Bubble Tech

by Thomas Babak

  With that thought Sandy felt a little better, but the excitement and emotions of what he had done left him tired and wanting to go home.

  Sandy vowed to himself that he would make something of Bubble Tech and would eventually make things right with Mr. Jacobson as well as show Tasha, show the world, what he’d made and what he could do. The only way to do that would be to continue to work on it and try to do a better job next time.

  It was already late after today’s attempt at being a hero, in addition to the hour or so he spent online along with thinking about what had happened and what the actual outcome of his heroics had achieved.

  The only light in the room now was coming from the single pole out in the parking lot spilling through the windows of the office. A car drove by on the country road, causing shadows to jump across the room.

  It was quiet at the Yard usually. Especially at night. Sandy thought watching another car go by. Only the occasional noise from the wind causing a piece of metal to shift and groan or more often antics both day and night of the junkyard cats as they prowled the Yard protecting it from who knows what.

  Sandy grabbed his keys to his truck.

  He could still be the hero but he’d be more selective and careful. He’d do it right the next time he tried. There would be a next time. Feeling better with this resolve, he left for home.

  Seven

  Sandy lay on his bed reading. He’d been so tired on his drive home to the Yard. He hadn’t done anything physically exhausting and was just now realizing that there was more than one way to be tired: The emotional rollercoaster of today of his bungled attempt of being a hero had taken its toll. Lying on his bed, he was exhausted but still couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow was Saturday and he could sleep in… Not that he would.

  For the past couple of years, he had stopped relying on his alarm. No matter what day it was, weekday or weekend, he’d wake up at 5:59am, one minute before his clock would go off at 6:00am. At first, the regularity of his waking freaked him out, but with all the other fears he needed to deal with back then, it simply faded into the background. He still set the alarm on school nights. The paranoia of missing school remained too strong for him to stop doing that. Even if he never needed it to wake him up.

  He was wearing cheap grey sweatpants, white tube socks and a black Pink Floyd concert T-shirt he’d taken out of his dad’s room when he had grown out of his own clothes. He didn't remember ever seeing his dad wearing it, so after his initial hesitation, he felt okay about taking it. It had been the first item of clothing he’d “borrowed” from his dad’s room.

  Sandy almost always read a book each night before going to sleep. Since his upstairs bedroom faced the street, once in a while he’d hear a car go by. Most of the time, the sound was soothing in that it was a reminder that he wasn’t alone in the world. Sometimes it was annoying but only when some idiot was cranking their music loudly and the base tones were thumping through the neighborhood and shaking his window.

  Sandy’s bedroom directly faced Tasha’s bedroom. There were several trees that kept them from seeing into each other’s rooms, even during the winter when all the leaves were gone. When they were kids, they’d tried repeatedly to see each other, so they could wave goodnight but could only catch partial glimpses through the branches.

  It didn’t matter anyway. Sandy always kept the shades drawn now. He kept the shades drawn most of the time throughout the whole house. He had to protect his secret. He did open the shades in the kitchen often when he was doing homework at the table. The kitchen faced the fenced back yard so no one could see anything in the house. Not that Sandy ever defined what the “something” someone would see in his own mind.

  Sandy was having a hard time focusing on what he was reading. He realized he’d already read a couple pages without really absorbing what they said. He turned back and started at a previous spot in the book, but soon found himself doing it again. He stuck a piece of scrap paper in between the pages as a bookmark and put the book on the night stand. He settled back on his pillow, putting his hands behind his head and looked about his room.

  One whole wall was covered in bookshelves made of wood planks and iron angle brackets with screws attaching them firmly to the studs. It was filled with books and a couple action figures he had received as a kid. He was pretty sure his Grandma had been the one to buy the action figures. He couldn’t recall his dad ever buying him anything.

  His desk held a large LCD monitor while the desktop computer sat on the floor next to it. At home, when he wasn’t at the kitchen table doing homework, Sandy was usually at his desk exploring the world through the Internet.

  A single poster on the wall, featuring a picture of the starters for a pro basketball team that he had received from the one and only game his dad had ever taken him to for his 10th birthday. It had been the only thing he could recall doing with his father. Sandy didn’t know while at the game that his dad had received those tickets for free from a coworker who couldn’t go to the game and couldn’t sell them. He found out later, when his father was drunk and talking indignantly about the coworker trying to charge him for the tickets at first but then that he had got them for free. They had only gone to the game for his birthday because of free tickets. Not to celebrate his birth.

  Sandy didn’t know any of the players nor had he watched any of the team’s games since. He did remember fondly walking in wonder through the skyways in the Cities to get to the game from where they had parked. It was amazing, to a ten-year old, to look down at the streets full of people and cars. It had also been the first and last time he’d gone to the Cities until he’d gotten his own driver’s license.

  There was one framed picture on the wall. Sandy could only assume his grandma, when she was still alive, had put it there. His dad would never do something like that. It was a picture of him in his mother’s arms soon after he was born. His mother, dark haired and dark skinned, looked surprisingly neat after hours of labor. She had an expression on her face that Sandy wondered about now and then when he looked at it. She was smiling but there was something else about it he just couldn’t figure out. She had a goofy, happy expression and Sandy was clueless as to what it meant.

  He just started to think about what he’d do next with the Bubble Tech when he heard a car turn the corner down the end of the street. Laying there, he could tell it was Tasha’s mom’s boyfriend. He drove a half-primer colored muscle car with a glass pack muffler. The rumbling motor exhaust shook his windows slightly as her mom’s boyfriend goosed the engine and the car came down the street and turned into Tasha’s driveway.

  Sandy looked at his clock. Only a little after 11pm. Tasha’s mom’s boyfriend is early tonight he thought. Usually, he’d wake Sandy anywhere from midnight to 3:00am on a Friday night. It used to be only at 2:00am at the latest, but the boyfriend must have found another bar that stayed open later. I wonder why so early tonight, he mused absentmindedly.

  Sandy heard the metallic thump as the car door was slammed closed. A few seconds later he could hear pounding on their front door. “Karen! Karen, open up!” Sandy could hear that the boyfriend was already drunk from the slurring of his words. The pounding went on for several seconds until Tasha’s mom, Karen, finally opened the door.

  Muffled yelling and arguing immediately started, continued and slowly faded in volume as they closed their door and moved towards the kitchen in the back of the house. Sandy remembered that kitchen from when he was a kid. He smiled at a memory of eating Oreos at the kitchen table with Tasha, giggling about some inside joke.

  The arguing continued and once in a while Sandy could make out a word or two as the volume increased. Sandy assumed the fight was petty. From what he could tell from past experience is that they argued a lot about seemingly nothing.

  Sandy shut the lamp off on his night stand. The arguments in the past varied, but usually revolved around a few subjects: Money, drinking, other women, other men and Tasha. Sandy wondered what Tasha was doing. Was she out wit
h her friends? Was she with Nick? Was she home? How did she feel about her mom’s boyfriend living there? How did she stand the constant arguing?

  Sandy was hungry. He’d been hungry a lot lately. Did the Bubble Tech have anything to do with that? Probably not. Probably just growing again. Even his dad’s old concert T-shirt was starting to feel a little snug. Sandy decided to head down to the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal. He ate lot of cereal. It was easy to make and clean up.

  As Sandy walked down the staircase towards the front door it sounded like the drunken arguing from across the street was getting louder. At the bottom of the stairs, Sandy pulled the curtain back from the door window and peeked across the street. Mrs. Johnson and her boyfriend were still inside her house somewhere arguing. Tasha was sitting on her front steps.

  Sandy dropped the curtain back. Tasha! Without thinking about it he unlocked the front door and went outside on the porch to the head of the short flight of steps leading down to the walkway. Tasha hadn’t heard him come outside. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her drawn up legs as if to protect herself from the night’s chill, or maybe the angry words being said inside. She was looking down at the ground in front of her. Sandy almost imagined he saw her wince every time a voice reached an angry peak.

  “Tasha,” Sandy called out softly. Tasha didn’t move. She hadn’t heard him call out or walk out either, his stocking feet on the cold wood of the porch not making a sound. “Tasha,” Sandy called out again a little more loudly. Tasha looked up startled and saw Sandy. Then to Sandy’s surprise she stood up quickly and crossed the street at a fast walk.

  She walked up his porch steps and right by Sandy so that he had to turn to follow her. She was wearing grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt, like Sandy. Her shirt was plain though and cut differently than his. Her shirt looked definitely better on her than his did on him. She was also wearing fuzzy white slippers that seemingly glowed in the dark.

  “Can I hang out here for a while?” she asked.

  Sandy froze in surprise, unable to do anything besides stare at her. It had been several years since Tasha had come over or even talked to him first, if at all. She made a questioning face that only a teenager knows how to do when they expect (demand) a response. Normally, she was always sweet but Sandy could tell she was stressed and upset, probably a product of the angry fight happening inside her home.

  “Uh… yes… sure. Come on in” Sandy finally got out.

  Sandy closed the front door after he let Tasha in. He pulled the curtain away and took another quick look at Tasha’s house across the street. Mrs. Johnson and her boyfriend were still arguing, but it sounded like it was winding down. Soon, both of them would be even drunker or sound asleep. At least that’s what he’d always noticed in the past.

  When Sandy turned around, Tasha was already sitting on the living room couch. Her legs pulled up as she sat cross-legged, her slippers abandoned to the floor.

  Sandy walked over unsure of what to say or do. Eventually, he managed to stammer out, “Do you want anything? Do you want a drink?”

  “Do you have any beer?” Tasha asked.

  “Um, no but I have some Mr. Pibb…?”

  “I’ll just have a bottle of water,” she answered.

  “I don’t have any bottled water,” Sandy responded feeling like an idiot for some reason. The feeling that he had nothing that she wanted spread slowly through him.

  “I’ll take anything,” she said as she abruptly reached out to the coffee table grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. She flipped through several channels as Sandy just stood there for a few moments watching her and seeing how upset she was. He finally realized he was supposed to get her something and headed to the kitchen.

  While he popped some ice cubes from the freezer tray into a couple of glasses, he heard the TV volume increase. Tasha had turned it to some singing contest show and was seemingly drowning out what little sounds of argument from across the street that still made its way over.

  Sandy placed the two glasses of ice water onto his grandma’s coasters and sat down on the easy chair next to the couch. Tasha looked at the water, but didn’t look at Sandy. The TV show seemed to have all of her attention.

  “Is your dad around?” she asked.

  “Um…no…he’s gone and won’t be back this weekend,” Sandy answered with a glimmer of nervousness. It was a variation on one of his stock answers when the few people in the past had asked where his dad was.

  Tasha finally looked over at Sandy.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Noticing that Sandy looked slightly puzzled, she added, “For letting me hang out here. I don’t think I could take another minute of their bickering.” She turned back to watching the TV screen.

  Sandy just kept staring at Tasha. After a few minutes, she looked over quickly.

  “And stop staring at me!” she snapped, but revealing a hint of a smile.

  Sandy snapped his head towards the TV set.

  “Is it pretty bad?” he asked a few moments later.

  This question opened the floodgates. Tasha spent the next two hours talking about her mom, her mom’s boyfriend and her dad. Her dad had divorced her mom that same summer before ninth grade when they had both stopped talking to each other. Her dad had moved out of state and Tasha only saw him infrequently when he blew through town every six months or so. He’d recently gotten remarried after having already started a new family. Apparently Tasha had a half-sister now that she had never met.

  She and her mom had been fighting incessantly. More like her mom had been picking at her and nagging, instigating the fights. The boyfriend was just plain creepy.

  Tasha began talking about school and her friends. Sandy just sat there listening, occasionally agreeing or disagreeing with what she was saying, depending on what seemed appropriate. The ice cubes in his water glass melted. He was unconsciously afraid he would break the spell of being there with her if he reached out for a drink, so he just sat there, his head turned towards her without moving.

  Sandy loved having her over again, but they weren’t talking. She was. Tasha was winding down, mostly criticizing some of what her popular friends had said or done. She’d just gotten to what her boyfriend and some other friends had done tonight. Sandy had for the past several minutes turned his head and stared the now-muted TV. He didn’t have any experience with this. He had always loved Tasha from the day she and her parents moved in. Am I supposed to support her or just provide a friendly ear? he wondered.

  “Are you listening?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Sandy answered.

  “I was just thinking about something,” he continued.

  “What?” she asked quietly.

  Sandy didn’t realize it but that was the first question she had really asked in the last hour or so.

  “You said Nick and Stevie and Steffi went out without telling you, that they called you after they were already at the party. That you were an afterthought.”

  “Exactly!” Tasha exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, frowning.

  “Isn’t that what your friends do all the time though? Think of themselves first and then others second?” Sandy asked.

  Tasha by this time was sprawled out on the couch, her upper body propped up by the couch arm and a couple pillows, her legs and feet down towards Sandy. She had an introspective expression on her face and almost a minute went by before slowly responded, “yeesss” sleepily.

  They sat there quietly for several minutes. Sandy stared at the glass of water and then reached out and picked it up, taking a long drink from it before putting it back down on the wet coaster.

  He looked over at Tasha. She was still laying there with her eyes closed. She was even beautiful without makeup and her hair messily lying around her, he thought.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Sandy said quietly. There was no response.

  He grabbed both glasses and took them into the kitchen leaving them on the counter by the sink after dum
ping them out.

  He thought about going upstairs to the bathroom but didn’t want to leave Tasha, worried that she would somehow disappear if he wasn’t there.

  The downstairs bathroom was under the stairs next to the kitchen. Sandy sat down to pee. He did that at home lately so he didn’t have to clean the bathrooms so much. It really sucked wiping down toilets, floors and walls when you were the one that had to do it. Plus, it was quieter and he didn’t want Tasha to hear him peeing for some reason.

  He flushed, washed his hands, waited for the sound of the toilet tank refilling to die down and came out of the bathroom. He looked over at the kitchen clock. It was a little past two in the morning. After feeling so exhausted earlier he wasn’t tired at all anymore.

  Sandy walked back into the living room. Tasha had slid down so that she was lying down completely and had rolled over so that she was facing the couch back. She had drawn her legs up so that her feet were no longer snuggled under the pillow on the opposite side of the couch.

  Sandy pulled the quilt draped over the back of the couch and gently placed it over Tasha. He briefly attempted to tuck it in around her, but the challenge of tucking the blanket around her while simultaneously not touching her proved too difficult. He awkwardly draped the blanket around her eventually and backed away.

  He headed up the stairs and stopped just before he lost sight of her sleeping on the couch and took another look at her. Sandy wanted so very much to talk to her, a real talk. He wanted so badly to tell her what had happened to him that summer before ninth grade. Tell her about his dad. Maybe he’d have a chance tomorrow. Maybe after they both had some sleep. Tonight she had just been too upset.