Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland
Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland
Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland
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"Barb?"<br />
"Go now. Because I'll break you in two. I will."<br />
"Is this really - "<br />
"Don't go meek on me now, you sadistic bastard."<br />
I'd seen this side of Barb before and knew she would push this situation way further if she wanted to.<br />
Riley made some gesture to stand between her and my father. I went over to Barb and tried removing the<br />
chair from her grip, but she clutched it using every sinew she'd developed as captain of the girls' field<br />
hockey team.<br />
"Barb. No."<br />
"You heard what he said."<br />
"He's not worth the effort."<br />
"He should die for the things he's done to people. Someone has to stop him."<br />
I looked at my father, into his eye slits, and knew that nothing had changed, that he had no real<br />
understanding of what he'd done to deserve this. I would have poured the remains of my wine on him,<br />
but that would have been a waste.<br />
Barb said, "I'll pour Drano on your grave, you sick bastard."<br />
Reg took the hint. Some of the wives (not a girlfriend in the bunch) accompanied my father to his car.<br />
I sat with your mother while the Alive! crew scoured the house of memorial residue. I said, "Barb, you<br />
never believed me about Reg, about how evil he is. Now you know."<br />
"It's one thing to hear about it, Jason. And another to see it in operation."<br />
"Barb, the thing about Dad is that he'll always betray you in the end. Even if you think you've gotten<br />
close to him, earned your way into his bosom the way Kent did, in the end he'll always sell you out to his<br />
religion. He's actually a pagan that way - he has to make sacrifices, so he sacrificed his family one by<br />
one. Tonight he offered the twins to his God. If he were a dog, I'd shoot him."<br />
And so I picked up Joyce at Mom's where the TV station had kicked into late-night infomercials. She<br />
was sleeping it off on the couch. I drove home and I'm going to bed soon.<br />
* * *<br />
I arrived at Ambleside Beach a few minutes ago, and something unusual happened. I was sitting in the<br />
truck's cab removing a burr from Joyce's flank, while looking at my stack of pink invoice papers, when<br />
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