Spiral
The ceiling at Bar Zinc was composed of one hundred years of sun-bleached plastic bric-a-brac circling a drain. Epoxied above the gray metal bar were hundreds of Christmas ornaments, a few harlequin masks, several model trucks and cars, dozens of plastic dolls and doll parts, toy guns, a plastic tricycle, a plastic sled, several games and game pieces, mobile phone pieces, broken tablets, a plastic palm tree, several plastic flamingos, toy shovels and buckets, ragged inline skates, toy hammers, saws, wrenches, badges, helmets, model houses, plastic dogs, cats, cows, horses and birds, various shapes of dice, tops, fake coins, flat vinyl dresses, a couple of mini plastic records, and hundreds of rattles, pacifiers, and baby bottles. The artist had found all of these items on the shores of Acadie, and hauled them here via her work-trike to glue them to the ceiling. The entirety of her work was laid out in a great spiral, ending above a white spherical hanging lamp.
Matthew thought he could sense a pattern to the field of detritus. He felt certain that sections were organized by genre and age, and others by manufacturer. He spent his spare minutes, leaning on his broom, looking up at the washed-up trash, looking for patterns. He thought could spend years generating his own account of a lost culture from the swirling detritus hovering above the heads of the bar's graying patrons.
Zinc was on the Boulevard Saint Laurent, one floor above street level in the Free City of Montreal, capital of the Commune of Quebec. His uncle Charlie was the bartender most nights here. Charlie had convinced the owner, Jean-Philippe to give Matthew the position of busboy and dishwasher when the job opened up. Charlie had assumed the surname of Dent upon his arrival decades ago. He was well loved by all the clientele.
The patrons at Zinc were a mix of young and old, but mostly old. Matthew thought he had never before seen so many people over 40. It rarely occurred to him when he was among the Interconnected that everyone he knew was young. During one of his breaks, shortly after finding his uncle and gaining employment here, he asked him why the bar had so many older customers.
"That's the way it is here," Charlie responded, drying a glass, "people of a certain age are afraid of joining the augmenté, and have no particular love for les voyous or les royalistes. Quebec's a protected haven for les anachroniques. We have one of a few remaining governments. There's a working legal system and a volunteer army. It also helps that the weather here's cooler. Gets too damn hot down south for most of my customers."
"But how does the government survive in the absence of currency?" Matthew couldn't help but fall into his old inquisitive habits.
"It's based on the old Paris commune, not cold war communism, but an insular system of scrip. It's doled out to us for our basic needs. Frankly, I think it only works because the population is so old. Everyone here seems happy to live on a budget."
"But how does the farming get done? Transportation? Without young people, who does the manual labor?" Matthew was fascinated.
"The hard work's automated, but that usually happens out of sight. No one here likes to think about the robots. For example, there are a few restaurants where drinks and food are dispensed automatically, but thankfully, most people prefer a human being to serve them. Jean-Philippe makes sure most things are done by hand in his bar."
Jean-Philippe liked to cook, and when he was in the kitchen, the food was excellent. The rest of the time, it was pretty bland, delivered to be heated up by Charlie or Matthew or whoever was on staff. No doubt, it was prepared by bot somewhere out of sight.
Matthew arrived in Montreal at the onset of winter. Upon leaving his unicycle in Montpellier, he shut off his implants and tracked down a small busload of elderly people heading north. They let him aboard without any questions. The customs booth at the border to Quebec was all automated, the entry queries were trivial. Matthew used the name, Matthew LaCompte. The robot waived him through.
Quebec was colder than he imagined. Upon his arrival to Montreal, he applied for refugee status in the ancient state house and was granted space in a crowded warehouse with other asylum seekers. Having spent his life among the Interconnected, he wasn't disturbed by the close quarters and open rows of cots. It was far less crowded than sleeping in one of the storm shelters in Sherwood or Reverside. He was given some scrip, a warm coat and a pair of boots. He spent his days wandering the city, looking for his mother or his uncle. He had an image of his uncle Charlie saved from his mother's message. He applied various aging programs to it so he could recognize him when he saw him. He created a similar model of his mother, from his memory of her at the ruined box store and on the airplane. He spent his free time at night modifying and remodeling these personas so he would be able to spot them. One day he walked into Zinc and saw his uncle Charlie tending bar.
The bar itself was, as advertised, made of five long polished slabs of zinc. The wood supporting these slabs had been rebuilt once or twice, but Matthew was told the bar itself had been in the same location for over seventy years. Behind it, Charlie served apple brandy, cider, cannabinoid tea, as well as regular tea and coffee when it was available. Some of the older patrons sucked on a vaporizing hookah that dispensed an opioid smog. "To relieve the aches and pains of old age," Charlie had told him. There were whiskey, beer, and wine as well, but that cost more scrip. Those items were imported.
Nearer the windows, overlooking the park, there were sofas, chairs, and low tables, set up salon style. The patrons tended to get more amorous and wild as the night wore on. Extreme displays of public affection were not uncommon. Matthew was tasked with arranging screens between the sofas and the bar when things got out of hand. This prevented the younger clientele from witnessing the unpleasant reality of geriatric sex.
The music came from an old world set of speakers, continuously refurbished by the owner, connected to a meticulously maintained pair of turntables. Each night, someone new stood behind the desk in front of shelves of old vinyl and spun the records. It was a coveted job. Matthew wanted badly to try his hand at it but had been repeatedly turned down. He continued to hope that he might be given a chance to play the old recordings. He had become familiar with the entire collection at this point, making a mental note of each jacket and album in rotation, as he cleaned the glasses and plates, and swept the floor.
The DeeJay this evening, a short dark haired woman in her twenties had just set the needle down on "Europa and The Pirate Twins" from "The Golden Age of Wireless." Matthew looked up the title browsing the local Quebec network. He had a theory that the DeeJay was being ironic with her selection. Giving a knowing glance in her direction, he sent her a private message: ["Thomas Dolby? How apropos!"] but got no response either physically or virtually.
There were isolated groups of the Interconnected here, likely among the younger population. Everyone he managed to reach out to seemed too aloof or too frightened to share their identities. There was no system of Merit in place, only local information, discussion, games and mutual fantasies. Matthew couldn't guess whether these communities would someday grow into tribes, or if they would stay hidden on the fringes of this society, but he was able to use his limited connection to look up song titles, translate words from French to English, and find out where to get the best bagels and ice cream, which were specialties in Montreal.
At closing time, he ate. Jean-Philippe was not in the kitchen, and the food was immediately forgettable. He was getting a taste for the cider though. He tried to limit his intake to one pint a night, failing at this more often than not.
When the clock behind the bar struck two, Charlie made a show of winding it up with an oversized key kept on a shelf below, announcing to the dizzy patrons that it was time to assemble themselves and head on home. "Peu importe où vous allez, mais vous ne pouvez pas dormir ici."
'Namportou,' thought Matthew. He missed his friends. He missed Helen. 'She's safer now,' he thought. Still, their time together lingered in his memory like the sweet taste of cider turning sour in his mouth.
They closed up the bar and donned their coats. Charlie walked Matthew halfway through the park before turning off to his own apartment. The early spring air was brisk in these pre-dawn hours.
"I'm off tomorrow and the next day. I'm headed away from the city with Bettina. See you Wednesday, Matthew. You okay on your own?"
"I'm fine uncle Charlie. You ask me that every night. I get a day off myself after tomorrow." Matthew found it hard to work on a schedule.
"You should get out of town a bit too. See the countryside. It's nice."
"I might do that," Matthew said, knowing he wouldn't do that. "Have a good time."
"A bientôt," Charlie said, waving his hand over his head as he walked away.
Matthew's flat was on the top floor of an old red brick building seven blocks past the park on Avenue Wiseman. He rented the apartment from a couple who lived on the bottom two floors. They were given permission by the city to let out some of their space. It seemed to Matthew that there was some capitalistic wiggle room in the commune. He couldn't get a grasp of how it all worked.
His mother sat in a chair in the larger of the apartment's two rooms. She had a bound set of papers in her lap; a printed transcript of Episode two of his tour. The West Coast, Matthew remembered; so beautiful and expansive. That tour had been a bold step for him.
"How on earth did you get away from those Raiders out west?" she asked him, looking up as he entered. "I just read the part where they took you from the house outside Olympia."
"Well, those Raiders weren't like the ones we have back east you know. They were actually pretty friendly once we got to know each other. I don't want to give too much away, but they gave me a ride down the coast. I would never have made the whole journey on my bicycle. They were a big help."
"I love the part about the hot air balloons up near Vancouver. I've never been in one, you know. That must have been exciting." She rocked in the chair a bit.
"It was the first time I had ever been up in the air," Matthew started, but remembered the crashed airplane, "that I could remember at that point, anyway."
"These travels were from before I started following you," his mother had a smile that reminded him of his own smile, glimpsed from the point of view of his friend Lala. "Did you ever suspect I was one of your followers?"
"Not for a moment," Matthew replied. "I had no idea you were even alive then, or that you were my real mother."
"Yes, well I suppose that makes sense." She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "How was work?"
"You know, I'm still getting used to it. I think this is a very strange way to live. I wish I could share the oddness of it with everyone." Matthew looked up his Merit, drawing a blank, and then remembering. "That's what I miss the most now. I wish I could document what I'm doing here. I know my followers would have found it interesting."
His mother's expression darkened. "Well, I've told you how sorry I am for all that. I don't know what more I can say on the subject." She looked toward the silent avenue, where nothing was happening. "How is Charlie doing?"
Matthew got a glass from the shelf and went into the bathroom for some water. "He's good. Going away with his girlfriend for a couple of days. Didn't say where."
He watched his mother close the binder and place it on the bare table. "Ah, so he didn't invite you along?"
"No, I think we get enough time together at work," Matthew said, knowing what his mother meant. Charlie kept him at a distance. However helpful he had been, he was not very friendly. "By the way, I'm glad you've managed to refrain from burning the city to the ground, in my absence."
"Not funny, Matthew. Reyleena should never have shared all of that with you. I'm not a terrorist," she grinned, "when I can help it."
"Do you have any plans for tomorrow?" Matthew asked, knowing the answer.
"I suppose I will finish reading this episode. After that, I have no plans." She remained seated. "It's almost morning. You should get some rest."
"Of course. Goodnight, mother."
"Goodnight, Marto."
The painting of a young man riding a unicycle hung in a frame, centered on the wall behind her head. Marto turned off the single light in the small room, sending the commands ["save"] and ["exit"] to the flickering construct of his mother. She vanished.
In the place where the binder was, now sat a simple notebook. He opened it to a blank page and he added some thoughts.
I'm sure I will eventually become accustomed to this cold, dim way of life, but tonight is hard. How do people live like this, making their way from one task to another without knowing real intimacy, real community? I know that this was the way people spent their lives before the Interconnection, but to live it day in and day out seems unbearably dreadful. Life here is stable and safe, but the dullness of it eats at my heart. I write again and again to no one for the purpose of nothing. How I miss the thoughts of others.
To stay here is hard, but to return could be suicide. Worse would be to see myself despised by the people I love for something I knew nothing about and have no way to change. Worse still, it might bring harm to those who knew me, Helen especially. Her upbringing may have already put her in jeopardy, but any further association with a son of the Defilers could trigger a brutal witch hunt. I can only hope she is okay.
What part of me still carries the reckless greed of my family? Is there a hidden evil lingering in my blood? If given the chance, would I rise up and despoil the world again like my foremothers and forefathers?
Perhaps I would be welcomed back if I revealed myself in one of the brittle Traditionalist hamlets. Lo! Behold! The landlord's son lives and has come to reclaim his kingdom! How dare you servants sleep in the Master's bed! Down to the kitchen with you! Bring me my goblet! Gardeners, return to your gardening! Lawyers, return to your lawyering! The Master has returned!
Stories that begin this way seldom end well.
– Marto, né Matthew, private journal, page 21
There was a cup of cold tea by his bed. He put down the water and sipped the tea. Alone in the dark, he listened to a garbage collector guiding itself along the sidewalk outside. Bluejays mimicked the whine of its engine along with the songs of sparrows and chickadees. Above the rooftops, the overcast spring sky glowed dark red; dimly reflecting the joyous ferocity of the hidden sun.
END
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