The Grand Ballast (18 page)

“
I’m sorry,” Bode muttered.
He hesitated. “I didn’t mean for you to get trapped
here.”

The Boy shifted, and Bode could see sores on
his back and legs from sitting in the straw for days. He cracked
his eyes open. “You really want to do something good, you’d help me
finish my fucking act.”

“
If you want to die, it’s
because you’re lazy. It’s because you’re a coward.”

The Boy laughed.

“
What’s your name?” Bode
demanded once more.

“
Fuck off.”

“
What’s your
name
,
asshole?”

The Boy bared his teeth in a snarl.
“Valen.”

Bode was cautiously excited to have gotten
this information. His body felt like it did before a dance—ever
muscle awake and waiting. “I’m Bode.”

He placed a hand briefly, almost nervously
on Valen’s shoulder. Valen flinched, but Bode didn’t let go.

“
Valen?” He waited until
Valen looked at him. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“
Yes.” Valen’s head tipped
back, his eyes closed, and a serene smile appeared on his face.
“You are. And you’re going to take me back to them.”

Bode started to slide his hand from Valen’s
shoulder, but Valen reached with his unchained arm and caught his
wrist. A furious wave of terror and a desire as dangerous and
untamable as flared in Bode, lit him from the inside. He didn’t try
to pull away. “Back to where?” His voice was hoarse. “The Hydra
Arena?”

Valen shook his head
slowly, tightening his grip. “No. You take me back to the No
Returns. Take me
home
.”

THE AGE OF ENNUI

Then.

Opening night of the new show drew a large
crowd, but Kilroy wasn’t part of it. He was attending a meeting for
up and coming entrepreneurs.

“
Yeah? What exactly are
you planning to
’preneur
?”
Bode had asked several days ago,
when Kilroy had broken the news.
“I
thought you had all the money you needed stashed away
somewhere.”

“
Bode.”

“
Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.
I’m a wreck over this show.”
But he
couldn’t not ask: “
Will Driscoll be at
your meeting?”

Kilroy’s hesitation had been all the answer
Bode needed.

Kilroy had apologized
profusely for missing the show, and had promised he’d be there the
next night. Rationally Bode knew it didn’t matter that Kilroy was
waiting a day to attend. But he couldn’t shake his
fury
at Driscoll. For
befriending Kilroy. For existing.

Use it. Use it onstage.

The show was a series of
solos and small group numbers. No elaborate costumes or sets—just
the Little Comet’s dancers appearing as some slightly off-putting
version of themselves. Danielle was a human wishbone, her arms
above her head in a Y, her body bending and straining as two other
dancers dressed as her mother and father fought to pull her apart.
Garland did a tap number to a series of sound effects—eggs sizzling
in a pan, rain on a tin roof, a typewriter, a toothbrush. A cat
yowling. A snippet from a recorded confession of a school shooter.
And then finally to a seven-minute emergency call in which the
operator talked the caller through an ultimately unsuccessful plan
to escape a house where a man with a gun was holding her
hostage.

A dancer named Marie did
her performance in the audience, peering under seats and staring
right through the people in them. Now and then she’d make eye
contact with somebody and reach out to touch the person, but then
she’d draw back.

The routines contained very
little violence, focusing instead on themes of loneliness and
connection. The performance ended with the solo Bode had done for
Kilroy—chasing the music instead of sinking into it. He imagined
that the music was Kilroy, floating just out of reach. And the
stupidity he felt at using such a melodramatic image only enhanced
that feeling of pursuit and defeat, desire and
hesitation.

As Bode finished the solo, the applause
seemed like a flat, distant sound. He looked into the audience and
froze.

His
mother
was there, half lit in the
blue wash, tears streaming down her face.

Impossible
.

He’d told her about the show—he still talked
to his parents. But he hadn’t expected them to listen, to
remember.

He watched her uncertainly, his chest rising
and falling, the adrenaline leaving him. Did she feel what he
wanted her to feel? He imagined her going home to Bode’s father.
Imagined her with the press of those new feelings against her bones
and skin, the thrill and terror of love and the hope of
happiness—and no one to share these things with.

But I’m
here
.

Maybe now, finally, she would want to talk
to him. Really talk.

I’ll come
home
, he wanted to say.
I’ll forget Kilroy and this place, if only you’ll
see
me.

Savage, now, the tension, the loneliness.
The sense of unfinished business. He was grateful when the curtain
closed. He looked for his mother in the lobby, ignoring the
congratulations of theatergoers and fellow dancers. His panic grew
when he couldn’t find her. He started asking around, and one of the
ushers said he’d just called her a cab.

“
Bode?”

He turned. Danielle was behind him, looking
radiant. She had flowers—bright, incandescent blue wrapped in dark
tissue paper. Bode suspected they were from Garland.

“
You’re coming with us?”
she asked. “We’re going to the pub.”

Bode glanced at the door.

“
You have to come.” A
dancer named Colton walked by and ruffled his hair. “That was
in-fucking-credible. I didn’t think they’d ever stop
clapping.”

Bode looked around once more, as though
maybe his mother would appear suddenly. Smile and congratulate him.
But she didn’t, and Bode eventually left.

***

The pub was a blandly nostalgic place—yellow
light, a wait staff in button shirts and bowties, strong
drinks.

Danielle and Garland looked
tired but happy, smears of makeup still on their faces. Bode saw,
sometimes, when they looked at each other, a hint of what he and
Kilroy had. He thought bitterly about Kilroy’s absence tonight.
Kilroy had
known
how important this show was to him, and had chosen the meeting
instead. And what sort of entrepreneurial meeting was scheduled for
eight o’ clock at night?

He’s with Driscoll. Of course he is.

They ordered several bottles of wine. Bode
drank a cocktail Danielle ordered for him. There was a
high-spirited toast to Bode for coming up with the idea for the
show.

“
I’m surprised we pulled
this thing together,” Garland said loudly. “Bode barely spends any
time at the theater anymore.” He laughed, but there was an edge to
his voice.

Bode forced himself to smile. “I’ve spent
most of my life at that theater. Now I’m trying to focus on having
a life at home. Not just onstage.”

“
Don’t mind him, Bode.”
Danielle slapped Garland’s arm affectionately. “He’s just a
curmudgeon before his time.” She and Bode talked for a while, and
Bode lost track of the minutes as they passed.

“
Earth to Bode.” Garland
was waving at him.

“
Yeah?” Bode raised his
eyebrows and sipped his wine, trying to look engaged.

“
We’re talking about the
state of the world.”

At the bar, two men laughed dully at
something on TV. Silverware clinked. Bode tried for another smile.
“A light conversation, then?”

“
Well. I mean, you’ve got
someone you’re…” Garland glanced at Danielle across the table, and
Danielle snorted and looked away. Garland turned back to Bode.
“Romancing. And Danielle and I… So why is it that everyone can’t
have this?” He put an arm around Danielle, and jealousy sank into
Bode like teeth.

With Driscoll doing what?
Kissing him?
Fucking
him?
Just thinking the word gave Bode
an angry thrill.

“
I think—” Danielle gave
Garland a quick peck on the cheek “—we fucking blew ourselves up.
The whole human race. That’s what I think.”

Garland poured her more wine. “Suppose you
elaborate?”

At the other end of the table, Marie and
Colton were doing something apparently hilarious involving straw
wrappers.

“
It
happened gradually.” Danielle picked up the saltshaker and dumped
some salt on the table. She shaped it into a little pile with one
finger. “I read a book on it once. First there was the Age of
Outrage. That was when everyone was hyper-connected. Logged into
fourteen social media outlets at once and in a default state of
anger—‘political’ debates inevitably devolving into grade school
name-calling. People getting self-righteously pissed about
everything—
you’re racist, you’re
sexist, you’re homophobic, you’re anti-religious, you’re ableist,
you’re too religious,
and so
on.”

“
Ah, outrage,” Garland
said. “I miss it.”

“
And then there was…”
Danielle pushed the salt into a line. “I forget what they called
it—where computers started doing way too much of our thinking for
us. Companies were coming up with glasses, watches, hats,
whatever-the-fuck—that told you what you were seeing, how far you’d
walked, where the nearest sandwich shop was. Our ability to talk to
others face to face, to interact with our environment, to solve
problems for ourselves…” She serpentined her finger through the
salt, spreading the grains. “Gone. And then, slowly, we lost
interest in new ideas. Everything starting looking familiar,
because we’d seen it on a screen. The demand for new technology
decreased, big companies went broke, and we finally unplugged
ourselves from our screens—but we no longer knew how to use our
actual human brains. And so…” She scattered the salt in all
directions. “Welcome to the Age of Ennui.”

At the other end of the
table, Marie clapped.

Bode raised his glass. “To
the Age of Ennui.”

The others raised their
glasses and toasted.

“
It’s a saturation point.”
Danielle’s voice was soft. “We believe we have nowhere else to go
from here. And so we’re just waiting until our time’s
up.”

“
Not me,” Bode said. “I’m
never gonna live like that.”

Danielle’s wine sloshed as
she raised her glass to her lips. “Me either.” She took a long
sip.

“
Kilroy and I don’t get
bored. We really don’t.” Bode could hear himself slurring a little.
“It’s pretty easy to make a choice to engage with your
env—environment.”

“
So what’s Kilroy’s deal?”
Danielle leaned back and regarded Bode with a tipsy archness. “Who
is he?”

Bode grinned broadly. “That’s the thing!” He
was suddenly exuberant. “I don’t know. Nobody knows!”

Danielle raised an eyebrow.
“What do you
mean
?”

“
I mean he never says where
he came from, who his parents are. He could have come from
anywhere. I’m the one who—who makes him feel like he’s got a
story.” Bode laughed, a high, strange giggle. He thrust out his
arms and leaned back. “If it wasn’t for me, Kilroy Ballast wouldn’t
be anyone at all.”

***

“
So it was a good show?”
Kilroy was seated at the kitchen table with a tall glass of orange
juice and a bagel. Bode stood at the stove scrambling
eggs.

Bode should have been dying
to tell Kilroy how last night had gone. But the memory of the show
seemed flat. He was tired and hung-over. He shrugged. “Yeah. It
went really well.” He scraped egg off the side of the pan with a
small rubber spatula. “
Really
well.”

“
I’m not surprised. You
worked hard.”

Bode glanced at Kilroy, who was sipping
juice and staring straight ahead. “How is Driscoll?” He tried to
keep the edge out of his voice.

Kilroy slowly looked at Bode. “What makes
you think I was with Driscoll?”

“
Because what the hell kind
of business meeting takes place at night?”

Kilroy set down the glass and smacked his
lips. “There was a meeting. Driscoll was in attendance too. Halfway
through, he wasn’t feeling well. So I saw him home.”

Poor fucking thing.
Bode made a face at the eggs.

“
He’s sick, you know,”
Kilroy said conversationally. “Very ill.”

Bode felt something dangerously like relief.
“Oh,” he said.

“
There are days he can
barely walk. His family said their goodbyes months ago.”

Some of the eggs had a brown coating on one
side. Bode tried to jab the brown stuff off with the spatula. “If
he’s sick, why are you involved with him?”

“
Oh,
Bode
.” Kilroy gave a crooked grin
over the rim of his glass.

“
I’m serious. You make it
sound as if he’s going to die any day now. Why bother?”