Lucy (10 page)

13

LUCY HAD LEFT
the psychologist’s office weeping. Jenny—Mom, as she was now calling her—had asked her about burning the notebooks as a precaution, but Lucy had hesitated. They were all she had left of her father. And they were the proof of who she was. If she destroyed them, she would forever wonder if the whole thing had been a crazy fantasy.

Lucy was dreading her first class, because it was gym, and she didn’t want to run into the wrestling coach. Yet there he was, as if he had been waiting for her. Lucy tried to veer off, to avoid his gaze, but he homed in on her.

“I am so, so sorry,” Lucy said, trying to imitate the way Amanda talked.

The man cut her off with a slash of his hand in the air. “Forget it. I had to do that for show. The kid you threw across the gym is an asshole. Excuse me. A jerk. He needed to be taught a lesson. He’s probably on steroids, but the school won’t let us test.”

Lucy didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. “Thank you. I felt sad about what I did.”

“Well, you can stop feeling bad. The truth is, our wrestling team sucks. Excuse me. I mean we’re in last place. About fifteen years ago we made state and we have been sucking hind tit ever since. Excuse my French.”

“You speak French?” Lucy and Amanda had been speaking French, and it was fun. Maybe this man could speak with them.

“Christ, no, I don’t speak French. It’s an expression. I’m sorry. I forget you’re not from around here. Look. It’s simple. I want you to try out for the team. Shows you how desperate I am. But I need some new blood.”

“Blood?”

“Sorry. Another expression. Look. All the schools are getting girls on their wrestling teams nowadays. Title Nine crap, but some of ’em are actually pretty good. Would you like to be on the wrestling team, Lucy? That’s what I mean to ask.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To win.”

“Win what?”

“Christ. For glory. For the school, you know. The old team spirit. You do well for the school. People will admire you.”

“I see. Like gaining status in a tribe, you mean?”

“You could think of it that way, yeah. Yeah, I like that: Gaining status in the tribe. Maybe we can use that.”

“I’ll have to ask my mother.”

Jenny objected at first. She didn’t like the idea of something that would draw more attention to Lucy. But then she conceived of another plan to turn it to their advantage. They met with the coach, whose name was Tom Barneke. The students called him Coach Barnacle. Jenny told him that she would allow Lucy to join if he could convince Dr. Mayer to leave her alone.

“Get rid of the rag bag? Sure. With pleasure. She’s always harassing my players. Telling ’em they must be queer if they like to wrestle other guys. My opinion, anybody who’d see a psychologist ought to have his head examined.”

The next day after school, Lucy went to try out for the team. The practice room was at the far end of the gym, concealed off of a dark corridor. As she entered she was shocked that the entire room was blood red. The floor was springy beneath her feet. Then she realized that the room was padded—floor, walls, even the door she had just come through. It was intensely hot and steamy, almost like the jungle. Boys in pairs were down on the floor struggling. Coach Barnacle shouted, “Thirty seconds!” Each pair looked like a pure and singular muscle clenched upon itself, immobile with strain and roaring with metabolic heat.

“O’Brien, setup and takedown. You guys quit dancing. Set ’em up! Ten seconds! Push! Push!”

The hard-sprung bodies strained and streamed with sweat, and one or two jerked as if in response to a sudden pain. Then Lucy heard Coach Barnacle’s whistle and all the couples collapsed, as if the heat had at last melted the metal armatures at their cores. Then the beautiful boys rose miraculously from the slurry, like creatures being born out of a blood-red swamp at the dawn of time. She felt a thrill at the thought that she might do such a dance with one of these fantastic animals.

To her surprise, her first opponent was the same boy she’d thrown across the room. As they squared off, he grinned at Lucy and said, “Let’s see what you got, Tinker Bell.” Lucy smiled at the remark and stiff-armed him. He went down on his back with a tremendous concussion that shook the building.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Lucy reached down to help him up. “It was just a tap.”

The boy slapped her hand away and rose angrily to his feet. He grabbed at Lucy, but she easily evaded him. Growing more angry by the minute, the boy lunged at her. When he caught nothing but air, he lost his balance and went stumbling across the mat, tripping over his own feet. He jumped up, his face livid. He ripped off his helmet, threw it on the floor, and stomped out of the room.

Lucy was astonished that it was so easy. The boys had appeared so powerful a moment before. Coach Barnacle blew his whistle. “Out of bounds!” He came over to her looking grave.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said, “I’ve never done this before. Did I do it wrong?”

He cackled hoarsely and said, “Well, we do need to teach you a few rules.”

“I’m sorry. Where would you like me to throw him?”

That elicited belly laughs from the other wrestlers and quite a few spectators who had gathered.

“Go, Luce!” Lucy looked up and saw Amanda. She waved and pointed her thumb at the ceiling. Lucy waved back and smiled. She showed Amanda her thumb, too, sensing that this was a good greeting for humans.

“Try’n keep’m inside this big circle, that’s all,” Coach Barnacle said. “You want to take ’em down and … Well, you’re not supposed to throw anybody, but …” He seemed at a loss. Then he shouted, “Ayers! You’re up next.”

A towering bronze god descended from the bleachers and squared off with her on the red mat. Lucy could feel her heart going in her chest. She deliberately slowed her breathing. They locked arms circling each other, and then Ayers made his move. He seemed to have a firm hold on her. Then she was simply gone, standing several feet away, smiling at him.

Coach Barnacle stood over him and shouted, “Ayers, why the hell’d you let her go?”

“I didn’t. I had hold of her.”

“Well, something happened. Try it again.”

Once more the boy approached Lucy. They circled each other, and Ayers had a hold on her once again. Then Lucy seemed to vanish into thin air and reappear behind him. She pushed him, and Ayers fell over.

The coach stood over Ayers, saying, “Well, you’re looking pretty whopper-jawed, now, aren’t you, Ayers?”

“She’s cheating!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Chewing on the stub of a pencil, the coach looked at Lucy and muttered to himself, “Raw talent. Brute strength.” Then he hollered to the room in general, “Can any of you studs pin this little girl or what? Come on, gentlemen, is this a wrestling team or a ballet company? Are we on balls patrol or wimp patrol here?” Then he turned to Lucy and said, “Excuse my French.”

One after another the boys came and squared off with her. Lucy felt bad. All she had to do was move out of their way. But it seemed to impress Coach Barnacle nevertheless. When the session was over, he took Lucy and a small boy named Weston Temple aside and said, “Wes, you gotta teach her finesse. You gotta teach her takedowns and good position. She’s obviously got natural moves and strength up the gazops.”

“Yeah, Coach, can do,” Weston said. He looked very shy.

“Can you work with Wes, Lucy?”

“I suppose.”

“Okay, and no shoving or throwing, Lucy. It’s illegal.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Coach Barnacle blew his whistle and shouted, “Ayers, Thompson, Mitchell. You guys go do your laps.”

Lucy felt her blood pumping as she stood facing Wes. It was a good feeling, like when she used to play with the bonobo children. She wasn’t sure what “pin” or “takedown” meant, but she felt that she would like for Wes to do it to her. She saw that to play this game she’d have to pretend to be weaker.

As Wes came at her now, Lucy let herself go limp. He turned her over and thrust her down onto the mat. She didn’t resist. Then he was on her, his chin over her shoulder, his body pressed against hers. She felt a thrill, an exhilarating rush from her legs up through her stomach and chest and all the way, it seemed, into her brain. Coach Barnacle was down on his stomach beside them peering beneath Lucy’s body. She let her shoulders touch the mat.

The coach blew his whistle. “There, that’s a good pin. Good work, guys. You practice that, Lucy.”

Wes popped to his feet as if he’d been spring-loaded. Lucy lay there on the mat looking up at him. She hadn’t exerted herself, but she was breathing hard, confused at what she was feeling. Wes offered Lucy his hand. She took it and he pulled her up. They faced each other, eyes just inches apart. Lucy had a sudden impulse to grab him and wrestle him to the ground, but she held back.

“Thanks, Weston.”

“Okay, now you try.”

They continued to practice, with Lucy offering little resistance, until the mat was slick with sweat and Coach Barnacle blew his whistle and ordered them to run laps. As Lucy was going out the door, Amanda came across the room and put her arm around Lucy. “That was so totally bangin’, Luce.”

“Thanks.”

Lucy followed her into the hall.

“Want to come over to my house?”

“After my laps.” Lucy felt good. She felt powerful. Just then Dr. Mayer came striding down the hall purposefully. She tried to pretend that she didn’t notice the girls, but it was too late. They’d already seen her glance over. Lucy and Amanda grinned from ear to ear at her, and she hurried on beneath the harsh fluorescent lights. Then the girls burst out laughing.

14

THEY TOOK THE BUS
from school, a roaring stinking ride that Lucy thought was all the more odd because the people on the bus ignored one another. It was one of those strange places where The Stream had gone eerily silent. She wondered why the people couldn’t do something during the ride like wrestle or just talk. She wanted to know who all these people were and where they were going with such sound and fury. But they seemed to have lost all curiosity about others. She felt sorry for them. Losing curiosity was like losing the ability to love.

They stepped down from the bus and walked through a neighborhood of tired-looking homes. The eyes of their little windows seemed to droop as if they were weary. The trees seemed unhealthy. As they approached Amanda’s house, Lucy heard the dog. It had recognized her. As they came up the steps, the dog began throwing itself at the door again and again.

“What the hell? Cody, quiet! What’s wrong with that dog? He never barks. He is so the laziest dog in the world.” As Amanda unlocked the door, Lucy could feel herself trembling with energy, prepared for the attack that she knew was coming. “It’s okay. Cody is really, really friendly. I don’t know what’s got into him.”

Lucy knew: She and Cody were in The Stream. They had bonded. They accepted it as natural that one of them would die on this spot. Lucy had backed away, prepared to make sure that it was Cody and not her.

“Could you …? I’m really fearful about dogs. Could you perhaps put him somewhere?”

Amanda gave Lucy a strange look. “Sure. Just wait here.”

She could barely make it through the door because Cody was trying to get at Lucy. But she managed to catch Cody’s collar and slip inside. She returned after a few minutes, saying, “Jeez. He was going bonkers. Come on in. He’s in the basement.”

Amanda’s house was different from Jenny’s. The rooms were smaller and there was less light. The carpet and curtains were old. She caught strong smells—of stale smoke, dog, and alcohol like rotting fruit. Amanda hurried up the stairs. Lucy hesitated. She saw a big television like a great dead eye staring at a sagging chesterfield. Pizza boxes and wine bottles littered a coffee table.

“Come on,” Amanda called down. Lucy hurried up the stairs. “Come on in.” Amanda held open a door at the end of the hallway. “I’m sorry the house is such a mess.” She closed the door behind Lucy.

“That’s quite all right. Thank you for inviting me.”

“This is my so-called room.” Amanda swept her arm around. “Wreck that it is.” The bed was unmade, and there were clothes and shoes strewn about. The walls were covered with posters from movies and music groups. Lucy wandered around the room touching things. There was a folding table with a computer on it and a secretary’s chair with a torn seat. Lucy ran her fingers lightly over the keyboard and the computer screen leapt to life. It was covered with hearts and flowers and photographs of Amanda and her friends. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t know it was on.”

“It’s always on, dude. I live on that thing. That and my phone. Are you on Facebook or YouTube yet?”

“Your what?” By the look on Amanda’s face, Lucy knew that she’d committed another gaffe. “Your tube?” Amanda burst out laughing. “No, wait. You mean my tube?” Lucy felt her face flush hot. Amanda fell on the bed laughing. “What tube is it? I’m sorry. I’m going to shut up now.”

“No, don’t be sorry, it’s okay. What we’re going to do, my little Pop-Tart, is, like, give you this full-immersion course in American culture.”

“I feel like such an idiot.”

“No, no. It’s okay. Hey. You didn’t even have electricity. I so wish I could have the experiences you’ve had.”

Lucy sat on the bed, feeling stupid. “So tell me some things I need to know.” Then, almost to herself: “I must have a phone.”

“Okay, so don’t say, ‘must have’ Say, ‘I’ve got to get a phone.’”

“Got to get?” It sounded wrong.

“Yeah, that’s American talk. Got this, get that. Gotta, gotta, gotta.”

“Gotta get a phone?”

“You got it. See? Just put ‘got’ in a lot. Like I got home late. I’ve gotta go. You’ve got nice hair.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t gotta make sense. And, like, when Coach Barnacle asked you if you could work with Wes, you said, ‘I suppose.’ You don’t say, ‘I suppose.’ You say, ‘Yeah, I guess.’”

“Guess? Why do I have to guess?”

“It’s just a manner of speaking, Luce. It’s the way we talk.”

“Okay. So what’s, um … Your Tube?” Lucy knew that she still had it wrong.

“Come on. I’ll show you.” Amanda pulled another chair up to the computer. She typed and clicked the mouse and soon they were watching what looked like a small television set in the middle of the screen. It showed a pretty girl with curly blond hair.

“Here. This girl’s named Nathalie. She lives in a small farming community in Illinois. Watch.”

The video started with the girl smiling brightly, waving and saying, “Hello, YouTube. I’m making another video. Super! I didn’t know what to talk about, but … I thought I’d give you guys a bunch of random facts about me.” She paused to eat cereal out of the box, muttering to herself and chewing into the camera. “Random fact number one. I like to snowboard.”

“What’s does snowboard mean?”

Amanda stopped the video. “Have you ever seen snow?”

Lucy shook her head sadly. She felt as if there was an entire world out there that she knew nothing about. She’d been studying all her life—math, languages, music, history, science—and yet she knew nothing.

“Here, lemme show you.” She clicked a few times and another video appeared, showing tiny figures zigzagging down a big white mountain. Loud music played as some of the figures leapt and spun around in the air.

“Those are people?”

“Yeah, and they’ve got their feet strapped to a board, that’s why they call it snowboarding. Snow. Board. Snowboarding.”

“Wow. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can teach you, if you want. When winter comes.”

“I would be ever so grateful.”

No! Just say, ‘Sweet.’”

“Sweet?”

“Trust me: Sweet.” Amanda held up her hand. “Slap my hand.” Lucy slapped it. “Ouch. Not so hard.”

“Sorry.”

Amanda switched back to the video of Nathalie, who held up two fingers and said, “Random fact number two: I’m addicted to ChapStick.”

“Do you know what ChapStick is, Lucy?”

“What do you think?”

“Your problem, Luce, is that you have a severe product deficit in your otherwise vast store of knowledge. You need a basic American primer. America is all about products. Buy, buy, buy, eat, eat, eat, consume, consume, consume.” She took a breath. “Goods, matter, material, possessions—stuff.”

“What for? That’s what I don’t understand. What’s all the stuff for? We throw most of it away. So why get it to begin with?”

“I don’t know. It’s just junk. And here’s the thing: There’s always new stuff. Old stuff is no good. New stuff is always better.”

“I always thought that old things were better than new things.”

“Well, some old things are good, like if it’s your grandmother’s wedding ring or old music like Tom Petty and the Beatles. But when it comes to everyday stuff, they’re always telling us that what we’ve got sucks. We need something new.”

“Got to have it?”

“Yeah, gotta get it. Like your breakfast cereal. You know what breakfast cereal is, right?”

“Yeah, Fruity Cheerios.”

“Okay, exactly my point. Once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were, like, only classic Cheerios. Well, after a while someone came up with the idea of Fruity Cheerios and voilà! Something new was born.”

“So what’s ChapStick?”

“It’s something that you put on your lips when they get all dry and cracked.”

“Ohhh. Sure, we used the juice from an aloe plant for that.”

“There you go: Aloe. Once upon a time there was just plain grease. Then someone put aloe in it. Bingo: Something new. So you like Fruity Cheerios? Well, get this: One day you’ll go to the store and they won’t be there anymore. Instead you’ll find some kind of new and improved Cheerio, like hey, we’ve gotten rid of that nasty sweet fruity taste and you can now eat one hundred percent pure organic toasty Cheerios or whatever. And they’ll probably be made out of ground-up clarinet reeds.”

“They went back to plain old Cheerios, then.”

“Right! And the assumption is that we’re too stupid to notice. Which we are.”

“I still don’t understand. What’s the point?”

Amanda leaned in close to Lucy’s ear and whispered, “I think it’s a conspiracy to make somebody rich.”

Lucy found it all completely baffling. Why would someone want to be rich? But she thought that she already sounded stupid enough without asking. “Let’s see some more people.”

“On YouTube? Sure.” Amanda played through a number of videos of teenagers talking about themselves and doing strange things. In one of them a girl held up a piece of notebook paper with the word “myself” scrawled on it in red marker. Then she made a face and picked up a pair of scissors. She held up the paper and cut it in half in front of the camera.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe she cuts herself. There’s a whole subculture on YouTube of girls who cut themselves.”

“They cut themselves?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s weird. I had a friend who was into it in eighth grade. She said it was like getting high. You know, like some kind of chemical is released when you’re injured.”

They shrugged and exchanged a look. Lucy felt comfortable with Amanda. They were communicating in The Stream.

Amanda typed on the keyboard again. One after another, the videos played, and teenagers said, I found out I was pregnant. I decided to commit suicide. I learned I was anorexic. I realized that my parents were proud of me. I questioned my religion. I got suspended for drinking. I got a reputation as a slut. Amanda explained that a large number of the people on YouTube were playing a game called tag. “If you get tagged, then you have to make a video telling five things about yourself and send it to five other people. Then they’re tagged and they have to send it to five other people and so on.”

“That means that if they do that only ten times they’ll be reaching almost ten million people.”

“Is that right? I mean, ten million? Or did you just pick that number at random?”

“No, it’s five to the tenth power. Well, 9,765,625 to be exact. But if you do it just one more time, you’ll be reaching almost fifty million people.”

“How’d you do that math so fast?”

“It’s just, you know … exponents.”

“No, I don’t know. Are you some kind of genius or something?”

Lucy laughed. “No, I just like math.”

“Well, whatever. You’re right. It’s a lot of people. If you put something on YouTube that catches on, it happens really fast. Like you can be talking to millions of people in a few days. Here, let me show you something else.” Amanda found another video. Lucy saw a girl writhing on the floor. She kept saying, “I don’t drink,” and laughing uncontrollably. She tried to stand but fell back to the floor. Then she began screaming and screeching unintelligibly, pouring out her sadness.

“Oh, poor thing,” Lucy whispered. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s just drunk. Behind all the fun and games, there’s a lot of messed-up teenagers out there.”

Another video came on, showing three girls in a pool of bubbling, steaming water. Two of them began kissing, and it dawned on Lucy: They were turning into bonobos. That’s what girl bonobos do, they kiss and fondle each other and laugh and act silly. That’s what alcohol does, she saw. It pushes people back in evolutionary time. Those girls think they’re back in the forest.

Another video showed a number of girls in a big bathroom like the one at school with all the metal stalls, the too-bright lights. Everyone was talking at once, but the video focused on a girl who was stumbling around and slurring her words. She was laughing so hard, yet she was also screaming about how sad she was. It almost hurt Lucy to watch her and to hear her cries.

Without warning, the girl bolted toward one of the stalls, but she ran right into the edge of the open door and knocked herself out. As she lay on the floor, unconscious, several girls stood over her laughing. Lucy felt so bad for her. She saw that those people weren’t merely going back in evolutionary time. They were falling down. Once you’ve spent ten million years learning to walk on two feet, then falling down can be so sad. Lucy covered her face and felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“Oh, my God, Lucy. What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“I just feel so bad for those people. I’m sorry.”

“It’s only a video,” Amanda said. She put her arm around Lucy. “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, no, it’s just …” Lucy didn’t know what she was feeling. She was overwhelmed with sadness for those people. It wasn’t only the drunk girls. She could see that everyone else was holding back from expressing anything deeply. Like the people on the bus who couldn’t talk. But because these girls were drunk, they’d lost that inhibition and were sending the true message of … of … of this whole place. And Lucy wondered, What have I gotten myself into? Can I survive this place?

Lucy looked up and saw on the screen that the video of the drunk girl running into the bathroom stall door had been watched by almost a million people. “Why do they want to see other people so miserable?”

“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “You know. Then you don’t feel so alone, I guess. It’s messed up, I know.” They sat in silence for a time. Then Amanda said, “My mom’s a drunk.”

Lucy didn’t know what to say. She had seen people drunk only a few times, when Denis and his clan had had celebrations. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s okay. I mean, she has a job and all. But my dad left on account of her drinking. My dad’s some kind of investment guy in New York City. He gives me money. But I pretty much fend for myself around here.”

“You seem to be doing okay. You’re in The Stream.”

“The Stream? What’s that?”

Lucy thought for a moment. “Well. It’s kind of like YouTube, I suppose.”

“I guess.”