Fireball (27 page)

That's how ready Chris was.

‘Do you love her?'

I asked him that, just before we drifted off. He didn't answer for a long time.

Then he said, ‘Not any more.'

We fell asleep.

It wasn't a light sleep, either. We konked right out and started dreaming. I did, at least. Chris never got the chance to tell me if he did, too. But I think he did. I think he had the exact same dream as me. You know – almost like we were in each other's dreams. A shared dream. I don't know if that's even possible and I don't care, either. Basically, we had this dream. There was water in the dream, water that looked too still – as if it had been frozen in a photograph, or one of my dad's old slides. There were no waves in the water. Not even a ripple. There were no swimmers or boats or buoys or gulls or fish or seaweed, either. There was nothing in the water and nothing in the sky above the water.

‘There's nowhere left to go.'

That was Chris. He stood beside me, naked. I was naked, too, but neither of us cared about our nakedness. It was as if we'd never worn clothes before. I could see the desert stretching away behind him. Two sets of footprints led back across the sand. Our footprints. I'd followed him into the desert. I'd tracked him for miles and found him standing here. Somehow in the dream I knew all that, just like I knew that he was right: there was nowhere left to go.

‘We could stay here,' I suggested.

‘No. Let's go in.'

‘Now?'

‘There's no point waiting around.'

He took a step forward and I followed. I expected the water to be cold, but it wasn't. It wasn't warm, either. It was the exact same temperature as my body. We took another step, and another. The water rose up to our knees, then our waists. Once a part of you submerged, it was gone. You couldn't see anything beneath the surface. It was dark and sort of solid-looking, like blue oil paint. But Chris never hesitated. Pretty soon it rose to our chests, then our necks. On the next step, my foot didn't touch the ground. We swam a little ways, just dog-paddling.

‘Take a deep breath,' Chris said. ‘We won't be coming up.'

I looked back towards the desert. There wasn't much to say goodbye to, really.

‘Ready?'

‘Ready.'

It was just like that day at Julian's pool. We took a breath and submerged. Once we were beneath the surface, the water seemed impossibly clear. It went on and on and on, like a void. I could see forever, but there was nothing to see – not even a bottom. Chris led me straight down. We kicked along, frog-style, as the pressure built up in our lungs. After a while I started to panic. I mean, I needed air. I wanted to breathe. But I didn't even consider returning to the surface. Somehow I just understood that it wasn't an option.

Then Chris tapped me on the shoulder.

He was pointing straight ahead, to this dark shape in the water. It came closer and closer, getting bigger and bigger. Then there was more than one of them. Sharks. We were surrounded by sharks, naked, and out of breath. We were fucked, obviously. I looked over at Chris, hoping he'd know what to do. But I'd never seen him look so helpless.

That was when Bates woke us up.

44

We almost hit this lady near Taylor Way.

Something must have happened to her car, because she'd pulled over and popped her hood. We saw all that as we tore around the corner. Also, we saw her step onto the highway. She was this middle-aged lady with a huge ass and tight clothes. I guess she just had no idea how fast we were going. She stood in the middle of the road, waving her arms back and forth over her head to flag us down. There was no way Chris could stop. He didn't even have time to slow down. He swung wide into the other lane and blasted straight past her. She screamed, I think. Then she fell down. We didn't hit her or anything – it was more like we'd blown her right off her feet. I felt a little sorry for her, actually. That's the surreal thing about driving around in a police car. People see one and instantly assume help is on the way.

But in this case, obviously, help was going to be a long time coming.

Just after that, the highway straightened out and became perfectly flat. A layer of fresh asphalt had been laid down, rich and dark as dirt. The yellow centre lines were brand new, and you could see tracks where drivers had changed lanes while the paint was still wet. It was so smooth it felt like we weren't even moving. I mean, the wheels kept turning, and the landscape flowed by in an endless stream, but there was no sense of motion. It reminded me of those old films they always show on late night TV. You know – where two people are driving along and the background is projected onto a screen behind them.

‘Fuck Julian,' Chris said. ‘Fuck him and his heaven. Even if it existed, I wouldn't want to go.'

‘Why not?'

‘Think about it. There's no sex in heaven, or beer, or fighting. There's no oceans and no rivers and no swimming and no pot. There's none of the things we like to do.'

‘Yeah. My dad says we're hedonists.'

‘What are those?'

‘Like we just want to chill out and get high and drunk all the time.'

‘Totally. And you can't do any of that shit in heaven. In heaven, all you do is stand around trying on different turtlenecks. It's a rule. Everybody has to wear one.'

‘Even God?'

‘God wears the biggest turtleneck of them all.'

I snickered, imagining it. ‘Then why are people so stoked to go there?'

‘No choice.' Chris cleared his throat and hawked out the window. ‘It's like when all the bars close downtown. The only thing left open is this one super expensive club. People will do anything to get in: throw cash at the bouncer, sneak in the back doors, pull a gun, whatever. But once you're inside, you see how shitty it actually is. Then you wish you'd never come in the first place. All you want to do is go home. But you can't.'

‘That sounds lame.'

‘It is. But don't worry – they wouldn't let us into club heaven. We don't even believe in God for Christ's sake.'

‘I'd rather go to hell, anyway,' I said.

‘Me, too.' Chris changed lanes to blow past this grey Toyota van – one of those ancient snub-nosed models. Then he said, ‘Tell me what hell would be like, Razor.'

‘The thing about hell,' I said, ‘is that it's not even hot. It's actually super cold. All the walls are frosty, and all the floors are ice. The whole place is tinted sort of blue, too.'

I wasn't really making it all up. I'd seen a version of hell like that in some movie. I think it was
A Christmas Carol
– this fairly old-school version of it.

Chris said, ‘That doesn't sound so bad.'

‘They don't torture people or poke them with pitchforks, either.'

‘How can it be hell, then?'

‘I don't know.' I tried to remember. ‘I guess because there's nothing to do.'

‘Whatever. We could just bust out some skates and start a pick-up hockey game.'

I grinned. ‘For sure. Me and you would play up front, and we'd hire a couple of real hellbenders to play defence for us.'

‘Yeah. Like Bob Probert and Jack the Ripper.'

We both thought about that. It sounded pretty sweet.

‘Too bad it's not real,' he said. ‘Too bad we can't actually go to hell.'

‘Where are we going, man?' I asked.

Chris didn't answer. By then, he knew where he was going, I'm pretty sure. The only thing he didn't know was whether or not I was coming with him.

45

‘They won't catch us. Trust me.'

He'd climbed up onto this brick wall – about eight feet high and two feet thick. Lying flat on his stomach, he reached down and offered her his hand. Karen didn't take risks. She'd never broken a law in her life – except for smoking weed. And that's not even really illegal any more in Canada. At least in BC, any­ways. So obviously this was going to be a bigger deal for her than for either of us. But when he said that, because of what he'd done at the Roxy, and the look on his face, she believed him.

She took his hand.

It was the last thing they did on their date – after the shitty dinner, after the guy with the gun, after chilling with those junkies in Opium Park, after I'd driven down to pick them up. Chris got it in his head that he wanted to break into the Vancouver Aquarium. Don't ask me why. We went there together, back when we were little, and Chris had hated the place. The killer whale was super sick that day, but the trainers still forced her to come out. She flapped feebly around her tank while they urged her on with this shrill whistle and a bucket of herring. She didn't want to do any tricks or stunts. She just wanted to be left alone. It was arguably the most depressing thing we'd ever seen. I think she died pretty soon after that.

But basically, it wasn't like Chris was an aquarium fanatic or anything. The idea just kind of occurred to him while I was driving them back to the North Shore.

‘Do you guys want to check out the aquarium?'

We were cruising through Stanley Park. That's where the aquarium is – in the park.

‘I'm pretty sure it's closed, man.'

‘We can break in.'

Karen was looking out the window, nibbling on her nail. ‘I don't think so, Chris.'

‘Sure. It'll be easy.'

He was right. It wasn't hard to break in at all. The hard part was actually finding the aquarium. At night, in the dark, it's super easy to get lost in Stanley Park. I cruised in circles like a demented goldfish for at least an hour. Maybe longer. But once we finally got there, we saw that the only thing standing in our way was that brick wall. And Karen.

She sort of got cold feet at the last minute.

‘Let's forget it. We should go pick up my Jeep and go home.'

‘We'll do that later. This'll be awesome.'

‘I don't know, Chris.'

‘They won't catch us. Trust me.'

And she did. She trusted him more than anybody, and he trusted her just as much. He trusted her to keep him calm, and to help him understand all the shitty things in the world that didn't seem to make any sense – like filet mignon. That's part of being in love, I guess.

Then again, betrayal is part of being in love, too.

On the other side of the wall, there were no sensors or lights or security guards or cameras or anything. There was just this series of connecting pools and tanks, each with a different kind of sea animal. We crept past the seals, who were sleeping, and the sea lions, who weren't, and at the aquatic petting zoo Chris stopped to touch the sea anemone.

‘Hey,' he said, ‘it sort of feels like pussy.'

‘Chris! That's gross.'

‘Razor, touch this thing.'

I did. It was all soft and wet and slippery.

‘Now you know.'

Even Karen agreed with him – apparently it really did feel like one. After that we stole some nachos and pop from one of the concession stands, then tiptoed over to the beluga whale tank. I hung a bit to the back, not really saying anything. I mean, I didn't want to intrude. It was their date, after all. I was just kind of along for the ride. And to drive.

‘Wow,' Karen said.

‘Shhh.'

He wasn't scared of being caught. He was just worried about disturbing the whales. At least five of them were visible in the darkness – these fat white shapes that looked like giant ghosts. Chris and Karen forgot all about their nachos and pop. Instead they stood together and watched the whales, while I stood by myself and watched the two of them.

‘Can they breathe underwater?' Karen asked him.

‘No.' Chris shook his head. He knew tons about whales. Not as much as me, but still a lot – mainly from all the nature programmes my dad showed him when he stayed with us. ‘They're mammals. They've got to breathe air. But they can hold their breath for a super long time, and they live mostly underwater. They eat and screw and play and die and even give birth underwater.'

‘That must be amazing.'

Chris pulled out a joint. He always had a joint on him somewhere or other – behind his ear or up his sleeve or tucked into his sock. He was like a marijuana magician.

‘Want to smoke this?'

‘Sure.'

He took the first couple of drags to get it going. They didn't really offer me any, and I didn't really ask. I'd started to pretend I was more like their bodyguard. You know – the kind who doesn't ever talk and is almost invisible, until danger looms. Then, suddenly, he springs into action and kicks the bad guy right in the face and saves the day.

‘Check it out.'

The whales must have noticed us or something, because one of them broke away from the pod and drifted over. I'd forgotten how weird beluga whales look up close. Their skin is slick and smooth and totally white, like bleached rubber, and the dome of their forehead sticks up in this super strange way. As it cruised by, it rolled onto its side and sort of ogled them with one eye.