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From: richh@netcom.com (richh)
Subject: RICHH:  NIGHT WITH KATIE
Message-ID: <richhCCnL9F.Hox@netcom.com>
Followup-To: alt.prose.d
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 02:22:26 GMT
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Xref: bb3.andrew.cmu.edu talk.bizarre:30231 alt.prose:661 alt.butt.harp:285 rec.arts.prose:414

          So it's me and six shitkickers in a '78 El Camino. 
There's a girl named Katie in the bed going down on everyone and
throwing back a tallboy in between.  I think she's someone's sister
but no one seems to care, including whoever her brother is.  I made
the mistake of calling the El Camino a "truck" to Mike, the guy who
was driving as he crushed a can and chucked it out the window where
we watched it sail around and wing Katie in the back of her head. 
She didn't miss a beat.
     "Truck?!" said Mike, his voice rising, "do you think Katie
would be seen pulling a train in the back of a *truck*??!!"
     "I think that after a six-pack of tallboys she'd eat Howard
Cosell's ass in an unrecalled '72 Pinto stuck in reverse with a
brick on the accelerator."
     Mike broke up.  "Here, have a beer, kid.  You kill me." 
     I took the beer and looked out ahead.  The road was impossibly
dark and Mike was easily outrunning his headlights.  
     "Wow, you're really moving, Mike."
     "Yeah, this *truck's* okay.  It helps that we dropped in a
454.  No one expects an El Camino to top out at 160.  Heh."  
     "Yeah, no shit."  I threw my beer out the window.  I'd taken
two sips.  I looked into the bed.  Katie's head was gone but her
ass was in the air and I guess they were fucking her.  It was late
fall and they must have been freezing but no one seemed to care. 
I buttoned my jean jacket up a little higher.  
     "Okay, you know the plan, kid?  We're almost there.  I'll back
in, leave it running.  You get behind the wheel.  Roll up the
windows.  Katie'll be up here with you; she'll be freezing and she
won't even know it.  When you see us come running out, put it into
gear.  We'll jump in the bed and I'll knock twice on the glass when
we're all in.  You punch it and head straight down 413.  About
three miles down, there's a spot you can pull off.  Do that,
Katie'll hop back in the back and I'll jump up front.  Got it?"
     "Cake."
     "Anything changes, we'll deal with it as we go along."
     "Mike, I don't have a license;  I'm only fifteen."
     "I didn't hear that and neither will anybody else, got it?"
     "Sure."
     "Wait.  Dumb idea.  Don't punch it.  We'll fly out of the bed. 
Just drive."
     The party was at an old farmhouse in central Bucks.  They'd
kicked our ass in football the previous weekend and there'd been
some fights in the parking lot and lots of bad blood going on. 
Well, Mike and the boys wanted to settle up.  I got involved
because I was Mike's neighbor and we hung out a lot when he didn't
feel like drinking with his senior friends.  He was smart, not in
a schoolbook way like I was, but he could handle people and was
good at planning things like this.
     I was already shaking when Mike backed the car onto the grass
where the other cars were parked.  He left it running and put it
into park.  Soon, I was behind the wheel and Katie was in the
passenger seat, throwing back some red pills with her beer.  She
looked at me.  "So I'll stay awake," she said.
     I nodded.  "Katie, how come you let everyone just--"
     "Open the door."
     She did, and threw up outside the car.
     "I'm so nervous.  I can't believe this shit.  Tell me
something to take my mind off this, okay."
     "Like...?"
     "Shit, I don't care.  A puzzle, a riddle, anyfuckingthing."
     "All right, imagine you're a contestant on a game show like
Let's Make a Deal.  You know there's a prize behind one of the
doors and garbage behind the others.  You pick one of the doors. 
Now, the game show host throws open one of the two remaining doors. 
It's got a sack of potatoes behind it.  Got it so far?"
     "Sure.  Go on."
     "Okay, now you're given a choice.  You can stick with your
original door or switch to the other closed door.  What do you do?"
     "Rich, what the fuck are you doing?"
     "What, you wanted a puzzle, right?"
     "Yeah, but not a fucking anachronism.  Now the narrative's all
shot to hell and--"
     "It wasn't that engaging in the first place."
     "That's not the point.  You could have thrown in any puzzle,
The Riddle of the Sphinx, the prisoner's dilemma, that Searle
Chinese-room thought experiment and--"
     "Hey, you are *way* out of character, Katie.  Besides, the
earliest citation I've seen on the Searle thing is 1980.   No
anachronism,  little miss can't be--"
     "Stop.  I thought that had been around for years and the AI
weenies just embraced it."
     "Maybe you're right.
     "The point is, I want to know why you would throw in an
anachronism, as well as this ill-conceived tangent, pull us both
out of character..."
     "Dac."  I turned on the defroster.  "You think this is a
tangent?  I get a real aside feeling..."
     "Dac?"
     "Yeah, he's this t.b. poster whose dictionary doesn't seem to
contain the word 'fiction'.  I just wanted him to understand that
this was just a story, something I made up."
     "Is this Dac someone important?  Why should you care what the
fuck he thinks?"
     "Important?  Hardly.  He's a bug, destined to have as much
influence on t.b. as Kylie Minogue on the history of music."
     "More fucking anachronisms.  Sheesh."
     "Yeah, but she's Aussie, so..."
     "Gotcha.  But if you're devoting this much space to him
doesn't that give him a--"
     "No, and I don't much appreciate a character deconstructing my
story.  For every Dac out there there are thousands worse who don't
post, but just send email, wanting characters' phone numbers,
calling me a liar.  Fuck yeah I'm a liar.  A really really good
one."
     "But this *happened*.  It was a seminal event in your
childhood."
     "Stop, you'll just confuse him.  I do like how you slipped in
'seminal' there, though."
     "Prick.  You think I'm stupid."
     "Well, you kinda are."
     She laughed and dry-heaved out the side of the car.
     "At least you're honest, for a liar."
     She looked through the windshield and stared out at the house. 
A boy in a varsity jacket was chugging Coronas.  He heard something
inside the house, dropped the bottle and ran inside.
     "Rich?" she said, her voice beginning to tremble.
     "Yeah?"
     She looked over.  "When do boys become men?"
     I thought for a moment and said, "When they start learning the
things that girls are born knowing."
     "Time out.  *Who's* out of character now?  That didn't come
out of any ninth-grade Rich."
     "Hey.  If you can bring up Searle, I'm allowed."
     "Shit," she said.  "I see them."  Pete was holding his
stomach.  Pete was Katie's brother.  She didn't seem especially
concerned.
     "Pete looks hurt."  Mike was helping him to the car.  I rolled
down the window.  My foot wouldn't stop shaking on the brake.
     "Pete's hurt," yelled Mike.  "Once we're all in the bed, roll.
Head to St. Mary's.  I'll knock on the window when we're ready. 
Don't be scared.  They won't follow us into the hospital."
     Some kids from inside the house started running towards us. 
Mike knocked.  I put it into drive and we headed out.  
     Mike had gotten a big kick out of teaching me to drive in this
old VW bug he had.  But Mike's VW didn't "top out" at 160.
     "Don't fucking punch it," I saw him mouth in the rear-view,
"Just drive.  We got no seat belts back here.  Got it?"
     I nodded.  Katie slid her left foot over my right.  Mike
screamed "Neutral!" but I had to start driving.  The kids from the
house were almost to the bed.
     Mike lowered his head and moved to the rear of the bed.  He
huddled down and braced himself against the rear.  If Katie *did*
floor it, at least he wouldn't go flying out of the car.  
     Katie could be erratic at times.  
     "I hate you," she said.
     "Huh?"  She increased her foot's pressure on mine.  Soon we
were doing 70 down Swamp Road.  
     "Erratic?  God damn I hate you."
     "Hey, what's--"
     "You manipulate your characters just like you manipulate your
lovers.  No wonder you can't maintain a relationship for more than
a year.  'Could be erratic at times.'  You bastard."
     "At least my relationships last longer than a blowjob."
     "You think they do.  I think you get 6 months of inertia out
of a 6 month a 15 minute relationship."
     "God, you're a cunt."
     "It's easy to be plausible, isn't it?  Not so easy to be
honest."
     "Not my agenda, toots."
     "Goddammit, stop being glib."
     "I was being honest."
     "I can't believe you're that shallow."
     "Trust me.  I am."  
     "I don't think so."
     Mike had moved forward to the rear window and had now braced
himself against that.  Thinking brakes, I guess.  He was pretty
much a dick, now that I think about it, but at least he covered
Pete with his jacket when the others did.  They had raised his
feet.  I checked the rear-view.  It looked like Pete was mumbling.
Katie looked back.  
     "Major blood."
     "Yeah.  Looks like he got knifed in the gut.  Well, what the
fuck did they *think* was gonna happen?  He'll bleed a lot but we
don't have far to go to St. Mary's."
     "Think they'll ask a lot of questions at the hospital?"
     "They'll probably have to treat everyone.  Look back there. 
Pete has all the jackets.  They're freezing.  Exposure. 
Hypothermia.  Frostbite.  Shock."
     "The E.R. rocks tonight!"
     We laughed.  I could see the hospital on the horizon.  We
hadn't been followed.  They were planning some sort of payback, we
would find out later.
     "Think they'll go for it, Rich?"
     "Dunno.  You gotta keep re-inventing yourself, eh?"
     "But it's pretty self-indulgent.
     "Yeah, I know.  It's almost over, too."
     After some madness at the hospital, it was time to drive Katie
home.  All the others had to stay overnight.  Pete would be there
for a while longer and would always have stomach problems.
     Katie couldn't stop talking and I couldn't stop shaking.
     "You like me, Rich?"
     "Yeah."
     "One fucked-up night.  Why do you like me?  I've always
thought you were just another geek."
     "I'm not?"
     "What's special about me?"
     "You're always interesting.  You don't move like other girls. 
I never want to blink when you're around because I think I'll miss
something.  You're cool.  I wish I knew how you saw the world."
     "Do you always say just what someone wants to hear?"
     "The trick is to make it sound unrehearsed."
     "Good night, Rich.  You're gonna fall in love a lot."
     "Counting you?"
     I left the El Camino at Mike's house and walked over to mine. 
It was about 4 in the morning and the sky was so clear that when I
looked up I was certain I could see where I would be standing in a
decade.
     I was, of course, mistaken.

RICHH