Futureproof (5 page)

“Please fuck me, Luke,” a voice says. “Please fuck me. I need you to do this for me. Please fuck me. Please, Luke. Please.”

I'm still drunk and my eyes won't focus.

“I need you to fuck me.”

“Who? What do you want?”

Then she leans in close to my face and I can smell her cigarette-stale breath.

“C'mon. You're my boyfriend. You've gotta do this for me.”

“Michelle? I can't do it. I'm too fucked up. Please. I promise I'll be there for you tomorrow. I have to sleep now.”

She kisses me deep. I taste plastic.

“What's in your mouth?”

“The coke baggie.”

“Why?”

“I had to make sure I got it all.”

We look at each other for a moment. She can't keep her eyes on me for more than a half second at a time.

“I feel like hell and only your dick in me will make it better.”

“OK.” I tell myself I can muster the stamina, the centered mind needed for this. “OK…where can we go?”

“Right here.”

“No way! There's people ten feet away in the living room.”

“Then let's go to Squirrelly's room.”

Moans are already emanating from behind the bedroom door. Michelle reaches for the handle.

“Wait! Are you sure they won't get pissed at us for interrupting them?”

“Trust me, Squirrelly won't give a shit.”

As she opens the door to the bedroom the moans become louder. Squirrelly is on her back with her legs in the air, Fred is kneeling at the side of the bed in front of her crotch. I squint in the dimness of the room. His arm is moving back and forth. Guttural animal sounds are gurgling from Squirrelly's throat and Fred has his entire hand inside her, fist-fucking her. I've heard of such a thing but didn't believe it could really happen. The stench of smoke and sweat mingles with the sloshing sounds of fisting. I wrench myself from Michelle's grasp.

“I can't do this here!”

“Wait! We'll go in the walk-in.”

She slips into the closet and pulls me behind her, slamming the door. We are enveloped in complete darkness. Her fingers immediately go to work on my fly. I reach forward blindly and try to cop a feel but she isn't there.

And then I'm enfolded in astonishing warmth.

I can hear her slurping, one hand jacking me up and down, the other pressed on my stomach. My head starts spinning and I collapse backward with a thud against the door. She never loses her grip on me, though, even as I slide to the floor, attempt to make my body
prone. There are lumpy piles of clothing everywhere. The stench of mildew is strong.

“Does that feel good?” she says finally, the sound of her voice interrupting the rhythmic sucking noises.

“God, yes.”

“Do you want to be inside me?”

“Oh my God, yes.”

“Do you have a rubber?”

“No.”

“It doesn't matter. I'm on the pill.”

“I love you, Michelle.”

“I know. Do you want to be on top?”

We tangle around each other in the thick darkness and then I feel her pubic hair beneath me. She reaches down and places me at the portal to lost virginity. I'm shaking so bad I can barely breathe.

“Now what?”

“What do you mean?” she says. “Just push.”

I push. It is so warm and wet. She still has her shirt and bra on. I am momentarily regretful that I've never seen her naked, but it doesn't matter now. I lay my head on her shoulder and move my hips until I can feel the orgasm coming and I feel like I should be telling her I love her because surely this is what love feels like but I don't say it, I just keep saying “God” over and over and I don't stop until my breath is sucked out and I can finally breathe again. I roll off of her and hit the wall.

“Did you cum?” she asks.

“Yeah, I came. You couldn't tell?”

“I need you to fuck me more.”

“I can't. I'm drunk. I can't even tell which side of my head, you know…which part is up—is on top.”

She lies there beside me silently and at some point gets up to leave. I'm not sure when. I pass out again.

 

It's morning when I come to, still half drunk. The smell of sex and mold is strong. The living room is trashed. Michelle is passed out on the couch. 8-Ball is rummaging around in the kitchen.

“What's up, Minute Man?” he says, cackling with laughter. “Michelle was just overjoyed about your
performance
last night.”

“What do you mean?”

He laughs harder and with more dedication.

I sit next to Michelle and stroke her hair. I like to tuck it behind her ear. She's so beautiful in the light, the morning sun streaming through the window, dust particles illuminated like tiny floating paint chips.

She wakes and looks at me through half-closed eyes and smiles.

“Do you want to walk to the store with me?”

“Sure. Do we need cigarettes or something?” She rubs her eyes and sits up.

“Yeah. And I want coffee. I still feel drunk.”

“Me, too.”

8-Ball comes into the room.

“We're going to the store on the corner. Do you want anything?”

“What are you gettin'? Some Minute Maid?”

“Very funny, 8-Ball,” Michelle says. She gives him a look.

“Wait, I know, why don't you pick me up some Minute Rice. Or maybe just let me have a minute of your time. All it'll take is a minute.”

“Let's go, Luke,” Michelle says.

I don't know whether to feel hurt or happy. At least she still wants to hold my hand. And the day is gorgeous. It's cold and we can see our breath, but it's the refreshing kind of cold after a long night. The sun is
warm on our backs and our shadows are long. Michelle jumps high in the air and her shadow lands on mine. I do the same to hers. We spend the next few minutes chasing each other's shadows, laughing, playing. Then we're holding hands again, surrounded by the morning quiet, the sound of passing traffic somehow far away, the returning birds chirping in newly budding trees lining the sidewalk.

“Why did you tell him I only lasted a minute?”

She doesn't answer.

“I mean, it had to have been at least two or three.” She doesn't laugh.

“I don't know. I was just—really frustrated and horny. And then you finished so fast and passed out and I was drunk and coming down hard.” She pauses. “So I went out there and took out my frustration to anyone who'd listen.” She looks down. “I'm so sorry, Luke. I would change it in a second if I could.”

I don't say anything. What can I say? A lifetime's worth of sexual anticipation blown in a one-minute wad.

“Look, I'll tell you honestly, Michelle. I've never had sex with anyone before. Last night was my first time and I'm so glad it was with you. So I guess that's why…”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah.”

I hold the gas station door open for her and we go to the coffee machine. It smells like morning.

“How did you know?”

“It's about the easiest thing in the world to spot a virgin, especially if you're going out with one,” she says with a giggle, loud enough for the whole frigging store to hear.

A construction worker looks at me and chuckles as he turns down an aisle.

“I'm not a virgin, though,” I say, just as loudly.

Michelle gives me the raised eyebrow. “I know you're not. I was there, remember?”

We pay, light our cigarettes as soon as we step out the door.

“How is it so easy to tell?”

“I don't know. You just
know
. You get a desperate vibe off all boys who've never made it back to the womb.”

The sun is in our eyes now, our shadows behind us. I turn around and walk backward so I can watch us next to each other, holding hands in silhouette. My hair is longer than it's ever been and it points outward in all directions.

“Do you think you could give me dreads?”

“Dreads? Yeah. I could definitely give you dreads. I did it for Brian once. You know Brian, right? The gay guy from
Rocky
?”

“That narrows it down.”

“The redhead. He wasn't always gay. I took his virginity, too.”

“Do you have some kind of thing for doing redheaded guys or virgins?”

“I guess both.”

I lean over and kiss her on the mouth, one of those kisses that says thank God you're mine now, thank God I have you.

 

We attempt all methods of dreading. There are many different food combinations that will make hair stick together. Peanut butter and egg whites, for instance. I decide against these options because of the inevitability of eventual stink. I put my head on the sidewalk in front of the apartments and Michelle scrapes her boot across clumps of my hair, back and forth on the cement. This option is quickly vetoed as too painful. My hair isn't long enough to facilitate a boot scrubbing. We end up going with the most tried-and-true method of dreading (though longest to execute), in which clumps of hair are
gathered together and back-combed vigorously, thereby producing a frayed, knotted, tattered dreadlock; impossible to remove without shaving the whole head. The transformation is permanent. There is no second-guessing, no looking back.

I spend the rest of the morning and afternoon on the couch in Squirrelly's apartment, sitting on the floor in front of Michelle as she painstakingly installs dreads on my whiteboy head.

“Now you look more like Sideshow Bob than Krusty,” 8-Ball says, cackling. Michelle giggles. I go to the mirror, try to change my voice so I sound like Frasier from
Cheers
. “Lilith, I told you that Diane was just an innocent, childish—obsession.”

By the time the sun is setting I have a new shadow and it's darker than ever, more
me
than I've ever felt. I am totally, completely, irrevocably individualized.

 

Flick gives me a ride home. I ready myself for the inevitable parental explosion that will follow my having stayed out all night without permission.

When I key the lock to my bedroom's exterior door, Victor is sitting on my faux-leather recliner, watching my TV. I recently leased an entertainment system from Rent-A-Center for a hundred bucks a month. It'll be paid off by the time I'm thirty-four. Victor spends as much time as he can in front of my Zenith because it's newer and bigger than the one in the living room and it has cable. I paid for the cable with the money I made bagging groceries after school and on weekends when I still worked at Kroger.

“What the fuck did you do to your hair? You look like a faggot,” Victor says.

“And you look like a fat piece of shit with no job,” I mutter as I go to the toilet.

“Where were you last night?” he asks over the din of my urine splashing in the bowl.

“I got stuck at a party after
Rocky
and nobody would bring me home.”

He doesn't answer.

“I have to do some homework. I'm way behind,” I quickly follow up, attempting to change the subject.

“That's not my fault,” he says.

“I'm not saying it's your fault. But I have to catch up if I'm going to pass these classes.”

“So.”

“So I can't concentrate if my TV's on.”

“Sit in the kitchen, then.” His voice is gruff and more contemptuous than usual. I remind myself that at least he's not making a big deal about last night, then collapse in a chair at the kitchen table, attempting to work out the subtleties of Richard Wright's
Black Boy.

Jonas comes in the kitchen and opens the fridge. He sits down with two glasses of Coke and pushes one toward me.

“Where did you go last night?” he whispers.

I tell him about the previous night's adventures, without the drug or sex parts. Jonas is my biggest fan. I'm always reminding him of how the world is outside of Victor's command, that it won't always be like this. He says he wanted to leave with me that first day we moved here, the day I got my ass kicked and stole the car. I don't say anything, but secretly I wish I'd thought of that then.

Mother comes into the kitchen. I tell her there's no way I'm ever going to read this book in time for class if I can't have a minute alone. “Can you please get your husband out of my room?” I say.

She says I shouldn't call him that.

“But isn't that what he is? Would any of us even know him if you hadn't married him?” I say.

May

Tabitha calls me a few weeks before school lets out. We don't talk much anymore. She says she's moving out of state with her mom and she'd like to see me before they go.

She's sitting on her stoop smoking a cigarette when I walk up. She looks tired, but more in a sleepy way than a worn-out one. She's still beautiful.

She stands, leans over to give me a hug, one of those hugs you know is supposed to be a good-bye hug because it's prolonged. It feels somehow uncomfortable.

She kisses me on the cheek. Then I do the next logical thing and try to kiss her
for real
. I dare her to leave without kissing me just this once, before she's gone forever.

Tabitha pushes me off the porch steps and I land in the bushes.
She stands there looking down at me and says, without the slightest hint of irony, “I thought you were different.”

Before I can respond, she goes inside, slamming the door behind her. I lie there in the bushes trying to think and then go to the door, which is locked. I pound on it and yell that I
had
been different at one point and she changed all of that.

“It was
you
who did this, Tab!
You
are the one who made it like this.”

The next week she is gone. She leaves her phone number and forwarding address taped to her front door. I put the page in my pocket and walk back down the hill to my parents' house.

Dragon*Con is coming up. There's a slight amount of consolation in that. And there's always Trizden, my best friend from the
Rocky
crowd. He keeps things straight when nobody else seems capable.

 

Dragon*Con is an annual summer event that, for most of the attendees, is a way to meet all the B-movie and Sci-Fi/Horror actors they've adored for years and could only have wet dreams about actually breathing the same air as. But for Trizden and me it's an excuse to wander around on a three-day drinking and drug binge looking for ass. I mean, I'm not looking
for ass
, per se, but it's still nice to look
at
some ass, even if I won't be indulging in any besides Michelle's. Ironically enough, there is also a Young Republicans convention on one of the lower levels of the hotel. I can see the hilarious possibilities already.

Now, while there are more than this city's fair share of gimpy, introverted nerds at Dragon*Con, there are many others like us, who are cool and only here to get wasted (and the Young Republicans, who are here to learn how to become more snottily self-assured of their moral rectitude). Michelle and Trizden do have a certain affinity for
Star Trek
, but, I mean, everybody's got their own issues. And on
the plus side of that dork coin, Trizden has some kind of insider dork connection. He got us the passes for free. The passes don't cover a room, they only get us into the convention. He hands us flyers that detail when and where all the main events are taking place. There are autograph signings and Japanimation screenings, live bands and a speaker symposium featuring that “Tune in, Turn on, Drop out” guy from the '60s that my mother told me about one night not too long ago while drunkenly reliving her hippie days. We decide that we won't be throwing down the two hundred bucks a night to rent a room. We'll stay awake, hopefully assisted in that pursuit by a healthy dosage of LSD.

A black guy approaches us as we walk to the elevators. He asks if we know anything about the role-play gaming schedule. There will be a whole bunch of losers here playing real-time games where they pretend to have god-like powers and run around acting like they're saving the world from other losers just like them who, conversely, want to destroy all that is pure and good. This is called role-playing. And it isn't just three fourteen-year-olds sitting around in their parents' basements playing
Dungeons & Dragons
anymore. There are scores of different games for every kind of desperate imagination.

The black guy is obviously into the vampire sect of role-playing. We can tell because he's wearing a set of “handcrafted” eyeteeth that look like fangs.

“Nice teeth, man. You pick up many girls like that?” I ask.

“You'd be surprised,” he says.

“You can't be serious.”

“Hey, Luke,” Michelle interjects, slugging me in the arm, “there is nothing more romantic than a vampire. He is one with the night. He has superhuman speed and strength and must search infinitely for his perfect bride, the one who will spend the rest of eternity with him. You can't get any more romantic than that.”

“One with the night?” I say.

“What did you say you were doing later?” Blacula asks Michelle, leaning down to kiss her hand. He lingers over it in that way really suave guys do in movies based on Jane Austen novels.

“I don't think so, man,” I say.

“Just kidding, dude,” he says. “My name's Splinter.”

He offers his hand and I hesitate, but then shake it anyway.

“I'm Luke. This is Trizden, and my girlfriend here, whose hand you've already acquainted yourself with, is Michelle.”

“Michelle's a great name,” he says.

Is she blushing?

“Dude, are you still hitting on my girlfriend?”

“Sorry, man,” Splinter says. “I'm like my name: I get under people's skin.” Great. A guy with a catchphrase. I grab Michelle's hand and pull her toward the elevator.

“Jesus, he's touchy,” Splinter says to Michelle.

“You should see him drunk,” Trizden says.

 

Trizden, Splinter, Michelle, and I spend the rest of the day people-watching. These people want to be watched. They are dressed in superhero costumes complete with prosthetic pectoral muscles and bulging codpieces. They are wearing makeup that looks like it took hours to apply. They have alter egos with names like Cthulu the Wanderer and Cable the Mysterious. Just being around them makes me want to get high. But Trizden keeps saying we have to put off any kind of serious intoxication until dark.

Trizden's a great friend to have around when you're fucked up and need a watchful eye to keep you out of trouble. I've taken to calling him Animal Mother, in reference to the Kubrick movie
Full Metal Jacket
, one of my all-time favorites. Because Trizden's definitely an Animal Mother, always taking care of us when we're out of our minds.

We decide to peruse the tables in the main conference room on the seventeenth floor to see which washed-up actors are offering autographed 5" x 8" snapshots—for a small fee, of course. In the far left corner is the dude who played Spider-Man on a short-lived TV series during the '70s. Then there's Tom Savini, who among the gore crowd is some kind of god for his innovative special effects techniques. Nobody can show a human face being sawed in half lengthwise more realistically. In one corner is the British guy who did the voice for C-3PO in
Star Wars
. There are infinite lines to see all these people. To the faithful they are immortal. They have found their niche. But there's no way in hell I'm standing in line for an hour so I can pay five bucks just to shake Swamp Thing's hand (ten bucks for an autograph). Michelle and Trizden say they'll wait it out, so I take off with Splinter to find some real action.

We stop at the bathroom and he asks me if I want to hit a joint. Usually I hesitate at engaging in illicit drug use in public, but as soon as we open the bathroom door we are hit with a wall of the previous occupants' pot smoke.

“Dude,” Splinter says, firing the joint, “there's nothing to worry about here, man. There's no cops and the fifteenth through seventeenth floors are completely reserved for Dragon*Con attendees. This is our playground.”

“Can you hook up some Acid?”

“I'm working on it,” he squeaks, holding in a hit.

We exit the bathroom happy and red-eyed just as some Young Republican is on his way in. He's holding a bag full of T-shirts.

“Want a shirt?”

“What do they say?”

He holds one up. There's a cartoon of a regal, all-powerful eagle swooping down over some cowering Arab caricatures wear
ing turbans and sporting push-broom mustaches. It reads
OPERATION DESERT STORM
in a military font.

“Didn't we already win that war?” I ask.

“Of course we already won. It was one of the fastest, most overwhelming military victories in the history of warfare.”

“What's the point of the shirt then?”

“The point of the shirt is to take pride in your country, take pride in the greatest military the world has ever known,” the Young Republican says incredulously.

“Fuck taking pride in this country,” Splinter says. “We never would have been trying to ‘liberate' Kuwait if not for all their fucking oil.”

I laugh and then Splinter starts laughing, too. Laughing and laughing. Idiots laughing in the face of political discourse.

We grab two shirts just as the guy pushes open the restroom door. I know what's coming so I grab Splinter's arm and hurry down the hall.

“Jeez!” the Young Republican yells after us. “Why can't you people do this shit in the privacy of your own rooms?”

We bust out laughing. Again. Klingons and Wookies stare at us as we stagger past.

“Hey, man, do you have a permanent Magic Marker?” Splinter says.

“Do I have a permanent Magic Marker? Let me check in my ass.”

“Come on, dude, I'm serious.”

“Ask that dork over there.”

“Which one?”

Laughing and laughing.

We finally procure a marker and Splinter writes
IS BULLSHIT
in block letters beneath the
OPERATION DESERT STORM
logo. On the
back he scrawls,
I DON
'
T SUPPORT OIL WARS
. I opt for the much more succinct
FUCK
above the logo.

We pull the shirts on and head back to the autograph tables to find Michelle and Animal Mother. They're talking to a girl with a shaved head. She has incredibly large brown eyes, like Sinead O'Connor. She's wearing punk garb: black-and-white-striped tights, fifteen-hole combat boots, black leather jacket decorated with safety pins and snide buttons with slogans like
PROMOTE WORLD PEACE: KILL EVERYONE
and
I'D RATHER BE MASTURBATING
. Trizden's already positioning himself for the conquest, hanging all over her. I've seen him do it about a thousand times at
Rocky
. There's nobody more successful with women.

“Luke, this is my friend Michelle,” Michelle says. “No relation.”

“I don't do this just to look like Sinead, and I don't have cancer,” says Skinhead Michelle, cutting off all obvious first-impression commentary. “Cool dreadlocks,” she says to me. “Funny, you don't look like a hippie.”

“Why, because I don't stink like patchouli?”

“Well, there's that, and also because you seem far less laid-back than your typical hippie,” she says.

“Well, I'm not a fucking hippie.”

“See, totally un-laid-back,” she says. “That's cool.”

“Nice shirts,” Trizden says.

Splinter turns around, does a curtsy. “You like?”

“Courtesy of a generous Young Republican, though I'm sure he'd shit a brick if he saw how we improved on the original design,” I say. “You guys get any autographs worth mentioning?”

“The guy who played Wicket the Ewok.”

“The midget?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude, there was this midget in the MARTA train station once
with her kid and it was so weird because the kid was, like, normal size,” Splinter says. “The woman was no more than three feet tall, bossing around a fully grown eleven-or twelve-year-old kid. Totally fucking bizarre.”

“I love your fangs,” Skinhead Michelle tells Splinter.

Trizden moves fast. He's not gonna lose this one.

“Oh, Splinter, I heard the Vampire role-players are meeting on the fifteenth floor in twenty minutes for a strategy session,” Trizden says.

Splinter heads straight for the elevator. “I'll catch you guys around,” he yells over his shoulder.

“Bring back some Acid, dude,” Michelle yells, leaning on me.

“So,” I say, pushing back against my girl. “What's on the agenda tonight?”

“Let's find some liquor,” Michelle says.

“That's the sexiest thing you've ever said to me,” I tell her.

“You're gonna hang out with us, right?” Trizden says to the skinhead girl, using his puppy-dog eyes and annoying, upper-register vocal intonation.

“Sure, if you don't mind.” Evidently Sinead has chosen to overlook the fact that Trizden is wearing one of those
Star Trek
tricorders on his shirt.

Trizden and I lead the search for alcohol, the girls trailing behind us.

“Are the Vampires really meeting in twenty minutes?” I ask.

“Of course not.”

I shake my head. “That's just wrong, Mother. And all for a piece of ass.”

“First of all, stop calling me Mother. Second, you would have done the same thing. Besides,
I think I love her
,” he says, an allusion to my falling in love with every girl I meet.

“Touché, dickweed.”

 

Many Dragon*Con-ers have rented rooms and brought massive supplies of alcohol with them. The catch is, they are only willing to give free liquor to those of us with vaginas, so we repeatedly send in Michelle and Skinhead Michelle to fetch us bourbons and rum punches until slurring is our primary dialect.

I bump into Splinter on one of many trips to the bathroom. He's coming out of a stall, a plume of smoke following him.

“Dude?” I inquire.

“Dude!” he assures me.

We drunkenly embrace.

“I am so fucked up.”

“Me too.”

“I bet I am more than you,” Splinter says with a twinkle.