by Tao Lin
“Bram Stoker,” Dana said. “Are you a vampire?”
“Yes,” Colin said. Leftover Crack’s bassist was looking down into his orange drink. “I was a cat when I was five, for Halloween. With a cape.” A cat from three to eleven, then a boy with a ghoul mask, then nothing. Halloween quickly became mostly for vandalism; no one dressed up anymore, just destroyed property, attacked one another openly and in teams. It was a different world back then. There were a thousand different worlds in the world, Colin knew. Each had a hundred thousand secrets locked-up in invisible steel rooms in the bright blue sky. Before bedtime, each night, you took a multiple-choice test based on those secrets. You never knew if you failed or what, and each morning you woke with the uncertainty of that. You also woke with a craving for new and requited love. The craving was unrelated to the uncertainty. Both were loyal only to their own causes. You yourself had no cause and seemed, at times, to be simply the effect of something. Fixed, unstoppable. Existing by momentum only, but pretending always otherwise.
“That’s good for five,” Dana said. She touched his elbow. “Colin, you were a vampire cat.”
“Look at the bassist.” Colin extended his arm straight out and pointed, startling himself in a dull and private way—he hadn’t meant to point like this. Some kids saw Colin pointing and looked. The bassist noticed and moved the hot dog down to his side, held it there like it wasn’t a hot dog, but something insurgent—a microphone or pipe bomb.
Dana laughed. “You’re embarrassing him!”
She slowly pulled Colin’s hand down.
“There aren’t enough songs against McDonald’s,” Colin said. “There should be a song called ‘Fuck McDonald’s.’ ” He felt suddenly excited, and looked directly into Dana’s face. He was not afraid. There was her face. At night, it would move through his vision, colorless and behind the eyes, like a phantom, floating bird—a hood of wings, folding away. “Do you think McDonald’s is objectively bad?”
“I think so,” Dana said. “Yeah; I agree with you.”
Colin looked away. Leftover Crack, he knew, had a song called “Fuck America”—it had begun to play in his head. It was catchy. It had rhyming couplets.
McDonald’s will bloom as the major competition
Between Jesus and the Devil for this government’s religion
People so caught up in the freedom that they see
While America’s fucking over every single country
Something Something Chorus Something
Fuck America
Fuck America
Fuck America
Fuck America
(Outro)
Dana was talking about if she were Bill Gates. “I’d do things about McDonald’s,” she was saying. “I’d end the McDonald’s corporation somehow. With Windows software.”
“They’ll sue you.” Colin didn’t feel excited anymore. He felt drugged and indifferent. Something enormous and depressed and on drugs had moved through him; had been watching him, from a distance, and had now come and moved through him.
“I’ll sell them faulty windows that would keep breaking,” Dana said. She laughed. “So their restaurants will look all dilapidated. When they sue me I’ll bribe the Supreme Court. I’ll give them supercomputers. Colin, I really like supercomputers for some reason. They’re so big and sad. I just want to take care of them. I get these urges …”
Colin wondered if Dana talked this way to her boyfriend. He knew nothing about Dana’s boyfriend. Except that his name was Tyson, and all Colin could ever think was Mike Tyson. Colin liked Mike Tyson. He didn’t know much about Dana anymore. They had talked a lot at first, years ago, that first August before school, before September 11th—all day, walking up and down Manhattan, side to side, through parks—but Colin couldn’t remember any specifics unless he tried very hard, and he didn’t feel like trying that hard.
Leftover Crack had a history of inter-band disputes. At a show Colin had attended, the guitarist had left the venue after Stza became depressed and smashed his guitar—the body snapping cleanly and quietly from the neck, as if willingly—and sang a few songs lying flat on his back. Another time, at CBGB, a few months after September 11th, the guitarist had on a fawn-colored sweater over a crisp white shirt for some reason and had said, in a sincere way, that he was proud to be an American, that it really moved him how everyone had come together. Then Stza had said that September 11th was the greatest day of his miserable life. Then they had played “Stop the Insanity (Lets End Humanity),” or something.
On stage now, Leftover Crack’s bassist walked to his bass, picked it up, strapped it on, and stood waiting for the others. His face was expressionless and he did not move his eyes, mouth, head, or legs. His shirt said “NO-CA$H.” The guitarist was asking the crowd for beer. Someone passed up a shiny blue plastic cup, but it wasn’t beer.
“Somebody pass this fucker a beer,” Stza said.
“If I don’t get a beer,” the guitarist said. “I’ll put my guitar down, smoke some crack, drink a forty. Seriously, I don’t care.” He had just done a set with his own band; he had his own band.
“We all know, dude,” Stza said. “We all know.”
They played “Gay Rude Boys Unite (Take Back the Dance Hall),” their anti-homophobia song, “Money,” their anti-money song, “Life is Pain,” their anti-breeding song, and “Suicide (A Better Way),” their pro-suicide song. Behind them, against the wall, was a large upside-down American flag with a pentagram drawn over it in black marker. In the corner was a little silvery “666.”
Colin and Dana stood to the side, back a little. Both had toilet paper packed in their ears. About ten songs in, Dana pushed Colin toward the middle and front. They were squished, were pushing forward and screaming the lyrics, and then Colin fell back into a circle-pit area, was okay for a while, moving quick and unharmed, but then was elbowed some place and smacked in the side by someone’s fat, hard body. He fell to the ground, which was cool and sticky. Kids picked him up, righted him, squared his shoulders. “My shoe,” Colin said. “My shoe fell off.” Kids began to search for his shoe. Then someone was slapping Colin’s cheek with his shoe and giving him his shoe. Colin saw some yellow and pushed up front. Stza was dancing something like a jig on stage, rapping, “incarcerate the youth of the next generation / and you get the high-fives at the police station.” Colin screamed the lyrics for a few songs. Leftover Crack played “Born to Die,” their usual closer—“I just can’t escape the lying / the moment we’re born, we’re dying”—and right after that the venue people turned on the lights. The house music was death metal. Colin found Dana and they stood around for a while. They used the bathroom. They wandered to the outside area, where a girl was interviewing Stza.
“Alright,” the girl was saying. She had bright orange hair and a large tape recorder, and was young, maybe in 8th grade. “So what’s the point of what you’re doing? What do you hope to gain?”
“Well, the point …” Stza said. “Actually we’ve pretty much done everything I had hoped to do. I wanted to be in a band, I wanted people to come to our shows. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up and I wanted to meet people … see, I’m really shy, and I just can’t walk up to people and talk to them. I feel like a total jerk. But if kids come up to me and talk I can just talk back.”
“Is this the one important thing about the band … that you are going to extremes just because you’re making a point of free speech?”
“That’s one of the things,” Stza said. “But it’s not the only reason I say some things. I mean a lot of the things I say. I joke about a lot of things. But only half joking.”
“Is that why you have satanic imagery on your website? To be offensive?”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m an atheist. I like satanic art, I think it’s pretty … I’m not a Satanist, but if you read the Satanic Bible, a lot of it is just common sense, really. It’s not about hurting people, it’s about freedom and autonomy.”
One of the Polish women�
�the mom—was watching and had been moving closer and was now standing next to Stza. She asked about some beers that were sitting on a fence. “I wonder whose they are,” she said. There were three beers.
“Don’t know. You can have them,” Stza said.
“No; you should have them. They’re not mine.”
“Thank you,” Stza said.
“I wish someone would have them so they wouldn’t just be sitting there.”
“I’m sure someone will have them,” Stza said.
“Okay. Goodbye.” She turned to leave.
“Goodbye,” Stza said. “Well, you know, I eat out of the garbage, so …”
The polish woman turned back around. “What?” she said.
“I eat out of the garbage, so it doesn’t matter,” Stza said. “A lot of kids do, so they’ll drink the beers.”
“I don’t think they’re garbage, I think they’re sealed cans, just over there—look.”
“I’ll go check it out if it makes you happy,” Stza said.
“Just chuck them over the fence into that garden.”
“No! That’s wrong,” Stza said. “I don’t believe in littering. This is such a pretty place.”
“But someone might use them to throw at people’s windows.”
“They’re empty aluminum cans, that’s not going to break a window. I know these things.”
“He’s too smart for me,” the woman said to Colin and Dana. She smiled at Colin. “Oh,” Colin said, and looked away. Dana was holding his hand, he saw. “Will you put them in the bin for me then?” the Polish woman said. “They worry me.”
“Alright,” Stza said. “When we go back we have to go back that way—so we will.” He looked around. The little girl with the orange hair was gone. She had vanished.
“Thanks,” the woman said, “you’re an angel.”
“Thank you. An angel of death.”
Outside the venue, the sky was a distinct brown. Kids pointed at it. “What the fuck is that?” someone said. “It’s a piece of doo-doo,” someone screamed. There were clouds but those were brown too. A group of kids began to chant, “Don’t dis the sky, don’t dis the sky.” No one wanted to go home. Everyone loitered in the street, kicked at snow, talked shit about Good Charlotte. Colin walked around a little and soon couldn’t find Dana. He stood in one place, looking and shivering, feeling an unpleasant and comprehensive longing for tonight; it was a thousand years later and Colin was thinking back, remembering—regretting everything. But he would not be alive in one thousand years, he knew. He would be alone in a vast and unimaginable place. He felt a little confused. He saw Leftover Crack’s bassist running away, sprinting down the block, slowing, turning a corner. Then a girl was asking Colin his name. “Colin,” Colin said. “Hi,” the girl said. She had round and vapid eyes and a very thin, silver hoop in her nose. “I’m Maura. Join me, Frank, Donnie in a Chinese dinner. We’re going to Manhattan Chinatown. You’re invited.”
Dana walked up.
Maura introduced herself again. They talked briefly about a building across the street, then buildings in general. What if they got so tall that they broke off into outer space? “You two are together,” Maura said after a while. “You aren’t alone and feeling bad … feeling alone,” she said to Colin. She gazed at them. “Things haven’t changed. You’re both invited.”
The moon was fuzzy and it looked like it had snowed there too, or else it was a large piece of snow, falling slowly, carefully, in an orbit. It was the moon, and could do what it wanted.
“You two aren’t very curious,” Maura said. “Not a good sign. Hmm. Look. Frank and Donnie.” She stepped aside, pointed behind her. Frank and Donnie were standing there, small and indistinct, down two or three blocks.
At the Chinese restaurant, Maura had an idea that everyone should spend all their money tonight; they’d found a homeless person on the train and he was here with them too—a short, bearded man who hadn’t said anything. They put their money together, a little over a hundred dollars. Maura brought the cash to the large Chinese woman in charge of the place and asked her to order for them, and keep twenty percent for tip. A waiter appeared and engaged the Chinese woman in conversation without looking at her.
Dana’s cell phone rang. It was her boyfriend and she said that she was going to go now, and stood up.
Colin wasn’t thinking that he wouldn’t ever see Dana again after tonight. He didn’t think of that until after Dana had left. It was later, now, that Colin realized: when Dana was standing by the table, a few minutes ago, looking, she was waiting for him to stand up, so that they could say goodbye or something, exchange phone numbers maybe, but Colin had just sat there, without moving—had been thinking about Dana’s film, about asking her where to meet tomorrow, if she was just being nice; then about how good and mysterious it was that Dana had held his hand earlier—and then she had come over, leaned down, hugged him, and left.
“I wonder if Stza masturbates to celebrities,” Frank was saying. “What about to nine eleven? That’s so dumb, when people say that. Getting off on nonsexual things, I hate that shit.”
“He probably masturbates to the idea of masturbating to nine eleven,” Donnie said. “He’s one step ahead like that. That’s how people are. There’s like five steps, and you figure out what kind a person you are by what step you’re on. Fuck you, Mrs. Johnson.” He said to Colin, “Um, my math teacher. She was in my head just now. I was like, what are you doing …”
“What if someone wrote a song called ‘Fuck Africa,’ or something?” Frank said. He had a worried look on his face. “ ‘Fuck Black People.’ A song called ‘Fuck Native Americans.’ ”
Maura was leaned over the table, her head low, and was gazing up, a bit blankly, at Colin. “Are you offended?” she said.
Colin shook his head no.
“You’re crestfallen,” Maura said.
“I’m not.”
“Crestfallen?” Donnie said. “Nice. I like that. Romantic.”
“What if Stza saw a slide,” Frank said. “Like a playground slide. In a field somewhere. And he was alone and no one was watching—would he do it?”
“He’d probably hide in it—on top—and masturbate to the idea of hiding there and masturbating,” Donnie said. “See how we’re different? I’m on one step, you’re on another, lower step. Me and Stza are pointing and laughing at you.”
“No … because I’m being serious,” Frank said. “I’m on an elevator or something, being serious.”
“I’m operating your elevator,” Donnie said. “Your elevator’s a cardboard box. You live in a cardboard home and sit there being serious all day. At night, you make beastlike noises, you clutch your face in horror …” Donnie looked off to the side at something.
“He would—he’d do the slide,” Frank said. “I wouldn’t though. I’d be too apathetic. I’d be like, what difference does it make? Stza would be like, ‘Hey, a slide.’ Stza wouldn’t get along with bin Laden.” Frank was shaking his head. “Stza would be all sarcastic and bin Laden wouldn’t get it. They’d just have all these awkward silences. Bin Laden would murder Stza in his sleep.”
“Apathetic is pathetic with an ‘A,’ ” Donnie said.
“Osama bin Laden,” Maura said. “Ouch.” Her head lay on its side, on her arms, on the table. Her eyes were closed. “I feel so alone when I close my eyes and talk. I hear my voice and everywhere else is this sad music, like, behind me.” She began to hum, very quietly, “La-la-mm-mm-la, ah-ah-mm …”
“Did she say sad music or sadistic music?” Donnie said. He put his hand in the air. “Give me five,” he said to Frank. “Give me a high-five for what I just said.”
Frank looked at Donnie. “I wonder if bin Laden ever gets depressed,” he said. “I’m serious. I think about this a lot. Depressed people … are so depressed and harmless. Bin Laden and everyone, Bush—they’re always grinning on TV. What the fuck is that. No one ever thinks about this shit, really.”
There was a meta
l rod inside of Colin. The rod went up from his stomach into the middle of his head. It was made of steel and sugar, and had been dissolving inside of Colin for ten or fifteen years, slow and sweet, above and behind his tongue; and he would taste it in that way, like an aftertaste, removed and seeping and outside of the mouth. Sometimes he’d glimpse it with the black, numb backs of his eyes. But what he really wanted was to wrench it out. Cut it up and chew it. Or melt it. Bathe in the hard, sweet lava of it.
Their food came. Three dishes, then three more, then a pot of something murky and deep. The large Chinese woman sat down with them. “I sense a new person,” Maura said. “Hi.” Her eyes were still closed. “It’s the boss-lady,” Donnie said. Maura sat up, opened her eyes, asked the Chinese woman about getting some more homeless people to come help eat. The Chinese woman laughed. She shouted something and the waiter left the restaurant on a bike.
The short homeless man was eating and so was Colin, but no one else.
“My phys-ed teacher-person called me ‘homeslice’ yesterday,” Frank said. “What the hell is that? He kept doing it.”
“He probably said he needed to go home and slice some pizza,” Donnie said. “I’m going to go home, slice some pizza.”
“No, he was like, ‘Frank, homeslice, get over here and do twenty push-ups.’ ”
“You should’ve said, ‘Your mom’s a homeslice.’ Then stayed where you were, doing zero push-ups.”
“I feel depressed,” Frank said.
“Do you know?” Maura said to Colin. “What is a homeslice? You’re older than us. You’re wiser.”
“Crestfallen,” Donnie said.
Colin looked up and shook his head. Blood moved slowly and disproportionately through his head, like a water and a syrup both. He concentrated on eating a piece of vegetable. It wouldn’t fit in his mouth and he concentrated on that.
“You seem hungry,” Maura said. “Are you undernourished?”