Tao Lin - Eeeee Eee Eeee

“You passed where you said you would turn,” Joanna says after a while.

“I’ll turn soon.” Andrew drives thinking, turn at the next one. I will turn at the next one. Mass grave in the side yard . He merges smoothly into the turn lane. (“Tell me what happened.” “I made a fucking U-turn.”) “I’m obsessed with a girl,” he says. “What should I do?”

“You’re not obsessed,” Joanna says.

“She is Sara. She doesn’t call me. I made her admit she liked me. She likes me. But we’re too alike. When you’re with someone and neither of you can stop saying good things. Then you both get very aware that life will end soon. I think that’s why we don’t talk that much. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

“You’re rationalizing,” Joanna says.

Andrew drives without thinking.

He feels calm. He feels a little good.

(“My sister is more depressed than both of us.”)

“Are you passive-aggressive?” Joanna says. “You don’t call but expect her to, like she’s your mom.”

“She’s not my mom.” Andrew’s mom is in Germany. Steve’s mom’s plane crashed. “I don’t know what ‘passive-aggressive’ means. It’s a cliché,” Andrew says. He feels tired. What will he do for the rest of his life? “How old is your sister?”

“My best friend’s cousin’s name is Sara,” Joanna says.

Best friend’s cousin. “I can’t process what you just said,” Andrew says. Steve’s dad, screaming. “Sara,” Andrew says. Everyone should be named Sara. Rename the dogs. Interpret them as one entity. ‘Sara.’

“Maybe I know her,” Joanna says. “I think three of her cousins are named Sara. Turn left.” She points at her neighborhood; ‘Windy Brook.’ Andrew has an image of himself and Sara sitting by a stream with their feet in the water.

“My sister’s twenty-five,” Joanna says. “Why?”

Andrew turns into ‘Windy Brook.’ “Your sister should start a band with me. My friend Steve and I are starting a band.” Andrew will marry Joanna’s sister. Steve will feel left out. Killing-rampage.

“Ashley plays bass guitar,” Joanna says. “She’s okay at it. I mean really good. I’m not jealous; I don’t know why I said she’s okay. She’s great.”

“Everyone should be named Sara.” A bear with a hose on ‘full-blast’ setting, watering flower plants — crushing them, really — stares at Andrew’s face as Andrew drives by. Andrew thinks about squinting or something and blankly stares back at the bear.

“My sister is a genius on bass guitar,” Joanna says, and gives some more directions.

“I feel like how Honda Civics look. That’s why I drive a Honda Civic,” Andrew says. “Just kidding.” He wants Ashley’s phone number. Can I come inside to ‘court’ your sister? Inappropriate. Be patient. Wait ten days; don’t strategize. Wait exactly fourteen days, get her email address under the pretense of starting a band; use the email address to get her phone number; use the phone number to ask her to dinner under the pretense of something else. Wait fourteen days then go on a killing-rampage, culminating in Seattle with putt-putt, in the rain, with Steve’s dad’s severed arm. She’s twenty-five. Probably in Uzbekistan for the Peace Corps. Andrew is twenty-three. He should join the Peace Corps. He and Sara were going to vacation on the Canary Islands. Andrew does not know what the Canary Islands are. She said it, not Andrew. They had many ideas and plans. They climbed a tree. Andrew drops Joanna off. She runs across her yard with her pizza, jumps over a stump, goes into the house. She could have gone around the stump. It was more fun to leap over the stump, like a gazelle. So that’s how you have fun. Andrew sits in his car, feels bored and sarcastic, and starts to drive away. Joanna runs wildly at the car. Andrew is confused. Joanna knocks on Andrew’s window; she will invite Andrew inside to ‘court’ Ashley? Andrew puts the window down. Joanna is grinning. Shit-eating? A normal grin. She pays for the pizza. “Thank you, Andrew,” she says, and runs away. Andrew sits in his car thinking about rafting around the Canary Islands with Sara using an inflatable marshmallow raft. A bear comes out of Joanna’s house.

Andrew puts the window up.

The bear stares at Andrew.

Andrew puts the window down a little.

“Do you need something?” Andrew says.

“Yeah,” the bear says.

“Oh. What do you need?”

“Come here.”

The bear points at a house.

“Do you need help?” Andrew says.

“Come here,” the bear says.

“Where?”

“Do you want free money?” the bear says.

“Why?”

“Do you want a hundred dollar bill?” the bear says.

“I don’t know,” Andrew says. He puts the window down all the way. “Why do you have free money?”

“Come here.” The bear steps toward the house he pointed at before.

“It’s a trick.”

“Yes or no,” the bear says. “Do you want free money and a free laptop computer or not?”

“I own a home computer.”

The bear has a twenty-dollar-bill and a blue blanket and holds them in front and walks to Andrew’s car and puts the blanket on Andrew’s head and rips off Andrew’s door and the top of Andrew’s car. The bear picks up Andrew and carries Andrew to the house he earlier pointed at and in the side yard sets down Andrew, who takes the blanket off his own head. The bear kneels, opens a secret passageway under a patch of grass, and points at a ladder that goes underground. Andrew goes to the ladder. “Do it,” the bear says.

“Do what?” Andrew says. “Why?”

“Do it,” the bear says.

The bear takes the blanket from Andrew and drops it down the passageway.

“Oh,” Andrew says. “Good thinking. Good idea. Now I’m required to go get the blanket, or else I’ll appear ‘irresponsible,’ or something, an irresponsible human being littering in the wilds of North America. Yeah. I don’t know. Okay.”

Andrew climbs down the ladder.

The bear climbs down the ladder.

They climb together.

They are climbing.

The bear kicks Andrew’s head.

“Was that your head?” the bear says.

Andrew doesn’t say anything.

“Andrew,” the bear says. “Was that your head?”

“Stop talking.”

“What was it?” the bear says.

“A laptop computer.”

They keep climbing down.

“Where’s your sledgehammer?” Andrew says.

“Sledgehammer,” the bear says. “What are you talking about?”

It gets colder.

The bear makes noises like, “Hrr. Hrr.”

“Not all bears are the same bear,” the bear says.

They climb some more and reach a corridor.

Andrew picks up the blanket.

They walk through the corridor.

There is a nook in the corridor.

A moose is lying in the nook.

The moose’s eyes are open.

The bear takes the blanket from Andrew.

The bear tells Andrew to keep walking.

“A moose,” Andrew says.

“Keep walking,” the bear says.

Andrew keeps walking and reaches a cliff.

Below the cliff is a city of dolphins and bears. Sometimes there is a very tall statue of the current president of the United States. Andrew recognizes the president’s face.

The bear stands next to Andrew.

“Hrr, hrr,” the bear says.

“You’re cold,” Andrew says.

“It’s a cold and lonely world,” the bear says.

“Just kidding,” the bear says. “Sort of.”

“I’m going to sit,” Andrew says.

Andrew sits. A dolphin comes from the corridor. Andrew stands. The dolphin has a sledgehammer. Andrew looks at the sledgehammer; the dolphin slaps Andrew’s face. More dolphins come from the corridor. The cliff is crowded. More dolphins come; a dolphin is crowded off the cliff; as it falls it goes, “EEEEE EEE EEEE!” Andrew laughs a little. Two more dolphins fall and the cliff is not as crowded anymore. The dolphin with the sledgehammer says, “Watch this.” The other dolphins look. The dolphin with the sledgehammer slaps Andrew’s face.