The lights of the marquee flicker. On-off, yes-no, could he be imagining this? Mid-morning out here on the sun-soused street, hard to say. But there they go again, toggling as though some brat’s found the city’s master switch and wants to get a bit of a strobe going, send everybody epileptic.
The Italian Job. Shaolin Soccer. Daddy Day Care. Look out, Hitchcock!
Finding Nemo. Hollywood Homicide. Rugrats Go Wild. Look out, Fellini!
Might there be a message buried in these trite-sounding titles? First word of each one maybe? The Shaolin daddy finding Hollywood rugrats …
It’s a no-go on the grid. The lights have fizzled again, leaving Yonge Street to the dazzle of its natural light. Matt stands his ground, a deadhead for which the flash flood of earthlings reluctantly parts. Yeah, his very own Crowd Scene. It’s a truly cinematic mob, the sort of mob into which a hero might dissolve as the music rises, redeeming and being redeemed by the collective. Is this what he’s missed, this crowd, these people?
A pair of cops creak past, blue on black leather, looking alert but sheepish. Shouldn’t things be hopping today? Shouldn’t there be hooligans about, squads of smash-and-grabbers?
Matt tries out further decodings and decipherings of the marquee, but nothing. This is a job for a hardcore paranoid. Where’s the Dadinator when you need him? Where’s DennyD?
Of the six movies on offer here, Matt’s reviewed only two. The Italian Job … Right. Nagy approved of that piece, never a good sign. Matt recalls riffing on the heist genre and its various conventions—the mystical unity of cop and crook, the thief as symbol of metaphysical freedom, that sort of nonsense. These maunderings left only a paragraph or two for the actual movie, so it got off easy. Matt barely made mention of the emotional sterility, the pizzazzless script.
Come to think of it he was a touch warm and fuzzy, too, with Finding Nemo. “Everybody’s a Critic,” he called his piece, and he opened with the query, “What sets us human beings apart from the rest of creation? Let’s look at answers offered up by some of the Great Big F#@*ing Thinkers.” And he did. Humans are the only animals who talk, who tell time, who decide how to die. Humans are the only animals capable of ruining the planet, of leaving the planet …
“I don’t mean to be overly critical,” Matt wrote, “but these folks are all missing the point. The point is that humans are the only animals who criticize. Humans are the only animals who turn on themselves, who shame themselves into being other than what they are, wondering what they might become.” From there he segued to the issue of anthropomorphism, and ended up getting all gushy about Nemo, the sad little clownfish who falls, finally, into the open fins of his dad. Did Matt snark, even briefly, about the odious Universal Truths, the painfully predictable arc, the pushy ending? He did not.
Maybe it really is time for a break.
“Sorry, sorry,” says Matt, to a guy who’s just gouged him in the back with a briefcase. Cripes, he sure could use a Coke. No coffee this morning, though he reflexively filled the carafe and hit Brew before he clued back in. Losing a limb must be like this too, or a loved one—you’d just keep forgetting to believe it.
The two lunks were still comatose when Matt set about girding himself for this morning’s expedition. His dad’s bedroom door was ajar, so Matt eavesdropped for a while on the stentorian riot of his sleep. Zane was more serene—the odd puppylike snuffle, otherwise silent. He had his arms drawn up and folded at both joints, like the front limbs of a praying mantis; with his feet he made twitchy frog kicks beneath the sheets. His T-shirt was bunched up to reveal the lesion on his shoulder. His belly button too was on display (oh yeah, an outie), and the thatch of damp hair canting into his boxers. Beautiful? Ugly? He had that human thing of being both at once. Matt stood over him awhile, watching him dream and—his latest spiritual practice, initiated just last night—trying to see him dead. Zane with all the Zaneness leached out of him.
He’s going to need some time with this one.
Zane snorted, smacked his lips. Matt pussyfooted over to the jumble of bags at the door and dug around for the camera. “Day one seventy-three,” he murmured once he had it up and running. There’ll be scads of this sort of footage, Zane lying around the place. How to keep it fresh? Matt fiddled with his angles, endeavoured to catch a bit of morning light as it burnished the visible bits of Zane’s body. That schnozzy silhouette against a patch of skyline, and then a very cool close-up of his left eye, his blue one, which frisked under its lid like Toto under a blanket. “Dream on.”
The notepaper by the hall phone gave Matt an unexpected little frisson, a funny nudge from the past—he’d ordered a whole whack of these pads for his mum one year. At the top of each sheet, a tipsy-looking St. Bernard exuded this thought bubble: “How am I supposed to save you if I don’t first save myself?” Collar undone, keg empty.
Dear Zane,
Live to be orphaned. Don’t leave them alone.
Love,
Matt
He’d been hanging onto this one, holding it in reserve. Maybe, for now, he’d keep on holding it, give the guy a break? He read the note over a few times, folded it and slipped it into his pocket.
Dear Zane,
Back soon, avec goodies with any luck. Check on Dad when
you get up, will you? Help him switch tanks if he needs it?
Merci,
Matt
Thank Christ for the Kwikee Mart. Matt’s got a bagful of provisions to lug back to the lads, the spoils of a fearsome hunter. Granola bars. Chips. A trio of blotchy bananas. And get this, Wagon Wheels, Ding Dongs—some things really do last forever. He’s guzzled about half his lukewarm pop. He’s got the instant gratification of the throat-burn, and still to look forward to the tickle, the nerve-tingle of caffeine.
Oh, and this is a weird feeling. The guy at the phone store back in Vancouver must have set his cell on vibrate—here at last, Matt’s very first incoming call. He powered the thing up this morning, planning to try Kate at the hotel—and maybe Mariko at home?—and neglected to shut it off when he found the system was still down.
But he’s too slow. By the time he fumbles the phone out of his pocket and pries it open it’s quit humming. Message, maybe?
Matt squints at the gizmo’s teensy monitor, scrolls trepidatiously through various menus. “6 new messages”—sheesh, he’s pretty hot stuff. A couple from Zane no doubt, from the other day. Who else knows the number? Kate. Mariko. How do you get them back?
Matt’s engulfed, just as he glances up, by a gaggle of very young women, a whole tribe of umgirls. Most days he wouldn’t dream of bugging them, but today? The laws of the cosmos have been suspended, is what it feels like. Things are possible now that normally, no.
“Excuse me, miss? I’m wondering if you could just show me …”
Boyfriend? Sibling? Each girl chatters urgently into a phone, communing with some absent other. Mum? Dad?
“Miss, could I possibly …”
Never mind. He’d have to call them both back, and what’s he really got to say?
Kate? Matt. Listen, I’m thinking Billie. Boy or girl, it’s a great name. Billie Burke, right? She played the good witch.
And then, hm. Mariko? Matt. Listen, I’ll be back, but I have no idea when. It’ll likely be a while, and I’ll likely be a wreck. You said go towards the trouble, right? Tell Toto she’s a good girl …
Later. There are messages enough in this moment. The Shaolin daddy finding Hollywood rugrats. Matt cracks another Coke—live a little. The lights should come up again soon, things’ll get started.
Now? Now? Now?