Taking Stock (16 page)

Chapter Twenty

Theresa and I were the only patients in the ward with any interest in spending time in the small garden outside. We went out there whenever we could. The nurses wouldn’t always unlock the door for us—I didn’t know what set of rules governed these decisions, and neither of us asked. Despite how strong she seemed, I think Theresa generally felt as defeated as I did. I got the impression that it helped her to help me, but I never said that, out of fear she would stop.

We sat out there when allowed, side by side on the concrete bench. Through the chain-link fence we could see a busy road, and beyond that was the university.

“That’s where I’m headed,” she said. “When I get out.”

“You’re starting a degree?”

“Finishing one. Linguistics. I have a year and a half left, anyway. Being in here set me behind—I was in the middle of a summer semester when everything fell apart.” She sighed. “I won’t graduate with my best friend, now.”

During that first meal together, I told Theresa why I was in the psych ward. It seemed fair—she’d told me her reason.

She asked why I wanted to kill myself. I told her I had no money, and no friends.

“Tell me the real reason,” she said.

But I wasn’t ready.

“Sam says I’m looking healthier,” I said now, in the garden. “I told him I have you to thank.”

“Don’t tell people that,” she said.

I looked in her eyes. I always had so many words for her, but most of them went unsaid.

“God, Sheldon. You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

I opened my mouth.

She took my hand. “I like you, Sheldon. A lot. But when I leave this place I don’t want anything connecting me to it. I don’t want to talk to anyone I met here, and I don’t want you telling people you owe me anything. I don’t want you ever to mention my name. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. And I sat there, silent, barely breathing, dreading the moment she would release my hand.

Eventually, she did.

*

Gilbert and I get off work at 10, drive to my apartment, and smoke a joint in the shed, like we have the last four nights. Then we go inside and watch videos on his phone. We’re in the middle of watching a talking dog question his owner about the contents of the fridge when Gilbert gets a text message from Kerrin: “hey babe where r u”. We finish watching the video, then he texts her back.

“How are things going with you guys?” I say.

He puts down the phone. “Pretty shitty.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I just broke up with her.”

“Why is she calling you ‘babe’, then?”

“Because I just broke up with her. In my reply to her text.” He gets another message.

“What’s she saying?”

“‘OMG babe why? What’s wrong?’” He starts texting again.

“What are you saying?”

“That I cheated on her.” He turns off the phone.

“Why are you breaking up with her?”

“The sex no longer compensates for how annoying she is. Anyway. Donovan tells me you wrote a novel. Can I read it?”

“Sure. It’s not a novel, though. It’s only 50 pages.”

“Go get it.”

“Right now? It’s on my computer.”

“I’ll read it off the screen, then.”

We go into my bedroom, and I open “The King of Hearts”. Gilbert puts it on autoscroll and leans back in the chair, hands behind his head.

“Can you read that fast?”

“I can if you shut up.”

I lie back on my bed and watch him. On the second page, he chuckles.

“What’d you just read?”

“Shut up.”

It takes him 15 minutes, during which he laughs, grunts, points out grammatical errors, and yawns. When he’s finished, he closes the document. “Have you let anyone else read this?”

“No. Why? Do you like it?”

“Some parts are pretty funny. But I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to try harder to hide your source of inspiration.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Sheldon. It’s pretty obvious the girl in the story is Capriana.”

“No she’s not.”

“It’s fine, Sheldon. I think fiction writing is a great way to work out all your angsty emotions. You get to drag her name through the dirt, and she has no avenue for rebuttal. You make her look like a complete slut.”

“First of all, Gilbert, Capriana is a slut. Second of all, the story isn’t about her, so shut up.”

“You don’t have enough data to call her that.”

“Whatever.”

“One piece of advice: I wouldn’t let anyone else read this. It would be social suicide.”

*

Since his coup, Gilbert has made the break room his domain. I’m sitting up there with him, taking the first break of my shift, when Ernie comes up holding two coffees. “I bought you one, Gilbert,” he says, his eyes on the table, a tremulous smile on his lips.

“Thanks,” Gilbert says, and starts slurping from it.

“Where’s mine?” I say.

Ernie laughs a single syllable and sits down, as far away from us as he can get. He smiles again at Gilbert. “So, you’re such a good worker that Frank hired you again. Wow.”

Now that he’s back, Gilbert answers the occasional page, and puts out the occasional cartload, to maintain appearances. Other than that, he gets high and sits in the break room, playing video games on his phone.

“Appears that way,” he says. “You seem nervous, Ernest.”

“I’m just a little tired. I went for a 10 kilometre bike ride before I came in.”

“In January?”

“Yeah. Um, on my exercise bike.”

“Right. Are you sure you’re not hiding something?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. I have nothing to hide, because I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

“Really? No one? Not even Frank?”

“That’s right, no one.”

“Well, why don’t you take off your pants?”

“What?”

“If you don’t care what anyone thinks, why are you wearing pants? It’s nice and warm in the break room, and your pants look like they’re pretty tight. Why not take them off? At least till the end of your break.”

Ernie gives a high-pitched chuckle. “You’re so crazy, Gilbert.”

“Not really. If you don’t care what people think, then there’s no reason to be wearing pants right now. See, I’ll take mine off.” Gilbert stands up, unfastens his belt, and drops his pants, stepping out of them. He leans his chair back against the wall. “This is great. Won’t you join me, Ernest? Who gives a shit, right?”

Without moving back from the table, Ernie slowly unzips his fly and slips off his pants, leaving them bunched around his ankles. His face is red.

“They aren’t off yet.”

Ernie kicks them off his ankles.

Gilbert laughs and puts his back on. “You do care what people think. So much you just pantsed yourself to prove a point.” He stands up, bends over, and grabs Ernie’s pants from under the table, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a phone.

“Hey!” Ernie says. He stays sitting.

Gilbert taps on the screen a few times. “There’s the video you used to get me fired, Ernest. Delete.” He taps a few more times. “Looks like you sent the video to Frank right from your phone, meaning you probably didn’t upload it to your computer. Meaning this email likely contains your last copy of it. Delete.” He tosses the phone on the table in front of Ernie. “I wouldn’t recommend trying that again.” He drops Ernie’s pants into the garbage, picks up his coffee, and leaves the room.

*

Weed gives me weird dreams.

Tonight, I dream Frank and Eric are conducting demented experiments in a laboratory hidden deep inside Spend Easy. They’ve come up with a method of crossbreeding animals with vegetables. And then their creations escape into the aisles.

I’m fronting Aisle Two when a cross between a cat and a tomato scurries under my feet. I step back, disgusted. It turns around, looks at me, and opens its mouth to meow. But no meow comes out. It makes a growing sound, instead. I’ve never heard anything grow before.

The cat has shiny red tomato-skin, and green stalks for ears. When it moves, its joints crackle.

“Brute?” I say.

I turn around, and Frank and Eric are walking toward me. Behind them, Aisle Two stretches into eternity.

“Do you like him?” Eric says. “We’ve been working on these for some time. Soon, every household will have one.”

“It’s perfect,” someone says behind me. I turn again, and there’s Gilbert, the tomato cat rubbing against his leg. He picks it up, and the growing sound gets louder. He brings it to his face, as if to nuzzle it with his nose.

He bites into the torso.

The creature writhes in his grasp, trying desperately to escape. Gilbert takes another bite. The juices run down his chin. The cat’s vegetable flesh glistens wetly.

Gilbert smiles.

Chapter Twenty-One

I never want to be high at Spend Easy, so I don’t smoke if I’m working later. I’m tired from being out late with Gilbert and Donovan almost every night, though, and I have to push myself to hit my usual case count numbers. It doesn’t help that Ralph’s relying on me more than ever, now that Gilbert’s renewed his commitment to slacking off, Donovan’s working a lot less, and Tommy quit.

Tommy gave Ralph two weeks’ notice soon after the sun failed to explode. Apparently, Ralph told him he could have his job back any time—probably because Grocery’s so understaffed. During his final shifts, Tommy leans against his cart a lot, staring into space and sighing. You’d think not dying would cheer him up.

I ask Paul why he hasn’t been out with us again. He says he smokes pot pretty rarely—every few months or so.

“Cassandra’s sure surprised you started smoking,” he says.

“Cassandra? You talk to her?”

“Yeah, a bit. She’s been reading my book.”

“You know she has a boyfriend, right?” I don’t like the idea of her and Paul talking.

“I do. We’re just hanging out.”

“Be careful, Paul.”

He shakes his head. “I think you have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to her. She told me you guys have a history. Cassandra’s had a rough life, you know. Her mother walked out on her and her Dad when she was young. Never came back.”

“I’m aware.”

My Mom’s dead, and I never knew my father. But I’m not about to try and convince Paul my life is sadder than Cassandra’s. I drop it.

*

Gilbert proposes we go to a Chinese buffet, to celebrate his renewed dominance at Spend Easy. Days off are getting pretty scarce for me. Last week Eric poached Matt to work in Meat, leaving Ralph even more understaffed. I’ve been putting in 50-hour weeks.

Matt seemed pretty bewildered at the transfer. “Why does he want a slacker like me working for him?” he asked me, but I assumed it was a rhetorical question.

It does seem like Matt would fit in well with the other Meat employees. He’s quiet, and, like them, doesn’t seem to have much confidence. Although, compared with a couple of Eric’s workers, Matt’s downright chatty.

On the way to the Chinese restaurant, Gilbert suggests we smoke a joint before eating. “The food will taste way better.”

“We’ll only be in there an hour. You’ll be too stoned to drive.”

“Not after an all-you-can-eat buffet, man. Eating kills your high. And I’m gonna eat a lot.”

“All right.”

So Gilbert rolls a joint after we park. It’s a big one—he uses two cigarette papers. It takes us over 10 minutes to smoke, and on my way across the parking lot I decide the universe is exactly the way it needs to be.

The restaurant’s only half full, and the hostess tells us to sit wherever we want. We take a table close to the food. I pile my first plate with egg rolls, chicken chow mein, spring rolls, and wonton chips. And that’s just to start.

Gilbert gets a plate of fried chicken wings. He sticks one in his mouth, and when he removes it, the meat is gone. “Being tasty is a poor evolutionary strategy,” he says.

“I’m really stoned,” I manage to say through a masticated egg roll.

“That’s perfectly consistent with what we know of body chemistry.”

“Yeah? They teach you that in university?”

“Most philosophy students are acquainted with marijuana’s effects.” He picks up another wing.

“Why don’t you finish your degree?”

He shrugs. “University isn’t the only path to success, despite what we’re led to believe. For a lot of people, it’s the path to a fast food career.” His phone rings. He takes it out, looks at the screen, and answers it. “Hello? Hello? Donovan? Hello? God damn.” He hangs up. “Anyway. Universities are no longer these exclusive bastions of academic merit—they’re just businesses. Nobody fails out of university anymore, because a failed student isn’t worth any money. It’s become a culture of lenience.”

“Really?”

He nods. “It’s the way of the world. Slackers prosper.”
We eat five plates each. I take a lot on my last one, and I struggle to get it down—they charge you extra here if you leave food on your plate. Gilbert pays for both of us, and we go out to the Hummer.

“I booked a hotel room for tonight,” he says, “A bunch of us are partying there and going downtown after. You in?”

“Yeah.” I’m not working till 2:00 tomorrow—the hangover should subside by then. “Will they mind us all drinking in the room?”

“Probably. The best part of partying in a hotel is seeing how drunk you can get before they kick you out.”