JOANIE GAVE HIM five minutes to pack. Dean threw clothes and as many books and promotional materials as he could into a suitcase. Joanie offered to drive him somewhere like the Quality Inn, but a breeze blew through the last shreds of his pride and Dean refused.
He walked toward the nearest intersection, grimly holding a giant sombrero onto his head as a breeze tried to blow it straight to the bay. The hat was a reminder of the trip to Cabo with Joanie, the best trip he’d ever had in his life, and he’d be damned if it was going to stay on her wall or be filled with nacho chips by the next football team in her life. On Maude Avenue he waved down a cab and took it to Lin’s house in Palo Alto.
The high branches of old-growth trees covered a street resplendent in faux neo-Edwardian, faux neo-Italianate, and faux neo-modern design. Lin owned a nice enough faux post-Eichler ranch house with a well-tended hedge and lawn. The only problem was the pink ambulance in the driveway. Gray primer spots covered the battered vehicle and a white racing stripe slashed diagonally across the left side.
Dean held his sombrero in one hand and pushed the doorbell with the other. A speaker crackled with a young man’s voice.
“Go away. I’m working.”
“Chip, it’s Dean. I need to speak to your mother.”
“About your horrible fashion choices?”
Dean sighed. “No, Chip.”
“About Chip? That’s me!”
“Stop acting like a teenager and open up.”
A mechanism clacked inside the lock and Dean pushed the door open. He stepped into an environment of stark contrasts, an extreme battle zone of cultures. Framed prints from Target gave a slight impression of Impressionist flowers, while paintings of Parisian trolleys faced a variety of wrinkled posters of bikini-clad girls, all unbelievably ecstatic while holding a bottle of beer, showering in beer, or both. Discarded cans of Mountain Dew and empty fast-food boxes were scattered across the furniture and competed with carefully tended orchids for breathing room.
A squishy noise and synthesized screams of horror came from upstairs. Dean left his suitcase in the living room and walked up the steps to the second floor. A female mannequin with a giant bust and equally massive assault rifle blocked the stairwell. Dean squeezed past the extremely large lady-parts and climbed the rest of the way to Chip’s room.
If downstairs had been a battle zone, Chip’s bedroom had lost the war. Movie and game posters covered the walls and darkened the windows. Green and black video game boxes cluttered the floor along with empty cans of Diet Pepsi. A man-sized Godzilla costume stood in one corner.
Chip sat in front of a widescreen monitor larger than the last television Dean had owned, and which unfortunately for him, now belonged to Joanie. On the huge screen in front of Chip a cartoonish man on a bicycle pedaled furiously across a bridge of steadily falling bottles. He didn’t pedal fast enough and fell into a pit of spikes with a horrific splat and shower of blood. Chip sighed. He clicked a button and the screen refreshed, with the cartoon man and his bicycle at the starting line.
“That’s completely unrealistic,” said Dean. “The human body doesn’t contain that much blood. Out of anyone, I should know.”
The gimbals in Chip’s office chair squealed as he turned to glance at Dean.
“And here’s the pizza boy. Say hello to everyone, Dean!”
“Everyone?”
Chip waved at a camera clamped above the monitor. “You! I’m recording.”
“Oh. Hello, everyone. It’s a bit odd not knowing who I’m talking to. I hope they’re not bloodthirsty aliens watching us from orbit. Exterminate, exterminate, we need the bodies of your women for fuel, ha ha. I’m sorry, that’s sexist.”
“Girls and aliens don’t watch gaming videos on YouTube, Dean. Mom’s not here?”
“I sent her out for some supplies.”
“Not for a ‘red-light special,’ I hope. You said you wouldn’t make her do that anymore.”
Dean flushed. “I didn’t! She’s shopping for craft supplies.”
“I don’t know what’s more embarrassing for you, Dean––needing my mom to pick up hookers, or needing my Mom to pick up craft supplies.”
“That was just one time!”
“It’s a joke, boss. Don’t have a stroke. Wave goodbye to the PewPew Party.”
Dean left without acknowledging the unseen party behind the camera; a severe violation of several interstellar protocols if they had been extraterrestrials who preferred confectionary of a human female nature. He leaned his sombrero against a wall of the living room and cleared off the sofa to relax. He wanted to lie down for only a moment but fell into a deep sleep, even with the plethora of squishes and screams emanating from upstairs.
A hand touched his shoulder. Since he had retained from birth that not-quite-peculiar trait of waking instantly upon being touched, Dean woke instantly.
“Mother!” he yelled.
Lin stood over him, a shopping bag in her hand.
“I’m sorry, it’s me. Here’s the food coloring and the craft paper you wanted.”
Dean sat up. “I’m glad you’re back, Lin, but we’ve got more important problems. Kiss The Cook Productions has been forced to vacate.”
Lin touched his forehead with a cold hand. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. Well, not really. Joanie kicked me out.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter, I just need to stay here tonight. Obviously not HERE here, because Holy Space Cats look at the stains on this sofa, but ‘here’ in general, by which I mean your house. Definitely not your bed; I’ll stop you right there if that was the next question.”
Lin put a hand on her waist. “Right, Dean. But why not a hotel?”
“I know that staying here is a violation of employer–employee relations, Lin, but do you want me to sleep in a crime-ridden, urine-stained hotel? Or even worse, on the crime-ridden, urine-stained streets?”
“This is Palo Alto, Dean, not Richmond. The streets aren’t like that.”
“Lin, if you write up a temporary contract for lodging, I promise to review and probably sign it. Submit a daily, itemized report for any food and toiletries I use, and I’m sure it will be approved as quickly as possible. By me. No report––no reimbursement, that’s my motto.”
“I thought your motto was ‘I Give Up.’ ”
Dean scowled. “Get with the program. That’s just for the punters in the peanut gallery. I’ll need you to also create a database of rentable apartments in the area. Nothing above two grand.”
“But I thought you were flying to Charleston tomorrow?”
“I’ll need someplace to stay when I get back.”