Antsy Does Time

is on top. At first he was trying to convince me about how old movies are better than new ones. He’s gotten snooty all of a sudden that way, and anytime you’re over his house, he forces you to watch classic movies like Casablanca and Alien. After chatting for like half an hour, he’s gotten tired of movie talk, and now he’s just telling dead-puppy jokes. This is where things go with Ira, no matter how snooty he pretends to be. I ignore it, and keep my eyes on the ad. Now the answer dances across the banner to join the question.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? ASK DR. GIGABYTE!

At first I just chuckled. Everything’s a website now. It was the next line that really got me.

WITH DR. G, DIAGNOSIS IS FREE!

I sat there staring and blinking, and shaking my head. Gunnar’s doctor was also a “Dr. G.” I figured it was just a coincidence. It had to be. I mean, one out of every twenty-six doctors would be Dr. G, right? Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.

A scoop of ice cream, some root beer, and a dead puppy, Ira’s instant message says. He’s waiting for my LOL, but right now I’ve got bigger puppies to fry.

R U still there?

BRB, I type.

I keep wanting to ignore the Dr. G thing, but I can’t. It’s stuck in my head now.

Maybe it’s legitimate, I tried to tell myself. Maybe it’s just a real, live doctor who does online consultations.

What did one dead puppy say to the other dead puppy?

I don’t care, I answered. GTG. TTYL, I told him, and then I added, IGSINTDRN. I closed the IM window, taking a little pleasure in the fact that Ira would spend hours trying to figure out what that meant.

I watched a string of other ad banners. Singing chickens, man-eating french fries, aliens in drag. I have no idea what they were all advertising, and I really don’t want to know. Then the ad for Dr. G came back. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? I clicked on the ad.

It took me to a very professional-looking page that asked me to enter my symptoms. Did I have symptoms? Well, I was overdue for new shoes, and the ones I had were too small, so my toes have been hurting. I entered Toes hurt. Then it asked me about twenty other questions, all of which I answered as honestly as I could.

Are your toes discolored?

No.

Do you live in a cold climate?

Yes.

Are your ankles swollen?

No.

Have you been bitten by a rodent?

Not to my knowledge.

When all the questions had been answered, the website made me wait for about a minute, my anticipation building in spite of myself, and then it gave me a bright blinking diagnosis.

You may be suffering from rheumatic gout complicated by lead poisoning.

To avoid amputation or death, seek a full diagnosis, available here for $49.95.

All major credit cards accepted.

When I clicked no thanks it took me to a screen that offered pills to relieve my symptoms, which also had the favorable side effect of enlarging muscles and other things.

I tried it three more times. My growling stomach was intestinal gangrene. The crick in my neck was spinal meningitis. The tan line from my watch was acquired melanin deficiency. All could be further diagnosed for $49.95, and all could be treated with the same pills.

I did a lot of pacing that evening. So much that Christina, buried in her homework, actually noticed.

“What’s up with you?” she asked as I paced past her room.

I considered telling her, but instead I just asked, “Have you ever heard of Dr. Gigabyte?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It told me my zit was late-stage leprosy.”

And, grasping at my last straw of reason, I asked, “What if it is?”

“Please, God, let it be true,” Christina said. “Because a leper colony would be better than this.” Then she turned her attention back to her math book.

***

There are no words to describe the muddy mix of things you feel the moment you realize your friend probably isn’t dying, but instead is conning you. It means that no matter how much you thought you knew him, you don’t know him at all.

I still had no proof, only suspicion—after all, Gunnar really could have a different Dr. G—but I had a gut feeling that was impossible to ignore. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was. If Gunnar wasn’t dying, it would go a long way to explaining his family’s behavior. The way they never talked about it, as if . . . well, as if it wasn’t actually happening. And what about Kjersten? Was Kjersten in on this? Could she be? I suppose I could wrap my mind around Gunnar pretending to be sick—but I couldn’t believe Kjersten would be in on it, too. It made me realize I didn’t know, or understand, her all that well either.

I truly hoped his illness was fake. I’d be relieved if it was—and yet at the same time, the thought was already making me mad. See, I had wasted all that time collecting months for him, thinking I was doing something noble— something that might make his limited time a little brighter—and he accepted those months without the slightest hint of the lie. If this was a con, then everyone had been taken in—there was even that stupid time thermometer by the main office. Sure, I’d be thrilled to know he wasn’t dying—but I couldn’t deny the dark river of anger running beneath it. Just the right conditions for a sinkhole.

12. Repossession Is Nine-tenths of the Law, The Other Tenth Is Not My Problem

Mr. Umlaut was home that night. I had hoped he wouldn’t be, because his presence added an even greater air of tension. His Lexus was in the driveway, but not for much longer, because it was being hooked up to a tow truck.

Good, I thought. If his car is in the shop, maybe he won’t go running off to that casino as much.

He stood there in an undershirt, in spite of the cold, watching his car as it was raised. His hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders slumped.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly. “I need to talk to Gunnar.”

“Yeah, yeah—he’s inside.”

He didn’t look at me when he spoke, or take his hands out of his pockets, and I got the feeling that if I had asked to see Attila the Hun, his response would have been, “Yeah, yeah—he’s inside.”

The front door was open a crack. I pushed it all the way open and stepped inside. Gunnar and Kjersten were in the living room—Gunnar was listening to an iPod so loudly I could hear the song all the way across the room. Kjersten sat on the sofa—but not in the way you usually sit on a sofa—she was sitting stiff and straight, like it was a hard chair. All at once I recognized this scene. This was the aftermath of a family fight. Mrs. Umlaut was nowhere to be seen, but I suspected she was either upstairs in a room with the door locked, or in the basement violently doing laundry, or somewhere else where she could be alone with whatever emotions had gotten stirred. I wondered if this had anything to do with the car breaking down.

Kjersten noticed me first, but she didn’t smile and say hello. In fact, she didn’t seem happy to see me at all.