Reality Boy

When I finish my beer, I figure I’ve been here for about an hour. I’ve learned a lot about Jacques Cousteau and underwater life. My clothing has absorbed about a pint of sweat. Register #1 Girl has had two bottles of water and three cookies and has rotated from tank to tank so that she’s acknowledged every fish in the room. Then she just gets up and says good-bye. Just like that.

“See ya.” She waves, and Ashley and Nathan wave from the love seat and keep watching the documentary.

“Later,” Nathan says. “Hope to see you again, Gerald.”

“Take some cookies for the road,” Ashley says. “I’ll eat them all.”

Register #1 Girl grabs a half dozen cookies and we walk through the kitchen and out the front door. I lock it behind me out of habit. Or maybe because I liked Ashley and Nathan so much I don’t want anything bad to happen to them before I can go back.

As I walk toward the car, I realize I want to go back almost immediately.

I want to live there.

I can tell by Register #1 Girl’s sad face that she feels the exact same way. She wants to live there, too.

We don’t say anything until we’re five minutes out of town. I check my phone, and there’s still no reply from my new friend Joe-Psycho-Jr. Even after my second text. I’m coming with you to Philly. Don’t leave without me.

“They’re really nice,” I say.

“Yeah. They’re awesome.” She says it like she couldn’t care less about them—like she’s only using them for their fish. I can’t describe her right now. It’s like when we were there on Franklin Street she was herself, but now she’s wrapping herself in my plastic wrap. Probably because she’s stuck in the car with you, loser.

“Are we just going to drive around now?” I ask.

“I don’t know. You’re in charge. Where do you live?”

I think about what I said to Dad today. I think about Tasha. “I guess I don’t live anywhere. But I have an idea. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I say as I drive back over the bridge toward the PEC Center.

“I’m open to ideas. Except that we run off and get married,” she says. “I’ll never get married.”

I feel myself blush when she says this. Dear Register #1 Girl: Marry me right now.

“Kidding,” she says. “I don’t think you want to run off and get married.” When I don’t say anything, she adds, “Wow. Sorry. I hope that didn’t make you mad. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up.”

“Nah. I don’t get mad,” I say. Breathe in. Breathe out. “I think I probably want to get married one day, though. I mean, when I’m old. Not now.”

“So what’s your idea?” she asks.

“It’s not Morocco,” I say. I turn into the PEC Center parking lot and drive to the back where I won’t be in the way of any of the circus trucks. I stare at the crew loading the trucks.

After three minutes of us watching them together, she says, “You’re going to run away with the circus?”

I figure I can lie to Big Joe. I’ll tell him I’m eighteen and he won’t ask me for $%#*ing ID. He’ll tell me, This isn’t some $%#*ing picnic, boy. It’s $%#*ing work. Hardest work you’ll ever $%#*ing do.

That’s how I see it in my head.

“Am I allowed to talk you out of it?” she asks. “I mean—would that even work?”

Gerald, be real. There is no way this beautiful girl likes you. She only wants to talk you out of it because it’s a crazy idea. “I don’t want to count hot dogs all my life, you know?” I say. “And I’m not going home.”

She senses it in my voice. Register #1 Girl is very observant like that. “Did something happen? Are they bad to you?” She cuts that sentence short. I can see her rewinding the tapes in her brain. I can see her picturing the five-year-old me squatting on the kitchen table.

“Do you want my car?” I ask.

“Seriously?” As she says this, her phone buzzes again and she presses the IGNORE button. I saw it said Home on the screen, though. I check my phone. No more messages from Dad. Still nothing from Joe Jr. “Aren’t your parents going to want it back?” she asks. “You’re only sixteen. You’ll be, like, a missing person. I’ll be driving around in evidence. Shit. I’ll have to lie,” she says. Then she punches me lightly on the arm. “Way to put me in a bad spot, Gerald.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I can just abandon the car downtown. Someone’ll steal it. It’s the perfect alibi.”

“I’ll still have to lie,” she says. “Or, you know… I could go with you.”

“I don’t want to get you into trouble,” I say. “You should go home. I can drop you there. Then you can say that you thought I was just going home.”

“Or… not. Life is boring here. India, remember? Morocco?”

I want to tell her that being bored is not a reason to run away. I want to tell her that she’s got a chance at a decent existence. No crapping videos to haunt her. No rodent-planking siblings. No anger management. No SPED class. No crazy fake Jamaicans out to kill her. Instead, I don’t say anything because it feels right, her coming with me. And then the back driver’s-side door opens, and my new friend Joe Jr. is sitting in my backseat.

“Are you $%#*ing crazy?” he asks.

“DIDN’T YOU HEAR anything I $%#*ing said on the steps today? My life sucks. Why the $%#* would you want my life?”

“I—uh—don’t know,” I answer.

“Hi,” Register #1 Girl says. “I’m Hannah.”

Joe Jr. nods at her. “And you have a $%#*ing girlfriend? Gerald, as your friend, I have to talk you out of this. It’s a shitty life with shitty pay, and while it may look good to you because of some shit at home or whatever your problem is, it’s not as cool as you $%#*ing think it is.”

“I think it’s cool,” Register #1 Girl says.

“You’re just a kid,” Joe Jr. says. To both of us.

“You’re just a kid, too,” I say.

“Yeah, but I’m a circus kid. It’s different. I don’t have any $%#*ing choice, dude.” He looks into my eyes. “Fuck this shit, remember?”

“I don’t have a choice, either, man. If I stay here, I’ll end up in jail. And I don’t want to work counting $%#*ing hot dogs my whole life.”

I finish my beer, I figure I’ve been here for about an hour. I’ve learned a lot about Jacques Cousteau and underwater life. My clothing has absorbed about a pint of sweat. Register #1 Girl has had two bottles of water and three cookies and has rotated from tank to tank so that she’s acknowledged every fish in the room. Then she just gets up and says good-bye. Just like that.