Be More Chill (23 page)

It stops.

I poke my head up, then start laughing. I’m in the middle of the street. The car almost went clear across Rampart Road into the yard of Crazy Bill, our neighbor. There’s no telling
what he would have done had I disturbed his garbage sculptures at four in the morning. Michael is doubled over with laughter in the driveway, but Nicole looks concerned; she bounces across the road
and opens the door on me, exhausted, panting in the passenger seat.

“You a’ight?” she asks.

T
HIS GIRL WANTS YOU
.

“Yeah.”

“That was really cool. I’ve never seen anybody do that. You were fast.”

“Heh.” I look up at her, my eyes lidded just the right way, with my hand on my thigh and sweat on the bridge of my nose. I could do her now if I wanted. Right?

Y
EAH
.

“You seem like a nice girl,” I say. “Take care of my friend.”

Nicole shrugs as Michael approaches. “Dude, that was spectacular. I had no idea you were an action hero.”

“Only on Tuesdays.” I get out of the car. Someone once told me that that’s what you should say when people ask if you’re a millionaire.

I
TOLD YOU THAT
.

Oh.

“Four-o-five,” Michael looks at his watch. “Gotta take this car home.”

Nicole slides into the passenger seat: “I’m choosing music!” she says, waving her MP3 player out the window. “No rock!” Michael shakes his head; he can bring Nicole
home if he wants; his mom doesn’t care. He walks past me to get to the driver’s seat.

“You did good,” I say quietly, slapping his hand.

“We did good,” he says. “You’re doing great with Christine. You two are cute.”

“We will be.”

“So we get girls? Who woulda thunk.” Michael takes his keys from me and turns on the Crown Victoria, making a slow right in the middle of the street. “Peace!” he and
Nicole say. She puts one foot out the window and leans on Michael as they drive away.

He’s never said “peace” before. H
E
’
S COMING ALONG
. I pull Mom’s car into the driveway without incident—its
motor is quieter than Michael’s car’s—and go into my house as silently as I can, which is pretty silent—the squip tells me which parts of the porch creak. Dad isn’t
even in the kitchen; he’s asleep on the couch as usual. I didn’t have to go through all that crap to try and not wake him. But it was fun.

N
EWS FLASH
, the squip declares.

I’m cronked out in bed on my stomach, with my shoes on. All I want is sleep. But it’s the same flatly urgent tone the squip used when Eminem died.

N
EWS FLASH
.

“Wha-ut?” I roll over, lazy. I pry my shoes off with my heels and let them flop to the floor.

T
HERE WAS A FIRE
. R
ICH GOT EXTREMELY BADLY BURNED
.

“What?” I sit straight up.

T
HERE WAS A FIRE
. R
ICH GOT EXTREMELY BADLY BURNED
. The repetition is exact, uncharacteristic, a bug in the software or something. Maybe—

N
O
. N
O BUGS
. R
ICH SUFFERED CRITICAL BURNS
. P
ART OF THE
F
INDERMAN HOUSE CAUGHT ON
FIRE, JUST AFTER YOU LEFT
. I
THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE THE REST OF THE WORLD
. I
T HAPPENED IN THE LAST HALF HOUR
.

I look at the clock. It’s 4:17. You’re for real? He’s in the hospital?

I
NTENSIVE CARE
.

In this universe?

Y
ES.

And the house was on
fire
?

W
ELL
. N
OT ALL OF IT
.

What the f_c_? What am I supposed to say to that?

P
ROBABLY
“N
O
,
NO
,
THIS CAN
’
T BE HAPPENING
?”

“This can’t be
happening
!” I get out of bed and walk in a horseshoe pattern around my room. I’ve never had any of my friends or family get seriously hurt, not even
pets, because Dad hates pets and thinks that people who keep them are weak. My grandparents are all alive and everything. I reach for the phone.

W
HO ARE YOU CALLING
? D
ON
’
T CALL ANYONE
!

“I was going to call Christine.”

B
AD IDEA
. T
ALK TO ME
!

“How—did you know it was going to happen?”

I
T WAS A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY
. T
HERE WAS A LOT OF FLAME IN THAT HOUSE
. P
ROBABILITY AMPLITUDES WERE BAD TOO
,
AS
I
SAID
. N
OT JUST IN THE BASEMENT
.

“Could we have stopped it?”

I’
M NOT A SUPERHERO
, J
EREMY
. N
EITHER ARE YOU
.

“How come his squip didn’t stop it?”

C
OMMUNICATION PARAMETERS WEREN
’
T RESPECTED
. S
UBSTANCES
.

I sit back on the bed. For not much reason except I know it’s what I’m supposed to do and it’s late and I can’t think to do anything else and I have this buttery feeling
in my stomach, I cry.

Y
OU DON
’
T NEED TO
.

“Why?” I snort into my palms. “Do you know how messed up this is?”

I
T
’
S NOT THAT BAD
.

“
Not that bad?
Even from a practical standpoint, it’s gonna be, like, all over school. All the parents are going to want to know what was going on in that house and it’s
gonna be like a police investigation…what else happened?”

J
AKE
D
ILLINGER IS IN THE HOSPITAL WITH BURNS AS WELL
.

“Jake
Dillinger
? _ _ _k! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

D
ATA
-
RATIONING IS TURNED ON
. W
OULD YOU LIKE IT OFF
?

“No, this is enough.…Oh man, it’ll be speeches and counseling and everything.”

I
T
’
LL BE A GOOD TIME TO TALK TO
C
HRISTINE
.

“
Shut up!
Don’t say that!”

W
HY
?

“Because two people are in the hospital. You have to have respect when people are in the hospital or when they die or something.”

W
HY
?

“Because you do.…”

Y
OU DIDN
’
T HAVE MUCH RESPECT WHEN
E
MINEM DIED
.

“He’s a celebrity! He’s
supposed
to die!”

Y
OU HAVE BAD PARENTS
,
YOU KNOW THAT
?

“Why?” I get up, pace, sit down again.

T
HEY SHOULD HAVE PREPARED YOU FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THIS
. I’
M NOT PROGRAMMED TO COUNSEL HUMAN SHOCK AND SORROW
. I’
M
MORE ABOUT RESULTS
.

I slump back in bed and think about Rich—Jake too a little bit, but I don’t think about Jake so much because the last time I saw him he was just two feet in a room of sex, while the
last time I saw Rich he was smiling at me. I think about how no matter how cool Rich got, he returned to his dork roots at the end, throwing that ashtray at me and whining, alone on a couch.

Oh man. The ashtray. He was drunk with his squip on. That couldn’t have been good. Rich had had a squip for months; he was probably experimenting with it, seeing what it could take.

P
ROBABLY SO
.

F_ _k. I ask the squip for help and it drops my synapses off into sleep, but it can’t control my dreams: Rich all charred up, making fun of me, with no face, holding his head out for me to
slap it like a hand, with a pill swimming in alcohol inside.

My phone rings at 8:30 the next day. It’s Michael. “Holy s_ _ _ holy _h_ _ holy _ _i_,” he runs. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah,” I wheeze.

“Hello?” Mom chirps, answering the phone downstairs. She knows that I’ve answered—there was a lot of time after that last ring—so she’s just trying to
infiltrate my life.

T
RUE
.

“Mom, it’s for me.”

“Oh, you’re
up
, Jeremy! We need to talk—”

“Mom, can I have, like, five minutes?”

“O-o-o-kay. You were out
very late
,” she admonishes. She hangs up. Michael has hardly breathed while she’s been on the line. “It burned, man; the Finderman house
burned. Somebody tried to smoke pot near the basement tank or something and one side of the house—
fffshsshoo
.”

“I had a feeling.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“What, did you
do
it?”

“No. There were fire trucks, remember?”

“Oh _ _ck.”

“Yeah, those fire trucks that went past at, like, eighty while I was driving for the second time in my life and you were stupid-highway-drunk with Nicole…”

“Jeremy, I’m sorry, but Nicole’s really cool—”

A click comes through the receiver again. “Jeremy?” Mom. “I’m sorry to bother you; have you seen your father’s car keys?”

F_ _ _, they’re still in my pocket!

T
ELL HER NO
.

“No, Mom,” I say. “Let me just finish up with Michael.”

She clicks off: “O-o-o-kay.”

“Listen, man,” I continue, quickly, but Michael has a question: “Did anyone die?” he asks. “I heard Rich died.”

“No! He’s in intensive care.”

“How do you know?”

C
HRISTINE
.

“I talked to Christine just before you.”

“You did? Well that’s good; I’m kinda freaked out about the whole thing; do you want to come over? I have to tell you about Nicole.”

N
OT NECESSARY
. H
ANDLE THE KEYS
.

“No, but thanks,” I mumble. “We’ll talk. He’s not dead.” Right?

Y
ES
.

“Okay. Bye.” Michael gets off the phone.

L
EAVE THEM IN THE BATHROOM
.

I hurry in, pee sitting down, splash water on my face (my eyes look swampy), drop the keys nonchalantly by the toilet and rush back to my room. I write a bold note with a Sharpie and tack it to
my door (
DO NOT DISTURB
—
THE MANAGEMENT
), slide into bed (it hits me all at once—I’m even more tired than last night), pick up the
phone and sheepishly dial the number that I have stored in my pocket.

No!

“Hello?”

“Hi, Christine,” I speed through the words. “It’s Jeremy. I just wanted to tell you in case you didn’t hear that last night after we left there was
this—”

“It’s not Christine. It’s her mother.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know what time it is? Please don’t call this early.” Click.

“The keys!” Mom yells from the bathroom.

J
EREMY
,
SLEEP MORE
.

Yeah. I should. The world isn’t in sync with me yet. I close my eyes for what I want to be an hour, but when I open them because of some noise, instead of streaming in the way it was doing
in the morning, the light in my room is just
there
, shaming me. My arm is draped over my face to protect my eyes against it.

Brrrrring
. The phone is ringing again. I pick it up while lying down. “Hmeh?”

“Jeremy?” A girl’s voice.

“
Mrrrph
.” Christine? Y
ES
. “Christine! How’d you get my number?”

“Caller ID, of course,” she says. “From you calling here at like eight-thirty in the morning. What’s up? Are you okay?”

“Holy crap, no,” I slap my face.

T
HAT
’
S GOOD
. D
ON
’
T CURSE WITH HER
. I
T
’
S
12:30
P
.
M
.,
FOR YOUR INFO
.

“I’m very disturbed.”

She sighs. “I thought you would be.”