JPod (11 page)

"That awful,
awful dog"
Using her good leg, Mom gave Gumdrop a kick, too. Lyle opened the door. He said, "Carol, what the fuck did you do to my dog?"

Mom looked up with an about-to-go-ape shit goggle-eyed stare that I had only ever seen once before, when Greg and I were horsing around the living room and broke her porcelain figurine of Shakespeare knocking on the door of Anne Hathaway's cottage. "Give me my fucking money, you ugly piece of trash."

Mom swore for real!

'You crazy bitch, you shot my dog!"

' You dirty little man. Gumdrop punctured my shin bone, and
you
owe Carol Jarlewski fifty grand. Give it to me now."

"Fuck off and die."

I said, "No
you
fuck off and die. Pay up!" Mom fired a shot into the wood floor a whisker away from Lyle's foot. He backed right up.

"Jesus, you're both totally fucking nuts."

Mom and I stormed the house. It reminded me a bit of our grade-three class's gerbil environment—a tossed salad of biker mag porn foldouts, old
TV Guides
and KFC debris drizzled with cat pee. Across the room, Lyle's toasted biker buddy was playing Chrono Trigger on Sony PlayStation, and this is truly shameful of me to report, but I really wanted to go over and join in.

Lyle said, "Andy, Carol's out of her fucking tree."

Mom shouted, 'You've made my day unpleasant enough already, Lyle. Give me my money or I'll shoot your foot."

"No."

Mom shot the tip of Lyle's worn black cowboy boot, and he screamed like a girl.

"Lyle, give me my money."

Lyle was keeled over. "Andy, get her the fucking money." He looked at me. 'Your family is one sick mess, dude."

Mom fired a warning shot at the ceiling, and a small cauliflower of plaster dust floated downward.

Andy reached into an Ikea Billy bookcase full of sun-faded VHS tapes and removed an Adidas box full of thousand-dollar bundles as Lyle removed his cowboy boot, cursing. Andy counted out fifty of them. "Here. Fifty grand.
Now go."

Mom became sugar sweet. "Thanks, guys. All you had to do was be nice."

"Meddlesome hag."

Mom shot the ceiling once more and we left.

Out in the car, we did a further inspection of Mom's shin. "I think I'll go to Dr. Tuck and get some stitches."

A few minutes later I said, "Isn't it weird that bikers would have Ikea furniture?"

"Don't talk to me about Ikea furniture. Your father tried assembling an Ikea shelf last year, and it nearly ended our marriage. Look—it's a yard sale over there. Let's stop for a minute."

Intel® 865PE Chipset-Based

Manufacturer:
Williams

Year:
1980

Class:
Wide Release

Genre:
Shooter

Type:
Videogame

Conversion Class:
Williams

Number of Simultaneous Players: 1

Maximum Number of Players: 2

Gameplay:
Alternating

Control Panel Layout:
Single Player

Controls:
Joystick: 2-way (up, down) Buttons: 5

Sound:
Amplified Mono (One Channel)

When I got back to the pod around three, a FedEx box sat on my desk—Kaitlin's Belgian keypad of the corn. She was away from the pod, so I swapped it with hers. Bree said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, Ethan, but I think you and Miss Thing are sort of sweet on each other."

"She's talked about me?"

"Not directly. But when she makes her exasperated snorts, they're always aimed more at you than the rest of us."

"You think?"

"I
know."

Cowboy's phone rang and nobody picked it up. I asked, "Where is everybody?"

"Everybody's so bummed out by this charismatic turde character that they all fled," said Bree, adding, "You know, Ethan, I have an idea how you can torment Kaitlin a bit."

"Really?"

Bree told me her idea—it was genius.

When Kaitlin came back a half-hour later, we were set to put it into operation. I was to pretend I was doing a crossword puzzle and ask Bree for words: "Five-letter word,
UK lineup."

"Queue."

"That was easy. Okay—four letters,
a festive rum drink, blank-Libre."

"Cuba."

"Okay, wait, here's a hard one:
Mary Tyler-blank."

"Say that again?"

"Mary Tyler-blank.
Five letters."

"Is she a politician or something?"

"I don't know. It sounds familiar."

"Mary-Tyler . . .
Smith?"

"Maybe she's that old lady they put on the US dollar coin in the 1970s that everybody hated."

"That was Susan B. Anthony."

"Oh.
Mary Tyler-blank"

"Tyler-blank."

"
Tyler-blank-blank-blank . . ."

Kaitlin lost it. "Moore! Mary Fucking Tyler Moore," she yelled.

"Let me see—that fits perfectly. Thanks, Kaitlin."

An exasperated grunt.

"Next word, seven letters:
Supercalifragilisticexpiali-blank."

"Again?"

"Supercalifragilisticexpiali-blank."

"Allocation?"

"Come on, Bree,
try
here."

"I am. What was the first part, again?"

"Supercalifragilisticexpiali."

"Then
blank}"

"Supercalifragilisticexpiali-blank."

"Hmmm . . ."

"Docious,
you morons!" screamed Kaitlin. "Supercalifragi-listicexpiali
docious
. It's from
Mary Poppins."

"Hang on a second, Kaitlin—wait—D-O-C-I-O-U-S. It fits. Thanks." This was fun. I was all set to go onto the next fake clue
{Viva-blank-Vegas)
when I heard a sniffle from Kaitlin's side of the cubicle. I gophered up—she was crying. "Oh man, I'm sorry, Kaitlin. We were just funning you."

"I'm not in a mood to be funned."

I came around to her desk and leaned on it. Bree came over, too. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'm hungry. I'm so
hungry."

"Then just eat."

"It's not that easy."

I said, "There's penne pesto with free-range chicken on today's cafeteria menu."

"No."

Bree and I swapped maybe-we-went-too-far looks. Bree asked, "So what's going on here?"

"I can't tell you."

"Don't sweat it. No problem."

Bree wagged her head, implying,
Best we leave her alone for the time
being.

I agreed, but first I had to extract the Belgian keyboard. "Kaitlin, sorry, but I did something naughty to your keyboard. I swapped it for this freaky unit."

Kaitlin looked at it. "Cool. A Belgian keyboard."

'You recognize it?"

"My sister works for the EU in Antwerp."

"Oh."

"That's so sweet of you."

"I—"

"No. It's okay."

I went to my cubicle and got her old board. "Here's the real one. For when you want to switch."

"Thanks, Ethan."

I slunk away. Fortunately, Gord-O found me and was able to dump a massive steaming heap of tasks in my lap, relieving me of any time in which to experience remorse. I was considering this steaming pile of tasks when I saw John Doe in the cafeteria, playing Sim City on a wireless. Reprieve! I was able to pre-empt Gord-O's work request with the promise of time well wasted.

"Sim City? That's pretty vanilla, John."

"Is it wrong to play a game that's a proven hit? I only play best-selling games, and never allow myself to become too good, lest I deviate from the norm."

"Okay." I looked at his screen. "Uh . . . John, you're building a city out of body parts." On screen, random body parts glistened alongside traditional buildings. Tunnels passed through feet. Eyeballs formed oil storage tanks.

"Well, yes. I had to tweak the code at least a little bit. The body part patch is floating around in the in-house system if you want to try it." John attached a donkey tail to a fifty-storey building shaped like a human leg from the foot to the knee. "In about fifty years, real-life genetic traits will be as modular as those you're witnessing on my screen. For now we can only dream. See that oil refinery right there? In a few minutes it's going to get a vagina. By the way, I googled Kaitlin, and you'd be surprised at what I found."

"You googled her?"

"Of course I did. Didn't you?"

I'd somehow forgotten to perform this essential task.

"Let's have a peek, shall we?"

A few clicks later, kaitlin anna boyd Joyce went into the Google request box. A predictable landslide of genealogical links filled the screen.

"Big deal."

'Yes, but what happens if I go back and enter her name again and click the I FEEL LUCKY button."

"Nobody ever clicks that button."

"Maybe they should start." The genealogical mulch came back, but there was a new hit at the top of the page.

"'Dark Stories from the Subway Diet'?"

John said, "Exactly."

He clicked the link, and we were transported to one of hundreds of Subway restaurant fan sites. In it, we saw BEFORE and AFTER photos of Kaitlin—one of her weighing 337 pounds, and the next as the Kaitlin of jPod, weighing at most 105. "Holy crap," I said.

"That's what I thought. Read on, bro."

The Third Rail

An Unofficial Fan Website for Those Who Enjoy tasty sandwiches from Subway!!!

07.23.05

THIS WEEK: What happens when "THE DIET" goes wrong?

TITLE: "To Kaitlin Boyd, it was just a few pieces of cake, but to Subway, it was a violation of a sacred trust."

THIS WEBSITE ASKS: Was Kaitlin really fired over one lapse with a cake? Surely not!!! A Subway corporate insider (who shall remain nameless!!!) told this reporter, "We're all human, and many of our weight-loss spokes heroes have committed transgressions, but with Ms. Boyd, cake was just the start. That same neighbour also caught Boyd dropping twenty bucks at Popeyes Chicken, and then frittering away an entire afternoon at a Baskin-Robbins. There comes a time when you really have to admit that a line has been drawn in the sand and the line has been crossed. We wish Ms. Boyd the best in her future end eavours."

Frequent visitors to this site know that the Subway Diet is a sacred pact between you and Subway. To honour this pact, I visited Kaitlin's former next-door neighbour in Sunnyvale, California. There, I spoke with expose creator, Norman Goddard, 31, a nurse. As he told me, "All my friends call me Stormin' Norman!!!" My Sony recorder was acting weird, but here is the general thrust of my conversation with Norman.

ME
: At what point did you realize that you had to take the law into your own hands and report Ms. Boyd to Subway HQ?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
That stuck-up scag wouldn't answer any of my phone calls, and I tried calling her every day for a year.

ME
: What happened then?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
I sent her a Hickory Farms smoked meat platter selection—one of those ironic gifts. I thought if I sent her flowers, it'd look like I was stalking her or something.

ME
: What happened next?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
She came over when I was at work and put the unopened platter on my front stoop. Then the neighbour's labradoodle got into it and then got sick and shat all over the concrete I'd just had power-washed.

ME
: That's really interesting. Go on.

STORMIN' NORMAN:
So I went to Michaels crafts store and got some big coloured cardboards and made some signs, which I taped to the side of my house that faces her place. I thought they were kind of nice.

ME
: What did they say?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
Let's see . . . One said, IT WAS JUST A GIFT WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE so COLD? Another said, i THINK ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME, IN A GOOD WAY

ME
: Nice enough.

STORMIN' NORMAN:
Totally. But did she respond to me? No. She went to the cops and tried to get a restraining order, which was so insulting, because all I was trying to do was be nice to a neighbour. And she changed her phone number and got all these locks on the doors.

ME
: Did she own the place?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
Rental.

ME:
What next?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
She put up tinfoil on all the windows that faced mine.

ME:
And then?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
She was having a backyard barbecue with all her geek co-workers, and so I came over with a tray of hamburger patties I spiced and formed all by myself—I even put Saran Wrap on them to keep dust and flies off the meat—and when I walked into her yard, all of these people formed a human chain around her, and she ran inside. Jeez, I mean, I was just trying to be neighborly.

ME
: Was there a fight?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
Nah. We all just yelled a bit. Got it out of our system. And then the cops showed up, so I thought to myself, Stormin' Norman, maybe it's time you ate a reality sandwich and faced the fact that Kaitlin doesn't like you. That's when I decided that if I couldn't have her, I'd make sure she noticed me in other ways.

ME
: Really?

STORMIN' NORMAN:
Oh yeah. I went to one of those spy shops and spent a fortune and began chronicling every moment of her life. Every single moment.

Unfortunately, website visitors, I lost the rest of the interview, but who says that investigative journalism is dead!!!???

Next week's investigation: What's the top-secret proportion of salt to pepper inside the salt-and-pepper can?