by Tao Lin
Christine stands abruptly up. Her chair makes a noise. She falls to the sand and stands back up. “I’m …” she says. She points wanly in some direction, then goes there, touching her hair and pointing.
That night, they are taken to a hotel that is also a casino and a fish aquarium. There is one wall that is a fish tank of only piranhas. They are the color of mangoes and have flat, koala noses. They all face in one direction, and are all very still, except for a few up top that tremble and look a bit anxious.
“Where’s Christine?” asks the mom. Paul shrugs. No one seems to know. They don’t dwell on it. They play roulette. Paul later says, “Christine told me, she said, ‘I’m not sure, but I might be disappearing into the islands of the Bahamas.’ If anyone’s wondering about that.”
They sleep on their backs. The ship leaves the Bahamas in the night.
The third day is a day at sea.
At dinner, the dad and the mom sit facing Mattie and Paul.
The mom looks over at Christine’s table. A different woman is there. Older, with chandelier earrings, a lot of make-up. Her glass of water is empty and on the edge of her table.
Mattie reads the menu in her head, “… a bed of carrots, broccoli, and four other green,” then out loud, “red, healthy, steamed vegetables.” She looks up.
“You’re the sarcastic one,” says the dad. He’s looking at Mattie. He brings his hand up from under the table. He points at Paul. “You. What are you? You’re sarcastic too, aren’t you?”
“I’m the outwardly depressed, inwardly content one,” says Paul.
“He’s the sarcastic-sarcastic one,” says Mattie. “Two sarcastics.” She flips her menu over, looks at the back of it.
“I’m the outwardly depressed, inwardly content one,” says Paul.
The soup is green and good. The salad is crunchy, with water droplets all over and in it. Mattie has ordered the steamed vegetables. She eats most of it. She crushes a carrot by pressing down hard with her spoon, which then squeals against the plate. I’m the stupid one, she thinks. She grins a little. She reaches for the sugar, changes her mind, moves her hand to her water, changes her mind, brings her hand to her head, scratches behind her ear.
“I saw that,” says the dad. “I saw starting with the childlike behavior with the carrot.” He looks at Mattie, at Paul. I made you two, he thinks. He stands and reaches across the table and pats Mattie on the head. He pats Paul, too, on the head. He sits back down. He pats the mom on the head. The mom pats the dad on the head. She smiles. She turns and looks quickly over at Christine’s table again.
“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t know why I keep looking.”
That night, after the farewell show in the Moonbeam lounge—a dancing, singing, juggling thing—there is the midnight buffet. It has three ice sculptures. A swan, a bear, a dolphin. The foods are also sculpted. There are owly apples, starfishy cheeses, cookies shaped esoterically like ocean sunfish. People take photos of their plates. They eat cautiously at first, then, having realized something, violently, biting off heads and fins and limbs, grinning. The mom runs down to their room and comes back with the camcorder.
After the buffet, they go up to the top deck. The air is cool, and the ocean, all around, is black and smooth. The stars are rich and streaky, as if behind water. They go down one deck, into a glass-enclosed area. It is late and there are just a few other people here.
There is a ping-pong table. The dad challenges Mattie and Paul. The mom starts up her camcorder, which is digital. “If I lose,” says the dad, “I’ll buy you both cars.” The mom zooms wildly in on the dad’s face. She pans back and steps in closer. Paul’s body is languid and cascaded, chin to chest to stomach, but his arms are speedy and graceful. The dad stands rigidly, up close to the table. He does not bend his back or twist his hips. He tosses his paddle from hand to hand. “Ambidextrous,” he says. He is winning. From his time in prison, he has become an expert at ping-pong. He flips over his paddle and serves with the handle end—a slow, high lob to Paul. Mattie chops the ball down massively, tennis-style, and, while doing that, knocks Paul to the floor. The ball bounces hard and loud and high. The dad leaps and tosses his paddle into the air. The paddle does not connect with the ball. The dad catches his paddle. “Mattie,” he says. “Mattie!” The mom’s hand is shaking a little. She tries to keep the camcorder steady with both hands. She hears Mattie laughing and Paul saying, “What the hell was that? What was that!” She tries to zoom in on Mattie laughing. She pans back and sees Paul on the floor still. His face is startled and young. He has taken off a shoe. He throws it at Mattie. Mattie whacks the shoe at the dad, who pivots and whacks the shoe behind him, where it goes spinning over the railing into the dark. The mom pushes the camcorder at Mattie’s chest. Mattie is laughing and she looks and takes the camcorder. The mom runs off, into the fore of the ship—a dark, open area with lounge chairs, railing, the sky, the ocean. Mattie sets the camcorder down on the ping-pong table. She runs and follows her mom. There is a cool breeze and it is very calm and quiet. The floor is wood. The mom is at the railing. Her form is small and vague.
Mattie goes closer, hears that her mom is weeping, and hesitates. She stops smiling and feels that her cheeks are tired. She glances away, turning her ear flat to the sandpapery roar of the wind, then looks back, quiet again. The mom has turned a little. Mattie has a sudden bad thought and is about to say, “Mom, wait,” but the mom now turns fully around. She is crying loud and wet. She steps slowly toward Mattie. She cries with her arms at her sides. “Mattie,” she says. She flings a fist up to her shoulder, pushes it back down to her side. There’s a contrary draft of wind and the mom’s hair sweeps, diagonal, across her face. The ocean behind her is pooling and dark and quietly moving. The sky is black and close. “Oh, Mattie,” she says. Her voice is loud and clear. “I’m so happy.”
Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues
That kind of gnawing offness that Greg always felt, that constant knowledge that he was doomed in small but myriad ways, intensified in the presence of people, became immediate and insufferable, like a rat in the stomach. So after his parents sold the house and retired to California, Greg moved alone into an apartment behind a rundown 24-hour supermarket. There he drank coffee, and watched The History Channel. His meals became larger and less often, like a crocodile’s. He’d eat an entire package of bacon or a box of frosty muffins, sleep for 20 hours, and then masturbate, languishingly, to all his crushes from middle and high school. He became nocturnal and strange, taking on all the impatience and bipolarity of a young child, without any of the charm or smooth complexion. Sometimes he’d catch himself speaking, in his head, to objects—a thing of food, a box of Kleenex, a door—hesitate, but then continue, keep on going with what he needed to say, finish it off, out loud, because what did it matter, either way?
But then his parents changed. A year of California had changed them. They stopped sending money. Greg was forced to go out into the world, to interact with real people. And he was glad of this. He had always wanted to be a normal person. To be at ease in society. He had just been too scared to try. But now he was forced to, and so he did—he went and got a job at the public library. He was not quite a librarian, but close. Greg was a shelver. There would be carts of books to shelve, then there would be no more carts of books to shelve, then there would be carts of books to shelve.
As a shelver, Greg felt that life was passing him by in a slow and distant, but massive, way—like the moon. Whereas before, reclused in his apartment, Greg felt as if on the moon, negotiating all its post-apocalyptic, spaceman barrenness and sometimes eyeing the Earth out there—that gaudy ornament in space—at first with envy, but then with a latent, inaccurate sort of hatred.
It was probably best not to think about your life, though—ever—Greg knew, but to just assume that it was there, and happening, to trust that it was out there, doing whatever it was that a life would do. It was probably best, instead, to spend your time wiping the bathroom f
loor with wet toilet paper; filling the refrigerator with food, noting the day-to-day depletion of it; looking at stuff and going “Hmm” without thinking anything. Things like that. Things that were neutral and lucid and made profound sense as long as you kept them to yourself, in a secret box concealed from the rest of your brain—a box you then crawled into, like a hiding spot. An end-place.
Still, Greg would think about his life. All the time he would. He’d try to define it. It was a moon. But it was a life, too. It was a thing beyond the moon, if the moon was a hole in the sky. Or it was a cow, a fish. A dodo-bird. He was prone to crude, animal metaphors of life. He would see all of life—the entire askance crash of it, in the side yard, like a UFO—in an ant, a toad. He was prone to metaphors within metaphors. Two metaphors at once. Dashed, and simile’d. He would declare things, try things out: “Life is an ant—so small you just want to smoosh it, that you can’t help but smoosh it, that you leave the bathroom telling yourself you won’t smoosh it, but then go back, smoosh it.” Was this right? Did it make sense? He would say these things out loud, in another person’s voice, in the empty classroom of his head. Often, in a girl’s voice. It kept him company, and passed the time. But it also frightened him; these precarious beginnings of imaginary friends—was this … safe? It was iffy, Greg knew. Iffy at best. He was much too old for imaginary friends. He was 23. He should be in some army infantry unit somewhere—taking off his helmet, wiping his brow, putting his helmet back on. Or else in grad school, on a futon, patting a girlfriend’s head with one hand and marking up a textbook with the other. There were infinite other places where he should be instead of where he was right now. And this didn’t seem right—one over infinity; didn’t this equal zero? As it turned out—Greg Googled it—no, it didn’t. One in infinity only tended towards zero. But still, it didn’t make any sense. How could one trust the internet?
Greg signed his timesheet and went to the children’s books section. Rachel was sitting Indian style on the carpet. She was new here—another high schooler here for community service, which helped, supposedly, for college admissions.
Rachel looked up. “Hey Greg.”
“Hi, Rachel.” Greg had recently begun calling people by their names. It had always seemed strange to him—the sudden possession and clinical, Greg felt, intimacy of it—but now he had started doing it. His co-workers had begun talking. They would tilt their heads, peer into Greg’s face like a zoo animal, and then ask him why he was being anti-social. And so Greg had made the effort to speak more. He bought books on how to improve his social skills. One book said to address people by their names. It would be interpreted as friendly. And though his voice still sounded small and weepy to him, like gerbils let into a swamp, Greg felt good to be saying people’s names. To be making some kind of progress.
“What’s with hippos and kids?” Rachel said. “All these kid’s books involve hippos. Either hippos or grapes. What’s with that?”
“Where do hippos come from, anyway?” Greg said. “I mean, what are they related to? Elephants? It feels like they’re from outer space.” Greg could sometimes talk like this. Something inside of him would prop up, and in that quick and windowed moment, something flurried and alive would glide out, and play a little. Then it would fly right back in, though—dead now, and wooden—and knock against Greg’s insides, lodging there like a boomerang.
“Outer space?” Rachel smiled. “Dugongs?”
Greg liked Rachel. He would talk to her more. He would say something insightful and ahead of its time—something that should not have been said until 20, 30 years from now. Rachel would beam, then swoon a little. They’d get married. Open a little iced coffee place on the beach, right out of the sand, like a trapdoor. But now Greg’s face turned red, which would happen; whenever it wanted, Greg’s heart would move up into his face and linger there—hot, throbbing, and bored, like a ten year old.
Rachel watched this, then looked down. There were children’s books scattered around her, hard and plate-y, and she began to sort them. “They should do a children’s book on dugongs and manatees,” she said. “There would be prejudice between them. But in the end they would unite against the sharks.”
“Good luck with that,” Greg said. “Rachel.” It didn’t make any sense, and Greg didn’t know how he came to say it. But he had mumbled it, anyway, and so Rachel didn’t hear. She looked up and smiled. Greg tried to do something with his face—tried to smile back, look happy or something, confident and grown-up; like he wasn’t afraid of people—but it didn’t happen and he turned and moved driftily away, feeling dilute and sick, like watercolors, like a ghost with a cold.
On his lunch break, Greg walked out into the parking lot. He had planned to drive to Wendy’s for a Spicy Chicken Sandwich, but Rachel was out here with three friends, all of them leaned up against a truck.
“Greg,” Rachel called out. She waved him over.
Greg stumbled a bit, almost fell over. He had forgotten how to walk. Life was precarious like this. You could forget things. You could even float away, Greg knew, like a balloon. Or else topple like a tree, slow-motion and deadpan, teeth smashing into the blacktop. That could happen.
“Hi, Rachel,” Greg said. He tried to grin, but his face took on a grieved expression instead. He had no control over such things—his face, anything. Control was illusion. Control was kiddy glue, non-toxic and blue. Though the truth, really, if you wanted it, was that there was no glue, not even kiddy glue. That was a lie. There was nothing holding anything together. Your face could do things you didn’t want it to do, and you could say things you never wanted to say. And these sort-of accidents could covey out into the rest of your life, like pigeons, so that when you got there, to the rest of your life, you’d find only—pigeons. You wouldn’t know what to do. They’d be making those intrinsic pigeon noises, and you just would not know what to do. Eventually, though, you’d adapt—you’d take to emulating them, mockingly at first, but then earnestly, trying hard to get it right.
Rachel started introducing Greg to her friends. There were five now. Some had come out of the truck. They were talking, but Greg couldn’t comprehend anything. He was worrying that his nervousness was showing, trying to control this, worrying that he couldn’t.
“Come with us, Greg,” said one of them.
Greg felt a need to smile, so he did, but then stopped—it didn’t feel right. His face was saying things. It was saying, “I hate you. Go away. Shut up and go home. I hate me. Go home me.” It was out of control in a robot way, speaking with a kind of death knell, cheerleader-y rhythm, like something powered on AAA batteries. Something you fixed by hitting it.
“We’re going bowling,” Rachel said. “Tomorrow night. Come with us.”
Greg had an image of someone bowling a strike, then breakdancing—slow at first, but then faster, and then like crazy, breakdancing out of the bowling alley and into the parking lot. But was this how you went about getting a life? You went bowling, some other things happened, and then, finally, you were awarded a life? Greg had to try. “Okay,” he said. He nodded a few times. People were always talking about getting a life, as if there were a store and it was just a matter of going there, picking one out. It annoyed Greg. Though in his sleepier moments, he believed in this store, understood that it was in Europe somewhere, or else deep in Russia. One of those two places. He’d sometimes wake up sad because the store was so far away. Why did it have to be so far away?
“Greg, hey,” Rachel said. She did a little hop-step forward, touched Greg’s shoulder, sprung back, and giggled a bit. Greg looked down, aware of Rachel’s friends, that they were watching him, thinking strange and unknowable things. He scratched the back of his neck, kicked at a patch of pebbles, glanced back up at Rachel. She was smiling and had her eyebrows raised in such a patient and accommodating way that Greg felt, briefly, until he became aware of it, essential, unafraid, and at ease in the world—almost, he thought later, while shelving books, euphoric.
After
work Greg stopped at Wendy’s. He did the drive-thru, sat in his car in the parking lot. He had the windows down and the air-conditioner on. The steering wheel was warm against his forearms. It felt good. He had a Spicy Chicken Sandwich. He also had a Dr. Pepper with ice in it. Everything was okay, Greg thought. Everything was fine. He squished some mayonnaise onto his sandwich. Forty or fifty years would pass and then it would be over; maybe something nice would happen in those fifty years, but if not, that was okay. Just sitting here in his car, eating, this was enough. Things weren’t that bad. The Spicy Chicken Sandwich tasted good, and it would always taste good. He would talk to Rachel every once in a while. Be friendly with her. That would be nice. With her 75 hours of community service, then, she would go off to college. New girls would come for their own community service. They too would go to college. They’d meet their boyfriends. Marry and live their lives.
Greg began to feel that things weren’t okay. A numbed sort of restlessness started in his chest, a lame and disfigured yearning, some mangled need to do something drastic, to get out of himself—to change; but how, and to what? Greg didn’t know. He finished his sandwich and drove home, the sun glaring blade-y and white through the windshield. He watched some TV, took extra-strength nighttime Tylenol cold, and lay on his bed. He tried to sleep, then began thinking about an uncle of his. Uncle Larry. At family gatherings, Uncle Larry would always stand to the side, at an oblique. Sometimes he’d say something and in saying it he’d start looking away, and by the time he was finished saying his little thing—an amusing observation, usually—he’d be looking almost vertically down at the ground. He would very rarely laugh, but when he did, his face would look so kind and meek and sentimental—all crinkled and papery—that Greg, watching, would get an overwhelming urge to go somewhere alone to cry. Usually, though, Uncle Larry’s expression would be one of bewildered disappointment—a kind of continual, half-hearted acceptance that things had gone wrong. It was a face that said, “Fuck the world,” but said it reluctantly, and tonelessly, and then apologized, said “Sorry,” but said all of this so shyly that no one heard, anyway, except for himself. A year ago, Uncle Larry went to the hospital with the flu, somehow fell into a coma, and, a few days later, died. Greg thought about this and wept, and went to sleep.