All Families Are Psychotic

by Douglas Coupland

  ‘Why bail out?’

  ‘Florian, I could have been talking to my kids even – oh, God, I shiver at the thought.’

  ‘Did you always log on as HotAsianTeen?’

  ‘No. I only created that persona because I wanted to see how men behave when the wife’s in the kitchen and the den door is locked.’

  ‘What did you learn, then?’

  ‘Men are ruled entirely by their crotches.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s not enough? I was raised to believe men were ruled by political and social ideals. I believed that.’

  ‘It’s time for another martini. Another for you?’

  ‘Please.’

  A birthday party of eight seniors on the other side of the restaurant was preparing to mutiny; Florian’s second stint at the bar went as unnoticed as the first. He returned to the table and passed Janet her drink. ‘Cocktail for your thoughts,’ Florian said.

  ‘Well, there was one date, but we didn’t meet over the Internet. We did meet at an Internet café.’ Janet was dizzy from the cigarette.

  Florian was interested. ‘Oh?’

  ‘But when he found out about my HIV, he bolted. End of story.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  ‘Yeah. Ernie – Ernie Farmingham.’

  ‘In Vancouver?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  A brief flash of preoccupation passed over Florian’s face; Janet looked him in the eye. ‘To be completely accurate, he lives in North Vancouver. You’re going to destroy his life, aren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely, Janet.’

  Janet felt as if she were having dinner with God.

  Menus were hurled onto their table. Janet said, ‘We’d better order, but I don’t know – I mean, I’m immunosuppressed, and this place is such a dive. Food here might be dodgy in an E. coli 157 kind of way.’

  ‘Not if you order in the Florian style.’

  ‘What style is that?’

  ‘Watch.’ He walked across the room, tapped a waiter on the shoulder and handed him a hundred-dollar bill. In a blink the waiter was at Janet’s side.

  ‘Well, I suppose a green house salad – vinaigrette on the side – and Fetuccine Alfredo would be fine.’

  The waiter, name-tagged Steve, turned to Florian and returned the hundred-dollar bill. ‘No need. The restaurant’s going nuts tonight because Shawna got fired.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Karma. She acted like she owned the place because she’s dating the weekend manager. Ooh – we’re so impressed. Anyway, sir – your order?’

  ‘Yes – a green salad with your undoubtedly captivating house dressing, tomato soup with double croutons, chicken fingers – yummy, yummy! – with mustard sauce, no less. Then, howz-about – yes, deep fried zucchini sticks, and then a lamb entrée substituting rice pilaf for potatoes, and then—’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Steve?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand you. Will anyone else be joining you?’

  ‘No. Just myself and the lovely Janet here.’

  ‘Well, then you already have more than enough food for the two of you – if I may be so bold as to say so.’

  ‘Steve, thank you, but I would like to order more. There’s no by-law in New Smyrna Beach regulating the amount of food one can order, is there?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Florian ordered ten entrées, each with meticulous attention to substitutions and the doneness of meats.

  Steve was thoughtfully amused. ‘Boy, the chef is going to freak.’

  ‘Life is for enjoying, right, Steve?’

  ‘Yes, it is, sir.’

  ‘You have to live every moment and capture the joy. Have fun, fun, fun. Now off to the kitchen, Steve. We’re nearly insane with hunger.’

  Janet said, ‘Feeling a bit peckish tonight?’

  ‘Yes, and I shall tip the lad with my Piaget watch. Now, you were telling me on the phone about a new cream for rosacea—’

  ‘Indeed I was.’

  The two talked about legal and illegal skin care products for ten minutes, until staff members began to sneak peeks at the two of them. Shortly the chef came out. ‘Are you making fun of my food?’

  ‘On the contrary, I’m honoring your food.’

  ‘You’re a smartass?’

  ‘No, I’m a customer. I’m sure your meals are excellent, and I look forward to the bunch of them. The Shanty is well-known throughout the entire 904 area code for its fine dining and convivial atmosphere. Everybody knows that. Now go cook, my good man!’

  The chef, puzzled, left. Steve lingered.

  Florian said, ‘Steven, my boy, having lots of fat people eating a lot of fattening food is a good, good thing for America.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, sir. And Steve is fine.’

  ‘Like anything in life, Steve, it’s numbers, numbers, numbers. Lots of fat people means lots of happy farmers, happy agro-chemical makers, happy teamsters, happy fast-food staffs – happiness and joy for all. Fatness ripples through the entire economy in a tsunami of prosperity.’

  ‘Fat people have more medical problems, though. Common sense.’

  ‘But that’s the beauty of it, Steve. At present we’re at the perfect equilibrium point between an obese society and a prosperous society. If all Americans were to gain even one more ounce, the medical system would be overtaxed and the economy would suffer. Were these same Americans all to lose even one single ounce, Steve, the economy would nose-dive.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of obesity that way.’

  ‘Well, now you have.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ Steve was off. Florian turned to Janet. ‘What I was saying – before – about life being about good times – a facetious lie of the first order.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’

  ‘As far as I can see, Janet, life is just an endless banquet of loss, and each time a new loss is doled out, you have to move your mental furniture around, throw things out, and by then there’s more loss, and the cycle goes on and on.’

  ‘You’ve been reading my mind. Life is a bowl of chainsaws.’

  ‘It’s not hard. I see it in your eyes.’ Florian finished his drink. ‘When did the notion first dawn on you?’

  ‘I was a dumb bunny. I believed the script I was handed. And then one day in the early 1980s I hit a red light in North Vancouver and ding! I understood that I was now for ever in life’s minus column and the plus column was over. Funny how you only realize how deeply events have affected you years and years after they’ve occurred. What about you?’

  ‘It’s been my whole life – loss – the sensation of things slipping away. Not money – I shit money – money likes me – but everything else: going, going, gone.’

  ‘You’re not going to get much sympathy in this world for that, Flor.’

  ‘Ah, but you see, I don’t ask for sympathy.’ Florian looked toward the kitchen. ‘Our food is on the way.’ He stood up. ‘Excuse me while I go pick up a friend. I’ll be back shortly – as you say, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  Steven began to deliver plate after plate of food, and once the booth’s surface was covered, he brought over another table as an annex. Most of the meals seemed repulsive to Janet – a Caesar salad with eczema; gray disintegrating mahi-mahi; blackened lumps of … pig; rubber bands and shoelaces mixed together and relabeled as pasta. Steve, having deposited all the meals, made a mock blow of his forelock. ‘I’m forgetting something – wait, yes—’ He picked up a pepper mill. ‘Pepper?’

  ‘No, thank you, dear.’

  ‘Why don’t I leave the mill here. Just in case.’

  Janet surveyed the ludicrous foodscape before her, then looked up to see Florian walking in the door with an extremely tall, ink-black woman in tow, clad in brilliantly colored, shamelessly expensive designer wear – Pucci? Hermès? Her fingers and neck and ears were dappled with light bouncing off chunks of gold jewelry. Janet had never seen a woma
n clad in so many costly items at once. The showiness of it seemed almost illegal. Janet was mesmerized as the two approached the table, as were The Shanty’s other diners.

  ‘Janet, I’d like you to meet Cissy Ntombe.’

  Janet stood up, spellbound. ‘Hello.’

  Cissy said, ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ She sat down in the banquette opposite Janet and asked, ‘What brings you to this part of the world, my dear?’

  Janet felt like a yokel. ‘Family business, you might say.’

  ‘How delightful.’ Cissy unfolded a napkin on her lap.

  Janet asked, ‘And you?’

  ‘I, too, am here on business,’ Cissy said. ‘But not family business. My family are all dead, I’m afraid, my dear.’

  ‘Good Lord – how awful.’

  ‘Your sympathy is too generous, but I have grieved all I shall.’ She looked at the food before her. Florian looked eager to hear her response, which was: ‘Florian, we shall be needing lemon wedges, and I see none here.’

  She looked at Janet. ‘There is no such thing as a fish without lemon. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘This restaurant is not nearly so grand as last night’s restaurant in Atlanta, but I suppose that is what happens when one ventures through the provinces.’

  Florian was savoring Janet’s bafflement over this exotic and slightly antique-sounding new guest. Janet shot him a pair of Who-is-this-person? eyes, but all he did was gesture towards the food and say, ‘It’s all for you, Cissy, dear – you dive right in.’

  ‘As I said, I shall require lemon wedges first, my dear.’

  Florian went off in pursuit of lemon wedges. Cissy asked Janet, ‘Do you speak French perchance?’

  ‘Me? A bit. I’m from Canada, which is a bilingu—’

  ‘Oh dear – Canadian French, which one hears is a puzzling variety of its Parisian counterpart.’

  ‘I suppose my French is a bit rusty.’ Janet looted her brain for conversation topics but found none. In addition, Janet’s not knowing Cissy’s role in Florian’s life was irksome indeed. ‘Does Florian always order too much food like this?’

  ‘I cannot say, Janet. I have only known him for two days.’

  This is crazy. ‘Your outfit is amazing. Hermès?’

  ‘It is Versace, my dear.’

  Silence.

  More silence.

  Cissy asked Janet, ‘Have you read any good books lately?’

  ‘Books?’ The topic caught Janet off guard. ‘Let me think – mostly I read newspapers and magazines. And the books I read are about health and nutrition mostly. Sorry I can’t do better than that. What about you, Cissy?’

  ‘I have recently reread my favorite book of all time.’

  ‘Which one is that?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Protocol and Deportment in Polite Society, by Miss Lydia Millrod.’

  ‘Is that a new book?’

  ‘No! Heavens no, my dear. It was published in 1913, just before the Great War. But its classical nature rescues it from the fate of being dated.’

  ‘I see.’

  Florian returned with a plate-load of lemon wedges. ‘Let us begin.’ He and Cissy promptly scanned the meals as though it were a buffet for fifty. Both parties took only the most minuscule portions of food, further confusing Janet. She asked Florian, ‘So how did you two meet?’

  ‘Friends of mine told me about Cissy, and I simply had to meet her.’

  ‘What did your friends say?’

  ‘They told me that Cissy is from the city of Mubende, fifty miles west of Kampala, Uganda. She’s been a prostitute for nearly twenty years and has had unprotected sex at a very minimum of 35,000 times. She’s been directly exposed to HIV perhaps 15,000 times and yet her blood levels show no trace of either the virus or its antibodies.’

  Cissy looked quite cross at hearing this. She said, ‘Florian, it is improper to discuss business matters at the dinner table.’

  ‘Cissy, Janet is almost family to me. No business will come of this. I merely want to keep her properly informed about you, my good woman.’

  ‘Very well, then. But no mention of money. That is absolutely forbidden.’

  Florian turned to Janet. ‘As I was saying, Cissy was discovered in her roadside hut a few months ago by researchers from Atlanta’s Center for Disease Control. They were conducting routine epidemiological surveys and happened upon her. She was brought to Atlanta two weeks ago and was given a large, utilitarian cinder block motel room that resembled a dorm room in an Ohio college circa 1967. Fortunately I have tomtoms beating all through the jungle and was informed of Cissy’s plight. Two days ago I visited Atlanta armed with two garment dollies I had brought down directly from Seventh Avenue – the most exotic and expensive clothes available in all of Manhattan – as well as strips of silk on which a dazzling array of Harry Winston gems had been pinned. Cissy had a choice – cinder block dorm room or Versace. And thus I secured her rescue.’

  ‘You stole Cissy from the Center for Disease Control?’

  “‘Stole?” Goodness no,’ Florian said, ‘And Janet, please, stop being so middle-class. It’s unbecoming. If Cissy wants to leave, she’s free to do so. Right, Cissy?’

  Cissy said, ‘My room in Atlanta was no better than a broom closet. So insulting.’ She turned to Florian: ‘I shall require a finger bowl presently.’

  Florian turned to Cissy: ‘Cissy, give me your hand.’ He took Cissy’s barbecue-sauce-stained right hand. ‘Janet, give me your right hand – across the table – there.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Trust me, Janet.’

  Janet gave her hand to Florian.

  ‘Good.’ He picked up a steak knife, looked at Janet, lifted his eyebrow and made a small cut on her hand.

  ‘Ouch. Florian, what are you—?’

  ‘Shhhhhhh.’ Florian then took Cissy’s hand and cut a small slit in her palm, too. He looked back and forth between the two women, then held their bleeding hands together in a clasp.

  Cissy’s hand was so warm and dry, so hard to imagine buckets of warm, potent blood flowing within, but Cissy’s blood did flow, dripping onto the tablecloth. Janet watched as blood seeped out through cracks in the bonds of the two hands.

  Florian said, ‘I’m going to count to sixty-two, Janet. Sixty-two seconds is the time required for blood to clot on an open cut.

  ‘… one Mississippi … two Mississippi … three Mississippi … four Mississippi …’

  Is this what I think it is?

  ‘… thirty-four Mississippi … thirty-five Mississippi … thirty-six Mississippi …’

  It couldn’t be.

  ‘… fifty-nine Mississippi… sixty Mississippi… sixty-one Mississippi … sixty-two Mississippi.’

  But it is. It’s true.

  ‘Unclasp your hands.’

  Cissy looked at Janet. ‘You’ll need a fresh napkin, my dear.’

  Janet was stunned. Her hand remained hovering above the food.

  Florian said, ‘Look at me, Janet.’

  Janet looked at Florian, but the colors and shapes in the room were shifting like TV channels.

  ‘It’s gone now, Janet.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Yes. No more pills. No more virus. Nothing. All gone.’

  ‘It can’t be that simple.’

  ‘Almost. I’ll have to give you one or two shots using Cissy’s plasma as a base. But for all intents and purposes, yes. It is that simple and yes, it’s all gone.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Yes, Janet?’

  ‘I don’t …’

  ‘What are you feeling, Janet?’

  ‘Light. I feel light.’

  ‘Floating on air?’

  ‘No – the other kind of light.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘White light. I feel like … the sun.’

  26

  The table was covered in fifteen desserts, and Janet was bloated from having gorged on two of them. On top of this, she was stil
l heady from the blood swap with Cissy. She said, ‘Florian, I won’t lie to you. The letter I was going to give you is fake.’

  Florian froze for a second. ‘I’m glad you told me that, Janet, because then we couldn’t have remained pals.’

  ‘Why do you want the letter so badly, Flor? Just tell me – why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘Because – because you lost your mother early in life. Because you seem to love everything English, and I guess buying this letter is how a rich Anglophile would funnel those energies and emotions.’

  ‘Very good, Janet. I do miss my dear Maman, but that’s not why I want the letter – or the card inside it – or whatever’s in there.’

  ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘Janet, what I really want is the envelope.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure the card inside is sweetness and light itself, but the envelope is what I want.’

  ‘Florian, what are you saying?’

  ‘Janet, think for a second about the simple mechanics of card writing. Someone would have had to lick that envelope, wouldn’t they? And I hardly think licking is the sort of job one entrusts to anyone, let alone one’s butler, or even to Daddy.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Embedded in the envelope’s glue, Janet, are a good number of stable and intact somatic cells.’

  ‘Somatic cells?’

  ‘Non-sexual cells – neither sperm, nor egg. In a few years – not right now, mind you, but in a few years – as inexorably as CDs replaced vinyl records, it’s going to be almost pathetically simple to clone mammals – any mammals – from somatic cells. Give these cells the correct goo on which to grow, and then deliver the correct stimulus, and whaam! Instant prince. Your daughter is, I believe, running tests on board the shuttle aiming towards this future procedure. The world is truly small.’

  ‘I … you’ve got me, Flor.’

  ‘It’s a fair amount to swallow in one gulp. By the way, the launch is still on for 7:40 A.M. day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bravo.’ Florian looked at Cissy. ‘Are you full, dear?’

  ‘I have had enough.’ Cissy was content just to sit and touch the palm of her hand so recently cut.

  Janet dipped her tongue deep into the martini glass bottom dimple to retrieve the final drop of gin. She looked up. ‘It can’t be that hard to buy royal dandruff, Florian.’