Tin Universe Monthly #6

by Brian C. Williams

  “Stop the random facts!” Karen

  “Like how Jim Parsons would have been a better choice for the new Spock?” Gail

  “YES!” Karen

  “That was more opinion and needless pop culture referencing than fact.” Jeff

  “Both of you, STOP!!” Karen

  CHAPTER 2

  In this book you will find people saying things like:

  ‘I’m old enough to make my own underwear choices.’

  And

  ‘Can I kick your ass and it be ok if the E.R.A. passes? I’m a supporter if you say yes.’

  And you will probably find way too many pop culture pitch outs.

  Anything else on the high or low brow measures is highly due to delusions of grandeur on the part of the writer.

  CHAPTER 3

  2010, August

  Melbourne, Florida.

  ‘I just don’t get what getting upset about it accomplishes? You can’t change a whole fucking language based on mistakes at the beginning when people hadn’t even invented vowels yet?…..had they?’ Jeff

  Jeff said those thoughts to Karen sitting on the Busiek’s living room couch beside Karen and Gail; while playing on the TV was a BBC documentary on a comic book writer with a beard way past mad.

  Gail downloaded the documentary from a website and burned it to a DVD for them to watch tonight. She is always planning out video viewing nights and such for her family, Jeff included, which also sometimes includes her creating flyers and email notices to give to everyone about what they will be watching.

  Jeff is usually the only one who shows up for her DVD nights but tonight Gail was actually the only one watching anything. Karen and Jeff were text messaging people on their phones while talking to each other.

  Plus, Gail made Jeff a copy to take home with him for later.

  ‘And please don’t go off on me for not understanding,’ Jeff added to his previous line of thinking.

  Karen flipped her phone closed, ‘Sexist language and assumptions are so underlined in our society that the fight is just as much to get people to see what the problem is than to change how anyone speaks. And before you say anything about it being “generic” or “universal” that just pisses me off further because that’s like saying universal is male and if you look at nature, that just ant so.’

  Jeff thought about talking but a look from his best friend told him no.

  ‘I have to look at text books that habitually speak about “his car.” I hear about how in America anyone can be anything “he” wishes to be. Universal? Fuck that, “All men are created equal.” “That’s one small step for man.” Am I the only person this pisses off?’

  Gail paused the documentary with Mr. Moore standing on stage alone and stood up,

  ‘You know there is a place in Virginia where you could use the gender-neutral pronoun, co, and no one would blink an eye. There are also reports of students in London using, yo, as a gender-neutral pronoun.’

  ‘Wikipedia?’ Jeff

  Gail sticks out her tongue at Jeff, ‘If I’m not mistaken this is referred to as Epicene pronoun usage.’

  Jeff looks at Karen, ‘I bet she aint mistaken.’

  Karen shruggs her shoulders as Gail coutinues, ‘Epicene pronouns have popped up time after time in some science fiction over the years. Not to mention internet instant message usage in some circles is quite common. There are people who think this totally liberates us from dependence on the masculine, “his.” English has been oversimplified over the centuries.’

  Karen and Jeff look at her, Jeff with a smile on his face, Karen slightly amused.

  ‘What?’ Gail asked in response to their facial reactions.

  Karen stood up to go into the kitchen, ‘Sister you are like a complicated squirrel.’

  Gail sat down beside Jeff, ‘Was that an insult?’

  ‘It came from your sister.’

  ‘HEY!’

  Gail got up and followed Karen into the kitchen, ‘Why do you go out of your way to be an ass to me.’

  ‘Maybe because you go out of your way to make people think you’re smarter than me.’

  ‘I am. That hypnosis and view by others is acceptable to me.’

  ‘You are a spaz in the sense of being worthless to anyone except mom and dad.’

  ‘I would like to thank you for this distinction.’

  ‘Aaaaaah!’ Karen charges out of the kitchen, ‘You can’t even be normal when arguing.’

  Karen sits down beside Jeff on the couch as Gail goes into her bedroom.

  Jeff decides to change the tension, ‘I want some Goddamn popcorn.’

  ‘You insult my religion with your use of God in vain.’

  ‘Bring me some notch-roundeye-squasho popcorn.’

  ‘That fake edginess is sickening.’

  Jeff shrugs his shoulders, ‘And you being a bitch to your sister isn’t saint worthy. I love you but you’re more than a little harsh with her.’

  ‘We’ve had this talk before Jeff. I’m glad she’s not dead but she’s not dead and I don’t have to be nice to her and everyone can fuck off who thinks otherwise.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Jeff hates it when Karen goes off to take a shower and he is left alone in her bedroom. One reason is that he’s always tempted to go through her collection of photos of Willow from Buffy and that would just setup feelings of wanting to be alone and then Karen would reenter the room and then confusion sets in.

  But for the most part he gets uneasy in her room alone when she showers thinking her parents for some reason, even though they know nothing is going on, think that he is some sort of sex seeker in their oldest daughter’s bedroom.

  He is, just not for their oldest daughter.

  Gail walks in eating an Oreo ice cream, ‘Sis in the shower?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jeff was sitting at Karen’s computer desk, ‘I don’t have the chops for daily bathing myself.’

  Gail sits down beside him on the floor scrunching up her nose, ‘It’s brutality for us all.’

  Jeff non-accidentally pushes a folder off the desk to not so gently land on Gail’s head.

  ‘Watch it,’ Gail says rubbing her head, smiling.

  ‘Is that some form of self-deception to say that actually hurt?’

  ‘No, my thoughts are just pain censors of their own.’

  Jeff sniffs the air to catch the faintest smell of watermelon, the scent of Karen’s body wash.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be off doing something scholarly, Scholastic Brain?’ Jeff asked

  ‘My enhanced intelligence does not make me a halo of school work,’ Gail answered.

  ‘I believe your thought processes have a splinter down the middle. You remind me of a small, less teethy, female version of Tom Baker.’

  ‘That’s a titanic comparison there Mister.’

  ‘You would love to wrap yourself into a Time Lord identity.’

  ‘Better than being a cyborg.’

  ‘Who mentioned cyborgs?’

  ‘Union Jack?’

  ‘Dude, even I’m getting lost in this geeky conversation.’

  Karen walks into her bedroom wrapped in a towel, ‘Geeks, I’m surrounded. Gail, get out, we are heading out to buy the new Special Special edition of The Doors and you are not invited into our plans.’

  Gail leaves with, ‘I know the differences between The Big Bang, Oscillating; and Steady-State Theories.’

  Jeff turns around in the desk chair he was sitting to face Karen who was sitting on her bed, ‘I think she just called you stupid.’

  Karen, ‘I think she’s a little asshole.’

  ‘Gail’s a blue chip stock, she is scary smart now, and even you have to admit that?’

  ‘Pain in the ass smart is more like it. Do you want to watch my old edition of The Doors before we leave?’

  ‘What is wrong with your taste in movies.’

  That was a statement, not a question.

  ‘How do you get away with calling us geeks when you are
going to buy a special Special-Special edition of a Blu-ray when you already own the bare edition, the VHS, several DVDs, and even the laser disc?’

  Karen leans into Jeff’s face as they both are smiling waiting for it, ‘Because you still have your Doctor Who underwear from when you were five years old, and Gail knows the names, and has them in a little journal, of all of the actors who have played Cybermen. You two are distinctive geek breed onto yourselves.’

  Then she flashes Jeff, ‘I just want Val Kilmer to see these.’ And walks back to the bathroom as Jeff answers her, ‘Yeah, but have you seen him lately? Picture a beached manatee. Not textually Simon Templar lately.’

  CHAPTER 5

  You might think having a father who is a restaurant owner, one time fast food fry cook. And a mother who is a professional cook, author, one time cooking television show host, would signal gourmet eating for Gail and Karen around the clock each and every time they sat down to the family dinner table for a meal such as breakfast?

  You might think this and be very, very wrong.

  Janet Busiek does not swim the way of bringing work home, that’s unhealthy. She goes swimming in a course of opening canned grits and sometimes gets the bowls, bringing them to the children she loves oh so much at home, and to put the these activities in a different zone from everything else in her life.

  Right now early in the morning before heading off to school Gail and Karen are just staring at their mother whose sitting at the oak and iron table their father picked up on a trip to Liverpool a few weeks ago. He’s always buying things that need to be shipped later when he travels internationally with his life. For the most part purchases which make his wife’s head shake.

  ‘What?’ asked Janet to the puzzled looks currently on the face of her teenage daughters?

  The daughters picked up their bowls in comedic unification and looked them over like aliens looking at a ferret and then they looked at each other with wide playing eyes.

  ‘You opened our cans?’ was a question from Karen.

  ‘So?’ Janet

  ‘You got our bowls?’ was a further question from Gail.

  ‘So?’ Janet again.

  ‘Are you feeling ok mom?’ the daughters chorused.

  ‘You two inherited your father’s smart ass mouth,’ she smiled, ‘But you both got your IQ’s from me,’ pointing to her brain as she said that.

  She exchanged more fake playful smiles in the faces of her daughters, ‘Have a good day Young Ones and I’m leaving your presence now. Talk among yourselves.’

  After she was gone from the house by the way of the kitchen door, Karen turned to Gail ready to spit a few smart ass comments, ‘Did mom just call us an overrated British sitcom? I can’t stand that show.’

  ‘I don’t think they call them sitcoms in Britain,’ Gail responded.

  ‘Hush coma brain, it was a joke. How come you went into the hospital cheerleader girl and woke up a love child of Bill Nye and Mark Waid?’

  Karen stood and carried her bowl into the living room to watch the morning traffic reports leaving Gail in the kitchen.

  From the kitchen younger sister shouted, ‘Call me a geek all you want but you have the complete run of Mark Waid’s Flash issues!’

  An aggressive response was shouted from the living room, ‘Get dressed quick little sis or I’m leaving you here. A wreck already has traffic backed up on Babcock Street.’

  Gail knowing her older sister ran for her bedroom in a blur.

  Karen’s car was not speeding down one of Florida’s most congested roads. In a perfectly boring fact her vehicle was only doing five mph in what was congested crawling traffic.

  The crawling was overwhelmed by the appalling nature of way too many SUV’s moving all around them. A fact that Karen had already noted and noted with more than few four letter words.

  Inside the barley moving mini Gail was being irritated by something of her own, her sister’s choice of music, ‘Do we have to listen to Ani all the time? I like her but why can’t we mix in a little something “anything else” every now and then?’

  Karen put her head on the steering wheel frustrated at the slow progress of the traffic, ‘The question ought to be, should I have given you a ride to school at all?’

  ‘If you didn’t I would have to walk stupid.’ Gail spat out at her sister with such confidence in her comeback.

  ‘And they call you a genius. Keep what you just said in mind. Think on it and contemplate your navel.’

  Gail slowly nods her head yes in a understanding answer to Karen and then she turns up the volume on the cars mp3 player and begins to mockingly sing fanatically like a little folksinger fangirl on crack.

  CHAPTER 6

  Franz Kafka High School is Melbourne Florida’s only school not named after an astronaut or president.

  And it a damn brand new school.

  Ok, that is not true but it is close to being the truth about it being the only school not named after an astronaut or president.

  At least for this reality it is close to being the truth

  The school’s name itself is a mystery. It’s not every day when you will find an American high school, in a largely conservative community, named after a German, Jewish, writer, whose sisters died in a concentration camp, and he himself died of starvation from the effects of tuberculosis.

  The three large structure buildings of the school is totally aboveboard, honest; don’t ask questions, it’s not safe.

  Plus I haven’t thought of all of the details yet.

  One big truth about F.K.H.S. is that there is absoultly no parking for anyone outside of a few faculty and staff. Everyone else, as everyone else means all of the studant body, have to park across the road from the school campus in the Ryan-Mart parking lot. Good thing it’s a small school or Colin Ryan probably wouldn’t allow it. Plus allowing the usage was good company PR.

  After a bit of driving, up and down rolls, Karen and Gail find a space.

  ‘Who was the genius who built a school with only 15 parking spaces?’ Gail asked that with this being her first time seeing the newly built school.

  ‘I think the architect went to F.I.T.’ Karen

  ‘You know if that burn was in a comic book, no one outside Florida would get that reference.’ Gail

  Karen stares at her sister, ‘In what way does information roll around inside your head?’

  The sisterly banter continued as they exited Karen’s car and started their walk towards the school.

  To me during mornings at schools the scene looks like ants arriving at a sugar hill from fifty different directions in one different group after the other.

  Besides the groups there are the singles. The individuals students without friends to group with, or wait for, trying to fade away into nothing so someone doesn’t notice how alone they are until the first bell rings and they can merge into classes. The same approach is used for hallway endurance.

  One of the individuals bumps into Jeff who was walking still wiping the sleep from his eyes from his cats waking him six or seven different times during the night. Jeff recognized him as Albert Wallander. A normal by all means teenager by appearance who use to also attend the same school Jeff and Karen attended before seven schools combined into F.K.H.S. and two other new schools.

  Jeff’s first thought was how sorry he already felt for Albert. Even at their old school Albert didn’t fit in and always was in survival mode day in and day out. F.K.H.S. consisted of a selected group of students from the closed schools; some called it the best of the best but more like the chosen of the masses. Albert was chosen because of his father being the schools grounds keeper. He thought he was doing his son a favor, he wasn’t.

  Albert quickly told Jeff sorry and hurried off to find somewhere to blend in within all of the groups. Jeff didn’t even get a chance to say it was ok before Albert disappeared into the mass of bodies. He tried to trigger a reminder in his head to ask Albert about Naruto if he saw him later because he remembered
him being a fan of the series.

  Jeff’s sleepy head forgot about Albert though pretty quickly and went back to rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he was waiting to meet Gail and Karen at the main school entrance. His last name is Borges by the way and if you spotted him walking down the road you would probably describe him as normal and skinny, though Karen describes him with the following words: senstive, painter; and owner of a British Shorthair cat named Emma and a Bombay cat named John.

  Gail just describes Jeff as cool and odd. She likes how he doesn’t edit himself and from a young mind, even a genius that’s cool. The odd comes in the things he likes, loves, and enjoys an that’s everything from pro-wrestling to Greek poetry. And there are those odd Russian t-shirts he wears.

  He is a little absent-minded also so he came to the first day of the new school year without any school supplies or his books. Though that absent-minded tag is something others have put on him and he goes along with for laughs. He plays the stupid act at times also with self-defecating humor. If he was completely honest he would tell you the only reason he goes to school at all is to hang around Karen and observe people.

  Jumping back a sentence or more Jeff does not describe himself because that would be more than a little weird and there are enough big egos in this book already with more to come.

  Jeff and Karen have known each other since kindergarten and were good school friends but became best friends when he was busting tables at her father’s resturant. During the summer he works full time there but because school is starting back he is back to a part time schedule of weekends only. He has become a part of the Busiek family having no family of his own and is paid the same wages daily by the family even though he is only working weekends in a deal he made for painting the resturtant and redesigning all of the funiture.

  Jeff has also become a big brother type to Gail, ‘Look Coma Girl’s sporting the Darlek tee.’

  ‘It’s Dalek,’ Gail responded with a smile knowing Jeff was joking with her.

  They have bonded over a mutal love of British science fiction. A bonding which now has migrated into a weekend bonding ritual which makes Karen have several fits of nausea while they pop in DVD after DVD.

  Karen put her arm around Jeff’s shoulder, ‘Maybe you should be her shaperon and escort? I sure don’t want to be around her this much on my first day of classes.’