Countless Hours Discussing Philosophy With Teenagers Chapter 1+2

1
My old maroon Honda civic rattled as I made the turn. It should have been a discouraging trip to make, going back to the school so soon after it was over, but it was exciting because I didn't even need to get out of the car. The school was gloriously abandoned, utterly deserted, except for Will sitting on the curb, listening to music on big black on ear headphones and playing on a Nintendo DS, hiding just under the school's shade from the pounding June sun. He looked up at me, shook his head, snapped the DS shut, dropped the headphones around his neck, walked up to the car, threw his backpack into the back with sarcastic force, and climbed into the shotgun seat.
“Sorry I'm late,” I said, pushing down on the accelerator and getting back on Jefferson Avenue. I didn't know where to go, but I figured I'd head north to the highway, go to one of the businesses around there. On a summer day, there was really nowhere else to go, short of downtown, where the nightlife verged on nonexistent and didn't even start until ten anyway.
“No problem. It's only twenty minutes...twenty slow, horrible minutes.”
“Not my fault you had academic recovery.”
“True. But that graphic art in video games exhibit was only open till 4, and it was at least a two hour drive to Grand Rapids.”
“You could have it least called in, dumbass."
“Well...you could at least...shut up!” Will chortled back, shaking his head, with his little, characteristic smile. It was no senior picture smile, just a contented, authentic grin. "You're just jealous cause I'm taller than you."
"Hey, like, two inches, ok?"
"I'm still taller."
"Fine. Where are we going, anyway?"
“Let's go to Applebees,” said Will, “I could use some all American home cooked grease.”
"Fun fun fun."
Silence. I cranked up the music. It was a playlist I had made thinking of summer, as I wished for it to be closer and closer and closer. Now, it was here, and the breezy overdone folk flourishes seemed unneeded. I turned the music back down again.
"I'm so glad that summer's here," I said.
"Me too."
"I'm just glad to be free of like... the whole school environment. All that artificiality, all that bullshit, all those social standards...gone. You know?"
"I know. I'm glad about it too. I'm looking forward to hanging out with friends, maybe playing some video games or whatever."
"I haven't played video games in months!" I said. "That'll be fun."
“Yeah, you got into books and didn't have time for final fantasy any more...” said Will. “You fucking bookworm.”
“You got into painting...you fucking emo.”
“Hey, it's not painting, it's sketching. And I only started because my parents got an auto-off timer for the computer.”
“True, 'Unless you have friends over!' Remember that?”
“I do,” said Will casually. “Only reason I had you over in the first place.”
I wasn't offended, partially because it was true. In the strange way that things work, that little superficial parent block had triggered our friendship, when Will first dragged me to his house at age seven, eager to sit down and play video games while I watched. Eventually, his parents figured it out and removed that rule, but we kept hanging out anyway. Nevertheless, I decided to have some fun with it. “It's ok. I know that you hate me.”
“That's what she said.”
“That's what your mom said.”
“That's what your grandma said."
"That's what your mom and your grandma said."
"That's what every woman in your families history said."
I thought about hitting him, but he wouldn't take it seriously. Nothing was serious, our insults were just word play. We were best friends, and we didn't care if we were insulting each other or talking about pointless philosophy, we never could really get angry at each other.
We arrived at the teeming parking lot of Applebees, found a spot in the back corner, and went inside. It had that dim but adequate upscale bar light, smelled musky, and was full of clamor. It was always packed like that, but the prices were low enough to attract teenagers and it was considered “Nice” enough in our small town to be something of a luxury restaurant. The Waitress at the door was a busty but reserved-looking blonde girl, like the sort of girl to gaze at from behind a bookshelf, as she made her ponderous decision about whether it would be more fun to read the complete works of William Shakespeare for the fifth time or The Canterbury Tales for the seventh. She greeted us ("Welcome To Applebees. Just the two of you today?" | "Yes.", she grabbed two menus, and she escorted us to a booth. I thought about maybe trying to check her out but I decided not to. She threw the menus upon the table with a bizarre sort of grace. She stepped aside to let us into the booth, and we sat down. I sat straight forward and turned my head to look at her, Will put his back against the wall and stretched his legs across the booth. The Waitress gave him a aloofly surprised glance.
“Can I get you guys some drinks?” said The Waitress.
“Yeah, I'll take a Sprite,”I said.
“Coke,” said Will.
“Alright,” said The Waitress. “I'll be back in a couple minutes with those and to take your order, ok?”
“Thanks,” I said. She slipped a tiny smile at me, at least, I'm pretty sure she did, while she walked away.
“Man...” I said.
“She was hot,” said Will.
“She was smokin' hot. She was just...uh...” I shivered it out of my system. She was the type of girl I went complete insane for.”
“She kind of has that hot librarian look.”
“She does.”
“Whoever gets her, gets her,” said Will.
“Well, let's get serious now, I mean, she's obviously more...” Will made a weird, swipey grimace we had invented when we were nine as a way to covertly say “Shut up now.” The waitress was behind us, carrying a drink in each hand, and both of them down at her sides. Although the place was swimmingly busy, she seemed incredibly relaxed about the service, she wasn't carrying a tray or moving quickly.
“Here are you drinks,” she said, setting them down on the table and leaning against my side of the booth. “What do you want to order?”
“Oahu burger and fries,” said Will.
“I'll take the veggie salad, but throw some chicken on there,” I said.
“Well, I can try to convince the chef, but he doesn't like tossing meat that much.”
I laughed and smiled nervously, embarrassed, sort of. I was looking at her face, and her smile that started to crack open and show her teeth, and I wondered if I was supposed to be doing that. What part of her should I have been looking it? What part did I normally look at? I couldn't remember. I needed something to do but I couldn't think of anything. I needed to say something. I made a sort of “Heh” noise and looking down at my hands clasping each other, as if I was in some sort of prayer.
“I'll get that for you,” she said. I looked back up at her. Her smile had thinned a little, and she just turned around and walked away.
There was about a half a second pause, and I braced for Will's critique of my romantic failing.“Dude,” said Will, “She was totally trying to start something. All you had to do was follow up with some cheesy pun and you were home free.”
“I know,” I said. “I just...”
“What?”
“Didn't feel like it. It's the first day of summer. I'm fine just to chill without any relationship-drama-sex...bullshit.”
“You wimped out, dude.”
I made a half smile. “Sort of.” I felt so crummy about stuff like that, not talking to her meant regretting it for the rest of the day, talking to her was practically a guarantee of a humiliating comeback (like the one the cashier had given, only more vicious) that would lead me to days of brooding. I wished I could care as little as Will did about that stuff, but I couldn't. Sometimes that bothered me, but at that moment it didn't, I was too happy to have issues with it.
Will's cellphone rang a distorted fragment of a Sonic Youth song, and everyone turned their heads to look at him. I looked down at the table, and I heard the ringtone stop as the phone clacked open. “Hullo.”
“Oh, hey Andy.” He had his contented authentic grin on.
“I know, it feels great to be out of school.”
“I'm here at Applebees with Tony.”
“Yeah, sure, come on. See you in a few.”
“Bye.” He closed the phone. “That was Andy. Krystal, Eliza, and him are on their way.”
“Sweetness.”
We reclined back into our seats, holding our drinks close to us and sipping from them frequently. We were silent, but the rest of the room was alive, and we-I was, at least, looking at everybody. The whole place seemed to be flowing and the bar light shimmered like street-lamp light, there was just so much energy to all of it.
“Doesn't it feel great to be out of school?” said Will.
“I know,” I said. “I'm just kind of riding that high for the moment.”
“When does the crash happen?” said Will.
“When you sit at home in August, shit bored, waiting for school to start.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You know, it feels like...just cause like, Andy and Dan and Mary are leaving, and stuff, I think we that we should just hang out now, and try to have an insane summer. I mean, I don't want to spend ten hours a day sketching.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I just think we can't give it up. We both will probably have to get jobs next summer, so we need to do a ton of crazy shit now.”
“I know. I also kind of feel like we should do something else, you know?”
“Like what?”
“Like a project.”
“Like that raft we made when we were kids? Because I'm not entirely sure I want to end up stranded in the middle of the creek again.”
“Well, I meant something that would interest us now.. We should make something that interests both of us. Like a CD. We could dust off the old guitar and bass...”
Will shrugged.“I dunno. I'm not sure I can play that well anymore.”
“I can still play. I picked it up a few days ago and tried it and I could still keep pace with some pretty fast songs.”
“Well, it's easier on four strings, though. Plus, you're playing quarter notes, at the fastest.”
“True. But I mean, we could do other things,” I said, even though I was looking forward to music, in fact, that was what give me the idea originally.
“Like what?”
“Like...I don't know. Write a play. Or a movie.”
“Dude, I can't use fucking commas. It'd be like asking you to draw a goddamn stick figure.”
“I don't know...” I said. “Maybe it was just a bad idea.” I felt discouraged all the sudden. It had been an idea that had been lurking in my head for weeks, months before school got out, that we were going to build something or do something to make the summer perfect, make our Opus when we were eighteen and then retire. “I mean, we should do something.”
“Well,” said Will, “Not that there's nothing to do. But if we look for it, it'll never come, you know? We have to wait, and hope inspiration hits.”
“That could take the whole summer!” I protested.
He shrugged. “Better than not having fun.”
I was kind of ticked off, but I tried to hide it. “I'd just hate to get to the end of the summer and feel like we wasted it.”
“Me too,” said Will, smiling oddly, his expression one I couldn't place. It was a weird, curvy smile, but not all that familiar of a one. He stopped speaking for a moment, letting the smile take predominance over everything. “But we can't...” All the sudden, I felt two hands clamp over my eyes.
“Guess who?” said a vaguely familiar female voice. It was Krystal's, but I knew immediately they weren't her hands, they were too big. They were trying to trick me!
“Andy.”
“Damn!” said Andy, his massive hands slipping off my eyes. “How'd you know?”
"Krystal doesn't have that big of hands," I siad.
"Figures." Krystal came up from behind Andy, and her slender hand grabbed Andy's beefy one, they were opposites in so many ways: He had a bulky body with a irregular face that had a large brown birthmark across the cheek, whereas she was on the thin side of normal, and if her face had any blemish, it was covered in layers of makeup. He tumbled into the booth, rough and ready, and she sat down daintily, her flowery perfume covering up Andy's woodsy, sweaty smell. They connected as naturally as two magnets. Eliza was medium weight, with decent breasts, a friendly face and fiery hair, but I knew I wouldn't even dare mess with her, the way Will looked at her as she sat down. He took a peek at her less easily accessible parts as she sat down next to him, and then as she swung around to face everyone, he got a glimpse of her face, and they looked at each other.
“Hey,” she said to Will, “I know you.”
“That's right!” he said, “You sat in front of me in Spanish class! Oh man, that was awesome!”
“Remember Billy Johnson?”
“Oh yeah! That weirdo who was always looking at you from across the class!”
“He actually asked me out a couple months ago, and I couldn't bear to turn him down.”
“Really?” said Will, grinning broadly.“What'd you do?”he asked.
“Well, I didn't want to turn him down, so I went out on a date with him and scared the shit out of him.”
“Oh man. How?”
“I started by going to a sex toy shop, asking him if he was interested in orgies, and when he said no, I took him to a graveyard, and I told him I wanted to make out, then told him how I thought it would be sexy if we did a satanic ritual. He's a hardcore Christian...and he told me he wanted to go home, after that. Then he never called me again!”
“Problem solved,” said Will. I observed, in that moment, that Will and Eliza looked as if they were almost exactly the same height. They couldn't have been more than millimeters apart.
“Very nice,” I said. “Sparing both parties.”
“I know,” she smiled. “That's me!”
“Eliza the overly considerate!” said Andy. Krystal laughed.
“You're so funny!” said Krystal. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes dramatically.
“That's why you love me!” he said, pecking her on the cheek. She kept her wide smile, which was nice, friendly, but a bit eriee in a way I couldn't place. She was just a wife who was lightly irritated by her husband's overexxaggerated displays of affection.
“I can't believe it's summer already,” said Andy, repeating what had been said hundreds of times today.
“Are you doing anything?” I asked.
“I'm gonna be training for football and working at that sports store down by the highway.”
“Cool. I remember buying a baseball bat there once,” I said.
“You played baseball?” he asked.
“Only a bit. When I was little.”
“That's cool.”
“Not really. I never hit anything out of the infield.”
“I remember that,” said Will. “That was no fun.”
“You played too?” said Andy.
“Yeah,” he said, “I was the only one worse than Tony. At least he had some power.”
“Well, at least you had some hand eye coordination,” I said.
“So what about you?” asked Andy. “Are you gonna spend your summer reading Shakespeare and creating world peace?”
“Naw. If there was world peace, I wouldn't have anything to complain about.”
“What about you, Will?” said Andy. “Are you going to make a video game, or paint a masterpiece?”
“I was planning on making my opus, 'Your Nude Mom' at some point, but I need to wait till you're out of the house,” said Will. Eliza giggled.
“You paint?” she said.
“I don't know. Sometimes if I'm bored I'll draw a still life, and occasionally I'll make a little dorky video game and draw the characters for it.”
“That's so nerdy,” she said, but instantly seeing the obvious droop in Will's face (his facial expressions were always dead giveaways), she added, “But there's nothing wrong with nerdy. I kind of like it, actually. It's like, artsy nerdy...”
“Well, at least that's fifty percent attractive,” said Will. Eliza laughed again. Krystal carried on slipping between her real grin and her slightly disturbing grin.
“So,” said Andy, “Did you guys order?” As he said that, the waitress came up behind him and set our food on the table. “Well speak of the devil,” he said in an only semi-ironic folksy voice.
“Lucifer,” said the waitress, giving Will and I our meals. “Do the new arrivals want any food?”
“I'm alright,” said Krystal. Andy and Eliza both dismissed it with lazy expressions. The waitress nodded tersely and walked away.
“Odd girl,” said Andy.
“And hot,” said Will, “Tony totally passed up an obvious attempt to hit on her.”
“Aw, too bad,” said Andy.
“It's ok that you're gay, Tony. It's really not a big deal.”
I made a slow, sarcastic blink, lowered my head and brought my fist against my mouth. “*Cough* Gofuckyouself Cough”
“Now, now, girls,” said Eliza, “That's enough.”
“What did you say?” said Will.
“I called you a girl,” said Eliza. “But it's cool to be a lady who looks like a dude. I used to be into that...”
“What!” I said. Will looked somewhere between horrified and incredibly aroused, with a horrified open-mouthed grin on his face.
She shrugged. “I was. I develop obsessions. Sometimes, very strange obsessions.”
“Hey, I'm down with that.
Eliza looked at Will. And I could immediately tell from the way she looked at Will that she had the beginnings of the crush with her. It made me feel, at the same time, happy for Will, nervous for Will, jealous of Will.
Will and I started to eat our food, and played less of a role in conversation. Krystal and Eliza dominated the conversation, by and large, talking about girly gossip, about who was breaking up, what open houses were being boycotted by who on what superficial grounds, who got fired, etc. Andy looked at Krystal most of the time, not really saying much of anything. Will and I would occasionally throw in an occasional offhand semi-serious sarcastic phrase. After about ten minutes, we were both done, and Andy and Krystal were picking at our leftover french fries and potato chips.
“Do you guys want to go somewhere else?” I asked.
“I could go for some coffee,” said Krystal. “We could go to starbucks.”
“Dude, Kerouac's is way better!
“That's way south of forty-five,” said Andy. “Let's just get it up here.”
“Fine,” I said.
We all finished off the fries, left a check and a generous tip at my behest(“You should have left your phone number, dude!” “Let it be, Will.” “I'm just saying, if he doesn't try he isn't ever gonna get anything.” “Well then, he'll die a virgin.” “Hey, I'm standing right here!”) We drove out of the Applebees, Will in my car, and Eliza and Krystal in Andy's car.
“Dude,” said Will. “That girl...Eliza...she's so amazingly hot.”
“She's all yours, my man.”
“You don't think she is?”
“I didn't say I wasn't. I just know you want her, so she's all yours.”
He grabbed my shoulder and shook it like a hand. “Thanks, man. You're a good friend.”
“Thanks. But if you push my shoulder any harder I'm gonna veer into the median.”
“Damn. You're on to me.”
We got off the highway again quickly, making the irritating michigan left: A trip past the intersection, a legal u-turn, followed by a right turn, with The Starbucks before us. The sun was starting to peek down in the skies, lighting up a couple of fluffy, nonthreatening clouds. I went into the tiny parking lot and took a spot close to the building.
“Here we are!” I said, getting out of the car.
“Our favorite little corporate coffee shop!” said Will. “Gotta love it!”
Sadly, a gossipy old pair of book-club women were already sitting across the couch and one of the lounge chairs, so I knew we would have to settle for the uncomfortable hardback chairs instead. Andy bought Krystal a double-shot caramel frappucino, then Eliza got herself a large hot coffee with two extra shots, then I covered Will's Iced Mocha and my Iced Carmel Machiatto.
“This ought to keep us awake!” said Eliza, tipping her cup back like a drunk.
“Uh, it should for you,” I said. “Why didn't you just take a caffine pill?”
“At least it would taste better,” said Andy.
“Not a coffee guy?”asked Will.
“I'm more of a Lucky's choclate-cake- milkshake guy. They taste better than these fancy frappucinos, and they're cheaper. No offense, honey,” said Andy, noting Krystal's flat expression.
It didn't change, but she simply retorted, “You paid for it.”
“Yup. That's where my paycheck goes. Coffee for Krystal.”
“Oh, shut up!” she said, grinning and slapping his shoulder.
He spun her around to face her. “Well, I buy you dinners, too.”
“And I reward you,” she said, pecking him on the lips and pulling away before she could return the favor. “I love my Decaf Carmel Frappucinos with an extra shot!”
“Decaf with an extra shot?” I said.
“I like the coffee taste,” she said. “It's my drink.” She took a quick, careful sip and cradled the drink carefully. “Where are we sitting?”
“Just over there, I think,” I said.
We all sat around a tiny table in wooden, uncomfortable, stool-like chairs.
“Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee.” said Eliza.
“Hey Eliza, do you like coffee?” asked Will.
“I do.”
“Wow, I wouldn't have guessed.”
“Did you know Andy likes sports?” said Eliza.
“There's a shocker!”
“I do stuff besides sports,” said Andy.
“Hunting and walking sort of count,” I said.
“Oh, well. School, I suppose, then,” said Andy. “I guess I just like to get my hands dirty.”
“Krystal might know about that,” said Eliza. Krystal gave her a fiery glare. “I'm just kidding, of course. I'm sure you're perfectly celibate.”
“Now, now,”said Andy.
Krystal's expression softened a bit. “I can throw some stuff out about you, Eliza.”
“What can I say,” she said. “I develop obsessions. Occasionally, they make me do dumb things.”
“Without dumb things, life is no fun,” said Will.
“Amen. Which is why we should just run around.”
“What?”
Eliza drained what was left of her coffee. “There you go. Now let's go run somewhere.”
“I'm down with that,” said Will.
“But I'm wearing high heels!” said Krystal.
“Go barefoot, silly!” said Eliza. “You're too uptight. Cut loose a little.”
“Fine,” she said, “But you have to wash my feet.”
“Eww...then no.” Krystal gave her a puppy look, and she added, “Just kidding! I'd be gald to wash your beautiful feet!”
“I bet Andy would wash your feet...” said Will.
“Oh, fuck off,” said Andy, but his expression was still loose and goofy. That was what was amazing about Andy, he never got mad at anyone, ever. You could step on his toes, or critisize all of his beliefs, but he still wouldn't do a single thing. And he could do the same things to you with a glowing smile on his face.
Without any further warning, Eliza stood right up, rushed out of the door, leaving us all in the dust.
“She does that,” said Krystal scornfully. “I'm pretty sure it's an attention bid. Same with that, 'Obsession' crap.”
“Well, I'm gonna catch up!” said Will, already up on his feet. “Tony! Follow me!”
“Will do!” I said, and we both ran out of starbucks, leaving our empty drinks on the table. I know why Will was chasing her, and I just followed along for the ride. Besides I didn't want to be a third wheel with Andy and Krystal. She looked over her shoulder and saw that we were following her and just kept running north, away from US-45. The sun was starting to fall over the horizon, and the cool night air propelled us on our chase. I was running hard, every hair on my body on end and my heart smacking against my lungs with each breath, but we were both ignoring the physical stress as Eliza slipped further away from us. She turned around to face us and shouted, “Bet you can't catch me before I get to 40th street!” I peeked at the road sign. She was on 36th. Will and I took of at full speed after her. She went slower now, and I could almost hear her breathing.
Will was going faster than me, running like a dog closing in on a rabbit. Eliza, just passing thrity-ninth, shifted a little off the sidewalk and on to the grass near the shoulder of the road, and started to slow. I watched Will take the final run to catch her, grabbing her around the waist. She let out a scream as the force of Will's run toppled them to the ground. They both laughed madly I slowed down and approached.
“That was fun,” said Eliza.
“I can barely breathe,” said Will.
I walked right up to them, smiling, like a parent watching playing children. “Aww...” I said. “You guys look so cute sprawled over each other like that.”
“Race you again!” said Eliza, getting out from under Will and starting to run, but Will caught her by the shoulder. “Oh no you don't! I can't keep up with you again, I'm exhausted.”
“Well, let's at least walk a bit,” said Eliza, “I've never been out over here, I don't think. Or it's at least been a while.”
“We're near the railroad, I think,” I said. We started to walk.
“Oh! Those are the really cool ones,” said Will. “Like in that one movie.”
“Descriptive,” I said snidely. I had the passing feeling of being a third wheel, but it fell away. I figured I could at least be helpful to Will, somehow.
“That one that Steven King wrote...with the kids who try to find a dead body.”
“Stand by Me?” said Eliza.
“Yeah! That's it.”
“I love Stephen King,” she said. “One time, I thought a hand would come out of the shower drain, like in that one story of his...I couldn't shower for weeks.”
“Nice,” said Will.
“Why did you do that?” I said.
She shrugged. “Obsessive Personality. It's messed up.”
“That's alright,” said Will. “We all have our problems. Tony's incredibly girl shy, and I'm a bit of a pervert.”
“Yeah, and Hitler hated the Jews a bit too.”
“Ok, so I'm quite the pervert.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” she said. “Perverts are more fun.”
“That's what she said!”I yelled.
“I thought you said he was the pervert!”
“And I am his disciple! In exchange, I teach him how to actually be smart once in a while.”
“Oh, fuck you,” said Will.
“Ten dollars an hour.”
He shook his head in mock disbelief, and Eliza giggled. We passed fiftieth street, approaching where the railroad tracks cut diagonally through the forest and the road. It was a solemn spot. There were no houses for a little ways around it in any direction, the ground below the tracks was made of small, white, jagged rocks, was surrounded by dense, wild forest that covered the track in dense dark, and emitted a beautiful pine smell of the intense adrenaline of night.
“Here's the railroad,” I said.
“Wow,” said Eliza. “I've never been here before.
“It's a really nice place,” I said. “It's really beautiful.”
“I wonder if Krystal and Andy know where we are.”
“Eh, give them some alone time. We'll call them later.”
“Right,” she said, shivering. There was a distant train horn, and the lights on the railroad crossing started to flash and the gates started to slip down. The shiny headlights got brighter and brighter.
“Here comes one,” said Will.
“What side should we go to?” I said. “It could be really long.”
“Let's go to the north side,” said Eliza.
We walked to the other side and stood on the path. “Will Krystal and Andy be able to find us?” I asked.
“It's ok,” said Eliza. “I want to look at the train. We can wait for it to pass, then go back.” We went to the north side of the track, a little ways in the woods but in clear view of the track, right next to the road. We watched the train rattle by, boxcar after boxcar covered in abstract graffiti and gang slogans and red. The cool air being pushed out of the way by the train rushed at us, and it felt beautiful and brilliant. I saw one glimpse of a face tattooed on the side of the car that looked like a blue and green tribal mask, with dots all around the circle of the outside and bubbly eyes and it's popsicle-red tongue sticking out, joking with all the world. and as I watched the mask and the train go off into the dark night, I had this weird, abstract feeling that the summer was going to be absolutely perfect.
2
I sat at home, reading through some old books I liked. It was very much a breezy exercise in nostalgia as I skimmed the pages of Bradbury, Vonnegut, Eggers, Tolkien, and Kerouac, looking for my favorite little pieces of all the stories and taking does of the warmth or the meaning or the excitement I had felt as I read them for the first time, on those late nights when I hid flashlights under my covers to finish the final pages.
I read the Battle For Helm's Deep for a few minutes, skimming over the impromptu sortie and the descriptions of the troop movements, savoring over the ending charge and Gandalf's return. I swapped out to the part in A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius where Dave and Toph were hanging out, feeling the incredible control of pacing and emotions that he had. I moved over to Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, reading my favorite passage, the one where the grandma dies, but gives the speech saying, “I am nothing but fingernails and snakeskins!” God, what I beautiful passage! It made the hair on my arms stand up reading for the hundreth time.
I had just set it down and was deciding what to read next when my dad walked into my room. “Hey,” he said, “the Simpsons is on. Do you want to come watch?”
“Sure, why not?” I had nothing better to do. I followed my dad downstairs to the master bedroom, where our biggest TV resided. I sat down at the front of the bed, my brother sat against the front post of it, and my parents laid back against the pillows, my moms head on my dad's right shoulder and the remote sitting comfortably on my dad's left hand. We all hung out together and laughed communally at what was funny and talked about how the show used to be more funny all those years ago but it was still hilarious now. I had a warm feeling just being in the room, with my family around me, under the TV's faint green glow and the orange bits of sky that slipped in through the windows.
We watched the second re-run, group laughing once again, and the sun ducked a little further down, morphing into red. Then Family Guy came on, a harsh jolt of flesh tones replacing the neutral yellow color. The laughter became less family oriented and more awkward. First, there would be an innaproppriate joke and my parents would laugh, but my brother and I wouldn't laugh because we weren't sure if it was ok. Then, there would be another inappropriate joke and my brother and I would laugh because it was ok the last time, but my parents would withhold their laughter because we had the first time. And it cycled that way. Then family guy was over, and we hit American Dad, at which point my dad said, “I'm changing the channel.”
“Good idea,” said my brother.
“I hate this show,” I said.
He flipped over a couple times. “Oh my gosh,” he said. “This is one of these old seventies grindhouse pictures.”
“Let's watch it,” said my mom excitedly.
“Nothing good ever came out of the seventies,” I said. “Let's go.”
“What about Aerosmith?”
“Meh.”My brother and I got up and started to walk into the other room.
“Don't get water out of the fridge,” said my dad, “It's leaking again, I had to disconnect the spigot.”
“Ok, dad,” said my brother as we walked into the hallway. Our refrigerator was a notorious leaker, so much so that my dad sometimes left a popcorn container under the water dispenser to catch the drippings.
“So what do you want to do?” I said.
“I don't care,” he said.
Yeah he did. “Yeah you do,” I said.
“No I don't,” he said.
I wasn't about to pick. “I don't care either,” I said.
“You pick,” he said.
We would do this odd dance of words every time we didn't have anything to do, until I said,“How about this: I give you three choices, and you pick one.”
“Got it.”
“1. We play some Xbox.”
“2. We play chess.”
“3. We play with the cat.”
“Let'splaychess,” he said immediately.
My brother and I had played chess since I was six, and he was four, and I invented it as a way to clobber him at something. And I did. And he groaned, and whined, and complained, and read half a dozen books about chess strategy, and finally got good enough that he could beat me. And then he started to gloat. So I was left with the responsibility of getting better than him, and snuck his chess strategy books out one by one to read them. We were dead even. After the age of seven, neither of us had lost at chess to anyone except each other. We pulled out the old, plastic set, which was set up in a medieval manner, with 4 castles with chipped battlements, 4 rearing horses with only 3 front legs between them, 4 pope-like bishops, 2 queens, 2 kings, 12 pawns with broken swords, 3 checkers pieces, and a stick figurine with little magnetic feet that supposedly stuck to a refrigerator at one point. I flipped a coin. My brother called tails, and it was tails. He took white, and I took black, and we opened up by locking each other's king pawns at the center of the board. He and I alternated taking pawns, rooks, and knights. Neither of us spoke, except for the occasional utterance of, “check” “check” “checkmate.” “No it's not.” “Oh.” There was no move made without consideration of every alternative and every counter, but he and I had also become marvelously efficient at that sort of threat scanning. Forty minutes later, he was left with a king, two pawns, and a rook, and I was left with a king, a knight, a bishop, and a pawn. His rook took my bishop, which was practically worthless, my knight took his pawn, his rook took my pawn and my knight took his other pawn. So we were left to debate whether or not a caste and king could defeat a horse and king without a careless error.
“I think it could, maybe,” he said.
“I doubt it. A castle and king can barely, barely, checkmate a lone king, I doubt it can handle a horse too.”
“I think maybe, if I can pin your horse...”
“Doubt it.”
“Well, why don't we try it?”
“How about I look it up online?” I walked over to our old, junker, Windows 95 computer which had a proud space in the back of our basement, behind the board games, and loaded the Internet, staring at the screen, staring at the slowly moving little loading bar. I wondered why I didn't go upstairs and get my laptop, but by then I had already started. My brother stayed in the other room, his eyes fixed on the board with an uncharacteristic seriousness. After a few minutes, I managed a successful google search and pulled up a website on chess situations.
“Ha-ha! See, a rook and a king cannot defeat a knight and a king without player error!”
“You don't have a knight,” my brother said.
“Yes I do...” I looked over at the board. My knight was gone, and my had a hand stuck behind his back. He wore a malicious grin. “Check-mate!”
“Oh, you're gonna get it now,” I said, setting down the computer mouse and rushing forward toward him. I tackled him, pinning him to the ground with the force of my weight, when I heard a crunch. I rolled off my brother and he opened his left hand. The horse was in pieces. The only intact remnant was its legs, each rising up to standing at different levels off the base.
“Look,” my brother said, “it's fine.”
“Well, it's body's broken.”
“Peh, horse bodies are for set collectors. We're too hardcore to have intact pieces.” He seit it back on the board. “Another round?”
We played chess late into the night. He managed to pin down my rook with a bishop, and more infuriatingly, escaped without losing the bishop, dooming me to a slow defeat. I got back at him in the next game by trimming away few extra pawns early on, and managed to use one of my extras to get a queen once we had run our other pieces down. I quickly pulled another win, with a quick, lucky, checkmate, a small oversight by my brother and a chance play by me. He insisted on one more game, and although we were both bleary-eyed, I agreed, and he clobbered me terrificly, his eyes full of competitive energy. That hour was three AM.