Jarett Kobek - I Hate the Internet

After she returned to Truth or Consequences, Ellen curtailed her activities on both Facebook and Instagram. She didn’t want anyone to know she was back in town, which was a hopeless idea in a community with a population below seven thousand.

Still, it was worth a try.

When a few weeks had passed, Ellen realized that she couldn’t spend every night in the house with her grandmother. The older woman was particularly insistent that they watch re-runs of Two and a Half Men, an awful sitcom about the sexual innuendo which emerges from the unconsummated homosexual desire between two brothers. It was enormously popular with senior citizens.

Ellen made the decision to have a drink at Raymond’s Lounge, a small dive bar next to the Circle K gas station. Its standing signage read: RAYMOND’S LOUNGE PACKAGED GOODS.

There were other bars in town but the lounge loomed in her imagination, from way back in high school when the other kids whispered about the place, bragging of exploits within its four walls.

She ordered a drink. She sat at the bar. She kept to herself. The clientele was the expected mixture of rummy desert rats and young men in cargo shorts. The ceilings were low. The ceiling fans rotated.

Ellen finished her drink and ordered another.

Somewhere through the second drink, she heard a voice calling her name.

“Ellen? Ellen?”

She turned around. She saw her high school sweetheart, Maximiliano Rojas, who had some melanin in the basale stratum of his epidermis.

Maximiliano and Ellen got to talking. He started buying her drinks.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Ellen. “I’m not going to fuck you.”

“That’s okay,” said Max. “I couldn’t anyway. I’m practically married.”

“Who with?” asked Ellen.

“I don’t know if you remember her. Ashley Nelson?”

Ashley Nelson didn’t have any eumelanin in the basale stratum of her epidermis.

“Ashley,” said Ellen. “You’re lucky. Ashley’s cute.”

Ellen and Maximiliano dated from grade ten to grade twelve. They broke up about a month before graduation. Maximiliano had called it off.

Following the split, she saw him at school and occasionally ran into him around town. Each time was like being stabbed.

UCLA and Los Angeles were her salvation. Once Ellen was out of Truth or Consequences, she was amazed at how little she thought about Maximiliano. Time dulled the pain.

But the questions had never gone away, all the wherefores and whys. She’d always thought that if they met again, she’d make him tell her the reason he’d ended it.

Now, having their first conversation in four years, Ellen couldn’t remember why she cared. So much had happened. There’d been a series of pointless sexual encounters in Los Angeles and one very bad relationship. She was so beyond Maximiliano. He was the past.

They talked. Mostly about their families. Maximiliano’s sister had moved to Albuquerque. His dad still drank too much and still had his model trains, although he’d given up HO scale for O.

“I love your mom,” said Ellen. “She was so sweet to me.”

“You can always go see her. She’d love it.”

“Maybe I will.”

Ellen finished her fourth drink. It was time to go home.

“This was really nice, Max,” said Ellen. “It was really great seeing you again.”

“You’re in town for a while, though?”

“Yeah, at least a year.”

“We should hang out together again. Maybe we’ll go bowling.”

“Is that place still open? I haven’t been bowling in forever.”

“Hit me up on Facebook.”

Ellen went home. Her grandmother was sleeping but otherwise fine. Ellen went into her bedroom and fell asleep.

She had a dream about someone falling from a high platform and cracking their skull. It was a clean break beneath the skin, running vertically from the forehead to the jaw.

Ellen did go and visit Mamá Rojas, who had a fair amount of eumelanin in the basale stratum of her epidermis. The woman was sweeter than ever, taking Ellen into her house and insisting on feeding her. The food was unbelievable.

“I missed your cooking,” said Ellen. “Los Angeles is okay but there’s nothing like this.”

“You need to eat, eat,” said Mamá Rojas. “Too skinny.”

Ellen noticed that Mamá Rojas’s English was much improved.

When Ellen and Maximiliano were dating, the older woman had peppered her Spanish with a few English words and nothing more. This had been useful for Ellen, as she picked up a great deal of Mamá Rojas’s native tongue.

“And how do you find my English?” asked Mamá Rojas.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Ellen. “I didn’t want to be rude. But you’ve learned so much!”

“I take the courses online,” said Mamá Rojas.

They talked about Los Angeles. They talked about Ellen’s grandmother. They talked about Maximiliano’s hooligan cousins on his father’s side, the boys who Mamá Rojas called dos perros hermanos .

When Ellen was leaving, Mamá Rojas asked Ellen if she’d met Ashley.

“In high school. I didn’t know she was dating Max.”

“I wish he stayed with you,” said Mamá Rojas. “Ashley is no good. I tell him all the time. You lost the one good girl who will ever love you.”

“Don’t give him ideas,” said Ellen.

Ellen took Maximiliano up on his offer. They went bowling. The name of the bowling alley had changed and so had the sign and now the interior and exterior façade were done up to look like the dwelling of a cartoon caveman. But otherwise it was still T or C.

Somewhere around her fourteenth gutter ball, Ellen realized why she hadn’t gone bowling in Los Angeles. She hated bowling. Bowling was awful.

Maximiliano was buying the drinks.

“I’m still not fucking you,” said Ellen.

“I’m not trying,” said Maximiliano. “You’re out of my league.”

“Shut up,” said Ellen.

Maximiliano went to the bar to get the third round of drinks. He bumped into one of Ashley’s friends, an unpleasant girl named Amanda Martinez, who was originally from New York City and had a very small amount of eumelanin in the basal stratum of her epidermis.

“ ¿Hola cerote, cómo estás vato? ” she asked. “ ¿Ashley estás aquí? La chica puta dijo se mantiene el culo en casa .”

“ Está en casa ,” said Maximiliano. “ Estoy aquí con mi amiga Ellen .”

“Ellen Fitcraft?” asked Amanda. “That empollón you fucked?”

“ Sí ”, said Maximiliano. “Flitcraft. Ella en la ciudad. ”

The bartender brought over the drinks. Maximiliano paid.

“ Hasta luego ,” said Maximiliano.

“Later,” said Amanda.

Amanda Martinez watched as Ellen and Maximiliano bowled. She was using her cellphone. She was sending text messages to Ashley.

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH WHERE U @

Ashley to Amanda: wot u on about now

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH Y IS UR MAN HERE WITH HIS RAGGITY ASS RATCHET X

Ashley to Amanda: wot

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH HES HERE WITH EILEEN FITCRAFT

Ashley to Amanda: u crazy

Ashley to Amanda: shes in la sucking hollywood dick

Ashley to Amanda: lol

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH I C THE BITCH WITH MY EYES

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH THE BITCH JUST FELL IN HIS ARMS

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH SHES HOLDING HIM

Ashley to Amanda: he said hes with his cousins tonite

Amanda to Ashley: BITCH HES HERE RITE NOW

Ashley to Amanda: where

Ashley to Amanda: ?

Amanda to Ashley: BEDROXX