“What are you doing in here?” I said.
“Masturbating,” she said. “Can’t you see?”
“I can’t see much,” I said, peering through the opening in the door.
“Too bad. You’re missing quite a show.”
I stood there, my head almost in the opening.
“Okay, Jesus,” she said. “Come in for a minute if you’re just going to stand around out there all pitiful.”
I stepped into the room. The floor was covered in thick white carpeting. Hanging from the ceiling was a string of lights shaped like chili peppers. And the walls were every bit as crowded as Jared’s only instead of tattooed musicians there were pictures of men in various states of undress. One lean guy seemed to be pouring a bucket of milk on himself. I felt a chilly breeze over my sweaty arms and looked at the window by the bed. It was open a foot or so. The shade rippled in the wind.
“Did you ever get in trouble with Janice after that night at the church?” I asked.
“Nope,” she said in a monotone. “Did you?”
“No.”
“I guess it’s the fires of hell for us,” she said.
She sat up in bed and looked me over.
“What’s the deal with you, anyway?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Why are you so weird? Why do you look like that? Do you ever wear anything else?”
She pointed at my flannel.
“I suppose I have a lot of similar shirts,” I said.
She pulled up the shade of the window and looked outside. The neighborhood was quiet as usual. Only the sound of traffic a few streets over came into the room. I could feel the warmth from the alcohol pulsing through me.
“Are you waiting for someone?” I asked.
She flipped right around and stared at me.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Why would you say that, then?”
“I don’t know, you were just looking like . . .”
“God!” she interrupted. “The word ‘privacy’ means exactly dick around here. I know Jared’s listening to my calls somehow. He probably has some kind of spy kit to ruin my life with.”
She gave one more glance out the window and then shut the shade again.
“Why are you so mean to your brother?” I asked.
“What did you just ask me?”
“Why are you so mean to him? He’s your family. And he’s . . . sick. Don’t you understand that?”
I could tell the piney alcohol was loosening my tongue. The words were coming before I properly thought them through. Meredith sprang off the bed and walked slowly across the carpet to me. Then she got so close to me that I could smell her vanilla perfume. She gave me a shove. I wasn’t expecting it, and I almost toppled over.
“Listen, you chode,” she said. “Maybe if you knew anything about anything you wouldn’t have to ask such stupid questions.”
“I see the way you treat him,” I said.
I braced myself for another push, but it didn’t come. Meredith just looked me right in the eyes. “I know you think you’re king of the universe because you have this oddball life and my brother thinks you’re funny, but I’ve lived with him for sixteen years and you’ve known him for weeks.”
“What are you saying?”
“I piss him off because that’s what he likes,” she said.
I watched her closely.
“I piss him off because that’s how it’s always been and if I started being his best friend he’d know it was because of the operation, and he would hate me even more. You get it? I play my part and it makes him think that something is still normal around here.”
“He likes to be angry?”
“Have you ever spent time with him?” she asked.
“Okay,” I conceded, “maybe sometimes.”
“So don’t tell me,” she said, “don’t come in here and tell me that I’m making things worse for him because it’s not true. My mom treats him like a five-year-old, and I know that’s not right. My dad is never home, and I know that’s not right. So I’m trying something different. I’m treating him like the irritating little shit that he is.”
Her face was flushed now, and I could see her eyes were watering a little.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She was still right in front of me. It was the closest we’d ever been, not counting when her mouth was by my ear in the van.
“It’s okay . . .” she said.
Then she leaned in closer and my heart suddenly felt like it might explode. But she was only smelling my breath. “Have you been . . . drinking?” she asked, perplexed. “What’s wrong with your lips?”
“Bombay Sapphire and grape drink,” I said.
She looked at me in disbelief.
“Do strangers really come through your window . . . to have
experiences
with you?” I asked.
Meredith didn’t speak. She just stood transfixed in front of me. Then we heard Jared clear his throat right behind us.
“What in the hell is going on here?” he asked.
I turned around and saw him leaning against the door. His glance bounced back and forth from Meredith to me.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Your friend came in here to bother me,” said Meredith.
Jared walked out of the room before I had a chance to speak again. Meredith and I both watched out the door as he disappeared from sight. From up the stairs we could barely hear his voice. “Janice is home,” he said.
There was a short pause.
“And she doesn’t want you biking home this late. She says you’re staying over.”
16.
The Complexities of Physical Reality
EVERY LOCATION ON THE PLANET MAKES ONE REVOLUTION a day, no matter where you live. Nana taught me that when I was barely old enough to understand it. Whether you reside in Antarctica, North Branch, or somewhere outside town in a dome, the same process applies. One day per revolution. Twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four seconds, to be exact. Most people talk about this in terms of “sunrise” and “sunset,” but Fuller hated these words. The idea of the sun rising and setting was one left over from a time when we thought the earth was flat. Modern humans, he thought, should recognize that there is no rise and set, no up and down, only the earth revolving in and out of the sun’s light.
I knew these to be facts. And I knew the days passed the same way everywhere. But I also knew that time seemed to take on different properties at the Whitcombs’ house. It appeared to slow down and speed up at will. It could even stop entirely if Meredith entered a room. And when I finally found myself in Jared’s room that night, I could almost feel the earth slow on its axis.
The whole room was ink black with only the thinnest lines of moonlight shining through the blinds. I was on a rickety cot across the room from Jared. It smelled of detergent and sweat and it creaked whenever I moved. Jared was in his bed, breathing heavily in the darkness. We didn’t speak at first, but I could tell he was awake. He hadn’t said a word to me since he found Meredith and me together.
“If Nana is waiting up for me,” I spoke, finally, “this whole thing is over.”
Jared said nothing for a few seconds. Then I heard his disembodied voice, quiet. “Do you want to know why our band has to be awesome?” he asked.
I looked into the dark, trying to distinguish his facial features. I couldn’t.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “It has to be awesome because I’m alive and talking to you right now.”
“Because you’re alive . . .” I said.
“Because I’m alive and another kid is dead. He died so I could live,” he said. “You get it now?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
Jared sighed.
“It’s like this,” he said. “Once they decided I needed the transplant, we got a beeper. Then we had to wait around for them to beep us when they found a heart. I was on a list. They said it would probably be sixty days or so. But it could be as long as a year.”
My eyes were starting to adjust and I could almost make out his face now. His voice seemed to be coming from all around me.
“It took me a couple of weeks to realize that they were going to call when some other kid croaked. Then I could be saved. That’s the only way it could work. That’s the only way they could get a heart that was the same size. I was waiting for somebody just like me to die.”
“When did they contact you?” I asked.
“It only took a month. They flew the heart in on a plane and drove it to the hospital. It can only be preserved for so many hours.”
“Was it someone your age?”
“Almost exactly,” he said.
“How did he . . . pass away?”
“An accident. Got hit by a car near his school. It was icy, I think. He died that night, and by the morning, my surgery was over. That’s how fast it all happened.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“A little. He was from Minnesota. And he played soccer. His mom wrote me a letter, but I’ve only read it once.”
He paused.
“The thing is, I didn’t think about it much at the time. I was just happy the way it turned out. Some kids wait so long they end up on machines, fighting to live every day until something comes through. I was lucky. But lately, I’ve been thinking about that kid all the time. His name was Matthew. What do I really deserve to have his heart for?”
“You deserve it as much as anyone else.”
“Really?” he said. “What do I do with it? I complain all day and ruin it with cigarettes. And I’m not sure I’ve really ever been happy, even before all this.”
“You used to sing like a girl.”
He laughed. “You’re right. I did that.”
“Maybe you just don’t remember how you felt before.”
“Maybe.”
“I think memory is strange,” I said. “I don’t really remember my parents. I was five. I should have better memories of them, but I don’t.”
“What happened to them?” Jared asked.
“They were commercial archaeologists, flying into Florida. They were on a small plane that went down in a mangrove swamp. Nana never gave me a real explanation about what went wrong with the plane. It just fell out of the sky.”
“And you don’t remember the way they look?”
“Not very clearly. Nana has photographs. We look at them every few years, but she discourages it generally. She doesn’t want us to dwell. She doesn’t want us to get stuck in the past. Her philosophy is a futurist one.”
“That sounds shitty,” he said.
“No,” I said, “Nana wants . . .”
“It’s shitty, Sebastian,” he said, “just trust me on this. Those are pictures of your dead parents. You should be able to look at them whenever you want.”
I thought about the photo album with the red cover. I wasn’t even sure where Nana kept it anymore. It mostly held pictures of my father. My mother was in there, but it had taken Nana a long time to warm to her. So she only came in near the end.
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t fully understand it.”
My eyes had grown accustomed to the light, and I could see Jared facing my cot.
“But Nana has a plan for me,” I said. “I’m not supposed to question her.”
“What’s the plan?”
“It sounds a bit grandiose,” I said.
“For fuck’s sake, Sebastian, just tell me.”
I held my breath a moment.
“I’m going to save humanity,” I said.
Jared didn’t laugh. He just raised his head up and yawned into the dark.
“From what?” he said in a monotone.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I said. “But every human is put here for a purpose. That’s supposed to be mine.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Let me know how that turns out.”
He slumped back down on his pillow, and I could hear him grinding his teeth.
“Listen,” he said. “Let’s get something straight. You’re
my
friend, Sebastian. Not Meredith’s.”
“I understand that.”
“She isn’t friends with guys,” he said. “She uses them or they use her. Or both. I don’t know. And then she never talks to them again. She’s crazy, and I don’t want you talking to her.”
“We were talking about you.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “You don’t have time to chitty-chat with loose women. We have work to do. And you have to save humanity. That’s a lot of shit to get done.”
His voice was shaking slightly. I kept quiet.
“I got the beep, Sebastian,” he said. He rested a palm against his chest. “I got to live and have a band. Matthew from Minnesota didn’t get shit. So it’s got to be a good band, okay? And nobody is going to mess it up or stop it before we get there.”
“All right,” I said.
I looked up at the ceiling. I counted the slivers of moonlight, but didn’t finish.
“What are we going to be called?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jared. His voice was muffled. When I looked over, he was facing the wall. “I’ve been trying like hell to come up with it. But it has to be something you can feel right away, you know? Something that tells people, ‘Watch out, ’cause these guys are coming and when they’re gone, you won’t ever be the same. Your life will be turned on its head!’ ”
“Like the Sex Pistols,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, “exactly.”
The room grew quiet again. But I wasn’t tired. I sat up on the cot. It creaked.
“What about the Dangerous Knives?” I said.
“Is that a real suggestion?” asked Jared.
“Sure.”
“No cutlery,” he said.
He was silent a few seconds, but I could almost hear the gears starting to turn in his head. “How about The Total A-holes?” he said.
“Too much,” I said.
“You’re right,” he said, “Janice probably wouldn’t buy me any more guitar stuff with a name like that.”
“What about the Church Bandits?” I said.
“We’re not cowboys.”
He paused. “How about the Exploding Faces?”
“How does a face explode?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Like from a missile. There are no wrong answers in brainstorming, asshole.”