The gum thief: a novel

by Douglas Coupland

  That was when I heard Tracy shout across the store to Geoff in the copier area, "Storeroom, pass me some Scotch! I need some Scotch!"

  Geoff shouted back, "It's my Scotch, you fraud. Pour your own Scotch." Roger's head perked up like a dog that hears his master's engine approaching from three blocks away.

  Jen was up at the till and called out over the PA system, "Gloria, we need a price check on Scotch," to which Geoff PA'ed back, "Not for you, you old battle-axe."

  "Aren't we being witty today?"

  "You shrill witch."

  Of course we were all laughing-it was funny! And Jen and Geoff kept it going, too: "You failure! You're a failure of a teacher, and you can't hold your liquor." "And you're a failure as a woman, you Scotch-drinking, unwitty person, you." (Okay, I'm not getting the dialogue exactly right, but you get the picture.)

  So what did Roger do? He turned purple is what he did. Obviously, we were all clustered at the ends of his aisle-the pen aisle-to gauge his reaction, and he went totally apeshit and picked up basket after basket of pens and slammed them down on the floor-tens of thousands of pens, Blair-it looked like blue, red and black hay.

  Of course, nobody wanted to go near the guy. Would you? So after he'd completely trashed all the Bics, he leaned over to catch his breath. At this point, he could have pulled out an assault rifle and we wouldn't have been surprised. But what did he do? He looked up and then started walking to the front of the store. The people on that end of the aisle quietly split apart, and Roger went up to one of the tills, stared at the gum rack for maybe fifteen seconds, selected a pack of melon-flavoured Bubblicious, pocketed it, then started walking to the staff door out back. Pete, who'd just then come in from that direction and had caught the tail end of all of this, screamed, "Roger, leave-now!"

  And so Roger walked out of the store, surrounded by his invisible poo warp and carrying a pack of stolen gum.

  All of us looked at the pens on the floor, and Pete looked at me and said, "Shawn, you're in charge of putting these all back in order. Get to it now."

  So you can see why I'm pissed at the guy. Blair; consider yourself lucky to have been fired from this place. I have to go now.

  PS: I checked YouTube and, for whatever reason, your gum theft clip has had over 180,000 viewers.

  Bethany

  That prick Kyle is out of my life. I can't describe what I'm feeling right now ... but I'll try. For starters, I want to put six bullets through his heart. No, let's get specific-his ventricles-his aorta-his atrium-his cathedral-his fucking World Trade Center.

  It was Sunday and we were in this pub restaurant in Hampstead-we'd decided to splurge because we all got sandwiched-out this week. We were there with Jason and Rafe, the jock buddies, and they were acting all weird with tell-tale ditch-the-girlfriend-and-let's-toss-a -Frisbee faces. So we ate a lunch of roast pork, turnips and mashed potatoes, and when it came time to leave, we were out on the sidewalk, surrounded by moms and dads and kids in strollers and pigeons and cars zooming by, and Kyle told me that he and the jocks were off to some soccer game or something (I was right on that score), but, more importantly, he said, "Bethany, it's over, and it's not like you didn't see it coming." (Actually, I didn't-I saw other crap, but not this.) And never having been dumped before, I had no experiences to draw from, no set of responses-so I just stood there.

  "You don't have to make this harder, Bethany. Jesus, say something."

  You know what? It didn't even occur to me to ask him why he wanted to break up. He babbled on; I waited for something like reality to return to me.

  He said, "I think I've been pretty good to you, Bethany. I've never lied to you or stolen anything from you or purposefully fucked with your head."

  I asked him what would happen next. He said his stuff had already been packed at the hostel by Denise.

  "Denise?"

  "Yes, uh-Denise."

  Who, you ask, is Denise? Denise is a ho. He apparently met the ho named Denise in Wimbledon a few nights back. All those trips to watch Canadian football at local pubs were apparently something else.

  In any event, Kyle told me he was moving to some place in Shepherd's Bush, a neighbourhood in western London.

  "Let me get this straight-you've never lied to me or fucked with my head, but as I stand here a slut named Denise is packing-or has already packed-your stuff and you're moving across London with her?"

  "You think I planned for this to happen?"

  I froze .

  . . . You think I planned for this to happen?

  How many times in the history of human beings has that little gem been tossed about? It was like I was watching some old 16 mm instructional film from the 1980s about adrenaline and "fight-or-flight," and I could actually feel enzymes and hormones coursing through me, and the net result was that I became a statue. So Kyle kissed the statue on the forehead and walked away ...Email me." He walked around the corner of a newsagent shop selling KitKats and sandwiches-fucking-sandwiches.

  Huh?

  I chased after him, and I could see his shoulders hunching up when he heard my voice, and I could also see the annoyed faces of Rafe and Jason. Kyle nodded at them to leave for a second, like he was some big mob capo. I lost it and demanded an explanation to the effect that you don't drag someone halfway around the planet and leave her kicked in the gut outside a restaurant that serves turnip.

  "The thing is, Bethany" (and this is what really did kick me in the gut) "you're all about death, and that was interesting for a while, but I'm now back in the land of the living. Lately I've been ... I've been sensing that you don't quite get the gist of breathing and eating and fucking and sleeping and all the other everyday shit that goes with life. It's as if, to you, being alive is a prank that you're playing on the world. I don't get your joke anymore."

  I said, "But ..." (and isn't that the saddest little one word sentence in the language?)

  And Kyle said, "Sorry. But I have to go. Goodbye, Bethany. Like I said, I didn't plan for this to happen. And some day you'll be in the same spot. So save your judging for then."

  And so here I am now, and I don't know what it is I actually am. Loser? Dupe? Dropped bitch? Sucker cow? Royally-screwed-over loser chick who thought she was such hot stuff? My mother was right. That's what kills me here. My mother, the 3X-married DeeDee monster, was on the money about Kyle, and I'm this ungrateful bitch who didn't see wisdom when it was offered, and now I'm marooned in some weird fake crack den in a middle-class English suburb.

  And the only person I have to tell this to is you, Roger. I can't tell DeeDee, not yet. And I don't have any friends. Haven't you noticed that? Shawn from aisles 6 and 7? Hardly. I'd phone you, but I don't know your number, and the operator back home says you're unlisted.

  There's this old David Bowie song on the radio right now, "Fame"-"Is it any wonder I reject you first?" Fuck you, Kyle.

  I'm going to take the Chunnel to Paris, dammit. I'm going to be a woman who took the train to Paris by herself when her lover dumped her outside some shitty pub restaurant in Hampstead.

  This is one of those letters best put in the mail right away before the mood leaves me.

  Roger, how the hell can you be unlisted? Who do you think you are, the fucking Beatles?

  B.

  Bethany

  VIAFEDEX

  Roger, I wrote you a letter yesterday that I didn't send and won't be sending. Kyle dropped me, and I'm now by myself on the Eurostar to Paris. My head is in a place it's never been before, and I don't have any instructions to tell me what to do next. I'm going to have to come home soon, but I can already see Mom's gloating face.

  We just got out of the Chunnel and now we're doing three hundred miles an hour into Paris. I spent a bomb on a first-class ticket-you'd be surprised at how much I've stashed away since my first job bussing tables at a cheesy Mexican restaurant years ago. The car's empty but for me, and they served a nice meal with heavy steel cutlery that someone else will bus. Once I'm in Paris, I'm going to s
pend another bomb on a good hotel with hot water and clean sheets, no young people, and a concierge who knows how to fill out French FedEx forms.

  Outside the window the sky is that deep blue colour that means true night is ten minutes away. Everything outside the window is old, and I ought to care more, but everything over here is old. I hate the past.

  Roger, I don't know how I could have been so clueless.

  I remember in elementary school walking home once, and this car ran into a cherry tree and all its petals fell at once. That's me right now.

  Bye, Roger.

  Write me-but I don't know where I'll be, so there's no address to give you. Isn't that all of life compressed into a sentence?

  B.

  DeeDee

  Hi, Roger. Your friends at Staples said you weren't working there any longer-that you'd left to finish your novel. Wow, what guts, Roger! I'm impressed. Not everyone could make such a courageous move for their art. Fortunately, this time they gave me your home address so I can leave this thank-you note in your mail slot.

  Now, let's talk about the flowers you sent me ... Thank you! I'll take flowers any way I can get them! I felt like a star when they showed up at the office. I felt like Meg Ryan before the perky thing wore off. Yes, there were some white daisies with blue dye in them, like your grandmother would order-but screw it, I got flowers! And Roger, your letter wasn't at all too depressing. It was honest, and that's nice.

  I got another "I'm okay, don't worry" email from Bethany. Again, if there's anything you know that would make me feel better about her European voyage, please tell me. I know it's a weird position for you to be in, and will understand if you simply want to stand back and not be involved in another family’s issues.

  Bye, Roger.

  Thanks again,

  DD

  PS: Before Bethany and I had our scene and she left, she mentioned that you were taking Claritin for some allergies. She said it was making your dreams feel like real life instead of dreams. I think that's what she said. What a strange thing for a drug to do-make things feel "real" and yet I had the same experience. Your beautiful flowers made me sneeze, so I nipped out to the drugstore and bought some Claritin and took it. When I got home last night, I went to bed and-hey ho! - I dreamed I was in a house at night and tornadoes were approaching. I thought it was nuts, because tornadoes only strike during the day, but Bethany was there, clutching a door sill, saying, "Mom, people only film tornadoes during daylight. Of course they happen at night, too, even without the sun shining and illuminating them."

  Even in my dreams Bethany is more down to earth than me.

  Roger, my paper and pen feel so sad.

  Bethany

  VIA FEDEX

  Roger, Why aren't you writing me? I'm drunk and overwhelmed and I'm in a bistro not far from the Seine-Left Bank-and I have to tell you what happened to me this afternoon. I was leaving my hotel, feeling spaced out and depressed by the Christmas decorations here-not only because they're Christmas decorations and hence automatically depressing, but because they're so much more beautiful and delicate and, I don't know ... devoted than the cardboard schlock we put up in Staples windows. And I felt stupid and young and not worthy of all the beauty these Frenchies soak in every day. It's killing me, all this beauty. I have this feeling the French have X-ray vision and look at me and know that I live with my mother in a Kleenex box on the other side of the planet, that I can't cook, that I watch too much TV and, when I do, it's never the History Channel.

  So there I was, walking along, lost inside this downward loser spiral, when I passed this hotel and a man emerged, dressed like a doctor in All Things Great and Small-sage greens and browns and that jacket English people wear when Hello! magazine visits their country house-and he was walking with two kids and a woman, and then the blood froze in my veins. It was Johnny Depp, right in front of me. And he was this normal guy with normal kids, and I think Vanessa Paradis was in a crabby mood, but he looked my way, our eyes met, he smiled and winked, and then they all got into a Range Rover and left.

  Roger, I was standing on the sidewalk for maybe five minutes, trying to digest what had happened. I put my hand to my cheek and felt all this white makeup I've been wearing forever, and I felt so #$%&ing naive and childish. I ran back to my hotel and went to my room, but then, I'd forgotten my key-#$%&ing Europe-and had to go back downstairs to get it. My face was like a mud pie from tears, and I used the shower-this idiotic brassy thing that's totally hopeless for showering in-and washed away all of the pancake and eyeliner and polonium and all this other crap I've been buried under for five years. And beneath it all is my face, my face that I've never been able to look at for very long. My relationship with the mirror is usually like locking eyes with a stranger on a bus and then looking away. But this time I didn't look away, and there was foolish, naive, pink, blubbery, boring, nothing little me. If I saw me on a bus I'd snicker and say, "Well. At least I'm not her." But I am.

  Roger; I feel so stupid, and I'm trying to drink myself into feeling numb, and I've never done that before. I think there's much to be said for feeling numb. Time passes more quickly. You eat less, and because numbness encourages laziness, you do fewer things, good or bad, and the world's probably a better place. Being numb makes you a crime fighter! Is that what happened with you? Selfish me-I write you a letter and talk about nothing but me. How is Zoe? How's Staples? How's the weather? I scour the International Herald Tribune every day, and you have no idea how good it makes me feel to know that, back home, the daily high is two degrees Celsius and it's partly cloudy. I can see the parking lot at work: abandoned shopping carts, a thin crust of road salt, SUVs coming and going - how depressing that visions of a parking lot can make me homesick.

  For dinner I ordered mussels-moules marinere. Have you ever tasted those things? They taste like catshit scraped off a dock. I ate exactly one, then tried to wash the taste away with pastis (that licorice liqueur), but now I can feel the mussel in my stomach breeding, multiplying, expanding, having babies ... I'm hoping it's not a rough night tonight.

  I just looked up at all the tiny yellowy-white lights they've lit for Christmas. They go all the way down the street, some brighter than others, some a different shade of white. Of all things, I'm remembering that astronomy book my mother left in the bathroom to try and lure me into the world of science and nursing. It described the asteroid belt. Most people don't know what the asteroid belt is. It's this gap between Mars and Jupiter where a planet used to be. To be more precise, scientists think there used to be a planet there with a big moon, but they got too closely entangled in each other's orbits and they collided and shattered. How romantic, in a Japanese manga kind of way.

  It's so fucking old here, Roger, so fucking old. The concierge told me they don't allow anything to be built that might prevent them from making Paris look like the seventeenth century if a movie were to be filmed.

  I have to stop writing this now. Garcon!

  Bethany

  PS: Don't forget, you can always email me at blackchandelier@gmail.com.

  Bethany

  VIA FEDEX

  Roger, I ran out of money staying at the swankypants hotel, pretending I was Mademoiselle Fifi. I don't know what I was thinking-I sat there in the hotel, and I could feel the money leaving my body, but I didn't move, and now I'm broke. I went to the airline office here and it turned out I couldn't use my ticket to fly home early because it was some special fare deal, but I was able to switch it so I don't have to go back to London to catch the flight. I'm stuck in a hostel again, except this one is in eastern Paris and it makes the hostel in Hampstead look like the Four Seasons. It's full of Russian skinhead hash dealers who listen to nothing but reggae music. I'm convinced they spend their free time, when they're not selling hash, stealing purses from French housewives. I'm afraid to leave my stuff here, so when I go out to get something to eat I take anything remotely valuable with me. I catch a train to Frankfurt tomorrow to fly home on a direct flight. If I do
n't screw up, I'll get back with one euro in my pocket.

  Going outside here is torture-I can barely look at my clothes or wear them. They're so shabby and passé and juvenile. Black clothes look good only when they're brand new or recently dry-cleaned. When I put on my old clothes, I feel so deranged, and I'm convinced people on the street are staring at me like I escaped from a group home. A few weeks ago that would have made me happy. Now I feel like a loser.

  But that's not the biggest or weirdest news, which is this: I bumped into Mr. Rant yesterday! Wow, huh? He was in St-Germain-des-Pres looking into a florist's window. He turned around, looked at me and said, "Hey, I need a replacement toner cartridge for an HP LaserJet 1320. Where do I find one?" I was so homesick and lonely that I hugged him. Him being him, he said, "Oh. You look different without your face all whited out. What are you doing in this nightmare of a country?"

  I explained my situation to him. His name is Greg. Isn't that old-fashioned? Imagine naming your kid Greg these days. I can see the woman typing the name on the hospital form pausing for a second and looking up at you to make sure you aren't joking.

  So anyway, Greg took me for lunch, and if you'd told me two months ago that a lunch with Mr. Rant would be the best thing in my life, I'd have thought you were insane, but there you go. He's here to visit some stainless steel manufacturers. He works for a company in the shipyards back home, and he apparently has to come to Paris every other year for business.