“Okay, how about this?” said my mom. “Finish this sentence: Life is…?”
“Problematic,” I said.
She nodded. “Okay. I can get behind that. Life is totally problematic. Heck, life is so full of problems, it makes me want to scream sometimes.”
“But you don’t.”
“Well, you don’t see me when I’m driving in the car by myself. I could have an alter ego in a screamo band.”
I couldn’t help chuckling.
“Would you like some motherly wisdom?” said my mom. “No? Well too bad, here it is: The problem is not the problem.”
“The problem is not the problem,” I repeated. “Ah. Okay. That literally makes no sense.”
“Problems happen. That’s just life. The real problem is when we run away from our problems.”
“Um. What are we doing right now? Isn’t this running away?”
“Sometimes staying in the same place is running away from the problem. Sometimes facing the problem means walking away from someone you used to love. But even though you’re walking away, it doesn’t mean that you’re giving up on them.”
I bit my lip. Lowered my head quietly. Studied the passenger’s-side floor mat.
“How are you, Cliff?” she said. “Really.”
“I feel like…” I said. But I couldn’t seem to find the right adjective. Maybe the right adjective didn’t exist. “I feel like the End of the World is happening. And I’m supposed to save the world somehow, and I don’t know how to keep my own life from falling apart, so how can I help anyone else?”
“Uh-oh. You’re not secretly a superhero, are you?”
“Definitely not.”
“Because I could totally see you as Peter Parker. And I’d be a really hot Aunt May.”
“Maybe I’d be Peter Parker if he was the size of Juggernaut and couldn’t stop eating Pop-Tarts.”
“Peter’s a high schooler. I’m sure he’s never had a balanced breakfast in his life. And since he’s always on the go, he probably eats Pop-Tarts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
I was laughing and shaking my head. “Okay. Whatever. You win.”
“Yeah,” said my mom, nodding. “You’re totally Peter Parker. High schooler by day, crime fighter by night. And all you want is to save the world and be a normal teenager at the same time. Is that too much to ask for?”
I was smiling uncontrollably—a side effect of having an awesome mom.
“Now I’ve got a question for you,” said my mom. “How does Peter Parker do it? Save the world and keep his own life from not falling apart at the same time?”
“Um…with…great…responsibility?”
My mom smirked. “Nice try, Uncle Ben. But I like to think there’s more to his success than just responsibility.”
“So what’s his secret then?”
“He tries,” said my mom. “And he keeps trying. And he never stops trying.”
“He tries?”
“Even when the odds are stacked impossibly against him. Even when the world comes crashing down around him. Even when he loses the people he loves.”
“He never stops trying,” I said.
This time, my mom smiled. “In my opinion, you can never truly defeat someone who never stops trying.”
I’d never stayed at a Motel 6 before. (Or any motel, for that matter.) I always had this stereotypical image in my head that Motel 6s were flea-infested, disease-ridden brothels. Where the fungus was alive, the pillows were stuffed with heroin needles, and the cockroaches performed musical dance numbers in the manner of Joe’s Apartment. So I was kind of surprised when I discovered our second-floor room was about a billion times cleaner than our house, and just as big (or small, depending on perspective). It was a quaint little thing with bright orange walls, sharply tucked bedspreads, and a shiny hardwood floor.
“Wow,” I said. “Fancy.”
“Oh my God,” said my mom. “My son just called a Motel 6 fancy. This is what my life has become.”
“I think I could eat off this floor!”
“Please don’t.”
My mom went to bed almost immediately. It was just one of those days. But she did let me use her smartphone to connect to the Wi-Fi with only one stipulation—that I not wake her up. If I woke her, so help her God, I would be sent to the gallows.
My mom had a BBC costume drama problem. Sometimes she talked in turn-of-the-century British.
So as my mom fell asleep, an arm draped dramatically over her face, I lay wide-awake—staring at the Happy Valley Apocalypse countdown screen as the seconds ticked by.
Occasionally, I mixed it up. Playing HAL’s apocalyptic monologue over and over again (with headphones), scraping for clues. Surfing the Internet for people named Haley. (Yes, the whole Internet. That was about as successful as you’d expect.) Texting Aaron.
Aaron, tell me you have an idea.
an idea? does it have to be an idea
about how to find and stop HAL?
That would be preferable. But ideas
on solving world hunger are always
welcome too.
nope. no ideas. but i think i learned
how to solve a rubik’s cube.
A rubik’s cube.
i thought learning to solve a rubik’s cube
would make me smarter and my mind
would expand and, by default, i’d have
an epiphany of how to find and stop hal.
no dice.
In retrospect, texting Aaron was probably less successful than googling “Haley.”
By 3 a.m., I was still nowhere. But all was not lost, because I did find the video Aaron and I made for the Sermon Showdown.
It was in my e-mail.
That’s right. Seth might have deleted the video in Jack’s Sent box—along with damn near every other copy in existence—but Aaron and I still had final copies in our in-boxes. It was both maddening and hilarious.
I titled the video “What Is the Meaning of Life?” and decided to put it on YouTube. Lost in a sea of makeup tutorials, video game walk-throughs, and cat videos. And yet, there for the whole world to see.
I was just about to click the Upload button when I was interrupted by a phone call from an unknown number. My phone was on vibrate, but it proceeded to rattle noisily against the nightstand.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed and answered it. “It’s three in the morning. Who is this?”
The thing on the other line sounded like a robot crying.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I said.
“I…I’m sorry for calling so late,” said a voice that I realized wasn’t a robot. It was a voice distorter.
“Haley?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Haley, and it was clear she was still weeping. “It’s me.”
I tiptoe-ran across our motel room like the world’s largest ninja, shimmied out the door and onto the cold, exposed balcony, and closed the door behind me.
“What are you doing? No. Scratch that. Why are you doing this?
“I’m doing this because Shane is dead,” said Haley. “And someone needs to pay for it.”
“So you’ve spent the past year collecting shit on everyone, just so you can plaster it all over the Internet?”
“Don’t tell me you’re not disgusted with these people. Forever Shane? The posters and the hashtags and the bracelets? They know nothing about Shane. They never gave a shit about him. They’re just a bunch of pigs shoving their noses in the same pile of slop. Getting it while it’s hot. A week from now, they won’t even remember he existed.”
“So the whole school needs to suffer?”
“Cliff…I loved Shane. I’d think you, of all people, would understand.”
“Have I met you before? I mean, do I know you?”
“It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.”
“No, Cliff. What’s important to you is finding and stopping HAL.”
“You know about that?”
“
Come on, Cliff. Everyone knows about that. Honestly, I was surprised when I first heard number five on the List. At first, I wasn’t even sure what it was you were supposed to be finding and stopping. I thought giving you the journal might make things more clear—for both of us. And maybe it has. All I know is that the most important thing to me is hurting the people who hurt Shane in ways that they’ll never understand. Tell me, Cliff: Do you know what causes people to become cruel?”
“Huh?”
“Comfort,” said Haley. “Comfort brings out people’s cruelty. People become comfortable with themselves. They feel like they’re untouchable. The only way to end cruelty is to rip off their costumes and expose them to the world. It’s impossible to be cruel when you’re naked among your peers.”
“You sound awful sure of yourself,” I said. “So why are you calling me?”
“Because if anyone can change my mind, it’s you.”
I leaned over the balcony railing and stared out across the ghost town of Happy Valley at three in the morning. Asphalt gleamed beneath lonely streetlamps, illuminating the emptiness.
“You want me to change your mind?” I said.
“If you can change my mind,” said Haley, “then I at least want to give you the chance to try.”
There were a lot of things I could have said. Things that were obvious to me. Obvious to most people. But somehow, I knew that my truth didn’t apply to Haley.
I snuck back into the motel room, saved Haley’s number in my mom’s phone, uploaded “What Is the Meaning of Life?” to YouTube, and sent Haley the link.
“What’s this?” said Haley.
“It’s something that Aaron and I made,” I said. “Just for you.”
“For me?”
“We just didn’t know it at the time.”
Haley didn’t seem to have a response to this.
“If this doesn’t tell you what you need to hear,” I said, “then there’s nothing I can say to change your mind.”
Again, silence. Finally, Haley hung up.
I thought the anticipation would kill me. But it didn’t. Somehow—against all reason—I felt okay.
I crawled into bed, pulled the covers up to my neck, and sleep washed over me, like a silky wave across an untouched shore.
If you were to go on YouTube at this moment and search “What Is the Meaning of Life?” you would discover, several results pages back, a video posted by CliffLovesPopTarts. A video with a single view. Maybe two views now that you’re watching it.
It went something like this:
Aaron Zimmerman stands in front of HVHS’s main entrance. I’m behind the camera (my only camerawork in the entire video), angling it so you can see the chiseled letters that form the words HAPPY VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL.
“So,” I say, offscreen, “what is the meaning of life?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nuh-uh. What is it?”
“What the hell makes you think I know what it is?”
“Well, you saw God, right? He gave you the List. So—”
“Dude. It’s subjective, don’t you think?”
“Subjective?”
“Well, yeah. I think the point is to find it for yourself. And maybe what you find is totally different from what someone else finds.”
“So what you’re saying is I need to ask everyone at school what the meaning of life is to them.”
“What? No. That’s not what I—”
The video explodes into a cinematic montage—accompanied by Diego’s soft electronic sound track. Alternating shots of Jack and Julian following Aaron and me around HVHS, inside and out. Crowded hallways, sidewalks, classrooms, fields.
JED: Is this a trick question?
ROBIN: The meaning of life? Is that even a real thing?
CARLOS: Easy. One word: aliens.
CLIFF: You think the meaning of life is…aliens?
CARLOS: The truth is out there.
TEGAN: Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.
CLIFF: Tegan!
TEGAN: Just kidding. About the drugs, I mean. Drugs are for pugs. But sex is good!
CLIFF: Tegan…
TEGAN: And rock ’n’ roll is life. Don’t you dare tell me it isn’t.
AARON: Not a trick question. In your honest opinion, what is the meaning of life?
JED: I s’pose it’s being with the people you care about. Like friends and family.
AARON: Which is more important—friends or family?
JED: I don’t think you can say one is more important than the other. You need a lot of things in order to survive.
AARON: If it was a real thing, what do you think it would be?
ROBIN: Um. I suppose it starts with having a dream. And then chasing it. You chase after it like your life depends on it. In a sense, I guess it does.
AARON: What sort of dream?
ROBIN: Any sort. It doesn’t matter what it is. The only thing that matters is that you want it from the deepest part of who you are, and you chase after it with everything in you.
AARON: What happens when you get it?
ROBIN: I feel like dreams are never that two-dimensional. You never just “get it.” The more you chase, the more your dream expands. It’s like, the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. Every step you get closer to your dream, the more the world around you crystalizes into something you never knew it was.
AARON: Wow. That’s really eloquent.
ROBIN: Thanks. I read books.
CARLOS: Okay, in all seriousness, life is like ET.
CLIFF: The…Extra-Terrestrial?
CARLOS: Yeah. Little dude. Squatty legs, arms like a monkey, ugly as hell.
CLIFF: (sighs) Okay, I’m listening.
CARLOS: We’re ET. We’re all lost. We’re all tryna make our way home, except we have no way of getting there. Not without some help. And then there’s Elliott. We all got an Elliott in our life—this person who we’re just connected to. It just happens, and there ain’t no breaking that connection. They didn’t choose each other. They just collided into each other’s lives, and suddenly there’s no going home without each other’s help.
CLIFF: So what’s the point?
CARLOS: The point is find your Elliott, man! You need each other like you need air. Your destinies are intertwined.
KYLE: Football.
AARON: The meaning of life is football.
KYLE: Yep.
AARON: Damn, I’m screwed.
KYLE: (laughs) Okay, maybe not just football. But I feel like there’s always that one thing that makes you feel alive like nothing else does. For me, that’s running around on a field, intercepting balls, and getting tackled to the ground. There’s something about it that just wakes something up inside of me. I don’t even know what it is. It’s a moment. It’s passion. Maybe that’s what life is about: passion—and whatever draws it out of you.
ROBIN: Wow, Kyle. Did you actually find an articulate way to talk about football?
(Kyle laughs, grabs his little sister’s head, and pushes it offscreen.)
KYLE: Get out of here! You already had your turn!
Jack captures a stunning shot of Lacey, standing at the far corner of the football field, watching the cataclysmic beginnings of a sunset. The oranges and the pinks and the purples span and swirl like acrylic paint, floating on a body of water. Clouds soak up their hues like cotton swabs.
LACEY: (voice-over) I’m not really a spiritual person. But when I see stuff like this…? I feel like there’s something out there. Something bigger than life as I know it, just waiting to be discovered. Waiting for me to discover it.
(Lacey brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and looks at the camera. Her eyes reflect the sky, radiant with wonder.)
LACEY: (voice-over) I feel like there’s a sense of meaning in the unknown. It’s life’s way of telling you to go out. Explore. Try something new. Learn something that contradicts the world as you know it.
Julian sets up a series of shots
in Spinelli’s classroom, focusing on random classroom fixtures—old, scratched-up desks, stacks of writing assignments waiting to be graded, a whiteboard with a Hemingway quote: Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
SPINELLI: We can’t even begin to understand the universe. And even when we think we know things, the truth as we know it often changes. Suddenly, the Earth isn’t flat, it revolves around the sun, and neither of these are the center of the universe. The universe has always been, and always will be, a mystery—unfolding slowly, surely, but never completely. It will always store secrets in its infinite hiding places. So to say that you don’t believe in something because you don’t understand it is a fallacy. I find that the things I believe in the most are the things that I don’t fully understand—whether it be God, or the love between partners, or the fact that there’s a goodness in mankind that will always transcend the bad.
NIKO: I think the point is to not be afraid. Honestly, I’ve spent most of my life being afraid.
CLIFF: You? Afraid?
NIKO: Yeah, man.
CLIFF: Afraid of what?
NIKO: Everything. Afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of the future…Afraid of people who are different than me, afraid of people who are the same as me…Man, sometimes I’m afraid of myself.
CLIFF: Yourself?
NIKO: Yeah, man. I scare the hell outta myself sometimes. I feel like a moving car, and my brakes just went out, and I don’t know how to stop myself without crashing and dying. So I just keep going.
CLIFF: So how do you stop being afraid?
NIKO: I think I’m mostly afraid of people letting me down. I’ve had a lotta people let me down. People I trusted. And the only way I knew how to stop people from letting me down was to stop trusting them. But I think that’s a bad way to live. Sometimes, you just gotta trust people. Even when you’re afraid. Maybe especially when you’re afraid.
NOAH: Some days, I don’t want to believe in a God. Other days, I just…I need to believe. Horrible things happen, all over the world, every day. We ask ourselves: Why would God let this happen? And we want an answer to that question so bad, but there is no answer. Instead, there’s just this…hope. This hope that, somehow, things can be right in the end. And I pray every day that it’s true.
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe Page 30
