by Nairne Holtz
Sam remembers hearing about this on CBC; there was an investigative report on the Fifth Estate. The CIA approved the program with the caveat that it was to operate outside the usual administrative channels, an objective that was fulfilled by operating in a clandestine manner in Canada. Decades later one of the victims, who married a man who became a Member of Parliament, managed to file a lawsuit and start an investigation. Personal credibility, especially when established by money and power, is crucial when determining the reality of a conspiracy theory. By their nature, conspiracy theories are unbelievable.
Francis seems to read Sam’s mind. “Paranoia’s a paradox. The narratives of people who are clinically paranoid are indistinguishable from the narrative of someone who has undergone a government experiment.”
Sam swallows. “What happened? I mean, to your father?”
“He never recovered.” Francis puts his head in his hands. Mourning, as Sam knows, is so harsh and unrelenting. Getting up, Amanda puts her arm around his shoulders while Sam notes the vulnerability of his ears, shorn of extra flesh. She closes Francis’s wallet, sets it close to his elbows. Now she understands why he agreed to help her find out about Chloe, why he didn’t dismiss out of hand a conspiracy theory and the possibility of murder. Truth is stranger than fiction because it doesn’t have to convince anyone.
When Sam steps outside, she discovers the temperature has finally cooled. It is almost dark; the sun in the horizon is an orange smear. Pollution cloaks the stars. She feels like a race car driver rushing towards a finish line. She can’t see the finishing line, but she’s in motion—that’s what’s important. She can’t even see the lines demarcating the racetrack. She is smashing into pylons but doesn’t care. She wants to hit more of them.
Sam drives to a techno club with Amanda. In Toronto, when Sam had the use of her father’s car, she always took the subway if she was going out so she was free to drink as much as she wanted. But the subway system in Detroit is a single line leading the commuters from the suburbs to downtown. You can’t get around the sprawl of the city without a car, and Sam wonders if the motor industry played a role in keeping public transport from developing. If you examine the possible relationships between facts, conspiracy theories are ubiquitous. Spotting a cover-up is similar to tracing a pattern in the night sky; once you locate the geometric configuration, individual stars are transformed into constellations.
The club is in a converted garage. Exposed pipes are left intact to weave across the ceiling. Youth in phat pants and long skirts jam the dance floor, fluorescent T-shirts and tongue piercings twinkling under the laser lights. Sam and Amanda duck into a chill-out grotto at the back, where they sit on chairs covered in purple shag carpet. Amanda takes off. When she comes back, she takes out two little white tablets. Rather than getting them drinks, she scored some ecstasy. Good, Sam thinks.
They swallow the drugs and wait for them to take effect. An effluxion of chilled beats washes over them—bossa nova remade into electronica with muffled horns and a swagger of synthesizers. The kitsch samba beat wraps around Sam, smooth enough to soothe, but with a steady bass keeping her alert.
Sam says, “After your performance this afternoon, I’m convinced you’re an agent.”
“What if I told you I was? Would you believe me?”
“Show me a pay stub from the government.” Sam isn’t really sure who Amanda is, why she came along for the ride. But perhaps the answer isn’t that complicated, perhaps she likes Sam.
Sam says, “You know, being gay is kind of like being an agent. You’re always wondering if people can tell, if you’re safe.” What Sam is really wondering is whether Amanda likes girls.
“I’m bi. Does that make me a double agent or a mole?”
Ah ha. Sam gets something right for a change. “I’m not sure. Have you been activated yet? Or are you a sleeper agent?”
“Actually, I’m an anarchist. Not politically, but when it comes to sex I’m all about insurrection and throwing bombs. Whoever’s the last possible person I should want, that’s who I’m doing.”
This is something Sam can relate to. And when you’re queer, you can’t help wanting to protect desire from words like “shouldn’t.”
Amanda flicks her tongue over the edge of her teeth. “I guess you’re not one of those lesbians who hate bisexual women.”
Sexual politics, in Sam’s opinion, are often counter-productive to getting laid. “There are only two reasons for a lesbian to be threatened by you: either she’s afraid she’s bi, or she wants to fuck you but is afraid you don’t want her.”
“And you’re not threatened by me?”
Sam shakes her head.
A sly smile forms on Amanda’s lips. “So does that mean you don’t want to fuck me?”
Sam laughs. “It means I’m not afraid.”
“Great answer!” Amanda takes Sam’s hand, tugging her forward. “Let’s dance.” Sam allows herself to be pulled upright but says she doesn’t dance.
“Why not?”
Sam points to her leg. “War wound.”
“You sound like someone’s uncle.”
Sam laughs again. She feels nervous but also a little detached. She’s excited by Amanda, but that is all. “Does that make you my bratty niece?”
“Bratty? That makes me sound as though I’m eleven. Why don’t you call me your wayward niece?”
Sam is adamant about not dancing. While Amanda grooves to the music, Sam stands nearby, watching. A silly grin appears on her face as her body absorbs the ecstasy. In accompaniment to the hypnotizing thud of the beat, Amanda twirls an imaginary orb over her body. Her pink sleeveless shirt is cut tight around small, firm breasts, and Sam can’t stop staring at them. Pleasure gushes through her brain. She goes to the bar, buys a bottle of water and drinks about a third of it. Then she seeks out Amanda to give it to her. As Amanda gulps down the water, Sam watches the eager thrust of Amanda’s throat. Her greed, her urgency, is sexy. When Amanda finishes drinking, Sam takes the bottle from Amanda’s hands, sets it on a speaker and leads them both off the dance floor and into the women’s bathroom. It is still early, so there isn’t a lineup. They go into a stall that is none-too-clean and tagged with graffiti about blow jobs. The setting is seamy, but Sam likes it that way. She kicks the door shut, twists the lock, and pushes Amanda up against the wall, tattooing her neck with bruises.
When Amanda groans, Sam puts a hand over her mouth. “Want to get us thrown out?”
Amanda shakes her head, and Sam releases her hand. Puts it under Amanda’s shirt, over her breasts, which aren’t bound by a bra. Lifts up Amanda’s shirt, licks pink nipples into tight points, then touches her lower down. Beneath the band of her underwear, Amanda is soaked. Something about her makes Sam think of pools, chlorine, languid blondes splayed out on towels. Sam slowly spins Amanda around, unwrapping her cotton skirt and discovers Amanda hasn’t bothered with underwear. Taking a bit of time so as to tease them both, Sam fussily folds the skirt and sets it on the toilet tank before entering Amanda with a muscular hand. Fingers travel along a liquid path to reach into ridges and corners, then head upwards to a pearl, guarded by flesh. As Sam strokes her, Amanda gasps, clutches Sam, and says, “Oh, God, just like that.” Seizing Sam’s hips, Amanda thrusts herself against Sam’s hand.
“Get me off,” Amanda commands, “Now.”
Sam stops moving her fingers altogether. At the moment, Miss Smarty-Pants is not in charge. “If you ask a little nicer.”
Amanda sighs but then capitulates by managing to say in a polite and quiet tone: “Please, Sam. Please make me come.”
“Tell me how.”
While Sam fingers her, Amanda lists a surprising number of acts. She’s one of those women who can come a whole bunch of different ways, which is helpful for the present situation. Taking her hand out of Amanda, Sam spits on it a few times. Then she squeezes her fingers into a fist and uses her knuckles to fuck Amanda. “Penetration is the trickiest,” Amanda says, reaching her
own fingers down to touch herself. But Sam brushes away this offer of assistance, and keeps grinding the hard edges of her fingers against warm, wet muscle. And come Amanda does—”Oh, yes, God, yes”—the hot core of her fastening around Sam’s hand.
When Amanda’s breathing returns to normal, she asks, “Do you want me to do you?”
“Nah.” If Sam doesn’t come, it won’t count. That’s Sam’s rationalization and she’s sticking to it. If she compartmentalizes what she does with Romey from what she just did with Amanda, the leak can be contained.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Then why’d you ask?” Even though Amanda is still straightening out her skirt, Sam unlocks the door of the cage they are in. Two teenagers shoot them dirty looks. Sam ignores them.
When Sam wakes up, she feels the low that too often follows a lovely high. On top of that, it’s Monday morning and she has to drive back to Montreal. Words twang in her head: “Why don’t you call me your wayward niece?” Sam has an instinct for the dirty ones. She rolls over on the cot, tucks the sheet over Amanda’s bare back, as if that can cover up what happened between them. Why did she do it? Sam’s in love with Romey. Was Sam just keeping her options open, the way she usually did? No, the answer was simpler and more pathetic. She invited drama into her life to lick her pain. The law of probabilities dictates Romey could have done the same thing, may have gone to a tacky bar in the Village and picked someone up. At this very moment, she might be getting her brains fucked out. Sam’s hands clench into fists. She could drive herself crazy with jealousy, she really could. A clock radio tells her it’s six o’clock in the morning, not quite time to get up, but she’s wide awake. She needs a distraction. She take s the biography of Sid and Nancy out of her knapsack. On the back cover, Sam reads favourable quotes from dubious magazines on the “compelling veracity” of the story. As she opens the first page, a card and a photograph fall out. The picture is Sam as a kid, seven years old, wearing a one-piece bathing suit, standing on the shore of the ocean. Sun is shooting all over the water. The photo was taken during a summer holiday in Nova Scotia, a vacation with mostly but not entirely good memories. Sam shoves the picture back into the knapsack and takes a look at the card. It has a picture of Paddington Bear on the front. He’s wearing his famous battered hat and duffle coat with the note pinned on that says “Please look after this bear.” Who had given this to Chloe? Opening the card, Sam reads the words: “To my little bear— I promise to take care of you.” At the bottom of the page is a signature: “Omar.” Sam’s mouth drops open. At any other time she would be amused by such raw sentiment, especially coming from Omar. But this morning it makes her sad. A splatter of tears comes into Sam’s eyes, which she wipes away with a fist. These were the items Chloe chose to keep, and the items she chose to leave behind in Romey’s apartment. We hurt her, Sam thinks, and is surprised to find herself using the word “we” in conjunction with Omar. But she and Omar have something in common; they both found themselves in a triangle where Chloe’s love was concerned, Sam with her father, Omar with Romey. Tossing the book and card back into her bag, Sam returns to the cot. She’s rigid with anger but doesn’t know who to blame.
Amanda crawls along the cot and ripples her fingers in Sam’s face. “Good morning.”
Sam doesn’t reply.
Amanda tries to hug Sam, who pulls away from her, and stands up. After briskly retrieving shorts and a T-shirt from her knapsack, Sam starts to get dressed. She keeps her boxers on from the night before because she doesn’t want to be naked in front of Amanda.
In a cool voice, Amanda says, “Let me guess—you have a girlfriend.”
Sam doesn’t answer, lets her eyes zip to an unattractive mole on Amanda’s cheek.
Amanda’s eyes narrow. “Of course. The stripper who slept with your sister’s boyfriend. Is that what this is about? Payback?”
“Fuck you.” Sam twists around to button up her black jean shorts.
Amanda sighs. “You’re transferring your hostility to me. Who are you actually mad at?”
Sam refuses to meet her eyes. “You started it.”
Amanda wraps the sheet around her pale limbs. “Fair enough. I baited you because you’re so absent, so distant after last night.” Her cadence is dreamy, lingering, as if an invitation is forthcoming.
Sam slices the air with her hands. “We’re never going to have a relationship, okay?”
Amanda’s tone mutates to crisp: “I don’t recall proposing that we have one. In fact, I have a lover.” Checking first to make sure the sheet is squeezed tightly around her, she leans over to scoop a dress out of her bag. She tugs the dress on over her head, plucking the sheet away only after the hem has fallen into place.
Sam sits down on the cot. She knows she is being an asshole, or, as Amanda might say, Sam is projecting. Amanda is smart, not to mention sexy, and Sam bellowed that she didn’t want to have a relationship because she is afraid of what she might start to feel. And seeing the picture Chloe kept makes Sam feel guilty. There is so much for which Sam feels guilty.
While Amanda is primping, Sam gets up and stands in front of the closed door. She stretches her arms out, resting her forearms on either side of the door frame. Amanda tucks away a hairbrush and moves towards her.
Sam says, “I’m sorry. I was a total jerk.”
Amanda slowly nods her head up and down. “Yeah, you were. Now can you get of my way?”
Sam takes a sideways step. “Sorry.”
“You said that already.”
The trip back to Montreal is uneventful. Ray is still sleeping when they leave Detroit; Elena is yawning and gives them each a distracted hug while her son yelps in English and Spanish of a calamity involving cornflakes. As soon as the border is crossed, Amanda and Francis fall asleep. Sam is relieved not to be obliged to make conversation with either of them but she, too, is struggling to stay awake. She stops at a drive-through and orders an extra large coffee. As she waits in line, she rereads Chloe and Mark’s article. The Ecdysis Conspiracy is a rather strangle tangle of alliances and enlightened self-interest in the carrying out of criminal enterprises. If Sam takes Deep Throat’s advice to Bob Woodward to “follow the money,” the story is pretty simple. The Grey Wolves did a joint venture with the Hells Angels that helped the Iraqi government; the Hells Angels used the Raelians to carry out some dirty business while the cult made money and promoted itself in the mass media. The only people who didn’t seem to benefit were the women, the nude dancers, who were used by everyone. Is this story something Romey can confirm? Sam’s thoughts have a way of looping back to Romey.
The caffeine does its thing. Sam keeps driving, weaving past big transport trucks with swinging plastic dice wrapped around the stems of their rear-view mirrors. She knows she’s at least twenty klicks over the speed limit but doesn’t care— she wants to get to her next destination; she wants answers. How did Chloe get mixed up with criminals, terrorists, and cult members? Thinking about these different groups, Sam realizes they have a few things in common: they are all cloistered communities with charismatic leaders and stockpiles of weapons. In other words, they’re all armed and dangerous and unlikely to tell her a damn thing. How will she be able to find out whether the conspiracy is real or a hoax?
On the other hand, does it matter whether the conspiracy is genuine? To some extent the truth of the conspiracy is irrelevant. No one knows whether Gulf War syndrome was caused by exposure to chemical weapons or by the guilt, horror, and fear of the soldiers, but when a large enough group of people believe in something, it can take on a life of its own. She can try to investigate the facts, but the conspiracy theory is like the process of ecdysis—another skin has already formed underneath, that of myth. Myth is as powerful as truth. People are just as invested in it. A conspiracy freak who read Chloe’s article might have sent Sam the postcard— with all the information floating around on the web and in news databases, someone could have mined the different pieces, soldered them together.
A conspiracy freak could even have killed Chloe if he or she thought Chloe was part of some plot.
When they get to Montreal, Amanda gives her phone number to Sam. “We should grab a coffee sometime.”
“Sure,” Sam lies.
Chapter Sixteen
When Sam tried to get Chloe and Tory to play a game or to go outside and build a fort or something, they just rolled their eyes. Since they had turned thirteen, all they liked to do was talk. What they talked about was so boring: which girls in their class were goodie-goodies, which girls in their class were sluts, which boys in their class were cute, and which boys in their class were losers. When they had these stupid conversations, they pretended Sam wasn’t in the room, didn’t answer when she tried to butt in. They acted as though she couldn’t hear them, but she could. Once in awhile, the girls talked about other things.
Tory: My mom gave me riding lessons for Christmas. What’d you get?
Chloe: Nothing. I don’t have a mother.
Tory: My dad doesn’t live with me any more either, but he still gave me a present for Christmas. Doesn’t your mother give you stuff?
Chloe: I’m not allowed to see her.
Tory: Why?
Chloe: She tried to murder herself.
Chapter Seventeen
Sam sits on her balcony in Verdun swilling a bottle of beer, breathing in the stink of tar. The building across the street is having its roof redone. Sam watches a skinny old guy drive by on a bicycle with a battered wooden cart attached to the back. He is delivering beer and cigarettes from a depanneur. On the next balcony over, Sam hears two guys debate how much pot to buy. They speak French with the rough rhythm and catenation of English and use enough English words that Sam understands them: beaucoup de pot, c’est full cool. In Verdun, you can also get weed delivered to your door.
