The n-Body Problem

Short round Indian man in Stedmans. Behind him a rainbow of long shoehorns. Two feet long. He smiles and wheezes. Did you know that there are things about emphysema that are pleasurable? It’s true. Your lungs can feel soft. Your body’s gratitude for small oxygen is thrilling. You can feel great. I ask about kids clothes. He waves to a rack of things by the ties.

The kid is thin. I grab a t-shirt. Pale blue. Wolf. Nah.

“Pick something.”

The kid looks up. He warily brushes the clothes. Performing, at first, self-conscious, then he makes a choice. I admire this. See who sees you. Then get what you want. He picks a plain brown t-shirt and some jeans. No socks, no underwear. The runners he has on are fine. He strips in the middle of the store and tosses the boy scout shit onto a table of candles. I catch the clerk watching us in the security mirror. Whatever, man. You look like a fuckin’ duck.

The Youth Drop-in has been merged with an AA meeting in the back of an auto body shop. Teenagers and coffee-sipping drunks mix outside. In the past this would be a scene of terrible rape and probably beating. Maybe even death. Now, its all little cheese fingers and cigarette smoke stuck to faces. I wish the kid would talk. He has not spoken once.

I get through the small group and enter the building. It’s a lunchroom for the employees. Chairs in a circle. Some pastries on a glass plate. I have to look down for a second to see a woman with long grey hair and a guitar. I gasp. The face opens up along that line again. That’s going to bother me in time.

“Hi there. I’m Bob.”

Not my name. The woman looks up, her face behind long grey hair.

“Well, hi, Bob. I’m Ashley.”

We both look at the boy for a moment, then look away.

“You’re welcome here.”

There are slogans on the walls. A picture of Jesus.

“Really. You are.”

I can’t look down. The talking face is distracting. Like a TV. I want to hear what’s being said on it.

“Good. Thank you.”

Still can’t look. Makes it harder. I sit. There. The egg settles above the line. Fuckin’ stroke.

“Can I ask you a question, Ashley?”

Ashley bangs a thumb softly on a string.

“Shoot.”

“You know pretty much everybody who comes out to this?”

Ashley frowns deeply and thinks.

“The regulars. Yeah. Why? You looking for someone?”

I lean forward, elbows to knees. Ashley smiles at the kid.

“I am, yes. He’s a thin guy. Gotta funny haircut.”

Ashley gives me a hard look.

“That’s weird. Why would you be looking for him?”

“You’ve seen him? You know him?”

Ashley appears to think again. A performance. Neurotic. She pretends to feel things. Acts like she knows.

“Nope. And I know everybody who comes to these meetings. Nobody new. Nobody different.”

That’s not what you said at first. Not precisely.

There’s hollering outside. Ashley looks at me. She’s still pretending to think about the guy I’m looking for. She thinks, then shakes her head no. I don’t like the hollering outside. Neither does the kid. He’s turned in his chair. It’s 6:45 p.m. The door opens. A teenage girl. She is dramatic. Old Fashioned.

“Chris is on the ground.”

I stand outside the circle around Chris. He is having a seizure. It’s raining. Warm rain. The kids are hugging each other and weeping. The drama teen is down beside Chris.

“No, Chris. No! You can’t die! You can’t! I’ll never find you!”

Chris stops seizing. His hair is soaked. His face the colour of shrimp. He’s sick alright. He’s burning. I can see blood surfacing on his finger tips. He coughs up bright blood. One of his eyes slips below the socket. Thick fluids fill the space. This is viral. Virus is rare. A perfect storm. The receptors have to take territory in the stem cells. Your body has to make the virus. Give it life. Frankenstein. He coughs again and a mist of blood covers his forehead.

Since I’m not certain if these Frankensteins are physically present and therefore contagious, I push the boy back. I don’t need to be here.

The boy and I slip away. The girl falls on Chris, wailing. We hear a muffled plumph noise then a scream. Some part of his body has just released contents on her.

at the back, the front.

Twenty years ago. That’s when people stopped dying properly. They were dead inasmuch as they stopped being people. But they were alive because they never ceased to move. They didn’t walk. They didn’t do things. They just moved. A strange gentle agitation. Like Parkinson’s disease that kept on post-mortem.