by Tim Maughan
He nods.
“I really shouldn’t be letting you do this. Be quick, okay?”
“I will. Thank you. So much. You’re awfully kind.”
She smiles, charmed again. “It’s my pleasure.”
In the bathroom he realizes that the long window is a two-way mirror, which seems pointless as all the cubicles—sorry, stalls—have doors anyway. Whatever. He’d abandoned the idea of there being any logic to security theater years ago. The idea she’d just hand him his spex like that because of his accent was bullshit too; she probably gives them back to anybody who actually asks. Unofficial policy, for practical sanity, to stop everyone kicking off all the time. It’s no big deal being in here, really. Security theater. Bullshit and ritual. Fear and flag-waving. He shakes his head and ducks into the stall.
* * *
He thumbs the power on the spex, checks the LED is green for charge, and slips them onto his face. Blinks his PIN. The glasses struggle to find a data connection at first, but then handshake with some unfamiliar U.S. provider. Probably costing him a fortune.
The space around him erupts with windows, missed calls and notifications, and he brushes them aside to jump straight into his messages app. There they are, thirteen unreads from Scott. Cartoon speech bubbles.
He’s still here. He waited. He’s worried. He misses him.
He cares.
He came. And he waited.
He’s real.
Rush subvocalizes a reply.
—hey hey im here im here im ok
A few tortured seconds’ wait for the reply to come back.
Then the typing animation.
—wtf where the fuck are you
—homeland sec. holed up in some beige office. omg you should see this merc guy thats in here with me
—!!!are you ok? are they going to let you out? are you hurt
—IM FINE!! dont worry. they say theyre just doing background checks, and ill be out in a couple of hours. theyre just fucking with me.
—jesus fucking christ the cocksuckers
—yeah. well, i guess i know whether im on a list now or not:/
—ha yeah I guess. are you sure you’re ok?
He cares.
—im fine, really. dont worry. im just sorry, i feel terrible
—sorry for what?
—for you coming all this way, and then having to wait for hours because of my bullshit
—well, what else was I going to do on a saturday afternoon?
—I’m sorry :( go home if you like, i can get a cab when i get out
—what? dont be crazy. I’m not going anywhere.
—thanks. i miss you.
Instant send regret.
Pause.
The typing animation.
—I miss you too
He misses him.
—I gotta go. They let me have my spex but only so i could msg you quick. I gotta give them back
—They let you have them? weird
—yeah i know rite. its all bullshit. they got me in the bathroom so nobody can see
—the bathroom? is there a mirror there? send me a selfie
—i can’t, she said strictly no photos
—ah c’mon quick just a quick one, I want to see you
He wants to see me.
Rush steps out of the stall, stands in front of the mirror, and his heart sinks.
—I look terrible. so tired
—im sure you look just fine. just take it. I want to see my boo!
Rush straightens up, tries to suck in his gut, ineffectually plays with his hair and beard. Tries to choke back self-doubt. Sighs.
Tries to look just right, not too much smile, not too much pout. Both make him look cheesy. Blinks the selfie icon. The countdown.
3
2
“Jesus Christ CODE RED CODE RED WE’VE GOT A BODY IN THE RESTROOM WITH LIVE SPEX,” the mirror yells at him.
1
The artificial shutter sound, a quick preview flash of his terrified face.
“REQUEST IMMEDIATE BACKUP, REPEAT, IMMEDIATE BACKUP TO THE HOLDING AREA BATHROOM,” bellows the mirror.
Rush thinks he might have shit himself.
The guard comes through the door, all dark blue uniform and Oakley spex and something that Rush can’t decide is a truncheon or a baseball bat.
“TAKE THE FUCKING SPEX OFF AND DROP THEM TO THE FLOOR DROP THEM NOW.”
The spex clatter on the floor as they hit.
“HANDS ON YOUR HEAD HANDS ON YOUR HEAD MOTHERFUCKER.”
Rush’s head feels clammy to his touch, his hair greasy. He can feel himself shaking.
Two more guards enter, then more, navy and Oakleys and truncheons all pushing past one another. He sees a gun.
“Where did you get those spex from? You know their use is prohibited in here. Where did you get them?”
Rush gibbers something.
“You’d better tell me quick, son.” More guns appear.
“THE DESK! The des—the lady on the desk! She said I can use them! They’re mine, but she said I could message my friend quick!” Despite the circumstances, he’s suddenly horrified at how pathetic he sounds.
“Sandra? This true?” Voices shouting back into the beige.
“Huh?”
“You say this body could use his spex?”
“The English guy? Yeah, sure. He’s fine.”
A look of what Rush can only read as disappointment falls across the faces of everyone in the bathroom apart from him. Truncheons and guns go limp, shoulders relax. Muttering. Uniforms start to shuffle out the door.
“Sorry, man,” says the guard. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Rush feels like he’s going to pass out. Hands still on his head, he nods toward the spex on the floor.
“Oh yeah, sure. Just give ’em back to Sandra when you’re done.” He turns to leave. “Next time, do us all a favor? Go in the stall.”
* * *
Frank’s cart is perfectly organized, and fuck you if you say otherwise.
He knows what’s in every bag, and how many. One hundred cans in each. Got his Cokes separated out from his Pepsis, too, the beer bottles and the plastic bottles all separate, sorted by distributor. Used to be you could just bring them down here to Thrifty Redemption on McDonald and they’d sort them for you—they’d weigh them and then give you a price, and you’d just take that and go and that was it. Now it’s all machines, and if you put the wrong can or bottle in the wrong machine then you don’t get squat. The machines know, see. They can tell which distributor the can is from as soon as you drop it in that hole right there at the front. Put the wrong can in the wrong hole and you get nothing but that buzzing sound, and no way of getting your can back.
Which is why Frank likes to have his cart perfectly organized. All sorted before he turns up here. Too many canners don’t know shit these days and just turn up with everything random, and that’s why there’s long-ass lines at Thrifty like there is today.
Frank’s cart is big, too, one of those green Whole Foods ones, but with the electronics and the screens and all that shit ripped out. Got it fixed up so it don’t know where it is anymore, so it can’t whine to the cops about not being at Whole Foods. It’s a good cart and he likes it, nice and big and the wheels ain’t too lousy, tend to go where they’re meant to be going, and the brake works still. He’s got it piled up today, eight bags. Five stacked so high in the cart that he’s gotta lean around to see where he’s going, another three tied on to the sides. Eight bags with a hundred cans or bottles in each. Six cents per unit. Six bucks per bag. Forty-eight bucks in total. Not bad for a Tuesday.
He should be happy but now he’s pissed because the line for the machines is too long, and it ain’t moving. And it’s hot. He’s tried shouting up to the front of the line but it didn’t achieve anything. Some sort of commotion up there. He’s just going to have to go up there himself and sort it out.
So he pulls his cart out of the line and heaves it
up there—no way he’s leaving it behind so these cocksuckers can start going through his bags. He catches some shit as he pushes it up there for cutting the line, but he gives back as good as he gets, telling them to chill the fuck out. He’ll get back to the end of the line, just as soon as he’s figured out what’s wrong. Chill the fuck out.
There’s some kind of clusterfuck going down at the machines, though, when he gets there. Like four canners all shouting at one another. Couple of old Chinese broads, this black dude, and this other Mexican cat he knows called Max.
“What the fuck’s the holdup?” he asks him.
“Machines are fucked, man,” says Max.
“What you mean? Fucked how?”
“Fucked. Every can I put in, just get the buzzing.” Max turns around and tries to calm down one of the Chinese ladies, who is losing her shit at him for holding everything up. Frank knows how she feels.
“Then you’re putting them in the wrong machine.”
“No, I’m fucking not, man,” Max says. “Seriously. The machines are all fucked. You don’t believe me, you try it, man.”
So Frank pulls a Coke can out of the top bag on his cart, and heads over to the big gray plastic monolith of the Coke recycling machine. He’s about to drop it in the hole on the front when the other Chinese woman starts shouting at him about cutting in, but he tells her to shut the fuck up and drops it in anyway.
The machine buzzes angrily. Text flashes across its front.
Can has already been deposited. No redemption.
Which doesn’t make any sense.
“This don’t make any sense,” he says. He turns to Max. “It says the can was already deposited?”
“Yeah, that’s what it said about all mine.”
“Where they from?”
“Usual places. Prospect Park, Flatbush Ave.”
“Street trash or residential?”
“Both.”
“You talk to Al?” He nods over to the entrance of Thrifty.
“Al’s not here. Talked to that kid of his. Says he don’t know anything about the machines. Says the machines manage themselves, or something.”
Frank stands there for maybe half a minute, thinking, while the others continue to squabble.
“You know what I think, Max?” he says, eventually.
“What?”
“I think these machines are fucked.”
* * *
Scott’s mouth tastes of stale coffee and mouthwash.
Rush doesn’t want to imagine what his tastes like. It wasn’t meant to be like this. After seven and a half hours on the plane he was meant to go into the bathroom to freshen up, brush his teeth, change his shirt. Get those nice Samsung spex out of his luggage. Instead he got thrown in a beige holding room for six hours. Now he looks and smells and feels like shit and just wants to go home.
But he’s here. And he’s real. And he’s kissing him again.
They stop, pull apart, and nervously smile at each other.
“I look terrible, sorry.”
Scott blushes. “You look fine. You look great.”
It wasn’t meant to be like this. For months Scott had been teasing him, talking about when they’d actually meet, talking about if he’d pass the “airport test.” He was meant to be ready, prepared for it. At his best.
Scott kisses him again. Coffee and mouthwash. He never wants it to stop.
It does, eventually.
“So?”
“So?”
Scott seems slightly shorter than the mental image he’s built from virt and social, slightly pinker. Less composed. Real.
“How did I do?”
Scott laughs, blushes again. “Flying colors.”
They make out on the bus from Newark to Times Square. Scott wanted to get an Uber or a Google, but Rush wouldn’t let him, partly on principle but mainly because it’s too expensive. The bus takes way too long, but neither of them cares.
They make out in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, under AR billboards that try to steal their attention from each other, so they take off their spex, which were bumping when they kissed anyway.
They make out on the Times Square subway platform while waiting for the Q, Rush freaked out by the cockroaches that scuttle around their feet but fascinated by the people walking by. Scott says that before you come to New York all you know of it are movie stereotypes, then when you get here you realize they’re all true. On the way into the station they’d had to hold hands as they passed through the turnstiles, Scott explaining it was so the city could see they’re together, and charge him for Rush’s fare. The idea made Rush uncomfortable, but holding his hand felt so right. He’s made a career out of telling everyone that cities know too much, but right then he didn’t care that this one knew they were together, or who it told.
They make out on the Q. It’s packed with rush-hour commuters, but Scott manages to move him over to the door so that when the train bursts out into daylight on the bridge he can see the view. As they skim across Chinatown’s graffiti-spattered rooftops and the towers rise behind them Rush can’t believe he is finally here. Nobody else on the train—even Scott after a while—seems to care, all lost in their tablets and spex, grasping a brief window of network access, gazing at their own private vistas. He notices Scott is wearing plastic gloves, must have slipped them on when he wasn’t looking, and sees a few other people on the train are, too. He asks Scott about them.
“Anti-bac nanofiber. They’re just to keep my hands clean down here. I won’t touch anything down here. It’s so fucking gross.”
“Really? Didn’t take you for a germophobe. Guess I’m learning something new about you every day.”
Scott laughs. “I’m not a germophobe. It’s just it’s gross down here. Filthy. You don’t know who has been touching what, where their hands have been before.”
“Still sounds paranoid to me.” He’s teasing him.
“Maybe, maybe I am being paranoid. But trust me, I touch my face way too much. Don’t want to transfer anything. You wouldn’t want me spoiling this perfect complexion, now, would you?”
They make out in the diner, where Rush nibbles at some fries while Scott forces him to download the NYC app. Rush really doesn’t want to, because it’s the literal fucking antithesis of everything he is and does, and Scott says, I know but it’ll make getting around and buying stuff easier, and Rush says, I know, and that’s the exact fucking problem, and then Scott asks him if this is their first fight. It’s not.
They make love in Scott’s bed, in the corner of his tiny but neat studio, which he pays too much rent for, because it’s tucked away on the third floor of one of those beautiful brownstones in Brooklyn that the female leads in rom-coms can somehow always afford to have all to themselves, on just their salary, despite the fact that they’re social-media marketers or virt designers or something else that involves working in an office. Nobody, Scott tells him, that works in an office can afford one of these whole buildings.
After they make love they hold each other, and Scott starts to cry. Rush panics.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Why do you think? Just because. You’re here. You’re real.”
* * *
Later on they head out to a party that Rush can’t be bothered with. He’s thirsty, still adjusting to the late-summer heat, so he picks up a can of Coke from the corner bodega, along with some cheap Peruvian beers for the party. Reluctantly he pays for it with the NYC app.
They walk. A few blocks later he drops the empty can in a recycling bin, which chimes gently at him. His spex make a kerrching sound.
“What was that?”
“Huh?”
“The bin?”
“‘Bin’? Oh, the trash! You just got your six cents.” Scott smiles.
“Six cents?”
“Your deposit for recycling the can. Buy something with the NYC app and then when you tos
s it in the recycling here or at home you get your deposit. It’s pretty neat.”
“It—what? How long has this been going on?”
“It’s pretty new, actually. Been running in some neighborhoods for a while but only got turned on in Brooklyn last week.”
“The city does this? They basically track every can of drink in the city?”
“I guess. They got some tiny chip in the cans now. I think the city did it in partnership with the drink companies. And Google.”
Rush is kind of stunned, in that resigned-stunned way only professional cynics can be. “So … let me get this straight. The city—and Coke and all these companies, and Google—know every time I buy a can of pop, and where from, and every time I toss it away, and where? They basically know every time I have a drink, and where I am? For which they pay me six cents?”
“I guess so, if you look at it that way.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really, I think it’s kinda neat. It’s not just them, you can see all of it, too. The NYC app lets you sync it with your health app stats. It’s great for watching your calories, you know?”
“Jesus wept.”
“Plus last week, there was a story on Gothamist where they said the police had arrested this guy because they used the trash can data to prove he was lying about where he was the night this girl got attacked.”
“The police have access to it too? Of course they do. Perfect.”
“Jesus, Rush, you do worry. Too much.” Scott grabs his hand and pulls him along. “C’mon, we’ll be late.”
* * *
Every time Frank pulls something out of this trash can it buzzes angrily at him, the same buzz the machines at Thrifty do when you put in the wrong can. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s pissing him off.
It’s hot on Vanderbilt, and he can feel himself sweating under his beanie. He could do with a drink. A beer would be nice. But he’s broke, got no money because the machines at Thrifty are still on the fritz. Same with the ones down at Cash 4 Cans on Linden. They’re all fucked. For three days now. Al came back to Thrifty, tried giving them all some bullshit excuse that nobody understands about how the machines are changing, how it was all changing from this to that, and with the networks and everything, and how things are smart now, and how now you could only get shit redeemed if you bought it yourself. Which doesn’t make any sense to Frank, and is pissing him off.
