The Indifference League (18 page)

“Well, actually,” SuperKen says, “Flight 77 had sixty-
four
passengers …”

“You were
hurt
fighting the people that did this!” SuperBarbie barks. “You've been
fighting
the evil that began on that day! Eleven is an
evil
number!”

“Well, okay, but …”

“‘New York City' has eleven letters!” she cries. “‘Afghanistan' has eleven letters! ‘The Pentagon' has eleven letters! All of this on the Internet! It's right there for anyone to see!”

“‘It's bullshit' has eleven letters, too,” says The Statistician. “I also read
that
on the Internet.”

“Nine-eleven is our telephone code for an emergency,” SuperBarbie says. “Do you know what their telephone area code is?” She doesn't wait for a response. “It's
eleven-nine
! Try to tell me
that's
a coincidence.”

“It is indeed a coincidence. There is no meaning in any of it.”

SuperbBarbie is filling her lungs to dispense more examples of evil elevens, but The Statistician continues.

“Let me illustrate,” he says. “Take the ones from the elevens in September eleventh, Flight 11, and so on. One plus one equals two. Is
two
therefore an evil number? There were obviously two Twin Towers. Two airplanes hit them. The airplanes each had two wings. Everyone involved had two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears.
Everyone
involved. Is
everyone
therefore evil?”

He turns to Mr. Nice Guy.

“I hope you haven't also been seeing the number
two
everywhere. That would be
really
bad news from the universe.”

Mr. Nice Guy doesn't laugh.

The Statistician sighs.

“People have a hard time dealing with how randomly things in the universe tend to happen, the chaos of it all. Even
I
have a difficult time getting my brain around it sometimes. So we try to find
order
in the chaos. Sometimes we actually
find
it. We call that science. Other times, when we can't find the order, we
invent
one, and
impose
it upon the chaos. It's the reason that …” his voice trails off.

“It's the reason that
what
?” SuperBarbie says.

He was going to say,
It's the reason that so many people believe in things like numerology. Or astrology. Or God.

For some reason, though, he stopped himself. Or something stopped
him
.

He shakes his head.
I stopped myself.

“People wouldn't have to invent explanations for the things that happen in the world, if only we had more …”

He pauses. He can't recall the word he wants to use. This almost never happens to The Statistician.

He repeats, “If only we had more …”

“Prayer,” says SuperBarbie.

“Control,” says SuperKen.

“Freedom,” says Hippie Avenger.

“Experience,” says The Drifter.

“Forgiveness,” says The Stunner.

“Anarchy!” says Miss Demeanor.

Mr. Nice Guy mumbles, “Love.”

The Statistician shakes his head. He will never remember the word now.

“None of those things,” he says. “Or maybe all of them. I don't know.”

Mr. Nice Guy glances down at his Super G Chronometer. The bold, black digits on its LCD display read 9:11 p.m.

“Hey,” Time Bomb says, “I've got one! The Indifference League has had
eleven
members in total. Well, that's if you include Psycho Superstar and Sweetie Pie.”

Mr. Nice Guy blinks. Still 9:11.

The Statistician says, “Let's just play Monopoly now, okay?”

“If you don't include them, though,” Time Bomb continues, her penciled eyebrows arched high, “there are just nine of us. Nine-eleven! Spooky.”

Mr. Nice Guy closes his eyes. When he opens them, his watch still reads 9:11.

It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything.

The Statistician reiterates, “Let's just play Monopoly now.”

The display on Mr. Nice Guy's chronometer blinks, changes to 9:12. He starts breathing again.

The Statistician reaches for the dice.

WORLD
DOMINATION

“World domination. The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Napoleon. Or God.”

— James Bond, Agent 007, from the movie
Dr. No
, 1962

T
he Statistician always wins at Monopoly. He has never lost.

The other members of The Indifference League compete to see who will be bankrupted last, which hero among them will hold out the longest against The Statistician's endlessly calculating brain.

The Statistician's strategy is based entirely on mathematical formulae and probabilities. Early in the game, he will try to acquire all four of the railroads, since owned together they provide the largest payback for the smallest early investment. Later he'll trade them away for properties he needs to complete his groups of same-coloured properties, so he can start buying houses with his accumulated “railroad fares.” He always buys exactly three houses for each property, as he has calculated that this provides the highest investment-to-rent-intake ratio.

He will try to own all three properties in the orange group (New York Avenue, Tennessee Avenue, and St. James Place) since, based on the statistical permutations of die rolls between two and twelve, they are the properties with the highest collective likelihood of being landed upon by opponents. As he collects more theoretical money, he will then attempt to procure the red and yellow properties, which are second and third most likely to be landed upon by other players. And so on, until he wins the game.

Mr. Nice Guy is always the first player to go bankrupt. He lets people land on his properties without making them pay rent. He will accept whatever property trades he's offered, with no haggling. Sometimes he will
give
a property away just because one of the others needs it to complete a colour group. You can't win the game when you play like that.

Time Bomb spends Monopoly money with wanton abandon, just like she does with real money in real life. She buys every property she lands on, including the nearly worthless Electric Company and Waterworks, in the same way that she once bought a handbag for four thousand dollars, which she's used exactly once. Unlike in real life, though, Time Bomb does not have access to her father's endless supply of tobacco money, so she is usually the second player to go bankrupt.

In previous games, The Statistician's final opponent has been either SuperKen, who can be quite aggressive when negotiating property trades, or Miss Demeanor, who saves her money and waits until Mr. Nice Guy goes bankrupt so she can buy his mortgaged properties at a discount, or Hippie Avenger, who repeatedly throws advantageous dice rolls which defy mathematical probability.

*

They are an hour into the game now. There are a dozen empty beer bottles on the table, and three empty bottles of wine.

All of the properties have been purchased, and phase two of the Statistician's campaign for simulated capitalistic victory has begun.

The game so far has played out even better than usual for The Statistician; he has been lucky enough to procure his desired orange and red properties simply by rolling the dice fortuitously and landing on them first, and he gets the yellow properties in an even trade with Mr. Nice Guy for his railroads (which, while valuable in the first half of the game, are less so once the houses and hotels start going up). The Statistician immediately buys three houses each for his newly acquired properties.

On Mr. Nice Guy's next turn, he lands on Atlantic Avenue, which he just traded to The Statistician. His next roll is a two and a one, which lands him on Marvin Gardens, the final of his former yellow properties. Mr. Nice Guy is bankrupted without anyone ever taking a ride on his newly acquired railroads.

The Statistician shakes his head in disbelief. “The odds of you making two successive rolls of two dice and landing on two properties within three squares of each other, within exactly two turns of you trading them to another player, are …”

“Are not as high as you might think,” The Stunner says. “The odds are exactly thirty-six to one.”

The Statistician raises an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“Six times six,” The Stunner says. “It's only the odds of casting any one number out of six, times the odds of casting any other one number out of six. The other factors are irrelevant.”

“Good logic,” The Statistician says, “but slightly flawed. On
two
dice, you can roll either a one and a two, or a two and a one, to get a total of three. So the probability of rolling a three on two dice is
two
chances in thirty-six, or
eighteen
to one.”

The Stunner slaps her forehead. “Uh! How did I miss that!”

“An A+ for the effort, though,” The Statistician says to his Protégée.

An A+ for the effort
. Their cheeks flush red and they both stop laughing.

“You're blushing again,” The Drifter says to The Stunner.

A roll of thunder rattles the windowpane in the living room of The Hall of Indifference.

“One divided by eighteen still equals
loser
,” SuperKen says to Mr. Nice Guy.

Mr. Nice Guy shrugs and says, “Oh, well. Not everyone gets to win.”

He retreats into the kitchen to put some late-night snacks in the oven, and to wash up the dishes from dinner.

“Loser!”
SuperKen coughs as Mr. Nice Guy walks away.

“Why do you have to be such a jerk?” Hippie Avenger says to SuperKen.

“Peace, love, dope!”
SuperKen snipes at her, flashing the peace sign as if he's giving her the finger.
“One Race! The Human Race!”

“Honey!” SuperBarbie says, “Don't be so aggressive. It's like you've been possessed by Jake!”

She regrets saying this even before the words have finished tumbling out of her mouth.

SuperKen says, “Don't
ever
compare me to that asshole!”

“Don't
ever
call him an asshole!” Miss Demeanor says. “Jake may have been a little rough around the edges. He may have been a bit hyperactive. He may have even taken the name of the Lord in vain once or twice. But he wasn't homophobic.”

“He wasn't racist, either,” Hippie Avenger adds.

“And he never put down his friends to make himself feel bigger,” Miss Demeanor says.

“Yeah, he was a real saint, a real stand-up kind of guy, wasn't he?” SuperKen says. “Except that he didn't know enough to keep his hands off other people's girlfriends, did he?”

SuperBarbie blushes. “Now, honey, you know you overreacted to that. There was never anything going on between me and …”

“I saw what I saw,” SuperKen says. “And that prick wasn't so cool or so tough when I got finished with him, was he? He was nobody's goddamn lover boy then, was he?”

He sticks his jaw out at SuperBarbie, waiting for her to admonish him for his very blatant taking-of-the-Lord's-name-in-vain. She doesn't say anything.

Mr. Nice Guy can hardly believe what he's hearing. Psycho Superstar definitely had sex with Miss Demeanor, and probably also with Hippie Avenger, but he fooled around with SuperBarbie, too?
Damn! What was his secret?

“Let's just play the stupid game,” SuperKen says.

SuperKen's Monopoly strategy is to invest aggressively in hotels for his properties, as early as possible in the game, sometimes even mortgaging one property to develop another. When The Statistician helpfully suggests that he might run into cash-flow problems later, SuperKen responds by barking, “Strike first, strike hard!”

When he is the next player to go bankrupt, SuperBarbie, The Drifter, and The Stunner vote to allow him to “merge his assets” with SuperBarbie, while Hippie Avenger, Miss Demeanor, and The Statistician vote against it. The deciding vote is given to Mr. Nice Guy upon his return from the kitchen.

“No hard feelings, eh, buddy?” SuperKen says.

So Mr. Nice Guy votes for the merger, which is short-lived anyway. Within six turns, SuperKen's “deficit financing strategy” leaves The Perfect Pair without any joint assets left on the table.

“Oh, well,” chirps SuperBarbie, “it's only a game, y'know. Honey, would you come upstairs for a minute and help me with something?”

After a lengthy pit stop in the washroom, SuperKen obliges. The next baby-making session is going to be
quite
aggressive.

*

Another hour passes. There are now twenty-six empty beer bottles on the table, and seven empty bottles of wine.

The Perfect Pair are still upstairs, behind closed bedroom doors. The hiss of the rainfall does not completely drown out the even-louder-than-usual sounds of their copulation.

The remaining active Monopoly players are The Statistician, The Stunner, and Miss Demeanor.

Hippie Avenger was knocked out of the game by Miss Demeanor, who did a little victory dance while Time Bomb cheered, “Go girl! Go girl! Go girl!” over and over and over again. They slapped each other's palms in the air, over-celebrating her defeat just like those Varsity Sports Bitches in high school used to do. So Hippie Avenger is quietly hoping that The Statistician will win the game like he always does.

The Drifter, Time Bomb, and Mr. Nice Guy, all of whom were bankrupted by The Statistician, are silently rooting against him.

Miss Demeanor is about to roll the dice when The Statistician notices that her boot has been parked on his Illinois Avenue property for the past round.

“Not so fast!” he intones, “First you owe me some rent for your stay in one of my three lovely green houses … seven-hundred-and-fifty dollars, to be exact.”

“Sorry,” Miss Demeanor says. “My bad.”

“Your bad
what?
” The Statistician says, with that professorial tone in his voice. “Perhaps what you mean to say is, ‘Sorry, my mistake.' I'm surprised that someone with your excellent education you would use a grammatically incorrect phrase like that.”

Miss Demeanor's eyebrows arch upward, and her eyes widen. “And I'm surprised that someone with your impeccable upbringing would attempt to humiliate another person over something as trivial as the use of an idiomatic colloquialism.”

Miss Demeanor has just said what each of the other Not-So-Super Friends has wanted to say to The Statistician at one time or another, only better.

Time Bomb cheers for her new ally. “Yes! I hate it when he does that to me.”

You also hate a lot of other things I try to do to you
, is what
The Statistician wants to say. Instead, he mutters to Miss Demeanor, “Sorry. You're right. My bad.” He doesn't want to lose the game for the first time ever because he's given the others a non-game-related reason to team up against him. “I'll let you go rent-free this time, okay?”

Miss Demeanor's eyes narrow, and she flips several pastel-coloured bits of fake currency across the board at The Statistician.

“I don't need your charity,” she says, “because you certainly won't be getting mine when you stay at my hotel on the Boardwalk.”

“That's telling him, girlfriend!” Time Bomb cheers, high-fiving Miss Demeanor.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” The Statistician splutters.

“‘
Gotten'
?” Time Bomb says, “‘
Gotten'
? Is it grammatically correct to say
‘gotten'
?”

“Seriously,” The Statistician says, “what has gotten into you today?”

Time Bomb puts her fists on her hips. “Well, I'll tell you one thing that ain't gettin' into me tonight, mister, and that's you!”

“Where is this coming from?” The Statistician demands, eyeing Miss Demeanor.

“Bankrupt
me
, will ya!” Time Bomb huffs.

“What?” The Statistician yelps. “But … that's just the way the game works.”

“You have
no idea
how the game works,” Time Bomb says coolly.

Miss Demeanor shakes the dice and gets Time Bomb to blow on them. “For luck,” she says.

She lands on B&O Railroad, the one square between The Statistician's bankruptcy-causing red and yellow properties.

“Lucky, indeed,” The Statistician says.

Outside The Hall of Indifference, there is a distant flash of white lightning, followed seconds later by a rumbling roll of thunder.

“I've got a wager for you,” Miss Demeanor says to The Statistician. “If I bankrupt you before you bankrupt me, I get to take your wife into the city to get a tattoo of Wilma Flintstone on her butt.”

“What? Why? What does this have to do with the game?”

“It has
everything
to do with the game,” Time Bomb says, downing the last gulp from her wineglass, pouring more for herself and Miss Demeanor.

“But what about your
dermatological sensitivities
?” The Statistician says.

“It's my ass. I can do what I want with it.”