Rockets Versus Gravity (7 page)

Sidney has replaced their coffee maker, which James's grandparents gave them as a wedding gift, with an espresso machine just like Roland's, brought in from Italy by some importer with whom Roland attended prep school. Sidney also wants to trade in their perfectly good Honda Civic for a Lexus sedan like Roland drives. In the words of Roland Baron, “Your Car Is What You Are.” Or, in Sid's own words, “You can keep driving that shitty old Honda if you want to, James; I deserve better. I deserve more.”

“That's what the Red Buffoon's card says,” James observed.

“Don't call him that,” Sidney snapped. “Your jealousy of Roland is so … palpable. It's not attractive, James.”

Sidney has also been shopping around for a bigger diamond for the engagement ring that James bought her, even though the original cost him more than he spent on his first three cars, including their current Honda Civic. Roland says, “Winners Wear Their Winnings,” and apparently nothing says
Winner
more than a huge chunk of polymorphous carbon on one's finger.

Sidney deserves better. Sidney deserves more. Roland Baron has told her so.

The Red Buffoon sends text messages to James's wife almost hourly, and Sidney always responds immediately, even during their third-anniversary dinner last month. Just last night, Sidney's omnipresent smartphone buzzed at 1:45 a.m.; it was Roland, sending her pictures of the precious dessert he was eating at some precious downtown restaurant with a six-month waiting list and no prices on the menu.

“Does he have any idea what time it is?” James grumbled.

“Winners Get Up Early, and They Go to Bed Late,” Sidney said.

“Why the hell is he sending you photos of his chocolate soufflé?”

“It's decorated with
edible
gold leaf
, ” Sidney said. “He's actually eating
twenty-four
carat gol
d
!”

“His morning bowel movement will be quite a commodity.”

“Just go back to sleep,” Sidney sighed, as her spa-manicured nails continued clickity-clacking on the keypad of her phone.

J
ames turns away from the mirror in the ensuite and tucks his mostly flaccid unit back into his boxers.

“Didn't you just have a ‘strategy meeting' with Roland last week?”

“Business is booming,” Sidney says. She stares into her own eyes in the mirror as she eliminates a single, imperfect eyebrow hair with zircon-encrusted tweezers. “We've got a lot to discuss.”

“I can cook something when you get home,” James says. “I don't mind waiting for you.”

“This was our best sales month since we joined forces,” Sidney says, “so Roland is taking me to Canoe to celebrate.”

Ah.
Canoe.
One of those restaurants where nobody pays the bill with their own money. If you don't have a corporate expense account, or if you aren't deducting the cost to reduce your net income on your tax return, you probably aren't dining at Canoe.

“Oh, okay then,” says James. “Well, I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon at Yonge and Eglinton, so maybe I could meet you and Roland at Canoe! Maybe he'll remember my name this time.”

“No, James. This is a business meeting. Absolutely not.” Her voice echoes inside the hollow of the
faux-Moroccan
-
mosaic
-tiled shower enclosure. “And if you want people to remember your name, then, well … be more memorable.”

“Maybe I should punch that smug motherfucker right on his shoe-polish goatee. I bet he'd find that
memorable
.”

“Don't be a Neanderthal, James,” she says, turning her back to him. Then, over her shoulder, “Oh, I almost forgot. Priya wants you to stop by and help her hang some mirrors or something.”

Priya is Sidney's former college roommate, to whom she sometimes lends James as a “rental husband.”

“Oh,” James says. “Okay. So, you have fun with the Red Buffoon, and I'll have fun with Priya.”

But Sidney doesn't hear him. She doesn't even seem to see him anymore. She's pulled the tinted-glass shower door closed, and the hot water hisses from seven separate jets (another Premium Selling Feature). The water blasts her skin, dripping from her strawberry nipples, cascading over her lean, muscular shoulders and back. Rivulets cling to her tight, flat belly, twist around her long, lean legs. Vine-like streams flow over her round,
personal-trainer
-sculpted behind.

Tonight she'll wriggle into that shimmering top that clings to her breasts like wet, black spray paint. She'll pull on that skirt that stops halfway down her thighs, the one that tucks in under her ass just right, and those dark nylons he loves, the ones with the lines up the back. And that thong James gave her for Valentine's Day, that awesome pink one that folds just slightly into the now-hairless crease between her legs;
that
will get him going for sure.

Sidney runs her slippery hands over the hard, tight contours of her body.
Premium Selling Features indeed,
she thinks.

J
ames wanders into the only other bathroom that ever gets used, and once his own shower is running from its single spout, he allows himself to fantasize about Priya.

They are painting the hallway in her apartment; he does the rolling, Priya does the details. Her breasts rise and her soft buttocks lift as she reaches with her paintbrush to touch up a spot she missed near the ceiling.

Her long, straight black hair still falls in her face when she blushes or smiles, and that tinge in her deep brown eyes of … of what? What is it? Longing? Wisdom? Sadness? Regret? Whatever it is, that subtle tone somehow changes her from merely pretty to a rare kind of beautiful. And that aspect of her, whatever it is, never fails to arouse James. It makes him want to taste her, to touch her, to thrill her, to fill her with pleasure.

Priya catches him admiring her and smiles.

“Do you want to take a break with me, James?” she says. She peels off her paint-speckled yoga pants and brushes past him in the narrow hallway. He follows her into the small living room, where she lies back on her ancient sofa and opens up for him, her thatch of jet-black fur trimmed neatly around the edges, just the way James likes it.

James begins stroking himself, feeling as if the rushing water is the only thing preventing him from bursting into flames and crumbling into a pillar of ash.

 

W
hen the argument begins, I'm trapped inside the “Employees Only” washroom at the back of the Gas 'n' Snak convenience store. I'm not an actual employee of the Gas 'n' Snak, but because my wheelchair won't fit inside the washroom that's reserved for customers, Khalid lets me use this one instead.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Khalid's voice says, “but until you comply with my request, I'm afraid that I cannot serve you.”

“Look,” the other voice says, “just gimme my smokes, my lottery tickets, and my burritos, and we're done here.
Mmm-kay
, Gandhi?”

Their voices are getting louder out there, but right now I can't do anything to help Khalid.

K
halid is my best friend. When my mom is working the night shift at the hospital, she drops me off here to keep Khalid company. Or for Khalid to keep me company, whichever. She doesn't have to worry about me when I'm hanging out here at the Gas 'n' Snak. There isn't much trouble I can get into here, she figures. Still, between the sporadic bursts of customers buying premium gasoline for their cars and
two-for
-one
microwaved burritos for their children, Khalid and I manage to keep ourselves entertained:

• We drink “complimentary” cherry cola Slushees. Khalid says it's okay to have a free one now and then, since there's really no way to track how much of the syrupy guck is actually consumed by humans and how much gets spilled and drained away into the sewers, probably creating hyperactive, high-fructose-corn-syrup-mutated frogs and catfish down there in that fertile water.
  
• We peruse the restricted magazines with titles like
  Penthouse Letters,
  Juggs, Biker Mamas,
  and
  MILF International
  from the top shelf of the rack. We find most of the content hilarious rather than titillating. “Hey, look at Bunny McBoobs, who is washing a sports car with her ridiculous artificial breasts!” or “Miss Sex Ed Teacher is going to teach those thirty-year-old ‘boys' in her classroom a thing or two about discipline!”
  
• We laugh at the customers who scramble back to
  their cars with the magazines they've purchased from the top shelf. It's usually older men; I guess they've never used the Internet for anything but email and the Weather Network. It tends to be guys who wear glasses and/or cardigan sweaters who buy
  Penthouse Letters
  , while
  Juggs
  seems to be the favourite of guys who've got, um, “juggs” themselves.
  Biker Mamas
  generally go home with Biker Papas, and
  MILF International
  is favoured by guys around our own age, guys whose moms must be regulating their Internet usage, guys who are probably really into our English teacher, Ms. Womansfield (who changed her name from “Mansfield” after her divorce).
  
• We talk about whatever happened at school that day, which usually takes about five minutes. If you're not on the football team, or a cheerleader, or in the school band, or in the photography or yearbook or Bible Study clubs, not much happens at Faireville District High School, except for when the occasional kid falls asleep at his desk and then gets laughed at by the other kids.
  

Nobody at school calls Khalid by his actual name; when he and his mom immigrated to our little town a few years ago, he was immediately nicknamed “the Sheik.” Nobody was being nasty, or racist, or anything like that, though. Faireville is made up of
ninety-nine
percent white people, so Khalid seemed kind of exotic to them, I guess. When one of the girls noticed that Khalid looks sort of like that old
black-and
-white
movie star Rudolph Valentino, who was nicknamed “the Sheik,” well, the name just kind of stuck, I guess.

Khalid doesn't mind the nickname, anyway. He says that in Pakistan, the term “sheikh” is used to signify Arab descent and is reserved for people with great wealth and status. Khalid isn't Arab, and if he had any money or power he wouldn't be working at the Gas 'n' Snak every night after school to help his mom pay the rent on their
one-bedroom
apartment. So, I suppose the nickname is really kind of a compliment, right?

“The Sheik” is better than anyone else's nickname, anyway. The kids at Faireville District High School aren't very imaginative. They call Jimmy Rogers “
Zig-Zag
,” because that's the brand of papers he uses to roll his joints. They call Marty Apostrophes “Farty Marty,” not because Marty is any more or less flatulent than anyone else, but simply because “Farty” rhymes with “Marty,” I suppose.

My own nickname is “Wheelie.” Because I'm in a wheelchair. Ha ha! Get it? Pretty creative, huh?

A
t the moment, my wheelchair is being a bigger pain in the butt than usual. Somebody is out there hollering at my best friend, and there is nothing I can do to help him, because my rear wheel is jammed underneath the washroom's sink. Again.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Khalid says, “but this is the third time this week that you have parked in the spot reserved for people with disabilities. I will not serve you until you move your car to another space.”

“Look,” the other voice says, “don't play the ‘poor handicapped people' card on me, okay? It isn't fair that the best spot in the lot is reserved for the retards. Most of 'em can't drive, anyway, and I guarantee you, I pay more taxes than any of them do. So just gimme my smokes, my lottery tickets, and my burritos, and I'll move my car to my nice, heated garage at home.
Mmm-kay
, Gandhi?”

Khalid persists, ignoring the Gandhi comment. “As soon as you move your car to an appropriate parking spot, we can complete your transaction.”

“What the hell difference does it make?” the other voice moans. “I don't see any handicapped people around, do you?”

This would be an ideal moment for me to burst out of the back room and roll out into the fluorescent light.

I rock my chair back and forth to get myself unstuck, but this just lodges the wheel in even deeper. If somebody at Gas 'n' Snak corporate headquarters had issued a directive requiring
wheelchair-accessible
washrooms in all of their stores, I would already be out there helping their employee, my friend.

I stretch my arms as far as they'll go, hyperextending my joints to reach the liquid soap dispenser that is nailed loosely to the wall. I'll use some soap to lubricate my jammed wheel and get myself unstuck.

I grip both rear wheels in my hands, and I wrench them back and forth as hard as I can, until the
soap-lubricated
tire finally springs free from underneath the sink.

I ram my chair's footrests against the door, over and over again, until it springs open with a dramatic crack.

I wheel myself out into the fluorescent glare of the store, where Khalid is standing face to face with a
barrel-bellied
man in a business suit, with only the cash counter between them.

They don't notice my dramatic entrance, though, because I'm mostly hidden behind a tall cardboard display for spicy beef jerky.

Khalid leans forward on the counter, his lean biceps and triceps twitching beneath his shining brown skin, his wiry frame towering over his opponent, and he says, “I'm not serving you until you move your car to another spot,
sir
.” He spits out a particularly sarcastic “sir.”

“You've seen my car, right?” the Suit Man says. “It's a fucking
Maserati.
If I park in one of the regular narrow parking spots, some yahoo in a shitty old truck will swing his door open and dent my car.”

Looking very much like a sheik, Khalid stares coolly at his nemesis.

“The
yahoos
in this town, as you so eloquently put it, have the decency to refrain from parking in the handicapped spot.”

I glance out into the parking lot, and my eyes narrow. This
suit-wearing
,
Maserati-driving
,
ambulatory
jerk is indeed parked on top of the
blue-and
-white
symbol of a wheelchair, the spot reserved for people with physical disabilities; the spot reserved for
me
.

My pulse begins to throb in my neck. I wheel myself around the beef jerky display, and I clear my throat loudly

When he sees me, Mr. Maserati stammers, “Oh, well, okay, I see. I didn't know there was one in here.”

And then, as if he is speaking to a toddler, as if I've got a mental handicap to go with my spina bifida, he crouches down and says to me, in this singsong kindergarten teacher's voice, “I'll move my car when your bus shows up, okay, buddy? Attaboy.”

Attaboy.
As if I'm a
puppy.

I tell him, “You need to move your fucking car.”

“Whoa, buddy!” Mr. Maserati says. “You got Tourette's or something?”

I repeat, “Move your fucking car.”

“I'll only be a minute,” he says, in that same pitchy voice. “Sorry about the inconvenience, buddy.”

Sometimes it
is
inconvenient when the parking spot isn't available; in the winter, wheeling my way to the Gas 'n' Snak through the ice and slush is a tough slog, and the spokes of my wheels toss mucky water up all over my legs, and the wheel brakes get crusted with ice and won't work properly. It's not the inconvenience that bothers me so much, though. It's the disrespect.

I tell Mr. Maserati, “Being unable to walk is more than an
inconvenience.
”

“Hey, buddy, I understand,” he says, in that same patronizing tone of voice. “It's tough. I get it. I had my leg in a cast for a month after a football injury, so I get it. I
sympathize
.
Mmm-kay
, buddy? Attaboy.”

He makes a move like he is going to pat me on the head. I swing a fist at him.

“Whoa!” he chuckles, stepping easily out of the radius of my punch. “You're a feisty one!”

Then he waves a dismissive hand at me and turns back to Khalid. “So, what's it gonna be, Gandhi? I'm not moving until you give me my stuff. I can stand here all night if I have to.”

Khalid folds his arms across his chest. “So can I.”

“You're not gonna win this, kid.”

“It is you who is not going to win this,
sir
.”

“Do you know who I am?” Mr. Maserati says.

“Do you know who
I
am?” the Sheik counters.

It looks like this standoff is going to last for a while.

I
wheel myself back through the stockroom of the Gas 'n' Snak, past the
now-broken
“Employees Only” washroom door, to the utility closet where they keep the tools. It's a bit of a stretch from down here, but I manage to reach up high and pull free a
narrow-tipped
screwdriver from its clip on the tool board. This ought to do the trick.

I push my chair through the
steel-plated
“Deliveries Only” entrance and out into the parking lot. The narrow tires of my wheelchair hum against the asphalt as I speed toward the gleaming,
midnight-blue
Maserati. It
is
a beautiful car; too bad it's owned by such an asshole.

I reach down and twist off the black rubber cap from the valve on the Maserati's front
passenger-side
tire. There is a satisfying
HISSSSSSSSSSSSSS
as I jam the tip of the screwdriver into the valve. It doesn't take long for the
low-profile
, rubber band tire to deflate.

I wheel backward and give the rear tire the same treatment, then I roll around to the back of the car; I'm contemplating carving the word
asshole
into the gleaming paint above the licence plate frame that reads “Gasberg Exotic Sports Cars,” when Mr. Maserati barrels out from the Gas 'n' Snak, his belly wobbling as he runs. A plastic Gas 'n' Snak bag dangles from his right fist.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Khalid screams, sprinting after him. “You can't leave without paying! Get back here!”

“Take it out of your pay, Gandhi!” Mr. Maserati cackles. “And don't start fights with winners, loser!”

My tires squawk on the pavement as I race away from the Maserati as fast as my burning arms will move me. I almost dump my chair over as I turn the sharp corner to hide behind the Dumpster. I hear the car door slamming, the roar of the Maserati's engine revving, the shriek of tires, Khalid's voice hollering, “I've got you on video! I've got you on video!”

I peek around the corner of the Dumpster, just in time to see the speeding Maserati cut a corner too sharply; its door screeches against the side of a telephone pole.

“Attaboy,” I grumble.

Perhaps the driver oversteered because his tires were
under-inflated
. Too bad. Such a beautiful car.

Sorry about the inconvenience, buddy.