Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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"Really?" "Yeah. Word has it that God smokes cigarettes." "Jason, please don't ..." "Also, and this is so weird, God drinks and he uses drugs. I mean, he invented the things. But the funny thing is, he's exactly the same drunk as sober." Mom recognized the pattern. "Jason, let it rest." Kent sat there waiting for the crunch. Taunting my father was possibly the one time where I became vocal. Here's another example: "It turns out God hates every piece of music written after the year 1901." The thing that really got to Dad was when I dragged God into the modern world. "I hear God approves of various brands of cola competing in the marketplace for sales dominance." Silence. "I hear that God has a really bad haircut." Silence. During flu season and the week of my annual flu shot: "I hear that God allows purposefully killed germs to circulate in his blood system to fend off living germs." Silence. "I hear that if God were to drive a car, he'd drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof . . . with leather upholstery and an opera window." "Would the thief please pass the margarine?" I existed again. * * * It's midnight and Kent's memorial is over. Did I make it there? Yes. And I managed to pull my act together, and wore a halfway respectable suit, which I cologned into submission. But first I packed Joyce in the truck, and we drove to fetch Mom from her little condo at the foot of Lonsdale - a mock-Tudor space module built a few years ago, equipped with a soaker tub, optical fiber connections to the outer world and a fake wishing well in the courtyard area. Everyone else in the complex has kids; once they learned that Mom is indifferent to kids and baby-sitting - and that maybe she drinks too much - they shunned her. When I got there she was watching Entertainment Tonight while a single-portion can of Campbell's low-sodium soup caramelized on the left rear element. I sent it hissing into the sink. "<strong>Hey</strong>, Mom." "Jason." Page 40
I sat down, while Mom gave Joyce a nice rub. She said, "I don't think I can make it tonight, dear." "That's okay. I'll let you know how it goes." "It's a beautiful evening. Warm." "It is." She looked out the sliding doors. "I might go sit on the patio. Catch the last bit of sun." "I'll come join you." "No. You go." "Joyce can stay with you tonight." Mom and Joyce perked up at this. Joyce loves doing Mom duty: being a Seeing Eye dog is in her DNA, and in the end, I'm not that much of a challenge for her. Mom fully engages Joyce's need to be needed, and I let them be. It was a warm night, August, the only guaranteed-good-weather month in Vancouver. Even after the sun set, its light would linger well into the evening. The trees and shrubs along the roadside seemed hot and fuzzy, as if microwaved, and the roads were as clean as any in a video game. On the highway, the airborne pollen made the air look saliva syrupy, yet it felt like warm sand blowing on my arm. It struck me that this was exactly the way the weather was the night Kent was killed. As I headed toward Exit 2, it also struck me that I would have to pass Exit 5 on the way to Barb's house. I rounded the corner, and there was my father, kneeling on the roadside in a wrinkled (I noticed even at seventy miles an hour) sinless black suit. My father: born of a Fraser Valley Mennonite family of daffodil farmers who apparently weren't strict enough for him, so he forged his own religious path, marching purse-lipped through the 1970s, so lonely and screwed up he probably nearly gave himself cancer from stress. He met my mother, who worked in a Nuffy's Donuts franchise in the same minimall as the insurance firm that employed him, calculating the likelihood and time of death of strangers. Mom was a suburban child from the flats of Richmond, now Vancouver's motherland of Tudor condominium units. Her shift at the donut shop overlapped Dad's by three hours. I know that at first she found Dad's passion and apparent clarity attractive - Mother Nature is cruel indeed - and I imagine my father found my mother a blank canvas onto which he could spew his gunk. I pulled over to watch him pray. This was about as interested as I'd been in praying since 1988. I could barely see my father's white Taurus parked back from the highway, on a street in the adjoining suburb, beside a small stand of Scotch broom. The absence of any other car on the highway made his presence seem like that of a soul in pilgrimage. That poor dumb bastard. He'd scared or insulted away or betrayed all the people who otherwise ought to have been in his life. He's a lonely, bitter, prideful crank, and I really have to laugh when I consider the irony that I've become, of course, the exact same thing. Memo to Mother Nature: Thanks. * * * Page 41
Page 1 and 2: Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Couplan
Page 3 and 4: house was quiet - not even a clock
Page 5 and 6: I said, "Let's talk about it at hom
Page 7 and 8: Dear God, Remove the blood from the
Page 9 and 10: My family didn't know what to make
Page 11 and 12: Dear God, What's hardest here is th
Page 13 and 14: The important thing is that we were
Page 15 and 16: only indicate Your absence - that f
Page 17 and 18: outfits must have made us look all
Page 19 and 20: And I did have questions and uneasy
Page 21 and 22: late into the game, I think." "What
Page 23 and 24: didn't hurt, the shooting, and I di
Page 25 and 26: someone who spends her days deliver
Page 27 and 28: ecame ghosts. The only thing that c
Page 29 and 30: It's a bit later again, still here
Page 31 and 32: on a locker's ventilation slits. "L
Page 33 and 34: turned around to me and said, "You
Page 35 and 36: their badge. Another cop looked at
Page 37 and 38: myself reflected in the one remaini
Page 39: * * * Like anyone, I've seen those
Page 43 and 44: Mom said, "Didn't you hear me?" Dad
Page 45 and 46: "Stick a potato in it. Your job, by
Page 47 and 48: "Barb?" "Go now. Because I'll break
Page 49 and 50: the water, and here I am now in my
Page 51 and 52: My main memories of those two weeks
Page 53 and 54: Just don't screw your life up the w
Page 55 and 56: was in. What came over me? It was n
Page 57 and 58: I changed the subject. "How long ar
Page 59 and 60: In the third week after the massacr
Page 61 and 62: don't, and they all work so hard -
Page 63 and 64: Alive! friends look forward to the
Page 65 and 66: But I was going to say that when it
Page 67 and 68: "Tell me." "He said, 'Who are we to
Page 69 and 70: "I've heard of that. More for me, t
Page 71 and 72: I dropped the rock onto a nearby bo
Page 73 and 74: But I hadn't killed Yorgo. I stoppe
Page 75 and 76: * * * I'm in a Denny's in North Van
Page 77 and 78: "No. Just you." I was confused. I h
Page 79 and 80: have a carry-on bag? So that some c
Page 81 and 82: I was going to motion to the elevat
Page 83 and 84: Saturday afternoon 4:00 I met Jason
Page 85 and 86: Barb's commuting down the coast, an
Page 87 and 88: "Heather, how many people are in th
Page 89 and 90: Okay, Barb's housekeeper will be in
Page 91 and 92:
Oh, Heather, you knew it wouldn't b
Page 93 and 94:
"I'm driving." "So?" I didn't argue
Page 95 and 96:
kitchen table where I picked at the
Page 97 and 98:
"Wait. Hold on a minute. When you g
Page 99 and 100:
It was becoming windy, and our voic
Page 101 and 102:
Oh. So, um - what are you up to lat
Page 103 and 104:
"Why did he say, 'Oh, I say'?" "Bec
Page 105 and 106:
first disappeared, but which I've s
Page 107 and 108:
What has happened to me? I've gone
Page 109 and 110:
In my peripheral vision I'm also no
Page 111 and 112:
sweater and readying my purse. "Oh,
Page 113 and 114:
morning jobs, and he clocked out ea
Page 115 and 116:
Tuesday afternoon 3:00 I was eating
Page 117 and 118:
"No, I'm not." And he wasn't. Reg h
Page 119 and 120:
"Five thousand dollars." "I figured
Page 121 and 122:
existence. This is when I felt the
Page 123 and 124:
"How could Allison have known such
Page 125 and 126:
Okay then, what did happen? I follo
Page 127 and 128:
Five years ago, before I met Jason,
Page 129 and 130:
Allison didn't like this. "Oh, real
Page 131 and 132:
I was appalled. "How could you use
Page 133 and 134:
eating an egg salad sandwich, when
Page 135 and 136:
We were in the Keg at the foot of L
Page 137:
But I haven't lost you, my son. No
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Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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