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Reinventing Alvin
by Dante Kleinberg
CHAPTER ONE
Wednesday, July 10th, 2002
There is a girl in the comic book store. Somehow, I must be the only one who’s noticed because she’s standing by herself at the New Arrivals wall. A feminine body around all these pent-up frustrations should be like blood in a shark-infested water. She should already be bound and gagged and being used as a bargaining chip by the fantasy card players in the front, or stuck in the corner with some obscurantist lecturing her on exactly why David Boring is brilliant and Batman sucks.
But she’s not. She’s alone. This could be my big chance.
I stroll over to the New Arrivals wall. I examine the titles, and, spaced apart to avoid spooking her, take a few exploratory glances at the girl. With each look, I gather another detail.
Curly, black hair.
Average figure—which, in context of where we are, is well above-average.
Green, white, and black-striped polo shirt.
She probably wouldn’t get a lot of attention in most places, especially in L.A., but again, in context, she’s geek fabulous.
Okay, this is it. Say something. Speak to her. Ask her name. Ask if she comes here a lot. Ask what comics she reads. Ask her—oh cool, Ultimates #5, I need to—no, pay attention! Concentrate.
Hello brain? Opportunity here! Pick up, brain, I know you’re there. Think of something. Act. Quickly. Be aware. Time’s passing. She’s picked up a comic—some Vertigo manga-looking thing. She’s turning around. She’s about to leave. She’s leaving. She’s gone! She’s gone. And… you blew it. If this had been an actual fire and not just a drill, you’d be charcoal by now.
I look over at Trevor, he’s getting a Deathlok bust down for some guy. If he hasn’t seen her yet, he will in a second.
If Trevor were the center of a clock, then looking straight ahead for him would be six o’clock—or no, wait, twelve o’clock—so then the girl is approaching from… twelve… eleven… ten o’clock!
Girl at ten o’clock! All my fingers spread open, I wave both hands at him and mouth the words.
Girl at ten o’clock!
Crap. He’s already ringing her up.
I speed walk over to one of the bargain bins by the register, pick up a Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! diorama and pretend to consider it.
“I haven’t seen you in here before,” Trevor says.
“This is my first time,” the girl says.
He fake laughs. “That would explain it.”
She doesn’t say anything. She must be paying by credit card, the credit card thing takes forever. Trevor drums his fingers on the counter.
“Anyway, my name’s Trevor.”
“Great.”
“But my—uh, my friends call me T-Rev.”
What? I don’t call him T-Rev. Nobody calls him T-Rev. What the hell is he playing at?
“Oh, okay.” She looks at the front door. This is bad, she’s mapping out her escape route. She’s not even going to wait for her comic.
“Hey yo, T-Rev!” I say, stepping up to the counter. “What’s going on, my man?” I try getting him involved in a cool multi-part handshake, but he leaves me hanging for the second and third fist pops.
“Alvin, hey,” he says.
“T-Rev, man, what are you doing tonight?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“You have to come out with us!”
“What?”
“This guy,” I say to the girl, “every Wednesday night he volunteers to read books and stuff at the Hospital for Blind Children.”
“Really?” she says. “Where’s that?”
“I don’t, uh—I think it’s on Doheny. Is that right, T-Rev?”
“Um.”
“Anyway,” I say, “you gotta blow it off. There’s a big, uh, thing going on later, it’s gonna be hot, besides Monica and Rachel have been asking about you.”
Trevor rips the credit card receipt from the printer and sets it on the counter next to a pen on a chain. “Okay, here we go. If you could sign, please.”
The girl grabs the pen and signs her name so fast she almost tears the paper. She hands the top part back to Trevor, grabs her comic, says, “Thanks,” and walks straight to the exit.
Trevor watches her leave, then turns to me. “What was that all about? Monica and Rachel? What were you trying to do?”
“If you didn’t notice,” I say, “you were drowning back there. I was trying to toss you a life preserver.”
He snorts. “Made of adamantium?”
“I’m not gonna stand here and take criticism on talking to women from a guy who decided his nickname was ‘T-Rev.’”
“I don’t know, I panicked. Do you think ‘T-Rex’ would’ve been better? I almost said, ‘T-Rex.’”
“Nope, still horrible.” I step out of the way so he can ring up some other guy. “You gotta be yourself. Nicknames should be organic. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that a girl who didn’t like you for you isn’t worth it?”
“She tells me all the time,” he says, “she told me this morning.”
“Listen to her. No, forget that, listen to me. I may not be an expert but I know more about women than you.”
“Sure you do. You didn’t even try talking to her.”
“Okay, excuse me, raise your hand if you’ve ever had a girlfriend.” I raise my hand, the guy Trevor’s ringing up raises his hand.
“You shouldn’t be allowed to brag about it for longer than you were dating, and as a matter of fact, you—oh! Oh my God!” Trevor freaks out. “You have a message! Jesus, I almost forgot.”
“Message? Where? What are you talking about?”
“Here! A message! From Alison! Alison called earlier looking for you.”
If my life were a movie, that thing would’ve just happened where the camera goes all woozy and there’s a quick shot of my eyes, looking shocked and worried, and then we zoom in on Trevor’s face and hold there for a second to let the news sink in.
“Alison?” My voice breaks. I cough. “Called here? Why?”
“She said this was the only place she was sure you would turn up. She said no matter what, you wouldn’t miss New Comics Wednesday.”
“I’ve missed New Comics day before. Remember February? Remember pink eye?”
“I still brought them to you. You still would’ve gotten the message.”
“Oh wow. Oh God.” I grab onto the edge of the counter for support. “Did she say why she was calling? Did she say anything about—did she say anything?”
“No, nothing, just to call her back.” Trevor hands me a folded-up piece of blue paper with a number written on it.
“What am I gonna say to her? She’s gonna ask how it’s going, or what’s new, or how’ve you been, or something like that. None of those questions have good answers, they’re all stupid and pathetic.”
Trevor pushes up his glasses. “Maybe she won’t ask. Maybe she needs a kidney or a chunk of liver or something. She won’t care how it’s going if she needs a piece of your liver.”
“She did have kind of a drinking problem…”
“You can use the phone here if you want.” Trevor takes a phone from behind the counter and puts it on top.
“Okay.” I try to swallow but there’s nothing in my mouth—no saliva, no anything. “Okay, I will. Okay, so, wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
I pick up the receiver. Dialing is almost impossible, the buttons are blurry and getting blurrier, and my finger’s shaking. I try to figure out what word her phone number spells but it doesn’t make any sense.
It’s ringing. Oh my God. It sounds weird though. Like instead of ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-ng! it’s more like do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do! and that can’t be a good sign, rings aren’t supposed to sound like that. I should hang up. She’ll never know it was me, this isn’t my home phone, she’ll never—
“Hello?”
Oh no. Oh crap.
“Alison?”
“Alvin?”
Don’t blow it. Stay cool, everything’s cool. You’ve seen her naked. You’ve had sex with her. She’s given you a blowjob. You’re in charge here, you called her. You’re holding the phone.
“Yeah it’s me. Hi-di-ho, what do you know? Heh heh.”
Oh for Christ’s sake, what the hell.
“Alvin! It’s great to hear from you, I’m so glad you called me back. I didn’t know if we were cool or not.”
“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it, we’re cool. Cool as an ice cube.”
I must be a freak of medical science. Instead of forming words in my brain, I form them in my ass. My only language is ass-speak.
“Well, good,” she says. “Good to know. So you’re probably wondering why I’m calling you out of the blue like this, right?”
“Oh, uh… yeah.”
“Teddy—you remember Teddy, right? I told you about him?”
“Right, the bicycle guy.”
“Motocross.”
“Okay, yeah.”
“Anyway, he has a competition coming up in Anaheim and I thought it would be nice to touch base with you while we’re so close.”
“Okay, we can do that. Sure.”
“It’s on the 28th, that’s a Sunday, we thought you could come to the race, check it out, and then afterwards the three of us could go out to dinner or something.”
“The three of us?”
I can see it now. The two of them, all good looking and interesting and full of potential, and the one of me, all dopey looking, wearing a Captain America for President t-shirt, boring, devoid of potential, forever dateless. The three of us, great. Sounds like a blast. Don’t forget to bring his penis.
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask, I just assumed that you—of course if you want we can get you two tickets to the race for you and a date, that’s no problem.”
She just assumed. She just assumed.
“Good, great—let’s do that. Two tickets. I’ll just—I’ll bring my girlfriend then. We’ll make a night of it! It’ll be fun. The four of us.”
“Okay, great, wow. I’m so—I’m relieved. I was really worried that, you know, like I said, things weren’t cool.”
“Everything is very cool.”
“So how are you, Alvin? How’s work?”
“Work’s fine. I transferred to a commission department, so I’m making a little more money sometimes.”
“That’s cool, that’s cool. Have you thought about college at all?”
“Uh, I’ve thought about it.”
“What do you think?”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“So… same old, same old then?”
She just assumed…
“Actually,” I say, “there’s a lot of new stuff.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I go out. I go out a lot. Sometimes I go to parties and stuff. Um, nightclubs. You know, dancing. Sports too. I love the, uh… the, uh… you know, the Lakers. We go see them sometimes, my girlfriend and I. Lots of stuff. New stuff.”
“Wow, that’s—that’s awesome! That’s really great, I’m so happy for you. I really think it’s important that you get out there sometimes and—”
“Oh I’m out there. I’m way out there. If you went out there, you’d see me. I’m out there all the time.”
“Well you can tell me all about it at dinner. I’d love to hear it.”
“Sure thing.” I miss that. I miss being a person Alison would love to hear about. I wish I could stay that person forever instead of being me all the time.
“Ooh! I gotta go, Alvin, I’m driving and I almost hit some guy, but I can’t wait to see you now. I’m really happy for you. I think Teddy and you will get along great. I’ve told him all about you and he says he likes you already.”
“Great. Good.”
“I’ll e-mail you the details, you still have the same e-mail?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Cool, see you then.”
“All right, bye.” I hang up the phone.
“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” Trevor says, “but I’m pretty sure you told her you have a girlfriend.”
“I told her a lot of stuff, Trevor, what’s your point?”
CHAPTER TWO
Wednesday, July 10th, 2002 – Thursday, July 11th, 2002
A few hours ago, if someone had told me their days were numbered, I would’ve thought they were being melodramatic—overstating the situation. But my days are actually numbered. I can look at a calendar and see that I have 18 days until Alison finds out the truth about me and refuses to ever speak to me again.
“I can’t believe you told her all that,” Trevor says.
“I couldn’t exactly tell her the truth, could I? The truth wouldn’t even register on Alison’s radar. If I’m going to compete with Teddy, super cool motocross racing guy, I need to arm myself with a lot more than the truth.”
“What happens when she finds out?”
If my life were a sitcom, my next move would be clear. Whenever somebody on a sitcom tells a massive lie to somebody else, instead of admitting it or avoiding that person, they try to make the lie true.
“I don’t think she needs to find out. Maybe I wasn’t lying.”
“Okay, but you were.”
“Sure, now I’m lying, but what if, by the time I see her, I’m telling the truth?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“All I have to do is go to some parties, go to some clubs, appreciate some sports, and find a date. Then not only would I not have lied, but I’d actually have a leg to stand on when I meet the new guy.”
Trevor takes his glasses off, cleans them on his shirt. “Wouldn’t it be easier to tell her you broke up with your girlfriend sometime in the next couple weeks?”
“Oh sure, that’d be great. Then I’m Dumpy the Dumped guy. Everybody come see Dumpy the guy who always gets Dumped. No my friend, that is a terrible idea.”
“Tell her you were the dumper, not the dumpee.”
“Do you really think she’d believe that? Would you believe that?”
“I guess not.”
“Give me a break.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“The first step is, I have to meet someone. Where do people go to meet people?”
Trevor raises his eyebrows. “You’re asking me?”
“Come on, between the two of us we’re at least one smart guy, we should be able to figure this out. They meet them at their work, they meet at them at school.”
“Okay, um… Nightclubs? Various social events?”
I take out the little book my boss gave me to write down customer contact information for follow-up. “I better write these down, work, school… clubs, socials… oh! Online. People meet online.”
“My cousin brought someone he met online to our family reunion last summer.”
“Was she hot?”
“She was all right.”
I look over the list again. “Okay, here’s what we need to do. I’m going to pick up the L.A. Weekly, and I’m going to find a place to go tomorrow night, a club or something.”
“Wait, wait, wait, I’ve got a better idea. Just don’t go see Alison at all. Okay so you panicked and agreed to have dinner with her, just cancel. You don’t owe her anything.”
“But I want to see her. I think I need to see her.”
“But it’s not—”
“I think I’m still in love with her.”
He sighs. “Then you don’t want to see her with this other guy.”
“Trevor, this might be my last chance. Maybe I’m not the hip, outgoing person I told her I am, but why can’t I be? Maybe it’s not too late for Alison and me. I mean, there’s no reason you and I can’t go to a club. We’ll hang out, we’ll meet some cool new people, no problem. This can work.”
“When did I get dragged into this?” Trevor says. “I’m not someone who can just go to a dance club willy-nilly like that. I’m not cool in that way.”
“Did you completely miss the point of what we’ve been talking about for the last five minutes? Because I swear it was just here. Did you see it?”
“Whatever. I’m not going. Good luck to you, but I’m not going.
*
The PHOTON sign glows red, underlined with a light that pulses from right to left twice per second. Trevor and I are reading it for the fourteenth time.
“What the hell are we doing here?” Trevor says.
“Learning to be cool.”
Deep inside the nightclub district, we’re sort of like pillars at the Beverly Center: completely motionless with well-groomed, good-looking young people flying past us in both directions. It’s amazing how they manage to avoid hitting us when they never actually look at us; their autopilot must be programmed to avoid posers.
“I don’t feel cool,” he says.
They may not look at us, but I can see everything. The girls with the tiny purses, the guys with the white baseball caps, all the short skirts, the make-up, everyone laughing because everyone’s hilarious. The bass line of a different dance track from each club blends together, creating an omnipresent backbeat; a subtle pulse that circulates energy and tension and life into the clubgoers.
It says, Don’t, Stop, Don’t, Stop, Don’t, Stop.
The guy checking IDs is bald. A group of girls walking past are talking about whether or not they saw Christian Slater. Behind us, the street is a parking lot of honking cars, despite being a work night, a school night, and NBC’s Must See TV Thursday.
“How do people have time for all this?”
“Can we go home now?” Trevor says. “I think we’re embarrassed enough.”
I heard some guy say in a movie once that the things you regret in life are the chances you don’t take. The embarrassment of not knowing what I’m doing at a dance club compared to the embarrassment of having to explain to Alison and Teddy that I lied to them, that my life is sad and confined, that I rarely leave my apartment, while they sit there and laugh and smile and say it’s no big deal they understand and they sympathize but that doesn’t stop them from peppering the conversation with references to their fascinating lives, like their college and their San Diego and the races he wins and the friends they see and the sex they have and the way they—ha ha, finish each others sentences—and what their kids are gonna look like with his straight teeth and her green eyes and how they have a future and I have none and they feel so bad for me with a smug expression and another smile, and I’m such a charity case that if I walk out of the restaurant without an armload of their unwanted canned goods and one of Teddy’s old sweaters, I’ll be lucky.
It’s really no comparison at all.
“Come on,” I say, “let’s go in.”
CHAPTER THREE
Thursday, July 11th, 2002
I take Trevor by the arm and pull him over to get in line. On the wall next to us are two-tone posters on multi-colored paper: a green one says Thursdays are COLLEGE NIGHT-18 AND OVER, a blue one tells us about drink specials, and red and orange ones tell us about DJ WARP SPEED and DJ TWENTY.
Trevor looks around like he’s expecting trouble but doesn’t know what or from where. I have my suspicions but I act like everything’s normal. There’s a velvet rope between us and the wall, which is silly and redundant, because, unless they’re expecting Kool-Aid Man, the wall is boundary enough by itself.
What am I going to say when I get up there? I need a plan, something better than figure it out later. I’m not a good improviser.
I smack Trevor on the arm so he’ll notice me getting out my driver’s license. He goes for his, but his hands are shaking and he pulls too many cards out, dropping some on the ground. I’m only grateful it didn’t happen to me, or all the cool people would’ve seen the Merry Marvel Marching Society card I got off eBay.
“They’re not going to let us in,” Trevor says.
“They’re letting everybody in.”
The ID-checking guy waves me forward. I hand him my license. He looks from it to me, then hands it back and motions with a magic marker. “Is it okay?” I say.
“Your hand.”
I give him my hand and he writes a big black X on the back, but I don’t know if that means he’s already checked me and I can go in or he’s already checked me and I should stay out. “So, are we good?”
“Yeah.”
“Great, okay, thank you very much. Sorry, this is my first time.”
“Yeah, next!”
I hurry through the door. Inside, the music is so loud the part of my brain regulating safety almost forces me to leave. There’s a girl on a stool next to a cash drawer; she’s telling me something but it gets lost in all the noise.
Trevor comes up behind me, so I guess they let him in too.
To the girl, I point to my ear and say, “I can’t hear you,” but for some reason I only mouth the words, as if my throat decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
She shows us ten fingers then five, and does the rubbing the fingers together thing on the other hand. We each pay her fifteen dollars and she waves us on.
In the center of a large room is a round bar, providing 360-degree drink availability. The bartenders, a man and three women, are unbelievably good-looking, as are most of the other people here. I feel like the script supervisor on a Miller Light commercial. My bad luck to be born normal in Los Angeles, the worldwide Mecca for the beautiful.
The dance floor is in the back, elevated, with little guard rails. Colored strobes on the ceiling rotate and bounce, washing the dancers with soft, flattering light. Everyone dances like they know what they’re doing. Or actually, everyone here does everything like they know what they’re doing. There’s a seamless flow to their movements, like they’re innately aware of what they need to do and when and to whom to keep their society going. Like an ant farm.
Around the outside wall are tables and chairs, and barstools. A couple stools to our right are empty; I take Trevor by the arm again and lead him over.
“Should we get something to drink?” I say.
“What?”
“Us! Something to drink?”
He says something I can’t make out, ending with, “—old enough!”
“Water!”
“Okay!” He goes for his wallet.
“My treat!”
“What?”
My throat hurts. “On me!”
Before he can say What? again I head straight for the bar. While I’m waiting for one of the bartenders to notice me, I figure out why they play the music so loud. If you want to talk, you have to scream, and when everyone’s screaming, you have to scream louder, and soon your throat’s torn up like you’ve been eating sandpaper, and you order another drink.
“Your hand!” the guy bartender says.
I show him the X.
“Water, Coke, or Sprite?”
“Water! Two!”
I wonder if Teddy looks like this guy, if so I might not have a chance. Are people as good-looking in San Diego as they are here? Teddy is a really stupid name, like stupider than my name even. Maybe that’s what Alison’s into, guys with stupid names.
The bartender hands me two bottles of water. “Eight dollars!”
I pay, and tip a dollar. I wonder if that’s a good tip or a bad tip. All he did was take two bottles out of a fridge, it’s got to be a good tip.
I give Trevor his water. I drink all of mine in about three seconds. I don’t fit in here at all. I’m like average height, I don’t have a well-developed muscle on my body, I’ve got a baby face, and the hairstyle of an eight-year-old. And I mean that literally, I’ve been combing my hair the same way for 12 years. I can’t think of a better way to comb it.
Alison would’ve fit in here though; she used to go to these places all the time back in High School. I don’t know how she got in. She told me women had ways, and I never asked because I didn’t think I’d like the answer.
We always looked weird standing next to each other: her all buxom and sexy, me all skinny and awkward. When we first started dating, she was incredibly depressed, some thirty pounds overweight, constantly at war with her crazy mom, and desperate for anybody who wouldn’t have sex with her and dump her the next day. I was desperate too—a more general desperation, aimed at everything—so we fit together nicely.
And she cried a lot. No matter how frantically I danced around her eggshells, she would still break down in tears at nothing, and get angry at everything. She popped anti-depressants like M&Ms, but it never seemed to help. She was on a permanent campaign, trying with frightening enthusiasm to convince me she was worthless, ugly, and stupid.
We used to go jogging together. Neither of us actually enjoyed it, I don’t think, but she wanted to lose weight and I just wanted to be around her. About nine months into our relationship, she made it to her goal weight. That was the beginning of the end. Once she was skinny, she got so hot her dumping me became inevitable.
I still love her though. I’ve tried and I’ve tried but I just can’t stop.
My bladder pulls me back to reality.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.
“What?”
“Bathroom! Me! Go now!”
He nods.
The bathroom is small and dirty. There’s a stall, two urinals of varying heights—which is weird since kids aren’t allowed in here so the small one must be for midgets—a sink, and a mirror with a big crack in it. Most of the walls have graffiti, and most of the graffiti is illegible—my number one pet peeve about graffiti. The worst is the smell, it’s like someone peed on a couple tissues and pushed them up my nose. I need to hurry up and go, I can barely breathe in here.
The Old Alvin, the Alvin of the last twenty years, used the stall in public restrooms because he couldn’t go if he thought people could see him—or hear him or think about him—but the New Alvin, the Alvin of tomorrow, will be a man, and will use the urinal.
The New Alvin steps up to the taller urinal and unzips. The door swings open, somebody else comes in.
I glance over then quickly look away. Yeah, that’s somebody all right.
He steps up to the midget urinal next to me, which means he’s probably thinking about me right now, how if it wasn’t for me, he could use the normal urinal, and how inconvenient it is to be peeing in a urinal that’s so close to the floor, and after a few seconds there’s the hhhhhhhhkkkhh of his pee hitting the porcelain—or whatever it’s made of, I don’t know—which means my time is running out, because if I was standing here when he came in and now he’s finished and I’m still standing here then he knows—he knows!—I must be having some kind of problem, and the only people who have problems peeing at a urinal are geeks and losers, confirming the suspicions he had about me when he first came in, and now he’s washing his hands and I’m still standing here, and if he looked over he could see I’m not doing anything, and probably laugh at the size of my penis—not a fair thing to do when I’m flaccid—and okay he’s drying his hands thank God, maybe after he leaves I’ll be able to go, but the whoomph! of the door quickly destroys that hope, because here are two more guys, and oh no no no no—they’re talking to each other!! and talking is the only thing worse than looking so now I know nothing’s going to happen here, and the only thing left for me is to hope their talking has distracted them enough not to notice I didn’t go, and so I do a fake hop like I’m shaking it off and I flush, and maybe everyone will think I went, and I’m normal, and I’m like them.
I don’t say anything when I sit back down. I have to go worse than ever, but I can’t go back and try again because then Trevor will know something went wrong the first time, so all I can do is sit here and rock the barstool.
It hurts like fire. It hurts like a white hot light. Like being stabbed from the inside out. Like failure.
What is wrong with me? My inner release signal must be broken. I put my face in my hands and push. I’m shaking, I can’t stop shaking. Okay, okay, calm down, stop shaking, calm down, don’t freak! Remain calm.
Where could I go to pee? What time is it? We’ve been here like an hour. I was supposed to be a better person by now. I can’t do this, I have to go. I can stop at a gas station or something.
But the New Alvin says no, there’s no way we’re leaving. The New Alvin says we can’t go home until he dances and meets someone, or at least talks to someone.
The New Alvin is determined.
The Old Alvin has to pee. Badly.
“What are we doing?” Trevor says.
There are two Alvin’s in my head, one Old and one New. They have a fight. The Old Alvin fights with pee and shame, the New Alvin fights with shame and love. The New Alvin knocks his opponent down, jumps ten feet in the air and stomps on him with both feet, again and again and again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
With each blow delivered, I rock the barstool harder.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Dance music has me surrounded. It pounds on my aching temples, demanding to talk to my pee-addled brain. Okay, okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Come on!” I hop off the barstool and run to the end of the room.
“Wait! What—”
I stop at the railing, sidestep left, fixing my gaze on the twirling, happy people, until I get to the gap where two steps lead up to the dance floor. I breathe in for as long as I can, let it out, then in again, hold it, and step inside.
Somehow, the music’s louder here. I wade into and around the other clubgoers, making my way to the center, to the point where there’s nothing left but the music and the dancing. My eyes hurt. I’m completely alone. I’m drowning. What am I doing here? I need to find the beat from before, not the one from the speakers but the one from inside me. Okay, there it is, it goes
Thump. Thump. Thump.
and now all that’s left is to grab hold and do what comes naturally. Close my eyes and let go to the thumping.
And I dance the pee-pee dance.
Now the music’s gone too. All that’s left is me and dancing. The pain in my stomach isn’t hurting so much as it’s pushing, driving, taking control, sweeping my feet across the floor, shaking my arms around, bouncing me, moving me, loosening the parts of my body that don’t normally get used when I’m walking or sitting or lying down.
*
I’m dizzy and floating—I need a break. A different song is playing than was when I started but there could’ve been two or a dozen in between; they’re so similar they bleed together like watercolors. I’m sweaty, and probably starting to smell.
I step down from the dance floor, lean against the railing.
Crap, I forgot about Trevor. I hope he’s—
A hand slaps my shoulder. “Oh my God!” Trevor says. “That was crazy! I can’t believe we just did that, it’s like so not an us thing to do, you know? It’s like we’re our own doppelgangers or something.”
“Yeah,” I say, out of breath, “it was cool. Come on, let’s go sit down.” We find some more barstools nearby.
My mouth tastes like salt and dust. I want to buy a new bottle of water, but my bladder argues against it. I’ll probably have permanent kidney damage after tonight. I consider giving the urinal another try, but if I still can’t go, I’ll lose all my feel good points with nothing to show for it.
“Seriously, Alvin, I’m in shock right now.”
“It was pretty unbelievable.”
A man comes over to us. Tight, primary blue t-shirt, messy chic blonde hair, clean shaven, smiling, forceful. He looks Trevor up and down, then me, then Trevor again. “Hey, how’re you guys doing?”
“Fine!” Trevor says.
“I saw you guys dancing out there, pretty wild stuff.” He laughs. “You guys haven’t been here before, have you?”
“No way,” Trevor says, “this is our first time!”
“That’s what I thought. I come here like every week, and I think I’d remember you guys.”
“So this is like a ‘hot spot?’” Trevor says.
“Why do you think I keep coming back?” They both laugh. “My name’s Tim, by the way.” He shakes my hand.
“Hey, what’s up,” I say.
“I’m Trevor!”
Tim laughs, and shakes his hand. “All right Trevor!”
“His friends call him ‘T-Rev,’” I say.
“All right, very cool. How did that start?”
“Oh, no,” Trevor says, “he’s just kidding!”
“Oh, okay. That’s cool.”
I think this guy is hitting on us—or worse, just Trevor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if everybody knows this guy to be gay, they’ll assume I’m gay too. Bad enough they saw Trevor and I dancing together.
“All right!” Tim says. “I love this song. I’m going back up there, what do you guys say?”
“I’ll go!” Trevor says.
“I’m gonna sit this one out.”
“All right, buddy,” Tim says, “see you in a couple! Come on, Trevor, let’s go!”
The two of them jog over to the dance floor. I’m pretty sure Trevor’s not gay, but if he decides this is what he wants, I’ll support him. It would surprise me, that’s all. I mean he’s still got a poster of Zatanna tacked up in his bedroom. Maybe he’s just naïve. Or maybe this is what cool people do, just hang out and talk with whoever they want and it’s not a big deal who’s gay or who’s straight, because they’re not worried what other people think. Doesn’t seem likely though.
When the song’s over, they walk back to me, talking and laughing. Tim puts his arm around my shoulder and shakes me. “Hey, come on, man! We missed you out there!”
“This is great!” Trevor says.
“You’ve got to loosen up!” Tim gives my stomach a noogie with his other hand, and I don’t have time to tell him Stop! or Don’t! because he’s being playful, and saying, “Wohhhhhhh!” and as his knuckles rotate and twist against my swollen bladder, stars explode in my head and I try to shut my eyes against the blinding light but it’s still there, and my broken inner release signal gets re-broken but this time in the ON position.
It’s too late to do anything, too late to stop it. The wet, sticky, warm, wonderful feeling of relief rushes down my legs to my socks to my shoes to the floor, forming a pool around my feet. My eyes are watering so much they could be tears running down my face.
“Are you okay, buddy?” Tim says. “You don’t look too good.”
“Not really.”
“Do you guys smell something?” Trevor says.
“Oh gross,” Tim says. “Oh my God, not cool. Not cool at all.”
I danced, I met someone, I peed myself. I’m going home.
END OF CHAPTER THREE
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Copyright © 2009 by Dante Kleinberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
