Worst. Person. Ever. (27 page)

“Well, I mean, we could have crashed the plane and prevented that atomic bomb from going off.”

“Neal, you’re thinking like a little girl. The planet is choking—choking on a continent-sized lump of plastics, and Lieutenant Jennifer whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was, in her heart of hearts, thought she was doing the right thing. We should commend her.”

Neal looked genuinely distraught. “But I keep asking myself what a better person might have done. The world’s going to end because of you and me. Not only that, we can’t get a trans-Pacific Internet connection and the ladies at Kum Guzzling Traktor Sluts were going to do a special Skype performance just for me today. They call it ‘The Missile Silo’—a part of their ongoing celebration of the Cold War’s end. Pretty ironic, given that we’ve gone and started it all over again.”

“Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal. Come over here.”

Neal came close and I slapped him, one-two. “Stop that line of thinking right now. Jason Bourne would have done exactly what I did—”

“Kack his trousers?”

“Not my proudest moment, Neal, but yes, Jason Bourne would have shat his pants, given the situation.”

“Really, Ray?”

“Yes, Neal,
really.
The thing about Jason Bourne is that he only really shines when he’s being chased. Without the forces of evil pursuing him, Jason Bourne is basically council house trash living on KFC and the proceeds of his illegal Polish and Romanian girlfriends who’ll toss you off for a tenner at the local lottery ticket kiosk.”

“So Jason Bourne is almost just like you and me.”

“Or,” I clarified, “
I am basically Jason Bourne.
Simple logic.”

“What about James Bond, then—would he have tried to stop the bomb dropping?”

“He’d have been at the back of the plane fucking a goat. Again, pure logic.”

“I never studied logic, Ray.”

“Well, Neal, I’m not one to lord it over people, but yes—I
did
study logic.”

“Fancy prep school?”

“No. A fucking hellhole.”
⁴

I swallowed an olive and changed the subject. “So. How is my piece of red plastic coming along?”

Neal gave a weary sigh. “To be honest, I wish it would come along a bit quicker. It’s hard going through life with a persistent prostate massage. I hope Mother Nature will soon take her course.”

My suave, contemplative mood continued, well into my third martini. “Neal, I truly think that wormy-fleshed canker I call my ex-wife is up to something sinister. Any ideas what it could be?”

“Fi? Not that I can think of. Maybe she wants to … dunno … get back together with you.”

“Highly unlikely, Neal. Oh, by the way, I found where she hid the Cure T-shirt, so I pinched it and hid it beneath her tent. We can get it later.”

“You’re the greatest, Ray.”

Then the doorbell rang and Neal went to answer it. It was Billy, of all people. He and Neal hugged like old friends.

“Billy, fancy a drink?” Neal said.

“I do. How’s your pussy fatigue coming along?”

“I think I’ve rounded a corner and will make a full recovery.”

“And your ankle?”

“Ditto. Raymond—look who’s here!”

“Hello, Billy.”

“Hello, Raymond.”

“You two sound like you need more alcohol. What’ll you have, Billy?”

“A greyhound, please.”

“Perfect. We have fresh pink grapefruits from the tree out back. Why, what’s this we have here?” From beneath the bar Neal produced a professional juice squeezer. “One greyhound, coming up!”

While Neal pulped the grapefruits, Billy and I regarded each other with deep suspicion.

“So, Billy,” I finally said, “tell me, what’s the deal with being gay?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I look at a gay situation, as it were, and nothing the least bit sexual happens.”

“Right.”

“So, what happens with
you
?” I was drunk enough that the question was sincere.

Billy picked up on this, and looked thoughtful. “Well, imagine you lived on a planet where people got sexual stimulation almost entirely from their ears, and everywhere you looked advertisers were using slick airbrushed photos of ears to sell cars and soft drinks, and all the people on this planet wanted to do was to sit in their bedrooms rubbing their ears together and sticking their fingers in each other’s ears for hours and hours and hours. That’s what it’s like for me when I look at straight people having sex …”

I was all ears, so to speak. “And?”

“Wait a second,” said Billy. “You’re not getting off on this conversation, are you? Fiona said you could be weird about this kind of thing. Were you seriously considering fucking goats in Bonriki?”

“Neal! You told Fiona about our discussion?”

Neal put a mint sprig in Billy’s greyhound and handed it to him. “Nothing wrong with exploring other modes of being, Ray. And remember, you didn’t really fuck a goat. You only fucked a goat
in your heart.
”

“I was doing no such thing! I seem to remember us talking more about fucking sheep in the end.”

“Well,” said Billy, “haven’t
I
stepped onto a minefield?”

I reached for a paper napkin and knocked over a drink I hadn’t seen beside a plate of garnishes. “Oops. Sorry, Neal.”

“Not to worry. Just some coconut milk and sugar I was going to turn into an energy drink. You all right?”

“I got it all over my pants, but give me a damp cloth and I can wipe it off.” I looked up. “Billy, why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be out kidnapping toddlers for Fiona to char-broil for dinner?”

“I’m actually here on Fiona business.”

“Go on.”

“She has a surprise for you.”

I knew it!
My eyes narrowed into thin, snaky slits as I stared at him.

“She does. And she wants me to bring you to see it.”

“Do you know what this surprise is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Will it involve public humiliation?”

“Definitely not.”

“So it’s a
good
surprise, then?”

“Definitely.”

“If you’re lying, I get to make you my slave for one week.”

“Slave? I’m not fucking any goats for you, but if Fiona’s surprise is anything less than splendid, I’ll be happy to be your personal assistant for a week.”

I sighed. How far the once mighty human race has fallen—from the majesty and glory of slavery down to the sterile, joyless realm of the personal assistant.

Well, a personal assistant is better than nothing. “Okay. Let’s go.”

It was dark out, but you’d never know it by the temperature. As we left Neal’s
casa
, I was instantly homesick for its kickass air conditioning. Weather reports never mention mugginess, do they? No. No, they don’t. They only show little suns or clouds. If I ran the weather service, I’d invent new icons for South Pacific swelter: tiny gas chambers or tiny dishwashers with their doors wide open and chokingly hot steam billowing out.

Fucking heat.

I said, “So, Billy, can you give me a hint about Fiona’s special surprise?”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“Has she located a patch of quicksand for me to investigate? A flock of sleeping HIV-infected bats she wants me to startle awake with a foghorn? Or perhaps she wants to feed me a pudding made from time-expired dairy products?”

“Raymond, I’m not telling you anything. Neal, how’s your ankle on this sandy path?”

“I’ll make it okay, Billy. Thanks for asking.”

I was incensed. “
I’ll make it okay?
Neal, for fuck sake, you’re talking like you’ve lost a limb in Afghanistan.”

“Leave him alone, Raymond. A sprained ankle is nothing to laugh about.”

“Okay, how much farther to go, Billy?”

“Just around the corner.”

At the tent city, the evening shift change was in progress. Since I had been fired, I didn’t have to worry about it. Scurrying around us were men and women in cargo pants and T-shirts, carrying clipboards and camera gear, their belt loops jammed with gaffer tape, flashlights, Swiss Army knives and all the other equipment one needs at a moment’s notice. One thing that was odd, though, was that nobody seemed to notice me or make eye contact with me.
Hmmm.

Just then Stuart walked by. “Fuck me with a chainsaw.
Gunt
—what are
you
still doing here? You’ve been cast off the island. Go. Leave. Now.”

“Yes, Stuart. I’ll hop the next British Airways jumbo leaving from Arsefuck Island International Airport.”

“Well, you can’t stay in our camp, eat our food or use any of our infrastructure. I’ve also told all staff members that anyone caught communicating with you will be fired. Have a nice life.”

“… ” (The sound of me having no stinging, witty retort at hand. Fucking Stuart.)

“Potter. Out of here. Go. Now.” Stuart walked away.

I turned to Neal. “Well, isn’t
this
just ducky? So what now—I find a little island and make a lean- to from palm fronds? Maybe play a ukulele until I die of old age?”

“Think of yourself as a DNA stockpile ready to
repopulate a post-nuclear society badly in need of quality genetic material, Ray.”

Billy cut in, “Kids, can we stay on topic? We are headed to Fiona’s surprise.”

Neal put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Ray. I’m not a staff member, so nobody can fire me if I talk to you. You stay on in the hut. If I see anyone from the show coming by, I’ll send you a signal so you can crawl behind the deep-freeze until they go away.”

“Oh. My. God. It’s come to this, has it?”

“I’d let you stay in the business centre, but your mum’s in there and I have to think of her health.”

“Neal, my mother will outlive cockroaches in the post-nuclear era. She is unkillable. Have
her
bunk beside the deep-freeze.”

“I can’t change her room now that she’s settled in. Besides, she said she’d make me egg and chips for breakfast tomorrow.”

From my left came an “Ahem!” The enchanting Billy.

“Oh, all right—lead me to Fiona’s surprise.”

Billy pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and whispered into it. We passed through some coconut shrubs and emerged into what resembled a children’s playground painted in garish colours.

“This is actually the site of the contestants’ next challenge.”

“What is it?”

“To quote the tent full of producers I overheard, the challenge is ‘to show as much jiggling side boob as is legally permissible.’ ” Billy stopped us. “Right then, here we go.” He made a small flourish, then bowed and said, “Raymond Gunt, may I please present to you your
ex-wife, Fiona, and your very own mother, Chantelle Brittany Gunt.”

The unholy duo emerged from behind a huge cable spool painted bright orange. “Surprise!” they shouted.

My mind began to spin as it considered the treacheries these two had cooked up. And then my legs were … itching? What the fuck? I looked down to see my entire lower body covered in a cloud of angry winged Pringles.

“Raymond!” shouted Neal. “Your entire lower body is covered in angry winged beetles. Good lord! I think they have teeth!”

I’m not proud of it, but I shrieked. “Get them off of me, Neal! Get them off me!”

“They’re attracted to the coconut milk he spilled on his lap,” said Billy. “Sugar in concentration makes Pringles even angrier than they normally are.”

Neal shouted, “They don’t have teeth, Ray!”

“I don’t give a fucking shit—get them off of me.” I was doing frantic jumping jacks.

“Ray, what I
meant
to say is that instead of teeth they’ve got pincers! Like those shears you use to trim hedges!”

I screamed some more, then fell to the ground and rolled over and over, squishing hundreds of the nasty fuckers—which, in turn, seemed to attract even more furious Pringles.

Finally Neal managed to strip the pants off me, and with them, the rest of the Pringles. I lay there panting, and looked up to see Fiona and Mother staring at me, mouths agawp, their stunned silence interrupted only by Mother taking a lusty drag from her filter-tipped cigarette while she simultaneously ate the very last of a package of
crisps. She dropped the bag onto the ground, where it was immediately enveloped in its own cloud of angry winged Pringles.

Fiona said, “Jesus, Raymond, I’ve never seen you look worse in all the years I’ve known you. I’m actually in awe of your ability to hit new lows.”

“Thank you, Fiona.”

Mother sized me up. “Son, you look like the pavement beside Mr. Chandra’s kebab shop at three a.m. on a Saturday night. You’re a living puddle of sick, is what you are.”

“Yes, well. Moving forward, why don’t you tell me why you brought me here tonight.”

The two women looked at each other. Mother squealed, “I can’t wait anymore, Fi!”

“Okay, fair enough,” said Fiona. “I’d hoped the scene would be a touch more dignified—and sanitary—than this, but here goes. Raymond Gunt, I’d like you to meet …” She made a what-the-hell gesture.

* *Drum roll* *

“Your biological son and daughter!”

From behind the orange cable spools emerged a boy and a girl—they were sixteen, maybe.

“Nice to meet you,” said the young man.

This kid … he was—he was
me
with a chin.