The Cake is a Lie (32 page)

It had all been intriguing enough to
make me want to join the Greek system when I got into UW. Devin was
even the president of one of the fraternities.

“
The great thing about
college, Marco,” He’d told me, “Is everyone gets a fresh start. A
new beginning, no matter how many mistakes they made in high
school. Remember Terry? That weirdo that was a year younger than
us?”

“
No.”

“
Well now Terry’s really
popular in the Greek system.”

“
Ya? Does he get mad
pussy?”

“
We don’t say that, Marco.
We’re gentlemen, above everything. But, ya, Terry's
popular.”

Devin
had put me on the list for one of their biggest parties, a
“triad.”
¹
Inside an army
of freshmen bouncers at the door I’d run into a kid I played little
league with, wearing a lei.

“
Devin said you might be
rushing, Marco. Where are your fucking sluts, bros? Hey sluts.”
He’d called to a group of girls standing in the hallway. They came
over.

“
Shut up, Dave.”

“
You shut up, you fucking
hoes. Yo, this is my bro, talk to him.”

Then he’d left me alone with the girls,
who kept saying, “I’m over it,” and asking me, “What house are you
from again?”

I’d headed deeper into the triad, into
the event hall. Two of UW’s most famous bball players were standing
a foot over the sweaty crowd dancing with three girls each. Twenty
girls were lined up on the stage dancing. I’d kept staring at one
whose sweat drenched hair was stuck to her cheeks and breasts, her
body in a trance, pounding fearlessness into the crowd. I was in
over my head, I couldn’t hang. Plus, every girl I’d talked to only
said one thing, “I’m over it. What house are you from
again?”

My gaze had never left the spec in the
distance. Oakley was not only a full ride scholarship athlete,
she’d gotten into the coolest sorority. I can only imagine what the
coolest sorority’s initiation was. How many guys had she shacked up
with? That’s what they called it, “shacking up.”

Who gives a shit about sex, I thought,
what about all the precious brain cells? I’d never seen people
drink so much, I’d seen sorority girls prefunk by taking 6 shots of
tequila like it was nothing. They drank like they were Russian, or
Irish. F-it, it was all irrelevant now anyways.

I’d been in the gym when I’d heard.
Shooting hoops with an old friend and Shorewood alum, Tom. We were
watching UW’s star basketball player, Jim, run shooting drills with
a team manager on the court next to us.

“
I have class with one of
the team managers,” I’d whispered scandalously to Tom, “and he says
Jim has herpes.”

“
How does he know
that?”

“
You know those two games he
missed a month ago cause of the “flu?”

“
Ya.”

“
It was a herpes flare,
swear to god.”

“
That’s crazy. Did you hear
about Oakley?” One of the pillars of my life had begun shaking at
the mention of her name.

“
No?”

“
She’s dating Larry
Swoosh.”

“
Haha, nuh uh.” A wave of
relief had rushed over me knowing this couldn’t be true. Larry
Swoosh was an NBA player, he’d been one of the stars of the finals
two years ago.

“
Swear to god. They’ve been
dating for a while.”

Had Oakley been making shit up? I’d
thought. Who would start a rumor like that? But on my way home I’d
had something come to my mind that made me start running back to my
apartment. A mysterious Facebook post Oakley had made a few month
ago, “Baby boy’s gonna be okay!” I’d absolutely no idea what it
meant at the time. I’d wrote it off as some inside joke.

I’d gone back to find the post again,
then copied the date and put it into google. The headline came up,
“Larry Swoosh Mysteriously Passes Out During Game.” A ghoul of
despair possessed me after that, hiding away in my bed.

The game was almost over. UW was
losing.

He was definitely cheating on her.
Everyone agreed, he was definitely cheating. He was in a different
city every night. But did it matter? She was dating an NBA player.
What a jersey chaser. His twitter was some stupid shit too,
WeOnThatGas, a cocky drug reference that was ambiguous enough to
get away with.

The last time I’d seen her was at the
lake, when like a vision she’d come out of the water. The sun
sparkling off of her damp Mediterranean skin. Then she’d walked
over to a crowd of athletes and sorority sisters. The athletes
looked like tanks with their shirts off, with muscles popping out I
didn’t even know existed. Crevasses so deep under their Adonis
belts it didn’t even look anatomically possible.

Maybe Oakley has herpes, I hoped.
Something sucky is bound to happen to her eventually. That’s how
life works. I wrote another note down in my phone. I don’t know if
our generation will ever find love, we’re all shooting so high. I
don’t think it works if everyone’s shooting for the
stars.

I could hear my social psychology
professor’s voice, “Every study ever conducted on social equality
shows that it’s better to live in a country that’s more equal but
poorer, than a country that’s richer but less equal.” They say ten
percent is destined to lead the rest. And what percent is born to
be a big shot and then their gigantic dreams get crushed? 20
percent? 90? They say the masses hold greatness back. I say we
should be able to, a little.

After college Oakley moved to L.A. I
should have seen it coming. Without the tiny chance of running into
her everywhere I went, without that split second of hope every time
I caught a worn-up hair bun, the city stopped being the same. She
left a cloud behind over my entire city. Somehow, in my mind, she’d
been just barely out of reach until then. That’s when I started
writing this.

He was definitely cheating on
her.

Duncan calls me. He’s studying at a
community college in California.

“
How was your trip to San
Francisco? Did you visit Mari?” I ask him.

“
It was alright, um ya, we
stayed at Mari’s for a night. I brought two friends from my school
though. But like, I don’t care that much about them, I feel like
people, um ya know, everyone has their own autonomy. And it’s weird
when I have to like facilitate someone else’s actions or guide
them. Like, ya I don’t know, that’s like a weird concept. You know
what I mean though. I want to be able to walk off by myself. It
would have been different if it was two other people I was closer
with, you know, ‘cause I would of known them better. Um, but with
these guys it was like I don’t know what to tell you, I was on
edge. I felt like I had to babysit them, they were really clingy.
Honestly, I’m over thinking it. Mari was nice and very hospitable.
We got blankets and she made us a three course dinner. You know
Mari.”

“
Ya, I know what you
mean.”

Duncan has started trying to speak
pretty intellectually in his early twenties. Trying to jump through
more advanced mental hoops and use bigger words. But with all the
pauses and “ums” he sounds like a cross between Timothy Leary and
Tommy Chong. While I half listen to him a few rapid thoughts
skyrocket my anxiety level. I picture Duncan’s receding hairline,
his yellow teeth, his bleak career outlooks, and how he wants his
soulmate to be instantly woo’d by the repulsive deodorant-less odor
emanating two feet around him.

He used to be the most popular kid at
Shorecrest, I lament. Football star, cheerleading captain
girlfriend who he constantly cheated on. His friendship used to
validate my life. I sacrificed so many IQ points to forge a
friendship for life with him.

I need to make new friends, I think.
But I can’t, it’s too hard, I don’t drink or smoke pot. I’m too
anxious. It’s over for me. I lost in life. My bad mood brings with
it a nasty idea, I grab my laptop.

“
Hey Duncan, tell me about
something deep you’ve been thinking about lately.”

“
Uh ok. Um, well we’re
coming to the point where we have fewer and fewer resources and
more and more people. And like we’re so used to having these
luxuries, and you know hold on, I need to figure out how to word
this. Um, like we need to cut back on the crap we’ve become
accustomed too. You know I just got back from burning man, and I’ve
been thinking, um, a lot lately, about how people’s year long life
revolves around planning burning man. Like that’s all they do, ya
know.

“
We’re getting to the point
that we need to take those innovative ideas, like ya know, ipads
and hd and cool technology for sex, and apply it to, um like
building communities and like preserving nature, ya know. We have
so much potential and we’re wasting it on crap. And don’t get me
wrong we need to be entertained, but, ya know it would be great if
like people put a little bit more of their energy into building
communities. I don’t know. Our community now is like watching
celebrities online and then tweeting about it. Our lives have
literally become watching a group of upper echelons through a magic
screen.

“
And we think globalization
is a good thing for like little countries in Asia. Um, because they
get jobs ya know. But like, why can’t we help them out more in
general? Why do we need them to make useless crap that we don’t
need and we think makes us a happy, before we throw it out in a
year, so Bangladesh can have an economy? Like why don’t we help
Bangladesh out in general ya know? And in our spirit that would
make us more happy. I don’t know. I mean people hate us because we
make them make all our crap ya know, and we spend all of our energy
on war, and um, that would be solved if we just helped each other.
Like those human beings in poverty. Those people can help us move
forward, and were just raping the world so we can make shit that we
don’t care about. We should help them because their human beings
and that means something.”

“
I feel the same way,” I
answer him. “But then I think, is might right? I just get confused.
Life’s so complex. We’re living in the information age and I don’t
know the first thing about coding or electricity. Who are we to
Elon Musk?”

“
I was just reading about
our metaphysical side,” Duncan says. “How we’re in control of what
we put out and our paradigm or what we believe is true. And hatred
and animosity and regret and violence and hatred. Those are just
going to perpetuate those things into the world. And if we can just
face every day with an open heart, and ‘how can I express love in
this situation?’ It’s amazing how much a little love can change
someone’s mind. People really respond to that. The vibration of
love is ten times the power of hate. A little bit of light spans
out infinitely into the darkness.”

“
Ten times more powerful
than hate? And how do they measure that?”

“
I don’t remember man, it’s
just an analogy. And um, like the sad thing is I don’t think people
will change. There’s a landfill twice the size of the U.S. in the
Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Cali. But until it actually
affects our lives were not going to do anything about it. I think
America’s going to have a big fall and crash. But I’m ready man,
bring on the rapture, I’m ready for some shit to
happen.”

“
But that goes against
everything you just said about love.” I shout playfully. “And it’s
not an actual trash continent, you can’t see it, it’s just a ton of
plastic in the water.”

“
I’m not saying that’s what
I want to happen, that’s just the only way were going to change ya
know? And like I’m part of the problem man, I’m way too lazy.
Probably because I smoke too much pot. I turn on Netflix and all of
a sudden five hours has flown by. And then when I’m done my eyes
hurt. Like all I do is focus on the negative sides of people, um I
critique people way too much. It sucks around here, I’m bored. Like
maybe I’m bitter and arrogant. Fucking people, I don’t know, it’s
like if you don’t live up to my standards I don’t want to be
friends with you and you can go fuck off. There’s a ton of these
cocky, country douchebags here. I have a certain view of the world,
and they don’t get where I’m coming from, and I don’t want to take
the time to explain it to them. I have a real stick up my ass
lately, I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’ve been really
bitter these days. I’m bitter I don’t have more money, that I’m not
more successful. I used to be so athletic and smart, I could get
any girl. I don’t know what happened, I just made one fuck up after
another. Our generation grew up with this overwhelming sense of
entitlement. And, and it induces a false inflation of invincibility
until the laws of nature kick in and steals our righteousness
leaving us feeling empty and lost. Our selfishness got the best of
us. We expected everything just to happen for us. We expected the
world. Whatever man, I’m down to go live in a commune.”

It’s not just Duncan. I say “um” all
the time. I pause whole conversations with a loud “um” while the
last piece to what I’m going to stay is still stuck on the tip of
my tongue. What’s that word? Threat? Liability? You’ll finally come
up with it minutes after the joke would have been funny. “She’s a
liability!”