Space For Sale

by Jeff Pollard

  “I'm thinking. Okay, I'll be out in a few.”

  “K, thanks, bye. Oh! Would you grab my Nexus, I forgot to bring it.”

  “What's a Nexus?” Caroline asks.

  “My tablet,” K replies.

  “Your what?”

  “You might think of it as an iPad, but,” K says.

  “Well why didn't you just say iPad?” Caroline asks.

  “You do realize that not everything is made by Apple right?” K asks. “You hung up already didn't you?”

  K jumps back in the plane, cranks up the cabin thermostat, and looks out the cockpit window towards the steps leading up the house. “Take your sweet time why don't you,” K says after several minutes. K picks up his phone and calls her again. No answer. “Grrrr,” Kingsley literally growls at his phone. He gets up, climbing out of the plane and heading toward the house. Just as he gets halfway up the steps he spots her exiting the house. “There you are,” K says.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Caroline asks as she walks towards him, rolling two suitcases behind her and holding two black garment bags.

  “Are you planning several wardrobe changes during the flight?” K asks.

  “Just give me a hand with this,” Caroline says. Kingsley grabs a suitcase and a bag, walking ahead of her. K carries the suitcase as he quickly descends, while Caroline drags the suitcase, the wheels thumping their way down the stairs. Something about that noise at 5 in the morning grates on Kingsley's brain.

  “Why the two garment bags? Couldn't make a decision?”

  “One of them is a suit for you,” Caroline says as they approach the plane.

  “I told you I'm wearing the-”

  “I know, I thought I'd get you to reconsider,” Caroline says as she hands the suitcase up to K as he stands in the doorway of the plane.

  “Did you bring my tablet?”

  “Shoot, I forgot it,” Caroline says. “Be right back,” Caroline says, walking back to the house.

  K sighs, sitting in a seat in the cabin. He waits a moment then jumps back out of the plane, expecting her back any second. “How long can it possibly take?” He checks his phone. After far too long, she finally comes out of the house.

  “What took you so long?”

  “I packed some snacks for the flight,” Caroline says.

  “Snacks? We're gonna have to stop for fuel anyway, we can grab lunch then.”

  “Ew. Airport food?”

  Just then a golf-cart races up the taxiway, lights shining right in their eyes. Caroline freezes. The golf-cart comes right at them at high speed, screeching to a stop only feet away.

  “God damn, what the hell!?” K says.

  “You mother-fucking asshole, you know what fucking time it is!” A voice from behind the blinding lights screams at the top of his lungs. “Huh!? Do you asshole?”

  “Oh fuck off, Travolta,” Kingsley says dismissively.

  “No, fuck you, you South African piece of shit,” John Travolta says as he gets out of his golf cart and walks toward K in a threatening manner.

  “Get in the plane,” K says to Caroline. Caroline is too stunned to move.

  “You buzz my house with your fucking jet twice in one morning, then you park it out here and keep the god damn engines running for an hour!?”

  “Well, the plan was one takeoff, then she wanted to come,” K says, completely calm and cool, “so I came back, and it's been running for an hour, because she's a lady who can't do anything in an appropriate amount of time. And in about three minutes I'm going to take off again, so get ready for that noise, though something tells me it won't bug you too much since you're at my house screaming at my like a crazy Scientologist.”

  Travolta is so flabbergasted that he can only make scoffing noises, no words come to mind in his blind rage.

  “Alright, so we're gonna go,” K says, patting Caroline on the butt and directing her to the plane.

  “No!” Travolta finally responds, planting himself in the cabin doorway.

  “Pardon?” K asks.

  “You are not taking off again.”

  “Well, at this point, you're all worked up, I don't think another takeoff is going to wake you up. Unless you can be awoken from a cult-trance by loud noises, but no, that's probably unlikely.”

  “I have had it up to here,” Travolta says, raising his hand up to his neck and slicing across in a throat-cutting gesture.

  “Is that how far you're backed up with Thetans? Cause if your e-meter's not doing the job, I got a power drill, you wait here two minutes and I go get it, then open up your Thetan valve. Or just drill into your brain and find the pseudo-science center of the hypothalamus and scramble that for you.”

  “Go ahead and insult my people one more time,” Travolta says in a big tough-guy actor voice.

  “Will you get your pal Xenu to drop an H-bomb on my house with his interstellar DC-10?”

  “That's it, you are not leaving, fuck you Kingsley.” Travolta sits down on the stairs, in his matching pajamas, blocking them out of the plane like a a stubborn toddler. Kingsley stands over him, brow wrinkled, thinking of a plan.

  “John, how can we resolve this?” Caroline asks.

  “I'm thinking I just pee on him and he'll move,” Kingsley says.

  “That's assault, I'll sue you!” Travolta shouts.

  “I'm seriously having the next Eagle 9 accidentally crash land on your house. That's happening for sure.”

  “Kingsley,” Caroline scolds.

  “Just go on back to bed, no more flying for you today,” Travolta says.

  “Are you grounding me?” Kingsley asks. Travolta crosses his arms, not budging an inch. “What are the snacks?” K asks Caroline, reaching for the paper sack.

  “Banana, couple of apples, quinoa salad, some lox,” Caroline rattles off a list. K takes the bag and walks over to Travolta's golf cart. He moves the shifter from drive to reverse, then jams the paper sack against the accelerator. The golf cart takes off down the taxi-way, accelerating up to 10 mph, heading for the runway and an eventual date with a tree on the other side.

  “You fucking asshole!” Travolta shouts as he takes off running, chasing after his runaway golf cart.

  “Ready?” K asks Caroline.

  Caroline and Kingsley ride together in silence, Kingsley flying, Caroline reading an iPad.

  “Where's my Nexus?” Kingsley asks.

  “Your what?”

  “My tablet, woman, it's a tablet.”

  “Why don't you call it an iPad like a normal person,” Caroline replies, trying to get under his skin.

  “Because I don't use Apple products.”

  “But they're so much better,” Caroline replies.

  “Why? Because they cost more? And don't say 'because they just work,' because they work until they don't work and then you drop three grand on a new one. So why do you think they're so much better, to the point that anyone who doesn't use Apple needs to be questioned about their preferences?”

  “You can't use a tablet while you fly,” Caroline says, ignoring Kingsley's Apple-rant.

  “I want to listen to it,” K says.

  “Don't you have satellite radio?” Caroline asks.

  “There's a book on tape...an audiobook I want to listen to.”

  “What is it?”

  “It's a book on the history of the Russian space program. I've wanted to read it for a few years and someone finally translated it from Russian.”

  “That's gonna put me to sleep,” Caroline says.

  “So?”

  “You shouldn't listen to something like that while you're flying, you'll pass out from boredom.”

  “I'm staring at Kansas and you think an audiobook is going to be boring?”

  “Alright, alright,” Caroline says, getting up and searching for the tablet amongst their luggage. She comes back and plugs it in. Caroline listens, confused by the poor quality of the audio-book. “Why does it sound terrible?”

  “I had one of the i
nterns read the book aloud and record it for me,” Kingsley replies.

  “You what?”

  “I had an intern-”

  “Couldn't you have conceivably just brought the intern along to read it to you, and that poor person would have gotten a free trip out of the deal.”

  “But that'd be kinda weird if I employed people to follow me around and read books to me,” Kingsley replies.

  “As opposed to having interns record themselves reading obscure books about Russian rocketry.”

  “It's not that weird,” Kingsley brushes her off. They ride in silence for several minutes, listening to Tim the intern struggle with transliterated Russian text. Caroline pauses the Nexus.

  “Had enough?” Kingsley asks.

  “I just have a question,” she says, looking up from her iPad. “How the hell do you make a vertical take-off and vertical landing electric jet plane?”

  “Why? What are you reading?” Kingsley asks, suspicious.

  “Nothing,” Caroline says, moving the iPad away from him.

  “Is that the interview I did with Playboy? Don't read that,” K says.

  “Why not?”

  “I just prefer you don't,” K says.

  “You say something bad about me in here? I mean, what are the odds I would ever read a Playboy?” Caroline asks. “So?” Caroline asks.

  “So what?”

  “How does an electric jet work?”

  “Do you really want to know?” K asks.

  “I mean, if you just said electric plane, I'd think like battery and solar powered fans, but supersonic?”

  “It has to do with stoichiometry and plasma arc jets. Are you still interested?”

  “I guess not,” Caroline relents. “When asked about his status as a real-life Playboy, Kingsley smiled, and sheepishly tried to shrug off the question. It took some probing to get him to elaborate.”

  “Nope, that's enough,” K says, reaching for the iPad. Caroline moves it away and keeps reading as Kingsley's cheeks turn red.

  “When I was 20, I was clueless with women. I'm a nerd, I read all the time, I was starting a company while living in the tiny office space we were renting. I barely showered. So it's not that I was great with girls. But when you're 23 and everyone just saw you make a few hundred million dollars, women tend to take notice. Especially in Silicon Valley, I mean, they don't call it Silicon Valley for nothing, if you know what I mean.”

  “Okay, that's enough,” K says.

  “So really, the women just came after me. And there were two kinds of women. There were the ones who wanted me for my money, and you can spot them a mile away, let's say they have some body-augmentation that sets them apart from the ordinary human females. And then there are the women who wanted me because I was a smart guy with big ideas about the future of transportation, space, solar panels, and things like that. Kingsley grew quiet, but when I asked him to elaborate on his conversion from nerd to Playboy, he offered a very-rocket-scientist answer involving graphs and equations for determining the value of women.”

  “I told you not to read it,” Kingsley says.

  “Do you really have equations determining the value of women?” Caroline asks.

  “Yes, but so does everyone. We all do math to evaluate partners, I just quantified it.”

  “So what's my score on your sex-object evaluation graph?” Caroline asks. K just stares straight ahead at the beautiful and interesting state of Kansas.

  “Oh look!” He says, pointing out the window. “It's the worlds flattest. . .thing.”

  Caroline continues reading, “I had this Venn diagram of women coming at me, Kingsley said, where one half was super-attractive gold diggers, and the other half was interesting, smart, properly interesting women. But never the twain shall meet.” Caroline looks up, “Twain?”

  “If you're just going to make fun of me, I'll just go in the back and go to sleep and you can fly the plane.”

  “It's got auto-pilot,” Caroline replies.

  “Yeah and it's gonna run out of fuel in about an hour, so good luck with that.”

  “Is it really running out of fuel?”

  “All planes are always running out of fuel, that's how it works.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “We'll stop for gas in Kansas City,” K says.

  “Kansas has a city?” Caroline is surprised.

  “Yes. Though it's not actually in Kansas.”

  “In other words,” Caroline keeps reading, much to K's chagrin, “I just never met any women that fit into both categories. So I could have found a really smart, interesting woman and settled down, but the 20-year old in me was like, why do that if you can constantly be with these really attractive women?” Caroline gives K the look.

  “What?” K asks.

  “You're such a pig,” she says, continuing to read in an imitation of Kingsley's voice mixed with some kind of 'frat-bro-douche', “So I would just never make any commitments, never officially dating, and just kind of have fun and focus on my work. But, in the back of my mind, I always thought, if the Venn diagram ever had any overlap, if I ever found a woman that fit both categories, then I wouldn't hesitate to go after her.” She drops her impression and slowly finishes reading the rest, “I mean really it's just a matter of not wanting to settle down until you're sure you found a woman that was so great that you wouldn't even be tempted.” She looks to K with her big round eyes. “That's...you never say anything that nice to me!” She says as she hits him on the arm.

  “Hey! Don't hit the pilot.”

  “I'm serious, that's like...I might cry a little. I won't. But I'm tempted to.”

  “I tell you nice things all the time. I mean, why did you think I was trying so hard to pursue you?”

  “You're like a daredevil, I didn't want to be some kind of achievement, like climbing Everest, going into space, banging a duchess.”

  “I don't like you because you're a duchess,” K says.

  “I know that now,” Caroline says. “So what's my score?”

  “Score?”

  “How do I do on your women-as-objects graph?”

  “You don't want to know.”

  “Come on! Explain to me your mathematical equation for the evaluation of female-objects.”

  “It's not that bad,” K says. “Everyone does it. We all constantly do math to evaluate our partners.”

  “I don't,” Caroline replies.

  “Yes you do!” K insists.

  “I do?”

  K sighs. “It goes like this. You have some kind of score in mind, for how great you are. You evaluate yourself based on whatever you think is important. Tall, in-shape, rich, genius, philanthropist, hilarious, great in bed, invents electric cars, revolutionary thinker, slightly-above-average penis, and you weigh your pros and cons and come up with this score. Then you evaluate people you meet, potential partners. And your goal is to get someone who scores higher than you, but not too much. If a 7 lands a 10, then the 10 will treat the 7 like dirt, cause the 10 will know they can do better, so why bother? So a 7 wants to land an 8 or a 9, because a 10 will know they're too good for them. But the 8's and 9's don't want to settle for a 7. So what you really want is a match where both people think they are dating up. So like, if I think I'm an 8 and think you're a 9, and you think you're an 8 and think I'm a 9. If you can get a match where both people think they really landed themselves a great catch, then they're both likely to work hard to keep their partner happy. You don't go out of your way to please the lazy ugly boyfriend that you know is below you. So then you should look for people who really value who you are, because if say I hook up with some girl that's a bimbo, she will value my money, but not my intellect. And if you meet a male model that can't spell, he'll value your royal ass, but not your philanthropy. So we seek people that value who we are, and we value who they are. And also you should avoid people that are too self-absorbed, because they'll be constantly worrying about landing a better catch than you because they're so
full of themselves.”

  “I should avoid people that are self-absorbed?”

  “Yeah! Because self-absorption, like overly-focused self improvement is really just an attempt to try to get a better mate.

  “You, Kingsley Pretorius, are telling me not to date a guy that's self-absorbed.”

  “What? I'm not self absorbed. I mean, Richard Branson is self-absorbed.”

  “So your theory is that ugly people hook up with ugly people, and sexy people hook up with sexy people?”

  “No, the numbers aren't physical, they're a combination of all factors. And I think you can understand any relationship with this system. I mean, if you see a girl sticking with an abusive boyfriend, the numbers tell you why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because abusive douchebags convince women that they're less valuable. The women lower the score they have for themselves because of the constant put-downs and think he cheats because they're not good enough to keep him, so they reinforce the idea that he's a better catch than them.”

  “So a guy cheats and that makes him more of a keeper?”

  “Obviously to you and me that sounds stupid, but seriously, look at abusive relationships, people think that. I mean, if you treat a woman like she's a goddess, she'll realize that she's a better catch than you. Just treat potential partners like they're equals. That's why people always blow it when they have a shot with a really hot girl or whatever. We want what we can't have. So if you come right out and declare that you love them and want them so bad, then they're like...I can do better. But if you treat someone like you are interested, but at the same time aren't desperate because you've got other options, they'll see you as at least an equal and interesting and something they can't immediately have. I mean the last thing you should do is act like this other person is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to get someone great, because that reinforces that they're way above you and they will lose all interest.”

  “Wow,” Caroline says.

  “What?”

  “Just...it's so Kingsley. To reduce all human interaction to math.”

  “Just mate selection, not all human interaction. And it's more like game theory.”