People Park (8 page)

Nothing surfaced.

A breeze got the bare trees creaking.

A few blocks south, a Citywagon pulled into the City Centre lot.

A train came gliding into Parkside West Station, high above,
traded passengers, then went north. Pearl followed on foot beneath
the tracks, caught up at Bridge Station, the Yellowline reversed and headed back toward Bay Junction. Traffic still choked Guardian Bridge all the way to the mainland, where, wedged into the cliffside, was the Scenic Vista upon which the Pooles had collected the night prior.

Pearl headed east. Passing Street’s Milk (& Things — newly amended) she was first surprised, then relieved, to see an
OPEN
sign in the window. The place hadn’t changed, though had it ever been new? Pop’s store had always seemed in need of upkeep, the paint faded and flaking and the windows forever smudged with an orange, oily type of dirt.

A half-mile along the park’s northend she came upon the grounds of Island Amusements, rollercoasters twisting like scoliotic spines, the ice-blue slides of Rocket Falls, the Thunder Wheel’s all-seeing eye glowering down upon everything. (
OPEN JUBILEE SATURDAY!
boasted a sign pasted to the fence.) But it was the Stadium that Pearl wanted to see, so she pushed farther east.

Ten minutes later she stood at the players’ entrance. The new sponsorship and ubiquitous Island Flat Company signage provoked a slight proprietary jilt, but just seeing the place felt good: a bulbous island amid a sea of stark concrete, banners in Y’s maroon hung from the roof at each of the six gates.

The players’ entrance was locked, so Pearl had to go around to general admissions. On gamedays, when Pearl arrived for warmups she was always greeted by fans clambering and begging for autographs. Though the lack now of fans, of other players — of anyone — felt ceremonial and right.

A notice in the box office window seemed apologetic:
Thanks
for another great season, get next year’s season passes now, call
YS-TICKT
(978-4258)
. From here Pearl walked the perimeter of the stadium, stopping at each gate, cupping her hands to the glass, scanning the mezzanine for custodial workers or administrative staff or maybe even a keen rookie, out here alone to train.

But there was no one, and no way in. By the time she made her way back to the box office Pearl was huffing and felt a slight twinge in her knee. Leaning forward, catching her breath with her hands on her thighs, she allowed herself a cruel little laugh: returning to the place she’d once been a star, she’d worn herself out trying to get in.

IN THE GRAND SALOON’S
banquet hall waiters hustled about to a tinkle of silverware and the burble of fifty conversations, the pepper-and-steel odour of roast meat wafted smokily from the
kitchen, schnapps-based aperitifs had given way to cider, the bubbles
lifted emberlike in each crystal flute. Distributed among the two dozen tables in blacktie and ballgowns were local dignitaries: various reps of cultural associations, several pink-drunk pillars of the business community, stars of the Lady Y’s tautly muscled and stuffed into too-tight eveningwear, nervous academics from the Institute and their embarrassing spouses, the beautiful and rich, the vapid and canny. A cameraman crept between the tables, dropping to one knee every so often to shoot scenes he’d edit later for
In the Know
’s weekly Party Town featurette.

Upon the stage worked the island’s artist laureate, Loopy, a squat woman in a paisley caftan and matching beret. Loopy’s assistant, mousy and morose behind a curtain of bangs, handed over chisels and picks with which Loopy hacked a potentially avian shape from a block of ice.

Two tables were stationed at the front of the room: one for the
NFLM
’s High Gregories, where a ducktaped Recruit struggled to napkin wheelchair-bound Favours, Griggs flipped idly through channels on his walkie-talkie, Noodles sipped a glass of water, and Magurk quizzed Wagstaffe: How’d you come at me with a blade? With a shy giggle, Wagstaffe wagged his butterknife. Wrong, said Magurk. Like
this
— see? Punch and cut, punch and cut. Good lookin out, said Wagstaffe.

At the other head table, with the central positioning of newlyweds at their nuptial feast, sat the Mayor and Raven. She’d doffed her mayoral sash in favour of a powersuit, though a nick in her stockings had run from ankle to knee. He’d clipped a bowtie to his tracksuit, his head seemed especially polished, all discoball sparkle and gleam.

Here were the appetizers: atop an
IFC
flat, fish bladders in a buttery broth, an antenna of sparrowgrass sprouted from their midst. Laughter stabbed into the air, glasses clinked, waitstaff in
IFC
uniforms cranked limb-sized peppermills and in the kitchen refilled empty cider carafes from a rubber tub by the compost bin.

The Mayor watched Raven stir his fish bladders. The whole menu tonight comprises gourmet selections from the Island Flat Company, one of our local businesses, she said. Everything’s local, the cider’s from the orchard on the eastside of People Park
. . .

Raven wasn’t listening: he plucked a bladder from the bowl, examined it with a dubious squint, and tentatively slid it into
his mouth. Face contorting into instant horror, he
gulped cider, replicated the horror face, signalled a waiter, made sure the milk wasn’t local (it wasn’t), commanded the largest glass possible. Then, to the Mayor: You were saying?

There was more to her little treatise, once upon a time she could dovetail any subject with civic pride. But she’d lost the thread. Gazing around the room she tried to feel something for her constituents beyond mild loathing. In the last half-decade of her incumbency she’d begun to feel first distant from these people, then estranged. Life on the island had become too easy, everyone took her reforms for granted, no one considered how things used to be. Look at them, she thought: these people owe their comfort to me and they don’t even realize it.

Well I should probably say something, said the Mayor, pushed back from the table, closed her eyes for a quick personal affirmation —
touch green!
— before addressing the guests. But when she opened her eyes Raven was standing on his chair, arms extended in victory. Yes, he cooed. Y
es,
yes
!

Around the room people struck glassware with forks. Every head in the room swivelled toward the illustrationist, faces alight, what would he do.

Yes, yes! he cried, conducting his audience like a maestro. Put down your forks, please. Friends — welcome. Yet here I am welcoming you when it is
I
who should thank you for being welcomed. For you have welcomed me here — graciously. And so it is with grace I thank you for this welcome.

He bowed. Everyone tinged their glasses again, they couldn’t resist, the banquet hall was a cauldron of delight. Ignoring this, the Mayor carved into her fish bladder. Out hissed a little gasp, a nautical aroma.

Please, no more tinging, said Raven, please. I’ve been all around the world, and this city — I’ve rarely had so keen a welcome. Don’t applaud. Seriously, stop it.
Listen
.

He climbed down from his chair and began to walk around
the room. The Mayor slipped the fish bladder into her mouth, the
moist withered cyst of it.

Passing the
NFLM
table Raven nodded, the High Gregories nodded back.

Tomorrow night, he continued, though I have yet to discern the
specifics, I will be illustrating something truly, I think, spectacular.
As always it will be a magic that of course already exists, but remains
unseen. My job as ever is just to reveal this magic to you, to illustrate
what in your hearts you already know, what you already believe. My work is only to remove the fog that obscures the truth.

The air had gone tense and glassy. The Mayor chewed, mouth flooding with a sour, silty mucous.

Raven paused beside Loopy and her sculpture. A raven? he asked. She curtsied. He patted her beret in approval, then was on the move again: Friends, tomorrow night all I can offer is an uncovering. Each of my illustrations is only that, merely scratching at a frosted window to reveal the hidden wonders on the other side. But with a shift in light, every window can become what? A mirror. He smiled, snatched a napkin off a nearby table — its owner, the Institute’s oft-cuckolded provost, yelped — and held it up. Madam — sorry,
sir
, if you’ll allow me. Please, all of you, follow along with your own serviettes.

Everyone in the ballroom folded their napkins as they were shown: once in half, once diagonally, doubled over, pinched in, and tucked. Choking down the fish bladder, the Mayor swept up her napkin and endeavoured to catch up. Nearby, Griggs, Wagstaffe, Magurk, Noodles, and Favours’ Recruit were doing a bangup job, while with each step the Mayor’s creation looked less like Raven’s, like theirs, like anyone’s or anything.

The illustrationist said, Now we have envelopes. And what do you think might be inside this envelope? Perhaps we should open it to see.

Around the dining hall, the packages were unfolded — the Mayor’s collapsed — and murmurs rippled around the room. At the neighbouring table, Wagstaffe displayed his creation: seared into the fabric was the Silver Personality’s self portrait. And so it was with everyone, hundreds of effigies of the attendees’ own faces, rendered in striking realism. The Mayor’s own napkin bore only a brown smear — hideous, possibly fecal.

See? the illustrationist laughed. Now you see. Just a simple illustration.

The Mayor launched to her feet, clapping. Wonderful, wonderful. On behalf of us all, thanks a bundle for the trick. But now let’s eat, you’re our guest, not our entertainer. And we’re here to celebrate the park, after all, twenty-five years of People Park, let’s not forget. It’s the
Silver Jubilee
— she sensed hysteria mounting in her voice, paused, breathed. Please, sir, relax, enjoy the
IFC
’s fine cuisine. A round of applause for our guest!

Hands tapped.

The main course arrived: squab with toasted almonds atop the requisite
IFC
flat, steamed sparrowgrass on the side. Raven slouched in his chair, draped his napkin over his face, appeared to nap. Though the Mayor’s meal tasted weirdly bilious, she ate every bite, sawing the sour grey meat into little cubes that she chewed to oblivion and swallowed, until all that remained were bones, a rubbery dimpled flap of skin.

The dessert carts began to circle the room. Raven peeked out, snatched the napkin from his face, leapt to his feet, snapped three times, and screamed, Who wants to see, before we retire, one final illustration?

Hooting. Feet stamped, laps were drummed. An apple flat was held aloft in salute.

Raven slid behind the Mayor, took her napkin, and placed his hands, as heavy and hot as fire-baked stones, on her shoulders. She squirmed, he squeezed. From his fingers heat entered and spread through her body, along her arms into her fingertips, through her torso down to her feet. Her face tingled, relaxed. Raven released her, turned to a passing dessert cart, said, May I? to the young woman wheeling it, swept all the flats into the white cloth, shook the bundle, and opened it: empty.

Wild applause.

Please, Mrs. Mayor. Please, if you could just lie upon this cart.

The crowd cheered: Mayor, Mayor, Mayor!

Summoned with a curling brown finger, as a patient called to a surgeon’s table the Mayor lay down on the dessert cart, her legs hung off at the knee. She felt nothing beyond distant, dreamy worry, almost a memory of the emotion even as it occurred. The illustrationist draped the sheet over her midsection. In his hand materialized a whip with a grip of two knotted snakes.

Cutting a woman in half, intoned the illustrationist, is delicate business. It is most important to ensure that she remains — Raven fingered the whip — alive at both ends.

He tossed her napkin up and snapped the whip: the fabric fluttered in two halves to the floor. The brown stain had vanished. Wagstaffe yelled, Huzzah!

All this seemed vague, the room shimmered, the Mayor felt herself not quite falling asleep — but
fading
. She was only hazily aware of the illustrationist looming over her, grinning, eyes like two black slots.

I hope you can forgive me, he whispered, for what I am about to do.

The crowd waited.

The illustrationist stroked her midsection with the whip, lazy and serpentine. He closed his eyes. Once, twice, three times he stroked the Mayor’s body with the whip. Then, with drama, he cocked it behind his head. It has been said by one of my predecessors, said Raven, that one receives just desserts in accordance with one’s beliefs. His eyes opened — in them the Mayor saw herself, reflected — and he screamed, So be it! and the whip swooshed through the air.