Generation A (10 page)

Serge said, “By the way, you won’t want to go back to Paris. You’re only one of five known bee stings.”

“Where were the others?”

“Zack in the U.S., Samantha in New Zealand . . . and then there was one in Northern Ontario, in Canada, and one in Sri Lanka. That’s it. And so you’re a bit of a rock star. You’d best lie low for a while.”

Céline added, “Bigger than Johnny Hallyday.”

“I’m so sick of that guy’s voice.”

Serge said, “Your grandmother lives in Geneva. You should go stay with her. The Swiss will make less of a big deal about you. And your father’s there all month.”

“When do I leave?”

DIANA

A few years ago, one of the girls, Elaine, was late for a meeting to discuss the Christmas pageant. There were twelve of us at the church wanting to get on with things, so I joked, “Isn’t it funny that the Rapture has finally occurred and the only one who got taken away was Elaine?” Talk about the dog farting. Zero sense of humour, those people.

You make my nipples dry-barf, you infected whores.

Oops.

I mention this because when I was placed in Level-4 bio-isolation, I felt like I was the one who’d been taken away and at the same time like the one left behind. Explain
that
. My neutral chamber was roomy, but the boredom, oh God.

One thing I did in my head for much of my time there was compose online singles ads. I think the voice of Courteney Cox Arquette would have told me to stop if she’d known I was doing this, but I had to do
something
to melt away the hours.

Ad one:

“I am God’s stalker. I know where He is, and He is not safe from me. Once I find Him, I’m going to tie him up and make him a home-cooked meal and force Him to sit and eat with me and appreciate the amount of work I’ve gone to on his behalf. Non-smoker preferred.”

Ad two:

“Hi. I’m always sad—should I be trying to conceal this from a potential mate? Also, I hate exercise. The astronaut Neil Armstrong once said, ‘God gave us a finite number of heartbeats, and I’m not about to waste mine running down some street.’ I love animals, but not those dogs that have
Star Trek
Ferengi foreheads.”

Ad three:

“Hello, potential mate. At the moment I’m a prisoner in a Level-4 disease containment facility, where I’m fed strange cubes of food and denied any form of culture or media for reasons of which I’m still unclear. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’d prefer someone who doesn’t have two freezers filled with venison and game that’s never going to be eaten. That’s just scary.”

Foul-mouthed ex–church lady here. I want to make you a bet. I bet I can make you think differently about your own head if you read just this one paragraph. Are you with me? Here’s what you do: rub behind your ears and then smell your finger—chances are you won’t like the result. Now I want you to take your index finger and massage the gums surrounding your top front teeth, squeezing out some of the guck trapped between your teeth and gums. Now rub your fingers lightly together and smell. Pee-
yoo
. The essence of halitosis.

How do I know this? Aside from being a foul-mouthed ex–church lady, I’m also a dental hygienist. I know, I know—why would a person
choose
to be a dental hygienist? Let me tell you, it’s not like I was at a career counsellor’s office one day, poring through the pages of
Career Magazine
, saw an ad for dental hygienists and said, “Stop!
That’s
the job for
me
.” No, it’s one of those jobs people fall into: perhaps you’re interested in teeth but don’t want to commit a huge chunk of your life to getting a DDM. Or maybe you just want something to do until you have kids and drop out of the labour market. Or, like me, you just got kind of lazy and had parents on your back telling you to move on with your life and . . . one day you wake up and discover you’ve become a dental hygienist.

Because I have Tourette’s, I make an awesome hygienist. Nobody gets away with anything on my beat.
Have you been flossing regularly? Don’t say you have been, because I can tell you haven’t—so tell me why you’re not following my orders. By the way, your breath stinks, either because you don’t brush or because you’re doing a terrible job of it.
Once I show people the guck-beneaththe-gums trick, they almost always begin to brush properly.

I spent my first few hours out of isolation in a Winnipeg coffee shop, waiting out a snowstorm for my contact person, named Denny, to pick me up. I was kind of insulted that I was being treated as if I were a duffle bag filled with low-grade pot; I miss the days when governments had money. Denny was apparently snowbound on the other side of town, and so there I was, shunted into a coffee shop, its floor covered in icy grey boot sludge. The age of the clientele appeared to average between seventy and seventy-five. My first five donuts tasted heavenly; the sixth one made me feel like a pig.

The only reading available was religious tracts somebody had left atop the trash can, but honestly, I was so happy to be reading something, anything, that I even read the 4-point Helvetica Light ingredients list on an empty cruller box a previous diner had kindly left on my table. The tracts were a curious blend of Olde Tyme religion, Mormonism and personal hygiene—sort of like me, minus the Mormon part. I read:

J
OSEPH
S
MITH

Born 1805, Sharon, Vermont

Died 1844, Carthage, Illinois

What did I want my own tombstone to read?

D
IANA
B
EATON

Born 1990, Kapuskasing, Ontario

Died 2077, Becquerel Crater, Mars

I am a child of science fiction. What can I say?

My cellphone rang. It was my would-be escort, who’d now encountered a freshly generated snowbank at a Portage Street intersection and would be an hour longer.
Fucking cunt.

I walked over to the trash can, saw the business section of the
Winnipeg Free Press
and lunged for it. I had sat down and begun to read about new developments in solar fuel cells when I had a “blink” moment and looked up. Everyone in the restaurant was staring at me. I’d never felt so under the microscope in my life. I broke the silence: “What the fucking fuck are you looking at?”
Awkward!
“I’m just waiting for someone. Relax, yes, it’s me.”

Afterwards, a few people came up to me and lamely asked for an autograph, and the penny dropped that this was going to be the rest of my life.

Fortunately, a guy named Rick saw what was going on and asked if I needed a ride somewhere. I gladly accepted a lift to the airport; screw the useless Denny. I had my Visa card and money in the bank. If the airport gods were rooting for me, I could be back in my own house by dinnertime.

Well, I must say that the good thing about being in wintry places like Manitoba and Northern Ontario is that airports treat snowstorms like summer breezes. Rick bought me a head scarf and some horn-rimmed reading glasses. People yammer on about how hard it is to fly, but not in this part of the world: uranium and nickel discoveries keep the octane flowing. I checked in electronically and, with one hub in Sudbury, I was soon landing in North Bay. I called a cab and headed for home—only to find that home was now a pile of planks and beams and plywood sheets in stacks, the only vertical item being my chimney.

The cab driver was pressing me to either get out or go somewhere else. I told him to fuck off, and when I stepped out of the car for a closer look at what was once my house, he drove away. There I was, the sun about to set, the weather chilly, with no idea of where to go next. I heard Kayla barking from the house across the street. I’d very much been hoping that the Humane Society had taken the dog away from the evil bastard Mitch.

At this point, I was feeling sorry for myself. My parents were in Nova Scotia, and I didn’t feel like going there particularly.
Shit, I hadn’t even phoned them yet.
Well, it goes to show how family-oriented I am. I realized I could go to the dental clinic and crash there while figuring out what came next. At the dental office, I typed my password into the keypad—it still worked—and was reassured by the office’s familiar minty-antiseptic odour. I phoned my parents in Nova Scotia, but their number was no longer in service. Okay.

I wondered where I was going to sleep. Certainly not on the waiting-room sofas, which would be crawling with people’s ass molecules. I sat at Patty the receptionist’s desk and ordered a pizza. Beside some files I saw a stack of bright yellow boxes of Solon. What was Patty doing with Solon? I thought only people who were rotting in jail or trapped in factory jobs took the stuff. I read the box:

PRODUCT INFORMATION

SOLON CR®

(Dihydride Spliceosomic Protein snRNP-171)

Sustained-Release

Chronosuppressant Tablets

DESCRIPTION: SOLON is a protein with chronosuppressive features. It is a synthetic spliceosomic protein, a complex of specialized RNA and protein subunits that removes introns from a transcribed pre-mRNA (hnRNA) segment.

SOLON’s interaction with brain receptors mimics that of the diaminoketone class.

SOLON powder is pale yellow, crystalline and soluble in water and oils, and is resistant to damage by heat, cold or UV light.

Introducing SOLON CR

SOLON CR is indicated for the short-term treatment of psychological unease grounded in obsession with thinking about the near and distant future. By severing the link between the present moment and a patient’s perceived future state, researchers have found a pronounced and significant drop in all forms of anxiety. As well, researchers have found that disengagement with “the future” has allowed many patients complaining of persistent loneliness to live active and productive single lives with no fear or anxiety.

The makers of SOLON® (dihydride spliceosomic protein snRNP-171) have been helping millions of people cope with stress in a natural and relaxed manner. Our dedication continues today with SOLON CR, a controlled-release prescription chronosuppressant medication that comes in two layers. The first layer dissolves quickly, to help with short-term anxiety and time-based psychological issues. Then the second layer dissolves slowly, to help you stay calm and coping. If you think you are experiencing chronosuppressive illness, talk with your doctor and discuss whether SOLON CR is right for you.

Important Safety Information

SOLON CR is a treatment option you and your health-care provider can consider along with lifestyle changes. It can be taken for as long as your provider recommends. Until you know how SOLON CR will affect you, you shouldn’t drive or operate machinery or make major life decisions under the influence of the drug. Be sure you’re able to devote 7 to 8 days to sleep before becoming fully re-engaged with society. Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with amnesia for the event, have been reported. If you experience any of these behaviours, contact your provider immediately.

In rare cases, chronosuppressive medicines may cause allergic reactions such as swelling of tongue or throat, shortness of breath or more severe results. If you have an allergic reaction while using SOLON CR, contact your doctor immediately. SOLON CR is non-narcotic; however, like most sleep medicines, it has some risk of dependency. Don’t take it with alcohol.

SOLON tablets are supplied for oral administration as 100-mg (goldenrod), 150-mg (canary) and 200-mg (sage) film-coated, sustained-release tablets. Each tablet contains the labelled amount of dihydride spliceosomic protein snRNP-171 and the inactive ingredients carnauba wax, cysteine hydrochloride, carboxymethylcellulose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethylene glycol and polysorbate 60, and is printed with edible red ink. In addition, the 100-mg tablet contains FD&C Blue No. 1 Lake, the 150-mg tablet contains FD&C Blue No. 2 Lake and FD&C Red No. 40 Lake, and the 200-mg tablet contains FD&C Red No. 40 Lake.

I opened one of the packets and took a sniff—this proved to be a dumb move.

HARJ

My time in the neutral chamber was like The Night of a Thousand Craigs—relentless Craig-ish questions:

Do you feel free inside your head?

If I told you to repaint the inside of your head, what colour would you choose?

I just stole all of your childhood memories. Does that offend you?

In the end, we didn’t make it to Maryland. The impromptu mid-summer blizzard forced us to go to a different Centers for Disease Control facility, beneath a city called Research Triangle Park, in North Carolina.

I am an adjustable fellow, so I forced myself to make my peace with visiting Research Triangle Park. But what sort of place could this be? My neutral chamber’s control voice, Morgan Freeman, told me in rich, God-like tones that “RTP is the largest research park in the world. It’s located in a triangle defined by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, and it’s often compared to Silicon Valley.”

“Really?”

“Yes,
really
. It was created in 1959 and covers 7,000 acres and hosts over 160 R&D facilities.”

Imagine the voice of God coming through a speaker system of such good quality that you might find it in the Mercedes showroom in Trincomalee—a voice rich, forgiving and blunder-proof. I said, “Surely RTP must be home to some of the largest R&D facilities in the world,” and Morgan Freeman boomed back, “Yes—including those of IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Ericsson, Monsanto, Sumitomo, Krater and Wyeth.”

“Excuse my inquisitiveness,” I said, “but why is there a North Carolina and a South Carolina?”

“How do you mean?”

“Are North Carolina and South Carolina so incredibly different that they merit North/South designations? It seems California might readily be divided into two or more states. But Carolina? What happened? Was there a civil war?”

Morgan Freeman said, “Carolina was a land grant by King Charles the First to a subject, Robert Heath, one of his court favourites. It is said that King George the First liked Carolina so much that he bought it back in 1721 and then, nine years later, split it into two colonies—North Carolina and South Carolina.”

I said, “And for that reason alone they are individual states? I think Texas ought to be cleaved into several states. Texas is far too large.”

“Perhaps.”

“And why are there two Dakotas? Why was your country’s map-making and state building left to cartographers of such feeble vision? Could you not have at least named North Dakota something more dramatic, like Avalon or . . . Heathcliff ? And what about South Dakota? What is its true sense of identity?”

“Why does this concern you?”

“I am just a poor man from a poor country, with no family or friends, but America is the home of my employer, the Abercrombie & Fitch Corporation of New Albany, Ohio.”

“It is time for a nap, Harj.”

“My name here in your land is Apu . . .” Too late. I was sprayed with narcotizing mist and passed out, again, still angry that Morgan Freeman refused to call me by my new name. I always had the subtle impression that there was a group of people outside my room, laughing at me. It reminded me of when I was a child, when an electric eel attached itself to my right calf while I was swimming in Arugam Bay. My father and brother, in unison, yanked the eel from my flesh while I yelped in pain. Much laughter was had by my family, and a local policeman amused us all by Tasering the lamprey to death.

My family. I have not talked about them. Unlike most of my fellow Sri Lankans, I do not believe in ghosts, and I don’t think the dead stay with us. I think they are simply gone. If they should somehow exist somewhere, they’re sitting in bleacher seats with pennants and megaphones, saying, “For God’s sake, forget about us! Move onward! We’re all dead, but you’re alive!”

My family’s bodies were never found, but I like to think they ended up beneath some coconuts or a banyan that used them as rich, nourishing food and a means of growing strong roots. Or maybe they just ended up as fish food or mud. I find myself not minding when I consider this. I asked Morgan Freeman about American burial practices. He would only tell me so much. I would also ask him questions about the hundreds of questions he was asking
me
.

Morgan, why are you always trying to get me angry?

I am not trying to make you angry. Anger just happens to be your response to some of my questions.

Morgan, why do you always take blood samples at the end of our daily questioning?

I want to make sure you are in good health.

What does this have to do with me being stung?

Maybe nothing. That is what we are trying to find out.

I didn’t get some kind of disease, did I?

No.

Are those other people who got stung going through this right now, too?

Yes.

How many of us are there altogether?

Five.

Do we have anything in common?

We don’t know yet.

Do emotions create chemicals in the blood that might attract a bee to sting us?

I’m afraid I can’t answer that question.

So the answer is yes.

I wish it was that easy, Harj. We don’t know. Maybe.

Why am I not allowed to read anything or watch TV?

We don’t want your emotions to be contaminated by any outside source.

What about you? You’re an outside source.

I am a composite personality generated by a computer system that, at this moment, has seventeen technicians working on it. I am within the confines of neutrality established at the University of Illinois, Urbana 2007 Conference on Interrogation Safety Boundary Polarity.

Are you sentient? Do you have a personality?

I can express only as much personality as is supplied by the technicians working with me. As of this year, I require a minimum of ten scientists working in parallel to generate what you call a personality.

So you’re not planning to take over the world?

No.

Have you ever thought about it?

Power is for the living. I am a tool.

When do I get out of here?

Soon.

Soon
turned out to be about three weeks later. I woke up one morning and was told by Morgan Freeman that my time in neutrality was over. I was offered the chance to go back to Trincomalee or to go anywhere I wanted in the U.S. I would be supplied with a six-month visa and ten thousand dollars. Given the general difficulty in flying these days, I didn’t want to lose my one chance to see the U.S., other than from a helicopter or encumbered by a plastic bag. It was tempting to visit New England—Maine!—and perhaps see an aging sea captain eating breaded fish sticks with a pack of golden Labrador dogs, but my practical side surfaced. If I was going to stay for six months, I would need work to do—and so I asked to be dropped off in New Albany, Ohio, home of the Abercrombie & Fitch Corporation. This was apparently no problem. On waking up, I found a visa on my bedside table. I looked at it:
HARJ IRUMPIRAI VETHARANAYAN
. I looked in the mirror and wondered if I could pass as Mexican. Not really. I wondered if I looked like a terrorist. Not really. Holding my visa was odd: I’d never had “papers” before. I felt so real and so official, but, then, isn’t that how a dog feels when it gets a new collar? A mixed blessing.

My triple glass doors opened in unison. Morgan told me to go to the elevator and push the UP button. I did. I heard a
ding
, the door opened, and I entered.

Six hours later I stood on the cold, windy arrivals curb of the Columbus, Ohio, airport. I don’t think I have ever felt so lonely, not even after my family vanished. I did not realize I would so very much miss the voice of Morgan Freeman booming from nowhere and making all of my decisions for me. I was alone on a long slab of empty, silent concrete.
So, this is the land that supplies the rest of the world with Craigs.

I must say, being alone beneath a big grey sky certainly didn’t make me feel free or at one with the world—I have never understood what these Craigs mean about feeling “at one.” Maybe they just need jobs. Perhaps all of the antibiotics they took as children damaged the portion of their brains that dictates the sensation of at-oneness.

The day was cold and clear, but I was not totally freezing. The military transport plane had contained a jumbled lost and found section at the back. I rummaged through it and found a bright blue parka and two good thick sweaters. Seeing the sweaters was strange for me, because I knew the garments in ridiculous detail and yet I’d never seen one in real life. The first sweater I would describe as wasabi-coloured lambswool tweed. A half-zipper with lime trim probably added three to four dollars to the garment’s cost. The second sweater was an oyster-tint Italian cashmere button-front cardigan popular in 2008.

I was wearing both of my new sweaters beneath my parka. The wind was making a gull-like skreeing sound. Where was I to go from here? There were no taxis. I had no car. If only Morgan Freeman’s voice would boom down from the hazy sky, I could feel I was in a land chosen by God. I became angry with myself for having decided to see America instead of returning to Sri Lanka, where, if nothing else, I knew some people and they knew me.

I pulled myself out of this mood and went back into the airport, where I was given suspicious looks by an older janitor fellow washing the floors. I had the impression that he and I were the only people in the building.

“Excuse me, sir, but could you please tell me how I might call a taxi?”

“Taxi—where do you think we are—Manhattan?”

“Columbus, Ohio, is a large metropolis. Surely there must be some taxicabs here.”

“With the gas surcharges lately, I doubt it. Where are you going?”

“The world headquarters of the Abercrombie & Fitch Corporation.”

“Hmm. They’ll get a kick out of your outfit.”

Was this gentleman mocking me?

He said, “I’m off in half an hour. I’ll drop you there.”

“Thank you, thank you, kind sir.”

The Internet tells me that New Albany, Ohio, is a village in two counties, Franklin and Licking, a little bit northeast of the state capital of Columbus. It has a population of 18,741 and is 95% white, 1.5% African-American, 0.3% Native American, 3% Asian, 0.2% other races. You can see why someone like me might feel out of place in New Albany. As a mud-coloured person, I decided that my only way to remain unmolested or unjailed was to maintain a comical, nonthreatening “Apu” personality at all times. I do not think of this as a compromise, because I think I am basically a lovable shop clerk by nature.

My new friend, Dan the janitor, drove me through an elegant sprawl of stately homes, unnamed mighty trees, lush golf courses and forests. So exotic—so exactly what I had dreamed of back in Sri Lanka.

As we neared “Fitch Path,” my heart faltered: what if the fabulous world headquarters of Abercrombie & Fitch did not live up to expectations? Dan offered an editorial opinion: “Pretty fucking green place they have here, Apu.”

I said, “Yes. The company sought to create a campus-like community seemingly distant from the outside world. All utilities, parking and traffic lanes are blended into existing natural surroundings to create a gracious work environment.”

“You don’t say? Whoops—here’s the main entrance—here’s where you get off.”

“Many, many thank-yous. I shall remember this act of generosity always.”

Dan sped away as my hand reached for the front door’s bronze handle. I entered the lobby, and what I found there shocked me: a canoe hung from the ceiling and beneath it a reception desk at which sat two radiant American youths with perfect teeth and torn jeans. The names on their ID tags? Craig and Craig.

They were friendly and polite. When I told them my name was Apu, they smiled and said, “No way!” I said, “Yes, indeed way,” and they said words along the lines of “Dude, that is so incredibly epic!” One of them buzzed a friend, saying, “Dude, you just have to come out here!”

Another Craig came out immediately, his specific name being Dylan, and he asked, “Seriously, your name is really Apu?”

“I joke you not.”

“Wow.”

Then the three of them leaned against the front desk with casual American elegance and asked what I was up to.

I said, “I have been working in a company call centre in Sri Lanka for many years now, and it has always been my dream to visit the headquarters of our esteemed company.”

The first Craig said, “Seriously? I mean, it’s nice here, dude, but it’s not a destination.”

The second Craig asked me what it was like to work in a call centre.

“In Sri Lanka,” I said, “I enjoyed providing a completely customer-centric operation by consistently enhancing customer service as I tried to gain a better understanding of our customers’ shopping patterns and preferences across Abercrombie & Fitch’s multiple shopping channels. I think that, in the end, it is important to always increase overall brand loyalty.”