People Park (38 page)

Hey, look, said Gip, pointing. People.

Around the Islet’s eastern promontory appeared a strange convoy of watercraft. Roped to a central rowboat heaped with boxes and furniture were four canoes, two paddlers in each, a passenger hunkered amidships. Bongos harmonized each paddlestroke as the flotilla progressed into Perint’s Cove.

Hello, hello! Olpert shouted. Help, help!

Gip echoed him: Hello, help!

The southerly wind caught and swept their voices back over the Islet. None of the canoeists broke rhythm, the drums kept time. Shrill clear instructions came across the water: Stay together, everyone stay together!

The woman in the yellow bandana sterned the lead boat. In
the bow, digging into the water as though trying to tunnel out the
other side, was her grizzly partner. Between them someone’s child knocked bongos. In another boat were the two men and the woman who’d fled the roominghouse that morning. Twelve people in all: the entire Islet community, save Olpert and Sam.

Face pointed toward the Cove, Sam was shouting, his words garbled.

Save us please, called Gip, his voice reedy as a blade of grass and just as effortlessly rebuffed by the wind.

They can’t hear you, said Olpert.

A pillow floated past.

Across Perint’s Cove the silver miracle of the city gleamed against a cerulean backdrop of sky. The drums were fading. A seagull screeched by overhead, two sharp cries of despair or mockery, and swooped out over the lake.

What do we do? said Gip. I’ve got to get back, I told you. I’m the one!

Sam said, I don’t know how to swim okay.

Olpert stared at all that water. I don’t know if I know how to swim.

Sam said, We need a boat.

Do you have a boat? Where can we find a boat?

I could build a boat.

What? You could?

If there was time.

Olpert looked back over the Islet. All that remained were treetops and the second storeys of the taller houses. He imagined the roominghouse on the far shore, waves nudging the upstairs windows, begging to be let in. Maybe even pouring in.

Oh no, he said. Jessica.

Jessica? said Gip.

She’s trapped. We’ve abandoned her. I —

Olpert pictured her terrarium churned to mud, a little mole-nose valiantly sniffing for air — and water smothering it. He reached for the bridge’s railing for support. And, steadied, discovered something bright and brave shining through his despair. It took him a moment to identify: courage.

I have to rescue her, said Olpert.

You can’t leave me! wailed Gip. I have to get over there and finish Raven’s illustration because I’m
the one
, he told me so.

But Olpert was already wading back into the water. I’ll be two minutes, he said, just wait here. And, in a voice he hoped was not ridiculous, but the brassy baritone of a hero, he added, And then I’ll take us across!

LET ME GO,
said the Mayor.

You’re certain? If that’s what you wish, Mrs. Mayor, of course, I’m happy to set you loose. You’re aware what’s below, I assume?

Wait.

Yes?

Where does it end.

This? Oh, you know. I’m not sure it exactly
ends
. Though I can’t say for sure.

What does that mean. Can you say something that’s an actual
thing
, please. Everything’s just words with you.

Words are things. Words aren’t things?

Answer my question: if you let me go what will happen.

Oh, I don’t know. Who can say? Doesn’t what happens just
happen
?

The Mayor was silent. Raven rocked her gently, almost lovingly —
with a hand? a foot? Or might this just be some telekinetic
capacity he had? With a tremor of horror, she wondered if, beyond a voice, he was even there at all.

Ventriloquist, spectre — whatever he might be, he was speaking again: It’s hard enough to just
be
somebody, let alone try to make everyone else a little bit more of themselves. What do people want? How can one know when
they
don’t even know?

What are you talking about. I want my body back. I want to get out of here. I didn’t want any of this. I just wanted everyone to have a nice weekend. I even thought it might be fun. Make it normal. You need to fix what you’ve done. That’s what I want!

What’s normal? Isn’t normal what I’ve been trying to show you? And by normal I mean the
truth
— the normal, quiet truth beneath the clatter of your busy city lives. Though did I achieve such truth this time? I have my doubts. I can’t judge it myself, as I’m within it, you see? Who knows, I say what I do aren’t illusions, but maybe they are. Maybe they’re just lies. Don’t truths which no longer entertain become lies?

You’ve put an entire city in chaos. That’s what I think.
That’s
the truth.

Surely it is the acts of people that destroy them? At most I merely provide the means.

This is pointless.

I wonder, the people — are they at least afraid? Are they truly afraid?

You need to put right what you’ve done.

No. Mrs. Mayor, I shan’t. Not yet. It’s so delightful down here, away from it all, and it’s good to chat with you. I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. Are you? To what?

The Mayor sighed.

Ah, life, Raven said.

What will happen if you let me go.

I told you, he said, I never know. I just don’t know.

III

N BLACKACRES STATION
sat train 2306. The platform was empty, the movator immobile, the escalator — stairs. The station held the air with the sterile expectation of an empty operating room. Debbie ducked inside the first car, where, in the gloom at the far end, were that same mother and son, food wrappers and empty drink containers heaped at their feet.

She was just in time: the lights came on, the train began to hum, the woman reclined and drew the boy’s head into her lap. You see, Rupe? she said softly. Here we go.

As the train wobbled out of Blackacres Station Debbie moved wide-legged, as though wading, down the car. Yet when she reached the mother and son she had nothing for them, nothing to say. Instead it was the
PA
that spoke: Next stop, Upper Olde Towne. Upper Olde Towne Station, next stop.

Debbie sat. The train moved at a deliberate, measured speed. Sixty feet below, the blight of Blackacres yielded to the gentrifications of Upper Olde Towne.
UOT
Station slipped by: the tarped platform, wires in capillary bundles bursting from holes in stripped cement walls, a sense of desertion, and then they were through and the
PA
claimed Knock Street Station would be next.

A toxic odour rose up as they lumbered over Lowell Canal, Debbie gagged. The woman across the aisle seemed unperturbed, just stroked her son’s face, the same hand that had smacked the same cheek only the day before, now so loving and gentle. Each caress made Debbie feel lonely and extraneous. She looked away.

On the streets below appeared the Citywagon Depot, the Temple, and
IFC
. The previous night’s events felt so profoundly in the past — such revelations! Debbie thought of the snitches Havoc and Tragedy and laughed bitterly to herself. Though what might they have done with Pop? Possible
NFLM
vendettas wheeled in her mind, and with them came guilt — she had to do something. But the train moved through Knock Street Station and out the other side.

We’re not stopping, said Debbie. I need to get off.

Next stop, Budai Beach, said the
PA
— it sounded chiding now, somehow. Budai Beach Station, next stop.

How absurd, thought Debbie, to imagine the prerecorded announcements were mocking her. Yet, really, was it? Though the
ICTS
claimed full automation, things had to be
somehow
run by people: someone had once spoken these words, as someone now decreed a straight shot through — to where? She pictured a phantom behind a vast, flashing circuitboard, taunting them with each station stop, steadily hauling them in.

Out in Kidd’s Harbour flashed squares of silver: the roofs of Citywagons in the Budai Depot. The flooding spilled over Lakeside Drive to the base of the bluffs. Debbie turned to share this with her co-passengers, but they seemed to exist in a separate reality, the woman stroked her son’s face, eyes vacant and forlorn.

The train entered Budai Beach Station, a bubble of concrete and glass, hawk decals deterred the kamikaze of muddled gulls off the lake. Again the train slid through. 72 Steps Station, they were told, would allegedly be next.

The woman was asking her something.

Sorry? Debbie said.

I asked where you’re going.

Oh.

Downtown to look for someone too?

I’m — yes.

Who?

Someone, she said, but her throat was tight and the word came out strained.

Us too, said the woman, and went back to petting her son.

The tracks skirted the bluffs into Mount Mustela, where hundreds of people crowded the boulevard. As the
PA
announced 72 Steps Station a banner unfurled from Bookland’s roof:
FINISH THE TRICK!
Placards were lofted —
WHERE’S RAVEN?
and
GIVE US BACK OUR BRIDGE
. And a chant began, less reverent now than incantatory: Ra-
ven
, Ra-
ven
, Ra-
ven.

A protest. Debbie smiled ruefully and thought, So here’s what it takes.

We’re stopping, said the woman.

The train heaved as it braked, the lights went out, the engines died. And sat unmoving in the station, while down on the street khaki uniforms infiltrated the crowd — Helpers handing out sparklers and streamers to help soften people’s ire into cheer.

They’re trying to make it a parade, said Debbie.

That’s nice, said the woman. Hear that, Rupe? That’ll be nice for everyone, she said.

AROUND ANOTHER
corner of the Galleria’s back corridors Pearl crept, into the service elevator, she pressed the
TWO
button, winced as the doors banged closed.

The elevator seemed to conspire against subterfuge, grating
and groaning as it cranked its way up. Yet no Helpers were waiting
for her on the second floor. The hallway was identical to the one downstairs: a storeroom of cardboard, staff washrooms, the same lifeless quiet all the way to double doors with windows laced with wire. Lit with blue emergency halogens, the mall’s upper level had the ambience of a bunker or submarine. The shops were shuttered and dark.

She chanced cracking the door. Clothing racks and shelving blockaded the mouth of the northern quadrant, guarded by a single Helper, arms crossed and staring into the middle distance with a look of dutiful vacancy. Two men rose out of the foodcourt on the escalator. Good lookin outs were traded, the watchman ushered his comrades past, resumed his post.

A scream pierced the air — followed by chuckling, then silence.

Was it Gip? No, the voice had sounded older, thicker. Pearl held her breath, listened. The escalator droned and ticked. Her throat felt dry, her nose ran, her eyes itched — Kellogg had packed the antihistamines in Gip’s knapsack, wherever it might be
. . .

The lookout adjusted himself, resumed his stoic watch. Pearl considered various strategies of how to make her approach: with authority —
They told me to come up here myself and find my son
— or cutely, with fluttering eyelashes, or a sad trudge that suggested distress, she’d beg,
Help me, please, my son.
Or she could just dash at him shrieking, knock him down, and hurdle the barricade
. . .

Something settled on her shoulder: a hand.

It belonged to the Residents’ Control guy, Reed, from downstairs, offering his best expression of rebuke, halfway between a hammy scowl and pained constipation. Behind him Kellogg stood looking sheepish with Elsie-Anne. The pee-soaked dress discarded, Pearl had bundled her daughter in Kellogg’s Islandwear sweatshirt, toga-style.

Hi, Pearly, said Kellogg. He found us hiding in the garbage room.

You can’t be up here, said Reed.

Pearl sighed. So now what?

Well, said Kellogg. He says Annie and I have to go home.

All nonresidents are being — Reed struggled for the right word —
extradited
.

But not me, said Pearl.

No, you’re from here. Reed brightened. Which means you can go watch the movie!

ORGIES AREN’T PLANNED.
Everyone knows they just happen, as with the endless turn of the seasons or getting pooped on by a bird. So when the orgy on the city streets begins it’s a surprise to Gregory Eternity, if he’s honest with himself he kind of suspected something like this might happen, especially with bloodlust as thick in the air as homicidal pollen. But it isn’t just bloodlust. It’s sexlust too, apparently.

While people on the street begin to seductively disrobe, Isabella turns to Gregory Eternity, standing beside her on the roof of the Galleria, and demandingly queries, Do we have time for this?

A light shines in Gregory Eternity’s eyes not unlike the sort of light that might shine on a porch if you are inside waiting for someone to come home to have sex with them. Why don’t you tell me, he slurs suggestively, and then comes at Isabella with his tongue protruding beneath his moustaches.

She takes him, right there on the roof. First she’s on top, then underneath, then they’re doing it in a sideways fashion with their limbs sticking out like the blades of a multipurpose knife splayed for cleaning in the dishwasher. Below the streets roil with body fluids and desire. People incorporate all the positions they know, and when those run out they make up new ones: Up-from-Under, Dirty Squab, the Bonnet & the Bee.

Where are the children?

Anyway, more urgently the attackers are steadily and stealthily
approaching in their craft from the lake, so at some point Gregory
Eternity dismounts and screams, Okay, everybody finish up, and he starts counting and at, One hundred! everyone climaxes at the same time. It’s indubitably the most beautiful moment many people in attendance have ever seen or heard or smelled or in which they’ve partaken, even former members of the glory-days-era Lady Y’s, Back-2-Back Champs.

Okay, say Gregory Eternity and Isabella, together and all at once. Now let’s go show these invaders what tough meat we’re made of.

WITH JESSICA RESCUED
and tucked inside a Y’s cap pulled down to his ears, in the roominghouse’s flooded yard Olpert discovered the armoire’s doors bumping against a tree. He pulled the boards off, split them in two halves, and, repressing pained memories of forced swimming lessons, lay upon the less damaged side and tried a few flutterkicks: the door held.

Upon this dubious watercraft he paddled back toward the ferryport. Jessica’s initial panicked scrabble had subsided, all he could feel was the rapid stammer of a heartbeat against his forehead. It’s okay, Jess, he whispered as he swam, pushing off on ground gone mucky and soft.

This was not what a hero looked like: a skinny man in too-big clothes and a rodent tiara drifting atop cheap timber. And what hero would abandon a corpse, the one-eyed teen, had Crocker Pond melted, had he gone down? The sunlight soaked the water’s dark surface in an oily sheen. He imagined it sucking him under, he could taste the tar.