After the lesson from Jello, Teddy was wondering about his hero potential and what he could do to be more comfortable talking to girls. Jello, meanwhile, looked around the room for something else to do. Teddy had an acoustic guitar by his bed and Jello would often idly strum it while they were talking. Teddy had once shown Jello how to play a few chords and soon Jello played Teddy's guitar better and more often than Teddy did. Then Jello got his own guitar and started writing songs, if you could call them that. Jello picked up the guitar and offered to preview a new one.
"I call it 'Yoga Girl,'" he said, "and it goes something like this..."
Jello strummed a slow C chord and started to sing:
"Yoga girl with your sweet yoga ass,"
Teddy laughed. Jello kept singing.
"Downward-facing dog works your glutes to the max.
Long and lean, you're my yoga queen.
You can stand on one leg, baby, all day...
Namaste
Yoga girl with your rolled up mat,
Your muscle definition and your low body fat,
When you work your core, makes me want you more.
When I see those tight pants, baby, I say...
Namaste."
"Chorus coming! Backing vocals!" Jello pointed at Teddy. "Be my be my be my be my yoga girl... Be my be my be my be my yoga girl."
Teddy half-heartedly joined in as Jello launched into the chorus:
"Be my yoga girl!
Rock my yoga world!
Let's align our chakras, baby!
My hot yoga girl..."
"OK, cut the backing vocals!" instructed Jello before starting into the third verse.
"Yoga girl, yeah, you got flexibility,
But I got to know 'bout your sex ability.
Can you touch your toes? Even with your nose?
Can you do a headstand, baby? That's the way...
Namaste."
"Chorus! Go! Be my be my be my..."
"Be my yoga girl!
Rock my yoga world!
Let's align our chakras, baby!
My hot yoga girl..."
"Cut the backing vocals!" Jello strummed a final chord and let it fade.
"My hot yoga girl,
My hot yoga girl...
Namaste."
Jello took his hands from the guitar and put them together prayer-style, bowing solemnly after the last word. Teddy shook his head and laughed.
"That's just wrong in so many ways. You're some kind of demented genius, my friend."
Jello grinned and said, "I know, right?"
Teddy frowned. "Hey, that better not be about my Mom!"
⢠⢠⢠â¢
"It's like how, you know when there's something you can't explain and you keep trying to and people are like..." Ty trails off, assuming we know what he's talking about. One of Ty's things is not finishing thoughts cuz he figures we're somehow in there with him, deep in his mind, when in fact we're usually barely even listening. One of his other things is repeating something he's already told us as if it's completely new.
"Yeah, it's like, when I was a kid in Campbell River, riding my bike home from my friend's place on Quinsam Road and it was getting dark and there was this smoke, or more like mist, like a green mist just hanging over the road..."
"You told us this already!" says P. L.
"Except it was your uncle," says Kodi, "and he was driving a truck."
They're right. We've actually heard this story twice before. Once it was his uncle in a truck, but before that it was some random fisherman out walking. Always a green mist across the road.
"Different time," says Ty, though it obviously wasn't. "Anyway, the mist was swirling around..."
"And then it goes into the shape of some weird bitch," Kodi says. "Yeah, we know."
"Gradually, yeah. Like gradually taking the shape of a woman and she was dancing. She had her back towards me so I couldn't see her face but she was dancing all sorta snaky," Ty says, doing a bit of a snaky dance.
"...And she's making a humming soundâthe mist was actually fuckin' humming, I swearâand then she turned and I just froze in total shock cuz her face wasn't normal. It was crazy. It was all broken up and rearranged, mouth over here and one eye down here... I was pretty scared, but I knew the only thing to do was to ride right through the mist, right through the woman."
"Why Ty?" says Jewels. "Why was that the only thing to do? Why not, like, ride the exact opposite direction?"
"Right, and then she would've just chased me. No way. I knew I had to go through, but then when I did..."
"It was the coldest thing you ever felt!" yell Amiya, Jewels, Kodi, P. L. and me, laughing.
"Yeah," says Ty. "Even though it was summer, it was the coldest fuckin' thing I ever felt. Are you guys happy? Ruining a really good story?"
"But what's that have to do with anarchy?" asks Kodi, because that's what started Ty off on this tangent.
"Everything Kode. Cuz the normal explanations aren't enough, dude. They don't give you the big picture. There's always more going on that we don't know about. All these countries... people think they have a prime minister or president or whatever because they voted for them but that's not how it actually works, like, behind the scenes!"
Kodi considers himself an anarchistâthat's a big part of why he'd rather live on the streets and not participate in societyâbut he isn't on board with Ty's logic. "Do you even know what anarchy is?" he asks.
"Sure I do. It's why we're here. It's why there's all this bullshit. Pesticides. Global Warming..."
"It is?" asks Amiya.
"Listen," says Ty. "Global Warming isn't because of cars or cows. It's because of all the secret shit going on behind the scenes. Your president or prime minister isn't in charge. That's just for show. They don't really make the decisions. They're puppets!"
"So you mean if there's anarchy the climate gets better cuz no one will drive anymore?" asks Amiya.
"No, they totally will!" says Jewels. "Like in Mad Max!"
"But Ty" says P. L. "For Global Warming to get better there's gotta be a ton of, like, sustainable energy, right? And how's that ever going to happen without governments? I don't see how anarchy is supposed to solve Global Warming. It would just make it worse!"
"What are governments supposed to do?" asks Kodi. "They're good for shit!"
"Well," says P. L., "maybe stuff like putting up a huge solar panel in orbit so we can get all our power from the Sun? It would be super-expensive to put up there but once it's there, you'd get, like, so much free energy from it!"
"Right," says Ty. "And how are you supposed to get the energy down from it? A really long extension cord?"
"Lasers," says P. L. "You beam it down with lasers."
Kodi laughs at him. "Lasers?"
"Yeah, lasers," says P. L. "It could totally work. I read about it!"
I'm pretty sure P. L.'s right. I remember my dad talking about that exact thing one time at the dinner table. Maybe they both read the same magazine article.
"Lasers aren't real, you dumb shit!" Kodi laughs. "They're just in movies!"
Oh no.
This isn't good. Kodi isn't stupid but his lack of education, reading, Internet-browsing and general awareness of the world has left some pretty monumental gaps in his knowledge. He's secretly embarrassed about it, and if there's one thing Kodi hates it's being embarrassed. When Kodi gets embarrassed it quickly morphs into anger.
"What?" says Ty, Jewels, Amiya and probably everyone else but me.
"Yeah, lasers are real Kodi! Did you think they were just in Star Wars?" P. L. laughs at him.
"What about laser eye surgery, or laser pointers? You've heard of those, right?" says Amiya.
"They're just called that. It's just a name," says Kodi, but he's clearly beginning to have doubts.
A few more snickers and Kodi is getting up. He doesn't look in my direction but says, "Let's go. I wanna get some vodka."
How I know he's talking to me and not Bryn or someone else I have no idea. His tone. Our history. I just know. I get up and follow, hoping I can calm him down.
We're walking to get the vodka when it happens. He hasn't said a word, but he's super-pissed, I can sense it. We pass this place in the alley between Yates Street and Bastion Square where someone has set up a weird little shrine made entirely of junk for Lorraine, "The Empress", a homeless woman who died last winter.
The joke was that the Empress Hotel, the biggest, fanciest old hotel in the city, was named after her. It wasn't, but everybody in downtown Victoria knew Lorraine. She'd been living on the streets forever and it had taken its toll on her. She was in her sixties but she looked about eighty. She was an alcoholic and maybe schizophrenic too, but she could be really sweet and often looked out for other people on the street, always doing things like bringing hot drinks for some of the old guys when the nights were cold and just making sure everyone was OK.
It was really sad when she died. Some people said that she used to have kids but social workers took them away. Others said she murdered her abusive husband and did jail-time for it. I don't know if any of that was true, but when she died, the newspaper actually ran a story about her because she was so well known. We passed around the paper and I remember being kind of amazed that they wrote about her, that a poor homeless lady living in the back alleys of downtown Victoria might actually matter to average people.
It mattered to me because she was one of us, and it obviously mattered to some other people because they took the time to collect a bunch of things and carefully arrange them on a window ledge in an alley behind a restaurant to make a kind of altar in her memory. It's just random stuffâa little girl's hair brush made of pink plastic with half the bristles missing, a Chinese silk fish with a red tassel tail, a small framed photo, old and faded, of Lorraine standing next to a huge pumpkin, a Bic lighter with a picture of a unicorn on it, a brown and yellow mitten, a chipped teacup painted with little blue flowers and a bunch of other odd things. At either side, there's an Extra Old Stock beer can with a candle stuck in the top. I've never seen the candles burning, but they're all drippy and have burned almost all the way down.
Anyway, we're walking down that alley and, as we pass Lorraine's memorial, Kodi starts going absolutely apeshit.
"I hate this fucking thing!" he's yelling. "Why's it even here?"
And then he starts trashing it. I stare in shock as the mitten and the candles and beer cans go flying and the hairbrush and lighter get swept away. Then I watch helplessly as the chipped teacup with the blue flowers falls to the pavement and shatters.
"Kodi! What the hell!" I shout, but he just ignores me.
I start grabbing at him to get him to stop before the entire thing is ruined. "Leave it! This is important to people, you idiot!"
Yeah, I said that. I called him an idiot.
It just came out because I wanted to get his attention, to say whatever would make him stop what he was doing, but also because he really can be a complete and utter idiot. It isn't wise to tell him that to his face though, and really, if I'd had a second to think it over I'm sure I wouldn't have. He turns on me and I can see in his eyes what's coming. He hits me with an open hand so hard he nearly knocks me to the ground.
"You shut the fuck up, Mouse!" he says.
I'm so stunned I just stare wide-eyed at him for a second wondering if I should laugh, cry or hit back. My cheek starts to sting like it's on fire. I quickly realize that A, there's nothing at all to laugh at, B, crying would be completely pointless and C, hitting back would end badly for me. There isn't much left of Lorraine's memorial, but he seems to have stopped destroying it for now. Has he finished attacking me too?
I always knew Kodi was full of anger and violence but I thought there was a line he wouldn't cross when it came to me. I thought I was inside his sphere of protection, that the force of his flame-thrower rage could never be directed at me. Guess I was fooling myself.
"You think I give a fuck?" he yells. "You think I care about this fucked-up voodoo shit someone put here to remember that drunk bitch?"
"What is wrong with you?" I scream. "You don't respect anything! You're the one that's fucked up, Kodi, but you'd never admit it because you think it's everyone else's fault!"
I could go onâthere's a ton more I want to say to himâbut this time it's a closed fist and by the time I see it coming it's way too late to get out of the way.
⢠⢠⢠â¢
"OK, so would you rather have everything you eat for the rest of your life taste like earwax, or every fifth word you ever say be 'knobgobbler'?" Jello was asking as he and Teddy came down the stairs.
"I like the taste of food too much," said Teddy. "Gotta go with knobgobbler."
"You're crazy," said Jello.
He opened the front door to leave, but then just stood there, looking out. He turned to look at Teddy who couldn't see what Jello was looking at. "Um..." said Jello, pointing outside.
Teddy went to the door. On the porch stood Darwin. Most of her face was hidden in the shadow from her parka hood, but the pale skin of her cheek had an angry red scrape and her lip was swollen and bloody.
"Whoa..." he said, and opened the door wider, motioning for her to come in.
"Is that...?" asked Jello quietly.
"Yeah," said Teddy.
"What happened to you?" Jello asked Darwin.
Neea ran over from the kitchen. She pushed past Teddy and Jello and, seeing Darwin's face, cried out, "Oh my God!"
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If you liked this chapter I hope you'll kindly consider giving it a vote. Votes really help to increase a story's reach and my little tale could use a boost. Thank you for reading!
â D.B.