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Eeeeee_eee_eee.txt
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Eeeeee_eee_eee.txt
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Andrew talks to Steve on the phone then drives to Domino’s. “You’re late,” Matt says. “You’re fired. Get your shit and get the fuck out of here.” There are two managers and one is Matt. The other manager is the sad manager.
Andrew grins. “Okay,” he says.
Matt stares at Andrew. “I don’t want to see you again, Andrew.” Matt is twenty-five, singer and guitarist of his own band, and Andrew is making a shit-eating grin at him. Andrew goes to the back, feels tired of life, and logs in. Four other drivers are standing around. Andrew has nothing to say to them. They live in small houses with low roofs and are all very polite. One was a martial arts champion. Andrew had a flat tire once and the martial arts champion drove out to help, late at night. He seemed very nice and a little shy, but also like if he wanted he could walk quietly through a crowd with a neutral facial expression breaking people’s bones. Andrew kept apologizing; he felt bad because one time the martial arts champion had showed him how to save fifteen seconds by driving through a field illegally. “Thank you for helping me,” Andrew said. The martial arts champion said his wife hit a deer and after that would not drive anymore. He said he used to go places for martial arts competitions. He went to Virginia and Georgia. “I was pretty serious,” he said. “I did martial arts one summer,” Andrew said. The martial arts champion was changing the tire; they were in front of a rundown grocery shack; and Andrew kept thinking, martial arts, deer, death. He was not surprised or afraid, but a little bored. Driving home that night he felt undistracted and grateful. He petted his dogs and emailed his mom. He should be friends with the martial arts champion; with all of them. They once invited Andrew to drink beer and watch TV. We’ll eat pizza. They laughed when they said that and Andrew smiled and had an image of himself standing in a corner, drunk and depressed, then facedown in a retention pond. At home that night he wondered if he should’ve gone; imagined it would’ve been fun, just to watch—the martial arts champion probably would have gotten drunk and jump-kicked a deer, or something—and after that was not invited again.
“Is it busy? Today?” Andrew says. He looks abstractly at the other drivers; it’s unfair to look at one person.
“It’s been slow this week,” someone says.
“Remember when kids said ‘slow-mo’?” someone else says. “I’m bringing it back.”
“No you’re not,” Andrew says.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew says.
The other manager walks by. He is young and overweight, with glasses; ‘the sad manager.’
“A moose gave a ten dollar tip,” someone says. “I said, ‘Thank you, moose.’ Moose said, ‘Thank you.’ It was fun.”
When there are no deliveries you fold boxes; or take calls. Folding boxes is easier. Everyone is folding boxes. Andrew is folding boxes. If the entire job were to fold boxes people would scream. They would fold, and sometimes scream, existentially, then be dragged into a field and beaten into a paste. Sometimes there would be a killing rampage. Steve was going to Seattle but got on the wrong plane and is now in New York City. It’s risky to scream in an airport. Steve is clinically depressed inside of an airport, homeless; let him live in your closet. Sara, I’ll wear him like a shirt over my head, like a hat, and his ears can be my real ears.
“My friend was going to see his dad,” Andrew says. “He went to New York City.”
Someone says something about dying from eating too much pizza after sex with a prostitute.
Andrew feels calm. “If you can’t beat them join them,” he says. Some days he feels calm. Today he feels calm. He feels strange. “Has anyone done that? Not beaten something … then joined it?”
“If you can’t join them buy them out,” someone says.
“Buy them presents,” Andrew says, and makes a shit-eating grin at no one; at a pizza box. He is embarrassed for the pizza box. He folds it. ‘Shit-eating grin.’ He needs to stop. He needs to use his face to convey emotions to other humans in order to move sincerely through life—laughing in groups of three or four; expressing gratitude, concern, or disapproval about people, the weather, or food; and manipulating members of either sex to get them to love him, like him, or respect him. That is what a face is for. One manager isn’t enough so there are two. They should be identical twins. One would make pizzas shaped like pentagrams and have a pointy tail no one would mention but have nightmares about most nights. Eventually the evil twin would go on a killing rampage, which no one would mention but have nightmares about most nights; though sometimes in daytime, during naps. Everyone is folding boxes. Feels like a David Lynch movie. In Manhattan Andrew saw Mulholland Drive with a girl. They saw the movie, ate Chinese food. She kept saying she was having a lot of fun. Andrew liked her. “I really want to do this again,” she said at her door. “We should,” Andrew said. “I’ll call you,” she said. Andrew saw her next a few months later, from across a street, and she averted her eyes. Did she avert her eyes? Maybe she was being polite when she said ten times and enthusiastically that she was having a lot of fun. Maybe she was being sarcastic. Maybe politeness is the same as sarcasm. Someone should write that book. Against Politeness. Andrew is learning many useful and interesting things while folding boxes for minimum wage. I was folding boxes and writing a book proposal. My face was neutral but inside I felt productive and good. My name is Andrew. I am twenty-three years old, I live in Orlando, Florida, and instead of talking out loud to real human beings that I can touch and look at I talk in my head to humans from my past that I will probably never see again.
Matt comes and stares then slowly goes away. Andrew laughs. He likes Matt. If Andrew makes a movie Matt will be in every scene in the background staring. The trailer will be two minutes of Matt’s face. One time Matt told Andrew to deliver a pizza with his hat sideways, shirt untucked, belt unbuckled; and gave him a bike chain to wear around his neck. Andrew did it. The man came to the door, terrified. Andrew felt abstract and out-of-control. It took a long time because it was a large order, with Buffalo wings and extra bleu cheese. The man’s face turned red and neither of them spoke, even when Andrew dropped a container of bleu cheese and they both watched it fall into a little hole in the concrete. It was difficult to get the bleu cheese out because it fit almost perfectly in the strange hole. “What happened,” Matt said. “The person was afraid of me,” Andrew said. “You’re a good worker,” Matt said.
Sitting in the car after work. Listening to music. (“How do you have fun?”) Andrew has not spoken aloud in about three hours. He will never speak again. He is ready to go home. He doesn’t want to go home. He wants to build a tree fort for Sara. Trap her in the tree fort. Matt comes out, gives Andrew a pizza, says to deliver it to Joanna’s house and also drive Joanna home. “Don’t rape her, or we’ll know,” Matt says. Joanna is standing there. “Thank you for the awkward situation,” Andrew says. “What?” Matt says. “Thank you for the awkward situation,” Andrew says. “What?” Matt says. “Thank you for the awkward situation,” Andrew says. Matt lights a cigarette. Joanna stares at Andrew. She waves. Andrew waves. Joanna is four feet from Andrew, who is sitting in his car—a Honda Civic—and they are waving at one another. She is a phone person; a high-schooler. She sits in back. Andrew feels like a chauffer. Matt is training him, taking Domino’s to the next level in cutting-edgedness. Get rid of the tables; introduce chauffeurs. Andrew drives out of the shopping plaza. He will find Joanna’s house without directions. As a boy he was convinced he had extra sensory perception. He read UFO books and was afraid every night. Andrew feels sorry for the small boy who sat in the ‘occult’ section of shoppingmall bookstores for hours while his mom bought clothes. He is still afraid sometimes that an alien will be standing in a doorway. He wants to fight an alien in hand-to-hand combat, to overcome his fear; aliens would surround him, headbutt him into a paste—it would take six hours, because of their soft heads, but Andrew would be too afraid to object or move—and roll their bodies in the paste. Andrew makes a left. He will not talk unless Joanna talks first. He did that with Sara sometimes. He should talk non-stop and never strategize, or think. People would try to get away from him. Finally the police would take him to jail, though in the morning he would be back, in the person’s house, talking loudly. Eventually there would be killing rampages. Eventually there will always be killing rampages.
“Make a right back there,” Joanna says. “You were supposed to turn.”
U-turn over the median? You win, you lose, it’s the same old news. Andrew does it. A cop turns his sirens on. “Shit!” Joanna says. She leans forward and looks at Andrew’s face. Andrew looks at her. She has a pretty nose, a small mouth. (“Don’t rape her, or we’ll know.”) Andrew looks away, parks the car. If he were Sara he would call the cop a motherfucker. Don’t call the cop a motherfucker.
“Tell me what happened,” the cop says. He shines a flashlight in back, at Joanna.
“He’s giving me a ride home,” Joanna says. “I’m in high-school. We’re co-workers at Domino’s. We just left there.”
The flashlight is on Joanna’s face; the cop is looking at Andrew. It’s a little confusing. ‘Complex.’
“I made a U-turn,” Andrew says, and makes a kind of shit-eating grin.
“You made a U-turn,” the cop says. “Other people got off work and you will kill them—put them in wheelchairs, hospitals. What are you thinking about, boy?” He wasn’t angry before. Now he is very angry. He called Andrew a boy.
“I know I’m wrong,” Andrew says. He is thinking about marshmallows a little. It is October. “My co-worker’s family ordered a pizza.” He has an image of himself drunkenly resisting arrest; being shot in the back of the head while running away. He is afraid there are kilograms of illicit drugs in the glove compartment. He will fight the cop in hand-to-hand combat. Don’t make sudden movements; not yet. The cop leaves. Andrew promises to himself sarcastically—it is impossible for Andrew to make a sincere or unselfconscious promise to himself—to never make a U-turn again. Not even a legal one. It’s good he wasn’t wearing a bike chain. The cop returns with a $180 ticket. “Thank you,” Andrew says, grinning. He will plead insanity in traffic court. The cop, He did seem demented. The judge, What does it mean that he’s grinning right now? Courtroom psychologist, Look at that shit-eating grin. Andrew, I’m against capitalism, I’m against being against capitalism, and I work at Domino’s pizza. Denny’s waitress, He said I was against capitalism.
“Should I sit up here?” Joanna says, and climbs up front. “Why did I sit in back? The cop thought that was illegal. He wasn’t sure.”
As a kid Andrew was always climbing around in cars. His mom liked it. Andrew kind of likes Joanna. Andrew likes Sara. Sara, laughing. Joanna doesn’t laugh or smile. Andrew looks at her. Joanna looks at him. Andrew grins a little. Joanna looks away then ahead. She is afraid. At work she talks nonstop; does she? Andrew never paid attention. He puts on very sarcastic and depressing music. She used the window instead of using the door /now I’m alone up on the fourteenth floor. Sarcastic; or polite? Joanna is afraid of this music. Andrew will drive them into a wall. Joanna will make a face of agony. Before they die she will shriek and Andrew will get a headache. The cop will be very angry and shine his flashlight at a tree while talking about the car. Matt will stare, then walk slowly and backwards into a forest. Sara won’t ever know. She never thinks about Andrew; hasn’t ever e-mailed or called. Andrew never e-mails or calls either, really, just has imaginary conversations with her almost constantly; his idea of her. Maybe he will e-mail her tonight. She will respond with a form letter. We thank you for your submission but are unable to use your work at this time. Unfortunately, the volume of submissions we receive makes a personal reply impossible. She’ll say she’s moving to Florida and Andrew will pet his dogs, e-mail his mom, and buy Steve a present. She won’t respond and Andrew will lie on the floor with a blanket over his face and body.
Joanna is saying something.
Andrew turns down the music. He feels bored. “What did you just say?”
“I know this. My sister listens to this. It’s I Hate Myself.”
“No one listens to I Hate Myself,” Andrew says.
“I just said my sister listens to I Hate Myself.”
Andrew wants to meet Joanna’s sister for dinner.
“I live here,” Joanna says.
After eating salads with Joanna’s sister they will listen to music and kiss. After eating salads with Joanna’s sister they will avert their eyes. To be polite she will swear to God she’s having fun, and take a lie detector test. She won’t be Sara. Sara is better. Sara didn’t listen to I Hate Myself. ‘Complex.’ ‘Shit-eating grin.’ Shit-eating grins are complex. Why would you grin if you just ate shit? A neighborhood is passing on the right. Joanna’s neighborhood. Andrew in his head has an image of a mouth larger than Andrew’s head and the mouth is laughing. Sometimes reading or watching TV Andrew recognizes that a thing is meant to be funny and hears this laughter, in his head, then feels that his face is very calm and neutral, like a hamster’s. At night sometimes Andrew’s heart beats fast and his thoughts are illogical and wild. In bed he looks at the ceiling and feels excited and alert, and can’t understand why he, or anything, exists.
“You passed it,” Joanna says. “You passed the first turn too; when we left Domino’s. That’s why you made a U-turn and got a ticket.”
“The first turn you didn’t say anything; how could I know?”
“I did,” Joanna says.
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
“I swear I said, ‘Turn here, Andrew.’ ”
“You didn’t say my name.”
If Joanna were Sara, Andrew would tickle her. He mock jerks the steering wheel to the left. He looks at Joanna. She isn’t looking. One time a kid was roadside on a bike and kept glancing over his shoulder as Andrew approached; Andrew mock jerked the car and the kid fell off his bike into a ditch. Sara liked that story. Sara called a guy at Duane Reade a motherfucker. Sara’s tongue was very cute, licking her blue Popsicle. Sara Tealsden. Stop thinking about her. Drive Joanna to Joanna’s house.
“I’ll turn up here,” Andrew says. U-turn. Another promise not kept. Of the two people in the car Andrew is the one without a future; the other person, Joanna, will go to college, make myriad friends and life connections, join clubs, get internships, and even marry someone and have children. What was Andrew doing the entire time in college? Everyone was constantly busy and partying, or attempting suicide. Andrew was always telling people how he’d just slept fourteen hours. He joined a water polo club. He had leg cramps and got out of the pool and winced. The instructor said, “You won’t be coming back again, will you?” Andrew said, “Yeah I will.” At a deli Andrew saw the instructor and walked up to her and said, “I’ll see you next week.” He did not go back. He turns the music up, puts it to a different song. Pick a happy one. There are no happy ones. There is no future. It goes to a very depressing song by Samiam. I don’t want to spend another long and lonely weekend by the phone without anyone to call / I’ve had a lot of time to think and I’m so tired of thinking I know why he put that bullet in his skull. Sincere, at least. Andrew does not know the meaning of the word ‘sincere.’ That can’t be true. Talk to Joanna. Meet her sister. Kill Joanna, her sister, and Steve. (“Kill me and my siblings.”) Suitcase full of cash; high-fives on a diamond boat. Andrew feels sorry for Samiam’s singer who is probably currently listening to I Hate Myself. Andrew feels sorry for anything, even inanimate objects and moments in time. He once recorded a song in his room; he feels sorry for those moments in time when a person named Andrew recorded a sad song in his childhood bedroom by dubbing drums with guitar then singing a poem over it. He should put the song on the Internet. Name it “Jhumpa Lahiri.” Her Pulitzer Prize would slide into the night and be run over by a car. Sara would laugh. Steve would comprehend that it was funny but not laugh. Joanna probably would not laugh. Joanna’s sister, maybe (she listens to I Hate Myself). Matt would stare at Andrew for ten minutes. It’s depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat. The chance that Andrew and Joanna’s sister would like one another is probably two percent. Einstein, God doesn’t play dice with the universe. When Andrew hears something like that his face becomes very neutral and a sarcastic voice in his head says, “Profound.” He doesn’t want to drive anymore. What will he do tonight? (“Go fuck yourself.” “I will. Tonight.”) He wants to drive into a mountain and make the mountain explode. Florida has no mountains. Florida has no Sara. No Sara; no future. No marshmallows. Andrew stops thinking.
“You passed where you said you would turn,” Joanna says after a while.
“I’ll turn soon.” Andrew drives thinking, turn at the next one. I will turn at the next one. Mass grave in the side yard. He merges smoothly into the turn lane. (“Tell me what happened.” “I made a fucking U-turn.”) “I’m obsessed with a girl,” he says. “What should I do?”
“You’re not obsessed,” Joanna says.
“She is Sara. She doesn’t call me. I made her admit she liked me. She likes me. But we’re too alike. When you’re with someone and neither of you can stop saying good things. Then you both get very aware that life will end soon. I think that’s why we don’t talk that much. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
“You’re rationalizing,” Joanna says.
Andrew drives without thinking.
He feels calm. He feels a little good.
(“My sister is more depressed than both of us.”)
“Are you passive-aggressive?” Joanna says. “You don’t call but expect her to, like she’s your mom.”
“She’s not my mom.” Andrew’s mom is in Germany. Steve’s mom’s plane crashed. “I don’t know what ‘passive-aggressive’ means. It’s a cliché,” Andrew says. He feels tired. What will he do for the rest of his life? “How old is your sister?”
“My best friend’s cousin’s name is Sara,” Joanna says.
Best friend’s cousin. “I can’t process what you just said,” Andrew says. Steve’s dad, screaming. “Sara,” Andrew says. Everyone should be named Sara. Rename the dogs. Interpret them as one entity. ‘Sara.’
“Maybe I know her,” Joanna says. “I think three of her cousins are named Sara. Turn left.” She points at her neighborhood; ‘Windy Brook.’ Andrew has an image of himself and Sara sitting by a stream with their feet in the water.
“My sister’s twenty-five,” Joanna says. “Why?”
Andrew turns into ‘Windy Brook.’ “Your sister should start a band with me. My friend Steve and I are starting a band.” Andrew will marry Joanna’s sister. Steve will feel left out. Killing-rampage.
“Ashley plays bass guitar,” Joanna says. “She’s okay at it. I mean really good. I’m not jealous; I don’t know why I said she’s okay. She’s great.”
“Everyone should be named Sara.” A bear with a hose on ‘full-blast’ setting, watering flower plants—crushing them, really—stares at Andrew’s face as Andrew drives by. Andrew thinks about squinting or something and blankly stares back at the bear.
“My sister is a genius on bass guitar,” Joanna says, and gives some more directions.
“I feel like how Honda Civics look. That’s why I drive a Honda Civic,” Andrew says. “Just kidding.” He wants Ashley’s phone number. Can I come inside to ‘court’ your sister? Inappropriate. Be patient. Wait ten days; don’t strategize. Wait exactly fourteen days, get her email address under the pretense of starting a band; use the email address to get her phone number; use the phone number to ask her to dinner under the pretense of something else. Wait fourteen days then go on a killing-rampage, culminating in Seattle with putt-putt, in the rain, with Steve’s dad’s severed arm. She’s twenty-five. Probably in Uzbekistan for the Peace Corps. Andrew is twenty-three. He should join the Peace Corps. He and Sara were going to vacation on the Canary Islands. Andrew does not know what the Canary Islands are. She said it, not Andrew. They had many ideas and plans. They climbed a tree. Andrew drops Joanna off. She runs across her yard with her pizza, jumps over a stump, goes into the house. She could have gone around the stump. It was more fun to leap over the stump, like a gazelle. So that’s how you have fun. Andrew sits in his car, feels bored and sarcastic, and starts to drive away. Joanna runs wildly at the car. Andrew is confused. Joanna knocks on Andrew’s window; she will invite Andrew inside to ‘court’ Ashley? Andrew puts the window down. Joanna is grinning. Shit-eating? A normal grin. She pays for the pizza. “Thank you, Andrew,” she says, and runs away. Andrew sits in his car thinking about rafting around the Canary Islands with Sara using an inflatable marshmallow raft. A bear comes out of Joanna’s house.
Andrew puts the window up.
The bear stares at Andrew.
Andrew puts the window down a little.
“Do you need something?” Andrew says.
“Yeah,” the bear says.
“Oh. What do you need?”
“Come here.”
The bear points at a house.
“Do you need help?” Andrew says.
“Come here,” the bear says.
“Where?”
“Do you want free money?” the bear says.
“Why?”
“Do you want a hundred dollar bill?” the bear says.
“I don’t know,” Andrew says. He puts the window down all the way. “Why do you have free money?”
“Come here.” The bear steps toward the house he pointed at before.
“It’s a trick.”
“Yes or no,” the bear says. “Do you want free money and a free laptop computer or not?”
“I own a home computer.”
The bear has a twenty-dollar-bill and a blue blanket and holds them in front and walks to Andrew’s car and puts the blanket on Andrew’s head and rips off Andrew’s door and the top of Andrew’s car. The bear picks up Andrew and carries Andrew to the house he earlier pointed at and in the side yard sets down Andrew, who takes the blanket off his own head. The bear kneels, opens a secret passageway under a patch of grass, and points at a ladder that goes underground. Andrew goes to the ladder. “Do it,” the bear says.
“Do what?” Andrew says. “Why?”
“Do it,” the bear says.
The bear takes the blanket from Andrew and drops it down the passageway.
“Oh,” Andrew says. “Good thinking. Good idea. Now I’m required to go get the blanket, or else I’ll appear ‘irresponsible,’ or something, an irresponsible human being littering in the wilds of North America. Yeah. I don’t know. Okay.”
Andrew climbs down the ladder.
The bear climbs down the ladder.
They climb together.
They are climbing.
The bear kicks Andrew’s head.
“Was that your head?” the bear says.
Andrew doesn’t say anything.
“Andrew,” the bear says. “Was that your head?”
“Stop talking.”
“What was it?” the bear says.
“A laptop computer.”
They keep climbing down.
“Where’s your sledgehammer?” Andrew says.
“Sledgehammer,” the bear says. “What are you talking about?”
It gets colder.
The bear makes noises like, “Hrr. Hrr.”
“Not all bears are the same bear,” the bear says.
They climb some more and reach a corridor.
Andrew picks up the blanket.
They walk through the corridor.
There is a nook in the corridor.
A moose is lying in the nook.
The moose’s eyes are open.
The bear takes the blanket from Andrew.
The bear tells Andrew to keep walking.
“A moose,” Andrew says.
“Keep walking,” the bear says.
Andrew keeps walking and reaches a cliff.
Below the cliff is a city of dolphins and bears. Sometimes there is a very tall statue of the current president of the United States. Andrew recognizes the president’s face.
The bear stands next to Andrew.
“Hrr, hrr,” the bear says.
“You’re cold,” Andrew says.
“It’s a cold and lonely world,” the bear says.
“Just kidding,” the bear says. “Sort of.”
“I’m going to sit,” Andrew says.
Andrew sits. A dolphin comes from the corridor. Andrew stands. The dolphin has a sledgehammer. Andrew looks at the sledgehammer; the dolphin slaps Andrew’s face. More dolphins come from the corridor. The cliff is crowded. More dolphins come; a dolphin is crowded off the cliff; as it falls it goes, “EEEEE EEE EEEE!” Andrew laughs a little. Two more dolphins fall and the cliff is not as crowded anymore. The dolphin with the sledgehammer says, “Watch this.” The other dolphins look. The dolphin with the sledgehammer slaps Andrew’s face.
“Stupid,” says one of the other dolphins.
And throws a smoke bomb.
When the smoke clears there are many bears and no dolphins.
A bears throws a smoke bomb on the floor.
When the smoke clears there is one dolphin. The dolphin slaps Andrew’s face, throws a smoke bomb; smoke clears and there is the first bear. Andrew looks at the bear, who is taller than Andrew.
“Are you okay?” the bear says.
Andrew touches his cheek.
It’s swollen.
“Are you okay?” the bear says.
“I’m okay,” Andrew says. “Are you okay?”
The bear looks at Andrew.
The bear kneels and opens a trapdoor.
There is another ladder.
The bear points at it.
Andrew feels bored.
“No, wait,” Andrew says.
“What,” the bear says.
“I already did that before.”
“There’s two more,” the bear says.
“I know,” Andrew says. “I already went. Uh, the squirrels.”
“Hamsters,” the bear says.
“I forgot. But I went; do you believe me. The hamsters are sad.”
“Go again,” the bear says.
“Go again.”
“Go again,” the bear says. “It’ll be fun.”
“Do you have a name?” Andrew says. “Do bears have names?”
“Andrew,” says the bear.
Andrew feels nervous. “I’m Andrew.”
“My name is Andrew,” the bear says.
“No,” Andrew says.
“Uh, yes,” the bear says.
“Oh,” Andrew says.
“Go again,” the bear says. “We’ll have fun.”
“How will it be fun?”
“We are both named Andrew,” the bear says. “I don’t know.”
“Your name isn’t Andrew,” Andrew says.
“My name is Andrew,” the bear says. “What the fuck?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew says. “I’m stupid. I feel stupid.”
“Let’s go,” the bear says.
“How will it be fun?”
The bear scratches the wall and stares at Andrew.
The bear looks at Andrew.
The bear points at the corridor they came from.
Andrew walks there and stands there.
The bear pushes Andrew a little.
Andrew walks through the corridor they came from.
He glances at the nook without moving his neck; there are two aliens standing on a moose.
The moose’s head is covered with a blanket.
Andrew keeps walking; the bear is behind him.
He makes it to where the ladder is and stands there.
“The next time I have to point I’ll also punch you in your face,” the bear says. “And eat you.”
“Do it,” Andrew says.
The bear makes a fist, slowly moves the fist to Andrew’s face, touches Andrew’s face with the knuckles, with its other hand holds the back of Andrew’s head and slowly smushes Andrew’s face into the knuckles of its hand that it had slowly moved toward then touched the front of Andrew’s face with; the hand is furry.
“Stop,” Andrew says.
The bear stops.
“Do it for real,” Andrew says.
The bear punches the air by Andrew’s head.
“Do it with good aim,” Andrew says. “And with eating. You said ‘and eat you.’ ”
The bear climbs up the ladder.
“Do it with a free laptop computer,” Andrew says. “Or I’ll kill you.”
The bear climbs down and stares at Andrew.
“There’s nothing to do,” the bear says.
“I know,” Andrew says.
The bear looks at Andrew.
“Why were there statues of the president?” Andrew says.
“Life is stupid,” the bear says.
“I hate life more than you do.”
“No,” the bear says.
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No,” the bear says and disappears.
Andrew stands there.
Then climbs up the ladder and walks to his car.
The door and the top are back.
Andrew opens the door and the door falls on the street.
He drives out of ‘Windy Brook.’ The top of the car falls on the street. Why did Joanna become very happy after exiting the car? Don’t think about it. Start a band with Steve, if his plane doesn’t crash. Romantically pursue Joanna’s sister, Ashley, under the pretense of needing a bass player. Don’t strategize. Just get her number after fourteen days and start a band under the pretense, somehow, of a killing rampage. E-mail, phone-number, marriage. Martial arts, deer, nothingness. A band can make Andrew happy. Every song will be depressing, which will make Andrew happy. It is not impossible to be happy. One song will be about U-turns. ‘Allegorical.’ ‘Profound.’ When Steve comes back from New York City they will start a band. They’ll ‘screw around’ for two hours then feel depressed and go to Denny’s. (“Remember when my mom died?”) They’ll ‘jam’ for ten minutes and feel bored, and fucked. The word ‘jam’ embarrasses Andrew a little. ‘Screw around.’ Andrew needs to go back to Denny’s and apologize. He’ll throw a wad of cash at the doomed waitress then apologize sincerely. He will not overturn a table. He’ll blame Steve. Steve will go to jail. Use fake names. Thomas ran away, not me. I got caught up in the moment. Use clichés of language and fake names; give the cash in a manila envelope, smile contritely, apologize sincerely, use one or two clichés of language. Gotta run, don’t spend it all in one place. It’s 9 p.m. Do it tonight? Andrew is better, as a person, at night. In daylight he feels like a bad actor in an independent movie, about to go on a melodramatic killing spree.
At home Andrew writes “Sorry” on an envelope. Below that, “For Real.” On another envelope he writes “Really Sorry” and puts two twenties in. Sounds sarcastic. On another, “Sincerely Sorry,” moves the twenties. The alliteration is too commercial. Writes “Sorry.” Moves the twenties. Andrew feels sorry for the twenties. At least they are a pair. The twenties are in love. Andrew is jealous.
He drives to and parks behind Denny’s, turns off the car. I made a fucking U-turn. If Sara were here they’d walk around giving away envelopes containing mystery things. One envelope would have three wishes, and it would be real. In the morning they would climb a tree. There will always be the absence of Sara. There will always be the sad martial arts champion. In the distance there are apartments. There are trees, storage places, a few moose. There is a bear riding a moose like a horse. There is a retirement home with a fence and a moat around it. The fence is not enough. They need the moat in addition to the fence. One manager is not enough. (“Don’t rape her.”) The sad manager. The sad manager is fucked. Andrew as a small boy slept in the same room as his parents and sometimes woke to them having sex on the carpet. They had sex on the carpet instead of the bed. One time Andrew’s mom and dad were fighting in a restaurant. Andrew was seven or eight. His mom was angry that his dad had given her a disease, was how Andrew understood it. Andrew thought it was AIDS. He was crying. He wanted his mom to tell what was wrong because he thought she was going to die. A bear opens Andrew’s passenger door and sits in the passenger seat.
“You lied,” the bear says.
Andrew does not look at the bear.
“Did you lie?” the bear says.
The bear is breathing loudly.
Andrew stares outside.
There is a tree.
The old people’s home.
There will always be the old people’s home.
“You lied,” the bear says. “You lied and made me sad.”
The bear hesitates then leaves.
Andrew’s mom said she would tell if Andrew stopped crying. He stopped crying and felt nervous. She said she would tell in the restroom. In the restroom Andrew felt very small. Andrew’s mom locked the door. She bent over and said in Andrew’s ear that it was herpes—Andrew was looking in the mirror; his eyes were just a little above the counter and he looked at the top part of his head—and that she wouldn’t die. Andrew felt very happy and enjoyed his lunch even while his mom and dad kept fighting so that it was uncomfortable for everyone else in the restaurant. After college Andrew kept his job at the library and got another in a movie theatre. They tricked him at the movie theatre and he lost the job. At the library he began to take two-hour lunch breaks; one day they surrounded him and fired him. He had no money left and went home and lived with his parents in Florida. His mom was keeping things from him, he could tell. She had cancer or something but wouldn’t talk about it. Andrew’s dad was like, Your mom doesn’t want you to know, but I think I should tell you—and Andrew interrupted and said that if his mom didn’t want him to know he shouldn’t know. His dad walked away. Whenever there was partial nudity on TV Andrew’s dad would say, “This isn’t for kids.” Even when Andrew was twenty his dad would tell Andrew not to look. He’d say it in a strange tone that was serious and nervous and his face would look meek.
A minivan parks adjacent Andrew. A girl and a boy, and some dolphins, talking loudly and laughing. Andrew leans over and pretends he is looking for something in the passenger seat. He is crying a little. “Your car has no top or driver’s side door,” says a boy. Andrew stares at the things on the passenger seat. CD cases, blue pens, a receipt from Albertson’s. He takes the receipt and stares at it, leaned over in the car. It’s dark. He can’t see anything. He folds the receipt and puts it in his pocket. He sits a while then gets out and walks toward Denny’s. He can feel he’s about to start thinking about Sara. He keeps walking and thinks about the future. The future. He has some vague images of things happening, or not happening, and then it feels like the future exists, already, for him to go home, lie in bed, and think about, like a memory; it feels like the past.
Driving, delivering pizzas. No Sara. No future. At a stoplight Andrew feels very calm suddenly. Feels like being filmed. He is in Florida, being filmed for an independent movie starring someone else. Sara, probably. His life must change. Things must happen and explode because of being in a movie. Andrew will teleport into a perilous situation, punch someone in the face; teleport to Sara, hug her. He was driving. There was a field and she was like, We should drive into that tree, like a garage. He was like, Let’s climb it and eat in it. They sat on branches and licked Popsicles.
Light turns green. Andrew doesn’t want to go. He goes. He should drive into something. A mountain. The mountain would explode. There’s nothing to drive into. If Sara were here there’d be things to drive into, for some reason. Andrew passes the neighborhood he’s supposed to turn into and U-turns over the median, knocking over a small tree. A row of cars go by honking. Andrew laughs. He has no future. He is embarrassed for knocking over a tree. That was wrong. Representing Domino’s Pizza Corporation. He shouldn’t be making illegal U-turns. He feels bad. There were birds in that tree. An enormous family of baby birds, and squirrels. The mother bird will fly back and feel confused.
At home Andrew calls Steve. 10 p.m. Either cards at Justin’s or the arcade. Cards will lead to drinking; everyone will end up depressed. Arcade, then. Andrew drives to Steve’s house. As Steve is walking to the car his two little sisters throw water balloons. Both miss and land on the grass. The sisters run, pick up the balloons, throw them. One bounces off Steve’s face, the other splashes on the driveway. The sisters run to the side yard, do high-fives, and run away.
“I’m going to kill them,” Steve says in the car.
“They gave each other high-fives,” Andrew says.
“We should go on a killing rampage,” Steve says. “In my front yard.”
“Good idea.” Andrew wishes he were one of the little sisters. He feels depressed suddenly; and bored. He should be one of the sisters and Sara the other. “Now what. Arcade?”
“I hate the arcade,” Steve says. “It’s depressing and a waste of time. I’m broke.”
“I always say things are depressing and a waste of time. Don’t steal my identity.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Steve says.
“I will. Tonight. In my enormous house.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “I was giving you a friendly suggestion.”
“Yeah.” Killing rampage in the arcade. “I should play arcade games and kill myself on purpose and go around saying I’m killing myself.”
“Don’t kill yourself,” Steve says. “Kill my siblings.”
“Why do you call them siblings?”
“I’m stupid,” Steve says. “Don’t kill my siblings. Kill me.”
“I killed a tree today. I felt bad. I should kill my job. But with kindness. The kindness of strangers.”
“First kill me and my siblings,” Steve says.
“I need to use your bathroom.”
“Go,” Steve says.
Andrew goes into Steve’s house. It’s very dark inside. Andrew is afraid an alien will grab him. The alien will be lonely and want a hug but Andrew will have a heart attack and a seizure at the same time. Steve’s third sister, Ellen, the one in high school, is sitting on the sofa in the living room. She is sitting there, in the dark, not doing anything. She picks up a book and looks at it.
“I’m using the bathroom,” Andrew says.
It is very dark in the living room.
Ellen stands and walks away. Her book hits her leg and falls and she walks away faster.
Andrew uses the bathroom then comes out. Ellen is walking very slowly through the living room. She looks a little confused. Andrew follows her to the kitchen. Ellen opens the refrigerator and without bending her back stands looking in.
“What book were you reading?” Andrew says.
“Weren’t you reading a book?” Andrew says.
“I don’t know,” Ellen says. She leaves the refrigerator open and walks away. She comes back and closes the refrigerator. It is very dark without the refrigerator’s light. Ellen trips on a chair and falls and stands and walks into another room.
“You took a long time,” Steve says in the car.
“I tried to talk to your sister.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Steve says.
“No, I tried to talk to her for real.”
“You are an asshole,” Steve says.
“She was sitting in the dark staring. It was good.”
“She has no friends,” Steve says.
They go to Wal-Mart. They look for something to use against the little sisters. Can’t find anything. They stay at Wal-Mart over two hours. In the car Andrew has a videotape, Gosford Park.
“You son of a bitch,” Steve says.
“Did you see this?”
“You son of a bitch,” Steve says again.
Steve on a killing rampage; mass grave in the side yard. “It won every award,” Andrew says. “Because the director is a hundred years old or something. It’s the Jhumpa Lahiri of movies.” Doesn’t make sense. Oh well.
“You’re the Jhumpa Lahiri of stealing shit from Wal-Mart,” Steve says.
“I bought it.”
“You bought it with cunning and speed,” Steve says.
“Yeah. And a ten dollar bill.” Andrew turns on the car. Sara. The music is loud and depressing. Andrew turns it down. “Jhumpa Lahiri makes me want to kill a blue whale or something. I told you about her, right? Yeah. I don’t understand her … name. Her name looks like a killing rampage.”
“We should hunt her down,” Steve says. “With cunning and speed.”
“She probably lives on a diamond boat with her Pulitzer Prize.” Sara lives in New York City. They had classes together. She drew a penis on Jhumpa Lahiri’s face. They went into bookstores. She graduated early, met someone else. Andrew met no one, moved back to Florida, and has no future.
They drive to Justin’s house and throw Gosford Park in the front yard. Probably five guys inside playing cards and drinking; all depressed, though none will admit it. Five guys drinking, admitting being depressed. They would go on a depressed rampage, killing things languidly. Andrew killed an extended family of birds and squirrels. He climbed a tree with Sara. Her Popsicle was blue. It was strange. It was opaque or something. Why is your Popsicle confused?
They drive around, not doing anything; not going anywhere. It’s dark and quiet outside. In the car they listen to really depressing music. Andrew feels disorientated and bored, or else lucid and calm; he can’t tell. The stereo system is pretty good. Honda Civics are strange. Andrew likes Honda Civics for some reason. They look like how he feels; is that it? Should’ve leapt to her branch and kissed her. Too dangerous. Should’ve suggested building a tree fort. Let’s quit school and live in a tree fort. Like a garage. Wink at her. Sara, laughing. Sometimes she’d laugh maniacally. Sara’s beautiful face, laughing insanely. Then calm and pretty.
“What if one of us started crying,” Andrew says loudly.
“I’m going to Seattle tomorrow,” Steve says. Didn’t hear. Music’s too loud. Or did he? Doesn’t matter. Steve will go to Seattle and never come back. Sara in New York City, Steve in Seattle. Andrew alone in a tree fort, feeling sorry for himself. The mother squirrel staring at an acorn, disillusioned. The little sisters grown up and depressed, sarcastic high-fives in the living room. The balloon, smacking Steve’s face. The balloon.
They go to Denny’s.
“I need a wife,” Steve says in a booth.
“I need … I don’t know. I knead bread.”
“We’d go on a shopping spree,” Steve says. “Then she’d leave me and I’d go on a killing spree.”
Sara, married; she’s probably married by now. “Remember when the balloon slapped your face?”
“I’m going to kill them,” Steve says. “I will never kill anyone.”
Sara, laughing marriedly. “Remember …” Sara Tealsden. Stop thinking about Sara. “When I said, ‘remember when the balloon slapped your face?’ ”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
“What if your sisters marry each other?”
“We should start a band,” Steve says.
Steve in Seattle, drinking coffee with his dad. Steve’s dad, screaming. Doesn’t make sense.
“We will never start a band,” Andrew says. “I want to start a band called ‘Lesbian Incest.’ ” He feels stupid.
“What the fuck is a ‘Jhumpa Lahiri?’ ” Steve says.
“I don’t know. I told you about her. Didn’t I tell you about her?”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Still. What the fuck is a Jhumpa Lahiri?”
“I don’t know. A person.”
“It’s not a person,” Steve says.
The waitress comes, a girl they knew from high school. Andrew doesn’t remember her name. They pretend they don’t know one another. They order quickly; she leaves. She has gotten fat. Working at Denny’s. Her life is over. If Sara worked at Denny’s Andrew would smile. Andrew works at Domino’s, a more cutting-edge version of Pizza Hut. He should quit. He wants to quit his life like a job. He is writing a book of stories about people who are doomed. He will never commit suicide. He will never kill anyone, start a band, or commit suicide. His girlfriend in college once tried to commit suicide. Then she published a book. Andrew needs to publish a book. Publishing a book will not make him feel less fucked. He cries a little some nights. He worked in a library and a movie theatre in New York City and now works at Domino’s, and cries a little some nights. His parents moved to Germany. Germany is a more cutting-edge version of China, maybe.
“I forgot her name,” Steve says.
“Starts with an S.” No, that’s Sara. “Uh, she was in my English class.” Mrs. Poole had a bald spot. They put Rogaine brochures on her desk and she pretended it never happened. Sara liked that story. Andrew told her in the tree. He said he wanted to give Mrs. Poole a hug, and three wishes. What else, Sara said. A golden tiara, Andrew said. Sara laughed and said she liked Mrs. Poole. Andrew said he liked Mrs. Poole, then felt depressed and couldn’t speak anymore. Sara’s Popsicle was depressed. His was green. “Starts with an F.” Should’ve thrown it at her; danced nimbly in the tree. “I don’t know. I just made that up. I have no idea.” No future. “I have no future.”
“I don’t want to think about this shit,” Steve says.
“Neither do I. It’s depressing.” And a waste of time. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Seeing my dad,” Steve says. “In Seattle.”
“Oh yeah. For how long?” Steve’s dad, screaming.
“One week or something. I can’t wait.”
“You really want to see him? When people get enthusiastic I feel like they’re being sarcastic. I hate that.”
“I sounded enthusiastic?” Steve says.
“Not really. I don’t know. You sounded strange.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” Steve says. “I don’t really want to see my dad though. Um, I think I meant I can’t wait to not have to raise my siblings for one week.”
“I can’t process what you just said.”
“Neither can I,” Steve says.
“Good.”
“I feel good,” Steve says.
“Wait. Aren’t your sisters going with you? Who will feed them?”
“Oh yeah,” Steve says. “They are coming with me.”
Andrew wants to go too. Andrew and Steve, in Seattle, burying Steve’s dad in the side yard.
“Wait, no,” Steve says. “Ellen is feeding them.”
“What if she kills them instead?” Ellen on a depressed rampage, quietly murdering things.
“She’s taking summer school to make friends,” Steve says. “She has no friends.”
“I just thought about going to Seattle with you and murdering your dad. And I keep imagining your dad screaming.”
The waitress walks by. She looks depressed and confused. She looks directly at Steve for some reason. She walks by again, confused. She has gained weight and given up on life. She gave up on life then gained a lot of weight. They happened simultaneously, like in a nightmare.
“Why does she hate me?” Steve says. “I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. Why doesn’t she have a nametag? I’m angry. I can’t sleep tonight.”
“She’s trying to subvert the Denny’s Corporation. She’s against capitalism.”
“I’m going to subvert her face with a lead pipe,” Steve says.
“I hate faces.” Except Sara’s. Every face should be Sara’s face. That would be scary. If aliens looked like Sara Andrew would hug them and feel calm. Aliens should look like Sara. Andrew should look like Sara. Then Sara would look like Andrew and things would be reversed. The waitress comes back. Steve stares at Andrew. Andrew stares at Steve. Steve has three siblings; 4, 7, and 16, or something. Steve’s father left. Andrew wishes Steve were Sara. Why not? The waitress is here with no food or anything. Andrew glances at her face. She looks cutting-edge. Her eyes are a little wet but very clear and pretty. She’s not as confused anymore. Her life is not over, after all. Not yet. Soon. She takes the ketchup.
“What a fucking bitch,” Steve says, and moves his water to where the salt and pepper are. “I feel like Snoop Dog. Is this what Snoop Dog feels like?” Steve. Andrew likes Steve. He also likes Sara. Sara called people motherfuckers. It made Andrew smile. She did it on purpose sometimes, to make Andrew smile. Andrew would always think about what she did or said and understand that she was very interesting. One time standing in a bookstore she bit Andrew’s shoulder and Andrew bled. One time she called the register guy at Duane Reade a motherfucker. What? the guy said. Nothing, Sara said. The guy’s face was blank. He worked at Duane Reade. He was a young black man. A motherfucker. Andrew had to run away to laugh; he ran into an aisle and laughed. Sara pushed him and he fell on a shampoo bottle and it hurt. They came to Florida and climbed a tree. One time in a bookstore she bit Andrew’s shoulder and Andrew fell on the floor. Denny’s is comparable to Domino’s, probably. What is Denny’s a more cutting-edge version of? Depressing waste of time. Steve is talking about casinos. He wants to start a Jawbreaker cover band, play in casinos. Mass grave behind a casino. Steve on TV with a lead pipe, I’m going to kill her. Reporters, Who? Steve, Jhumpa Lahiri. Sara, laughing. Snoop Dog, stoned.
“When people are winning money they want to hear sad songs,” Steve says. “They want to know even with a lot of money they’ll still be alone.” He sneezes. “That makes no sense. What if it did, though. Then we’d play Jawbreaker songs in casinos. My plane is going to crash tomorrow.”
Andrew realizes he has been staring across Denny’s at a man’s profile. The man’s face is abnormally large. His head is too big and his neck is also very large. Andrew feels very depressed and a little angry. “Look at that guy.”
Steve looks. “We should invite him to eat with us, then putt-putt.”
“I hope a genie gives him three wishes,” Andrew says. Sara, What else? “And a lead pipe.”
“When I looked we made awkward eye contact. Now I’m enemies with him.”
“I can’t process what you just said,” Andrew says. “Just kidding. I processed it immediately and I think it’s funny.”
A different waitress brings their food. Her name is Bernadette. They eat for a while. They are eating. (“How do you have fun?”) Jawbreaker, You win, you lose, it’s the same old news. Octopus. Mark was sad about his Octopus. Steve stands. “Andrew,” he says. “Come here.”
“Wait.” Steve in Seattle, playing putt-putt in the rain, with a lead pipe. “What are you doing?”
Bernadette comes back. Steve sits. When Bernadette is gone Steve stands and walks out of the restaurant. Andrew sits very still then stands and leaves without looking at anyone. In the parking lot the waitress without a name and whose life may already be over chases them halfway to their car. Andrew almost runs her over on the way out. Killing rampage. Andrew laughs. Steve has his head outside the window. “Denny’s sucks,” he screams. His voice cracks.
“She was so depressed,” Andrew says. “I wanted to murder her with kindness and love.”
“I feel stupid,” Steve says. “I felt bad for her too. She was a bitch to us. I don’t know. I’m broke. I feel stupid. Did you hear what I yelled?”
“I want to be her. And come kill me. I feel like shit.”
“We should go back and apologize sincerely,” Steve says. “And then overturn a table.”
“And then run away with cunning and speed.”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
“I’d be overjoyed if someone did that at Domino’s. If we had tables.” Too cutting-edge for tables. “We don’t have tables.”
“That was fun,” Steve says. “I don’t feel stupid.”
“I know. I admit it was fun.”
“My plane is going to crash,” Steve says. “Remember when my mom died?”
“I hate the world,” Andrew says. “I’m putting my head out the window to scream ‘Fuck.’ ” He puts down the window, puts his head out, screams “Shit,” and puts the window back up.
“The world is stupid,” Steve says.
“I feel stupid.”
“This is stupid,” Steve says. “I don’t know what ‘this’ is.”
“I don’t know how to have fun.”
“My sister is more depressed than both of us,” Steve says.
“I feel terrible,” Andrew says.
Steve talks some more. While Steve is talking Andrew thinks about conveying that he had an image of Steve playing putt-putt with a lead pipe in the rain, alone, in Seattle, and that the reason Steve was doing that was because he was driving in the rain and listening to music and had felt very happy suddenly, parked the car, and broken into a putt-putt place to play putt-putt alone at around 3 a.m. The sentence is too long. He can’t keep it in his head. He feels tired. He feels bored. He wants to scream the word ‘shit’ at people while driving past them, then maybe follow them home and apologize sincerely before head butting them into a human-colored paste. He drops Steve off. On the way home Arby’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Walgreen’s, Kmart, Starbucks, in a row. Andrew stares at that. He wants to subvert them somehow. He is against capitalism for some reason; something about how it directs human perception away from sentient beings and toward abstractions; he is also against being against things, because the binary nature of the universe is against being against things. Still, he wants to cause destruction to McDonald’s. It would be good to subvert all these places. Sara would agree. They’d go in Starbucks, wreak complex and profound havoc. People would scream and make faces of agony and intrigue. At home people would sit with Kleenex and contemplate what had happened, then quietly weep. He and Sara would run to his gigantic house, laughing complexly. The house is enormous. A mansion. No it isn’t. Just a large house. A mansion is a large house. Andrew’s parents live in a tower in Berlin. Andrew saw photos: eight towers, in a row. In one hundred years the Earth will resemble a metal ball with spikes. It will move shinily through the universe—confused, deadly. Grade-schooler, Why does the Earth look like a medieval weapon? When Andrew saw the tower photos he thought of them falling like dominoes. He works at Domino’s, a version of Pizza Hut. Something is wrong with his mom. Cancer or something. She won’t say what. She is a good person. The man with the enormous head is a good person. Is he? Everything is so good and sad somehow. Andrew is crying a little. It’s the music. He is listening to very depressing and catchy music. He should go back to Denny’s and throw a wad of cash at a customer’s face, and run away. Money won’t make that waitress happy. She needs romantic love. She’ll never get it. She was confused because of her life being already over. It is impossible to be happy. Michael Fisher sitting in the lobby reading the New Yorker. Andrew wants to destroy the world with a series of startling acts of kindness; each successive act more unheard-of than the previous. When Andrew gets home Sara will be there, laughing at the idea of living in a tree fort. They will swim. Why did he think that? Because of having no future.
Next afternoon, eating cereal. Staring at the Lucky Charms box. Andrew is eating Lucky Charms because he has given up on life. He should create Anathema Charms. One time Andrew’s mom came home with Lucky Charms instead of Cheerios. She was happy and held the Lucky Charms in her right hand, not in a grocery bag. When Andrew saw the Lucky Charms it made him happy. They were in the kitchen and were both very happy about the unhealthy change from Cheerios to Lucky Charms. Now Andrew just feels like Snoop Dog all the time. No he doesn’t. He hasn’t once felt like Snoop Dog. “That was Steve,” Andrew says out loud, for some reason. He feels nauseous. He’ll never see Sara again. What if Jhumpa Lahiri were in love with him? Would he spurn her? She lives on a diamond-studded cruise ship. Her Pulitzer Prize is afraid of her. Andrew grins. As a person, he is lonelier than Sara. She is shorter. Sara Tealsden. Thinking her last name makes Andrew feel miserable and good. Sara Tealsden. Andrew will cry. He should throw the Lucky Charms. Marshmallows, flying through the air. He does it. The box hits the refrigerator and falls to the ground. No marshmallows. No future.
He feeds his dogs, takes them out, brings them in; makes coffee, showers, drinks coffee.
He passes the piano room on the way to the computer room. There is fresh dog shit in the middle of the piano room. Clean it later. There’s also dog piss. Son of a bitch. Steve in Seattle, high-fiving his dad. Go back and apologize. And then overturn a table. Steve.
In the computer room Andrew stares at the table of contents of his story collection. His story-collection. Rejected by over thirty editors. Rejection is good. Putting others ahead of self, giving things away. Success, money, power, fame, happiness, friends; any kind of pleasure—giving it all away, in the pyramid scheme of life, with the knowledge that everything will be returned, and being satisfied with that knowledge; not with the actual return of things, but the idea of the return of things. There is no return of things. There is death. Martial arts, deer, death. Singapore, octopus, death. In each story the main character is depressed and lonely. Every story is twenty-pages and about pointlessness. He opens one of the stories. If he writes good and funny enough, Sara will materialize in the swimming pool. He stares at the story. Delete it. He needs coffee. He already had coffee. Move the story casually to the recycling bin. Empty the recycling bin with cunning and speed. Start a band. You win, you lose. It’s the same old news. Write a story about Steve. Killing rampage in a casino, with lead pipes. Compare and contrast Jhumpa Lahiri and Snoop Dog. It would be funny to kill someone with the Pulitzer Prize. Focus. Andrew has worked for maybe two hundred hours on this story. How did this happen? The story is incomprehensible; rejected over twenty times. He has e-mailed it to people. No one says anything. There is no communication. Stevie Smith, I was much farther out than you thought. Stevie’s oeuvre, sitting there someplace, confused. Music is better. You can’t lie in bed with an audio book and cry and feel miserable and good. Maybe you can. Jhumpa Lahiri will never go on a depressed killing rampage. Snoop Dog, maybe. Jhumpa Lahiri. The New Yorker. One of her stories is called “Sexy.” Sexy. Sara is sexy. Sara, laughing sexily.
Andrew stands.
He lies on the carpet.
He stares at the carpet. Mark.
Mark likes Spiderman more.
Andrew drives to work. Music’s too loud. He turns it off. His parents live in a tower; one of eight. Which one? The cancer one. Sara is in the passenger seat. Andrew looks. She isn’t there. If she were she would point at something and they would climb it. A mountain. There would be mountains. Andrew would hug her. He doesn’t want to deliver pizzas. He wants to build a tree fort. Everyone at work will be trite and clichéd. Andrew is trite and clichéd. He has nothing to say to anyone. No one has anything to say to anyone, for some reason. Everything is clichéd and melodramatic. Andrew’s girlfriend in college tried to kill herself once with Valium from a tooth operation. It made Andrew feel clichéd and melodramatic. He should have laughed maniacally at her, then killed her with a lead pipe. Him and Sara, laughing sexily at the ex’s corpse. Kiss her while she’s laughing sexily. While they’re still in the tree. Marry her with cunning and speed, then kill her, for some reason. Andrew should sell his gigantic house and move to New York City. He would carry his cash in a suitcase. Sara would be there, laughing. They would stand in bookstores. They would hunt down Jhumpa Lahiri and follow her sheepishly with lead pipes. Let’s build a tree fort on her face. Sara would call one of those cops on horses a motherfucker. The cop would avert his eyes. Sara would ask directions for the wild wild west.
At a stoplight everything is calm and quiet. Andrew has the feeling of being filmed. Happens every time at this stoplight. Things must explode. Andrew’s life must change in a trite, clichéd, and melodramatic way. He puts his head out his window and halfheartedly screams. If Sara were here she’d laugh. The light turns green. If Andrew drives ridiculously fast, and insanely, Sara will sense it in New York City, or wherever she is. Andrew drives very fast and sideswipes across two lanes while making an insane turn through an intersection. At work he delivers four pizzas and then delivers Buffalo wings to an old man in pajamas. It is seven p.m. Andrew goes back to his car. There is a dolphin in the backseat.
Andrew drives back to Domino’s.
“Matt,” he says. “There’s a dolphin in the backseat. Can I go home?”
“Let me put these pepperonis on,” Matt says. “Then I’ll cash you out.”
After being paid sixty-cents gas money for each delivery Andrew has fourteen dollars.
“Give half to the dolphin,” Matt says.
They are in Matt’s office.
“Okay,” Andrew says. “Wait. Why?”
“Don’t ask questions,” Matt says. “I’m tired of your insubordination.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Matt says. “Open the door but don’t leave this office.”
Andrew opens the door.
“Jeremy,” Matt shouts.
Jeremy comes in the office.
The office is small.
It is a little crowded with three people.
“Yeah?” Jeremy says.
“Get everyone to come in here,” Matt says.
Jeremy leaves.
Andrew leaves.
“Andrew,” Matt shouts.
Andrew comes back.
“The dolphin can wait,” Matt says.
Jeremy comes back with everyone.
They all go into Matt’s office.
There is not enough space.
Some people stand on Matt’s desk.
Someone closes the door.
It’s very crowded.
Someone turns off the light.
The only window is blocked by someone’s body.
Andrew can’t see anything or move.
It’s very hot and dark.
“Whoever just elbowed my face,” Matt says. “You’re fired.”
“Whoever did it,” someone says in an affected voice, “just don’t say anything.”
“But move away from Matt,” says a different voice. “When the lights go on. So he won’t see. If we ever leave, I mean.”
“This is Matt and I’s office,” Jeremy says. “Everyone calls it ‘Matt’s office.’ It’s both of ours.”
“The sad manager,” Andrew says.
“Andrew?” Jeremy says.
“I’m scared,” someone says.
“I’m bored,” Andrew says. “I’m sweating.”
“Is Rachel here?” someone else says.
“No,” someone says.
Half a minute passes.
“What were you going to say about me?” Rachel says.
“I don’t know,” someone says.
“I’m confused,” someone says.
“Someone open the door,” Matt says.
Someone opens the door.
“Now what,” someone says.
“I don’t know,” someone else says.
“Andrew,” Jeremy says.
“Everyone should go back to work,” Matt says.
“Are you sure?” someone says. “Maybe we should go back to something else. I don’t know—just something else.”
But everyone has already gone back to work.
Andrew is at his car.
He gives the dolphin seven dollars.
The dolphin goes, “EEEEE EEE EEEE.”
Andrew drives toward his house.
At the first stoplight the dolphin says, “Drop me off at Kmart.”
“What Kmart? Where’s a Kmart?”
“By the diamond store,” the dolphin says.
“That’s Target.”
“Drop me off at Target,” the dolphin says.
“That’s far.”
“So?” the dolphin says.
“Are you buying drugs?”
“Why did you ask me if I’m buying drugs?” the dolphin says. “You’re being stupid.”
Andrew drives to Target, parks, gets out of the car.
“You don’t have to walk me in,” the dolphin says.
“I need toilet paper,” Andrew says.
The dolphin walks faster than Andrew, then slows a little.
Andrew walks in a different direction a little.
The dolphin sees and walks in an angle away from Andrew.
When they get to the entrance they get there together.
“Don’t be stupid and awkward,” the dolphin says. “You want to walk together or not?”
“Fine,” Andrew says. “Wait. Are you going to …”
The dolphin stares at Andrew. “Forget it,” the dolphin says.
“No, wait,” Andrew says. “What are you buying?”
“Get away from me,” the dolphin says. “You were going to say if I was going to go ‘Eeeee eee eeee.’ You are a stupid piece of shit. Go away from me.” The dolphin looks at Andrew.
“Wait,” Andrew says.
The dolphin goes into the center of a circular clothing rack and quietly cries.
Andrew looks around.
He goes home.
The dolphin cries a while then buys a steak knife.
The dolphin goes home.
It looks in the mirror.
It puts the tip of the steak knife perpendicular to its neck and grips the handle hard.
It stares in the mirror.
It puts on a jacket, takes a plane to Hollywood, and finds Elijah Wood.
“Come somewhere with me,” the dolphin says.
“Can I get a river ride?” Elijah says.
“Hold onto my flippers.”
Elijah climbs the dolphin’s back.
“You are fucking stupid. Hold on when we get to the river,” the dolphin says. “Not in the fucking parking lot.”
Elijah laughs.
“You are an idiot,” the dolphin says.
They take Elijah’s car to the ocean.
On the beach the dolphin lies in the water.
Elijah climbs on the dolphin.
The dolphin swims.
“Yeah!” Elijah says.
The dolphin swims to an island.
“I need to get something,” the dolphin says.
The dolphin leaves and returns with a heavy branch behind its back.
“You know The Ice Storm?” Elijah Wood says. “At the end of the book the guy sees a superhero or something. That was strange. They didn’t have it in the movie. Christina Ricci was in the movie.”
The dolphin clubs Elijah Wood’s head.
Elijah Wood runs away and falls.
The dolphin clubs Elijah’s body and legs.
Elijah screams.
The dolphin drags Elijah’s corpse into a cave and sits on it.
The cave is very quiet and dark.
The dolphin feels bad.
It feels very calm and a little bad.
A bear drags in Sean Penn’s corpse.
The dolphin pushes Elijah’s corpse into a hole and there is a loud coconut sound.
The bear pauses then quickly drags Sean Penn’s corpse out of the cave.
Sean Penn’s skull makes little coconut sounds against the cave floor.
At home Andrew showers and eats a banana. He takes his dogs for a walk. The dogs are tiny. Living with two dogs in an enormous house in a gated community. Andrew’s neighbors think he is strange. ‘Eccentric.’ Andrew is afraid of his neighbors. The gate has a secret pass code. Sara has a secret pass code. She should. Andrew would stand there for years trying combinations. He wouldn’t keep track or develop a strategy but just continue trying different combinations and then Kafka would rise from the grave and write a novel about him. He feeds his dogs. There is more dog shit in the piano room. Leave it. Sell the house. Suitcase full of cash. He goes to the back porch. He thinks about jumping into the pool, swimming twenty laps at lightning-speed. Drowning. Putt-putt, he thinks. He goes in the living room. He lies on the sofa. Not waving but drowning. No future. The future is now. Meaningless. Wave of the future. Everything is clichéd and melodramatic. He should eat. He used to think things like, This organic soymilk will make me healthy and that’ll make my brain work better and that’ll improve my writing. Also things like, The less I eat and the less money I spend on publicly owned companies the less pain and suffering will exist in the world. Now he thinks things like, It is impossible to be happy. Why would anyone think that? Things like, Godsford Park is the worst movie ever. Gosford? Godsford?
“Godsford,” Andrew says out loud. “Gosford.”
“What is happening right now is a depressing waste of time,” he says.
He finds his dogs and follows them. “Dogs,” he says. Chihuahuas. They have names. Waste of time? No, the dogs are good. They’re old. Andrew feels sorry for them. Pretend they are Sara. “Sara,” he says. He touches the dogs. They run away. His house is enormous. He’ll never find his dogs. He’ll find them and crush them. Mass grave. The Earth is just a massive grave. Andrew needs to stop thinking about the things he always thinks about. He needs to sell his house. He needs to clean the dog shit in the piano room. He goes to the piano room with toilet paper. Play a song for Sara. She will sense it. He badly plays fantasie-impromptu. Sounds clichéd and melodramatic. Too loud. Turn it off. He stops playing. Thank you, he thinks. Clean the dog shit later. Never clean the dog shit. Sell the house. Don’t look there, it’s just a piano. Don’t step there. Don’t step on my abstract art. Sara, The tree in the front yard doubles as a garage. Suitcase full of cash. High-fives in the side yard. Ellen, sitting in darkness in the living room. Sara Tealsden. Why is Andrew obsessed with Sara today? Is it like this every day? He can’t remember. Don’t think about it. Death. Think about death. The binary nature of the universe. Andrew’s mom in Germany, staring at a ceiling thinking about death. The mother squirrel flying by, confused. Sara, I feel like flying squirrels need to stop screwing around and get day jobs. You win, you lose. The man with the face. Three wishes. Sara. Andrew will scream, sexily. Killing rampage in a tree fort. Andrew is about to murder someone. He goes upstairs into his room, puts on a depressing CD, lies on the floor on his back; pulls his blanket off his bed, covers himself on the floor. Sara.
There is a very loud noise downstairs.
Something is coming up the stairs.
Andrew stands and walks to his bed.
Sits on it.
A bear walks into Andrew’s room.
The bear stares at Andrew.
While staring at Andrew the bear claws the wall.
The bear sees the thermostat and turns it down.
Andrew lies on his bed and falls asleep.
When he wakes it’s colder.
The bear is standing going, “Hrr, hrr.”
“Polar bear,” Andrew says. “Is that what you want?”
The bear stares at Andrew.
Still staring at Andrew goes to Andrew’s desk and picks up a CD case.
Looks at the CD case, looks at Andrew, puts the CD case back.
“Put it back,” Andrew says. “Oh, okay.”
“I just put it back,” the bear says.
“I know.”
“I need to get something,” the bear says.
The bear goes downstairs and comes back with a sledgehammer.
The bear smashes a hole in the floor with the sledgehammer.
The bear looks at Andrew.
The bear feigns jumping into the hole