That was when I was married to Kenny and we were living in this Brady Bunch house in an okay suburb. I woke up every morning with my stomach clenching. Why? Because I felt like a useless member of society and I could feel the ghosts of the people who built the Brady Bunch suburb surrounding me. I knew they were better people than I'd ever be: industrious, optimistic and dutiful-and I could feel them judging me. I could never live up to the expectations of people who built such cheerful, well-Laid-out 3BDRs with dormer windows, rhododendrons and garages lined with pegboard where the tools could be alphabetically arranged, and where orange extension cords always had a special cord-only spot above the pesticide cupboard. I couldn't enter the garage because of that goddam pegboard wall, and because I was spooked I'd meet the ghost of the guy who installed it. The ghost would see me, and he'd know that Kenny beat me with full plastic bottles of fabric softener, that Kenny hectored and teased his son, who hanged himself because of it, and that Kenny treated Bethany as if she didn't exist-literally, like that game you play with kids where you pretend you're unable to see them, except that Kenny did this all the time. I think this is why Bethany wears all that Goth makeup and pretends not to care-it's a testament to my lack of care back then.