Punkzilla Page 8

  It had stopped hailing by the time we pulled into a Mobil station but it was raining again and even harder now like you couldn’t even see it like it was coming at you from all sides like an army. Sam ran inside to go to the bathroom and his mom was about to get out to fill the car with gas when she turned to me and said “You’re not pregnant are you?”

  Even though I was shocked by her question I shook my head. I was so shocked that I sort of made a weird squeaking noise with my mouth which I think she misunderstood to mean that maybe I WAS PREGNANT because then she said “Sweetie if you are it’s okay. I just need to know how I can help you.”

  I froze P.

  She said “You must be so shaken up. Poor thing.”

  When she was pumping gas she called her husband on her iPhone. I could hear her pretty good through the window. That bump on her nose was really big. She said “We could let her stay in Katie’s room. . . . Just a night or two. Katie’s not coming home for a few weeks anyway. . . . The poor thing is terrified David. . . . Yeah just pull the extra comforter out of the trunk in the basement. . . . Maybe thirteen fourteen . . .”

  After she hung up the phone she opened the front door and told me that something was wrong with her debit card and she had to go inside and deal with the attendant. She looked mad desperate with wet hair like she just got bit by a dog or something. She told me that she’d just spoken to her husband and how I was more than welcome to stay with them and how Sam’s older sister Katie was away at school and how I could sleep in her room.

  P for some reason there were tears in my eyes and I couldn’t tell if I was acting or if they were real. Does that ever happen to you onstage? Like in a play or during a monologue? Do you get real tears? And if so do you feel weird about it like you’re lying or like your soul is turning gray?

  Sam’s mom said she would be right back and closed the door and jogged into the Mobil station where I could see Sam playing one of those games with the mechanical claw where you try to make it grab a stuffed animal. I imagined his room full of toys and stuffed animals and LEGO villages and a big-ass X Box throne and my stomach started knotting up.

  On the other side of the road there was a strip mall with a Mexican restaurant and a RadioShack and a karate studio and a quick-drop photo lab. All four places were closed and there wasn’t a single car in the parking lot.

  After Sam’s mom paid for the gas she went over to Sam and watched him go for the stuffed animals. She bent down and tried to help him too. She was really rooting for him and I was impressed with her mothering skills.

  That’s when I grabbed his book bag. P you can call me a thief but that would be lame because you’ve known that about me for a while now. You’d have to call me something else to be original like a marauder. A marauder or like a bandit. I don’t know what’s inside me that allows me to do stuff like that. Do you think it’s in our genes? Maybe Mom was some crazy shoplifter in her youth or maybe the Major does weird shit like steal a pack of breath mints when he’s in line at the grocery store?

  Anyway I reached into the side pocket of Sam’s book bag and took his cell phone. It wasn’t an iPhone it was a Sony Ericsson and I almost put it in my pocket but I couldn’t because I knew someone would be able to trace it and plus I felt a little guilty about depriving him of his Snake game so I left it in the front seat and opened the door and made a dead sprint for the strip mall with his book bag. My head felt like it was going to split open every time my feet pushed off the pavement. There weren’t any cars on the road which was probably the luckiest break I’d had till this Lincoln picked me up.

  Behind the Mexican-food place there was a spot for shelter between these two big green recycling Dumpsters. I flipped their plastic lids backwards so they would form a roof. There was also this long cornfield back there and then a bunch of woods. In the middle of the cornfield there was an abandoned green Chevelle like one of those really old ones from the seventies and it had an orange sticker on the windshield and it was mostly rusted out and the tires had been slashed and the back windshield was busted to shit and someone had spray painted “THE ISH EATS SHIT” on the driver’s side door. I figured I could try and wait the rain out a bit and then make a run for the car because it would be a good place to rest but NOT SLEEP and not get so wet and maybe it would be a little warmer than my spot underneath the Dumpster lids. The cornstalks weren’t even a foot tall but there was like this SEA of the stuff P and with the rain going diagonal there was something ominous about it like the corn itself would start humming in some low warlock voice and swallow you up if you walked too far into it.

  For at least an hour I sat under the little Dumpster roof with my knees pulled into my chest. My ass was wet and I was freezing and on top of all that I was suddenly freakishly paranoid that Sam’s mom had called the cops like the Idaho State Smokeys or whatever they’re called. I promised myself that if I heard anyone coming I would run for the cornfield despite my head wounds.

  In Sam’s book bag there were three pairs of boxer shorts and a pair of swimming trunks and a toothbrush and a tube of Crest toothpaste. In a separate compartment there was a thing of dental floss and two unopened Ocean Spray juice boxes and three pairs of white athletic socks and a pair of blue Adidas sweatpants. Also in another zipped pocket was a book called How to Survive A Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion. On the cover was a giant silver robot with fighter planes and choppers swirling around it. From its red eyes it was shooting two death rays down at an ant-sized man who was running away.

  I opened the book and this is what it said. I’m copying it word for word from the book.

  HOW TO FOOL FACE RECOGNITION

  A robot never forgets a face, so the best way to avoid recognition is never show yours. If a robot does catch a glimpse of your mug, it must compare you to a database of other faces in order to recognize you. Here’s a variety of tricks to make sure you remain incognito in a world full of prying robot eyes.

  + STAY ALERT +

  Cameras are passive sensors that can watch silently. Survey your surroundings for hidden cameras and remember where they are. They are usually placed high up. Mounted on top of buildings or at the top of light poles in parking lots. Be especially wary of pan-tilt-zoom cameras that move by themselves; their only purpose is to detect your face and zoom in on it.

  + DISGUISE YOUR FACE +

  Use a mask to completely cover your face and hair, wear (or grow) facial hair, or don sunglasses or a wig. These layers will hide your facial features and gender, as well as the distinctive patterns of subdermal veins visible to hyperspectral cameras (which can see beneath your skin).

  I flipped to another page and there was a piece of spiral notebook paper folded up. It was a letter from Sam to the author of the book and this is what he wrote I shit you not. I’ll copy it word for word with all the punctuation.

  Dear Mr. Wilson:

  Your book is very excellent; in fact, one of the most excellent books I have ever read and I’ve read several books, mostly the Harry Potter books, which I have to say are fair to middling. I’ve even read an adult book by the accomplished writer Stephen King, although my mom took it away before I could finish it because she thought it was too advanced for my intellect. It was called Christine and it was about this haunted car and it was pure horror. But your book is better, I think, because it tells you what to do in case the robots come. And I think they will come because cell phones are so advanced and everyone has e-mail and so the codes are already in place. That makes a lot of sense to me, although my mother, who is fair to middling regarding these matters, thinks my imagination is over-inflamed.

  I’m quite good at that game Snake, by the way. Do you think the robots are somehow monitoring me when I play this game? I hope not, although it would be interesting to meet one sometime, preferably a neutral robot who is more likely to be considerate to a human boy such as myself.

  Well, I have to go now. I’ll finish this letter when I get home. I’
m currently at my cousin Larry’s house. He is quite overweight, I think, and perhaps clinically depressed about it.

  Your most feverish reader,

  Samuel David Brock

  How about that letter P? That kid Sam is like some computer nerd genius type who is all into the future. He’ll probably grow up to be a scientist or he’ll paint weird pictures of robots keeping humans as pets or something. Plus he used so much punctuation which I am bad at I admit like especially with commas. I never know where they’re supposed to go or how many you’re supposed to use so I pretty much just leave them out. I guess that makes me a grammar bandit too.

  There was some other weird stuff in the book bag that I have to tell you about P and this is what I found it was a rubber Halloween mask and it was under the swimsuit. At first I was like does this kid SWIM with a Halloween mask on? I pulled it out and held it up and I’m holding it right now with my left hand and squeezing my spiral notebook between my legs and my teeth are still fucking chattering and I’m almost positive the rubber Halloween mask is supposed to be Keanu Reeves who was that guy from The Matrix.

  So what I did was I put on the mask and walked out to the Chevelle and opened the door which was barely still attached. The thing was like clinging to the car with a few skinny cables. I slid into the driver’s seat and sat back and watched the rain hit the front windshield. I thought how it hadn’t stopped raining since I left Portland and how the only time it stopped was when it hailed and then it started raining right away again.

  The rearview mirror had been ripped off so there was no real way I could see what I looked like with the mask on but that was sort of an awesome feeling like I wasn’t ANYONE for a second like I could be ANYTHING under the mask like a ghost or a wolf boy with a dead bird in my pocket or some green mist.

  Through the nostril holes I could smell the car which smelled rusty but it sort of smelled like hair spray too. I was expecting to find a dead body in the backseat but all there was were a few empty forties of beer with the labels torn off and a twenty-pound dumbbell and a TV Guide with some skeezer on the cover from that emergency-room show that Mom likes to watch Mr. Gray’s Body Parts or whatever it’s called and the skeezer is that Asian one with the big juicy fish lips.

  I was about to start looking through the TV Guide when maybe one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen happened and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because I put the mask on and gained special powers or if I like became something else for a moment. This is what I saw P it was a HUGE ANIMAL I shit you not and it walked right out into the middle of the field like I’m almost positive it came from the woods. At first I thought it was some sort of Sasquatch beast like Big Foot or Chewy from Star Wars or just some half-man creature whose mom was a human woman and dad was like a bear or a wild horse because it sort of reared up on its hind legs. When it went to all fours I could see that it was some sort of a deer only bigger and hairier. Maybe it was a moose or an elk? It definitely had antlers and it was seriously seriously humongously big P. It just stood there facing the Chevelle like it was talking to the car like it knew I was inside it and the beast creature and the Chevelle were having some freaky conversation! I thought it was going to walk up to the car and mad eat me P but it didn’t. Instead it sort of jerked its head like it was paranoid too like maybe as much as me even and it ran off through the field and back into the woods. I thought it was so weird how it came out in the rain like that. I mean don’t most animals hate the rain? Remember how Sarge would go hide under Edward’s bed during thunderstorms and we would have to coax him out with Mom’s leftover Hamburger Helper?

  I have no explanation for nature that’s for sure like animals and vegetables and minerals are completely mysterious categories as far as I’m concerned and rain and rocks and snow and tornadoes too. I mean God is a fucking trip right P? He invented so much weird shit like fish and Spanish and missiles and underground caves and machines that make cars and faces on the sides of mountains! And nudity and Venezuela and flying squirrels with fangs! And we have to deal with ALL OF IT ALL THE TIME!

  I sat in the Chevelle and I was going to wait out the rain and really try and REST and NOT SLEEP and maybe stop my thoughts from SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL but I kept getting this mad paranoid feeling that those forties of beer in the backseat were Budweisers and that they belonged to those ingrates who jumped me back at the bus station which really wasn’t that far away from where I was when I really thought about it and I kept getting this creepy feeling that they were going to show up any minute with like a staple gun or a noose or some sort of cattle prong and take me into the Mexican restaurant through the back where the grill is and torture me or cut one of my hands off and fry it up with hot peppers and make me eat it with some guacamole and chips or something. I know that’s insane P and it’s a good argument for me getting back on my medication but I really believed that I really really did. Talk about mental illness right? After I find you in Memphis and everything works out and you don’t die I’m going to call a cab and have it drive me straight to the first mental hospital I can find.

  I got out of the Chevelle and sort of zigzagged through the cornfield in the rain. I had Sam’s book bag and I was still wearing the Keanu Reeves mask mainly because I didn’t want those dudes who jumped me to know who I was. It was like they were robots from the book and I was trying to confuse them by changing my identity. So I rolled up my jeans and took my New Balances and socks off and stuck them in the book bag and ran barefoot like a maniac through the goopy mud. I kept having this very real feeling that one of those robots was marching behind me so just to distract myself I started saying the General George S. Patton Junior Prayer that I learned at Buckner the one I wrote to you about earlier and I have to admit P it somehow helped. Even though it was STILL RAINING and it was starting to get dark and my feet were killing me and my head was still pounding and the ringing in my brain was getting louder that prayer helped.

  I vowed that I would never turn away from help again and I started thinking about how I could’ve been in a nice house and like totally sleeping in some girl’s bed all warm and dry and probably taking a shower and washing my hair with some expensive shampoo that smells like peaches or cherries or fresh apple pie or something. It almost makes me sick to my stomach as I’m writing this even though I’m safe and dry now in the backseat of this Lincoln.

  I eventually made it through the field just before it went completely dark. Then there was another highway. It was a pretty busy one with semis roaring by so I decided to just sit down on the shoulder. I eventually took the mask off because I figured no one would stop for some kid wearing a rubber Halloween mask in the beginning of March. I sat close to the zooming cars because I figured the sound of their blaring horns would help me stay awake and NOT SLEEP. Either that or I wouldn’t be able to fight sleep anymore and someone would veer off the road and put me out of my misery for good. I was really at that place P. Just a few hours ago. I was so exhausted I didn’t even care if a COP caught me. If that happened I knew I would be taken in and eventually Mom and the Major would get called and then I’d have to face the shitty music and under the circumstances even THAT seemed okay. Have you ever been at the end of your rope like that P? I mean you probably are now right because of your cancer but maybe you’re way more professional or poised when it comes to that kind of exhaustion? Or maybe you DO feel it too? Like you’re always running away from everything and you’re hungry and your pants keep almost falling down because they got your only belt buckle which was one of your favorite items from Portland and you have no friends and everyone thinks you’re a fucking girl and you suck at most things mainly Monday drill and decision making and other important leadership qualities and you don’t know if you’re going to suddenly puke or piss your pants or if you’ll get lucky enough to find a safe place to sleep? That’s what I was going through earlier P. Exactly that and God is a dick for letting all of this happen! He’s a fucking dick for letting you have cancer and if he had an
e-mail address I would get a Yahoo account or one of those other free ones and fire off a few complaints because as it stands right now there’s no way I’m going to Heaven anyway if that place even EXISTS if God is even OUT THERE the great miracle maker!

  When the Lincoln Town Car pulled up Dave or Dan or Dale lowered the window and asked me if I needed a ride and I said yes and he said he was heading east so I got in. I told him how I was supposed to be on a bus heading to Memphis and how I got jumped and how they took my money and how I wasn’t feeling so great. Then he offered me a piece of gum and I took it and as soon as I bit into it I almost puked I don’t even know why maybe because of the sudden rush of flavor but I swallowed hard and kept chewing. Then the old lady in the passenger’s seat turned around to look at me and she was staring at me hard like she could barely make me out like she was mad confused about something. I said “I’m a boy okay?” and this is what the old leaky-eyed hag said back and it’s the only thing she said the whole time I’ve been in this car P she said “I don’t care what you are shrimp” and then she turned around just like that. She called me a fucking shrimp P! She was the exact kind of person I would have robbed in Forest Park I swear.

  A few minutes after she called me a shrimp the guy who was driving asked me to buckle my seat belt and I did and then he stared at me through the rearview mirror a bit and asked me what school I went to and I told him about Buckner and how it’s a military school. He said “You on spring break?” and I said “Till next week” which was my first lie. I tried not to say much after that because I was afraid that I would just start lying like crazy like a bunch of loose teeth falling out of your mouth or something.

  I have to stop writing now P because my hand really is hurting pretty bad and I’m not just saying that. It’s like I have a permanent headache in my palm. And this pen is running out so it may be a while before I can write you again. I’m just glad I’m not dead and that I’m finally out of the rain.