The Grief Team (11 page)

Sometime later, when the silence finally became too much even for Mutt, he grunted a couple of times, spit a lengthy gob of something foul onto the wall behind him and gave every indication that he was going to speak.

At first slowly and somewhat shyly, and then with more fervour as the excitement of his own personal dramas flowed within him, his body movements began to provide an energetic visual accompaniment,  as Mutt told of his birth in someplacePic’ring. He then immediately skipped into a cacophony of exciting bits and pieces of adventures in which he repeated his role as the hero numerous times. Mutt clearly related the passing of time to his height and because he was obviously undersized for his age, it took some time before Jason and Cathy understood that Mutt had been very young when he had first struck out on his own. Three-quarters of the way along his trek—tired, hungry, and utterly lost—he blundered into a full-scale Grief Team sweep on the grounds where an institution known as Upper Canada College had once educated the scions of Canada’s wealthy. 

With wondrous dexterity, for he was a natural mimic, Mutt told the story of the net dropping on him and then of a sweet smell before he fell asleep, only to awake in the madhouse that was SkyDome. He began to mutter and grunt more vehemently, prefacing many of his exclamations with fukn-this and fukn-that, spittle flying as he told of the beatings he suffered at the hands of older, stronger Wildkids and the things that they did to each other (and tried to do to Mutt!) because the sexes were separated at all times. When he related his escape through the blockages in the sub-sub-basement, tunneling like a mole, cunning as a rat, to emerge into the bright red sunshine, Mutt happily mimed his metamorphosis into something very much like a new, freckled daisy.

When he finally finished, it became apparent that Cathy was nodding off to sleep so Mutt, not the least bit offended that she might have missed some of his adventures, insisted on leading her across the floor to a pile of junk in a far corner where, behind a battered cardboard partition, were three foul-smelling, decrepit mattresses stacked on top of each other. There were two equally-foul blankets but no sign of pillows. It didn’t take but a minute before Cathy and Grey Kitty were snuggled together and, for the first time since she had been abducted, as the night lengthened into a blue-black blanket of stars, Cathy Latimer slept soundly and without crying out.

Mutt was proud of his accomodations, possessing a number of amenities such as a microwave oven which lacked a door, a battered Coleman paraffin lantern now functioning as a candleholder, a round metal table on castors which still carried a tag from IKEA, and twelve boxes of compact discs. Pulling out Kiri Te Kanawa: Arias from La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, and Others  and The Greatest Hits of Boy George and Culture Club, Mutt opened the jewel boxes and removed the disks. He palmed each neatly and, stepping into the doorway of his homeplace, made sounds like steam escaping, as he propelled them into the night. He made a sound like ‘thwak’ as he slapped his head and laughed.

Mutt’s holiest relic, salvaged from an office on the top floor of Harbourfront’s main complex, proved to be a 14 inch Sony Trinitromitron TeleViewer with built-in VRS capability. Made in 2002, it had never been taken out of its original packaging until Mutt found it. It wasn’t until after he had been inside SkyDome that he knew what magic it could perform.

“Taypsss! Taypsss!” bragged Mutt and he pulled another carton from under a nearby piece of canvas. It was full of brightly-coloured packages and Mutt reached inside, grabbing several and holding them up to Jason. “Tay-psss!”

Jason looked at the titles: Psychotic Flesh-Eaters From Omaha; Zogar vs. Megawrath; Robin Williams at Carnegie Hall; Dumbo. Pushing them aside, Mutt reached for another, holding it out to Jason with unexpected reverence.  “Bes’!”

Jason smiled. 

Charlotte’s Web.

Jason placed the cassettes back in Mutt’s box as his host turned on the TeleViewer but, instead of inserting a tape, Mutt was playing with the remote control, punching buttons until, after ten or twelve tries, the screen filled with an image originating out of the TV studio inside Pickering Town Centre. 

“You have TV.” Jason’s solemn features were replaced by a pleasant grin. “How do you do it?”

Mutt grinned, pointing to a cable emerging from the back of the set. Jason followed it with his eyes until it disappeared through a hole in the wall. 

Mutt laughed, a kind of caw that brought crows to mind.   SkyDome!  Mutt takesteal-lec’tric.  See’cret watch.”

The two boys hunkered down in front of the set as Mutt continued to fiddle with the remote trying to provide sound.

“You found a way out of SkyDome.” 

It wasn’t a question, but Mutt stopped his attack on the remote and nodded anyway. 

“Will you show me when the time comes?”

Mutt shook his head the other way, his features dissolving into visible fear. SkyDome fukn-grief-team, killdead WildKid, fukn-skyDome-no!”

There was sadness in the wan smile which briefly crossed the older boy’s face. “You must show me when the time comes,” Jason said firmly. “It will be very soon, but it is not now.”

Mutt’s face fell and he scratched and itched for a while until he made up his mind and shrugged. If that was what Jason wanted, he would show him but after that... Mutt shuddered. SkyDome was death for Wildkids.

Jason patted Mutt on the shoulder, took the remote control from him  and turned up the sound.

Gilbert Mocking, Mall-award-winning news anchor, straightened his tie and began his newscast.

It was Thursday, September 8th, 2016 at 2:00 pm. Mall Time. Outside, it was midnight.

Good afternoon, Citizens of the Malls, this is Antioch Wilson-Wilson, live at the TV Studio in Pickering Town Centre, where your advertising ideas will always be welcomed by our thriving sales department. Drop by whenever you require the ultimate in service, expertise, and satisfaction. Specials all week long on packages of ten-second-spots in our Listings service. Get wise! Advertise!

In the news this afternoon...

... apparently there is some sort of flap going on down by the fountain in the E.C. again, even as I speak. Last week, you will recall, some idiot claimed that there were live fish in the fountain. Well, there weren’t! It wouldn’t surprise me if some of those morbid-fucking-Mulls in Rhonda’s Fan Club—those perverts who maim themselves for lust!—are involved. The commotion is apparently near the area where Wildkids murdered a lot of people not long ago. In that incident, somewhere around forty victims...or fifty... whatever...the point is that the Grief Team—and I spoke with Gabriel Kraft personally this morning about this—the Team just can’t be everywhere at once.

Now the guard who left the door open allowing those Wild Bastards into the E.C. has been dealt with, but there’s a larger issue here and that’s what I want to talk about this afternoon...but before I forget, we won’t be going to the Centre on a ‘live’ feed because we just weren’t able to afford the rights to cover Rhonda’s appearance there today. That bitchcow’s fees are rising faster than my dick these days, I’ll tell ya that!  So no Rhonda, the Udderly Fantastic Cow, for you today...sorry about that...

... now to begin with, when you hear what I have to say, you’re all going to start thinking that your Wilson-Wilson here has gone right off his rocker and, well, maybe I have, but sometimes a little historical fact goes a long way toward explaining some of these problems we keep having with these goddamn Wildkids. 

Those of us who helped build this Nation out of the carnage of the viruses and the wickedness of mankind have always been aware that children, properly raised and parented, can be a blessing to our society.  And those that aren’t, can’t. That was the message of the 90’s and woe betide us if we forget it! We all know that Revelation Night is fast approaching and we’re all looking forward to seeing what this year’s crop of Stage Fives is like...but let’s all take a page out of their training manuals and remember that there are only 16,135 of us in the malls and  there is no room for malcontents who want to challenge everything that we in our wisdom and experience have managed to create. This is our world and we train our children to live in it!

Your support for the Grief Team has been exceptional and, as I faithfully reported to you last week, the Crematoria and the Birth Centre have now achieved their twenty-eighth consecutive award for improvements in operational efficiency. A big tip of the forelock to the men and women in these organizations whose call to duty has been the deciding factor in the healthy maintainance of the balance of our population.

Now I ask you, what was one of the things that got us into this mess in the first place? Longevity, TV viewers, got us into this mess.  Too many old people, too many Crones, too many addle-pated, scum-sucking assholes who clog the system and prevent the rest of us from a decent life because of their greedy tightfistedness and their inability to countenance change. I expect that most of you have been watching my series on the Death of the Twentieth Century, and if there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that population control is the first pillar upon which a decent society must rest! By keeping our population steady, and exercising quality control in the Birth Centre and the Crematoria, we’ve built new lives for ourselves in the Malls. We’ve achieved the smalltown Canadian dream—the pleasure of knowing our neighbours, the freedom to shop with peace and safety in our malls guaranteed by the Grief Team. We are rich indeed! 

We enjoy electricity, running water, clean restrooms, a steady supply of canned food, and good jobs. Everyone has a purpose, everyone is willing to help. It’s a paradise compared to that hell-hole they call New Freedom! And you can take your Cossack-nation while you’re at it and shove it as far as I’m concerned! Sure, any Nation powered by uniformity will work and the New Deutsches proved that in Paris six years ago when they returned to the World Trade Zone. But we’ve gone one crucial step further. We, the citizens of Toronto Nation, the last Canadians, hold the seeds of our own destiny. We possess the only store of frozen human Embryos in the world today and this ensures our preservation for centuries of tomorrows!

Controlled population growth means carefully balancing our Crematoria and the Stages of Life Program. Nowhere, ladies and gentlemen, will you find another Nation living and thriving in such a remarkable and workable a situation as this. Twentieth Century be damned, we said, and we were right!   

Toronto Nation is a Nation of Malls, powered by the only functioning nuclear reactor in the entire world, a testament to the ingenuity of our six scientists and, may I remind you, provides unimpeachable proof of our humane treatment of them despite their monstrous crimes against humanity.  

When Mayor Dickie—may he rest in peace!—created the Grief Team after leading us into the Malls, he helped us achieve what no other Nation has ever achieved in the history of planet Earth—logical control over our own destinies.  Collectively, we know what is best for us and what’s best for us is the Grief Team! Other Nations? I say, fuck them!

It’s a good feeling, isn’t it? To know that you’ll go shopping in the Mall in safety tonight, to know that you’re raising, or that one day you’ll be able to raise, a citizen of your own. And that citizen, that child, every step of the way it’s going to be a beautiful child, a wonderful child, a child who understands you because you are its Parents and you are prepared. You know what to say and do. You know how to react and how to honour the child. It took years of hard work to perfect these responsibilities and now we are reaping the benefits. In all areas, aspects, thoughts, and desires, we are satisfied and satiated; drug-free and sex-crazy; a free people!

Stability!

Happiness! 

Great shopping! 

Even that fucking cow too, I suppose. There! I’ve said it! 

I like the Malls! We all like the Malls!

I’ll be back at eleven with World Trading Zone results...meanwhile, remember me, I’m Antioch Wilson-Wilson.

Roy Glyn was nervous. He was Outside!

O-U-T-S-I-D-E!

For the first time in eight years, Roy was getting a sharp taste of total recall, a taste of exactly what the Grief Team had ‘rescued’ him from when he was only four, one of a dozen little WK’s, who had strayed into a sweep by Bluebands. Now here he was again, cold, hungry, and crouched in the lee of an abandoned car, one of hundreds if not thousands that cluttered the road surface along the Lakeshore outside SkyDome. His eyes scanned the piles of rubble and burned ruins that stretched for miles in all directions. SkyDome loomed like a massive carbunkle, its guana-laden, purple-and-black motorized moonroof halted for eternity in a nine-tenths-closed position.

To the north-east, up alongside the mighty trench which the sections of the fallen Tower had created, Roy could see a thin ribbon of dark smoke curling up into the sky. Long forgotten knowledge began to flow back into his brain. It was a small fire but the smoke was easily seen by sharp eyes that knew what to look for. Whoever was tending it was burning wood coated in chemicals, had probably just picked the stuff up right off the ground. Kids who knew better got their firewood from inside buildings; that way you didn’t get sick and die if you breathed the smoke.

Roy was sitting in the shadows, not the sunshine, but he knew he could be easily seen by a Grief Team vidkam on a pole not thirty yards away, just beyond the rusting metallic pastiche which marked the end of the age of the automobile. There was a strong breeze off the lake and, despite the fact that Ferria d’Mont had produced a beautiful antique black leather bomber jacket along with new trousers, shirt, socks, and a fine pair of running shoes, Roy was cooler than he wanted to be. September presaged the coming of the winter rains and, more ominously, black snow. Still, he had no plans to be Outside when that came.

He was doing his best to remember what it had been like when he was a little Kid on the streets in Cabbagetown, but his memories were locked inside his nightmares and he didn’t want them around right now. Much better to think about what Ferria had told him he must do.  She had discussed it with him all day yesterday, making sure he understood. 

Roy understood all right. He had to find Mutt the Wildkid, who had escaped from Skydome’s Holding Pens, the Kid whom the Grief Team had declared dead but, as Ferria had assured him, was decidedly not. Roy knew the story, of course, for it circulated like a powerful, wonderful smell among the hundreds of WK’s in the Dome only a few months before, causing a great deal of unrest. Unrest that Roy had avoided, chiefly because he didn’t like violence and didn’t like getting in trouble.

As much as he hated the punishments, SkyDome was his home because there was no other home. He was possessed by this understanding, much as a beaten dog returns to its master time and again. Malleable in many ways, Roy’s cowardice at heart was his own fault. Having faced Arnie the Headman’s axe less than 48 hours before, Roy was now desperately wedded to Ferria d’Mont’s control, so much so that he was getting an erection every time he thought about her. The all-seeing vidkam however was a wholly-effective, prevention against acting on impulse.                 

Instead he stood, facing the freshening breeze off the lake, stretching his legs; his close-shorn blond hair stiff and unyielding. He knew nothing about radiation counts, black rain, or ‘chem-res,’ but he did know that the air he was breathing had a taste to it, like ashes.  There was better air inside SkyDome, another reason why being Outside again was not a thrill. Roy had seen a lot of older Kids, practically every one, with bad radburns; some with massive purple growths attached to their necks, but he didn’t know what caused it. Some said it was the sun, but why did Kids-in-the-Dome, who hadn’t been Outside for a long time, still break out in the black growths? Roy didn’t understand but the indisputable fact that he was once again under a full blue sky with a hot red sun over his head produced a heady, giddy feeling, which lingered for some time. As he waited for Mutt the Wildkid, Roy eased the pressure downstairs with a hard squeeze and tried to think about something else.

Video games: great to watch, even better to play, for hours and hours every day when the WildKids’ behaviour was deemed acceptable and there was a green light on Jumbotron in the Dome. There were bad days too, brutal occasions when after some infraction of the rules a Yellowband tripped a remote switch and the light on Jumbotron switched to red.  Almost immediately screams erupted out of the bruised and bloody mouths of WK’s arbitrarily beaten, shocked, or assaulted.  Yellowbands, especially those who particularly enjoyed their work, often signalled for a red light even in the absence of any actual transgression.

Roy had seen and suffered more than his share of senseless cruelty; he had several hiding places where he would cower as Yellowbands beat and shocked their way through the holding pens with zipsticks until the cries of pain echoed off the roof. Roy had felt the zipstick’s bite on several unlucky occasions when he’d been too slow to get out of the way, hobbling for days afterward because of the searing burns across his calves.  

The red light, according to the rules, always switched back to green after five minutes. Too much damage to the product was not good for business. Shortly thereafter, a pleasant face known to every WildKid, one which appeared six storeys high in their nightmares, flashed onto the Jumbotron. The face they knew as ‘Father’ appeared, his gentle voice calming them, explaining that everyone suffers when one of us suffers. And who will not suffer gladly for the safety of us all?

Roy hated Father, hated him more than anything but, like all of the other WK’s, he found himself turning his eyes toward the Jumbotron, listening to that honeyed voice. He looked into Father’s eyes, big and blue as swimming pools but which, when enraged, filled with blood. He listened and looked and hoped and wished that he could do something, anything for Father. Hate curdled with undying love and throbbed in the heart of every Kid though none of them knew why or could explain their reaction. Even here-and-now, outside SkyDome’s implacable, menacing presence, Roy felt the pull of Father’s love and felt his heart skip a beat.                     

“Where is fuknMutt?”  Spoken aloud, Roy had addressed his question to the sky. The little red-haired WildKid had to be around somewhere. Much of what Ferria had explained to Roy about the itinerant, feral bastard was based on Mutt’s movements over the last week. The replacement of the broken vidkam—currently transmitting Roy’s image onto the screen of Ferria’s notebook-viewer, hooked into the Mayor’s private closed-circuit feed into the E.C.—had been surreptitiously achieved only twenty-four hours before, with one significant adjustment: the replacement vidkam had been housed inside the shattered case of the one which Mutt the WildKid had destroyed. To Mutt’s eye, it looked broken but indeed the Eye was 20/20.   

Everything Mutt had said or done had been recorded, including his inaccurate determination that the vidkam was still non-operational.  Yellowbands had watched from their sub-communications office in the E.C. as Mutt was distracted by the appearance of two other Wildkids. That, and other information concerning Mutt’s ways and means, had been quickly transferred by a grateful (very grateful) producer at TV to Ferria d’Mont’s private channel in the Stream. The live feed from the vidkams was going over a coded channel directly into Elias’ office upstairs. Ferria had been assured by the producer that no-one, even the Director of the Grief Team, was capable of interception. It was a lie, of course, but Ferria didn’t know that. Her activities, now clearly a misappropriation of power, probably wouldn’t provoke her to give a shit all the same, he thought, and so the producer amused himself for hours by counting the freckles on Mutt the WildKid’s face as the feral child went through his daily ritual of heaving concrete projectiles at anything he fancied.

Mutt was overdue and that meant Roy had more thinking time while he waited. It seemed that his reincarnation following Countdown to Horror had been a non-stop whirlwind of events. The bright, hot lights dazzling his eyes, the terrifying gleam along the blade of Arnie the Headsman’s axe, the noisy contestants and the roar of applause, the slow but steady realization that he was a prize on one of the most popular shows on TV... 

...the fast-talking man presently tweaking his red nose was none other than Countdown to Horror’s popular host, Scottie Campbell.  Within seconds, buzzers had sounded and one of the contestants had set the giant wheel in motion. As it spun, Arnie the Headsman could be seen sharpening his axe as he grinned. The marker landed on “Spin Again” and the celebrity panelist told a funny joke about penises. 

Roy stood, hot and confused, beside three other Kids—two achingly-thin girls: one dressed in a nun’s habit, the other practically swallowed by a judge’s powdered wig; and an older, radburned boy with heavy, glazed eyes wearing a scarlet uniform with an odd-looking hat, white gloves, and brown leather boots which reached up to his hips. The effect, as Scottie Campbell had already remarked to much applause, was quite comical. The wheel spun again amid much hilarity from the contestants and Roy’s brain practically melted when the marker landed on ‘Clown,’ but with a last touch of momentum stuttered over one more notch into ‘Mountie’. Roy glanced at the costumed boy and saw that his body was shaking. 

Scottie Campbell asked a question, received an incorrect, inept answer from Contestant #1, and set off the bells and buzzers that announced a forfeit. A loud bray from a celebrity panelist drowned everything else as he told a funny joke about a Rhonda-Mull. Roy became aware that the ‘Mountie’ was being led across the stage by Scottie Campbell toward a grinning giant with a huge axe.    

He knew what was going to happen. He’d seen it hundreds of times on the Jumbotron because Father  made you watch it. Roy and his fellow costumed participants were the forfeits. He watched in helpless fascination as Scottie Campbell, in his inimitable trademark styling, loudly called, Does anybody want this Kid?  As usual, no one did and then the brief silence was broken by Arnie’s singing blade. It was the moment that sponsors paid enormous money for and there was a collective cheer in all the Malls when everyone got what they paid for.               

Roy’s stomach heaved and brought up a thin, acidic drool as he watched the Mountie’s blood spilling onto the studio floor. In the bright lights he could see oxygenated bubbles bursting on the surface of the red pool. He was numb for minutes, barely aware of the next spin of the wheel until he too was taken by the hand and brought forward to the centre of the studio where he stared dumbly into Arnie the Headsman’s wild eyes, allowing his executioner to bend his submissive head onto the red, sticky block.  He remembered the ringing in his ears as Scottie asked, Does anybody want this Kid?

Someone did.

And now here he was…

Not dead, but Outside.

Alive…breathing ashes…waiting for Mutt.