Pontypool Changes Everything

by Burgess, Tony

“Jimmy, why don’t you ever draw nice things? And whatever you do, don’t let Missus see these. Hide them with the others in your room. Now go out and play in the pool with your sister.”

  Missus was the woman who came in and cleaned once a week. She was a Jehovah’s Witness who became confused and angry at even the thought of dinosaurs. Upon seeing one of Jimmy’s drawings she asked to leave immediately; clutching her old heart, she limped home in a state of abjection. Jimmy’s mother watched helplessly from behind the curtains in the kitchen. Missus returned the following week, but she has never entered, nor has she since been asked to enter, the boy’s room.

  “Careful out there, your father’s tools are lying all over the place. Take a towel.”

  Now there’s the hill, that lost wall, and the weasels are wiping their gums against it. At a distance, somewhere above Jane and Finch, two airplanes are waiting at an intersection. And in the lawn below and to the west is a small rectangle punched into the ground coated with concrete and filled with water.

  In this wading pool stands an eight-year-old girl. Beside the pool stands a seven-year-old boy. The boy strolls over to a saw that hangs at an angle in a plank that is stretched between two sawhorses. He rocks the saw until it squawks out of the wood.

  There are thoughts going through this child’s head, which is normal. As normal as it is to place thoughts in a head. And they are arriving and departing in the usual custom. That is, as far as it is usual for thoughts to arrive and depart. These thoughts, idle and wandering, are picking up speed, accumulating a motive from the way they are arranged. There is a dangerous belief in the corners they turn.

  These thoughts: The saw can enter wood and my father can leave it there. Can it enter my sister and can I leave it there? To the saw, my ruler, my king, my sister is wet inside like wood, and her grain is looser and nearly separated anyway. So where is the difference if I draw the separation out? Make her wood. The same. She is wood. Peaceful and heavy. The little teeth marching across her shoulder. That’s it.

  The grim little mouth the saw has made in the plank blows blonde fibres from its lips and gives the word. Jimmy slips into the pool clumsily, dragging the saw behind him.

  Behind Julie’s head is the deep blue of the sky. A blue most like that colour is at her shoulders, whitening as it leaves her, travelling upward. On the surface of the sky, microscopic bacteria living in Jimmy’s eyes flow from the sun into Julie, who is smiling. They’re glancing down at her shoulder, inviting the saw there. Jimmy lays it on her shoulder and draws it towards himself. Then he pushes it along a groove that starts easily in the skin. A bright strip of blood highlights the course — down through her body — the saw will take. Julie’s face is calm, at least as calm as Jimmy’s, and she smiles with a full understanding of what is happening.

  When their father runs around the pool, as if up a ramp, his mouth is open and through it an airplane comes out of the sky. Julie and Jimmy lean towards each other and kiss in the silence of this moment. Now husband and wife, they kiss each other goodbye forever. When the airplane advances past the sky and their father’s voice starts up in his mouth again, Julie and Jimmy pull apart sheepishly and Julie begins to howl in pain, holding her shoulder. Jimmy sees, for the first time, all the blood in the water.

  In every home movie and photograph that their father will take this summer, the girl’s shoulder will have a large pad of gauze taped to it. And Julie and Jimmy will grow apart like brother and sister.

  This event also marks Jimmy’s first deliberate silence, a silence that will last three months and will return every three months. Like now, as they make their way up the path in the dark, four cottages away from where people are eating each other alive in a now brightly lit bedroom.

  11

  More Mazzy

  At his desk, Grant Mazzy sits across from the only person at Big Town TV who is willing to spend time with him.

  Steve is a student volunteer, which means he is something of a slave. He’s young, eighteen or so, with an anachronistic blond pompadour, tight rockabilly pants, and pointy boots. Grant has asked himself whether this look, the way the kid features it, the way it precedes everything else about him, is trendy or disdainful of trends, or trendily disdainful of trends. Is he ultra-hip and ironically retro-quoting another ultra-hip that had hotly retro-quoted another ultra-hip that once, long ago, railed against, what? What? Uh, squares? Grant has decided, in order to get through the day, that the kid is just a bit silly looking. And that is that. Besides, because of the way Steve has followed him around and bumped against him and bobbed his head like a good dog, Grant figures those old squares, as referentially obscure as they have become, have nothing to worry about anymore, anyway.

  Steve picks up the second phone on Grant’s desk and gives the “Girlfriend” signal, followed by the “Sorry dude” signal. Grant stares at the kid for a second, watching as his face crumples towards the “No, I’m really sorry, dude” signal. Grant smiles and pulls a Romeo Y Julieta Tubo out of his shirt pocket. He swings it in his fingers and taps it onto his phone to get the orchestra’s attention.

  “I’m getting phone calls you wouldn’t believe. Calls from, like, look at this. Here’s an anthropologist. Here’s a linguist.”

  Steve’s eyes dart quickly to the side, toward the East Indian weather person who sits quietly surrounded by unused phones.

  “Semioticians, doctors, and a feminist lawyer, and, oh, this one’s rich, an art critic, an art critic who now fancies himself a virologist . . . now what was that about . . .”

  Steve sits nodding at Grant.

  “Here it is. Yeah, art critic, thinks the virus became contagious when Marcel Duchamp got a guy called Steiglits to photograph a urinal in 1919.”

  Steve has heard the name before.

  “Who?”

  “Marcel Duchamp. You know, the urinal. Uh, the bride descended on the bachelor, something. Readymades, that sort of thing. A dadaist.”

  Steve remembers him.

  “Right. The Nude Descending a Staircase. I know. Yeah, so what does that have to do with the virus?”

  “Well, this critic seems to think that Duchamp’s experiments with the fourth dimension, sending a urinal into it, somehow caused a breach of some kind. And when the piss-pot returned, some kind of illuminating gas got in through the nth door type of twilight zone shit. Anyway, in here somewhere pops a virus you catch through conversation. Crazy, eh?”

  Steve smiles, “So, like, I guess this is one disease that you can catch off a toilet seat.”

  “That’s right, kid, very good. Very good. Now, what am I gonna do here? The only virologist I don’t have is a virologist.”

  12

  The Volunteer Is Fatal

  Greg is not sure what it is that people should know. He thinks that there is certainly something. He sits in Grant’s small office drumming his fingertips against his thighs. Three weeks ago I get a fatal illness, and today I start a new career. Greg is anxious that these two clauses keep a safe distance from each other. Even though he suspects they are dependent on each other, he avoids acknowledging them at the same time.

  When Greg thinks of the illness, he does so with a consciousness that is dim and oval, capable of spreading outward, yes, but with borders that he keeps visible at all times. If he thinks of the new career, he does so less in a space than in a direction. His thoughts brush towards something, incapable of wandering or examining or dissolving. He fears these thoughts are actually directionless, so he caps the furthest ones in arrowheads. When he thinks of his illness, his career is simply that unthinkable; and when he thinks of his career, his illness is also that unthinkable.

  Now that he is sitting in the office where he’ll be interviewed, Greg has the sinking sensation that his arrows have abandoned him. He sits calmly at the doorway to this softly lit oval: the disease that has never manifested itself. The disease that includes him while the arrows cut him off.

  The office is lit only by a long desk lamp that sh
eds light across surfaces, dropping two hard crescents onto the floor. Greg slides his foot out from under his chair and pushes the toe of his running shoe cozily into the sharp edge of one of the crescents.

  Grant enters the office. He looks at everything, the chair, a framed photograph of man at a sink, the fax machine, the ceiling, everything except Greg.

  “Hello there. Grant Mazzy.”

  A hand goes out, eyes drop to a hand brushing an imagined crumb from his thigh.

  “You’re Greg?”

  Greg suddenly wishes he was home, sleeping in. “Uh, yes, I’m here for the volunteer.”

  “Well, no, you’re here for me. Hah! You are the volunteer, right?”

  Greg feels the crescent of light cut open the top of his foot.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK then.”

  Grant lifts and drops the tip of a pen in front of his face, following it with his eyebrows, not his eyes, which he widens to introduce Greg to new perspectives.

  “I gotta tell ya, Greg. You’re gonna look back one day on this meeting and I guarantee that you’ll say to yourself one of two things: I should have got the fuck out of there as soon as I saw that guy; or, you might say, that was the day that I started livin’ for myself.”

  Grant coughs up in the air, like an animal, a seal tossing a ring, a lion throwing its mane.

  “And you’re gonna get all that by living for me.”

  Greg can’t look straight ahead. He focuses on a silver bullet on a key-chain that lies on the desk.

  “Now I’m gonna say something that offends most people. I’m gonna say this for two reasons. One, to see whether you are like most people — an unfortunate shape to find yourself in. And two, if you are like most people, I can at least have the pleasure of watching you puff up before I spin you outta here. Ready?”

  Greg lowers his head slightly, scooping his jaw out in small acceptance. He pushes a scale of dried semen off his knee with the back of his thumb.

  “OK. If you work out here it’s gonna be because you let two things happen. You’ll let me own you; and you’re gonna fall head over fuckin’ heels in love with me.”

  Grant jabs a finger off his chin at Greg. The other hand gives a disgusted shake in the darkness above the lamp. I’m not a pussy. The world is full of pussies. I dismiss them.

  “I’m gonna tell you something now. Later, if you do a few things for me, I’ll show you what I’m talking about, OK?”

  Greg feels a little roll of exhilaration. Grant detects it.

  “OK. This is it. You know the world you live in? You know the one. Little things going on, urgent things, terrible true tales of human struggle, reasons to go on, reasons not to go on, blah, blah. The world you live in. Well, it’s only one of, say, about fifteen or so. And each one has a serious claim on you, a vested interest in your stupidity. In fact, your world is maintained in a very deliberate way by the fourteen that you’ll never encounter.”

  Greg notices that his Higher Power is standing in the corner of the room. He looks frightened.

  “You watch the news, right? OK, picture this now. There’s me on the screen saying, oh, I don’t know, ‘a home invasion last night’ — blah, blah. But I’m not saying something, too. I haven’t said: ‘A prostitute was found in a dumpster with her arms severed.’ And I haven’t pointed out that this woman is the twenty-third this year! I’m not going to say that the murders are committed by a serial killer. Why am I not saying this? Can you guess? Because they weren’t. They were killed by an organization. Organized. And if it comes out, a connection is made, maybe somebody says three murders or seven in a row or whatever, then, through me, a very sophisticated solution comes along and dissolves the cell walls of this story. You may read it somewhere, but it won’t live. And it gives rise to a home invasion story — which is just a tiny version of how the other story died. Hmmm. I’m gonna take you to where things are infinitely amusing.”

  Greg’s Higher Power looks over, impressed. Grant spreads his hands flat across the desk under the lamp.

  “Now we’re going to go downstairs, into the basement. I want you to stand guard for me for a while. We’re going to do something criminal, uh? A little bit. Enough to make the tiny world gag. Ready?”

  Greg looks over to his Higher Power, who shrugs and places his hand over his heart.

  Greg sits in a chair in the basement leaning back against the wall. His Higher Power is distressed, pacing in front of the door that Grant has disappeared through. The Higher Power puts his ear to the door.

  “What do you think he’s doing in there?”

  Greg shrugs.

  “What a show he puts on. Very dramatic individual. What do you think he was talking about?”

  Greg looks up at the tall figure.

  “I don’t know, why don’t you open the door and ask him?”

  The Higher Power puts his hands under his chin and mouths “No.” Greg shrugs again, this time a little contemptuously. The Higher Power lays a hand on the door behind him and drums lightly with his fingers.

  “OK, OK. Let’s find out what we’re getting ourselves into.”

  He clicks open the door and as it falls ajar he steps clear. Greg can see Grant’s legs. He’s leaning against a file cabinet. The blond head of a teenage boy is working back and forth between the dangling ends of his undone belt. The long legs of a woman step in front, blocking the view. Her hands gather the back of her skirt, raising it across the bare cheeks of her ass. The Higher Power reaches in and pulls the door closed.

  “Oh Christ, that’s all you need.”

  Greg is obviously affected by this. His face is flushed, and his breath quickens. The Higher Power, knowing full well what does and doesn’t lie within the bounds of his control, gestures defeatedly to Greg’s hands — which are now descending purposefully into the top of his jeans. Greg leans, bent over in concentration, a gangster clutching his fatal wound. And when he expires, he looks up, his face soaked with sweat. Unable to make eye contact with his Higher Power, he asks, “Nobody came by, did they?”

  The Higher Power, looking a little older now, smiles wearily and again mouths a silent “No” while absentmindedly waving a hand up and down the hall.

  “I gotta say though Greg, there are people who’d disapprove of this. People you respect.”

  The door pops open behind the Higher Power and Grant emerges, his cheeks pink and his eyes glazed. No sign of the other two. He looks up and down the hall, causing the Higher Power to look away quickly, embarrassed, even though he’s invisible. Grant walks towards Greg and leans over, placing his mouth beside his ear.

  “There are two other volunteers, like you, that are working down here this morning. They just sucked my dick. Thought you should know. Thanks for making it possible. Now go in there and see if they need any help with the filing.”

  13

  No More, Not Me

  The church is a three-cornered hat made of newspaper. The hat is lowered by hand into a pool of oily water on the street. The water is refreshed from below by a catch basin. A strongman in red-striped tights with fists against his hips shakes his face, just beneath the surface, just beneath the paper boat. Cold water rattles between his closed eyes and the newsprint hull.

  This is the strange little vessel that God made especially for people who have overcome addiction with the help of baby Jesus. They are sitting in the basement of the hat, crowded around card tables and spooky candles. They are trying to isolate a kind of breathing that starts in the left lung and moves up the abdomen like a light hand, teasing in pinches and rolling nipples between knuckles. A flame enters the room and steps around the seated people. Without making eye contact the flame mounts the wick, splashing hot wax on thighs drawn around the candle. Finally, the flame crosses its legs, lights a cigarette, and blows illuminating smoke in a man’s face. The man looks up at the candle and speaks with lips that are made gold by the light.
<
br />   “My name is Donny, and God knows I’m still an addict.”

  A woman to his left frowns for him, and a little bald man to his right looks down thoughtfully at the tight T-shirt he’s wearing. It has risen above where his swollen belly hangs out its starkly public flesh. He pulls at the shirt with his thumb but fails to hide his belly. He folds his hands in front of it and looks up bravely across the table. A thousand hairs weave and wiggle on his bared stomach. He has to concentrate to listen. The room of people becomes silent to dignify his struggle. The man is visibly grateful. He focuses thoughtlessly on Donny. Donny begins explaining something that is constructed like a list. He has bulleted his lists with a light karate-chopping hand on the table edge.

  “And if I do these things to the best of my ability, maybe I can live a life free of the fear that I’ve lived with ever since I was a kid. Fear. I’ve always been afraid that I was a geek. And I was willing to trade in anything not to be myself. To become a wiseguy, someone who intimidated you. But now I’m trying to find out who that geek is. Who he was trying to become. I hear the word geek and I realize it’s a word that I use, that I still use, to intimidate myself. Not you. You don’t give a shit. I know that now. I have only ever scared myself. I don’t have to do that today. Keep an open mind.”

  A woman is sitting across from Donny. She has taken the lovely breasts that God gave her for feeding babies and frolicking alone in the woods, and surgically redefined them as “huge tits.” She has been staring at the folded hands of the bald man all through Donny’s sharing. She thinks that this little bald man’s bravery is beautiful, and she has been fantasizing about oiling up that taught tummy and riding it like a pony. Donny has lowered his golden face in his own dramatic pause, but he can’t help but look up to see if it’s really the moment he thinks it is. He sees the glazed eyes of the woman across from him and, of course, her sweatered breasts plunge him into a powerful default response. Donny feels his penis jumping in little coughs, and he smiles at the woman, who isn’t looking at him. He thinks before speaking — I’ll never be the geek I wanna be.