Everybody Scream! Read online

  “Good morning,” said Del.

  “Mm.” Her voice was as dark as her hair; husky. She tipped her head back and squinted her eyes further as she blew out a stream of smoke.

  “Rough night?” No reply. Del thumbed the buttons of an air filter system. He’d never been a smoker of anything, particularly the harsh crap Sophi favored–bad for the throat. “Want some eggs, toast, something?”

  “I’m all set. What time’d you get in last night?” she croaked.

  “Before you.”

  “Ohh–I guess that’s why I saw you in bed when I came home.”

  “That’s probably it.”

  “I know you got in before me, Del, you don’t have to be evasive. I’m not grilling you.

  I’m just making cheery breakfast conversation, like on VT.” She sipped the black coffee.

  “Evasive? I wasn’t being evasive. I got in just after midnight, and read for an hour or so.”

  “You didn’t have to put in that ‘read for an hour or so,’ Del. Christ, are we a little paranoid, or what?”

  “Paranoid? I’m not being paranoid.”

  “Defensive, too.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Testy.”

  “Who wouldn’t be, after that diagnosis.”

  “Did you know a kid got killed on the Dreidel last night?”

  “No–when’d that happen?”

  “Right before shutdown, wouldn’t you know. I talked to the kid who runs the ride and he seemed straight, he swears he always locks all the belts himself. The belt came open; it wasn’t broken. We figure the stupid punk played with it himself.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Oh God...man...this has been some season, huh?”

  “It’ll be okay, nobody will touch us. He was just some Choom kid, not some politician’s son or anything.

  “Boy. I hope for your karma that it was his fault.”

  “My karma’s got nothing to do with it, Siddhartha–it was his karma.”

  “Has the town been told?”

  “Yeah, always, don’t worry, Maxie is handling it. I’m not trying to alarm you. Just making cheery breakfast conversation.”

  Del started out of the room to dress. “Most women talk about the curtains they want to buy.”

  “Oh yeah? On what planet is that?”

  “VT, I guess.”

  When Del returned, Sophi was where she had been, though her coffee cup seemed to have refilled itself, the cigarette butts had multiplied in the ashtray (Del had won it for her in a carnival game) and she had dragged toward her the magazine Del had flipped through earlier. Her forehead was in her palm, hair a hiding mantle like a nun’s habit.

  Del stood watching her while he adjusted his black string tie and the clasp, like a silver belt buckle adorned with turquoise, a gift from Sophi, that held it. “For somebody who’s trying so hard to further her career and better her life and go forward, you sure do a lot to weigh yourself down and go backward. So ultimately, where do you end up going?”

  “You tell me, Mr. Success.” Sophi didn’t look up. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. But I’m not trying to, now. When and if I do, I won’t let myself be my own obstacle and my own worst enemy.”

  “I’m not a fucking alcoholic, numb nuts. I don’t have a drink to get rolling in the morning…”

  “You have.”

  “I use it to relax. I work hard so I relax hard. Don’t lecture me today, pal; you go relax your way and I’ll relax mine. You have your own modes of escape, don’t you? Aren’t you a little too attached to yours?”

  Del didn’t respond. He’d known from his first words that sooner or later she would turn things around on him, and had known that it might not be a good idea to say any of this and expect her to agree with him. He wanted to say that she had her lovers too in addition to drink, but he knew she would reply–and correctly so–that her lovers had been outnumbered by his five to one. All he dared risk in conclusion was, “I don’t like to see you poisoning yourself.”

  “What am I now, a snakebite addict? Am I really so pathetic, Del?”

  “There are worse things. That doesn’t make it good.”

  “I love it when somebody doesn’t get drunk or drugged–all of a sudden they’re God. As if there weren’t other and worse ways to poison yourself.”

  Del took his silk jacket off the back of a chair. “I don’t deny that. I’m not talking about that. Like I say, that doesn’t make what you do good.”

  “Just worry about what you do, pal. I like myself okay. You had your revenge, you gave me your diagnosis. So go take your walk.”

  “Do we have to start out every day like this, Sophi?”

  She didn’t answer. She turned a page in the magazine to a spread of bright photographs showing the rooms of a beautiful country house that it was hard to believe anyone actually lived in.

  Del sighed, slipped on his jacket, left.

  “What do you care, anyway?” Sophi murmured belatedly, still not looking up.

  Noelle didn’t offer Kid tea, or even a cup of water–that bothered him. He hated getting out of bed in front of Bonnie in his underpants. “Cute little gut you’re working on, Kid. Making a pillow for Noelle?” His stomach was a little soft. Sometimes it was a crack about his height (he was shorter than Bonnie) or his pale skin (she was nearly as tanned as a saddle) or the size of his nose (she liked her hard-bellied, tanned men to have straight little noses though she had the asymmetrical “ethnic” nose so fashionable now). At least Bonnie offered him some of her breakfast wine, though he wouldn’t take it, not wanting to have to be grateful.

  Bonnie had gone now. A knock, the door had opened, the head of a female Choom student had popped in, human in appearance but for the alligator grin stretching back almost to the ears, filled with multiple rows of square teeth, her hair cut short and bristling in the preferred Choom style. “Hey kids, there’s a Golden Sunrise in Love’s room. Ten munits at the door; that’s only five more than the buffet breakfast at the Kampus Kettle.”

  A Golden Sunrise was usually a weekend luxury; someone would go out for doughnuts or pastries, and also pick up some gold-dust if they didn’t already have it to offer. A little party to perk everyone up for the day, get things rolling from the start. On weekdays when things were more rushed but the need still there, people had their own personal Golden Sunrises. Anyway, Bonnie had jetted off but Noelle had hesitated, decided to stay. Kid Belfast wondered if she could possibly have felt guilty about leaving him alone, knowing he would be too shy, too antisocial to join the others.

  They were alone, though the door was open and across the hall in the laundry a handsome, naked, tanned and hard-bellied male student was doing a load of wash. He glanced over a few times into the room but looked away finally under Kid’s deliberate glare. Kid didn’t know if the rich little bastard was displaying his glory for Noelle’s benefit or for his. At a party last weekend given by the sophomores to welcome the incoming freshpersons like Noelle, a school tradition, Kid had been sitting uncomfortably on the arm of a sofa when someone began stroking his thigh. It was a boy slumped back in the sofa, smiling Choom-like up at him. Kid had gotten up and moved. Later he had left the party and Noelle after a witty, grinning, drunken boy repeatedly asked Noelle to go upstairs and take a shower with him. She had declined, but Kid couldn’t stay and watch any longer. He had never liked schools anyway, all the smug groups, the rivalry. He’d dropped out at fifteen. Noelle had done well in school, and was already very much at home here. Real adaptable, Noelle had proved to be. She hadn’t seen any naked boys in high school halls, but already she could ignore the tall soap opera Adonis in the laundry (if only, maybe, for Kid’s benefit).

  Three days after the party, Kid had slept over with Noelle after much hesitance on her part, it being a school night. He had crept out after she was asleep and with a spray paint can he’d brought had painted symbols he’d seen in a book about a
frightening cult of Satan-worshippers who had been raided, captured or killed in Punktown thirty years ago, all over the hovercar of the boy who had tried to entice Noelle at the party. A security guard had appeared but Kid had escaped without being identified, though he couldn’t return to Noelle. Thus she guessed it was he who had perpetrated the vandalism, and confronted him about it, but he had angrily denied it.

  Last night she had finally relented and let him sleep over again, even though she didn’t believe him about the car, and even though she had made it clear to him early in the summer that she only wanted to be friends with Kid now.

  Kid had intended to shower off last night’s sex at the men’s shower room a few halls over (the coed showers downstairs were unthinkable despite the visual cornucopia) but now with Bonnie gone he had to make the time count. He had pulled on his old jeans, climbed into his black sweatshirt, embarrassed now to be so naked before Noelle. “Noelle,” he said. She had been making a pretense of picking up around the room.

  “What?” She straightened, moving from her face a curtain of her long and thick and curly black hair, a mass around her head like a soft material aura.

  “Ah, look–if you’re going to the fair tonight why can’t I go with you? You told me you don’t want me coming around next week…I can understand that. This is your…”

  “Kid.”

  “No, wait, give me a minute, huh? I’m sorry I came around this week, I’m sorry…I won’t…I’m sorry about that.”

  “Are you sorry about Mike’s car?”

  “Forget Mike’s blasting car, will ya? I won’t come around next week, alright? Or call you either.”

  “I don’t have to bargain with you, Kid–I don’t want you coming here next week no matter what! Come on!” she winced, turning away, tossing up her hands and beginning to pace. “How can I deal with this new experience and all my classes if you don’t stop bothering me?”

  “Bothering you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Of course not. I’m a drop-out. I work in a warehouse.”

  “I just want air, Kid, can you understand that? Air?”

  “Yeah. Like next week when I won’t see you, like I promised. But what’s wrong with you seeing me tonight?”

  “For one, you’ll want to stay again, and you can’t. Mostly, I just don’t want to keep encouraging you. I told you how I feel…”

  “You want to just cut me away clean. Why? I’ll back off. But why do you want to cut me off clean?”

  “I don’t! We’re still friends, I told you.”

  “Friends. You’re just ashamed of me in front of all your little college robots. You’re just being everything your parents ever wanted and that you promised me you wouldn’t become. Do you remember that? Things you said and promised me? Why can’t I stop bothering you? Because you told me you loved me. That bothers me!”

  “Oh, man.” Noelle paced past him. Even upset, her voice was soft, sweet, breathy, gentle. It seemed almost teary even when she was cooing happily, and it was the most beautiful voice Kid had ever heard. It was as dreamy as her heavy eyelids, as sexy. It had cooed and groaned and moaned in his ear, so softly, murmured secret things in his ear, pressed out of her by his rhythmic weight. Now it pleaded, just as moaningly, “Can’t you respect how I feel?”

  “How about how I feel?”

  “We always talk about how you feel, Kid. See what I mean? Is a person a villain just because they don’t feel the same as another person?”

  “You told me you loved me! You promised me you’d stay beside me no matter what your parents said. But they threatened you that they wouldn’t pay for school, and bang–that’s it for promises, right?” Kid was no longer soft, meek, afraid to upset her.

  “That wasn’t it, I told you! Do you think I’d give up a person I love just because of a threat about money? That hurts, Kid.”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  “Look–I know what I said to you. Things change, people grow in different directions…sometimes you can’t live up to promises, you can’t foresee your changes. Other people aren’t changing me. I’m changing me.”

  “Stools.”

  “I am, damn it!” Even “damn it” was a soft-edged moan. “I can’t live up to what I told you, alright? A father can say he’ll always love and protect his child and give his word, but what if a car hits him?”

  Kid barked a hateful laugh. “That’s an act of fate–not a decision. Don’t give me that. You gave in, that’s all. To everyone. That’s easy. Staying by me, that would have been too hard.” The boy in the laundry was on the periphery of Kid’s vision again, looking in at them. Kid whirled and strode to the threshold, eyes blazing across the hall like twin machine guns, slammed the door. He almost locked it.

  “Kid.” Noelle was hesitant to say something, but did. “You got a lot of mileage out of being my first.”

  “Oh…”

  “I said things…you heard me say…the confusion a person has…the first times are intense. I did care for you, and I still do, I always will. We had good times. But now I can see that I said things that weren’t totally accurate.”

  “Okay, alright, this is all just stools. Bloody blasting stools.” Kid was pacing now. His thrust jaw was a snow plow cleaving the air. “This excuse and that excuse. Change, sex, confusion. Why not face the truth, huh? I may not go to college but I’m not a total moron, Noelle, believe it or not. You just can’t handle what I am. Same as your blasting parents…”

  “Now you’re talking stools, Kid. Don’t start on me with that again because it’s not true!”

  “Oh no? No? Yeah–right.” His pacing had sped up, electric, with abrupt turns, forcing her to stop moving about so as to stay out of his way. He kept his eyes off her, though. “You don’t want to dirty yourself on an inferior being…”

  “That’s not it! That’s not what upset me! It’s because you’re a liar!”

  “A liar, huh? Why, because I didn’t give you a copy of my family tree? Are you a liar because you never told me if your father is all black or if your mother is all white? And what kind of white? What do I care? Did I throw a fit when I found out your mother was white? Did I call you a liar?”

  “I never hid or denied or misrepresented anything. You did. You wouldn’t let me see your parents. Some proud son you are.”

  Noelle was struck by a lightning bolt of regret even a split second before Kid locked into his tracks, whirled and blasted her with his eyes, aiming the bayonet of his finger. “I love my parents! Don’t ever suggest I don’t love my parents! I never disowned them. It was just awkward, that’s all. I introduced you finally.”

  “After the picture.”

  “So what? So what?”

  “Kid, I’m not prejudiced…”

  “Yes you are, like your parents.”

  “My father liked you. I think my mother even did a bit.”

  “They blasting hate me and you know it!”

  “Only because you act like a jerk–calling me at three in the morning, throwing stuff at my window, following me everywhere to spy on me. That’s what I’m prejudiced against, Kid!”

  “Fool yourself. Fool yourself.”

  “Same to you.”

  Kid Belfast softened, took in deep droughts of air. “Think of the times we’ve made love. We made love last night. Why did you let me? And don’t tell me you gave in, or you felt sorry for me.”

  “That was a lot of it, Kid. And I like sex. And like I told you, I do care for you. It wasn’t making love, but it felt nice to be close, and I did like feeling close to you in the past and I’ll always remember that.”

  “That’s love, Noelle, can’t you see that? You feel it! It’s just that everyone has you confused, they turned you against me!”

  “I don’t love you.”

  “You do!”

  “I don’t! Maybe I did, I did, I don’t know! I did, alright? But I don’t, I don’t want to, and you can’t talk me into loving you!”

/>   “They poisoned you with their hate and prejudice. Your parents. Your blasting worthless worm-friends. And you can’t stand to touch me anymore. I used to see warmth in you eyes, a smile just for me, inviting me closer. Now I see the doors are shut and you’re pulling away from me. Because of money and prejudice. You can’t even see it, they have you so drugged. You lost your integrity, Noelle. Welcome to the robot club.”

  “That’s all in your mind, Kid.”

  “Stools.”

  “Please leave, Kid. I’ll call you next weekend, and maybe we’ll go out to lunch if you grow up and learn to calm down and listen to what people are really saying.”

  “Oh yeah? Listen to this.” With one jumping step to cover the distance Kid swung his leg in a powerful kick, flipping his music system off its table, the top of it slamming into the wall. Another kick caved in the front of a hip-high expensive alien floor-plant he’d given her last year, Mort they called it, a purplish veiny cylindrical thing. Snatching off her desk the glass angel he’d given her last Christmas (he called Noelle his angel), he cocked back his arm, aiming at a wall.

  “…yourself, Kid!” he heard Noelle crying. “You’re only hurting yourself!”

  “Yeah? Yeah?” His voice shook. He straightened up, slipped the crystal angel in his pocket. “We’ll see who I’m hurting.”

  Noelle was hugging herself, as if cold in her man’s t-shirt. “You succeeded in scaring me, Kid. Is that the idea? Is scaring me your idea of making me fall in love with you?”

  “Blast you, you little bitch.”

  “Good. Fine. Remember your words, Kid–I will.”

  Tears nudged up into his eyes, and they trembled there. “I love you. Remember those words.” And with that, Kid Belfast left the room, shutting the door after him.

  Noelle let out the air clenched in her chest. It shuddered out of her. Her eyes dropped to Mort. Poor Mort…

  Kid glared into the laundry as he passed it, fists bunched. The naked boy was gone. Lucky for him.

  It was a good thing, too, that Bonnie didn’t chance upon him in the hall, to comment on his reddened eyes. Even without his gun he would have killed her instantly, he swore. Yeah, his stomach was soft, but he was muscular and strong, and he’d won plenty of fights with bigger boys in his life. He’d smashed a boy’s jaw and cracked two ribs once for stealing a music chip at his old job. He’d read about the high percentages of males who would have murdered at least one humanoid by such and such an age in Paxton. Of course these things fluctuated–the depression had gotten very bad, until the munit system and other measures picked things up–but even today they estimated that three out of five males would have killed a person for whatever reason by the age of fifty. Kid was only twenty but he felt left out, a bit. He wasn’t afraid to kill. He looked forward to it almost as much as he’d once looked forward to losing his virginity. The two were similar.