The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

38.

This was the latest crisis: there was still liquor and beer, but no cups or ice. Still cups everywhere, actually, but all used and sticky with backwash, and the kids who so readily exchanged fluids through person-to-person contact balked at sharing them through an inanimate intermediary. Someone had to go to the Kangaroo.

“You have to go to the Kangaroo,” Avery said to Owen Bean. Owen Bean did not want to go to the Kangaroo. But try as he might, he could find nothing unreasonable in the request. “Get a couple bags of ice and some more cups.”

“You got any money?”

“No I don’t have any money.”

The Kangaroo was one of the most attractive features of the Dollhouse, and the main reason Avery, Dave and Owen Bean moved in—a combination convenience store and (surprisingly well-stocked) liquor store within walking distance (WD < ¼ mile) of the Dollhouse, making it perfect for late-night restocking runs when everybody was already too shitfaced to drive. The only time they had ever actually driven to the Kangaroo, Owen Bean surmised, was when picking up a keg of PBR that Avery had conned the ancient proprietor into selling them.

“Do I have to wear the caveman costume?” the Viscount asked the Corpus Major.

Avery regarded his roommate, his inferior, pale skin underneath flimsy faux fur. “You can change,” he said.

Owen Bean (he wasn’t sure why everyone insisted on calling him by his full name; it wasn’t a case of there being more than one Owen in their circle of friends, as there was with the various Chrises [Smelly Chris, Gorilla Chris, Gay Chris], and he had certainly never encouraged the practice [he in fact had spent most of freshman year trying to get people to call him Flash, which an opposing soccer coach had called him once in middle school, and which hadn’t caught on then either], but after a few months of fighting it, he just gave in. He was pretty sure Avery was behind it anyway) walked upstairs to his bedroom to put on some pants. Caveman Theatre had reached halftime, a fifteen-minute break for the participants to work out blocking for their group scene. They were holed up in Dave’s room, and Owen Bean could hear their grunts through the closed door.

O.B.’s own bedroom was behind the stairs, at one end of the horseshoe-shaped hall. The door was closed, which was never a good sign at one of these parties. It probably meant someone was befouling his sheets.

O.B. pushed open the door, and sure enough, the first thing he saw was a pair of bare limbs on the bed, skin so white it was almost translucent. Then he heard the click of a camera shutter, and a flash of white light burned his eyes.

“Jesus, what the fuck—“ Dark spots flashed in front of Owen Bean’s eyes, obscuring the identity of the girl on the bed.

“Just hold still,” said a dusky blue voice, like the feminine equivalent of Avery’s. “The picture’ll be ready in a minute.”

“Who are you?” said O.B. The room was resolving back into visibility. The girl on the bed was like a black-and-white photograph: pale skin, black boots, black hair, black eyeshadow and lipstick, what looked like the standard Slutty Nurse dress but solid black. A nametag was pinned to her dress. It read: RENEE. “What are you doing in my room?

“Taking pictures,” said Renee. “Here.” She handed Owen Bean a Polaroid, an image swimming up into coherence. In it, a surprised O.B. raised his hand to his face as he peered around the opening bedroom door. The flash-thrown shadow of his hand darkened his face.

“No,” said Owen Bean. “What are you doing in my room?”

Renee stood up from the bed, smoothing the lap of her Death Nurse dress. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving.” She brushed past O.B., and he caught a scent of something feral and sweet in her long black hair.

“Wait,” he said. “Want to go to the Kangaroo with me?”

************

The Kangaroo was pretty quiet on weekdays, but on the weekends it could get a little crazy. Usually this was due to the local law prohibiting the sale of alcohol past 11 p.m.; it seemed to Roger that the Kangaroo could potentially double its revenue by ignoring the law, since after 11:00 was when most patrons seemed to want the alcohol the most.

Roger had worked at the Kangaroo for two years, since he was supposed to graduate but didn’t, thanks to never completing the Core Curriculum life-sciences requirement. He tried taking Biology 101 fall semester of senior year but couldn’t deal with the anonymous lecture-hall environment—too easy to fall asleep, too easy just to not go at all—and didn’t even attend lab once; he got as far as buying the required lab coat at the bookstore and decided that it would be more fun to wear the thing while getting drunk than while dissecting cows’ eyes or whatever. (Though his old roommate Damon had filmed himself slicing up a cow’s eye for one of his art classes, an homage to some movie or a Pixies song or something.) So anyway while Damon and Tatiana and even Randy all graduated, Roger stuck around and got a job at the Kangaroo, which was nice because he could walk to work, which was doubly nice because that meant he could get a little buzz on before work and not have to worry about driving.

Roger was 24. Still a kid, he thought. Still time. Still plenty of time.

And working at the Kangaroo wasn’t bad, really, except when the drunk kids came in at midnight on Fridays or Saturdays trying to buy a case of PBR and he had to tell them sorry, he couldn’t sell them any alcohol, and a couple of times he had to reach for the baseball bat behind the counter, and one time he even called the cops, though by the time they showed up the assholes had run off with a bottle of Captain Morgan. Too bad he got kicked out of the duplex, but what do you expect. Turns out they didn’t need him to buy them beer anyway.

For a Saturday, particularly for Halloween, this wasn’t a bad night—almost 1:00 already, and the biggest hassle was the creepy guy hovering around the magazine rack but never actually working up the nerve to pick up a Penthouse and bring it to the register. In celebration, Roger had opened up a bottle of Popov to mix with his Diet Coke.

As the Marlboro promotional clock behind the counter ticked over to 1:00, there were three people in the store besides Roger: the creepy porno guy, a fratty dude in cargo shorts and flip-flops, and a sorority girl in tight black pants, drunk enough that she was hanging off Frat Guy’s shoulder like a cape. Frat Guy was carefully studying the energy-drink shelf in the cooler at the back of the store, no doubt looking for something to keep him up all night while he pounded the living shit out of his unconscious date. Roger took another sip of his vodka-DC, a drink which he had mentally named Glasnost. (In idle moments like this, Roger thought he should write a cocktail guide marketed to younger dudes, as he had invented a whole host of delicious drinks using nothing but the contents of your average college-age male’s refrigerator.)

At 27 seconds past the hour, two more people entered the Kangaroo. One was that kid, Mr. Bean or whatever, the guy who had taken his spot in 1134-B. The other was the most beautiful girl Roger had ever seen.

Bean and the girl wandered past the magazine rack; Creepy Guy awkwardly turned, picked up a can of Pringles and intensely studied it. As the girl walked down the aisle, Creepy Guy shifted his eyes to watch her hips sway in the tiny dress. She and Bean reached the end of the aisle and turned to walk back down the second one, and Creepy Guy turned his attention back to the chips; but as he did, his eyes briefly met Roger’s, and they both realized that for a moment they were thinking the same thing. Roger was not pleased to see that bit of himself in Creepy Guy.

Bean broke away from the girl and headed for the end of the aisle. He grabbed a package of red plastic party cups. It figured. Roger taught those guys how to party—what’s-his-name, Avery, and Rush Limbaugh Jr. A roommates-wanted notice at the Free Speech Kiosk brought them to Dogwood Terrace, and within a month it was like all three of them had grown up together. Roger liked to think of himself as the older brother they never had, someone to show them the ropes, school them in the mysteries of life. He wore his lab coat a lot in those days.

It was around November ’95 that the Bean kid entered the picture—no, October. Halloween 1995. Bean showed up at the party dressed in the furry underoos of He-Man—the same costume as Roger. They could have been brothers, both with stringy blonde hair and sharp, slightly oversized noses. That night it was like Avery and Taft traded Roger for a newer model, and though Roger lived in the house for eight more months, it was clear to everybody that he was already gone.

Bean looked up at the counter and noticed Roger. He nodded in recognition. Roger took another sip of his Glasnost. For a while there he had had great success with the girly drinks he created, notably the Crystal Catalyzer (Southern Comfort, triple sec and lemonade), an almost unbearably sweet concoction that nevertheless was a big hit among already drunk sorority girls. Damon was working at Coca-Cola now; maybe they’d be interested in the Catalyzer. Roger figured he had two ideal consumers there in the back of the store.

Frat Guy finally selected a Red Bull, a newish drink that one of Damon’s soda-marketing buddies had introduced Roger, Damon and Randy to a couple years ago, giving them a few free cases for a party as some sort of viral marketing thing. The marketing guy had said it mixed well with vodka, but Roger found that it added an almost mystical component to the Crystal Catalyzer. The resulting drink was so full of sugar and caffeine its stimulant effect was close to cocaine’s, producing a high that at its peak was a kind of jittery euphoria that was soon followed by a heavy, soul-killing crash. Some people reported hallucinations, including a few Milo Kirbys and even an Anthony Delmonico.

The girl in the goth nurse costume ran her black nails through the bags of chips hanging pendulously from their hooks, setting them in motion to swing along with her hips. She was walking up the middle aisle toward the coolers, toward Frat Guy and Drunk Girl, who were walking down the same aisle toward the counter. As they passed, Goth Nurse said something to Drunk Girl. Drunk Girl made a face, a cartoonish expression of disgust. Frat Guy stopped to glower at Goth Nurse, but Drunk Girl didn’t stop with him, and slid off his shoulder to the floor. As she fell, she vomited, the night’s vodka-cranberries erupting onto the candy displays. Creepy Guy, finally reaching for his Penthouse, stopped at the sound of the vomit, turned to take in the scene for a second, then high-tailed it out the door.

Bean looked at Frat Guy, who had dropped the Red Bull and was muttering something threatening at Goth Nurse. She appeared to be laughing. Bean stepped toward Frat Guy. Roger reached for the baseball bat.

© 2006 Gardner Linn