JPod (40 page)

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. . .

Greg didn't answer his phone. Just after I hung up, Dad called. "Your mother's left me for some crazed dyke."

"What?"

"You heard me. I've been ditched for Fred Flintstone's fetus."

"Dad, are you drinking rum and Gatorade on the living-room couch with the lights off?"

He was.

"Dad, she hasn't even known the woman for fifteen minutes. She probably went out to buy groceries and you're misinterpreting it,"

"She left a note."

"She did?"

"Dear fim, I need the passion and intimacy that only a woman can bring
to my life's journey. Please don't judge me harshly. And don't forget that tonight
the seedlings need their root booster growth formula."

"I'll be right over."

When I got there, Dad was in the living room, lights out, in the process of switching from orange to green Gatorade, but there were no labels on the plastic bottles. "Dad, where are the labels on the Gatorade botdes?"

"I may be pissed to the gills, but there's no way I'm going to pay full retail when I can get bulk powder at Costco."

"Jesus, Dad—are you cheap in your dreams at night, too?"

I looked at Mom's note, blotched with damp spots from melted ice cubes. A dismal and baroque scene. I'd just sat down on the sofa beside Dad when Ellen, the stalker of yore, scampered across the lawn, wearing a bright pink Gore-Tex pantsuit and shaking spruce needles off her purse.

"Just tell that pesky bitch to take a hike," Dad said.

I went to the front door and called, "Ellen, we saw you."

Her head popped out from behind an azalea.

"Ellen, today's not a good day for stalking. Dad's really depressed about something, and whatever you're up to, today's just not the day."

"Oh. Okay. I'll come back tomorrow."

"Thanks, Ellen."

I came back inside. "Did Mom say where she's staying, Dad?"

"No."

"Any phone number?"

"No."

"Did she pack a bag?"

"Nope."

I was mentally scrolling through all of Mom's infatuations, living and dead, all of whom Dad was clueless about. "If she didn't pack a bag, how long can she be planning to be away? Relax."

Dad was inconsolable. "She's been so pure and trusting all these years—and me bopping every little crumpet I share a gig with." He gulped a few shooters, then passed out, leaving me with the job of tracking down Mom. I phoned John Doe. "Hi, John."

"Hi, Ethan. What's up?"

"John, I need to track down my mom, and I think she's visiting your mother's place. Something about fertilizers."

Silence.

"John?"

More silence.

"John?"

"Oh dear."

"Why are you saying
Oh dear?"

"I've seen this happen many a time, Ethan. You might as well accept the fact that you're soon to be my stepbrother."

"What?"

"Ethan, once my mother strikes, she becomes an irresistible force. Your mother is powerless. Oh dear, oh dear."

I faked naivete. "You're nuts. She's simply getting information on boron phosphate hydroponic fertilizers."

John sighed.

"Where does your mother live? I've got to go see my mother, or my father's going to pop a vessel," I finally admitted.

John gave me an address up the coast, at the end of a one-hour ferry ride. "Ethan, I'm coming with you. You'll see why when we get there."

The ferry was almost empty. We thought we'd try to get some work done at sea, but instead we bought Sunshine Burgers and slept in the car on the car deck. We were honked awake by the ferry's bullhorn.

The drive up the coast was glorious: ferns, massive cedars, a sparkling sea flecked with eagles and seagulls. I noticed that John, however, was clenching his fists. "Uh, John, what should I be expecting here?"

"I don't want to colour your perceptions, Ethan."

"Jesus, John. What are we driving into—
Planet of the Apes?"

"Just don't try to give a clever answer on any topic at all. Any."

"Come on."

"I didn't change my name and identity for nothing, Ethan."

We forked off the highway onto a secondary road, and from there onto a tertiary road, and from there onto a quaternary road, finally ending up on a weedy, overgrown lane, which went on for a half-mile through an alder forest and ended in a small cul-de-sac covered with mulched bark chips. At its end stood a chain-smoking dwarf clad in purple nylon, her ears aglint with silver rings. She saw John coming.

"Oh, it's
your

"Hello, Yarrow."

"Who's that?"

"That's Ethan."

"You're gay? Finally some good news from you."

"Not gay. Just here to see Mother."

"Right."

We passed the enchanting Yarrow and headed towards the house, a hundred-year-old dump sheathed in long grey planks, the structure beginning to sag into itself, and decorated with a collection of colourful nylon vaginal motif banners. What had once been the lawn was a tangled meadow. Trees didn't look so much naturalized as they did homeless.

I asked, "Is that Yarrow with a capital or lower case Y?"

"Actually, it's capitalized. Long story."

Inside the house John called out for freedom, but there was a nobody-home feeling. The place smelled of eroding fabrics and vegetarian cooking. The coloured crystals and knick-knacks everywhere highlighted my sense that here, people could stop taking their prescription medications without fear of being judged.

We looked out back and spotted a circle of maybe eight women sitting in sun-bleached Adirondack chairs. Mom was at the far end and saw me. "Ethan! Hello."

She came over to hug me. "You're so sweet to drop in unannounced like this."

"Mom, what's going on here?"

"I know what you're thinking, Ethan. I haven't become a lesbian. I just think it's really important at this point to explore my she-power, freedom is a good teacher."

freedom came over. "Can I help you?"

"Uh, hi, freedom. I just came to visit Mom."

"We're busy."

Mom said, "freedom helped me collect from that fellow who sold me bum seedlings. She didn't even use a gun."

"She helped you on a collection? I could have helped out, you know."

freedom cut in, "She didn't need you or a metal death penis—just a bit of confidence." She put her arm around Mom's waist and kissed her quite luxuriously on the neck. "Do you have business here? We need to go back to our circle."

Mom said, "It's Uterus Week. You can't imagine what I've been learning."

"I'm sure I can't. Can you at least phone Dad?"

Mom looked unsure. "No phones here, freedom says I need to be away from my stifling home environment."

"How could home be stifling? It's never stifled you."

"Ethan, you're always so critical. I know—here's an example—doors."

"Doors?"

"Doors are
very
stifling."

"How are doors stifling?"

"Inside the house here, the bathrooms have no doors, and it's a liberating feeling to be in them, it really is. Doors are nothing more than flat wooden burkas invented to keep women from feeling proud and fallopian." She looked behind her. "I have to get back to the circle. I know you'll figure out something to tell your father. Bye, dear."

Yarrow snickered as John and I walked back to the car. As we drove away, John said, 'You can't say I didn't warn you. Now can you understand how I got to be the way I am?"

I grunted.

"I know," said John. "Let's go out and buy a statistically average meal from a large multinational restaurant chain. That usually fixes about seventy-five percent of life's problems."

In a weird way, eating a Whopper did feel vaguely retaliatory, but as we left the restaurant, I realized I was forgetting something. "My new coat. Crap—I left it back at your mother's house. Kaitlin'll kill me if I lose it. It was a present."

John stayed in the car, engaged in a stare-off with Yarrow, while I ran in. I looked around but couldn't see it. I called out, "Mom?"

One of the women pointed upstairs, and so up I went, taking great pains not to accidentally look into a bathroom. But when I glanced into a bedroom, there she was, naked on her stomach, while freedom, clad only in a pair of boxers, gave her a back rub.

"Oh jeez . . . sorry." I backed downstairs, with Mom yelling,
"Iam
not a lesbian, Ethan!"

I found my coat on a table near the front door.

As we drove back to the ferry, John Doe insisted on listening to Top 40 on the car radio while I tried to digest the afternoon's implications.

"Isn't Yarrow a freak?" John asked.

"I can't say I disagree."

"She's my sister."

. . .

Kaitlin thought the day's field trip was a hoot.

"It's a phase, Ethan. She'll get over it."

I wasn't so sure.

We were back in jPod, staring into Evil Mark's cubicle. "It's so clean. So ordered. I bet he makes his bed every morning."