More Happy Than Not

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Aaron.”

“I know, Stretch. What’s up?”

“Nothing, which is a problem. I should be doing something instead of sitting here and only missing Genevieve. You free to hang out?”

“I’m sort of in the middle of something right now. You doing anything tomorrow morning?”

“Nope. Unless whatever you’re about to suggest is stupid, in which case, yeah, I have plans to save the world or something.”

“Well, if you’re done saving the world before noon we could go see a movie.”

“I guess the city can take care of itself for a couple hours. So what are you up to right now?”

“Nothing,” he says.

He sounds kind of ashamed and dodgy, sort of like the way someone (not Skinny-Dave) gets really uncomfortable when you ask them if they watch porn or not, even if the answer is obvious. But I let it go and instead get him to talk to me about stupid things, like what superpower he would like to have—invincibility, which Skinny-Dave always confuses for invisibility.

It’s better than handball, at least.

8

NO HOMO

Thomas looks tired as hell when I meet him on the corner of his block the next morning.

It’s a little after 11:00. Not sure if he got any sleep or if he’ll be able to stay awake for the entire movie.

“Are you cloning yourself?”

“What?” Thomas groggily asks.

“I’m trying to figure out what you’re obsessively working on.”

“I don’t think anyone wants two clueless Thomases walking around.” We take a shortcut through some shady projects to get to the theater as fast as possible. “I don’t want to tell you or you’ll think I’m some lost puppy.”

“Nah, you’re more like a work in progress. We all are,” I say. I hold my hands up in surrender. “But I’ll drop it.”

“You’re supposed to try and force me to spill the beans.”

“Okay. Spill the beans.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

So we don’t.

Again.

Instead, he goes on about how he loves summertime mornings because of the eight-dollar ticket charge for a movie, which usually doesn’t even matter since he knows how to get in for free because he worked there for two weekends last summer before—you guessed it—quitting.

“But you want to be a director. Isn’t working at the movies a good first step?”

“I thought it would be, but you don’t get a vision for any projects working behind the concession stands. You’re constantly burning yourself from popcorn oil, and your classmates bully you at the box office when you don’t let them into R-rated movies. Ripping off tickets won’t turn me into a director.”

“That makes sense.”

“I figure if I keep taking odd jobs I’ll get some material for my own scripts. I just haven’t figured out a story to tell yet.”