Destroy All Cars (4 page)

I sneak up the stairs, creeping slowly, watching above me. When I make it to the second floor, I stash my stuff in the Art and Music Room and peek across the hallway at the Social Sciences and Government Room, where I'm
sure she is. I think for a second. What am I doing exactly? I'm not sure. I screw up my courage and go for it anyway. I tiptoe across the hall.

The periodical shelf is by the door, so I go there first. I grab a copy of
Psychology Today.
I open it and pretend to read. I scan the room. I don't see Sadie. But I listen for a minute and I hear her in the bookshelves. She's mumbling to herself like she does sometimes. “B…B…here we go…B…B-E…B-E-A…okay, that's it…Charles Beatty…Douglas Beatty…” It sort of kills me how she does things like that. Cute, weird things. She really was the perfect girl for me. At least on a cuteness/ weirdness level.

I listen and figure out exactly where she is. I think about sneaking up behind her, maybe surprising her somehow, or
shushing
her, or something funny like that. But would that be funny? Or creepy? She isn't my girlfriend anymore. We aren't, technically, even friends.

I decide to bail. It's a terrible feeling. To be that close to someone and then realize you have no access. You are not in her life. Not at all. I put
Psychology Today
back and duck out of the room. I run back to Art and Music, where I hide behind some Elton John CDs.

James Hoff

Junior AP English

Mr. Cogweiller

ASSIGNMENT:
personal reflection on a place or location

I love the rumor that the air in malls is oxygen enriched to make you stupid and make you buy stuff. Why are you there if you're not stupid and going to buy stuff?

I love watching people at the mall. Junior high girls shuffling around, chewing gum, flipping their hair, their cells stuck to the sides of their faces.
Oh mah gawd!
they say into their phones, as their pea-sized brains struggle to comprehend the food court.

Then the boys, in their camo cargo shorts, Old Navy tees, backward baseball caps. Checking out the girls. Checking out the new PlayStation. Checking out the Spicy Chicken Wraps at California Kitchen. They have curly blond locks, pucca shell necklaces. Remarkably, they are still wearing shorts and Vans slip-ons, in February. Why not? It is a controlled environment here at the mall. The temperature is our bitch,
bitch.

And the moms, overloaded with shopping bags and babies and other burdens. Despite their armloads of crap, they buy still more crap: Bed, Bath & Beyond crap. Crate & Barrel crap. Pottery Barn crap. Then a
quick stop at Starbucks, or Ben & Jerry's for a shot of sugar to keep them going (buying).

Dads, too, sometimes appear at the mall, though they always look a little lost, surrounded by non-environment-destroying knickknacks. Maybe there's something useful for Dad down at Sears. There must be some sort of gas-powered machinery there. Maybe something to poison the lawn. Or amputate tree limbs. Or exterminate mice and other small animals who dare to co-exist in our living spaces.

People do what they are programmed to do. People are button-pushing robots.

Their alarm clocks wake them up. They push a button to shut them off. They go into their bathrooms and crap and piss. They push a button to eliminate their waste. They enter their kitchens groggy and hungry. They push buttons and food and caffeine products appear.

They enter their garage areas and insert themselves into their vehicles. They push buttons to adjust the interior climate, the comfort level of their seats, the angle of the steering wheel. Then they start the car and push a button to open the garage door. On the street, they push a button on their GPS unit and it tells them where to go.
Take the next left.

At the mall they push a button and enter the automated parking garage. There they leave their vehicles and, if they are unlucky, HAVE TO EXPOSE THEMSELVES TO NATURE FOR A FEW SECONDS, until they are safely
inside Nordstrom. They proceed, quickly pushing buttons on their communication devices and attaching them to the sides of their faces so they can communicate with other button-pushing robots.

The button-pushing robots then proceed through the oxygen-enriched air, which refuels them and primes them for their primary purpose: buying useless crap. They proceed fully loaded with credit cards, debit cards, Mileage-Plus cards. They go into the stores. They evaluate the selections. What shall they buy today? Useless gadgets? Ugly shirts? Something made of plastic? They move silently across the polished marble floors. They shuffle. They consume. They touch base. Then they return to their vehicles.

You think I'm kidding, don't you? You think I'm joking. People aren't robots. It's just a little riff I'm doing. Having a little fun. WELL, GO TO THE MALL AND LOOK AT THE PEOPLE. LOOK AT THEIR FACES AND TELL ME THEY HAVE REAL THOUGHTS. TELL ME THEY KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD AND THEY ARE CAPABLE OF THINKING SOMETHING THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO THINK BY THEIR TVS OR THEIR COMPUTERS OR THE COMMUNICATION DEVICES STUCK TO THE SIDES OF THEIR FACES. PEOPLE REALLY ARE ROBOTS. THEY REALLY ARE. I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS. THEY ARE.

THE END
[not handed in]

So I'm hiding among the Elton John CDs, in the Art and Music Room, and when I look up, there she is. Sadie. She's spotted me.

SADIE:
James! Oh my God! Is that you?

ME:
Uh…

SADIE:
What are you doing here?

ME:
——

SADIE:
I didn't know you still came to the library.

ME:
Uh, yeah…sometimes…

SADIE:
What are you looking at? CDs? They got anything good?

ME:
Not really.

SADIE
(
looking around at the Art and Music Room
): I never come in here. It's nice.

ME:
——

SADIE:
It's so weird I ran into you. What are you doing these days?

ME:
Not too much.

SADIE:
I always mean to say hi at school. I just…it feels awkward…and Will always got a little weird about it.

ME:
Yeah? Why?

SADIE:
I don't know. He got jealous sometimes. And he hates it if I mention you. I figured it would be best to…you know…

ME:
Never talk to me again?

SADIE:
No. Not at all. But you know. Boys get jealous.

ME:
I guess so.

SADIE:
So what about you? How are things? Are you still writing?

ME:
A little.

SADIE:
You never joined the school paper, I noticed.

ME:
No.

SADIE:
That seems like such a waste. You're such a good writer. And they need people.

ME:
All they have is articles about food drives. And student government.

SADIE:
But it would be fun.

ME:
Yeah.

SADIE:
And you write all the time, anyway. I remember you were always writing something. Do you still do that? Get up in the middle of the night and start scribbling away?

ME:
Sometimes.

SADIE:
I'm telling you. They need people. Jill Kantor is always bugging me to do an article—

ME:
So what happened with Will?

SADIE:
Nothing. We broke up.

ME:
That's what I heard.

SADIE:
I know. It kind of dragged on in a way. So I had to say we were totally broken up. Officially.

ME:
Officially.

SADIE:
We still talk a little. Even though we're supposedly not going to.

ME:
Huh.

SADIE:
He says I'm too obsessed with my causes.

ME:
You're not too obsessed with your causes. That's a stupid thing to say.

SADIE:
Well, even if I am. That's me. You know?

ME:
Yeah.

SADIE:
What about you? Doesn't seem like you've gone out with anyone…

ME:
No.

SADIE:
Why not?

ME:
Who would I go out with?

SADIE:
I don't know. There must be somebody out there. I still don't understand why you didn't join the paper. Jill Kantor even asked me about you. You would totally like those guys. And it's so pointless not to contribute something.

ME:
I did write this one thing I thought about sending in.

SADIE:
Really, what is it?

ME:
It's called “Destroy All Cars.”

SADIE:
“Destroy All Cars”? Is it a joke?

ME:
No. Don't you think we should destroy all cars?

SADIE:
No.
How would we get to school?

ME:
We'd have to figure something out. It would force us to rethink our concepts of transportation.

SADIE:
But what about hybrid cars? Or cars that run on electricity?

ME:
Where are we going to get enough electricity to keep all those soccer moms in minivans, driving to the mall to get their nails done?

SADIE:
Through wind farms. Or solar power. And what do you have against soccer moms?

ME:
Nothing. Except that I hate them.

SADIE:
Your approach to these problems is not very logical.

The first time I saw Sadie, I was walking past a student activities table in the breezeway at our school. This was the beginning of sophomore year. Some students were trying to get people to come to the Annual Benefit Dance. If you brought two cans of food, you got in for free, and if you brought four cans, you got a raffle ticket to win an iPod Shuffle. They did it every year. It was kind of a joke, and nobody really went to the dance except for nerds and freshmen.

But that day, there were a lot of people gathered around the table. The whole breezeway was buzzing for some reason. I crowded forward to see what was up, and that's when I saw her. Sadie Kinnell. She was tall, with dark blue eyes and long black hair that swung slightly as she moved her head. She was in full Sadie mode: handing out flyers, buttons; explaining things; talking to four different people at once. She had so much energy. The crowd was mesmerized.

I didn't understand why someone like her would be wasting their time on a canned-food drive. It didn't seem right. I stood with the other people and listened to her talk about helping the needy. She really got into it. She sort of drilled her message right into you. When some people left, she turned to me and said, “I know the dance is sort of lame. But maybe we can make it better.”

It was like she had read my mind.

I didn't know what to say back. I took one of the flyers. “But isn't a food drive sort of a band-aid solution?” I finally asked, over the murmur of the other people.

“What do you mean?” she said, handing buttons to some freshmen.

“So we give some cans of food to people,” I said. “What does that solve?”

“It solves the problem of what they're going to eat that night,” she said, her eyes locking on to mine.

I stared into her face. There was something about her that went right through me. She did something to my insides.

I quickly folded up the flyer and stuffed it in my pocket.

“Come to the dance,” she said.

“I will,” I said. I glanced at her one last time. Then I went to class.

All week I kept folding and unfolding that piece of paper. Then I went to the dance. I even wore my favorite shirt, which at that time was this dorky orange thing with a
Star Trek
collar. And the funny thing was, I went
by myself, which no one does at our high school. Going to a dance by yourself is social suicide. But I did it anyway. I wasn't even worried. It was like some other person had taken over my body.

There weren't many people there. It was pretty much like it always was. Totally lame. But I didn't notice. I walked around. I looked for the girl in the breezeway, the girl who'd invited me.

When I didn't see her, I sat by myself at one of the tables. I didn't dance. Nobody did.

I finally decided she wasn't coming, so I stood up to go home. I was heading for the exit when a hand caught my elbow. I turned around and there she was: that bright face, those shining eyes. I was like,
whoa.

She remembered me from the breezeway. She asked me my name. Then she asked me to dance. She said if we didn't get people dancing, they never would.

So we danced. And it was fun. Other people started to dance, too. And it got to be more fun.

Finally, she went off somewhere to help get the raffle together. I took a seat along the wall. In the darkness, I ran my hand through my hair. I tried not to think too much, I tried to stay calm, but deep down I knew something was happening to me. Something big.

Then a slow dance came on, one of the precious few. I immediately stood up and started looking around the gym for her. I tried to see back by the canned goods. I didn't want to be too obvious, but at the same time, I never wanted to find someone so badly in my life.

I saw her. She was heading my way, weaving through the crowd. She was looking for me. Just like I was looking for her.

We were both embarrassed, of course. And then when we got on the dance floor, we couldn't figure out how to put our arms around each other. But it was okay. We worked it out. Then we swayed back and forth and rotated and held each other like you do.

After the dance, Sadie waited for her mom to pick her up. I stood with her under the awning and watched the drizzle in the streetlight across the road. We talked more. I don't remember what about. It didn't matter. We were going to be together. We both knew it. What that meant exactly, I had no idea. I had never thought about having a girlfriend. I had no idea how that worked. I didn't understand anything in those days.

SADIE:
That's so funny I ran into you. Like here we are, back at the library.