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rainbowfic2015-06-25 02:47 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-06-25 02:47 am
Milk Bottle #4, Admin Yellow #13, Alien Green #11
Name: starphotographs
Story: Corwin and Friends
Characters: Corwin (POV), Spenser, Tyler
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Summer Carnival)
Colors: Milk Bottle 4 (Cotton Candy), Admin Yellow 13 (I simply made the grievous error of buying Bear a squeaky toy), Alien Green 11 (Oooh… If you were that stoned, what?)
Supplies and Styles: Portrait
Word Count: 5894
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Corwin isn’t nosy, he just has his own way of learning about the world. Today, he learns a little about Tyler.
Note: Questions, concrit, all thoughts awesome. I like thoughts!
All Our Small Lives
Spenser said he was probably heading over to Tyler’s place tonight. Then he asked me if I wanted to come, because I guess it still hasn’t occurred to him that I’m not the best conversationalist, and might want to avoid situations where I end up stranded and stuck having to converse indefinitely. Plus, I have no flipping idea of Tyler even likes me. The first time I met him, it was in the middle of some weird party that Spenser threw in our living room, and he immediately started asking rude questions about my face faster than I could answer them. The second time I met him, it was because Spenser ran into him on the street while we were running errands for the house, and the two of them stood around yakking, taking up the entire sidewalk, while I sat on the curb waiting for them to shut the fuck up. The last time I met him, he made me drink a bunch of booze he poured together into one bottle, and it wasn’t even a dare, just a demand. So, ending up stranded somewhere with Tyler might be a problem unto itself, conversation nonwithstanding.
But, I have a certain problem:
When someone asks me to go somewhere I’ve never been before, I feel invariably compelled to take them up on it. Just to see wherever it is, and check the place out. If it’s a house they’re taking me to, I’ll want to duck my head into every room; open the bathroom cabinets, and the kitchen ones too. There isn’t a particular thing I’m looking for but things themselves. The weird carpeting, the products I don’t buy, the books I’ve never heard of, the ancient hand-me-downs from years I’d never experience in their world. Obviously, I was a real hit when some classmate invited me over “to play,” only to have me wander off and eventually turn up in their mom’s home office, crouched under the desk, staring at the lighted switch on a surge protector. (It was blue. The switches on the ones at my house glowed an orangey-red.) I never grew out of this, but, for unrelated reasons, I eventually learned to sit, barely, with unsatisfied curiosity. Needless to say, it surprised me when Martin’s parents absolutely loved this about me, and insisted I come over more often. But, they’re the king and queen of show-and-tell, to the point of boring non-me houseguests right out the door. Russell showed me blueprints of fuel canisters and second-place trophies from company baseball games. Lien all but outright told me to brush my finger along the edge of a sensitive plant, push little turquoise fertilizer sticks into potting soil, drop a dead moth I found on the windowsill in the flytrap, and stroke one of her soft paintbrushes. I gave them an audience. They gave me the time and space to learn about their stuff and their selves. I might not have always done the talking, but those were the easiest conversations I’d ever had, along with the ones with Martin that lead me there in the first place.
I didn’t know how Tyler would react to me wanting to inspect everything, but I figured it would be easy enough to sit on my hands, look around the living room, and daydream until Spenser was done with him. Even that would be better than not looking around at all, so I decided to tag along. And it wasn’t exactly a short drive. A few miles out of the wastelands, then a few more through town, with Spenser barreling down the road, swerving all over the place, and pointing out every bar he ever had a drink in, every drive-thru where he’d ever purchased a greasy cheeseburger, every fuel station where he’d ever refilled his car or eaten a bag of chips. It was kind of interesting, the way looking at other people’s houses is interesting, but god, he can talk until you never want to hear another human voice for as long as you live. Eventually, we the city spat us out on the other side, where green lawns and trees grew around us. Spenser didn’t seem like he was looking to pull in anywhere, and I realized that I had no idea where the hell this guy lived, or if I hadn’t been told it was three hours away or something.
“…Spenser, where the fuck does Tyler even live?”
“Not too far! Think it’s on the left. What, you like, gotta piss or somethin‘?”
“Um… No. I just don’t know where you’re taking me.”
“Tyler’s fuckin’ house, dude!”
No shit, jackass. Spenser isn’t stupid. Far from it. I sometimes think he must be even smarter than Martin, or at least on even footing, but slipped under the radar or something, possibly on purpose. Problem is, it doesn’t always show, because his mind can be kind of dense. Not what people usually mean when they describe a person as “dense.” It’s just that he has so many thoughts at once that statements and questions can’t always break through them all the way, and either enter in a simplified form or bounce off entirely, which makes his responses seem kind of obtuse. It can be easier to just wait and see what he‘s on about, or what he’s going to do.
In this case, he turned down a narrow, one-lane street, flanked with trees and low, leaf-covered houses. I liked this neighborhood. I wanted to live there. Maybe Tyler lived there. But no, Spenser made another turn, down what looked like a gravel driveway. And I guess it was, but it wasn’t the driveway of any one person, because it opened into yet more gravel, surrounded by compact little sun-bleached duplexes, and more trees. The sky was going purple and orange around the edges, and the light looked the way it does after a storm, all hazy and gold. I decided that, no, I wanted to live here. And from the looks of things Tyler must actually live here. The car stopped on the stones in front of the house on the end, which had some kind of welded sheet metal statue standing in an otherwise unused garden. I stared at it until the image resolved, and it turned out to be the reeling outline of a man on fire. Okay, this had to be the place. Only the kind of lunatic that hangs around with Spenser would have that crazy thing sitting on their front lawn. We stepped out of the car. I listened to the gravel under my feet, and followed Spenser with an odd gait, taking more steps than I needed to get to the door. This sound is one of my favorite things in the world. Tyler was lucky that he could go walk around on the rocks whenever he wanted. Eventually, I had to step onto the silent grass, standing behind Spenser while he swore under his breath and pressed the bell about two hundred times. Eventually, the door creaked open.
“…Wha? Oh! Hey there, bro!”
And there was Tyler. I was relieved when he was who I thought he was, because I’m not all that good with faces and sometimes had trouble keeping all of Spenser’s acquaintances straight. His long hair was loose, and he was wearing ancient grey sweatpants and one of those watered-down-looking tie-dye shirts you see people selling by the hundreds at flea markets and fairs. He looked mellow and sleepy. Probably walked around on the rocks for an hour and then got into his pajamas, which was enough to turn anyone limp and warm as a fresh noodle. Spenser was very much the high-strung Yang to Tyler’s lazy Yin.
“Hey yourself! Surprise visit, motherfucker!”
Tyler laughed. They greeted each other in the usual way, meaning they punched each other in the gut while laughing manically. Tyler suddenly seemed as wired as Spenser, but quickly reverted. He yawned and leaned against the door frame.
“…Yeah, I just got up from takin’ a nap.” He swiveled his head a bit, then finally noticed me. “Hey, y’brought this cool guy!”
“Cool guy.” I guess he likes me after all. I waved. Tyler waved back, then snapped back to Spenser.
“Where’s, like, the short one?”
“…Who, Martin?”
“Yeah, Martin! Man, that dude’s an asshole. You gotta bring him by some time!”
Okay, maybe he doesn’t like me. Or I’m alright but just the dud of the bunch or whatever. Spenser shrugged.
“Eh, I’da wanted to, but he’s feelin’ kinda shitty tonight and growled at me when I tried to get him outta bed.”
“…Fair enough. And hey, this guy’s cool. Wanted to see him again, too.” He craned his neck and pointed at me. “You’re Corwin!”
Indeed I was. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react, so I just played along and stated the obvious right back at him.
“That’s me.”
“Yeah, no crap! You’re the guy with the crazy face scar. We watched that show together.”
Now, that I didn’t remember. I did remember some interesting cartoon, which must have been a season finale or something, because everything seemed very grand and crashing, and it sucked me in even though I had no idea what the fuck was going on or what had brought things to that point. And I remember Tyler on the couch beside me, but he was alternately yelling at Spenser for not putting enough gin in some drink he was sucking down and telling him about some dream he’d had the night before. Then he brought up the topic of spider poop and wouldn’t shut up about it for what felt like about five hours. Apparently, it looks like miniature birdshit.
“I remember the show, but I think you were doing something else.”
“Nah, man! I was like, shootin’ the shit with him, but I was watchin’ the show with you.”
Looking at it that way, the two of us actually had a lot of fun together that night. Maybe we’d all have fun today, too. Tyler pushed his hair out of his face.
“Anyway, you guys comin’ in? Or is this, like, a porch date or somethin’?”
Spenser looked up into the sky, at absolutely nothing.
“Nah, we’re comin’ in, dude! Unless you wanna sit on the porch, I mean, I hadn’t even thought of…”
“Okay, okay! Spense. In. You too, Fucked-Up Face Cool Guy.”
Finally, Tyler opened the door the rest of the way and lead us inside.
It was a very dark house. The walls were made out of that brown fake woodgrain stuff, and two yellowy lamps shone on opposite sides of the living room, their light not quite meeting in the middle. Draped over one of the bookshelves, there were Christmas lights in September, and on the other, a red lava lamp was amusing itself quietly. Somehow, with all of those things together, and those wooden walls, there was a very sixteenth-century kind of light in the place, like there should be a robed scholar in a hard-backed chair hunched over a book in some corner.
But no, there was just Tyler and Spenser, rattling on like maniacs about every stupid banal thing that had happened to either of them since they talked last. Then the conversation veered unexpectedly into something about fiber-optics, which was actually really interesting to listen to. I still wasn’t sure how Tyler felt about me, but I decided I kind of liked him, even if I thought he was unpredictable, and maybe kind of hostile, and I couldn‘t figure out when he did or didn‘t actually mean what he said. Tyler, who I liked, flopped down in an armchair, the kind that’s actually a rocking chair in disguise. Spenser vaulted over the back of the couch and landed sort of perched on his ass and feet. I sat down on the opposite end, like a normal fucking person. There was a rumpled afghan on my side, and a lumpy pillow on Spenser’s, evidence of the aforementioned nap. Tyler drifted back and forth in the chair for a little bit, grabbed the remote control, turned on the television, tossed the remote onto the couch so it landed on the middle cushion, and started lighting a cigarette. Now, when someone lights up in their own house, I usually take it as a free pass to do the same. I rummaged around in my pockets for my lighter and the dilapidated quarter-pack of cigarettes that had probably gone through the washer and dryer a thousand times. Tyler nodded in the direction of a big white plastic box on the coffee table.
“Just exhale towards the purifier, mm’kay?”
“Oh. Sure.”
I blew out a gust of smoke, and watched the tiny vents suck it in. It was actually kind of fun. Tyler nodded, approvingly this time.
“Thanks, man. Bear and Stella say thanks, too.”
“Bear and…”
Tyler nodded, yet again, indicating the bookless bookshelf, which held the lava lamp, and two lighted glass tanks, one small and one huge. The huge one had an appropriately-huge snake, but I wasn’t sure what was in the small one, let alone which one was Stella and which one was Bear. Tyler yawned, stretched, and shook his head like he was trying to knock something out of it.
“…Anyway! You fuckin’ nerds want some food? Got frozen pizza, frozen pizza bagel whatevers, macaroni boxes. Got some leftover Chinese food, as long as you don’t touch my fuckin’ wontons. Seriously. Touch my fuckin’ wontons, I drive a pencil through your eye. Got popsicles. They’re the kind in the tubes, though, so you gotta be careful… Give yourself a Glasgow Grin with those fuckers… Beer, popcorn…”
I was starting to wonder if he was just going to list every edible object in the house, right down to those five year old boxes of pudding mix that somehow come into everyone’s possession. Fortunately, Spenser put a stop to it before I could find out.
“…Pizza! Hells yeah, man! Pizza!”
He capped off that shameless display of glee by leaping to his feet and standing up on the couch, bouncing slightly. I felt the beginnings of motion sickness coming on. Then he jumped down and followed Tyler into the kitchen. I wondered why I never popped a Dramamine when I knew I might have to sit next to him.
The kitchen light was completely different than the light in the living room, cold and white and sterile. It was the kind of light that draws every bug down from the sky. Clashing with the rest of the house like it did, the kitchen took on the look of a brightly-lit concession stand on the fairgrounds at dusk. I half expected the two of them to forget all about the pizza and start spinning cotton candy on paper cones. But no, they bickered about toppings for a while, then dragged two dented pizza boxes out of the freezer, turned on the stove, and stuck them in without bothering to let the oven preheat. This, apparently, was Tyler’s doing, because I kept hearing him muttering “it makes no fuckin’ difference, it makes no fuckin’ difference” over and over again until Spenser stopped jabbering about how stupid he was. With that settled, the mood immediately improved. Tyler got a canister of whipped cream out of the fridge, and before I knew it, they’d reverted to juvenile delinquent mode, doing whippits and punching each other while laughing hysterically. I ignored the TV in favor of watching them. They looked very cheerful, and I felt it rubbing off on me. Before too long, the can lost pressure, so they had no choice but to slowly regain their composure while sitting on the cool kitchen floor. Then they filed back into the living room, still snickering, but seeming less under the influence and more just overexcited. Tyler sat back down in his chair, stared into space for a little while, then finally spoke.
“…You know, I was actually planning to eat that.”
Spenser shrugged. Tyler shrugged in reply.
“Yeah, you’re right. I can always get more.”
No one said anything for a while, which, considering Spenser was around, was kind of a miracle. I almost didn’t want to ruin it, but I didn’t think I wanted to see what would happen if the two of them got bored, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“So… Who’re Stella and Bear.”
“Aw man, two of my little buddies! Well, Stella’s not too little.”
I assumed Stella must have been the snake, not the invisible whatever.
“She’s the snake?”
“Yeah! …Shit, man. If she hadn’t just eaten the other day, you could watch her, like, eat a whole rat. Alive.”
Oh. I remembered who Stella must have been. That picky snake Spenser couldn’t stop blathering about while he was trying to pull that bullet out of my arm.
“Oh yeah. Spenser told me about her, I think. She only eats live stuff?”
“…Yeah. She’s a brat.” Tyler smiled at the tank. “She’s nice, though. Go over to the tank and look if you want. You can still see that rat she ate.”
I walked over to the shelves, and followed her long body until I saw a sort of bulge. Stella sprawled out under her warm light, full and happy. Having seen what he was talking about, I sat back down. Tyler rocked in his chair.
“…So, that’s Stella. Bear’s in the little tank, but you can’t really see ‘er from here… Y’know what, I’m gonna get her out. I haven’t played with her enough lately. You… Don’t mind spiders, do you?”
I shrugged.
“Not especially.”
“Ah, good! I’ve had some dicks come in here, wanna squish her. And I mean, we don’t all gotta be friends, but that’s a helluva thing to say, y’know?” Tyler pulled himself to his feet, then paused in front of the tank. “I mean, she’s a pet! Got fur and everything. Even got a squeaky toy.” He pointed at a neon pink something resting in the mulch, laughed, and shook his head. “…Not as if she can use it, but my sister thinks she’s real funny, buyin’ a squeak-bone for a spider.” With that explained, he popped the lid off the tank. “Okay… C’mon, Bear.”
Tyler stuck his hands in the tank, gently lifted out something sleek and black and furry, and sat back down in his chair. He held Bear in his hands for a while, then let her gently pad around on his shirt, then picked her up in one hand and examined her, then cupped her in both hands on his lap. I liked watching how he interacted with her, like she was just a kitten or a hamster, or any other little fuzzy thing. Which, I guess, she was. But with some extra legs. Once again, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“…Are tarantulas friendly?”
Tyler shrugged.
“Search me, man. I’m not sure if she even knows what I am, or that I’m, like, another thing kinda like her. I’d guess she thinks I’m a big rock that’s warm even in the dark and somehow moves and sometimes brings her back free crickets. Which is actually, like, a tarantula’s dream, so I guess, yeah, she loves me. Just in the spider kind of way, y’know?”
I nodded.
“Makes sense.”
Spenser, who had been fidding with the remote control the whole time, selected some kind of colorful-looking sci-fi movie with humans and blue-humans and some kind of bug people. Then he sprang back into action, perching on the edge of the couch like a vulture.
“…Pizza gonna ding!”
Tyler was nestling Bear back into her little apartment.
“Oh, no it ain’t, ya moron. I didn’t even set a timer!”
“…Well, that’s worse! Check. The. Pizza!”
“I doubt it’s burnt, Spense.”
“I don’t care about that! I’m fuckin’ hungry, dude!”
“When did you eat last?”
“This morning, last night… I dunno!”
“…You’re an idiot.”
“Still hungry, though!”
“Yeah, yeah… I’ll go look at it if you’ll quit getting on my case over it.”
Tyler shuffled out to the kitchen. According to him, the cheese was melted but still completely white, so Spenser would have to just chill for five minutes, dammit. Or something pretty much like that. Now, Spenser can’t exactly chill, but he did mostly shut up about the pizza, with the occasional exception of shouting “hey Ty, that done!?” in the general direction of the kitchen. Mostly, he just rambled on to himself and anyone else who would listen about the movie, whatever the heck it was. That spaceship is cool. That spaceship wouldn’t work. That spaceship wouldn’t work, but it’s cooler than it would be if it would, so I want it. That guy is annoying. That guy is funny. I like that bug lady, do you like that bug lady, Corwin? I wanna live on that jacked-up ice planet!
I honestly couldn’t understand what was going on with his commentary running over the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure I cared. Sometimes, what people think about a movie is more interesting than the movie itself. In this case, the visuals were also interesting, so I just stared at the screen and listened to what Spenser had to say about every frigging frame. Actually, I might have picked up on more of what the movie was about this way than I would having to parse everything myself. Not more of the plot, mind you. I mean what it was about.
“…Spenser, come find the fuckin’ pizza cutter!”
“Why I gotta find the fuckin’ pizza cutter? Find the fuckin’ thing your own fuckin’ self!”
“Because I don’t trust you when you have nothin’ to do. Get the crap out here!”
“Fine. Corwin, you tell me what happens!”
Spenser flew off the couch and into the bright kitchen, where he started opening and closing drawers. I wondered how I was going to tell him what happened when I didn’t even know what was going on. Still, when the two of them sat back down, and Spenser sat a paper plate full of hot pizza on the table in front of me, I did my best.
“They just got on the spaceship.”
“Which ship?”
“Jesus, I dunno!”
Tyler’s foot, wearing an old sock, grabbed the knob of one of the coffee table drawers.
“…Well, whichever one it is, I think I’m gonna smoke. You guys wanna share?”
Spenser all but cut him off.
“…He means, like, the reefer. Dammit, Tyler, Corwin needs specifics or he’s not gonna understand shit!”
That was true enough, so it didn’t really offend me, but it always drove me nuts when people said things about me while I was in the room to speak for myself.
“Like hell I’m not!”
Actually, I wasn’t sure about that, at least not in this situation. I hadn’t really given it any thought, so I guess I could have gone either way. Tyler pulled an old cookie tin out of the drawer, then kicked it shut.
“…Okay. And Spense, you sound like you’re from the goddamn Roaring Twenties. Cut that out. Anyway. Like I said?”
Spenser had to take a few seconds to finish staring at an explosion on the screen before he could answer.
“Sure, why the shit not?” He grabbed two joints out of the tin. I stared at the tin for a while. I’d seen those cookies before, but this was the old packaging design. “…Corwin? You done this before?”
“I… Don’t really know.”
Spenser was confused as I’d ever seen him.
“…The fuck kind of answer even was that?”
It was the best kind of answer I could think of, when my pot-smoking experience consisted of two afternoons holed up in Martin’s disaster area of a bedroom back at his parents’ house, passing a joint around and then just sitting there for a what felt like forever, wondering what I was supposed to be feeling, and if this was what it was, while watching Martin alternately enthusing about how awesome everything is and using a plastic knife to eat this weird fake peanut butter they make out of pre-chewed cookies straight from the jar. I didn’t know if that “counted” or not. But, I’d already decided. I was going to give it a third shot, just to see if it actually worked.
“I mean I’ve, like, inhaled. But I’m not sure if it… Took?”
Eager to start doing drugs and get back to that shitty space movie, Spenser was rapidly losing patience with me.
“…Just decide before I go and smoke both these fuckin’ things myself and eat all your pizza!”
Tyler, who had already taken a few good drags, found this hysterically funny. I was worried that he’d fall backwards in his chair and set the carpet on fire.
“Jeez, just give me a chance to get my lighter.”
I’d never liked smoking and eating at the same time. It tended to employ too many hands at once. Tyler didn’t have the same problem. He kept the two tasks in balance so well that I was starting to imagine him with eight limbs, like his little friend. Then he pulled one leg in and sat with his foot on the arm of the chair, which looked almost unnatural. I didn’t know how he was doing it. And I didn’t want to stare, but it just looked so bizarre. Eventually, he noticed I was staring at him, casually pulled his shin behind his neck, and then kept sitting like that for a while, still toking and eating pizza like everything was perfectly normal. It looked like he was kicking back and putting his feet up. On himself. For what seemed like an absurd, or at least rude, amount of time, I just sat there. Watching Tyler violating physics. Holding back laughter. Then my eyes wandered to the florescent pink rubber bone in Bear’s window. I pictured Tyler playing fetch with her. Walking her on a leash. Taking her to the Spider Park to play with her friends. Tyler throwing a frisbee; Bear leaping up and snatching it out of the air.
I completely lost my shit.
This, I thought, is how people die laughing. My ribs were crushing my lungs. Every time I managed to draw in a little bit of air, I howled it back out. Tyler, sitting serenely, both feet on the floor now, tapped an ash on his empty pizza plate.
“…Well, I guess it took.” He inhaled what was left of the joint, then dropped the butt in the pile of ashes. “…Anyway. Corwin. What’s funny?”
He was already starting to laugh in anticipation. I wasn’t sure how to explain, and my normally shaky grasp on spoken English seemed almost nonexistent. But, when I could finally hold onto enough air, I managed to at least partially explain myself.
“…Bear playin’ frisbee!”
Tyler, too, completely lost his shit, almost falling out of his chair again.
“…Yeah, that is pretty funny. Don’t know if Bear would want to, though. She’s a pretty low-key character, right? But hey, I should like, get some construction paper, and, like… A hole-punch, and make a little mini-frisbee for… Oh man…” Tyler looked like he was having a silent, red-faced argument with himself, trying to get his mouth to open for speech and not laughter. I waited until he could. “…A jumping spider!”
Tyler laughed at his own joke for about a minute and a half. But, I couldn’t really fault him, because I laughed at least as long. Spenser, for the first time in his life, was the most composed person in the room. He was staring intently at the television, completely absorbed.
“…You know, I’d totally fuck that bug lady.”
That was enough to get me going again, but it didn’t last as long this time. I was tired. My stomach felt loose and full of little pulled muscles, almost the way it does after you throw up. I cleared my throat and sat back on the couch.
“Aw, but what about Piston?”
“She’d understand! It’s not like she’s threatened by, um, fictional bugs or anything. And besides, this girl‘s like, Bug-Piston. She’s the ship’s mechanic… She’s really cute and stuff, she pronounces words kinda funny… She loves animals, she’s a head shorter than you but could kick your ass and you know it… Tyler, would you fuck the bug lady?”
“Nah, man. She’s gorgeous, but you obviously don’t know anything about bug sex if you think it wouldn’t be, like, super unpleasant on your nards.”
They argued about the specifics of bug sex and human/space bug sex for about five minutes before Tyler lit up another joint, and we, because it just seemed like the thing to do, copied him.
I ate more pizza and got a little too wrapped-up in the movie, even though I had even less of a clue about what was happening than I’d had before, and I now knew the uncomfortable truth about Spenser’s tender feelings for the bug woman hanging out in the engine room. It just seemed like the story was really unfolding, even if I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. I got the sense that everyone had ended up very far from where they’d begun, all the way to the other end of the universe. In both a literal and a narrative sense. The funny guy Spenser liked got burned by some kind of alien acid, his flesh melting until his ribcage showed through, pure white and vulnerable. Then the annoying guy that Spenser hated, who I liked just fine, had some kind of cybernetic parasite or nanomachine construct shot into his spine. He wasn’t dying, but, slowly and surely, he wasn’t going to be who he was, and would never be that person again. His motor control was going, and his behavior was becoming more erratic, and he had to be mostly-lucid and terrified through the whole thing. He’d fallen in love with one of the rubbery blue people on the cover, and there was this scene of them together, collapsed on the ground in some weird desert, the sky lit up by the rim of a galaxy and two huge grey moons. They cupped one another’s faces in their hands, and they were saying things to each other. I wasn’t understanding what, but they sounded like they were about to cry. I felt about to cry, too. Less because the scene was sad, and more because they just looked so in love. I was moved.
I remembered that the blue people saw in a different range of the spectrum than we did; that nothing looked the same in their eyes, but the two of them had come to understand each other so well. For some reason, I thought about the way Tyler looked at Bear. Her walking across him, the two of them living in such different versions of the world that they might as well have been two aliens, each understanding nothing about the other’s world, besides the fact that they were both part of it. It wasn’t much different than a connection between two people, but it was just different enough to drive it home. The blue person on the screen, with tears in their infrared eyes, snapped their lover’s neck before the silver bullet in his spine could destroy him. I had to look away. I had to think about something else. I turned to Tyler.
“You really like Bear and Stella, huh?”
“Yeah, they’re pretty awesome… Hey, you wanna see the rest of the guys? They live in the grow room if you wanna check it out.”
“Rest of the…”
“Oh, yeah. I have like, at least one of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth or whatever the fuck back there. I keep Bear and Stella out here as, like, the gatekeepers. Someone doesn‘t like them, I tell them to stay the fuck outta the grow room. You seem cool though, so you can go and see if ya want.”
“Okay. Sure, I…”
“Door’s in the lil’ hall-nubbin thing, and to the left. If you find a bed or a toilet, you got the wrong place.”
I nodded.
“Right.”
Then I drifted up to my feet and back to what passed for a hallway. Walking felt the way it does when you’re at the beach or the pool, how the water makes everything slow-going but so much easier. I opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind me, alone in my own small world.
The light in the grow room was a different kind of sixteenth-century light, more like the robed figure reading in the corner would be a star-spangled wizard with a long white beard. There was a little bit of the shadowy sheen that the two moons cast over the plains where a being from a distant planet saved the one they loved the most from himself. The only light was from countless tanks lined up on metal shelves, and long bank of lamps over a narrow table pushed against the far wall, where a dense forest of lush cannabis plants grew, glowing with chlorophyll, stretching themselves up to the sun that Tyler, their god, had hung in the sky just for them. I turned away from the miniature forest, and towards the shelves, a miniature city. In one of the tanks, a scorpion shone plastic-star green under dark indigo light. In another, a long millipede wrapped around itself, dreaming in a cozy spiral. One shelf housed the Tarantula District, a little high-rise full of Bear’s distant cousins from all around the world. On the other side of the room, a group of busy mice fought for control of the wheel. Near the top, almost higher than eye-level, a spotted, pale yellow, strangely soft-looking lizard sat tall on a rock, basking under a tiny warm sun, eyes closed and smiling.
I looked at everyone for a while. At the different arrangements of logs and rocks and lights, each one placed just perfectly, so every citizen of this little kingdom could have a special place to call home. I watched them dig and sleep and explore, and felt strangely attached to each and every one of them, all wrapped up in their own tiny worlds in more ways than one. They didn’t know I was the same kind of thing they were. They probably wouldn’t even know that about each other if the walls between them came down. But, whether we could ever really understand it or not, we really were all the same. Just small, scurrying things, trying our best, doing what we could to pass smoothly through our small, scurrying lives. I spent what felt like forever practically resting my head against each pane of glass, trying to wrap my head around who lived there, and how they understood their world. Then another thought finally entered my mind.
Tyler had invited me back here. Just to look around.
He gave me some time to learn about the workings of his home. A little bit about himself.
And all their countless selves as well.
I felt that much closer to finally making sense of everything I’d ever seen or known.
starphotographsStory: Corwin and Friends
Characters: Corwin (POV), Spenser, Tyler
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Summer Carnival)
Colors: Milk Bottle 4 (Cotton Candy), Admin Yellow 13 (I simply made the grievous error of buying Bear a squeaky toy), Alien Green 11 (Oooh… If you were that stoned, what?)
Supplies and Styles: Portrait
Word Count: 5894
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Corwin isn’t nosy, he just has his own way of learning about the world. Today, he learns a little about Tyler.
Note: Questions, concrit, all thoughts awesome. I like thoughts!
Spenser said he was probably heading over to Tyler’s place tonight. Then he asked me if I wanted to come, because I guess it still hasn’t occurred to him that I’m not the best conversationalist, and might want to avoid situations where I end up stranded and stuck having to converse indefinitely. Plus, I have no flipping idea of Tyler even likes me. The first time I met him, it was in the middle of some weird party that Spenser threw in our living room, and he immediately started asking rude questions about my face faster than I could answer them. The second time I met him, it was because Spenser ran into him on the street while we were running errands for the house, and the two of them stood around yakking, taking up the entire sidewalk, while I sat on the curb waiting for them to shut the fuck up. The last time I met him, he made me drink a bunch of booze he poured together into one bottle, and it wasn’t even a dare, just a demand. So, ending up stranded somewhere with Tyler might be a problem unto itself, conversation nonwithstanding.
But, I have a certain problem:
When someone asks me to go somewhere I’ve never been before, I feel invariably compelled to take them up on it. Just to see wherever it is, and check the place out. If it’s a house they’re taking me to, I’ll want to duck my head into every room; open the bathroom cabinets, and the kitchen ones too. There isn’t a particular thing I’m looking for but things themselves. The weird carpeting, the products I don’t buy, the books I’ve never heard of, the ancient hand-me-downs from years I’d never experience in their world. Obviously, I was a real hit when some classmate invited me over “to play,” only to have me wander off and eventually turn up in their mom’s home office, crouched under the desk, staring at the lighted switch on a surge protector. (It was blue. The switches on the ones at my house glowed an orangey-red.) I never grew out of this, but, for unrelated reasons, I eventually learned to sit, barely, with unsatisfied curiosity. Needless to say, it surprised me when Martin’s parents absolutely loved this about me, and insisted I come over more often. But, they’re the king and queen of show-and-tell, to the point of boring non-me houseguests right out the door. Russell showed me blueprints of fuel canisters and second-place trophies from company baseball games. Lien all but outright told me to brush my finger along the edge of a sensitive plant, push little turquoise fertilizer sticks into potting soil, drop a dead moth I found on the windowsill in the flytrap, and stroke one of her soft paintbrushes. I gave them an audience. They gave me the time and space to learn about their stuff and their selves. I might not have always done the talking, but those were the easiest conversations I’d ever had, along with the ones with Martin that lead me there in the first place.
I didn’t know how Tyler would react to me wanting to inspect everything, but I figured it would be easy enough to sit on my hands, look around the living room, and daydream until Spenser was done with him. Even that would be better than not looking around at all, so I decided to tag along. And it wasn’t exactly a short drive. A few miles out of the wastelands, then a few more through town, with Spenser barreling down the road, swerving all over the place, and pointing out every bar he ever had a drink in, every drive-thru where he’d ever purchased a greasy cheeseburger, every fuel station where he’d ever refilled his car or eaten a bag of chips. It was kind of interesting, the way looking at other people’s houses is interesting, but god, he can talk until you never want to hear another human voice for as long as you live. Eventually, we the city spat us out on the other side, where green lawns and trees grew around us. Spenser didn’t seem like he was looking to pull in anywhere, and I realized that I had no idea where the hell this guy lived, or if I hadn’t been told it was three hours away or something.
“…Spenser, where the fuck does Tyler even live?”
“Not too far! Think it’s on the left. What, you like, gotta piss or somethin‘?”
“Um… No. I just don’t know where you’re taking me.”
“Tyler’s fuckin’ house, dude!”
No shit, jackass. Spenser isn’t stupid. Far from it. I sometimes think he must be even smarter than Martin, or at least on even footing, but slipped under the radar or something, possibly on purpose. Problem is, it doesn’t always show, because his mind can be kind of dense. Not what people usually mean when they describe a person as “dense.” It’s just that he has so many thoughts at once that statements and questions can’t always break through them all the way, and either enter in a simplified form or bounce off entirely, which makes his responses seem kind of obtuse. It can be easier to just wait and see what he‘s on about, or what he’s going to do.
In this case, he turned down a narrow, one-lane street, flanked with trees and low, leaf-covered houses. I liked this neighborhood. I wanted to live there. Maybe Tyler lived there. But no, Spenser made another turn, down what looked like a gravel driveway. And I guess it was, but it wasn’t the driveway of any one person, because it opened into yet more gravel, surrounded by compact little sun-bleached duplexes, and more trees. The sky was going purple and orange around the edges, and the light looked the way it does after a storm, all hazy and gold. I decided that, no, I wanted to live here. And from the looks of things Tyler must actually live here. The car stopped on the stones in front of the house on the end, which had some kind of welded sheet metal statue standing in an otherwise unused garden. I stared at it until the image resolved, and it turned out to be the reeling outline of a man on fire. Okay, this had to be the place. Only the kind of lunatic that hangs around with Spenser would have that crazy thing sitting on their front lawn. We stepped out of the car. I listened to the gravel under my feet, and followed Spenser with an odd gait, taking more steps than I needed to get to the door. This sound is one of my favorite things in the world. Tyler was lucky that he could go walk around on the rocks whenever he wanted. Eventually, I had to step onto the silent grass, standing behind Spenser while he swore under his breath and pressed the bell about two hundred times. Eventually, the door creaked open.
“…Wha? Oh! Hey there, bro!”
And there was Tyler. I was relieved when he was who I thought he was, because I’m not all that good with faces and sometimes had trouble keeping all of Spenser’s acquaintances straight. His long hair was loose, and he was wearing ancient grey sweatpants and one of those watered-down-looking tie-dye shirts you see people selling by the hundreds at flea markets and fairs. He looked mellow and sleepy. Probably walked around on the rocks for an hour and then got into his pajamas, which was enough to turn anyone limp and warm as a fresh noodle. Spenser was very much the high-strung Yang to Tyler’s lazy Yin.
“Hey yourself! Surprise visit, motherfucker!”
Tyler laughed. They greeted each other in the usual way, meaning they punched each other in the gut while laughing manically. Tyler suddenly seemed as wired as Spenser, but quickly reverted. He yawned and leaned against the door frame.
“…Yeah, I just got up from takin’ a nap.” He swiveled his head a bit, then finally noticed me. “Hey, y’brought this cool guy!”
“Cool guy.” I guess he likes me after all. I waved. Tyler waved back, then snapped back to Spenser.
“Where’s, like, the short one?”
“…Who, Martin?”
“Yeah, Martin! Man, that dude’s an asshole. You gotta bring him by some time!”
Okay, maybe he doesn’t like me. Or I’m alright but just the dud of the bunch or whatever. Spenser shrugged.
“Eh, I’da wanted to, but he’s feelin’ kinda shitty tonight and growled at me when I tried to get him outta bed.”
“…Fair enough. And hey, this guy’s cool. Wanted to see him again, too.” He craned his neck and pointed at me. “You’re Corwin!”
Indeed I was. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react, so I just played along and stated the obvious right back at him.
“That’s me.”
“Yeah, no crap! You’re the guy with the crazy face scar. We watched that show together.”
Now, that I didn’t remember. I did remember some interesting cartoon, which must have been a season finale or something, because everything seemed very grand and crashing, and it sucked me in even though I had no idea what the fuck was going on or what had brought things to that point. And I remember Tyler on the couch beside me, but he was alternately yelling at Spenser for not putting enough gin in some drink he was sucking down and telling him about some dream he’d had the night before. Then he brought up the topic of spider poop and wouldn’t shut up about it for what felt like about five hours. Apparently, it looks like miniature birdshit.
“I remember the show, but I think you were doing something else.”
“Nah, man! I was like, shootin’ the shit with him, but I was watchin’ the show with you.”
Looking at it that way, the two of us actually had a lot of fun together that night. Maybe we’d all have fun today, too. Tyler pushed his hair out of his face.
“Anyway, you guys comin’ in? Or is this, like, a porch date or somethin’?”
Spenser looked up into the sky, at absolutely nothing.
“Nah, we’re comin’ in, dude! Unless you wanna sit on the porch, I mean, I hadn’t even thought of…”
“Okay, okay! Spense. In. You too, Fucked-Up Face Cool Guy.”
Finally, Tyler opened the door the rest of the way and lead us inside.
It was a very dark house. The walls were made out of that brown fake woodgrain stuff, and two yellowy lamps shone on opposite sides of the living room, their light not quite meeting in the middle. Draped over one of the bookshelves, there were Christmas lights in September, and on the other, a red lava lamp was amusing itself quietly. Somehow, with all of those things together, and those wooden walls, there was a very sixteenth-century kind of light in the place, like there should be a robed scholar in a hard-backed chair hunched over a book in some corner.
But no, there was just Tyler and Spenser, rattling on like maniacs about every stupid banal thing that had happened to either of them since they talked last. Then the conversation veered unexpectedly into something about fiber-optics, which was actually really interesting to listen to. I still wasn’t sure how Tyler felt about me, but I decided I kind of liked him, even if I thought he was unpredictable, and maybe kind of hostile, and I couldn‘t figure out when he did or didn‘t actually mean what he said. Tyler, who I liked, flopped down in an armchair, the kind that’s actually a rocking chair in disguise. Spenser vaulted over the back of the couch and landed sort of perched on his ass and feet. I sat down on the opposite end, like a normal fucking person. There was a rumpled afghan on my side, and a lumpy pillow on Spenser’s, evidence of the aforementioned nap. Tyler drifted back and forth in the chair for a little bit, grabbed the remote control, turned on the television, tossed the remote onto the couch so it landed on the middle cushion, and started lighting a cigarette. Now, when someone lights up in their own house, I usually take it as a free pass to do the same. I rummaged around in my pockets for my lighter and the dilapidated quarter-pack of cigarettes that had probably gone through the washer and dryer a thousand times. Tyler nodded in the direction of a big white plastic box on the coffee table.
“Just exhale towards the purifier, mm’kay?”
“Oh. Sure.”
I blew out a gust of smoke, and watched the tiny vents suck it in. It was actually kind of fun. Tyler nodded, approvingly this time.
“Thanks, man. Bear and Stella say thanks, too.”
“Bear and…”
Tyler nodded, yet again, indicating the bookless bookshelf, which held the lava lamp, and two lighted glass tanks, one small and one huge. The huge one had an appropriately-huge snake, but I wasn’t sure what was in the small one, let alone which one was Stella and which one was Bear. Tyler yawned, stretched, and shook his head like he was trying to knock something out of it.
“…Anyway! You fuckin’ nerds want some food? Got frozen pizza, frozen pizza bagel whatevers, macaroni boxes. Got some leftover Chinese food, as long as you don’t touch my fuckin’ wontons. Seriously. Touch my fuckin’ wontons, I drive a pencil through your eye. Got popsicles. They’re the kind in the tubes, though, so you gotta be careful… Give yourself a Glasgow Grin with those fuckers… Beer, popcorn…”
I was starting to wonder if he was just going to list every edible object in the house, right down to those five year old boxes of pudding mix that somehow come into everyone’s possession. Fortunately, Spenser put a stop to it before I could find out.
“…Pizza! Hells yeah, man! Pizza!”
He capped off that shameless display of glee by leaping to his feet and standing up on the couch, bouncing slightly. I felt the beginnings of motion sickness coming on. Then he jumped down and followed Tyler into the kitchen. I wondered why I never popped a Dramamine when I knew I might have to sit next to him.
The kitchen light was completely different than the light in the living room, cold and white and sterile. It was the kind of light that draws every bug down from the sky. Clashing with the rest of the house like it did, the kitchen took on the look of a brightly-lit concession stand on the fairgrounds at dusk. I half expected the two of them to forget all about the pizza and start spinning cotton candy on paper cones. But no, they bickered about toppings for a while, then dragged two dented pizza boxes out of the freezer, turned on the stove, and stuck them in without bothering to let the oven preheat. This, apparently, was Tyler’s doing, because I kept hearing him muttering “it makes no fuckin’ difference, it makes no fuckin’ difference” over and over again until Spenser stopped jabbering about how stupid he was. With that settled, the mood immediately improved. Tyler got a canister of whipped cream out of the fridge, and before I knew it, they’d reverted to juvenile delinquent mode, doing whippits and punching each other while laughing hysterically. I ignored the TV in favor of watching them. They looked very cheerful, and I felt it rubbing off on me. Before too long, the can lost pressure, so they had no choice but to slowly regain their composure while sitting on the cool kitchen floor. Then they filed back into the living room, still snickering, but seeming less under the influence and more just overexcited. Tyler sat back down in his chair, stared into space for a little while, then finally spoke.
“…You know, I was actually planning to eat that.”
Spenser shrugged. Tyler shrugged in reply.
“Yeah, you’re right. I can always get more.”
No one said anything for a while, which, considering Spenser was around, was kind of a miracle. I almost didn’t want to ruin it, but I didn’t think I wanted to see what would happen if the two of them got bored, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“So… Who’re Stella and Bear.”
“Aw man, two of my little buddies! Well, Stella’s not too little.”
I assumed Stella must have been the snake, not the invisible whatever.
“She’s the snake?”
“Yeah! …Shit, man. If she hadn’t just eaten the other day, you could watch her, like, eat a whole rat. Alive.”
Oh. I remembered who Stella must have been. That picky snake Spenser couldn’t stop blathering about while he was trying to pull that bullet out of my arm.
“Oh yeah. Spenser told me about her, I think. She only eats live stuff?”
“…Yeah. She’s a brat.” Tyler smiled at the tank. “She’s nice, though. Go over to the tank and look if you want. You can still see that rat she ate.”
I walked over to the shelves, and followed her long body until I saw a sort of bulge. Stella sprawled out under her warm light, full and happy. Having seen what he was talking about, I sat back down. Tyler rocked in his chair.
“…So, that’s Stella. Bear’s in the little tank, but you can’t really see ‘er from here… Y’know what, I’m gonna get her out. I haven’t played with her enough lately. You… Don’t mind spiders, do you?”
I shrugged.
“Not especially.”
“Ah, good! I’ve had some dicks come in here, wanna squish her. And I mean, we don’t all gotta be friends, but that’s a helluva thing to say, y’know?” Tyler pulled himself to his feet, then paused in front of the tank. “I mean, she’s a pet! Got fur and everything. Even got a squeaky toy.” He pointed at a neon pink something resting in the mulch, laughed, and shook his head. “…Not as if she can use it, but my sister thinks she’s real funny, buyin’ a squeak-bone for a spider.” With that explained, he popped the lid off the tank. “Okay… C’mon, Bear.”
Tyler stuck his hands in the tank, gently lifted out something sleek and black and furry, and sat back down in his chair. He held Bear in his hands for a while, then let her gently pad around on his shirt, then picked her up in one hand and examined her, then cupped her in both hands on his lap. I liked watching how he interacted with her, like she was just a kitten or a hamster, or any other little fuzzy thing. Which, I guess, she was. But with some extra legs. Once again, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“…Are tarantulas friendly?”
Tyler shrugged.
“Search me, man. I’m not sure if she even knows what I am, or that I’m, like, another thing kinda like her. I’d guess she thinks I’m a big rock that’s warm even in the dark and somehow moves and sometimes brings her back free crickets. Which is actually, like, a tarantula’s dream, so I guess, yeah, she loves me. Just in the spider kind of way, y’know?”
I nodded.
“Makes sense.”
Spenser, who had been fidding with the remote control the whole time, selected some kind of colorful-looking sci-fi movie with humans and blue-humans and some kind of bug people. Then he sprang back into action, perching on the edge of the couch like a vulture.
“…Pizza gonna ding!”
Tyler was nestling Bear back into her little apartment.
“Oh, no it ain’t, ya moron. I didn’t even set a timer!”
“…Well, that’s worse! Check. The. Pizza!”
“I doubt it’s burnt, Spense.”
“I don’t care about that! I’m fuckin’ hungry, dude!”
“When did you eat last?”
“This morning, last night… I dunno!”
“…You’re an idiot.”
“Still hungry, though!”
“Yeah, yeah… I’ll go look at it if you’ll quit getting on my case over it.”
Tyler shuffled out to the kitchen. According to him, the cheese was melted but still completely white, so Spenser would have to just chill for five minutes, dammit. Or something pretty much like that. Now, Spenser can’t exactly chill, but he did mostly shut up about the pizza, with the occasional exception of shouting “hey Ty, that done!?” in the general direction of the kitchen. Mostly, he just rambled on to himself and anyone else who would listen about the movie, whatever the heck it was. That spaceship is cool. That spaceship wouldn’t work. That spaceship wouldn’t work, but it’s cooler than it would be if it would, so I want it. That guy is annoying. That guy is funny. I like that bug lady, do you like that bug lady, Corwin? I wanna live on that jacked-up ice planet!
I honestly couldn’t understand what was going on with his commentary running over the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure I cared. Sometimes, what people think about a movie is more interesting than the movie itself. In this case, the visuals were also interesting, so I just stared at the screen and listened to what Spenser had to say about every frigging frame. Actually, I might have picked up on more of what the movie was about this way than I would having to parse everything myself. Not more of the plot, mind you. I mean what it was about.
“…Spenser, come find the fuckin’ pizza cutter!”
“Why I gotta find the fuckin’ pizza cutter? Find the fuckin’ thing your own fuckin’ self!”
“Because I don’t trust you when you have nothin’ to do. Get the crap out here!”
“Fine. Corwin, you tell me what happens!”
Spenser flew off the couch and into the bright kitchen, where he started opening and closing drawers. I wondered how I was going to tell him what happened when I didn’t even know what was going on. Still, when the two of them sat back down, and Spenser sat a paper plate full of hot pizza on the table in front of me, I did my best.
“They just got on the spaceship.”
“Which ship?”
“Jesus, I dunno!”
Tyler’s foot, wearing an old sock, grabbed the knob of one of the coffee table drawers.
“…Well, whichever one it is, I think I’m gonna smoke. You guys wanna share?”
Spenser all but cut him off.
“…He means, like, the reefer. Dammit, Tyler, Corwin needs specifics or he’s not gonna understand shit!”
That was true enough, so it didn’t really offend me, but it always drove me nuts when people said things about me while I was in the room to speak for myself.
“Like hell I’m not!”
Actually, I wasn’t sure about that, at least not in this situation. I hadn’t really given it any thought, so I guess I could have gone either way. Tyler pulled an old cookie tin out of the drawer, then kicked it shut.
“…Okay. And Spense, you sound like you’re from the goddamn Roaring Twenties. Cut that out. Anyway. Like I said?”
Spenser had to take a few seconds to finish staring at an explosion on the screen before he could answer.
“Sure, why the shit not?” He grabbed two joints out of the tin. I stared at the tin for a while. I’d seen those cookies before, but this was the old packaging design. “…Corwin? You done this before?”
“I… Don’t really know.”
Spenser was confused as I’d ever seen him.
“…The fuck kind of answer even was that?”
It was the best kind of answer I could think of, when my pot-smoking experience consisted of two afternoons holed up in Martin’s disaster area of a bedroom back at his parents’ house, passing a joint around and then just sitting there for a what felt like forever, wondering what I was supposed to be feeling, and if this was what it was, while watching Martin alternately enthusing about how awesome everything is and using a plastic knife to eat this weird fake peanut butter they make out of pre-chewed cookies straight from the jar. I didn’t know if that “counted” or not. But, I’d already decided. I was going to give it a third shot, just to see if it actually worked.
“I mean I’ve, like, inhaled. But I’m not sure if it… Took?”
Eager to start doing drugs and get back to that shitty space movie, Spenser was rapidly losing patience with me.
“…Just decide before I go and smoke both these fuckin’ things myself and eat all your pizza!”
Tyler, who had already taken a few good drags, found this hysterically funny. I was worried that he’d fall backwards in his chair and set the carpet on fire.
“Jeez, just give me a chance to get my lighter.”
I’d never liked smoking and eating at the same time. It tended to employ too many hands at once. Tyler didn’t have the same problem. He kept the two tasks in balance so well that I was starting to imagine him with eight limbs, like his little friend. Then he pulled one leg in and sat with his foot on the arm of the chair, which looked almost unnatural. I didn’t know how he was doing it. And I didn’t want to stare, but it just looked so bizarre. Eventually, he noticed I was staring at him, casually pulled his shin behind his neck, and then kept sitting like that for a while, still toking and eating pizza like everything was perfectly normal. It looked like he was kicking back and putting his feet up. On himself. For what seemed like an absurd, or at least rude, amount of time, I just sat there. Watching Tyler violating physics. Holding back laughter. Then my eyes wandered to the florescent pink rubber bone in Bear’s window. I pictured Tyler playing fetch with her. Walking her on a leash. Taking her to the Spider Park to play with her friends. Tyler throwing a frisbee; Bear leaping up and snatching it out of the air.
I completely lost my shit.
This, I thought, is how people die laughing. My ribs were crushing my lungs. Every time I managed to draw in a little bit of air, I howled it back out. Tyler, sitting serenely, both feet on the floor now, tapped an ash on his empty pizza plate.
“…Well, I guess it took.” He inhaled what was left of the joint, then dropped the butt in the pile of ashes. “…Anyway. Corwin. What’s funny?”
He was already starting to laugh in anticipation. I wasn’t sure how to explain, and my normally shaky grasp on spoken English seemed almost nonexistent. But, when I could finally hold onto enough air, I managed to at least partially explain myself.
“…Bear playin’ frisbee!”
Tyler, too, completely lost his shit, almost falling out of his chair again.
“…Yeah, that is pretty funny. Don’t know if Bear would want to, though. She’s a pretty low-key character, right? But hey, I should like, get some construction paper, and, like… A hole-punch, and make a little mini-frisbee for… Oh man…” Tyler looked like he was having a silent, red-faced argument with himself, trying to get his mouth to open for speech and not laughter. I waited until he could. “…A jumping spider!”
Tyler laughed at his own joke for about a minute and a half. But, I couldn’t really fault him, because I laughed at least as long. Spenser, for the first time in his life, was the most composed person in the room. He was staring intently at the television, completely absorbed.
“…You know, I’d totally fuck that bug lady.”
That was enough to get me going again, but it didn’t last as long this time. I was tired. My stomach felt loose and full of little pulled muscles, almost the way it does after you throw up. I cleared my throat and sat back on the couch.
“Aw, but what about Piston?”
“She’d understand! It’s not like she’s threatened by, um, fictional bugs or anything. And besides, this girl‘s like, Bug-Piston. She’s the ship’s mechanic… She’s really cute and stuff, she pronounces words kinda funny… She loves animals, she’s a head shorter than you but could kick your ass and you know it… Tyler, would you fuck the bug lady?”
“Nah, man. She’s gorgeous, but you obviously don’t know anything about bug sex if you think it wouldn’t be, like, super unpleasant on your nards.”
They argued about the specifics of bug sex and human/space bug sex for about five minutes before Tyler lit up another joint, and we, because it just seemed like the thing to do, copied him.
I ate more pizza and got a little too wrapped-up in the movie, even though I had even less of a clue about what was happening than I’d had before, and I now knew the uncomfortable truth about Spenser’s tender feelings for the bug woman hanging out in the engine room. It just seemed like the story was really unfolding, even if I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. I got the sense that everyone had ended up very far from where they’d begun, all the way to the other end of the universe. In both a literal and a narrative sense. The funny guy Spenser liked got burned by some kind of alien acid, his flesh melting until his ribcage showed through, pure white and vulnerable. Then the annoying guy that Spenser hated, who I liked just fine, had some kind of cybernetic parasite or nanomachine construct shot into his spine. He wasn’t dying, but, slowly and surely, he wasn’t going to be who he was, and would never be that person again. His motor control was going, and his behavior was becoming more erratic, and he had to be mostly-lucid and terrified through the whole thing. He’d fallen in love with one of the rubbery blue people on the cover, and there was this scene of them together, collapsed on the ground in some weird desert, the sky lit up by the rim of a galaxy and two huge grey moons. They cupped one another’s faces in their hands, and they were saying things to each other. I wasn’t understanding what, but they sounded like they were about to cry. I felt about to cry, too. Less because the scene was sad, and more because they just looked so in love. I was moved.
I remembered that the blue people saw in a different range of the spectrum than we did; that nothing looked the same in their eyes, but the two of them had come to understand each other so well. For some reason, I thought about the way Tyler looked at Bear. Her walking across him, the two of them living in such different versions of the world that they might as well have been two aliens, each understanding nothing about the other’s world, besides the fact that they were both part of it. It wasn’t much different than a connection between two people, but it was just different enough to drive it home. The blue person on the screen, with tears in their infrared eyes, snapped their lover’s neck before the silver bullet in his spine could destroy him. I had to look away. I had to think about something else. I turned to Tyler.
“You really like Bear and Stella, huh?”
“Yeah, they’re pretty awesome… Hey, you wanna see the rest of the guys? They live in the grow room if you wanna check it out.”
“Rest of the…”
“Oh, yeah. I have like, at least one of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth or whatever the fuck back there. I keep Bear and Stella out here as, like, the gatekeepers. Someone doesn‘t like them, I tell them to stay the fuck outta the grow room. You seem cool though, so you can go and see if ya want.”
“Okay. Sure, I…”
“Door’s in the lil’ hall-nubbin thing, and to the left. If you find a bed or a toilet, you got the wrong place.”
I nodded.
“Right.”
Then I drifted up to my feet and back to what passed for a hallway. Walking felt the way it does when you’re at the beach or the pool, how the water makes everything slow-going but so much easier. I opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind me, alone in my own small world.
The light in the grow room was a different kind of sixteenth-century light, more like the robed figure reading in the corner would be a star-spangled wizard with a long white beard. There was a little bit of the shadowy sheen that the two moons cast over the plains where a being from a distant planet saved the one they loved the most from himself. The only light was from countless tanks lined up on metal shelves, and long bank of lamps over a narrow table pushed against the far wall, where a dense forest of lush cannabis plants grew, glowing with chlorophyll, stretching themselves up to the sun that Tyler, their god, had hung in the sky just for them. I turned away from the miniature forest, and towards the shelves, a miniature city. In one of the tanks, a scorpion shone plastic-star green under dark indigo light. In another, a long millipede wrapped around itself, dreaming in a cozy spiral. One shelf housed the Tarantula District, a little high-rise full of Bear’s distant cousins from all around the world. On the other side of the room, a group of busy mice fought for control of the wheel. Near the top, almost higher than eye-level, a spotted, pale yellow, strangely soft-looking lizard sat tall on a rock, basking under a tiny warm sun, eyes closed and smiling.
I looked at everyone for a while. At the different arrangements of logs and rocks and lights, each one placed just perfectly, so every citizen of this little kingdom could have a special place to call home. I watched them dig and sleep and explore, and felt strangely attached to each and every one of them, all wrapped up in their own tiny worlds in more ways than one. They didn’t know I was the same kind of thing they were. They probably wouldn’t even know that about each other if the walls between them came down. But, whether we could ever really understand it or not, we really were all the same. Just small, scurrying things, trying our best, doing what we could to pass smoothly through our small, scurrying lives. I spent what felt like forever practically resting my head against each pane of glass, trying to wrap my head around who lived there, and how they understood their world. Then another thought finally entered my mind.
Tyler had invited me back here. Just to look around.
He gave me some time to learn about the workings of his home. A little bit about himself.
And all their countless selves as well.
I felt that much closer to finally making sense of everything I’d ever seen or known.