Читать книгу The Indifference League - Richard Scarsbrook - Страница 6

PSYCHO

SUPERSTAR

“Madness, as you know, is like gravity.

All it takes is a little push.”

— The Joker, from the movie The Dark Knight, 2008

Psycho Superstar was the only member of The Indifference League who ever claimed to posses any superpowers: “Rockin’, Drinkin’, and Kickin’ Ass.”

He got his name from a song by Ron Hawkins — not the old country music star “Rompin’” Ronnie Hawkins, but the Toronto indie scene legend who was the frontman for the Lowest of the Low. Psycho Superstar loved all of those indie rock bands; he’d seen them all at least a dozen times each at The Horseshoe and Lee’s Palace and Sneaky Dee’s. But he loved Ron Hawkins the best.

During the four years that followed their graduation from Tom Thomson High School, Psycho Superstar was the wealthiest of the Not-So-Super Friends. While The Drifter laboured on for two more years in high school, then left to go backpacking through Europe and Asia, and the other members of The Indifference League lived the starving-student lifestyle in various university residences, Psycho Superstar landed a high-paying job on the jar-

capping line at the King o’ the Bun condiment factory.

While the rest of them subsisted on peanut-butter sandwiches, Kraft Dinner, and whatever discount-brand beer happened to be on sale that week, Psycho Superstar ate at sit-down restaurants and developed an appreciation for Scotch whiskey. He rented a Babe Lair bachelor apartment near the Entertainment District, and he splurged on a blood-red crotch-rocket motorcycle. He’d almost bought the Suzuki GSX-R1000, because the slogan for the bike was Own the Racetrack, and baby, he was ready to own the racetrack, the highway, and anything else he wanted. But then he saw an ad for the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14, which proclaimed it “The Most Powerful Production Motorcycle of All Time.”

Ninja. Zed Ex Fourteen. The words tasted like chocolate-

coated hallucinogens in his mouth. Now that was the name of a Superhero’s ride. He paid cash for the bike, and rode it away from the dealership that same day.

There was no doubt about it: Psycho Superstar was The Man. As if there was ever any doubt.

*

Four years later, things changed.

SuperKen graduated from the Royal Military College with a degree in military and strategic studies, and joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an officer cadet. While SuperKen’s athletic career dwindled somewhat at RMC, since practically everyone else there was also the winner of their respective high school’s Athlete of the Year Award, SuperBarbie became captain of the Queen’s University volleyball team (she had turned down scholarship offers from other universities so she could be close to SuperKen in Kingston). She was being scouted for the Canadian Olympic team, but she passed on that opportunity to begin decorating the Perfect Little Starter Home she and SuperKen purchased near the base where he was stationed, where they would eventually start their Perfect Little Family.

Mr. Nice Guy graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in English and history, and got a job working as an archivist for the Toronto Public Library. Hippie Avenger earned a B.A. in visual arts and women’s studies from the University of Guelph, and became the assistant curator of a small but prosperous gallery that sold the works of a semi-famous group of painters from the late sixties.

Miss Demeanor finished her psychology degree at the University of Toronto, where she was hired as a student crisis counsellor. At U of T, she occasionally bumped into The Statistician, who earned a B.Sc. in advanced mathematics, graduated with Summa Cum Laude distinction, and won a graduate scholarship in statistics, which allowed him to earn a master’s degree and then a Ph.D.

During the summer that the rest of The Indifference League assumed their new Spelled-with-Capital-Letters, University-Degree-Required positions, The Drifter returned from his travels through Europe and Asia, brimming over with stories and knowledge, and a new maturity and self-confidence. The Drifter also brought back with him the motorcycle upon which he’d wandered two continents; not an expensive, overpowered racing bike like Psycho Superstar’s, but a battered, ancient Norton Commando, which rumbled and sputtered and barfed blue smoke.

At first Psycho Superstar made fun of The Drifter for the constant repairs and adjustments the Norton required, but the mockery ceased when he noticed that the warhorse bike attracted women to The Drifter like ants to spilled honey. Not even live-for-today Miss Demeanor would climb onto the back of Psycho Superstar’s Ninja; the danger outweighed the potential thrill.

*

When the filling lines at the condiment factory shuddered to a halt at the end of another Friday afternoon shift, the last relish jar on Psycho Superstar’s conveyor belt was empty, except for the pink slip tucked inside. This was the method favored by the King o’ the Bun human resources department for communicating to a line worker that his or her employment had been officially terminated.

That little fucker musta ratted on me to the foreman, Psycho Superstar figured. It’s not like I hurt him. I just shook him up a bit, put him in his place a little.

He smashed the relish jar against the cinderblock wall, unzipped his pants, and pissed the words FUCK OFF on the concrete warehouse floor, and then he strode out of the factory with his head held high, giving the finger to each of the security cameras along the way. Fuck ’em all.

Tonight, Psycho Superstar decided, he would put his superpowers to their ultimate test. So he Rocked. And he Drank. And he Rocked and he Drank some more. And then it was time to go Kick Some Ass.

He climbed onto his Ninja ZX-14 and revved it until it screamed like a hellhound. He pushed that blood-red crotch-rocket to Superhero Velocity; of that there is no doubt. The forensic experts figured he was traveling at over 180 kilometres an hour when he hit the pedestal of that concrete overpass.

They had a difficult time separating the bits of Psycho Superstar from the pieces of the shattered bike. For one thing, everything was the same colour.

*

At the funeral, none of the members of The Indifference League referred to him as Psycho Superstar; they called him “Jake,” the name chosen for him by his parents when he was born.

The Statistician puzzled at how the words “dead,” “died,” and “killed” were carefully avoided. Jake’s leather-faced, whiskey-scented father repeated over and over again that he’d “never expected the boy to cash in his chips so soon.” SuperBarbie referred to Jake’s condition as “asleep in Jesus” and “in God’s loving arms,” while SuperKen saw him as having “passed over.” To Hippie Avenger, Jake had “left us,” and to Miss Demeanor, he was merely “gone.”

The minister gave a sermon explaining that Jake had “winged his flight from this world, launching himself into eternity.” While SuperBarbie called out an emphatic “Amen!” after every line, The Statistician strained against the impulse to roll his eyes, knowing that Jake himself would have said that he’d “bit the dust,” “kicked the oxygen habit,” “bought the pine condo,” or “made a nice road pizza.”

Miss Demeanor, the closest thing Jake ever had to a girlfriend, gave the eulogy. She got some sniffling laughs when she recounted the time that Jake got tangled in a barbed-wire fence fleeing from a farmer who had caught him trying to ride the cows. People nodded and chuckled and swatted away tears when Miss Demeanor described that time in high school when the Not-So-Super Friends paid to go bungee jumping from an abandoned railroad bridge over this deep gorge near Guelph. Of course Jake went first. The bungee cord snapped, and he crashed into the water. So, he swam to the shore, climbed the cliff wall back up to the bridge, and demanded a second go for free. It was such a Jake thing to do.

The Drifter gave a short, awkward speech about how Jake was out there right now riding his motorcycle, but instead of just this small, silly world, he now had the whole great big beautiful universe to explore, and he could ride just as fast as he damn well wanted to.

Hippie Avenger tried to read a poem she’d written about Jake, but she couldn’t finish it for sobbing. Everyone else joined her.

Mr. Nice Guy couldn’t think of anything to say that would make anyone feel any better, so he just sat there frowning at his funeral shoes, feeling guilty about wondering if Jake had also had a thing with Hippie Avenger.

It was The Statistician who tiptoed into the little room in the funeral home where the PA system was hidden, and put on a CD with the song “Psycho Superstar,” by Ron Hawkins and the Rusty Nails.

In the end, the lyrics didn’t have much to do with Jake at all. But it was still a damn good song.