Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

by Preston Norton

  “A List of five things. Just like us. Just sayin’.”

  “It’s a List of five people, actually. But kudos for trying to find real-life application in Tarantino.”

  “Our List is about five people, too.”

  Aaron gave me a look.

  “I interpret ‘JTs’ as ‘Esther Poulson,’” I clarified.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “It’s a hit list, Cliff. This is a revenge film. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to our List.”

  “I’d like to believe, even now, you’re aware enough to know there isn’t a trace of sadism in my actions,” said Bill.

  “Revenge is just vigilante justice,” I said. “It’s taking the law into your own hands.”

  “Oh, okay, Batman.”

  “Question: Is it possible to exact revenge against concepts? You know, instead of people?”

  “Uh…”

  “I mean, could the List be a form of revenge? But against social norms and complacency and hate?”

  “I don’t think that’s ‘revenge’ anymore. I think the word you’re searching for is activism.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess,” I said, deeply unsatisfied. “But revenge is so much cooler. There’s so much more passion in revenge. Like, the Bride? She just really wants to kill Bill. What if we had that kind of passion with the List? This passion that was at the very root of our existence, and the injustice of it made our blood boil, and if we didn’t complete the fuck out of this List, we would at least die trying.”

  Aaron finally pulled his gaze away from the screen. “Does this have anything to do with that mystery girl, Haley?”

  I didn’t have a response for that.

  I was actually trying really hard not to think about it at all. Because when I did, I felt something dark and dangerous inside of me—a large shadow moving beneath the surface of a calm lake. I felt solemn and furious and scared.

  I guess there was a small part of me that wanted revenge—the real thing.

  The List was back on track and more serious than ever.

  Aaron picked me up for school on Monday. But even as his eyes were sniper scopes trained fiercely on the road ahead, his mind was unraveling with questions that cascaded out of his mouth like a verbal waterfall.

  “Who is Haley?” he said.

  “No idea,” I said.

  “What girls did Shane hang out with?”

  “I don’t even have a fraction of a clue.”

  “You don’t know a single girl he hung out with?”

  “Not really.”

  Aaron snorted, which could be loosely translated as: Cliff, you are useless. And frankly, I couldn’t disagree.

  “I mean, the girls I did see him with were sort of…one-night-stand-ish,” I said, as awkward as humanly possible. “One and done—that was his dating style. C’mon, you read his journal. He didn’t do relationships.”

  “But obviously he did,” said Aaron. “At least once.”

  “Obviously. But whoever she was, Shane hid her from the world like she was the buried treasure of Montezuma.”

  “Treasure? Dude. He hid her like Frollo hid Quasimodo.”

  I responded with my expressionless, straight-mouthed No comment face.

  “No disrespect to your brother,” said Aaron, “but he seemed ashamed of her. Don’t you think?”

  Aaron was right. Shane was ashamed of her.

  So why was he so simultaneously obsessed with her? It didn’t make any sense.

  “So which freaky weirdo girls at school do we know who fit the profile?” said Aaron.

  “Freaky weirdo girls?” I said. “How many Haleys or Hals do we know?”

  “Um. Zero?”

  “Big fat zero.”

  We brooded in a moment of stilted silence.

  And then the lightbulbs of Aaron’s eyes flickered—an idea. “But I do know a couple of nerds who have access to the names of every girl at HVHS.”

  Oh.

  Oh!

  “A couple of nerds who already promised to deliver HAL’s identity on a silver platter!” I said.

  I looked at Aaron, and Aaron looked at me, and the inspiration jolted through us like an electric current.

  We had a lead.

  Jack and Julian barely noticed us as we entered Mr. Gibson’s computer lab. They were at side-by-side computers, playing something World of Warcraft–ish. Their faces were so intense, they might as well have been in the honest-to-god Hunger Games.

  “Heal me, heal me, heal me!” Julian squealed.

  “I’ll heal you if you sit your Paladin ass still for half a goddamn second,” said Jack.

  “Aw, yeah! Full health, baby! Eat my broadsword, wankers!”

  “The harpy! Get the harpy!”

  “Unh! Unh! Unh! Suck it, bitch! Unh! Oh yeah! OH YEAH!”

  “Whoa, calm your loins, man. Can you fight without sounding like you’re getting a BJ?”

  Aaron put his fist to his mouth and coughed gracelessly. “Hey…guys. Any luck finding HAL?”

  Jack and Julian looked up, surprised.

  “You still want us to do that?” said Jack.

  Aaron’s eye twitched.

  “We just assumed…” said Julian. “You know…since Aaron…”

  Jack and Julian looked at Aaron. Aaron just dropped his head in his hand and rubbed his spazzing eye.

  “Just do it,” I said. “Also, can you look up Haley in the student directory?”

  Jack shot me a well-deserved weird look. Julian managed to put Jack’s weird look into words.

  “Did you just pull that name out of your ass because it starts with ‘HAL’?”

  “GOD, JUST LOOK IT UP FOR US, OKAY?” I said.

  “Okay, okay!” said Jack. He opened up a new window on his computer, and his fingers danced across the keyboard. “Searching…searching…searching…aaaaaaand…no results found.”

  He glanced back up at me, anticlimactically.

  “Okay,” I said. It came out more as a mumble.

  “Sorry about the HAL thing, though,” he said. “We’ll get on it. A deal’s a deal. Right, Julian?”

  “Hells yeah, it is,” said Julian. “I’m a karate brown belt, and the first rule of karate is honor.”

  It wasn’t until then that I remembered that I had a girlfriend. It had been days, and I still hadn’t told Tegan that Aaron was back on board with the List.

  Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t noticed her at school on Friday.

  I texted her during first period—nothing. Second period—still nothing. By third period, I assumed she was sick, and practically begged her for confirmation. By fourth period, I had received so much nothingness in response, I was going a little bit insane. I practically charged into the cafeteria, then I veered outside to Frankie’s corner with every worst-case scenario in mind.

  As I drew near, I could tell from a distance that Tegan wasn’t there. No one was—except for Carlos. I couldn’t help but decipher this as a red flag.

  I walked faster until I reached Carlos, and then broadsided him in an artillery fire of questions.

  “Where’s Tegan? Is she sick? Where is everybody?”

  Carlos rolled his eyes, and shook his head, and chuckled in a way that meant the opposite of funny.

  “Sick?” he said. “Bro, do you even talk to your girlfriend?”

  I was trying really hard not to look stupid. However, my efforts were overwhelmed by the fact that I was, in fact, the King of Stupid. I sat on a throne of idiocy, and my scepter was a raspberry-flavored Dum-Dum.

  Carlos sighed. “Tegan stole Frankie’s heroin and took off.”

  “WHAT?”

  “She took all of it.”

  “How much did he have?”

  “I’d say somewhere between Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream.”

  Jesus Humphrey Christ.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Bro,” said Carlos. “If we knew that, Frankie’d already have his shit back. And Tegan’d be six feet undergr
ound, for that matter.”

  “Where’s Frankie?”

  “Where you think? Out in his truck scouring town for Tegan. And probably a nice plot o’ land to bury her ass.”

  “Shit.”

  “If it’s any consolation, Jed’s with Frankie, tryna cool him down. Helping him weigh the pros and cons of murdering his little sister.”

  “Shit, shit, shit.” I turned back around and started walking.

  “Bro! Where you going?”

  “Where do you think I’m going?”

  Really, I wasn’t going anywhere—not on foot, at least. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed the first number ever programmed in its retrotastic memory databanks.

  Aaron picked up on the first ring.

  “Dude, where are you? It’s pizza day!”

  “I need a ride.”

  “A ride? On pizza day?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” I said, hoping he would hurry his ass.

  “Um…” said Aaron, in a way that indicated the opposite of ass hurrying. “What if I told you that I promised Lacey I’d sit by her in English…?”

  “What? No.”

  “And that I was actually looking forward to it.”

  “NO. Bro code, man! God, you’re choosing now to fall in love with Lacey?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. In love? You’re like four bases ahead of me, man. We’re just sitting next to each other—in completely segregated desks, I might add.”

  “Tegan stole a shit-ton of Frankie’s heroin. She’s giving it all to her junkie mom. There’s also a pretty solid possibility they’ll get high together—mother-daughter bonding and such.”

  “GAHH!” yelled Aaron. “Where are you?”

  “Outside, past the fence. By Frankie’s corner.”

  “Meet me at the front doors. I’m giving you the keys.”

  “The…car keys?”

  “No, Tony Robbins’s keys to massive success. Yes, my car keys!”

  Aaron hung up. I took that as my cue to run. And as I ran, I struggled to process the life-altering event that was in the throes of transpiring.

  I was about to drive Aaron’s car.

  Aaron drove a Camaro.

  But Camaro was just a word. What Aaron really drove was the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. A 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 RS, painted a sleek, devastating black—the same impenetrable shade as Steve McQueen’s soul. It was basically an orgasm with a steering wheel.

  I was so lost in excitement, I almost collided with Aaron inside the front doors.

  Aaron grabbed me by the wrist, placed the keys into my sweaty palm, and closed my fingers around them. It felt like a mantle of power being passed down from the hero of a lost era—seeping through the pores of my skin, sparking my nerves, and igniting the fire in my soul.

  “Wreck my car, and I’ll wreck your dick,” said Aaron.

  Fine by me. I was so sexually aroused by Aaron’s car, my dick was probably indestructible.

  Like Tegan, I didn’t have a driver’s license. But I did know how to drive. Shane taught me in one of his buddies’ cars, educating me in all of the driver’s ed essentials—doughnuts, burnouts, J-turns—aka, How to Survive a Jason Statham Film 101.

  I ran to Aaron’s car, turned the key in the ignition, and basically re-created the car chase in Bullitt—McQueening around corners, flooring it on every stretch, cremating rubber all the way to Guns n’ More.

  It was just a hunch. But it was better than what Frankie and Jed had.

  A bell chimed as I walked inside. This drew the attention of a burly forty-something-year-old dude behind the counter. He had a black beard and long, ratty hair hanging beneath a backward baseball cap. To top it all off, he was wearing a Mother Love Bone T-shirt beneath an actual trench coat. Indoors. He was like a forgotten relic of the ’90s grunge scene.

  He squinted as I walked in. “You don’t look eighteen.”

  “I’m not looking for a gun,” I said. “I’m looking for a woman named Birdy? Or Bernadette? Or something?”

  “Birdy?” Grunge chuckled to himself. “Man, you’re about a year late. She got fired a long time ago.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Do you know where to find some heroin? ’Cause if you can, that’s probably where she’s at.”

  “Dammit.” I grabbed tufts of my hair and started walking in circles.

  This was it. This was my one lead. If Birdy wasn’t here, then she could literally be anywhere. Tegan could be anywhere.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” said Grunge, “but can I ask what you want with Birdy?”

  “It’s nothing,” I lied.

  “Don’t look like nothing.”

  I sighed. “I’m friends with Birdy’s daughter. I think she’s about to do something really stupid.”

  “Daughter?” said Grunge. “You mean Tegan?”

  I stopped pacing. My whole body locked up. “You know Tegan?”

  “Well, I don’t know her. But Birdy talked about her all the time. Said she screwed up bad. Wanted to fix things with her and her son…oh, what was his name?”

  “Frankie?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Frankie! For a couple of kids she abandoned, Birdy was totally obsessed with them. Just got out of rehab when she started working here. She was so determined to fix things with her kids, I thought for sure she was gonna clean up her act. Nope. Fell right back into the same shit.”

  Grunge shook his head, lips pinched shut. “You say Tegan’s gonna do something stupid?”

  “I think so.”

  “With Birdy?”

  I nodded hopelessly.

  Grunge bit his lip. Tapped his fingers on the glass counter.

  “Hold on a sec,” he said.

  He turned and disappeared into a back room. I only had a sliver of a view from a half-open doorway—some sort of makeshift office space with an archaic computer, file cabinets, and shelves upon shelves of back stock. Grunge pulled open one particular file cabinet and thumbed through its contents until, finally, he removed a single sheet of paper. He laid it flat on the desk and copied something down on a sticky note.

  He came back out, sticky note in hand, and gave it to me. It was an address: 89 Lazy Creek Way.

  “This was where Birdy lived when she applied for the job,” said Grunge. “I don’t know if she’s still there, but if she is, well…I hope you find your friend.”

  I stared at the address. I was vaguely familiar with Lazy Creek Way. It actually wasn’t that far from Arcadia Park.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” said Grunge.

  I glanced up.

  “Don’t tell Birdy where you got that address.”

  I rolled down Lazy Creek Way in Aaron’s Camaro, scanning the house numbers. If you could even call these things houses. Arcadia Park was bad, but this neighborhood was like the cold gray hills of Winter’s Bone—this cemetery of a town built on the blood of a pervasive methamphetamine underworld—minus the hopeful presence of Jennifer Lawrence to alleviate the existential dread.

  Eighty-nine Lazy Creek Way was this decrepit little white box with a roof and windows. Except it wasn’t so much white anymore. If Home Depot carried the color, it would probably be called “Two-Hundred-Year-Old Rotting Skeleton.” With its freelance patchwork, the roof vaguely resembled a quilt. Also, two of the windows had been replaced by plywood. Over one of the plywood squares someone had spray-painted KEEP OUT.

  I parked the car and took a deep breath—allowing myself a brief moment to reevaluate my place in the universe. And then I walked up to the front door. Greeted it with three heavy knocks.

  The peephole went black almost instantly. Like whoever was on the other side had been waiting on their toes. It stayed black for a long, uncomfortable moment. Finally, the door opened.

  The woman on the other side was a skeleton of the Birdy I remembered. Her skin was sallow, hanging on a gaunt frame, with clothes that fit like curtains. Even her hair seemed to be physically sufferin
g—thinning, with premature strands of gray. Her makeup looked like it had been left over from last Wednesday.

  “You friends with Tegan?” she asked.

  “Uh,” I said. “Yeah?”

  “You got the junk?”

  “The…junk?”

  “The smack, the H, you got it?”

  Her fingernails clicked impatiently on the door frame.

  “Uh. No. Sorry.”

  “Fuck,” she said.

  She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pack of menthols. She removed a cigarette, inserted it in her mouth, and pulled out a pink Zippo lighter. Lighting the cigarette, she took what might have been the longest drag of her life. Let it out like a corpse releasing its last breath.

  “Do you know when she’ll be here?” she asked.

  I shook my head—slowly—processing the information as it came into my possession.

  She wasn’t here yet.

  Why wasn’t she here yet?

  Surely, if she was coming here, she would be here already.

  Wouldn’t she?

  “Who are you?” she asked. She removed the menthol from her lips. “What are you doing here?”

  “Um…” I said.

  And then I turned and walked off her porch. That set Birdy on fire.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” she said. “You tell that little bitch if she doesn’t get here soon, we’re through. I’m done being her mother.”

  I wondered if this woman registered a word coming out of her mouth. How could she possibly be the same Birdy that Grunge was talking about? The same one who was so anxious to rekindle a relationship with the children she abandoned. Whoever this woman was, she was a shell of that person.

  “You tell her!” Birdy screamed. “You tell that little bitch!”

  I climbed into Aaron’s car, turned the key in the ignition, and drove off.

  I pulled out my phone, scrolled through the contacts, and took another stab at calling. As the phone dialed, I stared at the road ahead of me, and the endless places it led.

  “Where are you, Tegan?” My voice was a breath in my throat.

  Somewhere in the universe, my question was heard. Maybe it was even answered. I didn’t drive ten seconds before I turned onto a small creek bridge leading out of the neighborhood. There was Tegan, sitting on the dirty creek bed, arms folded around her knees, brooding. Beside her was a backpack—chock-full of illegal substances, no doubt.