Читать книгу A philosopher, a psychologist, and an extraterrestrial walk into a chocolate bar … - Jass Richards - Страница 9

For a while on the following day, they passed not much of anything, and Spike thought about heading to the secondary, more scenic and more full-of-interesting-places-to-stop-at, highways. There must be something worth seeing or doing on the way from Montreal to Paris.

“Let’s go to Boston,” Jane said. After just five minutes of googling.

“Before or after Paris?”

“Monday. There’s this place, Chantal’s. It’s a restaurant, but every Monday they have an allyoucaneat chocolate buffet. Twenty bucks a person.”

“Really?”

“Isn’t that cool? An allyoucaneat chocolate buffet!”

“Boston it is. Find us an interesting route though,” she added.

“On it …”

Almost as soon as they’d turned onto a secondary road, a cigarette butt flew out of the driver’s window of the car ahead of them. A minute later, the plastic lid of a cup. Jane had her phone ready when the empty Timbits carton came flying out.

“You got the licence plate in focus?”

“Yup.”

“Gonna send the picture to the OPP?”

“Yup. No—what’s the OPP in Quebec?” She googled.

A balled up napkin came out next.

“That’ll cost him, what, five hundred dollars?”

“A thousand.”

And then an empty cup.

“It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?” Jane said. “They throw their shit out of their cars, their boats, their space ships with such—ease. Do they think it just vanishes into thin air? It’s like they have no concept of context. No concept of attachment. Their perception of their independence is so …”

A not-yet-empty KFC carton hit the road. Spike swerved unsuccessfully to miss it.

“And yet they’re able enough to see their vehicles as extensions of themselves,” Jane reconsidered. “Maybe it’s because they’re so visually oriented,” she suggested a moment later. “If the garbage they tossed overboard, for example, floated on the surface of the lake … Though it’s amazing what they don’t see even when it’s right in front of them.”

A plastic bag whirled out narrowly missing their windshield.

“Or, no, maybe it’s an expression of contempt. For the other. Have you notice that men don’t set down their garbage. They always toss it.”

Spike nodded. “ ‘Look at me, I don’t give a fuck.’ ”

“So, what, caring about others is for sissies?”

“So is cleaning up after yourself. That’s what Mom does. Mom’s a woman. So to pick up after oneself is womanly. Emasculating.”

“That sounds right … We do know that most littering is done by men.”

When the small tv came flying out of his window, Spike leaned on the horn, sped up beside him, and forced him off the road.

“What’s your problem?” the man shouted as he got out of his car, slamming his door shut.

“You are my problem!” Spike shouted back, as she too got out. Jane continued recording as she went around behind him, casually reached in, and extricated his car keys.

“The world is not your private dump!” Spike said. “Whatever made you think it was?”

“What?”

“You’re tossing your garbage out your window like you expect someone else to come along behind you and clean up after you. What are you, two?”

“What?”

“What do you think happens to all your shit?”

“The animals’ll get it, don’t worry about it.”

“Since when do animals eat cigarette butts, plastic, cardboard, and paper? And frickin’ tvs? The cardboard’s going to take a couple years to decompose, and the plastic’s going to sit where it landed forever.”

“Well, unless he goes back and picks it up,” Jane said, off-hand.

“Yeah. Why don’t you do that?”

“Fuck you!” He got back in his car and, as they drove past him, discovered what was missing. Besides part of his brain.

“Did you notice the little Canadian flag flying from his antenna?” Jane asked.

“I did.” Spike sighed. “Canada produces more garbage per person than any other country in the OECD. And that’s not counting all the shit that flies out of car windows.

“We are second worst when it comes to nitrogen oxide emissions, we are second worst when it comes to sulphur oxide emissions, we are second worst when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, and we are dead last when it comes to volatile organic compound emissions.

“We consume more water per capita than every other country except the States, and we use more energy and generate more pollution to produce a given amount of goods and services than almost all of the other countries.

“Korea’s doing better than us. Not to mention Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Italy, the UK, New Zealand, Spain, Greece, France, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Australia, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Belgium.”

“You’ve got these things memorized?” Jane asked.

“I do.” Spike sighed. “For all the good it’s done.”

Jane stared out the window.

“We are hogs,” Spike summarized then. “We are stupid, don’t-give-a-damn pigs. We’re the ones to blame for so much of this climate change—the heat waves, the floods, the droughts, the high food prices. Our fault.”

Jane thought about the little flag. “Is it Canada Day?”

“No.”

“So … he just doesn’t know, what you know, or he does, and he’s a hypocrite—”

“Or he hopes that proclaiming patriotism will absolve him of any and all asshole behaviour.”

Close to noon, they pulled up to the customs booth at the border—Jane was thinking it was a toll booth, and so had started thinking about cookies—and several guards rushed out of nowhere to surround their car. They were in full military apparel. Worse, they had guns. Pointed at them.

“Put your hands where we can see them!” one of the guards commanded.

“What the fuck?” Spike said, raising her hands.

“What did we do?” Jane said at the same time, also raising her hands.

“Could you please put away your guns?” Spike said through her open window. “Men with guns make me nervous.”

“Women with guns make us nervous too,” Jan added, quick to take back possible offence.

“Passports.”

“Profiteroles.”

Jane gave Spike a look.

“Present your passports. Do it now!”

“I had them ready, but they fell onto my feet when I raised my hands,” Jane said. “I’m going to reach down—”

“Keep your hands where we can see them!”

“But I can’t do that and present our passports. They’re mutually exclusive actions,” she explained.

Spike gave Jane a pointed look.

The guard opened Jane’s door, reached in, the barrel of his gun just inches from her face, and retrieved their passports.

“Proceed to the guardhouse. Slowly.”

They drove the twenty meters to the guardhouse, guards with their guns drawn escorting them on all four sides.

“Exit the vehicle.”

“Can’t do that without my left hand disappearing from view,” Spike said.

“Exit the vehicle! Do it now!”

“What is this guy’s problem?” Spike turned to Jane, who had already opened her door. Apparently. Because she was on the pavement, lying on her back, feebly waving her limbs.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Jordan’s dog does this all the time. Whenever it meets an alpha dog.”

“Really?” She stared at Jane for a few moments. Who looked more like Kafka’s beetle than a surrendering puppy. “The dog has no spine.”

One of the guards cocked his big gun, the sound of metal fitting into metal loud and decisive.

“The dog’s still alive.”

Spike slid out her door onto the ground, rolled to belly up, and began as well to wave her arms and legs. Feebly.

“ ’Course she does it when she meets beta dogs too,” Jane said, still feebly waving her arms. “Any dog, actually. The dog has no spine.”

“Stand up. Slowly.”

They both did so.

“Proceed into the building.” He gestured with his gun.

“When they make us fill out forms,” Jane said, “and they will make us fill out forms, where it says ‘occupation’? Don’t put independent activist, okay?”

“Philosopher’s going to be just as suspect.”

“Right. Okay, so we’re ... ”

“Secretaries!”

“Yes! Perfect!”

“Okay, and after they make us fill out forms?” Spike asked.

“Chocolate. Specifically, chocolate-chip cookies.”

“We’re on our way to Boston,” Jane was singing. Two hours later. “… to eat all the chocolate we can eat. We’re on our way to Boston, to eat all the chocolate we can eat …”

“If only your high school could see their valedictorian now.”

Jane grinned. They drove in silence for a bit, having never seen Vermont before. Plus, they’d stopped at the first Walmart they’d come to after the border and were delighted to discover that Walmart sold Mrs. Fields chocolate-chip cookies. By the pail. Jane was quietly working her way through it.

They never did find out what the hassle at the border was all about. And had given up speculating. Men, territory, guns—it was bound to be irrational. Or at least necessary only because of other men. With territory and guns.

A mile later on a relatively busy part of the highway, they saw a tall woman at the side of the road. Presumably hitch-hiking. Presumably, because she was using both thumbs. And facing the wrong direction. And doing something worthy of employment at Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.

“Okaaay …” Spike said as they passed her.

But a hundred meters later she signalled, slowed, pulled over onto the shoulder, then started to back up, carefully keeping in a straight line. Jane looked at her curiously.

“I have to know.”

Jane nodded. She understood. Completely.

“She didn’t look stoned.”

Jane agreed.

“Or drunk.”

Jane agreed.

“She’s going to get hurt,” Spike added, as if further justification were necessary.

As soon as Spike got close enough, Jane rolled down her window. “Do you need a ride?” she called out.

The woman lurched over to their car, giggling. Several vehicles whizzed by.

Jane looked cluelessly at Spike. Who was just as clueless.

“Are you all right?” Jane asked, then repeated, “Do you need a ride?”

The woman did a dipsy-doo.

“Get her inside,” Spike said, looking nervously in the rear-view mirror. A couple of transport trucks were in the distance, approaching quickly.

“Yeah.”

Jane got out, opened the back door, and bundled the woman inside. One of the transports sped by, creating a mini-tornado.

“I’m Jane, “she said, turning in her seat to face her, “and that’s Spike.” The other passing transport shook the car.

The woman laughed uproariously. Jane and Spike were confused, but since the woman’s laugh was so very infectious, they ended up laughing as well.

“And your name is—”

The woman continued to laugh.

“It’s almost like hiccups,” Spike said. “Maybe she’s getting too much oxygen?”

“But it’s too little oxygen that makes you lightheaded.”

“Well, maybe she’s an extraterrestrial. And what do we know about alien physiology?”

“Right. That’s gotta be it.”

Even so, Jane put the last chocolate-chip cookie into her mouth, then passed the empty pail to the woman. Or whatever. Who had no idea what to do with it. So Jane took the bright red pail, put it over her mouth, and breathed in and out. She gave it back to the woman. Who did what Jane had done. And stopped laughing.

Spike carefully eased back into the highway traffic.

Half a minute later, the woman took the pail away from her mouth. “Thank you,” she said. “I was at one with the universe. It was purple.”

“Okaay …” Jane replied, then tried again. “What’s your name?”

“Xrrmrvnbnvdl.”

Spike glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Okay, but your friends just call you ‘X’, right?”

X erupted into laughter again. She put the pail over her mouth again, quickly.

“Mmm. Chocolate fumes.”

Both Jane and Spike grinned. Jane handed X one of the many chocolate bars they’d also bought at the Walmart. She managed to eat it with the pail over her mouth. Jane was impressed.

“Where were you headed? Can we give you a ride home?”

X took the pail away from her mouth. “You can do that? In this vehicle?”

“Hey!” Jane said, then turned to Spike, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Spike shrugged.

X burst out laughing again. Jane reached into the back and put the pail completely over X’s head. It had been a jumbo-sized pail of cookies. X stopped laughing. And didn’t seem at all concerned about sitting there with a red pail over her head.

“Where do you live?”

“Grmphflg.”

“Sorry?”

“Grmphflg,” X repeated, more loudly. “In the Zbixschik star system.”

Jane and Spike exchanged looks.

“Did she say star system?” Spike was ready to believe.

“Sorry,” Jane said to X, “we don’t know where that is.”

“MapQuest it,” Spike said.

Jane stared at Spike.

“Hey, I know some geeks. It’s not inconceivable—”

So Jane opened her laptop and looked up Grmphflg on MapQuest. Making a guess at the spelling.

“Some of them have a very warped sense of humour,” Spike continued. “Get it? Warped?”

“Yeah. Ha-ha.”

After a moment, Jane announced, to Spike, “MapQuest doesn’t seem to have a ‘Beyond Earth’ option. Gee.” She turned to X in the back. “Can you tell us where Grmphflg is?”

“Well yeah,” X said. “I know where I live. But I don’t know where you live. I was out for a drive and got lost. So I stopped here to ask for directions.”

Jane and Spike looked at each other again.

“You stopped here. To ask for directions.”

X suddenly went—inanimate.

“Is she— Did we just kill an alien? With an empty pail of Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookies?”

They considered the ramifications of that for the Department of National Defence.

“I think she’s just fainted,” Jane said. Though her body looked more stalled than limp.

“Do you think that when she wakes up, she’ll say ‘Take me to your leader’?”

“God, I hope not. We wouldn’t, would we? It’d be too embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as it would’ve been a couple years ago.”

“True.”

They were silent. Waiting for—well, they had no idea what they were waiting for. X’s metamorphosis, perhaps, into a neon green lizard with iridescent wings. Or an ottoman covered in corduroy.

“I hope she doesn’t ask about the meaning of life,” Jane said.

“Yeah, we don’t really have the answer to that one worked out yet, do we.”

“The answer? I don’t even have the question worked out. I understand ‘What’s the purpose of life?’ Even though I don’t think it has a purpose, because purpose implies intentional design. But what does ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ mean? Purpose and meaning are two different things. ‘What’s the meaning of “persnickety”?’ That makes sense. Words mean things. Even an action might mean something. And, as we recently confirmed, appearance might mean something. But how can life mean something? It’s not a signifier, not a symbol. It just is.”

“Maybe you should take the pail off—”

“Oh yeah.”

Jane reached back and lifted the pail off X’s head. With a great intake of air, X came to. Jane and Spike waited, with great anticipation, for her next words.

“Can we stop somewhere? I have to pee.”

“So let’s try this again.” Spike turned to X once they were back in the car. Jane was driving. “You’re from—”

“Grmphflg.”

“But you don’t—but we don’t know where that is.”

“If I knew where this was,” X said, “I could probably figure out how to get back.”

“This is Earth,” Jane said, playing along.

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“They wouldn’t call it Earth,” Spike said to Jane.

“Oh. Right.” Then she looked pointedly at Spike, clearly asking You’re buying this?!

Spike pulled her tablet out of her knapsack, turned it on, found a map of the solar system, then showed it to X.

X shook her head. She didn’t recognize it.

“Try the Milky Way,” Jane suggested.

Spike zoomed out and showed the screen to X again.

X shook her head again.

Spike zoomed out again. And showed the screen to X once more.

“I must have really taken a wrong turn.”

“Ya think?”

Spike glared at Jane.

“Maybe we can find a library,” Spike suggested a minute later, “show her some star charts or something.”

“Okaaay.” There would be star charts online somewhere, but Jane was ready for another pit stop. “Get directions to the nearest one”—she nodded to Spike’s tablet—“here on Earth,” she said redundantly. Or not.

While Jane made inquiries at the library’s front desk, Spike and X glanced at the books in a nearby cart that were waiting to be shelved. X picked up a Curious George book and started to flip through. She burst out laughing. Then she picked up Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, flipped through, and laughed even more. Spike grinned.

“So they don’t have any star charts,” Jane said, joining them at the cart, mildly distracted by X’s laughter, seeing which book she’d had in her hands, “but they have several first-year astronomy texts. You might recognize something.”

“Okay.” X set Hawking back onto the cart. Beside Curious George.

Jane led the way to the astronomy stack, scanned the books, pulled out one hefty text and then another and then another, putting all three into Spike’s waiting hands. They went to a nearby table and sat down.

“Why don’t you just flip through and see if anything looks familiar?”

They watched as X flipped through, stopping at the photographs of various star systems here and there, but apparently not recognizing anything.

“Where the hell am I?” She closed the third book with some finality. “If you just gave me your coordinates—”

“Our coordinates?”

“Well, not your coordinates, though that would be just as useful. I meant the coordinates of this planet. Earl.”

“Earth.”

X didn’t register the correction. “If you gave me the coordinates, I could figure out how to get home. It would take me some time, it’s not that easy, but I could do it.”

“What coordinates?” Jane asked. At the risk of appearing like an idiot.

X looked at her like she was an idiot. “The space–time coordinates. The coordinates of Earl’s location on the space–time continuum.”

Jane and Spike look at each other.

“I don’t think we know that,” Jane said.

“Well, not us we, but—” Spike felt oddly obliged to defend—

“No, I meant ‘we’ as in ‘us Earthlings’,” Jane clarified.

X looked incredulous.

“You don’t know your coordinates? How can you not know your co­­ordinates? It’s where you live. You don’t know your own address?” X looked pointedly at both of them.

“Well, it’s not a problem if you’ve never left home, is it?” Jane said.

“You’ve never left home? How old are you?”

“Look, it’s getting late,” Spike said a moment later. “What say we find a hotel for the night, and then come up with a plan.”

“Good idea.”

They left the stacks and headed back for the door.

“You know,” Spike said to Jane, “I used to have an uncle named Earl.”

“Oh yeah? What was he like?”

Spike thought about it, then shrugged. “He was a man.”