33-ch26

Bruce is out in the lake in the raft, staring at the moon and waiting for a sign.

“Have they really left me here all alone?” he wonders out loud.

He’s talking to himself. There’s no reason not to. There is nobody around to hear him. The rest of the Not-So-Super Friends are gone. They have all fled the scene. The only car that remains in the cottage driveway is Bruce’s grey Honda Civic.

“I cooked the meals. I washed the dishes. I built the bonfire. I did everything.”

His head is pitched back over the raft’s soft stern. The floor ripples as if he’s lying on a cheap waterbed.

“And they couldn’t even say thanks before they all took off. They couldn’t even say goodbye.”

Tears trickle from his eyes and into his ears.

“I bought the beer and the wine. I bought new bedding. I fixed the raft. I did everything.”

He sits up. The raft folds in the middle. Cold water sloshes inside.

“I fixed the raft.”

He digs his fingernails under the patch that he glued on yesterday, rips it away, tosses it overboard, watches it spiral down into the deep, dark water until it disappears.

He lies back in the raft again. Air hisses through the hole in the rubber next to his left ear.

“If any of you care about me,” he says, “come save me.”

Maybe at my funeral, SuperBarbie will holler “Amen!” over and over and over again.

Maybe Miss Demeanor will give the eulogy, tell funny stories about me, and make everyone cry.

Maybe Hippie Avenger will break down sobbing when she tries to read a poem about me.

“No!” Bruce hollers at the lake, “Only pricks like Psycho Superstar get that kind of treatment! Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

The last FUUUUUUUUUUCK echoes back from the rock face of the island in the distance, sounding hollow, empty.

Psycho Superstar always said “Nice Guys finish last.” Well, no kidding, Jake. Cheers to you, buddy.

Water fills the flaccid raft now.

“They didn’t even pass around a card for everyone to sign.”

Today is Bruce’s thirtieth birthday. His friends have forgotten again.

“Psycho Superstar got to grope their bodies. Psycho Superstar got a bottle of rye.”

The boat is almost airless now, and the rubber walls wrap around Bruce as he sinks into the water.

The words burble from his lips as the water covers his face: “Mr. Nice Guy gets nothing.”

He’s looking up through the rippled surface now.

Bubbles rise from his nose, his mouth, speckle the shimmering membrane above him as his body slowly falls.

The LCD face on his Super G Digital Athletic Chronometer blinks 11:11, on and off and on and off.

Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven.

It’s supposed to be waterproof to fifty metres. I can’t even count on my watch.

Above him, the moonlight is an impressionistic smear, blurred and distorted.

Cold numbs his skin.

Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven.

His body is tangled in the deflated raft like a plastic-wrapped cadaver in a morgue.

Darker, darker.

Heavy, sinking. Falling, falling.

Cold, so cold.

Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven.

Numb. Sleepy now.

Silence. Darkness.

Peace?

But something cuts through. Something slashing across the surface above him.

Diving. Swimming downward, getting closer.

It’s The Drifter.

Of all the Not-So-Super Friends, he’s the closest thing to a real-life Aquaman. He was on the Tom Thomson High School swim team. He can swim all the way out to the island and back.

The Drifter has come back to save him.

Safely back on shore, Bruce’s back is pressed into the soft, cool sand. The others gather around him.

“You gave us quite a scare, mister,” Hippie Avenger says.

“We thought we’d lost you, buddy,” Miss Demeanor says.

“I’m cold,” he tells them.

The two women lie down on the beach and make a Birthday Babe Sandwich, with Bruce in the middle. And he didn’t even have to ask.

“Happy birthday, buddy,” Miss Demeanor says.

“We love you, mister,” Hippie Avenger coos.

They wrap their legs around his body. So warm. So lovely. He holds on to one of Hippie Avenger’s breasts with one hand, strokes Miss Demeanor’s lean, unadorned back with the other. Her long black hair tickles his face.

His stagnant heart begins to throb.

“I want in, too!” The Stunner cries.

“Me too!” says SuperBarbie.

“Let me sit on him!” Time Bomb squeals.

Oh yes oh yes oh yes!

“Hey!” SuperKen grunts, grinding his right fist into his left palm. “You know what happens to guys who mess with other guys’ girls!”

SuperBarbie gets up and puts her arms around SuperKen. The Stunner leans against The Drifter. Hippie Avenger stands with The Statistician. Time Bomb is with Miss Demeanor, who once again sports her blue mohawk and all the tattoos.

Bruce is alone on the cold sand again. His ears are ringing.

“The logical thing,” says The Statistician, “would be to stop pining over women you can’t have. The end result will always be zero.”

“Look, Bruce,” says The Drifter, “just call Sweetie Pie and tell her you love her, okay?”

“Strike first. Strike hard,” says SuperKen.

“Tell her you miss her,” The Drifter says. “Tell her that you want her back.”

“For once in your life,” says Psycho Superstar, “stand up and do something about it.”

“Are you going to lie there on your back forever?” Sweetie Pie says. “Or are you going to come get me?”

“I’m coming, Alice,” Bruce burbles. “I’m coming to get you.”

Bruce struggles to free himself. He twists and punches and wrestles to escape the rubber straitjacket that binds his body.

He kicks and claws and thrashes, chasing the rising bubbles toward the blur of silver moonlight glowing high above him.

Maybe with just a few more kicks, in just a few more seconds, he will break through the surface, eject the water from his lungs, gasp mouthful after mouthful of sweet, clean air. Maybe he will make it.

Or maybe he won’t.

But he continues to struggle toward that pinpoint of distorted light, toward that rippling membrane between life and death. Mr. Nice Guy will fight his way through the cold toward the warmth, through the darkness and toward the light.

It will be the most heroic effort of his life.