It took me a while to absorb that first paragraph. I read it over and over again, trying to make sense of it, but my heart was beating too hard, too fast, too loud, for me to think. I could feel the blood throbbing in my ears. I did, however, manage to make a simple list in my defragmenting state of mind:
1. Shane was in love with a girl named Hal.
2. The notorious computer hacker of HVHS was called HAL.
3. Aaron’s List told us to “find and stop HAL.”
4. Shane had extremely conflicted feelings about Hal.
5. Shane was dead.
There wasn’t a “holy shit” in the world that was holy enough for this shit.
I kept reading.
Her name is actually Haley, but I call her Hal. It doesn’t matter where I met her, or how, or what she looks like, or who she is, really.
The first thing you need to know about me is that I don’t fall in love. Ever.
Before Hal, I had sex thirteen times, with thirteen different girls. I think. I only remember four of their names. Don’t even ask me how many girls I’ve made out with. There might not be a number that big in the English language. I love sex. If we make out and it doesn’t lead to sex, I love masturbating. I don’t even care how socially frowned upon that is. It’s just so damn convenient! A hand that knows exactly how you want it? Sign me up!
And I don’t ever ever ever ever ever fall in love.
At least, I didn’t until I met Hal.
One of the first things I learned about Hal is that she knows computers better than I know juvenile delinquency. I discovered this when she hacked into Zoo Entertainment and leaked music from Tool’s new album. I mean, the music was shitty, but still! TOOL’S NEW ALBUM! That’s like hacking into Area 51 and discovering the existence of real-life shitty aliens!
And that’s how we became friends.
If you go to Happy Valley High School, then you probably have heard of the infamous computer hacker who goes by the cryptonym HAL. That’s us. I came up with the ideas, and Hal did the hacking. I mean, replacing everyone’s faces in the yearbook with Nicolas Cage? That has to be the greatest hack of all time!
So we did this for a while. And then I started liking Hal, but I didn’t fess up to it, because Hal REALLY wasn’t my “type.” Not that I had a type. But she wasn’t it. I actually fought it for a long time. I always kind of suspected that Hal had a thing for me, but she never said it, and I didn’t say it, and we had fun, so what did it matter?
But then everything changed.
I don’t even know how it happened. I took Hal to this old, abandoned building we call the Monolith. I guess I was acting kind of flirty, and she was too, and our hands touched on the stairway railing, and then we got really close, and I told her how not into her I was, but I said it really soft, and she said she didn’t know what I was talking about, and she said it even softer. And then we kissed.
And that’s when I felt it. Everyone calls them fireworks, but this felt more like a nuclear explosion, but with less death and destruction and more amazingness.
So that’s how it started. Things have gotten a little more serious since then. We haven’t had sex yet, and frankly, having sex with her kind of scares me, which probably sounds weird, but if you knew her, you’d understand. At the same time, I want it so bad. But not now. I want it when the time is right, which totally doesn’t sound like something I would say, but it’s true, and I mean it. Being with Hal is like seeing and feeling sunlight for the first time, after living underground all my life, only seeing pictures of the sun.
You can’t experience the sun through pictures. Love is the same way.
I blinked as my eyes moved past the words, past the last line, and into the whiteness of the page.
Shane was in love?
Shane and this girl, Haley, were HAL?
And he never told me any of this?
I wasn’t going to lie—that kind of hurt. I thought Shane told me everything, and almost a year later, I was learning that he told me nothing.
And why would having sex with her scare Shane? That didn’t make any sense to me at all.
I turned back the pages to the beginning of the journal entry. There was no date. I turned the pages again, returning to where I left off, and continued on to the next entry.
Dear friend,
It seems like I’ve told you a lot, but I really haven’t told you anything.
I am a liar. The truth is that I don’t know how to tell the truth, to you or to anyone.
I’ve been freaking out a lot lately, and I’ve been taking it out on Hal. Which isn’t fair. It’s not her fault I’m in love with her. At first I was asking myself how I could love someone so much and hate them at the same time. But now I realize that she’s not the person I hate.
I hate myself.
I started saying some stuff that really scared her. We thought maybe getting high would make things better, so we started buying marijuana. But being high doesn’t stop you from hating yourself. It only makes you forget for a little while. Maybe I needed something stronger? I did a favor for this local dealer, and in exchange, he hooked me up with some cocaine.
That was right about the time I heard about this cokehead, Birdy, who will do anything for her next hit. She works at Guns n’ More.
I told her that maybe I’d be able to get her some for the right price.
That was the end of the entry.
I frantically turned the page. This was the most important book I had ever read in my entire life, and the answers—from the very mouth of Shane—were here.
The next page was ripped out.
Actually, several pages were ripped out.
Beyond those ripped pages, the book was empty. I flipped through it once. Twice. On the third go-round, I turned each page individually, looking for anything. For the slightest trace of a clue. All I needed was to know who Haley was.
If I could find her, then I could find the answers.
I walked through the front door in a cognitive daze—so deep inside myself, I was barely aware of my surroundings. In some far-off place called reality, I noticed my dad was watching football. Although I say watching in the loosest definition of the term. Really, he was so drunk, I don’t think he even comprehended what was going on. He stared through the television screen like it was a window into outer space. When my dad got this sloshed, he was relatively harmless.
I’d almost disappeared into my room—to rack myself over the contents of Shane’s journal, to study the broken fragments of a mystery—when I noticed my mom. Today was one of those rare cosmic anomalies in which she had the day off work. So naturally, she was in the kitchen, filling the left sink with hot water and dish soap. Yep, my mom was commencing her rare day off by washing the dishes. A rather impressive stack had accumulated since the last time she had a spare moment to do them, almost a week ago.
Something melted inside of me.
I veered into the kitchen and joined my mom—commandeering the right sink, rinsing and racking the few dishes she’d already washed.
My mom looked at me like I was on drugs again.
“Thanks…Cliff,” she said, finally. Awkwardly.
I rinsed dishes silently. Stacked them in the dish rack to dry.
Thought of Shane’s journal.
Who was Haley?
Suddenly, whether out of maddening curiosity or mental short-circuiting, I asked the question that was running its zillionth lap around my brain:
“Did Shane ever date anyone?”
My mom blinked—clearly surprised. “Um…I’d seen him with a few girls before. No one I knew. But…”
“But…?”
“But I don’t think I ever saw him with the same girl twice. I always figured he was…you know…a player.”
I couldn’t blame my mom for thinking that. Until moments ago, I had always thought the exact same thing.
“Is there a reason you’re so damn curious ’bout Shane’s side hos, Cliff?”
This came from my dad, tilting his head on the recliner.
My mom pursed her lips shut. Lowered her head, suddenly very interested in the dishes. This was my mom in classic form. In times of peace, she was Mother of the Year. In times of war, she was a mannequin.
“He’s my brother,” I said calmly. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be interested?”
“Well, I just think it’s funny since you’re obviously a Mary Poppins little queer.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
My mom tensed.
“Oh, you’re excused,” he said. “I’ve gotten used to it. You’re never gonna join the football team. Fairies come in all shapes and sizes, I get it. But so help me, if you join the theater, I’ll kick you out faster than you can sew sequins on a leotard.”
“You know, I have a friend who’s gay—” I said.
“Oh boy, here it comes.”
“—and he’s one of the best people I know. And you trying to use that as an insult is really kind of pathetic.”
“Excuse me?” My dad’s body went rigid. His fingers drilled into the arms of the recliner.
“I’d say it’s beneath your intelligence,” I said. “But maybe not.”
I clearly had a death wish. At this rate, I’d be able to ask Shane who Haley was firsthand.
My mom had been washing the same plate for several minutes now. At this point, she was just holding it, lathered in soap suds.
“Your shithead brother sure has rubbed off on you, hasn’t he?” My dad stood up, every muscle knotted fiercely and pulled tight. “He knew how to run his mouth. Didn’t give a shit about the consequences. And boy, were there consequences.”
My dad strode right up to me and grabbed me by the collar.
“I kinda miss that,” he said. His warm breath splashed over me. “Guess that’s the one downside to him eating a bullet.”
There was a swift crack—and then the clatter of broken pieces hitting the floor. My dad and I both jumped, our heads practically spinning.
My mom gripped shards of the plate she’d smashed against the counter.
“Hank,” she said. Her voice was quivering but dangerous. “Don’t.”
My dad stared at her. She stared right on back. It was like a good, old-fashioned staring contest, and whoever blinked lost. Except the stakes were life and death.
I swear, neither of them blinked for a solid minute.
Finally, my dad caved. He blinked, and he chuckled, and he let go of my collar. Reaching up, he messed up my hair like this was all just a game. Like he wasn’t just seconds away from kicking my ass up my skull.
“Kids say the damnedest things,” he said, still chuckling.
He returned to the game and his Bud Light, slumping into his chair.
I think my mom and I had been holding our breaths the entire time because, when the coast was clear, our combined sighs of relief were like a rogue wind. Slowly, we drifted back to the kitchen sink, channeling our pent-up energies into the dishes.
Together, we finished in ten minutes.
A rumor was worming its way through the halls of HVHS. A two-parter actually, and it was rather sweeping.
1. Aaron was coming back to school today.
2. He was officially cut from the football team.
No longer quarterback. No longer the star player. No longer a part of the team. (Unless he tried out for waterboy.) Aaron had been promoted to spectator. The justification was obvious: You don’t let a kid with a traumatic brain injury play football. Ever. The end.
But still, that had to suck.
Of course, that was only the surface level. Over lunch, I eavesdropped on a conversation between Kyle, Lacey, Heather, and Desmond. According to Desmond—who heard it from his mom, who was friends with Mrs. Zimmerman—the physical restrictions placed upon Aaron by the doctors, postseizure, were much more draconian than before. Not only could he not play football, he couldn’t do anything physically risky—play any other demanding sport, horse around, or do any of the normal reckless things teenage boys take for granted.
The timeline on these restrictions was indefinite. Possibly infinite.
Aaron arrived at school five hours late. I knew this because he walked into fifth period English—being semipermanently substitute-taught by some Stephen King look-alike, Mr. Garfunkel—halfway through a highlight reel of random Hemingway facts. Of particular interest was Hemingway’s odd friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby. For example, one time Fitzgerald proofread an early manuscript of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and responded with a ten-page letter of edits, including an entirely different ending that Fitzgerald wrote himself. Hemingway responded to the letter with only three words: “Kiss my ass.” On another occasion, Fitzgerald expressed anxiety over the size of his dick. Hemingway escorted him to the men’s room, observed it thoroughly, and assured him it was normal.
Unfortunately, learning about friendships of any sort only reminded me that my friendship with Aaron was the product of a coma and hallucinatory delusions of grandeur.
Aaron walked into class, handed Garfunkel a doctor’s note, and sat down. To say that Aaron looked depressed would have been an injustice. He looked numb. Hollow. Emotionally and psychologically dead. Like the switch in his brain that dealt with “feelings” and “coping” was turned off. It was kind of scary.
I noticed Lacey trying not to notice him. She wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
I’ll be honest—I completely and utterly dreaded talking to Aaron. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t dumb. He had to know what his brain hemorrhage meant in regards to the List. To his near-death experience. To everything we were striving for.
To our friendship.
I wasn’t ready for that conversation.
But Aaron didn’t know about Shane’s journal. What that meant.
I dreaded talking to Aaron, but just looking at him—seeing his brokenness—was a torture all its own. If knowing about the journal could fix something inside of him, then by God, I guess I had to tell him about it. It was hardly proof of anything, but it was something.
Sometimes, “something” was all you could hope for.
I followed Aaron to his locker—stealthily, at least twenty feet away, wishing that I wasn’t the size of the Lincoln Memorial.
He never saw me. Actually, he didn’t seem to be seeing anyone or anything. His gaze was numb—a straight line into his locker, piercing out the back side, stretching indefinitely into a parallel dimension where he was still quarterback, he wasn’t insane, and that awful fight with Lacey never happened.
I scraped for an icebreaker, but nothing was coming. So I just went for the first thing that came naturally.
“YOU’RE ALIVE,” I sort of screamed.
Aaron turned (actually, he sort of jumped) and looked at me. His eyes narrowed.
“Go away, Cliff.”
Well, this was going as expected.
Just like that, Aaron returned to his locker. He was much more focused now—grabbing the books he needed and shoving the locker door shut. And then he walked off.
“Hey!” I said. “Where are you going?”
“To class,” he said.
I chased after him. He kept walking—maybe a little faster than before. You could smell the irritation emanating from every pore of his body.
“Look,” I said. “I know you’re going through a hard time right now. I get you not wanting to talk to anyone. But there’s something I need to tell you. Something important.”
Aaron ignored me. His face was cold and hard, eyes fixed straight ahead. His quick pace was scraping me to the very edge of my powerwalking abilities.
“Jesus, Aaron…can you slow down…for one second?” I said, wheezing. “Your fat friend…can’t keep up.”
Aaron was a Rottweiler, and I had just waved a hunk of meat in front of his face. He snapped at it.
“Friend?” said Aaron. “That’s funny, Cliff. Because the entire foundation of our friendship
is based on an elaborate delusion I imagined in my bleeding fucking skull because apparently I have brain damage!”
Okay. That hurt. I had to physically shake my head—as if I were literally shaking the pain away—to remind myself that I had something important to tell Aaron.
“No,” I said. “The List isn’t a delusion.”
Aaron stared at me. The sort of stare that had volume. That made the air feel thick.
“Cliff …” he said, finally. “I had a brain hemorrhage. I imagined the List. I imagined everything.”
“Okay, look,” I said. “That’s what I thought at first, but I found something. Something huge. It proves the List is real.”
“Does it prove that I didn’t have a brain hemorrhage?”
“Wha—? Well, no, but—”
“Then it doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, you don’t understand. Just listen to me. I found this journal that belonged to Shane. It just appeared out of nowhere, and—”
“Oh my God, Cliff. It always comes back to Shane, doesn’t it?”
“What? No! Aaron, you’re not listening to me!”
“You can’t prove that the List is real because it’s not. You can’t prove that I saw God because he doesn’t exist. I mean…Jesus, Cliff! The only reason you believe in God is because you have to! Because if God doesn’t exist, then Shane doesn’t exist anymore. And you just can’t handle that possibility, can you?”
You know that scene in Temple of Doom when the evil priest shoves his hand in that dude’s chest and pulls out his beating heart?
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe Page 17
