The End of FUN (6 page)

The train pulled into Antello a half hour early—a first for Amtrak in my experience. I was the only one who got off, and the station was empty. Not really a station. More like a bus stop, with a small Plexiglas awning, some warning signs, and a single plastic bench with a good view of the power lines. I sat down, waited for my sister to show, and started to twitch.

One of the things they don't tell you when you start having FUN
®
is the part about the twitches. What happens is you get so used to waving your hands around selecting bonuses or whatever that after a while your body starts to have these jerky nerve reactions. Like, you'll just be sitting there and suddenly your hand will shoot up out of nowhere and start waving around.

So I purchased a smókz
™
.

YAY! for smókz
™
, cancer-free virtual soothing cigarettes, the best solution for the twitches. The only problem is they cost so much FUN
®
. But at least they give you something to do with your hands. And the exhale is worth it. The virtual smoke turns into a rainbow or a unicorn or an advertisement for new Hydroburst
™
Fruit Bites or whatever, so that's cool.

I smoked my smókz
™
. It was freezing out there. Maybe my hands were just twitching because of the cold. When I exhaled, a cloud of miniature lambs appeared and mixed with the fog of my real breath and sang to me about new Lambsoft
®
acne concealer—and then Homie
™
popped up.

Eight?
We'd passed through a no-signal zone outside Lovelock, and I'd missed them, all eight—one from my dad and the other seven from Evie.

Here's how they went:

In the first message Evie said she was sick. She wasn't sure what it was, but she felt like crap and she was afraid it might be contagious. In the second message she gave me the symptoms, which included nausea, congestion, fever, fatigue, and itchiness. In her third message she restated the main points of the first two messages, coughing now and again for effect, suggesting that instead of risking deadly infection at her place, maybe I should crash with Dad. In her fourth message she said she'd thought about it some more and she was sure that's what I should do. In her fifth and sixth messages she told me to call her as soon as I got her message(s).

In her seventh message she just coughed and hung up.

Typical. First of all, my sister was and is a flaming hypochondriac. Autoimmune disorders, vitamin deficiencies, tropical diseases—you name it, she's had it. And always at the most opportune times. Like how she got shingles from the German foreign exchange student during fitness week. Or the time she came down with the flu right in the middle of summer, just before swim lessons started.

Second of all, she was always trying to play peacemaker between Dad and me. Maybe she'd set me up—because in
his
message, Dad told me Evie was sick and offered me a place to stay.

So I sent a message to Evie:

And then I sent the same thing to my dad, only with the names switched around.

What I thought I'd do was crash with my friend Oso instead. But when I called him, no one answered. Straight to voice mail. So I left a message. And then I started walking.

Maybe I'd get a room. Why not treat myself? I deserved it, right? But the train depot was conveniently located at the end of town, pretty much as far from any hotel as possible while still being within city limits. Homie
™
suggested I head for the Western Inn by Walmart, but I checked it out on SleepHunt
®
and the price was ridiculous, so I headed downtown. Which is how I ended up at the King Cowboy hotel and casino (YAY!).

Its glory days were long over, but the King Cowboy still had that crazy casino feel—a jangly labyrinth of lights, mirrors, and games. A thousand chances to win or lose. Grandpa told me that whenever a machine paid out too often or too much, it was his job to “fix” it. Tonight the casino was mostly empty, and no one was winning as far as I could see. As I wandered around looking for the reception desk, I had a funny thought: maybe he was still here in spirit, Grandpa, flitting from machine to machine like a bad luck fairy, dropping the odds by factors of 10.

The price for a room was crazy cheap, so that was good, and they didn't check my age, and that was good, too. The lady swiped my eyes, then gave me a key card and a paper map with room 308 circled on it. It was on the top floor, and I swear I was the only one up there. The room was small and smelly and appeared to have been furnished from items stolen from other motels…but the hot water worked, and for a4,999.98 what more could you expect?

After the train ride and motel search I was ready to crash. But first I had to YAY! SleepHunt
®
, and after that I took a shower, and when I was done I realized how hungry I was. When was the last time I'd eaten? I got dressed and went down to the casino again. The coffee shop was closed for renovations, but there was a Mexican-themed restaurant/bar at the other end. (YAY! for Lucky Pedro's.)

The sign said
SEAT YOURSELF
, so I did. I took a seat on a padded barstool, lit a smókz
™
, and turned my attention to the wall behind the bar. It was one of those birthday walls, the ones where if it's your birthday they come out with a big sombrero, plop it on your head, and take a picture. Everyone up there was smiling, having the time of their lives in their sombreros—almost everyone anyway. There were a few who you could tell weren't too thrilled about the situation. Glaring at the camera like:
Just take the effin' picture already
.

Anyway, I was checking out the wall, and next thing you know, the bartender's all in my face.

“Hey, pal, I'm gonna need to see some ID.”

“OK. Hold on.” I brought up my burner account, the one that says I'm 22.

But the guy wasn't having it.

“Actual, legit, government-issued photo ID. None of this virtual BS. If I don't see an ID, you don't drink. Got it?”

“What kind of place can't check a virtual ID?”

“
This
kind of place, buddy. And if you aren't twenty-one, you can't sit at the bar.”

“But I
am
twenty-one. Twenty-
two
, actually.”

I gave him the rundown. I was Arnold Hamilton from Uniontown, PA. Age: 22. Birthday: August 1. Height 6′2″. Eyes: brown. Hair: brown. Willing to donate organs in case of death.

The dude wasn't having it.

“You can sit at a table and drink a soda pop,
Arnold
.”

So that's what I did—but not after putting in an order for some nachos.

“And easy on the onions,” I said, just to have the last word.

I sat down at a table just as this girl walked in—or more like a woman. Like in her twenties, maybe.

“Blake,” she said. “How long is the coffee shop closed for?”

The bartender considered her for a long moment. “How should I know?” he said at last.

“Because you work here.”

“I work…
here
,” he said. “Lucky Pedro's. I do not work at the coffee shop.”

The woman adjusted the bag on her shoulder. She was wearing a long gray skirt and this puffy gray sweater with red stitching.

“Do you or do you not serve coffee?” she said at last.

“Yeah, we serve coffee.”

“I will have one coffee, then. Thank you.”

The woman sat at a table in the far corner to read a book. The bartender poured a cup of coffee and set it on the bar. He wasn't gonna bring it to her. But the woman wasn't gonna look up from her book, either. It was a Mexican standoff. Meanwhile, the coffee was just sitting there getting cold. And a little voice in my head was like,
Dude, you should bring her that coffee
. And another voice was like,

“Homie
™
,” I whispered, “what's her username?”

Homie
™
blinked.

“Well, bring up her profile, then.”

I thought about bringing her the coffee again, but instead I watched her read for a while. It was actually pretty mesmerizing. I've never thought of reading as being a particularly
erotic
activity, but this was something different. Take, for example, her hair: this one lock kept falling over her eyes, and then a hand would come up and tuck it back behind her ear, and slowly, slowly, slowly, it'd come loose again, and I'd hold my breath waiting for it to fall. And then the hand again. Meanwhile, her eyes didn't lift from the page. Not once.

And her coffee was just sitting there getting cold.

So finally I worked up the
cojones
. I brought the coffee over and set it on the table.

“Here's your coffee.”

The woman glanced up. Her face was kind of pink and she had these really blue eyes. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“Your coffee was getting cold.”

“Oh, right—I didn't really want that.”

“No?”

“I just wanted to give Blake a task for being a dick. If I drink coffee, I'll be up all night.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want it? You can have it if you want.”

“No, thanks.”

“Go on, take it. It'll piss Blake off.”

So I took the coffee. But I didn't want the coffee, I wanted to talk to the woman.

“Whatcha reading?” I asked.

She didn't look up, just kind of shifted in her chair and raised the cover so I could see the title:
Irish Folktales Throughout the Ages.

“Cool,” I said. “What's it about?”