People Park (6 page)

What do you know, Belly, said Starx, me and you: partners. B-Squad.

Me and you?

Yeah. Pretty big honour. Us as the magician’s official escorts or whatever.

Starx still held him, Olpert was growing exhausted from clenching his fists. Around the room like a prisonyard dance men had partnered off muttering in low tones. Starx’s eyes scanned Olpert’s face — and at last he was released.

Me and you, Belly, said Starx, smacking a small fist into his palm. Big time. You work security? Good. Here’s our lanyard. You take it, it won’t fit me — Starx gestured sadly at his colossal head. Nice to get a Citypass though. Ever drive one of those wagons?

No. I don’t drive much really. I get a little nervous on the roads —

Great. Seriously though, Belly, this kinda makes me think they’re grooming me for a bump, if you know what I mean. Maybe even to
HG
. I mean, because you’re still, what? Technically only Probe or something, right? Because you quit or whatever.

It’s Bailie.

So you’d think they paired you with me because I’m like, senior or whatever. Bigups have gotta be due soon. I know Noodles has his eye on the top spot — I mean, Favours isn’t going to be around forever.

Across the room the old man, deserted on the dais, had spun himself around. He bumped against the wall, a disoriented animal trying to tunnel its escape.

Poor guy, said Starx.

My name, I mean, Olpert tried again. They spelled it —

Belly! Heads up, here comes the We-
TV
crew.

A Recruit sidled up with a camera. Starx hauled Olpert under his arm, displayed him with paternal pride, and beamed into the lens. Me and my man Belly here, Raven, if you end up watching this, we’re gonna make this the best weekend you ever had. Welcome to our fair city! He squeezed Olpert roughly. Anything to add, Belly?

Olpert Bailie looked at his hands. His fingernails dug ridges into his palms. Bailie, he whispered. My name’s Olpert Bailie.

Best weekend you ever had, Raven, repeated Starx, through a teeth-gritted smile.

The Recruit moved off to shoot a pair of Helpers by the Citypass cache playing tug-of-war with a lanyard. Starx fixed Olpert with a stare. Hey, dingledink, I know you’ve been away awhile but we use patronyms in this here outfit. Everyone’s first name Gregory, last name whatever — in your case, Belly. Got it?

Olpert tried to meet Starx’s eyes. But they were hard eyes to meet, twitching over everything but settling nowhere. What did they see?

CALUM WATCHED
the gingery man highstepping his way through
the mud to the bottom of the hill, where he did a salute sort of thing over his eyes, squinted, and, in a voice like a feebly blown flugelhorn, told them they needed to leave the park. School time! he said.

From the top of the hill one of Calum’s friends said, We’ve got the morning off.

Well the morning’s over, right? said the man. He wore a nametag:
Belly.

Grumblings, mild protest, but there had already been talk of going to school. Calum felt apart from them, from everything, standing there alone at the edge of the orchard.

He looked past Belly, into the sun, high above the treetops now. When he’d been little, Cora had told him never to look at it directly, it could blind you. So now he stared not just at but into the sun. He wouldn’t go blind. Nothing would happen to him. But after a few seconds Calum looked away, blinking and queasy.

THE NIGHT AFTER
being suspended for skipping class Calum lay awake in bed until his mother’s gentle snores came wisping down the hallway. He tiptoed out the door, slid his shoes on in the stairwell, and, ducking in and out of shadows to evade Helper patrols, ran all the way to Whitehall, where he waited by the loading dock. Past one a.m., past two, to that nothing hour when the moon sagged and dimmed and the night became infinite. It was only then they appeared from underground, a faceless hoodied mob toting cans of paint and rollers.

From behind someone grabbed his shoulders and Calum tensed — but the Hand was leaning in, the soft warmth of her cheek upon his cheek. So you’re with us? she whispered in his ear, and Calum told her, Yes.

He’d been delirious with it, the silent stealthy rigour of the herd slipping through the streets, so many of them, he stayed at the Hand’s side. It was random yet purposeful: someone picked a window and someone else unfolded a stepladder and up Calum went, taping the top of the frame and around its upper corners while someone else did the bottom. Then the painters stepped forward with their rollers and the quiet filled with the zipping
sound of acrylic pasted over glass, and when they were done Calum
tore off the tape and there it was: a blackup. And on to the next window, wherever it might be.

Time disappeared. Calum lost count of the blackups. He felt giddy. At some point the night began fading, he’d just finished taping the vitrines that fronted a pretentious hardware store. When he came down the Hand told him, This’ll be the last one, and pressed close and her breast was against his arm and she said, Fun, right? and he said, Yes, and she laughed and went off to gather the troops.

Calum admired their final piece, the big bright window negated
into a dead black thing. He patted the wet paint and transferred a handprint to the wall. Stepping back he saw himself in the five-fingered outline on the bricks and thought how being a person was at once such a big incomprehensible thing and so, so small.

But the Hand had returned to curse him: What are you doing, that’s not how we do it. She spat. You think you’re special? You don’t get it, we’re all part of this, no one’s above anyone else.

She turned her back on him. Everything withered. The group
tramped away and so did the Hand and Calum stood there deserted
in the middle of D Street while the sky lightened into morning, his handprint growing more stark and black and stupid as the bricks around it blanched, and knew he was a fool.

YOU TOO, OKAY?
said the man, Belly, to Calum. Time to go to school.

At the top of the hill Edie and everyone else were waiting for him. Above them, rising out of Orchard Parkway towered the Redline Station. But why go? Being suspended had been liberating, all that time alone with his thoughts.

Hey? said Belly.

He was about Calum’s mother’s age. He was struggling to be brave, something he wasn’t. He couldn’t meet Calum’s eyes. You could tell he was no one.

Calum moved out of the shade. Belly wavered. From up the hill Edie called, Cal, hey, we’re going, let’s go.

Belly still wouldn’t look at him, he cast a sidelong glance over the common, muttered, Okay now, thanks a lot.

Calum took another step downhill, turned his head, hawked from deep in his throat, then spat a jiggling gob that landed at the man’s feet.

Hey, said Belly. But his voice was weak.

One of his classmates said, Did Calum just spit at that guy? and Edie called: Calum, hey! Calum, what are you doing?

Belly watched the spit foaming on the grass, the little bubbles popped one by one. For some reason, he closed his eyes. He swayed.

Calum hawked again and spat. Belly flinched as it struck him in the cheek, but his eyes stayed shut. Edie screamed. Yet she didn’t come running down the slope. In fact there was a sudden emptiness to the air that suggested she and the rest of their friends had fled. How did Calum feel? He couldn’t feel anything.

His spit wiggled down Belly’s face.

And then from somewhere came a sudden rush of something swift and huge. A second figure in the same beige shirt was steaming up the slope, and Calum barely had time to cringe before a fist caught him in the face. A sparkle of lights, his legs gave way, the earth swam up to catch him, cool and damp. An enormous pair of legs stood over him — black sneakers and khaki trousers — and from high above a deep godlike voice boomed: You fug with my man Belly? You’re nothing, you hear me? You’re nothing, nothing, nothing, you’re fuggin nothing.

V

ITH JEREMIAH
nuzzling her feet, Adine channel-upped past people showing off their musical skills, giving hotplate cooking lessons and walking tours of their neighbourhoods, hawking used electronics, performing standup routines, etc., all those endless lonely voices, each one calling into We-
TV
’s echoless ether, all the way to 73, where the woman, Faye Rowan-Morganson, drained and draining and tragically fascinating, the lure of a stranger’s tragedy, was just beginning her daily introduction.

Well it’s Monday, she sighed, welcome to
The Fate of Faye Rowan-
Morganson
. Though if anyone’s even watching
, for you it’s Thursday
by now. I hope you’re having a better Thursday than my Monday anyway. I’m having a hard day.

A pause, which Adine, seeing nothing, had to fill with her imagination.
Maybe Faye Rowan-Morganson was just staring into the camera, at herself reflected in the lens. Maybe she had stepped out of frame for a moment, maybe she was getting a drink. Adine raised the volume a couple clicks and listened for the knock of a mug or glass placed back on the kitchen table.

Of course, since Adine saw nothing, this table was just one detail in a world she imagined for this stranger every noonhour, the
rest of the kitchen sparse and dimly lit, more scullery than culinary
suite, just a sink, bare countertops, with this pale and drawn woman hunched at a plastic table with her arms outstretched, thin arms, reaching toward the camera and toward anyone who might be watching. Or not watching: listening.

THAT NIGHT,
back in February, when Debbie came home to Adine painting the goggles black she joked, Is this so you don’t have to clean out the mousetraps? Later, in a more delicate tone, she asked, Is this about your accident when you were a kid? Adine pulled the goggles over her eyes and stared into the emptiness concocting some acid response.

Finally she said, No. It’s about trying to be alone.

The air went taut.

Adine sensed Debbie hovering, wounded. Then the bedroom door closed and from behind it came whimpering. Adine turned on the television: two Helpers were elucidating the merits of a backhand serve. After a few minutes she called Sam. Tell me what’s happening, she said. And happily he did.

Watching
TV
without seeing: this became her work. Not
investigating
blindness as phenomenology
, not
a (sub)liminal exploration of nonvisual space
, not an
inquiry
or
critique
of any sort. Not lost in words. She just wore the goggles day and night, flipping channels, seeing nothing beyond the pictures her imagination painted inside her mind. Maybe one day her hands would paint them. Maybe not.

At 1:00 and 5:00 and 9:00 Sam would call and narrate the action
in two-hour chunks. Her brother felt so faraway out there on the Islet, it was good to connect again. Before We-
TV
’s closed-circuit democratized the airwaves, they’d grown up together with television: cartoons and gameshows and the overwrought daytime dramas in which soft focus signified both memories and dreams.

Meanwhile Debbie was out saving the world with her endless friends and colleagues and contacts and networks and indomitable faith in the city and its citizens. Adine found it all exhausting: pleasing so many people fractured Debbie into many different people herself. From the moment they’d met she’d struck Adine this way, trying to please her even as Adine ranted and raved and shoved her against a wall.

This had been at an
IAD
gala, a semi-formal banquet celebrating the new arts-dedicated floors at the Museum of Prosperity. The exhibits included a retrospective of Loopy’s work, four sculptures by the mysterious Mr. Ademus, and, thanks to Isa Lanyess’s on-air lament, Adine’s Sand City, which technicians had unearthed from Budai Beach and shellacked and preserved under glass. Though she’d been invited, Adine played event-crasher, ninety-five pounds of rage storming past security, her hair a brushfire, right up to the host of
In the Know.

I’m just the show’s Face, explained Isa Lanyess. She pointed across the room at Debbie skulking by the punchbowl.
She’s
the one whose idea it was,
she’s
the one who wrote the script,
she’s
who’s responsible for your sculpture getting saved. Talk to her.

You
?
Adine railed, driving a finger into Debbie’s chest. You’re responsible for this? You want to
save
Sand City? Do you understand
anything
? Who even
are
you?

I just thought it was a waste to have such beautiful work washed away, Debbie whispered, steering Adine into the coatroom. She begged her to go for a coffee or a cider or a meal or something, please, she’d only loved the exhibit and —

Exhibit? You and your fuggin
exhibit
. Adine produced a notebook from her pocket and in a voice of mockery recited:
. . .
that infinitesimally detailed replica of the city, heartbreakingly rendered, building by building, in sand-sculpted miniature. What a travesty to have such a magical creation just erode into the lake.
You doosh, she sighed, destroying it was the fuggin point! But her rage seemed to be waning.

They should talk more, this wasn’t the best time or place, Debbie
told her, she just wanted to support what was good. Please, she said, I’m sorry.

Fine, ciders. But you have to come to my neighbourhood.

Ciders became dinner (wings) and more ciders, a soft and
nervous
goodbye, another round of ciders the following week, a midnight walk down to Budai Beach, a kiss on the sand, and a
few nights later, back at Adine’s apartment, the two of them collapsing sweat-slicked on either side of the mattress. Debbie whispered, Let me hold you, and Adine cracked up, a snort that exploded into goosy hoots while Debbie disappeared under the
duvet. I was just trying to be nice, came her voice, muffled by the
covers. Adine cackled:
Let me hold you —
what a precious swan you are, it’s adorable.

JUST AS FAYE ROWAN-MORGANSON
was signing off — Well if there’s anyone even watching thanks for listening, hope it wasn’t too depressing — the phone rang.

It was Debbie: You sound out of breath, she said.

No, said Adine, just working.

Oh? Oh good. Me too. Except guess what? I got blackedup. Can you believe that?

Sam’s going to be calling soon.

It’s just you’d think they’d respect, I don’t know, that this is a place for kids. No?

At one. What time is it?

Nearly Lunchtime Arts. But listen, that old friend of mine? Pearl? She’s in town tonight. And I’d told her I was planning this big reunion —

Pearl
. . .
Your former colleague.

Teammate.

Teammate, whatever.

Ha, well she was a million times the player I ever was. I mean, she went pro, for one thing. But I haven’t heard back from
anyone
from the old team. Do you think you could join us? So it’s not just me and her?

Ew, Jeremiah’s doing that bum-licking thing. I can hear it. Ew, ew. He’s really going for it. Get in there, buddy!

Adine, hey, it’d be nice if you came. I mean, you don’t have to decide now or anything. If it’s last minute, that’s fine. Just, you know, keep it mind. She’d love to see you.

She would? Or you feel bad you couldn’t raise a crowd?

Please?

Are you coming home first?

Didn’t I tell you about this thing out in Whitehall? With one of the older kids? Calum?

He’s — ew. Should we put one of those cones on him? Listen, I’ll hold the phone up.

Adine?

Did you hear that? It’s like,
slurping
. Do you think he has worms?

Anyway I might write it up for
In the Know
, this thing, it’s some sort of concert or something. And before you say anything, I know, slaving myself to Lanyess again, but we need the money. Or I do anyway. And then meeting Pearl, so. See you after? If not before?

What about dinner? Picture me, alone at the kitchen table eating corn from the can.

Meet us! We’re just going to the Barrel for wing night, it’s two minutes from the apartment. And if not to eat you could at least come by to say hi?

Silence on Adine’s end of the line.

The door jangled and slammed: the first kids arriving for Lunchtime Arts, three of them smacking one another with their knapsacks. Debbie held a finger to her lips, the kids hushed. Adine, she said, you there? I have to go.

Love me.

I do. I do!

Of course you do. You love everyone.

AT THE STROKE OF ONE,
Sam called his sister.

It’s one o’clock Adine, he said. Time to do the work. Time’s a machine right Adine?

It sure is, Sammy. Thanks for calling. What’s on?

Salami Talk
Adine, said Sam, and switched the phone to his other
ear, clamped it against his shoulder. On 12 a tearful Knock Street
florist was raving to Lucal Wagstaffe about being blackedup. When
she finished, he leaned in with half-lidded eyes and murmured, How terrible, madam — but what are your feelings on spicy meat?

I can’t do this, said Adine. Anything else, please.

Flipping the dial Sam said, Are you ready for Monday Adine?

What’s Monday, buddy?

We’re thirty-six on Monday Adine. The end of the third hand.

Ha. Right.

And then it’s the end of the work right Adine? The end of time’s third hand when the machine stops and goes backward. All the way back to the beginning right?

Buddy, I get a little lost when you —

Then time’s machine will take us to thirty-six years ago okay, when we were zero and together okay Adine. Right Adine?

You want to get together for our birthday? You want to come out here? Sure
. . .

Sam smeared his thumb into the worn arrow on his remote, the
TV
chunked from one channel to the next, through the hissing blizzard of channel 0, at 99 pictures appeared again. He paused on an infotainment program where neon graphics splashed across the screen to the zipping sounds of lasers. Sam watched.

What are you watching? What channel are you on?

He’s doing his trick tomorrow night at nine Adine, said Sam.

What? What channel?

Raven. This is what Isa Lanyess,
In the Know
, is saying now okay. Channel 83. She’s not saying what he’s doing yet — Raven.

Raven, ugh. Just the
name
.

It’s going to be in the park Adine. But it’ll be on
TV
too. Not even tape-delayed.
Live.

Hey, buddy, the talking stuff — I’m good, okay? You don’t have to tell me that stuff. I can hear fine. It’s just seeing. So if there’s something to see, jump in there.

Sam said, Yes.

He watched and listened while Adine listened. Isa Lanyess,
In the Know
, was talking about the downtown movie theatre, Cinecity, where people could come if they wanted to watch what was happening everywhere else, all at once, on the bigscreen.

With all the We-
TV
Faces’ feeds,
plus
all the public cameras, there’ll be coverage of every neighbourhood in the city, Isa Lanyess said. So anything that Raven does will be projected live to anyone who wants to see it!