|
again, Daddy, again
.
I pulled into the driveway right next to an old black Toyota sedan I figured
was Isaac’s car. Carting the tank behind me, I walked up to the door. I knocked.
Gus’s dad answered.
“Just Hazel,” he said. “Nice to see you.”
“Augustus said I could come over?”
“Yeah, he and Isaac are in the basement.” At which point there was a wail
from below. “That would be Isaac,” Gus’s dad said, and shook his head slowly.
“Cindy had to go for a drive. The sound…” he said, drifting off. “Anyway, I
guess you’re wanted downstairs. Can I carry your, uh, tank?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though, Mr. Waters.”
“Mark,” he said.
I was kind of scared to go down there. Listening to people howl in misery is
not among my favorite pastimes. But I went.
“Hazel Grace,” Augustus said as he heard my footsteps. “Isaac, Hazel from
Support Group is coming downstairs. Hazel, a gentle reminder: Isaac is in the
midst of a psychotic episode.”
Augustus and Isaac were sitting on the floor in gaming chairs shaped like lazy
L
s, staring up at a gargantuan television. The screen was split between Isaac’s
point of view on the left, and Augustus’s on the right. They were soldiers
fighting in a bombed-out modern city. I recognized the place from
The Price of
Dawn
. As I approached, I saw nothing unusual: just two guys sitting in the
lightwash of a huge television pretending to kill people.
Only when I got parallel to them did I see Isaac’s face. Tears streamed down
his reddened cheeks in a continual flow, his face a taut mask of pain. He stared at
the screen, not even glancing at me, and howled, all the while pounding away at
his controller. “How are you, Hazel?” asked Augustus.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Isaac?” No response. Not even the slightest hint that he
was aware of my existence. Just the tears flowing down his face onto his black
T-shirt.
Augustus glanced away from the screen ever so briefly. “You look nice,” he
said. I was wearing this just-past-the-knees dress I’d had forever. “Girls think
they’re only allowed to wear dresses on formal occasions, but I like a woman
who says, you know,
I’m going over to see a boy who is having a nervous
breakdown, a boy whose connection to the sense of sight itself is tenuous, and
gosh dang it, I am going to wear a dress for him
.”
“And yet,” I said, “Isaac won’t so much as glance over at me. Too in love with
Monica, I suppose,” which resulted in a catastrophic sob.
“Bit of a touchy subject,” Augustus explained. “Isaac, I don’t know about you,
but I have the vague sense that we are being outflanked.” And then back to me,
“Isaac and Monica are no longer a going concern, but he doesn’t want to talk
about it. He just wants to cry and play Counterinsurgence 2: The Price of
Dawn.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Isaac, I feel a growing concern about our position. If you agree, head over to
that power station, and I’ll cover you.” Isaac ran toward a nondescript building
while Augustus fired a machine gun wildly in a series of quick bursts, running
behind him.
“Anyway,” Augustus said to me, “it doesn’t hurt to
talk
to him. If you have
any sage words of feminine advice.”
“I actually think his response is probably appropriate,” I said as a burst of
gunfire from Isaac killed an enemy who’d peeked his head out from behind the
burned-out husk of a pickup truck.
Augustus nodded at the screen. “Pain demands to be felt,” he said, which was
a line from
An Imperial Affliction
. “You’re sure there’s no one behind us?” he
asked Isaac. Moments later, tracer bullets started whizzing over their heads. “Oh,
goddamn it, Isaac,” Augustus said. “I don’t mean to criticize you in your
moment of great weakness, but you’ve allowed us to be outflanked, and now
there’s nothing between the terrorists and the school.” Isaac’s character took off
running toward the fire, zigging and zagging down a narrow alleyway.
“You could go over the bridge and circle back,” I said, a tactic I knew about
thanks to
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
