Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

* * *
I won my apartment in a poker game, from Dennis, a concrete pourer who'll spend the rest of his life
losing his apartments in poker games. He's that kind of guy. The place is nicer than something I would
have found on my own; I even have a balcony the size of a card table, which I've managed to ruin with
failed houseplants and empty bottles that will someday enter the downstairs recycling bins. It looks out on
the rear of small shops on Marine Drive, and beyond that to English Bay - the Pacific - and the rest of the
city across the bay.
I checked my messages. The first was from Les, reminding me to bring the nail gun for tomorrow's job,
which is framing in a towel cabinet for a real estate tycoon's fantasy bathroom. The second message was
from Chris, Cheryl's brother, saying that he can't risk leaving the U.S. for tonight's memorial because if
they catch him either coming or going across the border, that's the end of his visa, which he needs to
design spreadsheets, whatever they are, down in Redwood City, wherever that is. The third was from my
mother, saying she didn't think she could handle the memorial. The fourth was her again, saying that she
thought she could. The fifth call was a hang-up with five seconds of bar noise. The sixth was Nigel, a
contractor buddy from a recent project who doesn't yet know I'm a living monkey's paw, asking me if I
want to shoot some pool tonight. Soon enough Nigel will learn about my "story," and then he'll go buy a
cheapo massacre exploitation paperback in some secondhand bookstore. His behavior around me will
change: he'll walk on eggshells, and then he'll want to discuss life after death, crop circles, gun laws,
Nostradamus or stuff along those lines, and then I'll have to drop him as a friend because he'll know way
more about me than anyone ought to know, and the imbalance is, as I age, more of a pain than anything
else. I don't want or need it.
Call seven is my mother again, asking me to phone her. I do.
"Mom."
"Jason."
"You feeling weird about tonight?"
"Someone has to take care of the twins. I thought maybe I could take the twins off Barb's hands for the
evening."
"Kent's friends have probably sorted that out weeks ago. You know what they're like." "I guess so."
"How about I drive you." "Could you?" "Sure."
* * *
Okay.
After leaving the cafeteria, I walked out onto the sunlit concrete plaza, where I turned around and saw
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