The Humanity Project

by Jean Thompson

  “I got tired of the freeway.” His girlfriend’s house was dark and quiet. She was probably out somewhere sucking dick, either the rancid beach boy’s, or somebody else’s. She was drunk at a party and guys were taking turns with her. He wanted to imagine all the worst and ugliest things.

  “Hey, watch it,” Linnea said, because he had veered too close to a curb and had almost taken out somebody’s mailbox.

  He jerked the wheel back in the other direction. “You want to drive?”

  “What crawled up your ass and died?”

  “You really need to cool it with the potty mouth, you know? Guys don’t really like it.”

  “You mean, you don’t.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I like. I’m just telling you.”

  Conner hit the accelerator hard enough to jolt her back in her seat, and she gave him an evil look, though she didn’t say anything. There were times when they got mad at each other for no reason, or not much reason, because they could never figure out what they were supposed to be. She wasn’t his girlfriend and wasn’t ever going to be. He thought maybe that was what she wanted, with all her hanging around, but it wasn’t going to happen. She was too young and too weird and not really pretty. Anyway, he didn’t want a girlfriend, unless he could find one that didn’t speak English and liked being naked a lot.

  He had his computer set up in Mrs. Foster’s basement, and sometimes, if he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to come downstairs, he watched porn on it. But that never really worked because he had to keep one eye and ear on the stairs, and besides, he always wondered about the girls, if it hurt them, and why they let somebody do these things to them, and what happened to them once the camera was shut off.

  Conner turned and headed back toward the freeway. They were sitting at a stoplight. The truck had a rough idle. He thought it was probably going to have to have some work done before the next emissions inspection. He thought about calling his old girlfriend and saying whatever she wanted to hear, doing whatever it was she’d want, walking through fire, anything to get himself laid.

  Linnea said, “I do know somebody in jail. Just not in San Quentin.”

  “Huh.” Conner waited. She was either going to say more or she wasn’t.

  “He was sort of my boyfriend.”

  “Sort of, what does that mean?”

  “Just, it didn’t go on very long.”

  Again he waited, but she only said, “The light’s green,” and he drove through the intersection and onto the southbound freeway ramp.

  “So where is this jailbird boyfriend, if he’s not in San Quentin?” He resigned himself to asking questions.

  “Back in Ohio.”

  “You write to him?”

  “I’m not allowed to.”

  “Yeah, and I guess he’s not on Facebook.” Traffic was moving fast, careening along like nobody was ever going to stop again. He had to change lanes a couple of times. “You going to tell me what he did?” he asked, making sure he sounded only bored and patient.

  “He shot some people.”

  “Come on.”

  “You don’t have to believe me. It was all in the news and you can look it up.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that.”

  “Fuck you. I mean, sincerely.” She switched on the radio and ran the tuner up and down the dial, coming up with squawks and banshee music. Conner switched it back off.

  “OK,” he said. “So how did you end up with this desperado character? What was the big attraction?” He hadn’t been paying enough attention to her, he guessed, and now he was going to suffer for it.

  “Forget it.”

  “All of a sudden he’s this sensitive subject?”

  “Pull over. I want to get out.”

  “Come on, Linnea.”

  “You’re just a big turd, you know?”

  “Thanks. Constructive criticism, always good.”

  “Everybody thinks I’m some big joke.”

  “I do not think you’re a big joke.”

  “Say you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, Christ. Don’t keep messing with the radio. It’s annoying.”

  “Yeah, you’re the only one allowed to be annoying.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “I know you’re upset about your dad, but you don’t have to be a total asshole.”

  “There’s that potty mouth,” he reminded her.

  “I beg your pardon. I mean, a total douche.”

  “Tell me more about Mr. Wonderful.”

  “Only if you really want to hear it.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not. What’s his name?”

  She gave him a sideways look and Conner had to figure that at least some of what she had to say was lies, but it was hard to tell how much or what part. “His name’s not important.”

  “It’s usually considered kind of important.”

  “It’s not important for you to know it.”

  “OK, fine. Did he shoot a lot of people?” He hoped he wasn’t going to have to keep playing Twenty Questions. “Was he in a gang or something?”

  “No,” Linnea said, like this was a dumb thing to ask.

  “So tell me about his life of crime.”

  “He killed these people, three of them. One of them was my stepsister.”

  “All right,” Conner said after a moment. He didn’t think he believed it but his heart was sending the blood up into his ears, pounding away. “Stepsister, how is it you had a stepsister?”

  “My mom married this guy, a long time after her and Art split up, and he already had this daughter. So she was a stepsister. Like Cinderella.”

  “Why did he, what, he was at your house or something?”

  “No.” Again, using her pitying, aren’t-you-ignorant voice. “She didn’t even live with us. She was one grade ahead of me. She was kind of a bitch. I know how that sounds, because she’s dead and all, but it’s true.”

  They drove in silence. Except for the dash lights and the moving lights around them, everything was black. Conner kept waiting for her to say more. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. But waiting made him feel like something was creeping up the back of his neck. He said, “How about the other two?”

  “I didn’t know them. I don’t know why he shot them, he was kind of crazy.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he muttered.

  “He shot my stepsister because he knew I didn’t like her.”

  The truck jittered on the curves. Conner had to clamp down on the wheel so they wouldn’t go sailing off into the blackness. Linnea said, “I didn’t ask him to. It wasn’t anything l made happen. But I got blamed for it anyway.”

  Conner coughed and tried to get his throat working right. It was rasped dry. “You didn’t shoot anybody.” He was pretty sure she hadn’t, whatever else she said.

  “No, but I kind of wanted to.”

  Then she said, “That was why I got shipped out here, you know. Because my mom decided I was this evil creature.”

  “Evil, come on.”

  “Well, I did some sort of evil stuff afterwards.”

  After a while Conner asked, “How long is this guy in jail for?” He still wasn’t sure how much of it he believed.

  “He’s in the crazy jail, they can keep him as long as he’s crazy.”

  “I guess you don’t miss him.”

  “I do and I don’t.” She’d been slouched down in the seat on her tailbone and now she wriggled her way upright. “I sure do think about him.”

  They were coming up on San Rafael and the traffic slowed. Linnea said, “When somebody you know is dead, they’re like a ghost in your head. They keep on bugging you. It pretty much sucks.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Conner said.

  “That’s because you don’t have any.
”

  Maybe his dad was a ghost by now. It was lonesome to think it. His dad would be one of those sad ghosts who kept coming around wanting something, and trying to get you to laugh at some dumb joke so you’d be more inclined to give it to them.

  He said, “Remind me not to spend next Halloween with you.”

  “You are so, so hilarious. Maybe I should just go home. Unless you have some other big fun plans.”

  He guessed he’d given up on finding his dad tonight. He couldn’t think what else to do or where to go. He’d talked himself into the notion that anything he did really mattered.

  Linnea said, “Like, we could find a party and knock on the door and say, ‘Is this the Halloween party I was invited to?’”

  “Don’t tell me you ever really did that.”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I heard some people talking about doing it.”

  There wasn’t anywhere left for them to go. They could drive up and down the freeway all night, going nowhere. It was like they were the ghosts. What if he was the one who suddenly disappeared? Would anybody notice? His mom, sure. And Mrs. Foster, until she found somebody else to take out the trash and clean up after the cats.

  And if Linnea was gone, her dad would miss her, and the mother she was always so mad at. But she was like him. She didn’t belong to much of anything except herself.

  They were almost to her exit when Conner asked her if she wanted to go get something to eat. She gave him a quick, startled-rabbit look. “Sure.”

  “Is pizza OK?”

  She said it was. Conner took the exit to the shopping center to one side of the freeway.

  He parked in front of the pizza place, got out, and waited for her to catch up with him. “Are we getting takeout?” she asked.

  “No, we can go in and sit down.”

  He saw her thinking this through. They’d never done such a thing as sit together in a restaurant before, like a couple. It was no big deal. Ordering a pizza together wasn’t like getting engaged.

  They found a table and opened the plastic-coated menus. Conner watched her read her menu. She’d done some new thing to her hair in the last couple of days, put some all-over bright brown color on it and got it cut so it stayed out of her face. He hadn’t noticed it until now because it actually looked good. She saw him watching her. “Something bugging you?”

  “Nothing. You know what you want?”

  “Green peppers, mushrooms, and black olives. And whatever you want on it. Except pepperoni. Pepperoni gives you pepperoni breath.”

  “Can’t have that.” It confused him; was she saying she didn’t want him to have bad breath, it was something she cared about?

  “Ever since I mostly quit smoking, I have a more sensitive, uh, palate.”

  “I guess you would, yeah.”

  The waitress took their order and brought them Cokes in tall glasses. They looked out over the room without saying anything. It was like talking was something they could only do while driving. Conner was thinking about all the weird things that had to happen for the two of them to end up here, sitting at the same table. First he guessed they both had to get born, and their parents had to get born too, and all the generations before them. Linnea had to get herself mixed up with some wild bad trouble that either was or wasn’t her fault, and either had or hadn’t really happened in the first place, anyway, whatever she’d done to get herself shipped out here to live with her dad.

  And if Conner’s dad hadn’t gotten himself smashed up and useless, Conner would probably be in school by now, the community college in Santa Rosa, taking computer courses.

  He’d have a normal life. It was all just stupid random shit that happened for no reason and nothing you could do about it.

  The pizza came. Linnea ate just as much as he did, slice for slice. She said that when you stopped smoking, you got this huge appetite, and Conner said if she didn’t watch it, she was going to get fat. “Show me where I’m fat,” she said, pulling her jacket open, and Conner got a view of her unbuttoned shirt front and the undershirt beneath it and some little black straps beneath that.

  “Nice,” he said. “Flashing the whole restaurant.”

  She yanked her jacket shut. “You are vile.”

  “Ha-ha.” But he’d seen what he’d seen. Her nipples stood out like twin targets.

  They finished eating and Conner paid the bill. Linnea dug in her bag looking for her wallet and he waved her off. “I got it.”

  He saw her trying to figure it. “Well, thanks. I have to go to the restroom.”

  Conner watched her get up and walk away from him. She wore one of those shortie skirts over a pair of jeans, like he’d seen other girls wearing. It was disappointing when you couldn’t see the girl’s ass. Well it was, he couldn’t help thinking it.

  He waited at the front door for her, then pushed it open so that she walked beneath his arm. They got into the truck and he started the engine. Linnea said, “Got any ideas?”

  “What?”

  “Is there anywhere else you wanted to go? Or maybe I should just boogie on home.”

  “Yeah, I’ll run you home.” It wasn’t that late, only around eleven. She lived just on the other side of the freeway and it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to make the turn onto the frontage road. Her apartment building was almost at the end. He was tired from all the driving but restless too. He had nothing to show for himself, tonight or any night.

  Conner pulled into a far corner of the parking lot and kept the engine running. Linnea said, “I’m sorry we didn’t find your dad.”

  “Well, we tried.” He didn’t want to think about his dad. He didn’t want to be reminded of everything that was lost, failed, lonesome.

  “Crap.” She had dumped her purse on the floor of the truck and she bent over to pick it up. Her hair fell to one side and the back of her neck was bare. Conner reached over and held the palm of his hand just above it, close enough to feel the warmth from her.

  Headlights swept over them. He pulled his hand away and Linnea straightened up. “Hey. It’s Art.”

  They watched the car pull into its space across the lot. Linnea said, “I don’t see Bombshell. I guess it’s no sugar tonight for the Artster.”

  “Heh-heh, yeah.” Conner tried clearing his throat. It made a thick, bestial sound, like a warthog in rut.

  The taillights shut off, and a moment later Art got out. He wore a huge shaggy black wig with a dent in it, as if he’d slept wrongways on a pillow, and drooping leopard-print shorts. There was some kind of leopard top also, slung around one shoulder. He started up the stairs, then turned back, unlocked the car, and rummaged around in it. He emerged with a club shaped like an oversized drumstick. This he balanced on his bare shoulder as he trudged up the stairs, opened the front door to the apartment, and shut it behind him.

  Conner and Linnea looked at each other. Linnea said, “Seriously. WTF.”

  “No words,” Conner agreed.

  Linnea opened the passenger door. “I’m going to count to one hundred real slow, then go up. Call me, OK?”

  He waited until she was inside, then drove off. There was the totally random shit of the universe and then there was a whole other, stranger universe you didn’t even know you lived in until it showed its face.

  • • •

  Conner posted a picture of Bojangles on Craigslist and offered a cash reward. He found out there were a lot of black dogs running loose in the North Bay, or maybe a lot of people willing to trade a dog for money. For the next ten days people wrote in about dogs that were female, or spotted, or Chihuahuas, or other depressing bad ideas. A woman in Fairfax wrote to say she was feeding a stray that might have come down from the hills, and Conner drove out to see it. He found a dog that was so lean and grizzled and weary that, even after it padded toward him and buried its head in his lap and thumped its tail, h
e had to check its collar and find the extra star-shaped hole he’d punched himself to convince himself that it really was Bojangles. His heart cracked open and flooded all the space around it.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sometimes he thought he’d discovered something amazing: the peeling-away process of all his worries and hassles, his shoulds and oughts, which left him feather-light, unencumbered, free. Like being a monk, maybe. An economic monk. He’d taken a vow of poverty, or more like, somebody else had drawn up the paperwork and handed him a pen to sign with. Anyway, once they kicked your legs out from under you, and stomped on your knees, and spat in your face, what else could they do to you?

  Now he was free to look at the sky and think sky-thoughts. He smoked weed and let the clouds in his head drift and lumber into one another. He was fine, he was getting by, and he felt sorry for all those poor rat bastards who were sweating it night and day, hating their jobs and all the things that went along with the jobs. His life had been whittled or polished down, and was now so beautifully, beautifully simple.

  Then there were other times, when the mechanics of living, matters of food and hygiene, exasperated and defeated him, when there was nothing to do and all day in which to do it. And then the next day and the one after that, each with its privations and inadequacies. He had his clothes and tools and a few other things he’d saved from the wreckage of his house under a tarp in the truck bed, packed into plastic bags and five-gallon buckets like a goddamn hobo, which he guessed he was now. When it rained, he stayed in the truck. When someone made him, he moved the truck from one place to another. Sean slept in the front seat, the dog in the small backseat. He figured that he and the animal smelled pretty much the same by now.

  His clothes were still good enough to go into Home Depots or bookstores and use the bathrooms. He tried to walk briskly on his crippled hip. No matter who you were or what your circumstances, people looked at you cross-eyed if you had something wrong with you that showed, as if they were afraid your bad luck was catching. One of the colleges, the trusting kind that didn’t always ask for IDs, had a locker room with blissful hot-water showers. At McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants he ordered the dollar specials. He lingered over his coffee and a newspaper, taking note of everyone else doing likewise, the people he kept seeing in such places, none of them ever acknowledging the others.