Going Bovine

by Libba Bray

  “Rarely.”

  The kitty pen bounces across the page like a deranged pet. “Which of these situations would most increase your thirst for a Rad soda? Hanging with friends. Talking with Mom and Dad. Playing a game of hoops. Going to the mall. Doing homework. Attending a funeral …”

  “Attending a funeral?”

  She shows me the paper and I see the question right there. “New marketing strategy. They’re getting ready to launch a new teen drink? Rad Grief—‘For those times when your thirst needs a friend.’ So, do you think you would drink Rad Grief?”

  Death and soda don’t really go together in my head, but it’s getting late and I need to find Gonzo. “Sure. You bet.”

  Iphigenia lets out a little squeak and bops in her chair. “Excellent! You’re my first yes. Hey, Cameron, you’re so nice. Would you like me to get you on one of the shows? They need players for What’s Your Category? today. Whaddaya say?”

  “I don’t think …”

  “I could totally hook you up with the producers. You can win a lot of money,” she singsongs.

  My brain does a cost analysis: could I win us some cash, find Balder, and get our butts out of here before we’re found out? The Party House crowd doesn’t really watch the news, and the bounty hunters probably aren’t watching YA! TV. It’s a risk, but a risk with a lot of money attached, and we desperately need the money.

  “Sign me up.”

  “Nuclear!” Iphigenia says. “Okay, we need to figure out what category you go in.”

  “Category.”

  “Yeah, like are you a techno gadgetronic, a Saturday cinephile, sports authority, sex machine, audio boss, comics crusader, party hopper? You know. Where do you fit in?”

  “What’s an audio boss?”

  Iphigenia gives herself two big twirls in the rolling chair, first going left, then going right. “Somebody who’s obsessed with music. Is that you? You seem sort of audio savvy to me.”

  “Well, there’s this music store I like back home called Eubie’s Hot—”

  She brings the chair to a dead stop. “Great. So audio boss.”

  “Wait! I don’t know that that’s how I want to be categorized. I mean, maybe I’m a sex machine.”

  Iphigenia taps her pen while looking me up and down. “Doubtful.”

  “Or a techno gadg-a … gadge …”

  “Gadgetronic. It’s somebody who’s way into electronics and wants the latest gears gear.” Iphigenia’s mouth forms an excited O. “Didya hear me say that? ‘Gears Gear.’ Omigod. No one’s ever said that here before. So it’s mine! I made it up. I have to fill out the form to make it officially my trademark phrase. Hold on a sec, ’kay?”

  Iphigenia’s fingers fly over the keyboard. She hits Send. “Done. God, that would be so cool, wouldn’t it? I could probably turn that into a clothing line—Gears Gear. Anyway, back to you. So would you say you’re a techno gadgetronic, then?”

  “No. I mean, not really.”

  Iphigenia’s getting antsy. She taps her fake nails against the tabletop. “Well, you have to be something.”

  “What if I’m a lot of different somethings?”

  “No can do. It messes with the marketing plan. Just one thing. If we can’t categorize you, then you can’t play.”

  “What category are you?”

  Iphigenia smiles. “Oh! I’m a trendinator.”

  “Trendinator?”

  “Yeah. That’s somebody who’s totally ahead of the curve on trends. Like, we sort of predict what’s going to be hot next. Trendinators are sort of the top. God! I wish I had trademarked that phrase, because the merch is out of control. The handbags alone go for two fifty a pop.”

  “Just because they say trendinator on them?”

  “No! They don’t say anything at all on them! That’s the genius of it. It’s like, you’re so far ahead of the curve that all there is is blankness.”

  Iphigenia’s feather sparkle pen with the One Love Kitty hovers over the page. She’s itching to categorize me.

  “Audio boss,” I say.

  “Cool! Hey, you wanna see the rest of the Party House? We’ve got a pool that shoots Rad XL Soda—‘The Soda for Our Generation’—out of a fountain in the back. It is so nuclear.” She sighs. “I’ve been trying to get ‘nuclear’ to catch on for ages—like, at least three weeks—but so far, all the feedback forms say it’s just not time for it yet. Sometimes I’m so far ahead of the curve that no one gets me.”

  When we leave the office I’m officially signed up as a contestant for What’s Your Category? to film at three-thirty. Iphigenia takes me to meet the show people and I sign a form saying I won’t sue them for anything that happens to me as a result of being on their show. Ten feet away, Parker Day sits in his chair getting his hair and makeup done by a stylist while arguing with his agent on a cell phone that some poor schmuck assistant holds up to his ear. A bank of TVs above his head broadcasts live from the Party House, where Marisol inter views some shirtless jocks down by the pool before introducing a new video clip. Keith wasn’t lying about Marisol. She is seriously fine, with coffee-brown skin, hazel eyes, and long, curly black hair. I keep hoping I’ll see the guys and Balder in the crowd, but they cut to the video and there’s nothing to do but hook up with Gonzo again and try our luck together.

  * * *

  Gonzo is ten minutes late. “Dude,” he yells, running up to me all out of breath. “This place is amazing!”

  “You’re late,” I say.

  “Sorry,” Gonzo says, even though I can tell he’s not.

  I fill him in about What’s Your Category?

  “Awesome!” Gonzo says. “Look, this guy just gave me his card. He said I’d be perfect for a show they’ve got in development where a bunch of rich, spoiled kids live with kids who have abnormalities. It’s called Freaks Versus Fantastics.”

  I snort. “Who’s the sadistic shithead who thought that up?”

  “Dude—I could be on TV! They’ve already got this kid with flippers for hands. He hates Little People. He’d be my roommate. They said the potential for drama is off the charts.”

  “Gonzo. Reality check. We’re not staying. We still have to find Dr. X.” I hold up my E-ticket meter. Fantasyland is losing color fast. “We’re only here long enough to score some cash and find Balder.”

  Gonzo looks let down, and I feel like the asshole who just told him Santa’s a front.

  “Look, after that, if you wanna come back, that’s cool. In the meantime,” I say, showing him my contestant’s backstage pass, “we have access to the green room and free food. Let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Of What Happens When I Take My Chances on TV

  At three o’clock, the What’s Your Category? assistants come to the green room and escort me to makeup. Parker Day’s sitting in the chair getting a touch-up, a phone pressed to his ear. I can hear him making deals with this soda company, that shoe corporation, arguing with his agent, telling an assistant that he shouldn’t have to ask her to pick up his dry cleaning, she should just know. Our chairs are less than five feet from each other, and while the makeup lady does her thing, I keep stealing glances at Parker, trying to dissect what makes him a star. There’s the short brown hair with subtle blond tips. A worked-out body under a form-fitting vintage rocker tee. The year-round tan. The roughed-up jeans that probably cost more than I could make from twelve Buddha Burger shifts. No doubt about it, he’s a good-looking guy, but in a generic way, like some kind of human wallpaper you’ll want to change out for something else in a few years.

  Once I’m camera-ready, the assistants lead me to my spot on the re-created beach stage complete with grass huts and tiki torches on the sides. The director downloads info about the camera, which I can’t take in because in front of me is a sea of people and my stomach is in free fall. Down in front, I see Gonzo giving me a thumbs-up and a nervous smile. Off to the side of the stage, Parker examines his notecards while a wardrobe lady steams the creases out of his
jeans. The director calls for places. The cameraman gives us a three, two, one. The little light goes on and Parker Day walks out to a thunderous roar from the crowd. He works it, shaking hands and giving a big “Ho-oh!” into the mike, which everybody repeats to him.

  “Hel-lo! I’m Parker Day, coming to ya live from the Party House in Daytona Beach, Flo-ri-da!”

  The crowd goes wild, and Parker gives them a moment while he mugs for the camera. “Brought to you in living madness by Rad Soda—the Soda of Our Generation.” Parker takes a slug from his Rad XL can and hands it to an assistant. “Today on What’s Your Category? we’ve got a new challenger, Cameron, an audio boss from Te-jas. Cameron, come on down, my man.”

  I move to my appointed spot beside Parker, who has a cheat sheet with all my info filled in, courtesy of Ann “Iphigenia” Jones. “Cam—it says here that you have mad cow disease. Is that right?”

  “Yeah.” Man, I hope we’re long gone before this airs.

  “So how’s that going for you?”

  “Uh … it sucks?” I say.

  Everybody laughs and Parker slaps me on the back. “You’re funny, Cameron. I like that. Okay, Cam, as you know, on What’s Your Category? we ask you questions about your area of expertise, which is …” He puts his mug right up in the camera and drops his voice low. “Audio boss!” I’ve seen Parker Day enough to know that they’re doing some cheesy reverb action on his voice when he says “audio boss.” It gets the whoops and hollers from the audience, though. They’re expecting it. “So. I will ask you the questions printed out on these white cards in my hands. If you answer successfully, you will advance to the next round of questions, where the cash values are even higher. But if you miss a question, we’ll be forced to take a toe. Just kidding.”

  The crowd laughs at his lame joke. I glance down at Gonzo, who mouths the word pendejo, which makes me feel a little better.

  “No, if you miss a question, you’ll be forced to sit in the …”

  “Dunking chamber!” the audience screams.

  A couple of stagehands in black T-shirts and jeans hustle a portable potty with a big red HIT ME button on its side onto the stage. Parker opens the door so that everyone can see inside. The smell knocks me back. A rickety platform is poised above the open latrine. Somebody’s placed a shoe on the platform.

  Parker pinches his nose with his free hand. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen and Cameron. Once you’re placed in the Dunking Chamber you will be asked an all-or-nothing question. If you answer correctly, we will double your winnings and you will not need to shower with a household pine cleaner for a week. But if you answer it incorrectly …”

  Parker hits the HIT ME button. The chair above the potty releases the shoe into the latrine with a loud flushing sound. The shoe is sucked down into a hose large enough to hold a person and flushed out into God only knows where. The camera zooms in on the clear plastic tube so that the fans back home don’t miss a single disgusting minute of human waste. In the front row, Gonzo looks like he might be sick, and I’m wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

  “You’ve had all your shots, right?” The audience laughs and Parker gives one of those dazzling smiles he’s so famous for.

  A stagehand helps me up the ladder and gets me in position on the platform. It smells like the kind of farts your grandfather lays down. The lights are hot, and all I can see in front of me is a mass of tanned, half-dressed bodies in various stages of drunkenness.

  Parker shields his eyes with the card-holding hand to look up at me. “Cam, you okay up there? That mad cow disease kicking in?” He leans in to the camera and uses that low voice everyone loves. “Moo.”

  There’s a lot of foot stomping, clapping, and cheering. I just want to win some cash and find my yard gnome. It’s not a lot to ask.

  “Okay, let’s do it. Cameron, who sings the Rad soda anthem, ‘Make Mine an XL’?”

  The Rad soda anthem is only on TV or the radio every fifteen minutes. He’s starting with the easy ones.

  “Uh, that would be Big Philly Cheese Steak.”

  “You are absolutely right. And a big one hundred dollars goes into the What’s Your Category? account.”

  The light-up board rings and flips over a flashing one hundred sign. The crowd cheers. Somebody screams out, “Dunk him!”

  “Question number two, Camster. What album does the coyote use to trick the roadrunner into thinking there’s a stampede of elephants after him? Take your time.”

  “El—” I start.

  Parker holds up a hand. “Take your time. Don’t rush.”

  Oh. Right. He wants me to milk it for the home audience. Create suspense.

  “Uh,” I say, screwing up my face like I’m trying to solve one of my dad’s quantum physics equations. “I’m not sure, but I think, I think it’s Elephants Are After Me, Volume One?”

  “Cameron,” Parker says, looking very serious. “You … smoked it!” People go wild.

  “Okay, Cam. Getting serious now. Big money time. Two-part question. Part one: Who composed the highly influential ‘Cypress Grove Blues’?”

  “Junior Webster.”

  There’s a murmur of appreciation in the crowd.

  “Cam-my-man is on fire. Part numero dos: What does Cypress Grove refer to?”

  I am about to hand Parker Day his stylist-assisted ass on a platter. “A cemetery in New Orleans.”

  Parker raises that much-photographed eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re ab-so-lutely sure?”

  “Well … yeah. I guess so.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “No. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”

  He strokes his chin meaningfully. “Oh, Cam-Cam-Cam. I am sorry but that … is incorrect.”

  “Incorrect? No way. I’ve been there. I met him …”

  “You met Junior Webster. Sure you did, sponge brain. The correct answer is, the town of his birth. See? Town of his birth. Right here. On the card.” He presents the card to the camera for a close-up. “Camtoid, I’m going to have to ask you to take a seat in the …” Parker leans toward the audience, his hand cupping his ear.

  “Dunking chamber!” they shout, right on cue.

  I climb up the rickety ladder to the platform. As I do, I hear Gonzo’s lone voice. “You da man, Cam!”

  My head’s swimming, both from the smell and my thoughts: if Cypress Grove wasn’t the cemetery he meant, then maybe I went to the wrong place, which would mean I got the wrong message, which would mean this whole trip is wrong and I’m doing this for nothing. There’s no way to know for certain. I’m choked by a panic that has nothing to do with the Dunking Chamber.

  “Cam, you okay up there? Need some help?”

  “Huh?” I realize I’ve stopped at the top of the ladder. I scoot out and take a seat on the platform over the cesspool.

  “You comfy up there, Cam-man?” Parker asks. It would be so easy to swing a foot out and kick him in that photogenic head.

  “Like a bug in a rug,” I answer. This actually gets a laugh from the crowd.

  “Okay. Last question. For all the money. We’re going to play a sound bite from a song. You have to tell me the song and the artist. Get it right, and you win six hundred bucks. Get it wrong, and it is down the flusher with the Cam-a-lama-ding-dong. You ready?”

  I nod.

  The speakers crackle to life. A song wafts out. A haunting melody on recorder and ukulele. And then that helium-high Portuguese vibrato floats over the crowd. It’s possible I have the biggest shit-eating grin in the history of television.

  “Oh, Cam. Do I sense you’re in trouble?” Parker asks, moving toward the HIT ME button. “Time for your answer.”

  “Oh, dude,” I say, shaking my head and sighing. They want some good television, I’m happy to oblige. “Gimme a minute.”

  “Ten seconds on the clock, Big Cam.”

  In the audience, people start counting down, “Ten, nine, eight
, seven …” Gonzo’s eyes are huge, his lips barely moving as he counts with them. I let them get to “zero.” The buzzer goes off. The ruffing dog noise spreads through the crowd like a wave.

  “Time’s up, Cameron. Have you got an answer?” Parker’s licking his lips. His palm hovers over the button, just itching to dunk me into a nasty pond of muck.

  “Yes, Parker. I believe I do. That would be ‘Viver É Amar, Amar É Viver’ by the Great Tremolo.”

  Parker’s smug smirk vanishes. He looks back down at his cards as if he can’t believe what’s written there. The crowd goes quiet. They want dunking action, and they don’t know why it’s taking Parker so long to satisfy them.

  “Cameron, Cameron, Cameron,” Parker says, shaking his head. The crowd’s on edge. “You. Are.” He sighs, and his hand gets closer to the button before he pulls it away completely. “Absolutely right! Come on down, Cam-my-man.”

  An assistant helps me down the ladder to the huge applause from the audience and a few jeers. “You’ve just won six hundred dollars and a case of Rad Mellow—keep it on the chill-low with Rad Mel-low.”

  An assistant pulls out a wagon filled with Rad Mellow six-packs, and Parker counts off six hundred dollars, which I immediately stick in my pocket. We’re back in the black. Now all we have to do is find Balder.

  When I get offstage, Gonzo welcomes me with double high-fives. “Dude, you rocked the house!”

  “Thanks, Gonz. Have you seen the goons who stole Balder?” I ask. The hot sun and my nerves have gotten the best of me. I’m starting to cramp up again, and my vision’s a little blurry.

  Gonzo shakes his head. “Not yet, man. Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  I’m sweating freakin’ bullets. “I’m just overheated.”

  We’re pushed along with the crowd down to the beach, where they’ve built a large, open-air platform designated STAGE THREE. It’s a Marisol event. In her bright pink sarong and half-shirt, she’s waving to the crowd and blowing kisses, her long black curls shining under the sun. If we’ve found Marisol, we’ll probably find the goons.