Episode 1: Who Goes Down First?
E 1:
Who goes down first?
Some conversations, you never finish having.
Upstairs, the grown-ups are laughing at something I wouldn’t even get. They’ve been at it for over an hour. A minute at most of silence, then the ceiling shakes and they screech and cackle. That’s why I’m in the basement with Jamie. He’s my step cousin, and he’s always been the golden boy in the family. Which is probably why he’s on his second turn playing my file save of GoldenEye.
“If you die, I’m playing next!” I tell him.
“Not if I beat the level.” Jamie leans in, thumb jammed on the trigger. “I’m on a roll, can’t you see?”
“It was my turn the last time you messed the mission up! I told you, I know how to get through this level.”
“Yeah, probably because this is YOUR game in YOUR basement.” He doesn’t even look at me. “You get to play it anytime you want.”
“I don’t get to play it when I want. Like ever. I’m freaking ten years old. I have to do homework after school and I’m supposed to be outside until dark.”
Jamie stays locked into the game without seemingly blinking. On screen, James Bond and a woman named Natalya are at the end of the hall in the archives. Again, Jamie runs up to the dead end and just stands there, waiting for the mission to end.
“UGH. This stupid thing.” Jamie says
“It’s not gonna end, you have to get out of there.”
“But I am out, I’m at the end! Why won’t the mission finish?!”
“Shoot the windows, butthead!” I yell.
“The windows?” He gives me a flat look of nice try.
“Yeah, shoot the windows! You break the glass and run out with her. That’s the only way to finish it.”
Jamie spins back around to the tv and mashes the fire button. He shoots nearly everything but the window. Guards enter from another room.
“Jamie. The windows.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Bullets begin to whizz past Bond and strike Natalya. She goes down. Mission failed.
Jamie tosses the controller into the couch and stands up. “That’s cheap. There’s no way out of that level.”
“There is,” I reach for the controller. “I told you, freaking butthead.”
Suddenly, the basement door swings open and Uncle Ray’s boots thump, the stairs creaking under each heavy step. He’s a six-foot, burly hairy man with a full beard and a bald head.
“Boys!” He says with his gravel baritone.
“Hey, Ray.”
“That’s Uncle Ray to you, young man.”
He’s technically my step-uncle, but he’s been Uncle Ray for as long as I can remember.
He grabs a shiny quarter from his pocket. “Well, fellas. Call it. Winner watches and the loser gets to wrestle me. Heads or tails?”
Knowing what follows this, a wrestling match that is mostly me just getting flattened, makes my chest tighten and my heart slam.
“Tails.” Jamie says.
Ray smirks at Jamie and flicks the coin into the air. It spins and spins and he catches it with his hand covering the coin.
“Well?!” Jamie is jumping with excitement.
Ray pulls his hand back. Tails.
“OH!” Jamie jumps in the air with excitement that is coated in built up resent over the years.
Ray’s eyes dart over to mine. He crouches low with his arms out, as if he’s going to Stone Cold me through the coffee table.
“ATTACK STANCE. READY. SET. GO.”
He lunges after me and I immediately dodge the grapple. Mid step on my escape, he grabs my waist and pins me down into a grapple. With both arms and legs pinned I have no escape. He leans his weight into my chest so that I can barely breathe. It almost hurts. Jamie starts counting like a referee.
“One! Two!”
“Quit pushing on me.” Ray says in a reassuring tone. “You’ll never lift me, bud.” He unpins my right arm. “Grab the arm and hook my foot. Now the hips, turn into it!”
“Two and a half!” Jamie says.
This time I take uncle Ray’s advice and turn into it with all my might. He rolls over and I grapple him with the upper hand and a shit-eating grin. He looks into my eyes with a smirk of content, which quickly fades to a glazed over lifeless stare. He stands up and looks over at Jamie.
“Jamie, upstairs.”
Jamie rolls his eyes and heads upstairs. “Ugh, okay.”
The basement door closes and a long pause follows. The silence fills the room as Ray adjusts his posture and looks right into my eyes.
“Cal, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I stare down at my feet, my socks don’t match. I never noticed.
“I..I don’t know. I want to help people.”
“You want to help people? That’s great. How do you want to do that?”
“Like a firefighter or ambulance driver.”
“You mean paramedic.”
“Y-yeah.”
“You ever think about joining the military police?”
It’s a weird question for Ray to ever ask. He’s the fun wrestling guy that will cook you the best hot dogs you’ve ever had.
“I don’t know. No, I haven’t.”
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something but nothing comes out. As he reaches for his pocket, everybody upstairs starts laughing at once. He pulls his hand away and stops as if he’s forgotten what he even came downstairs for.
“Uncle Ray?”
The glaze in his eyes begins to fade. He pulls his hand out and messes up my hair. “Okay, bud. I’ll see ya later.”
I sit back down on the couch and Ray heads back upstairs. Each heavy step forcing a creak out of the old wood stairs. One step. Then another. Then nothing.
***
I open my eyes up to my own ceiling. 5:38am, full on sweat, and two minutes before my alarm. It’s always two minutes before the alarm. I wish I could have those two minutes. But the dream. It’s always the same dream, the same childhood basement with the same question where I say no. I was 10 years old when it happened, now it’s a dream that won’t leave me alone. I could draw a room from the memory. The long tan couch, the yellow walls, the blue glow off of the TV. I could tell you which stair creaks. It’s always there when it ends, with Ray on the stairs. It never goes any further.
I lie there for a minute and let the ceiling come back into focus. Reality is knocking. The mortgage isn’t going to pay itself and the building on Barrington Street isn’t going to wire itself. So I get up and start my morning routine. Walking into the kitchen, the tv is still on from the other night, talking about the Arctic. I left it on, I always leave it on.
“The vessel, which Beijing describes as a polar research ship, has now spent seventy two hours inside the Northwest Passage with its transponder switched off. The ship is operated by AARA, the country’s Arctic and Antarctic research administration and did not request permission to enter Canadian waters. The Defence Minister called it, quote, ‘a deliberate test’. Washington, meanwhile..”
I hit mute on the remote and turn back into the kitchen. As I pour my coffee, sip and stare out the window, I can’t help but to think. Seventy two hours. Nobody can find a ship the size of a building. Research? Sure. Nobody turns their transponder off to research plankton.
A terrible siren belts out from my phone. I have to get my ass to work.
***
The drive takes eleven minutes if the traffic lights like me. They don’t today. The morning dew haze fills the rooftops of all of the buildings, the sun begging to beam through the dense clouds as it rises. The building I pull up to is some new commercial development on Barrington, with a dental office going in on the main floor. I exit my work truck and walk up to the door, unlocking the maintenance entrance to the building. This phase of the operation is nice, it’s mostly final touches and the majority of the other trade guys are finished their work, so I’ve got the place nearly to myself. This should make me feel great, but it doesn’t. Every other commercial building has been the same thing. They’re not cookie cutter projects, but I am missing something. Something I’m not sure how to express. Maybe, I’m just bored.
So I set up the ladder and lean it just below a junction box, the work day has begun. My phone buzzes in my back pocket. It’s a text from Dale.
U on site?
Yep.
Good. Inspector Thursday. Don’t make me look stupid.
Too late for that, D-Boy.
Dale sends back the middle finger. Dale’s been my foreman for six years. Better yet though, he’s the closest thing that I can call a work friend, or a friend that I work with.
By noon, the second floor is done. I sit in my truck for lunch as usual, door open with a ham sandwich on the dash and a lit cigarette in my mouth. I need to stop smoking. I turn on the radio to drown the silence, pick up my phone and pull up my browser. Boredom brings me back to my childhood memories of playing GoldenEye and pretending to be a secret spy with friends. My god. The application is still there. It’s been in draft for six months with every box filled. References, work history, the essay about how I am the most qualified candidate. All that’s left is that one button. I’ve opened this screen maybe a hundred times. Every time, I find a reason not to follow through. I’m too old. It’s too late. My mortgage. Someday.
On the radio, a man is talking about the projected harsh winter season.
My thumb hovers over the submit button. My uncle always thought I’d beat a great fit for military policing, I just can’t see myself in uniform. Even beyond the chaos of that career, it still seems stable. I don’t want it. I want to see what’s behind the door. I want to trace things back to the source. It’s been fifteen years of someday, and it comes down to one tap, and an incredible amount of luck.
I press it.
The screen spins for a moment. Thank you. Your application has been received. Please do not speak to anyone about your application, or any information contained in this session. If you’re selected for recruitment, you’ll be contacted directly.
Do not reply
That’s it. No fireworks, no music. Just a guy in a truck with a mustard stain on his shirt and a dream.
Come to think of it, it was pretty delusional to apply. I have no relevant experience and no education. Hahaha. Dreamers can be dreamers. Plus, why not. What’s the worst that could happen? They say no? The file probably won’t even get retained.
****
A week goes by, and we’re finally done the commercial development we were working on. Dale doesn’t look stupid in front of the inspector, and the ship in the Arctic is still missing. Dale and I are at a new job now, some tooling shop that makes naval parts. We’re here to install a new disconnect for one of their new machines. It’s 20 minutes to lunch and I get an email. I pull it up and it’s CSIS.
Subject: Application Update:
Action required
Mr. Mercer,
Following your review, you have been cleared to proceed to the medical assessment stage. This assessment will build on the results of your previous assessment. Do not discuss your application with anyone.
Please report to:
Harrow Medical Associates
2210 Robbie Street, Suite 300, Halifax
Thursday, 5:38pm
Previous assessment? The hell? I read the email again. Then a third time, as if the words will re arrange into something that makes sense. I’ve never done an assessment before. Not for CSIS, not for anybody like that. The last exam I did was an electrical exam, and I’m pretty sure they don’t care how much I know the code book.
“What’s the face for? Get off the phone.” Dale asks.
Dale’s standing at the bottom of the ladder with two coffees in his hand.
“Nothing.” I lock my phone and put it back in my pocket.
“You look like you just got served a letter from your ex’s lawyer.”
“Something like that.” I say.
I climb down the ladder and grab a coffee from Dale.
“Thanks.”
Do not discuss this application with anyone. Fine. Lying to Dale is easy enough. Lying to myself takes a little more work though. Probably a typo, or someone copied the wrong template. Maybe the email wasn’t intended for me.
Thursday, 5:38pm. Such a weird time for an appointment. Something about it itches the backside of my brain. It just doesn’t sit right. Nothing about it sits right. No interview or psych interview? There wasn’t even a medical portion in the screening process when I applied. Whatever. I applied for this, it was my gamble. If this is real, maybe I should go through with it. Maybe I’ll just let it go for today.
***
By Thursday afternoon, I haven’t eaten in well over twelve hours. I could chew through my coffee table. I’m feeling weak, shaky and miserable. I’m walking down Robbie street. It’s grey, wet and foggy outside. Number 2210 is a five storey office building with red brick and tinted windows. In the front entrance, a directory board lists a dentist, two law offices and a company called something like Atlantic Solutions.
I see the entrance, Harrow Medical Associates. Suite 300.
The elevator smells like carpet cleaner. The third floor is quiet, most of the lights are off for the night. At the end of the hall, there’s a frosted glass door with a name stencilled on it.
I check my phone, 5:37pm.
I wait until the phone says 5:38pm, because being exactly on time feels very important.
Then I knock on the door.
“Hello?”
“Come in.”
I open the door and see a blonde nurse putting a file away in a drawer.
“You must be Cal, I’m Deb. I’m going to be doing your assessment today.”
“Ah, okay.”
She doesn’t ask for my ID. She proceeds to grab a blood pressure cuff, walks over and grabs my arm without asking.
“I’m gonna take your blood pressure first, then we will get started.”
She started squeezing the damn ball and I sat there. Pressure building every pump. Whatever. I can handle it. She writes something down and takes the cuff off.
“Okay. Now lay down on the bed for me, and I’ll be right back.”
“Uh, okay? What are you testing for?”
“This is the next stage of the assessment. Don’t worry, it will be over soon.”
I start to feel blood rush to my head. I have no control here, this is really starting to piss me off. It better be over soon. I lay down on the hospital bed.
It’s probably been five minutes since the nurse has been gone, I’m starting to doze off. I hold my eyes open, but before I know it they’re closing. I fight the gravity of my eyelids. They’re closed. It’s all darkness now, but it’ll just be for a moment. I’m just resting my eyelids.
The door knob starts to twist and the door swings open. My eyes dart open and over to the door, it’s the exhausted looking nurse, holding a syringe. Her eyes look lifeless and are completely black. She starts pacing fast towards me. I let out a bark of terror and start to panic. My arms and legs and bound to the hospital bed and I’m in a hospital gown. What the fuck. My eyes dart back to the nurse, her black eyes and massive discomforting smile. Then it hits me. Literally, the syringe goes into my shoulder and I let out the most blood curdling yelp I could ever belt out. The pain brings the darkness. I pass out.
***
I open my eyes to my own ceiling. Grey morning light filters through the blinds, through my room and onto my wall. My head is comfortably on my own pillow, it smells like my own pillow.
Thank god that was just a fucked up dream. That really had me pressed over. For a long second, I take a moment to breathe. A dream, obviously. A nurse with blacked out eyes, having me strapped to a hospital bed.
I laugh and it comes out shaky. Then I roll over and my shoulder lights up like someone pressed their thumb on a bruise. I check my arm and there’s nothing, no blood mark, no bruise. So they never took my blood.
I reach up and press my finger on my shoulder. There’s a tiny bump and a hard crusted, little red spot. Already scabbed over. Hm.
I get up and start walking to the shower when my phone starts to ring, so I pick it up, it’s Dale.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Home, why?”
“Why? It’s quarter after seven. You said you’d be here at seven. You texted me last night, ‘see you at seven, bud’ I’m standing here with an electrical sub like an idiot.”
“I’m sorry, it was a rough night.” I rub my eyes. “Hey, how’d the inspection go Thursday?”
Silence on the line.
“Thursday? Cal, you were here Thursday. You walked the inspector through the whole panel. He said it was the cleanest job he’s seen all year.”
“I was there..”
“You okay? You’ve been weird all weekend. Barely said two words at the barbecue.”
What barbecue?
“I’m fine. I’m on the way.”
I hang up the phone and stand in the hallway. What the hell? That’s when I see my boots. Side by side, with the laces tucked into the tops.
Boots tell the world who you are, boys.
I haven’t tucked in my laces since I was ten years old. I brush it off, put my boots on, grab my lunch and happen to look through the front of my window. I see my truck backed in perfectly to the driveway. I never back my truck in, I always park it nose first. I open my messages. Dozens of texts, and every reply seems eerily like my own. Sounds good. To Dale. Love you too. To Mom. A thumbs up on a photo from a barbecue that apparently I was in, standing in the corner edge of the picture holding a beer and smiling. I don’t remember that. Any of it. I’m freaking losing it.
Then I find a message I really don’t recognize. It’s a message that I sent to some unknown number. Sent at 5:38am.
I’ll be there.
And then there’s a reply underneath.
Good. See you tonight, Cal.
Four days, I’ve answered every text. I don’t remember a thing.
