The Lava Pit

Further­more, let us pon­der the fact that Calgary is becom­ing sophis­ti­cated and edgy. Residents have names like Aidan, Cody, Ethan, Paige, and Avery, and buy cup­cakes from stores that sell only cup­cakes, and cheese from stores that sell only cheese. Then they carry their cup­cakes and cheese to work in lunch bags designed specif­i­cally for cup­cakes and cheese. They eat cup­cakes and cheese through­out the day at two-hour inter­vals to main­tain high metabolisms. 

But Carl’s name is just Carl and he drinks instant cof­fee. He boils the water on the stove­top in a soup pot.

The lava pit sur­prises every­one. But no one remem­bers what build­ings stood there before the lava pit appeared, so they get used to it. Developers build a sub­di­vi­sion on the island at the lava pit’s centre. 

The Ottawa Senators don’t win the play­offs, and Paris Hilton doesn’t say sorry. This trou­bles Aidan, Cody, Ethan, Paige, and Avery. They request extra icing on their cup­cakes. Their metab­o­lisms race faster than ever.

The lava is ris­ing, but slowly; there is no need to panic. Calgary con­tin­ues to boom and more jobs appear. The ad in the Calgary Sun reads: Jobs for Everyone! Two-thousand lava-shovellers needed imme­di­ately!  Bring your own boots.

Landon and Jenna receive pro­mo­tions at Husky Oil and invite Carl to cel­e­brate with them. They choose a Japanese restau­rant because they are inter­na­tion­ally minded. Lan­don looks at the wrong pic­ture on the menu and, when his meal arrives, is dis­ap­pointed to find that soba is not a vari­ety of sausage. “I want meat,” he com­plains. He takes a baby tomato from Carl’s salad, places it on the cleft of his arm, and flexes. It pops under the pres­sure. “Nice one, honey,” says Jenna. 

When the bill comes, Landon has only Interac, Jenna only Visa, and Carl only Master­Card. The server can­not sep­a­rate the bill. This dis­as­ter con­fuses and dis­mays the three Cal­garians. Landon and Jenna promise to pay Carl back later.    

Carl earns $1800 per month teach­ing esl to new immi­grants. He teaches two doc­tors, five engi­neers, two lawyers, one heart sur­geon, and two geol­o­gists. On Monday, his stu­dents ask him where they can pur­chase some durable boots.    

The lava pit lies on the far­thest out­skirts of the city lim­its and is full of lava, but any­where in the Northwest is viable real estate. Landon and Jenna sell their inner city condo and buy a house in the mid­dle of the lava pit. They pay con­sid­er­ably less than they would have for other houses in the Northwest because most peo­ple dis­like lava. They tell Carl about the move while enjoy­ing iced tea and Greek salad in a café on Kensington Street. Carl eats slowly, care­fully pick­ing around the olives. “All a per­son needs to be suc­cess­ful is fore­sight and strength of char­ac­ter,” Jenna tells Carl. “You should be more of a risk-taker, like Landon.” Landon chews spinach and smiles. 

The esl school usu­ally pro­vides pizza at teach­ers’ meet­ings but, because the engi­neers’ meet­ing two floors above has been can­celled, the teach­ers eat Moroccan take­out com­plete with pastilla soup and coconut fudge cakes. Everyone eats their fill and stretches back in their chairs. Carl picks up the extra lunch to take home for later, but the ele­va­tor main­te­nance spe­cial­ist objects. “I called it first,” he tells every­one in the room. Carl wants to ask why the ele­va­tor main­te­nance spe­cial­ist is at the teach­ers’ meet­ing, but instead he says, “I like your cov­er­alls.” Carl does not take home the extra lunch; pos­si­bly he lacks fore­sight and strength of character. 

Landon and Jenna want to have a party but don’t want to meet at the usual down­town restau­rant. Now that they have a house, they should have a house party. Carl assumes this makes sense. 

The CTrain stops eight sta­tions south of the lava pit. “Due to a mys­te­ri­ous yet seri­ous inci­dent,” says the dri­ver over the speaker, “we are sorry for the incon­ve­nience.” The pas­sen­gers get off and wan­der cir­cles on the plat­form. Nobody looks like they have received pro­mo­tions from Husky Oil recently. A sour-smelling man whose beard, hair and pack­sack likely out­weigh his body, searches in trash cans. His left hand holds a pile of sal­vaged bus trans­fers. Groups of oily teenagers stand in cir­cles watch­ing each other’s dim­pled stom­achs ooze out the bot­toms of their tee shirts. A gigan­tic woman blocks out the sun. “A shut­tle bus is pro­vided,” she tells Carl. Carl blinks and smiles.

Carl takes a shut­tle bus from Eighth Street to Sunnyside Station, the train from Sunnyside to Lions Park Station, another shut­tle from Lions Park to Brentwood Station, and walks from Brentwood to Dalhousie Station. He calls Landon and asks for a ride from the sta­tion, but Landon says he can’t because he is aller­gic to lava. This makes no sense, but Carl takes a taxi to the lava pit. 

Only a sus­pen­sion bridge con­nects the island sub­di­vi­sion to the land sur­round­ing the lava pit. Many cars sit in the park­ing lot Carl crosses to get to the bridge. Carl runs across the bridge quickly because putrid smoke rises from the lava. Perhaps this is what Landon is aller­gic to. 

No one else has come to the house party. Landon calls Ethan and Paige on speaker phone and asks them why they have not come. “Your house is too far away. And you live in a lava pit,” Ethan says. “We just had our Escalade waxed and we don’t want any ash on it.”

They can’t have a party with only three peo­ple but, since Carl has come all this way, they might as well work on the base­ment. Last week some lava rose from beneath the house and seeped into the tv and laun­dry rooms. It has cooled, but now solid­i­fied lava fills the area where Landon and Jenna are sup­posed to install their new mini bar. Carl uses a pick­axe to smash it into pieces small enough to carry up the stairs while Jenna makes him an iced tea. Landon goes to the hard­ware store to buy Carl a big­ger pick-axe. Carl thanks Jenna when she gives him the iced tea. “Don’t men­tion it,” she says. “We like to take care of our guests.” 

Carl hauls chunks of solid­i­fied lava up the stairs and out the back door for sev­eral hours before Landon returns with a big­ger pick. Landon sug­gests they take a break. “I bet you’re hun­gry, huh buddy,” he says, slap­ping Carl on the shoul­der. Landon orders pizza with extra ham­burger and olives. “Whole olive, not cut,” he specifies.  

One of Carl’s stu­dents, the heart sur­geon from Morocco, deliv­ers the pizza. Jenna closes the front door between her and the sur­geon before punch­ing her pin num­ber into the cord­less Interac machine. “Just to be safe,” she whis­pers to Carl. Even Carl has to admit his stu­dent looks a lit­tle shifty wear­ing a Domino’s Pizza uniform. 

Carl scrapes all the olives off his slice of pizza.

Landon watches Carl take a bite. “Good huh?” he says. “I told you we’d make it worth your while.” 

Jenna picks up an olive from Carl’s plate and shoves it between his lips. “Eating foods you don’t like strength­ens your char­ac­ter,” she says, push­ing sev­eral more olives into Carl’s mouth.

Carl chews care­fully so as not to break any olives. Reluctant to be swal­lowed, they swim inside his mouth, swollen and slimy like bull­frogs. Jenna says they would have got cup­cakes, but Carl isn’t a cup­cake kind of guy. Not like Landon. Landon plans to with­draw his spousal rrsps and use them to open a rub­ber boot store. He will sell thou­sands of semi-heat-resistant boots. “You can’t buy this kind of intu­ition,” says Landon, tap­ping his tem­ple with his index finger. 

Carl shifts an olive from right to left cheek and looks at his black-stained hands. Outside, Calgary con­tin­ues to boom, Paris Hilton still has not said sorry, lava rises, jobs mul­ti­ply, and metab­o­lisms increase. Carl can feel the weight of thou­sands of tons of cup­cake and cheese stores, oil offices, bus sta­tions and rub­ber boots com­press­ing around his cra­nium. All around Carl, Calgary flexes. The olive inside his mouth pops under the pressure.