Pontypool Changes Everything (18 page)

“Oh Christ, that’s all you need.”

Greg is obviously affected by this. His face is flushed, and his breath quickens. The Higher Power, knowing full well what does and doesn’t lie within the bounds of his control, gestures defeatedly to Greg’s hands — which are now descending purposefully into the top of his jeans. Greg leans, bent over in concentration, a gangster clutching his fatal wound. And when he expires, he looks up, his face soaked with sweat. Unable
to make eye contact with his Higher Power, he asks, “Nobody came by, did they?”

The Higher Power, looking a little older now, smiles wearily and again mouths a silent “No” while absentmindedly waving a hand up and down the hall.

“I gotta say though Greg, there are people who’d disapprove of this. People you respect.”

The door pops open behind the Higher Power and Grant emerges, his cheeks pink and his eyes glazed. No sign of the other two. He looks up and down the hall, causing the Higher Power to look away quickly, embarrassed, even though he’s invisible. Grant walks towards Greg and leans over, placing his mouth beside his ear.

“There are two other volunteers, like you, that are working down here this morning. They just sucked my dick. Thought you should know. Thanks for making it possible. Now go in there and see if they need any help with the filing.”

The church is a three-cornered hat made of newspaper. The hat is lowered by hand into a pool of oily water on the street. The water is refreshed from below by a catch basin. A strongman in red-striped tights with fists against his hips shakes his face, just beneath the surface, just beneath the paper boat. Cold water rattles between his closed eyes and the newsprint hull.

This is the strange little vessel that God made especially for people who have overcome addiction with the help of baby Jesus. They are sitting in the basement of the hat, crowded around card tables and spooky candles. They are trying to isolate a kind of breathing that starts in the left lung and moves up the abdomen like a light hand, teasing in pinches and rolling nipples between knuckles. A flame enters the room and steps around the seated people. Without making eye contact the flame mounts the wick, splashing hot wax on thighs drawn around the candle. Finally, the flame crosses its legs, lights a cigarette, and blows illuminating smoke in a man’s face. The man looks up at the candle and speaks with lips that are made gold by the light.

“My name is Donny, and God knows I’m still an addict.”

A woman to his left frowns for him, and a little bald man to his right looks down thoughtfully at the tight T-shirt he’s wearing. It has risen above where his swollen belly hangs out its starkly public flesh. He pulls
at the shirt with his thumb but fails to hide his belly. He folds his hands in front of it and looks up bravely across the table. A thousand hairs weave and wiggle on his bared stomach. He has to concentrate to listen. The room of people becomes silent to dignify his struggle. The man is visibly grateful. He focuses thoughtlessly on Donny. Donny begins explaining something that is constructed like a list. He has bulleted his lists with a light karate-chopping hand on the table edge.

“And if I do these things to the best of my ability, maybe I can live a life free of the fear that I’ve lived with ever since I was a kid. Fear. I’ve always been afraid that I was a geek. And I was willing to trade in anything not to be myself. To become a wiseguy, someone who intimidated you. But now I’m trying to find out who that geek is. Who he was trying to become. I hear the word
geek
and I realize it’s a word that I use, that I still use, to intimidate myself. Not you. You don’t give a shit. I know that now. I have only ever scared myself. I don’t have to do that today. Keep an open mind.”

A woman is sitting across from Donny. She has taken the lovely breasts that God gave her for feeding babies and frolicking alone in the woods, and surgically redefined them as “huge tits.” She has been staring at the folded hands of the bald man all through Donny’s sharing. She thinks that this little bald man’s bravery is beautiful, and she has been fantasizing about oiling up that taught tummy and riding it like a pony. Donny has lowered his golden face in his own dramatic pause, but he can’t help but look up to see if it’s really the moment he thinks it is. He sees the glazed eyes of the woman
across from him and, of course, her sweatered breasts plunge him into a powerful default response. Donny feels his penis jumping in little coughs, and he smiles at the woman, who isn’t looking at him. He thinks before speaking —
I’ll never be the geek I wanna be.

“My biggest problem is about eight inches long. That’s the distance between my head and my heart. I can think just fine, thank you very much. That’s what I do best. Taking the world apart and putting it back together exactly the way it should be. I do this so fuckin’ well that when I’m finished I’m in a fuckin’ room full of nutcases who wanna teach me how to pray for God to fix me. But, you know, he does. Really. He does fix me. These are better days, only that lump of shit that lies eight inches south drives me crazy.”

The little bald man has sat forward, resting his face in his hands. His elbows are on the table beside Donny’s hand. It still chops away even though lists no longer govern what he’s saying.

“You know, when I ask people, y’know, what the fuck should I be like now that I’m no longer like myself, you know what they say? They say, ‘Hey Donny, just be yourself!’”

Donny leans forward, drawing his audience over a nastiness he knows they’ll all enjoy.

“Well, well, well. That’s just never gonna be a good fuckin’ idea, is it?”

The bald man smiles against fingertips that hide his mouth.

“I am a person who wants you to die along with him. That’s who I am.”

The woman across from him feels, along with everyone else in the room, all of the possibilities, the little shiver of Donny. She bisects the upholstery of her cleavage with the table edge. Donny gently drops his hand, transforming it from a karate chop into a coin that rolls across the table and lodges securely in the soft slot of her body. The little bald man sits back and his belly flies like a huge fruit bat out from over his belt. He has grown exited and he speaks.

“Thank you Donny. My name is Mike, and I’m an addict.”

Attention is suddenly dispersed around the room and in this chaos everyone feels a refreshed opportunity to have another shot at being a little more dignified.

“Well, you know, no fuckin’ big deal, this. I was in a tight fuckin’ spot. That was my problem. That’s what brought me here. Not the ‘God this, God that.’ I didn’t wanna become a good person. Fuck no. I just wanted to go from ‘A’ to ‘B.’ ‘A’ happened to be a fuckin’ nightmare where I’m holding the barrel of a gun in some guy’s mouth; but, you know, whatever. Keep an open mind. And ‘B,’ I didn’t even have a fuckin’ ‘B.’ So I come here ‘cause all you fuckin’ people are talkin’ about how people like me get out of a jam. So I’m hangin’ around, and the first few months I’m not shootin’ dope. A good thing. But I’m still bringing a piece to meetings. And I’m keepin’ my distance, with my hand on the piece, thinking, if one of you fuckin’ fags tries to hug me I’ll blow your fuckin’ nuts off, right? But soon I leave the gun at home. I don’t even know why. I guess it just doesn’t seem to matter any­
more. I can’t really see myself using it, so I leave it at home.”

Greg is bored. He’s heard Mike talk about bringing a gun to meetings a thousand times. He knows it’s important that Mike is being honest about this, but, Greg thinks,
how come he’s honest about the same thing all the time?

“So I start listening to what you were talking about, and I thought how fuckin’ weird it is that the gun I was packin’ was packin’ up my fuckin’ ears. Y’know what I’m sayin’?”

Several people laugh. Greg looks around irritated,
they always laugh at the same shit.

“I get rid of the piece. I start thinking: alright, alright, for fuck’s sake, I suppose I gotta get a fuckin’ job now and . . . and … I do! And I say alright, I guess I gotta call up the old lady and tell her that, no, I’m not gonna blow her fuckin’ brains out. She’s safe, and she don’t even have to believe me,like you said, it’s just true. She’ll figure it out. Dee-dee this and dee-dee that, and pretty soon I notice, I only notice, I don’t understand it, but I see that I go towards ‘B’ by being this nice fuckin’ guy. And I say Holy Fuck! How did I become this person worthy of my son’s respect? This stand-up guy. Jesus Christ! And you tell me to be grateful and I say: fuckin’ right, I’m grateful, I’m grateful all to fuckin’ hell. And you say be grateful to God. Be grateful to God?”

Greg notices his Higher Power sitting in a swivel chair just outside the circle. The Higher Power nods toward Mike for Greg’s benefit, then he flips his hands,
giving up, making a psychological face that Greg finds insulting. Greg watches Mike’s mouth open and close around the word
fuck
and he remembers his boss earlier that day: his face flushed, not with embarrassment, but with the bracing clarity that comes from blowing your load down a volunteer’s throat. Greg fantasizes about being on both ends of the arrangement. He finds that they are touching the same ice cube, equally cold and satisfying. The two men are exchanged by the act, no longer thinking about each other, or sucking each other, but laughing, now, because they are
not
each other. Greg thanks Mike in mumbled unison with every one else.

Donny, who has been the chairperson, takes the pause after Mike as an opportunity to close the meeting. Mike accepts this, and stretches in his chair before standing and patting himself down. His belly, which continues to win every battle it wages, governs him physically as he stands. Others follow, pushing empty chairs towards the centre of an enclosure that they begin to make with arms tossed around each other’s back. The woman across from Donny pulls her hands down and hops away from the circle.

“Oh. Oh, one last thing — um — oh, yeah. April — addict. The women’s retreat up at the Elora Gorge has been cancelled due to the restrictions that were just announced. Re: the
AMPS
problem up north. So if you have paid already, contact your Group Service Representative for a refund. That’s me at this group. If you don’t know who your
GSR
is ask any member. Thanks.”

Greg feels a whimper run across his chest. His feelings about the disease he has have been making ever-tightening circles around him. Not yet inside, but preventing anything from leaving. Greg lowers his head for the serenity prayer, which he pronounces sub-sonically as: “Gaw gra ma tha savanah tee ta set ah ha ah kenna shay, ah tha crash ta shay ah they aka ah tha wistah ta oh the dimffimff.”

The people who have left the meeting are gathering at the rear door of the church, smoking cigarettes and arranging groups that will leave separately and arrive together at a cafe on Queen Street. Greg is standing alone, feeling self-conscious of the fact that his Higher Power is the only one who’ll stand with him. And even then, this invisible being, dressed in black, appears to want to mingle.

On the other side of a tall hotel lobby ashtray that tilts at the edge of the asphalt, Mike is lighting April’s cigarette. April reaches across to hug him, keeping her hips back to accommodate Mike’s leading stomach. He in turn bows his back out between his shoulders to create a cave in his chest where April can store her giant breasts for the duration of the hug. They part smiling, embarrassed and thrilled by the comfort of their touching.

“How long have you been the
GSR
?”

“About eight months. What’s your home group?”

“Oh, I don’t have one right now, but I’m thinking of joining this one.”

“Great. Let’s go put your name in the ledger.”

“
OK
.”

April leads Mike back into the building and down the stairs. When they return, everyone will have left, and not wanting to go straight home on a Friday night they’ll go off together to a cafe three blocks west of where the rest of the group has already convened.

April, who has created a safer world for herself, has a test that a man must pass before she’ll spend any time with him. This test is based entirely on the spiritual principles of the program she’s adopted. Honesty. Open-mindedness. Willingness. Tolerance. Acceptance. He must also be able to care for himself completely. She is watching Mike for this now.

Mike carries himself like a gallant caricature of kindness. He makes amends to women whenever God will let him, swooping open doors and laying out well-defined compliments. He listens carefully and smiles apologetically at his own compulsion to solve their problems. He might be the kind of Mr. Right that April has been looking for.

When April and Mike move in together she will teach him the real thrill of lifelong romance, its enduring pyjama party of dirty thoughts. The delicate gift, the body as an object. But first he must prove that he can be, and not be, her sister.

Greg is standing alone near the top of an alley that runs behind a highrise apartment. Alone. Alone except for a Higher Power who stands under a streetlight, impatient now for his young charge to surrender his increasingly bizarre will. The Higher Power knows that this is a dangerous time for Greg. He has a strange new disease and nobody knows for sure how or when it will
manifest itself. The Higher Power leans into the dark and, covering his mouth, shout-whispers: “Greg! Greg! Come on, let’s go have a coffee! Greg!”

But Greg disappears into the dark of the alley. He’s heard something and he’s going to investigate. The noise, coming from behind a dumpster at the far end of the garbage-strewn alley, is human in origin. A crying growl, a scraping sound. Greg stops halfway. Behind him three cars pass noisily by the entranceway and their warm triple swoosh pulls Greg cautiously back a couple of steps. He is frightened by the slurps and rustles he hears coming out from under the dumpster.

“Greg! Greg! Come on! Get out of there! Greg!”

The Higher Power feels a little slighted in being ignored.
I shouldn’t have to try so hard.
He lowers his head and sighs before straightening his back and arms. He steps into the alley and swaggers for courage as he walks to its dark end.