by TJ Klune
And read:
In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.
If the inspirational calendar had been a person, Gus would have punched it in the face.
GUS DEBATED calling in sick to work.
Granted, he was his own boss and didn’t need to call in sick to anyone, but the sentiment remained the same.
He’d never done that before, not even the time he’d been ill with the flu and felt the need to vomit at least once every four minutes. The store had smelled pretty gross that day and the We Three Queens had chided him until he’d gone to the back office and slept in the office chair while they’d watched the store.
But today was Tuesday.
Tuesdays were ninety-nine cent rental days.
He usually had at least four customers.
Excluding the We Three Queens.
It was an absolute madhouse.
But still.
No. He couldn’t let down his customers.
He showered and avoided the mirror, because he knew he probably looked like a crack baby.
He dressed and made sure his name tag was straight.
He ate his apple. Harry S. Truman played with his pellets.
They left the house.
The sun was shining.
He glared at it. It was most certainly not his inner sunshine, that was for sure.
People waved hello.
He scowled at them.
He stomped across the street.
And stopped when he heard his name through the open door of Lottie’s Lattes.
“—just need to be careful about Gus,” Lottie was saying, voice drifting through the door. “He’s not like other people.”
“I know that,” Casey said, and Gus almost felt guilty for eavesdropping. Almost. “He’s abnormal and weird and strange.”
That stung. It shouldn’t have. They were things he’d thought about himself. They were things he knew others thought about him. But to hear it said so carelessly hurt more than Gus had expected. He didn’t know why he cared so much. He wished he didn’t.
“He’s always been like that,” Lottie said. “Even when Pastor Tommy was alive.”
“His dad?”
“Yeah. Sweet man. Sweet, sweet man. Night and day difference between him and Gus. Not that Gus isn’t sweet, I guess. In his own way. It just takes… time, I guess, to see what Gus is made of.”
Ow. Right in the feelings.
Casey chuckled. “Gus does scowl and glare a lot.”
“It’s kind of his thing,” Lottie agreed.
And Gus had heard enough.
He walked away.
HE TOOK Harry S. Truman home.
He walked back to the Emporium and put a sign on the door: OUT SICK. IT’S NOT EBOLA OR DYSENTERY. WILL BE BACK TOMORROW.
And then he went on a walk.
When Gus was younger, and the problems of the world became too much (school and teachers and lack of friends and things said like Pastor Tommy, maybe he has a social disorder or anxiety disorder because he obviously is disordered, don’t you think? And Pastor Tommy would just laugh it off because no, no, that’s just how Gus is and there’s nothing wrong with him), he would sometimes walk for hours and hours, trying to clear his head from all the clutter. It helped to soothe him. It gave him purpose.
After Pastor Tommy had died, Gus had walked for days.
He’d tried to leave Abby on foot, tried to get past Glide even, but he hadn’t quite been able to make himself leave the only real area that he’d known his entire life. Even when it had felt like he couldn’t breathe, that he too was dying because Pastor Tommy was gone, gone, gone, he couldn’t make himself leave. So he walked in a great circle through the small surrounding towns. On the streets. Through the woods. For days.
Finally, he had stopped because he had obligations that had been passed on to him.
He’d gone home and started his new life.
It was nowhere near as bad this time. Gus was slightly hurt and slightly dazed, but not lost in the tide of grief as he had been before. Nothing could compare to that. Nothing should compare to that.
Still, this was the very reason why he didn’t allow himself to have things. Or people, really. The We Three Queens had wormed their way in regardless, and he couldn’t get rid of them if he tried. He knew (he really knew) that Lottie hadn’t meant it the way it’d sounded, and he couldn’t quite figure out why he cared what Casey thought at all (because of course a hipster had an opinion).
So he walked.
It was maybe an hour before his phone buzzed. A message from HOW IS THIS MY LIFE.
Saw ur note. U Sick???? No bueno. :-( xx
“You are not Hispanic,” Gus said with a frown.
He typed back, slow and methodical.
I am fine. Just the flu. Will be fine.
Kk. Bring u sumthin?
“Christ,” Gus said. “And you’re supposed to be a writer?”
No. I am fine. Just the flu. Will be fine.
Kk. Ur scowlin at ur fone rite now >:{ <--Grumpy Gus
“I am not scowling at my phone,” Gus said as he scowled at his phone.
No. Your spelling is atrocious. You should be ashamed.
LOL. Wuteva.
“What the hell does that mean?” Gus asked. “Lawl? Lole? I don’t speak youth!”
He put his phone away and ignored it for a while.
Now, it should be said that Gus was an overthinker. It was just the way he was wired. And combining that with anxiousness, fear of the unknown, and asexual hipsters, it was really a never-ending spiral of what-the-hell, and Gus wasn’t quite sure he was thinking with his right mind.
Which is why he thought over and over what Casey had said.
He’s abnormal and weird and strange.
Well, yes. Yes he was.
And look where that had gotten him.
He owned a business. Multiple buildings.
The house was paid off.
He had a ferret for a pet.
A 1995 Ford Taurus that ran smoothly when it wasn’t cold.
He frowned a lot. He scowled even more.
He was not really a friendly person.
People spoke at him or around him.
Never really to him.
Aside from the We Three Queens. And Lottie. And Casey.
But even they were trying to better him, weren’t they?
The inspirational calendar.
Asking him every day what he’d learned.
He’s abnormal and weird and strange.
He had to fix this, right?
He had to make a change.
He didn’t want to be abnormal and weird and strange.
He wanted to be like everyone else.
Not abnormal, but normal.
Not weird, but normal.
Not strange, but normal.
Okay.
He had a plan.
He would go home and research it on the Internet. It had to be the best place to start.
He felt better already.
Really.
He could do this.
GUS ARRIVED home, walked through the door, and realized he didn’t have Internet connected at the house.
Or a computer to connect to the Internet.
Or a smartphone that could connect to the Internet.
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
His phone buzzed. Repeatedly.
Bertha: Sick? Are you getting enough fiber?
Bernice: Being stopped up is never any fun.
Betty: It’s all that jerky you eat. It’s like a plug!
Bertha: Yes, the jerky. Really, Gus.
Bernice: Eat the fiber cookies. They taste gross, but work wonders.
Betty: And I’ll make you an appointment for a colon flush.
Gus growled at his phone. He didn’t know if he’d ever been texted more in his life. It was disconcerting.
(But then he realized that normal people get texts so he responded as politely as he co
uld: I am fine. Just the flu. No colon flush. Seriously. NO COLON FLUSH.)
Okay. He didn’t have Internet.
But he needed Internet.
Conundrum.
“To the library!” Gus said.
A LIBRARY card was needed to log into the computers at the library.
Gus didn’t have a library card.
“Goddammit,” he said.
“Shh,” the librarian said. Her name was Margo Montana (curse thy alliterative name!). She tended to rent romantic dramas from the Emporium and would bring the DVDs back scratched. Gus was not a fan of Margo Montana. But, to be fair, she was not a fan of his either. He’d never had anyone rent movies more curtly than she. It all stemmed back to when he was fifteen years old and she’d blatantly hit on Pastor Tommy right in front of him, all the while looking upon Gus with disdain. Not only had Pastor Tommy politely turned her down, but Gus might have called her an old cow with a better chance at contracting necrotizing fasciitis than she had of going out with his father.
Pastor Tommy had been amused.
Margo Montana had not been amused.
“I need a library card,” he said.
“Hmm?” Margo Montana said without looking up at him.
“A library card,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please.”
“Oh,” she said, finally looking up from her magazine whose pink cover proudly proclaimed it had 69 SEX SECRETS TO ANALLY PLEASE YOUR MAN and THE BEST MEATLOAF RECIPE EVER on the inside.
Gus didn’t think that was a pleasant combination. He didn’t understand magazines geared toward women.
He also wondered what number Margo Montana was on in anal sex secrets and he was glad Pastor Tommy had never gone out with her because that would have been disgusting.
“Why, Gus,” she said with a smirk on her face. “I didn’t even see you there.”
“Uh-huh,” Gus said. “Okay.”
“What can I help you with today?”
“I need a library card,” he said. Then, “Please.”
“Ah,” she said. “And what do you need a library card for?”
He stared at her. “To do stuff. At the library.” Because it should have been obvious. To a librarian.
“I see,” Margo Montana said. “Like?”
At this point in his abnormal, weird, and strange life, Gus might have growled at her, plotting a quick and swift revenge in his head that he would never act on. But since he was trying to turn over a new leaf as of forty-three minutes ago (for reasons he didn’t quite understand), he instead gritted his teeth and said, “To check out a book, of course. Like normal people do. For research.”
“What book?” she asked with a nasty curve to her smile.
He turned around, stomped to the closest shelf in the nonfiction section, grabbed a book without looking, came back, and not quite slammed it on her desk.
To her credit, Margo Montana didn’t flinch. She glanced down at the book. Her eyes widened slightly. She looked back up at Gus. “Research?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m researching the hell out of this.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well. I am… surprised. To say the least. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t think he could come into a library? That he couldn’t get a card all on his own? That he was weird and abnormal and strange? Well, he would show her!
“Yes,” he said. “I’m just full of surprises. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m going to surprise everyone and people will say ‘Hey, look everyone. Gus did that. He did that all on his own. He didn’t have help from anyone to do that, even though people offered.’”
Her eyes were wide. “People offered?” she asked, sounding incredulous. “To help you do this?”
He thought of the inspirational calendar. “Yes, but I didn’t need it. I’m doing it all on my own and it’s going to be awesome.”
She handed him a library card application wordlessly. She looked shocked. Gus was proud of himself.
He filled out the application quickly. It was a good start.
She handed him his card.
She checked out his book, though he really didn’t need it. It was just a ploy to get what he really needed.
The Internet.
“I hope you do right by the girl,” Margo Montana said. “God doesn’t take kindly to children born out of wedlock.”
“Um,” Gus said. “What?”
“Lord knows why you think knocking up some poor thing is right,” she said. “And having others… help you do it. The savagery. My word. Why, as I live in breathe Gustavo Tiberius, Pastor Tommy would be rolling in his grave.”
“Um,” Gus squeaked. “What?”
“Your research,” she said, handing him the book. “And those pages better not come back tainted with any… fluids, you understand? The Douglas County Library does not appreciate books covered in… your private business, especially if it’s an affront to God.”
He looked down at the book.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
“Oh no,” Gus said.
“Now,” Margo Montana said, “if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make some phone calls. About… a completely unrelated topic of conversation. Good day.”
“No,” Gus said. “No, no, wait just a—”
He looked back up from the book. Margo Montana was gone, a sign left on her desk where a picture of a fluffy cat said I’LL BE BACK IN TEN MINUTES. I AIN’T KITTEN YOU!
Gus hated it instantly.
But he also knew he could never show his face in the library again.
He fled without ever using the Internet.
HIS PHONE rang when he walked in the door.
He groaned when he saw who was calling.
“Lottie,” he said when he answered.
“Gus,” she hissed. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Still sick. Cough. Cough.”
“Why are you coughing? I thought you said you had the flu!”
Well, shit. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Oh, ow. My stomach. It hurts. Ow. My fever is so high. Oh no.”
“Anyway,” Lottie said. “What the hell are you doing getting someone pregnant!”
“Ow, my intestines, my—wait. What?”
“Tina Marshall said Mrs. Havisham told her that Carol Eckhart told her that Margo Montana said you were at the library checking out books about how to get a girl pregnant through a gang bang.”
“That alliterative wench,” Gus snarled.
“Gus, I don’t know if you’re ready to be a father,” Lottie said. “I didn’t even know you liked women like that.”
“I don’t!”
“Do you really want a baby that badly, then? Because you can always adopt and—”
“No!”
“And then there’s the gang-bang side of it that I just can’t wrap my head around. Like, is it just to increase the chances of pregnancy? Is it a kink of yours? I am never one to kink-shame, Gus, ever, especially when I like wax play and nipple clamps, but there has to be better ways to knock someone up than a seven-way. Just think of all the semen. You wouldn’t even be able to guarantee the baby would be yours!”
“Oh my god,” Gus moaned.
“No,” she said, “no, I just think you need to reconsider this, okay? Just take some time to think on it before you do anything rash. Maybe get another ferret and name it William Henry Harrison or something. Maybe that’s what your biological clock is ticking for.”
And because he was Gus, he said, “Did you know that William Henry Harrison was the shortest-termed president in US history? He died one month into office due to pneumonia and oh my god. I am not getting another ferret. My clock is not ticking and I do not want a gang-bang baby!”
“Oh,” Lottie said. “Well. That’s good. I’m sure Casey will be pleased to hear that. I think he’s moping slightly. He hasn’t even taken his morning doobie break. Poor baby.”
Gus sputtere
d for thirty-six seconds.
Then he hung up on Lottie.
There was a text from a hipster. Gus wondered what his life was coming to.
U getting pregs??
Gus couldn’t help but CapsLock. This was a CapsLock situation if there ever was one. Gus wondered what his life had become when he needed a CapsLock situation.
NO. I AM NOT GETTING PREGNANT. OR HAVING A GANG BANG.
Kk.
I’M SERIOUS. THERE IS NO GANG BANG.
Kk. babies r sticky. So r gngbngs.
“I don’t even want to know,” Gus muttered.
Feeling bttr?
“You can spell feeling, but not better?” Gus asked. “Jesus.”
YES. THE FLU IS A 24-HOUR THING. I WILL SURVIVE.
Hey, hey! sing it gurl! kewl xx =D
“Yeah,” Gus said savagely. “Kewl. I’m so kewl.”
Chapter 9
RECORDING OF a customer call taken by Pacific Northwest Cable service representative Mitzi Reniger on 5/20/14 at 2:41 P.M. THIS RECORDING IS USED FOR INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY. DO NOT RELEASE RECORDINGS TO THE PUBLIC.
“Thank you for calling Pacific Northwest Cable, this is Mitzi and this call may be recorded for quality assurance. How may I provide you with excellent service today?”
“Uh. Yes. Hi. Hello.”
“Hello, sir! To whom am I speaking?”
“Yes. Um. My name is Gustavo Tiberius. I would like to buy the Internet.”
“Do you mean you would like to purchase Pacific Northwest Cable’s Super Xtreme Broadband Internet Service with MegaCheck Security?”
“Um. What.”
“Pacific Northwest Cable’s Super Xtreme Broadband Internet Service is the fastest Internet available in Oregon and Washington, and MegaCheck Security will keep your hardware and software safe as you surf the World Wide Web. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”
“Right. Okay. That.”
“Wonderful! Now, before we begin, I’ll just need to confirm some information. Are you already a Pacific Northwest Cable customer? With TV, perhaps?”
“Yes, though I never watch it, really. I like to read, mostly. I turned on the TV once and somehow the channel was on a show about sister wives or something and I turned it off because they were terrifying people.”