Everybody Scream! (4 page)

“You tell me, Mr. Success.” Sophi didn’t look up. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. But I’m not trying to, now. When and if I do, I won’t let myself be my own obstacle and my own worst enemy.”

“I’m not a fucking alcoholic, numb nuts. I don’t have a drink to get rolling in the morning…”

“You have.”

“I use it to relax. I work hard so I relax hard. Don’t lecture me today, pal; you go relax your way and I’ll relax mine. You have your own modes of escape, don’t you? Aren’t you a little too attached to yours?”

Del didn’t respond. He’d known from his first words that sooner or later she would turn things around on him, and had known that it might not be a good idea to say any of this and expect her to agree with him. He wanted to say that she had her lovers too in addition to drink, but he knew she would reply–and correctly so–that her lovers had been outnumbered by his five to one. All he dared risk in conclusion was, “I don’t like to see you poisoning yourself.”

“What am I now, a snakebite addict? Am I really so pathetic, Del?”

“There are worse things. That doesn’t make it good.”

“I love it when somebody doesn’t get drunk or drugged–all of a sudden they’re God. As if there weren’t other and worse ways to poison yourself.”

Del took his silk jacket off the back of a chair. “I don’t deny that. I’m not talking about that. Like I say, that doesn’t make what you do good.”

“Just worry about what you do, pal. I like myself okay. You had your revenge, you gave me
your
diagnosis. So go take your walk.”

“Do we have to start out every day like this, Sophi?”

She didn’t answer. She turned a page in the magazine to a spread of bright photographs showing the rooms of a beautiful country house that it was hard to believe anyone actually lived in.

Del sighed, slipped on his jacket, left.

“What do you care, anyway?” Sophi murmured belatedly, still not looking up.

Noelle didn’t offer Kid tea, or even a cup of water–that bothered him. He hated getting out of bed in front of Bonnie in his underpants. “Cute little gut you’re working on, Kid. Making a pillow for Noelle?” His stomach was a little soft. Sometimes it was a crack about his height (he was shorter than Bonnie) or his pale skin (she was nearly as tanned as a saddle) or the size of his nose (she liked her hard-bellied, tanned men to have straight little noses though she had the asymmetrical “ethnic” nose so fashionable now). At least Bonnie offered him some of her breakfast wine, though he wouldn’t take it, not wanting to have to be grateful.

Bonnie had gone now. A knock, the door had opened, the head of a female Choom student had popped in, human in appearance but for the alligator grin stretching back almost to the ears, filled with multiple rows of square teeth, her hair cut short and bristling in the preferred Choom style. “Hey kids, there’s a Golden Sunrise in Love’s room. Ten munits at the door; that’s only five more than the buffet breakfast at the
Kampus Kettle
.”

A Golden Sunrise was usually a weekend luxury; someone would go out for doughnuts or pastries, and also pick up some gold-dust if they didn’t already have it to offer. A little party to perk everyone up for the day, get things rolling from the start. On weekdays when things were more rushed but the need still there, people had their own personal Golden Sunrises. Anyway, Bonnie had jetted off but Noelle had hesitated, decided to stay. Kid Belfast wondered if she could possibly have felt guilty about leaving him alone, knowing he would be too shy, too antisocial to join the others.

They were alone, though the door was open and across the hall in the laundry a handsome, naked, tanned and hard-bellied male student was doing a load of wash. He glanced over a few times into the room but looked away finally under Kid’s deliberate glare. Kid didn’t know if the rich little bastard was displaying his glory for Noelle’s benefit or for his. At a party last weekend given by the sophomores to welcome the incoming freshpersons like Noelle, a school tradition, Kid had been sitting uncomfortably on the arm of a sofa when someone began stroking his thigh. It was a boy slumped back in the sofa, smiling Choom-like up at him. Kid had gotten up and moved. Later he had left the party and Noelle after a witty, grinning, drunken boy repeatedly asked Noelle to go upstairs and take a shower with him. She had declined, but Kid couldn’t stay and watch any longer. He had never liked schools anyway, all the smug groups, the rivalry. He’d dropped out at fifteen. Noelle had done well in school, and was already very much at home here. Real adaptable, Noelle had proved to be. She hadn’t seen any naked boys in high school halls, but already she could ignore the tall soap opera Adonis in the laundry (if only, maybe, for Kid’s benefit).

Three days after the party, Kid had slept over with Noelle after much hesitance on her part, it being a school night. He had crept out after she was asleep and with a spray paint can he’d brought had painted symbols he’d seen in a book about a frightening cult of Satan-worshippers who had been raided, captured or killed in Punktown thirty years ago, all over the hovercar of the boy who had tried to entice Noelle at the party. A security guard had appeared but Kid had escaped without being identified, though he couldn’t return to Noelle. Thus she guessed it was he who had perpetrated the vandalism, and confronted him about it, but he had angrily denied it.

Last night she had finally relented and let him sleep over again, even though she didn’t believe him about the car, and even though she had made it clear to him early in the summer that she only wanted to be friends with Kid now.

Kid had intended to shower off last night’s sex at the men’s shower room a few halls over (the coed showers downstairs were unthinkable despite the visual cornucopia) but now with Bonnie gone he had to make the time count. He had pulled on his old jeans, climbed into his black sweatshirt, embarrassed now to be so naked before Noelle. “Noelle,” he said. She had been making a pretense of picking up around the room.

“What?” She straightened, moving from her face a curtain of her long and thick and curly black hair, a mass around her head like a soft material aura.

“Ah, look–if you’re going to the fair tonight why can’t I go with you? You told me you don’t want me coming around next week…I can understand that. This is your…”

“
Kid
.”

“No, wait, give me a minute, huh? I’m sorry I came around this week, I’m sorry…I won’t…I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you sorry about Mike’s car?”

“Forget Mike’s blasting car, will ya? I won’t come around next week, alright? Or call you either.”

“I don’t have to bargain with you, Kid–I don’t want you coming here next week no matter
what!
Come
on!
” she winced, turning away, tossing up her hands and beginning to pace. “How can I deal with this new experience and all my classes if you don’t stop bothering me?”

“Bothering you.”

“You don’t
understand
.”

“Of course not. I’m a drop-out. I work in a warehouse.”

“I just want air, Kid, can you understand that? Air?”

“Yeah. Like next week when I won’t see you, like I promised. But what’s wrong with you seeing me tonight?”

“For one, you’ll want to stay again, and you can’t. Mostly, I just don’t want to keep encouraging you. I told you how I feel…”

“You want to just cut me away clean. Why? I’ll back off. But why do you want to cut me off clean?”

“I
don’t!
We’re still friends, I told you.”

“Friends. You’re just ashamed of me in front of all your little college robots. You’re just being everything your parents ever wanted and that you promised me you wouldn’t become. Do you remember that? Things you said and promised me? Why can’t I stop bothering you? Because you told me you loved me.
That
bothers
me!
”

“Oh, man.” Noelle paced past him. Even upset, her voice was soft, sweet, breathy, gentle. It seemed almost teary even when she was cooing happily, and it was the most beautiful voice Kid had ever heard. It was as dreamy as her heavy eyelids, as sexy. It had cooed and groaned and moaned in his ear, so softly, murmured secret things in his ear, pressed out of her by his rhythmic weight. Now it pleaded, just as moaningly, “Can’t you respect how I feel?”

“How about how I feel?”

“We
always
talk about how you feel, Kid. See what I mean? Is a person a villain just because they don’t feel the same as another person?”

“You told me you loved me! You promised me you’d stay beside me no matter what your parents said. But they threatened you that they wouldn’t pay for school, and
bang
–that’s it for promises, right?” Kid was no longer soft, meek, afraid to upset her.

“That wasn’t it, I told you! Do you think I’d give up a person I love just because of a threat about money? That hurts, Kid.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Look–I know what I said to you. Things change, people grow in different directions…sometimes you can’t live up to promises, you can’t foresee your changes. Other people aren’t changing me.
I’m
changing me.”

“Stools.”

“I am, damn it!” Even “damn it” was a soft-edged moan. “I can’t live up to what I told you, alright? A father can say he’ll always love and protect his child and give his word, but what if a car hits him?”

Kid barked a hateful laugh. “That’s an act of fate–not a decision. Don’t give me that. You gave in, that’s all. To everyone. That’s easy. Staying by me, that would have been too hard.” The boy in the laundry was on the periphery of Kid’s vision again, looking in at them. Kid whirled and strode to the threshold, eyes blazing across the hall like twin machine guns, slammed the door. He almost locked it.

“Kid.” Noelle was hesitant to say something, but did. “You got a lot of mileage out of being my first.”

“Oh…”

“I said things…you heard me say…the confusion a person has…the first times are intense. I
did
care for you, and I still do, I always will. We had good times. But now I can see that I said things that weren’t totally accurate.”

“Okay, alright, this is all just stools. Bloody blasting stools.” Kid was pacing now. His thrust jaw was a snow plow cleaving the air. “This excuse and that excuse. Change, sex, confusion. Why not face the truth, huh? I may not go to college but I’m not a
total
moron, Noelle, believe it or not. You just can’t handle what I am. Same as your blasting parents…”

“Now
you’re
talking stools, Kid. Don’t start on me with that again because it’s not true!”

“Oh no? No? Yeah–right.” His pacing had sped up, electric, with abrupt turns, forcing her to stop moving about so as to stay out of his way. He kept his eyes off her, though. “You don’t want to dirty yourself on an inferior being…”

“That’s not it! That’s not what upset me! It’s because you’re a liar!”

“A liar, huh? Why, because I didn’t give you a copy of my family tree? Are you a liar because you never told me if your father is all black or if your mother is all white? And what kind of white? What do I care? Did I throw a fit when I found out your mother was white? Did I call you a liar?”

“I never hid or denied or misrepresented anything. You did. You wouldn’t let me see your parents. Some proud son you are.”

Noelle was struck by a lightning bolt of regret even a split second before Kid locked into his tracks, whirled and blasted her with his eyes, aiming the bayonet of his finger. “I love my parents! Don’t ever suggest I don’t love my parents! I never disowned them. It was just awkward, that’s all. I introduced you finally.”

“
After
the picture.”

“So what? So what?”

“Kid, I’m not prejudiced…”

“Yes you are, like your parents.”

“My father liked you. I think my mother even did a bit.”

“They blasting hate me and you know it!”

“Only because you act like a jerk–calling me at three in the morning, throwing stuff at my window, following me everywhere to spy on me.
That’s
what I’m prejudiced against, Kid!”