That afternoon Tracy and Alex headed to the lecture together, armed with hidden tape recorders and dummy binders. The class was big enough that Professor Monahan would never notice one new face in the crowd; in fact, other students had already started routinely sneaking in their friends, since it amounted to watching a free movie on a theatre-quality screen in a pleasantly air-conditioned room. But since they had to sit close enough to the front to make sure the Peak recorder would pick up Holtz’s voice, they weren’t taking any chances. It was all part of Alex’s plan—he’d even made a photocopy of the course syllabus to stick in the front page of Tracy’s fake workbook. When she saw it, she had to laugh.
“So what’s this movie we have to watch?” she asked.
“Maximum Death 2. You ever seen it? A real thinking-man’s killing spree.”
“And they filmed part of it here?”
“Yeah. There’s this terrorist/computer hacker with a secret mountain lair—located conveniently near Convo Mall.”
They stopped for coffee at the foot of the gleaming new FPA wing. Suddenly Alex felt the full weight of his nerves come down on him. He shifted his backpack around and jingled the keys and change in his pocket, too embarrassed to tell Tracy he hadn’t even brought his wallet, for fear of being identified. All he had on him was a small wad of bills, in case of emergency. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a risk even as slight as the one Tracy was about to—if this was how strongly his body reacted to being an accomplice, how would it feel to be the actual perpetrator?
On the other hand, he was a liberal arts student. Fostering timidity was what the discipline did best. It taught you about Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, and then expected you to venture forth into the world and become a citizen of action? What a joke. Every semester SFU was churning out hundreds of Hamlets, hundreds of men from the underground. The professors made crippling indecision sound like a virtue, those sneaks—and students paid them for the privilege.
Just then Alex saw Tyson strolling down the corridor toward them. “Hiya,” he said. “What are you two gaylords up to?”
When they told him, his jaw fell open. “No kidding. I love that movie.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said Tracy.
“You’ve got to let me come with,” he pleaded. “Please.”
This was more than Alex had bargained for. Discretion had never been Tyson’s strong suit—in a way, it was surprising he’d never applied for a job at The Peak. A list of worst-case scenarios presented itself. Would Tyson whoop at every explosion during the screening? Catcall Holtz as he approached the podium? Maybe he’d try to pick up a girl sitting all the way across the hall, just for something to do. And since Alex was the only one actually enrolled in the class, he’d be the one to take blame when the truth inevitably came out.
Relax, he told himself. Just tell him the room is full. Put your foot down, for once.
But Tracy was already begrudgingly pointing out the classroom at the top of the stairs. Never mind. Alex sprinted a few steps to catch up, scalding his thumb in the process as his coffee splooshed up over the rim.
At the entrance to the class, Alex reeled as he saw Keith and Chip standing there. Neither he nor Tracy had seen either of them since the firing.
“What are you guys doing here?” he said.
“We’re here for Holtz’s thing,” Keith said. Chip nodded vigorously in agreement. “And, uh, we figured you might be here, too,” he added.
Alex felt sincerely happy to see them. They were from the same generation, after all.
“Not even going to introduce me, huh?” Tyson elbowed his way in front. “I’m Tyson. You assholes must be from The Peak, too.” They swapped introductions. “Oh! You’re the ones who got canned. You must hate my boy Alex right now.”
“On the contrary,” Chip said. “We all took the same marching orders. As they say, politics stops at the shore.”
“You’re goddamned right about that, Chippo,” Keith said.
Tracy said, “So what’s new? Have you guys been—hanging out together?”
Keith and Chip belched at the same time. They both looked a little disheveled, Alex thought. And Keith was sporting what appeared to be the wispy beginnings of his own moustache. “How could you tell?” he said. “Hey, by the way, I have a copy editor question for you.”
“Go on, then.”
“What’s a funnier comeback: stick it in your dick?”
“Well—”
“Or stick it up your dick?”
“It’s nice to see you, too,” Tracy said.
Chip added, “What about, ‘Think quick, dick pic’?”
The kid was a quick study.
Christ, Alex realized. How am I supposed to get all of us in there? I’m gonna get busted for sure.
He needn’t have worried. Inside, the lecture hall was packed to the gills, now more closely resembling an actual movie theatre—right down to the jackets splayed over chairs, placeholders for those yet to arrive, and the kids huddled in circles, staring hypnotically into their phones. The usual pre-class chatter had tripled in volume. Better still, thought Alex with relief, it was crammed full of people who didn’t belong there. He followed Tyson to the middle of the centre section, where his friend kicked three jackets onto the floor and brusquely told another couple to make room. “Go on—move.”
Keith whispered to Tracy, “Who is this guy? I like his style.”
As for the specific make-up of the crowd, Alex couldn’t get a good read. There were some obvious fans—had someone made a poster way in the back?—but also plenty of others in full nonchalance mode, not giving an outward fuck about anything. The kind of person who smirked at their every surrounding as if it were quaint enough, passable for now, but so completely outclassed by the places where they usually hung out. Alex found this pose frighteningly convincing, at least until he reminded himself that if such a Mecca of Hip actually existed, wouldn’t these people just fuck off there already and leave everyone else alone?
The actual FPA students were easier to pick out. They’d at least bothered to bring books, if not open them. Alex realized the dummy binders he’d rigged up were about a thousand times more elaborate than necessary. A few of these budding cinephiles had removed their glasses and were rubbing the bridges of their respective noses, trying to block out the chorus of idiots surrounding them.
From his pocket, Keith awkwardly pulled out a theatre-sized box of Milk Duds. Tyson leaned across the others to demand a handful; settling back, he said to Alex, “Who is this guy? I like his style.”
Alex thought he also saw some of the other SFSS candidates milling around at the back, but he couldn’t be sure. This year he’d paid even less attention to the nominations than usual, since whoever won would be sworn in after he’d cleared out his stuff from the Peak offices once and for all. They would be the first government of the Post-Alex Era, and he couldn’t be bothered to keep up with the new narrative.
“Hey,” he said, nudging Tracy. “Am I crazy, or is that Holtz’s competition in the back?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Me neither. Seems weird, though, doesn’t it? To spy on a guest lecture about exploding aircraft carriers?”
“Maybe they know something we don’t.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Odds are good on that.”
After a few minutes, Professor Monahan came in and started anxiously shuffling papers at her podium. Holtz’s manager approached from one of the side exits, whispering something in her ear and moving away again. He kept watch at the exit like a bodyguard, hands crossed over his crotch. Professor Monahan looked up, and squinted at the newly tripled size of her audience. The class’s hum gradually dwindled, then disappeared.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “I see some of you have brought a friend or two with you today.” Alex glanced furtively at Tyson, who was holding his cell phone out in front of him, brazenly filming the whole thing.
Professor Monahan broke out in a girlish grin. “Well, I suppose that’s all understandable.” She gestured to both sides of the room. “Welcome to FPA 137. This is a course that’s 100 percent devoted to filmic media created right here at SFU. It’s the first of its kind, I don’t mind telling you. We are studying these wonderful films and television series in the hopes of coming to better terms with how our school’s representation in the media impacts our own identity as the students, TAS, and faculty who live and work here.”
Tyson shouted, “Bring on the Holtz!”
A woollier quiet overtook the room. Alex stared hard at the floor, the guilty ringing in his ears rivaled only by the creak of his tape recorder. Tyson, unfazed, still held his phone aloft; its red recording light blinked on and off, on and off, on and off.
The silence was broken by Keith guffawing, his mouth full of chocolate-caramel goo: “Fang City!”
A tidal wave of new chatter rose from the audience, dozens of whispered meta-commentaries from people who all assumed they were speaking much too quietly to be heard. Tyson turned to face the other students, chanting, “Bring on the Holtz! Bring on the Holtz!” A few scattered fans chimed in.
Holtz’s bird-eyed manager was whispering to someone hidden in the wings of the lecture hall. He nodded, smoothed his lapels, and coolly walked over to Professor Monahan, who was shouting, “Please, please, class, could you—do you think—?”
The manager gave her the a-okay sign with one hand and neatly shooed her away from the podium with the other. Alex could tell this was how he dealt with a lot of people, the kind of guy whose assistant had her own smaller assistant. The manager gripped both sides of the podium and took a hard look around the room. In a quiet, even tone, he said, “I think that’s quite enough.”
The volume in the room wavered a little, but too many of the students were once again staring down at their phones, and therefore unreachable. He added, raising his voice only a little, “Mr. Holtz has other places to be, you know.”
Dead silence.
The celebrity’s name snapped the crowd back to reality like a hypnotist’s safe word. Tyson and Keith swallowed their Milk Duds and sat at attention. Chip folded his hands politely in his lap. Tracy slipped her dummy notebook out of her dummy backpack and uncapped a pen. Even Alex found himself leaning forward in his seat.
The manager looked around the room, then gave a nearly imperceptible nod. “Without further ado, I present to you my client, Duncan Holtz.”