Hugh Howey: The Hurricane

A quick scan of the crowd and he saw that he was now officially alone in not having a smartphone. His mother, an insurance adjuster and self-proclaimed addict to her “Crackberry,” had resisted even allowing them to get cell phones before highschool. Zola had pitched a fit two Christmas’s ago and had gotten a new phone with a slide-out keyboard. Daniel was stuck with a model that could text, but the cramped keypad made it an exercise in futility, especially for someone with slow thumbs like himself. As he watched the surreal, quiet flow of thumb-clacking traffic, Daniel wondered if perhaps his physical unpopularity had something to do with his being a digital non-entity. The summer of the cellphone had arrived, and just in time for him to change his number and downgrade his model (on his own dime). All because of a looped vidchat tease that turned out to be a damned 1-900 trap.

Daniel double-checked the location of his next class, put his notes away, and bent over his basic phone, both thumbs on the keys. He merged with the flow of traffic, jabbing numbers randomly, laughing at nothing, and pretending to be as connected as the rest of his peers: all completely absorbed in what took place between the backs of their hands and on their tiny screens.

••••

After his final class—a mind-numbing mathematical affair wherein his teacher crammed three years of review into fifty minutes—Daniel met Roby in the courtyard, where he found his friend absorbed in a game on his new iPhone. It must’ve been one of the games that used the device’s accelerometer, as Roby chewed his lip and cradled the phone in both hands, his elbows thrown wide as he fought to make fine motions with the small screen. Daniel strode up and bumped Roby’s elbow, which elicited a sound effect from the game like glass shattering, followed by an explosion.

“You shit!”

Daniel laughed. “What level were you on?”

“Twelve.”

“Is that good?”

Roby shoved his phone into his back pocket. “Not really, to be honest. Still, you’re a shit.”

“Thanks.” Daniel tucked his thumbs into his backpack’s shoulder straps. “Whatcha feel like doing?”

“I’ve gotta get home, actually. Jada’s Skyping me this afternoon so we can work on this duet we’ve come up with.”

“Jada? That’s the girl?”

“She’s not the girl , she’s my girlfriend. And yeah, her name’s Jada.”

“Is that like Jada the hut? Is she, like, enormous?”

“No, ass, it’s from the name Yada. It’s Hebrew. It means ‘He who knows,’ or something like that.” Roby jerked his head toward the front of the school where the worn out brakes on the busses could be heard squealing and hissing. He started walking that way, out toward the parking lot. “And she’s not fat. She’s hot. You’ll see.”

“Yeah? When?”

“Well, she might be coming down this weekend, actually. I’m thinking of taking her to Jeremy Stevens’s party.”

“You got invited to that?”

Roby shrugged. “I’m the reason Jeremy didn’t have to take summer school. He kinda copied off my finals in English last year.”

“And you let him?”

“Yes, I chose to not have my ass kicked after school, and now I’m taking my girlfriend to his party.”

“Well, I heard it was gonna get rained out. It was originally supposed to be a pool party or something.”

The two boys exited under the bus awning and weaved through a long file of kids in band uniforms, the drummers practicing quietly on their rims, the sax players clicking valves and pretending to blow through the reeds. Each kid seemed to be working on different parts of obviously very different songs.

“The party’ll just move inside if it rains. Besides, I hear the storm is dying down and moving more south. It’ll probably hit Florida and cross over into the gulf.”

“Shit always hits Florida, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I think God shaped it like a penis on purpose just so he could have fun kicking it repeatedly.”

“Haha.”

“So, are you going to the party?”

Daniel stopped at the curb. He saw his sister in a cluster of freshman girls a dozen feet away. They were giggling amongst themselves, staring at their phones, a few of them holding theirs up to take pictures or videos of the others.

“I dunno,” Daniel said. “It’s not really my scene.”

“We don’t have a scene,” Roby said. “But you should come. I’d like you to meet Jada. Jeremy will be cool with it.”

“Okay. Maybe. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow if I don’t see you online tonight.”

“Sounds good,” Roby said. He waved before heading through the long file of idling cars and toward the cluster of grumbling buses beyond.

Daniel was helping set the tray tables out when his mom pulled up the driveway. It was seven fifteen. He could set his watch to her coming home two hours late, right on the dot. She did it every single evening and always apologized for “being late,” even though she couldn’t have been more consistently punctual if she’d been German and a train.

Carlton shuffled through the room—his tie off and shirt untucked—and portioned out a Friday’s frozen skillet sensation-or-something-other onto four plates. Zola staggered around, one thumb texting, the other hand clutching silverware. Once Daniel had the last tray set up, he took the bundle of utensils from his sister and had his usual nightly mental debate over which side the fork and knife went on.

“Fork on the left,” Carlton said as he slopped a pile of braised-something and julienned-something-else out of a steaming bag and onto a plate.

Daniel grabbed the remote and started searching through the DVR’s list of last-week’s shows as the burglar alarm chimed his mother’s entrance. The door flew open in the middle of a conversation, his mother explaining to someone else that they were doing something wrong. Daniel chose “House,” his mother’s favorite, and fast-forwarded to the opening scene. He paused it there and went to help with drinks while Zola laughed at something on her phone, shaking her head in bemusement.

In the kitchen, his mother’s cellphone snapped shut, followed immediately by loud and perfunctory kisses. A purse jangled to a heap on the counter. A jacket was tossed over the back of a chair. Someone complained about their feet, another mentioned a sore back. His mother apologized for being late.

“Are we ready to eat?” she asked. “Wrap that up,” she told Zola, suddenly impatient with other people using their phones.

The four of them filed into the living room, and Daniel handed the remote to Carlton, who would writhe as if in pain at anyone else’s incompetent attempts to skip commercials in the least optimum way possible.

“House,” he said, looking at the frozen image on the screen.

Daniel’s mom squinted at the TV. “Is it one we haven’t seen?”

“Can I eat in my room?” Zola asked.

“No you can not,” their mother said. “Your friends do not want to watch you eat on their webcams while you talk with your mouth full.” She jabbed her fork at the TV. “Now sit and enjoy your food while we have some family time.”

“Hunter said he had a group project for school, so he’s ordering pizza at a classmate’s house,” Carlton said. He aimed the remote at the TV while their mom swiveled her head around to confirm for herself that her eldest child wasn’t in the room.

“Group project? The first week of school?”

“He’s in college, now,” Carlton reminded her.

“Community,” Daniel reminded them both.

His mom shot him a look. The TV lurched into motion, showing a young girl laboring the final hundred yards of a marathon, her face contorted in a mask of discomfort, sweat coming off her in sheets.