Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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From the high school's parking lot I was driven home sitting on a tarp in the police cruiser's rear seat, no sirens. When I walked in the door off the kitchen, my mother shrieked. I could see a Kahlua bottle by the cheese grater, so I knew she was already looped; I'm sure the cops knew right away, too. Mom hadn't been watching TV or listening to the radio, so my appearance at the kitchen door, laminated with a deep maroon muck, had to have been a shock. I just wanted to get the stuff off me, so I kissed her, said I was fine and allowed the cops to bring her up-to-date. In the slipstream of the sedative injection I'd been given back in the parking lot I felt clear-minded and calm. Far too calm. As I was changing out of my bloodied clothes, what passed through my mind was -of all things - curiosity as to how my mother filled her days. I had no idea. She had no job and was stranded amid the mountainside's suburban Japanese weeping maples and mossy roofs. Greater minds have gone mad from the level of boredom she endured. <strong>By</strong> the time I was seventeen, her once communicative Reg conversed solely with a God so demanding that of all the people on Earth, only he - and possibly Kent - had any chance of making heaven. Just a few years ago my mother said to me during a lunch, "Just imagine how it must feel to know that your family won't be going to heaven with you - I mean, truly believing that. We're ghosts to him. We might as well be dead." As I disrobed for the shower, flecks of blood flittered onto the bathroom's gold linoleum. I bundled up my clothes and tossed them out the window onto the back patio, where, I learned later, raccoons pilfered them in the night. I showered, and my thoughts were almost totally focused on how cool and sensible the medic's injection had made me. I could have piloted and landed a 747 on that stuff. And with a newly minted junkie's bloodless logic, I was already trying to figure out how soon I could locate more, and at least I had something else to focus on besides Cheryl's death. When I walked back into the living room, the TV was on. Mom was transfixed, and the RCMP officers were on walkie-talkies, the phone - you name it. Mom grabbed my hand and wouldn't let me go, and I saw for the first time the helicopter and news service images that trail me to this day, images I have yet to fully digest. My mother's grip was so hard that I noticed my fingers turning white. I still wonder how things might have gone without that delicious injection. "We need to ask your son some questions, ma'am." Reg walked in from the carport door just then. "Son?" "I'm okay, Dad." He looked at me, and his face seemed - for reasons that will become evident soon enough - annoyed. "Well then. Good. Mrs. Elliot at the school said you'd been taken away unhurt." An officer said, "We have to question your son, sir." Mom wailed, "Cheryl's dead . . ." "Why do you need to question Jason?" "Procedure, sir." "Jason, why are they questioning you?" "You tell me." Page 42
Mom said, "Didn't you hear me?" Dad ignored Mom, and by extension, Cheryl. "What does my son have to do with any of this?" "He was right there in the cafeteria," said one cop. "If he hadn't thrown that rock, who knows how many more fatalities there might have been." "Rock?" "Yes. Your son's quick thinking - " The other cop cut in, "That boulder killed the main gunman." "Gunman?He was fifteen, tops." Dad turned to me. "You killed a boy today?" A cop said, "He's a hero, sir." "Jason, did you kill a boy today?" "Uh-huh." "Did you intend to kill him?" "Yeah, I did. Would you rather have had him shoot me?" "That's not what I asked you. I asked if you intended to kill him." "Mr. Klaasen," the first cop said. "Perhaps you don't understand, your son's actions saved the lives of dozens of students." Reg looked at him. "What I understand is that my son experienced murder in his heart and chose not to rise above that impulse. I understand that my son is a murderer." While he was saying this, the TV screen was displaying the death and injury statistics. The cops didn't know how to respond to Reg's - my father's - alien logic. I looked over at my mother, who was by no means a slight woman. I saw her grab one of a pair of massive lava rock lamps, shockingly ugly and astoundingly heavy. Mom picked up the lamp by its tapered top, and with all her force whapped it sidelong into Reg's right kneecap, shattering it into twenty-nine fragments that required a marathon eighteen-hour surgery and seven titanium pins to rectify - and here's the good part: the dumb bastard had to wait two days for his operation because all the orthopedic surgeons were busy fixing massacre victims. Ha! My mom, bless her, kicked into full operatic mode: "Crawl to your God, you arrogant bastard. See if your God doesn't look at the slime trail you leave behind you and throw you to the buzzards. You heartless, sad little man. You don't even have a soul. You killed it years ago. I want you to die. You got that? I want you to die." An ambulance was summoned to squire my screaming father to emergency. The police never officially Page 43
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 and 40: * * * Like anyone, I've seen those
Page 41: I sat down, while Mom gave Joyce a
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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