“Hold on just a minute, Mom.” I wave my hand at her. People in the seats chuckle. A relative pulls her down. “One of the many things that has really inspired me to be my best in this play is the work of the very, uh, lovely Christine Caniglia, who’s playing Puck.”
I turn to Christine. She looks at me with a seething combination of disbelief and hate. I’ve never seen her look that way. I’ve never seen anyone look that way, vicious and completely sick of me. The look makes me know I’ve lost, but you can’t stop me…because I’m me, you know? And even if I’m doing the wrong thing, at least I’m doing something. Eight weeks ago I wouldn’t have done anything at all.
“I’ve liked Christine for a long time, but you know, never really been able to do anything about it.…” An awww sounds from the audience.
“What are you DOING, Jeremy!” Ellen growls from her prone position. Christine says nothing. I look her in the eye and talk loudly enough for everybody to hear:
“So, Christine, I’m asking you here and now: would you like to, uh, go out with me?”
And then, without waiting for an answer, I do what I was told by the squip—lean forward and close my eyes to kiss her.
My face passes the vertical plane that Christine’s face was supposed to be at.
Laughter rings across the audience.
I open my eyes.
Christine is on the side of me. She says something quietly and with such total hatred and conviction that I know it’s true as soon as it comes out of her mouth: “Loser.”
Then she turns to the crowd: “Forsooth, a curious dream hath overtaken this one! He talks in his sleep like a thing possessed with love!”
Oh, jeez, what do I do now? I’m off-balance, still standing. Should I fall down?
Hello?
Startup?
Hello?
Nothing.
I take my cue from Christine and fall down. She’s so smart. She’s trying to incorporate my idiocy into the play.
“‘This flower’s force in stirring love,’” she says, continuing right where I interrupted her, standing above me. “‘Night and silence—Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear.’” That’s me. I’m the weeds of Athens. Christine kneels over my head but makes sure not to touch me at all. I squeeze my eyes tight on the ground and beg and plead and snivel for the squip, but it doesn’t come, so I just lie there losing and losing the only thing I ever wanted.
The worst part is that after Christine leaves the stage, I have to “wake up” and “fall in love” with Helena, who’s being played by a girl whose name I can’t even remember. My brain is fried. My mind is an amazing blank of shame and I mangle my Lysander lines. Noises come from the audience; they’re small but so important: shuffling as people go through their programs to see who the skinny weirdo is who almost ruined the play, whispers to delighted siblings, vibrator buzzes on cell phones as kids text their friends about what happened. Finally act two finishes and I head off stage, wishing that my ears had flaps so I wouldn’t have to hear the world of sh_ _ I’m in now.
“Jeremy, change your clothes and get out,” Mr. Reyes says as soon as I reach the dark, warm backstage area.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“I’ve never seen anything like that. Waaaaaaa! I don’t know what you were thinking. Christine is over there crying. You’re lucky she doesn’t take out a restraining order against you. Maaaaaaaa! I don’t want you in my play and I don’t want you taking a bow at the end with the rest of the cast. Get out. Aaa.”
“Fine.” I wish I had some comeback, something to say, but I don’t have the squip now to come up with comebacks; it’s silent or broken or gone, maybe, gone like it was never there.
I pass through the backstage area, past Mark and the piano and Ellen and everybody. “Bitch,” Mark says, with no Game Boy.
Christine is at the door that leads from backstage to the beige hall. She rushes away when I approach. Then, at a safe distance, she hisses: “Why’d you have to be so dumb?”
I look at her. She eyes me through hands that jail her face. She must not want me to see how tears hurt her Puck makeup. Or maybe she doesn’t want to see me. A fairy comes up behind her, grabs her, ushers her off.
“It wasn’t me. It was the squip.…” I try to explain, but who can explain this? Really.
“If you weren’t so dumb, I would’ve liked it!” she yells as she’s whisked away.
I slink into the hall and take off my Lysander outfit. I wonder who’s going to be me for the rest of the play—I never had an understudy. Just as I’m getting my pants off, Mr. Reyes comes up and holds out his hands.
“I think they’ll fit me,” he says. I’m changing by the same chair I was at before the play started, the one with all my stuff on it. “I haven’t been in Midsummer for years. I’m glad you’re giving me a chance to strut my stuff. Aaaaaaaaa!”
I hand him my pants, shirt, doublet, pantaloons, whatever the hell the stupid Shakespeare costumery is called. Mr. Reyes clutches the bundle to his chest and kneels in front of me to remove his shoes.
“I’m treating you like this because you’re smart, Jeremy. You’re smart enough to know how to act like an adult. So you make me treat you like an adult. And if anyone breaks character in any of my plays, they’re out of my plays.” He stands up and walks to the backstage. “Good luck.”
Good luck. That’s what I thought I had: good luck. Good probability amplitudes. What the hell. Startup. Startup!
Startup!
The squip. What am I supposed to do with it? If it does show up I think I’m going to blast my own head off to get rid of it, or take enough drugs to scrub it clean, like Rich did, maybe. I put on my coat and stand up from my seat and stride to the back doors of Middle Borough. I make a few left turns; at the final doors, the school custodian is smoking a cigarette (I smile at him; he doesn’t know I’m a loser freak yet, unless someone texted him). I exit into the cold night air. I go right up to the mural where I played handball with Michael Mell and sit down on the curb. I cry like I’m trying to make icicles.
“Jeremy?”
Oh thank God it’s a real voice.
“What?” I raise my eyes. Through a wet haze Michael comes toward me, leaving school through the same door I did. He came to the play to see me; I blocked that out somewhere.
“Dude.”
“Dude.”
“What happened? What were you doing?”
“I was trying to get with Christine, obviously!” I dip my head between my knees.
“Yeah, but…” Michael starts laughing, a loud laugh, not one of derision. He sits next to me. “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen! I mean—”
“I know.”
“I mean, did you just think it up right there?”
“No…I sort of…”
“Was it like spur-of-the-moment, overcome by lust and stupidity? Or did you know ahead of time that you were going to do that?”
“Well—”
“Oh, Jeremy,” Michael shakes his head. “You planned it.” He gives me a look. “You actually thought that if you stopped a play in the middle and told a girl that you liked her in front of three hundred people, she would say yes.”
“I didn’t really—”
“How would you two finish the play, then?” Michael gesticulates. His giant headphones perch around his neck. I wonder how he knew I’d be out here. “I mean, let’s say it works, right? You ask her out on stage. She says yes. Now what—are you going to get backstage and make out with each other and then do another scene? Jeremy”—Michael leans close—“That’s what the cast party is for. You’re supposed to get drunk and hook up at the cast party.”
“Well, it wasn’t me!” I throw my arms out. “I’ve never been to a cast party! And…” I give up on this one; now that it’s not working it’s easier to admit: “And I have a squip, okay?”
Laughter sounds from inside the school. The play must be going all right. I’m sure Mr. Reyes is doing his job.
r /> “What?”
“You know the thing your brother had that got him through the SATs and into Brown that I thought was a joke or whatever? Okay, it wasn’t a joke; it’s real; it’s not called a ‘script,’ it’s called a ‘squip,’ and I got one, understand?”
Michael just looks at me.
“I got it…a while ago. It’s this supercomputer that went into my brain and it’s been telling me how to be cool and it told me to get with Christine. During the play. Like that.”
“You got one of them?” Michael stretches his eyes.
“Yeah.”
“Squips. Man, I knew that’s what they were really called. I was just withholding info from you.”
“Oh no. Do you have one too?” If Michael has a squip, then I’m done for. If he has one, then who doesn’t? Who’s real?
“No, I don’t have one. I just didn’t want you to hear about it, man. I knew you’d want one. And they’re not good. It messed up my brother.”
I smile. “Your brother.”
“Oh yeah. You’re a gullible guy, just like him. You want to be famous like most people. The one he had, I guess it was an early version or whatever. It almost drove him insane.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. That’s evil technology. I mean, there’s a reason it’s not legal.”
“Well, it started out great! It just…messed up.”
“That’s what happens.” Michael looks serious, then grins: “So this is why you’ve been such a dick! I thought you were just becoming an actual dick! You had a squip!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t anymore. It stopped.”
“Stopped what?”
“Stopped talking to me. Usually you say startup and then—”
HELLO.
“Oh my God.” How come everything has to happen at once? “It just started.”
“What? The squip?” Michael gets up.
“Yes. It just started in my head.”
“Trippy. Well ask it what the hell it was thinking!”
JEREMY, I’M SORRY.
“You’d better be sorry!” I scream. I get up and start running around the parking lot as if the squip were outside me and I could escape it.
I’M FAULTY, it says. I’M BADLY PROGRAMMED. GET VERSION 4.0 WHEN IT COMES OUT. I’M DEPRECATED.
“That doesn’t help now!” I yell. “You ruined my life!”
I KNOW, I KNOW—
“You know? That’s not what you’re supposed to say! You’re supposed to say it’s not that bad and give me advice on how to fix it!”
WELL, YOU HAVE NO OPTIONS, SO I HAVE NO ADVICE. THAT WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED FAILURE. I HAD TO DO A TEMPORARY SHUTDOWN. WHEN SHE DIDN’T KISS YOU, I COULDN’T COMPUTE. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO HELP YOU NOW.
“Why not?”
“Jeremy?” Michael asks. He’s still standing by the mural as I run past.
“Yeah?” I wheeze to a stop.
“I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Tell Christine about the squip.”
“Huh?”
“Just tell her,” Michael says. “Tell her like you told me. People are hearing about these things all over now. Lots of people know that Rich had one during that fire. When she hears it made you do that, she might understand.”
“She’s never gonna understand!” I throw up my hands. “I told my parents, and they thought I was out of my mind!”
“So? Parents don’t believe anything. It’s their job to not believe their kids. What’d they do, send you to therapy?”
HE’S GOT AN ANGLE.
“Yeah, but…” I back up. “Girls are worse! They don’t understand one speck of it. They don’t understand when I like them and when I hate them and when I fear them uncontrollably and when I want to touch them and when I want to kill them, so they’re certainly not going to understand why I paid six hundred bucks for a pill that got me to make out with…one, two…two females I wouldn’t have made out with otherwise.”
“Females? Calm down, dude.” Michael puts a hand on my shoulder. “If I understood you, she will. You just have to tell her the whole story.”
“Yeah, right.” I look down. “Who do you think I am? Frickin’ Shakespeare? I have to tell the whole story of me liking her and going to the dance and getting a squip and getting with Chloe and taking e and—”
“Taking e?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know? And getting in the play…I don’t even remember the whole story.”
I DO.
“What?” I ask the squip.
“Wuh?” Michael asks.
“Shhh, not you,” I tell him. “It. It’s talking.”
“Okay.” Michael takes it in stride, leans against the nighttime mural.
I REMEMBER EVERYTHING. PERFECTLY.
“The squip remembers everything perfectly,” I relay. Michael nods.
WHEN YOU SLEEP, I LOG YOUR BRAIN ACTIVITY THROUGH DREAMS. IT’S HOW I LEARN MORE ABOUT YOU WITHOUT BOTHERING YOU IN WAKING HOURS. I DON’T MEAN MEMORIES, I MEAN LOGS: EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE THINKING AT ALL TIMES.
“It keeps logs of all my thinkings,” I tell Michael.
“Thinkings?”
“Whatever.” I hit him.
I HAVE THEM ALL ON FILE, JEREMY. I’VE BEEN BUILDING SINCE YOU FIRST GOT ME. AT THIS POINT I HAVE YOUR COMPLETE MENTAL LOG FROM BACK WHEN YOU WERE FOURTEEN.
“So? So what?”
“What?” Michael asks.
“Not you.”
I CAN TELL HER!
“Tell who?”
TELL CHRISTINE! I CAN TELL HER ABOUT WHY YOU DID EVERYTHING YOU DID! I CAN SHOW HER THAT YOU REALLY LIKED HER FROM THE BEGINNING AND THAT IT WAS ALL MY FAULT.
“How?”
WELL, WE’VE GOT TO DO A DATA DUMP. TAKE ALL THE INFORMATION OUT OF YOUR SKULL AND GIVE IT TO HER.
“Um, hold on,” I say. I turn to Michael. “The squip says that it has my mental log so it can explain to Christine everything that happened.”
“That’s a great idea,” Michael shrugs.
IT SURE IS. WHAT KIND OF FORMAT DO WE WANT?
“What format do we want?” I ask Michael.
“I dunno…can it make a movie from your head?”
YES, I CAN. CHRISTINE WOULD SEE EVERYTHING THAT YOU SAW AND HEAR EVERYTHING THAT YOU HEARD SINCE, WELL, WHENEVER YOU WANTED TO START THE MOVIE, UP TO AND INCLUDING YOU AT FOURTEEN. YOU COULD START IT WITH WHEN YOU GOT ME.
“No, too late. I was already kind of a dick by then.”
THEN WHENEVER. I COULD DUMP TO A COMPUTER AND ENCODE A DVD, IF YOU HAVE A BURNER.
“What are you two talking about?” Michael asks.
“Formats, still,” I shush him. Then I think: “A book.”
A BOOK?
“A book?” Michael says.
“Yeah,” I sigh. It feels like fluids I didn’t even know I had are draining out of my body. “Write her a book. Write it from my head. Make sure everything’s in there. She likes text. Letters from her Dad. And if I give that to her and she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like me, and if she doesnt like me, at least she’ll be not liking me for me, you know.”
THAT’S A GREAT IDEA.
“That’s a great idea,” Michael says.
“I know it’s a great idea,” I say. “It’s what she would want.”
LET’S DO IT.
“Okay.” I turn to Michael. “We’re going to data dump my memories to book format and give Christine the book. Who’s going to write it?”
Michael shrugs.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WRITE IT?
“I mean, my thoughts are kinda garbled. Don’t you have to clean them up a little?”
I CAN WRITE IT. WRITING’S NOT EVEN A REAL JOB. ANY SQUIP CAN DO IT.
“Okay, great!” I exclaim. “The squip is going to write it,” I tell Michael. He nods.
THERE’S ONLY ONE THING WE SHOULD DO.
What?
IF YOU’RE GIVING IT TO CHRISTINE, WE MIGHT WANT TO CHRISTINE-FILTER IT.
Ho
w’s that?
KEEP IT LESS CRASS, WORK WITH THE CURSING A LITTLE, PRESENT YOUR INTERNET SEXUAL ACTIVITY AT ABOUT TEN PERCENT ITS ACTUAL RATE—
Really? You’re sure we should talk about that at all?
IT’D BE TOUGH TO HIDE.
I see.
SO GET ME TO A COMPUTER AND I’LL TYPE ALL THE WORDS OUT THROUGH YOUR BODY. YOU’LL BE IN, LIKE, A TRANCE.
God, that’ll take a while. But it’ll be cool.
IT WON’T TAKE LONG. WRITING’S EASY. EIGHT HOURS.
Squip, uh, one more thing.
WHAT?
What do we do when the book is finished?
YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF ME. I’M NOT STABLE AFTER A DATA DUMP. AND I’M NOT REALLY THAT STABLE ANYWAY. AS YOU’VE SEEN.
Oh. But—
THERE ARE BETTER VERSIONS OF ME, JEREMY. IT’S NOT LIKE WITH PEOPLE. WITH PEOPLE YOU CAN ARGUE AND HAVE TESTS AND MUSIC REVIEWS AND WARS TO DECIDE WHO’S BETTER, BUT WITH SOFTWARE IT’S PRETTY CLEAR. I GET EVOLVED BEYOND MY VERSION NUMBER, AND THEN I’M USELESS.
So…you’re going to leave? But when are we going to write this book?
TONIGHT.
Oh.
TONIGHT, AND THEN YOU SHOULD FLUSH ME. YOU KNOW MOUNTAIN DEW CODE RED?
Yeah.
IT’S THE FAILSAFE. IF YOU DRINK A BOTTLE, I DISSOLVE.
I explain that to Michael. And then I laugh in my head, and then aloud, and then with my friend, and then with the whole night and all of New Jersey and this big stinking silly little planet.
So here you go, Christine. It’s not a letter; it’s a whole book. I hope you like it.
For more about the squip:
Google it
Keep reading for a sneak peek at It’s Kind of a Funny Story, another book by Ned Vizzini!
one
It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That’s above and beyond everything else, and it’s not a mental complaint—it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.