Big Giant Floating Head

by Christopher Boucher

  I took off my headphones and looked at her.

  “I’ve never been happier. Not in my whole fucking life.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  When we landed, though, we turned on our phones and saw breaking news about the faces: while we were in the air, some faces had started growling at each other, bumping up against one another, even pushing each other across the sky. We watched it all as a car drove us through downtown Tokyo—waves of people rushing along sidewalks that ran past eloquent, twisty skyscrapers—and toward Chiba. At one point, Liz put her hand on my arm and said, “Chris, look.” Then she pointed into the sky, at one floating head scowling at another.

  Soon we were out of Tokyo, and driving down a country road through farmlands towards Chiba. Liz had a translation app on her phone, and we used it to tell the driver the exact address of our faces. I’d suggested we check into our hotel first, but Liz said she couldn’t wait another minute to see SkyLiz and SkyChris. Suddenly, the driver turned a corner and there they were: my big giant floating face—or, sort of my face; I had more hair, didn’t I?—next to a face that, now that I saw it up close, barely looked like Liz at all. Still, it was a stunning sight. I said, “Honey,” and Liz looked into the sky, sucked in her breath, squealed and leaned into me. “I’ve dreamt of this moment,” she whispered. “I’ve fucking dreamt of it.” The driver pulled up to the curb and I paid him. He pointed toward our hotel, which was just a few hundred yards away, and I nodded to tell him OK. Then I joined Liz, who was staring up at the faces. “There they are,” I said, which was dumb.

  The faces, I should note, looked really angry. I don’t think they were frowning at us, per se, but you couldn’t tell for sure. Then a woman with a dog walked by, pointed at the faces, and pointed at us. I nodded and gave her a thumbs up. Meanwhile, Liz took out her phone. “So here we are in Chiba,” she told it. “Right near what is called the Rinko Promenade. And look!” She held up her phone. “Who’s that, Chris?”

  I smiled into the camera.

  “That’s us!” said Liz. Take a look at that video now, though, and you can see how pissed off the faces look.

  “What do you think, Chris?” Liz asked me.

  I turned to the faces. “Hello us,” I said.

  And then all of a sudden I could hear a grinding in the sky. On the video, you can see me flinch and look up. “What’s that sound?” I said.

  “What sound?” said Liz.

  Then I realized: it was the Liz-face. She was snarling. Then, just as Liz turned to look up at her, SkyLiz closed her eyes and head-butted SkyChris. “Oh!” shouted Liz, and she turned off her phone. What happened next was, the me-face shook off the hit and lunged at the Liz-face. “Oh buddy,” I said.

  But the Liz-face was ready for him. When he got close she opened her mouth, grabbed his nose in her teeth, and bit down. Blood fell from his face; some of it landed on Liz and me, some on a nearby tree.

  “Shit!” I shouted.

  The me-face recoiled and howled.

  “Stop it!” shouted Liz at her face. “Why are you doing this?”

  The Liz-face hissed and sped toward the me-face again. I heard the sound of a giant nose breaking, and I took Liz’s hand and ran for cover. We didn’t even grab our luggage. Liz sobbed all the way up to our room, where we opened the shade just in time to see Liz’s face kill my face—she roared in victory as SkyChris collapsed on the treebelt.

  On TV, meanwhile, faces were killing other faces by the thousands—these tiny floating wars were happening all over the world. We tried to get out of Chiba—to go home early—but all of the flights were grounded during the massacres. The fighting continued for the next nine days, most of which we spent in the hotel room either watching TV or fighting. When we finally got back home, Liz was morose for weeks. So was I. Sure, I drank more. I ate more too. Who didn’t?

  When the sky-violence finally stopped, the fifty or so faces that were left floated to far-off places, miles away from other faces that might attack them. So far as I know, they’ll hiss and scowl if anyone approaches them. Now you rarely see a face anymore. Around here it happens once a year tops—seeing a face is like a holiday.

  I don’t mind admitting that I felt lonely when the faces left us; I think a lot of people did. I guess I thought for a while that they cared about us—that they were watching out for us. Even now, sometimes Liz and I will be working late in the afternoon and I’ll look out over a rooftop and see what I think for a second is an eye in the sky. It never is, though: it’s just a strange cloud, or the sun glinting off a building in a weird way, or a floater in my vision.

  But then, right at that moment, there’s that voice in my head—the one I’ve heard all my life, but only recently started listening to—reminding me that everything smiles. A tree; the breeze; the downspout of a gutter—the whole world is grinning at you. I don’t even care if that’s true—I’m going to believe it is anyway.

  I went to Christopher Boucher School because I wanted to be the best Christopher Boucher I could be. I’d been trying and failing at being Boucher for so long! My whole life, in fact. Right before she left Liz asked me: “Just who do you think you are?” And I really had no idea how to answer that question. I should have said something like “I’m Christopher Gerard Victor Boucher!”, but instead I said something cruel and vulgar that I now regret.

  For some reason, though, the option of going back to school didn’t occur to me for the longest time. Sure, I would drive by these schools—Rev Morkan School, T’lur Academy, O’Malley Institutes—or I’d see their commercials on TV, but I never really gave them much thought. It wasn’t until I found myself living in the tiny Bay State rooming house in Coolidge, Massachusetts, with no prospects and severe anxiety, that I realized I’d lost sight of myself — that something needed to change.

  So I applied to CBU—and received a rejection two months later. “We are sorry to inform you,” the email read, “that you have not been accepted to Christopher Boucher University for the fall 2017 semester. We appreciate your interest, though, and we wish you the best of luck in your future Boucher endeavors.” I reapplied again the following year, and this time I was put on the wait list. And then someone must have dropped out or something, because a few weeks later I was accepted. How to pay for it, though? I’d been turned down for a scholarship, and didn’t have a pot to piss in by that point.

  But then, as luck would have it, my mother died, and even though she loathed me she left me a few bucks in her will. And since I knew she hated the idea of my enrolling at Boucher U.—“What can they teach you that I didn’t?” she’d asked me once. “Um, how to be a good person?” I replied.—it seemed like fate that, ha ha, now she was paying for it. So I enrolled at CBU, ordered my textbooks, and rode the bus out to the campus—a five-building setup in East Coolidge, Massachusetts—for the first day of classes.

  It took me a few minutes of wandering through the Sumner building before I found my classroom; when I finally did, I saw that it was already filled with Christopher Bouchers. I took an empty seat in the back and looked around. I knew one or two of these guys: Two rows up on the left was a Boucher I’d gone to high school with. Once, when I was thirteen, he beat the shit out of me for no reason at all. That was during my claymation phase, when I was spending all my free time in the public access television station. I was walking out of the studio one day and Boucher and four other guys were waiting for me. I could still remember his boot crashing down on my modeling clay. Now he’d gotten fat and gone bald; so had I. He turned and nodded to me, and I nodded back.

  Then a man stepped into the room and strode to the front. Was that a Christopher Boucher? I wasn’t sure at first—he was way more handsome than any Boucher I’d ever seen. Then—you’ll never believe this—he addressed the class in French! “Bonjour,” he said, in this silky baritone voice, “et bienvenue à Christopher Boucher Université. Je m’appele Christopher Boucher, et je suis le professeur pour cette classe.” Holy Jesus was I imp
ressed.

  Now, I am not normally a good student—or a good employee, or a good husband, or a good anything (unless eating chips is a thing, in which case I am very, very good)—but I studied hard at CBU. I read my textbook, Christopher Boucher for Beginners, all the way through twice. I learned everything about myself: my height (five nine); my weight (175); my various health problems (ulcerative colitis, obsessive compulsive disorder, allergies to tree fruits, pollen, and dust mites). I studied every chart and graph—the illustration of my receding hairline; a timeline of my failures—as closely as I could. And for the first time in my life, I really started to get it—to understand my faults and flaws. My selfishness. My narcissism. To overcome these problems, I worked with an entire team of Christopher Bouchers, some of whom were very tough on me. When I first met with my personal trainer, Coach B, I arrived at the track for our training session and he shook his head disgustedly and said, “Boy, are you out of shape!”

  “Well,” I said. “I’m forty-three. My metabolism—”

  “Metabolism schmetabolism,” he said.

  “My face is a little fuller than it used to be,” I admitted, “but if I untuck my shirt—”

  He clapped his hands. “Less talking more moving, tubby. Let’s start with a quick six.”

  “Six what?” I said.

  He crossed his arms.

  “Miles?” I said.

  “Keep stalling and I’ll make it seven.”

  I ran two miles, after which I stopped and collapsed on the grass. I seriously thought I was dying—everything was blue. Coach B leaned over me. “What the fuck is this?” he shouted.

  “I’m—seeing blue,” I gasped.

  “I don’t give a shit what color you’re seeing,” he said. “Get your ass up!”

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said.

  “Can’t is not a word I know. Does it mean, I want to run eight miles instead of six?”

  Weeping, I stumbled to my feet.

  I also met with a psychiatrist—a Dr. Christopher Boucher—who tried to help me with OCD, anxiety, and my poor self-image. During our second meeting, I mentioned my writing and Dr. B leaned forward in his office chair. “I’m glad you brought that up,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about it.”

  “Ask me about what?”

  The doctor pulled out copies of my novels and put them on the table.

  “Oh Jesus,” I said.

  The doctor pointed at the books. “Are all these stories true?”

  “Of course they are,” I said.

  “Even the one about you killing a man?”

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. “He fell. It was an accident.”

  Dr. B. picked up How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. “And this person _____, the set designer. Is he an alter ego?”

  I shook my head. “We used to work together is all.”

  Then the doctor picked up Big Giant Floating Head. “I found this one particularly sad,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “It’s supposed to be sad.”

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem to like talking about your work,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Let me just ask you one more question, then.” Dr. B. opened the book and flipped to a page that he’d marked with a sticky note. “Is this an accurate portrayal of your mother?”

  I nodded. “She hated me, too,” I said.

  “How could your own mother hate you?”

  I held out my hands. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  Two weeks later, Dr. B took me and some other Bouchers out to the dumpster behind the office. “Now,” he said to us all. “I want each one of you to lick this dumpster.”

  “What?” said one Christopher Boucher.

  “No fucking way,” said another Boucher, who I think was from Brattleboro.

  “Oh no oh no oh no,” said a third Boucher.

  But Dr. B was firm; he stood next to each one of us and repeated the challenge. The first Boucher started crying and ran inside, but the second one actually leaned forward and touched his tongue to the rusty green metal. “Yack,” he said, and spat.

  By the time Dr. B got to me I was visibly shaking. “Chris?” he said. Then he pointed to the side of the dumpster, which was about a foot from my face. “Go ahead.”

  I just stood there shivering.

  “What are you afraid of?” said Dr. B.

  “Getting sick,” I blurted.

  “Right,” he said. “That’s a core issue for you. Can you put words to it?”

  “I imagine dying,” I blurted. “With no one around me—dying alone.”

  “But it’s a distorted fear,” he said. “And we’re going to conquer it, right here and now.”

  “I can’t,” I told the doctor.

  “Chris, you know very well that the odds of getting sick from this exercise are minimal. And that there’s always a chance of getting sick. Right?”

  I nodded.

  He took another step closer to me. “Do you want to be a good Christopher Boucher, or the best Christopher Boucher?”

  “The best Christopher Boucher,” I said.

  “Then lick this dumpster,” he said.

  I leaned forward and licked the dumpster.

  On Tuesdays and Thursdays I met with a relationship specialist, a suave ponytailed Boucher who counseled me on being a better romantic partner. During the first session, he thumbed through my chart and said, “So you’re married.”

  “No,” I said.

  “It says here you are,” said Boucher.

  “We’re getting a divorce,” I stated flatly.

  Boucher’s face darkened. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Chris.” He made a note on his tablet. “Well, let’s do a hypothetical then. Say you meet someone—someone new—and you want to get to know her better, to ask her out for coffee. What would you say?”

  “I would say what I always say. ‘I love you. I love you I love you.’”

  “I mean when you’ve just met her,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said. “I’d say ‘I love you like a suitcase.’”

  “Try something more subtle,” he said.

  “ ‘I love you like a backpack.’”

  The therapist stared at me.

  I had a ways to go, but I made good progress that first semester. I learned to be kinder, more considerate, and less selfish. Plus I started eating better, dropped seven pounds, and developed some helpful techniques to boost my self-confidence and curb my anxiety.

  One day in November, though, I was sitting in Get Taller! class when I noticed several empty seats in the front. Where was Boucher from Greenwich, and St. Louis Boucher? I asked the guy next to me what was going on; another Boucher had dropped out, he said. “Another Boucher?” I whispered.

  “That’s three in one month,” he said.

  A week or so later, we were informed by email that the professor who taught my Do Your Part! class would not be returning. The rumor around campus was that he took another job. “Another job?” I asked Ontario Boucher when he told me. “Where?”

  “As a newspaper reporter, I heard,” Ontario Boucher said. Sure enough, I opened The Daily Wheel the next day and saw my old professor’s byline:

  WORST LANGUAGE FLU IN YEARS, MAYOR SAYS

  by CHRISTOPHER BOUCHER

  Just two days after that, I rushed into Advanced Shutting Up and found Dean Boucher and Provost Boucher huddled at the front of the classroom. As soon as I sat down they turned to face the students. “Good morning everyone,” said Dean Boucher.

  “Good morning,” the Christopher Bouchers replied.

  “I’ve got some challenging news, which I know you might find disappointing. Even so,” said the Dean, holding out a fist, “I know you’ll be Christopher Bouchers about it—that you’ll keep your chins up and shoulder this like men.”

  “Shoulder what?” said Holyoke Boucher.

  “Team,” said Provost Boucher, stepping forward, “we’re here to tell you th
at this school has been sold to Edgar O’Malley Institutes.”

  “What?” said a Boucher from the back of the room.

  “No you did not,” said Christopher Boucher.

  I looked over at the other Coolidge Boucher—we’d become friends by now—and he shook his head grimly.

  “In this challenging financial time,” said Dean Boucher, “we just can’t afford to be second-tier. You’ve no doubt noticed that we lost several students this semester, and that Professor Boucher left us midway through the term.”

  “Believe me, Team,” said the Provost, “when I say that we’ve done everything possible to remain viable. But there is just not enough interest in Christopher Boucher out there. His story’s just not that compelling.”

  “But we can change that, can’t we?” said Flagstaff Boucher. “Isn’t that what you’re teaching us?”

  “Yes, of course,” the Provost said. “Ultimately, though, we want what’s best for you—”

  “And for the school as well,” said Dean Boucher.

  “—and we think it’s better for you long term if you are not Christopher Boucher,” said the Provost.

  The Bouchers began buzzing—muttering to each other and twisting in their seats. Then Tacoma Boucher raised his hand and said, “So, what—we’re all O’Malleys now?”

  “Hey personally, I’d love to be an O’Malley,” said another Boucher.

  “Who is O’Malley, anyway?” said the Boucher behind me.

  I scoffed at the question. Edgar O’Malley was only Coolidge’s most well-known restaurateur, the owner of seven gourmet organic restaurants. I’d once read an article on him in The Wheel: O’Malley was a “humanist,” whatever that is, and an alternate on the 1994 Olympic Luge Team. He’d also written a collection of creative nonfiction.

  “In answer to your question, Christopher,” said the Dean, “we’ll begin implementing the O’Malley Curriculum immediately.”

  “I know this is a bump in the road, folks,” said the Provost. “But it’s for the best. You’re going to be much happier as Edgar O’Malleys.”