Adam Johnson: Emporium

Inside the lounge, I’m so wound up I pace back and forth, trying to get hold of myself.

“Easy, there, Blackbird,” Twan says from his recliner.

Cedric and Henry look up from the couch — they’ve got the new Monsanto catalog, and they’re checking out the centerfold. Everyone’s trying to relax and clear their heads before the America Online convention this afternoon. They’ll need their best, if last year was any indication.

I go to grab a Nix, but the fridge’s empty. “Crap,” I say. “Someone came in here and stole our sodas again.”

I slam the cooler shut, but no one even looks up, nobody around here seems to give a turd. So much for unity. No weekend retreat to Team Mountain will fix things this time.

“I bet it was those asswipes on SWAT,” I say, furious. “They’re doing it just to laugh at us. Everyone knows the guys on SWAT all drink Buzz.”

Normally, Twan won’t give me the time of day, but he comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Blackbird, get some focus. Save it for AOL,” he tells me. “What say you sit in my chair, put your feet up, check out the Monsanto Girls?”

“I don’t think so,” I say in total defeat. “I’m only into the Sony Girls.”

“There you go,” Twan says. “You’re sounding better already.”

“Oh, come now,” Cedric says from the couch. “The Monsanto Girls are it.”

“What are you talking about?” Henry asks him, laughing. “You’re Mormon.”

“The Monsanto Girls are kosher with the hive,” Cedric answers. To Twan, he asks, “Where’s Muhammad stand on the Monsanto Girls?”

“Twan likes ’em natural,” Twan announces. “I don’t speak for the Prophet.”

I pull Twan aside, steering him over to the fireplace.

“Twan,” I say, quiet enough that the guys can’t hear. “I need some advice.”

He leans against the humidor, considers me. “Yeah?”

He looks very fatherly, with the bookshelves behind him. I feel I can trust him.

“There’s this girl, and she’s not like other girls. She’s different, but I keep screwing everything up.”

“Different how?”

“She’s got these big eyes. Man, when she looks at you, she knows the real you.”

Something I say contains a certain gravity for Twan.

“This girl,” he asks, “she a friend, or you talking love?”

“I just met her,” I say. “How do you tell?”

“Look at her,” Twan says. “Really look at her. Not just check out her body. You need to see the real her. Then you’ll know. You can’t help but know.”

* * *

After work, I grab a sixer of Buzz, to work up my nerve, then I head to the old Iridium Satellite Tracking facility near Stanford. The company went belly-up, but its tower is the tallest fixed object in sight. At the padlocked gate, the dish above is mongo, a sniper’s dream. I sling my rifle, hop the fence, and start to climb the huge frame, monkey footing it up the diagonal struts.

When I reach the lip of the giant white dish, high above Palo Alto, I swing a leg over and slide through the dust to the center, where I find the remains of an old campfire. There’s like fifty cigarette butts strewn around and some used condoms, so I watch where I step.

At the leading edge of the dish, I dangle an arm off the side and assume a Thompson side cradle stance, which keeps your legs from going to sleep during prolonged situations. After my scope calibrates, I crack the six-pack and begin scanning the neighborhoods for Seema’s house. It’s funny, but when I finally drink my first can of Buzz, it tastes just like Nix.

Combing the storybook neighborhoods and canopied streets for her house, I guess I’ve got it in my head that I’ll find Seema in some perfect state — wearing a flowing gold and pink sari as she swings in a hammock, reading one of those really long novels, in French maybe, and she has a foot dangling, just sweeping the grass as she rocks. She’s probably eating a crepe, very elegantly.

On my third can of Buzz, I spot a guy washing an old-timey station wagon, and when I see he’s wearing generic white sneakers with blue dress socks, I know this must be Gupta. I dial in the focus, careful not to start my countdown or anything — I mean, Krugers don’t come with safeties.

Sweeping to the backyard, I spot Seema. She’s wearing khaki pants and a khaki polo with the insignia of the local animal shelter, and she’s doing a pretty weak job of cleaning the barbecue. She scrubs for a while, stops to look around, accidentally wipes a dark smudge on her cheek.

I know what it’s like getting stuck doing chores no one else wants to do, and I get this urge to tell Seema she’s not alone, that I’m here, too. I want to place my crosshairs on an apple or pear above her, to shoot through the stem and have it land perfectly in her hand, so she’d know someone’s looking out for her. It’s a pretty stupid thought, I guess. Gupta doesn’t have any fruit trees, and there’s only so many ways to show affection with a rifle.

I crack another Buzz, and even though it’s warm, there’s something really snappy to it. I don’t even down my first sip before I start to get the sense that I know Seema in a special way. It doesn’t hit me in a flash, but sort of grows on me. I’m doing what Twan says, really looking at her through my scope — the way the splashing water makes her feet glimmer, how she squinches her face when she works a gross spot on the grill — when I get this sense that she’s ahead of the kids her own age, a little smarter, more mature. She doesn’t really have friends who know the real her. So she has to pretend she’s someone she’s not, acting older, tougher. Then her father’s trying to make her follow in his footsteps, shoving French classes down her throat, steering her toward debate, toughening her with jiu-jitsu. Through my scope, I watch her hose the spider webs out of the burner, and it’s clear that Gupta’s trying to make her the world-class negotiator he never was. It’s like she has to live someone else’s life. Maybe all she really wants to be is a UN monitor, to travel to other countries on peacekeeping missions, wear cool uniforms, and try to make a difference. This is the real her, without any poses, a girl who really likes to help animals, who just wants to go out and make the world a better place without having to shoot anyone.

Suddenly my legs have a mind of their own. I jump up, and I’m balancing on the edge of the dish, and if I fall, I’m like, whatever. I feel that light.

I grab the tower’s guy-wire cables, and in a slow-motion jump, rappel all the way to the ground, a move that leaves my crotch and one armpit black. Before I know it, I’m over the fence and heading down the street. I find myself jogging, and it’s like I’m wearing headphones that only play static. There’s a silver fire hydrant, and for no reason, I go up and kick it. I’m running along, turning into her neighborhood, and have you ever taken a good look at your hand, I mean really stared at it?

“Howdy, Gupta,” I say as I trot past the mist of his hose. At the door, I ring the bell, and I’m kind of jogging in place. I ring it again. At my feet, there’s a flower bowl of puffy-faced dahlias and aster, all purple and trippy. Normally I’d get sort of queasy, and my ribs would be tightening. But I feel great, like I’m ten years younger.

It takes long enough, but Seema finally answers. She’s sort of smiling at first.

“Look, Seema, wow,” I say. “I am so into peace. And animals.”

“Blackbird? What are you doing here?”

“I’m a Cancer, you know,” I tell her. “So it’s hard for me to talk. And I have all these weird dreams, not the ones with the Sony Girls — ha-ha — but mostly where I mow the lawn. Sometimes I just wash the car, like Gupta! But there’s this voice in my head, and Lt. Kim thinks that once we get it to go away, I’ll stop worrying that the good things in life are destined to fail, like you and me. But I’m up in this satellite dish, and I’m thinking: what if this is the voice that still believes things can be okay, that believes in good and warns me away from bad? It wants to protect me, just like the United Nations.”