Veneer (35 page)

His dad’s name was on the directory at the front of the building, a sectioned portal with
Bishop
reconciled in black and white. Deron didn’t see it at first, but touching randomly on the adjoining wall had helped him illuminate the panel. Each time that happened, he got a little more frustrated, a little angrier at the city’s dependence on veneers. He pressed the call button, but there was no answer. Taking a step back, he looked up at the third floor window, saw nothing moving behind it. Travelling, he guessed.

“Or maybe he’s shacked up with the whore,” said Ania’s voice in his head.

Deron smirked and tried the door handle. To his surprise, the door was unlocked and there was no one in the small breezeway to challenge him. Climbing the stairs was difficult; he had not eaten anything since the awkward dinner in Dos Presas the night before. On the third floor landing, he wondered if his dad had any food in his fridge or if he were living the true bachelor’s life.

“Maybe the whore went grocery shopping,” said Deron, surprised to hear his own voice.

Pausing at the front door, he tried to think of what he would say if his dad answered. It would have to be anything except the truth, maybe something about wanting to get out of the house, needing to get away from everything for a while. He’d relate to that.

There was a thumb pad to the left of the door that Deron mistook for a doorbell. When he pressed it, the red glow changed to green. Something clicked within the door and it swung open with a just gentle push.

In the foyer, it became apparent that his father wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for a while. The kitchen on the left was dirty, with dishes piled up in the sink and a box of assorted pizza crusts on the counter.

The living room was in disarray. If this was what his father had given up for a clean home, then he was crazier than everyone thought. There was nothing enticing about the broken-down sofa or the cracked palettes stacked in a pile on the coffee table. The windows that looked out over the street showed their true grime without their veneer.

A stranger lived here, some indeterminate person without a name whose presence he felt only indirectly. In the bedroom, the queen-size wasn’t made up. The comforter was crumpled at the foot of the bed, the sheets had been thrown aside, and the pillows were scattered. If he concentrated, he could almost see that person, his dad, waking up, making the short walk to the bathroom to get ready for work. Then coming back in, going to the dresser.

A garment unlike anything a man would wear made Deron pause. So it was true; there
was
a whore. He picked up the bra between his thumb and index finger—a pretty well-endowed whore at that. For a moment, the bra flashed fire red with yellow flames erupting around the straps. Startled, Deron dropped it onto the dresser where it once more became a bland collection of straps and cloth. It had been one thing to imagine his father running off with some younger woman, but to actually touch the evidence...

Maybe his mom already knew; she always seemed to be on top of things, no matter how far removed. She knew when he failed a test, knew when his homework had gone unfinished. There was even a time when he was very young that she had hired a tutor to help him with his reconciliation. No one had known, not his teachers, not his schoolmates. Looking back, it all seemed a waste. Had they just told him it was technology and not his fault, it would have made things so much easier. He shrugged at his own train of thought, unsure if his then undeveloped mind could have even grasped the concept of reconciliation without attaching some kind of mystical aspect to it.

The apartment wasn’t much, he concluded, after taking another look around, but it was infinitely better than the outland rubble. At least here he wouldn’t have to worry about sentry guns or dehydration. Deron cleared away a collection of beer cans from the recliner next to the couch and sat down. Finding the arm on the side, he pulled back and extended his feet. It was as comfortable as he had been in days and after a restless night, a nap would go a long way into making the hours fly by. Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep, but his mind was running too quickly and despite his best efforts, his body kept shaking itself awake.

It was there in his mind, reconciled clearly as an accusatory statement that spoke both to his dad’s indifference and his own tacit acceptance. There were so many questions circling his head: how to fight a bully, how to defuse a confrontation without ending up in the hospital, and how a father could go so long without seeing his own son. Each time he thought about it, he opened his eyes, looked to the side, and realized again that his dad wasn’t there. He had come to his home, sat in his chair, and the man still couldn’t be bothered to put in an appearance. The anger surged, made him twist in the suddenly uncomfortable recliner.

Deron squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his nerves. It wasn’t fair to come to this place and see what was hiding behind the image he had reconciled of his dad. It went beyond a simple veneer, something even his mom couldn’t tear down. But now he could see past it and it was too much to take in. All he wanted to do was reconcile it away, put up a barrier that nothing could penetrate.

It felt like Easton was crushing down on him, showing him a world that he no longer wanted to be a part of. The only way out was back to Dos Presas where there were no cheating husbands, no ruthless bullies, and no veneers to make people think everything was okay when it really wasn’t.

He made a sound somewhere between a cry and a grunt. Only when he took a deep breath and opened his eyes did he find his salvation in the glowing veneer of the apartment.

Everything was still messy, but there were photos and art on the walls. Gone were the smudges and the barren quality of another life abandoned. It was back; the world was back.

Wasting no time, Deron searched for his own face amongst the pictures and found one next to the bedroom door. There, his dad would have seen it every time he went to his room, every time he went to sleep.

Every night, the picture would remind him of his son.

It was a bit comforting, just enough to settle his heart rate. As it did, an inkling of recognition crept up. Something was happening, some correlation that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was there though, as clear as the fading of his picture. The better he felt, the more translucent it became, until finally he was calm and the gray returned.

45 - Jalay

The clouds started rolling in shortly before lunch. Jalay watched them build while listening to Mrs. Ratner lecture about the second civil war, a subject that was bloody and violent but uninteresting. He had heard the story before, in previous History classes, about the rise of the corporate giants, the squeezing out of the government, and the eventual collapse. It didn’t matter to him how many people died or how the survivors eventually rebuilt. What mattered was that it was all in the past, in an era that no longer concerned the living. The only thing that concerned Jalay was the wall of clouds creeping in from the north.

They were sinister with their dark blue centers and fiery white tips. Growing tall in the infinite sky, they blotted out the sun and cast a shadow on the frail city, causing a panic in the trembling citizens below. Without thinking about it, he reconciled the horizon onto his palette. It was the same image, a perfect reproduction, but it didn’t match the intensity of what he saw outside. Out there was power, raw and dangerous. On his palette, it was just an echo of that power, a snapshot of potential that would go unrealized.

Just like me, he thought, if his teachers were to be believed.

When the bell rang, Jalay filed into the hallway with the rest of the class and headed for his locker. He only spent a moment there, just enough time to toss in the History reader and to shed his jacket. The dent in the locker begged for attention, but Jalay ignored it. There was no point in reliving that moment, except for the vengeance it would demand, vengeance that would likely remain as the image of the storm, static and impotent.

The cafeteria was doubling as a sauna when Jalay walked in. He noticed Principal Ficcone standing on the other side of the dining area talking to a janitor. When they caught eyes, the principal turned his back and began gesturing to the walls. He was probably complaining about the humidity in the school, but he should have just admitted he was starting to sweat under his fancy suit and even though he could reconcile away the stains, he couldn’t do anything about the smell.

A reflexive breath brought the tantalizing aroma of cafeteria pizza deep into Jalay’s lungs, evoking a smile. There was something about the rectangular slices served at Easton Central, something that made them superior to what he could order from The Hut or buy from the grocer’s. Its contents were completely unknown, but Jalay believed it to be recycled rubber that someone had reconciled to look like dough, cheese, and sausage. Despite its consistency, it was one of the few reasons he came to school and the best meal that they served, good enough to go back for seconds or thirds. Approaching the serving line with his mouth already watering, Jalay forgot about the impending doom outside.

He tried to ignore the poorly concealed disgust on the cashier’s face as he reconciled his signature on the payment palette. Her reaction made him steel his veneer, try to contain the child-like glee welling up inside of him. The fact that he had to eat alone in a sauna no longer mattered. Unless, of course, Sebo would be open to company.

Chased inside by the threat of rain, Deron’s best friend had found himself an empty table near the back of the cafeteria. There was no food in front of him, nothing except a small carton of milk, unopened. Jalay walked towards his table as if he were going to pass by.

“How’s the face?” asked Sebo.

Jalay paused, took the cheap shot as invitation to sit down. He slid his tray onto the table and plopped down on the plastic seat. “It stopped hurting five minutes ago,” he joked.

“I think a heartfelt ‘I told you so’ would be applicable here. But,” he said, pausing and looking out the window. Whatever he saw out there in the growing gloom was hard for him to ignore. His eyes came back a moment later. “I’ve had a whole day to point my finger and laugh. I owed you that much.”

The truth stung, but Jalay was able to soothe it with a large bite of pizza.

“Pizza,” Sebo reflected, “the cornerstone of any well-balanced diet. I don’t suppose you have any vegetables to go with that?”

“Tomato,” replied Jalay, pointing to the vaguely red sauce oozing out from under the impenetrable sheet of cheese. “Tomato is a vegetable.”

“Technically—”

“How’s Jordan?”

Sebo’s face went blank for a moment before flashing disappointment.

“She a good roommate?” he added.

“Oh, the Roommate.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I couldn’t get her installed. I tried to apply the crack but it kept crashing on me. Are you sure the copy you gave me works?”

“It works,” Jalay assured him, his gaze drifting into fond memories. “I have her and Felicity on two walls like this.” He put his hands up side by side in demonstration. “Sometimes it sounds like they’re talking to each other.”

“And it is my understanding that they are both naked, correct?” asked Sebo.

Jalay nodded peacefully.

“Then who cares what they’re saying?” Sebo lifted his palette and brought up his contact list. “Jalay with seven L’s?”

“Six,” he corrected.

“Six, why not?” Finally looking up, he asked, “Is Felicity the one with the massive...” He held his hands out in front of his chest. When Jalay nodded again, he smiled wide. “Can you transfer her? I’m going to make them have a jumping jack contest.”

Always play to a man’s vulnerabilities, thought Jalay, as he pulled his palette bag onto his lap. He knew why his own collection of nude women was massive and varied, but the motive for Sebo to be such a porn addict was still a mystery. There was rumor that he was quite the FPS player, which taken together showed an unhealthy obsession with sex and violence. So maybe the boy with the strange way of talking wasn’t so perfect after all. Everyone, it seemed, had a little bit of darkness in them.

When he loaded his start page, Jalay was surprised to find an instant message not just from Sebo, but some from Russo as well. Only, they contained no text, just a stream of blank images. He closed them out one by one, but as he was dragging Felicity to the transfer window, another image popped up, this one with a streak of white in it.

“Russo’s sending me pictures,” he said at last, placing the palette on the table. He pushed it closer to Sebo. “But they’re empty.”

Sebo nodded. “It’s a very abstract style of art—minimalism, I believe.”

“Or he’s lost his mind.”

“That’s a given. He comes from a broken home, you know.”

Jalay raised an eyebrow. “Everyone does.”

“Instances of psychosis increase when parents divorce. They did a study a few years back about the development of relationships—”

“These almost look like windows,” he interrupted, pointing to a slight pattern in the picture. Then the realization struck him; he didn’t care what was in the pictures or what Russo had to say. “Fuck him,” he declared, wiping away the message window. When it reappeared a moment later, he put Russo on his block list. Dragging his palette back to safety, Jalay returned his attention to the half-eaten pizza. It still smelled delicious.

Outside, thunder began to rumble in earnest. It probably wouldn’t rain, not with Easton’s high walls acting like a buffer against the incoming fronts. Cold air could descend on the city, but unless the storms were formidable, the rain would simply pass around it. Most people didn’t seem to mind; the city’s veneers suffered when coated with water, becoming undefined and lacking discrete borders.

“Any news on your friend?” asked Jalay, after several minutes of contemplative eating.

Sebo had busied himself with scrolling through the Felicity stills. “Are you really interested?”

“Agents seem interested.”