Hope and Other Punch Lines(23)

“Nah.”

“Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Still nope.”

“Stranger? That way every time you get in the car, you can say ‘Howdy, Stranger.’?”

Noah takes my Slurpee from my cupholder, helps himself to a long sip. I can’t decide if I like or hate his overfamiliarity. How is he already comfortable? I’ve spent thirty seconds thinking about how to put my hands on the steering wheel. Does leaving them at ten and two make me look uptight? I’m also concerned the Slurpee is going to turn my teeth red. And I’m terrified of seeing Chuck Rigalotti in the flesh. I don’t want to turn him from a photograph into a real-life person.

“Not even getting warmer.” I decide on ten and two but with my elbows down: casual but safe. I plan to occasionally reach over with my right hand and sip my Slurpee through the straw so it goes straight to the back of my throat.

“All right. I give up. I hereby vest in you the power of full naming rights.” He does some weird arm-crossing thing, like a knight with a long sword or maybe what people do in church. “Though since it was my idea in the first place, I retain veto power.”

“Seriously?”

“No. Not seriously at all. You should know by now that at least fifty percent of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is nonsense.”

“So you don’t own an electric toothbrush named Stan?” Noah shakes his head, and I feel the slightest snag of disappointment. I liked knowing such an intimate detail about him. “Life can really suck, right? So why not make it at least a little bit fun whenever we can? I mean, think about it. There are few things that a well-timed joke can’t solve.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “When has a well-timed joke solved anything?” I think about how my mom told me that a few weeks after 9/11, a magazine cover declared irony dead, like everyone had decided they were all going to stop laughing forever. It was one way of declaring that life would never be the same again. Turns out they were wrong and they were right. “Also, we are here tracking down nine-eleven survivors for a high school newspaper. That’s like the exact opposite of fun.”

“True. But you can be serious and funny at the same time. We need the serious to recognize the funny, and the funny to give us even a shot in hell at surviving the serious,” he says. “It’s a really simple theory if you think about it. They’re mutually dependent, not mutually exclusive.”

I sit with that thought for a minute, let it roll around in my brain, wonder what exactly that magazine meant by irony, a word that makes me think of hipster mustaches and cheesy T-shirts. Then I realize that I’m no longer nervous.

Noah is just another person in the world.

So is Chuck.

So am I.





This could be a major bust. Before we even ring the bell, the sad, patchy lawn tips me off. Flyers flap in the broken screen door like half-dead birds. Not that I had high hopes for ol’ Chuck. He was a total asshole on the phone. All angry snark thinly disguised as genial teasing when I said we’d have to meet after camp.

“Camp?” he repeated, incredulous. Like it was funny that we were children and also that children were icky.

“We’re counselors,” I said, like that would make any difference. As if I actually had some dignity that he’d affronted. He’s right to make fun of us. Pretty much everything about being in high school is embarrassing. Not only the hours spent jerking off behind locked doors, the days cooped up in windowless classrooms—not to mention the greasiness of it all. I’m talking our very existence.

We are a reminder to grown-ups of how far they’ve come and how much further they wish they could go.

I wasn’t nervous in the car with Abbi, hadn’t thought much beyond snacks and talking crap and trying to make her laugh. Standing at the door, though, I start to sweat and wonder what the hell I think we’re doing.

This happens to me all the time. Things seem like a good idea until suddenly they’re not.

Chuck opens the door. He looks identical to the picture he has on his website. Same fake, aggressive smile. Same flat, serpentine eyes. He does a faux grand sweep of his arm, as if he is welcoming us into his castle, not this small house that is in desperate need of a paint job and a cuddle.

He steers us to a couch that has a blanket half-folded at the end. The front windows are open, so the smell of manure mixes with Chuck’s house’s scent: the sharp smell of bleach. He’s cleaned up, presumably for our benefit. The glass coffee table has streaks. The blue carpet has vacuum lines. His hair is wet and combed over, and though he is middle-aged, he looks perversely boyish, like he should be wearing footie pajamas.

“Wow. Baby Hope. Look at you!” Chuck says. He’s strong, with the kind of muscles that seem like genetic accidents. Thick and ropy and ready to snap. “I’ve thought a lot about you over the years. Strange to be part of something like that together and to have never even met. Of course, it’s different for you. All front and center.”

He sits across from us on a beat-up leather recliner, the only thing that looks loved in this house. He rests his elbows on his knees and then claps his hands a few times, as if to get us started. He’s wearing a Jets T-shirt, and that makes me like him even less, and then I feel bad because I realize this can’t be easy for him. “You’re the symbol. We’re just background players. Glad to see you doing well.”