by Scott Brown
“Sounds great,” I gasped. I was too busy struggling to lug a limp Ethan up the embankment to worry about any future beatdowns implied.
* * *
—
Sidney and I hauled Ethan into a miraculously empty guest bedroom, flopped him down, and flipped him on his side, like the health class manuals say right after they say, Don’t drink.
“Should I wait for the ambulance outside?”
“Didn’t call the ambulance,” said Sid. “That was a bluff. But who knows, someone’s probably called one by now, after your live stream.”
“Um,” I said, holding up my dead phone. “This was a bluff, too.”
Sid smiled. “Not bad. You learn that in AP bio?”
“Sure,” I said. “Bluffing and camouflage. That’s half of biology.”
“What’s the other half?”
Decent question. “Showing up?”
Sid laughed as she wiped Ethan’s face with a Stridex from her purse. “He’s really not a drinker.” She flicked it into the Pottery Barn trash can under the Pottery Barn nightstand. “And I am his friend. I don’t ‘collect betas.’ For the record.”
Sid and Ethan the shutterbug: now it hit me. Her volleyball pics in last year’s Pequod. That’s how they’d crossed paths.
Sidney was looking at me now, really looking. Odd sensation. “How’d you break up their little circle jerk?”
“Laughter and vomit,” I said. Then, realizing this made no sense, I added, “I mean: I heard vomiting, and then laughing, and…well, it seemed like a bad vibe.”
“Yep, that’s Spencer,” said Sid. “He’s a walking bad vibe. Can’t believe I dated that sociopath for four months….”
She sighed, as if the whole relationship were playing out in her imagination at that moment. It was playing out in mine, too: how’d that even work? Sure, Sidney was pretty, Sidney was popular, and Spencer was captain of the football team…albeit a football team so fourth-rate, they were kind of a school-wide joke.
The basic social math added up, but…Spencer was evil. Always had been. And Sidney just wasn’t. Sidney was loyal. Open. Cruelty-free, from what I’d seen. She even tolerated Rafty, who tested the limits of tolerance on a semiregular basis.
And Sidney had a unique mutant power, pretty exotic among high school students: Sidney remembered who her real friends were. Ethan Neville, beached safely on Jazzy’s fourth-best guest bedroom bed, was (barely) living proof of that.
“Well,” said Sidney, eyes on her phone now, “thanks for walking toward a bad vibe.” She sighed again. “World’s a real pile of shit, huh?”
“I…uh, I dunno.” I really didn’t. I still don’t.
All I knew, at that moment, was: I wanted to be with my real friends, my home triad. All I wanted, after tonight’s many adventures, was to return to my oceanside Shire with the people I knew I’d always have in my life, no matter how short or long life was, no matter how short or long I was.
Sid’s phone chimed. “Heya,” she said, patting Ethan’s cheek. “Lyft’s here.”
Ethan’s eyes had fluttered open. And boy, did they look…scared. Like Ethan wasn’t seeing me at all, he was still seeing Spencer and his Killer Polygons.
“Hey! Alkie. Up here,” Sid said to Ethan, snapping her fingers. “Will Daughtry saved your ass. Remember that.”
“Uhhhnnn,” mumbled Ethan, uber-confused. “Oh…kay?”
“Sid saved you,” I corrected. “I maybe threw an assist.”
“Let’s get you in that car.” Sid touched my arm. “Thank you.”
And suddenly—the second she touched me and I got that warm tingle spreading through my capillaries that any heteroproximate teenage boy gets when a girl touches him—I knew just where I wanted to be, just where I needed to go. It was hitting me: why I’d done what I’d done, why it’d felt possible to walk toward a bad, bad vibe, solo and small.
Because, in that moment, I hadn’t been solo. I hadn’t been small. Drew and Monica had been with me. I’d walked in there imagining what they’d do. I’d walked in there solid in the knowledge I was part of something bigger than myself.
Low bar, Half Man!
Shut up, Asshole Brain. If it weren’t for your bullshit, I’d have seen it all along.
We were three. And we were one. And we were brave.
I knew, all at once, how I fit into the world. I belonged with Drew and Monica. My fellowship. We were the rest of me, the lost two-thirds of me. Drew and Monica, who made me want to be more. And with them, I already was.
I’d come so close to wrecking that tonight. And for what? For a change?
I wanted to find them. Right that instant. I wanted to tell them what had happened in the woods. How everything felt possible.
There was a narrow path to the ocean behind Jazzy’s, and on instinct, I headed down, the coyote mint that fringed the path tugging at my silly Rodeo Drive mini-jeans. I heard the Pacific down there, breathing low, sleeping with one eye open, and for the first time, I felt like I could run into it, right that second, could wade the hell in, on legs that’d hold against the current. Even in the dark, I felt like I could wade in and not just live, not just float, but swim. Swim clear of everything, even fear.
Trust the water. I finally got it.
Thanks, Monica.
Be brave. But have a plan.
Gotcha, Drew.
I was sorry I’d lied.
I was sorry I’d been, for a second there, a shifty little semi-Judas. It had been a phase. Just a phase. I was back. We were back. And we were never going to—
That’s when I smelled it: some kind of flora. Some rando flower flavor.
Monica’s new perfume.
And a voice. Male.
Drew’s.
How ’bout that, now. It was like the universe’d heard me.
I came bounding down the beach path, rounding the dwarf firs Jazzy’s parents had planted to keep their absurd Party Toilet from eroding into the Pacific, and there they were, the rest of my fellowship. Squabbling, the way gods do.
Drew said something I couldn’t hear. But I could tell, from the tone, that it was intentionally crass or intentionally dumb or both. Monica thumped him in the chest.
Drew grabbed at her other arm before she could catch him in the gut. Classic Monica! Classic Drew! I’d seen this slap fight.
Then Monica leaned in. And Drew leaned in. And I couldn’t make out what was happening.
Then:
I could make out what was happening.
Making out was happening.
The moon exploded.
The Big Wave came.
The Party Toilet was swept away, along with the rest of San Diego. But we were still there. The three of us.
Well.
“Three.”
They had no idea I was there, and all of a sudden, neither did I.
Had I, just by accident, put the One Ring on my finger? Nope. It was just hanging there.
Heavier than it had been a minute ago.
It hung there, I hung there, everything just hung there. Maybe, I thought thickly, maybe Monica would pull away. And say, Drew! What the hell was that? Are you insane?
What happened instead was…something gave way in Monica’s body. Like a whole hillside in one of those Japanese tsunami videos. Her hip slid to one side, giving her body a curve I’d never even seen before, and here was Drew’s long arm curving parabolically to compensate. I fixated, for some reason, on that arm, his shooting arm, and I had a strange, strong, not entirely geometric thought: His arm is bigger than my whole body. And Monica was bending into that arm like a tree in the wind, bending in ways Monica did not bend.
I remember thinking two equally true things:
No, no, wrong, WRONG
and also
Of cour
se.
Because, well, look at them, I thought. Of course. Of course.
Figure Drawn to Scale.
* * *
—
I don’t remember how long I stood there.
I do remember leaving before they could notice me.
I definitely remember picking up a nearly finished bottle of tequila from the bushes, nothing left but two shots and a Listerine swig, and thinking, With my body weight? Should be plenty.
I remember the pavement under my feet as I walked past my Fiat, my clown car, and kept walking, walked all the way home.
As I walked, I did what all good scientists do when a theory fails spectacularly.
I made a new theory.
The new theory went like this:
Biology had taken its shitty course.
Shitty for me. Beautiful for the world.
Beautiful things had found other beautiful things, as is only natural. There’s a lovely, vicious logic to it you can’t deny, because screw you.
Perfection isn’t really a thing, scientifically; it’s a bias, like beauty. But efficiency—yeah, evolution’s got that. Eventually. Makes a lot of local stops along the way. Makes some mistakes.
Like me.
Like my mom.
You’ve gotta be patient with evolution, is the thing. All those mistakes, all those extinctions, all those trial-and-error bodies in the discard pile—evolution’s learning. Sure, it’s gonna mow down a few hundred billion insufficiently evolved creatures along the way. Sure, it’s gonna send a few losers home with tequila bottles full of backwash. But give it time, and you’ll get something pure and wonderful out of all that pain.
As for the rest? The waste? The false starts and the first drafts and the sloppy marginalia? You can find it all in the fossil record, that big ledger of also-rans. Written in rock: YOU LOSE.
Oh yeah, I was full-on drunk by the time I got home.
Being a lightweight has some advantages, I guess.
I felt like I’d earned this buzz. For being such a good sport. For playing Biology, the game I always knew I’d lose.
* * *
—
My birthday cake was waiting on the counter. Mostly intact. Laura was on a macro diet. Brian had high cholesterol.
I ravaged that cake. Went at it claws out, ate every goddamned crumb. Then I had what suddenly qualified as a happy thought: If I’m doomed to be a hobbit…that means I get to have a hobbit belly!
The cake was gone. I wanted more. Of anything. So I ate half a jar of pickles. Very undistinguished sandwich pickles. Was this “drunk hungry”? Was this “eating my feelings”?
Is this what giving in to the darkness feels like? I wondered. Is Sauron just type 2 diabetes?
I took off my shoes, curled my toes in the carpet, and took off the One Ring. I threw it into our gas log fireplace. I tried to turn that stupid thing on for the better part of ten minutes before I remembered the gas line feeding it had been shut off a long time ago.
So I fished the ring out of the fireplace. I read the inscription, out loud. Let the Nazgûl come, I thought. What does it matter? I said this out loud, too:
“I will always be four feet, eleven inches tall.”
The Black Speech. It was all getting uttered now. Sorry, Monica.
So I’d been deselected. So what? Felt natural enough. Practiced for it all my life.
Monica and Drew. Fitting together. I couldn’t stop seeing it. Couldn’t stop hearing the click of compatible DNA.
Monica and Drew. I’d have to get used to that. Monica & Drew.
Could I be the ampersand? Was that position available?
No. “We” were not a triumvirate or a troika or a trinity or a fellowship. “We” were not godsiblings or co-adventurers. “We” were a supercouple—Dronica? MoniDrew”?
Plus a pet.
“Will?” Brian. In his bathrobe. “Are you okay?”
I’d been crying. I thought not audibly. One more thing I was wrong about, I guess.
“Fine.”
“Have you been drinking?”
I couldn’t even muster a good lie. “Yeah, but I walked home.”
He sighed. “It’s okay.”
“It…isn’t.” I sat on the floor. Crisscross applesauce. Story time. “I’m sorry.”
Dad sat on the sofa. And he was “Dad” again. I needed a dad right then, I think, not a “Brian” so much. I didn’t want to need one, but I did.
“You want to talk?”
No? Yes? It was the last question I wanted to answer.
“Where’s Drew?” Dad-Brian asked.
No, sorry, that was the last question I wanted to answer. I shrugged.
Dad-Brian ran his hands through his Humble Hero Hair. “Is he with Monica?”
I knew he was asking that only because he’d be less concerned about Drew if Monica were with him. But he could not have picked a hotter poker to slide into my dangling entrails. I just wanted this conversation to end. So I managed to form, with my drunkish mouth, words that caused me actual, physical pain:
“He’s…with Monica.”
My father studied me. Knowing something was wrong. Knowing, too, that I wasn’t interested in sharing. But honor-bound by the code of parenting, he tried: “You’re sure you don’t want to—”
“Not really.”
We sat in the dark. Then he said, “Okay,” and “When you’re ready, let me know,” and started to head back to bed. “I’ll see you at the zoo tomorrow.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t even reach for the tape measure this morning.”
It was quiet. I couldn’t see Dad-Brian’s face. I didn’t need to. Finally he said, “I love you, Will. Let’s talk when you feel better.”
I didn’t know when that would be.
Dad-Brian went back to his room, and I ate yet another limp pickle, like a champ. Then I stumped down the hall, kicked off my liftless shoes, and fell into bed. Screamed into a pillow for a solid minute. Cried into it for five, the One Ring stabbing at my chest. Then I started to go away. Finally. Sweet invisibility, even to myself.
And as I faded, I prayed, to some generic and unverified god, for two small things.
“WILL? WILL?!”
I don’t sleep in much. I’m a morning person. Getting literally shaken awake—this was a new one.
“Will!”
Light. Stucco. A dirty, glow-in-the-dark stegosaur decal. My bedroom ceiling.
“Will? Are you okay?”
Laura. Standing over me. Worried. I rose up, a reanimated corpse.
“Wha?”
“You wouldn’t wake up.”
“Oh.”
“It’s ten a.m. I thought you were gone already.”
“Gone?”
“It’s Saturday?”
Saturday. Shit. The Lowlands. Internship. Brian. I launched out of bed, still in yesterday’s clothes, tripped over my shoes.
“Should I call your father? Whoa. You smell like…pickles.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, sludge-mouthed. “I, uh…I ate some pickles.”
My shoes were tight. They fought me. AP bio came back to me: Water retention. Bloat. From the booze? There hadn’t been much tequila left in that bottle. How much damage could I have done? Plus: I didn’t feel hungover. And something else was coming back to me:
The Big Wave.
Monica. And Drew.
Like waking up with a leg amputated and thinking, Oh, right, that was REAL. And then the pain. That phantom limb.
Day One of the New Normal.
“Uh, Laura?”
“Yes?”
“Can you…uh…drive me to my car?”
On the way to the zoo, I clocked three texts from Mo
nica (where r u? u get a ride?), one from Drew (u ghosted?), and one from Rafty (where u @? u post vid of me skooling forchette? narrow window of virality!). I mass-texted everyone my official status: alive, late for work. I kept my unofficial status to myself: caught in flashback loop, watching Monica’s body melt into Drew’s….
“Feeling better?”
Brian leaned on his Ketch-All pole. He’d had a rough morning. Bunch of gibbons off their chow.
I nodded.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you won’t mind feeding the Family.” Meaning the gorillas. Our Mansons. I really didn’t want to feed the Family. Being in the habitat required some presence of mind, even for a nonthreatening halfling like myself. Jollof was a wild thing, after all.
But I didn’t want to have that conversation with Brian, either.
So into the habitat I went, baskets of fruit under each arm. I tottered a little going up the ramp; my feet were stiff and sore from walking home, and my shoes still felt strangely tight. Under the circumstances, it was easy for me to look submissive—head down, sideways shuffle—which is how you’re supposed to look upon entering Jollof’s domain. Not that Jollof needed any proof that I was beta to his alpha.
But today was different.
Jollof didn’t come greet me. He didn’t bound up and turn his back to request his usual back massage. He stayed on his rock, his throne. There was an overhang, giving him some privacy from the concourse if he wanted it. The overhang cast a shadow. Today, unlike every other day, Jollof stayed in that shadow. Watching me. I could see his eyes angle on me, glittering like cold dimes. (I remembered, suddenly, strangely, the wishing well on the concourse, the coins at the bottom. All those little faces staring up at the wishers, as if to say, Wish away, but this is where we all end up….)
The air felt tight. The breeding females and beta males started to gather near me, near the baskets. I got the sense we were all thinking the same thing: What now? Nobody, neither man nor gorilla, knew what was going on. We betas waited for our cues.
But nothing happened. We all just stood there. For a very long time.
Finally Magic Mike got tired of waiting. He shrugged, actually shrugged. Looked at me like, Whatcha gonna do?
