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    Goodbye Porkpie Hat: Short Story
    Goodbye Porkpie Hat: Short Story
    Goodbye Porkpie Hat: Short Story
    Ebook36 pages29 minutes

    Goodbye Porkpie Hat: Short Story

    By Michael Christie

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    About this ebook

    Crack addict Henry bumps into theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the two set out on a drug-fuelled adventure, contemplating the nature of science, addiction, and the restlessness of human life. “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” is part of Michael Christie’s critically acclaimed short-story collection, The Beggar’s Garden. It was nominated for a Journey Prize.

    The Beggar’s Garden follows a diverse group of characters, from a bank manager to a drug addict to a retired Samaritan, a web designer, and a car thief, as they drift through each other’s lives in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Michael Christie’s darkly funny debut collection won the Vancouver Book Award; it was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

    HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 13, 2012
    ISBN9781443421768
    Goodbye Porkpie Hat: Short Story
    Author

    Michael Christie

    MICHAEL CHRISTIE received his MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Prior to this, he worked in a homeless shelter on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and provided outreach to the severely mentally ill. A former professional skateboarder, he is a senior writer for Color Magazine, an award-winning publication that celebrates skateboarding culture. Michael Christie lives in Thunder Bay, and is working on his next book, a novel.

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      Book preview

      Goodbye Porkpie Hat - Michael Christie

      Goodbye

      Porkpie Hat

      Michael Christie

      Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Goodbye Porkpie Hat

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Goodbye Porkpie Hat

      Purpose

      I’m lying on a sheetless mattress in my room, watching a moth bludgeon itself on my naked light bulb. Over near the window sits a small television I never watch, beside it a hot plate I never use. I spend most of my time here, thinking about rock cocaine, not thinking about rock cocaine, performing rudimentary experiments, smoking rolled tobacco rescued from public ashtrays, trying to remember what my mind used to feel like, and, of course, studying my science book. I dumpstered it two years ago and ever since it has been beside my mattress like a friend at a slumber party, pretending to sleep, dying for consultation. I read it for at least two hours every day; I know this because I time myself. It’s a grade-ten textbook, a newer edition, complete with glossy diagrams and photos of famous scientists who all look so regal and determined, it’s as though the flashbulb had caught them at the very moment their thoughts were shifting the scientific paradigm forever. I like to think that when they gazed pensively up at the stars and pondered the fate of future generations, they were actually thinking of me.

      I excavated the book in June. The kid who threw it out thought he would never have to see science again, that September would never come. What an idiot—I used to believe that.

      My room is about the size of a jail cell. One time, two guys came through my open window and beat me with a pipe until I could no longer flinch and stole my former TV and a can of butts, so I hired a professional security company called Apex to install bars on my window. I spent my entire welfare cheque on them, just sat and safely starved for a whole month. I had to pay the guy cash up front because he didn’t believe I could possibly have that kind of money. It felt good to pay him that kind of money, he did a good job.

      Someone is yelling at someone outside, so I go to the window and look out into Oppenheimer Park, which is across the street from my rooming house. There I see

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