Vanity.
When Reg was courting his wife-to-be, he thought he should spiff himself up a bit, so, being frugal but optimistic, he went to Value Village, a former grocery store now filled with mildewed socks and blouses and plastic kitchenware. He found a pair of mint condition-unworn!-black shoes in his size for a dollar forty-nine. Whooee! He was so proud of those shoes, and he wore them out of the store, into the rain where he was to meet his gal, just getting off her shift at Nuffy’s Donuts. He walked into the donut shop, where even ugly yellow fluorescent tubes couldn’t diminish her complexion. She was putting a jacket over her work uniform. She looked down and said, “What the jeez happened to your feet?” His feet had turned into bundles of soggy paper. The shoes he’d purchased were mortuary shoes, designed only for open coffins, never to be worn by the living. Cheapness and vanity.
Your mother.
She’s technically alive, but she isn’t really here, she is far gone in her alcoholic dementia, her liver on its final boozy gasp. I take the blame-I liked her drunk, because she was a quiet and amiable drunk. When she was drunk, her eyes lost that accusatory look. When she was drunk, she gave the impression she’d ride life unchanged right through to the end, that her life was spiritually adequate, that she wore a crown of stars. This drunken look absolved me of all the guilt I felt regarding the slow-motion demolition of the once pretty girl who always saved two Boston creme donuts for me, and who unashamedly loved color TV, and who (and this is the hard part) seemed spiritual in a way that didn’t make me want to preach to her. She could have married any man she wanted, but she chose Reg Klaasen…. Why? Because she thought I was spiritual, too. I don’t know when it dawned on her that I wasn’t, that I was merely someone whose vocabulary was slightly old-fashioned, and whose ideas were stolen almost entirely from dead people. I suppose that would be when she started drinking, just after you were born and she had a hysterectomy. It must have been devastating to her, to realize she’d hitched herself to a religious fraud. And I led her on-that’s my own disgrace. And now her life’s basically over. I visit her twice a month at the facility near Mount Seymour Parkway. The first time I went there I was unsure whether I should go. I was convinced she’d throw an IV-tree at me, or go into hysterics like Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer, but instead she smiled and said she had some donuts tucked away for me, and then she kept on saying it, with no OFF switch, and that was the worst rebuke of all.
Kent.
When Kent died, I found that physically leaving earth was a desirable notion. I was at work when I learned of his death, out by the front reception area trying to unjam a roll of fax paper. I was irritated and I’d told the receptionist to put me on speakerphone, and that’s where I was when Barb’s mother told me. I fell to my knees and I saw a wash of light, and then I saw a fleet of dazzling metal spaceships, like bullets aimed at the sun, and I wanted to walk toward them and get inside one, and leave everything behind. And then the everyday world returned. I’d had that vision, the only vision I’ve ever had, but it told me nothing and offered no comfort. So, what good was that? And what was left in my life? At the funeral you shunned me, as did your mother. I can’t say I blame you. My family in the Valley? They’re junkyard dogs now, what’s left of them. And then last year you vanished, and all that remains are the twins-the spitting image of you, I might add. And there’s Barb, grudgingly, and (I’m not stupid) only at the behest of Heather. Heather is a fine woman, a woman you’re so lucky to have had enter your life: a heart as big as the Hoover Dam, and a soul as clear as ice cubes.
I sound maudlin here. I don’t want that. I’m not striving for effect, and I’m not drunk. But to spit things out in a list like this is humbling. Lists only spell out the things that can be taken away from us by moths and rust and thieves. If something is valuable, don’t put it in a list. Don’t even say the words.
Ruth.
There. And she’s gone, too. She was the trumpet that returned me from the dead. I know you must have seen her photo that day when you came to fetch things at my apartment-you never missed a trick of mine. So you know what she looked like, large but not fat-you’d never describe her as plump-with hair the color of rich soil and-Cripes, listen to me discuss this woman like a 4-H Club sow.
By the time you saw her photo we’d been dating-what a silly word-for years. We met at an insurance seminar downtown, where she gave a short speech on insuring the elderly, and I liked her because she had a sense of humor in the face of that day’s technical blathering. I also learned from her that I have a hint of a sense of humor myself. Yes, I can already see your face puckering with disbelief. So be it.
I lost Ruth for two reasons, the first of which was the seed of the second: I didn’t want to take her to Kent’s funeral; why, I don’t know. I could plead crazed grief, but even still. She said I was ashamed because I was still married to your mother, and that I had a schoolboy’s shame that people would stare at us and imagine the two of us making love out of wedlock. How pathetic. And she was right. Ruth was always right. But she was a deep believer, too, and willing to endure my crotchety trespasses.
When you went missing, I fell apart, although I doubt you’ll believe that. Two sons gone-how is a man supposed to feel? Ruth was a help at first, but then she learned I was still going to visit your mother twice a month, and she told me it was time I divorced your mother and married her. I ought to have hired a skywriting jet to say YES. But no. I said that marriage was until death-this from a man who went for a decade not communicating with his wife. Such a hypocrite.
We were in the Keg at the foot of Lonsdale when she told me her stance, and I told her of my counter-decision. For the first time since I’d known her, she froze me out. For Kent’s funeral she’d showed me forgiveness, but that night in the restaurant? She went crazy with a calm face, justifiably so. We’d shared so much, and to have our bank of memories turned against me? Ruth had no idea that even though I was sitting there with zucchini sticks and dipping sauce in front of me, blinking my eyes, in my mind I was already dead, and I was standing at the gates of heaven, the way I’d always imagined the first part of death to be like, being shown a film clip version of my life-a naïve vision, but one common to men of my age. Even after all I’d been through, I’d still assumed I’d sail through those gates; such presumption is itself a sin. But as Ruth listed smaller reasons for leaving me, I knew I was further away from the gates than I’d ever dreamed. I had always believed I’d been leading an upstanding life, immune to all forms of interrogation, but among other things, Ruth told me I thought like an infant, that I was confusing what I thought was right with what God thought was right, and that I was harder to please than God, and who exactly did I think I was? And then she told me that she was leaving, and that once she was out the door I would never be loved by anybody ever again, and that I’d brought all of this upon myself.
Have you ever known what it’s like to be loved by nobody? Maybe you have, but no, that’s not possible, because your mother never failed you. Me? I didn’t know what to do-I was shattered, and in a moment of weakness I phoned your Heather. I arrogantly assumed that because her family all lived far away, she must feel equally unloved from her side-and in this I was correct, but she said I didn’t have to feel guilty for calling her for that reason.
It’s strange, but once you begin to confess your weaknesses, one confession leads to another, and the effect is astonishingly liberating. At my age, it was a little like having food poisoning-all that bile and poison sprayed out of me in every direction-a process that took a few weeks as Heather and I tried to find you. It wasn’t until I felt emptied of lies and weaknesses that, as with recovering from a poisoning, I felt mending begin.
Heather.
I want to discuss that false psychic you paid to bring Heather messages from the dead. It was a thoughtful idea, but one that backfired and then, ultimately, in its own way, frontfired, giving Heather more hope than you’d imagine. But, Lord Almighty, did that psychic woman
pull a number on Heather! Right from the get-go she began extorting money-thousands. People like that woman make it clear just how asinine it is to believe that human beings have some kind of built-in universal sense of goodness. These days I think that everybody’s just one spit away from being a mall bomber. People say sugary nice things all the time, but believe none of it. See how many weapons people have stockpiled; inspect their ammo cache; read their criminal records; get them drunk and bring up God; and then you really know what it is you have to protect yourself from. Forget intentions-learn the deeds of which they’re capable.
Anyway, in the end, Heather twigged onto this psychic’s game plan. In doing so she told me about your characters; I had no idea you had this other world inside your head, and if you ever read these words, I imagine you’ll blush as you do so, but don’t. Froggles! Bonnie! Gerard! The characters are pure delight-they’re lime sherbet and maraschino cherries-they’re almost holy. Your characters-that was the sort of thing I ought to have been telling you at bedtime rather than squeezing out of you your daily list of trespasses. God, I was a grim old sucker. Just so you know, Heather quit her job at the courts, and she’s now working full-time making children’s books using your characters. They’re good little books, and one might even be published locally. Heather and Barb allow me to read them to the twins, so I come out of this a winner. And again, I have to say how much the twins resemble you. I wonder what Kent would have thought? He’s fading from my memory, you know. Sometimes I have to work to conjure up his face or his voice. I oughtn’t be telling you that, because it means that I’ll forget your face and voice someday, too. (But don’t take it that way.)
I’m in a Kinko’s writing this. I haven’t said that yet. It’s downtown and open twenty-four hours. It’s maybe one A.M. and I’m the only customer here on this side of the store. Two other people-homesick German tourists, I’m guessing-are across the room trying to send a fax.
I think heaven must be a little bit like this place-everybody with a purpose, in a beautiful clean environment. They even have those wonderful new full-spectrum lights that make you look like you’ve just returned from a stroll in an Irish mist.
Why am I here? I’m here because I still don’t have a computer, and I’m here writing this because today I got a call from the RCMP out in Chilliwack. They called to say that they’d found your “highly weathered” flannel shirt, and in its pocket, your Scotiabank debit card. It was tangled in some bulrushes in a swamp beside a forest out there, found by some kids shooting BB guns. I asked the RCMP if they were going to organize a manhunt, and while they didn’t laugh aloud, they made it clear that one was not being planned. How dare they. All they gave me was a map.
And so I’m typing this letter out. I’m going to print it and make a thousand copies, and come sunrise I’m going to go out to that swamp and its surrounding forest and I’m going to tack these letters onto the trees there with a pack of brightly colored tacks I saw up by the front desk when I registered to use this machine.
I know that kind of forest so well, and at this time of year, too: spiderwebs vacant, their builders snug inside cocoons; sumac and vine maples turned yellow and red, smelling like chilled candy. The hemlocks and firs and cedars, evergreen but also everdark. The way sounds turn into shadows, and how easy it is to stay hidden forever should that be your wish. You’re the Sasquatch now, searching for someone to take away your loneliness, dying as you live with your sense of failed communion with others. You’re hidden but you’re there, Jason. And I clearly remember from when I was growing up, the Sasquatch was never without hope, even if all he had to be hopeful about was bumping into me one day. But isn’t that something?
You might ask me whether I still believe in God; I do-and maybe not even in the best sense of the word “believe.” In the end, it might boil down to some sort of insurance equation to the effect that it’s three percent easier to believe than not to believe. Is that cynical? I hope not. I may sell insurance, but I grieve, I accept. I rebel. I submit. And then I repeat the cycle. I doubt I can ever believe with the purity of heart your Cheryl once had.
Cheryl.
We never once spoke about her. We never even spoke, period. I never told you that her mother phoned me about eight years ago-I’m listed in the book-and she said that until that day she’d always believed you were involved in the shootings, but then, “It’s the funniest thing. I was making coffee this morning, I went to put an extra apple in Lloyd’s attaché case, because the apples are so good this time of year, and inside his case, between two folders was a paperback about the massacre, and it was open to the page with Jason’s photo-I hadn’t seen that image in years. I don’t know why, but I finally realized Jason was innocent.” Stupid, stupid woman, but a woman whose daughter was lost in the worst imaginable way. As you were never a father, you can never imagine what it is to lose your child. That’s not a challenge-how grotesque if it were. It’s a simple statement of fact.
But I haven’t lost you, my son. No no no. And you will find one of these letters. I know you will. You never missed a trick of mine, so why stop now? And when you do find this letter, you know what? Something extraordinary will happen. It will be like a reverse solar eclipse-the sun will start shining down in the middle of night, imagine that!-and when I see this sunlight it will be my signal to go running out into the streets, and I’ll shout over and over, “Awake! Awake! The son of mine who once was lost has now been found!” I’ll pound on every door in the city, and my cry will ring true: “Awake! Everyone listen, there has been a miracle-my son who once was dead is now alive. Rejoice! All of you! Rejoice! You must! My son is coming home!”
A Note on the Author
Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces base in Baden-Söllingen, Germany, on December 30, 1961. He is the author of the novels Miss Wyoming, Generation X, Microserfs and Girlfriend in a Coma, among others. His most recent books are the novel All Families Are Psychotic and a book of essays and photographs, Souvenir of Canada. He attended Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, the Hokkaido College of Art and Design in Sapporo, Milan’s Istituto Europeo di Design and the Japan/ America Institute of Management Science in Honolulu and Tokyo. He lives and works in Vancouver as a novelist and visual artist.
By the Same Author
Fiction:
Generation X
Shampoo Planet
Life After God
Microserfs
Girlfriend in a Coma
Miss Wyoming
All Families Are Psychotic
Nonfiction:
Polaroids from the Dead
City of Glass
Souvenir of Canada
praise for Hey Nostradamus!
“Beautiful and melancholic, like the sight of birds migrating at the end of summer, Hey Nostradamus! shows Coupland doing what he’s best at: creating characters who are questing but foredoomed, romantic but sad, all of them floundering between desire and requital.”
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
“[Coupland] gets us thinking about spirituality and the meaning of life, and no matter how bad things get, when you put the book down you can’t help but feel hope, which is a comfort.”
The Georgia Straight
“His best novel yet…an outstanding work that crackles in every sentence.”
Irish Independent
“Coupland’s writing is brilliant.”
The Daily News (Halifax)
“Coupland has come of age in Hey Nostradamus!—a controlled diamond-tip that drills to the heart of the human condition…. At turns harrowing and uplifting, it never ceases to engage the heart and mind, and leaves us safe in the knowledge that even through so much raw devastation, time does heal.”
Sunday Tribune (Dublin)
“Coupland has become a master of suspense and pacing. Hey Nostradamus! is a cannily crafted page-turner. There’s always the feeling that something is just around the bend: catharsis, comprehension, a good plot twist…. The s
tory is riveting, with just enough fucked-up touches to make it surreally believable…. An excellent, skillfully written story.”
NOW (Toronto)
“Hey Nostradamus! is a cathartic read, because Coupland is clearly not a writer prone to sitting alone in his ivory tower. His world is a fully interactive one that allows him as easily to slip into the skin of a pretty young girl as that of a stubborn old man.”
Financial Times (UK)
“Drily witty at times, but also serious, involved and compassionate…. [Hey Nostradamus! is] the work of an author who has reached a new level of maturity, more skilled at crafting characters and restrained enough to apply his famous wit unobtrusively.”
The Herald (Glasgow)
“Douglas Coupland has surely reserved his place at the top table of North American fiction.”
Independent on Sunday (UK)
“Moving and tenderly beautiful…. replete with Coupland’s breath taking observations on consumer culture.”
The Vancouver Sun
“Fate is the psychological trigger in this often-hilarious novel, and Coupland knows when to trip the emotional safety catch.”
Elle Canada
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Douglas Coupland
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in 2003 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United States by Bloomsbury, and in the United Kingdom by Harper Flamingo. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.