All Families Are Psychotic (30 page)

Wade said, 'Where do you get off, coming in and treating us like catt le, you vicious li tt le witch.'

'Don' t call the mother of my child a vicious li tt le witch,' Bryan said. Janet looked at Wade and made a small nod indicating to him not to press the matter.

Shw said, 'Righ t, Grandma — all of you — down we go -everybody downstairs.' Wade said, 'Drop the guns, Bryan.'

'Do what Shw says,' Bryan ordered, refusing to make eye contact.

Shw shou ted, 'Stop dawdling . Go downstairs
now! '
With humbling precision, she took out the first tw o of seven spun-glass unicorns prancing across the mantelpiece.

As though enduring a tedious game with childr en, Wade, Janet and Florian tramped downstairs. Janet said, 'Bryan, we were going there anyway.'

'Be quiet, Janet,' shou ted Shw. 'Your fucking serenity is driving me crazy.' Wade was first at the door. '
In
!' commanded Shw, motioning them into the room with its sterile obstetrical workstation and pink

dungeon. Florian giggl ed; Shw went berserk. 'I said shut the fuck up,' and she blasted out a ligh t bulb on a standing lamp over in a corner. She received the silence she wanted. She poin ted to Florian: 'You, Lord Kraut-well — get into jail with Mr. and Mrs. Comparison Shopper.' Shw saw the cell key on the obstetrical chair's vinyl. She grabbed it and threw it to Bryan.

'Stuff them all inside.'

Bryan opened the door, looked at Florian and nodded. 'Inside. Get in.'

'This is silly beyond words,' said Florian. 'Wade, please have a li tt le chat with your kin, will you?' Wade was furiou s. 'Bryan, what exactly is the poin t of this?'

Shw preempted Bryan's reply: 'Krautwell here is going to suffer for a while. I'm going to extract some passwords and file names from him.'

Florian said, 'You
are,
are you?'

Shw looked at him. ' My family's been on to your company for a decade. You're a peril to the planet.' 'A
peril to the planet?'
asked Wade. 'That's so corny.'

'He's a nigh tmare.'

'
Ooh
— so you're going to hur t me,' said Florian. 'I'd think long and hard before you do that, you li tt le brats.'

' Maybe I'll
kill
you. But first I want you in the jail.' She motioned Florian into the pink cell. 'Come on in, sugar,' said Gayle. 'You'll be safer being locked away from that family of idio ts.' Wade and Ted said, 'We're
not
idio ts.'

'Que será, será . .
.' Florian was inside the jail when Janet, seemingl y from nowhere, plung ed an epidur al syringe the size of a straw deep into Shw's neck, viscerally, deeply into pale white neck tissue. She

shou ted, 'Florian, call your secret service!' The stunned look on Shw's face — as well as the looks on other faces in the room — indicated that nobod y considered Janet the sort of woman to plung e syringes into

the necks of others. Shw was busy trying to bat the syringe away, as if it were a spider that had jumped her jugul ar.

Bryan said, ' Mom? What are you—?' but Wade jumped on Bryan's back. ' My sunburn — ow! '

Wade knocked away Bryan's gun, sending it clattering into a corner. Wade scrambled to catch it, but Bryan said, 'It 's empty. Don' t bother.'

'Empty?'

Shw screamed, 'Bryan, get this goddamn thing out of my neck.' She was shaking. A choreographic blur follo wed during which . . .

. . . Gayle reached between the cell's bars and grabbed Shw's gun, shoo ting Shw's foot in the process, making her flare like a smoke alarm detector.

. . . Lloyd and Gayle escaped the cell, grabbing Shw and tossing her inside.

. . . Bryan ran inside the cell to tend to Shw, as did Florian, who pulled the door shut after him. The net result was that Shw, Bryan and Florian were locked inside. Wade and Janet were outside.

Florian was tending to Shw's foot, saying, 'Look what you inexperienced pinheads have gone and done. Where's the first-aid box?' There was one beneath the bunk.

Janet nodded to Wade, indicating where the cell key had fallen onto the concrete. Wade and Lloyd dive- bombed it at the same moment; it bounced across the floor,
plink ,
then into a drain. The room fell silent. 'Shit, shit,
shit,'
said Lloyd.

Gayle said, 'Don' t tell me you didn ' t have the dupes made—' 'I—'

'You doo fus. One stupid li tt le job I ask you to do, but no, you're too lazy to do it. You just have to go and waste your days at the greyhound races while I keep this place together.'

Shw was swooning ; Bryan was in tears. Florian was applying antiseptic while rapidly tapping behind his ears.

Gayle said, 'Righ t then, you tw o—' She indicated Wade and Janet. 'If we can' t lock you with the others, you'll come with us. Upstairs. We're going for a car ride.'

'What?' Wade began. 'You're going to kill us and dump our bodies? Good luck. We've stockpiled a dossier on you that's so thick and full of scary shit that once you die in prison you'll reincarnate as a prisoner.

Don' t even think of giving us a wedgie, let alone a bullet in our reptile cortexes. Harm us and you tw o are

toast.'

Gayle said, 'Righ t then. But there's no law says we can' t make you endure a li tt le discomfort.' Lloyd said, 'Discomfort?'

'The
swamp,'
said Gayle.

Lloyd beamed. 'Perfect! I'll go start the car.' He left the room. Gayle motioned toward tw o pairs of

handcuffs by the obstetrical chair. 'I want you tw o to cuff yourselves together — hand to hand, foot to foot.'

Janet said, 'Is this really necessary?' Gayle said, 'Yes, it is.'

'What if we don ' t?'

Withou t looking , Gayle poin ted the gun toward the cell and fired, missing the trio inside, but making a very firm poin t. Wade handcuffed his mother's left foot to his righ t foot, her left hand to his righ t hand. 'Why are your legs purpl e?' Gayle asked.

'aids.'

'I should have kno wn. Both of you, up into the car.'

Janet looked at the pink cell. 'Florian, call your securi ty people, for God's sake.' 'Done.'

'Don' t let Bryan or Emily be killed or beaten — they're not evil — they're merely idio ts.' 'I promi se, Janet.'

'You'll attend the launch with me?' 'Oh, yes!'

Lloyd's car was a walloping Floridi an senior 's cruiser, a plush leather casket. Lloyd drove, and Gayle sat in the passenger seat with the gun aimed at mother and son, blind ed with Qantas eyeshades. 'Things were going just great until you monsters showed up.'

'Yeah. Well. Whatever.'

'Lloyd, play some music,' said Gayle. A wash of 1981 music -Van Halen? — filled the vehicle. 'Lloyd, this is a car, not a suntanning bed. Change it to classical.' Lloyd did so. 'There,' said Gayle, 'peaceful lovely
peace.'
They drove into the coun try; the landscape became markedly wilder the further they strayed inland. The

car hit gravel and then drove unmistakably over a wooden bridg e — a surpri singly long wooden bridg e that made the car go
thoomp-a-doomp-a-doomp-a-doomp.
Wade calculated five minu tes at forty miles an hour.

Lloyd stopped the car. Gayle hopped out and opened the rear doors and told Janet and Wade to get out, and once they had, she said, 'Good riddance,' and boo ted Wade behind his knees, sending him toppling

into a swamp, his mother with him. She looked over the edge: 'You migh t survive, so technically this isn' t murder. But I hope you rot down there.'

As Janet fell with Wade into the swamp, she had the feeling that she was traveling back in time. She went back to the week before — to when she was flying from Vancouver to Orlando for the shutt le launch. The sigh t of so many purpo seful and busy-seeming people, all of whom shared a focused destination, had inspired her. When the fligh t hubbed in Dallas, it was late afternoon and the

temperature outside the terminal hit 120 degrees. Passengers inside the glass structure were looking at

the sky as if it had just been diagnosed with a terminal disease. Crowds of strangers huddl ed around the air vents, sharing stray whiffs of coolness. A woman from Beaumon t told Janet that after 118 degrees, the igni tions of many cars would refuse to turn over; parking lots melted like chocolate; water tables

vanished and the planet began to cave in onto itself.

Janet then decided to flow with the airpor t 's tide — in the inter-terminal shutt le train, in the newsstands and in the bathroom s. Her connection to Orlando was delayed; her daugh ter was on TV; her own mother had been dead thir ty years; her father, fifteen. Her eyes and ears were tickled and molested by screens and speakers, all of them heralding the bir th or death of something sacred or impor tant.

She found herself in a cafeteria lineup with a tray, waiting to buy a bruised apple, greasy pizza and a warm pretzel along with dozens of fello w passengers. Suddenly Janet fell further back into time, to

another era, to the Eaton's cafeteria, not the Toron to Eaton's cafeteria of her youth, but the downtown Vancouver cafeteria of her middl e age. It was six weeks after the doomed party and Wade and Ted's figh t on the lawn. Janet had still believed Wade migh t move back home, and she'd chosen the fift h-floor cafeteria at the downtown Eaton's store as neutral terri tory. Eaton's, by then, bore no resemblance to her father's Depression-era workpl ace, but simply seeing the name made her feel roo ted. In the lineup, Wade had been making fun of Janet's choices: mashed potatoes, pork slices and a custard pudding .

' Mom, your food is beige.' 'It 's good food, Wade.'

'But it 's all the same color.'

'I suppose so. And what exactly have
you
chosen to eat, Leonardo?'

Janet looked down at Wade's tray — tinned frui t cocktail swimming in Jell-O, tomato juice and a starburst of chef's salad. His tray looked like Christmas tree ornaments laid out, ready for hanging . 'It 's pretty,' Janet said.

'It is, kinda, isn' t it?'

They sat down in a windo w seat that overlook ed the cour thouse below, and heard the timeless sounds of people — elderly people mainly — their Saturday department store lunch, the fanciest meal of the week for many of them. The sound evoked in Janet childhood memories she was powerless to halt.

'. . .
Houston to Mom . . . Houston to Mom.'

'Sorry, dear. Memories. You'll understand one day.'

'I'm never going to gro w old. I want
experiences,
not memories.'

Janet smiled. 'You're being silly, Wade. Besides, you're the sort of person who sticks around for a long time.'

'I am, am I?'

'Eat your lunch.'

They talked happily abou t going s on — mostly in Wade's li fe. He'd moved in with Colin, a friend who had a job at Radio Shack. 'It 's a sleeping bag on the floor, but before you kno w it, I'll be on Easy Street.' For

the time being, he was delivering carpets for a living, and his plans for locating Easy Street were vague. Janet fished around inside her purse for cigarettes, but she'd run out.
'Drat. . .'

'Take one of mine.'

'Smoking now, are we?'

'For years. You can' t
not
have kno wn.'

'Oh, I knew.' She li t one of Wade's cigarettes and coughed. 'Wade — these are more like cigars. Oh, God, I'm feeling dizzy.'

'You'll get used to them.'

For a brief moment the sun cut through the daily drizzle outside. Wade did a doubl e-take: 'Aggh ! That yello w orb up there — it burns my eyes — what
is
it?'

'It 's abou t time we had a spot of sun,' Janet said.

'Sun — you called the golden orb the " sun " — what else do your people kno w that I do not?'

Janet giggl ed, and the tw o of them enjoyed the sunshine. Wade asked, ' Mom, what was the happiest moment in your li fe?'

'What? Oh, Wade — I can' t answer that.' 'Why not?'

Well, why not? No reason, really.
'Well, I suppose I
could
tell you.' 'Do.'

It took Janet a li tt le time to isolate the moment. 'I wasn' t much older than you. I was eigh teen and such a dumb bunny. My father shipped me off to Europe for a mon th the summer before I met your father — Daddy was starting to make real money then, and the dollar — I can' t
tell
you how far it stretched in

Europe.'

Janet noticed Wade sipping coffee.
Oh — Wade is drinking coffee now.

'I had a lovely tan, and I'd thro wn away my frumpy Canadian tourist clothes, and I bough t these lovely

ligh t summer dresses in Italy. Like the woman on the Sun-Maid raisin box. The whistles and attention I got

— I loved it. And I was paired with these tw o gals from Alberta who were fearless, and I sort of absorbed their strength. I was so bold.'

'You're a beautiful woman, Mom. You should accept the fact. But what abou t your happiest moment?' 'Oh yes. In Paris, near the end of my trip. Some American boys were flir ting with us, and we'd been out to dinner and then we'd gone dancing at a nigh tclub.'

'American guys?'

'They were
such
fun! In the end, that's probably why I married your father. He was American, and Americans are always
doing
things, and I like that in people.'

'But your story—'

'There's not much more to it really. It was three in the morning and I was walking along the Seine, just beside Notre Dame cathedral with Donny MacDonald, and he was singing songs from
Carousel
to me — I felt as though my heart would burst! And then there was this chill wind — so cool that I developed goose bumps even though the evening was hot and sultry. I had this premoni tion that my youth and carefree

times were abou t to end — and it filled me with sadness and resignation — I mean, I'd only just begun to feel like a newly min ted human being, entertaining all sorts of li fe options — or as many as a 1950s girl could entertain. So that was my li tt le moment of happiness. Before I could digest anything I was back in

school, and then marrying your father and having you kids, and it 's as if the entire universe of possibili ties that migh t have been mine ended righ t there on the Seine with Donny MacDonald.' Janet dried her eye with a paper napkin. 'What abou t you, Wade? What's your happiest moment?'