The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [79]
Bethany, Bethany, Bethany. What were you thinking!
Okay, Roger . . .
. . . take a breath.
You’re asleep. Your mother is back at your place, fetching some things and, I hope, trying to get some sleep herself, but I doubt she will. This hospital room smells like old magazines. I hate this place, and I hate it even more because there’s all this depressing Christmas crap all over the place, and you’ll love this: You know what I’m thinking about right now? I’m thinking about that joke you made last summer back at the store when we opened a carton and found a thousand Christmas-themed mouse pads—you asked how it was that everything the Italians do using their national red, green and white colours looks Italian, but when we non-Italians use them, all they ever look is Christmassy. A random memory from the Bethany File.
Okay, here’s something else from the Bethany File, triggered by some kerfuffle I just heard out in the hallway: Wouldn’t it be funny if someone had Tourette’s syndrome, but it was a low-grade case? They’d walk around all day saying Sugar! Sugar! Heck! Heck! and bystanders wouldn’t have a clue what was going on.
Ha ha.
That’s not a funny joke, and chances are somebody on the planet has made it before. But I’m not in a funny mood!
How could I be? Bethany! What the hell! I asked your mom why, and she said she didn’t know—the poor woman is terrified. And it’s not like I know either—geez! Fuck! All your mom said was that when the bus driver found you at the back of the bus you were barely coherent but that you said you were sick of being you—that you didn’t like who you’d become.
Bethany, nobody knows who they are when they’re young—nobody! You’re not a full person yet! You’re liquid! You’re lava! You’re a larva! You’re molten plastic! And don’t take that the wrong way. I mean, it’s not like it gets much better as you get older, but when you get older— and you will—you’ll at least figure out who you are a little bit. Not much, but some. And when it happens, you might not be too thrilled with who it is you are, but at least you’ll know. But right now? At your age? Again, don’t take any of this personally, but no!
Remember back when we started writing I talked about what I was like when I was younger—but then I stopped talking about it? That was because I realized there was no point to it. I did some stupid shit and some good deeds along the way, but it all cancelled itself out and morally I think I’m a pretty generic person, like everyone else. Your Joan of Arcs and Supermans don’t come around too often. Mostly, the world is made up of people like me, plodding along. It’s what people do—plod, plod, plod. While it kills me to come to grips with the fact that I’m like everyone else, that pain is outweighed by the comfort I get from being a member of the human race.
Let’s say you’re a judge, or maybe a scientist, and you have your first big case or make your first big discovery, and you become world-famous—you’re a genius! But then you get older and stop discovering new things—you’ve hit your peak. And then you start seeing people enter your courtroom or laboratory or whatever, and they’re all repeating the same mistakes as all the people who’ve ever come before them. And a chill passes through your body. You realize, Oh, dear God—this is it. This is as good or as smart as we’re ever going to get as a species. Our brains aren’t going to get larger. Our accumulated pile of human knowledge can only be absorbed so much at a time. As a species, we’ve reached the upper limits of our intelligence . . .
. . . and then you plod along.
Here’s an amusing anecdote from my youth. I used to like playing with green plastic soldiers, but my mom was anti-war (odd, considering what a battle-axe she was) and wouldn’t buy me soldiers. I was too young