Art by Alison Berry
3.
Cactus Joah had a girlfriend named Clara, a comfortable sweater spirit who was sixteen and fragile. They had met in the same class, History, for as we all know Cactus Joah had never attended enough school to pass any of his classes; and because the subject never came up, she did not know that Cactus Joah was two years older than her. Cactus Joah had wooed her by talking gently with her. They rarely had anything but silence and sweetness in common.
There were a number of things that attracted Joah to Clara: She was one of the few girls with a name that did not irritate him; her tiny hands became pale turtles when she wore long sleeve shirts or jackets; she had the beautiful ability to giggle at nothing at all; you could sometimes find her in a corner sadly weeping; she had never heard of Sometimes but was interested; and a large amount of other reasons that are too profound to be put into text. The sweetest thing that Cactus Joah had ever seen was Clara asleep and dreaming.
Cactus Joah had never told Great Scott about Clara because he did not want to lose her; he felt that his girlfriend and his best friend were two very different parts of two very different worlds, and that if they collided with each other then he would either have to lose one of them or lose them both.
Great Scott was from the vast omnipresent world where Cactus Joah was a complete and utter failure, and Clara was from the tiny self-contained world where Cactus Joah was the only thing that he ever wanted to be, which was loved.
The reason Joah gave to Clara to explain away his absences was that he had to do some very important work for his father, and this seemed to satisfy Clara as she never questioned him any further on the issue. She was always very trusting.
He only felt guilty the first few times he lied to her. He could rarely bring himself to go to school even with a lady waiting for him.
‘Hey, can I ask who it is you work for?’ Cactus Joah asked Great Scott during their great odyssey to nowhere.
‘Your father,’ Great Scott said, and Cactus could not tell whether he was making a knowing reference to his relationship with Clara or if his father had really become some sort of Mafioso during his short absence from the world as others know it.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Yes, I do. He is in the hearts and smiles of children. Now look – we’re getting closer.’
Cactus Joah looked, but he was thinking about Clara.
One of the things that Clara liked to do was go out and see movies with a group of her friends. Cactus only ever heard about these adventures in cinematic snippets from his loved one, who probably enjoyed forming a mystery around something so standard and ordinary. The girls went to see everything from romantic comedies to horror movies to fantasy films, watching people paid to lie to each other on stages that cost more than they would ever make in their lives.
The most exciting thing about it for Clara, who was the least outspoken member of the group, was being able to imagine that she was in one of the movies they had seen while she lay in bed with her eyes closed late at night, the perfect time and state to bend reality to her will; this was one of the few touching secrets that Clara would divulge to Cactus from time to time, in moments more precious to him than any kiss or fondle. Note that ‘late at night’ for Clara was her Friday and Saturday bedtime of 12 o’clock, the witching hour.
Now that he was completely cut off from society – or at least that was how he viewed it – Cactus Joah was contemplating ending his relationship with Clara. He loved her too much to want to get in the way of her future, which was brighter than anything he could possibly think of; all that he would end up doing if he stayed with her would be disappointing her family and delaying any of the girl’s chances at success. Part of him was hoping that she would be a deus ex machina for him, someone who could pull him out of the mess that he had put himself in, but he knew that the only person in charge of his fate was himself.
He was still thinking of Clara when they strolled into the building with Piñata Wizard blown-up on the front in large cartoon letters. All around them were rainbow-coloured animals with rectangular fur and pure white grins, their candy eyes staring straight ahead at invisible plastic prey. Great Scott flipped the Come In, We’re Open sign so anyone walking by would think that the store was Sorry, We’re Closed.
Cactus Joah snapped out of his reverie when he bumped into a great red bear that shifted its weight in an unexpected parody of an intimidating display. He gave Great Scott a look that asked where they were.
‘We’re here,’ stated his best friend, and once again Cactus had to wonder whether or not he was joking. He had a hard time believing that the owner of a store called Piñata Wizard was somehow tied to the seedy underworld of Londontario, a seedy underworld that seemed to have only come into existence today.
‘Go in back and flush him out.’
Cactus allowed himself a moment to recover from delayed shock before obeying the order. He went in back and found a very lanky and moustached man who was taping up some boxes; when the man looked up he saw Cactus Joah standing by the doorway, some shadowed blonde girl from out of nowhere, and smiled a coffee-coloured smile. Then he reached for the Exacto knife that was on the box beside him.
A familiar weight pressed against Cactus Joah’s shoulder and he realised it was Great Scott’s hand pushing him out of harm’s way. Cactus fell back and watched in a daze as Great Scott kicked over a stack of boxes, kicked the knife out of the Piñata Wizard’s hand and played tee-ball with the Wizard’s face. The ringing of the aluminium bat lingered in the room as the blow was replayed in Cactus Joah’s mind. It was the first time that he had ever seen such a deliberate act of violence in person.
The Piñata Wizard was sprawled out in a corner between some boxes like a rag doll that had been carelessly tossed aside by a delinquent child. Cactus could see blood on the Wizard’s tongue whenever he opened his mouth, and was absolutely terrified by how bulging, how unfiltered furious the Wizard’s eyes were as they kept flicking back and forth between Great Scott and himself.
‘You think I’m scared of you? You’re nothing, son,’ said the Wizard as flecks of red spattered his chin, though he made no effort to move. ‘What, you think I’m scared of your dad?’ This last comment he directed to Cactus.
‘Look, you owe the money for the bet and you know you owe the money,’ Great Scott said. ‘We did not come here to hurt you.’
The Piñata Wizard was looking at his bat.
‘We’re the children of the future,’ Great Scott said flatly; it was the kind of hackneyed line that only he could get away with.
‘Hmm? I don’t believe in the future,’ spat the Wizard as he struggled to get back up, but he only managed to slip back down again. ‘Okay? There’s no way to know for certain if the future exists. If no one believes in the future then the future does not exist. Got it? Nothing exists except for right now. You kids.’
‘Who created space dust?’ Great Scott asked wonderingly. ‘Who caused the big bang?’
‘Men in lab coats in sterilised rooms.’
‘Who created the universe?’
‘Nobody did. I did. There is no future, only the present; and the present is sad and random and endless.’
‘You’re telling me there is no future? I’m the future. Tell me I’m not the future.’
‘There is nothing but the present moment which is happening right now.’
‘Tell me that I’m not the future and I’ll show you how wrong you are.’
The Piñata Wizard made a second attempt to stand but only ended up passing out. Great Scott and Cactus Joah spent the following ten minutes searching for the money that the Wizard had refused to pay up, turning over boxes and animals and shelves, and they ended up finding it in the papier-mâché incarnation of a giant cockroach. By the time they were done the floor was a mess of stale candy.
Great Scott proceeded to fill his socks and underwear with the rainbow bills that had spilled out of the neon insect; he did it so quickly that the pair did not even have enough time to laugh about it. When he was finished he glanced up at Cactus Joah. ‘Salaam,’ he said.
He then unceremoniously handed the bat over to Cactus Joah, kissed him on the cheek, and slipped through the back exit without saying another word. It was unexpected and unsatisfying and altogether anticlimactic, but Joah was used to that kind of thing.
It did not take long for him to decide that this was a line of work that he was not interested in, and because of it he doubted if he would ever see his best friend again.
4.
Cactus Joah was heading back to the forest around the Askunessippi with the bat resting against his shoulder when he thought he caught a few of the first flakes of winter. The fluttering white dots were so very quick, so very few and far between that he took it into consideration that his vision was merely playing tricks on him, but regardless of whether or not they were real he could smell winter in the air. The air was far crisper than it had been earlier and he was worried that it might give him a nosebleed.
While walking towards his second secondary school he came upon a surprise in the shape of Clara. She was standing by the bus stop, a schoolbook clutched to her chest with mittened hands, and she wore a thoughtful expression on her face and a hat on her head that was haloed with the silhouettes of deer. Cactus was trying to solve the dilemma of whether or not he should go see her when Clara called out his name in a small and uncertain voice.
He approached her like some awkward stranger as the snowflakes became less shy around them.
‘Where did you go, Cactus?’ Clara asked, dropping the comma in her excitement.
‘I was doing some work for my father,’ he replied, and it felt so strange to be finally telling the truth.
‘You have a bat.’
He took her by the mitten and they sat down together on a large rock beside the bus shelter. Clara traded her book for Joah’s aluminium bat. She was now unsuccessfully trying to pick up leaves with it; once she managed to get one she looked at her boyfriend and smiled in mild triumph. Cactus Joah looked down and saw that the zipper on Clara’s pants was broken, and he pointed it out to her while stray dogs barked somewhere wherever in the distance.
‘Did you know that I’m a writer?’ Cactus Joah asked her. She was watching her breath as it steamed in the air. ‘The thing about writing that I like is how fully in control of reality I am for the characters. For example, if a character wanted to go to university and get a great job but it seemed like he would never be able to, all I would have to do is write that the character got into university and got his great job. It’s really as easy as that.’
‘What are you going to do for the rest of your life?’ Clara asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I haven’t written about the future yet. Let’s just enjoy what we have right now and worry about the consequences later.’
‘Okay,’ Clara said.
Joah held her and buried his face in her shoulder. ‘Okay,’ he echoed.
Then:
The aluminium bat fell out of Clara’s hands and rolled away; she then slowly wrapped her arms around Cactus Joah’s neck and giggled as she kissed him lovingly on the cheek.
Joah opened his eyes to spot Clara’s book lying on the leafy groundpaper before him, opened to a hidden copy of Sometimes. He smiled and closed his eyes.
‘Salaam,’ he said.