Kobe!

All day long, the seconds had seemed to ooze, thick and heavy. The most excitement Jake had had that day was when he realized he was still connected to his work’s VPN while searching for “Asian bukkake” videos on PornHub.

Well, what’s his employer expect? He’s been working from home for more than a year. Naturally he’ll let things like that slip from time to time, get a little too comfortable on the virtual private network, etc.

Evening has fallen, though, and Jake forgets all about that little misstep. He’s in the zone, that state of heightened focus known to athletes performing at their peak. He spots an opening and makes his move, demonstrating impressive finesse.

He pivots, fakes, then calls out, “Kobe!”

His fadeaway release is a thing of beauty; the shot traces a perfect arch as it sails towards its target.

Then there’s a clang.

The empty beer can ricochets off the rim of his overflowing recycling bin.

Fucking helicopter parent.

Jake curses the late NBA All Star Kobe Bryant for the bad bounce.

He picks up the discarded tallboy from his kitchen floor, watches the dregs pool in the dirty grout.

The mustard is off the hot dog.

The Kobe thing is probably bad Karma; it’s the two-year anniversary of the chopper crash near Calabasas, California that claimed the life of the Black Mamba.

Fortunately, Jake doesn’t believe in Karma.

Lately, though, he’s had the creeping sensation that he’s headed for trouble. It’s got nothing to do with fate. This isn’t about destiny. Such superstition disgusts him, an intellectual. It’s more that, well, if you’re playing in an arena of misery, the game has its own set of rules. Chess matches don’t end in tackles; rugby rivalries aren’t settled by conflict mediators.

There are certain parameters.

Or maybe it’s something more precise, like arithmetic.

Basically, Jake’s pretty sure that he’s not going to like the sum of his recent decisions. And yet there are more pressing matters to worry about at the moment.

His fridge is empty.

And he’s still thirsty.

***

CRAFT BEER LIVES HERE.

A block-letter banner announces the sale of alcohol. It’s hanging from the grocery store’s modular, non-committal façade: glass panels and siding, the temporary permanence of Toronto’s former boroughs.

The banner’s been dangling here since 2017, when the Ontario government gave up its monopoly over liquor sales. Back then, it was a novelty to grab a six-pack from a supermarket; now, even 7Elevens are applying for liquor licenses.

The dubious banner looms larger as Jake trudges across the parking lot, and he’s reminded of his journalism diploma. It’s still framed on his bedroom wall, though he only worked in the industry for a few months after graduation. Like the banner, the diploma seems less likely to ever be pulled down with each passing day. Jake imagines himself, the banner, and his diploma in a race towards total irrelevance and feels a competitive edge.

Kobe!

He puts on his mask and catches his reflection in the store’s entrance. Jake’s not used to the blond yet. Last week—on an impulse (a thought that it’d be nice to see someone different in the mirror)—he had his mom bleach his hair.

In response, Sasha sends him a meme.

It has a picture of Kanye West with blond hair.

And Pete Davidson with blond hair.

And other celebrities with blond hair.

And they all share problems like addiction and personality disorders.

And Sasha tells Jake he’d be in and out of rehab constantly if he were famous.

And Jake wishes being in and out of rehab constantly could make him famous.

And whoever created the meme that Sasha sent has a name for the hairstyle:

“CRISIS PLATINUM.”

***

By the shopping carts, another customer is berating the store’s greeter. The guy doesn’t want to wear a mask indoors. It violates his personal freedom. He has rights. This kind of thing has been happening more and more often lately, but Jake can’t understand why. He loves wearing his mask in public! With it, he can say whatever he wants to people, and they’ll never be able to identify him later.

Kobe!

He decides—independent of all the beers he’s crushed while watching interviews with famous writers on YouTube that evening—that he’s not going to stand for this egregious abuse of the working class. The uninspiring but well-paid content-marketing job he’s held for five years hasn’t totally corrupted his values.

He’s still a progressive, isn’t he?

Obviously.

He still remembers the old journalism-school creed: the job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

At least he has that.

So he turns to the customer.

“Hey, Bub,” he starts.

(He’s been calling people Bub ever since learning the pejorative last month. It was in a Raymond Carver short story about a blind man who keeps calling a non-blind man “Bub.” Mostly it seems to confuse people. They don’t know what to think, but they’re pretty sure they’re being insulted. The non-knowing part is Jake’s favourite—this minutia of chaos.)

The customer—who, Jake now notices, is six-foot-four, has a shaved head and a neck tattoo, and is both vaguely Germanic and somehow menacingly avian—looks over. Jake’s past the point of no return, he feels, so he follows his initial volley with something less ambiguous: “The rules apply to you, too, asshole, so why don’t you just shut your mouth and move along.”

The words hang in the air like a helicopter that isn’t the helicopter transporting Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others on January 26, 2020.

Black Mamba, he thinks.

The customer pauses, stunned (although maybe that’s just his face).

His delayed response, when it eventually arrives, is something that Jake’s heard ever since his playground days.

“What’d you say?”

Ha! Jake’s not going to take the bait. He knows better than to answer. That’s what they always want. People are constantly trying to pick fights with him, but he’s learned not to give them a reason. He simply won’t engage.

He crosses the lobby and enters the store, taking pride in his skills of de-escalation.

The lobby opens onto the produce department. Tables are piled high with real fruit that looks like fake fruit: waxy lemons, limes, apples, and pears. They’re strategically placed up front. Jake used to work at a grocery store, so he knows that merchandizers put them there to overwhelm. It’s a disarming contrast from the variations of grey outside, the steely pallet of a typical Toronto winter. But he hasn’t let his guard down. He instinctively turns around.

The skinhead is only steps away—and closing.

“Hey, buddy, where are you going?”

Dude asks like he’s checking the time.

That doesn’t bode well, Jake knows. When someone yells, their anger is visceral. It’s a display of human volatility. But it also betrays a capacity for a whole range of emotion. A topography of feelings. Mountains of rage. Valleys of calm. Whereas this guy’s tone is calculated, surgical—a troublesome plateau.

And he’s getting closer.

Jake bolts past the cash registers, looking back before turning down the nearest aisle. A couple of clerks have stepped in the guy’s path. They’re talking to him, although Jake can’t hear what’s being said.

Essential workers, he thinks.

***

Jake procures his beer and grabs a bag of Kraft Tex-Mex Cheese Shreds, too. The processed-dairy product is essential in maintaining his sanity. He eats like a degenerate, like it’s a chore. But the shredded cheese saves him from complete despair. With minimal effort, sad scrambled eggs—one of the few things he makes—have flair. They’re served au gratin. And the bowls of chili that his mom includes with her monthly care packages (she insists) are instantly elevated. He sprinkles it on delicately, like a gourmand.

It’s also pretty good to just eat fistfuls of it, right from the resealable bag.

***

Jake knows he’s being a hypocrite.

(Using self-checkout lanes is anti-labour.)

But after the earlier scene, it’s probably best to keep human interactions to a minimum.

He rings through the cheese and beer, heads for the exit.

Soon he’ll be back home, heating up the last portion of Mother’s frozen chili. He can almost taste the melted layer of cheese shreds, see it bubbling as he sticks his spoon into the bowl for another bite…

…until he realizes what awaits him by the shopping carts.

Again, Jake blows past the cash registers, and, again, the proletariat intervene. This time, though, something’s different. It’s palpable. Most people, he knows, are willing to overlook a one-off. Isolated incidents face less scrutiny. But this is Act II. And Jake is starting to get looks.

Maybe he’s the problem, they seem to say.

A cashier catches up to him in the Ethnic Food aisle, where he’s retreated behind a display of Old El Paso taco kits. “I have no idea what you said to him, but he’s pissed.”

Jake tries to explain how he was just standing up for one of her coworkers, but she’s not hearing it.

A colleague of hers arrives then, so he tries a different approach: “Honestly, I was just reaching for the hand sanitizer by the front, when all of a sudden that man started threatening me.”

Jake tells them that he understands how hard the pandemic has been on everyone, not just essential workers. Maybe that guy is simply in need of some mental-health supports.

The employees, both teenaged, glance at each other.

“Black Mamba,” Jake interjects.

He’s just trying to break the silence. He’s never been comfortable with silence.

“What?” the first cashier says.

Her colleague—possibly unaware of the day’s funereal significance—speaks next.

He explains that while Jake’s assailant has already been escorted out of the building, he remains prowling the parking lot.

“He, like, won’t go away,” he says.

The first cashier suggests calling the police.

No, no, no—this is not an option for Jake, not with the charges he’s facing.

It’s the fucking you get, for the fucking you got, his lawyer had told him the week before.

As if it were all Jake’s fault, just because he stayed with that woman too long.

Imagine speaking to a victim that way!

Jake knows what his lawyer would say about this situation, though, and he wouldn’t be wrong.

Involving the police is inadvisable at this juncture in time.

Jake is about to double down on his mental-health spiel and say that he—as a strong proponent of the Defund the Police movement—doesn’t think the cops are suited to deal with the mental collapse that this man is so clearly suffering from, when the manager arrives.

They’ve got a better idea.

***

Jake’s ushered into the store’s back room, where the receiving platform is.

The sudden sight of a power-jack annoys him. At his old job, they never let him operate the power-jack. He remembers how he had to move pallets with a manual pump-truck every single time. Briefly, he questions his loyalty to these proles. But his thoughts are interrupted by the colleague, who pulls open a re-enforced roll-up door with a grunt.

He motions for Jake to step out onto the corrugated-steel loading dock.

“Well,” the employee says, “you should be okay to go now…”

He doesn’t sound so sure, Jake thinks.

Nevertheless, Jake reaches out to shake the employee’s hand before remembering about the global pandemic.

“Thank you for your service,” he says, pulling back.

Essential workers.

He turns, and the door thunders shut behind him. He’s alone.

The night sky is dotted with little pulsing lights. Everything looks like a constellation. Satellites could be stars, red-eye flights mistaken for comets. From where Jake stands, it’s hard to care about the differences between atmospheric pollution and celestial bodies. And, anyway, he can’t tell which is which—or, it now dawns on him, where that skinhead’s gotten to. The alley is narrow and, if he were to suddenly appear, Jake would be cornered.

Brandishing his bag of cheese and beer, Jake bolts the end of the alley. Leaping off a curb, he shouts into the night.

“Kobe!”

***

34 days after the two-year anniversary of the death of NBA All Star Kobe Bryant…

Jake’s at the pub near his apartment. He’s a few pints in. The government’s relaxed pandemic measures as case counts decline. Mask-wearing is still enforced in restaurants, but only when you’re not eating or drinking. There’s talk of removing the requirement altogether. Jake hopes that the pandemic has normalized masks to the point where he can wear one indefinitely.

For the past half hour, he’s been talking books with the bartender, Bailey. Whenever he comes here, which is often of late, and she’s working, which is most of the time, Jake feels boxed out. Like she’ll only let him connect with her cerebrally—that she’ll discuss ideas but doesn’t want to get any closer.

Jake can’t imagine why.

Turns out, Bailey also loves Joan Didion’s novel Play it as it Lays, so Jake’s got lots to say this afternoon.

He asks Bailey what she thinks about the significance of the hard-boiled eggs in the novel.

She walks off to check on the other customers.

Probably just didn’t hear him.

It’s getting busier.

Poor Bailey, the demands that unskilled labour put on her. Really, it’s a shame how the entire service industry has been treated during the public-health crisis, Jake thinks.

He sips from his fourth glass of Coors, returns to the hard-boiled eggs.

Jake doesn’t objectify women—bukkake videos are, at their core, about female sexual liberation, after all—but if he did, he’d also be thinking about Bailey’s perky tits, her tight ass, her little top knot, the dirty white of her Keds. Were he to look around the bar right now, he’d probably catch sight of Bailey bending over to pick up the coins a customer drops.

He might also notice a new customer sitting to his left.

Instead he Googles “Joan Didion hard boiled eggs” on his iPhone.

There are about 188,000 results.

“Hey, Blondie!”

It takes a moment for Jake to register that the comment’s directed at him. His hair’s been like this for so long that he’s pretty much forgotten about it.

As he turns toward the voice, his face is met with a degree of force that sends him to the floor.

The words that reach him from above are in a voice that is distant but familiar.

“Cheers, Bub.”