Sony Hints at Next Generation of Wearable Computers 13 страница
“That’s what I like to hear.”
NOW, GET BACK TO THIS PARTY, OR WHAT’S LEFT OF IT. YOU’VE GOT UNFINISHED BUSINESS WITHMICHAEL, CHLOE, AND BROCK.
“_ _ _t, Brock.”
DON’T WORRY. YOU’LL FIND HIM MORE DOCILE NOW. HE WON’T HIT YOU.
“I’m glad we cleared this up.” I back away from the mirror and wink at myself.
YOU’RE STILL COOL.
Thirty-eight
When I return to the living room, Chloe and Brock are arm in arm, playing with each other’s shirts. I guess they’re back together; they look very right for one another. Brock’s ponderous bulk nicely shadows Chloe’s small curvaceousness.
“Jeremy, heyyyy,” Chloe waves, struggling to stand. I guess she was smoking and drinking in addition to rolling, since she knew she had a ride home from me.
SHE WAS SNIFFING RITALIN.
Oh, great. “Hi, Chloe,” I say, staying far away from Brock. “How are you?”
“Don’t be worried about Brock or anything,” Chloe says. “I _ _c_ _ _ him, so he’s happy now. He’s my boyfriend again.”
Brock smiles. “Yeah, sorry for chasing you, dude. This girl.” He strokes Chloe’s cheek and they kiss, facing Christine on her couch, with their butts pointed at Rich on his couch.
“Turn around!” Rich yells. “I want to see you lick her tongue! I’m bored.”
Brock and Chloe keep kissing, but that doesn’t stop Brock from sticking his hand out for me to slap it, a gesture of solidarity. I can’t believe this happy ending, either.
HOW COME YOU’RE SURPRISED BY MALE BEHAVIOR?
I’m sorry?
DON’T YOU SEE THAT THIS IS HOW MEN INTERACT? THEY STAGE FIGHTS WITH ONE ANOTHER TO DETERMINE WHOM THEY CAN CONTROL. WHEN A FIGHT ENDS IN AN UNEXPECTED WAY, THEY FIND THEMSELVES WITH AN EQUAL OR SUPERIOR INSTEAD OF AN UNDERLING. THEN, OUT OF FEAR, THEY BEFRIEND THE PERSON WHO BESTED THEM. YOU BEAT BROCK, SO NOW YOU GET TO BE HIS FRIEND. SEE?
Oh. I slap Brock’s hand dutifully.
BUT FORGET THESE TWO. GO OVER TOCHRISTINE AND OFFER HER A RIDE HOME.
“Christine?” I ask. “Do you want a ride home? I’m going to give Chloe and, uh, I guess Brock a ride.” I shrug my elbow at them.
“You’re okay to drive?” she asks, looking up from whatever she had in her lap and hiding it. But I saw it: a worn, highlighted copy of the Midsummer Night’s Dream script, folded in quarters.
WORK THAT.
“Wait, you’re doing your lines now?” I ask. I put the emphasis on lines instead of now to make it friendly.
“Yeah, shh.” She puts a finger to her lips. “I’m a serious dork about this play.”
|
|
|
“Me too.” I move closer to her. NO. DON’T BE SALACIOUS. I move away. “We can go over some scenes in my car. And I am okay to drive,” I reassure her.
“Uh…I can’t even believe you have a car, Jeremy. I didn’t know you could drive.”
“How do you think I got here?”
“Huh.” She dips her head down, then up. “How come you don’t drive to school?”
EXERCISE.
“Exercise.” I stretch.
“Well, are you ready to go? It is like three in the morning. I was going to call up a car service. I have to do the whole sneaking-into-my-house thing.”
“Me too.” I stand up. “Okay. Chloe and, uh, I assume you too Brock”—he nods—“head out to the lawn. I’m going to find Michael Mell and then we’re all out of here. I’ll drop everybody off where they need to be.”
“Jeremy Heere, taking charge like a big boy,” Rich smirks. “Good luck with that full load of heads, man. You okay to drive?”
YES.
“Yes.”
“All right. See ya,” Rich slaps my hand. Chloe and Brock walk out to the lawn (they listened to me); Christine and I delve back into the party-sore house to find Michael.
“This is that guy with the ’fro, right?” she asks. “The one you’re always hanging out with?”
“Yeah. He’s, like, my best friend, y’know—if I could still say ‘best friend.’” We walk down the hall with our hands pocketed. “I guess now that I’m older I’m supposed to call him something else.”
AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT CALLING HIM “BUDDY.” THAT’S HIGHLY UNDESIRABLE.
“Best friend is fine,” Christine says. “Girls use best friend till they’re, like, dead.”
“Okay,” I smile.
We do a random room check, opening doors on kids lying in their own puke, crying, drinking beer out of ashtrays, sleeping or playing Kill All People in a sedentary frenzy. In each room we ask for “Michael” and an impostor Michael turns around, deadened by the sound of his own name, burned out. It seems like a lot of kids (and a special contingent of Michaels) are staying at the Finderman house tonight—Jason Finderman’s parents must really be in Barbados. It’s like the Land Without Parents, a Lost World.
|
|
|
TELL THAT TO CHRISTINE.
“It’s like Lord of the Flies in here,” I say as we leave a room that had a bunch of jocks standing in a circle chanting and pumping their fists at another jock doing one-armed push-ups on the floor.
“I was thinking the exact same thing,” she says. “Do parties always get this weird when it’s late?”
I await instruction from the squip. TELL THE TRUTH.
“I don’t know. I’ve never really been to a serious party before.”
“Me neither!” Christine grins. She grabs my shoulder just for a second. “Me neither.”
We’re upstairs. I peek into one door while Christine tries another. “Hey, is that him?”
She’s looking inside a bathroom—one I didn’t know about, without a crazy self-abusing Hot Girl inside. This room has party scars: the sink is full of what appears to be shaving cream; someone has tagged FROG: MY BIZNESS IS OUT OF THIS BIZNICH in permanent marker above the toilet, and in the bathtub, Michael Mell is covered with a small Asian girl, who’s wearing a towel. They look asleep. Michael’s afro is compromised by the back of the tub.
“Michael,” I hiss. “It’s me!”
“Wuh?” He looks up, eyes disturbingly white. Then his irises and pupils rotate out of his skull and his face lights up. “Dude! Look! Isn’t she beautiful?”
I try to make a judgment about the compact and somewhat oily-looking lump who lies on Michael; all I can think is that she’s got black, short hair and her arms are plump and she’s very asleep.
“She’s snow_bunny,” Michael says.
“From where?” I know that’s a username.
“Raptalk-dot-net, this, uh, underground hip-hop board,” he admits. “She’s a moderator there.”
“I thought you hated rap.”
“Yeah. Well. I still do.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Nicole. Snow_bunny was how she introduced herself to me, though. I was trying to change that horrible music in the den. We had a connection.”
“This house has a den?” Christine asks from the sink. “I always wanted a den.”
“Who’s…” Michael squints. “Whoa, it’s Christine!” He turns his chin up to me. “You got—”
|
|
|
“Eccch…” I warn, pinching his shoulder. Hard.
“Right. Hi Christine!” he nods. “I’d wave but my arms are pinned.”
“Hi,” she waves, bending her elbow but keeping the rest of her arm rigid. It’s a cute wave. “I want to see the den.”
“No. We’re staying together.” I kneel down to Michael’s level. “You want a ride home?”
“Well, yeah. I need to get my car back, remember?”
Jeez. That seems like it happened last year. “Wake her up then, man. We’re going.”
“All right.” Michael shifts into a more upright position. “Nicole, wake up.”
“Muh,” the girl mumbles.
“I think you guys had better wait outside. I’ll get her out of the tub,” Michael plans. Christine and I exit and sit in the hall, cross-legged on the carpet, knees at a safe distance, facing the bathroom door. From inside we hear banging, scraping, gargling, and male and female murmurs. I try to think of something to say.
NO. KEEP QUIET.
Why?
YOU TALK TO THIS GIRL TOO MUCH, JEREMY. YOU’RE ACCEPTABLE AROUND GUYS AND MOST GIRLS, BUT WITH THIS ONE, YOU TALK UNTIL THE BLOOD VESSELS IN YOUR HEAD EXPAND AND CRAMP ME. YOU NEED TO GIVE IT A REST. GET THAT AIR OF MYSTERY ABOUT YOU.
So I sit. Every time I almost talk (about a half-dozen times), the squip shuts me up. After three minutes, shockingly, Christine breaks out with something: “I f_ _k_ _ _ can’t believe Jake.” She shakes her head and pushes stray hair over her ears. “I don’t even want to say this because it’s so stupid, but I thought he really liked me.”
HAND ON HER SHOULDER. FIRM. FRIENDLY.
“He’s a dick,” I reassure. “We’re all dicks, if you give us the chance. We’re just guys. We react to threats and rewards.”
“Yeah?”
I pull my hand away, gesticulate with it. I’m feeling smart. “Sure. For a guy, there’s something dangling in front of your face or something sticking out your ass.” What a brilliant analysis. OH DEFINITELY. “That’s what we care about.”
“So I have to put something in his ass?” Christine says, horrified. “That’s what you want? I heard about that, the prostate—”
|
|
|
“No, I just meant…uh…”
“I don’t want to have to wear a strap-on, Jeremy!” And she leans down, unexpectedly, into my lap. I’m about to laugh because this is pretty stupid, but she’s far from laughing, she’s choking in small gasps as if she’s been waiting all night for an excuse to cry. Her tears wet my pants. I put my hand down carefully.
HAIR ONLY.
I make light strokes. And instead of being derisive, I’m nice/funny. “You know, this whole millennium is going to be the Millennium of the Woman,” I say. (She sniffles.) “So you’re not going to have to worry about guys like Jake.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. I read about it in Time magazine. I’m very happy with it. I’d rather live in a world run by women.”
Christine smiles and the very beginning of a laugh ripples her throat.
“They could, like, lust after me and touch my butt while I was trying to photocopy stuff at my job and I’d be like, ‘Ha-ha, stop that, ladies.’”
“Yeah, right.”
“And then they’d hound me and try to get photographs of me in my underwear and I’d have to hire security and have them sign up for whenever they wanted to see me, like only on Wednesday nights—”
“Jeremy, ‘Millennium of the Woman’ doesn’t mean that.”
“No?”
“No. It just means we get paid as much as you do.”
“Oh, you’re never gonna get paid as much as me. I got my sights set high in this world.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Photocopy guy.”
“Jeremy! That’s not a job!” Christine isn’t teary anymore. She lifts herself up.
“Course it is. My dad says that at every job there’s one guy who just messes around with the photocopy machine.”
“Jeremy, computers, remember? We’re not going to need copy machines soon.”
YES. DUH.
“Then I can hang around the coffee machine.”
“Those aren’t jobs, Jeremy.”
ASK FOR HER NUMBER.
Why now?
BECAUSE YOU’RE DOING WELL NOW. AND IN A FEW SECONDS, MICHAEL AND NICOLE ARE GOING TO COME OUT OF THAT BATHROOM AND YOU’RE ALL GOING TO GET IN YOUR CAR AND CHRISTINE WILL BE THE FIRST ONE WHO NEEDS TO BE DROPPED OFF SINCE SHE LIVES IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FROM EVERYONE ELSE, SO UNLESS YOU WANT TO ASK HER FOR HER NUMBER IN FRONT OF A CARLOAD OF PEOPLE—
“Christine.” I shrug intensely. “Can I have your number so I can call you sometime? We can talk about the millennium and…whatever.” There’s an unfinished gap. What didn’t I say? “Please.”
“Eh.” She shrugs and backs away, then leans forward just enough to give me hope. “You have to promise never to be a dick like Jake.”
“Okay.”
“And also not to call me all the time or embarrass me in school or treat me any different than you do now.”
“Right.”
“And when I give out a number, it’s not my signal that I’m going to have sex with you. We’re still friends, okay?”
“Agreed.”
“Really agreed?”
“Really. Agreed.”
“Then fine,” she says, and gives it to me. Over the squip’s protests, I write this precious piece of information down on an actual piece of paper.
Thirty-nine
We cram into Mom’s Maxima the way teenagers are supposed to cram into their parents’ cars. Michael and Nicole share a lap in the back (“Your butt is really comfortable,” Michael says, “it’s too bad youcan’t sit on it…wait”); she wears a kiddie-size T-shirt, bringing to the forefront some assets that weren’t evident in the bathtub. Brock occupies two seats next to Michael, and Chloe lies on top of Brock with her head in Nicole’s lap, telling her how pretty she is. I look in the rearview mirror and nod at Michael. She is pretty. She has a pretty face. He nods back at me. Christine rides shotgun. I start the car.
IT’S TOO BAD THERE’S NO STICKSHIFT. YOU COULD BRUSH YOUR HAND AGAINST HER IF YOU HAD A STICKSHIFT. SHE’D NOTICE SUBCONSCIOUSLY.
That’s a terrible idea. I power down my window so the cold air—black air—rushes over me, keeping me awake as we pull away from the Finderman house. The clock says 3:37, which is not as late as I imagined, but I’m still tired as hell.
I CAN STIMULATE PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN TO KEEP YOU UP.
Really? Which parts?
RETICULAR FORMATION. LINES YOUR BRAINSTEM.
Oh.
IT’S EASY. I SEND IT A CONTROLLED ELECTRICAL SIGNAL; IT RELEASES NOREPINEPHRINE AND YOU STAY SCARED AND AWAKE.
Do it. I don’t feel anything, but my eyes spring open and stay that way. I drive fast but still in control. I wonder how fast I’m going; I look down to see a disappointing 50—
WATCH!
I jerk my head up—a fire truck barrels past in the other direction. I get a flash of calm, burly men inside and watch in the mirror as the red lights fade to a distant spot. “Jesus.”
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS? NOT“JESUS.” “FU_K.”
“Can we listen to music?” Michael whines, leaning forward.
“No. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“That’s because you never drove before,” Michael chuckles. He’s drunk. YES. “If you’d driven before, you might understand that music helps you….” He reaches forward with a CD.
“No!” Nicole says to him. “C’mon, not rock!”
“Damn it, Michael!” I punch his wrist while gripping the wheel. CAREFUL, CAREFUL. AND“DAMN IT?” “I don’t want to listen to anything now!”
Eoooooowwwwww—another fire truck rumbles past. Full speed. We almost hit it, and the car shifts to the left in its wake, sliding a foot toward the other side of the road. Everybody shuts up. I keep my foot steady on the accelerator, putting a safe distance between us and the truck. Then I turn to Christine: “So, you want to go over those Midsummer lines still?”
“Cue me,” she says mechanically. Her arms are folded over her seat belt. I’m not wearing my seat belt.
OF COURSE NOT.
“C’mon, cue me,” Christine insists.
“Uh…” I try to think of a cue for Puck.
IT’S A TRAP.
“You can’t, see?” she says. “Lysander doesn’t cue Puck. Ever. So I guess you should concentrate on driving.”
“Ur.”
For the next ten minutes, nobody says a word except Christine, mutely giving directions to her house. When we get there, I park as leisurely as I can in front of her lawn.
“Jeremy?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you pull up more so I don’t have to open the door into my own garbage?”
Plastic bins wait outside Christine’s house for the sanitation guys, who I guess will show up in an hour.
“Right, okay.” I pull the car up a little, stop again. “Is that good?” WALK HER IN. “I’ll walk you in.”
Christine stays silent. I leave the car in neutral, step out and stride over to her side. She’s already out, walking around the edge of her lawn to her house. I start after her, rubbing my arms. It’s coldout here.
STOP. THERE ARE MOTION SENSORS. YOU’LL TURN ON A BIG FLOODLIGHT IF YOU STEP ONTO THE LAWN.
I plant my feet. “Chri—”
WHISPER. AND SAY “TH” FOR “S,” LIKE YOU HAD A LISP. THE SOUND DOESN’T CARRY SO FAR.
“Uh…Chrithtine,” I hiss, feeling like an idiot. “I’ll call you…uh…thoon.”
“When you call me you’d better actually know how to drive,” she seethes, wisely picking a sentence with no s’s. Then she turns away in the night.
THIS GIRL. VERY DIFFICULT.
I stand and watch her, just a butt and legs and arms, receding into the black. How come they’re so compelling?
BECAUSE THEY PRODUCE CHILDREN.
Come on.
AND THEY MOTIVATE YOU. THEY DEFINE YOU, REALLY. THEY MAKE YOU HUMAN.
I trudge back to the car.
HUMAN!
And then the squip does something I haven’t heard before: it laughs. It’s horrible. Keanu Reeves laughing in your mind? Must be what schizos hear.
Everyone stays quiet as I drive to Chloe’s house next. I say cordial good-byes to her and Brock (Chloe kisses my cheek; Brock slaps my hand); then Michael and Nicole space out in back, lounging for the final leg of the trip. When we pull up to my house, I notice with extreme horror that the kitchen light is on. That could mean Dad forgot to turn it off or it could mean he stayed up two hours later than usual watching the History Channel (Secrets of the Nazis, Nazis and the Occult, Hitler’s Last Nazis) or it could mean he’s waiting for me with his fists clenched. He’s never hit me, but I am in his wife’s car. How am I going to handle this?
TAKE MICHAEL’S CAR OUT OF THE DRIVEWAY YOURSELF, WITH NO ENGINE, AS YOU DID WITH YOUR MOM’S CAR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NIGHT. THEN PUT YOUR MOM’S CAR BACK SLOWLY AND QUIETLY.
“Give me your keys, man,” I reach back to Michael. He hands them over; I bunch them up in my fist, turn off the car and step out. I crawl on my hands and knees up my own driveway, open the passenger door of Michael’s ride, squirm across the canyon between the two front seats, release the emergency brake and wait for his car to slide down the driveway. It doesn’t.
IT’S TOO HEAVY. OLDER CAR. BIGGER ENGINE UP FRONT. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO PUSH.
_ _c_. I crawl back down the driveway and inform Michael. “Why can’t you just start it and back it up?” he asks.
“Because I can’t wake my dad, genius, and your car is noisy as hell. Get out and help.”
“I’ll help too,” Nicole offers. “This one’s too skinny.” She hits Michael.
“I’m good-skinny, though,” Michael says. We all sneak up the driveway; then, like a crack Olympic team in a new sport, we grab ahold of Michael’s front bumper in synchronization. “What kind of car ith thith, anyway?” I whisper.
“Ford Crown Victoria. One of the heaviest, most gluttonous vehicles ever constructed. What’s wrong with your voice?”
“Nevermind.” I position myself in the middle of the fender, arch my fingers under it and try to brace my legs on the asphalt—I’m glad my driveway’s not gravel. “All right, ready?” I turn right and then left, judging my compatriots. Nicole looks determined, like one of those people who have to move a car in the World’s Strongest Man competition, but Michael’s arms (he rolled his sleeves up) are even scrawnier than I remembered.
“One…two…Ungggh.” I throw my weight forward, trying to pull the mass after me as I lean over the hood. The insides of my knuckles pinch the fender and burn. My arms ripple. I think the car’s moving—
SHIFT LEFT.
I pull my hands off the fender for a second—the car dips noticeably toward me—and reapply them a foot to the left. There’s a little creak, like a hamster wheel, as the car starts moving back, centimeter by centimeter. I can hear each tire tread contact the road with a squish.
Дата добавления: 2018-04-04; просмотров: 411; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!