Cheeseburger Subversive (5 page)

The guy on TV said that he had proof — mathematical, astronomical, and biblical proof — that the world is going to end at 8:35 this morning. We all know that he's full of crap. Even my father says so, and he should know. My father is a high school English teacher, and is used to people trying to pass absurdity off as fact.

Of course, there is absolutely
nothing
to worry about. The world is not going to end at 8:35. Despite knowing this, we are all a little edgy.

It is 8:31.

I know I am not going to die in this bus, beneath the garish green ceiling dome. Even if the world really is going to end in four minutes, I know that most of the kids sitting on this bus will go to Heaven. So there is nothing to worry about.

The rest of course will spend the rest of eternity in hell, burning and screaming, wishing they had never sinned. I know these things, because I used to go to Sunday School. I know that everyone goes to Heaven except for the sinners. I find myself wondering whether or not it is a sin to quit going to Sunday School. The rules of sinning are a bit vague on this point; “Thou Shalt Not Be Bored By Sunday School” is not one of the Ten Commandments. At least I know the Ten Commandments, which should count for something, I hope.

I heard my father explaining the idea of hell during a telephone conversation with one of his high school English students.

“The popular conception of hell as an eternal, tortuous fire,” he cheerily explained, “is
only
a literary metaphor for the torments that hell really embodies. The anguish described in the literature we have read is only what the various authors imagine it would feel like to be disinherited by God. Okay?”

I didn't quite understand what he meant by all of that, and I was not comforted by his reassuring tones. I still think of hell as a real place. The Devil is a real guy, not a metaphor or whatever my father would call him.

The Devil does not have horns, a forked tail, or a little French moustache. This much I understand. The Devil is not stitched together from red satin like a little kid's Halloween costume. The Devil
is
a man with a large chin and steel-grey eyes, wearing a black business suit, standing in front of a large door with a huge question mark painted upon it. He brays in a smarmy TV game-show announcer's voice, “And now, studio audience, please put your hands together as our next unlucky sinner steps through the mystery door into an endless barrage of previously unimagined horrors . . . ” He sweeps his hand toward the door, and it swings open to the roar of morally righteous applause.

Sometimes I have nightmares like this. Fortunately, I have always awakened before stepping through the door.

Of course, I realize how silly these thoughts are. I try to shut them off. I try to think about hockey, or space ships, or about Zoe Perry, who is sitting right in front of me. I think that I'm in love with Zoe, but if I die today it won't matter much, will it? You can't fall in love in hell.

It is 8:34. I am holding my breath.

I think about how I felt when I peed my pants in the second grade. The shame was so overwhelming, I started punching myself in the stomach to give myself something less painful to focus on. Maybe hell is like approaching the door to your grade two classroom, reeking of urine and burning with shame.

Once I was playing with the sterling silver locket that had belonged to my mother's great grandmother, which I was warned to never touch. I watched with horror as it slipped through the radiator grate. Maybe hell is like never getting caught, like never confessing.

Maybe hell is like having your best friend hold your hands behind your back while everyone lines up to punch you twelve times because it's your twelfth birthday. The adults in hell just laugh about it, tell you that you must “learn to take things like a man.”

Maybe hell is like being lost in the dark, and feeling that invisible eyes are watching you, even in the privacy of your own bedroom. Maybe hell is like dreaming dreams you can't stop. Maybe hell is waking up, heart racing, pyjamas wet.

The second hand on my watch seems to be slowing; I wonder if our bus is heading into a time warp. I know that these things exist; I am a faithful watcher of
Star Trek
.

It is 8:35.

The bus hits a bump, and bodies are momentarily airborne, weightless. The kids at the front scream with joy; the kids at the back just scream.

Then we all chuckle, pretending it was fun. We have passed 8:35 and none of us seem to be in hell.

“Well,” says Cliff, “I told you chicken-shits there was nothin' to worry about.”

He turns to me.

“See, Turd-Bird! Nothin' happened.”

I have some idea why Cliff keeps calling me this name; it most certainly has to do with what my father calls an inferiority complex. This sounds like something an idiot like Cliff might have, but it doesn't make his name-calling any less humiliating.

“I don't recall saying that anything was going to happen, Cliff, you retard,” is my unspoken riposte. This, of course, is what I would like to say to Cliff. I don't actually say this because I don't want to get beaten up in front of Amanda and Zoe.

“Hah! Nothin' happened! That guy on TV was full of it!” chortles Cliff. “Everything is the same as it was before.”

My father has a favourite expression from Shakespeare. I decide to repeat this expression to Cliff.

“Methinks you dost protest too much.” It is a safe thing to say because Cliff will certainly not understand it.

“Huh?” comes the expected response.

I notice that Zoe is listening. This knowledge makes me feel brave, and I continue.

“I think you were scared, too, Cliff.”

“What the hell are you . . . ?”

I do not let him finish his sentence. Zoe is pretending to read a teen magazine but she is really listening to Cliff and I. I am feeling beyond brave now, because it has suddenly occurred to me that the fondness I feel for Zoe is being quietly returned, like a shared secret.

“And, if I were you,” I say, “I'd be even
more
scared right now.”

My heart is pounding in my throat because I realize I have just crossed a line. Something is going to happen, something I will not be able to stop.

“What the hell are you talkin' about?” snarls Cliff, like a confused, trapped animal. His growl scarcely conceals his confusion.

“Hell is exactly what I'm talkin' about, Cliff old pal.” Oops. He has detected that I am mocking him.

“Are you asking for a busted face, Turd-Bird?” Cliff asks. I know that he has no intention of hitting me. Not yet. He would rather let me back down voluntarily. But I won't do it this time. Something inside me has snapped.

“Maybe I know something that you don't, Cliff. Not that
that's
surprising.”

Cliff puts on a tough expression for Zoe and Amanda, who are watching from the edge of their seat.

“You'd better take that back, Turd . . . ”

“Let me ask you a question,” I say.

The killer instinct takes over.

“How do you know that the world really
didn't
end at 8:35, Cliff?”

Cliff looks confused. Not a major surprise.

“How do you know that you haven't passed straight into hell, that the Devil isn't just fooling you into thinking you're still on the school bus? How do you know that demons aren't going to suddenly pop out and rip you to shreds, Cliff? How do you know you're not on the bus to hell?”

The tone in my voice surprises me. It is as if I have pulled the release pin out of the cylinder in the back of my head from which all the nightmares come.

Cliff is no longer sure whether or not I am joking.

“Knock it off, Turd-Bird. You're buggin' me.”

“Calling me Turd-Bird is not a very intelligent thing to do right now, Cliff.”

“Why not?” He rolls up his sleeve, preparing to punch.

“Why not?” I holler. “Because you don't know whether or not I'm who you think I am. Maybe the world ended two minutes ago, and now you're in hell. Tell me Cliff, am I Dak Sifter, or am I a demon in disguise?”

I look him straight in the eyes.

“Can you say that you know for
sure
?”

“Shut up, Sifter! You're a psycho!”

“Or maybe just a demon, eh? You never can tell, can you, Cliff?”

My eyes are bulging maniacally.

“Am I a demon, Cliff? What do you think?”

Cliff may actually be scared. I am frightening myself a little, because I am starting to enjoy what I am doing to him.

Amanda is watching with the fascination some people have for film footage of airplane crashes and convenience store shootings. Cliff turns to her.

“Tell Sifter he's a dickhead, Amanda.”

I expect Amanda to do this, since she is one of the girls who often buys potato chips for Cliff. To my surprise, Amanda tells Cliff to grow up.

“But Cliff can't grow up if he died three minutes ago, can he?” I cackle. “He won't ever grow up!”

“You never know, do you Cliff?” Amanda says sweetly. She doesn't wish to fail grade eight for want of a passing grade in math.

“You're a bimbo, Amanda,” Cliff grumbles. “You can forget about going to the movies with me again!”

Amanda, who usually wears the expression of a deer caught in a pair of car headlights, becomes enraged.

“Dead guys don't go to movies, Cliff!” she screeches like skidding tires. “You're not so cool now that you're dead, are you?”

Then, she turns to ice, rotating slowly around in her seat with her head cocked back. Wow. Girls are so good at that!

“Whoops! Bad move, Cliff!” I chirp. “But don't worry, old pal, you won't be needing girlfriends where
you're
headed . . . ”

Cliff is turning red. Oh-oh! Could Cliff be losing his famous cool? I am bent on seeing this happen.

“Maybe the flames won't burn you too badly, Cliff, given that you're so cool . . . ”

I feel a sharp blow against my jaw, and the back of my head bounces against the bus window.

Momentary blackness . . .

I can feel the warmth of my blood trickling into my mouth, slowly filling it. Cliff has punched me in the face. Dull pain rises from the back of my head and my lower lip throbs.

Cliff stands in the aisle, still-clenched fists hanging at his sides, and he begins to cry. Although he has punched me in the face, he is the one who's crying. Despite loosened, bloody teeth, I am grinning.

My head hardly hurts at all, relatively speaking. I have lost teeth to snowballs with rocks inside them and I have been knocked off my bicycle by biting dogs. Back when I was younger, and I went to the Special School for “gifted” kids, I got hit in the privates with a baseball bat just because I rode on a different bus than the other neighbourhood brats. So a punch in the face is nothing.

Zoe shimmies around Amanda, and squeezes into the seat beside me. She mops blood from my mouth with a Kleenex, looking admiringly worried.

“Ohmigod!” she says. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It's nothing.”

It occurs to me at this moment that Zoe is going to grow up to be a very attractive woman.

Cliff is sitting in his seat, knees against his face, hiding. It is too late, though, and he knows it.

What will happen from this point will go something like this: Cliff will be sent down to the principal's office by the bus driver. Zoe and Amanda will be called in as witnesses, because girls are seen to be above this sort of boyish nonsense.

Of course, Amanda and Zoe will tell the principal that I did absolutely nothing to provoke such a heartless attack, and the principal will believe it. In the past, Cliff has had a tendency to be a bit too “cool” with the teachers, whereas I have been on the honour roll every year since grade one.

Cliff will pay for the broken window. He will apologize to me. He will be watched like a prison inmate for the remainder of the school year. He will probably also collect fewer potato chips at lunch. Poor Cliff.

He looks at me from across the aisle, head between his knees. He would like to apologize for hitting me, if only to save his own skin, but his residual coolness prevents this from happening.

Even though I have stopped bleeding, Zoe continues to gently rub my lip with the Kleenex.

Cliff sits and cries.

Welcome to hell, Cliff.