Douglas Coupland - Hey Nostradamus!

My mom, bless her, kicked into full operatic mode: "Crawl to your God, you arrogant bastard. See if your God doesn't look at the slime trail you leave behind you and throw you to the buzzards. You heartless, sad little man. You don't even have a soul. You killed it years ago. I want you to die. You got that? I want you to die."

An ambulance was summoned to squire my screaming father to emergency. The police never officially reported the incident, nor did Reg. But in that one little window of time, many lasting decisions were made. First, any love for my father that might have remained either in my mother's heart or my own - vaporized. Second, we knew for sure that Dad was unfixably nuts. Third, upon discharge a few weeks later, he was coolly shipped off to his sister's daffodil ranch in the most extreme eastern agricultural reaches of the city, in Agassiz, a soggy and spooky chunk of property surrounded by straggly alders, blackberry brambles, dense firs, pit bulls, Hell's Angels drug labs and an untold number of bodies buried in unmarked graves.

But my parents never got divorced. Dad always paid support and . . . who knows what ever really goes on inside a relationship. Dad probably felt guilty for wrecking Mom's life. No. that would imply feeling on his part.

I arrived at Barb's house a bit on the late side. The attendees were mostly Kent's friends - friends who'd seemed old to me in high school and who always will. Folding wooden chairs were arranged on the back lawn, none of them level; the forest, after decades of lying in wait, was silently sucking the old ranch house and the moss-clogged lawn back into the planet. The twins (that would be you, my nephews) and a few other babies were in the TV room, being as quiet and gentle as their pious parents, as they were serenaded by a tape of soothing nature sounds: waves lapping a Cozumel beach; birds of the Guyana rain forest; rain falling in an Alaskan fjord.

Kent's friends had all been hardcore Youth Alive!ers who'd never strayed, who became dentists and accountants and moved to Lynn Valley along with most of the city's Kents. I'd seen none of them in the year since Kent's funeral. I knew they'd all enjoy a righteous tingle from any confirmation of my life's downwardly sloping line. My slapped-together ensemble delivered the goods.

"Hey, Barb."

"Finally, somebody from your family shows up."

"Mom can't make it. One guess why. Reg is praying up by Exit 5. I imagine he'll creak his way here soon enough."

"Lovely."

I poured myself a glass of red wine; piety mercifully ended at the bar with this crowd.

Barb was never involved with Youth Alive!, and because of this, had always felt like an outsider in the Kent set. As I looked out at all the healthy teeth and hair on the patio, I realized how sad and insufficient any memorial service would be. I missed Kent. Badly. "Was the service your idea, Barb?"

"Yes, but not this big Hollywood production. They're trying to set me up with some guy in the group. It's so clinical and mechanical." She looked out onto the lawn. "They're pretty efficient. I have to hand that to them. All I had to do was open the door and look wounded."

"Charitable."

"Stick a potato in it. Your job, by the way, is to continue being the doomed loser brother. It shouldn't be a stretch."

"And your job?"

"Stoic widow who at least has two kids as a souvenir."

I went out to the car and brought in a canvas duffel bag filled with some presents for the two of you, but your mother got mad at me for spoiling you, a battle that will never stop, because I'll never stop spoiling you. I went in to see you in your cribs - chubby, a bit of curly hair, Kent's smile, which is actually my mother's smile. I gave you each some animal puppets and entertained you with them for a while.

Out on the patio, I shook a few hands and tried not to look like a doomed loser. Kent's friends were using the technically friendly Youth Alive! conversation strategy with me. Example: "That's great, Jason, Gina and I were thinking of redoing the guest bathroom, weren't we, Gina?"

"Oh yeah. We really were. We ought to take down your phone number."

"We'll get it from you after the service."

"Great."

After a few minutes of this, Gary, Kent's best friend, tinkled his glass and the group sat down. On easels up front were color photocopy enlargements of Kent's life: Kent white-water rafting; Kent at a cigar party; Kent playing Frisbee golf; Kent and Barb lunching in a Cabo San Lucas patio bistro; Kent at his stag party, pretending to drink a yard-long glass of beer. Each of these photos emphasized the absence of similar photos in my own life.

Gary began giving a speech, which I tuned out, and when it felt as if it was nearing the end, I heard a click behind me: Reg trying to open the latch on the living room's sliding doors. Barb got up, offered a terse hello, brought him down onto the lawn and gave him a chair. We all remembered Kent for a silent minute, which was hard for me. Kent's death meant that there were more Jasons in the world than there were Kents, an imbalance I don't like. I'm not sure whether I'm any good for the world.

I sprang up when the minute of silence ended, and dashed to the bar in the kitchen. There was nothing hard there, just wine; chugging was in order, so I poured most of a bottle of white into a twenty-ounce Aladdin souvenir plastic drinking cup, then downed it like Gatorade after a soccer game. Barb saw me do this and spoke in a sarcastic Dick and Jane tone: "Gosh, Jason - you must be very thirsty."

"Yes, I am, Barb." She let it go. Outside, all of Kent's friends were doing Dad duty, fine by me. I asked Barb if she ever spoke with Reg these days.

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

I decided to be naughty. "You should try."

"Why on earth would I want to do that?"

"Jesus, Barb. It's Kent's memorial. You have to do something." This was not strictly true, but I'd pushed a guilt button.

"You're right."

She went outside and joined a trio of Kent's friends with Reg. I stood nearby so I could hear their conversation.

Barb said, "Reg, I'm glad you could come."

"Thank you for inviting me."

Barb turned to Kent's friends. "What were you guys talking about?"

"Cloning."

Barb said, "This Dolly-the-sheep thing must be raising a few eyebrows."

One friend, whose name was Brian, said, "You better believe it." He asked my father, "Reg, do you think a clone would have the same soul as its parent, or perhaps have a new one?"

"A clone with a soul?" Dad rubbed his chin. "No. I don't think it would be possible for a clone to have a soul."

"No soul? But it would be a living human being. How could it not . . . ?"

"It would be a monster."

Another friend, Riley, cut in here: "But then what about your twin grandsons? They're identical, so when the embryo splits, technically, one nephew is the clone of the other. You think that one of them has a soul and one doesn't?"

Barb, trying to lighten things, said, "Talk about monsters - if I miss feeding time by even three minutes, then I become Ripley, and they become the Alien."

Reg wrecked this attempt at cheeriness. He'd obviously been thinking hard, his face sober like a bust of Abraham Lincoln. "Yes," he said, "I think you might have to consider the possibility that one of the boys might not have a soul."

Silence. All the real smiles turned fake.

"You're joking," said Riley.

"Joking? About the human soul? Never."

Barb turned abruptly and walked away. The three guys stood there looking at Reg. Then Barb returned with one of the wooden folding chairs, holding it sideways like a tennis racket.

"You evil, evil bastard. Never ever come back to this house, ever."

"Barb?"

"Go now. Because I'll break you in two. I will."