Seven Good Reasons Not to Be Good (15 page)

Lordy. He’s going to need a laptop too, so he can make use of moments like this, catch up on business. Business? Well, Nagy’s email message was still waiting for him this morning, and he darn near cajoled himself into opening it. He did click on a new one from DennyD, and was treated to further enthusiasms. “Talk about a CONSPIRACY, I can’t believe they’re sacking you. It’s just so hard to be paranoid ENOUGH these days.” So, the word was out—about the firing, though apparently not about the reason for it, not about the fakes. Denny predicted an imminent “shitstorm” of protest over Matt’s dismissal, a shitstorm he vowed to initiate himself.

Then—“I know this is nervy”—Mr. D. started plugging one of his own nascent films, for which he was seeking support. Would Matt have done the same thing in his day, pestered somebody for mentorship? And if not, why not? “It’ll be called Dead. It’ll be a series of shots of dead BODIES in various states of disgustingness, plants and animals and people (I know a guy who knows a guy at the morgue). There’s no story, no goal, no PLOT and obviously that’s the POINT, death as the end of narrative. Death as the thing that swallows narrative even though narrative’s always trying to swallow death, turn it into something ELSE.” To which Matt, since he could think of no definitive reply, made none.

Nothing from Zane, as usual. Luddite indeed. Nothing from other friends either, not that Matt has so many of them these days. The folks he and Mariko used to hang with (other kidless couples, mostly) are hers. She’d get chummy with another woman and they’d agree to graft their men onto the relationship. There’s Sue’s Gary, there’s Becky’s Russ, there’s Rachel’s Milan. All perfectly nice guys, but without their women to connect them? If and when Matt and Mariko do split up for keeps it’s a no-brainer who’ll get the dinner invitations. Matt originally brought a few people into the relationship, just as he brought a few chipped cups (zany horoscopes, movie star “mug” shots) to fill out Mariko’s bone china set. These friends are more hers than his now, though. She’s the one who’ll look them up in town, or coax them into ferrying over to the Lair for the weekend. Single, Matt will be seriously alone.

Then one from Mariko, launched with a cheery “hey mister kritik!!!!”

The whole kritik thing was Mariko’s idea in the first place, back when Matt started at
Omega.
He wasn’t to be just a critic, but a
kritik
—way cooler, way kooler than your average hack. Way more kreative. People were meant to think of the German
kritiker,
read in a Lou-Reed-in-Berlin sort of mood, suffering brewed up with beauty. Underground. Edge. Matt was to have no name at all save an email address, he was to
become
an email address, kritik@themovies. Nagy loved it. Before long Matt was loving it too. The
k
came to stand for the covert ambitions—grand, almost messianic—he’d begun to attach to his reviews.

And then of course Zane had to jump on the bandwagon. He started trotting out the term in every letter, smartassed bastard. It was
kritikal
that he get the funding to finish his Nigerian documentary, that kind of thing. And then that last letter, revealing his ingenious scheme, his brilliant plan to let himself die. “I know you’ll think I’m krazy, but to me this is
kritikal
…”

According to Mariko the buyers plan to sign an offer very soon.

So Sophie isn’t into toes, is that it? What exactly is she into? Maybe Matt should have looked into that for himself.

“W-would you like that heated up?” Sophie’s prone to a slight stammer. G-garbage, that’s her thing. T-t-t-trash. She’s compulsive about it the way some people are compulsive about washing their hands, terrified of letting anything foreign in. Sophie’s like that only the other way around, Sophie’s terrified of letting anything
out,
terrified that she’ll leave some trace of herself behind. She lives as if one more scrumpled-up wrapper will do it, tip the globe from kritikal to terminal. FOG, she’s called her clutch of activists—Friends of Gaia—for whom Mariko has of course whipped up a nifty website. They’re into low-grade eco-terrorism, sand-in-gas-tanks kind of thing. Sophie’s thrown her body in front of a logging truck, spent the night in a tree.

But she’s too late. This is what Matt wants to say to Mariko—Sophie’s too late. The environmental thing is over. We left kritikal behind ages ago. We did not pass Go, we did not collect two hundred. Matt has the feeling, though, that giving up on Gaia, or at least admitting he’s done so, would be giving up on Mariko, giving her a final excuse to give up on him.

And then of course he might be wrong. Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time, more like the seventeen kajillionth. Maybe the human race is just going through a bad patch here, and life will live through it. Who knows? So Matt keeps quiet. He holds his peace, too, on the offspring issue. Why bring a kid into a world you know is ruined? He’s often thought it—he thought it even when Mariko was briefly pregnant, and even when that experience inspired them to start boinking for a baby—but he’s never said it. Mariko seems to know, though, or maybe it’s just that she’s reached the same dire conclusion. That one loss, and then that one iffy prognosis—narrow uterus, a few fibroids—and she gave up, went back on birth control. No specialists, no clinics, no nothing. But what if they’re both wrong?

“… her eyes widening as she looked about the sumptuous suite. ‘Oh my gosh,’ she said, ‘this is like something out of a dream or—’”

“Mercedes?”

“Not now, Matt.”

“No, but I’m having another psychic—”

“Never interrupt a woman when she’s this close, Matt. Trust me.”

But she’s about to be interrupted anyhow. Somebody’s just turned in at her place, a middle-aged guy, bald, slender. Yeah, the goofy walk is right—like somebody crossing a log over a river—but so much else is wrong. He’s got out a key though, he’s opening the door.

“
’ … thought you might like it,’ he said with a roguish grin, swinging the door shut behind him. Nikki fell against him, her full breasts pooling against the implacable wall of his chest. His lips were on hers and she drank greedily from them, startling herself with the violence of her own
—Oh wait, here he is. Zane. Zane! Phone for you. Hang on, he’s going to take it up in his room.”

Bald? So he’s buzzed off that fringe of brown fluff, big improvement. But slender …

“Yyyello.” That silly, sarcastically nasal voice—it’s only been a few weeks, and that’s too long. A stand-up comic’s voice is what he’s got,
good evening, ladies and germs.

Click,
Mercedes signing off.

“Have you ever imagined you were in a movie?” says Matt.

“What?”

“Or in a book?”

“Not bad thanks. You?”

“Because you’re not. This is just what it is. You being sick? It’s just you being sick.”

Sigh. “Okay. I get it, Matt.”

“And you dying is just you dying.”

A breath or two, more chesty than you’d really like. Matt watches Zane’s window, half-hoping for his silhouette. What if he gets busted?
I love you, man, stay away.

“But you don’t believe that,” says Matt.

“Not really. Things can be other things too.”

“Right.” Behind Matt somebody very small begins to cry, a thin, experimental wailing that pours out an open window.

“Anyway,” says Zane, “how are things with you?”

“Good, good. Not so good.”

Squeak of bedsprings, Zane settling in. “Mariko?”

“Yeah, I guess,” says Matt. “Where did we leave off last time?”

“I forget her name, Sally?”

“Sophie.”

“Right. Sorry, man, I’ve been meaning to call.”

“No, no sweat.”

“It’s weird, I really thought … I don’t know. I thought you and Mariko were forever. Hey, is that somebody crying?”

“Yeah, I hear it too. Must be something in the line, bad connection.” Matt shifts his body as though to block out the sound. “So here’s a question for you. My best friend and my wife are both gay. What’s up with that?”

“It’s you, Matt. You do it to people. You’re just so incredibly manly, you’re just so—”

“Fuggoff.”

“—just so magnificently
straight
that everybody around you gives up and goes queer.”

“You really think so?”

“Yepper.”

Matt blows a modest raspberry. The squalling behind him resolves into a fit of giggles. “How was the doctor?”

“Doctor? Oh, she was fine.”

“Ha.”

“Ha.”

It was maybe a month after they first started hanging out together, he and Zane. Spring of grade four? They unfolded Matt’s birthday jackknife (“Take care of it, son, and it’ll take care of you”) and they sliced open their thumbs. Zane went first, drew a bead of blood that sent Matt’s head spinning. He knelt down, steadied himself, held the knife tight in one hand and whipped his other thumb along the blade. Too hard, too fast—he had himself a gusher. Once they had their thumbs smushed together you couldn’t tell blood from blood anyhow. They hadn’t figured out what to say so they just knelt there glued together for a bit, then went back to playing cowboys, wads of paper towel reddening on their thumbs.

“But really,” says Matt, “how’s your T cell count and all that?”

“Not so bad. Has Mercedes been telling tales?”

“She claims you haven’t been seeing to her wifely needs.”

“Uh-oh. Reckon she’s ready for another whuppin’.”

“Atta boy.” Matt drains the last of his coffee, dismounts his dinosaur and crosses the street. He stands on the lawn looking up at Zane’s window, a Romeo thing. “How’s your stuff? What are you working on?”

“Wrapping up
Beach,
mostly.” Zane’s cheeky title for his Nigerian documentary,
A Day at the Beach.
You think of the Marx Brothers,
A Day at the Races.
You think of
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday,
Jacques Tati having his shy fun in the sand. Then you meet Shanumi. “Nico’s working with me on something new, too. Kind of a parallel. I might get your help on it.”

“Really?”

“You’d be into that?”

“Um, sure. Mind you, I saw
Beach
again, the cut you sent me. A couple of times. I don’t get it.”

“How so?”

“I don’t
get
it. How you can do that, how you can handle that.”

“You could handle it too, Matt.”

“Not sure.”

“So that’s why you stopped?”

“Oh Christ, this again. Have you got a new theory, is that it? And please don’t be a prick.”

Squeak of bedsprings, Zane getting up. “You weren’t good enough.”

“Prick.”

“No, I mean you were good.” Zane passes the window one way. “You were really good.” He passes it the other way. “That wasn’t good enough.”

Another raspberry from Matt. “I get plenty of this crap from my wife, thanks.”

“Okay, sorry. So what
are
you working on these days? Tackling some pretty formidable stuff?”

“Fuggoff.”

“Hulk,
maybe?
How to Lose a Guy in—
”

“Fuggoff. And anyway, I got fired.”

“What?”

“I got
fired.”

Zane passes the window again. He’s doing a little dance, either that or he’s buckling over in some kind of distress. “That’s fantastic. You’re kidding me. Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“You got busted? For the fakes?”

“That last one, somebody called in.”

“What does Mariko think? She’s impressed?”

“Mm, not so much.”

“Oh.”

“But then she’s screwing around on me, so … Hey, is that the right word? When it’s two chicks is it still screwing? Poofter like you should know.”

“Naturally. Hey, what was that?”

“Delivery,” says Matt. A truck’s just dumped a load of gravel at the foot of a driveway a couple of doors down. Matt’s already on his way up the block. “We’re doing some work, fixing the place up. Getting ready to sell.”

“Wow. Everything changes, eh?”

“Yeah.” Matt strides north, the sun’s hand heavy on his back. “Hey, so Nico. You know he’s a social worker, right, not a filmmaker?”

“He’s actually
in
the movie,” says Zane.

“Oh. What’s it about?”

“It’s … I’ll tell you another time. It’s kind of big.”

“Okay. How is Nico, anyway? I don’t hear much about him these days.”

“He’s all right.”

“Yeah? Is he … I’ve sort of been afraid to ask, is Nico—”

“Positive. He’s positive.”

“Oh.”

“He got it from me.”

“Oh, man.”

“Imagine killing somebody you love,” says Zane.

“Yeah. Imagine that.”

“I should go, Matt.”

“Namaste.
”

“What?”

“Namaste.
It’s Hindi. We’ll need it when we go to India.”

“India?”

“I bow to you. And you do a little head-bob, with your hands praying.” Back at the room Matt googled this up, got it on his third spelling. “I bow to the soul in you.”

“Oh. Cool. So we’ll talk soon, eh?”

“Fugging right.”

If this trip were a movie—such is Matt’s thought as he squelches back down the hall to his room—it would suck so far.

Guy holes up in a hoity-toity hotel. He shivers and sweats, fires off the odd email, places the odd phone call. He heads out for a stroll in the suburban barrens, or for a sneaky recon mission, or for a quickie with a puzzling stranger. Sure, there’s a bit of moral conundrum taking shape—save the sick guy? let him have his big gesture?—but do you really need that sort of grief when you’re kicking back on the couch? The sex, which is sudden, and moderately acrobatic, does have cinematic potential. A clever director could do something with that, and he could haunt the whole thing with some sort of existential despair. Or maybe spoof that, pull a Woody Allen? Whichever. Matt would be obliged to trash the thing either way.