Chapter 3
"That doctor is an idiot," Paulie's father said.
His eyes were focussed on the empty road taking them through a subdivision. They were in their car, going home. Paulie's mum sat beside her husband in the passenger's seat and Paulie sat in the back by himself. He was looking out the window at the town passing by at a constant fifty-five kilometres per hour. His dad rarely did more than five over the limit. It was his town, Paulie thought, because be'd been born here and raised here, but it felt no more his than the world at large did. Since the accident, he felt an alien even in his own backyard.
"He was looking at my breasts an awful lot," Paulie's mother said.
"Children's book," Paulie's dad sneered. "I bet he couldn't recognise real literature if it bit him in the butt."
"Honey!"
"Oh, pumpkin. I'm sure Paul's heard worse."
Paulie blushed, not at his dad's language, but at the innocence his parents still thought he possessed.
Yes, alien: that was word.
He felt that way at school on Monday, too. Everyone treated him as if he'd been diagnosed with cancer over weekend, and people he hardly knew walked up to him to tell him they were so glad he was back. He supposed he was glad to be back, too. He did get plenty of hugs and more than a few kisses.
In class, his teachers singled him out. For example, instead of giving a quiz, Miss Collins made everyone translate a newspaper article from the French CBC about the local Ontario boy (le garcon) who fell in a lake (le lac) while playing pond hockey (l'hockey). The article barely mentioned Pinder and Akira, but did mention George, who came across as a bonafide Canadian hero—brave and loyal, the epitome of non-European hockey values—which, Paulie admitted, George actually was. Sometimes stupid, always tough, in most situations willing to do what others expected of each other but never of themselves.
George had also come out of the whole ordeal without any serious health problems, but, unlike Pauie, he had always been a hardy guy. Fever kept him bedridden for two days, but after it broke he was good as new.
Whenever he and Paulie sat together in the school cafeteria, other students crowded around and took photos. Paulie supposed it was because genuine offline adventures were rare these days. Even bullying was migrating online. Ironically, many of the photos the students took made their way onto a Facebook page that someone had opened to celebrate the events of "the day Paulie almost drowned and George saved him".
Their popularity lasted a little over a week. The Facebook page stayed up, as they always do, but the comments section dried quickly dried up. There was even a kind of backlash after an anonymous user posted an unsubstantiated theory that the rescue was all an elaborate hoax designed to garner popularity and sympathy for George for some undefined reason. Consequently, George was paranoid that one of the paramedics, who was a sworn enemy of his older brother, had taken a photo of him naked with shrinkage and would share it with the world. No photo ever surfaced and George eventually forgot about his paranoia.
And then it was over.
Everything went back to normal.
Normalcy reclaimed the school, the town and even Paulie's family. His parents' joy that he was alive turned to anger that he'd been reckless with his life. "And if Frodo had been so thoughtless," his dad said to him one night in a slightly raised voice, "where would the One Ring be? What would have become of Middle Earth?" Paulie didn't answer, but he did go to his room, from where his mum forbade him from emerging for two weeks unless it was to walk to school, use the bathroom or go downstairs for dinner. His parents also disconnected his internet. But, because they were from the pre-technological generation, they merely pulled the ethernet cable from his laptop and hid it in a kitchen cupboard. Paulie used the neighbour's wireless connection instead.
He used it mostly to chat with Pinder and Akira.
George didn't have his own computer and dropped by the house instead to chat face-to-face and collect the free dinners that accompanied being the saviour of an only child's life. More than once, Paulie heard his parents entertain the possibility that they, too, could be the parents of "a boy like George". When they put the possibility into practice in the evenings, Paulie put on his headphones to drown out the rhythmic movements of the bed springs.
"r they fucking again?" Pinder asked.
"yeah but dont call it that," Paulie wrote back.
"its hot."
"it most definately is not."
"does ur mom moan a lot during it? like is she wild and loud?"
"you better not be fucking jerking off."
"im not jeez."
"hey was i really under there for nine minutes?"
"and 41 secs."
"why'd you turn on the stopwatch anyway?"
"bcz i thought we should know when to give up on you coming out alive."
"how long did you give me?"
"2 mins max."
"but you didn't give up on me after 2 minutes."
"we didnt," Pinder wrote. "did you kno that the world record for holding ur breath is 22 mins and 22 secs?"
Paulie did know that. Over the last few days, he'd looked up as much information about holding one's breath underwater as he could find. There was just one problem. "but i didn't hold my breath," he wrote. "i swallowed water right away. i drowned."
"maybe im typing to a ghost."
"maybe i'm an alien." Paulie's heart started to pound as soon as he pressed sent the message.
There was a pause. Pinder wrote something, deleted it, and wrote something else. "what u mean? like an alien like bernard hopkins or like roswell?"
"i mean an alien for real. when i was underwater... was there any bright light or anything strange like sounds or smells, do you remember all 9 minutes and 41 seconds?"
"i remember all of it. there wasnt anything weird except us panicking and thinking you were dead and then george deciding to go in after you."
"could you see me?"
"not after the first few secs. do u think u were abducted?"
Paulie's fingers hovered over his keyboard. Then he typed five true letters: "maybe."
"thats crazy. have u told anyone?"
"just you."
"do u feel different than u did b4? maybe its just like ptsd and american soldiers in iraq."
Paulie couldn't describe how he felt. The only thing he could describe was his tooth. "my tooth hurts," he wrote.
"hehe u serious? u got a stick to the face."
"i'm probably just stressed, you're right," Paulie wrote. But he didn't believe it. "i should get some sleep."
They said goodnight and Paulie took off his headphones. The house was quiet. His parents were no longer making a baby George. Paulie crept out of his room, to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror—he didn't look like an alien—and brushed his teeth. The tooth that hurt was bleeding. He took off his clothes and was about to step into the bathtub to take a shower when he had an idea.
He plugged the bathtub drain and turned on the faucet.
When the tub was full, he shut off the water and stepped inside. Unlike the lake water, this water was warm and inviting. He sat down and reclined. Being submerged was relaxing. He had expected it to be somewhat traumatic, to bring back memories, but it didn't. His body didn't shake. His mind didn't travel into the past. He reclined further until his neck was submerged and only his head was above the water, his nose still breathing as usual. Then he grabbed a mouth full of breath and pulled his head under, too.
He started to count.
He got to ninety two before feeling tightness in his chest and coming up for air.
He gasped. If he could only hold his breath for ninety two seconds in a controlled situation, at home, in a tub of warm water, there was no way he could have held it for more than that in the icy lake while panicked out of his skin.
Yet he knew that already. He knew that, that night, he hadn't held anything. He'd let the water fill his bod
y, he'd given up, and five hundred eighty one seconds later he was still very much alive. He congratulated himself on confirming the obvious. It was the next step, he knew, that was hard. He had to recreate the situation he'd experienced in the lake. He needed to drown again. But, for that, he would need help.