JPod (41 page)

Kwantlen College Learning Annex

Course 3072-A

Kaitlin:

Why are you called Evil Mark?

Mark:

It's ridiculous. You said that my personality was boring, and so then Bree [a co-worker] decided to arbitrarily call me Evil Mark. And then last year your boyfriend, Ethan, caught me looking at something on my computer monitor, but I was able to hit QUIT before he saw what it was.

Kaitlin:

What was it?

Mark:

I can't even remember.

Kaitlin:

Oh,
please.
Something shameful?

Mark:

Why does it have to be shameful?

Kaitlin:

Sometimes you can be so sucky, Mark.

Mark:

Gee. Don't tell the media.

Kaitlin:

Tell you what—I'm going to throw guesses at you until you crumble and tell me what it was you were hiding. Here I go: cunt-o-rama, cumsicles, golden age shit-eaters sucking Satan's teat ...

Mark:

Stop!

Kaitlin:

Getting a bit too close to the truth?

Mark:

Why does it have to be something shameful?

Kaitlin:

What planet are you from?

Mark:

I am
not
evil.

Kaitlin:

Perhaps, but then why won't you tell me what you were looking at?

Mark:

For God's sake, all right. I was looking at new treatments for ...

Kaitlin:

Yes?

Mark:

I can't tell you.

Kaitlin:

Don't wimp out now. Kleptomania? Pedophilia? Bedwetting?

Mark:

!!!

Kaitlin:

It's bedwetting, isn't it?

Mark:

That's ridicul—

Kaitlin:

!!!

Mark:

I did it back when I was a kid. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

Kaitlin:

It's not that you wet the bed, Mark, it's that you can't discuss it, and the fact that you'd rather have everybody here in jPod call you Evil Mark for almost a year, instead of simply telling us to screw off and deal with our own problems.

Mark:

It carries such a stigma in our culture.

Kaitlin:

Maybe you could turn it around and work it to your advantage. I bet there are all sorts of people out there who'd pay for you to come visit their house for a . . .
nap.

Mark:

Thank you, Kaitlin.

Kaitlin:

Do you think there's a connection between your childhood experiences and your disturbingly undecorated cubicle?

Mark:

Probably. I've never thought of it that way before.

Kaitlin:

What about a connection between bedwetting and your having an edible mattress?

Mark:

I doubt it.

Kaitlin:

Michael Landon, that guy from
Little House on the Prairie,
did a TV movie once about bedwetting.

Mark:

Little House on the what?

Kaitlin:

It was a 1970s TV show.

Mark:

I don't watch shows from before 1990. Otherwise, you could spend the rest of your life watching TV. The TV archives are too big now.

Kaitlin:

He was this guy with really good hair. Anyway, in this movie, his mother hung his bedsheets out the window when he was in high school, and he'd race home after class to take them down before anybody could see them. He became a championship athlete as a result of it.

Mark:

Can we change the subject?

Kaitlin:

We're supposed to discuss good and evil. How does this relate to the game we're all working on?

Mark:

In what sense?

Kaitlin:

Well, we're supposed to be building this sucky fantasy game with elves and rinkly-tinkly lucky mushrooms and stuff, but what we're really doing is secredy embedding a monster inside the game who will come in and pervert the game into a total gorefest.

Mark:

It's a great idea, isn't it?

Kaitlin:

I agree, but let's narrow the good/evil debate down to this one question: Why is gore more fun than its opposite?

Mark:

The opposite of gore?

Kaitlin:

SpriteQuest is the opposite of gore.

Mark:

That's true.

Kaitlin:

I repeat: Why is gore more fun than the opposite of gore?

Mark:

I think that beneath your question is the assumption that gore is bad. I'm not sure I agree.

Kaitlin:

Possibly.

Mark:

Look at nature. Nature is one great big woodchipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones and hair.

Kaitlin:

Agreed.

Mark:

Gore is Nature's way of saying, "There are too many human beings on the planet, and I'm trying to rectify this any way I can. SARS didn't work, but trust me, I'm cooking up something better. In the interim, please kill lots of yourselves."

Kaitlin:

So gore is good?

Mark:

Absolutely.

. . .

The next afternoon, Kaitlin showed me a gory new room she'd added onto Ronald's Lair.

"What's it called?"

"Dentistry."

Bree's eyes were red.

"Bree, what happened?"

"I emailed a long, scary letter to the Frenchman."

"So?"

"I've burned that bridge forever. I never should have sent it."

"Nonsense. Guys never read any email from a woman that's over two hundred words long. You're totally safe." Mark and John Doe nodded their agreement.

Bree said, "I think computers ought to have a key called l5M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours."

Kaitlin said, "I've got another one: a key called FUCK OFF. You press it every time your computer does something annoying—in turn this would somehow force your computer to experience pain. And if you pushed SHIFT/FUCK OFF, you'd end up with FUCK OFF AND DIE, the computer equivalent of a razor being raked across your nipples."

On the corkboard by the coffee machine was a poster announcing the new Tetris season. Tetris, retro as it is, remains a big-deal game here at the company. The plan was to rig the condo lights of a tall, empty downtown tower to simulate the Tetris grid. Greg found just the right place—what a stud. He confirmed an empty tower: 156 condos owned by offshore residents, and all of its units empty. Cowboy and John Doe planned to hack a Tetris algorithm into the building's lighting system so that we could play on the building's front facade while stationed across the street in a park. Talk about stoked.

I got kind of sentimental looking at the layouts of the empty condos. It reminded me of my summer jobs in university, going into Greg's condo towers, rearranging the patio furniture and randomly turning lights on and off to make the buildings look occupied. Buyers don't trust empty buildings. It's bad feng shui. Or maybe it's just bad feng. Or shui.

vs.

Crumplers

John Doe asked, "What's a folder or a crumpler?"

"Both are technical terms used by the pulp and paper industry," said Kaitlin.

"Meaning?"

"Toilet tissue manufacturers divide end users into two categories: people who crumple their paper and people who fold it. Each is fifty percent of the market."

Mark said, "What about you, Bree—crumpler? Folder?"

Bree said, "This is like the white vs. black 'Spy vs. Spy' thing."

"You're changing the subject."

"I'm a folder . . .
obviously."

"No! I would have had you down as a crumpler."

"Surprise."

"Do geeks skew in any particular direction?" I asked.

Kaitlin said, "I suspect they're more likely to be folders."

A quick and highly viral email campaign throughout the building revealed that game builders are eighty percent folders, but the few crumplers took pride in their stance. Dylan from server maintenance said, "When I crumple my paper, in my head it feels like a particle-based onscreen effect, like an explosion. That's not just a wad of paper in my left hand—it's a non-dimensional pyrotechnical
event"

I read that one out loud. Bree looked at me and said, "Did he really have to specify which
hand?
I mean, nobody's left-handed when it comes to toilet paper. That's just plain wrong."

That's how everybody in the office found out that Bree had set her sights on a brand new conquest. Dylan, beware.

My phone rang. It was Greg, calling from Mom and Dad's place. "Ethan—Dad just told me that Mom's gone off the wiener."

"She's
what?"

"She no longer digs man-muff."

I blurted out, "Mom is
not
a lesbian." I could hear my podmates' antennas rising as if commanded. "I went up the coast and visited her. She just needs time to do some kind of . . . life enhancement seminar."

"Man, it's so weird thinking of parents as being sexual, let alone dykey."

"Mom is
not
a lesbian."

"You're doing way too much protesting here."

"Okay. It appears that way."

"I knew it."

"How's Dad?"

"I don't know if it's the cheating or the lesbo part that's got him more freaked."

Greg, like my father, had no idea about Mom's flings, living or dead. But God only knows what Greg knows that I don't. Does Mom divvy out her psychoses to her children like Christmas gifts?

I remembered Lot 49. "I'm coming over right now."

. . .

When I arrived, Dad and Greg were loading up Greg's Hummer with duffle bags. It was a gorgeous afternoon.

"Hey—where are you guys going?"

"Up to Whisder. And you're coming with us. We need a change of scenery."

A perfect chance to ask Greg about fixing that real estate deal. "Where are we going to stay?"

"A client's place."

"Great."

Drunk or not, Dad was fulfilling his masculine parental duty by checking Greg's tire pressure. "Greg, your back two tires are a bit low."

"Dad, I'm not sixteen any more. Just leave them alone."

"Jesus, Greg, I'm just trying to save you some money. Boy, when I think about the two of you, gallivanting about town on your under-pressured tires, needlessly accruing excess wear and tear—like you were made of money."

"Dad, I moved a hundred million bucks worth of residential space last year—"

"So I guess you're too fancy for your lousy old father, who's just trying to help you out in his own litde way."

"Everyone get in," Greg ordered.

We were soon on Highway 99, headed up Howe Sound into the Coast Mountains. The alpine environment was already making me feel healthier than I really am—which I believe is the secret allure of skiing as a sport.

Dad was in the front seat, swigging from a hip flask. He was slurring his words, and finally lost the will even to berate his spendaholic children. I, however, was thrilled that he was actually using the flask, my Christmas present to him a few years back. Hip flasks are the juice machines of the alcohol world—everyone has one and it never gets used.

"So who is she? What's she like?" Greg asked.

I was about to say she looked like that old TV character, Alf, but caught myself in time. I don't really know what sort of description of freedom would disturb Greg the least. "She's, uhhh—"

"She's what?"

"Kind of average."

"In what way?"

"In an average kind of way."

Greg said, "You're the most pathetic liar, Ethan. Is she hot or not?"

Dad blew up. "Don't talk that way."

"Talk what way?"

"About your mother's—" In a blink, Dad knew that saying the word would confirm it once and for all. "Whatever. I don't feel like talking about it right now."

Suddenly we were doing a hundred miles an hour to pass a Pepsi delivery truck. "Greg—what
the fuck
are you doing?"

"Ethan, be quiet."

"Greg, slow down."

We squeaked past the truck, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a white stretch limousine filled with Japanese college students on a pot holiday. My nerves were in ribbons.

"There, now—that wasn't so bad, was it? I also got an extra five thousand points for an insane stunt bonus."

'You could have fucking killed us."

"Ethan, I'm a roadrageoholic, but I'm really trying to overcome it with therapy. When I lapse, could you at least try to be supportive and find some joy in my rageoholism?"

A lemon yellow Supra with all sorts of silly spoiler attachments sped past us. Greg went nuts: "I'll kill you, you litde fuckhead!"

Now's not a good time to ask about Lot 49.

When we arrived at Whisder, my toes were still so clenched inside my shoes that I had to bang them on the back seat floor to loosen them. My spirits rose when we turned into a street bordering the Maui North subdivision. Our particular ski cabin was mall-sized and resembled the Swiss pavilion at the 2020 World's Fair. "Hey, Greg—who's the client?"

"I've actually never met him or her. It's a registered offshore buyer who only goes by a number."

The keys were plasticized electronic cards, like in a hotel. We walked in the front door and turned on a light and—
boom
—we were suddenly in what seemed to be Oprah's chic Nordic retreat: everything was perfect—furniture, art and lighting. It reeked of untold volumes of spare cash. Greg said, "Okay, laddies, pick your bedroom. There are eight to choose from."

I walked up the grand staircase and selected a large bedroom with an ensuite bathroom and a magnificent view of the forest out back. But I sensed something weird going on. I couldn't put my finger on just what until I began sneezing. I looked more closely and realized that every surface in my room—and all of the other rooms—was covered in a gende felt of dust. Sunset beams coming from the west hit windows caked in dirt, spiderwebs, birch leaves and guano streaks. Down in the kitchen, Greg was on his phone. I went to the stove, turned the electric burners on maximum and watched as the dust on them burned away.

Greg clicked shut his cell. "Ethan, what are you doing?"

"Greg, when was the last time anybody was ever actually in this house?"

"Here? Let me see—" From the kitchen counter he picked up a yellowed, desiccated newspaper. "August 10,1993."

"Nobody's been here since 1993?"

"Why would they? On the other hand, if Taiwan or China or Singapore implodes, there'll be a family of thirty living here in a flash."

Suddenly the house felt like a coffin. "I have to go get some fresh air."

"You do that."

. . .

Sometimes what at first seems like a coincidence isn't really one at all. I say this because I decided to walk over to the Maui North project and check out the lots. I heard Lot 49 before I saw it: a roaring stream. I was walking there to have a magic moment between nature and myself, when who popped out from behind a boulder?
freedom.

She looked at me. "Well, well, if it isn't the Penis come to rescue Mumsy-wumsy from being brainwashed."

"freedom, what
2xeyou
doing here?"

"I might ask you the same question. Me? I'm here because I'm buying this lot."

"What?"

"Kam Fong put me on to this place. I can already taste the wattage this little trickle is going to give me. You?"

I was too confused to say anything cogent. "Where's Mom?"

"Over there."

freedom pointed to a patch of moss embedded with pine needles and chipmunks. A cinematic sunbeam lit my mother in end-of-day magic light.

"Ethan! Come feed a chipmunk!"

And then, from behind me, I heard Greg calling to freedom, "freedom! Glad you could make it." Greg looked at Mom and said, "Mom, what are you doing here?" Gathering his wits, he said, "freedom—have you met my mother?"

. . .

Before I forget, Bree came up with this new trick—how to create your name if you become a stripper. Basically, just figure out the least expensive form of sugar or sweetness you ate today . . .

. . .

We decided to let Dad sleep it off while the four of us went to a coffee place that catered almost exclusively to astonishingly attractive young people from Australia and New Zealand, all of whom were baked on local weed. In the middle of the cafe, freedom gave Mom a lusty back rub while Mom explained to Greg, "I know what you're thinking, but I am not a lesbian. I just need to reclaim my ovarian inner landlord."

This was too much for my brother. His form of denial is to begin speaking like a real estate ad. "Lot 49's such a honey of a property—a prestigious ski-in ski-out location with Whisder Village close by—it's ideal for a luxury chalet. Think vaulted ceilings! Think river-rock fireplace and wraparound decks! Think Ultraline professional appliances and beautiful detailed log work—a chalet to be proud of!"

"Greg, you know how bored we get when you talk like a brochure," Mom said. "And besides, don't sell something that's already sold."

freedom was cackling. "I'm certainly the chalet type, aren't I? Ha! I'm going to make a box out of concrete and pack in as many plants as I can. High style is for pantywaists." Her hands were disturbingly close to Mom's chest.

"Greg," said Mom, "as a favour to me, be sure you never ever sell that lot to anyone but freedom. I know how cannibalistic real estate sales are in Whisder. Even if someone offers you twice the asking price. You promise? On my grave? And that if you sell it to someone else, it means you don't love me?"

Greg promised.

An awkward silence ensued.

I was miserable. I saw no way to get Greg to ditch the sale to freedom.

More unnerving was the sight of Mom possibly being turned on by freedom's body rub. What a mess.

freedom barked, "Okay, we need to go now. We have just enough time to make it to
The Passion Cycle of the Mons.
I'm working the breast puppets this season."

Neither Greg nor I had the will to pursue that gambit.

"Give your father my love, boys." With that, Mom was gone.

Greg turned on me. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me Mom was freedom's—"

'freedom's
what?
Her shag bag? Her meat treat?'

"'Nothing."

'Let's not tell Dad about what just happened."

'Deal."