JPod

by Douglas Coupland

  I asked, "Is that Yarrow with a capital or lower case Y?"

  "Actually, it's capitalized. Long story."

  Inside the house John called out for freedom, but there was a nobody-home feeling. The place smelled of eroding fabrics and vegetarian cooking. The coloured crystals and knick-knacks everywhere highlighted my sense that here, people could stop taking their prescription medications without fear of being judged.

  We looked out back and spotted a circle of maybe eight women sitting in sun-bleached Adirondack chairs. Mom was at the far end and saw me. "Ethan! Hello."

  She came over to hug me. "You're so sweet to drop in unannounced like this."

  "Mom, what's going on here?"

  "I know what you're thinking, Ethan. I haven't become a lesbian. I just think it's really important at this point to explore my she-power, freedom is a good teacher."

  freedom came over. "Can I help you?"

  "Uh, hi, freedom. I just came to visit Mom."

  "We're busy."

  Mom said, "freedom helped me collect from that fellow who sold me bum seedlings. She didn't even use a gun."

  "She helped you on a collection? I could have helped out, you know."

  freedom cut in, "She didn't need you or a metal death penis—just a bit of confidence." She put her arm around Mom's waist and kissed her quite luxuriously on the neck. "Do you have business here? We need to go back to our circle."

  Mom said, "It's Uterus Week. You can't imagine what I've been learning."

  "I'm sure I can't. Can you at least phone Dad?"

  Mom looked unsure. "No phones here, freedom says I need to be away from my stifling home environment."

  "How could home be stifling? It's never stifled you."

  "Ethan, you're always so critical. I know—here's an example—doors."

  "Doors?"

  "Doors are very stifling."

  "How are doors stifling?"

  "Inside the house here, the bathrooms have no doors, and it's a liberating feeling to be in them, it really is. Doors are nothing more than flat wooden burkas invented to keep women from feeling proud and fallopian." She looked behind her. "I have to get back to the circle. I know you'll figure out something to tell your father. Bye, dear."

  Yarrow snickered as John and I walked back to the car. As we drove away, John said, 'You can't say I didn't warn you. Now can you understand how I got to be the way I am?"

  I grunted.

  "I know," said John. "Let's go out and buy a statistically average meal from a large multinational restaurant chain. That usually fixes about seventy-five percent of life's problems."

  In a weird way, eating a Whopper did feel vaguely retaliatory, but as we left the restaurant, I realized I was forgetting something. "My new coat. Crap—I left it back at your mother's house. Kaitlin'll kill me if I lose it. It was a present."

  John stayed in the car, engaged in a stare-off with Yarrow, while I ran in. I looked around but couldn't see it. I called out, "Mom?"

  One of the women pointed upstairs, and so up I went, taking great pains not to accidentally look into a bathroom. But when I glanced into a bedroom, there she was, naked on her stomach, while freedom, clad only in a pair of boxers, gave her a back rub.

  "Oh jeez . . . sorry." I backed downstairs, with Mom yelling, "Iam not a lesbian, Ethan!"

  I found my coat on a table near the front door.

  As we drove back to the ferry, John Doe insisted on listening to Top 40 on the car radio while I tried to digest the afternoon's implications.

  "Isn't Yarrow a freak?" John asked.

  "I can't say I disagree."

  "She's my sister."

  . . .

  Kaitlin thought the day's field trip was a hoot.

  "It's a phase, Ethan. She'll get over it."

  I wasn't so sure.

  We were back in jPod, staring into Evil Mark's cubicle. "It's so clean. So ordered. I bet he makes his bed every morning."

  Kwantlen College Learning Annex

  Course 3072-A

  Assignment: Discuss Your Notions of Good and Evil with Somebody You Consider to Be One or the Other

  "Through Darkness and into Light"

  by Kaitlin Anna Boyd Joyce

  Mark Jackson, thirty-ish, works with me, designing videogames. He has typical geek attributes, the strangest being a need to have everything in his immediate environment be edible. He has a marzipan stapler and Post-it notes made from sour lemon chewing gum. More importandy, Mark's in-office nickname is "Evil Mark," and frankly, where there's smoke, there's fire. Let us explore this:

  Kaitlin:

  Why are you called Evil Mark?

  Mark:

  It's ridiculous. You said that my personality was boring, and so then Bree [a co-worker] decided to arbitrarily call me Evil Mark. And then last year your boyfriend, Ethan, caught me looking at something on my computer monitor, but I was able to hit QUIT before he saw what it was.

  Kaitlin:

  What was it?

  Mark:

  I can't even remember.

  Kaitlin:

  Oh, please. Something shameful?

  Mark:

  Why does it have to be shameful?

  Kaitlin:

  Sometimes you can be so sucky, Mark.

  Mark:

  Gee. Don't tell the media.

  Kaitlin:

  Tell you what—I'm going to throw guesses at you until you crumble and tell me what it was you were hiding. Here I go: cunt-o-rama, cumsicles, golden age shit-eaters sucking Satan's teat ...

  Mark:

  Stop!

  Kaitlin:

  Getting a bit too close to the truth?

  Mark:

  Why does it have to be something shameful?

  Kaitlin:

  What planet are you from?

  Mark:

  I am not evil.

  Kaitlin:

  Perhaps, but then why won't you tell me what you were looking at?

  Mark:

  For God's sake, all right. I was looking at new treatments for ...

  Kaitlin:

  Yes?

  Mark:

  I can't tell you.

  Kaitlin:

  Don't wimp out now. Kleptomania? Pedophilia? Bedwetting?

  Mark:

  !!!

  Kaitlin:

  It's bedwetting, isn't it?

  Mark:

  That's ridicul—

  Kaitlin:

  !!!

  Mark:

  I did it back when I was a kid. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

  Kaitlin:

  It's not that you wet the bed, Mark, it's that you can't discuss it, and the fact that you'd rather have everybody here in jPod call you Evil Mark for almost a year, instead of simply telling us to screw off and deal with our own problems.

  Mark:

  It carries such a stigma in our culture.

  Kaitlin:

  Maybe you could turn it around and work it to your advantage. I bet there are all sorts of people out there who'd pay for you to come visit their house for a . . . nap.

  Mark:

  Thank you, Kaitlin.

  Kaitlin:

  Do you think there's a connection between your childhood experiences and your disturbingly undecorated cubicle?

  Mark:

  Probably. I've never thought of it that way before.

  Kaitlin:

  What about a connection between bedwetting and your having an edible mattress?

  Mark:

  I doubt it.

  Kaitlin:

  Michael Landon, that guy from Little House on the Prairie, did a TV movie once about bedwetting.

  Mark:

  Little House on the what?

  Kaitlin:

  It was a 1970s TV show.

  Mark:

  I don't watch shows from before 1990. Otherwise, you could spend the rest of your life watching TV. The TV archives are too big now.

  Kaitlin:

  He was this guy with really good
hair. Anyway, in this movie, his mother hung his bedsheets out the window when he was in high school, and he'd race home after class to take them down before anybody could see them. He became a championship athlete as a result of it.

  Mark:

  Can we change the subject?

  Kaitlin:

  We're supposed to discuss good and evil. How does this relate to the game we're all working on?

  Mark:

  In what sense?

  Kaitlin:

  Well, we're supposed to be building this sucky fantasy game with elves and rinkly-tinkly lucky mushrooms and stuff, but what we're really doing is secredy embedding a monster inside the game who will come in and pervert the game into a total gorefest.

  Mark:

  It's a great idea, isn't it?

  Kaitlin:

  I agree, but let's narrow the good/evil debate down to this one question: Why is gore more fun than its opposite?

  Mark:

  The opposite of gore?

  Kaitlin:

  SpriteQuest is the opposite of gore.

  Mark:

  That's true.

  Kaitlin:

  I repeat: Why is gore more fun than the opposite of gore?

  Mark:

  I think that beneath your question is the assumption that gore is bad. I'm not sure I agree.

  Kaitlin:

  Possibly.

  Mark:

  Look at nature. Nature is one great big woodchipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones and hair.

  Kaitlin:

  Agreed.

  Mark:

  Gore is Nature's way of saying, "There are too many human beings on the planet, and I'm trying to rectify this any way I can. SARS didn't work, but trust me, I'm cooking up something better. In the interim, please kill lots of yourselves."

  Kaitlin:

  So gore is good?

  Mark:

  Absolutely.

  . . .

  The next afternoon, Kaitlin showed me a gory new room she'd added onto Ronald's Lair.

  "What's it called?"

  "Dentistry."

  Bree's eyes were red.

  "Bree, what happened?"

  "I emailed a long, scary letter to the Frenchman."

  "So?"

  "I've burned that bridge forever. I never should have sent it."

  "Nonsense. Guys never read any email from a woman that's over two hundred words long. You're totally safe." Mark and John Doe nodded their agreement.

  Bree said, "I think computers ought to have a key called l5M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours."

  Kaitlin said, "I've got another one: a key called FUCK OFF. You press it every time your computer does something annoying—in turn this would somehow force your computer to experience pain. And if you pushed SHIFT/FUCK OFF, you'd end up with FUCK OFF AND DIE, the computer equivalent of a razor being raked across your nipples."

  On the corkboard by the coffee machine was a poster announcing the new Tetris season. Tetris, retro as it is, remains a big-deal game here at the company. The plan was to rig the condo lights of a tall, empty downtown tower to simulate the Tetris grid. Greg found just the right place—what a stud. He confirmed an empty tower: 156 condos owned by offshore residents, and all of its units empty. Cowboy and John Doe planned to hack a Tetris algorithm into the building's lighting system so that we could play on the building's front facade while stationed across the street in a park. Talk about stoked.

  I got kind of sentimental looking at the layouts of the empty condos. It reminded me of my summer jobs in university, going into Greg's condo towers, rearranging the patio furniture and randomly turning lights on and off to make the buildings look occupied. Buyers don't trust empty buildings. It's bad feng shui. Or maybe it's just bad feng. Or shui.

  Tetris Challenge

  Tonight, 7:00

  Folders

  vs.

  Crumplers

  . . .

  John Doe asked, "What's a folder or a crumpler?"

  "Both are technical terms used by the pulp and paper industry," said Kaitlin.

  "Meaning?"

  "Toilet tissue manufacturers divide end users into two categories: people who crumple their paper and people who fold it. Each is fifty percent of the market."

  Mark said, "What about you, Bree—crumpler? Folder?"

  Bree said, "This is like the white vs. black 'Spy vs. Spy' thing."

  "You're changing the subject."

  "I'm a folder . . . obviously."

  "No! I would have had you down as a crumpler."

  "Surprise."

  "Do geeks skew in any particular direction?" I asked.

  Kaitlin said, "I suspect they're more likely to be folders."

  A quick and highly viral email campaign throughout the building revealed that game builders are eighty percent folders, but the few crumplers took pride in their stance. Dylan from server maintenance said, "When I crumple my paper, in my head it feels like a particle-based onscreen effect, like an explosion. That's not just a wad of paper in my left hand—it's a non-dimensional pyrotechnical event"

  I read that one out loud. Bree looked at me and said, "Did he really have to specify which hand? I mean, nobody's left-handed when it comes to toilet paper. That's just plain wrong."

  That's how everybody in the office found out that Bree had set her sights on a brand new conquest. Dylan, beware.

  My phone rang. It was Greg, calling from Mom and Dad's place. "Ethan—Dad just told me that Mom's gone off the wiener."

  "She's what?"

  "She no longer digs man-muff."

  I blurted out, "Mom is not a lesbian." I could hear my podmates' antennas rising as if commanded. "I went up the coast and visited her. She just needs time to do some kind of . . . life enhancement seminar."

  "Man, it's so weird thinking of parents as being sexual, let alone dykey."

  "Mom is not a lesbian."

  "You're doing way too much protesting here."

  "Okay. It appears that way."

  "I knew it."

  "How's Dad?"

  "I don't know if it's the cheating or the lesbo part that's got him more freaked."

  Greg, like my father, had no idea about Mom's flings, living or dead. But God only knows what Greg knows that I don't. Does Mom divvy out her psychoses to her children like Christmas gifts?

  I remembered Lot 49. "I'm coming over right now."

  . . .

  When I arrived, Dad and Greg were loading up Greg's Hummer with duffle bags. It was a gorgeous afternoon.

  "Hey—where are you guys going?"

  "Up to Whisder. And you're coming with us. We need a change of scenery."

  A perfect chance to ask Greg about fixing that real estate deal. "Where are we going to stay?"

  "A client's place."

  "Great."

  Drunk or not, Dad was fulfilling his masculine parental duty by checking Greg's tire pressure. "Greg, your back two tires are a bit low."

  "Dad, I'm not sixteen any more. Just leave them alone."

  "Jesus, Greg, I'm just trying to save you some money. Boy, when I think about the two of you, gallivanting about town on your under-pressured tires, needlessly accruing excess wear and tear—like you were made of money."

  "Dad, I moved a hundred million bucks worth of residential space last year—"

  "So I guess you're too fancy for your lousy old father, who's just trying to help you out in his own litde way."

  "Everyone get in," Greg ordered.

  We were soon on Highway 99, headed up Howe Sound into the Coast Mountains. The alpine environment was already making me feel healthier than I really am—which I believe is the secret allure of skiing as a sport.

  Dad was in the front seat, swigging from a hip flask. He was slurring his words, and finally lost the will even to berate his spendaholic children. I, however, was thrilled that he was actually using the flask, my Christmas presen
t to him a few years back. Hip flasks are the juice machines of the alcohol world—everyone has one and it never gets used.

  "So who is she? What's she like?" Greg asked.

  I was about to say she looked like that old TV character, Alf, but caught myself in time. I don't really know what sort of description of freedom would disturb Greg the least. "She's, uhhh—"

  "She's what?"

  "Kind of average."

  "In what way?"

  "In an average kind of way."

  Greg said, "You're the most pathetic liar, Ethan. Is she hot or not?"

  Dad blew up. "Don't talk that way."

  "Talk what way?"

  "About your mother's—" In a blink, Dad knew that saying the word would confirm it once and for all. "Whatever. I don't feel like talking about it right now."

  Suddenly we were doing a hundred miles an hour to pass a Pepsi delivery truck. "Greg—what the fuck are you doing?"

  "Ethan, be quiet."

  "Greg, slow down."

  We squeaked past the truck, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a white stretch limousine filled with Japanese college students on a pot holiday. My nerves were in ribbons.

  "There, now—that wasn't so bad, was it? I also got an extra five thousand points for an insane stunt bonus."

  'You could have fucking killed us."

  "Ethan, I'm a roadrageoholic, but I'm really trying to overcome it with therapy. When I lapse, could you at least try to be supportive and find some joy in my rageoholism?"

  A lemon yellow Supra with all sorts of silly spoiler attachments sped past us. Greg went nuts: "I'll kill you, you litde fuckhead!"

  Now's not a good time to ask about Lot 49.

  When we arrived at Whisder, my toes were still so clenched inside my shoes that I had to bang them on the back seat floor to loosen them. My spirits rose when we turned into a street bordering the Maui North subdivision. Our particular ski cabin was mall-sized and resembled the Swiss pavilion at the 2020 World's Fair. "Hey, Greg—who's the client?"

  "I've actually never met him or her. It's a registered offshore buyer who only goes by a number."

  The keys were plasticized electronic cards, like in a hotel. We walked in the front door and turned on a light and—boom—we were suddenly in what seemed to be Oprah's chic Nordic retreat: everything was perfect—furniture, art and lighting. It reeked of untold volumes of spare cash. Greg said, "Okay, laddies, pick your bedroom. There are eight to choose from."