The Indifference League (21 page)

FAST FORWARD

“To infinity … and beyond!”

— Buzz Lightyear, from the movie
Toy Story
, 1995

W
hat happens next will go something like this:

Shortly after this moment, the kid named Stevie, who works at the local drugstore and who lost his right arm in Afghanistan, will see a man staggering along the road, who he will recognize as OC Douchebag's buddy.

Stevie will drive Gary back to the cottage, just in time for Gary to witness Ramona driving Jessica away in her baby-blue Subaru Outback.

For The Statistician, everything will add up now.

The missing factor will be revealed.

The equation will finally balance.

It will all make sense.

But it won't make sense. Not really. Gary's calculations were way off. He didn't see this coming. Not at all.

Ramona and Jessica will enjoy an intense physical relationship for a while, but Jessica is the monogamous, mate-for-life type, and, well, Ramona isn't. When their affair inevitably ends, Jessica will not be heartbroken. The woman with whom she is really in love is her Spa Buddy, Tricia. Jessica has been in love with Tricia since their first summer together at equestrian camp.

Three months from now, after a day of manicures, hot-stone massages, and a dinner of oysters, truffles, and much champagne, Jessica will kiss Tricia on the mouth instead of on the cheek. And it will turn out that Tricia is in love with Jessica as well.

Jessica's arch-conservative, tobacco-company CEO father will be outraged when his only daughter announces that her girlfriend is moving in with her, but he will not able to do anything about it. To prevent Gary from taking advantage of Jessica's inheritance, he signed the house and trust fund over to his daughter well before her wedding day.

The first real love affair of Jessica's life will miraculously cause most of her respiratory and dermatological sensitivities to vanish, and she will rarely suffer from a migraine again. However, the resulting whispers and titters at the Country Club will cause her father's already prodigious Scotch intake to double, and he will die of liver failure.

Jessica will try to be fair with Gary about their divorce settlement. Although he is entitled to less than nothing under the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement, Jessica will nevertheless present him with a cheque for two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Gary will tear the cheque in half, hand it back to her, and say, “I was never in it for the money, Jessica.”

At that moment, Jessica and Gary will become the friends they were always meant to be.

At Jessica and Tricia's wedding, Cassie will catch the bouquet, and Karla will catch the
other
bouquet.

Aaron and Gilda Jane, The Perfect Pair, will decline the invitation to attend the wedding. The bumper sticker will remain affixed to the back of their minivan:
GAY MARRIAGE IS
NOT MARRIAGE!

None of the other members of The Indifference League will receive a Christmas newsletter from The Perfect Pair again.

*

Shortly after this moment, The Perfect Pair will head toward home in their white Chrysler minivan.

“Aaron,” Gilda Jane will say, “I think it's finally happened. I think I'm finally pregnant. I can feel it. I can feel it!”

“That's wonderful, honey,” Aaron will tell her. “I hope you're right.” But of course he will hope that she
isn't
, and he will be pretty sure that she's
not
; he's been practically ejaculating
air
all weekend.

Nevertheless, about nine months from now, Gilda Jane's prayers will finally be answered. She will give birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter. The baby will weigh six pounds, three ounces. Gilda Jane will give her a name that reflects her own unwavering faith: Mary Ruth.

Mary Ruth will turn out to be just as athletic as her mother was, but Gilda Jane will downplay her daughter's uncanny mathematical abilities. She will always see Mary Ruth as a direct gift from God, rather than the result of an indirect contribution from Gary.

Mary Ruth will develop abilities far beyond her mother's. She will break provincial, national, and eventually even international athletic records. When she is offered a sports scholarship at a prestigious university, she will not turn it down. When the Olympic team calls, she will answer. Gilda Jane will not see her daughter's success as evidence of Evolution, though; only that Creation is perfect to begin with.

Aaron will turn out to be right about something: as soon as Mary Ruth is born, he and Gilda Jane will rarely have sex again. After Mary's third birthday, when their family doctor determines that Aaron is infertile and always has been, he and his wife will never have sex again.

Eventually, the braces will be taken off Aaron's legs, and he will walk more or less normally again. Gilda Jane will never find out how her husband was really injured in Afghanistan. Contrary to the rumors whispered by soldier's wives at church, and the drunken jokes told by loose-lipped cadets at the canteen, she will continue believe that she is married to a War Hero.

When Aaron is finally promoted to sergeant, he will mercilessly drill his cadets on the training field, and at least one of the female cadets will be drilled with equal vigor by the sergeant in a motel room on the other side of the base. Gilda Jane will believe Aaron when he says he's staying late to do paperwork.

Gilda Jane will be a Believer for the rest of her life, and she will be rewarded with the perfect little home and the perfect little family she's always wanted.

And maybe she will be rewarded in Heaven, too.

*

Shortly after this moment, Fraser and Cassie will turn north and just keep riding, until there are glints of copper in the steel-grey rocks, cliff walls painted pink by the setting sun, the rippling, ghostly sheets of colour of the Northern Lights, and a thousand little silver lakes.

“This is like heaven,” Fraser will exclaim over the roar of the Norton Commando's engine.

Cassie will introduce Fraser to her father, the biggest in a town full of big men. Her dad will take an instant liking to the clear-eyed, sandpaper-voiced young man. He used to have a bike just like The Drifter's.

“Can I take it out for a spin, son?” Cassie's father will ask.

“Sure,” Fraser will say, “but I need to ask you an important question first.”

He will, of course, have already asked Cassie the same question.

Cassie's father will also say yes.

Fraser's brother Gary will be his best man, the way he's always planned it. Karla will be Cassie's maid of honour.

Gary and Cassie will dance together at the reception, and neither of them will feel uncomfortable about touching the other. That was the past, and this is the future.

After a while, nobody will remember what may have happened once between The Statistician and his Protégée. It will seem like a surreal dream that one of them might have had once.

Fraser will work at the copper mine and Cassie will tend bar at the Rockslide Pub until they've saved enough money for their first big trip.

They will travel together for the rest of their lives.

*

Shortly after this moment, Gary will leave the cottage with Karla in her Volkswagen Microbus. He will stay at Karla's apartment, because he can't think of anywhere else to go. Karla will sleep in her cluttered single bedroom, and Gary will sleep under an afghan on the couch in her painting-and-sculpture-filled living room.

Neither of them will actually sleep.

Karla will leave her bedroom door open and all night she will yearn for Gary to come into her room, into her bed, into her. Gary will writhe and sweat all night under the itchy blanket, wishing that he was writhing and sweating with Karla instead. She will want to call out to him, but she will not. He will want to go to her, but he will not.

Three months from now, Karla and Gary will have watched the entire run of Star Wars movies together at the repertory theatre up the street from the gallery where Karla works.
The Empire Strikes Back
will be their favourite of the six films. They will both despise Jar Jar Binks.

One week later, they will watch
Casablanca
together. For a while, Gary's favourite thing to say to Karla will be, “Here's lookin' at you, kid,” and Karla will repeat Ilsa's reply to Rick, “I wish I didn't love you so much.” Karla will believe that Gary is as cool as Humphrey Bogart, and Gary will believe that she is as beautiful as Ingrid Bergman.

Karla will choose a couple of paintings from the gallery to help Gary decorate his new apartment. She will have doubts about the boldly coloured abstract, but he will hang it in his spartan living room, saying that it “brings the whole place alive.”

“Apartment 87,” Karla will observe. “A meaningful coincidence?”

“A coincidence, for sure,” Gary will say.

A year from now, Gary and Jessica will sign the papers finalizing their divorce. That evening, Karla will arrive at Gary's apartment to find that he has painted his living room purple (not violet). That night they will make love many times on the living-room floor, beneath the abstract painting. When Gary asks Karla to turn around for him, she will hesitate at first, because of the small peace sign she had etched onto her left cheek during a purple-hazy moment at a Phish concert.

“I didn't think you liked tattoos,” she will say.

“I love yours,” he will reply.

And finally, finally, they will both feel completely satisfied for the first time in their lives. Finally.

And somewhere in between, they will discover that what Gary thinks and what Karla feels are really the same things.

*

Shortly after this moment, the life of the one they all call Mr. Nice Guy will hang in the balance. For the last Not-So-Super Friend left at The Hall of Indifference, the future is unclear.

Within the next hour, Bruce Brown's life will either change dramatically, or it will end dramatically. He will be transformed, or he will be dead; one or the other. It hasn't been decided yet.

Shortly after this moment, Bruce will be floating on the surface of the lake in the raft, staring at the moon and waiting for a sign.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

“Up, up, and away!”

— Superman, from the TV series
The Adventures of Superman
, 1952–1958

B
ruce 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.