Caroline: A Short Story, Page 3

  He hadn’t even made it half-way when the milk truck plowed into him.

  The truck, going seventy-five kilometres an hour, hit him on the left. Its steel bumper caught him on the side of the left knee, and its massive grill slammed into his left arm and shoulder. Though the driver jammed his foot on the break, he’d been far too late in doing so, and the truck ran straight through Edward Savois. Edward was not knocked down, but rather launched forward. His lower body took the brunt of the assault and his legs were shattered. The foot bone disconnected from the leg bone. The leg bone disconnected from the hip bone. The hip bone disconnected from the back bone. As he flew through the air, Edward Savois’s legs dangled and jumped like those of a horizontal River Dancer.

  Edward Savois landed directly on his head, which was promptly run over by a teenager on a Vespa. The scooter and its young rider were catapulted over Edward’s mangled noggin and came to rest on the shoulder, in relative safety. At that point, just seconds before ten-oh-two in the morning, all traffic stopped. The driver of the milk truck, joined by a mother of three and a retired police man who’d both witnessed the accident, ran to Edward Savois’s side, and, after a moment, the kid—now sans Vespa—came to stand with them as well.

  Edward’s neck was bent at an odd angle. His legs were a tangle of bloody tissue, bone, and ravaged pants. His left side was caved in and he was bleeding profusely. In fact, as it had been disconnected from his hip bone, Edward Savois’s right femur—or leg bone—had been thrust through the muscle and fat that made up his right thigh and sliced open his femoral artery. The femoral artery is a particularly busy section of the circulatory system and, by the time the ambulance had arrived, Edward Savois had lost three of his original five litres of blood.

  Oddly, beyond all reason, Edward Savois did not die. Edward Savois should have died. Edward Savois should have died at ten-oh-one. Instead, at ten past ten in the morning, lying in an ambulance and looking up at the equal parts shocked and baffled faces of the ambulance attendants, Edward Savois said, “Think I’ll be able to get a bite to eat once we get to the hospital? I’m thinking waffles.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Moments before Louise Hubert did not die, Roan Alten narrowly avoided tripping over the cat. The cat pale grey sat just outside the front doors of the Dolce Tower, where Roan worked. It was ten-to-nine and Roan started work at nine sharp, and so he had plenty of time to make it to the fourth floor and log onto his computer, but he’d been running nonetheless. For some reason Roan could neither explain nor understand, he felt that he had better be at his desk and online a few minutes before nine. Roan Alten had been moving quickly as he approached the front doors and did not see the cat until he was inches from kicking a foot into its cute and furry little face. At the last possible moment, Roan saw the cat and leapt into the air, undertaking an evasive manoeuvre not unlike a triple-axel as performed by a drunkard.

  Roan Alten slammed into the glass double doors of the Dolce Tower, causing them to shake in their frame. He watched the doors for a moment, half expecting them to explode in a shower of glass. Once convinced that his early-morning acrobatics had not resulted in the destruction of private property, Roan Alten turned his attention to the cat.

  It occupied the exact same spot, only it had turned to face him. “Maow,” said the cat.

  “What the hell?” Roan accused.

  The cat was visibly unapologetic, and so, frowning, Roan pushed through the doors and into the tiny lobby of Dolce Tower.

  Dolce Tower was not a tower at all. It was a four-story building located in the midst of Old Montreal. The Dolce Tower housed three separate insurance companies, one on each floor above the first. Each of the companies’ employees had a different name for the building. True Care Insurance, on the first floor, referred to the building as the Who Cares; Frankenstill Insurers, occupying the second floor, called it The Castle; while those who worked for La Dolce Vita Insurance, like Roan, had named the building Dolce Tower.

  Running up the stairs two at a time, Roan glanced at his watch. Eight fifty-two. Though Roan did not know it, Louise Hubert, sitting on her couch in another part of the city, was about to become the first person not to die. Roan reached the first floor and fast-walked past the reception desk, tossing a quick wave at Sally the receptionist. She ignored him completely. He checked his watch again. He wanted to be at his desk, headset on, by three-to-nine. He wasn’t sure why, in fact he hadn’t even considered why, he just did.

  Roan was one of ten customer service operators tasked with answering the incoming calls of current and prospective clients. They shared their space on the call floor with four salespeople responsible for outgoing sales calls. There were more service operators than salespeople because there were more complaints than sales.

  The call floor was a labyrinth of cubicles awash in the sickly glare of gently humming fluorescent lights. Given that, before nine, most operators were still on route or sipping horrid office coffee in the tiny staff cafeteria, Roan was alone as he sat at his desk and typed in his password, logging into the company’s database. He slipped on his headset and glanced at his phone. The LCD display listed the time and his status. It read eight fifty-six and Make Busy. He pressed the On Line button and the Make Busy signal disappeared. He awaited his first call of the day.

  It came at exactly eight fifty-seven, three minutes to nine.

  Roan heard the tone through his headset and the Line One indicator blinked to life. He pressed Line One and said, as per company protocol, “La Dolce Vita Insurance, Roan speaking, how can I make your vita dolce?”

  “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, Roan,” said a high voice at the other end of the line.

  “How can I help you today?” Roan asked. He could not tell if the caller was a man or a woman, and so automatically omitted the word “sir” or “ma’am”.

  “Well Roan, actually, I think we can help each other.”

  Something was off. This person didn’t sound angry at all. In fact, he or she sounded like a kid. Roan rolled his eyes and stifled a sigh. He received at least two prank calls a week. He really didn’t need this first thing in the morning.

  Switching from a professional tone to a mildly sarcastic one, Roan said, “Oh really? And how can we help each other?”

  “I’d like to offer you a job, Roan. Take it and you’ll help us both out.”

  “I have a job, thank you. Do you have any questions or concerns regarding one of our policies?”

  “Sure, you have a job, but you hate it, don’t you, Roan? You sit there with your little headset and listen to people whine, bitch and moan. And why do they whine, why do they bitch, why do they moan? Because they’re going to die. They’re going to die, and the best they can do about it is buy a little insurance from you. That’s it. That’s the best they can do, and they’re pissed about it. That’s what you want to do? Listen to people whine about their mortality? You have a job, Roan, but it sucks. I’m offering you something much more . . . rewarding.”

  For a moment, Roan was speechless. The kid’s monologue had been disturbingly insightful. The kid was right, Roan did hate his job, but the kid was also dead on as to why he hated his job.

  Roan had been working at La Dolce Vita as a customer service rep for just under a year. All day he sat at his computer answering calls from irate policy holders. He never received calls from happy people anxious to discuss the high points of their life insurance policy. There were no high points to a life insurance policy. With a life insurance policy, you paid into it while you remained alive and, once you finally died, someone else reaped all the benefits. As such, if someone called Roan, it was to complain. They complained about premiums, they complained about coverage and they complained about needing life insurance in the first place, as though Roan himself were responsible for their very mortality. In a way, Roan understood. In buying life insurance, these people were admitting that they would someday die. Everyone knew it, but very few people acknowledged it. Like the
kid said, signing on for life insurance was, in a very real sense, tantamount to signing a document declaring that “I, the signatory, agree and accept that I will die.”

  Such a document could not be an easy thing to sign.

  But still, really, did they all have to be so bitter about it?

  Finally, Roan said, “Look kid, your tying up my line. Someone with a serious question might be trying to get through.”

  “A serious question?” The kid chuckled, the sound oddly unsettling. “A serious question about what? How can any question concerning an investment that only pays off once you die ever be taken seriously?”

  “People take death and their family’s welfare very seriously.” Why was he humouring this kid?

  “As they should. But life insurance is a joke. Take this job, Roan.”

  For a fleeting moment, Roan actually considered asking for more details. He really did hate his job. In fact, he’d applied for a slew of new positions that very morning. But this was just some kid. An unusually well-spoken and perceptive kid, but a kid nonetheless. “Thank you for calling La Dolce Vita Insurance, have a dolce day,” Roan said and disconnected the call.

  *

  During the following half-hour Roan Alten fielded six more calls. Not one of these six calls was in the least bit unusual. Each call could be labelled angry, irate, furious, or ballistic. The third call, from a woman who’d bought her husband life insurance as a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary gift, actually progressed through all four stages over the course of her one call. She began the call angry, then became irate, then furious and, just before hanging up, she had gone ballistic.

  At nine twenty, just a few seconds after Francis Blondain became the second person not to die, the kid called again.

  “Have you thought about that job, Roan?” the kid said before Roan could deliver his greeting.

  “Look, you can’t keep calling here,” Roan said.

  “Of course I can. Have you thought about it, Roan?”

  “Thought about what? You’re a kid on the phone.”

  “This is a serious job offer, Roan,” the kid said. He or she did indeed sound serious. “You are especially well suited to the position and, to be entirely honest, you don’t have much choice in the matter.”

  Though Roan was contractually obligated to remain polite and patient with any and all callers, the rules were much looser when dealing with prank calls. There was little chance of losing business due to rude language directed at a nine-year-old playing phone games. With this in mind, Roan said, “Kid, get the hell off the line and don’t call back.”

  “Roan, on your next call I want you to focus. I want you to focus and guess the caller’s time of death.”

  “What?” Roan asked and, despite his anger, a chill danced up his spine.

  “His time of death. When will he die, Roan?” the kid said and hung up.

  *

  Exactly two seconds after the kid hung up Roan’s line flashed. Almost as a reflex, Roan connected and said, “La Dolce Vita Insurance, Roan speaking, how can I make your vita dolce?”

  “You can start by shutting the fuck up and listening closely, dumbshit.” The caller, Roan could tell, was irate with a seventy percent chance of furious.

  “How else can I help you sir?”

  “Well, seeing as you’re still talking, you haven’t helped for shit. I said listen. I had a medical exam six years ago when I first bought this crappy policy of yours. Now, outta the fuckin’ blue, I get a letter tellin’ me I gotta have another exam or else my policy is void! Now what in the holy hell is goin’ on over at your end, dumbshit? Explain yourself!”

  Roan asked for the caller’s name, phone number and security question, all of which were provided along with a healthy dose of expletives. The man’s file popped up on his screen. Roan rolled his eyes.

  “Sir,” he said, reading from his screen, “the terms of your policy stipulate that it is your responsibility to advise us of any serious health changes. Major changes can and will result in a new physical exam and the possible reassessment of your coverage and premiums.”

  “Fine, yeah, sure, but I haven’t had any major—”

  “Sir,” Roan interrupted as gently as possible,” it says here that, in the past two years, you’ve suffered two heart attacks and a minor stroke.”

  “How in the hell do you know about that?”

  “Sir, you reported these incidents yourself. As you are required to do.”

  “I sure as hell did not!”

  “Well, sir, you should have and, besides, it says right here that you did make a report by e-mail on—”

  “Holy Jesus on a spit! Musta been my ex-wife. That bitch’s always tryin’ to screw me. How in the hell did she get access to my file?”

  “Sir, your security question is ‘What is your wife’s maiden name?’ Does this refer to your current wife or . . . ?”

  The man was silent at the other end. Finally, he said, “I don’t even need this thing. I’ll outlive you all.”

  Fat chance, Roan thought. Two heart attacks and a temper? Buddy, I give you

  (two-years-seven-months-and-thirteen-days)

  three years.

  “Sir,” Roan said, “can I help you with anything more?”

  A long silence preceded the man’s response. “No.”

  “Then I wish you a dolce day.”

  “Go to hell.” The line went dead.

  *

  Over the thirty minutes leading up to the moment at which Edward Eric did not die, Roan Alten took five more calls. They went like this: irate, angry, angry, ballistic, angry.

  At two past ten the kid called again.

  “When will he die, Roan?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Will you please leave me alone?”

  “Think about it, Roan. He called just thirty minutes ago. Now tell me when he will die. Tell me how much longer the man has to live.”

  “Kid, you’re starting to creep me out.”

  “How much longer, Roan?”

  “Creep me out and piss me off.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Dammit.”

  “Roan,” the kid said, “how much longer did that man have?”

  Roan exploded: “God dammit! Two years, seven months and thirteen days, okay. You satisfied?”

  “Yes,” the kid said, and Roan could hear the smile in the kid’s voice. “Yes I am.”

  Roan took a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly. He did not know where the words had come from. He did not know how he’d come up with them. But, for some reason that he couldn’t begin to understand, he felt that those words had been entirely true.

  “Try this Roan: how will he go?”

  “What?”

  “How will he die, Roan? In two years, seven months and thirteen days, how will he die?”

  “I don’t—” (car accident) “—know.”

  “Yes, Roan. You do. It won’t be his heart, will it, Roan?”

  “It’s—” (car accident) “—impossible.”

  “No, Roan. It’s not.”

  “Leave me alone,” Roan whispered.

  “Fine, Roan. We’ll leave it, for now. You have a break coming, Roan. Watch the news.”

  The kid hung up.

  *

  At eleven, Roan made his way to the break room. He’d coasted through the calls since his last talk with the kid, barely registering what was being said, answering by rote.

  The break room was small and in a perpetual state of disarray. At the moment, only three other employees occupied the room. Two sat at one of two small tables, next to a bank of food-spattered microwaves, the third, Willy Hughes, sat on the tiny couch at the back of the room, eating from a Tupperware container and watching TV. Like most of the phone staff at Dolce Vita, including Roan himself, Willy was in his mid-to-late-twenties and just north of socially retarded. He slumped forward in his seat, his chin just inches above his dish, his dish just inches above his gut. Willy was a fat m
an and Roan was certain that he had been a fat kid, one of those who got picked last to the team in gym.

  “Howya doing, Willy?”

  Without looking from the TV, Willy said, “Good, you?”

  Roan took a moment to formulate his answer. The truth was that he wasn’t doing well at all. He was freaked out and confused. Usually he was only confused. Roan chose to keep things simple, if not completely accurate. “Uh, pretty good,” he said.

  “Cool.”

  “Whatcha eating?”

  “Chef Boyardee.”

  Roan nodded to himself. He imagined that, after his meal, Willy would have two tomato-sauce-coloured stains at the corners of his mouth. Fat kids always had those after Chef Boyardee.

  “Hey,” Roan said, glancing at the TV. “Think we could flip it to the news for a sec?”

  Willy was watching what appeared to be a game show that involved singing, trivia, and jousting with foam lances. “Guess so,” Willy said through a mouthful of canned pasta. “Was a news break just a minute ago, though.”

  “A news break?”

  Willy nodded. “Mm-hm. Yeah.”

  For some reason, Roan felt his stomach tighten and his bladder loosen. “What about?”

  “Dunno,” Willy said with a shrug. “Guy got hit by a truck up in Ville St-Laurent. Kinda weird.”

  “Why weird?”

  “Was really banged up. Nearly cut in half or something and pretty much bled out.”