by David Beem
“Hey,” calls Fabio. “You there?”
I wait for the couple to be out of range before replying.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Just trying to remember where I parked. Listen.” I lower my voice and scan the area to make sure no one is near enough to overhear. “Dude, I’m not joking now. I think I’m in trouble. What are you doing right now?”
“Crap, dude. I’m at Wang and Shmuel’s Murder Mystery Night thing. What’s going on?”
Wang and Shmuel’s Murder Mystery Night. Was that a safe place to talk?
“Dude, are you okay?” asks Fabio, his voice tense.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Look, I’m coming over. See you soon.” I end the call and jaywalk First, my head teeming with outlandish possibilities. Glancing over my shoulder, I half expect to find Stinky Hibachi Couple rerouting to follow me, but they’ve crossed the street and moved on.
But there is a man in a suit sitting on a bench and nonchalantly checking his phone.
And near him is a woman in a race shirt and running shorts, stretching out her hamstring on a gas-lamp streetlight…
—and passing her is an old lady pretending to walk her dog—
Oh, Edge—get a grip.
I swallow to work moisture back into my mouth. I tell myself I’m overreacting. I tell myself there must be a normal explanation for Mary knowing details about my life. One that doesn’t involve her being a CIA spy like that show about the nerd with the Intersect. Probably Mikey told her. Yeah, that’s all. I’ve known Fabio since the third grade. I probably mentioned him once or twice to Mikey at Notre Dame. Probably Mikey had some perfectly not weird reason to tell Mary. Probably it happened totally in passing. Probably Mary has a good memory. She is Mike Dame’s personal assistant.
But by the time I’m buckling into my car, these ideas have fallen apart. The problem is, I’ve seen Mary hanging around the mall near where I work too often. It’s hard to square a plausible reason for Mikey’s personal assistant to be shopping near the Über Dork so often that doesn’t include him having asked her to spy on me. And that’s just a weird thing to do to the old friend who did all your homework back in college.
Chapter Ten
Fabio’s place is in El Cerrito. It’s one building with two condos, Fabio occupying unit A, and Wang and Shmuel occupying unit B. There’s an empty lot, and then a wide field before you get to the rest of the apartment complex, and for this meager reason, Wang and Shmuel like to call it The Palace.
Crossing the courtyard on any given Friday night is like Indiana Jones crossing the booby-trapped expanse before the golden fertility goddess idol in Raiders. I’m careful where I step, not because I’m going to get shot in the leg with a poison dart, but because one wrong move could turn my ankle on a beer bottle, explode orange powder from a half-empty Cheez-It bag as effective as any landmine, or slip on a greasy, used paper plate.
The fountain in the middle of the courtyard is filled with neon-blue liquor. Appropriately, Tenacious D is coming out of Wang’s five-foot-tall speakers, Wonderboy, receiving his just tribute with no fewer than six noble slow-motion air guitarists, all of them in one neat line. Tonight, there’s a life-size blowup sex doll lying facedown on the bricks, covered in ketchup, and with a chalk outline drawn on the ground around it. I can only surmise this is the Murder Mystery element of an otherwise business-as-usual Friday night.
A sharp pain in my ankle pulls me back to the here and now. I look down, and the knot in my stomach, constant since being summoned to Mikey’s office, lessens at the sight of my best friend. Fabio grins and kicks me in my other ankle so I’ve got a matching set; vertically challenged since he stopped growing in the fourth grade, and possessing the face of a bearded third-grade girl, Fabio came dressed, apparently, as Inspector Gadget. Despite my stress, my cheeks tighten in a smile.
He grabs my elbow and wordlessly steers me to the sidelines. When we’re out of earshot, I lay it all out, just like Mikey did for me. At first, his eyes are bulging. He’s spitting beer. His every expression is a visual thesaurus of incredulity. But as I plow ahead with my story, he begins to add a slow nod here and there. He can see I’m not joking. When I’m done, he opens two beers from the cooler. He hands me one, and we clink the necks. His gaze pans over the party. The silence is heavy while I wait for him to process the shit-ton bombshell I dropped.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I don’t think your life has been a waste. I mean, your life can’t be a waste. Because what would that say about my life?”
“I know, right?”
“I know,” Fabio replies. “Right.”
Chapter Eleven
“Well, this isn’t all bad,” says Fabio. “There’s a pretty girl spying on you.”
A rush of endorphins releases in my head at the words “pretty girl,” as it conjures the memory of sitting next to her in the dark and abandoned reception room and the various possibilities that might’ve been. And it isn’t just the outlandish, like the thrill of possibly having my own sexy super spy like a proper TV-show nerd, but it’s the more senior-prom normalcy of it that’s compelling, like telling a real live human girl she’s pretty and I like her. I tell myself to relax, keep my hands at my sides, and really feel the solid ground beneath me. If Fabio so much as smells the awkward—I’m doomed. Ever since Kate, it’s been an ongoing thing with him, Gran, and Shep to set me up. You’d think they’d started their own dating site. Edger-the-turnip-utterer-dot-com, probably.
“You think she likes Linux?” asks Fabio. “Because, seriously, if she’s not into Linux—”
“Fabio, this is serious.”
“Okay, okay. So, what’re you gonna do? I mean, besides take the superhero gig because it would be the single most awesome thing ever to happen to anyone in the history of ever.”
I give him a piece of the side-eye. “Did you miss the part where I could die?”
“No,” he replies. “But look, all you gotta do is get that AI back and turn the power back on, right?”
“You say that like it’s going to be easy.”
“Hello? Superpowers?”
“Fabio, Mikey says his gazillion-dollar nano-artificial intelligence thinks it’s a cow.”
“A cow?”
“A freaking cow.”
Fabio’s mouth snaps shut. His features go abruptly blank. His eyes scan mine.
“So weird,” he says. “Must be something in the air tonight for cows.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I heard Shmuel talking about cows earlier. Hey. You know, ‘Something in the Air Tonight…for Cows’ would be a fan-freaking-tastic reimagining of a Phil Collins classic.”
“Oh yeah,” I reply. “I’d download it.” I take a swig of beer, and the conversation pauses as I presume he is also now listening to these new and improved lyrics in his head. After mentally composing several verses of Cow Phil Collins, the sound of laughter pulls us back to the present.
Girl laughter.
“That’s not right,” says Fabio.
We turn around and gasp.
A red Lamborghini is parked at the end of the courtyard. Two blondes with legs going up to their ears are being helped out of the passenger seat by an unmistakable set of broad shoulders.
Caleb Montana.
His chiseled face is known on every channel. His thick, powerful arms command millions of dollars from the Chargers a month. His butt probably commands double out of Calvin Klein. But there’s something about knowing a celebrity in person most people never get a chance to learn for themselves: beware meeting your heroes.
“No, no,” whispers Fabio. “He hasn’t seen us. Run!”
“We’re not running, Fabio.”
“Then a disguise, quick!” he hisses.
A flurry of motion. Fabio’s T-Rex arms are flying out of the trench coat. He’s pushing it, the glasses, and that stupid fedora at me. I’m trying to block, and it’s the third grade all over again. A tangle of slapping hands and kicking feet la
ter, I’m wearing a lopsided fake mustache and fedora. Then, there’s the unmistakable cloud of Ralph Lauren cologne mixed with sweat.
“It’s the Edge!” says Caleb.
I turn around. My smile is weak. My hands are frozen at my sides. The fake mustache is tickling my nose.
“Nice look, Edge,” says Caleb. His two dates look like they can barely keep their eyes open from boredom.
Caleb is as tall as I am. But he’s broader. Thicker. Gruffer. Physically, he’s all things prototypically man. He’s the guy who kept me going to the gym, and the reason I’ve kept going ever since. Not because of any personal encouragement or anything like that. It’s because I had to be in the same room as him so often as his tutor. A person can’t look at himself in the mirror the same way after sustaining trauma like that.
“Caleb,” I manage. “Good to see you, man. Yeah. God. How long’s it been?”
Caleb smiles. “Five years. You’ve been working out.” He grabs my bicep. “Noice. Noice. Hey.” He juts his chin out. “Who’s your friend?”
I glance at Fabio, then grab his beard and shut his mouth for him. “This is Fabio.”
Caleb and Fabio shake hands. I shake my head. I can’t clear the helium thing happening between my ears.
“Girls, Fabio. Fabio, girls,” says Caleb, disentangling himself from them and putting his arm over my shoulder to lead me aside. Behind us, everyone is ogling the superstar. Everyone but Fabio, who’s rubbing his swollen wrist, and the two ladies, who’re frowning at him like they’ve never seen a bearded third-grade Mexican girl before, and are afraid this one might lick their faces or sniff their butts.
Caleb slaps my back. “How’ve you been, bro?”
“How have I been?” I blink, and for some reason, my brain latches on to the most random part of what’s just happened. “Did you just introduce your dates as ‘girls’?”
Caleb frowns.
I shake my head and wave it away. I mean, as random as Caleb showing up unannounced is, getting hung up on his low regard for his dates—dates plural and simultaneous—hardly seems a fight worth having at this juncture.
“Hey, look,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. Painfully. “I feel bad how things went down.”
“You feel bad.”
“Yeah, bro. I do.”
His eyes are sincere, and, for a second, I can almost believe him.
“This isn’t one of those twelve-step programs, is it?” I ask.
Caleb frowns. “What? Me? Naw, bro. Psh. Naw.”
“Because why are you even here?”
“Told you. Feel bad. About…things.”
I glance left. I glance right. But nobody else is here to hear this crap, so I go for narrowing my eyes and pursing my lips and nodding. Sure, bro, I reply to him telepathically. Sure.
Caleb’s lips pull back on one side in an “aw, shucks” expression. He peels the mustache off my face, looks at the hat, and then takes that off also and tosses it aside. I just can’t figure what he’s playing at here. He’s not this stupid. Underneath all the “bros” and “naws” lies a keen mind. I know because I’ve tutored him. Caleb was an uncommonly busy guy when I knew him, but I have no doubt if it hadn’t been for his job as quarterback, he could’ve majored in hard sciences and done just fine.
“Listen, bro.” Caleb straightens my collar. He fixes my tie. “I know I messed up.”
“Messed up? You stole, like, fifteen hundred bucks’ worth of crap from the chemistry lab. You let me take the fall for it. And then you stuck your tongue in my girlfriend’s mouth. And now you’re here out of the blue just randomly?”
“Okay, yeah, bro,” he says, shrugging uncomfortably. “I mean, you know, that’s what I’m saying. I messed up. But you’re right, okay? I’m here now. It’s random, I know. But I’m here. And I came to let you know, whatever happens, whatever life brings, I’ve got your back. Okay?”
I nod. Because when things make absolutely no sense whatsoever, nodding is usually a good way to move on.
“You’ve got my back.”
“I’ve got your back,” he replies, and when he drops it and moves on, I know my gambit has worked. “Hey—you need any money? You doin’ okay?”
“Money? No! I mean—no, no.”
“Okay. Cool.”
Awkward silence. Awkward stare. Somewhere in the clouds, my guardian angel must be throwing his halo to the ground in frustration and grinding it into fairy dust.
“You sure this isn’t some kind of twelve-step program?”
“Psh. Naw, bro. Naw.”
Then, as if summoned telepathically, his two dates appear magically on each of Caleb’s arms.
“Chastity and Choyce,” he says, nodding at each in turn. “See? I know their names.”
I blink. My eyebrows rise. I consider how best to reply, but I’ve got nothing. He and his dates spare me final We’re Awesome and You’re Not looks before beginning the slow-motion walk-away-walk. The one where the ladies swing their hips like butt metronomes in too-tight skirts. The sophomoric walk-away-walk from a Michael Bay movie with lens flares strobing out of the Great Lamborghini Horizon. That walk.
“We have got to get him to come to more parties,” says Fabio, who’s come up behind me.
“Oh yeah,” I reply. “He’s a regular God of Fun-der.”
Caleb helps Chastity and Choyce into the passenger seat. It’s a tangle of bare legs and wardrobe malfunctions, the likes of which one tends never so much to see in person as in the sidebar of dubious, ad-overrun websites, usually not-so-subtly circled in red, and with an arrow pointing at said malfunction. Caleb shuts the door. He turns to face us from across the courtyard. He’s holding a football. Needle scratches vinyl. Tenacious D shuts off. The crowd falls silent. It’s a dead-gray silence, bug-eyed, like alien telepathy.
“I’ve got your back, bro,” calls Caleb, and the wall of bodies in the courtyard absorbs the resonance of his voice.
“You’ve got my back,” I reply, praying to God my repeat-the-nonsense-and-move-on strategy will work a second time and he’ll drive away.
Caleb throws the ball. Time seems to slow down. The spiral is perfect. In my mind’s eye, I’m racing to the end zone in the Super Bowl. Cornerbacks are falling on my left and right—but it’s too much for my imagination to hold on to. I overload. The ball’s getting bigger. Coming in too hot. There’s no arc on it. It’s a freaking guided missile. I can’t move my feet or lift my arms.
Detonation, center mass.
The world is bright pink. My breathing is deep and regular. For a minute, I do nothing but cling to that deep satisfaction that weighs down the body after a really great night’s sleep. So what if the world is bright pink? So what if my head feels like a rowboat in a choppy sea? My breathing is relaxing me, and if I can just focus on it for a few more minutes, I’m sure I can get back to whatever great dream I was just having.
Something about being a superhero. Mikey was in it. And Caleb Montana.
“Edge?”
Caleb Montana.
Eh, so what. I snuggle into a pillow and give myself over to the dream. The pink world is unchanging.
“You awake?”
His voice is the sonic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. It pulls me further from the dream world, where I want to be.
Creaking wood. Feet scuff. The pink world grows brighter, more hostile.
“Oh-h…” I shift to my side. My head is swimming. I pinch the back of my neck, trying to ease a headache from setting in. My stomach knots. That rowboat at sea is encountering twenty-foot swells.
“You gonna get sick?”
“Caleb?” I crack my eyes open, immediately snap them shut; he is silhouetted behind a spotlight beaming down on me with the intensity of a supernova.
“What the hell?” I ask, raising a shielding hand.
“Sorry,” he says. “But you’re not gonna be here that long. I’m gonna have to put you out again.”
“Put me…what?”
“Shut u
p and listen. I know Mikey’s made you an offer. In a few hours, you’re gonna wake up in your own bed. And then you’re gonna go down to Mikey’s office and tell him no. Under no circumstances are you to take him up on his offer. Do you understand?”
I try to sit up, but the room lurches.
“Aw, shit,” says Caleb. “You’re gonna puke.”
I hold my stomach—pause—no. I’m good. Just to be sure, I count to thirty before speaking.
“Did you drug me?”
“Yeah. Now shut up and listen. If you do this thing for Mikey, it could kill you. Did he tell you that?”
“Uh-huh. But…the power grid—”
“Not your problem. Promise me you’ll tell him no.”
I try to open my mouth. I try to tell him I’d already made up my mind before he drugged me. I try to form any coherent thought. Instead, black flecks form in the periphery of my vision, spiral inward, and snap shut like the blast doors on a Trade Federation Droid Control Ship.
Historic Hankering for Cluckin’ Nuggets and Colosseum Christian Barbecue Sauce, and Several Mouth-Farts in the Wind, as chronicled by Herodotus (c. 484—c. 425 BCE)
No one working at the El Cerrito Cluck-n-Pray that Saturday morning had a head teeming with déjà vu.
Is that a strange thing to say? Possibly. But think about it. Confusion? Sure. Curiosity? Definitely. But déjà vu? No. How could they? No one had ever had the experience of coming to work to find an evil artificially intelligent cow grazing outside the front door. And little wonder; the plot of grass doesn’t even provide enough space for the cow to plant four hooves.
The cow stands, half-on, half-off the sidewalk. Anyone trying to get past has to walk around it and pray nothing comes out the back end. Consuelo, a teenager who works one of the registers Saturday mornings and spends the rest of the weekend selling mind-clobberingly good pot, sees the whole thing as one great big opportunity to make mouth-fart noises. The first two times he did this actually surpassed his wildest expectations. Brad, the manager, had been standing near the back of the cow on his cell phone when Consuelo had done it, resulting in Brad’s spinning around and leaping face-first into the glass door.
