JPod (24 page)

"Strip. Now. Or we'll get really ugly."

Ronald was surrounded by six mothers brandishing knives, collapsed folding chairs, guns and one heavy table lamp. One of mothers whacked Ronald on the lower back, and the others pulled her back. Alpha-Mom said, "Not just yet, Katie." She looked down at Ronald, and there was no mercy in her eyes. "Start with those bright red, overly large novelty clown booties. One, two. Bang bang."

Ronald obeyed, and as he did, he realized he was turned on. It was a new sensation that both frightened and pleased him. Through his red and white striped socks, he could feel the cool, dry, recently washed floor tiles. In submission, he handed over his boots to Alpha-Mom.

"Good. Now the socks. Did you phone Waldo and borrow them?"

Ronald removed his socks. The air cooled his toes. Nakedness was going to be a treat. He started to remove his yellow gloves.

"Did I say you could remove your gloves?"

"No."

The women cackled. Alpha-Mom said, "Now for a big ticket item—
overalls"

The women started betting against each other:
Boxers or briefs?
Painted-on underwear or a smooth, bulby nub like a doll?

Ronald unzipped the three-foot-long zipper down his front. A strap fell from each shoulder. He wanted to laugh, but he knew that if he did, it would kill the mood.

Alpha-Mom was huffy.
"That's
underwear? It looks like an adult diaper. Now take off the gloves."

Ronald obeyed. He was now down to his shirt and diaper-like undergarment.

"The shirt goes, clown. Do it quick."

From the basement, Ronald heard the children's piercing sugared-up voices. He felt freer than he had ever felt before.

"Hey, wait a second—you've never taken your clothes off before, have you?" Alpha-Mom said.

"Part of being a corporate spokesmascot is that I can only remove my clothing if commanded. And nobody's ever asked before."

Alpha-Mom: "So you've never looked
down there}"

"No."

Alpha-Mom said, "Time you did."

The room was almost religiously charged, as if the women—and Ronald—were to glimpse the contents of the Ark for the first time. Ronald was fumbling with the garment's fastening system when an escaped child suddenly entered the room, scaring the mothers. The .44 went off by accident, hitting Ronald in the upper arm. Blood sprayed everywhere. "You crazy fucked-up bitch, what the hell do you think you've done?" Another escaped child entered the room and began screaming. Katie moved to shush the kids out of the room, but slipped in a pool of clown blood, cracking the back of her skull on a sharply tiled corner of the decorative, retro, Cape Cod fireplace. A vermouth bottle shattered.

Ronald looked. "Holy shit, she's dead." He could even see brains.

The children screamed even more. Nell said, "Get them out of here."

Ronald's grease-painted torso was speckled with beads of blood.

Alpha-Mom was freaked. "Shit, shit,
shit.
What are we going to do?" She tossed Ronald his clothes. "Put these on. Now."

"But I never had a chance to look inside my undergarment. . ."

Sheila said, "Shut up and dress." She looked at the other mothers. "Here's what happened—the clown did it. That's our story. He tried to molest me, and I had to protect myself. You were all here. You saw it."

Ronald knew he was fucked. He also knew he had maybe ninety seconds before the police cruisers arrived, and so, half-dressed, carrying his stained clothes, he ran into the living room, where a Legend of Zelda game was on pause. Ronald dove into the screen, and the glass closed up behind him. And he's been trapped inside games ever since . . .

. . . And now he's out for revenge.

. . .

For the past few weeks, Bree has had ten Scrabble games piled on her desk; some weekend, her plan is to glue their letter tiles onto her bathroom mouldings. "What a depressing Spinsters of Tomorrow craft project, huh? But it'll look so cute."

Suddenly—
ping!
—all of us were playing Scrabble, making the stupidest words. It turned out that Bree had removed nearly all the E's and S's from the letter bag—har, har, har—and some T's as well. We got her to put them back and we played again and made pretty good words. The best was mine: "tsetse," as in tsetse fly.

Afterwards, Bree said, "As a special treat, I've printed out a list of the 972 three-letter words allowed in Scrabble,
but
I've added one non-regulation word to the list. First person who finds it wins a jumbo-sized Toblerone chocolate bar."

"Why do you have a jumbo Toblerone bar? Nobody ever buys them."

"I wanted to see what it was that Steve was working on when he rescued that company, and dammit, maybe he's on to something. They're good."

Mark added, "Toblerone's not just for mini-bars any more." No one said anything. He still hasn't learned how to be ironic.

Herewith Bree's list. Let it be noted that Microsoft Word's spell-check rejects most of them—so, then, how real
are
these words?

AAH ADD AHA ALB AMU ARB ASK AWA BAD BAT BIB BOB BOY BUR CAN CHI COR CUD DAG DEE DIE DOG DUB EAR AAL ADO AID ALE ANA ARC ASP AWE BAG BAY BID BOD BRA BUS CAP CIS COS CUE DAH DEL DIG DOL DUD EAT AAS ADS AIL ALL AND ARE ASS AWL BAH BED BIG BOG BRO BUT CAR COB COT CUM DAK DEN DIM DOM DUE EAU ABA ADZ AIM ALP ANE ARF ATE AWN BAL BEE BIN BOO BRR BUY CAT COD cow CUP DAL DEV DIN DON DUG EBB ABO AFF AIN ALS ANI ARK ATT AXE BAM BEG BIO BOP BUB BYE CAW COG cox CUR DAM DEW DIP DOR DUI ECU ABS AFT AIR ALT ANT ARM AUK AYE BAN BEL BIS BOS BUD BYS CAY COL COY CUT DAP DEX DIS DOS DUN EDH ABY AGA AIS AMA ANY ARS AVA AYS BAP BEN BIT BOT BUG CAB CEE CON coz CWM DAW DEY DIT DOT DUO EEL ACE AGE AIT AMI APE ART AVE AZO BAR BET BIZ BOW BUM CAD CEL coo CRY DAB DAY DIB DOC DOW DUP EFF ACT AGO ALA AMP APT ASH AVO BAA BAS BEY BOA BOX BUN CAM CEP COP CUB DAD DEB DID DOE DRY DYE EFS EFT EGG EGO ELS EME EMF ERA ERE ERG EVE EWE EYE FAX FAY FED FEU FEW FEY FIN FIR FIT FOG FOH FON FRY FUB FUD GAG GAL GAM GED GEE GEL GID GIE GIG GOD GOO GOR GUT GUV GUY HAJ HAM HAO HEM HEN HEP HIC HID HIE HOB HOD HOE HUB HUE HUG ICE ICH ICK IMP INK INN IVY JAB JAG JEU JEW JIB JOW JOY JUG KAS KAT KAY KEY KHI KID KOB KOI KOP LAG LAM LAP LAY LEA LED LEV LEX LEY LIS LIT LOB LUG LUM LUV MAN MAP MAR MEL MEM MEN MIL MIM MIR MOG MOL MOM EKE EMS ERN FAD FEE FEZ FIX FOP FUG GAN GEM GIN GOT GYM HAP HER HIM HOG HUH ICY INS JAM JIG JUN KEA KIF KOR LAR LEE LEZ LOG LUX MAS MET MIS MON ELD EMU ERR FAG FEH FIB FIZ FOR FUN GAP GEN GIP GOX GYP HAS HES HIN HON HUM IDS ION JAR JIN JUS KEF KIN KOS LAS LEG LIB LOO LYE MAT MEW MIX MOO ELF END ERS FAN FEM FID FLU FOU FUR GAR GET GIT GOY HAD HAT HET HIP HOP HUN IFF IRE JAW JOB JUT KEG KIP KUE LAT LEI LID LOP MAC MAW MHO MOA MOP ELK ELL ELM ENG ENS EON ESS ETA ETH FAR FAS FAT FEN FER FET FIE FIG FIL FLY FOB FOE FOX FOY FRO GAB GAD GAE GAS GAT GAY GEY GHI GIB GNU GOA GOB GUL GUM GUN HAE HAG HAH HAW HAY HEH HEW HEX HEY HIS HIT HMM HOT HOW HOY HUP HUT HYP IFS ILK ILL IRK ISM ITS JAY JEE JET JOE JOG JOT KAB KAE KAF KEN KEP KEX KIR KIT KOA LAB LAC LAD LAV LAW LAX LEK LET LEU LIE LIN LIP LOT LOW LOX MAD MAE MAG MAX MAY MED MIB MID MIG MOB MOC MOD MOR MOS MOT MOW MUD MUG NAG NAH NAM NET NEW NIB NOB NOD NOG NOW NTH NUB OAT OBE OBI OFT OHM OHO OMS ONE ONS ORB ORC ORE OVA OWE OWL PAL PAM PAN PAY PEA PEC PER PES PET PIG PIN PIP POH POI POL PRY PSI PUB PUS PUT PYA RAH RAJ RAM RAY REB REC REP RES RET RIF RIG RIM ROM ROT ROW RYA RYE SAB SAT SAU SAW SEI SEL SEN SHH SHY SIB SIT SIX SKA SON SOP SOS SPY SRI STY SYN TAB TAD TAP TAR TAS TED TEE TEG THY TIC TIE TOE TOG TOM TOY TRY TSK TUX TWA TWO MUM NAN NIL NOH NUN OCA OHS OOH ORS OWN PAP PED PEW PIS POM PUD PYE RAN RED REV RIN RUB SAC SAX SER SIC SKI SOT SUB TAE TAT TEL TIL TON TUB TYE MUN NAP NIM NOM NUS ODD OIL OOT ORT OXO PAR PEE PHI PIT POP PUG PYX RAP REE REX RIP RUE SAD SAY SET SIM SKY SOU SUE TAG TAU TEN TIN TOO TUG UDO MUS NAW NIP NOO NUT ODE OKA OPE OSE OXY PAS PEG PHT PIU POT PUL QAT RAS REF RHO ROB RUG SAE SEA SEW SIN SLY SOW SUM TAJ TAV TET TIP TOP TUI UGH MUT NAB NAE NAY NEB NEE NIT NIX NOA NOR NOS NOT OAF OAK OAR ODS OES OFF OKE OLD OLE OPS OPT ORA OUD OUR OUT PAC PAD PAH PAT PAW PAX PEH PEN PEP PIA PIC PIE PIX PLY POD POW POX PRO PUN PUP PUR QUA RAD RAG RAT RAW RAX REG REI REM RIA RIB RID ROC ROD ROE RUM RUN RUT SAG SAL SAP SEC SEE SEG SEX SHA SHE SIP SIR SIS SOB SOD SOL SOX SOY SPA SUN SUP SUQ TAM TAN TAO TAW TAX TEA TEW THE THO TIS TIT TOD TOR TOT TOW TUN TUP TUT UKE ULU UMM UMP UNS UPO UTS VAC VAN VEE VEG VET VOE VOW VOX WAP WAR WAS WEE WEN WET WIT WIZ WOE WOT WOW WRY YAM YAP YAR YES YET YEW YOM YON YOU ZAX ZED ZEE ZOO UPS URB URD VAR VAS VAT VEX VIA VIE VUG WAB WAD WAT WAW WAX WHA WHO WHY WOG WOK WON WUD WYE WYN YAW YAY YEA YID YIN YIP YOW YUK YUM ZEK ZIG ZIN URN USE UTA VAU VAV VAW VIG VIM VIS WAE WAG WAN WAY WEB WED WIG WIN WIS WOO WOP WOS XIS YAH YAK YEH YEN YEP YOB YOD YOK YUP ZAG ZAP ZIP ZIT ZOA

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

N N N N N N N

L L L L L L L

L L C C L LN

L L C L L L N

L LN N L LN

NNNNNNN

NNNNNNN

NNNNNNN

T T T T T TT

T C T T TC T

C C C C C C C

T C C C C C T

T T T C T TT

T T T T T TT

T T T T T TT

. . .

A few days later I caused a sensation in jPod: "Everybody listen up. At the count of three, write me a list on a topic of your own choosing. You've got five minutes. The best list wins . . ." at which point I held up the trophy " . . . this six-inch Japanese kewpie doll complete with working squeak. This doll is the spokesmascot of Japan's most beloved mayonnaise company. I bought it off eBay because I thought it was cool and that when I put it on my desk my life would be somehow better—but, well, this hasn't proven to be the case. Are you ready? Get set. . . One . . . two . . . three . . .
Go!"

Bree:

Things my new French boyfriend does that are making me beginto wonder about him

1)

Tucks his sweaters into his pants.

2)

Eats Play-Doh fragments.

3)

Wears yellow-lensed Fendi eyeglasses that make him resemble a repeat sex offender.

4)

Sold all of his Fred Perry shirts on eBay because I told him they make him look pregnant (he should have given them to charity).

5)

Refuses to capitalize the letter "I" when writing about himself in emails.

6)

Is a selfish and incoherent lover.

Faggy colour names (alphabetized)

bisque

cerise

chartreuse

conch

cornflower

corn silk

fern

goldenrod

honeydew

leather

lichen

lox

mica

moccasin

opal

plum

saddle brown

shiraz

snow

thistle

yolk

Would you ever go into a lottery booth and buy a 6/49 with the following numbers: 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6 and a bonus of 7? Of course you wouldn't. But that number has just as ludicrously small a chance of winning as do some idiotic numbers you pulled out of the air.

2)

When you buy lottery tickets, your lifestyle elevator travels only down. Buy enough tickets over a long period of time and, before you realize it, you'll find yourself living in a listing mobile home. Its linoleum kitchenette counters will be constellated with crystal meth pipe burns. Its throw cushions will be caked in DNA best left unexplored. There will be a Domino's pizza boy bound and gagged beneath the main living area beside the cinder blocks.

3)

Oh, for God's sake, how many more reasons do you need?

Three weeks ago he was suntanning on the back stoop using an old Supertramp double album covered in tin foil to concentrate the rays onto his face.

2)

He knows the technically correct word for the act of playing music using the rims of wine glasses.

3)

He has dextrous toes and uses them to pick socks off the bedroom floor when he thinks I'm still sleeping.

pancakes

tortillas

waffles

crepes

communion wafers

. . .

About once every three years I get a craving for a Coca-Cola, and only a Coca-Cola—no cheeseburgers or fries. Shordy after Bree won, I had my triennial craving. I went to the kitchen area to get a can, and on a table beneath a stacked totem of plastic coffee creamers was an abandoned car magazine open to a spread on the Volkswagen Touareg's fuel economy. This got me thinking about Steve and his abandoned car and Mom and Kam Fong and all. I thought, "Oh well," and took my Coke back to my desk, and when I did, John and Evil Mark were arguing about Coke versus Pepsi. John was convinced that Coke has a valid reason for being the top cola, that, "Even though we're haggling about the difference between catshit and dogshit, Coke is technically more delicious." To prove it, he pulled out mini-bar cola consumption statistics that showed Coke to be number one.
Mini-bars
—and of course, mini-bars mean Toblerone, the signature mini-bar snack of all time—another Steve indicator. So I tried getting on with my work, but then I heard Cowboy pacifying some fartcatcher from the facilities department who claimed they'd found cigarette butts in an air filter and thought the butts might be coming from jPod. Cowboy was doing his thirtieth Sudoku of the day and was feeding the facilities people the rich, nourishing crap they deserved. He ended it all with "Okey-diddily-dokey" . . . just like Ned Flanders—and so yet again I was reminded of Steve. My conscience began getting the worst of me.

Well, at least he's not dead.

Oh God. I felt so guilty. So in the mid-afternoon I drove over to Kam Fong's. How strange that all you have to do sometimes to meet somebody is walk up to their house and ring a doorbell, and magically they appear as if from nowhere.

With x-ray eyes I saw the maggots scouring Tim's corpse in pursuit of Tim Jerky.

Kam opened the door. "Ethan."

"Hi, Kam."

He was covered with maybe a hundred acupuncture needles.

"Sorry to interrupt your session."

"No worry. What's up? Come in."

Kam's acupuncturist was futzing about with the contents of his suitcase and wasn't introduced to me.

"Kam, I need to find Steve."

He didn't blink as he back-hopped onto the acupuncture table. "I thought he was a jerk and was ruining your skateboard game. Why are you asking me about him?"

"Believe it or not, we need him at the company to override a recent decision to make our new game even stupider. Mom told me that you—"

"Yes?"

"That you helped her out on the Steve issue."

"He's not dead or anything."

"That's what she said."

More needles went into Kam's calves. I couldn't look, and Kam said, "Ethan, stop being such a pussy. Acupuncture's one of the few Chinese things that actually works. Unlike feng shui."

Tim's nearby carcass amplified my unease. Kam asked, "How badly do you want to see Steve, then?"

Good question. "Well, I think Steve might be just powerful enough to reverse the company's decision on the latest botch-up with the game. And I feel kind of rotten hearing that he's . . ."

"That he's what?"

"Ummm . . . being
detained
somewhere."

"He was hassling your mother."

"Mom can take care of herself just fine. Can you tell me if he's okay or not?"

"He's not in pain, if that's what you mean."

"That's a good start."

"And he's now happy in his own way."

Coming from Kam, this suggested the most gruesome of fates. "Just tell me where he is, and I'll go get him—no questions asked. I doubt he's going to hassle Mom any more."

"Give me a week or so to figure out a thing or two."

"Thanks."

. . .

While I waited for Kam to get back to me, in jPod we carried on with the generating of Ronald's Lair. We're doing the most basic levels of coding, which is kind of boring, and we also had to do it on top of our regular jobs—and our regular jobs are made even worse because of eye candy. Just when you think you're meeting a schedule, your team has to generate weekly eye candy for marketing so that they don't think the project's tanking, and thus allow it to live until the next milestone. On the good side, so much ill will and torture surrounds the SpriteQuest project in-house that we can get away with doing amazingly little and yet still give the illusion of being team players. Mostly this means walking around, acting pumped and saying things like "Man, this is going to be one rocking game!" with a straight face, thus inflating the egos of superiors while creating a protective bulletproof coating of enthusiasm. It's so easy it's scary. Even for me, with my fake voice. It's all so stupid that the fake/real part of my brain doesn't tickle even the slightest bit.

. . .

I've noticed that, as we ramp up on our game-building skills and generalized knowledge about Ronald, we're googling every ten minutes. The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we've started to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.

. . .

A small cold passed through the pod, and we suffered a seventeen percent health loss, even though we zinc'ed up like crazy. And Cowboy kept saying, "Remember everybody: limb-specific gunshot damage" to the point where we felt slightly spooked.

Amid all of this, Bree was moping out of concern that, in her quest to make a corporate success of herself, she might become unattractive to her French beau. John Doe told Bree that if she were artier she'd be more of a catch for her French paramour. As a result, Bree has canned the business attire in favour of an all-black look. To take this new lifestyle philosophy further, she and John ended up driving to Brentwood Mall to do performance art. Bree walked down the main atrium area, shaving her neck with an electric razor, and met John Doe, who applied lipstick in the middle of a crowded restaurant. I tried to imagine the public's response and John's counter-response: "Is it so wrong for a man to wear MAC Brick-O-La? Are your gender ideas that limited?" Afterwards he said, "Maybe it's just my dykey upbringing, but lipstick really does taste gross. How do you women do it?"

He inspired Kaitlin to confess: "Sometimes I get too lazy to wear makeup. To compensate for it, I simply dress like a slut."

. . .

Cowboy's signed on to a site called chokingforit.com, where people all across the city put in their name, a photo of their body, their address and a numerical rating from one to ten of how horny they are. Depending on how entries mesh, Cowboy simply vanishes for seventy-five minutes and then comes back saying nothing. I've gotten so used to this kind of behaviour with Cowboy that it no longer registers. The upside for me is that his trysts now happen during the day, so he never has to be rescued after ODing on Robitussin.

Also: Evil Mark is an evil genius, and Ronald's Lair's core code could never exist without him. But he also has yet to adorn the walls of his cubicle, which is really spooky. It just is. And the other day I secretly ate one of his novelty lemon-flavoured Post-its. It was really quite tasty. Tangy—with a hint of dust.

. . .

The next day the big drama was that John cast a spell on Evil Mark after Evil Mark ate a packet of Handi-Snacks John had left on his desk. Like anything weird in life, it began small and escalated.

"Evil Mark, did you eat my Handi-Snacks?"

"You mean that small plastic tray of shitty crackers that comes with a blob of cheese spread you can dip the crackers into?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"I did."

John got up. 'You didn't ask for permission. You
know
how seriously I take my snacking rituals."

"John, it was only a fucking plastic tublet with some crackers and a cheese-like orange substance. Big deal. I'll get you another one."

"Big deal? That was my
snack,
Mark. And now it's not, because you ate it."

"I'll get you another one. I'll even let you eat my stapler if it makes you feel better."

"I don't want to eat your stapler, and I don't want another Handi-Snacks. That's not my point. You took it without asking, and then you act like private property is meaningless."

"You're overreacting."

John Doe said, "Apologize." John was getting fierce. I began to wonder if this would erupt into cubicle rage.

"I don't like the way you're saying that."

"It was my property, Mark. And you just stole it like you were some global corporation absorbing a small African nation into its balance sheet. Evil Mark, I am officially casting a spell on you." John waved his hand in a circle and then threw invisible gnome dandruff at Mark. "I hereby strip you of the ability to perceive cartoons."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Just what I said. Until you apologize for what you did, your eyes may look at cartoons, and your ears may listen to them, but they will make no sense to you. Cartoons will be nothing more to you than abstract shapes bouncing about to garbled noises."

"That's so stupid, John."

"Is it really? You won't think so when you come crawling to me, begging to be able to apprehend cartoons again."

"This is fucked up. I'm going back to work."

"You do that."