Worst. Person. Ever.

by Douglas Coupland

  Chili Cicadas with Rice

  A beloved Mexican classic—and a sure-fire

  family-pleaser for those special occasions.

  ½ onion

  3 tablespoons olive oil

  ¾ cup cicadas

  1 12-ounce can navy beans, drained

  1 6-oz can tomato paste

  3 teaspoons chili powder

  1 clove garlic, minced

  Dice the onion and sauté in olive oil. After a minute or

  so, add the cicadas and cook until both onions and

  insects are translucent. Yes, that is correct: translucent.

  Add the remaining ingredients and simmer on low heat

  until flavours have melded together—at least one hour.

  Ladle onto brown rice.

  Be sure to serve it more than once every

  seventeen years … Olé!

  The flavours came in waves: a pecan-like crunch, followed by an avocado smoothness, followed by a glob of something chowdery and phlegmy. Next? A clump of larvae, tasting something like chanterelle mushrooms.

  Did all of the wriggling and writhing disturb me, you ask? Fuck no. That’s why God gave us jaws. Added bonus? Live bugs were better than anything you’d find in a Honolulu Airport vending machine. I ploughed through my bowl like it was so much bar mix, with supportive chanting from all around.

  “Shells for texture; guts for flavour!”

  “The vitamins are in the legs, Ray, the legs!”

  Scott offered, “If it tastes sour, it’s probably an ant.”

  “All that formic acid,” another PA added.

  Halfway through my bowl, I spat out a thorax of some sort to ask for a glass of water, but Stuart scotched that idea. “You should have thought of that beforehand, Gunt! And pick up that thorax you just spat out and eat it, too.”

  Fuck him.

  Crunch.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten a bowl of insects. Perhaps you enjoy them regularly—and good for you! So you know that bug eating is all about mind over matter. Something crickety tasted prawn-like, and I couldn’t help but wonder what most things in the bowl might have tasted like with some peanut oil and a bouillon cube in a good hot wok.

  By now Stuart was looking thoroughly pissed. Fuck him. He’d shortly have to rehire me on as an A-unit cameraman. Ha!

  Within a very jumbled minute or so, everything from the bowl was gone, except a huge pink millipede. For the first time I couldn’t use mind over matter. Its two rows of little pincers were fluttering in waves along its length, and I couldn’t imagine eating anything so utterly disgusting.

  Stuart could sense that I’d lost my momentum. “Just look at it, Gunt: if that thing crawled into your tent at night, it’d chew your dick off. But you still have to eat it.”

  “No need for colour commentary, Stuart.”

  “No, I want you to know exactly what you’re eating: it’s the most vile insect ever known to man, repulsive and ready to explode with guts and stingers.”

  “Stuart, just fuck right off.”

  I steeled myself for the final mouthful. Raymond, you’ve probably eaten far worse things at a kebab take-away. So just do it. I threw the bug in my mouth and was just about to crunch down on its middle when my mother shouted, “Raymond, just think of that thing as a giant pussy with teeth!”

  I promptly hurled out every single organism I’d just ingested in one glistening Niagara of mangled coffee-coloured protein.

  46

  The next thing I knew, I was being lifted off the ground and onto a wheezing golf cart driven by Eli, and we were chugging back through the forest of vile Venus flytraps. I then fuzzed out of consciousness and came to with my head on a foam pad and a freezer’s dull thrum in my ears: Neal’s storeroom. A nice calm place, really. Private. Quiet.

  Out of nowhere I needed to wank. Seems simple enough, you’d think, but from some damaged corner of my brain came a slew of political thoughts—possible nuclear war and all—and suddenly my innocent desire to self-pleasure took on a charged new meaning. Before the nuclear war, my thinking had been along the lines of, “Sure, right now I’m wanking, though it’s just a pale substitute for the genuine action I hope to have in the near future.” But when your future no longer feels infinite, the sterility and pointlessness of wanking is hard to overcome. Instead of feeling sexy and tingly, it felt useless, like recycling plastics or registering to vote. I called the whole thing off.

  A person listening to this tale might be thinking, “Oh, woe is poor Raymond.” But what happened next might well surprise that listener. I stood up and felt a little rumble in my tummy. I spotted a door beside the deep-freeze that opened on that most prized of luxuries in the tropics: a fully functional flush toilet, its cistern groaning from an abundant load of name-brand loo roll. I stepped inside and began to take what I honestly considered to be a dump of the gods.

  After I was finished, I ambled over to Neal’s. It was nearing sunset, and he was behind his bar in a smoking jacket, finishing a fag and holding the glasses up to the sunset-drenched window to check for dishwasher spots.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Oh hello, Ray! Gave me a start, you did. They’re off getting pedicures. Fancy a cocktail?”

  “Please. Vodka martini, straight up, dirty with two olives.”

  Neal, being a good friend, really (and no longer my slave), prepared my martini without mentioning my disgrace at the purple picnic table.

  I sat at the bar. “By the by, where’s your bouncer chap who answered the front door the first time I was here?”

  “Eamon? He’s working in the herb garden I’ve started out back. I was inspired by the herb garden outside your flat in London. Nothing like fresh herbs to make the meal—they add a bit of love to the menu.”

  “Neal, you take back that last thought or I will justifiably vomit yet again, this time all over your bar.”

  “Sorry, Ray. Just trying to be gracious.”

  Neal handed me the martini—it was perfection. I felt like Noel Coward or James Bond or one of the great debonairs of all time, greeting the early evening with style. I exhaled and took stock of my day. In one of my more philosophical moods, I asked, “Neal, have you ever taken a large and satisfying shit, only to look in the bowl afterwards to find … nothing?”

  “Phantom shit, Ray. Happens all the time.”

  “Nonsense, Neal.”

  “Let me guess: afterwards little to no wiping required.”

  “Why … that is correct. None, really. A shame with all that five-star loo paper available.”

  “Perhaps it’s interdimensional leakage, Ray. That could explain it.”

  “Interdimensional leakage? What is wrong with you? I shit in the real world, Neal. My shit does not enter a parallel universe or time stream.”

  “You’re the one who spoke the words ‘parallel universe’ and ‘time stream,’ not me.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that even you believe there are unsolved mysteries in this universe.”

  “I grudgingly concede the point.”

  Neal handed me another well-deserved drink. “I watched your bug-eating challenge on the show’s website. Great stuff, Ray. Bold.”

  “The entire planet has no Internet except here on Arsefuck Island? How does that happen?”

  “Calm down, Ray. They’ve got some smart young kids on the show, with solid IT skills. They set up a very robust LAN, with a rewards program where you can get discount car rentals for—”

  My overtaxed brain shot sideways from both ears. “Car rentals? Your driver’s licence expired the day Nirvana taped MTV Unplugged in New York—and there are no cars to rent. They’ve all been melted by nuclear war.”

  “No war just yet, and who knows—diplomatic talks might stave it off.”

  “Neal, if you keep spouting this naive claptrap, I’m afraid I’ll have to stop having my philosophical discussions with you.”

  “That’s not fair, Ray. I’m tryi
ng to keep our spirits up.”

  “Another martini. Please.” So delicious.

  A martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Until the 1950s, the standard proportion was one part vermouth to three or three and a half parts gin. In recent years, martinis made with vodka rather than gin have become much more fashionable. Many people have martini shakers in their homes—either received as wedding gifts or purchased in an ironic retro mood. They never get used. They’re kind of like the fedora hat of the beverage world.

  I looked around. “Where’s Mother’s room?”

  “Down the hall. She’s watching some telly and eating crisps.”

  I pointed at a set of French doors. “What’s out there?”

  “The infinity pool.”

  Fucker.

  Neal looked around as if to make sure nobody else was near. “Ray …”

  “Yes, Neal? Smashing martinis, by the way.”

  “Ray, do you feel slightly, I don’t know—guilty—for starting the nuclear crisis?”

  “Guilty? Why should I feel guilty?”

  “Well, I mean, we could have crashed the plane and prevented that atomic bomb from going off.”

  “Neal, you’re thinking like a little girl. The planet is choking—choking on a continent-sized lump of plastics, and Lieutenant Jennifer whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was, in her heart of hearts, thought she was doing the right thing. We should commend her.”

  Neal looked genuinely distraught. “But I keep asking myself what a better person might have done. The world’s going to end because of you and me. Not only that, we can’t get a trans-Pacific Internet connection and the ladies at Kum Guzzling Traktor Sluts were going to do a special Skype performance just for me today. They call it ‘The Missile Silo’—a part of their ongoing celebration of the Cold War’s end. Pretty ironic, given that we’ve gone and started it all over again.”

  “Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal, Neal. Come over here.”

  Neal came close and I slapped him, one-two. “Stop that line of thinking right now. Jason Bourne would have done exactly what I did—”

  “Kack his trousers?”

  “Not my proudest moment, Neal, but yes, Jason Bourne would have shat his pants, given the situation.”

  “Really, Ray?”

  “Yes, Neal, really. The thing about Jason Bourne is that he only really shines when he’s being chased. Without the forces of evil pursuing him, Jason Bourne is basically council house trash living on KFC and the proceeds of his illegal Polish and Romanian girlfriends who’ll toss you off for a tenner at the local lottery ticket kiosk.”

  “So Jason Bourne is almost just like you and me.”

  “Or,” I clarified, “I am basically Jason Bourne. Simple logic.”

  “What about James Bond, then—would he have tried to stop the bomb dropping?”

  “He’d have been at the back of the plane fucking a goat. Again, pure logic.”

  “I never studied logic, Ray.”

  “Well, Neal, I’m not one to lord it over people, but yes—I did study logic.”

  “Fancy prep school?”

  “No. A fucking hellhole.”4

  I swallowed an olive and changed the subject. “So. How is my piece of red plastic coming along?”

  Neal gave a weary sigh. “To be honest, I wish it would come along a bit quicker. It’s hard going through life with a persistent prostate massage. I hope Mother Nature will soon take her course.”

  My suave, contemplative mood continued, well into my third martini. “Neal, I truly think that wormy-fleshed canker I call my ex-wife is up to something sinister. Any ideas what it could be?”

  “Fi? Not that I can think of. Maybe she wants to … dunno … get back together with you.”

  “Highly unlikely, Neal. Oh, by the way, I found where she hid the Cure T-shirt, so I pinched it and hid it beneath her tent. We can get it later.”

  “You’re the greatest, Ray.”

  Then the doorbell rang and Neal went to answer it. It was Billy, of all people. He and Neal hugged like old friends.

  “Billy, fancy a drink?” Neal said.

  “I do. How’s your pussy fatigue coming along?”

  “I think I’ve rounded a corner and will make a full recovery.”

  “And your ankle?”

  “Ditto. Raymond—look who’s here!”

  “Hello, Billy.”

  “Hello, Raymond.”

  “You two sound like you need more alcohol. What’ll you have, Billy?”

  “A greyhound, please.”

  “Perfect. We have fresh pink grapefruits from the tree out back. Why, what’s this we have here?” From beneath the bar Neal produced a professional juice squeezer. “One greyhound, coming up!”

  A greyhound is a cocktail composed of vodka and grapefruit juice. For some reason, it’s just kind of gay.

  While Neal pulped the grapefruits, Billy and I regarded each other with deep suspicion.

  “So, Billy,” I finally said, “tell me, what’s the deal with being gay?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, I look at a gay situation, as it were, and nothing the least bit sexual happens.”

  “Right.”

  “So, what happens with you?” I was drunk enough that the question was sincere.

  Billy picked up on this, and looked thoughtful. “Well, imagine you lived on a planet where people got sexual stimulation almost entirely from their ears, and everywhere you looked advertisers were using slick airbrushed photos of ears to sell cars and soft drinks, and all the people on this planet wanted to do was to sit in their bedrooms rubbing their ears together and sticking their fingers in each other’s ears for hours and hours and hours. That’s what it’s like for me when I look at straight people having sex …”

  I was all ears, so to speak. “And?”

  “Wait a second,” said Billy. “You’re not getting off on this conversation, are you? Fiona said you could be weird about this kind of thing. Were you seriously considering fucking goats in Bonriki?”

  “Neal! You told Fiona about our discussion?”

  Neal put a mint sprig in Billy’s greyhound and handed it to him. “Nothing wrong with exploring other modes of being, Ray. And remember, you didn’t really fuck a goat. You only fucked a goat in your heart.”

  “I was doing no such thing! I seem to remember us talking more about fucking sheep in the end.”

  “Well,” said Billy, “haven’t I stepped onto a minefield?”

  I reached for a paper napkin and knocked over a drink I hadn’t seen beside a plate of garnishes. “Oops. Sorry, Neal.”

  “Not to worry. Just some coconut milk and sugar I was going to turn into an energy drink. You all right?”

  “I got it all over my pants, but give me a damp cloth and I can wipe it off.” I looked up. “Billy, why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be out kidnapping toddlers for Fiona to char-broil for dinner?”

  “I’m actually here on Fiona business.”

  “Go on.”

  “She has a surprise for you.”

  I knew it! My eyes narrowed into thin, snaky slits as I stared at him.

  “She does. And she wants me to bring you to see it.”

  “Do you know what this surprise is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Will it involve public humiliation?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “So it’s a good surprise, then?”

  “Definitely.”

  “If you’re lying, I get to make you my slave for one week.”

  “Slave? I’m not fucking any goats for you, but if Fiona’s surprise is anything less than splendid, I’ll be happy to be your personal assistant for a week.”

  I sighed. How far the once mighty human race has fallen—from the majesty and glory of slavery down to the sterile, joyless realm of the personal assistant.

  Well, a personal assistant is better than nothing. “Okay. Let’s go.”


  4. I did have a scholarship to a fancy place, but Mum spent it on a Benidorm holiday with her best friend Sheila. I only learned of this decades later. I was on a TV shoot about pedophiles in the private school system, and this bloke we were filming looks up at me while we’re changing batteries and says, “Gunt? That sounds just like ‘cunt,’ ” and I say, “Yeah. I get a lot of that.” And so he says, “You’re Raymond Gunt?” and I say, “Yup. That’s me.” And he says, “Why ever didn’t you accept that scholarship we gave you?” and I say, “Scholarship?” Yes, that’s how I found out about it. At least I escaped a decade of arse-rapings, but still, it would have been nice to be more posh, you know, using all the magic fancy words that leave Pippa Middleton all moist and gagging for it.

  47

  It was dark out, but you’d never know it by the temperature. As we left Neal’s casa, I was instantly homesick for its kickass air conditioning. Weather reports never mention mugginess, do they? No. No, they don’t. They only show little suns or clouds. If I ran the weather service, I’d invent new icons for South Pacific swelter: tiny gas chambers or tiny dishwashers with their doors wide open and chokingly hot steam billowing out.

  Fucking heat.

  I said, “So, Billy, can you give me a hint about Fiona’s special surprise?”

  “No.”

  “Come on.”

  “No.”

  “Has she located a patch of quicksand for me to investigate? A flock of sleeping HIV-infected bats she wants me to startle awake with a foghorn? Or perhaps she wants to feed me a pudding made from time-expired dairy products?”

  “Raymond, I’m not telling you anything. Neal, how’s your ankle on this sandy path?”

  “I’ll make it okay, Billy. Thanks for asking.”

  I was incensed. “I’ll make it okay? Neal, for fuck sake, you’re talking like you’ve lost a limb in Afghanistan.”

  “Leave him alone, Raymond. A sprained ankle is nothing to laugh about.”

  “Okay, how much farther to go, Billy?”

  “Just around the corner.”