JPod (26 page)

Pornography

Cosmetic surgery

Internet browsing

TV

. . .

Whistle.

Ethan was awakened by the sound of a whistle.

Shrill whistle, shrill whistle . . .

Whistle! You awaken me withyour scornful shriek.

Why areyou so angry, little whistle?

Pain.

Carrying my black nylon Samsonite suitcase onto the bus, I was thrown a seed-riddled orange. A cautionary stare from Miss Yellow Flag told me,
So much as one complaint from you, buster, and you're off the
bus, whereupon you'll be promptly kidnapped and sold into buggery, and your
suitcase will end up on eBay. As for your clothing? I will steal it.

I tried to put a good face on it. We drove and drove for several hours, the view never changing from one eye opening to the next: everything grey, save for the greys, which were black. Then, out of nowhere, we pulled up to a factory that was belching out toluene, rubber tires, floor sweepings and styrene plastics. More whistles followed, and my fellow bus passengers were escorted into a low building the size of several high school gyms. I was escorted into an office area—my arrival caused no sensation whatsoever. In fact, I simply sat in a chair for an hour or so until an old guy, his face ravaged by six decades of yo-yoing ideologies, motioned for me to follow him. In sign language I mimed, "Should I leave my suitcase here?" He motioned a most definite "no."

I followed him into the factory's bowels, the fist-like stench of industrial solvents robbing my brain, dendrite by dendrite, of the ability to make Scrabble words longer than four letters. My eyes watered, but through the fog of tears I saw that the factory was making Nikes. Well, actually, not real Nikes—
-fake
Nikes. After a quarter-mile or so I found Steve.

"Steve!"

"Hi, Ethan." Steve was padlocked onto a mattress-sized cutting device that punched insoles out of large sheets of waffled polyfoam.

"What the hell are you doing here, Steve?"

"Making shoes. How are you, Ethan?"

"I'm shitty, thank you. How long have you been here?"

"Months."

Here Steve was, apparently clam happy, making fake Nikes on one of hell's more ghastly rungs.

"If you're wondering why I'm in such a good mood, it's because I just had my fix."

"What?"

"Heroin. It's great. Makes life feel good 24/7."

"Since when do you use heroin?"

"Kam got me addicted to it before he put me to work here on the Line."

"—!"

"Don't feel sorry for me. I like it here. And besides, I can't leave, because otherwise I wouldn't get my fix. You know how far we are from Shanghai, and even then, how does someone buy drugs in a country where drugs theoretically don't exist?"

"—!"

"It's actually fun being here. Excuse me a sec—" A sheet of waffled foam emerged from a ceiling chute, and Steve positioned it and then punched out 288 soles.

"As I was saying, I like it here. Why don't you put down your baggage and help me for a while?"

The old guy shrugged and looked at his watch. Clearly, Steve and I had to leave quickly.

"Steve, I came here to get you. You have to come with me."

"That's kind of you, but you can see my predicament."

"I've got smack galore back in the hotel in Shanghai. This old guy wants us to leave right now. He's got instructions. Steve—?"

Steve was tearing up. "Steve? Are you okay?"

"I'm going to miss it here. All my new comrades, too."

'You're joking."

"At least here you know where you stand."

Steve's replacement worker arrived, accompanied by a foreman who removed his padlocked chain. With one shrill of (what else) a whistle, he booted Steve off the line.

"Steve, they don't want you here any more. You're free. Let's go."

He looked miserable.

The two of us followed Old Guy back to the office, where a car awaited us. Thank God.

Just then an alarm went off in the factory.

. . .

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:54 p.m.

This new strain has been tentatively called Cat-Related SARS, or CSARS, and the total number of CSARS deaths in the pastweek stands at 11.

The government of the province of Guangdong, where SARS first emerged in 2003, said in a statement that "the clinical symptomsand results of laboratory tests and x-ray tests were in linewith a diagnosis standard recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for SARS."

In order to prevent confusion, the 2003 strain of SARS that appeared in China and Toronto is now being called "SARS Classic."

. . .

The driver fled without us. Steve and I were ushered into a large, drippingly humid hall beside the factory, where a gentleman used a Charlie Brown PA system to relate the news of CSARS to maybe six hundred shoemaking workers. I may not speak Mandarin, but I do know that the moment Mr. Megaphone said the following words—

("Please don't panic. Everything will be fine. There is no immediate danger. Please quietly return to your work positions.")

—the crowd exploded in all directions, fleeing like Muppets, abandoning the factory. Inside of two minutes the hall was empty, save for me, Steve and the lunkhead who had given the Don't Panic speech. We asked him if he spoke English, and he did—just enough to tell us in Chinese-restaurant English, "Very bad disease. Almost instant death. Much pain." This was followed by a gesture that indicated exploding eardrums.

Then he, too, abandoned us.

"Ethan," Steve said, "how am I going get my next fix?"

"We've been caught in the middle of a modern-day plague in the middle of nowhere, and you want a fix?"

"That pretty much sums it up. A fix is a fix."

We found a blue felt pen in the emptied main office. On the flip side of an industrial slogan poster, Steve drew a large hypodermic needle to convey his need. Somehow, his drawing style made the needle look terrifying, like a syringe Nazis would use to inject truth serum into your veins.

"Steve, that's a pretty nasty-looking rig. Can't you soften it up a bit?"

"It
is
kind of harsh. Here—" He drew daisies all around it, softening the message. The thing was, there was nobody to see the sign, save for some octogenarian shufflers looking for debris left behind by panicking workers. The shoe-moulding machines were all asleep, and across the floor, banks of lights were switching themselves off with noisy
boonk
sounds. The factory without noise was beautiful.

"Steve, chances are they kept your heroin near the station you were working at. Let's check it out."

At Steve's workstation, we rummaged about the first-aid kit and supply boxes, and hit pay dirt almost immediately. "Bingo!" He found a bag of H and a twenty-four-pack of clean rigs behind a case of carbonated lychee soda bottles.

"Life is sweet."

As there seemed to be no ride in our future, we walked for two depressing miles to Steve's dorm building. As we trudged, Steve asked, "Does anybody miss me back home?"

"Steve, to be honest, no."

He looked at me pointedly.
"Anyone?"

"You mean Mom? No, she doesn't."

"Huh. I didn't think so. How's the game going?"

"BoardX? It's not. It got killed by management. It's called SpriteQuest now."

He stopped. "They killed my game?"

"No. They repurposed it. They're recycling as much of the functionality as they can, but Jeff is dead and has been reincarnated as Prince Amulon."

"Dear God."

When we got to Steve's dorm, his ex—co-workers had barricaded the doors with jumbo concrete ashtrays. They assumed that Steve was, if not the harbinger of CSARS, bad luck. His few personal effects came flying down from a sixth-floor window into an azalea bush. His toothbrush cut into the soil like a javelin.

"I thought they were my friends," he said.

"Steve, just be grateful they were even willing to touch your personal effects. Where are we going to sleep tonight?"

"The factory."

"—!"

"Ethan, it'll be fun."

And so we trudged back to spend the night camped out on the two couches in the shoe factory's front office. We scrounged tea and sultana raisin cookies that were in a box on top of somebody's desk. Then, across the room, I noticed something that made me think I was hallucinating—a computer monitor displaying a working Internet connection.

. . .

From Kaitlin
. . .

Hi, Ethan, you glamorous world traveller. How is your Xanadu Hotel? We're so jealous of you. I'm not wearing makeup today, and I'm dressed like a slut, and all the guys in motion capture are ogling me. Am I making you jealous?

The big news here is that John Doe's cartoon curse on Mark is working, and Mark is really losing it. There was a particularly explicit (and hence funny)
Itchy & Scratchy
MPEG circulating yesterday, and everyone was in stitches. Mark was sweating and turning white. We thought he was faking it, but no.

What else . . . lunch in the cafeteria was braised lamb shanks with rabbit profiteroles, so all the vegetarians staged an hour-long hunger strike that was totally pathetic . . .

. . .

From Cowboy
. . .

Hey, Dude. Gord-O tried to get me to do a Cheerios run for him. What balls, huh? What else is new? I'm adding an ACDelco automotive cigarette lighter to my PC so that I can bring fire into the pod (and also my Bluetooth GPS). It's this neat little subroutine that. . .

. . .

From John Doe
. . .

Ethan, are you aware that there is nothing green anywhere in or around your desk? Do you think you might be either partially colourblind or perhaps genetically encoded so as to dislike green? What would be the Darwinian advantage to such a quirk?

. . .

From Evil Mark
. . .

Everybody's probably telling you I'm crazy and can't understand cartoons, but it's not that simple . . .

. . .

From Mom
. . .

Hi, dear. I hope your trip is going well, and I hope you have found young Steven in good spirits. Kam tells me he's been doing some important business work over there! Kam is so generous. You're lucky to know him. Please promise me you won't spend too much money on those appalling sneakers that make you look like a hoodlum. Honestly, if you'd just put your money into a savings account...

. . .

From Dad
. . .

That pesky bitch Ellen is back from Toronto and keeps calling my cellphone. What am I going to do about her? I think I'll ask Kam to help. He's such a can-do sort of guy. Also, Canteen is next week. Promise you'll show up, and no excuses like you've given me the past five years running. It's important to Kam and me that you show your support.

. . .