The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [8]
Maybe all I want to do is carry a visible weapon.
There, that would be my costume. I’d be dressed the same way I am now, but I’d have a holster with a handgun. I’d be the Guy Who May or May Not Go Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs at Any Moment.
Yet again, psycho time. I am not psycho. But I caught a glimpse of myself in the men’s room mirror, and what I saw did disturb me: a puffy-looking forty-three— yellowing skin under the light of the lone fluorescent tube; dandruff; red patches on my scalp where I scratch my seb-orrhea. No wonder I’ve become invisible to people under thirty. Put my body inside the Hyundai and I’m the Invisible Man. I could commit any crime, and when cops interviewed witnesses and asked them who did it, all they’d remember is, “Some guy in a car.”
Some guy dressed as Cupid just poked his head in the door and asked where we sell the jumbo cans of Maxwell House coffee. (Question: who buys coffee at an office supply store?)
And then Cupid left for Aisle 3-South, and I’m sitting here wondering.
Wondering what?
Wondering about Cupid and his arrows. Wondering if I still have the capacity to fall in love. Did I write that last sentence? What’s next—growing breasts? And yet again I’m reminded of the pursed-lipped fortune teller I met on the street corner years ago. If you don’t change, then what’s the point of anything happening to you? It’ll still be happening to an unchanged person.
Glove Pond, once again
“We can’t serve guests canned soup for dinner. I’ll be the laughingstock of the English department.”
“You’re not already? And besides, we don’t have any canned soup.”
“Jesus, Gloria, you’re supposed to be witty. At all times. Hey, what’s in here . . . ?” Steve fumbled through the tin foil drawer and found a bottle of gin. “Gin?”
“It’s for when I’m too lazy to go to the liquor cabinet.”
“Let’s peel and boil some potatoes.”
“We don’t have any potatoes. We’re broke. We spend all of our money on Scotch. We can’t even order pizza.”
“Let’s get the guests so drunk they lose their appetites.”
“I’m for that,” Gloria said, “but we have to at least offer some token food.”
“There’s cheese in the fridge. It’s covered in blue fur. It’s having babies.”
“Scrape off the fur,” Gloria said. “There are some Triscuits in the cupboard above the sink.”
“They’ve been there since September 11, 2001.”
“Why do you remember that?”
“I bought them to eat while watching CNN all day, and now, whenever I look at Triscuits, I get that sick-for-the-fate-of-the-world feeling.”
Gloria nibbled a corner of one. “They’re soft. I’ll broil them and make them crispy again.”
Steve resuscitated the cheese while Gloria began broiling up the stale Triscuits. The couple was having what other people might call fun, but then Steve cut his finger. “Aw, shit.”
“You’re bleeding all over the cheese.”
“Where are the Band-Aids?”
“In the drawer below the phone.”
Steve opened the drawer and found Band-Aids and a box of liqueur chocolates. “How long have these been here?”
“Since three Christmases ago.”
He bandaged his hand and then peeled the foil from the chocolates and ate five in a row before Gloria shrieked, “Don’t eat them! We can serve them to our guests.”
“Dessert?”
“Exactly.”
Steve sat down and stared at the phone. In his head, he was pretending he had super powers and could magically make the phone ring. It didn’t.
Steve was always looking out the window and up at the sky for planes—he liked to think he could stare at a plane and will it into exploding before his eyes. They never did. The only thing that made the endless departmental meetings bearable was that, from his seat, he could watch the flight path to the airport, and on a clear day could practise his pyrokinesis while his underlings schemed and backstabbed. He didn’t know it, but when he put on his “pyrokinesis face,” he looked