JPod (29 page)

"crow, introduce us."

Mom, this is Kam Fong. Kam Fong, this is my mother.

"Kam, what do you do?"

"I work with the Chinese government to ensure that as many male babies are born as possible. We take the unwanted girl babies, dry them out, and then grind them into a powder, which we mix with latex paints to make anti-skid coating for the military's helipads."

freedom squinted hard at Kam, and then announced, "Finally! A true radical spirit here in this psychic morgue you call jPod."

Kam pulled out cigars. "Smoke?"

"Love to. Anything to help Cuba."

Kam and freedom went over to the ventilation duct and chewed the fat like old school friends. From snippets I could tell they were discussing hydroponics. Their unlikely but cheerful meshing of personalities was a jolt—so much so that when I finally realized my mother was talking to me, I found I'd completely gapped out. "Sorry, Mom, what were you saying?"

"What an amazing woman. So strong. So confident. So manly yet female at the same time. So forceful."

I should have removed Mom from the party at that moment, but alas, it was too late. Mom was infatuated.

A few minutes later Cowboy went off to get Styrofoam cups from the coffee room, and Kam Fong put a quarter-pound of medicinal-grade cocaine into the jCola, where it dissolved beautifully. "You losers might as well get the real thing," he said.

Cowboy came back and poured a glass for everybody, and Kaitlin stood up to give a brief inaugural speech. Her hug machine looked like a cross between an incline bench and an industrial loom.

Kaitlin said, "I'd like you all to know that this hug machine is for everybody in the company, and any time you need to use it, come right in. I've covered the hugging pads with removable terry cloth cozies, which I promise I'll wash twice a week. Remember, you're not walking diseases in need of correction. You're confident industry professionals who lead rich, rewarding lives and who don't need to prove anything to anybody."

freedom led a salvo of applause.

Kaitlin looked at John Doe. "John, would you like to be the first to try the hug machine?"

Yes, please.

"Very well. In you go."

John sat on the little chair portion and then pulled a lever, which activated the two baby crib mattresses. With equal pressure applied from both sides to his torso, John appeared to be in bliss. "I want to live inside this machine."

Kaitlin said, "This hug machine is now launched." She raised her glass: "To the hug machine!"

The medicinal beverages took maybe fifteen seconds to kick in. A boom box was produced and people began to dance—well, okay, they moved their bodies quickly and in an odd manner.

Steve came in. "Techies are
dancing?"

"I know," I said.

"How did
that happen?"

"They're high as kites. Kam dumped a quarter-pound of premium coke into Mark's jCola."

"Any left?"

"All gone."

"Shit. Well, maybe it'll improve their productivity."

"I suspect they'll all start developing amazing ideas for new games, but they'll pass out around three a.m. The next morning it'll turn out that all they wrote down was the natural logarithm of yesterday's Jumble puzzle."

"I need to score real bad," said Steve. "Can you drive me downtown?"

Steve lost his driver's licence a week after we got back from China.

"Steve, why don't you just kick your habit? I feel like I'm back doing Gord-O's Cheerios runs. At least at Costco I can park my car reasonably safely."

"Don't knock smack if you haven't tried it."

"Why can't you buy it in bulk?"

"Ethan, if it was bulk, how could I keep it fresh? Good fresh smack is like good lettuce or fresh meat. Look—here comes Kam."

"Hi, boys."

Since he got back, Steve has decided to like Kam. Why? Because without Kam, Steve would never have discovered smack, and without smack, he would have been trapped inside his old personality forever. ("Ethan, do you think I enjoyed being Ned Flanders every diddily-day of the week? Fuck diddily-uck
no.
Every fibre of my being wanted to napalm the dry-erase boards, but instead I'd stand there smiling at pie charts, discussing how much of the budget we should allot for dried cranberries for the goodie bags at the Orlando staff retreat."

"Dried cranberries—you mean Craisins?"

'Yes, Craisins."

"Kam, can you give Steve some smack so I can get on with work here?" I said.

"Ethan, I promised your mother I wouldn't interfere with Steve's life any more."

"Then let's just go downtown and get it over with," I said.

In the car Steve had a jones and was rubbing his hands all over his body and shivering. "Steve, can you maybe keep your hands still?

You're freaking me out, and you're flaking all over the upholstery. I just vacuumed it."

"Kam is right. You really are middle-class."

"You guys talk about me in those terms?"

"Sure."

I let it drop. "Which corner today?" Shopping for heroin with Steve is like choosing the right deli. I looked around; I'd never seen so many people looking for fixes.

"I forgot," Steve said, "it's Welfare Wednesday."

The alleys were a maze of graffitied brick, soiled Dumpsters and lame, dispirited pigeons atop crumbled pavement glazed with algae blooms. I could hear plastic mini bleach bottles popping under the car's wheels. Then I spotted three relatively together people, who looked like they had day jobs and fixed addresses, scoring from a shrunken-apple-headed hippie. They looked relatively jolly, and Steve said, "There."

I never would have believed how normal some smack users can be.
("This is my coffee break. I have to get back and install the new Norton
AntiVirus patch.")
It turned out our hippie saleslady was named Tina, and she was handing out free lotto tickets with every purchase. Steve commended her. 'You should move up the food chain a bit. You're too good to be doing one-to-ones."

"You think so?"

"I sure do."

"I've been thinking about it. But most of the time all I really want is to supply my own habit and maybe get some donuts and a new nightgown with no cigarette burns."

"Tina, you can aim higher than that."

"Mister, you're the wind beneath my wings."

. . .

Much news when I returned from the smack run. First off, Cowboy went nuts after three glasses of jCola and hooked up with some fine young lady using his pseudonym on chokingforit.com. They arranged to meet in the Denny's beside the building where his sister lives, and then in walked his sister, and it turned out that, yes, he'd arranged to get together
with
his sister. He's sworn off sex forever. He's never made that promise before.

"It felt like that dream you get where your dick falls off and you put it back into place like it was a plastic dildo, except it was . . ." He drifted off.

"Except it was
what?"
Podoids always demand the full story.

"Except it was like looking at myself, except I had tits and female plumbing and . . ."

"And?"

"I don't want to talk about it any more."

And then John Doe told me that he and Kam Fong were involved in some kind of business deal with Douglas Coupland.

"What?"

"Just what I told you. Hardware. LED screens, that's all I can say. It's what he was doing in China when he was there with you."

"He said he was there to take pretentious arty-farty photos."

"For God's sake, Ethan, wake up. He's a novelist. He lies for a living. And besides, Kam's always right about business. I've invested some money in the project already."

"What?"

"Me, too," said Bree.

"Anyone
else?"

Everybody, including Kaitlin, raised their hands. "I don't believe this. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Kaitlin said, "He came here last week. You were out looking at the new Nikes at Brentwood Mall when Doug dropped by."

"He came in here?"

"He's a really great guy."

This isn't happening.
"Tell me, what is this screen project he's doing?"

"We can't tell you."

"What do you mean you can't tell me?"

"We can't. We signed nondisclosure agreements."

I looked at Kaitlin. "Why didn't
you
tell me?"

"I didn't think you liked the guy. Besides, you know how stringent NDAs are."

"But you and I live together and have sex several times a week."

"You make it sound so romantic."

The phone rang and I grabbed it. "Hello?"

"Hi, dear."

"Hi, Mom."

"That was a fun party earlier this evening. How nice to see you introverts having a dab of happiness in your lives."

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Ethan, what is it I'm hearing in your voice?"

"I'm just pissed at everybody here. They've all invested in one of Kam Fong's schemes—with Douglas Coupland, no less—and nobody told me about it."

"The screen project?"

"That's it. Don't tell me you've invested, too?"

"Sorry, dear, but I did. It's a smart idea."

"Can you tell me about it, then?"

"I had to sign a nondisclosure form. So did your father."

"What?"

"Fair's fair, dear. And besides, I don't think I'd be comfortable if Kam Fong knew I'd violated my nondisclosure agreement."

She had a point.

"Okay, so what's up?"

"I was wondering if you could ask your friend there for his mother's phone number."

"John?"

"That's him. I'd like to speak with his mother, freedom."

Whatever Mom was up to, it didn't bode well for freedom's future. I paused too long, and this made Mom suspicious.

"Ethan? What's going on?"

"It's nothing, Mom."

"I just don't know how I gave birth to such a suspicious son. All I want to do is ask freedom about a new boron phosphate fertilizer she's imported from Vietnam. It's raising her crop yield remarkably."

I handed the phone to John Doe and went off to the coffee room to fume. I could feel clown rage welling up inside me and knew it was time to go back to my work.

Kwantlen College Learning Annex

Course 3072-A

"Hi, I'm Steve"

Steve, when I arrived at the company I thought you were a sexless prig

Steve:

I think that was the general impression I gave everybody. There was a part of me that knew things were all wrong in my life. But in order to repress that emotion, I'd do things like wear sweaters draped over my shoulders with the arms twisted together. I didn't want to be who I was.

Kaitlin:

Where were you before coming to work here?

Steve:

I was at Toblerone.

Kaitlin:

You mean those European triangular chocolate bars that most North Americans associate with hotel mini-bars?

Steve:

You nailed it. It was as if Toblerone had been typecast and couldn't get any new roles outside of hotels. So I revamped its image. We had to "think outside the mini-bar."

Kaitlin:

That's a stupid joke.

Steve: