Westlake Soul (11 page)

There’s no escape this time
, Dr. Quietus growled.

I thought of Dad, drinking coffee and brushing toast crumbs off his tie, unaware that his only son was dying in the bedroom down the hall. And Mom, one hand on the alarm clock, dreaming hazily while her firstborn breathed his last.

It’s over, Westlake.

Niki and Hub sleeping, curled together like a couple of horseshoes. My body would be a waxen shell by the time they woke up. As lifeless as the tube jutting from my stomach.

More smoke oozed from Dr. Quietus’s grin. He took another step toward me.

And Yvette . . . I thought of her, too. Hair covering one side of her face. Looking through my cracked window.

I pushed myself off the wall and squared my shoulders.

No
, I said.
There’s too much to live for. People who love me. Need me.
I thought of the ocean. Pink and blue and orange and white. Roaring and breaking.
Too many waves yet to ride . . . to tame.

Dr. Quietus faltered. His grin disappeared.

It’s not your choice
, he said.

My life. My choice.

Not anymore.

He growled and ran at me, lowering his shoulders and swinging fists the size of warheads. His cloak flapped as he leapt a pile of burning debris, and I cocked my right arm, drawing the skateboarding trophy over my shoulder. I threw it as his boots clunked down, less than ten feet away. It whizzed through the air like a giant dart, flames flickering from the base, and struck him square in the middle of the chest.

SHHWUUMPP!

A scream—more smoke—bellowed from inside the cowl. Dr. Quietus staggered back. He grasped the part of the trophy that protruded from his chest and dislodged it with a sucking sound. I used the moment to strike again, kicking up a swirl of distracting ashes, then lunging forward and ramming my fist into the mysterious bone of his face.

KA-THUNK!

He turned a full three-sixty, toppled backward, and crashed into the utility space beneath my loft bed. Two of the posts crumbled and the bed—still burning—collapsed on top of him. An umbrella of sparks and ashes opened, marking my departure like a magician’s smoke effect. I launched myself though the damaged roof and into the sky. Going up . . . only up. I didn’t look down until the ruin was no bigger than my thumbnail.

The air cleared.

I found the seam. Opened my eyes.

I’d been gone for almost six hours. It felt more like fifteen minutes. Mom and Niki were arguing in the kitchen. Something about a cell phone bill. Hub was sneering at blackbirds in the back garden. Yvette had been and gone. I lay against the pillows, staring at my toes, perfectly still but shaking inside.

I recalled the painting of planet earth that I had done—and been so proud of—when I was seven years old. Burning in my hands.

It’s the end of the world, Westlake
, Dr. Quietus had said.

No.

I tried to shake my head. Couldn’t.

In a moment I was gone again. Not battling Dr. Quietus, or releasing to some heavenly locale, but surfing the universal wave function. It flowed and twisted through my history, and with every trick I pulled—every door thrown open and memory seized—it collapsed and threw me back into the core stream. Imagine riding an escalator and stepping off at the top, wanting to head left or right into this or that department, only to have the ground move beneath your feet and whip you upward again. The inexorable passage of fate—
my
fate—but I twisted and kicked against it. Didn’t
WANT
it. A barracuda fighting on the line. A falling man trying to flip gravity. Yet an unkind truth occurred to me: if I
were
to find a branch point, and assume an alternate life, I would lose Yvette forever. She wouldn’t even figure in my thoughts. And it’s not like I could track her down and make her mine, because an alternate Westlake would have no knowledge of her existence. It was a no-brainer, of course—you can’t miss what you’ve never had—but still upsetting. I slowed down, flopped my face into my hands, then screamed at a billion closed doors.

My throat was burning by the time I slipped back into my fractured shell. It was nighttime. Everybody sleeping. The house ticked like a rheumatic joint. My eyes were wide in the darkness. A muscle in my thigh thumped weakly.

It’s coming apart around you, Westlake.

There has to be a way out of this.

Piece by piece, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Fuck Dr. Quietus. Fuck death.

It’s all over.

I’m not giving up.

The house groaned in reply. I stared at nothing, too shaken up to sleep, and so released. I found kindness and passion and love. Qualities to counteract doom. I absorbed them, and felt their benefit. Soon my throat had stopped burning, and I submarined into the ocean and swam with bioluminescent creatures—drawn like constellations—that latched onto my back like insect wings.

Or maybe I dreamed that last part. Hard to say. The next thing I knew it was morning. I could smell coffee and toast again.

Calmer. The sun pressing through the blinds. My family—although preoccupied with their own affairs—around me. I talked to Hub for a while, but didn’t tell him about Dr. Quietus. Didn’t want to worry the dude. Afterward, he jumped onto my bed and slept the way dogs sometimes do: four paws in the air, little teeth showing. Listening to him snore made me feel drowsy, too. I caught patchy but pleasant sleep, and was woken fully by the telephone ringing. It was Yvette. She was feeling under the weather and wouldn’t be coming in. Mom screwed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, but said it was fine and to get better soon. I heard Yvette’s voice buzzing through the earpiece. She said she was sorry. I could tell she had been crying. Mom hung up, swore colourfully, and then called her part-time job to tell them that—so sorry—something had come up and she couldn’t make it in. The voice at the other end of the line snapped more than buzzed.

Mom was pissed off. She was bound to catch flak from her boss, and for something beyond her control. I was more upset, though. I had wanted—
needed—
to see Yvette. Her care, and her touch, would be so healing after my recent clash with Dr. Quietus. I left Hub with his paws up and flew to her apartment on Lilywood Drive. She was huddled on the sofa, dressed in Winnie the Pooh pyjamas. Alicia Keys playing on the stereo. Crumpled Kleenex on the floor. Her face was wet with tears and, yes, she looked under the weather. A touch of flu, perhaps. Then she turned her head to the side and I saw the bruise beneath her left eye.

And so we come to Wayne the Fucktard.

Ripped. Head shaved. A maple leaf tattooed on each arm. The first time I saw him, he pulled up outside Yvette’s apartment in a big-ass pickup truck, a toolbox in the bed and his company’s name—APPETITE FOR CONSTRUCTION—stencilled on the doors. I’d been chilling with Yvette, sharing the sofa with her as she watched Dr. Oz. She buzzed him up. “Hey, baby,” she said at the door, and leaned forward for a kiss, but he brushed past her and clomped into the kitchen in his dusty workman’s boots. “I just vacuumed,” she said. Wayne rolled green eyes that were set a little too close together (a sign of untrustworthiness, according to the ancient Greeks, and you’ll get no argument from me), opened the fridge and helped himself to a beer. Yvette looked at the arcs of dirt left in the carpet as he stomped into the living room. He took no notice of her. Gulped his beer, dropped his ass onto the sofa next to me, and flicked the TV over to Sportsnet.

I’ve told you very little about Wayne, but I’m willing to bet you’ve a fairly accurate picture of him in your head. The kind of guy who has Kimbo Slice wallpaper on his cell phone, and who thinks
The Expendables
should have won ten Academy Awards.

This is your boyfriend?
I said to Yvette, who was still looking at the dirt arcs in the carpet. We both wore mystified, somewhat hurt expressions.
What are you thinking?
I didn’t stick around for an answer. I flipped back into my body and pondered the age-old anomaly of beautiful, intelligent girls dating total asswipes.

Jealous? Yeah, a little. But if Wayne was a good dude, I’d at least be jealous
and
happy for her. He’s not
a good dude, though. He’s a fucktard.

The second time I saw him was even worse.

They’d been out on a date (by which I mean, Wayne had watched UFC at Boston Pizza, while Yvette sat next to him, playing Angry Birds on her iPhone). He drank too many beers but drove home anyway—told Yvette to shut her fucking cakehole when she offered to drive. They got back to Yvette’s place and he came on strong. She pushed him away and told him that she wasn’t in the mood. “The fuck you’re not,” Wayne said. He wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed. “I just bought you fucking pizza. New York Cheesecake, too.” I raged and swung invisible fists at him, wishing they had substance, wishing he could feel
something
. But I couldn’t even disturb the air. Yvette managed to squirm out of his grasp. She stood in the middle of the room and shook her head. The shape of Wayne’s hand was imprinted on her throat. I continued to throw empty punches at him. “You’ve had too much to drink,” she said. “You can sleep on the sofa or go home.” He growled and stepped toward her, one fist raised, knuckles scuffed. She said, “Please no,” and backed away and he grinned, lowered his fist, told her she was a lousy lay and that he’d rather jack off, anyway. I stopped swinging haymakers and tried the
Scanners
thing, but his head remained, regrettably, intact. I tried the
Carrie
thing, too—mining the iceberg for telekinetic ability, wanting to open the kitchen drawers and fling knives at him. Forks, too. I’d bounce the toaster off his head for good measure. It was a weighty appliance with four slots and a bagel function. It would hurt like a bastard. Couldn’t do it, though. And couldn’t do the
Firestarter
thing, either. I just stood there, frustrated as hell, feeling like the most useless superhero since Aquaman.

“Bitch,” Wayne said. He spat on the carpet, then turned to leave. Our eyes locked for half a second. They seemed to, at least, but then he walked right through me . . . and I
felt
him, I swear to God. His anger and insecurity. His unkindness. It gathered inside me, brick-heavy. A block of poison. I stumbled—my floaty
soul
stumbled—while back in the groovy room my shell moaned and curled a fist. Then he was gone, slamming the door so hard the blinds jumped in the windows and a waft of hall-smelling air blew the hair back from Yvette’s face. I went to her. Held her ineffectually. Followed her into the bedroom as she threw her face into the pillows and cried.

The next morning—Monday—she sent him a text:
Last night wasn’t good. Let’s try again tonight. If u can be kind, I could be “in the mood” ;-) xoxoxo
And that was when he texted her back, her iPhone jingling as she pulled into my driveway:
Ur lucky 2 have me bitch I cn get any peice of ass I want any time so fuck u
. So she came in and touched my trophies and pulled the band from her hair and cared for me, and for a long, sweet moment forgot all about Wayne the Fucktard.

Je trouve l’existence incompréhensible.

Those crumpled Kleenex, like the snipped heads of lilies. Alicia Keys singing, “Fallin’.” That crescent of purple skin beneath her left eye.

It happened while I was away—either looking for a branch point or swimming with glowing lobates—but I have been able to piece together events from telephone conversations and text messages. Not that I
needed
to piece together events. Yvette didn’t walk into a door or fall down the stairs. Wayne hit her. He
punched
her. One of those ugly fists connected with the delicate structure of her cheekbone hard enough to rupture tiny veins and capillaries. I knew this as soon as I saw her. Learning that Wayne had been drunk at the time, and that they’d had a thunderous argument, changed nothing. It didn’t heal the contusion. It didn’t rewind time and make everything right. The son of a bitch
hit
her. Nothing else mattered.

I went to her, and held her in my special way. We listened to Alicia, wrapped together. Fragile, yet strong. Her heartbeat bounced through my soul like light in a house of mirrors. She crumpled Kleenex while I considered my own source of woe: Dr. Quietus, gliding like a hawk, just waiting to strike. Then I thought of the Joker and the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Doomsday, the Green Goblin and Venom.

And now, of course, Wayne Hubbins, AKA Wayne the Fucktard.

So many supervillains. Not enough heroes.

I stroked Yvette’s face. Kissed the bruise beneath her eye.

He’ll pay for hurting you
, I said.

And he will. I’m not sure how yet, but one way or another—from the grip of this vegetative condition—I’m going to kick that bad guy’s ass.

It’s what superheroes do.

Still the box has not stopped rolling. My hands, my hands. Clay and plastic. Sometimes all I can move. Expressions cast in the flexing of fingers, the twist of a thumb. Some desperate language. While inside, the train puffs on tracks once edge-straight, now hook-crooked. Toward—
choo-choo!—
a bridge they never finished building. A bridge blown to nothing by bandits with faces like pearls. Outside the world pulsates. Green no more. A hateful, purple mouth. An open heart. I release through skin and smoke. Scream all the way nowhere. And disbelief hangs above me, as light as a balloon. Bopping with laughter against a ceiling painted Surf City Blue.

I need some time alone. Need to think this through. Really, I’m too stunned to do anything more than float right now. If you could see my soul, it would be hovering above my body. Shimmering, like polished bone. Attached by threads that break too easily, too quickly. Guitar strings made of cobweb. So I need to find a place—inside me, probably. A central place where I can unfloat. I want to scream and run at the walls. I want to cry for understanding.