art by Becky of Estrigious.com
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"You know who else piss me off?" Elizabeth asks, still laying in the grass. "Nope." "Substance abusing idiots. Have you ever had to hang around somebody who's drunk? I just want to lay them face down in a creek and have it be over with." "I'm pretty sure they could roll over." "That's why I'd stand on their heads." "Ah." "If you want to get all fucked up then fine, go sniff gasoline or grind cocaine into your eye or something, but when you do it around other people and expect them to look after you, then fuck that. And the way that drunkenness is used as a legal defense; I think any law you break while drunk should automatically carry a double sentence." "Yeah, nothing like a little zero tolerance to lighten up the day." Liam puts his hands behind his head and says, "You know, it might do you some good to get high once in awhile." She sits up and looks straight at him. "Fuck off." "Really. I mean, I haven't gotten high that often, but it sure never hurt." She pulls her legs against her chest and rests her chin on her knees. "I dunno... I kinda wonder sometimes if I'm missing anything by shunning drugs. I think a big reason I don't do them is because so many people do, and the people I know who do certainly don't seem any better off. It'd be different if I'd discovered drugs, like if I'd invented LSD. I'd probably use it all the time, I'd do everything I could to learn about it, it'd be the coolest thing in the world. But now, the hell with it. Everybody else does it, there'd be nothing special about being just another drop in the bucket of casual drug users. "But I don't think drugs are what I need," she continues. "When I feel really good about things, like everything's all right and I've got everything under control, it's because I've thought about things, I've come up with new ideas, I've solved things for myself. I don't think any drug could give me that sense of well-being, because with drugs it's just more escape. Things are okay for awhile, but then it wears off and you're back where you started. There's no appreciable progression, no growth that doesn't come from your own mind. "In a lot of cases it just confuses me; of the people I know who do drugs, or drink, or even just smoke, it all seems to come back to how directionless they are. I'm not saying that because I don't do any of that stuff I have it all figured out, everybody's got some confusion about the world, but if you're just a bit unsure about things you might say hell, why not smoke cigarettes, or drink occasionally? And if you're really confused you might decide that getting completely piss drunk is a reasonable move, since you've got no clue what else to do with yourself. And if you're totally without direction, no inner guiding force, no vision at all of where your life could go or what overall meaning it could have, then it doesn't seem so weird to get your hands on some drugs and get bombed out of your skull. When you come out of it you're still adrift, so you go back inside. You've got nowhere else to go. It's like in Fight Club – you can get the job, you can be successful, you can achieve everything society tells you to achieve, and it still might not mean anything. What's being offered isn't worth having, so you have to be strong enough to find your own way. And if you can't, the options for burying yourself are staggering.
Well burn motherfucker, burn american dreams / The highway up to heaven's got a crook on the toll / Youth full of fire ain't got nowhere to go." His eyes widen slightly, and he says, "You're the last person I expected to hear break into a spontaneous rhyme." She grins a little sheepishly. "I've got skills," she says with a shrug.
The cafeteria has more or less returned to normal after Jennifer and Jessica's exit; Hillary turns to Lindsey and asks, "What the hell was that all about?" "Well, you know how Jessica hates Cantrell; she's always talking about how she wants to get her fired," Lindsey says. "Right." "Well, lately we decided to really do it. We've got lists of her infractions, accounts of her misconduct, people lined up for testimony, a petition... as soon as Jessica says the word for us to take it to the office there's a whole pile of shit ready to rain down. But she doesn't seem to think the time's right yet, so lately she's been doing stuff just to piss Cantrell off. And... I guess it worked." Hillary scrunches her face a little. "Is Cantrell really that bad?" "I sure won't miss her. And if her grave wasn't already dug, it sure is now. Everybody saw her pull Jess out of here." "Yeah." Hillary glances in the direction the two of them had left by. "That was definitely unorthodox..." Evan turns his head and says, "It could be tough to get her fired. She's a very attractive woman." Lindsey sneers at him. "Shut up."
"And some people aren't covert about it at all," Elizabeth says, still laying in the grass, looking up at the sky with her hands behind her head. "The ideal man would be egoless, and would live only for the sake of his brothers. I mean jesus, how can anybody fall for that? Don't they have any sense of self-worth? If we're all here for no reason but to help everybody else, then what's the point of an individual life? Where are all the people who don't want help? The equation is so stupid at its very basest level that I just can't believe it. Every time I hear somebody talk about the virtue of selflessness it chills my blood." Liam smirks. "Angst level... rising..." "Shut up, this is serious." He rolls his eyes to the side and shifts slightly, resting an arm against the back of the bench. "All the bullshit of the world doesn't just piss me off because of how it's given me problems, though. What really makes it bad," she says, "is that I know how many kids it's fucked up and how many it's going to fuck up – it amplifies things from personal annoyance into worldwide affliction. If I can see the problems, then why can't other people? Why do they end up perpetuating them for their whole lives? Like that school we go to; I could write a book about all the problems with that place. If they can't be bothered to make a genuine attempt to fix it, then why don't they just bulldoze the whole fucking place into the ground? We'd all be better off." She's silent for a few moments, the two of them staring idly into the sky. "I wish it would rain," she says. "I wish I could control the weather." She closes her eyes and bangs her head lightly against the grass. "This morning I didn't want it to rain. I was happy that it was sunny. I don't feel bad now, I just feel... plain." She rests her hands on her stomach. "Like I'm empty. And from here I could go down so easily..." He glances at her. "Maybe you're just hungry." She pauses. "Well, yeah, I am." "Great, then let's go to the coffee shop. There's this really cute girl who works there." She exhales. "Great." "When I'm feeling down nothing quite cheers me up like the idea of two women having sex." She stands up and brushes some stray grass from her jeans. "What's that have to do with anything?" He walks over to her and picks a blade of grass from between her shoulder blades. "I'm hoping that once you see her you'll become smitten and... you know." "Have sex with her?" "Yes." She stretches and says, "I keep telling you, I don't find girls attractive." "And I keep telling you, you fly boys crack me up!" She raises an eyebrow at him and he says, "Sorry, that just slipped out. But I don't buy that you don't like girls. You have to be attracted to them in some capacity." "Why? Are you attracted to boys?" "Not as a rule, no. But every rule has at least one exception." She shrugs. "So you go make out with some boy and then I'll see what I can do." "Seriously? 'Cause I'll do it." "Look," she says, beginning to walk. "If you want my permission to go have homosexual adventures, just ask." "Why? You'd let me?" "No." "Well, okay then... Y'know, I think this conversation is starting to get severely off track." She gives him a small grin. "Let me tell you about some issues I've got with groups, then." He smiles. "Fire away."
So we've got these new muffins, which means more work for the muffin guys and less work for the donut guys, which is fine by me. The fewer donuts we have around here the happier I am. Did you know those things are almost 40% grease? It's disgusting. So I was glad to see these new muffins. At first I thought they were really good, I ate one every day, but their tastiness is starting to wear off. They'll probably be gone in a few weeks. I'm filling up the iced tea machine when some guy interrupts me, so I don't quite finish; people'll be getting three cents worth of powder in their drinks instead of six, but I doubt anyone'll notice. That's the worst thing about this job, there's hardly ever any time to relax. Always on my feet, double double, double double, triple triple. All day long, motherfucker. I don't know how it is that people like coffee this much. But really, I don't mind it. The hardest part was getting used to the radio, but with that I found the best thing to do was to just give in. It wasn't going anywhere and there was no way to ignore it, so I had to embrace it. I learned all the words to all the popular songs and now I sing along to them. It doesn't matter that I don't really like them or that I wouldn't listen to them under normal circumstances, because I'm at work. Work's neutral. Just gotta do what you can to pass the time. It's like sacrificing a small piece of sanity for the greater mental good. At first the songs bugged me; hearing the same stuff day in and day out was starting to fray my nerves a little, as much as I tried to get into them. But it was only a matter of time before I found that I didn't mind them, and then that I even kinda liked them. I just had to break down that barrier in my mind that was telling me "this is bad music". Once you get past that you've got a uniform beat, you've got words that rhyme, music is music. It's really fairly easy to make peace with it. But when I'm not at work I stay away from radios. I don't watch music video stations, either. It's not that I'm trying to avoid popular culture, I've really got nothing against the mainstream, I just have to keep away from the very forefront, the most popular of the popular. Especially with music, just because it's played so much – over and over incessantly for weeks, then gone, never to be heard from again while a near-identical song takes its place. People can't watch the same movie fifty times, they can't watch the same episode of a show over and over without getting sick of it, but music, no problem. A popular song gets played millions and millions and millions of times, to make sure that everybody on the planet is absolutely sure they've heard it enough times, and then they finally let it go. I think that's my only complaint with popular culture: It doesn't move fast enough. If you're gonna be here today and gone tomorrow, then be gone tomorrow. Don't hang around until everybody wants to behead you and piss on your grave. But I guess they can't really help it. As long as somebody out there's still nodding their head to it, DJ-A-Matic 3000 is gonna keep spinning your record. So since I only hear them at work, the top 40 become my work songs, just there to glide me through the day. The only time it's annoying anymore is when I hear the stuff in a mall, or when I'm waiting for a movie to start, 'cause it makes me feel like I'm at work. I think the part people like isn't hearing the same song over and over for the sake of the song, but more because they like that familiar net following them around, always comfortable, nothing overly new to shake them up. And I guess if that's what they want there's nothing wrong with it. It's when they start picking up CDs so they can listen to their favorite radio hits at home that it's just too much. I mean, they're on the radio all day already... Enjoy the society we live in, hell, even embrace it, but don't choke yourself on it. You can't go with the flow all the time. When you've got your own personal time, the part of your day when you can do anything you want, and you spend it listening to radio music, handing it over to the same sugar coated stuff you've been absorbing all day anyway... that's just weird. But if that's what they wanna do it's none of my business. Like if they really wanna fill out their coffee cards every time they come in just so they don't have to pay for every eighth coffee, that's fine. It's actually kind of sobering, seeing them squinting at their cards all day, determining how far they have to go until their next freebie. You've gotta keep your distance, watch them from the other side of the counter, like a sociology project. And I admit that it's kinda tough to keep smiling at everyone after awhile, but if you sing along to the radio and don't pay any more attention to the customers than you have to it's really not so hard. And after awhile my (possibly excessive) singing started rubbing off on people, and depending on who's on staff that day you might walk into this place and find everybody singing along. There are those few guys who just won't get into the groove, but for the most part it's become one sing-a-riffic workplace. It kinda catches people off guard, walking into a place and finding the workers actually enjoying themselves somewhat, instead of the semi-depressed drudgery you get at most places. Maybe things would have ended up like this anyway, but I like to think that I had some kind of positive effect on the place. Not the most glamorous job in the world, but I'll only be here another six months or so. Part of it is to take some time to clear my head before I start college, but also I didn't want to ask my parents to cover the entire bill. They could have, but it would have been tight, and I'd rather have some kind of head start on my debts. So I got this job, and it's really amazing how much money you can save as long as you're not paying any bills. Living at home, putting 90% of my paycheck in the bank, I've built up a pretty nice sum. By the time I get out of here I'll be all set. And then, if all goes according to plan, there'll be no more working in coffee shops for me. Things have slowed down a little and I'm singing along to some song I don't know the name of but I know all the words to when I see the guy walk in. I remember seeing him before, and I smile to myself. You'd think with all the people coming through here every day there'd be a decent number of cute guys, but that's definitely not the case. Lots of old people, like forty year olds. They each buy a coffee, then sit around talking for as long as they can before we have to kick 'em out or make them buy another coffee. But this guy looks good. I notice he has a girl with him, and she doesn't look particularly pleased with him as he walks straight to the counter. "Hi!" I say with a smile. "What can I get you?" "I'll have a half-dozen cookies, any kind. And a root beer." I take a moment to get his stuff with my super-trained counter efficiency, then turn to the girl. "Can I get you anything?" "I'll have a cinnamon bun," she says. I get her one and ask, "Anything else?" "No, that's fine," the boy says, handing me some cash. "Thank you, Caitlin." I glance down at my nametag and frown slightly as I hand him his change. "It's Kat; they made me use my full name." "Then thank you, Kat," he says, and we smile at each other for a moment before the girl turns to go to a table. He gives me a parting nod and turns to go with her, and he gives her a sort of nudge with his elbow, which she ignores. Kind of strange... but my attention gets drawn away by someone else coming up to the counter. "Hi, what can I get for you?"
Liam eats one of his cookies with a smile. "Didn't I tell you she was cute?" Taking a sip of his pop, Elizabeth says, "Yeah, she's alright." "She's just got that spark. You know, that look that makes her stand out..." "Placing an awful lot of stock in the physical side, aren't you?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. "Hey, it's not like I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Just looking for somebody cute to buy food from." "Yeah." She takes one of his cookies, then glances over his shoulder. "Hey, I think she's looking at you." "Really?" He turns around and is disappointed to see her merely dealing with a customer. Elizabeth laughs. "You're such a sucker." He grins as he settles back into his chair. "How old do you think she is? She looks about our age." "Beats me. I don't remember seeing her at school. You'll have to ask her next time you're on flirt patrol." "Ah, forget about her," he says, waving her away. "This was obviously a failure, but I've got another chick at the bank to show you after this. I'm going to break through to your inner lesbian yet." "And what would you do if I hooked up with one of these chicks and never talked to you again?" "I think I'd be kinda proud. In a stupid way." She nods and takes another drink of his pop, then glances toward the ceiling. "They play some really bad music here," she notes. "Yeah, no kidding. It's too bad we don't get some better radio stations in this town. I heard an old Finger Eleven song on the radio at the sub place the other day and it was great. It really changes the whole atmosphere just to have a good song playing." "Finger Eleven? Never heard of them." "They've got this song Above that used to get played quite a bit when I was living in Canada. They've got all these canadian content requirements up there, so you hear all kinds of stuff that you don't hear around here. It's a really great song, and it's all about how messed up religious people are for looking up to heaven instead of looking to themselves. We're strong but we're dumb. I'll lend you the CD when we get to my house." "We're going to your house?" "Yeah." He smiles. "It occurred to me that you've never met my parents. And you know, my mom's pretty hot..." "Okay, stop right there. Now you're just getting disgusting." "Hey, at least I'm not trying to hook you up with my dad." He takes a bite from one of his cookies and glances around. "You know, if I was in a band, I think I'd rather be known only within a certain area than be worldwide famous. After a point it just gets creepy. There's an acoustic version of that Abba song Knowing Me, Knowing You by Evan Dando that I used to listen to a lot, and I'd never heard the Abba version in my life, but no matter where I was people would always say, "Man, that's an Abba song!" Everybody knew it, no exceptions. That's just creepy. Who'd wanna be that known by such a random cross-section of people?" She nods as she picks at her cinnamon bun. "I always figured if I could just make enough money doing something to support myself, that'd be fame enough. Like my mom. She's got her fans, but most people have never heard of her. She's famous enough to keep us clothed and sheltered, and that's about it. The perfect level of fame." He eats his last cookie, then glances at her. "You know, we should start a band." "Why, can you play anything?" "Nah, but there's plenty of time to learn. Did you know Chuck D didn't start Public Enemy until he was like 28? Supposedly it didn't even occur to him to be a rapper before then. I always liked that story, it's good to know that just because you don't blast out of the starting gate you can still have an effect on things. And the Misfits, man, those guys are pushing forty and they're one of the best bands on the earth. I still don't like the idea of getting old, but it's good to know that it's not the unstoppable impediment most people make it out to be." "Yeah, I know what you mean," she says, finishing his pop. "Nathaniel Branden didn't publish his first book until he was about forty. He had this whole other life before then, and it was important to the things he wrote later, but things didn't really kick into gear until his life was half over. Because, really, he still had half of his life to go. I read things he wrote when he was sixty and he sounds young, you can tell he doesn't think of himself as old. It seems like most people just stop moving forward after a certain point, and spend the rest of their lives coasting." She smiles. "Not me, though. I'm gonna be rattling cages and freaking out squares until I'm an old lady." He laughs. "Ah, Elizabeth, you'll bury us all!" They pause for a moment. "What the hell was that?" she asks. "That was the cue for the laugh track. But, uh, I don't have one." "Thank god for that," she says, giving him an odd look as she stands up. "C'mon, let's get out of here."
Jessica walks into the cafeteria, people turning to watch her as she returns to her table. Once they deduce that she has no visible injuries they turn back to their respective conversations, and she sits down next to Lindsey. Evan lazily asks, "So what happened?" "She yelled at me," Jessica answers matter of factly. "Does she know about the car?" Lindsey asks. Jessica raises a finger angrily to her lips and says, "Shh!" She then regains her calm composure and says, "Yes, but she can't prove it, so it's okay. And we've got the final nail for her coffin now." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small tape recorder. She rewinds it, then presses play.
"We need to talk, Jessica She clicks the tape recorder off, and Lindsey's mouth moves into a slow smile. "Alright! We're gonna put that bitch on ice!" Lindsey and Jessica exchange a high five as Hillary glances at Evan. The bell rings, signifying the end of lunch; he shrugs and stands up to go to class.
Evan strolls into class and glances around. The desks are placed in twos, as usual. He hates that. It wouldn't be so bad if he were paired with someone interesting, some handsome boy, someone worthy of his time. Instead he's stuck with considerably less, a slouched, frightened kid who always looks like he's waiting to be slapped. Evan considers the idea, glancing down at his hand; he could walk over and slap that boy across the face and there would likely be no repercussions. Just acceptance of his place as whipping boy of the world. Slapping him would certainly make things a little more interesting, but there are certain rules: No matter how much someone wants you to kick them down, no matter how much they want you to abuse them, you really can't do it. Not in public, anyway. He walks over and drops his bookbag, trying to remember the boy's name... Sylvan? Stephan? No, it's something plain, ordinary. Steven. And he looks particularly depressed today, his head on his arm, staring forlornly at the floor. Evan takes his seat beside him and watches him blankly for a moment, then turns away as he asks, "So what's the matter with you?" Steven glances at him. "Not something you'd have any problem with." He puts his head back on his arms. "Girl trouble." Evan raises an eyebrow. "How do you mean, that I'd have no problem with?" "Well, look at you," Steven answers, gesturing vaguely in his direction. "You look good. You look... handsome. That just fixes everything, it makes things fall into place." Evan smiles. "Why thank you. And it's true," he adds, leaning closer and dropping his voice slightly. "You are a very ugly boy." Steven sighs. "Yeah, thanks." Evan leans back in his chair, feeling pleased with himself. "So what's your trouble? Don't have the courage to ask her on a date? She doesn't like you? She has a boyfriend?" "Well... all of them." "Count yourself lucky." Evan leans forward and crosses his elbows on his desk. "Not everyone has such a challenge to face themselves against. It's good to have a goal, an infatuation powerful enough to see you through to the end, to spurn you toward great achievement. Not everybody can find one. How strongly do you feel for this girl?" "I love her," Steven says, burying himself more deeply into his arms. "More than anything." Evan winces. "No you don't. But that's a good start – you need a beacon, something to draw you through uncomfortable situations and urge you into actions you wouldn't otherwise take. Your desire to have her is a powerful potential, if you use it right. Don't fight it, go with it. Let it pull you along. It knows what you want better than you do." Steven doesn't move, his face remaining blank, so Evan leans toward him slightly. "I'm doubting you, Steven. Just how badly do you really want to fuck her?" "What?" Steven pulls away, blushing. "I don't want to... fuck her, I want to be with her. I want her to be my girlfriend," he finishes quietly. "And what happens after that? After you get together, after the climactic embrace, after the vows of eternal adoration, the next step is to fuck, isn't it? You kiss, you hug, you get naked and you fuck like animals." Evan glances at him. "You might not want to acknowledge it, but you know it's part of the plan. So don't lie about it. You know what your problem is?" Steven raises a hand and says, "Just stop, please. People are always telling me what's wrong with me. Like everybody knows me better than myself. It's annoying." "If you know what's wrong with you, then change it! Look at you! You make me want to just hit you." Evan pauses, regaining his composure, then says, "I hardly even know you, but you give off a vibe of complete victimhood. It's very unappealing. And people talk about you like they know everything about you because you're pathetically easy to read. For example, I know exactly what you're doing now: You're acting like the thing between you and this girl is already over, like you're living in the future and she's already a lost opportunity. But the truth is that you're in the thick of it right now, this is when you determine the direction of your future. Don't treat it as a foregone conclusion. It's still within your means to change things." He whispers, "You could still fuck that girl." Steven looks at him tiredly. "She has a boyfriend." He rolls his eyes. "Please. That's nothing. All you have to do is make yourself more appealing than him and she'll turn soon enough. Who's your opponent, some chess club rival? Does she seem particularly interested in him?" "I don't know... some days yes, some days... Well, she's always with him. Whether she really likes him or not, she's attached." "You could always arrange to have him break up with her. These things aren't that hard to do. You just have to be sure that as far as they know, you have nothing to do with it. Then you just step in." Steven frowns slightly. "So where did this motivational speech come from? You've barely said two words to me since you got to this school." "Well, this is school, isn't it? You might as well learn something while you're here." Evan pauses for a moment, then says, "The reason I never talked to you is that you're boring. People know it as soon as they see you. They've got nothing to gain by talking to you but the possibility of you taking a liking to them and following them around everywhere. I don't know how I know, but I know, and everyone else does too. So people avoid you." He grins smugly to himself. "On the plus side, you're far from the only one. People like you are all over the place." "Why are you talking to me just to insult me? Why do people do that? Why don't you just stay quiet?" "It feels good to smack you around a little," Evan answers, putting his hands behind his head. "It's the feeling of identifying things as they really are, of asserting reality by saying things people don't want to hear even though they're true. It wouldn't be the same if I was lying to you, then I'd just be an asshole. But laying things out straight, letting the truth be known, it always makes me feel good. Even if you don't want to hear it. Hell, especially if you don't want to hear it." Steven snorts at him. "That's great." "You should try it. The only downside is that people may not like you, but that's hardly a legitimate detriment." He glances at Steven. "So who's this Adonis that your glum expression doesn't seem to think it can defeat?" "His name's Liam. Liam Scott." "Liam..." Evan laughs. "You're talking about that girl Elizabeth? Oh, forget it. You have no chance." "You know her?" "I've only met her once, when she came to get Liam at badminton practice, but that's enough to know that you should shoot lower. It's a truly lost cause, kid." Steven turns on him with a hard stare. "How old are you?" Pausing for a moment, Evan says, "Sixteen." "I'm a year older than you and you're calling me kid! What are we even doing in the same class?" "I skipped a grade." The bell rings to signify the start of class, but no teacher is present, so the students continue their respective conversations. "I just really don't think there's any hope," Evan says. "Let's just say she didn't seem like your type. At all." "Well, thanks for the myriad of tips." "No problem. Don't worry about Liam, though. I'm gonna get him out of there. Surgical strike, bring the troops home alive." "What?" Evan waves him away and stares at the ceiling for a moment, then stands up and takes his bookbag before walking out of the room. Steven watches him quizzically, then opens his books. In the hallway Evan passes his teacher but doesn't make eye contact. He continues down the hallway to Hillary's class and knocks on the door. The teacher acknowledges him. "Mr. Ennis asked to see me and Hillary in the gym." At the teachers questioning glance he adds, "We'll only be gone for about fifteen minutes." "Very well." The teacher turns back to the class as Hillary leaves her books and walks toward Evan, a little confused, but smiling.
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