The Love Machine

by Nicholas Bruner

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” Corn said. He put his arms around Alva and Barrow and led them to the car where Monica already had the passenger seat lowered. “Climb in fast, fellas,” he said. “Before these assholes get their shit together and come back at us.”

  “Don’t think this is over!” Eric yelled from his box pile.

  The driver’s side door slammed shut and the black Nissan squealed away.

  Taffy jabbed a finger in Jason’s chest. “This is all your fault.”

  “Hey, I didn’t see you step up,” Jason said. “I never wanted to be out here in the first place.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Eric kicked a crate away and brushed rancid popcorn butter from his jeans. “You told them we have the Love Machine?”

  “Of course,” Jason said. “Don’t you see what you’re playing with? Somebody could get in trouble.”

  “Oh, we see,” Andre said. “First, you lose us the game at the state championships.” Jason lifted his arms to protest but Andre yelled him down. “And then you betray us to a pack of friggin’ nerds!”

  Jason’s voice growled low. “You know I didn’t miss those shots on purpose.”

  Taffy puffed his chest and strutted up to Jason. “Get out of here, loser. We don’t want you around anymore.”

  Jason turned his back. “I wish y’all would think about what you’re doing.”

  Eric spit on the ground and shouted after him, “Why don’t you go hang out with your new homo friends?”

  Saturday, 7:22 p.m.

  Monica sat squeezed between Alva and Barrow in the backseat. Alva kept his head tilted back and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Is your nose broken?” she asked. “Should we go to a hospital?”

  “Bloody, thad all. I dod think id broken. Ad I gotta get home right away.” He laughed. “Hey, Barrow. Thid time id me with the bloody node!”

  “Yeah, great,” Barrow said, clutching his stomach. “I can’t decide if I prefer the bloody nose or the gut punch.”

  “Ad lead the gud punch id cleaner. My shird id ruined!”

  “How the hell did you two get mixed up with that, anyway?” Corn asked from the passenger seat.

  “Oh,” Barrow said. “They had the Love Machine, and we were trying to get it back.”

  Alva sat straight up, eyes wide. “Shid!” he yelled. “We still did’ded ged id! We have to go bagg!”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Barrow said.

  “You do’d udderstad! I deed it todight!”

  “No way,” Grunt said. “I’m not driving back there.”

  “We’ll just try another day,” Barrow said. “What’s the big deal?”

  Alva groaned and slumped back in his seat. Grunt drove smoothly through the evening traffic as approaching headlights illuminated their faces and fell away to blackness.

  “Man, I don’t know what I ever saw in Eric Cartwell,” Barrow said as he stared out the car window. “That dude’s a dick.”

  “You didn’t realize that?” Corn asked. “Anyway, I’m glad to have you two back. It feels right having us all here, you know?”

  Alva groaned. “I did’ded know feelig right would hurd so much.”

  Corn laughed. “I guess we showed up just in time.”

  “Right on time would’ve been thirty seconds earlier.” Barrow said. “But seriously, we should thank you two for showing up at all.”

  “Hey, not us,” Grunt said. “It wouldn’t have happened if Monica hadn’t forced us to drive around. She knew they had the Love Machine too.”

  “Really?” Alva said.

  “Yeah, I’ve been tracking Taffy Lauter,” Monica said. “He lives across the street from me.”

  “Well, thank you, then,” Barrow said.

  Alva switched hands on his nose. “Yeah, led us know if there’d adythigg we cad do for you.”

  Monica looked thoughtful. “Actually, I can think of one thing….”

  “Nabe id,” Alva said.

  “Well, I’m not doing so hot in Physics. And you seem to know what’s going on in there. I wonder if you could tutor me?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday, 7:25 p.m.

  “Mom?” Alva called as he gently closed the front door, hoping she’d answer from somewhere in the back of the house. Okay, it’s seven twenty-five. No Love Machine, no problem. I’ll just answer the door and tell Frank she doesn’t feel well.

  “We’re right here!” she sang from the kitchen.

  We’re? Maybe a neighbor was over. That could work. She’d be talking and wouldn’t notice his face, and he could intercept the front door when the knock came. Alva removed his shoes and padded by the kitchen. No such luck.

  “Alva, come on in here!”

  He ducked his face away. “I’m pretty tired, Mom, I’m going to head back to my room.”

  “No, come on in, this’ll only be a second. I want you to meet someone.”

  Alva sheepishly entered the kitchen. He glanced in surprise at the two glasses of white wine on the table. Odd. Tea was his mother’s drink of choice.

  “Oh my God!” his mom gasped. “Are you okay? What happened to your face?”

  Alva chewed the fresh scab on his lip a second. There’s no hiding it at this point. “My friends and I ran into a little trouble.”

  “Who did this to you?” She was already reaching for the phone. “I’m going to call the police right now.”

  “No, Mom!” He held his hand up. “You don’t need to. I’m fine. It’s only a bloody nose.”

  “And a black eye, and a cut on your lip, and who knows what else.” She already had him in a seat and was dabbing at his face with a cloth as Alva flinched away.

  “I’m okay, really. You don’t need to do this.”

  “Hold still now, don’t be a baby. I’m going to go call their parents in a minute.”

  A man came in the room. Not too tall, glasses and a beard flecked with gray, wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. “Is everything okay in here? I heard some commotion.”

  Confusion crossed Alva’s face. “Frank?” He’s already arrived?

  “Frank? Where do you get that name from?” his mom said. “Tony, I want you to meet my son. David, this is Tony Silverman.”

  “Good to meet you, David.” The man held out his hand. “Your mother’s told me a lot about you.”

  Mom has a…boyfriend? Alva stared at the man a few moments. There was a knock at the front door. Alva’s eyes went glassy and he collapsed to the floor.

  Saturday, 7:48 p.m.

  Alva’s mom closed the front door as their guests walked down the driveway to their cars. “David,” she said to him. “Sit down.”

  He took a seat at the kitchen table. “I know. We need to talk.”

  “You’ve got that right.” She sat across from him. “What’s going on here? What happened to your face? Why was Frank over here thinking we were going on a date? And why have you been sneaking around so much lately?”

  Thoughts tumbled around Alva’s brain like clothes in the dryer. The Love Machine. The basketball players. The personals ad. And now Tony. Oh my God. Where do I even start?

  “I…well, I…there were these…” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know!”

  “David, does all this have anything to do with one of your inventions?”

  Alva didn’t say anything.

  “I got it on the first guess, didn’t I?” She put a hand on his arm. “Just start at the beginning and take it slowly, okay?”

  Alva steepled his fingers under his chin and spoke.

  “Mom, do you remember that time we had a mouse in the basement, and I invented that mousetrap that used soundwaves to attract it?”

  His mom smiled. “Sure, you used ultrasonic frequencies, right? To sound like other mice were calling it.”

  “Only, we woke up in the morning, and there were about a hundred mice in the trap! Every mouse in the neighborhood had come into our house.”

  �
��Yes, and before we only had to get rid of one mouse, but how do we get rid of a hundred mice?” His mom laughed. “Please tell me you haven’t invented another mousetrap.”

  “Not exactly,” Alva said. “More like a girl trap. Or for girls, a guy trap.”

  His mom straightened in her chair, her expression sobered. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a…love machine. It stimulates the amygdala and makes somebody fall in love with you, at least for a few hours.”

  “Oh, David. That’s a terrible invention.”

  “Yeah, I realize that now.”

  His mother held her fingers over her mouth. “I sure hope you weren’t intending to use the Love Machine on me tonight.”

  “No! Of course not! I…was planning to use it on Frank. Before your date started.”

  “You were WHAT?”

  “You know, to make sure your date went well.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So you don’t think I can go on a date without some help?”

  “No, Mom! Of course you can. It’s just… I know it’s hard to date at your age—”

  “I’m not an elderly lady, David.”

  “No!” Alva protested. “I don’t mean because of how old you are, but because of your situation. I mean, you have to work so many weekends. And you have me at home. I can’t imagine a lot of guys want to date a woman with a kid, right?”

  “Well, you have a point….”

  “But I know how great you are, and beautiful and everything, and so I thought if I could just make Frank fall in love with you at the beginning, then later when he recovered from the Love Machine, he would still be in love, only for real in love, because he’d seen everything in you that I see.”

  His mom exhaled forcefully. “Okay, that’s sweet of you, David, if a little creepy. But I’m only going to say this once: I do not need your help in my dating life. Got it?”

  “Okay.” Alva looked away. “But you haven’t dated since Dad… you know. And I know you must be lonely.”

  “Maybe this is partly my fault.” His mom sighed. “I’ve actually been dating Tony for about three months. I wasn’t sure you were ready to handle the news before. I was going to tell you this evening, since I thought you had a date night for us planned. I thought we could talk about it together. But I see I waited too long. Maybe I should have trusted you more.”

  “It might have made things a little easier tonight.”

  She covered his hand with hers. “Listen. I want you to destroy that Love Machine as soon as possible. No good can from an invention like that.”

  “That’s kind of another part of the problem,” Alva said. “I lost it. And I found out today who has it, but as you can see from my face, they didn’t want to give it back.”

  His mom paled. “I’ll call their parents right now. Just tell me who did this to you.”

  “No, Mom!”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll…I’ll take care of it,” Alva said. “It would be embarrassing to have my mom do it for me. I’d never live it down.”

  “This is more important than your pride, David. Somebody could get hurt.” She stood up and reached for the phone.

  “Wait, Mom! Didn’t you just say you should trust me more? I can handle this.”

  “Well.” She stopped to think a moment. “You’re right about that. I did say I should trust you more.” She drummed her fingers. “Does the person who took it know how it works?”

  “I don’t think so,” Alva said. Not technically a lie, despite the incidents at school. The basketball players surely had no idea of the principles behind the machine, beyond pushing the button. Alva decided it would be better to forego mentioning that they already had used it. And that the machine’s effect field was widening, as well. His mom was worried enough as it was.

  “Oh, oh, David. What are we going to do about this? Can’t you invent something to counteract it?”

  “Maybe, but what good what that do?”

  “So you could stop it from working!”

  “Mom. I’d have to be in the same place as the Love Machine to counteract it, and obviously I can’t do that if I don’t know exactly where it is.”

  “Okay. We’ve got to get that Love Machine back as soon as we can,” she said. “You don’t think I should call their parents. So how do you propose we get it?”

  “Let me talk to my friends. We might be able to figure out a way.”

  “Okay. I’m very skeptical here, David. But I’m going to give you one week before I start making phone calls. And I want to be clear, do nothing that gets you or anybody else beat up, including whoever took it. Yes, ma’am?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Alva said.

  Saturday, 7:55 p.m.

  Barrow opened the front door to the condo as quietly as he could. He could hear ice clinking in glasses and laughter from the living room, jazz playing on the stereo. Things looked promising for just heading up to his room with no one noticing. He carefully put his foot on the first stair.

  “Andrew? Is that you?” his mom called.

  Damn. “Yeah, Mom. I’m just going up to my room.”

  “No, come out and meet the guests first. Don’t be anti-social!”

  Barrow sighed and walked through the kitchen, hovering in the living room doorway. The room reeked of shrimp cocktail and alcohol. His mom looked up from where she was chatting with an overweight lady in a floral print dress by the open sliding glass door and waved him over. His dad was talking with a bald fellow out on the balcony. Everybody had highball glasses in their hands.

  “Cynthia, this is my son, Andrew. Andrew, this is Mrs. Shaughnessy.”

  Barrow held out his hand and Mrs. Shaughnessy took it with both of hers. The smell of foundation and hairspray wafted over him. “Oh, he’s tall, and so handsome, too. You must get your height from your father. What grade are you in, Andrew?”

  “Eleventh grade.”

  “Eleventh grade. What a fun year. Must be almost prom time.”

  Barrow smiled wanly at her but didn’t say anything.

  “Go on out and introduce yourself to Mr. Shaughnessy,” his mom said.

  Before Barrow could step out, his dad was already at the sliding door, waving a lit cigar and booming at him. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a movie tonight. It’s not already over, is it?”

  “No,” Barrow said. “My stomach was hurting so I came home.”

  “Henry, don’t come in here with that stinky thing,” his mom said.

  Barrow’s dad waved her away, smoke trailing behind his hand. “Your stomach hurts. You eat too much popcorn or something?”

  “No, not that,” Barrow said.

  “What then? You coming down with something?”

  His mom wrung her hands. “Oh, honey, let me get you an aspirin.”

  “No thanks, Mom,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, why don’t you go watch your movie then?” his dad said.

  Barrow licked his lips. “I just…I got in a little fight with some kids at the theater.”

  “What?” his mom said. “Are you okay? Henry, he got in a fight!”

  “I hope you popped him one,” his dad said, draining the orange-brown liquid from his glass.

  “I didn’t really get the chance,” Barrow said. “I’m okay. I just want to go up to my room now.”

  “It’s because word’s gotten around that you’ve decided to be a sissy, isn’t it?” his dad said. He elbowed Mr. Shaughnessy in the ribs. “See Jim, it’s just like I was telling you earlier. I saw this coming from a mile away.”

  “Henry, leave the boy alone!” his mom said.

  “Deborah, he’s got to learn it now. If he’s going to choose a sissy lifestyle, he shouldn’t be surprised if he gets the shit beat out of him. Isn’t that right, Jim?”

  Mr. Shaughnessy shrugged a bit, looking distinctly like he didn’t want to take sides. “It can happen.”

  “Of course it can. It’s what boys that age naturally do. Can’t le
t ’em smell weakness. Like hyenas.” He guffawed at his own joke and picked up a scotch bottle from the sideboard.

  “A handsome young man like you, I can hardly believe it,” Mrs. Shaughnessy said. “Couldn’t you just try to like girls? We’re not so bad, you know.”

  “I have tried,” Barrow said softly.

  “Try harder,” his dad said without turning, refilling his glass.

  “I’m going to go to my room now,” Barrow said, trying to keep his voice under control.

  “I’ll come up later with some aspirin, okay honey?” his mom said.

  Barrow turned and fled through the kitchen. He could feel the hot tears on his cheeks as he ran up the stairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Saturday, 8:12 p.m.

  Alcie’s fingers spread over the piano keyboard, every key press precisely executed, each note crisp and clear throughout the complicated crescendos and cascades of notes. Which only made the single flubbed note that much more apparent.

  “Damn it!” Alcie’s erect posture deflated as she fought back a wave of self-loathing.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply several times before straightening and starting the passage again. And flubbed the same note.

  “God damn it, Alcie, you idiot!”

  “Alcie!” said her stepmother from the doorway.

  Alcie jumped and turned on the piano stool. “Carol, I didn’t know you were there.”

  “I just came to see how many times I’d get to hear that bit. What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s called Liebesleid. I can’t get this one part where you have to cross your hands to play all these arpeggios one after the other. I keep missing it.”

  Carol smiled at her. “It’s okay to miss a note now and then, Little Miss Perfect. Maybe you should take a break and try again later?”

  “No!”

  Carol raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

  Alcie gritted her teeth. “It’s not okay to miss a note! I should be able to do this. I can’t stop now, when it’s not right. I have to keep going until it works out perfectly through the end.”

  Carol came to the piano bench and put a hand on Alcie’s shoulder. “Oh, honey. It’s okay to make a mistake, you know. Why don’t you play the piece one more time, and even if you miss that one note, go ahead and finish it.”