“Kendra!” Christy shouted. “Help!”
“I’ll get right on that!” Kendra said, grinning. “Hold tight!”
Shawn had turned angry at the Hallorann murder scene. He’d said, “I’d rather they just not put a Black person in the movie than have them die so meaninglessly every time.”
“But everyone dies meaninglessly,” Kendra had said, though she, too, felt gutted.
“You know it’s different,” he’d said, his face long and fuming. “You know it’s not the same thing at all.”
In the jail cell, the killer-man’s masked face was inches from Christy’s, peering thoughtfully. Christy screamed. Kendra felt momentarily unsettled.
“Kendra!” Christy said. “Please!”
The man in the mask whipped Christy against the bars. Kendra flinched. “Just take off his mask!” Kendra said, mentally inventorying everyone she’d seen at the party.
“Kendra!” Christy said. She was on the floor now, having somehow gotten free from the monster’s clutches. She was crawling away, slowly. “Help!”
“Christy,” Kendra said, her stomach knotting. “Really, this isn’t funny. This isn’t—”
“Just help!” she said. “My leg. I can’t move . . .”
Christy edged out of the cell, tried to stand up, but fell. The masked man looked at her, cocked his head.
“Jesus,” Kendra said. She looked at the stairs, then back at Christy. “I guess we’re playing this game.” She ran to her coworker, bent down, put her arm around her shoulders. When they were halfway across the room, wheezing, grunting, sweating, the stairs folded up into the ceiling. WHAP! Kendra turned around. The masked man moved slowly, and in his hand, Kendra now saw a weapon: a glistening silver hatchet.
“No,” Kendra said. “Seriously?” Sweat ran down her forehead. Christy was heavy on her arm.
“Kendra,” Christy whispered. “My leg. I think it’s broken.”
The masked man stomped closer. Kendra’s hands shook. What the fuck? she thought. Next to her, Christy’s breathing became labored, moistening her neck. Kendra surveyed the room. About fifty feet away was a door. “Is that where we go?” she said.
“Kendra,” Christy said.
Kendra pulled on her coworker, but her weight was too much. “Come on,” Kendra said, thinking again of Shawn. Would she ever see him again? Or would she die down here a pathetic virgin? Would she— No. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. This was a game. From behind her, she heard grunts, the slow-moving gait of a bloodied man in a mask.
Everyone in horror movies should always err on the side of caution, Shawn had said during one of their early horror club meetings. It’s their disbelief that gets them killed in the end.
“Christy,” Kendra said, panting. “Did he actually hurt you?”
Christy didn’t answer, just let out a terrific scream. “Oh fuck, my leg! Oh fuck!”
“I can’t hold you up much more,” Kendra said.
“You have to!” she said.
“You need to be honest with me here!” Kendra said.
“Oh god, we’re gonna die!” Christy said. “We’re gonna die!”
Kendra stopped. Now she knew. There’d been no need to err on the side of caution. Disbelief wouldn’t get her killed. She (probably) wouldn’t die a virgin. She looked down at Christy’s face, and saw, through the mess of tangled hair, a monstrous grin.
“Just save yourself!” Christy said, draping a hand over her forehead. “Save yourself!”
“I knew it,” Kendra said, and dropped Christy, who stood up perfectly fine on her own.
The monster took off his mask.
“Yep,” Kendra said. “Of course.”
John Forrester shrugged, smiled. “You like the night-vision mask? Military-grade. And this hatchet looks so real, doesn’t it?” He ran a finger across the edge: plastic. “All an illusion, Kendra,” he said. “Everything.”
The stairs dropped back down. Kendra ran to them, looked up and saw Sarah peering down at her, grinning. “Take off his mask!” Sarah chided. “Just take off his mask!”
“I’ll give you a proper tour soon,” John said, walking over to her. “You’ve definitely earned that.”
Kendra shook her head. “I never thought any of it was real,” she said.
“Take off his mask!” Sarah repeated. “Take off his mask!”
Soon the rest of the crew stood around Sarah, joining the chant. “Take off his mask! Take off his mask!”
Kendra climbed the steps, still shaking her head. Dark heat swirled around her cheeks and ears, but when she reached the hallway and saw Sarah’s pointy face smiling into hers, scratchy embarrassment immediately reverted to cool, easy friendship. Who’d have thought? she wondered. Me with a white girl, feeling mushy. Who’d have thought? She hugged Sarah. Sarah hugged back.
“I’m so glad to have met you,” Sarah said.
“I’m glad too,” Kendra said.
Christy and John joined them in the hall, both of them beaming. John put his hand on Kendra’s shoulder and said, “You’re family.”
“I know,” Kendra said. “I get it.”
“You’re family,” John repeated.
And she felt, in that moment, like she could possibly leave her entire D.C. life behind her. If she had this, if she had Quigley, she could maybe fashion an existence for herself here. She could maybe survive.
Jaidee
Jaidee was miserable in Nebraska: it was the start of spring semester, and the cold and snow were merciless, a constant, confining freeze that burrowed deep into his skin. At the library, huddled in a puffy coat, he entered computer chat rooms—“Nebraska m4m” “Midwest m4m” “men seeking fun”—and posted every day, asking if anyone knew of a man named Victor Dunlap. Only one person responded via private message. He said: DUDE, STOP IT.
STOP WHAT? Jaidee typed back.
The man closed his window.
At the group on campus, Jaidee avoided Chris Driscoll and waded out to some of the other, less caustic members, starting a small friendship with Katie, the Pride float ruiner, the woman who’d called Chris a douche that awful night last semester. At first, Jaidee found the friendship slightly disappointing—he’d wanted to meet men, not women—but as winter pounced and searing subzero winds carved into his face, he realized that loneliness took on deeper, more profound dimensions in the winter, that with each howling gust, each numb appendage, he slipped into a greater state of despair, and the only way to scale his way out was to talk to those sharing the winter with him.
“You never get used to this cold,” Katie said. “It’s just . . . insane.” They were eating lunch in the student union. Around them, students walked sluggishly, hiding behind parkas, their backpacks small against their swollen outerwear. She’d just finished a math exam and was noticeably relaxed. I don’t even know why we’re required to take math, she’d once said to Jaidee. It’s not like I’ll ever use the Pythagorean theorem in my life.
“It’s not so bad,” Jaidee said.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “It must be horrible for you, coming from a tropical climate and all.”
He shrugged. “It’s different, that’s all,” he said.
Katie laughed. “You’re funny,” she said. “You say the best things.” She wore a Metallica T-shirt that flopped over her large breasts and hung down to her thighs. It was the album cover with the crosses: Master of Puppets. Her face was stout, her hair burnt reddish-orange, and she had a habit of crowding other people’s spaces. In fact, the first time Jaidee had ever hung out with her, she’d grabbed his hand, laced his fingers with her own, swung their arms back and forth. She told Jaidee that she expressed herself through touch, and that this sometimes got her into trouble.
“So how was your mall trip?” she asked.
“It was fine,” he said.
“It seems like such a hassle, to take the bus in this weather. Waiting in the cold. If I didn’t have class, I’d probably just stay in my dorm and s
leep,” she said. “Seriously.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I need to get out.”
“I hear you.”
The previous week, feeling restless, he’d bundled up and bused over to Gateway Mall, a place he’d come to think of as his second home. Usually, he felt good there, surrounded by advertisements and soft music and potential fashion statements, but on that day, all of it discomfited him: everything, then, had seemed overly synthetic and manicured. Orderly, yes, but too orderly, like a beautifully landscaped hedge maze that came complete with instructions for escape. Standing in the food court, slurping his Orange Julius, he wondered: Had America become powerful because it lacked character? Had this massively wealthy country somehow convinced everyone else that higher degrees of regularity determined overall success? And had his fascination with this country—a country that now seemed a bit robotic—stemmed from his own desire to lack character? To be part of some powerful mainstream?
He threw his Orange Julius cup away, wandered down the east spoke of the mall, and stopped outside a shoe store containing a poster of a very ordinary-looking blue sneaker. The words below the shoe read: be different. He thought about this. What did it mean, exactly, to “be different”? Didn’t the company want people to buy this blue shoe? And if everybody bought this blue shoe, how would they be different? It seemed like a major problem in America, this hypocrisy. The only way to be truly individual was to conform as rigidly as possible. For example: Chris Driscoll and his friends. They certainly thought of themselves as different, as exceptional, irreplaceable, distinctive. But they’d all buy this shoe, he knew. They’d be the first in line.
And also: wasn’t Jaidee himself actually different?
Yes. People went to lengths to remind him of it.
But did anyone want to “be” him?
No, no, no, no, no.
So what did it all mean? What was the answer to the riddle?
Who knew?
After staring at the poster for five more minutes, contemplating its pretense, Jaidee went inside and bought the blue shoes.
“So what’s it like having Bryan Douglas as your roommate?” Katie said, munching on a french fry.
Jaidee bit into his pizza crust, chewed. He shrugged. “He’s fine.”
“We went to high school together,” Katie said. “I mean, he was older than me, but I knew of him—everyone did. He was mucho popularo.” She grinned, bunching the skin around her eyes.
“What?”
“He’s got charisma.”
Jaidee shook his head. “He’s not home very much. I don’t even know why he decided to move to the dorms. He always goes to his mom’s house.”
“Doesn’t he have a new girlfriend? I’m not sure.”
“I think he’s homophobic.”
She frowned. “Could be, I guess. Lots of people are. But you wanna watch that.”
“Watch what?”
“Saying a Black man is homophobic just ’cause he’s Black. That’s racist.”
“Racist? I didn’t say anything about race,” Jaidee said, suddenly perturbed. One thing he disliked about Katie was her unyielding propriety, her inability to simply gossip. She’d even semi-defended Chris Driscoll, whom she purportedly hated. She said that Chris’s awfulness stemmed from the deep-seated insecurities that accompanied being a gay man in the Midwest, and that he’d have to live with these insecurities for the rest of his life. Not that that excuses his behavior, she’d said, but he’s dealing with his own demons. Just remember that.
She sighed. “You can’t just say those stereotypes about races.”
“I’m not saying stereotypes. I didn’t even mention his race.”
“Black people have had to deal with injustices, Jaidee, a ton of them. And it all stems from these assumptions we make.”
“But I don’t think that way. I just said—”
“I’m just saying to watch it, okay? That’s all.”
Jaidee prickled. “Racist” sounded so vile, especially since he knew enough about American history to understand the roots of American prejudice. And yet: His interactions with Bryan lately hadn’t been great. At times, Jaidee had wanted to study in his room, and thinking that Bryan would be out, he’d come home to a room full of Bryan’s friends, conspicuously smoking weed and blowing the smoke out the window. Bryan would welcome Jaidee in, tell him to grab a drink if he wanted, but Jaidee, feeling a well of anger in his stomach, would stomp over to his desk, find his books, throw them in his backpack, and go to the library. Upon leaving, he’d hear some of Bryan’s friends chuckling. One time he heard one say, “Man, how’d you get paired with that?”
He didn’t confront Bryan about the impromptu parties because he knew, even in his rage, that it would be silly—it wasn’t as if Bryan was doing it all the time, Bryan was hardly ever home—but he couldn’t help but think that after he—Jaidee—was out of earshot, they all talked about his gayness: he was certain they threw around words like “fag” and “queer” and “homo.”
“I’m only saying that because his friends . . .” Jaidee said. He was no longer hungry. Talking about his roommate made him uneasy. “But whatever. Forget it.”
“His friends what?”
He shook his head. “I met them the first day I moved in. They were nice. But now, it’s just different, and I think they all know.”
“Know you’re gay?”
“I think they all know. I think I’ve overheard them talking. And I think, I think they’re not good with it.”
“You should just talk to him.” She sipped her drink. “Maybe, I don’t know, you need to have one of those counseling sessions, you know, the ones where they bring both you and your roommate in and you just discuss all this?”
Jaidee looked at his watch. “I don’t know about that.”
“Just something to consider.”
“Well. I’ll consider,” he said, looking at his watch again.
After lunch, he went to his dorm room and saw in his mailbox a copy of the phone book he’d sent for a week prior. He grabbed it and traced the words “Des Moines” with his fingers, feeling his heart in his throat. He’d already examined the Lincoln and Omaha books to no avail, but now . . .
In the Lincoln book, he’d found three Dunlaps: Roger, Ethel, and “B.” With Roger and “B,” he only got an answering machine, and Ethel, a crackly, snarling woman, said, “Who? Who? Who?” He’d put the phone book aside. A semester passed. He became busy. During semester break, he sent for the Omaha phone book, found twelve entries for “Dunlap,” one simply named “V.” He dialed the number.
A man picked up. He said, “Victor? No. But I’ve gotten confused with a Victor before. Try Des Moines. Last person said he thought he might’ve moved there, so I’m just referring everyone else.”
So he’d sent for a Des Moines phone book, and now, here it was, on his desk. He thought, Third time’s a charm. The phone book glistened up at him. Isn’t that what they say?
He stared at it for a while, heart thumping, hands clammy, forehead hot. Inside that book he knew he’d find Victor’s name, that his address would be on the flimsy white paper, that everything would be okay—his entire journey out to this vast, green open country would make sense once he actually spoke to his former teacher. Calm warmth tickled his legs. My life, he thought. The rest of my life.
The door opened. His roommate’s luggish footsteps followed. Jaidee opened his eyes.
“What’s up,” Bryan said.
Jaidee’s chest fell, his face heated. In his head: rage, rage, rage.
“You okay?” Bryan said.
Jaidee breathed in deep. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Bryan said.
“Will you be here long?” Jaidee asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Will you be here a long time?”
“In my dorm room? Will I be in my dorm room a long time? That’s what you’re asking?”
“Yes.”
Bryan shook his head. �
��You’re unbelievable, Jaidee.”
“I was just wondering.”
“Dude, you’re the rudest fuck. Seriously.” Bryan shrugged off his backpack, flopped on his bed. “Don’t know what it’s like in your country, but here you don’t ask questions like that.”
“You’re not around much, so it’s not rude.”
“It is rude. Even if I were here for one hour a month, it’s still my dorm room.”
“Not just yours.”
“Christ.”
Bryan sat up, rummaged through his backpack, brought out a green textbook, a notebook, a pencil, went to his desk, opened the book, started scribbling. “I got a quiz in a couple hours, so leave me alone.”
“So you’re staying here a couple hours? Like just two?”
Bryan closed his eyes, breathed loudly. He clenched his teeth.
“A couple hours?” Jaidee repeated.
“Jaidee.”
“I’m just trying to plan.”
Bryan sat for a while, put his pencil down, turned to Jaidee. He said, “Look, how difficult is it for you to just leave me alone right now? How difficult is that?”
“I just asked a simple question.”
“I have a test, Jaidee. I’m studying in my dorm room, a dorm room that I’m paying for. Don’t you get anything? Don’t you get how rude you are? How rude you’ve been? Doesn’t that even register?”
“I’m not rude. I’m just asking questions.”
“Since the very start, you’ve been rude. To me. To my friends.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Every time I try to introduce you, you—what? Scoff? Yeah, you scoff. Like you’re better or something.”
“No, that’s not what I did.”
“See, that’s it. You don’t get it. I’m giving you some room ’cause you’re from Thailand, but Jesus. I mean, I can’t.” He shook his head.
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