Tao Lin - Bed

“I wonder if Stza masturbates to celebrities,” Frank was saying. “What about to nine eleven? That’s so dumb, when people say that. Getting off on nonsexual things, I hate that shit.”

“He probably masturbates to the idea of masturbating to nine eleven,” Donnie said. “He’s one step ahead like that. That’s how people are. There’s like five steps, and you figure out what kind a person you are by what step you’re on. Fuck you, Mrs. Johnson.” He said to Colin, “Um, my math teacher. She was in my head just now. I was like, what are you doing …”

“What if someone wrote a song called ‘Fuck Africa,’ or something?” Frank said. He had a worried look on his face. “ ‘Fuck Black People.’ A song called ‘Fuck Native Americans.’ ”

Maura was leaned over the table, her head low, and was gazing up, a bit blankly, at Colin. “Are you offended?” she said.

Colin shook his head no.

“You’re crestfallen,” Maura said.

“I’m not.”

“Crestfallen?” Donnie said. “Nice. I like that. Romantic.”

“What if Stza saw a slide,” Frank said. “Like a playground slide. In a field somewhere. And he was alone and no one was watching — would he do it?”

“He’d probably hide in it — on top — and masturbate to the idea of hiding there and masturbating,” Donnie said. “See how we’re different? I’m on one step, you’re on another, lower step. Me and Stza are pointing and laughing at you.”

“No … because I’m being serious,” Frank said. “I’m on an elevator or something, being serious.”

“I’m operating your elevator,” Donnie said. “Your elevator’s a cardboard box. You live in a cardboard home and sit there being serious all day. At night, you make beastlike noises, you clutch your face in horror …” Donnie looked off to the side at something.

“He would — he’d do the slide,” Frank said. “I wouldn’t though. I’d be too apathetic. I’d be like, what difference does it make? Stza would be like, ‘Hey, a slide.’ Stza wouldn’t get along with bin Laden.” Frank was shaking his head. “Stza would be all sarcastic and bin Laden wouldn’t get it. They’d just have all these awkward silences. Bin Laden would murder Stza in his sleep.”

“Apathetic is pathetic with an ‘A,’ ” Donnie said.

“Osama bin Laden,” Maura said. “Ouch.” Her head lay on its side, on her arms, on the table. Her eyes were closed. “I feel so alone when I close my eyes and talk. I hear my voice and everywhere else is this sad music, like, behind me.” She began to hum, very quietly, “La-la-mm-mm-la, ah-ah-mm …”

“Did she say sad music or sad istic music?” Donnie said. He put his hand in the air. “Give me five,” he said to Frank. “Give me a high-five for what I just said.”

Frank looked at Donnie. “I wonder if bin Laden ever gets depressed,” he said. “I’m serious. I think about this a lot. Depressed people … are so depressed and harmless. Bin Laden and everyone, Bush — they’re always grinning on TV. What the fuck is that. No one ever thinks about this shit, really.”

There was a metal rod inside of Colin. The rod went up from his stomach into the middle of his head. It was made of steel and sugar, and had been dissolving inside of Colin for ten or fifteen years, slow and sweet, above and behind his tongue; and he would taste it in that way, like an aftertaste, removed and seeping and outside of the mouth. Sometimes he’d glimpse it with the black, numb backs of his eyes. But what he really wanted was to wrench it out. Cut it up and chew it. Or melt it. Bathe in the hard, sweet lava of it.

Their food came. Three dishes, then three more, then a pot of something murky and deep. The large Chinese woman sat down with them. “I sense a new person,” Maura said. “Hi.” Her eyes were still closed. “It’s the boss-lady,” Donnie said. Maura sat up, opened her eyes, asked the Chinese woman about getting some more homeless people to come help eat. The Chinese woman laughed. She shouted something and the waiter left the restaurant on a bike.

The short homeless man was eating and so was Colin, but no one else.

“My phys-ed teacher-person called me ‘homeslice’ yesterday,” Frank said. “What the hell is that? He kept doing it.”

“He probably said he needed to go home and slice some pizza,” Donnie said. “I’m going to go home, slice some pizza.”

“No, he was like, ‘Frank, homeslice, get over here and do twenty push-ups.’ ”

“You should’ve said, ‘Your mom’s a homeslice.’ Then stayed where you were, doing zero push-ups.”

“I feel depressed,” Frank said.

“Do you know?” Maura said to Colin. “What is a homeslice? You’re older than us. You’re wiser.”

“Crestfallen,” Donnie said.

Colin looked up and shook his head. Blood moved slowly and disproportionately through his head, like a water and a syrup both. He concentrated on eating a piece of vegetable. It wouldn’t fit in his mouth and he concentrated on that.

“You seem hungry,” Maura said. “Are you undernourished?”

“Are you a reporter?” Donnie said. “I’ve had this … bad vibe, that you’re a reporter from USA Today. When I saw you, the headline came into my head, ‘Teenage Terrorism Gangs at Punk Shows,’ and it had a bar graph. I was like, that’s not right, that’s fucked up — the bar graph, I mean.”

Frank began to eat. He had a damaged, pensive look on his face. He ate rice.

“I don’t think you are,” Maura said. “Your posture.” She gazed at Colin. “Reporters wouldn’t dare have your posture. Reporters have horse eyes. You have dog … bird eyes. You don’t move your head to look at something, you move your eyes.”

“I’m going to carpet bomb the Super Bowl with my al Qaeda friend, who lives on Second Avenue and …” Donnie said. He stared at Colin, who was looking down, at all the vegetables that he had moved onto his plate. There was a withered piece of carrot, a mushroom, a pile of baby corn, and an enormous green thing.

“Reporters aren’t as hungry as you,” Maura said.

Frank stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom to vomit,” he said, and went there.

“I like you, Colin,” Donnie said. He looked around. “I mean it. I usually hate all people. You should come to my birthday party next week. I don’t have friends. Just these people here, and they don’t even like me. Frank. Ha. I don’t ever talk this much. I’m probably on anti-anxiety drugs right now. I’m always like, ‘I hate you, what’s the point of talking.’ Or I’m walking around and I’m all like, ‘I’m normal. I’m a normal person. Fuck all these weirdoes.’ Really, I’m probably exactly like you. Exactly . You should see me at school. I stare at the wall. There’s this wall. Anyway.” His voice was wavering a bit. He took out a 3 × 5 note card and set it in front of Colin:

Donnie’s birthday extravaganza

No clowns, no presents, no singing, fuck no, no cake, no nothing

Sure to be a depressing time for everyone involved

You shouldn’t even come, please

The waiter came back with his bike and three other people — his twin, a tall and bearded man, and a tiny, wrinkled, peanut-colored woman. They pulled up another table and sat down. The waiter went and got more soup and bowls.

“These are gargantuan,” the short homeless man said. He held his bowl up to the light and everyone looked. It was a normal-sized bowl.

The tall man smelled a little sour. He was sitting by Colin, and now stood up. “Thank you, sir,” he said to Colin, and sat down.

Colin said something shocking yet compassionate, but he wasn’t sure what exactly — or if, even, as he didn’t hear his own voice and also had been thinking about something completely else.