Going Bovine (8 page)

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me?”

Dr. Klein nods. The nod says, I Know All About You, Asshole. “I know what your parents have said. I want to know why you think you’re here.”

“Chronic masturbation.”

Dr. Klein raises an eyebrow. “If that were a character disorder, I’d be seeing the entire high school. Anything else you want to tell me?”

Turns out, there is. It feels good to talk, and once I start, I don’t stop till I’ve told Dr. Klein all about the weird flame dreams, the feather message I found, the winged Valkyrie girl with pink hair at Buddha Burger, and the feeling that my body has basically been invaded by pain aliens who stab me in intervals and make it hard for me to remember stuff.

Dr. Klein jots down notes, and then he stops writing and just sits, ramrod straight, looking small and a little scared in his big boy chair. In the end, he hands my parents a script for antipsychotic medication and schedules some serious sessions. So, now I’ve been to see a drug counselor who told me I needed to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.

Thank God I’ve still got some weed left.

CHAPTER TEN

Of What Happens When I Find Myself on a Dark Country Road and the Sky Rains Fire

The anticrazy meds make me really tired, but still I can’t sleep. The insomnia’s gotten worse in the past week, and I’m up every night until four or so watching late-night TV. Last night, I was so bored I actually watched a public television special about some scientists building their own big bang machine—some kind of super-duper, atom-smasher, supercollider thingy they want to use to discover strings and super-strings and parallel worlds our brains aren’t wired to see yet; worlds that could be as small as a snow globe or as big as the Milky Way. Eleven dimensions. That’s what they say there might be.

Right now, the dimension I’m in is extreme boredom. I’ve basically been under house arrest since the Chet incident. But tonight, Dad’s got a lecture at the university, Mom’s at book club, and Jenna’s spending the night with her girl posse. I feel kind of shitty—my muscles ache like I took a body slam from the entire football team—but I’m not wasting my freedom. I smoke enough to get loose and bike it over to Eubie’s.

“Hey, Cam-run!” Eubie says when I walk in the door. “Where you been?”

“Nowhere.”

“Still? That’s not right.” He takes a good look at me. “You look worn, my friend. Zombified.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Got no color. You need to get out. Experience things. Play music. Fall in love.”

“Yeah, I’m on it. Night and day,” I say, flipping through a bin of novelty records.

“Why you giving me that smart-ass shit? I’m serious,” Eubie says. “Life is short, my friend.”

“So they say. Got anything new for me?”

Eubie puts his hands on the counter and leans forward. “No,” he says. “Unless you want to borrow that Junior Webster record.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“All right. Not gonna push you. But you missing out. Hey, ch-ch-check it out,” Eubie says, waving a travel itinerary at me. “Got me two tickets to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.”

“Who’s the other ticket for?”

Eubie puts a hand to his chest and staggers backward in mock shock. “Cam-run? Did you just ask a personal question? Did you express an interest in your fellow man, in someone other than your own miserable self? Lord, Jesus! It’s a miracle—that’s what it is!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, pretending it doesn’t bother me. I’m interested in other people. I’m interested in having sex with Staci Johnson. That’s a form of interest.

“I’m taking my new lady,” Eubie says, kissing the tickets. “Misty Deanna. Miss D.”

I wipe a hand across the back of my neck. I’m sweating and clammy at the same time. “Sounds like a porn name. Or a drag queen.”

Eubie holds up a finger. “Don’t start. You got plans tonight?”

I shrug.

“What’s that mean?”

Nothing. That’s the glory of a shrug. Totally noncommittal.

“There’s a sweet show going down at Buddy’s. Jazz. Some tight cats. I’m sitting in. You want to come? I’ll put you on the list as my guest.”

“Nah, thanks. I got stuff I gotta do.”

“Uh-huh. Like what?”

“You know. Stuff.”

“Okay, Mr. I Don’t Go Nowhere I Don’t Ever Try Nothin’. But you’re missing a hot show.”

“Next time,” I say.

“Yeah. Next time,” Eubie says, rolling his eyes.

I leave with some blank CDs so I can make copies of my Tremolo LPs. By the time I finish the other half of my J, the streetlights have all twinkled into action. The weed is most excellent, and I’ve copped one hell of a serious buzz that makes everything, including me, seem like it’s both wave and particle. I pedal past campus housing, hopping my bike between street and sidewalk, ignoring stop signs and dodging traffic lights. At the last corner of Mambrino Street, a truck-load of drunken college guys careens around a corner, nearly wiping me out.

“What’s your problem?” One of the guys is yelling at me, but mostly I hear my heart beating like a mofo in my ears. They hurl insults and empty beer cans.

“Get out of the road, dude!” somebody shouts before they peel away chanting, “Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!”

I’m too altered for in-town cycling, so instead, I shoot off onto an old country road that winds past cow pastures and lonely farms. The route’s longer but there’s less traffic, and I can enjoy my buzz in peace. The road’s bordered on both sides by flat, open fields dotted by bales of cotton. The long white rectangles remind me of those newspaper pictures of soldiers’ coffins unloaded from army planes.

I stop pedaling and enjoy the feel of the damp wind on my face. It’s going to rain, but I don’t mind. It’s like I’m the only person in the universe right now. Soft rain pecks at my face. I stick out my tongue and taste it.

The wind picks up and pushes harder. Over the cotton fields, the clouds are thickening into a mean gray clump. They’re moving really fast. It’s as if they’re being pulled into the center of the sky by a huge invisible magnet. Seeing it makes my heart double its beat. Suddenly, I don’t want to be out here by myself. It’s about a half-mile to the turnoff that leads back to my house. I’m out of the seat, pumping hard as I can, putting my full weight into each pedal stroke.

That dark cloud mass starts swirling. Tornado, I think. Shit. But it’s weird, because the clouds aren’t pushing out and down; they’re pulling in. There’s a boom of thunder, a zigzag of electricity, and a small, dark hole opens up in the murky center of those clouds, a black eye giving off no light at all. The rest of the sky crackles like a laser light show. A neon spear of lightning strikes a small tree close to the road. With a huge pop, the tree explodes in a shower of flames. I’m startled and lose my balance. My bike skids out and away, and I roll on the gravel, thudding my head against the road. With a hiss, I sit up. My vision’s blurry. The horizon’s doubling. My head aches and my knee’s bleeding.

The tree’s still burning, blooming with fire leaves. As I watch, bits of fire leap free and then, man, I must be higher than ever or my brain got banged up, because what I’m seeing now cannot be happening. Those leaves of fire grow and change, like something’s inside waiting to be born. The one closest to me evolves as quickly as one of those time-lapse photography experiments in science: the small, hunched-over form unfolds, spreads out, takes on mass, intention. It stands, stretches taller and taller, maybe seven or eight feet high. A huge, burning man with eyes black as the hole opening above us. Oh God, there’s three, four, now five of them; they burn so brightly, flames licking off their bodies like blue-orange sweat. They sweep their arms out this way and that, and where they pass, the land curls up in blackness. This makes them laugh, which is a horrible sound—like the screams of people burning to death.

One of the fire giants notices me. Our eyes lock. My blood pumps a new rhythm—runrunrunrunrun. It’s like the fire giant can sense it. Screeching, he points a fiery arm in my direction, and the heat blows me back. Holy shit. Head ringing, face sunburn-warm, I scramble for my bike and try to pedal like I’m not hurt and fucked up. The bike wobbles, then straightens. The smell of smoke is strong in my nostrils. Behind me, I can hear that horrible screaming.

Just make it to the turnoff. That’s all. Just. Don’t. Stop.

Somebody’s standing in the road.

I hit the brakes, nearly skidding out again. It’s dark, and hard to see, but somebody’s definitely there. And he’s big.

“Hello!” The panic in my voice freaks me out. “Call the fire department!”

The guy doesn’t move.

“Hello? Can you help me?”

A sonic boom of thunder drowns me out. Lightning crackles around us, and I get a glimpse: Big dude. Black armor glistening like oil. Spiked helmet, steel visor. Sword. The light bounces off the sword in arcs that hurt my eyes. Sword. He’s got a fucking sword! Darkness falls again, and after the intense lightning, the night seems thicker than before. I can’t see, can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but breathe quick as a fish washed up on the beach, hoping to catch a wave back to safety. Lightning shreds the dark for another two seconds.

He’s gone. The road ahead’s clear.

Rain crashes down hard and fast; it spurs me into action. With my heart going punk in my chest, I tear up the road, putting as much distance as I can between me and whatever that scary weirdness was back there. Only when I’m safely around the turnoff do I look back: In the downpour, the burning fields are smoking down to charred ruins. The fire gods and the big dude are gone. And up in the sky, there’s nothing to see but clouds and rain.

The empty oblong bubble with its question-mark icon stares back at me, white and unknowing. “Trust me,” I want to tell it. “I don’t even know how to start this search.” Humungous, futuristic knight dudes standing in the middle of the road? Menacing, seven-foot-tall fire giants? Black holes over suburbia?

Maybe it was a tornado or some optical illusion or that pot was laced with some Grade-A Hydroponic Strange. Under the glare of the computer screen, I type in “bad pot experiences.” What comes up is page after page of people who’ve passed out at parties and had Asswipe written on their foreheads in permanent marker, kids who ended up getting busted by the ’rents and grounded for life. Nothing about what I’ve seen. I hit Refresh, and suddenly, a new link pops up: www.followthefeather.com. And there’s a picture of one of those weird feathers like I found in my room.

My mouth is so dry it’s like my saliva’s been burgled. Finally, I tap the bar, and the screen goes dark for a second. An image of the It’s a Small World ride comes up. The song bleeds from my speakers. A line of script floats to the middle of my screen and settles into focus: Follow the feather. Beside it is a little feather icon. I click on it, and a video clip plays.

A guy in a lab coat sits at a desk cram-packed with stuff—papers; a strange light-up toy that looks like it’s part seashell, part pinwheel, with little tubes all over it; a framed photo of a smiling lady with light hair and freckles; an old-fashioned radio. I recognize the song playing—something by the Copenhagen Interpretation. A shelf behind the guy’s head hosts an impressive snow globe collection. He leans in to adjust something on the camera, his face going blurry. Then he’s back and smiling, hands clasped.

“Hello,” he says. He has a nice voice. Soothing. It’s hard to say how old he is, older than my dad, though. He’s Asian, with long, salt-and-pepper hair, and bushy black eyebrows framing eyes that seem both exhausted and surprised, like one of those people who’s seen just about everything and still can’t believe it.

“I will find it. Time, death—these are only illusions. Our atoms, the architecture of the soul, live on. I’m sure of it.” He holds up the weird toy. “Somewhere in those eleven dimensions we cannot yet see, lie the answers to the greatest questions of all—why are we here? Where do we come from? Where do we go next? Is there a God, and if so, is He unconcerned or just really, really, really busy?”

There’s a blip, and the video jumps to some footage of people playing soccer on a field near wind turbines. Click. Quick cut to the same guy with his arm around the smiling, freckle-faced woman from the photo on his desk. She presses her lips to his.

“Ah,” he laughs. “There’s eternity—in a kiss!”

The video cuts out for a second, and when it comes back, it’s the same man, but he’s older now, his long hair gone mostly to silver, his eyes wearier. The Copenhagen Interpretation song still plays. He holds up a big, pinkish-white feather.

“‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.’ Emily Dickinson. Why must we die when everything within us yearns to live? Do our atoms not dream of more?” His hand closes around something that looks like a ticket or key card. “Tonight, I embark for other worlds. Searching for proof. For hope. For a reason to go on. Or a reason to end …”

That’s it. There’s nothing more. I try to play it again, and all I get is the bit that plays at the end of every ConstaToons cartoon: a picture of a twinkling galaxy and suddenly, the roadrunner pokes his head right through space, puncturing a hole in it. He holds up a sign that says MEEP-MEEP. THAT’S IT FOR NOW, KIDS.

The next thing I know, a siren’s blasting in my ears.

“Cameron!” someone shouts, competing against the brutal electronic scream that won’t stop. “Cameron!”

With a gasp, I wake, drenched in sweat.

“Cameron! We’ll be late!” Mom. Yelling. Downstairs.

The alarm clock’s still shrieking. Digital numbers assault me with their red blinking: 7:55 a.m. I’m in my bed, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes.

“Be right there!” I punish the alarm clock with a hard whap. I feel like shit. My clean clothes are in a heap on the floor. When I reach for them, every muscle aches. Definitely a school nurse day.

Downstairs, the house whirrs with busy household noises, all that to-ing and fro-ing people seem to love so much. Mom’s more frazzled than usual. She’s wearing one earring and searching for the other. “Cameron, we have to go, honey! Grab a breakfast bar.”