People Park

by Pasha Malla

  Across the room the blank screen of the TV glowed a greenish eggshell hue, it had a light of its own even when it wasn’t on. Where was Adine? Out there stumbling through the city in her sweatsuit and goggles — Adine out in the city, how absurd.

  Though there’d been a time when she’d loved the city and in a way the city had brought them together. When they’d met, Debbie had been still new enough to it, having spent her undergrad years mostly on the Institute’s campus and in the adjacent student neighbourhood spoken of myopically as the ghetto. Everything west of the park seemed impossibly vast and intimidating and arcane.

  Adine had spent her whole life on the island, she navigated it effortlessly, she knew things and places and secrets. Debbie’s exuberance and naivety invigorated her and so the city came alive for them both. Though it wasn’t just living in the city, it was talking about it: so much happened every day, hilarious and thrilling and sad. So they opened themselves to its people, its streets, its clichés and mysteries, and everywhere they found stories to recount to each other.

  Once, during an early-morning Blueline commute, an elderly woman’s newspaper-wrapped fish came alive between her feet, and the woman — so old she was made of dust, Debbie would later poeticize her — calmly took the flopping creature by the tail, beat it to death against the train’s dirty floor, and reclined with a nonchalance meant to suggest the blood and scales at her feet had always been there. Witnessing all this from across the aisle Debbie was already skipping forward to that evening, when she’d tell it to Adine, and they’d cackle together in horror and delight.

  Back then despite living on the opposite side of the city she spent most nights at Adine’s, and every minute apart provided stories for their next meeting. But they never had enough time: there was always too much to tell, their voices bubbled overtop of each other’s, everything frantic and urgent — and then! and then! and then! At night they had to start setting two alarms: one to wake them in the morning, the other to indicate a time they absolutely had to shut up and sleep, and after which they weren’t allowed another word.

  After a year of this Debbie moved in. Technically she and Adine began to share everything, though quickly there seemed less to share. Something happened: the city lost its drama, fewer were the moments of the sublime, the absurd, the ridiculous. In stitching their lives together Debbie began to fear they’d sealed the space, that chasm of mystery and possibility between them, where what was most alive about their relationship had crackled and zipped.

  But if the real city no longer held any magic for them, Debbie had wondered, perhaps Adine’s tiny replica version might. The first time Debbie suggested visiting her Sand City — just to see! — Adine had scowled and scoffed. But after some persuading, up there alone in the Museum’s upper gallery they’d gone quiet before it, almost reverential. Adine ran her hand over the glass. There it is, she’d said simply, and Debbie had scooted up behind her and laid her head on Adine’s shoulder so she could see what Adine saw and told her, It’s beautiful. And then: I’m sorry.

  Jeremiah hopped up onto the window ledge, mewling, back arched, tail rippling at its tip. Good dog, said Debbie, running her hand over the cat’s spine. There was something in his fur, some dander or fluffy lint, Debbie plucked it free — a feather. For a moment she assumed he’d clawed open a pillow, something he used to do as a kitten, and then she remembered the bird. Oh no, bad dog, she scolded him, and went into the kitchen.

  On the sill sat the newspaper-lined casserole dish into which she’d laid the dove. The window was open, mist hung thick and colourless over the street. In the dish were some feathers, a yolky smear of poop — but no bird. Oh, Jeremiah, sighed Debbie, taking his face in her hands. Did you eat that poor bird? The cat offered a slow, bemused blink, and flicked his tongue over his nose. Then he squirmed away.

  Debbie looked under the table, behind the stove, anywhere the feeble creature might have been either dumped or gotten lost. From the kitchen window she struggled to make out the street below, let alone a carcass upon the sidewalk. The fog was solid as cement.

  She removed the newsprint from the dish and unfolded it on the countertop as if it might reveal some clue. Maybe the dove had flown? The idea swelled from fantasy to probability. It had been simply stunned, Debbie told herself, and over the course of the night revived and, at some early morning hour, found the strength to push off out the window, caught an updraft that lifted it over the city, up through the clouds into the sky, where it wheeled and danced, maybe, once again free.

  AT SOME POINT midmorning, time meant nothing in Cinecity, the images onscreen went live again: first-person footage of the downtown streets, fog whisking this way and that, a faint snowfall sprinkling down. The shot plodded along between office towers, everything silent save the rustle and squeak of popcorn breakfasts taken in the theatre.

  These were the first live images Adine and the rest of the full house had seen since midnight, when she and her westend cavalcade had arrived just in time to watch a dishevelled Lucal Wagstaffe and a possibly drunk Isa Lanyess announce they were ending their broadcast. After the analgesic tone of an EBS test the colour bars were replaced with a title card in black and white: The Silver Jubilee, A Second Look.

  This comprised hastily spliced-together We-TV footage of the previous night’s festivities, and began with monologues performed in garages and bedrooms around the island, from the Mews to Fort Stone, the popular acumen of the masses, all those predictions and insights edited into one rambling overture that echoed and contradicted and befuddled itself before things cut to a happy Li’l Browntown family painting wings on one another’s faces and chanting Ra-ven on their driveway.

  Cut to a disembodied voice narrating tremulous handheld footage of the crowds descending into the park, hundreds of napes of necks and backs of knees with the view sometimes flashing skyward where sunspots seared the lens. A new voice took over, someone else shooting the opposite end of the park. All of this was set to a jaunty carnivalesque score, the time flashing at oddly progressing intervals: 13:40, 14:10, etc.

  The daylight began to deepen. An extended segment featured a surprisingly well-researched and thorough tour of the Museum of Prosperity, right up to the top floor, and here was Adine’s Sand City, and seeing it she felt a slight pang of — what? Something proprietary, violation, shame, yet beneath it an ember of pride. With the camera zooming in on her model it seemed unreal, or too real, the miniature buildings expanded to the size of actual buildings. Feeling overwhelmed, Adine’s thoughts retreated into memories — of Debbie. Debbie who had once cranked a song on the radio, claiming it was theirs, and Adine had run to the bathroom and pretended to barf. But if anything was theirs it was the Sand City. Visiting the Museum’s top floor had become the thing to do when there was nothing to do, they’d Yellowline over and Redline up and wave at the girls working ticketsales and climb the tower and there it was, under glass.

  They’d tell each other stories then. When they ran out of stories they’d make some up: What if Isa Lanyess was actually sent here from some other planet to jellify our minds so she could plant her eggs into them and then all our heads would hatch millions of little space-alien babies? Adine suggested once. What if Lucal Wagstaffe’s a secret vegetarian? countered Debbie. Adine had a key that locked the door, if she needed to. And sometimes Debbie would fix her with a sidelong lingering look, and she did.

  Though these thoughts sparked irritation. The model wasn’t Debbie’s, it wasn’t theirs — it was hers, Adine’s, only Adine’s. Debbie was an interloper. She had so much else, all her friends and causes, her stupid cumin-drenched dinners and community. She shouldn’t get to possess or even share the thing Adine had created before they’d met.

  Debbie was the one responsible for its display now on the bigscreen — this violation, this corruption. Of course the public could visit the Sand City whenever they wanted, and that was bad enough, but simultaneously se
en by so many people like this, with its creator reduced to another set of ogling eyes, felt cheap and humiliating.

  But then the image dissolved: from the roof of the boathouse someone made wide sweeping pans of the mobbed park, which became a montage, one image flashed to the next, until the moment the Zone’s power had cut out. All the westenders who’d missed the illustration edged forward in their seats. The tubby little superfan, Gip Poole, was brought onstage. The crowd went wild, the trunk opened, Raven got inside, the boy locked him in. Cut to one of those massive screens that flanked the gazebo, footage of the footage of Guardian Bridge, and the lights went out and came back on and the bridge was gone, and everyone in Cinecity gasped, even those not seeing it for the first time.

  Cue fireworks.

  Fade to black.

  Credits.

  The End.

  And now this preamble to the main event, All in Together Now, the movie for the people by the people: a camera trolling the streets of downtown. South on Paper Street, out of downtown to Lakeside Drive, down to the shoreline, nosing out of the mist with the curiosity of a stage manager scoping the crowd between parted curtains. If this made the water an auditorium, there was no audience. The view was clear: no fog, no people, just the crimped steel of the lake all the way to the horizon.

  Little flashes pocked the water where waves flared into whitecaps. Otherwise it and sky were the same brooding grey, clouds too sullen to storm. No one was out boating or swimming. There was something soothing about the quiet chaos of the lake, undisturbed by human beings, wave after wave slicing up and frothing and dying. Adine watched. Everything was quiet. A pall had fallen over the theatre, silent and serene.

  IN THE TEMPLE’S basement, upon their respective wheeled devices at either end of a conference table piled with breakfast flats, trembled Favours, drool snaking down his chin, and the Mayor, whom a re-ducktaped Diamond-Wood had pushed right up to the table to conceal her lower half. To Favours’ left were the High Gregories (Griggs, Wagstaffe, Magurk, Noodles), and to his right, the L2’s (Bean, Walters, Reed). In the corner, with the guilty, squirming silence of two soot-smeared arsonists awaiting trial, on stools perched Starx and, like a child in his father’s clothes, Olpert Bailie.

  The air was thick with that stale cornchip odour that men exude in basements. Into the musty silence came a thumping sound from the other side of the wall, followed by faint chirps — someone crying?

  Big fella, said Magurk, beckoning to Starx. Come with me for a sec.

  Starx stood, bowed, and followed the Special Professor out of the room.

  The Mayor spoke: Where is the magician.

  Illustrationist, corrected Wagstaffe.

  We have no idea, said Griggs.

  No idea? said the Mayor. Not the answer I was looking for. He’s just gone, poof, like the — like the fuggin bridge?

  To be fair, Mrs. Mayor, said Griggs, Raven never told us how things were going to work, just his basic schedule. Our job was largely site logistics.

  The Mayor opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by growling from the other side of the wall — then a dull whumping sound and Magurk’s pennywhistle voice shrieking, You like that, fatty? There was a pause, an exchange of words — Olpert thought he heard Starx say, He’s all right — a slap, another whump, and Magurk was back with Starx trailing after him, looking dismayed.

  Magurk reassumed his place among the HG’s: Sorry about that, me and the big fella here got things under control. Isn’t that right, big fella?

  Starx sucked his teeth.

  So, continued the Mayor, despite shutting down the north shore to traffic, you didn’t know the bridge was going to disappear. Nor did you have any idea that he’d disappear. And now — you’re as lost as me.

  Yes, said Griggs.

  You pretty much nailed it right there, said Wagstaffe, beaming.

  But your men were watching him! They didn’t notice anything? Did they help him escape? Did the stage have trapdoors?

  He doesn’t use trapdoors, muttered Starx.

  Helpers don’t speak until told, said Magurk. Do we have to get the ducktape?

  The Mayor eyed Magurk as if he were a slug she’d found in her salad, then spoke to Griggs: Who were the men in charge of Raven?

  Him, Starx, said Griggs, pointing. And the redhead — Bailie.

  Hi, said Olpert.

  Raven works alone, said Starx, and we weren’t ever privy —

  Both of you! screamed Magurk. Silentium!

  I don’t care who talks, said the Mayor. I just want to know what’s going on.

  Everyone looked around the room at everyone else, but no one said anything.

  Wagstaffe chuckled. Maybe it really was magic?

  You hear that? the Mayor asked Griggs. Was it magic, Babbage?

  Whoa, Mrs. Mayor, said Wagstaffe, that’s the Head Scientist you’re talking to. Patronyms, please!

  Well, said Magurk, something made the bridge disappear. And your legs —

  Griggs held up a hand to silence them both.

  The Mayor scrubbed her eyesockets with the heels of her hands. Then, blinking, she looked from one High Gregory to the next: Wagstaffe (grinning), Griggs (ineffable), Magurk (nostrils whistling), Favours (sleeping), and Noodles, who had yet to speak, lips pursed within a bristly white goatee shorn into a perfect square. He stared woodenly at the Mayor, perhaps waiting to glimpse whatever hid behind her.

  What about you, sir? Mr. — the Mayor checked her notes — Sobolin?

  Noodles nodded once, slowly.

  This one doesn’t say anything? the Mayor said.

  Noodles is judicious, said Reed, bowed his head, apologized for speaking.

  The Mayor turned to Starx. Stars, is it? Billy? What. Happened.

  Starx eyed Magurk.

  Speak, said Griggs.

  Mrs. Mayor, said Starx, we weren’t assigned to do much more than make sure Raven was comfortable and that he got around to his events. In this city there’s not much you have to worry about security-wise, which is such a testament to the NFLM’s fine work —

  The Mayor made an on-with-it gesture.

  Starx continued: Maybe we haven’t considered that this might all be part of the trick. Him disappearing, I mean. As in, there might be more to come.

  Smoke and mirrors, said Wagstaffe, laughing. No one else laughed.

  Tell me, Mr. Starx, said the Mayor, if we don’t find this magician, am I going to have to see a doctor about my legs?

  Starx caught Olpert sneaking a peek beneath the table and elbowed him in the ribs. His partner buckled, breath escaping in a woof.

  Fug if it’s fair we’re being blamed for this, said Magurk, smacking the table with a hairy paw. Best event the city’s ever seen. You ask people — he gestured vaguely at the surface — and they’ll tell you they had the time of their lives last night.

  Favours brayed. Olpert looked at him, expecting more: but the old man’s head slumped to his chest, back into catatonia.

  Griggs took a flat from the tray, nibbled a corner. I think, Mrs. Mayor, what we’re trying to tell you is that last night was about giving something back to the people, and we did that. We, Mrs. Mayor, did that. We made it happen — we funded the whole thing, we organized it, we staffed it, and we made sure it went off without a hitch.

  Without a what? The Mayor’s voice was shrill. How about the teeny-weeny hitch that I can’t walk? And, oh right, the other small hitch that the person responsible is missing? And the other as-of-yet-unrelated-but-it-doesn’t-take-a-genius-to-do-the-math hitch that our artist laureate’s memorial statue is also missing. And, oh! I almost forgot! That other barely-worth-mentioning hitch — anyone? Anyone? Allow me: Guardian Bridge is gone. It — the Mayor tapped the tabletop with each word — Is. Not. There.

  She was on a roll: And I’m sorry, event? You ma
ke it sound like this was just a way to fill a weekend. Have you appleheads completely forgotten that the whole thing was supposed to be commemorative? Or was that never on your radar? It’s not called a Silver Jubilee for the pretty name. There’s, oh, a certain little park we’re meant to be celebrating. A little park that transformed the city? Twenty-five years ago? A little park that is going to be here long after your stupid magician goes flying away in his helicopter.

  The helicopter, said Noodles.

  A miracle! said the Mayor. He speaks! He was listening!

  Oh, the Imperial Master always listens, said Griggs.

  I listen to all kinds of things, Noodles purred.

  His sudden animation made Olpert uneasy. The room was already cryptlike enough, and now a corpse had leapt up off the slab to speak.

  What are you thinking, Noodles? said Wagstaffe.

  I think, said Noodles, that if Raven’s helicopter is still here, then he’s on the island.

  Touch green, said the Mayor.

  Quiet there, said Magurk. Noodles is speaking.

  What else, Noodles?

  The boy.

  Which boy, Noodles?

  The boy that was onstage. We must find that boy. He saw something.

  And the Imperial Master bowed his head.

  Mr. Noodles has spoken, said the Mayor. Amen and hallelujah.

  The boy though, yes, said Griggs. Gip, was it? Goode?

  Sorry, Griggs, just one second here, said Magurk. Can we backtrack for a moment? I resent the insinuation, Mrs. Mayor, that our organization doesn’t value civic pride.

  Don’t talk to me about civic pride! I was born here. This is my city.

  And I wasn’t? yelled Magurk. And, I’m sorry, whose city is it?

  Special Professor, please, cautioned Griggs.

  But the Mayor was riled. You care about this city? she screamed, almost levitating off her dessert cart, neck strained into sinuous cords. Then where is he? Where is he!