Puny God

by Andrew Beymer

  “Probably because you’re spending all your time playing this game building your kingdoms and not studying,” Tom said.

  I flipped him the bird again. “Excuse me, but not all of us are doing easy degrees where we can get everything we need from Sparknotes.”

  “Hey man,” Tom said. “An English degree has a grand and storied tradition that goes way back before Sparknotes.”

  “A grand and storied tradition of getting work at Starbucks while you work on your novel forever,” I said. “How’s that coming along?”

  “My novel’s coming along just fine, thank you,” Tom said with a sniff.

  “I’m not talking about your novel. I’m talking about your set of pipes for yelling out people’s names so they know they’re getting the right cup of coffee.”

  “Big words from someone who’s about to get the same sort of job after failing out of college,” Tom said.

  I could tell he regretted what he’d said the moment the words escaped his lips, but that didn’t make them sting any less now that they were out there. I let out a long sigh that held all the disappointment that’d been building up inside me every time I decided to play a video game instead of studying.

  Even if every time I picked up a book to study it became more and more obvious that there wasn’t a chance I was actually going to be able to get through the stuff. I think that stung the most.

  I’d tried my hardest, realized on some level it wasn’t happening the first couple of times I’d taken the class then withdrawn, and now here I was avoiding life and escaping into games because that was something I was good at without any effort.

  “I think I’m going to need something to drink after that,” I said. “What do you guys say to going out to have a pint at the Winchester?”

  “Well we’re thinking of going out to The Club tonight,” Jake said.

  I shook my head. “No way. I’m not in the mood to hit up the meat markets. I’ve already had enough disappointments for one night.”

  “Come on man,” Tom said, his voice a little forced as he slapped a hand down on my shoulder. “You know going out and getting a look at some hotties is just what you need to feel better about yourself, right?”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I said with a sigh. “But if that’s what it’s going to take to get you guys to leave me the fuck alone then I guess we can do it.”

  “Drinks are on me!” Jake said.

  “You bet your ass they’re on you,” I said. “They’re overpriced at that place.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t beat the view,” Jake said with a grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

  Besides, I figured if I was going to go out and have a drink I might as well drink to excess on the overpriced stuff. That would be easier if Jake was the one paying. Besides, I figured a nice pounding headache with the hangover from hell was the least I deserved considering how royally I’d fucked up my life.

  2

  Damsel in Distress

  “Seriously guys. I’m not sure what the appeal of this place is,” I said, leaning against the brick wall and then immediately pulling back.

  “Ugh. How can that thing be soaking wet and dirty at the same time?”

  The answer to the first question was pretty obvious as a pretty girl in an outfit that would’ve been more suited to the gynecologist than going out clubbing walked past. Then the moment was ruined when she leaned over and blew chunks all over the wall.

  I guess that answered the second question, too.

  “I think that’s your answer,” Jake said.

  “I could’ve done with a little mystery in my life if those are the answers I’m getting,” I muttered.

  “I think we could all do with a little mystery in life if those are the answers we’re getting,” Tom said.

  I sighed and turned around. There was a group of pretty girls in front of us wearing practically nothing, and I figured playing the game where I appreciated their outfits while not looking like a creeper appreciating their outfits would be a hell of a lot better than looking at that girl puking her guts up behind me.

  One of the girls actually smiled. I smiled back and gave her a little wave. She pushed her way back through her friends. Well then. This was a positive early development.

  “So what’s your story?” she asked.

  It took me a moment to realize she’d said something. Hey, give a guy a break. She was in a tube top that left nothing to the imagination, and I was imagining some of the fun we could have later if things kept going this well.

  Also? I figured I could use this line at least one more time. Sure I’d already failed that test and this future was cut off for good, but maybe it’d be good for at least one more night.

  “I’m a pre-med,” I said. “Y’know, it’s such a stressful thing studying all the time, so me and my friends thought we’d blow off some steam.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide. They were a deep green. She cocked her head to the side and put a hand on my chest.

  “Oh my gawd, so you’re, like, going to be a doctor someday or something?” she asked.

  I swelled up. It was an involuntary reaction to getting praise I didn’t deserve, for all that I knew it wasn’t praise I deserved. Especially not after that test.

  “You could say that,” I said. “What about you? What’s your major?”

  I couldn’t believe that line actually still worked with people who were old enough to go to bars, but I also wasn’t going to knock it. She smiled and blinked those pretty green eyes, and already this night was going way better than I’d anticipated.

  “I’m an English major,” she said. “I’ve been working on a novel, but my bitch of a creative writing professor won’t let us do genre fiction.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said, trying to sound appropriately sympathetic.

  I wasn’t sure if I was doing a good job. After all, I’d had this conversation with Tom plenty of times. He’d taken a couple of creative writing courses, and every time he took one the profs always balked at his sword and sorcery erotica epic The Killbarian Cycle.

  I liked to give him shit that it sounded like he was writing a book about a librarian who got tired of people not bringing their books back in a timely manner and decided to take justice into their own hands, so it was no wonder his profs didn’t want anything to do with it. That was always good for a middle finger from old Tom.

  There was no way I was going to give this girl any shit, though. She was way hotter than Tom, and that bought her some leeway.

  “I’m Becca,” she said, shuffling her feet as the line moved forward. “Oh my gawd! You probably know my friend Erin! She’s totally a premed too!”

  I started to feel a little nervous. I’d thought maybe the universe was throwing me a bone to make up for the fact that my life was crashing down around me, but I recognized that name.

  Becca disappeared into her crowd of friends. I stood there awkwardly dreading what was to come, and that’s when I saw her.

  Not Becca, and not any of the other girls in her crowd. No, this girl was at the entrance talking to the bouncers, and seemed to be having some trouble convincing them to let her in.

  And what a girl. She had delicate features coupled with a figure to die for, and when she turned to glance at me I felt like she was staring into my soul. She also wore a weird dress that seemed to shimmer and sparkle in the neon light cast by the lights all around us. A dress below, and a sash that covered her top and not much else up above.

  Then Becca reappeared with someone I totally knew and I lost sight of the hottie at the entrance. Erin looked me up and down with a critical eye that said she totally recognized me. Damn it.

  “Craig?” she asked. “From Physics two years ago? Still trying to pass that one?”

  My spirits fell. Yup. Sure enough the universe was coming along and planting a foot firmly between my legs where I kept my most precious piece of anatomy.

  “Hi Erin,” I sighed. “Just failed my midterm, actually, t
hanks for pouring salt in that wound.”

  She rolled her eyes and laughed. “If you’re looking for someone who’s going to be a doctor someday then you’re barking up the wrong tree with this one Becca.”

  Becca stared between the two of us. “What’s she talking about?”

  “There’s no way Craig here is ever becoming a doctor. Especially if he’s still failing Physics. Was that your third time taking that class or what?”

  The thing that stung the most was there was no malice in her voice. No, she was reciting the facts. Facts that told the story of a loser who was going to have to drop out of school now because what the fuck else could I do?

  I sighed. “Sorry. If you were looking for a future doctor I’m not your guy.”

  So much for using that age old pickup line. It’d worked so much better when I was a freshman and all the girls hand’t learned that premed was basically biology and chemistry majors picking up a couple of anatomy courses along the way so they could be ready for the MCAT.

  “I mean I wasn’t looking for a future doctor. I’m not gonna be a first wife that gets thrown to the side once someone graduates med school. I’m not interested in a dropout though,” she said.

  Again the thing that stung the most was she didn’t sound all that vindictive. Again she was just stating fact. She wasn’t interested in dating someone who was very soon to be a college dropout, and boy did that fit me to a T.

  “Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that,” I said.

  Becca and her crowd reached the bouncers, and they were suddenly more interested in proving they were old enough to go into the bar than they were in talking with me. Which I figured meant it was time to go back to the original plan for the evening which involved a lot of heavy drinking and feeling sorry for myself.

  “Don’t worry about it man,” Tom said. “There are going to be plenty of fish on the dance floor tonight, and you don’t want to reel one in before you even get on the boat!”

  “You’re mixing metaphors an awful lot for someone who wants to be a big time author someday,” I said.

  “Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to some of the metaphor mixing he does in the Killbarian Cycle,” Jake said with a snort.

  “You guys can shut the fuck up,” Tom said. “I’ll have you know I’ve gotten personalized rejections from some of the best agents in the business!”

  I decided to keep quiet. That one was way too easy, and I wasn’t going to rise to the bait. Even though he was making it so easy.

  We reached the bouncer and flashed our IDs. He barely glanced at the things, which was odd considering how hands on he’d been checking the girls’ IDs. I figured that probably had more to do with him wanting to inspect the girls more than anything to do with him wanting to thoroughly inspect their IDs, but whatever.

  We stepped through the doors and were hit with a thumping bass line that was so intense I worried it’d give me a heart attack.

  Sure I knew it wasn’t really possible for intense bass to hit someone’s heart with enough intensity that it stopped, not unless they had a heart condition, but that didn’t stop the thought from going through my head every time I stepped into a concert or a club where the people running the music thought heavy bass was cruise control for awesome.

  “God I love this place,” Tom said, yelling at the top of his lungs to be heard over that thumping bass.

  “It’s something all right,” I said, looking at the crowds.

  The place was set up on two levels. There were stairs to our right that led up to a balcony that ran around the venue so people could look down and see people dancing on the floor below.

  There was a bar right in front of us that ran down the middle of the place and came to a stop just short of the dance floor with tables on either side for people to sit and enjoy their drinks while they were taking a break from the dancing.

  Massive speakers were the source of that loud music that always felt like it was going to give me a case of tinnitus. My ears were going to be doing that thing where everything seemed just a little muted for hours after I got out of here.

  The DJ booth was up top where DJ Not-Gonna-Make-It-Outside-of-College was spinning his latest tracks, which mostly involved making sure all the latest top 40 hits were blending together with that aforementioned bass beat that you could feel thumping through your soul.

  There was also a stage at one end for when they had live music, but it looked like tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Which was fine with me. I didn’t want to listen to the Not Gonna Make It Outta Campus players turning up their electric guitar to eleven and mixing their original songs with bastardized cover versions of those aforementioned top 40 hits.

  Of course none of that was the main draw. All that was the kind of stuff someone could find on any dancing bar on any campus in the United States any Thursday through Saturday night.

  No, the main draw was out there on the dance floor. The sea of writhing and gyrating bodies was also only the kind of thing you could find on a college campus Thursday through Saturday. It was a sea of hotties doing their thing having fun with their friends, hanging out with their boyfriends who were mostly recognizable from the way they stood there like trees in the middle of the dance floor not actually moving while their girlfriends used them like stripper poles, or the most precious gem of all: the single girl who was out looking for a good time.

  The place was a meat market, after all, for all that the dance floor was also full of people looking for a good time dancing and not necessarily looking for someone to fuck.

  I looked around the dance floor for that mysterious girl from earlier, but she was nowhere to be found. Damn.

  “This is what I call a target rich environment boys!” Tom said, slapping both of us on the backs.

  “You might have a better time picking up girls if you didn’t spend all your time talking in quotes from movies that are like thirty years old man,” I shouted back at him.

  “Whatever. We need to get out there and mix it up!”

  “I thought you said you were buying the drinks?” I said, looking at them out of the corner of my eye.

  “I did say I was buying the drinks, but you need to get out there and have some fun first. Then you can have some booze!”

  “I’ll remind both of you that I’m not any good on a dance floor unless I’ve had some booze in me,” I said with a sniff.

  “Tough shit man,” Jake said. “You need to get out there and find someone to help you forget your sorrows before you use booze to forget your sorrows.”

  “And don’t use that lame premed line either,” Tom said. “That just gets them to start asking questions, and that’s the last thing you need to be talking about tonight.”

  I flipped him the bird, but figured they were right. We were out here to have a good time, so why not have a good time? It’s not like I was going to be able to enjoy this place once I’d been kicked out of school and had to move in with my parents to make ends meet.

  No, from there I’d only be going to the usual dive bars in my small hometown where all the failures to launch congregated most nights to drown their sorrows. That thought was more than enough to get me out there where I could enjoy myself.

  I let the music wash over me as I searched the crowd for someone who looked like she might be willing to dance. I also kept an eye out for the mysterious girl in the sparkling dress. She had to be around here somewhere, though considering how my luck had been going she was probably here with a boyfriend.

  I tried to move to the music. I might not be the best dancer, but I was a hell of a lot better than the idiots standing stock still like that was going to win them points with their girl or something.

  I’d learned that lesson the hard way years ago when I got the date of my dreams with Mary Conrad. I’d thought I was in like Flynn, to quote a phrase no one had used in decades, but it turns out I’d needed to put in a little more effort to the date than just showing up.

  Womp womp.
I guess there’s a time when a lot of guys have to learn that lesson the hard way. And there are guys who never learn that lesson.

  So I moved and swayed with the beat. I wanted the ladies to know I was single and ready to mingle, and not nearly as lame as that thought running through my head would make me seem.

  There were no takers, so I ignored that there were no takers and focused on the scenery. I figured that was better than focusing on the fact that the only thing I’d ever truly been good at in my life was video games, and the cosmic joke that the one type of video game I was really good at was an older game that no one cared about.

  At least not enough to pay someone job quitting money to play it professionally, for all that versions of that game had been circulating since before video games existed.

  I was in the middle of feeling sorry for myself like that when I looked across the dance floor and stood as still as one of those idiots letting their girlfriend use them as a stripper pole. There was a scuffle going on over on the other side of the dance floor, and that girl was in the middle of it.

  Or rather she was in between two tall muscular frat douches, complete with popped collars, who looked like they were trying to pull her somewhere.

  I bumped into someone and the world around me seemed to change for a moment. Sure I was still in the middle of The Club, but there was something odd about that woman and the two guys who were accosting her. For a moment they almost looked like something straight out of the costuming department on Lord of the Rings back when they still made those movies with practical effects, and not the couple of popped collar frat douches they’d been.

  The girl was even more interesting. She was a tight little package, that was for sure. Maybe a dancer or a gymnast once upon a time. Before she got to college and realized that being good at dancing or gymnastics in her small town didn’t mean jack shit when she got to the moderately big leagues of a state university.

  The tight body, the fiery eyes, and the way she was struggling against the two beefy dudes wasn’t what got my attention, though. No, the thing that most got my attention were the pointy ears sticking out of her hair and the faint white glow that surrounded her even though there weren’t any spotlights pointed at her.