Be More Chill (8 page)

The next morning (well, technically, I wake up at noon), I go to Google. Type in
squip
: 361 results. The first one takes me to a dinky Web fighting game where
you’re a small alien who can battle an opposing alien with your gigantic nose. I play twice, learn how to win every time, and click back. The second link is more on-target, from Yahoo
News.

I hit
CONTROL
N on my computer, open a new window for porn, and jerk off as I read. It seems that every site has the same information about the squip (or SQUIP;
capitalization doesn’t matter): Sony is working on it, but nobody knows what it is. It involves tiny computers that you eat. It’s not out and won’t be for a while. That means
bootleggers must have escaped Japan with it and brought it to central New Jersey, where it took root among scotch-drinking high school kids. That isn’t so far-fetched.

Unfortunately, there’s nowhere I can buy a squip. There are no sites that offer it with a little shopping cart next to it. There’s no way to determine if $600 is a fair price for
one. And there’s no guarantee that it’s safe and won’t take over my brain and turn me into a…I dunno, something worse than I am now, there has to be something, a mongoloid
or—

“Jeremy!” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Phone!”

I pick up, knowing it’s Michael before my spittle hits the receiver. “Hi.”

“Are you feeling okay?!” Mom calls again. “It’s
one o’clock
!”

“I’m on the
phone
!”

“Can you talk?” Michael asks, testing.

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

“Dance was really weird,” I say. “Christine, whatever, uh…do you remember—” I stop.

“Remember what?”

“No. Forget it.” I think about things for a second. I don’t want to give Michael crucial information that’ll help him get his hands on a squip. He does all right with the
Asian girls at Middle Borough; he ends up talking to ones you never noticed—but are actually pretty hot—and he dated one last year for more than a week. He doesn’t need a
mechanical advantage the way I do. Let him find out on his own.

“Um…okay. So what are you doing?”

I’m masturbating still, watching a video, but it’s not like I’m masturbating
to
Michael. I’m multitasking masturbating. “Checking the Web for some
stuff,” I say.

“Cool. What are you up to the rest of today?”

“I want to go down to the bowling alley in New Brunswick, ask around for some people, you know?”

“‘Some people?’”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “I’ve got this project in mind. You wanna go?”

“No.”

“What are you doing today?”

“Chilling out, listening to music.”

“Michael, you do that every weekend.”

“Yeah…” He stews a while. I click the mouse.

“How about you do something different? Come with me down to the bowling alley. It’ll be fun.”

“Okay, see—” Michael has a lot of protests and it takes a while to convince him, but I do. Once we hang up, I finish with the porn and my garbage can and head out of the house
and swing into Michael’s waiting car. I guess I have more influence on my friend than I thought. I look at his profile as we drive off: he should’ve been at the dance. Somebody would
have dug him. If he had a squip, I’m sure, it wouldn’t just let him sit and listen to Weezer all the time. He might need one after I get mine.

It’s 4
P.M.
by the time we get to the B. Bowl-Town bowling alley; the place is clogged with matted, shrill children sending balls down lanes whose
gutters have been filled with blue balloons to prevent failure. Even with these giant bowling prophylactics, kids mess up, aiming for the space between pins 7 and 10 and the unprotected back gutter
or ricocheting their balls slowly off the barriers until they kiss the pins for zero points. The mothers, each of whom seems to be helming her own six-year-old birthday party, must then shelter and
comfort the youngsters and explain that bowling is just a game and it doesn’t matter if Timmy Banana has thirty-seven points when you have twelve.

I stand by the candy machine, one foot pressed against the bowling-alley off-white wall. I like this stance; now that I found it at the dance I’m sticking with it. I keep a lookout for
Rich or, even better, the importer from Ghana who had the squips in the first place. Michael is on the other side of the vending machine.

A textbook youth approaches us. The silver chain connecting his nose and ear shadows a chain of itchy-looking lumps in the same place.

“Heard of the ‘squip’?” I whisper.

The kid takes a quick look at me, makes a rodent face of confusion, and gets a bag of Cheez-Its.

“Jeremy, why are we here?” Michael leans over. “Who are you waiting for?”

“I’m not waiting for anybody. I’m
looking
for somebody.”

“Well, go ask at the bar.” Michael points to the rectangular wood countertop with glasses hanging from the ceiling that serves as a bar in this place. “You’re supposed to
ask for people and investigate stuff at the
bar
. Haven’t you seen movies?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” I walk over there. There’s a woman with red hair and nested wrinkles behind the counter.

“You gotta be kidding,” she huffs.

“Don’t worry,” I say, putting my elbow down on the wood and covering my mouth. “I’m not trying to ‘drink’. I’m looking for somebody.”

“Get your arm off my bar. You’ve still gotta be kidding.” She takes a glass down from the ceiling, fills it with ice and pops a cube in her mouth. “Who are you looking
for?”

“This guy who, ah, imports leather from Ghana,” I explain. “He’d probably be a black guy.…”

“Would he?” asks the only other character at the bar, an Asian man opposite me and Ms. Bartender.

“Right.” I stare at this man, this new entry in my database.

“Why don’t you come over here?” he sneers. “I know you kids. You’re all after the same thing. You think you’re the first one to go snooping for
them?”

Whoa. I sidle over to the guy. He isn’t too old. Badly dressed in a T-shirt, biking shorts, and an Eagles hat. White spiky hairs on his chin and little cuts on his cheek. Dull black eyes,
all pupil.

“Hi,” I reach my hand out. “I’m Jeremy Heere.”

“You in it to win it?” he shoots back, holding his drink. “You in this for real? You want to change your life with this thing?”

“Yes,” I nod.

“Well you’re late,” he says. “They’re all gone. Latest shipment got dispersed, and I’m not sure about the authenticity of the next batch. Things are getting
tight. Pretty soon you might not be able to get one anywhere. Until a few years, of course, when they’re mass released.”

“Uh-huh. I can’t wait a few years.” In a few years, I’ll be old and then I won’t need to be Cool. Just rich. I think it’s harder to be Cool than rich. I move
to stand a little bit behind the guy’s barstool so I won’t get Ms. Bartender in trouble.

“Who told you about me?” he asks out the side of his mouth. “Keith? Rich?”

“Rich.”

“Idiot. Shouldn’t be sending kids over to me. Tell him I’m gonna cut him off if he forwards any more kids to me. No, wait, don’t say I’m gonna ‘cut him
off’; say I’m gonna ‘cut him.’” The man chuckles. “That’s good, right?”

“How do I get my squip?” I whine. “I was going to buy it from Rich, or from you!”

“Do two things,” the man says. “Go to my cousin’s store in the Menlo Park Mall. He works at Payless Shoes in there. Well, actually there are three Payless Shoes, but
he’s at the one opposite Sam Goody. Well, actually there are two Sam Goodys, but anyway, his name’s Rack, like a spice rack. Talk to him about where the last coupla pills went. And try
eBay.”

“eBay?”

“Yeah, you have a computer, right? You’d be amazed.”

“One more question,” I look at my shoes. “Once I track a squip down, is it really going to cost six hundred bucks?”

“Maybe five. But c’mere,” the man swivels toward me in his stool. “Look.” He opens his wallet and an accordion of photographs, like the one my grandmother used to
have, spills forth. They’re photographs of him inside large, elaborate casinos—I guess it’s Las Vegas, but you never know; it could be Foxwoods or some offshore place or
something.

“Check ’em,” he instructs. “Take a good look.”

Each photo is a shot of this ragged man winning
large
amounts of money—or chips, I know in casinos it’s all done with chips, but he has piles of chips: red, white, blue,
yellow, stacked up like freshly unveiled games of Jenga. Women with large breasts surround him, and their breasts are feathered, like peacock breasts, and they smile and pat his hat, the same one
he’s wearing now.

“Do you have any
idea
what it does for you in blackjack?” he asks, nervous. “I taught mine to count cards. Forget about it. Six hundred is a bargain. You’re too
young to gamble, but I’m sure you can work something out some other way.” Finally, he looks me in the eyes and smiles, his front top teeth a row of gold shingles, like a zipper in his
mouth. “It’s the greatest thing on earth. It’s the only way to live. Go where I told you. Get one.”