Bubblegum, page 24
“Fair enough,” Burroughs said. “I recant the already.”
“That’s cute,” my father said. “Recant.”
Triple-J was staring fixedly down at his hands. He’d been doing so ever since Clyde had gotten prickly. “I want you to forgive me more than anything,” he said.
“I forgave you before you left the playground,” I said.
“I wish I could believe you, but now I have to think you’re only saying you forgive me cause you’re scared of Burroughs.”
“No one here is scared of Burroughs, kid,” my father said.
“You did what you thought you had to, Triple-J,” I said. “And you only stomped on me once, to be sure I was down. A lot of other people would have kept on going. Plus I haven’t pissed blood, and my back’ll be fine. It’s just a little bruised. I even went out today. You saw me coming back. And I was happy to find you here. I’m glad you read my book.”
“He means it,” said Burroughs. “If you listen to his voice like I taught you, you can tell.”
“You mean it?” Triple-J said.
I told him I did.
His gloom seemed to deflate, and he nodded to himself, jacking up the corners of his mouth til he was smiling. “I appreciate it, Belt,” he said. “I really do.” From his pocket he produced a tiny blue ampule. He placed it before him, on the table, and said, “That right there is Independence PerFormula. Three full doses. You’ve heard of Independence, right?”
“A guy at the bank just tried to sell me some.”
“Yeah?” Triple-J said. “I bet it was fake.”
“I saw a cure he gave it to. It seemed to really work,” I said.
“Must have been one of those guerrilla-marketing yokels. I’m surprised they’ve got it so early. I don’t think it’ll be in stores for another five weeks or something like that. That’s what Tessa told me—Tessa Swords, I mean. She’s my cousin. Godsister. Whatever. Probably you know that. Anyway, the stuff is great. Tessa said Graham&Swords even thinks it’s gonna be bigger than BullyKing. I guess the Performulae Abuse Labs Brothers already let them know it was a shoo-in for the P.A.L. Recommends gold medal, and now the G&S advertising and marketing dorks are talking about a ‘Fourth Cute Revolution’ campaign or something, which, if I’m being honest, seems like a little much to me. I mean, Curios hit the market, that’s a Cute Revolution. I feel it. GameChanger and then PlayChanger PerFormulae hit the market: that’s a second and a third Cute Revolution. I feel that. But a new type of PlayChanger PerFormula hits the market? Sure, maybe it’s great—and it is—and maybe it even becomes the bestselling PerFormula in the history of PerFormulae—and it probably will—but I don’t think that’s a revolution. Not that it isn’t a really big deal. It’s just not a revolution. Anyway, your dad told me you already dacted the cure the other Yachts were all going bananas about, which is kind of a bummer—I wanted to see it—but I’m guessing you’ve got another in that old-school sleeve of yours, so go ahead and take it out, give it a dose.”
“Actually,” I said, “all that’s in there’s a marble.”
“In that massive CureSleeve? Jesus, lemme see that thing—it doesn’t even have a windowpocket, huh? You must’ve had that since the eighties. Is it from the Friends study? Or is it one of those RetroGear models?”
“I got it in eighty-nine, I think,” I said. “I guess it is pretty old-school. I guess I’m pretty old-school, cause I wish it was an IncuBand. I lost my IncuBand, though.”
“An IncuBand! That’s hilarious,” he said to Burroughs. “You know,” he said to me, “if you really want one, I bet I can ask Tessa. She has like a whole room of unopened, obsolescent cure stuff in her basement. She’s kind of a hoarder.”
“That’s nice of you,” I said. “But you really don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he said. “In any case, I brought this ampule of Independence for you to demonstrate how sincerely sorry I am about last night. Go ahead and sell two of the doses if you want—I think you could probably make at least a couple hundred—but just promise me you’ll keep one for when your next robot emerges. It’s really fun.”
“You don’t need to give me this,” I said. “Really.”
“I know,” Triple-J said. “If I needed to give it to you, it wouldn’t be a gift.”
“But there’s no need for gifts,” I said.
“Exactly,” Triple-J said. “That’s why it’s yours. I’m not taking it back. Plus, I’m buttering you up. I’ve got ulterior motives. First, I’d like to invite you to the compound for brunch, and—”
“I’m in,” I said. “No buttering necessary.”
“Well how about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s great,” I said.
“Great,” said Triple-J. “And of course, you’re invited too, Mr. Magnet, if you’re free.”
“I’m free,” said my father. “I’ll be there.”
“Well that’s perfect,” Triple-J said. “Eleven, alright? Oh man, I’m so psyched. Now, as for my other ulterior motive…” To Burroughs, he said, “Burroughs, if you will,” and Burroughs removed, from beneath his chair, a black portfolio he set beside the ampule in front of Triple-J. “So, the thing is, Belt,” Triple-J said, “like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been wanting to contact you for a really long time. And not just because you wrote my favorite book, but because I was hoping to get your feedback on my work. I mean, I wanted your feedback because of how you wrote my favorite book. And anyway, the work I wanted you to look at—I wanted to finish it first, before I contacted you. But after I realized who you were last night, and that I owed you an apology, I thought, ‘Maybe it’s fate. Kismet. Whatever. Maybe it’s ready to be shown, even though it’s still not completely polished.’ ”
“Sure thing,” I said. “What is it? A story?”
“No,” he said, and opened the portfolio. Inside, atop a rather thick-looking stack of stapled paper with a circled letter A inked red in the corner, sat a DVD. “It’s a documentary collage,” Triple-J said.
“You want my feedback on a video?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And also, there’s a couple essays that I wrote for school. I don’t need feedback on those at all—though, you know, it’s always welcome—but I included them in there because you’re a writer and I don’t know what you think of video art, or collage, but a lot of people seem to think they’re both for bimbos, and I wanted to show you I wasn’t a bimbo. I wanted to show you I was able to write. Not fiction, you know—I’m not saying that. But still, I’m not a bimbo, and I think the papers prove it. They also go along with the video, thematically, but I’d better not get into all of that right now—I want a cold read. Coldest possible. Man! I can’t wait to hear what you think of it tomorrow.”
He set the blue ampule in the hole of the disc and slid the open portfolio onto my placemat.
* * *
The three of us were saying our goodbyes on the driveway (my father had headed to the tavern, seeking friends) when Triple-J afterthoughtfully asked me, “Was it you who took my cure off the slide?”
“Not me,” I said. “I didn’t even see it there. Probably it was one of the neighborhood kids. Or maybe it tried to run after you, and hurt itself.”
“Hurt itself?” he said.
“Well, got itself hurt. Met a stray cat, say. Or fell into a rabbit hole. Or maybe it just fell off the slide and broke its neck. What was it doing on the slide to begin with? Were you trying to teach it a trick or something?”
“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow,” he said. “I really do want as cold a read as possible.”
“It has something to do with your video?” I said.
“Everything,” he said, and the middle of his chest began to beep and blink orange. As he had the night before, he tapped the brightest part with the heel of his palm—one, one-two, one-two, one-two—and when the blinking and beeping didn’t let up, he mumbled, “Pain in the fucking dick.” This time, though, when he yanked the vitreous pendant from his collar, he ripped it off his neck, turned himself sideways, whipped it at a hedgerow across the street, and started yelling at Burroughs. “You’re standing right there! Why does that fucking thing have to go off? Do I look dead? Do I look injured? Maybe you think Belt’s kidnapping me?”
Burroughs said, “I don’t carry the locator. You know that, Trip.”
“Well maybe you should, though. Carry the locator.”
“It needs to be—”
“It needs to be separate cause what if we’re both hurt? and then how will my father and how will Security and how will the cops and so on and so on and fucking etcetera?”
Burroughs laid his hands on Triple-J’s shoulders. He told him, “You should stop showing off. No one here’s judging you for being protected.”
Triple-J blinked hard, pushed air through his teeth. He said, “That was the worst kind of showing-off there is. I felt ashamed and started…I was having a tantrum.”
“You were,” said Burroughs.
“I’ll go get the pendant now,” Triple-J said. He went across the street.
“Don’t judge him,” said Burroughs.
I waited for more. I thought he’d present a case against judgment. It was just a command, though. “Don’t judge him,” it seemed, was all Burroughs had to say to me. Nonetheless, I still wanted him to like me.
“Quill?” I offered.
He said, “I don’t smoke.”
“ ‘No thank you’ works fine.”
“Your opinion,” he said.
I couldn’t tell whether or not we’d just riffed.
Triple-J crouched in front of a shrub, started parting branches gingerly.
“It may or may not be surprising to you,” Burroughs said, “that Mr. Pellmore-Jason was, for a while, made uncomfortable by what he believed to be his symbolic depiction in your book.”
“Mr. Pellmore-Jason?”
“I’m referring to Jonboat, not Triple-J.”
“I know who you’re referring to. He’s not depicted in my book, though, let alone symbolically.”
“He was made uncomfortable at the thought of being represented as, and I quote, ‘a plastic doll with a stupid name who’s been misplaced by a sad kid.’ ”
“You’re telling me Jonboat thinks he’s Bam Naka? He thinks I made an action figure of him?”
“I am telling you he used to think that, yes, and that I, in my capacities as Triple-J’s driver and security chief for the Pellmore-Jasons, would prefer it if you could reassure me, convincingly, that any resentment which may be underlying any authorial obsession you may have with Mr. Pellmore-Jason isn’t going to rear its head at brunch tomorrow.”
“You know, you sound like an attorney.”
“That’s not surprising. I don’t often practice, but I do have a law degree. I’ve been a member of the bar going on thirty years now.”
“Good for you,” I said. “I’m not obsessed with Jonboat.”
“Okay,” said Burroughs.
“And I don’t resent him,” I quickly added.
“I see I’ve offended you, which wasn’t my intention. Truly. If it’s any comfort, I enjoyed your book. Perhaps not as much as Trip over there, but more than many novels. I found it humorous at times, and well written throughout. As a fairly regular consumer of contemporary fiction, I was especially pleased to discover that, unlike most novels that get attention these days—especially those that were getting attention a few years ago, when yours was published—it wasn’t about Curios, or ‘living in a world shaped by Curios.’ Correct me if I’ve misremembered, but I don’t think there was a single Curio in the book, nor even a mention of Curios. Outside of the author biography, I mean.”
“You’re not incorrect,” I said.
“And despite that, despite the absence of Curios, the book wasn’t, thank goodness, about its absence of Curios. Again: something I appreciated. This idea that novels are supposed to be somehow practically useful to be important is troubling enough, but the idea that in order to be useful they have to concern themselves with our latest technologies, whether it be in passing or, as I’ve heard it so laughably put, ‘directly and confrontationally’—I don’t know where that idea came from, but its implications frankly sicken me. Your book did not sicken me.”
“Thank you for reading the book, Burroughs.”
“It was my pleasure to read the book. Furthermore, I never once—and then only once—considered the possibility that you were attempting to depict Mr. Pellmore-Jason as the lost action figure until Mr. Pellmore-Jason himself made the claim, which has always seemed to me to be a misguided claim, and which, I hasten to reiterate, is no longer a claim Mr. Pellmore-Jason makes. However, I’m known for—and have always prided myself on—my due diligence, and given that you’ll be visiting us at the compound, it would have been irresponsible of me not to make sure the claim was false, or rather: it would have been irresponsible of me not to make sure that, if the claim, despite my instincts, were true, your depiction of Mr. Pellmore-Jason as Bam Naka didn’t prefigure some kind of threat to him or the family. You have helped me to make sure of that, and I am relieved. Now I hope I can count on you to behave as though this conversation never happened. Triple-J adores his father, looks up to you as an artist, and is a very sharp, very sensitive kid. If you were to display even the subtlest hint of negativity or aggression toward Mr. Pellmore-Jason tomorrow at brunch, the boy would pick up on it, and he would be upset. That, in turn, would upset me.”
“I won’t upset you,” I said.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear, Belt. I’m grateful for your cooperation.”
“Thanks for all the kind words about the book,” I said. “I’m wondering now, though—does Triple-J think that Bam Naka’s Jonboat, too?”
“Not at all,” Burroughs said. “He’s never said so to me at least, and he’s certainly spoken of the book an awful lot. Now, just in case I wasn’t clear when I said I’d like you to behave as though this conversation never happened, Belt, part of what I meant is that I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention to Triple-J what I’ve told you his father once thought about the book. As would his father. And for that matter his stepmother. Appreciate it, that is. When Trip first read your book, he wasn’t aware that you and Mr. Pellmore-Jason had ever known one another, and when he—that is, Trip—raved to us about the book, we praised his good taste, let him know that you and his father had been acquainted as boys, and pretty much left it at that. So as far as Trip knows, Mr. Pellmore-Jason has always loved your book, plain and simple, without reservation, and we’d all like to keep it that way. When it comes to art, we like to support him unconditionally. Inasmuch as it’s possible, we aim to stay out of the way of his process, and to encourage him to form his own opinions. Understand?”
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
“That’s not to say you should snow him on this critique of his video. He’s a little unworldly yet, as sheltered as you’d probably imagine, but he knows it, and he really wants to change it. He’ll be a great man one day, believe me. He asked for a critique: that means he wants an honest one.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Alright then.”
“Alright,” I said. “Beer?”
“Excuse me?”
“ ‘Excuse me,’ he says. Like I’m the one sitting in his goddamn kitchen.”
“You’re funny,” said Burroughs. “But I want you to know that I don’t think you’re like him.”
“We’re both of us astronaut billionaires, though. We both have famous wives who the press—”
“Your father’s who I meant, not Mr. Pellmore-Jason. You aren’t like your father.”
“What the hell kind of thing is that to say?”
“There’s a certain kind of small-penised man,” Burroughs said, “who makes a lot of jokes about how small his penis is. He does that because he thinks it’ll suggest to those around him that he’s comfortable with the size of his penis, which he thinks will in turn suggest that his penis must not be that small. No one cares, though. Not before he makes the joke. He wouldn’t make the joke about how small his penis is in front of anyone who’s interested in the size of his penis to begin with, but once he makes the joke, people get interested. And some of them do think the way he hopes they would—they think, ‘This joker must have a good penis.’ The others know what I know.”
“Did my father say something about his penis before I arrived?”
“I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you. You’re making his wisecracks. Quoting him verbatim. These are jokes you’re making about not being like him. How it looks to me is that you make the jokes because you think it’ll suggest that you’re so comfortable not being like him that you must, after all, be a lot like him. But it doesn’t suggest that. Not to me. It does suggest that you believe I think you should be like him, though. And I don’t. I have no opinion one way or the other. I don’t know either of you.”
“Well I know where you’re weak,” I said.
“Good one,” said Burroughs. He clapped me on the back.
Again I couldn’t tell whether we’d been riffing or not.
Triple-J returned, waving the no-longer-blinking/beeping pendant. “That was bitch-ass,” he said. “Of me. My behavior was bitch-ass. I don’t want bitch-ass to be the note I leave on. Even mentioning it, though—that’s bitch-ass itself.”
“Say something kind, from the heart,” Burroughs told him.
“But he’ll think I’m saying it to look less bitch-ass.”
“That is one of the reasons you’ll say it, Trip, but it won’t interfere. He’ll believe what you tell him. You’ll speak from the heart, and that’ll make him believe you.”
“I don’t see how he could.”
“You won’t see until you’ve tried.”
