The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland Read Free Book Online

She asked without looking at me-which is pretty insulting and oh so common. I knew it was DeeDee Twain from high school, so instead of ignoring her as I would have done with other people, I told her I'd show her the recycling bin but first she'd have to fondle each of my butt cheeks. To see her face! When she realized it was me, she smiled and swatted me with her purse, and it was sweet, like we were both cutting class. I seized the moment and asked her out to dinner.
    It started out well-a few drinks and each of us blowing off steam about our jobs. Halfway through the meal, she was drunk enough to be lighting the wrong end of her cigarette, but not drunk enough to become indignant when told that smoking in the restaurant wasn't allowed.
    Of course, we discussed changes in our lives and the world. In particular, we discussed all of the ugly houses and apartment buildings that had been built here in the city in our lifetime. Back when I was young, I told her, I assumed that within my lifetime they'd all be quickly demolished and replaced by something newer and better. "Imagine all of our dumb, ugly, contractor-built little houses standing there long after we're gone."
    "You're being depressing, Roger."
"All they'll ever do is draw attention to our narrowness of ambition and vision." "I'm ordering another drink." DeeDee changed the topic and told me that her condominium's co-op board was on her case for keeping a cat. I said I didn't see why cats were such a big deal, but she told me it wasn't the actual cat that was the problem; it was the $600 plumbing bill to snake out the clots of kitty litter choked inside the bathroom pipes. She confessed that this had happened not once, but twice.
    You have to remember that two years ago my freefall had just begun. I'm used to it now, but it was all very fresh then. A chronology of my life would read:

    Thorpe, Roger

•           Wife's cancer diagnosis: 2003

•           Totally cancer'ed out: 2004

•           Seeks diversion as stagehand in local theatre production of Neil Simon's Same Time Next Year: 2004

•           Canned from desk job at insurance firm: 2004

•           Makes one stupid mistake he pays for the rest of his life: 2004

•           Dumped by embittered wife: 2004

•           Learns the disturbing financial cost of anything legal: 2004

•           Old friends pretend not to notice him in a checkout line: 2004

•           Rents basement suite from condescending yuppies: 2004

•           Seborrhea inside hairline: 2004

•           Begins work at Staples: 2005

•           Ugly phone calls with Joan: 2004, 2005, 2006

•           Unable to afford Halloween candy, so he sits in basement apartment with all the lights off: 2004, 2005, 2006

•           Weekend highlight: learning how to use a photocopier's collating function: 2005

    I was hypnotized by the speed of my life's implosion, but DeeDee was having no truck with my self-pity. She said, "Guys forget that women have to make their peace with their half-assed lives too, and earlier than men. Women get more realistic far faster than men do, so don't expect tears in your beer from me, Roger. To me, you're a rookie at this failing life shit."
    I reached over to touch her hand, and she yanked it back.
    "I want to go home."
"But ..."
    "Roger, I feel so ... old."
    "Tonight was supposed to be about making you feel young again."
    She slid a twenty under her water glass. "Nothing about the past ever makes me feel young."
    I watched through the window as she got into her car and drove away. I got sloshed.

Glove Pond

    Gloria was in her boudoir-a delirious vision of a 1930s Hollywood set director, pushed to the farthest, pinkest extreme. Not a hard surface existed anywhere in the room. What was not carpeted was covered in velour or velvet or star bursts of ostrich and