Steve moved his head around and talked loudly while driving. He pointed like a mock-tourist guide at things. “Where I ran out on my check,” he said, pointing at Denny’s. “They didn’t cook my chicken fingers all the way. They served me raw chicken! Then they offered me one free thing from their shitty 99-cent desert value menu or whatever, like that would make up for risking my life. Denny’s is alright though.” He went on like this for a while, then all of a sudden wanted to know about Greg. “So you went to college. Then what, you couldn’t handle it?”
Steve’s loudness made Greg feel a bit comfortable, though in a fatalistic way. Steve wasn’t a human being; he was a human machine, in the front seat, making noises, driving a car. What would happen was that this Steve-machine would make noises and drive cars for a number of years, then one day stop.
“No,” Greg said. “The tuition was out of my league.” He began to make things up. The truth was he did the four years without making any friends. Actually he did make a few friends, but within weeks they all changed, in his view, somehow, into enemies. And after the second year, then, he stopped trying, as it was nearly impossible to make friends unless you already had some. Though probably he had never tried in the first place, or ever. He felt this way sometimes, that he’d never in his life tried at anything. Probably, like some people didn’t know how to swim, Greg didn’t know the meaning of the word try. “Someone gave me TB,” he said, “on top of it all.” He made a thing up, then tacked on a cliché—so it would sound natural, or something.
Rachel turned around, grinning. She didn’t have her seatbelt on and now she put it on and turned back around. “Someone gave you a TV!”
“TB,” Steve said. “Tuberculosis, dummy.” He made eye contact with Greg in the rearview mirror. “Then what? You never went back? How’s your lung?”
“They gave me a TB scholarship, but I told them to go to hell,” Greg said. His voice was unintentionally monotone and grim and mumbled, a kind of misanthropic drone. He sounded like he didn’t want to talk anymore, didn’t want to be bothered.
“What was that?” Steve said.
Greg hesitated. “Nothing,” he said. Then there was a long, woozy silence. Things were changing in this silence, Greg felt. Tact was taking its clothes off and belching, reaching for the remote. This is what happened, Greg knew, what always happened. You did things — you tried, maybe — but after you did one thing you had to wait a while before you could do another thing. You had to sit in a waiting room where the magazines were non-profit and frank, without gloss or pictures, but only rectangular article after article on why it — other people, communication, life generally — just was not worth it. You were bored, so you read them all. The receptionist was friendly but behind glass and on the phone. The ceiling fan had one blade. It spun around, slow, like a chainsaw. By the time they called your name, you did not want to move. You had given up. You went out the other door, got in your car, punched the steering wheel, drove to McDonald’s, ordered something with extra, extra, extra bacon; and you didn’t say “please.” You said, “I want extra bacon on it.” You said that again, to make sure.
“How’s your lung?” Steve said. “Are you at 80 % capacity or whatever?” He twisted around very fast and looked at Greg.
Greg shrugged.
“How’s your lung?” Rachel asked Steve, who peered hard at the control panel, then turned the air-conditioner on full blast. “Yeah, I thought so,” Rachel said. She moved her face right up to the air-conditioner grate.
They passed Greg’s old elementary school — a flat, starfishy thing, expanded over the years in a makeshift and unenergetic way, with portables and pavilions. In third grade, on the way to P.E., Greg had spit on a minivan, due to peer pressure. Someone tattled on him and he was sent to the Principal’s office. The Principal asked why he did it, then gave him detention.
“TB makes me think of inner tubes,” Rachel said. “Poisonous ones that if you use them you get rashes.” She laughed. “Tubular colossus,” she said. “Sounds like … something.”
“Rachel,” Steve said. He paused. “Hey, I went to Wet ‘N Wild the other day. This lady was with her son. It was hilarious.”
“What was hilarious?” Rachel said.
“Your mom was ridiculous.” Steve yawned. He laughed a little.
“That was stupid,” Rachel said. She punched at Steve’s side. “I said what was hilarious, anyway, not ridiculous. Thanks for listening.”
“I said hilarious first,” Steve said. He seemed to think about that. “Greg,” he then said. “Sorry you have to witness our stupidity.”
“No,” Greg said. He leaned forward a little. “Thank you.” Something had gone wrong. Greg had mixed-up apology and appreciation, and maybe some other things. He didn’t quite understand it.
“Hmm,” Steve said. “You are welcome.” He pointed at a Starbucks that had recently opened. But he didn’t say anything. Then he said, “So Greg. Did you roll houses a lot in your high school days?”
Greg wanted to be enthusiastic, wanted to be friendly and quick with anecdotes — here was another opportunity! — but, as often happened to him in small talk, he now forgot everything that he ever knew. Information rushed away from him, became distant and twinkling as the cosmos. “A little,” he said. In the outer space of his head, he floated upside-down and sideways, like an astronaut — safety cord severed.
“How many times?” Steve said. “Thirty?”
Greg tried to think of what to say, but couldn’t decide. Too much time passed. He made eye contact with Rachel in the rearview mirror and then looked quickly, wildly, away.
“We’re pros,” Rachel said. “We do this, what, twice a week? We did our school. We did this tree one time. A tree in the middle of nowhere, in this field. Someone was like, we should roll that tree, and everyone agreed immediately.”
Greg leaned back into his seat, looked out the window, made eye contact with a little girl in another car, and then looked down into his own lap.
“Yeah; it is kind of sad,” Steve said. “This is all we do really. Not sad. Funny. For a while we did fireworks, drove around lighting fireworks, tossing them out of the car. That was fun. Before that, what was before that?”
“Truth or dare,” Rachel said. “Remember truth or dare?”
Greg remembered truth or dare. One time, Crystal Kendle dared him to jump off the roof. Either jump off the roof or kiss her. Greg was nine and wanted to kiss her. But he climbed a ladder to the roof and jumped off and hurt his ankles. The other kids called him stupid. Crystal Kendle went to the same high school as Greg, but they were strangers by then. She was one of those willowy, surrounded girls. Always surrounded, always willowy. Greg was one of those kids who, to avoid being seen eating alone, never sat in the cafeteria; was always carrying his lunch around, like someone lost or eccentric, looking for a safe place. He invariably ate in spots weird and badly-lit, spots ruthless with indignity — a dewy nook; an abstract, long-forgotten bench; an inexplicable room adjacent the bathroom, with prison bars instead of a door.
Steve turned the car into a neighborhood. A squirrel ran across the street. Steve said to be quiet. He pointed at a house. “There’s Ali’s home,” he said loudly. “Probably in bed already. Sleeping.” He laughed. “I don’t even know why that’s funny. I really don’t.”
“Do you know Ali?” Greg said.
“We’re not best friends but yeah, I guess I know him,” Steve said. “He goes to our school. He plays tennis. He’s probably Indian, judging by his name. But this isn’t a racial thing. It’s just chance, you know, coincidence or whatever. Ali’s a good guy. He’s alright. I bet he plays tennis a lot, though, like four hours a day.”