“My dad’s on a date,” I tell Eric. “We pretty much have the run of the place.”
There are pizza boxes stacked four deep on the kitchen counter. “We have pizza on Fridays,” I tell Eric. “You want some?”
“No thanks,” he says. “I ate.”
“There’s sodas and stuff in the fridge.” I open the fridge. Somebody else being around makes me really look at what’s inside, and it really is just sodas and stuff. I try to think if there’s anything in our cabinets that makes it look like we cook or my dad cooks or we eat anything besides takeout, and I don’t think there is. We have a “chip cabinet” and a “cracker cabinet.” We have a lot of cabinets.
“I was thinking about it,” Eric says, “when I was walking around the block, and I think
I hand Eric a water bottle and get myself a Dr. Pepper.
“I just think it has to be the full title. So you know how
“What’s
“That would be the name of that particular part. Like
“Oh, right.”
“It’s just an example, but do you like it?”
“Yeah,” I say, “I like it.”
“Why do they dress like ninjas?”
“I dunno. They’re retarded?”
“Maybe it’s to jump people,” he says.
“I don’t think they jump anybody. They’re my brother’s friends from church.”
“Those kids go to church?” Eric says.
“Yeah. It’s like this youth church or whatever. My family’s not religious, my brother just goes because his friends do.”
“So they’re religious kids?”
“They’re not anything kids.”
Eric looks out at my pool. “I think maybe they jump people.”
“I dunno,” I say.
We play video games in my room. A fighting game my brother rented. Eric’s terrible.
“Look at this guy! Who needs a sword that big?” Eric says about my character, a skinny guy with long blond hair in an admiral’s uniform who is obliterating Eric’s character with a big fuck-off sword. Eric’s character is a disembodied eyeball on top of a purple whirlwind.
“It’s like a surfboard! Beyond your bigger broadswords, size just becomes a disadvantage. It’s bigger than he is!”
The admiral’s sword glows blue and slashes the purple whirlwind, dealing the eyeball serious damage.
“And how does that hurt me? You didn’t even hit anything resembling flesh!”
The eyeball goes tumbling off the cliff level’s precipice when the admiral lands a surprisingly effective kick with his red slipper.
“You know who my guy looks like?” I say. “Emma Tomlinson.”
“You’re totally right,” Eric says. “Do you like her?”
“Ew! No.”
“No, I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean romantically, I meant just do you think she’s okay.”
“What’s to like? She never talks.”
“Good! Yeah! Me too! I think she’s an albino.”
“I think you’re right.”
“And her whole family comes to pick her up from school. Her mom AND her dad AND her two little sisters and they all look exactly like her.”
“It’s like they sent a homeschooled kid to regular school.”
“Have you ever known any homeschoolers?”
“There are some next door. One time we went on vacation and they picked up our mail for us and I had to go get it when we got back and their whole house smelled like… I dunno. Oatmeal? It was creepy in there. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“We don’t talk to people. Do you think people think we’re creepy?”
“I talk to people!”
“I’ve never seen you talk to anybody in English.”
“Yeah, well, not in English. Why don’t you focus on the game? I’m killing you here.”
We’re halfway through another match. I’m thrashing Eric again. I’m a tiny Asian schoolgirl with two razor fans. Eric’s a half-man, half-Zeppelin.
A couple seconds go by where it’s just the sound of my girl squealing every time she lands a knee or a fan on Eric’s character, and his character harrumphing.
Then Eric says, “You know who my guy looks like?” His guy puffs up like a blimp and rockets into the Asian girl, actually a pretty good move I’m sure he got completely by accident. “Patti Helzburg.”
“Patti is fatter and has a bigger mustache.”
Eric cracks up. We rip on people from school for a while as I beat him but not as badly, then we go downstairs to get sodas.
“How long have your parents been divorced?” Eric says.
“Since I was like nine.”
“Is it strange having your dad go on dates?”
“No, I’m used to it or whatever.”
“I would think that would be strange. Here it is Friday night, your dad is on a date. A lot of kids our age are on dates too. If your dad took his date to the movie theater, there’s a very strong chance he took his date to see the same movie kids our age took their dates to.”
“I don’t think they’re going to the movies,” I say, shutting the cabinet too hard.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Eric says. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
I shrug.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“What? No!”
“Okay,” Eric says. “I’ll have a Dr. Pepper, I think.” He opens the fridge and grabs a can. “I was thinking… I was thinking about the soundtrack, too.”
“Soundtrack?”
“For the movie. The first one.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I was thinking it’d be cool if it had exclusively industrial music. Like Throbbing Gristle, Bauhaus…”
I have to admit I don’t know who those bands are.
“Oh. They’re from the seventies and eighties. I think they would fit really well with the tone of the first movie. I was really interested in industrial music for a while.”
“Cool. I’ve been thinking about it too. I was thinking, I dunno, more modern stuff, like, uhm, The Earnest February, or Forty Guns, or The Boy Who Cried Sparrow.”
“UGH. I hate The Boy Who Cried Sparrow. I can’t stand them. I absolutely, I mean, I can’t stand them.”
“Okay! Jeez. They don’t have to… we don’t have to put them on the soundtrack.”
“I’m sorry if you like them, maybe that’s where we part company, because I think they’re completely overrated. Like, I get it, their singer went to college. Those lyrics could only be considered deep by a sixth-grader. And their arrangements? Pabulum.”
“Fine. Wow.”
We start back upstairs. I have no idea what
