Out of the Black - Lee Doty [80]
For Pete's sake, please
'drop this zero and get with the hero'
- Happy birthday '99,
Dek
PS: No! Word to your freaking mother!
Clearly outside the joke, Ping closed the plastic case and returned it to the box in the drawer.
Ivo is across the street with Kaspari, up in the thirtieth-floor presidential suite of the hotel. They have concluded the second day of some kind of Savant confab with six of the other old ones. They'll probably be here for the rest of the week, so Dek and Roy have slipped out to get food; fuel for tonight's movie-fest. On the menu is the obligatory 'Blade Runner', but tonight they are leavening the experience with 'The Matrix' and 'Cool as Ice', a movie that always makes them laugh until they hurt. At least now Roy's stopped shaving lines in his eyebrows and haircut- that was hard to live with.
Dek endures Roy's Vanilla Ice fixation with calm determination. He's desperately hoping that this is a phase, and not a long-time tradition. For now, he laughs a lot, both with and at Roy. You'd think the centuries would make him more outwardly mature, frumpy even. Not Roy. Dek hopes he will take life as casually when he's Roy's age.
They enter the 24-hour convenience store and begin to load up with bizarre snacks. They are perhaps fifty percent loaded when a group of loud kids enter. They are big, athletic types, larger and older than Dek. Dek thinks they are probably in college, but he's not sure. It seems to Dek that the kids are play-acting for each other. Each is trying to outdo the others with their badness, or bravery, or stupidity or whatever they call their willful rudeness. Behind the counter, the clerk looks nervous. The air seems to thicken with the potential for violence.
Of course, at sixteen and full of power, Dek is feeling somewhat excited by this. He steps toward the rude college kids, intending to ask them to cool out... and just see where that leads him. He hasn't gone a step when he feels a firm hand on his shoulder.
"That wouldn't be fair, huh bro?" Roy is smiling down at him, love in his expression, as always. He's always the frustrating voice of reason. Except when it comes to music and eyebrow fashion.
"What?" Dek asks, knowing perfectly well that Roy has guessed his intentions. He smiles sheepishly when Roy's only answer is a knowing and persistent stare.
"Circus peanuts." Roy points. Why does he have such an intense love affair with the ridiculous?
"...the Retard." One of the loud kids finishes, looking right at Dek with his bad-boy grin.
Dek can't really say he's sensitive to the insult. You have to look hard now to see the telltales of his birth defects. Brightness, purpose, clarity... these the substance of his life now. Still, he'd like to step forward... just to see where this could go.
"Dek..." Roy halts him with a look. After a few seconds of silence, he continues, "At times like these, I like to think... 'what would Vanilla Ice do?' It helps to guide me."
"He'd brandish a weapon and get sued!" Dek hisses in an exasperated whisper.
"Yep... and look how happy that made him." Roy said in his best Ward Cleaver voice. "See? Does the 'Nilla not hold the key to all true wisdom?"
"You are my Yoda." Dek shakes his head in defeat.
"Don't you forget it little bro!" Roy claps him on the back and steers him toward the circus peanuts.
They are insulted three more times before they leave the store loaded with snacks, feeling better than when they arrived.
It was one of the best movie nights yet.
Ping shuffled through pictures, letters, ticket stubs, postcards from odd locales- the small keepsakes of four centuries of life. There was a black and white picture of a woman with big hair. On the lower right corner, someone had written in black ink: "You're just the cutest lil' guy, but take it easy on the java. Sweet dreams --Patsy Cline."
Ping knew Patsy: beautiful voice, impeccable timing. He was now only dimly aware of his initial purpose of looking for survival-related items. Now, he was lost in a quirky nostalgia for the life of this stranger.
He flipped through