Dana walked up.
Maura introduced herself again. They talked briefly about a building across the street, then buildings in general. What if they got so tall that they broke off into outer space? “You two are together,” Maura said after a while. “You aren’t alone and feeling bad … feeling alone,” she said to Colin. She gazed at them. “Things haven’t changed. You’re both invited.”
The moon was fuzzy and it looked like it had snowed there too, or else it was a large piece of snow, falling slowly, carefully, in an orbit. It was the moon, and could do what it wanted.
“You two aren’t very curious,” Maura said. “Not a good sign. Hmm. Look. Frank and Donnie.” She stepped aside, pointed behind her. Frank and Donnie were standing there, small and indistinct, down two or three blocks.
At the Chinese restaurant, Maura had an idea that everyone should spend all their money tonight; they’d found a homeless person on the train and he was here with them too — a short, bearded man who hadn’t said anything. They put their money together, a little over a hundred dollars. Maura brought the cash to the large Chinese woman in charge of the place and asked her to order for them, and keep twenty percent for tip. A waiter appeared and engaged the Chinese woman in conversation without looking at her.
Dana’s cell phone rang. It was her boyfriend and she said that she was going to go now, and stood up.
Colin wasn’t thinking that he wouldn’t ever see Dana again after tonight. He didn’t think of that until after Dana had left. It was later, now, that Colin realized: when Dana was standing by the table, a few minutes ago, looking, she was waiting for him to stand up, so that they could say goodbye or something, exchange phone numbers maybe, but Colin had just sat there, without moving — had been thinking about Dana’s film, about asking her where to meet tomorrow, if she was just being nice; then about how good and mysterious it was that Dana had held his hand earlier — and then she had come over, leaned down, hugged him, and left.
“I wonder if Stza masturbates to celebrities,” Frank was saying. “What about to nine eleven? That’s so dumb, when people say that. Getting off on nonsexual things, I hate that shit.”
“He probably masturbates to the idea of masturbating to nine eleven,” Donnie said. “He’s one step ahead like that. That’s how people are. There’s like five steps, and you figure out what kind a person you are by what step you’re on. Fuck you, Mrs. Johnson.” He said to Colin, “Um, my math teacher. She was in my head just now. I was like, what are you doing …”
“What if someone wrote a song called ‘Fuck Africa,’ or something?” Frank said. He had a worried look on his face. “ ‘Fuck Black People.’ A song called ‘Fuck Native Americans.’ ”
Maura was leaned over the table, her head low, and was gazing up, a bit blankly, at Colin. “Are you offended?” she said.
Colin shook his head no.
“You’re crestfallen,” Maura said.
“I’m not.”
“Crestfallen?” Donnie said. “Nice. I like that. Romantic.”
“What if Stza saw a slide,” Frank said. “Like a playground slide. In a field somewhere. And he was alone and no one was watching — would he do it?”
“He’d probably hide in it — on top — and masturbate to the idea of hiding there and masturbating,” Donnie said. “See how we’re different? I’m on one step, you’re on another, lower step. Me and Stza are pointing and laughing at you.”
“No … because I’m being serious,” Frank said. “I’m on an elevator or something, being serious.”
“I’m operating your elevator,” Donnie said. “Your elevator’s a cardboard box. You live in a cardboard home and sit there being serious all day. At night, you make beastlike noises, you clutch your face in horror …” Donnie looked off to the side at something.
“He would — he’d do the slide,” Frank said. “I wouldn’t though. I’d be too apathetic. I’d be like, what difference does it make? Stza would be like, ‘Hey, a slide.’ Stza wouldn’t get along with bin Laden.” Frank was shaking his head. “Stza would be all sarcastic and bin Laden wouldn’t get it. They’d just have all these awkward silences. Bin Laden would murder Stza in his sleep.”
“Apathetic is pathetic with an ‘A,’ ” Donnie said.
“Osama bin Laden,” Maura said. “Ouch.” Her head lay on its side, on her arms, on the table. Her eyes were closed. “I feel so alone when I close my eyes and talk. I hear my voice and everywhere else is this sad music, like, behind me.” She began to hum, very quietly, “La-la-mm-mm-la, ah-ah-mm …”
“Did she say sad music or sadistic music?” Donnie said. He put his hand in the air. “Give me five,” he said to Frank. “Give me a high-five for what I just said.”
Frank looked at Donnie. “I wonder if bin Laden ever gets depressed,” he said. “I’m serious. I think about this a lot. Depressed people … are so depressed and harmless. Bin Laden and everyone, Bush — they’re always grinning on TV. What the fuck is that. No one ever thinks about this shit, really.”
There was a metal rod inside of Colin. The rod went up from his stomach into the middle of his head. It was made of steel and sugar, and had been dissolving inside of Colin for ten or fifteen years, slow and sweet, above and behind his tongue; and he would taste it in that way, like an aftertaste, removed and seeping and outside of the mouth. Sometimes he’d glimpse it with the black, numb backs of his eyes. But what he really wanted was to wrench it out. Cut it up and chew it. Or melt it. Bathe in the hard, sweet lava of it.
Their food came. Three dishes, then three more, then a pot of something murky and deep. The large Chinese woman sat down with them. “I sense a new person,” Maura said. “Hi.” Her eyes were still closed. “It’s the boss-lady,” Donnie said. Maura sat up, opened her eyes, asked the Chinese woman about getting some more homeless people to come help eat. The Chinese woman laughed. She shouted something and the waiter left the restaurant on a bike.
The short homeless man was eating and so was Colin, but no one else.
“My phys-ed teacher-person called me ‘homeslice’ yesterday,” Frank said. “What the hell is that? He kept doing it.”
“He probably said he needed to go home and slice some pizza,” Donnie said. “I’m going to go home, slice some pizza.”
“No, he was like, ‘Frank, homeslice, get over here and do twenty push-ups.’ ”
“You should’ve said, ‘Your mom’s a homeslice.’ Then stayed where you were, doing zero push-ups.”
“I feel depressed,” Frank said.
“Do you know?” Maura said to Colin. “What is a homeslice? You’re older than us. You’re wiser.”
“Crestfallen,” Donnie said.
Colin looked up and shook his head. Blood moved slowly and disproportionately through his head, like a water and a syrup both. He concentrated on eating a piece of vegetable. It wouldn’t fit in his mouth and he concentrated on that.
“You seem hungry,” Maura said. “Are you undernourished?”
“Are you a reporter?” Donnie said. “I’ve had this … bad vibe, that you’re a reporter from USA Today. When I saw you, the headline came into my head, ‘Teenage Terrorism Gangs at Punk Shows,’ and it had a bar graph. I was like, that’s not right, that’s fucked up — the bar graph, I mean.”