Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

But he’s smart enough to take his enthusiasm and bake it.

“So you want me to come. Like, as your boyfriend.”

“As my amanuensis.”

“I totally know what that means. I just forget right now.”

“It means you look good in a tux so all my aunts don’t waste calories wondering am I a disciple of Sappho.”

“That’s a Lesbos reference, right? As in Isle of?”

Eve nods in a way that says she loves that he’s following along, has a foot in the game.

“But I don’t have a tux.”

“Who wears a tux?”

“I don’t have a suit.”

“You got pants?”

He looks down.

“Yeah.”

“Listen, if you’re not up to it, I have other candidates.”

There’s a banging at the door. The new steel hasps are tested. The banging gets louder, loudest, goes away.

“Okay, I’m in.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure you can afford to miss a week of classes?”

Adam’s major is Trend Creation. It’s even dumber than it sounds. The Internet is already one giant pop-up ad. Movies are two reels of product placement with the occasional actor. All modern relationships are basically people holding hands in outdoor tubs, looking at a sunset and waiting for the Cialis to take hold. There’s not a single person left on the planet with spare mental territory for things they actually want. Adam knows he should switch to a hot new discipline, like deprogramming. His very best idea: raise cash to build the Paleo Existence, a theme park in Wyoming filled with dank caves, bison fur skirts, and animatronic sabertooths. Unloose modern hunter-gatherers in a pristine environment surrounded by electric fences. Charge bearded hipsters two hundred for a bag of salt, five for a stone knife and a torch. Let them get their serious homo-habilis on for a few weeks, cudgel and hair-drag, make new gods of the stars.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can.”

“Good, because there’s one other problem.”

Okay, now it’s definitely pregnant.

“What?”

“I don’t fly.”

“Don’t?”

“Won’t. Ever.”

“So we have to drive?”

“Yup.”

“Where is it?”

“The wedding?”

“No, the circumcision.”

“You ever heard of Vegas?”

Dear Gabriel,

People need water to survive. Which is a strange thing, since people are mostly made of water to begin with. Although some scientists, one Lama, and a couple hippies think we’re made of dark matter. Which is also a strange thing, because we’re not sure what dark matter is, or if it even exists. Which means we’re mostly made up of conjecture. We are walking theories. Except for people who can’t walk. Or theorize. Don’t ever do drugs, Gabriel. Although, when your grandmother told me not to do drugs, I went right out and immediately did drugs. So forget I said anything. You’ll do whatever the hell you want to in the end. Dark matter always does.

Love, Uncle Adam

He hits a used car lot deep in the Oakland wasteland, buys an ’89 Taurus for three hundred bucks. Cigarette burns across the dash, a sheen of previous drivers you couldn’t disinfect with kerosene. Then forges notes to each of his professors alluding to something undiagnosed, but likely contagious. Finally wins a hundred in gas money hustling lames at nine ball, packs a duffel, tiptoes past Bruce Parsley’s door.

Beep-beep-ba-beep.

Eve hops in the passenger side, looks hot, black bodysuit and red lips, turns the radio to NPR. A man who sounds like a receding hairline discusses the Egyptian situation. Then an interview with John Updike’s mistress, who insists Rabbit was a lousy lay.

“She sounds like fun.”

“Chick’s a human stain.”

“That’s a Roth joke, right? ’Cause they’re, like, similarly misogynistic in style?”

Eve leans over and kisses him, buckles his seatbelt and then hers.

They take side streets to the bridge, find a space in the capillary action, one honking Prius after another. Eve grabs her bag, a vintage pink oval Tina Marie probably once hauled around Malibu. She finds a cellophane, dabs at her nose. Adam doesn’t like coke but is a firm believer that things he doesn’t like and what anyone else might need to make it through another day on this depressing fuckhead of a planet are two entirely different propositions. Or at least he’s said that in bars sometimes. To girls. It usually works.

Eve cracks a textbook, flips pages.

“Wait, are you serious?”

“I have a paper due when we get back.”

“On obsessive behavior?”

She gives him the finger, speed-reads aloud. Apparently matriarchal societies flourished before the time of Jesus but had been branded heretics by early Christians. In India, women burned themselves on pyres when their husbands died, in a custom called suttee. There’s a whole chapter on Madonna, and another, even longer one, on the less-appreciated Brontë.

Then it’s midnight and they’re somewhere south of L.A. Adam is pretty sure he should have cut east at some point. There’s a sign for an all-night diner.

“Hungry?”

“Starving.”

The place is packed, truckers, bartenders just off shift. Suspenders and denim. Horsetail wreaths and George Jones framed in charcoal. The waitress is cute in her little outfit, white nylons. Sort of a punky haircut, short, uneven.

“We’re not really handicapped,” Eve tells her, points to the Taurus.

“Don’t worry about it. Only one who ever parks in that spot is the cook, unless you count fat a handicap.”

Eve orders eggs, pancakes, bacon, home fries, coffee, bagel, sweet roll, sausage, potatoes, rye toast, wheat toast, Kix, jelly.

Adam’s phone buzzes.

BParse69: In yr apartment right now.

BParse69: Taking shit on yr bed. Dude u ever heard of thread count?

BParse69: Hope nothing important on this comp u ter.

“I’m gonna go find a sports section.”

Eve makes a face.

“You hate sports.”

“I meant world news.”

The little convenience store is closed. He leaves some dimes on top of a stack of bound Clarion-Ledger s, sees the Taurus has a ticket beneath the wiper.

“Raw luck,” says a guy smoking two Winstons at once.

“I don’t believe in luck.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Jinxes.”

The guy laughs. “Where y’all headed?”

“Dollywood.”

“In that piece of shit?”

“It’s a classic. There’s a monster under the hood.”

Eve knuckles the other side the window, holds up a ham steak dripping with syrup.

“Wife’s sure in a hurry.”

“Nah, she just knows I like it with the bone in.”

The guy nods, walks to his car. Adam dabs his underarms with the ticket, begins to sing, “We afraid to live, afraid of dyin’, afraid to love the one we love, ’cause you know they surely lying.”

THE SUN COMES up in the fast lane, confirms that Rancho Cucamonga is indeed grim as fuck. Same with San Bernardino.

“Trend Create it for me,” Eve says, taking in the Taco Locos and nail salons. “Sell me on this shit.”

Adam clears his throat.

“Four lanes became three lanes became two. Everything got flat. There were triple the advertisements for pie. Patches of fur lay redly across the double yellows, dead grackles strung like cursive from post to post. Modern living at its finest, a poetry of fake adobe, casual decay, and easy access to the highway of your dreams. Call Adam for details.”

“Shit, you’re good,” Eve says, and then falls asleep with her head on the dash. He taps the speedometer, which continues not to work, mashes the pedal to the floor. A few hours later they ease into the lot of Uncle Benny’s hotel. It’s nowhere close to the strip, out in endless sprawl of shuttered schools and red clay yards.