I can’t see Chewbacca and not think of my old college roommate Rodney. One rainy afternoon in our dorm, he paused Star Wars to explain what an “Angry Chewbacca” was, including a personal story and an Internet example. Hear something three times and you’re less likely to forget it. He spent an afternoon showing me fleshy images on the computer and explaining every dirty thing one could do to a woman—the Angry Pirate, the Hot Karl, the Alabama Hot-pocket. The kinds of things that are supposed to be funny because they aren’t really supposed to happen, the kinds of things that make Holly’s lips pale, that make her curl into herself and go silent. He topped the day off with a video of his own—at the time he was getting eighteen-year-old girls drunk and videotaping them screwing beer bottles. Like most of the other freshman boys he’d cornered, I went to bed early that night, spent my subsequent evenings in the library, and requested a roommate switch at semester.
“All right, that’s enough,” I say into my beer bottle, and the only person who’s heard me is the quark, who gets a hurt look on his face. The black-eyed P is massaging my wife’s hips—he clearly isn’t brave enough to go for the meaty ass cheeks and instead runs his hands over the bony sides—and the quark stutters and says, “I was going su-somewhere with that,” and I say, “Not you, I haven’t had enough of this. What about microscopic events?”
This isn’t how she sees me, is it? Like this blinking nerd, dressed as a quark with a military crew cut he’s had since eighth grade and cheap square glasses? Really, no wonder she gravitated to the black-eyed P, because now that I look closer he does have that stylish messy gelled hair, and whereas I have what she once called “raisin lips,” he’s got a big, plump, stupid-looking mouth, the type a woman would want to kiss.
The best way to round her up is by attempting to be cute, so I tell the quark to get her attention so I can mouth, “Pimp Bot Wants to Bop.” Then I’ll do a little robot dance. What I won’t do is yank her away by the arm, or try to fight the black-eyed P, or spit the word “slut” at her in public. I learned those lessons long ago. The quark, pleased with a mission, darts away and taps her shoulder with a pale finger. She turns her head just enough for me to see a flash of eyelash and a stab of blue buried behind big black wig. He mumbles something and her brows press together, and she cuts her eyes in my direction before shrugging the quark’s finger off and walking away from a hunch-shouldered nerd and a shocked black-eyed P. She just ditched the best looking guy at the party. The quark must have said the wrong thing.
As soon as he comes back I trudge after her, my cardboard body suit really slowing me down, but she’s disappeared into the labyrinth of back rooms and bathrooms and sliding glass doors. I slog through the crowded hallway, getting lots of glares, especially when a stray strip of duct tape catches a girl’s hair and rips a handful out. I pull it off of the tape in a frizzy ball and hand it back to her, as if it’s of any use, and she makes a face and spikes her heel on the ground like she means business, and her boyfriend, who appears to be dressed as nothing but a giant, snarls. When you are already freakish you don’t have to dress up for Halloween, and you’re still more interesting than monotone people like me dressed as cardboard robots. The girl starts crying over her hair and this guy gives me a look, and it’s that time of night when everyone’s smiles are looking a bit tired and lipstick is worn off and Halloween makeup is smudged and skin is hot and itchy underneath cheap fabric and thick face paint, which the costumed now realize they spent way too much time arranging and preparing for this unmemorable Halloween party.
I could make it memorable. I could be the guy who picks a fight with someone way bigger than me, the guy who gets the crap beat out of him in the front yard and leaves blood or even a tooth behind—and maybe another version of me does—but even that isn’t really memorable in the scheme of Halloween parties, because doesn’t it always happen? I don’t want to be the martyr this year, so I think I’ll take my abuse quietly, thank you Holly. Still, I need to find her so I can woo her into going home, because I can’t take anymore talk of alternate universes and who I could have been or who I might be, some other version of me far from here who never met Holly, or who met a better Holly, and for whom the timing was right and who is probably really happy with a good haircut and no need for embarrassing adult debauchery on a kiddie holiday.
A dinosaur and man-rabbit grab my shoulders and drag me toward the den. They want to play pool. I want to find Holly. “We’ll play just until James gets here,” the dinosaur says.
“James?”
He pulls on my cardboard arm, which starts to come apart at the duct tape seam. “From Land Works?”
“Oh, why does he matter?”
“He’s not in land development anymore.” The man-rabbit laughs. “He’s an ‘actor.’ And he’s got a little something prepared.”
The den is smoky. These guys don’t party often so when they do they attempt to do it up right, cigars and all. I chalk a cue while the dinosaur gathers his tail and awkwardly breaks, clumsily knocking the six-ball into the corner pocket. The room is too small for a pool table; it is bedroom-sized and now that I look, smears of old pink paint shine through the white: it was once a child’s room. I spend most of the game dodging people and drinking water, suddenly aware, in this small ex-child’s space, of how drunk I am. I knock the cue ball off the table and it hits the wall, startling a few onlookers.
“Somebody needs to be cut off,” some Marilyn whispers to her Scarface boyfriend. They don’t fit in here, or else tonight they are really trying to be something they’re not.
“I’m fine,” I say, but I can’t remember how many beers I had while watching Holly. Maybe it doesn’t matter. While I am waiting for my next turn, leaning against the vaguely pink wall and remembering Holly last Halloween on a twin bed with three mesmerized men, Chewbacca walks by with a pretty blond on his arm, who appears to be dressed as nothing but a slut.
Without her wig, Holly looks like maybe she’s trying to be Marilyn Monroe. She does not blend in. She does not blur. I wish she realized this. Maybe it would be enough.
I watch through the haze. They peer into the room. She sees me and looks away. She holds his paw like it’s a skunk. She does not look happy. He kisses her, and she leans her head back and lets him, but it is the stiffest, most passionless kiss I have ever witnessed.
I am surprisingly not jealous—I would almost consider it a non-kiss, the way she didn’t move her lips—but I know my role and so I drop the cue soundly on the floor and stomp out. They quickly disappear. For a moment, I stand in the dark hallway. To chase, or not to chase. I wander toward the kitchen, which is now empty. The quark and his anti-quark have gone, probably to make little preons, like Holly and I should be doing. I turn and head for the bathroom, where I promptly lock the door.
The bathroom turns out to be quite a convenient place to have locked myself. I raise the toilet seat and expel my drinks and guacamole, making sure the mess all goes one place, then I flush and rinse my mouth and sit against the wall where the heater’s going. It is quiet, except for the sound of hot air. No one knocks, no one calls for me. I should have stopped them. Or is this the way it’s supposed to be? I don’t know what she wants.
On the floor, next to the bathtub, I find her wadded up wig. I lean my head against the wall, relieved to have semi-sharp vision again. The wig is ratty in my hands, tangled. I stretch a curly strand and it snaps back, a little out of place. I hold it up to the light. What I expect to see is netting. I expect to see some light through it. I expect to be able to shred it easily, which is what I’d like to do and probably what I’m supposed to do.
At first, that’s all I get: transparent black, salty scalp, the scent of a body’s warmth, the smell it leaves behind. But when I open the wig just so, in the light, I see the people, tiny, from the other side of the wall. The man-rabbit, the dinosaur, Marilyn and Scarface, buried behind locks of acrylic hair. I lower the wig and they’re gone. Raise it, open it, and they’re back. I s
it up on my knees, my nose millimeters from their micro-bodies.
“It’s James,” the man-rabbit says.
I am surprised to see myself, looking small and slouched in the crowd. Paler than I realized. “James, from Land Works?”
“Not anymore.” The man-rabbit snickers. “He’s an ‘actor’ now.”
James, looking regal in a Victorian costume, draws a crowd. He talks about his love of science—when did he lose his love of science? Amidst the papers and papers and papers, the signature stamps, every angle of every pipe in the sewage systems under housing developments, under a library. All those books up there and here he was, his nose buried in the ground, his eyes on dirt, concrete, utility maps, project proposals, everything that got in the way. He speaks about the play he is going to recite from, about a character named Valentine. His love of physics reborn in theater.
“The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is. It’s the way nature created itself, on every scale, the snowflake and the snowstorm.”
The dinosaur sips from a beer bottle tucked like a toothpick between his giant prehistoric claws. “Of course,” he laughs. “James is James is James.”
I glance into the darkness behind me. “I need to find—”
“What?”
I sigh. Look at me, shrinking in my cardboard armor. “Nothing.”
I shake the wig and instead of the people on the other side of the wall there is a storm. A ball of hail shatters our naked porch light. This happened. But we weren’t home. There was a storm a month ago, while we were visiting Holly’s grandparents. Through the veil of the curtains, through the haze of the storm, I see us making love in our bedroom, while the hail stipples our car. There is no condom wrapper on the floor. There is no birth control pill on the bedside table.
“People were talking about the end of physics. Relativity and quantum looked as if they were going to clean out the whole problem between them. A theory of everything. But they only explained the very big and the very small. The universe, the elementary particles.”
“But not the everyday,” I say.
The dinosaur belches in my ear. “Isn’t it wild? James, James, James.”
“What I don’t understand?” I say. “Women.”
“Ah, they’re easy,” the dinosaur says. “It’s all about the moon.”
“And men?” I say.
“Easy, too. All about this.” The dinosaur grabs the smooth fabric at the crotch of his costume. He doesn’t even laugh. I look small beside him, insignificant. Not manly at all.
A shake of the hair and there I am, pink-cheeked and eager, eighteen. Was I really so young, as a freshman in college? Look at that acne, hear that stutter. Telling Rodney I’m m-m-mu-moving out at semester. Uncomfortable conversations bring out my speech impediment. I’d nearly forgotten.
“Am I really that gross?” he asks.
I shrug. “More d-d-di-disrespectful.”
“Wow.” He stares at his computer. “Sorry, man.”
Except that’s not how I did it. I privately requested a room switch. I slipped out with my things the day after he left for the winter break. He never knew where I disappeared to.
“The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.”
“Mystery,” I say.
“Isn’t he great?” The dinosaur says. “James will always be James.”
“James can’t see the forest for the trees.”
The dinosaur sips from his beer. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“We’re not all unique snowflakes, buddy.” I pat the dinosaur’s padded shoulder.
“Aw. So our first grade teachers were lying.”
“Yep.”
“And physics?”
I move to the doorway. “Maybe our brains are like galaxies. Predictable. Or at least, our habits are.” Then I walk out, into the black of the hallway, off, I presume, to spy on my wife.
By graduation, I’ve filled out a little. Smooth skin, bright eyes. The best I never looked. Posing for photos with Rodney, of all people, in my black cap and gown. Mom isn’t dead yet. She’s there, taking the photos. We each have an arm around a girl. Mine wears a promise ring, flashes it in a photo. She stands different than Holly. Taller. I can tell this girl only smiles if she feels like it.
“We can’t even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular,” says James. “Each drip sets up the conditions for the next, the smallest variation blows prediction apart.”
I snicker. “But I could’ve predicted this. James is James is James.”
“Not this, though.” The dinosaur raises his beer bottle, as if he’s going to chuck it at James.
“When you push the numbers through the computer you can see it on the screen. The future—” James sighs heavily, “—is disorder.”
The bottle is still wielded above the dinosaur’s giant green head.
“But you don’t have a reason to,” I say. “So I know you won’t.”
The bottle shatters against the wall behind James. He ducks, wipes glass dust from his wig and shoulders. Someone pins the dinosaur against the wall. Beneath the mask, he is crying. Sobbing. Those of us in the room all exchange a glance. Somebody was going to lose it. That’s what we get for making Jell-O shots, we all say. Like it’s a frat party.
I stretch the black wig taut and there we are: our last college party. It looks like a bunch of freshmen took over. We are drunk and sentimental, carrying our graduation caps around and repeating stories of parties, professors, classes and women that changed our lives. We don’t want jobs, wives, house payments. Our girls are in the kitchen, taking Jell-O shots. Rodney is drunk and loud. His nerve disorder is acting up and he stumbles into walls and people, mostly girls. “Sorry.” He folds his body around a scared-looking blond. She doesn’t look like she belongs here. Instead of pushing him off, like all the others have, she gives him a plastic, sad smile, and lets him wrap his arm around her waist.
“Hey, Rodney.” I pull him off of her. “Susan asked for you. She’s in the kitchen.”
“Susan,” he says. He turns to the blond. “Have you met my girlfriend Susan? I think you’d like her.”
She laughs politely, touches an earring. I pat her shoulder in a brotherly way. “Why don’t you come sit down.” Rodney stumbles off and I smile. “Sorry for him. What’s your name?”
“Holly.” She lets me lead her to the couch. Still, I’m smiling, but my eyes are darting around like a caveman’s, like if anybody touches this girl, I’ll go ballistic.
Behind us, there is a sound of distress. A woman. Or is laughter? Or is it lust?
“What was that?”
“Shh.” The dinosaur points to the center of the room. “It’s James.”
“The unpredictable and the predetermined—”
“My wife.”
“Shut up, dude.” The dinosaur gestures wildly. “It’s James.”
“I have to find my wife.”
The dinosaur drops a giant hand on my shoulder. “Dude, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He sighs. “Don’t make it harder on yourself.”
The ball of hail breaks our porch light. It is dark inside the house. Our car is gone. The bedroom is empty and cold.
“The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together—”
“Hey, have you seen Holly?”
The dinosaur tilts his giant head.
“My wife?”
He throws his claws up and I wander the house, looking for Holly. I spot her in kitchen, standing bent over the fridge, probably searching for more white wine. I start to say something, but then there’s Chewbacca, watching her.
“Hey, pretty girl,” he says. She stands up, straightens her blouse, smoothes her skirt. ??
?Hello.”
“Can I make you a drink?”
She stands back, peers into the fridge. Lets him get the wine out. Oh, Holly.
“Hey, what color is your real hair?”
She touches her wig. “I like it black.”
“A black wig, I don’t know.” He steps closer. “It makes me think of black lingerie. Like, it’s meant to be removed.” And he peels it from her head. And she lets him. And I let him.
I stand up. My knees crack. For a moment, my vision goes dark, like when you get up too fast, but I find the door handle. I wad the wig up and drop it into the trash. I’ve seen enough.
She isn’t in the kitchen, in front of the open fridge. No, she already was. I enter the black hallway and begin opening bedroom doors. But how long have I been gone? Tucked away safely in the bathroom?
I walk by the den, where people congratulate James. He talks about his love of science. He talks about getting it back.
To the right is the last bedroom. The door is pulled shut. I turn back to James, who beams. My hand lingers over the bedroom doorknob. I touch it, and it is cold, and I let go and veer left. I shake James’s hand. We talk about his new life. He asks about my job and I say, yes, I still find it fulfilling.
“And the missus?”
“What?”
“Your wife, Holly. Is she here?”
“Um.”
The dinosaur pats my back.
“Congrats, James,” I say, and I back off. Toward the last room.
But by the time I get there, she is already leaving. She is alone in there, but her makeup is smeared and her costume is skewed and she is trying and failing to straighten her skirt. Something is wrong with it.
“Hey there,” I say. She gazes at me, through me.
“Ready to go?”
Her makeup is a mess and her hair is ratted and her skin is pink and she has that rash she gets on her chest when she is nervous, or sometimes with sex. I glance around, now, like a caveman. Ready to go ballistic. Ready to do what I’m supposed to.
“Simon,” she says. Her eyes are glazed. Her hands shake. She wants me to say it, first.
“Let’s go,” I say. “I got sick, in the bathroom.”