One of the tumours broke away from the group. “What did you have it mind?” it asked with suspicion.
I nodded toward Belinda and my mother. “Keep them from following me. Just for a little while. I need to get away from here and I don’t want them to get hurt.”
A smile spread across the tumour’s face. “Yeah… we’ll give you 30 minutes.”
“Bruce!” screamed my mother. “You have no right to leave us with those… those… things!
I turned to face my mother, my face radiating anger that filled the room with a dull, red glow. My mother’s objection melted under the weight of my intensity.
“Listen to me, mum… it’s you who has no right. You have no fucking right to make me responsible for the two of you getting hurt. I’m sick of feeling responsible for you all the damn time!”
She said nothing and her face avoided betraying whatever my words were making her feel. Belinda tip toed toward her and nestled into the crook of her elbow.
“Okay… go,” said my mother.
I nodded and took one last look out the attic window. Fiona was still there — the intensity of her furrow growing. The tumours formed a circle around Belinda and my mother, preventing them from leaving. I knew that by the time I got back (if I got back), the tumours would no longer be here. My time with them was over. I didn’t know how to feel. Via their presence, I’d been imbued with something I didn't think I ever had… self-respect. In order to achieve this sense of self-respect, I had to destroy all those parts of me which I found impossible to respect, which was pretty much everything. I blew a kiss, not minding too much if it landed on my mother, Belinda, or one of the tumours — they all deserved it. The kiss landed on Belinda and she gobbled it down with furious hunger for affection. I took one last look at the tumours I was leaving behind and made my way downstairs.
6.
I made my descent with such confidence, yet I had no idea what I was going to do. Plans would start to form in my head and begin turning into episodes of Dawson’s Creek long before they had a chance to form legitimate courses of action. I started to army crawl toward the window. My profound lack of vitality, however, saw the army crawl soon become a pathetic worm-like wriggle. But it achieved its purpose and I soon found a vantage point where I could see what I was dealing with. Fiona still cast her gaze toward the attic window, which was comforting. She had no idea I was making a break for it, which meant that I had a few precious seconds on my side. The police officer’s ladders were still parked on the curb. If I could get to one before they got to me, I could make my getaway. I nodded agreement to no one in particular and moved toward the front door. My heart was a shore-stricken fish of anxiety, flopping furiously within me.. The ladder couldn’t have been more than ten steps away from me, but each of those ten steps promised to offer intensifying levels of terror. At school we used to play chasey, and I had gained a reputation for dropping instantly to the ground in order to avoid the fear of the pursuit. This reputation came with an ample dose of scorn, which, at the time, I was an expert at absorbing. I assimilated the mockery of others and became it. I didn’t just obsess over my failures. I became the perfect embodiment of them. This wasn’t something I could do anymore.
I crossed myself like they do in Western movies just before a gun down and made a break for the nearest ladder. The environment around me whirled like a slow motion blender. My sense of perspective boiled away in the build up of lactic acid that assailed my legs. I saw a shape that resembled Fiona turn toward me. She yelled something I couldn’t decipher. I couldn’t tell how close I was to the nearest ladder, or even if I was still running in the right direction, but I dove. I flew through the air, feeling my weightlessness and wondering when gravity would take me. As I thumped into the ground, my world snapped back into focus. Fiona was running toward me, screaming Conway Twitty lyrics with war cry ferocity. My hand was slumped against a ladder. Adrenaline made love to my body and I pulled myself aboard. An array of pedals, levers and buttons confronted me. I pushed and pulled at random, completely unfamiliar with the mechanics of drivable ladders. Each new combination elicited choking sounds and plumes of foul smoke.
“Give up, Bruce,” scoffed Fiona, who had now stopped running, clearly convinced the pursuit was already over.
The weak part of me seriously considered her request, thankfully the fortuitous compression of the right button fired up the ladder’s engine. The thrust kicked in and soon the ladder was scraping its way down the road with my battered body barely clinging on. Shortly after my getaway, the sound of more ladders fired up behind me. I risked the fragile control over my own ladder and briefly turned my head. Directly behind was Vince driving a ladder with Fiona standing behind and frozen in a kung fu posture. Off to the side was Arthur and Belinda’s mother on a ladder of their own.
I’d never driven a ladder before. It possessed an army of idiosyncrasies that threatened my continued passage. My ladder kicked up a fountain of glowing sparks as it continued its scrape. In lieu of any knowledge concerning the functionality of the headlights, this was an adequate replacement and my passage was, to some extent, illuminated. I had no idea where I was planning on going. My only real plan was to get those pernicious fucks away from my mother and Belinda. I just kept driving and hoping not to be confronted by the need to turn. Obstacles were beginning to obstruct my path and each perilous lean required to avoid them nearly triggered a forced dismount. A group of children dressed as large audio cassette tapes loomed up ahead. They were dancing with each other and had no awareness of my approach.
“Get off the road!” I barked.
Their dancing continued. I contemplated capsising my vehicle in order to avoid catastrophe. I kept repeating my urgent request and finally one of the children looked my way. His eyes widened and with a voice that should have accompanied the body of someone much older, ordered his chums off the road. They scattered from my path. I closed my eyes and raised a hand to my face unable to confront the possibility of an accident. When I brought my hand back down, my path was mercifully clear, but the pathetic sound of a child yelling assailed my ears from behind. I turned… the magnetic tape from one child’s audio cassette costume had become caught in my ladder. The tape began to unspool as I continued my journey. With each rotation it made a violent clicking sound. An arc of magnetic tape floated from me to the child trapped in his costume, catching the reflection of street lights and low-flying hot air balloons. Before I could decide whether or not to stop or try and sever the tape, it pulled taut and the child, whether he liked it or not, joined me on the chase. I tried yelling words of comfort at the child, but every time I opened my mouth, it would fill with dragonflies and miniature goslings. I decided it would have to wait until the conclusion of the chase before I tried to calm him. For now, the plastic casing of his cassette tape costume protected him from a nasty bout of gravel rash and me from a nasty case of guilt.
The area of town we were approaching was pocked with factories and disused fast food outlets. My pursuers were gaining ground. One of them (I didn’t feel like turning around to discover who) was throwing something at me that felt like almonds. I had the sense that my ladder was slowing down, but without knowing where the fuel gauge was located, I wasn’t in a position to know if that was true. The distance I had come convinced me that my mother and Belinda were safe and if I wanted to, I could end the chase and let Fiona deal with my tumour-free body in whatever way she felt she needed to. But I had reached a point where concern for myself had finally started to kick in. I wanted to beat this situation. I had a driving desire to come out of this alive and, dare I say it, well, I was continuing this chase for me. By now my tumours had probably started their independent lives. The world was theirs… hell… it was mine too.