I walked my bike down the steep bank, under a ten-foot-tall billboard advertising Vitnik Shampoo and featuring our president’s grinning face, waited for a gap in traffic to cross Route 304, then walked up the weed-choked bank on the other side, obsessing over Molly the whole time.
She wasn’t seeing anyone right now. Until eight months ago she’d been with a guy named Blaze. Blaze. What kind of a name was Blaze?
I’d seen Molly and Blaze together only once, coming out of the Pathmark supermarket. For no good reason beyond my not wanting to have to look Blaze in the eye and smile and shake his hand, I’d ducked into the olive and pickle aisle before Molly could spot me. I went home without the Rock Chocolate I’d pedaled four miles to buy, feeling like my heart had been run over by a truck. Blaze was tall, one of those bursting-with-testosterone guys who always looks like he could use a shave. I, on the other hand, need to shave only once every three days.
Seriously, I’m not kidding. Every three days.
Molly had since broken up with Blaze, though. She’d turned me down the one time I asked her out, but that had been freshman year. She might have changed her mind since then.
I’ll be the first to admit it: I can be immature when it comes to love. At the same time, isn’t it mature of me to recognize my own immaturity? How many seventeen-year-olds can own up to their flaws so honestly? I’d like to think I’m quite mature in my immaturity.
I spotted a war veteran as I passed the homeless village in the parking lot of defunct Clarkstown Plaza, which was choked with tents and huts made from kiddie pools, cinder blocks, and a million other salvaged things. She was sitting in a lawn chair, her silvery artificial eyes unseeing. They’d probably stopped working long ago, like Mom’s legs. Farther on, a girl raised her hand and waved. I waved back, squinting, trying to make out who she was. I sort of recognized her, but couldn’t quite place her.
About a mile later, it hit me: it was Jessie Grady. She had sat next to me in English class freshman year. I didn’t know she was living in a homeless camp. Most kids don’t go out of their way to advertise that fact.
I swung into the street to get past an old woman walking the other way carrying two plastic bags of groceries. She was clearly trying to hurry, though she wasn’t covering much ground with her stiff, short strides. She looked scared. My guess was that she lived in the homeless village; if that was true, there was no way she was going to make it there by curfew.
I cruised to a stop a dozen feet shy of her, not wanting to frighten her further.
“You’re cutting it awfully close.”
The woman looked up, noticing me for the first time. “I didn’t think it would take me this long. My son usually goes, but he’s got the flu. I asked him if he thought he could keep down some saltines and he said yes.” Panting, she raised one of the bags slightly. Probably the one containing the saltines.
I lifted my hand, checked my phone. “You’ve only got twelve minutes.” And so did I, but I was just five minutes from home.
“Did you pass any police between here and Clarkstown Plaza?”
“I didn’t see any.” You got ten days in jail for breaking curfew, unless you could afford to pay the fine/bribe; from what I’d heard from a couple of friends who’d made the mistake of getting caught, it was a brutal ten days in a packed cell. And there was no senior citizens’ discount—you got ten days whether you were nineteen or ninety.
The old woman shuffled past me, not daring to stop for a second.
“If you like, I can give you a lift.”
That made her stop.
“Would you?”
“Sure.” I got off my bike, turned it around. “Climb onto the seat and hang on to me. I’ll stand and pedal.”
“But won’t you miss curfew?”
“I don’t live far. I can make it.”
The problem was, she couldn’t get her leg over the bar. After trying a few different maneuvers, I finally had to wrap my arms around her waist from behind and lift her onto the seat. I glanced at my phone as I struggled to climb on in front of her: nine minutes until curfew.
“Hang on.”
She slid the handles of the plastic bags up her wrists so she didn’t have to hold them, and grasped my sides. “I’m Tamara, by the way.”
“Hi, Tamara. I’m Sam.” And Sam was going to have to pray that he didn’t run into any police on the way home.
“You’re an angel, Sam. It gives me hope. This country has gotten so hard and mean. I worked thirty-eight years for Westchester County, and eighteen years into retirement, they canceled my pension. Just like that, they took it away.”
“Sorry to hear it.” I pedaled as fast as I dared, riding tandem with an elderly woman.
When I dropped Tamara off, she gave me a hug, then pushed me toward my bike. “Go. Hurry.”
I took off, pedaling for all I was worth. As soon as I could, I left the road, turned into the Pathmark shopping center, winding around crushed Vitnik Cola cans, milk crates, chips of concrete. This route would take a little longer, but I’d be off the road and out of sight. Around back, I coasted between two dumpsters that had been moved so larger vehicles wouldn’t be able to get through.
Beyond the dumpsters, two cops leaned against their jet-black cruiser. Someone had stenciled Kings of the Road in yellow under Police and mounted a skull wearing a crown above the emergency lights. The skull looked real.
I hit the brakes, planning to turn around, then decided that was a bad idea. It was still four minutes to curfew, so technically I wasn’t doing anything wrong. If I turned around I’d look like I had something to hide. So I pedaled on, slow and steady, trying to look inoffensive. Happening upon police was like happening upon a snake: some were completely harmless, some were incredibly dangerous, and it was hard to tell the difference, so you were better off avoiding all of them.
As I drifted to the right, planning to give the two cops as wide a berth as possible, one of them motioned for me to stop.
I cursed under my breath, my heart rate doubling. I hit the brakes and dropped one foot to the pavement.
“Evening.” I tried to sound cheerful.
“Damn right it is.” The cop was a big guy, with a big gut and a red face. “You’re breaking curfew.”
“No, I still have three minutes.” I turned my wrist to show him the time.
“Not according to my phone.” He didn’t actually look at the phone, just went on considering me with sleepy, half-lidded red eyes.
I knew it was a bad idea to argue, so I grimaced, squeezed my eyes closed for a second. “I’m sorry. I’m heading home. I live just over there.” I gestured vaguely.
“Been drinking?” he asked.
“No. I’m only seventeen.”
“Get off the bike.” He turned and headed back toward the cruiser. There were a half-dozen empty beer bottles on the hood.
As I got off my bike and set it down on the pavement, the second cop, who had long blond hair and sideburns, approached me carrying what looked like a fat Magic Marker.
“Stick out your hand, buddy.”
When I held out one hand, he grabbed my wrist and pressed the tip of the thing he was holding against my forearm. I felt a sharp pinch, and jerked my hand away.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Drug test.” The cop held the object close to his face, then showed it to the other cop. They both looked disappointed.
“It’s still ten days for breaking curfew,” the red-faced cop said.
A fresh jolt of fear shot down my legs. “Come on, just let me go on my way? If I broke curfew, it was by a minute or two.”
“If you broke curfew?” The blond cop folded his arms.
I held out my hands, palms up. “Just…please.”
The cops exchanged a glance.
“You could pay the fine i
nstead,” the blond cop said. “Thirty bucks. Cash.” He held out his hand.
“I don’t have thirty dollars to my name.”
He pointed at my pocket. “Let me see your wallet.”
I pulled out my wallet. I had six dollars.
He gestured past me. “We’ll take the bike. Bring it over.”
My bike. I’d be walking ten miles a day without it. “Please, can you give me a break this once?” My mouth was suddenly dry. “I’ll watch the time more carefully from now on.”
The blond cop shrugged, a big smirk on his surfer-dude face. “Can’t do it, cousin. The law’s the law.”
Except I hadn’t broken the law. Not yet, anyway.
“Tell you what,” the red-faced cop said, looking around. “Give us the six dollars and twenty laps around the supermarket.”
The blond cop burst out laughing. “Make that twenty-four. One for each dollar you owe us.”
“Twenty-four,” the other cop agreed. He waved toward the supermarket. “Go on.”
I started running, relieved beyond belief, their laughter following me.
I could remember a time when you could walk up to a cop, pretty much any cop, and tell them you needed help, and they would help you, no questions asked. Now, with their customized cruisers, they were more like a gang, shaking people down and making them feel small and weak. Yet the town went on paying them. Why?
The police took care of anyone who dared suggest that the mayoral election was rigged, that it seemed fishy people had elected a guy with no political experience and ties to organized crime. I’d read in the micropress that the president sold off towns and cities the way she sold gum and frozen pizza. You paid her, and you owned the town. There hadn’t been a local election in six years, and there were none planned for the future.
I jogged around the corner. The blond cop, who was lounging on the cruiser hood and windshield with a beer in his hand, called out, “One!” He set the bottle down and clapped a couple of times.
One day soon, I told myself, my mom and I were going to be free of this. There was no way I’d live in a walled town with dress codes and a thousand-page rule book. No way. We’d go thirty miles out, to the edge of the suburbs, where civilization met the wilds, and build a big compound where we’d live with no curfew.
By the tenth lap I was sweating and my sides ached. I wasn’t much of a runner.
Blondie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Pick it up, Droop-a-Long, or I’ll add another ten!”
I picked up my pace until I was safely around the corner and could slow down again.
Each time I rounded the third corner I picked up speed so I was moving fast when in view of the cops, until Blondie finally called out, “Twenty-four!” I stopped and bent over, my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
As I headed for my bike, puffing and sweaty, Red Face said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I turned, confused.
He held out his hand. “The six bucks.”
My legs felt rubbery, my sweaty T-shirt clingy as I pulled off Germond Road and onto my street. It looked as if the Pampins had finally given up mowing their lawn. That left only the Zimets’ and Schindlers’ neat green lawns to break up the otherwise continuous strip of waist-high weeds surrounding the houses on our street. Who would be the last to give in? felt like the greatest cliff-hanger in the neighborhood. I’d have to stay tuned to find out.
Mom was in the living room watching News America. President Vitnik was wrapping a young girl’s leg with a bandage.
“What’s she doing now?” I asked.
“A kid on a tour of the White House fell and cut her leg. Vitnik happened to be there and dropped everything to administer first aid.”
“They don’t give tours of the White House anymore.”
“I know.”
I watched for about a minute before I couldn’t stand it anymore. “How can you watch that? You know it’s not real.”
“Yeah.” Mom was eating a TV dinner placed on the foldout tray of her wheelchair, her black-and-silver titanium legs uncovered.
“Then why do you watch?”
She tore off a piece of fried chicken, ate it thoughtfully. “I want to know what that lizard wants me to think she’s doing.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s about the only answer that would make sense.”
Vitnik, hard-line ex-general that she was, had succeeded in strong-arming Congress into repealing the two-term limit on the presidency, and now she was running for a fourth. She would probably win again, since she owned the only big news channel left and had more money than a lot of nations.
“Besides, what the hell else do I have to do?” Mom added, sounding more outraged than defeated.
I held out one hand to her. She took it, squeezed.
“Once we’ve got our project off the ground, I’m going to need people I can trust to work on the business end with me. I’m talking a six-figure salary,” I told her.
Mom gave me the sort of smile she used to give me when I headed outside with a shovel, planning to dig to China.
“Well, I’ve got work to do.” I gave her hand a final squeeze, then headed to my room, still thinking about her defeated shrug.
Before the Museum of Natural History closed and she lost her job as chief of security, Mom had never watched TV. She hated being idle. She wheeled herself around in a chair because the government had stopped paying for the upkeep on veterans’ replacement parts about six months after the Sino-Russian War ended. Otherwise not only would she be able to walk, she’d be able to run thirty miles per hour. When I was little I watched her do it all the time. Since losing her job, losing her legs seemed to bother her a lot more. Maybe she had too much time to think about it.
I started going through my dresser drawers, making piles: things I could sell on BidBuy; things I could sell at a garage sale; things I couldn’t sell and/or needed for basic subsistence. It hurt to put some things in the “sell” pile. The last of my once-mighty comic collection was especially painful to let go of. All I had left were the books that were important to me in a personal way: Son of Hulk No. 6, my first comic book, which my dad had bought me; the entire run of Sino-Russian Black Ops; Dork Comics No. 1, which Molly had bought me for my birthday.
More than anything, though, I couldn’t imagine life without my keyboards. But they were worth decent money, so they had to go. I damned well couldn’t expect Boob to sell his car while I held on to my keyboards.
I was working through my closet when Mom wheeled in, frowning at the piles. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for things to sell. We need money for the project.”
Mom studied the piles. “Which of these is the stuff you’re planning to sell?”
I pointed with forked fingers. “Those two. Everything except the pile on the left.”
Mom reached for the pile closest to her. She picked up a book, then dropped it and grabbed a black dress shoe. “I bought these. I bought a lot of this. Don’t I get a say?”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to muster some patience. “Mom, I’m not selling this stuff to buy video games or cigarettes. I’m starting a business. Most parents would see that as a good thing.”
“And what if the business doesn’t pan out, and at some point we have to attend a wedding? Are you going to wear tennis shoes with your suit? Or are you selling that as well?”
I was selling the suit, but now didn’t seem the best time to admit that. “So what you’re saying is, I should stop pretending my friends and I can actually turn our idea into something real, and go loiter outside Burger King like the other kids.”
“I’m saying you need your clothes, and your…” She reached toward one of the piles. Her hand froze. “Are you selling your keyboards?”
The shock and sadness in her voi
ce made me choke up. “I’m selling everything.” I stared down at Mom’s legs—the thin titanium rods, the bladed feet, the black steel casing below her thighs that shielded the fragile electronic parts. She’d always kept her legs polished to a brilliant shine, even after they stopped working, the way someone might care for their vintage Harley. Now they were scuffed and dusty.
I raised my head, but Mom didn’t meet my eyes. “There’s no such thing as a college scholarship anymore, Mom. Even if there was, there are no jobs. You know that better than I do. If Boob and Rebe and the rest of us are going to make it in this screwed-up world, we have to find another way.”
Mom hadn’t taken her eyes off my keyboards. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I put a hand on one cold metal knee.
“Mom, we’re serious.”
She nodded tightly, reached up to wipe her cheeks. “Okay. Fine. Sell it all.” She spun her chair and wheeled out, leaving me alone, feeling like crap.
Three years ago when she was working, Mom would have backed me. She would have believed in me. Now everything was negative with her. There was no getting around it: my mother was depressed. I couldn’t blame her, trapped in that chair, in this house, with no car and no buses running. It was one more reason my plan had to work.
The streets of New City were empty, the black road slick from last night’s rain. I’d been up since four worrying about my mom. In those first moments after I woke, it was like the part of my mind that spun out worst-case scenarios and deepest fears was working, but the part that talked me down and told me everything would be okay was still asleep. I could get into a really hopeless place in those few minutes.
I could hear the Cure’s gloomy bleating as I rolled up to Rebe’s garage door. I rolled the door open to find Theo hunched over a card table, working on the peeled-open cylinder he’d gutted from the MRI the night before. A cable snaked from the cylinder to a laptop.
Theo pushed away from the table, lifting two of the table’s legs and almost toppling it. “I got it. Check it out.”
“You got it?” I’d been planning to tell Theo the story about my brush with New City’s finest, but I rushed over instead. “You mean it’s working?”
The Future Will Be BS Free Page 2