Joel wrote his Greek exam alone in an empty basement classroom, a proctor dozing in one corner. In his first two years at L'Institut Pastorale, he hadn't bothered to ask for special disability accommodations, and he felt guilty doing it now. He needed the extra time last year, when his absences had got out of control, but now Joel thought he was fit to write an ordinary exam. As Paul had said, he was a little off his game, but that wasn't the administration's fault. The flesh was willing but the spirit was weak.
He checked his translations again, willing his eyes to see the mistakes. Nothing. Peter's mother-in-law was lying ill with a fever, a fever, a high fever... Joel imagined a little "No Sale" tag popping up with a ding. Everyone had his limits. The proctor woke up to take his exam, and Joel trudged upstairs.
At the doors he stopped, and checked his watch. Friar Tom might be in his office, or he might not be. Ordinarily Joel would have been reluctant to barge in without an appointment, but Paul...Paul always got to him. Paul and his ruthlessness with store clerks and teachers, and anyone else who (he thought) owed him some service. Paul was plenty brave when there was someone to watch his back, Joel thought, but he never went in alone to pull that shit. Go in there and demand a refund! Send your plate back if it's cold! Go find Friar Tom and get him to give you therapy for free!
And, Paul of course would add, tell him the truth. He always said it in capital letters. The Truth. C'est là que gît la lièvre, as Father Gilles used to say.
Joel decided he was pretty sure that Friar Tom wouldn't be in, so he could go up to the office and slip a note under the door. That ought to pacify Paul a little, and buy Joel some time.
In the hallway upstairs by the vocation director's office, Joel started to write a note, balancing his clipboard on one knee. The doors were all closed and the lights were off across the way in the department office, and Joel thought he was safe, but then the door opened and Friar Tom emerged.
"Eh up—did you want to talk to me?"
Joel froze. "Uh...are you leaving?"
"I was on my way out, but I have time. No, definitely come in. You look like you need to talk. Let me get some tea from the kitchen. You want any?" Like Vicky, Friar Tom hovered, with the sort of boundless energy that Joel could never replicate in himself.
"Sure." Joel went into Friar Tom's office and sat down, trying to regulate his breathing as Dr Xavier had taught him to do. He felt like disappearing, more than he had in years. Relax. R-e-l-a-x. X-a-l-e-r. Nothing's wrong.
He would be careful, Joel decided. Approach it from the opposite end, use a little misdirection. It was the best way to avoid embarrassing himself.
Friar Tom returned with two mugs of tea, the bags floating in clear water. He ran a hand over the thinning grey hair on top of his head and sat down in the opposite chair, the vinyl cushion hissing as air escaped. "So. What can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to come in and ask about...where things are going." Joel wished he could sound more articulate when first attacking a subject. "Like if maybe we could talk about an application process yet or not."
"Sure, we can talk about it. You don't mean you want to start it now?"
"I don't mean that. Not yet. I just, I want to know if—if it's looking good, you know? You said three months ago that you didn't think it was time." Don't sound impatient. Don't sound desperate. Don't sound crazy, above all.
"Was it three months ago?" Friar Tom leaned over to look at the big four-month calendar on the wall. "Wow. You're right, we owe you some sort of response. Do you want to first fill me in on how things are going for you lately?"
"I'm okay. Exams are done."
"How's business at the house?"
"We had a couple of girls move out—they got their own apartment in St-Henri. One new girl."
"So everything's under control there? Good. And how's your health?"
Joel felt himself flush. "Why?"
Friar Tom raised his eyebrows. "Better I don't ask? Classified information?"
"Sorry."
"Don't apologise. Is health a touchy subject right now?"
"Sort of." Joel warmed his hands with the tea mug; the offices were always cold. "Seizures are back."
"Yeah. You don't look well. What's the doctor say?"
"I talked to her on the phone this morning, and I see her in a couple of days. But I don't think she'll be able to do anything."
"Well, keep us posted. I hope you feel better over the holidays. Relax a little. You look like you're facing a firing squad whenever I see you—or do you just get nervous?"
"Both, I guess." This was a mistake. Joel looked down at the salt stains on his boots. This was his life, and it was always going to be his life: sitting in a small office with a well-meaning professional and trying to account for why he was so deficient. That would be Judgement Day for him, sitting in God's office and looking at God's diplomas and spider plants.
Friar Tom sighed. "All right. Well. I've been taking it slow because I know you have a lot on your plate already. Slow is fine. You're very young. I'll give you my opinion as things stand right now, but it's not a final verdict. Remember that."
Joel waited. The room was on the dark north side of the building, with formidable dark bookshelves lining the walls. The dimness reminded him of the quiet rooms at St Rita's. Even the icon on the wall was the same, Our Lady of Vladimir pressing her cheek to the Infant's head. Joel drank the tea, just for something to do with his hands.
"I can't give my recommendation at the moment, Joel. I'm sorry."
The words seemed strangely unimportant, as though a few seconds could go by and they would be made different.
"You have a call, as everyone does. You have considerable gifts, but they don't leap out and shout 'Dominican!' at me. I'm not sure you would do well in our sort of life."
Joel drank some more of the scalding tea, because his mouth was too dry to talk.
"It's not a rejection. I want to be very sure you understand that. And you haven't wasted the last few years either—a lot of guys feel like that."
"Right."
"So what do you think? I find you hard to read sometimes."
Joel swallowed, and waited until he thought he could sound normal. "What was the—what were the, uh, deciding factors here?"
"There's no decision yet. It's an ad hoc judgement, because you asked me what I thought. However..." Friar Tom took a deep breath, glancing outside at the bare tree branches. "You don't seem to have clicked with your spiritual director. That's not a deal-breaker, but until you have a relationship with someone it's going to be hard for me to give a recommendation to start the application process. The other major consideration is stability. You come off as very—we look for a certain resilience. We don't want you to join us and then have to leave, completely burned out. And then, I may be wrong about this, but I get a vibe from you that says you're doing this out of duty, not because you're happy about it."
"Okay."
"Am I right about that? Give me some direction, here."
Joel thought he finally had enough words gathered up for an insight, so he gave it. "You know why I wanted to study theology here?"
"Why?"
"I wanted to learn how to talk to people about—about—I can't even say it—about God. I felt something and I wanted to find out how to say it. Obviously I'm not, I'm not like that. I can't talk. But I wanted to make it make sense, to make it not scary."
"Is it scary to you?"
"It's scary," Joel admitted. It was getting hard to speak; his throat tended to close up when he was upset, and sometimes his voice would be just a low scraping, barely audible. "It's big. I don't know what I'm doing. I was—this is stupid. It's stupid. I don't understand anything."
Friar Tom looked at him for what felt like a long time, head propped on his right hand. At last he said, quietly, "Yeah."
"Yeah."
"You know, counselling guys like you who are very closed-mouthed, it's like looking for a stud in the wall with one of those electronic thingies from Canadian Tire. I've been hunting for it all these months and then I ask you that question and the little red light starts blinking like crazy. Bing!" He smiled, but then grew serious again. "You can't live with fear like that, do you understand me? It will cripple you."
Oh, well I'll just stop being afraid, then. Stupid, stupid. Seven months of his life down the drain. Never mind the four years of painfully plugging through that theology degree, which was still only half done, and spending all that time working up the courage to talk to one of the friars about maybe sort of someday possibly thinking about joining. "Right."
He must have been delusional. It was very clear to him, suddenly, the difference between him and those bright gentle boys headed for the novitiate, who seemed so buoyant, so resilient. Jesus, why had he thought he could be like that? Why hadn't someone told him, why did they let him make a fool of himself?
"I should try to set you up with another spiritual director. You might have better luck with someone else. Some people you just don't click with."
"Can I—" He had to stop, feeling his throat block up completely. Goddammit. Even a speck of dignity was too much to ask, it seemed. "Can I leave?"
Friar Tom spread his hands. "Anytime."
"I mean, can I leave school? I don't...I just don't. Right now. I can't."
Friar Tom looked down at the desktop. "Taking next term off doesn't sound like a bad idea. But you should take a week or so to think about it before you talk to an advisor. You're shook up right now."
"I'm not. I was expecting this."
"But it's different when you hear it for real," said Friar Tom softly. "Isn't it? I'm so sorry."
"No. You're right. I can't, I can't go to school, and there's no way I could do anything tougher than that. That's reasonable."
"Joel, it's not so much that it's tougher than school. This isn't the army. It's that—it's a moulding process, you know? The clay has to be at the right consistency before we can mould. Unhappy people don't take the moulding well. We'd make you worse. When I was in this part of the process, many moons ago, 'happy' was a bit of a dirty word. You weren't supposed to sound like you wanted a cushy life, like you were afraid of a bit of suffering. And there's truth to that, because it isn't easy. Still. We're not trying to crush anybody. I'm afraid you'd get crushed if you joined the novitiate as you are now. You might, outwardly, be able to do the work, but as long as you're facing God from that place of fear and guilt, you'd be all broken inside. We don't want you to end up like that."
"Uh-huh." He knew Friar Tom hated responses like that, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. Zombie mode.
"I wish I could make you feel the hope I feel for you. It's clear to me that you hear God's call, that you're listening and trying to find out what you're supposed to be doing, and I know God is pleased by that. What I think you should consider is that maybe you're already doing what he wants of you. Maybe you already have your answer. Listen, what are you doing, after you get out of here?"
"I've got some work to do at home." Really he should talk to Jeanne-Marie, even though she couldn't seem to talk to him for more than ten minutes without looking like she wanted to pepper spray him.
"Why don't you go out to lunch, instead? See a friend, go take in a matinee? I'm really concerned, you know. You look terrible."
"That's what they tell me." Joel forced a smile and picked up his backpack. "I'll be all right, somehow. I think. I've got to go."
"Hold up, hold on there," said Friar Tom, waving his hand. He got up and stood before Joel in the doorway. "In the name of the Father..."
Joel crossed himself, and Friar Tom rested one hand on his head, heavy and warm. "Holy Father, we ask you to bless and keep this young man, your servant and your beloved son. May your deep peace come to him as he lives out his destiny, your purpose. Amen."
The tears started leaking out as Joel walked back down the hall towards the elevator. In the gunmetal grey paint above the buttons, someone had scratched GO HABS GO. He wiped his face on his sleeve, and saw his image in the mirrored back of the elevator booth. Tall, drooping at the shoulders, swathed in a black wool overcoat that was fraying at the hems and pockets. His father's profile always in the corner of his eye.
He ran a hand through his hair and when the doors opened, walked out through the building to the parking lot. The sun was shining on the ice-hardened snow, the cold air brilliant and bright, clouds of white vapour blowing from the mouths of passing students.
A crowd of sparrows was gathered in the brown branches of the shrubs by the door, and Joel went invisible as he passed so that he wouldn't alarm them. He could still hear them, peeping to each other. His control of his powers was improving.
On the bus, going past the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery, he got out his journal and wrote,
19 December.
I don't want to be a cartoon of myself, a caricature. Death is a skeleton because without life there are only bones, suggestions, structure. No specifics, no details. I'm losing details. The dead are all the same, or what's left of them here on earth is. ((Peter Kreeft: "What happens in hell? Nothing. What happens in heaven? Everything.")) Hamlet knew that much. To lose your mind is to die in the worst way, but it can be reversed. I believe that. It can always be reversed. Nothing is really lost, not forever.
He paused, looking out the window at the handsome houses of Outremont. He uncapped his pen again and added:
The world is so tender, even now.
No one had ever told Jean-Paul that he couldn't let his friends sleep in the dépanneur. In fact, back when Jean-Paul was first hired the boss said, "So long as you keep the customers moving and don't damage the merchandise, you can do what you like on the night shift." Jean-Paul did keep the customers moving. He also mopped up after their muddy boots and even rearranged the magazines if they got out of order, because why bother with a job if you weren't going to do it well? He didn't need the money. It was about being independent, earning your own place in the world, however slowly.
His parents didn't like him working a night shift, but they were the ones who had told him that he should do something with his time now that he was off the track team. It was a Friday night and he was scrubbing a microwave for minimum wage—they should count their blessings, he thought.
At first it was only Michel who hung around in the early evening, but later Michel started to bring Julien Zikakis with him. Julien had been in math with Michel and Jean-Paul until the mutant thing came out.
Jean-Paul felt sorry for Zikakis, or "Zizi" as the kids at school used to call him, and didn't mind letting the guy sleep in the broom closet, but he drew the line at free food. Michel would always buy bags of chips and eat two before offering the rest of the bag to Zizi. "I just wanted a taste. The coach wouldn't want me stuffing myself anyway."
But things were starting to get out of hand now. Zizi regularly came in with two or three other mutant kids in tow, like Mars and King Prawn. They bought coffees from the machines with big handfuls of change and nursed them for half the night, leaning against the counter and wasting time. Mars took naps in the ladies' room—at least she wasn't shooting up in there, or if she did Jean-Paul never caught her at it. Zizi continued to sack out in the broom closet, and once Jean-Paul thought he heard the distinctive sounds of jerking off, but on the whole he behaved himself. Michel stopped showing up after awhile, citing track as an excuse. He must have known that it galled Jean-Paul to be thrown off the team, especially when no one had been able to prove the steroid charge, but...well, they weren't hanging around together much anymore.
King Prawn was by far the most annoying, with his habit of reading the papers and not folding them back up properly. Worse, he liked to talk about the news as he read, addressing Jean-Paul in his as a representative of Canadians in general and francophones in particular.
"Did you hear about that giant cock-up in Saint Henry, then?" Prawn always pronounced place names the English way, probably just to annoy Jean-Paul. "SeparaTEESTS, yet. I thought that bollocks went out twenty years ago. Don't you fuckers know when you're beat? I hate to say it, but take a lesson from the real French and surrender. It's a dead issue."
Jean-Paul was in the middle of picking cheese out of the microwave door-grille, and he resolved that this time he wasn't going to get so distracted that he forgot to keep working. "The Y around here offers literacy classes for free during the day, you know."
"I can read perfectly well, you nasty little Frenchman. The article's right here."
"Doesn't it say that the riot in St-Henri only started when the anti-mutant protesters tried to join up?"
"So it does, but that's no excuse for being a bunch of campy seventies throwbacks in the first place. I admit you've got a prettier flag than the anglos, but you need to let it go."
Prawn was just trying to get a reaction, and Jean-Paul wasn't going to give him one. He rinsed his J-cloth out in the sink, trying not to touch the bits of cheese and tomato sauce that clung to it. "Did you say that to your Scottish and Irish friends, back home? Is that why you're here now?"
"Can't say as I had many Irish friends, but I knew a couple of Scots. They were good lads, knew how to take a joke." Prawn sat down cross-legged on the floor, spreading the paper out in front of him. "You ought to tell management to put in some chairs here, mate. Maybe a table or two."
Jean-Paul went to the cash to ring up the sale for the newspaper, deciding it was easier to lose a dollar than to make Prawn leave the newsstand alone. "Well, we have a wonderful chain here in Canada called Tim Horton's. I think they have what you're looking for."
"Eh, but I don't know anyone who works at a Timmy's. I get the bum's rush after fifteen minutes."
"I can't imagine why. It must be anti-mutant prejudice."
Prawn gave him the finger, and was quiet for awhile. Jean-Paul, daring to hope for half an hour to himself, got out his history textbook and read. The Americans of the Fenian Brotherhood were marching on Montreal, hoping to create a diversion for their compatriots in Ireland. Ill-thought three-pronged invasions. Jean-Paul wondered what he would do if the Americans or the English ever invaded Quebec for real. He would be in the Resistance, he thought, or he hoped he would. The only images he had of resistance were black and white, Casablanca and black market cigarettes. But the more he tried to imagine Montreal dressed up as wartime Paris, the more the unwelcome modern images filtered in: suicide bombers, robots wheeling in to detonate the explosives, caches of guns in the country. And mutants, perhaps fighting on both sides or for their own side, whipping the people into a panic. You couldn't go backwards, he thought. Prawn was right about that.
After a while, Jean-Paul looked up and saw that Prawn was leaning back against the cupboard, sleeping or trying to sleep, his long legs propped up against the Vachon display. He had long, shaggy blond hair like a pony's, and under the hair his face was nosey and narrow, also horse-like. His powers, according to Zizi, were quite deadly, but Jean-Paul felt strangely safer with Prawn in the store. A girl had been murdered by a robber not too long ago, working the night shift in a dep.
Jean-Paul went back to his book and was almost done with the invasion when the usual sounds of traffic on Avenue Victoria dissolved into sirens and horn honking. Cops on megaphones, a muffled voice screaming. Jean-Paul got up and wandered over to the door to see what was going on.
On the corner, three cop cars had converged on something or someone, lights whirling, and the officers were slamming doors and climbing out with guns drawn. Jean-Paul opened the door to get a better view. Someone was screaming desperately in English. "Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone!"
Prawn, evidently a light sleeper, was already up and peering over Jean-Paul's shoulder. "Mutant."
"How do you know?"
He tapped his right temple. "That's what the cops are saying on the radio. I'd jam their signal, but I don't think it'd help the kid. He's going to safety at Mile End."
"CÂLISSE!" one of the cops yelled, voice squeaking.
Prawn suddenly went white. "Jesus Christ, get out, get out, get them all out!"
Mars had wandered in from the ladies' room and Prawn pushed her out the door. "What's going on?"
"Fucking run, as far from that kid as you can get. Head for the park. JP, get Zizi. I'm going to try to..."
He trailed off, concentrating, and the store speakers let out a blast of static. The noise increased, until it was as loud as the roaring of a great cataract, and in the midst of the roar Jean-Paul could make out a rhythmic beeping. Short-short-short long-long-long short-short-short. The ground was trembling under their feet. The box of straws fell off the countertop and sprayed over the floor, with the beef jerky and the Swedish berries soon following. Jean-Paul and Zizi nearly fell as they made for the exit.
Prawn remained by the newsstand, brow furrowed, and suddenly there was a loud pop from the speakers and the noise stopped. "Shit."
"Come on." They ran. Jean-Paul felt faintly ridiculous; the ground was rumbling, but other than that nothing seemed to be happening.
Then something happened.
The land will spit them out, Jean-Paul thought. It was from the Bible, he thought, misremembered, but it was all he could think of now as Avenue Victoria reared up and shook itself in waves, like a sheet when you snap it open over the bed. As if this earth in vast thick pants were breathing. Except pieces of asphalt were flying and two of the cop cars were overturned now and the gas station—
Jean-Paul felt the heat on his face and he ran, ran as he'd never run before, not even on the track team. It was more like flying than like running, without the relentless thudding of his feet on the pavement, without the accompanying beat of his heart. He couldn't feel the ground. He only felt wind, only saw the darkness lined with orange sodium lamps. The noise and heat of the explosion faded, as if someone were turning down the sound on a television, and he stopped, halfway through the park. Mars was there, looking windblown and confused. "What the fuck?" she kept saying, in English. "What the fuck?"
Prawn and Zizi were far behind, but still on their feet. Jean-Paul wasn't even out of breath. Something was...something wasn't right about this. "Was—was I—what happened?"
"I don't fucking know. Why didn't you tell us you were a mutant?"
"I'm not. I didn't know." He realised then that the coach hadn't been too far wrong when he'd accused Jean-Paul of using steroids. "Maybe I knew something was up, but..."
She softened, giving him a rueful smile. "First time?"
"Yeah. It was never like that before. Not at all."
"Well, welcome to the club."
From the corner of the park, Jean-Paul could just see the fiery remains of the Shell station. The concrete shell of the dep was still standing, although not much else was, flames licking against the dark sky. The street was torn to pieces, the overturned cop cars looked almost melted, and there was a sulphurous stink in the air from the exposed sewer pipes. Jean-Paul realised he was cold; he'd run out without his coat. Prawn and Zizi reached the bench at the edge of the park and collapsed.
"Is the kid still alive?" Jean-Paul asked. "What happened?"
"Two-fifty-five. Massive damage all over Victoria Avenue below St-Kevin. No word from officers on the scene." Prawn opened his eyes. "I hope you've got your cell phone?"
"Yeah." Jean-Paul checked the time before handing it to Prawn. Only a little after nine. The street was already filling with people, and the paramedics were waving their arms.
Prawn pressed in a number and waited. Then, sounding absurdly calm, he said, "I reckon you're at home, then? Chinatown? Paul with you? We're around Coronation Elementary School, you know where that is? Right, by Plamondon, but don't take the metro, it'll be stopped. Yer what? Oh, a petrol station exploded, that's all. It wasn't an earthquake. No, we're great. We'll see you, then."
Another cop car was approaching, presumably back-up, but it stopped in front of the school and two officers got out. "You kids were at the scene of the explosion?"
"No," said Mars, as if it were a reflex. "We just got here. What's going on down there?"
The other cop was red in the face, and he said, "Don't fuck with us, freaks. Your descriptions were all over the radio. Let's see CRIM cards."
Prawn, Mars, and Zizi each dug around in their pockets and handed over ID. The shorter cop turned the cards over, shining his flashlight on them, and finally nodded. He turned to Jean-Paul. "What about you?"
"I'm not a mutant," said Jean-Paul, but his voice lacked conviction. He would have sounded just as phony if he had said he was a mutant—that fact was hanging in some indeterminate region between truth and falsehood, and hadn't yet settled on one side or the other. He just needed some time to get his head together.
The cop glared at him. "You're going to safety."
"You can't take him to safety without proof he's a mutant," said Mars, sounding a little too scornful for her own good. "That's the law."
"Oh, listen to the legal beagle. We're taking you and your boyfriends in for questioning, Mademoiselle Caracappa, and your little buddy is coming along for the same reason. He gets a free government-sponsored DNA test at safety, and if we find out he's telling the truth, he goes to lockup with our sincerest apologies."
"Sounds fair to me," said the other cop.
The handcuffs were heavy and tight. Prawn said they were made of adamantium.
Paul's thick makeup made him darker than usual—the natural hue of his skin was milky, almost transparent, and attempts to replicate it with Dermacolor always failed. But he looked normal, even under the yellow lights of Le Jardin Chinois that made everyone wan and sweaty. The heating system was broken, stuck on full blast, and the door was propped open with a brick to let gusts of cold air from Clark Street blow in.
Joel caught sight of a gleam of fuschia as Paul's sleeve rode up, and kicked him lightly under the table. "Oh my God, you're a mutant."
"Ha ha." Paul adjusted his sleeve. "I like you on these meds. Very mellow. What'd Dr Stein give you?"
"Just upped my Klonopin. She says it won't work for long, since I'm building up a tolerance."
Paul scooped the green peppers off Joel's plate of chicken in black bean sauce. "What's next, then?"
"She told me to stay in the Aphanes more. Either it holds off the inevitable or it actually raises my seizure threshold, she's not sure. Leave some of those peppers for me, you've got a whole plateful." Paul had trouble digesting meats and always ordered stir fried vegetables, but he liked the black bean dishes. Joel spooned some of the sauce onto Paul's plate. "That'll wait for something longer than a phone consult, though. I see her next week, but I think she'll want to talk about surgery."
"Really, or are you just being gloomy?"
"I've tried everything twice. They like to put you through clinical trials as a last resort before they saw your head open, but mutants are excluded from most of those. Maybe electroshock, if I lose a lot of function. One time she mentioned someone out in Repentigny who's doing some sort of combo therapy with modified VNS technology and drugs. I think a relative of Keppra, she said?"
"Oh, Keppra. Keppra's nice. Compared to a lot of them, anyway."
There was a lull, and Joel thought about telling Paul what Friar Tom had said. He decided to save it for some other time, some other place. He wanted privacy. It would be hard enough to explain how he felt, how harrowed and hollowed out inside—but it wasn't bad. He'd thrown up the poison at last.
Paul swirled a pepper in the sauce and continued, his mouth full, "So guess who I talked to today?"
"Who?"
"Guess."
Paul didn't tend to talk to people outside the house very much, at least not away from Joel's supervision. "I dunno. Your mother?"
"Nope, still a media blackout from her. Guess again."
"You didn't call that radio show again, did you?"
"I learned my lesson the last time. No, I stole your phone file and called your dad's old friend Lynn Brioux."
Joel actually dropped his fork, making a few heads turn at neighbouring tables. "Jesus Mary and Joseph, Paul. What for?"
"Just poking around. I thought that school in Laval sounded pretty sketchy, so I wanted to find out if they were on the up-and-up." He said the phrase in English, the words plopping awkwardly into the rapid stream of his French. "She knows a lot about education, and I didn't recognise any of the other names in the file, so I thought she was a good person to ask."
"She's a senator, man, she can't do anything about a sketchy private school. God, you didn't mention me, did you?"
"Of course I did. How else do you think I got to talk to her and not a machine? She said to give you her regards. And she didn't mind talking to me at all, and, and, she knew quite a lot about dodgy private schools. She gave me some phone numbers."
"I'm trying to imagine this conversation. You ring her up, completely unsolicited, and say what? 'I know this guy who's related to someone you used to work with, and now I'd like to waste your time for half an hour?'"
"This is completely characteristic of avoidants," Paul said, in his favourite PSYCH100 tone. "You exaggerate the risks of something and totally overlook the benefits. Some people are nice, you see, and they like to help. And she's a bloody senator. They don't all work day and night like your dad did. I'm sure I didn't interrupt anything more strenuous than two o'clock martinis."
Joel sighed. "Right, well, what'd you find out?"
"I googled. They were an approved Catholic private school until the mid 90s, when the crazies moved in, I guess. An abuse investigation in '98, but nothing came of that. The part that the Honourable Lynn Brioux contributed, and this should interest you, is that they were mentioned in her report on mutants in schools five years ago. She emailed me the PDF, it's like two hundred pages."
"You can get those out of the library, you know. Don't waste printer ink on it." Joel poured himself some more tea. "I'm surprised Madame DuPont got into Brioux. That's the gold standard for mutant hate-fests in school."
Paul looked smug. "Well, the report says they didn't have that many mutants there. In fact, at the time, they only had one."
"What?"
"That's right. And this unnamed female student, thirteen years of age, was subjected to examinations for demonic possession. Sounding familiar?"
It was hard to be cautious, but Joel tried to reign himself in. "That would only put Jeanne-Marie at eighteen, and she's already teaching primary school? Doesn't sound right."
"You think they care about standards or having educated teachers? I think it sounds pretty plausible. This student was attempting suicide when her powers manifested, things were so bad. Bad enough for suicide when you're human, and bad enough for exorcisms when you're a mutant. Wonderful place."
Something was wrong. "Well...wait. Madame DuPont has this crazy suicidal demoniac mutant, and she decides to let her teach children? What's going on there?"
"Sais pas." Paul gestured for the cheque. "Maybe she got better. So now what do you think of my detective work?"
"You got lucky. And you could have read the Brioux report on your own."
"But?"
"But this time it worked. Very nice. Are you happy?"
"Thank you."
"Just do things like that by email, in the future. People on the Hill are shirty about their phone time—I guess you caught her on a good day."
"No, I'm just very charming."
Joel was about to say something, but suddenly all the tables in the restaurant began to shake, silverware tinkling and glass breaking. He could even feel the walls and the roof shake, like when the big wind off the ocean attacked the house on the shore in Ingonish. At eight years old, in a foreign province, Joel had thought the world was coming to an end and didn't get a single night's sleep until they took the plane from Sydney to Corner Brook.
Even now, he ran through an Act of Contrition at top speed in his head a few times before Paul shouted, "It's not stopping. I think we should get out."
"We haven't paid." That seemed like the important part, for some reason.
"Oh, for Christ's sake." Paul counted off two twenties and left them on the table. "Come on."
Joel tried to gather up his coat—and his hands went through it. He'd automatically gone into the Aphanes, and it bothered him that he hadn't noticed that, but now there were loud thuds and metallic groans coming from the kitchen and there just wasn't time. O my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee... He realised that he couldn't be killed at all, not like this, but he kept praying it for all the people who were flesh and blood. Paul picked up Joel's coat for him.
Plaster was falling from the ceiling. Buildings in Montreal weren't built to withstand earthquakes, and nobody here was used to them. People were yelling in English, French, Chinese. Joel hovered protectively around Paul, as if he could do any good, while they pressed in with the crowd streaming out the front door.
"Now, don't push!" an older anglo gentleman was yelling, in the authoritative voice of a teacher. "Won't get anywhere if we push!"
The cars on the street outside were spread all over, like toys, and horns were honking everywhere. Cell phones ringing. The electricity blinked out, leaving the city lit only by the stars in the canyons between the buildings. Suddenly the stars seemed very bright.
Joel, however, could still see. The world wasn't muffled in white, nor was it dark. For the first time in his life he could see, without light or shadow, without even the constraints of binocular vision. He saw the backs of people's heads and the fronts, at the same time. He saw their bones and the grey brains in their protective layers. Before and behind, above and below, within and without, like Saint Patrick's Breastplate.
I'll go crazy, he thought, if I haven't already.
Paul had got out onto Clark Street and was getting jostled by people as he stared around. Finally he just looked up and yelled, "Joel!"
"I'm here, I'm here." It took a few seconds to get back to his body. He'd been in some expanded state, hanging over the street, and now he felt small, tightly wrapped up in flesh. The all-encompassing vision was gone, and he could see in only one direction. "I'm here, it's okay."
No one even noticed his reappearance. Paul led him around the corner to the car. Joel felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "Hello?"
"I reckon you're at home, then?" The phone number was unfamiliar, but Joel recognised the Yorkshire accent right away.
"No, we're down in Chinatown. Sabine and Vicky are at the house, if you need them."
"Chinatown? Paul with you?"
"Yeah." Apparently Sabine and Vicky wouldn't do, or maybe Prawn couldn't get to the house. Joel had visions of him lying in an alley somewhere with a broken leg, and tried to stay calm. "Are you all right? Do you need us to come meet you somewhere?"
"We're around Coronation Elementary School, you know where that is?"
That wasn't far from l'Institut Pastorale, so Joel knew the area. "Uh, Côte-des-Neiges, isn't it? Plamondon metro?"
"Right, by Plamondon, but don't take the metro, it'll be stopped."
"Prawn, what's going on over there? Did you get caught in the earthquake."
"Yer what?" There were sirens in the background. "Oh, a petrol station exploded, that's all. It wasn't an earthquake."
"Jesus Mary and Joseph," Joel said again. "Are you all right? You didn't get hurt?"
"No, we're great. We'll see you, then." He hung up.
Paul raised his eyebrows. "What's wrong?"
"We need to take a trip up to Côte-des-Neiges." Joel put the phone away. "Prawn is...I don't know, he needs some help up there."
Paul snorted, bitter. "Maybe we should save time and just go straight to Mile End."
In the end, that was what they did, since at Boulevard St-Joseph Joel got a text message saying:
Mile end. Kp m z +
jeanpaul martin.
Bail?
Mile End Safety Centre, on Rue St-Viateur, was a blank concrete building surrounded by a 12-foot concrete fence. A tower on the roof blinked orange and green; the telepaths who'd been inside said it scrambled their signals, which Joel thought was a little suspect—he didn't think telepathy was understood well enough yet to jam it with technology. But he didn't know what the towers were for, either. Prawn said it was an ordinary microwave tower, but Mars and Vicky still said their psi powers were scrambled when they were inside—somehow.
A sign on the gate read, You are now entering property of Corrections Canada. Any persons or vehicles within may be stopped and searched. Inside, the first checkpoint was manned by four armed male guards, and a female officer sat in the booth behind bulletproof glass and a thick lead screen. At first, Joel had thought it was for anonymity, like the screen in a confessional, and King Prawn was the one who told him its function was more like the screen in a microwave door.
Her voice crackled through the intercom. "One at a time. State your business, please."
"Standing as bail-guarantors for the release of four detainees."
"And are you a mutant under the definition of section—"
"Yes." Joel found his CRIM card in his wallet and dropped it into the sliding metal drawer.
The drawer snapped shut, and the figure behind the screen was still for several long moments. Then: "I'm going to have to ask you to please provide two alternate pieces of photo identification."
This had never happened before, but there was always something new in the process. He made a show of going through his wallet, because appearing obedient always greased the wheels, but he asked, "What's wrong with my CRIM?"
"I can't tell if the photo is a likeness, sir," she said mildly.
"It's just the haircut that's different. Can you see me at all from behind there?"
"The whole front lobby is monitored, sir, I can see you very clearly."
"Can you take my word for it on the haircut? I only have my health card and the CRIM."
"Driver's license?"
"I can't drive."
"Passport?"
Joel's patience was waning, but Paul's had clearly run out. "Madame, please, the picture's only a year old, and it looks like Joel with shorter hair. We've been here before. Ask that redheaded guard, I know I saw him here last time."
The armed guards in green, who had been watching with bored amusement, abruptly went back to standing at attention. The redheaded guard said, "We aren't allowed to influence the porter, sir."
"We can go home and get my passport," Joel suggested, checking his watch.
"No, this is ridiculous. Your powers are listed on the CRIM card. If you wanted to sneak in, no one could stop you."
"You're not helping," said Joel.
"All right, sir, at this point I'm going to have to remind you that failing to properly identify yourself at a safety centre checkpoint is an indictable offense under the Public Order Act."
"I did identify myself," Joel snapped. "I'm sorry. Sorry. I know you're doing your job, but..."
"Do you have a student card?" It was a peace offering.
"Yes. Yes, I do." He slid his student card and health card into the drawer. When the drawer opened again, there was a red plastic visitor's pass inside. "Thank you."
"Next, please."
When Paul got through, the redheaded guard led them down the blank yellow-lit hallway to the main desk. Paul sat down on the navy couch and opened up a copy of La Presse that was lying on the table, while Joel got the forms from the woman at the front desk and began to fill them out.
"Those detainees are classified S3," the woman told him. "You can stand as guarantor for two of them and your friend for another two, provided you're not an S3 guarantor for anyone else."
S3 was high-risk, which was no wonder if they'd been involved in a gas station exploding. That was big trouble even by Prawn's standards, and Joel had never signed out an S3 detainee before. There was no requirement for acquaintance, which meant that Joel could sign the mysterious Jean-Paul Martin out even though they'd never met, but with an S3 designation Joel would be held responsible if the kid got in trouble again within a year.
Blessed Mother, let him behave himself, Joel prayed as he signed and dated the agreement, promising Her Majesty that he would keep Jean-Paul Martin out of the law's hair for twelve calendar months.
"You want to sign Prawn out?" Joel asked Paul.
"I'll take Mars and Zizi," he replied, in a tone that clearly said, I'm not stupid.
"Fine, fine." I will make a pilgrimage to Mount Carmel next January if you keep Prawn in line for a year, Blessed Mother, I promise. Joel signed, thus putting Francis Dudley, alias King Prawn, under his protection as well.
The bail for S3 detainees was so high it made Joel's teeth hurt, at $2,000 each. Joel didn't have that much sitting in his and Paul's regular account, and he knew it would have to come out of the house's chequing account for operations until he could cash some bonds on Monday. He could swear he heard a squeak when the screen on the debit machine said "Approved."
"Ransoming captives," Paul said, getting up to fill out his own set of forms. "The works of mercy, man. Dorothy Day would be proud."
"I feel sick."
The woman picked up the phone and dialed an internal number. "Allô, Lisette? We need to start release processes for Caracappa-Marcella, Dudley-Francis, Martin-Jean-Paul and Zikakis-Julien. Thank you."
"It's the sound of freedom!" Paul exulted. "The sound of the chains of injustice—"
Joel sank down on the couch and put his head between his knees. "I'm going to have to borrow money from Mum, I think."
"—and the dark night of tyranny bursting into glorious day, allons enfants de la patrie..."
"Stop."
"I'm trying to make you feel better. You're doing a good thing, Frère Joël." Paul continued to whistle La Marseillaise as he signed his name with a flourish. "L'étandaaard sanglant est levé...it's a catchy song, you know..."
There was a long wait afterwards, and Joel's stomach settled down. Paul was jittery and kept chattering about Bizet, for some reason—his enthusiasms were difficult to make sense of, sometimes, and Joel wondered if he were getting a little manic. Joel himself pulled out his beads and said a not-very-devout rosary for his very fervent desire that Prawn would be a pillar of society for the rest of his natural life.
It was almost twelve when the guards marched down the hall with the four released prisoners in tow. Paul nudged Joel. "Does the new kid remind you of anyone?"
Indeed he did; the boy bore more than a striking resemblance to Jeanne-Marie. They were as alike as Steph's male and female forms were, identical but for the sex difference. The same black hair, the same blue eyes and sharp features.
Mars, unexpectedly, ran for Joel and threw her arms around him. "Get us out of here."
"We'll never pile them all into the car," Paul said. "Not if we don't want a ticket. And nobody in the house is getting so much as a fine for littering over the next year, if I have anything to say about it."
In the end, Joel took a taxi home with Prawn, the both of them tall enough to appreciate not being crammed into the back of the Volvo. At the house, Joel made buckwheat pancakes while Paul got the story out of Prawn and the others.
"How did you know what was going to happen?" Mars asked Prawn.
"There was—I don't know—a noise, I suppose. I want to say like a screech, because it was so loud, but the waves were very low, very long. I don't hear it with my ears, you know, it's some other sort of sense. And there was a big flaring-up of heat, all in petals like a rose. That I could see, like a light show. The cop probably yelled because he felt it." He blew on his tea. "Anyroad, I knew you don't hear radiation like that for nothing, so I tried to send out a warning. I think I just wrecked everyone's TV and radio receptions, though."
"Just like that telegraph guy on the sad Heritage Minute," Mars said, giving Prawn a quick kiss on the cheek.
"I didn't know it was going to explode, just that we didn't want to be inside during a thing like that."
The radio was on, and Joel turned it up when he heard the familiar four notes announcing the hourly news report. "Fire crews and paramedics are still engaged in rescue operations on Victoria Avenue tonight. Already seven people are confirmed dead, including three police officers. The damage was apparently caused by a young mutant, who is currently in critical but stable condition at Jewish General Hospital..."
Jean-Paul emerged from the bathroom, looking ill, and Joel asked him in a low voice, "Do you think you should call your parents?"
The kid nodded. Joel directed him to a phone upstairs.
He opened the wrong door. She was standing in front of the window, her image doubled in the glass and tripled in the mirror on the dresser. Getting ready for bed in a long white gown. Holding a pin in her mouth and with both hands she opened up her hair.
She opened up her hair, and was reaching for the brush when she saw him. She put the brush down slowly. "Who are you?"
"I..." It wasn't like him to be at a loss for words. "I was looking for the phone."
"Who are you?" she said again, staring into his eyes as if hypnotised.
"Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul Martin."
She blinked. Her eyes were the same blue as his. "Jeanne-Marie Beaubier."
"Beaubier is...that's my name too." That slipped out unexpectedly. "Martin is my foster family's name, I mean."
She frowned, and reached up until her fingers were next to his cheek. For a moment she hesitated, and then she touched him.
And the world dissolved in a flash of light, like the sun on virgin snow.
Notes: Zizi is a jocular French word for "penis", like "dick"
or "willy." Le Jardin Chinois is fictional, although
Santropol in the first chapter is real. The "telegraph guy on
the sad Heritage Minute" to whom Mars refers is Vince Coleman,
who spent his last moments alive warning approaching passenger trains
of the great Halifax Explosion. Heritage Minutes are shown on
Canadian television during commercial breaks. You can watch
Coleman's Heritage Minute
here.
The Peter Kreeft quote is from here.
"Legal Age Life at Variety Store" is a song from the Rheostatics' album Whale Music (Sire 1992).