Read Online Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland - Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Iraq?”
I queried. Then we did it again.
    “Iraq?”
    “Iraq?”
    Was he serious? “Sorry to hear that, sir,” I said, “but could we keep on going?”
    “No.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Not until you apologize,” the driver said.
    For what?
“For what?” I wondered.
    “For using the F-word.”
    “What is the connection between me using the F-word and your nephew being in Iraq?” I was baffled.
    “Don’t make things worse.”
    “Make
what
worse? I can’t apologize for something I don’t even know I’ve done, can I? I just don’t get the link.”
    “Get out of my van!”
    “No fucking way. Now you owe
me
an apology.”
    Neal backed me up, as a good slave assistant should. “As opposed to the apology you want to extract from us, which doesn’t make sense no matter how one approaches it.”
    “Thank you, Neal.”
    “You’re welcome, Ray.”
    Sarah said, “Driver, there’s an extra twenty in it for you if you ignore these pinheads.”
    “No, ma’am, I’m taking a stand here.”
    Insanely loud volleys of trucks stuffed with pineapples and bound-and-gagged whores destined for Dubai roared past us, shaking the van.
    I said, “Okay, then, so on one hand you have Iraq, which is what it is. And then on the other you havethe difference between ‘fricking’ and ‘fucking,’ which is basically the difference between the letters ‘RI’ and ‘U’.”
    Neal added, “You could almost make it a scientific equation, like:
    Iraq = U – RI
    “I don’t think so, Neal. It would be more like a differential equation:

    “I see,” Neal said. “Much more subtle.”
    “I rest my case.”
    By this point, our purple-faced driver (shades of Mr. Bradley) had opened his door, got out, come to the right side door panel, opened it and was screaming for us to leave. Talk about baffling. “Sarah,” I asked, “can you tell us what on earth this guy is on about?”
    “You said it yourself, Ray. Americans don’t like swearing.”
    “But Iraq? What the fuck?”
    “It’s … complicated.”
    “So there’s a relationship between fricking-fucking and Iraq?”
    “Perhaps in a theoretical way.”
    “Neal, close and lock the doors.”
    “Done, boss.”
    The driver started pounding on the side of the van.
    “Sarah, use your iPhone to capture a few seconds of our driver going apeshit.”
    “Done.”
    I hopped into the driver’s seat. Before he added two and two, we peeled away. I asked Sarah, “Which way to the hangar?”
    “Next exit, three buildings on the left.”
    “And when we get questioned about why we took off in his van?”
    Sarah wore the expression of a child choosing the candy bar she wants. “He kept on saying he wanted to frick me. Like he was obsessed. But I thought,
Sarah, you’re a big girl, you can take it.
Then he stopped saying ‘fricking’ and started saying ‘fucking’.”
    Neal said, “And that’s when Ray and I snapped out of our jetlagged sleep. We couldn’t believe this nasty piece of work was hitting so explicitly on Sarah.” Neal was instantly, deeply, into the story. “ ‘Fricking’ is one thing, but ‘fucking’ is a whole new level.”
    “Oh, thank heavens I had you two there to rescue me.”
    “Think you’ll be pressing charges, then?”
    “I’ll certainly discuss the idea publicly.”
    Ah, when life is good, it’s great, isn’t it? Cocktails. Laughter. Me looking like an alpha Jason Bourne–like killing machine in front of the woman I now officially loved. Added bonus: a sidekick to torture who also feeds me good lines. I didn’t want our minivan ride to end, but it did, at a small satellite terminal for private jets.
    We pulled up to the curb. The head of local transportation asked, “Where’s Dino?”
    I said, “You mean our driver?”
    “That’s him.”
    “Sarah?”
    Sarah took Dino’s dispatcher aside. While she spoke with him, the man nodded gravely and looked suitablyoutraged. As Sarah came back to us, I heard her say, “For the