by Adam Selzer
But you can tell he has a head on his shoulders, at least. He says right up front that the reason he got into whaling was that it was a “damp, drizzly November” in his soul, and all he could think to do on land was follow funeral processions through the street and hang around outside of coffin warehouses, and he was getting to a point where he couldn’t see a guy walking down the street without wanting to knock his hat off his head. So he figured he ought to go out and kill monsters until he felt better. I respected that.
I kept waiting for him to bust out some big revelation that would make me understand life, or at least make me start to feel like the semi-intellectual person that I used to be again, but after two full CDs and more than two hours of talk about whaling and the sea, all that happened to me was that I got really hungry for seafood.
So I cruised back into Cornerville Trace and up to Cedar Avenue, where I went into Captain Jack’s and ordered a Fish ’n’ Fries platter with a Mountain Dew. To call what they served at Captain Jack’s “seafood” wasn’t much more of a stretch than calling my job “work,” but it was either that or Red Lobster, and Red Lobster was too expensive. Plus, it was probably full of Valentine’s Day couples, which was the last thing I wanted to see.
I sat down in a booth and wondered if Anna was eating fish-and-chips too, since she was in England and all, while I hummed along with the Billy Joel song on the radio. I was the only person in the whole place, except for the clerk, a middle-aged woman who was probably one of those fast-food lifers, and some guy who was frying up the food in the back. When I came in, they were yelling back and forth at each other over whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, and by the time my food was ready the fight had evolved into a really appetizing debate over whether men or women messed bathrooms up worse.
Happy goddamn Valentine’s Day to me.
I was about halfway through my food when the front door opened up and Paige Becwar, the girl who’d come into the Ice Cave with Joey Brickman, stepped inside. She looked like shit compared to how she’d looked a few hours before. Like a damp, drizzly November in her soul had crept up to the surface and was smearing her makeup around.
My first instinct was to politely ignore her, but when she saw me she said “oh, thank God,” and slid into the other side of my booth.
“Uh, hi,” I said.
“I’m not mean to you, am I?” she asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“Good. Because if I was ever mean to you, I’m totally sorry. I know I’m mean to some people, and I really need someone to be nice to me right now.”
She grabbed a napkin and started dabbing her eyes. Up close I could see that she was wearing at least enough makeup to drown a monkey.
“So, uh, what’s wrong?” I asked as I took a bite of fried fish and tried not to look at her cleavage.
“Joey’s a dick.”
“What did he do? Take you here for Valentine’s Day instead of someplace expensive?”
“You mind not making fun of me?” she asked. “I’m in a bad place.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s not Red Lobster or anything, but it’s okay.”
“Mentally, asshole,” she said. “A bad place mentally.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Want some fries?”
She nodded and I pushed the tray over towards her.
I wasn’t at all sure how to respond to a crying girl—especially one who had absolutely nothing in common with me. Was I supposed to pat her on the back and say, “There, there”? Suggest she go to sea and kill monsters until she felt better? Paige was a part of that crowd that went to parties with the football team, wore letter jackets, and all that shit. I was pretty sure she was a cheerleader, though I had never paid enough attention to know for sure. I had no idea how to talk to her.
“He broke up with me, if you wanna know,” she said. “We had a fight, and he said he couldn’t deal with my shit anymore, especially since Ashley Gilliam has been hitting on him and he could go be with her instead. He was going to drive me home, at least, but I stormed out of his car at a traffic light.”
“So here you are?”
She nodded. “I’ve got snow in my heels now. And he hasn’t even called or come after me.”
“Did you want him to?”
She shrugged. “If a girl storms out on you, you’re supposed to follow. But at this point I don’t really care if he does or not. I’m done. I was going to break up with him soon anyway.”
“Didn’t really like him much?”
“Not really,” she said. “But it should be, like, illegal to dump a person on Valentine’s Day. Even if you hate their guts. It still beats being single on Valentine’s Day. That’s, like, proof that you’re officially a loser.”
I did a bad job of trying to look like I was focusing on something out the window instead of responding to that.
“Sorry,” she said. “Sensitive topic?”
“I’m used to it. You want any fish?”
She looked down at my tray and wisely opted to stick with the fries, and I quickly ate my hush puppies before she got any ideas about those. I was okay with being nice to her and all, but she wasn’t getting my hush puppies.
“I guess I was really just with him because I’m used to having a boyfriend, and he was better than nothing. You know what I mean?”
“I guess.”
She finished another fry and looked over at the window. In the glow around the streetlights you could see that the snow was coming down pretty good.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, what’s it look like?”
“I mean, you’re not, like, meeting anyone here, are you?”
“No.”
She held up a fry and sort of twisted it between her two fingers. “And you drove here, right?”
I could see where this was going.
“You need a ride home?”
She nodded awkwardly. “I hate to ask, but I live clear the hell out in Oak Meadow Mills and I really don’t want to call my parents.”
Oak Meadow Mills was one of those newer subdivisions full of white houses and cul-de-sacs out in the space that was farmland when I was little. Definitely too far to walk. There weren’t any sidewalks on Cedar Avenue, anyway, so she would have just been trudging through drifts of snow and slush. In heels. And a skirt that didn’t quite get to her knees. I don’t think I hated anyone enough to make them do that. Even Stan probably wouldn’t do that. Also, I felt kind of bad for making fun of her when she came in. We were both in the same sort of boat that night.
“Okay,” I said. “Just let me finish eating this.”
I ate the rest of my fish while she sat there looking uncomfortable, then I led her out through the snowy parking lot to my car, where I tossed all the junk from the passenger seat into the back. There was a lot of it: fast-food bags, homework I didn’t do, laundry, empty Mountain Dew cans. I was afraid she’d be pissed about having to stand in the snow while I cleaned, but when I got into the driver’s seat, she was smiling and sort of shaking her head.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“It’s just ironic, I guess,” she said. “I never imagined that on my senior year Valentine’s Day, I’d be happy to get a ride from . . . you know. Someone I don’t even know.”
I was glad she stopped herself from saying “geek” or “loser” or whatever she’d been about to say. That was very polite of her.
“I’m, like, such a terrible person,” she said, as I pulled onto Cedar Avenue. “I’ve been in classes with you for years, but I don’t know anything about you. Didn’t you used to make a lot of movies and stuff?”
“Back in the day,” I said.
“I know you don’t play any sports,” she said. “I’d know more about you if you did.”
“I’m on the school crotch-kicking team,” I said. “I’m a wide deliverer.”
“The what team?”
“Crotch-kicking.”
“Are you serious?�
�� she asked. “There’s a crotch-kicking team?”
I reminded myself that she was having a shitty night, and not necessarily thinking with her whole head. But I couldn’t resist being a bit of a dick anyway.
“Sure,” I said. “Cornersville Crushers. Went all the way to state last year. Almost got me a scholarship.”
“What, do you just, like, run around kicking each other in the crotch?”
“Well, the idea is to kick the other team in the crotch, not each other.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She chuckled a bit.
In the old gifted pool days we actually submitted a proposal for starting a crotch-kicking team to the school board. The school ignored us, as usual. I don’t know what we expected them to do. But it was a fun project, and a good excuse to talk about crotches in mixed company, which was quite a thrill in eighth grade.
Paige looked down at the CDs next to me as I pulled into the subdivision.
“Got enough CDs?”
“It’s an audiobook,” I said. “Moby-Dick. I just started it.”
“English class?”
“Nah. It’s kind of a long story.”
She looked over the cover of one of the discs. “Is it any good?”
“It’s okay so far,” I said. “But I’m starting to think the guy who narrates it is sort of full of shit. He says he can’t remember something very well, then he retells the whole story in total detail.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“Maybe.”
We drove along for a while, and then, kind of out of nowhere, Paige said, “I’ve never been dumped before. This really sucks.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You can do better than Brickman,” I said. “That guy peaked in first grade.”
“I know.”
“And there are people in the world who can pull off the sideways baseball cap and look cool, but guys like him just look like they don’t know how to operate a hat.”
She giggled a bit and pointed me through the snow globe streets of Oak Meadow Mills. I’d never be able to afford a house like the ones we were passing on a retail salary, but that was okay by me. Those places all looked like they were made out of plastic. I got lost every time I went there—it was like a jungle of vinyl siding and brick that seemed to go on forever in an endless series of cul-de-sacs and blind roads that probably sprawled halfway to Waukee. Being in Oak Meadow Mills could be like being inside one of those mirror mazes that they had at the fair. Or at least in state fairs in movies. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen one.
“Over here,” said Paige. “The house with the SUV.”
“Which one?”
She pointed at one on a corner. I pulled over, and she gave me a smile.
“Thanks again,” she said.
“No problem.”
For a tiny fraction of a second I almost thought she wanted me to kiss her. But then she unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out.
“I’ll let you know if I need someone to kick Joey in the crotch,” she said through the window.
I laughed, said good-bye, put Moby-Dick back on, and drove off back towards town.
I had just spent Valentine’s Day night with Paige Becwar. Someone watching from a distance might have even mistaken us for being on a date.
This almost had to be a sign that the apocalypse was upon us.
4. THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS
Rather than going home, where someone might nag me about homework or something, I drove back to the Ice Cave after dropping Paige off. Dustin Eddlebeck was working the counter, dealing with some couple who wanted chocolate milk shakes made with real milk and ice cream, not some crappy processed mix. Real shakes were one of our “off-menu” items; most of the time when someone wanted a shake we just gave them one from the machine, but if they asked, we could blend up a proper one for a few dollars more, though the ice cream was such low-grade stuff that it didn’t make much difference. The Ice Cave was one of those places that goes against the idea that mom-and-pop places are better than chains.
“Anyone back there?” I shouted over the blending.
He nodded. “Bunch of people tonight.”
I grabbed myself a handful of Reese’s Pieces and made my way to the back, which was crowded to the point of overflowing with the sort of people who weren’t likely to be otherwise engaged on Valentine’s Day. Stan, Big Jake Wells, Jenny Kurosawa, Danny Nelson, Edie the Communist, and a couple of people that I’d spoken to before but had no idea what their names were. The lights were low, as usual. The break room was a place of perpetual, glorious night.
Jenny waved at me from the couch.
“Is it true?” she asked. “Is Anna coming back?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You must be excited!” said Edie.
I just shrugged as casually as I could, and Jenny giggled. She might have been a bit drunk. There was a bottle going around, and a sip was usually enough for her. She and Edie were both fellow Gifted Pool vets who were now Ice Cave regulars, but they were at least still college-bound—Jenny was going to some place in California, and Edie was going to Grinnell, a small Iowa school popular with commies and anarchists. They hadn’t turned the Cave into a lifestyle the way I had.
“Hey, Harris,” said Stan. “You’re just in time. We’re having a contest.”
“As long as it’s not another game of Big Dick Malone,” I said. “I hate that game.”
“Nothing like that,” Stan said. “Just a question and answer thing, and you’re going to lose. Tell these guys how many times you got sent to the principal’s office in grade school.”
“None,” I said.
Danny groaned. “I ought to kick your ass halfway up your butt,” he said.
He got up and moved towards me, like he was actually going to do it, and I took a step back. Danny liked to hurt people. He wasn’t a bully, exactly—“brute” would probably be a better word for him. He would never beat you up and take your lunch money, but he might beat you up just for fun. If this was the 1950s or whatever, he’d probably spend his nights either singing doo-wop on street corners or fighting in those low-down, no-good boxing clubs that you see in old movies now and then, but that I never saw in real life. Like mirror mazes, maybe they never existed in the real world, only in modern mythology.
“He made up for lost time in middle school,” Edie said.
“Fair point,” said Danny. “I’ll allow it.”
He sat back down, and Jake belched as loudly as he could. Of the lot of us, Jake was probably the most ambitious. He was always making plans for how he’d one day open a strip club on the east side; at one point he was going to call it Big Jake’s Boobs and Butts, but Stan, in his wisdom, had pointed out that that made it look like it was Jake’s boobs on show, which wouldn’t attract the crowd he had in mind. So now his plan was to call it either Big Jake’s Barbecue and Butts or Big Jake’s High Class House of Ass.
He was never in the gifted pool, but he was an inspiration to us all.
Stan cracked open a fresh tub of Red Hots (red, for Valentine’s Day), and we fell into this sort of bragging contest about which of us was the most fucked up, as we did from time to time. Often, being in the back room of the Ice Cave was like being on the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, only we weren’t quite as emo about our lot in life as the messed-up toys were. We wore our troubles and failures proudly.
Danny Nelson said that his doctor had just told him he had already messed up his liver pretty bad by drinking so much. He might have been lying. He usually was. Danny was full of shit.
Edie talked about how she was facing a suspension for punching a guy who was staring at her boobs instead of making eye contact, even though she’d already warned him twice. Danny, who was no stranger to boob-staring himself, offered to punch him too, if she wanted.
Jake said he hadn’t made a payment on his car
insurance in months. If he didn’t come up with the cash, he’d be stranded out in Preston, the far-flung suburb about two miles north of nowhere where he lived, unable to make any more trips to the Cave.
Jenny was probably lying when she talked about how much pot she was smoking lately, and everyone knew it, but no one called her on it. Lies were not really frowned upon in the Ice Cave. It was generally known that she was only able to come to the Cave at all because her parents thought it was a study group.
I talked about how I needed to find some way to serve about two hundred hours of detention for cutting gym before they’d give me a diploma. I hadn’t served any yet.
Stan talked about how he’d been cast out of Heaven by a vengeful god, and how it was harder to sneak his message into people’s brains now that computers made it so easy to play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards.
This was our life. And it always would be. Even if I one day got a job, say, making training films for a living, if I ever ran into one of these guys, I would tell them that I made fucked up training films.
We all at least made a show of acting like it didn’t bug us. I didn’t tell people that I sometimes woke up in the middle of the night sweating and wondering what the hell I was going to do if my parents got a note or a phone call explaining things. There was a gnawing, hungry feeling of dread in my guts, that little cartoon monster that I could only ever ignore, not get rid of. The thought of Anna coming back only made me feel it more plainly, and I decided to change the subject before things got worse.
“So, speaking of trouble at school,” I said, “Remember when we tried to talk the board into starting up a crotch-kicking team?”
Edie stood up and did a karate kick in the air. “Hell yeah.”
“I just had Paige Becwar half-convinced that I was a wide deliverer on the team.”
“Did you sing her the fight song?” Edie asked.
I shook my head, so she and Jenny launched into a stirring rendition of the song Dustin had written for our proposal, which was called “Till They Can Taste ’Em.” I joined in on the lines I remembered, and Dustin stuck his head into the back room to sing out the last line. It was a beautiful moment.