Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

by Preston Norton

  Nice part, slummy part—it didn’t matter. It was all Shitty Puffs.

  Except for the Monolith. The Monolith was more than just an abandoned, unfinished building. It was a symbol. A metaphor. It meant something. I wasn’t even sure what that something was; all I knew was that it meant it, and it meant it fiercely. Desperately.

  I know what you’re thinking.

  Monolith? The hell kind of weird-ass name is that?

  From the outside—especially when the sun was setting just right—the Monolith was an ominous black rectangle. Shane was convinced that it looked just like that black rectangle thingy in 2001: A Space Odyssey—this enigmatic extraterrestrial anomaly appearing in different locations throughout space and time.

  Shane was obsessed with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  He was obsessed with the Monolith.

  He said the movie only made sense when you were high. I wasn’t high when I saw it, and—as expected—it was confusing as hell. I just had to take Shane’s word on it. But occasionally I’d pick his brain.

  “So in Space Odyssey,” I said, “is the Monolith, like, an alien spaceship or a wormhole or something?”

  “I like to think of the Monolith as a door,” said Shane. “Like, the door. Like, the Door of Life.”

  “A door to what?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  Cryptic bastard.

  That Door of Life bullshit became his catchphrase. He’d pull it on me every time he tried to convince me to do something stupid like enter a creative writing contest or ask a girl on a date.

  “Life isn’t just existing,” he would always say. “It’s a door. Don’t you want to know what’s on the other side?”

  And then he died—leaving me all alone in this world of doors. Except it felt more like a world of walls. There was just me, and Shane, and the Great Wall that separated us.

  This was my unfortunate train of thought on Friday, the last day of my unpaid vacation courtesy of Principal McCaffrey, as I sat on the edge of the overlook. The sadness and the pain and the hurt—there was so much of it. It was overwhelming. The only way to cope with it was to not cope with it.

  I glanced down at my legs dangling over the edge—a seven-story drop. Would a drop like that kill me or just break my legs? Because breaking my legs would suck.

  That’s when I heard the screaming.

  It wasn’t bad screaming—like, Help me, I’m being murdered by a psycho in the shower screaming. It was fun and laughter and hormones and maybe just a little bit of alcohol screaming. And these screams were accompanied by the scream of tires. A silver SUV rounded the corner of Gosling and Gleason, slowed only by the ginormous boat it was hauling. It roared over the bridge, clearly on a one-way destination to Flathead Lake for a weekend filled with delinquent partying, hangovers, and sandy, vaguely unsanitary beach sex.

  And then the SUV—and boat—screeched to a nerve-racking halt.

  “Holy shit, Kyle!” said an unmistakable voice. “What the hell?”

  The driver’s side door opened, and pop! There was Kyle Dunston—like a literal nursery rhyme weasel—standing on the running board, gripping the crossbars for balance.

  “Dude, Aaron, look!” said Kyle, pointing directly at me. “It’s Neanderthal!”

  And that’s when I saw Aaron—sitting in the passenger seat.

  For a brief, infinite second, we made eye contact. Even seven stories down, I could see his eyes swell. The second passed like a season.

  Aaron blinked. Shook his head, ever so subtle. Just like that, he was over it.

  “Riveting, Kyle,” he said, not even looking at me. “Can we go now?”

  However, Kyle had already garnered the attention of the backseat.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “No freaking way!”

  I recognized Lacey Hildebrandt’s voice, as well as this tool-bag, Desmond Steinmetz, who only wore shirts when it was required by dress code or refusal-of-service laws. Kyle’s SUV, however, was no such place.

  Desmond rolled down his window. “Hey, Neanderthal. You wanna come to the beach with us? I’m sure one of these beautiful ladies would love to have wild caveman sex with you. Ride ’em dinosaur-style! Jurassic Park–style!”

  “Ew,” said Heather Goodman, who typically wore more makeup than clothes. “You have dinosaur sex with him, Desmond.”

  “Hey, Neanderthal,” said Kyle. “When we get back, I’m going to kick your ass so hard, it’s gonna fall off!”

  And that, my friends, is a Kyle Dunston original. Let’s all give him a round of applause before he hurts his brain and tries another one.

  “Can we go already?” said Aaron.

  “Dude, what’s your problem?” said Kyle.

  The conversation had dropped several decibels, but lucky me, I had the ears of a bat—a giant, diurnal, eavesdropping bat.

  “My problem is that I want to be on a lake already, not gawking at Neanderthal,” said Aaron.

  “I dunno, man,” said Kyle. “You’re acting weird.”

  “You are acting weird,” Lacey agreed.

  “Well, you guys are acting like a bunch of fucking assholes,” said Aaron.

  The SUV went silent. The whole corner went silent. Not that Gosling and Gleason was the epicenter of civilization. Like I said, once you crossed the river, Happy Valley became Mildly Apathetic Valley. The only thing missing was a drought, some tumbleweed, and maybe a sweeping, desolate score by Ennio Morricone. But the usual Montana sounds—the cicadas, the wind, the diesel trucks roaring on some distant highway—all hit the brakes on their usual activity. Even my breath caught in my throat. Thank God I was seven stories up, well out of conversational reach.

  Aaron seemed to realize that this could only go one way. So he did what he had to do. He stuck his head out the window, looked me dead in the eye, and flipped me off.

  “This is for you, Neanderthal. Take good care of it.”

  The universe was once again in balance. Everyone laughed, shoving their hands out the windows, saluting me with their middle fingers.

  “Happy Birthday, Neanderthal!” said Desmond.

  “Merry Christmas!” said Heather.

  “No return policy, sorry!” said Lacey.

  “Your ass is gonna fall off!” Kyle screamed.

  That was the last thing I heard as he hit the gas, and they sped off.

  On Monday, rain came down in silver sheets. Purging the grimy walls of HVHS. Bathing the dirty, broken concrete at the corner of Gosling and Alpanalp. Residue drizzled like snot into the gutters—many of which were choking in weeds growing through the cracks. Frankie and his gang of skeezy drug dealers were leaning against the chain-link fence, smoking some shit that was possibly legal, but only because it hadn’t been officially canonized in the DEA’s bible of Shit That Will Get Your Ass Thrown in Juvie for Possessing.

  There was only one dealing machine at HVHS, and Frankie’s gang was it.

  I wasn’t afraid of them. Frankie Robertson and his two buddies, Jed and Carlos, dressed tough—milking the gangsta façade for all it was worth—but like everyone in Montana, I knew that their parents were Duck Dynasty–level rednecks. Frankie mostly kept to himself, and Jed and Carlos knew better than to start something with a guy who looked like he clubbed wooly mammoths for lunch.

  However, Tegan Robertson—Frankie’s little sister and the fourth and final member of the gang—delighted in my torment.

  “Hey, Neanderthal baby!” said Tegan. “Where’s that ass been all week? You ain’t been cheatin’ on me, have you, honey? You ain’t been unfaithful, have you, sugar-bear? You know that big, curvy ass is mine.”

  I usually came mentally armed to verbally bitch-slap anyone who acknowledged my existence. And if that didn’t get the point across, then I would physically bitch-slap them. With my fist. Or possibly my skull if I wanted them to die instantly. Really, the nickname Neanderthal wasn’t completely unwarranted. I think the only reason I had never been expelled comp
letely was because of Shane’s death. And that was certainly enough reason for me to hurt people.

  Unless that person was a girl.

  Tegan was in a category all her own. She dressed like a rapper and was built like she could kick Lara Croft’s Tomb-Raiding ass. She also had big chocolate eyes framed in heavy eyeliner and these full lips that were always twisted into a sexy smirk. There were rumors that she made out with Crissy Cranston from the cheerleading squad. How did I hear these rumors?

  Two Weeks Ago:

  Tegan: “Hey, Neanderthal, me and Crissy Cranston were making out in the girls’ locker room the other day. You should join us sometime. I bet you rock the lacy underwear, am I right? Crissy likes that lacy shit.”

  Tegan and I had something special. It was called catcalling.

  I power-walked my fat ass around that corner. Tegan slapped her own ass and did this weird, snarling thing at me.

  “Hey, Teg, how come you never check out my ass?” said Jed. “Mine is bigger and curvier than his.”

  Tegan looked at Jed like he was an actual disease. “Jed, your ass prolly has gonorrhea or Ebola or some shit.”

  I kept walking, hoping that Tegan would be too preoccupied with Jed’s Ebola to notice.

  Nope.

  “Mmm, you been workin’ out, Neanderthal? You been workin’ that bench press, honey? That chest is voluptuous.”

  Jesus Christ on toast! I was indirectly coming to terms with what it was like being a waitress at Hooters.

  Tegan grabbed her breasts, plumping them up for me. “Neanderthal, if you let me cop a feel, I’ll let you touch mine.”

  “C’mon, Teg, leave the brother alone,” said Carlos.

  “I’ll touch your boobs, Tegan,” Jed offered.

  The great thing about Jed was his learning curve. It was nonexistent.

  “Jed, keep your dirty, fat little claws away from my tits,” said Tegan.

  Carlos was laughing in spite of himself. Jed had his chubby head hung low, discreetly looking at his “fat little claws.” Tegan was still showcasing her breasts for me like they were the next thing up for bid on The Price Is Right. Frankie didn’t even look at me. He was much too preoccupied smoking his souped-up joint and looking like a badass. Which, let’s be honest, he looked like the baddest-ass motherfucker of them all. If Tegan was built for a girl, her brother had every muscle sculpted and tatted like he was a white 50 Cent. He even shaved his head, just to make room for the tattoos that didn’t fit on his vast, ripped frame.

  Frankie glanced at me.

  “Unless you wanna buy something or touch my sister’s titties, you better keep moving,” he said.

  I hadn’t even realized I stopped walking until now. Awkward.

  I kept moving.

  “Woooooo!” said Tegan. “Shake that ass.”

  “That’s a nice Game Boy,” said Niko Kaliko, at the other end of the hall. “Lemme see it.”

  Niko wasn’t talking to me, though. He was talking to Jack Halbert, who was clutching his 3DS so close to his chest, it might have been attached to his heart. The annoyingly peppy theme music of Animal Crossing downplayed the dire nature of this encounter.

  Jack was what you would call a nerd. He weighed about a buck-ten, wearing glasses that I swear he stole off of Harry Potter’s face, and T-shirts that said things like CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL! or NOW WE SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM! HELP, HELP, I’M BEING REPRESSED! He was also the one and only black kid in all of HVHS—one of the few in all of Montana, actually. Montana was about as diverse as the Republican National Committee.

  Niko was what you would call the Antichrist. His evil was legendary. Like this one time in fifth grade? He stole his little sister’s Barbie dolls and turned them into “voodoo dolls.” He dressed each one up (cut hair, made personalized outfits out of paper, drew on facial hair with Sharpie, etc.) so that they resembled several of the teachers and faculty at Happy Valley Elementary School.

  And then he held a “public execution” on the playground.

  Now he was a junior in high school. His sadism had evolved, and so had his body. Now he was the size of a small mountain. No shit, the guy was almost as big as me. Almost. Oh, and Kaliko was only an abbreviation of his last name. The real thing was a doozy—Kaleoikaikaokalani.

  “Um…” said Jack. He seemed to consider correcting Niko that it was, in fact, a 3DS and not a Game Boy. Then he reconsidered and handed it over.

  “Thanks, buddy,” said Niko. He pocked the handheld gaming device in his fake leather jacket, messed up Jack’s hair with his biker-gloved hand, and strolled away.

  Was Niko actually going to play Animal Crossing? Hell no. He probably didn’t even like video games. He simply fed on the misery of the human race.

  Fortunately for him, there was a lot of misery to feed on.

  I had a checklist:

  1. Find Aaron.

  2. Kill Aaron.

  Once my hands were around his throat, I could decide if shit was figurative, literal, metaphorical, or whatever.

  Our classes didn’t intersect until after lunch—fifth period English with Mr. Spinelli.

  Fact: the supposedly fictional characters of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch were actually based on the real life story of Mr. Spinelli. (Yes, I realize this would mean that Charles Dickens and Dr. Seuss were, in fact, time travelers.) Mr. Spinelli was the grouchiest, meanest, nastiest, evilest, Christmas-eating old fart in the history of evil old people. And it goes without saying that old people are generally evil by nature.

  But as with all Forces of Evil, Spinelli had once met his match. The yang to his yin. The Luke to his Vader. Only one student had ever dared to stand up to Spinelli’s reign of terror.

  Shane.

  Except in all actuality, Shane was more like Han Solo, because he was really a selfish asshole, and everyone loved him for it. He and Spinelli had this Breakfast Club–esque “John Bender meets Assistant Principal Richard ‘Dick’ Vernon” sort of relationship. They hated each other’s guts, and it was epic. Spinelli ruled with an iron fist, and Shane rebelled like he was upending a fascist police state. His pranks were legend. Such examples included:

  1. When Shane attached an air horn to the bottom of Spinelli’s swivel seat.

  2. When he covered the floor of Spinelli’s classroom with Styrofoam cups of water. (Yes, the whole floor. Every inch.)

  3. The granddaddy of them all: When they were reading King Lear, Shane raided the theater dressing room and came to class dressed as the Earl of Kent. What happened next went something like this:

  SHANE: (pointing at Spinelli) A knave! A rascal! An eater of broken meats!

  SPINELLI: What in the…?

  SHANE: A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave!

  SPINELLI: Out! Get out of my classroom!

  SHANE: A lily-livered, action-taking knave! A whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue!—

  It goes on—evidence that Shane had too much free time (he actually memorized those lines), and Shakespeare was an incurable smart-ass.

  But this was all aside from the point. The fact of the matter was Spinelli’s insatiable evil could be tolerated today because I was going to kill (figuratively/literally/metaphorically) Aaron Zimmerman, and then everything would be right in the world.

  I walked into fifth period. Aaron’s seat was empty.

  I sat down. I waited until the bell rang.

  Aaron’s seat was still empty.

  Mr. Spinelli commenced his lecture on our weekend reading of The Old Man and the Sea. Clearly, Spinelli did not realize that Aaron’s absence had thrown the whole world off its galactic track, and the entire universe was collapsing in the wake of this interstellar disturbance. Suddenly, the sense of purpose and fury and determination and bloodlust that had been accumulating within me—like stormy tides—defused. My purpose melted into a disorienting, unsettling, disappointing puddle of blah.

  And I
felt lonely again. Because I didn’t have someone to kill.

  What.

  The.

  Hell.

  And that’s when I noticed Lacey Hildebrandt, sitting one seat ahead of me to the left. Lacey was all blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, and she dressed like her life was one ongoing photo shoot, wearing avant-garde things like “one-sleeve tops” or “cropped crochet vests” or “cold shoulder jumpers.” Which made the current situation all the more jarring.

  She was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie—emphasis on the “hood” because it was pulled all the way over her head. Probably to hide her bloodshot eyes, emphasized by deep purple circles.

  She had been crying.

  She had been crying a lot.

  She was looking straight ahead at Mr. Spinelli as he spoke of the crucifixion imagery in the text, but at the same time, she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking through him.

  On the opposite side of class, Lacey’s best friend, Heather Goodman, wasn’t much better. Heather had rich brown hair, freckles, and typically wore eyeliner like a superhero wears a mask—bold, dangerous, mysterious. Today, however, her face was zombified beyond the point of makeup repair.

  And then I saw it—the note that left Heather’s hand. It slipped inconspicuously from Mary Smith to Patricia Johnson to Danny Stern to Linda Jones.

  It was on a direct path to Lacey.

  Spinelli, oblivious to the floating note, read aloud from the novel, “‘Ay,’ he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.”

  I intercepted the note from Elizabeth Darley—just one seat away from Lacey. I wasn’t exactly subtle about it, either. Since my arm was roughly the size of a small tree trunk, my hand snatched it midpass like a shark leaping out of the water.

  And now I had successfully garnered the attention of the entire classroom—Spinelli included. He rested the book on his waist and hit me with this look that could best be described as the fiery Eye of Sauron.

  “I’m sorry, Cliff,” said Spinelli. “Is my lesson not capturing your vast attention?”