Charles Bock: Beautiful Children

But what Bing did not tell people, what to this day still freaked him out more than a little bit, was that he also possessed a firsthand understanding of the ways in which an act of destruction can be viewed as a piece of creation, the means by which an act of violence might translate into a perfect piece of art. Bing Beiderbixxe did not tell people that when he had come down from his room that morning and discovered the slaughter, he had done so after huddling all night in front of his computer, working on a special version of Deathmatch. Bing's version of the Deathmatch game was to take place inside an exact re-creation of his dormitory; his starting point was to be the dormitory lounge. But Bing did not mention this. Furthermore, he did not tell anyone that he'd watched the real-life slaughter play itself out while surrounded by the same neighbors whose doppelgängers were to be chased through his computer game's virtual hallways, who were to be cut down in his recreated stairwells and bedrooms — the exact people whom Bing had identically rendered, specifically so he could inflict bloody damage upon their images.

This was Bing's dirty little secret, and he had shoved the zip disc that held it into the bottom drawer of his desk, burying the fact of Dormitory Deathmatch beneath loose papers and envelopes, hiding all evidence of his flirtation with the dark spirits, and spending years pretending the dance had never happened. Horrified by what he'd almost done, Bing had tried to change the way he thought about the people he interacted with, and he had tried to address the way he moved in and through the world. Bing had suffered his share of bad dreams since that day, and had learned his lesson, and knew this lesson had taken hold, because years later, on the awful morning when terrorists flew those planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Bing Beiderbixxe remembered that part of the teenagers’ original plan had involved hijacking a plane, which they'd wanted to fly into a New York skyscraper.

After which he immediately thought about the one and only time that he'd removed the zip disc from his desk and shared the story of the half-finished program.

He thought of the woman to whom he had first spoken the magic words I love you. She'd relocated to lower Manhattan, Bing remembered, and it took a fraction of a second for all his bitterness — including his morbid fantasies where she got it on with three stockbrokers in the dugout seats of Yankee Stadium — to dissolve. And it was with the world in chaos around him that Bing fired off more than a few e-mails to friends of his onetime love, making sure she was okay.

So many things Bing wished to make right.

He was more than ready to be finished driving when the first wave of billboards hit, leaping out from the washed-out desert to intrude on his ruminations: advertisements for entertainers who were famous or once had been famous, for 99-percent-return rates on slot machines and no limit hold-’em poker, for gentlemen's clubs and adult cabarets and topless reviews. Bing gawked at each and every one of them, happy to have something distract him from the road's grind, from the workings of his mind. Ahead, gray and dusty grids appeared in an intricate sprawl: starter homes and tract homes, optimistically titled subdivisions and insipidly beautiful incorporated communities. Spanish tiled roofs were the law of the land. Sunlight glinted off a thousand backyard pools at once. Both sides of the road were dappled with dingy motels, coming and going at wide intervals of empty space, their paint jobs faded and cracking. And then, rising on the horizon, looming over the flat and wide basin from the moment they appeared, shining towers and popish theme-park façades. Built at a scale that was out of proportion with the rest of the city, they were impossible to ignore, newly unwrapped and shining toys amid a room of small wooden carvings. Forward Bing drove, toward their glitter, moving up the southern and outermost edge of the Strip, passing a visitors’ information center where tourists could get maps and make hotel reservations, then a one-story storefront hawking prop plane rides to the Grand Canyon, and then this weird little building that, in ancient neon, blinked out an offer: free aspirin and tender sympathy.

At the base of a skyline that was far too ornate to take in at once, his eyes came upon that familiar benchmark. Sticking out of the middle of an otherwise barren traffic median, the sign was smaller than he'd thought it would be, but every bit as iconic as it looked on television.

Was there any way to jump-start a libido quicker? Any other place on the planet that instantly offered the chance to reverse fortune and end losing streaks, the chance to set right a lifetime of disappointments? How could one read the gracious message — welcome to fabulous las vegas, nevada — and feel anything but tingling anticipation?

1.5

The first pulse, high-pitched and melodic, caused each young man to reach toward his waist. By the time phones were out, the customized ring tone had distinguished itself.

“Shit. Whenever I'm about to do anything—”

Checking the screen confirmed what he already knew to be true. Newell brought the device to the side of his face and did not wait for a greeting. “Ten more minutes?” he asked. His eyes found Kenny, rolled for his friend's benefit. “Mom? Maaa wwwmm …. Come awhnnn —”

“But you said FOUR. It's only—”

He scanned for the store clock, saw what time it was, and expelled air through his nose. His hip slung to the side. Newell went silent and sullen. He listened.

“I know,” he admitted. “I know…. But he just got here, Mom…. I been waiting all summer for this. I mean, that's the whole—

“No,” he said, brusquely. “I know it's not your fault he was late…. All right…. All right. All right already, FAWCK.”

Slamming the device shut, Newell stomped away from Kenny, shoved the glass door with enough force to whip its metal guard against the store's outside wall, and ignored the banging impact, trudging outside, into the vivid brightness. Beneath a sun-beaten awning, the boy paused on a stretch of shaded cement, near three complicated-looking mountain bikes, each of their front treads locked into a slot on the dull metal rack. Newell feebly kicked the nearest tire, and took in the relative stillness, the shopping center's long rows of parked cars, metallic surfaces gleaming beneath the unforgiving sun. He put his hands on his hips, cocked his head. Defiance gave way to a plunging inevitability as his eyes trained on a single object: gliding like a wraith along a long row of parked cars and light posts, taking each speed bump with methodical ease.

Store bells jingled behind him; a presence arrived next to him. Newell continued his surveillance.

“It's not fair,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to be here to see.”

“You were here. I was late.”

The boy remained still as a rock, then exhaled air through his nose, snorting. “But I never get to do anything. ”

His holster was clipped into jean shorts that, by design, were far too baggy for his body. When he jammed the phone back into place, the fabric slid down, just a bit. Newell gave a halfhearted smirk, watching as the black luxury sedan slowed, pulling toward the curb. Presently, its heavily tinted driver-side window descended. In the newly created opening, a salad of strawberry blond hair tossed lightly. Reflective lenses of designer sunglasses danced with light.

The last time she'd ventured inside Amazin’ Stories, her tanned flesh had all but spilled out of her baby-blue swimsuit top, and her wraparound sarong had been clinging to her in something straight out of a sophomoric dream. Newell still got upset about the way the whole store had gone dead, and he refused to let anyone so much as bring up the subject of his mother. Still, on the rare occasion when Kenny sensed his young friend was in a receptive mood, and wouldn't freak out too bad, he'd remind Newell of harmless details — like how the flip-flops had matched her toenail polish. He did it only when they were alone, though — around other people Kenny got flustered; even around Newell he wasn't exactly vocal, a clamped fist that refused to open. And if there was even a hint that Newell had taken his joke the wrong way, he'd retreat, mollifying the boy, claiming he understood why Newell's mom had to pick him up in the parking lot. That having a prearranged signal was a super idea.