The Age Read online

  She follows. “Where’s Megan?”

  “Powdering her nose.” He presses a finger to his nostril and sniffs.

  Gerry isn’t sure what he means. Behind the shield of the open trunk, he shows her the knapsack. The plain brown nylon exterior makes it look harmless, unremarkable. He reaches down for it. She stops him with her hand. “Here?”

  Andri scans the crowded parking lot, then looks at her, frowns as he studies her face. “Don’t worry. We look like everyone else.” He holds the bag out to her. “It won’t bite.”

  Ian leans on the car beside them, watches with his arms folded across his chest.

  The bag hangs on Andri’s curled fingers.

  Gerry nods. “The switch?”

  Andri pulls back the zipper. Hidden under a mess of spray paint cans, a baseball cap, the package looks identical to the wrapped box of chocolates. Andri eases it up, turns the package on end, and points to an inch-long strip of wired black plastic joined in two places. “Tear the tab, the timer starts.”

  She grazes the tab with her finger, feels its resistance, stiff but brittle. “What if it comes off?” A tragedy of timing only Henry would appreciate.

  “Then you’re dead,” Ian says.

  Andri’s face is serious. “It won’t. You have to pull hard to break the wire. Break it on both sides. Once that’s done, you have twelve minutes. Plenty of time.” He pushes the package to the bottom of the bag. “Now, look.” He unsnaps the knapsack’s front panel. “Money is here.” A torn white envelope, razor-blade edges of green bills.

  “Two hundred. Don’t forget to say that first. It makes the story more believable. A man offered you money to leave the package.” His eyes fix on her, unblinking, as if waiting for an answer. A pale line of skin trails over his ear.

  “You got a haircut.”

  Andri stares. His nostrils flare as he breathes. “Do you want to run through it one last time?”

  “No.”

  He lifts the bag onto her shoulders, tightens the straps until it clings to her. The weight is less than she expected.

  Hands rub over Gerry’s head. She turns to find Megan there, eyes blinking and bloodshot, mouth a crumpled smile.

  Megan sniffles, pinches absently at the tip of her nose. “I was worried you wouldn’t show.” Her face twitches, her hands fiddle, tug at the buttons and collar of Gerry’s jacket, the hem of her T-shirt. “Just do what we told you. Don’t think about it too much.”

  They hug, and Gerry presses her face into Megan’s neck, her skin damp with sweat. Megan’s body jitters, and Gerry feels her own nervousness boiling up, the morning’s shock threatening to shake loose. She hopes Megan can feel it, the way loss has twinned them, made them the same.

  “Good luck.” Megan says.

  Andri pats Gerry’s cheek. “Twelve minutes, don’t forget.” He winks as he slips into the crowd of strangers. Megan strides in the opposite direction.

  “It’s not too late.” Ian kicks the back of her foot.

  “No one’s asking you to hang around.” She grips the shoulder straps. The corners of the package nudge into the small of her back. From far away, a girl’s voice calls Ian’s name. Gerry swivels to look. Over a park bench, girls in familiar tartan skirts and knee socks prop their private school banner as if preparing for homecoming. “Did you know she was going to be here?”

  Ian ignores her question, slides his hand between the knapsack and her back. The unexpected touch soothes her. He bounces the bag twice, weighs it with his hand. “Feels heavy.”

  She steps away. “It’s not.” In the distance, Lark ducks under a bridge of arms, head bobbling as she approaches. For the first time, Gerry wonders if Ian has told Lark everything, if they will all go to jail because of him.

  He offers his hand. His fingers rake the air. “Why don’t you let me take it for a while.”

  “Why don’t you go stick it in your girlfriend.”

  Ian smirks. “Suit yourself.” He turns and jogs to meet Lark halfway. Together, they stroll to the other side of the parking lot, his hands jammed into his pockets.

  The knapsack pinches under her arms, warms her back. She opens her jacket, walks to get comfortable. People mill, anxious, bump as they pass. Drums, guitars, and, impossibly, a tuba play haltingly through the crowd, the brass instrument duct-taped to the body of a short, shaggy man in saffron pants. Signs rise and fall. Hands pass food, drink, joints, some play Hacky Sack, Frisbee, while eyes flit, everyone distracted as they work at killing time, wait for a signal.

  She finds her way back through the crowd to spy on Ian and Lark, finds them at the far edge of the parking lot. Lark stands with her hip cocked. Her hand slices the air as she talks. Ian shakes his head. Lark’s mouth flaps open and closed like a puppet’s. Ian shouts, and the arc of his voice carries back to Gerry. She waits for a rise of pleasure, the satisfaction of seeing them unhappy. When it doesn’t come, she squints, tries to soften their rigid postures and sharpened words. Lark grabs Ian’s arm, and he peels her hand away, throws it down. She calls out after him, pleading. He doesn’t turn around.

  Gerry blinks as Ian stalks toward her. “What was that?”

  He shrugs, feels for his cigarettes. “I dumped her.”

  “Why?”

  “Who cares?” He lights up. The cigarette hangs from his bottom lip. “Let me carry that thing, will ya?” His voice is forlorn, as if carrying the bag might console him.

  “No way.”

  Jets of smoke stream from his nostrils, his head a rocketship about to blast off. In front of them, the crowd shifts. A cluster swells, then begins to funnel out of the park in a slow shuffle step. Without warning or fanfare, the march is under way. He winces as he smokes. “I’m gonna find Megan. Stay here. Don’t go anywhere without me.”

  She watches him walk away. When he’s far enough, she sprints the short stretch of vacant grass to join the crowd.

  The procession has a wake of its own, an undertow that sucks her deep into its centre and bobs her along. The air thickens with the murmur of slogans. On the bridge, the crowd loosens and sprawls to fill the span. The knapsack holds snug against her. Above the inlet, clouds break to frame a swath of sky; in the harbour below, sailboats and power boats, perfect as toys, toot horns as their passengers wave. Strangers smile at one another, at her. She feels separate from them, the bodies around her like bodies in a dream.

  As the march crests the centre of the bridge, the skyline rises, apartments, office towers, sharpened rectangles of steel and glass. Cheers erupt. Despite his disdain for peaceniks and hippies, Henry might have enjoyed the view, storming the city. She tries to conjure him beside her, hairpiece thrust aloft, throat open in a battlecry, but he comes to her in mismatched pieces, the whir of his car window, the smell of his shoe polish, his disappointed grumble. A sudden gust of wind blows dust into the crowd. She closes her eyes, then forces herself to open them, blink, the grit like needles. The wind streaks her face with tears; the idea of never seeing him again so large, it fills her to overflowing.

  A lip of sidewalk snags her foot and she trips into the man in front of her. She sniffles as she apologizes, struggles to find her legs. Someone shoves her from behind, a hard thud that crushes the knapsack into her. She lurches toward the bridge rail, collects herself, eases the bag from her back, and unzips it. Inside, the package has upended, a corner of the wrapping torn back to reveal a mess of multicoloured wire. Air shudders out of her. Carefully, she smooths the paper, lifts a tab of sticky tape to hold it down. She rights the package and waits, hears only the rush of wind. A steady current of bodies drifts past her. Far below, waves batter the cement footings of the bridge. She zips the knapsack and slips it on. The bag exerts a tacky pressure, rubs her damp T-shirt into her skin. She joins the crowd in a quickened step, an automatic rhythm.

  Two blocks past Davie Street, in front of the hospital, the march stalls. The Nelson Street hill makes it impossible to see the hold up. When they are able to walk a few more steps, the
crowd applauds. The pace is haphazard, a step, then a pause, long seconds before the next shuffle forward.

  She ends up beside a group of musicians, bearded men who strum sad, melancholic folk songs. People join in to sing, eyes closed. Their voices carry her along.

  The block and a half to Nelson Street takes almost fifteen minutes. The hill’s apex reveals the delay: Burrard Street stretches six lanes wide, but Robson, narrow and shop-lined, cuts its flow to a two-lane trickle.

  The intersection thunders with protesters. Many stream off to flank the march, cheer the procession as it passes the glass-walled library. Library patrons, distracted by the commotion, fill the building’s ground-floor windows and second-floor balcony. On the street, squad cars flash red and blue lights, reinforce the intersection barricades. Policemen stand at the open doors of their cars, faces obscured by sunglasses, some with walkie-talkies in gloved hands, others with batons, noses to the air. She waits for them to sniff her out, beat her to the ground with their sticks. The noise of Robson Street cushions her, megaphones and drums, the mob roar of the crowd. As she passes the officers, she challenges their mirrored eyes, dares them to notice her. She drifts by unseen.

  Thousands cram the narrow Robson Street channel, some push to inch forward, most rest still against other bodies. Chanting becomes screaming, hoarse and incomprehensible. Groups lean together, arms around one another. Signs jump in rhythm, swing like weapons. Gerry threads her body through small breaks in the crowd, advances toward the middle of the block where shop windows no longer reflect flashes of red and blue.

  A rash of punks carves an aimless, chaotic path, elbow, spit, and kick their way through. Groups shout their disgust, push back with collective force. Bizarre confrontations erupt, two shorn and pierced girls scream in the face of a bookish man, a Mohawked boy snatches an elderly woman’s cane after she pokes him with it.

  A new faction penetrates the crowd, faces masked in white balaclavas, each one painted with the crude black hollows of a skull. They scuttle over newspapers boxes and fire hydrants, spray cans clipped to holsters around their waists. Squat legs and curled arms, they remind Gerry of monkeys as they hop from surface to surface. Storefronts advertise their handiwork, red anarchy symbols, bright yellow radiation signs. Across the street, two policemen on horseback sport white helmets with face shields, swing batons to corral the marchers. Their animals, dark and mammoth, sway with the movement of the crowd. Juice boxes and pop cans fly at the uniformed men. The officers remain stoic in their saddles.

  Gerry eyes the crush of bodies in the street. She could cut north, cross the road for a better chance at the laneway. Groups link arms to create human chains, others heave as a mass, their force rolling through the crowd like a riptide. Even if she squeezes through with the knapsack, a policeman on horseback stands between her and the laneway entrance.

  She searches for a new route, but police hover at every exit path, seal in the crowd. Behind her, masked skeletons spray neon skulls and crossbones onto shop windows, shimmy up lampposts to escape the police, who ease their horses forward in tentative steps. Above the street, skeletons hang from the curved necks of streetlights, jeer and shake their fists. Charged and inspired, others split from the crowd, climb anything they can, garbage cans, parking meters, fire hydrants, spindly trees planted at intervals on the sidewalk. They trample the hoods and trunks of cars parked on the march route. The police steer their horses at a lethargic pace, wheedle delinquents from their perches, pry at them with batons. A half-block away, she spots Ian and Megan waving to get her attention as they struggle to push past bodies. Ian points for Gerry to stay put. Gerry nods to show she’s understood.

  From high above, voices holler. A skater boy with a shaved head dangles by his knees and hands from the lamppost beside her. His sway and the crane of Gerry’s neck make her woozy.

  Bodies part a narrow path as a policeman wades his horse through the crowd. The animal glides, nostrils shiny with mucus. The officer points his baton at Gerry. She waits, readies herself to turn and run. He stops beneath the swinging boy, snatches at him with a gloved hand. The boy torques his body beyond the policeman’s grasp, his mouth wide open and crooked with mock fear. She smells smoke, charred salt air. Across the street a garbage can has been set on fire. The policeman smells it too, wrenches around in his saddle, shouts to the crowd, his commands disintegrating just past his lips. On the sidewalk, Ian and Megan have stopped moving, their eyes on the policeman.

  Above him, the boy frees something from his pocket, a frayed, dark string. Gerry has to squint to see it, Christmas lights or a rope to lash himself in place. For a terrifying second, the boy hangs only by the cross of his legs, flicks a lighter in the cup of his palms. She imagines him slipping, the watery thump of his skull on the road. A spark sizzles in the boy’s hand. He tosses the string out over the crowd and it bounces across heads and shoulders. People try to bat away the fizzing wick. Gerry plugs her ears.

  Clatter rings out like gunfire. The crowd shrieks and screams. Those beneath the exploding string scramble. Startled by the noise, the policeman’s horse rears, forelegs scraping the air. Its hooves smash down through the windshield of a parked MG. The horse rears again, bares its teeth as it brays, one leg torn and bloody. The noise of the crowd is a rolling vibration that echoes in Gerry’s chest. Invisible drums beat faster, manic rhythms. Across the street the fire simmers, the second floors of shops obscured by a steady stream of smoke. The policeman fights to control his horse. It shakes its head, stumbles backward into the crowd, lopes a drunken figure-eight. Gerry covers her mouth against the ammonia stench of its piss. Linked chains of bodies break and scatter to give the animal room. Those forced too close cover their heads and faces with their arms, clamour to move as the animal knocks them off their feet.

  Ian and Megan stand mesmerized by the horse.

  The skater boy begins to slide down the post. His body stutters as he tries to control his descent. Gerry steps away, pushes back toward the shops. Another policeman on horseback intercepts the boy, yanks a small canister from his belt, and sprays the boy in the face. The boy screams and claws at his eyes. He lands hard on the glass-strewn hood of the MG, writhes like a swatted insect.

  The smell, like burning nail polish, then vomit stabs at Gerry’s nostrils, stings her eyes, sends her back to the acrid smell of Henry’s house in flames, her cheers and applause. Shame burns up in her cheeks. She holds her jacket sleeve over her face, and the knapsack shifts against her back. The hard corners of the package dig through the canvas.

  A man in glasses and a torn plaid shirt lunges for the policeman, grips his saddle, and hangs from the horse. The officer aims his canister, but a girl with bead-woven braids swings her straw bag and knocks it out of the policeman’s hand. She seizes the officer’s arm and tries to hoist herself onto his horse. His uniform sleeve tears and she falls back. Hands reach up from the crowd and grip what they can of the officer, boot, belt, pockets. A small group chants, “Down! Down! Down! Down!” The policeman swipes at them with his baton, his horse backsteps a small, nervous circle. Policemen on foot try to move into the street; the dense crowd fights to hold them back. Gerry stares at the unguarded laneway but can’t will her legs to move. Protestors pull the policeman from his horse, hit him with fists and bags, kick him where he lays. The beaded-haired girl stands up from the crush, raises the officer’s helmet in the air. As she lowers it over her face, the crowd cheers.

  Gerry steps down into the street. A hard pull on the knapsack tips her backward. A hand catches her shoulder, steadies her. “Don’t bother!” Ian shouts over the noise.

  She twists away from him, tries to quell the relief his presence triggers.

  “They’ve blocked it off at Bute.” He nods to a cluster of policemen.

  Megan scans the street, her face lit with excitement. Back by the library, police tear down barricades, open the area for people to turn and filter away. A few straggle through, but most stay. Gerry waits for Megan to sa
y something, but Megan only claps her hands, distracted by the movement of the crowd. She cheers as marchers unify their voices into a single roar. Police megaphones squawk with feedback, garble instructions lost under the crowd’s swell. Human chains reconnect and brace. Row after row, protesters secure the street as their own. Megan rubs at her face, the skin blotched around her mouth and nose. Her eyes leak tears.

  “Are you okay?” Gerry says.

  Megan shakes her head. “Isn’t this amazing!”

  “Do not advance.” An amplified voice announces. “The march is over. Disperse immediately.” Near Bute Street, police handcuff protesters, haul struggling bodies to the empty space beyond the barricade.

  “We need to get out of here.” Ian says.

  “It’s just getting started.” Megan’s voice carries on a laugh.

  Gerry watches an old woman fight being handcuffed. As she’s dragged away, her shoes come loose and roll in the street. Closer by, skeletons overturn newspaper boxes, uproot the saplings planted along the sidewalk.

  Megan grins. “Clem would have loved this. Fucking anarchy.”

  Amidst the noise and chaos, Gerry can’t imagine Clem feeling anything but terrified. Megan steps toward her, squeezes her shoulders. “You’re doing so great.” Gerry closes her eyes, lets her hand drift to Megan’s waist, trace the curve to her ribs. The closeness leaves Gerry pulpy, liquefied, her mouth slack. She opens her eyes, afraid already of Megan’s disappointment. She points to the blocked laneway. “I don’t think I can make it through.”

  Megan nods.

  “The cops are too close.” Ian holds out his hand. “Give me the bag.”

  Gerry looks to Megan.

  “He’s right. We’re going to run out of time.” Megan surveys the block, huffs as if trying to catch her breath. “We have to do it here.”

  A flush of red rises in Ian’s face. “Are you crazy?”

  Megan clenches and twists her own fingers in a way that looks painful to Gerry.

  “That’s not the plan.” Gerry says it gently, to remind her.