Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

by Preston Norton

  In all my excitement, I overestimated the proficiency of Aaron’s brake. When I hit them, my entire body jackhammered into the steering wheel. I even managed to inadvertently honk the horn.

  Tegan’s head snapped up. She climbed to her feet—jaw tense, fists ready—fully prepared to deliver a piece of her mind to the Camaro-driving asshole who thought it was a good idea to stop and honk.

  “Hey, you got a problem, fuckface?” said Tegan.

  I fumbled to put the car in Park, then waged a mighty battle with my own seat belt. Finally, I managed to stumble out of the driver’s-side door.

  “Cliff?” said Tegan. Her gaze shifted past me. “Whose car is that?”

  “What, you don’t think this is my car?” I said.

  Tegan tilted her head forward, dangerously skeptical.

  “It’s Aaron’s,” I confessed.

  “Good. I hate Camaros.”

  I opened my mouth, appalled.

  “It’s all about the Mustang,” she added.

  I shook my head. “You’re walking on a slippery slope.”

  “Am I now?”

  “Did you know that in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the World State is based on the Ford Motor Company?”

  “The hell is Brave New World?”

  “It’s like George Orwell’s 1984.”

  Tegan continued to stare at me, clueless.

  “Fahrenheit 451?”

  “Are you just saying random words and numbers?”

  I continued to shake my head, tragically.

  “Man, what do you want anyway?” said Tegan.

  “Can I sit with you?”

  Tegan took an overdramatic moment, looking up and down the creek bed—a long stretch of nothingness, except for the beer bottles, McDonald’s wrappers, and condoms littering the premises. It was actually quite disgusting.

  “You can sit wherever you want,” she said. “Ain’t no one stopping you.”

  I walked off the road into the grassy bank, navigating my way through the trash. Tegan sat back down and continued to hug her legs to her chest. I sat down beside her.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just cut to the chase. You’re here because I stole Frankie’s heroin, because I was gonna give it all to my mom, and—who knows—maybe I was gonna shoot up with her, too.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Tegan didn’t respond. Instead, she seemed to physically retract—pulling her legs closer, burying her chin into her knees.

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

  “I dunno. It’s…fake. It’s all fake.”

  “What’s fake?”

  “My mom,” said Tegan. “I mean, obviously she’s a real human being. But this person who’s pretending to reach out to me? Who wants a ‘relationship’”—she air-quoted—“with her ‘daughter’? She doesn’t exist. I’m just an obstacle in the way of her next hit. Every text she sends, every voice mail she leaves…it’s all so fake. You’d have to be the most desperate, pathetic loser in the world to not see it.”

  Suddenly, ferociously, she grabbed the closest breakable object she could find—an empty liquor bottle—and chucked it at the biggest rock in the middle of the creek. It spun, then shattered like the birth of a macrocosm, sparking life across all corners of space.

  “Gah!” said Tegan, grabbing her hair. “I’m such an idiot! What was I thinking?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s about what you were thinking. It’s about what you were feeling.”

  “Oh my God, Cliff. Please don’t talk to me about my feelings.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re just fucking feelings! Fuck my feelings! My feelings don’t matter.”

  I frowned.

  “Please. Stop with the sad puppy dog thing.”

  “You know what the most dystopian idea in the world is to me?” I asked. “The idea that our feelings don’t matter. We might as well be robots.”

  Tegan bit her lip. Her gaze was like a sniper scope, fixed with deadly precision on the biggest rock in the creek. Bits of shattered glass glinted on its surface.

  “Cliff?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to take me to Frankie. I need to tell him something.”

  Her gaze rotated until the scopes of her pupils were trained on me.

  “I need to tell him something about my feelings,” she said.

  Tegan called Frankie. It was bound to be an unpleasant call, but we still had no idea where he or Jed were. What could we do?

  Frankie answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, Frankie—” said Tegan.

  Those were the last words uttered before the Frankpocalypse broke loose. Since he wasn’t on speaker phone, his words were indiscernible to me. His rage, however, was loud and clear. He ranted and screamed for a solid thirty seconds. Tegan let it happen. Remarkably, she was calm, cool, collected. But there was something stirring beneath the surface of Lake Tegan.

  “Yep. Yeah. Uh-huh,” said Tegan. “Look, I’d love to hear the rest of your temper tantrum, but maybe we could meet up so I can give you your shit back? Hey, I’m just saying. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Home? Okay, got it.” And she hung up.

  She looked at me.

  “We’re meeting at my house.”

  We drove—mostly silent—all the way there. I was tempted to ask what exactly she had planned. But I refrained. She wasn’t volunteering the information, and the look on her face was a steel vault of nonemotions.

  When we pulled into the Robertsons’ long, wide driveway, Frankie and Jed were already there, chilling in the back of Frankie’s truck. Although I say chilling loosely because, really, Frankie was a sack of nerves. The moment he spotted us, he hopped off the tailgate. His fists were so tight, it seemed they might implode on themselves.

  Tegan’s implosion, however, had been incubating for the past several hours.

  And now, a science lesson:

  It is a little-known fact that many nuclear weapons employ the concept of implosion in their detonating process. The way this works is that an outer layer of explosives are arranged so that their detonation waves move inward on a fissionable core (plutonium, uranium, etc.), compressing it, and in turn, increasing the density to the point of supercriticality. To do the math in stupid:

  Implosion + Fissionable Core = Big Boom Boom.

  Tegan hopped out of the car, backpack in hand, before I could even turn off the engine. Frankie stormed up to meet her, clearly intending to be the force of reckoning here. What happened next was a two-part lightning strike.

  1. Tegan tossed the backpack into his chest—hard—like a basketball. This caught him off guard. It also occupied both of his hands.

  2. She decked him in the face.

  Unfortunately, the lightning was far from done. Frankie hit the floor, and Tegan was on top of him, demolishing his face with the ole one-two on repeat.

  “You know why Mom left us?” Tegan screamed. “She left because of that fucking poison you’re selling. That fucking poison!”

  Jed and I reacted with equal amounts of holy fuckness. By the time our brains caught up to the shit going down, we dared to pull Tegan and Frankie apart. This mostly involved prying Tegan off of Frankie’s soon-to-be corpse. I wrapped my arms under Tegan’s armpits, practically lifting her kicking-and-screaming body off the ground. Jed attempted to drag Frankie out from under her. Frankie’s initial contribution was to flail awkwardly, completely disconnected from his own motor function. But eventually, the wires found their correct sockets. Frankie staggered upright.

  Tegan squirmed and broke free of my grasp. Once again, she lunged at him—shoving, hitting, slapping, kicking—a bombardment of everything she could throw at him.

  “She left because some asshole like you decided he could make bank on her fucking life!” said Tegan. “How does that make you feel, Frankie? Huh? How does that make you fe
el?”

  I wrapped my arms around Tegan, squeezing her arms to her sides. Tegan thrashed harder than ever.

  “Let go of me, Cliff! Let go! Let go of me!”

  And then, like the aftermath of every explosion, a calm fell. Not a peaceful calm. This calm was filled with death and destruction and sadness. She collapsed in my arms.

  “Let go,” Tegan cried. “Let go, let go of me, let go, let go…”

  It was at this point that I glanced up at Frankie. He stared at his sister, completely shell-shocked.

  “Tegan…” he said. He reached out to touch her shoulder.

  She exploded. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me!”

  Frankie retracted—clearly hurt.

  Eventually, Jed led Frankie inside. Jed seemed to understand that the only way to defuse the situation was to get Frankie as far away from Tegan as possible. Tegan and I stayed on that driveway for a small eternity. Seconds passed like years, minutes like decades or even centuries.

  Her tears dried, and her brokenness settled.

  “I feel better,” Tegan said finally. She tilted her head. Looked at me through clear eyes. “I feel better now.”

  I had gotten so used to having a cell phone over the past few weeks, I didn’t process that maybe my dad would have a problem with that.

  Spoiler alert: He did.

  As I walked in the front door, I pulled out the phone to text Tegan, making sure that she was all right.

  “What in the hell is that?” he said.

  I stopped—walking, texting, breathing, everything.

  My dad was perched like a gargoyle in his recliner—cold, ominous, ever-watching. God, somebody put this guy on a castle wall.

  “Uh,” I said. “A cell phone?”

  “I know what it is, Copernicus. What the hell is it doing in your hand?”

  I had encountered about every sort of confrontational scenario with my dad, but this was new ground. I decided to take a stab at honesty.

  “My friend gave it to me?” I said.

  “Okay, stop bullshitting me, Cliff. I know you ain’t got no friends.”

  Okay, now for a well-timed, self-deprecating joke.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I forgot. Aaron Zimmerman gave it to me—but he’s definitely not my friend.”

  “Aaron Zimmerman?”

  Shit.

  “The same Aaron Zimmerman who got you suspended because he kicked your bitch ass?”

  My dad stood up from his recliner. The gargoyle had awakened.

  “The same Aaron Zimmerman who’s quarterback of the football team? What, he’s your friend now? He gave you that cell phone?”

  I didn’t even know what to say. So much had happened since that fight, trying to explain it would be like trying to explain quantum physics to someone who didn’t believe in science.

  “Aaron’s not on the football team anymore,” I said.

  My dad’s eyeballs practically did backflips in their sockets. “Ah, well there it is. What, did they cut him ’cause he’s a queer? And no, I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean an actual, literal homo.”

  He was goading me. This was leftovers from our most recent argument—where my mom intervened. My dad wanted to kick my ass. He was just looking for a reason.

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  “What, you got something you wanna share with the class?” he asked. “Don’t be a pussy. Spit it out.”

  I inhaled and exhaled deeply through my nose. I didn’t dare open my mouth to breathe.

  “No sir,” I said, with master-class self-control. I straightened my back, standing tall. Erect. Unyielding. “I do not have anything to share with the class.”

  My dad had probably expected any variety of sarcastic or submissive responses. He probably did not expect me to deflect it with such stoicism. He glared for a solid thirty seconds. Peeled me apart with his flaying gaze.

  “Don’t think I forgot about you talking back to me,” he said.

  He leaned in. Close enough that his beer breath stung my eyes. “I’ve got half a mind to kick your ass, right here, right now.”

  “Then do it already,” I said. “Cut the alpha-dog bullshit.”

  My dad’s face flinched. For a split second, he smiled. Then his left arm swung like it always did, on a direct course to my face.

  I caught his fist in my right hand.

  Now don’t get me wrong—it hurt like hell. Like I was catching a professionally pitched baseball without a glove. Or possibly a small cannonball launched from an actual cannon. I felt like I should have had a hole in the palm of my hand—like a ring of skin with fingers dangling from it like keys on a keychain. But as it was, his fist stopped, wrapped in my grasp. The ball of our hands trembled in between our faces.

  I had just declared all-out war.

  Which apparently meant my dad could fight dirty.

  His knee launched upward, rocketing into my ball sack, sending my testicles clear up into my brain. The pain I felt was on a whole new level. Practically spiritual—the sort that could have been accompanied by angelic trumpets, marking a watershed in the traditional human understanding of physical pain. It also added a certain uncertainty to the future posterity of Clifford Hubbard.

  I crumpled to the floor, hands cradling my balls, curled in the fetal position.

  Maybe there was something mystical in the works here. Because even though I didn’t hear it—“it” being the sound of a car pulling up on the gravel in front of our house, the footsteps marching up our front steps—I sure as hell saw the door fly open, and the look in my mom’s eyes as they shifted between her giant, broken child on the floor and the monster who she deliberately married.

  “Get out,” said my mom.

  “Oh, c’mon,” he said. “We were just messing around.”

  “GET OUT!” she screamed. “GET OUT OF HERE, GET THE FUCK OUT!”

  My dad didn’t move, but he certainly seemed spooked. But “spooked” wasn’t gonna cut it, because he needed to get the fuck out, right now.

  She marched into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Grabbed a bottle of Bud Light by the neck.

  Smashed it on the counter.

  Glass sprayed and beer sloshed everywhere.

  “What are you doing?” he shrieked.

  Instead of responding, she dropped the neck of the broken bottle. Grabbed another Bud Light out of the fridge.

  Smashed it on the counter.

  Glass shrapnel jettisoned to all corners of the kitchen, and beer discharged like a liquid bomb. My mom’s work uniform was soaked.

  “Stop it!” he said. “Just stop it, you—”

  He stepped into the kitchen, arms raised with every intent to restrain her.

  That was a bad idea.

  My mom raised the broken bottle like a weapon. “Stay away. You stay away from me and my son.”

  “Whoa, hey,” he said. His hands veered upward, palms open, defensively. “Just take a deep breath…”

  Deep breath? Ha! My mom took a deep fucking breath. Then she marched around my dad, makeshift shank bottle extended, and set a direct course to the TV set.

  She grabbed it by the edges and heaved it to the edge of the stand. It tilted slightly over the edge—supported only by my mom’s fierce grasp.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” said my dad. “Wait! Just wait!”

  “GET OUT!” she screamed.

  “I’m going!” he said, hands still raised. “I’m going to the bedroom.”

  And he was. He scurried to the bedroom as fast as he could—all but tucking a literal tail between his legs. Maybe it wasn’t what my mom meant by get out, but it seemed good enough for the time being. He stepped inside the bedroom, and grabbed the doorknob, motioning that he was closing it.

  “See?” he said. “Going.”

  My mom did not budge from her position with the TV.

  My dad backed further into the bedroom, ever so slightly, and inched the door closed.

  My mom
did not budge.

  He closed the door.

  All of this I viewed from the living room floor, curled in the fetal position.

  There was a moment of deliberation in which my mom seemed to consider whether or not she was satisfied with how the scenario had played out. Finally, she let out an exasperated breath and heaved the TV back onto its stand.

  Her eyes met mine. Only then did they soften.

  “Let’s get you some ice,” she said.

  A girl came to school who looked, sounded, and behaved exactly like Tegan—but something was different. I couldn’t even put my finger on it. It manifested itself in little things. Like the way she would occasionally smile for no reason. Or the random whistling of a peppy tune that seemed very non-rap-oriented. And I hate it when people use the word twinkle to describe the look in someone’s eyes, but I swear, there was a twinkle.

  I was no fool. I’d seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I knew what was up.

  “Who are you?” I asked Tegan at lunch. “And what did you do with my girlfriend?”

  “I’m Tegan Azalea Robertson, bitch. And I’m gonna do something with my life.”

  “Your middle name is Azalea?”

  “Yeah, why? You gotta problem with that?”

  “That is so hot.”

  Tegan’s lips curled into that sexy smirk of hers. She wrapped her finger around my collar and pulled me close. “I’ll show you hot, princess.”

  “Oh my God,” said Aaron with a full mouth and a gaggy look on his face. He reluctantly swallowed. “People are eating at this table.”

  “People were eating at this table,” said Tegan. “But now I’m’a throw my princess on the table and make unsanitary love.”

  For the first time in the history of ever, Lacey Hildebrandt was sitting within the now nonexistent confines of the invisible quarantine cafeteria force field. She also had this look of mild alarm.

  “The List!” said Aaron. “We’re here to talk about the List! Cliff, back me up here.”

  I would have backed Aaron up—except that I was so sexually overwhelmed, it was incapacitating. With a lot of concentration, I managed a nod.

  Aaron reached into his pocket and removed a folded sheet of paper—the original hard copy of the List, scribbled in his shitty handwriting. It was severely crinkled, however, as if it had been crumpled and chucked in the trash. He laid it flat on the table and attempted—without success—to smooth out the wrinkles.