Mr. Chambliss gave me a familiar look, one he used in class when he thought I was being particularly dense. “It’s why I didn’t want to help you in the first place, and—until I fell in love with your mom—why I contemplated walking away every day. I don’t want to get too close to anyone.”
“Because you don’t want to lose anyone else.”
Mr. Chambliss nodded tightly.
I felt like I had to say something to break the silence, so I said, “Thank you,” and took my seat.
Even when he had been our teacher, there was always that tension there, that push and pull. He didn’t want to hear about our personal lives, didn’t want us to bother him after hours, yet it was obvious he cared about us.
Rebe stepped up to Mr. Chambliss. “Why do you want to be interim president?”
“I don’t.”
People erupted in laughter. He was telling the absolute truth.
“Let me put it another way, then,” Rebe said. “Why did you agree to do this?”
“Because people asked me to. People I care about.”
“Lie,” Boob called from his seat. Basquiat, Molly, and I burst out laughing. No one else got the inside joke. All they knew was, Mr. Chambliss had just goosed the needle.
Mr. Chambliss looked baffled. “If that’s not the truth, then I have no idea why I agreed to do this.”
“Lie,” Boob called again.
Mr. Chambliss looked downright uncomfortable. He swallowed a few times, blinking rapidly. “Let me think about this.”
“Take your time,” Rebe said gently.
Mr. Chambliss looked around, glancing at me, at Boob, at Molly, his gaze finally settling on Mom. “Maybe it’s because I fell in love with a woman—a strong woman, a warrior. I’m afraid I’m too weak for her. Maybe I’m doing this to prove to her, and to myself, that I’m worthy of her love.”
I was biased, and I got only one vote like everyone else, but he was my pick.
Basquiat was up next. “Mr. Chambliss, what should we do with all the people who got away with crimes before the truth app appeared?”
Mr. Chambliss uncrossed his legs, recrossed them the other way. “I would draw a line between violent crimes and others. Murder, felonious assault, rape—the people who commit such crimes go to prison.” He raised his voice. “Along with all the asshats out there taking justice into their own hands. Everyone else gets a mulligan.”
“A mulligan?” Basquiat said. “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the term.”
“A do-over.”
“We just let them all off the hook?” Basquiat sounded surprised. “Thieves? Blackmailers?”
“They’re not off the hook. In this new world they’ll always be at a disadvantage, whether it’s finding a job or meeting a new love interest. But if we’re going to survive, we have to look toward the future, not build more prisons.” He turned toward the other candidates. “Whoever ends up in charge, I hope you’ll consider this. Allow people to come clean. Start the clock fresh. Fifty years ago, Nelson Mandela did it successfully in South Africa when apartheid was vanquished. If we can pull out of this tailspin, we won’t have much of a crime problem going forward.”
* * *
—
People had thirty minutes to vote, but as the returns came in on a virtual screen, the outcome was clear after five.
“Oh, hell,” Mr. Chambliss groaned. “Seriously? You’re going to pick the guy who’s only doing this to impress a woman?”
Sitting in the first row, assault rifle pinched between her knees, Mom had tears in her eyes. She seemed duly impressed.
I wasn’t prepared for the elation I felt as we rolled off the Parkway exit ramp. It was good to be home, if only for a visit. Yes, the lawns were still waist-high with weeds, and the shoulders of New Hempstead Road were still caked with years of accumulated trash, but they were familiar weeds and trash.
And who knew? Maybe one day the lawns would be green oases again, the roads clean. Anything seemed possible.
We stopped to pick up Boob, then headed to my house to see if there was anything left. It was burned to the ground, charred shingles, bits of furniture, wood, and unidentifiable burnt things strewn a hundred feet from the littered foundation.
As we made our way through the debris, Boob bent, picked something up. It was a sock.
“Hey, see? It’s not a total loss.” He tossed the sock in my direction. It was good to see Boob’s sense of humor returning.
“You stupid bastards.” A middle-aged guy in a New York Mets sweatshirt was standing in the road, fists on his hips, glaring at us.
Mom eyed the guy, her rifle pointed at the ground.
“Excuse me?” Basquiat said.
“You ruined me.” He threw his hands in the air. “I have no way to make a living now, even if we recover from this mess you made.”
“How did you make a living before we ruined everything?” Basquiat asked.
The guy folded his arms. “I’m a criminal defense attorney.”
We burst out laughing.
“You think that’s funny? I have kids to feed.”
I took a few steps toward him, still chuckling. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, mister, but making it easy to convict criminals isn’t one of them. If you need a job, Rebe here is starting up a truth app factory. Stop by once it’s up and running. I’m sure she’ll give you a job if you pass the interview.”
“Sure, no problem,” Rebe said.
The lawyer shook his head, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Manual labor. That’s what I’m reduced to.”
Clearly, he would make a valuable addition to Rebe and Mott’s workforce.
“Come on. You and your mom can stay with me while you’re here,” Basquiat said.
“I was going to make the same offer,” Molly added.
“You know what?” Basquiat put one arm across my shoulders, the other across Molly’s, and turned us both toward the van. “That’s an even better idea. Stay at Molly’s.” He caught my eye and winked.
Rebe let go of Boob’s hand to answer her phone. After a brief conversation, she lifted her head. “Mott’s looking at a factory in Spring Valley. Can we go look at it so I can get your opinions?”
“Suddenly you’re a couple of legit businesswomen,” I said. “I don’t know, you’re going to lose your outlaw mystique.”
“And you’re going to lose a lot of money,” she shot back.
That was very true. After sharing the truth app plans with the world and donating my share of Rebe and Mott’s enterprise to Beltane and Basquiat’s effort to help hungry and orphaned kids, I wasn’t going to be rich the way I’d dreamed when all this started. The truth was, my dreams had changed. I wanted to be with Mr. Chambliss and Mom in DC, helping to get the government running and the country back on its feet. Instead of becoming a rich tycoon, I thought I might run for office someday.
On Germond Road, we passed a couple of cops on bicycles. I glanced back at them. “Those are the guys! The cops who made me run laps around the supermarket.”
“Stop the van,” Mom said.
“Can I do it? Please let me do it,” Beltane said.
Mom broke into a smile. “If it’ll make your day, go on.”
Beltane hopped out of the van on the passenger side. The cops slowed.
“You want to move out of the way?” my pal the red-faced cop said. This felt a little like Christmas morning when I was a kid.
“No, I don’t,” Beltane said.
The cops rolled to a stop. Red Face reached for his revolver.
“Ah-ah. Drop it.” Mom poked the muzzle of her assault rifle out the window.
“This is perfect. I wonder if they’ll remember me.” I stepped out of the van.
Both cops’ eyes went wide.
“You’re
the lie detector guy,” Blondie said.
“No, I’m the guy you shook down behind Pathmark. You took my money and made me run laps. Remember?”
Blondie shook his head. “No.”
Laughter erupted from the van.
“Lie!” Boob shouted out the window.
Beltane held out one hand. “Give me those damned uniforms. It hurts my eyes to see you in them. You’re a disgrace.” When the cops just stood there, mouths hanging open, she added, “Now. Move.”
Red Face looked at Blondie.
“Move.”
They stripped off their uniforms, dropping them into Beltane’s outstretched hand. Red Face pulled his wallet from his back pocket before turning over his pants. He was wearing lime-green briefs.
“You owe me six dollars,” I said.
He opened his wallet, pulled out the cash, and handed it to Beltane.
“You also owe me twenty-four laps.”
“Around what?” Red Face asked.
“The van.”
I climbed back into the van and closed the door.
“You heard him. Get going.” Beltane pointed.
As they started jogging, Beltane got in as well.
“One!” I shouted as they finished their first lap.
“Two!” everyone in the van shouted as they completed their second. They were trying to act cool, like it was no big thing, like they didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious jogging in the road in their underwear.
Mom turned in her seat. “We really don’t have time to wait while they do twenty-four laps.”
“Let’s just stay until it stops being funny,” Rebe said.
“It’s never going to stop being funny,” Basquiat said.
“Seven!” everyone shouted.
They were not in very good shape for police officers. By lap nine, Blondie was bent like he already had a stitch.
“Ten!”
“All right.” I was laughing so hard tears were running down my cheeks. “I’m feeling a sense of closure for this particular emotional wound.”
Mom put the van in gear, and we drove off.
* * *
—
It was strange to sit facing a thick copse of trees and not worry that a sniper was centering a laser target on my forehead. I guess it was still possible that one of the many people who hated what we’d done could be in those woods training a rifle on me (that lawyer, for one, came to mind), but with Vitnik in prison, and Xavier Leaf not only in prison but potentially unable to ever walk again, the odds seemed lower.
I took a deep breath of the cool evening air, felt the familiar stab of pain in my right side. It wasn’t as bad as a few weeks ago, at least, and most of the contusions from the other shots had healed.
The door opened. Molly stepped onto the porch, dragged a lawn chair over, and set it beside me.
“It’s looking like maybe eighty percent of the active military and National Guard are willing to accept Mr. Chambliss as the legitimate commander in chief, with Austin backing him.”
“Which means more civil war. Either that or President Chambliss has a country with a bunch of holes in it that are controlled by warlords.”
“He knows that won’t work,” Molly said. “General Austin’s drawing up battle plans. But on the bright side, President Chambliss has already organized what’s left of Congress to start planning new elections, so that doesn’t suck.”
I let that sink in for a minute. Good news. Maybe we’d hit bottom and were headed in the other direction.
“We did good, didn’t we?” I asked. “I mean, a lot of people have died, but in the long run?”
“We did good.”
“I keep thinking of Claire Mika, that twelve-year-old girl with the colostomy bag.”
“I know,” Molly said.
“Secrets aren’t the same as lies. The truth app doesn’t know that.”
Molly nodded. “It’s way messier than we thought it would be.”
“I miss Theo.” I don’t know what that had to do with what we were talking about. It just came out.
“Yeah.”
We listened to the crickets. The wind kicked up, rustled the leaves in the darkness.
“So, my dad is coming home,” Molly said.
“Oh my God. That’s great!” The whole condom wrapper thing meant nothing now. Molly didn’t have to feel guilty anymore.
“Mom said after I was almost killed about four times, it gave her some perspective on the whole thing. And there’s more: we’re thinking of moving to DC.”
I raised my fists in the air. “That would be unbelievable. We could work together for Mr. Chambliss.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Molly scooted her chair so she was angled toward me. “Which is why I think we need to talk. I’ve been trying to steer a conversation toward this topic, but I’m getting no reaction, so I figured I’d just clear the air.”
“I haven’t noticed any steering.”
“It was subtle. And you’re not all that socially astute.”
“No, I’m not.”
Molly was looking at her hands. “With all that’s happened, I’ve honestly lost track of what’s going on between us. Are we together and we just haven’t had time to notice? Are we best friends? What the hell is going on?”
“I…don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve had time to think about it.”
“Same here.” She looked up. “Have you noticed that even when we’re not using the truth app, we pause for just an instant before speaking now, to make sure what we’re going to say is true?”
I paused for an instant before answering. “Yes.”
Molly made a popping sound with her lips. “I’m probably making this more awkward than it has to be, but I guess I’m getting used to dragging things out into the open. I have feelings for you, but, I don’t know, it’s like…” She cast about, trying to put her finger on what it was like.
I looked into her eyes—really looked into them like I’d never looked into anyone’s eyes before. What I found was, you really can’t look into someone’s eyes. The best you can do is look into one eye or the other, or flick back and forth between them.
I leaned in. We missed each other’s lips slightly and had to readjust, but like Rebe said, it’s not something you do right or wrong, it’s something you do. The key was who you were doing it with.
As we kissed, I realized I was doing it with my best friend, who, before everything had happened, I was convinced I loved madly.
I remembered feeling those feelings, and I remembered being the Sam who had felt them. There hadn’t been a drop of blood on his squeaky-clean hands.
That Sam was long gone.
We separated, leaning back into our respective seats.
“Is it like, what you feel for me is a memory of a feeling?” I asked.
Molly gave me a melancholy smile. “You’re not socially astute, but you’re very wise. There’s nothing left of that girl you had a crush on. The boy who had the crush is long gone, too.”
“Truth,” I said.
Molly leaned forward, looking a little surprised, maybe a little disappointed. “You have your truth app activated?”
“Nah.”
“Oh.” She relaxed back into her chair. “Good.”
Molly straightened her lawn chair so it was facing the yard again.
“You know what would be amazing?” I asked.
“What?”
“If there comes a day when people are so used to telling the truth that we don’t even need truth apps anymore, and all these rings end up in landfills.”
“Now, that would be the best day ever.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
We gazed off into the trees in comfortable silence, listening to the crickets chirp.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m grateful to Joy Marchand Davis and Ian Creasey, whose feedback on the first draft of this book (and many others before it) was invaluable.
To James Pugh, who was once again just a phone call away with some fantastic suggestion whenever I got stuck. Thanks, Jim!
To Kenneth Tagher, who provided crucial guidance on how a bunch of very smart kids might go about creating a portable lie detector. Whether I’m asking about genetics, electrical engineering, quantum physics, or neuropsychology, Kenneth can always provide a detailed scenario about how the science might actually work.
Thank you to my agent, Seth Fishman, who got me started writing YA, and who always has my back.
Sincere thanks to my editor, Kate Sullivan, who fixed the ending, and many things prior to it, and championed my unusual choice of title.
And, as always, thanks to my wife, Alison Scott, for her support and encouragement, and to the twins for understanding that sometimes Dad has to write, even though he’d rather discuss Monster High or Five Nights at Freddy’s.
CHAPTER 1
Sully pulled the thin wad of bills from his pocket and counted. Thirteen bucks. He’d hauled his butt out of bed at six a.m. on a Saturday to make thirteen bucks in seven hours. He couldn’t work out how much that was per hour, but he knew Dom made more stacking yogurt and cream cheese at Price Chopper.
The flea market was depressingly empty. Most of the other vendors were parked on lawn chairs, their feet propped on tables. Sully spent enough time sitting in school, so he was standing, arms folded.
The timing of this epically bad payday couldn’t be worse. It would have given his mom a lift, for Sully to hand her a hundred bucks to put toward the rent or groceries.
He still couldn’t believe Exile Music had closed. Nine and a half years, Mom had worked there. By the end she’d been their manager, their accountant, their everything. But she had no accounting degree; she didn’t even have a high school diploma. Where was she going to find another job that paid half of what she’d been making?
The Future Will Be BS Free Page 23