his cheek against the metal coils inside his mattress, waited for the thought to float away. “Really, it’s unproductive to ruminate on that particular problem of our sister’s,” he’d told Ava on the night before he left home, by which he’d meant “It hurts.” Ossie’s need was like a fire that ate all the oxygen in a room. Her “lovesickness.”
Regarding fire and oxygen: whatever minor administrative deity in the World of Darkness’s pantheon controlled the central AC, he or she liked to keep this basement at a freezing temperature. You could hear the whir of the air conditioner deep in your sleep. Kiwi had dreams in which he crawled along the World’s hallways and subterranean pipelines until he discovered a CONTROL PANEL , labeled in buzzing gold letters; each night he reached out for it and shut off the air to the dormitory vents. Then he’d wake up under four blankets with a sense of relief, thinking that he’d switched off the indoor winter.
This is not forever
, Kiwi would think as he held his breath and plunged one of the World of Darkness latrines with the clown-nose suction cup.
You are still a genius. You are just a temporary worker
. That was the rank that Kiwi had been hired at—full-time staffers all had their high school diplomas. The HR lady had flicked her dry eyeballs over Kiwi’s body and shouted (Why so loud, madam?), “Women’s size medium!” into an intercom. “And get me a temporary ID badge.” Temporary workers, as opposed to staffers, got paid a dollar less and clockedout to take their lunch hour. Temporary workers were uninsured. This meant that if something fell on you, a flaming pretzel or one of the tinted panes from the Leviathan’s intestinal slides, you were shit out of luck.
“Why do I have to be a peon in this system?” Kiwi grumbled.
“Aww, when you get your high school diploma they’ll make you staff, Margine,” Vijay said, trying to cheer him.
“Please do not call me that.” Why were other dudes his age so averse to calling him M&M? “When I get my high school diploma I’m going to Harvard.”
“Ooh, sorry, Mrs. Mead. Goddamn. Bring me back a sweatshirt.”
But in the staff cafeteria, Kiwi’s colleagues taught him that it was unwise to self-describe as a genius here in the World. It was unwise to mention colleges, or hopes. Telling your fellow workers that you were going to Harvard was a request to have your testicles compared to honey-roasted peanuts and your status as a virgin confirmed, your virginity suddenly as radiant and evident to all as a wad of toilet paper that was stuck to your shoe, something embarrassing that you trailed through the World. The other guys went after him with such vim (another pointless word from Kiwi’s SAT box) that afterward he never mentioned college to anyone besides Vijay and Carl Jenks, whom he figured he’d need later as a reference.
Three
people had to recommend you, apparently. Yvans had already offered to write Kiwi “a two-thumbs-up letter” if Kiwi continued to cover for him, and to call his wife on Adultery Fridays and say that Yvans was going to be “in an after-hours conference” with Carl Jenks until the moon rose. Vijay said that he would sign any letter that Margaret put in front of him. That left Carl himself. Kiwi was more deferential to Carl Jenks than he’d ever been to the Chief. He tried to scrub children’s vomit from the webbing of the Tongue in a way that suggested deep reservoirs of genius. When a three-year-old Lost Soul came howling around the corner and knocked over a garbage can of Dante’s Tamales—which looked like masticated rubies and burned your bare skin—Kiwi righted it. He was monastic, scrupulous. He really hoped that Carl Jenks was keeping track of this.
Vijay Montañez, Kiwi realized, was actually an angel disguised in smelly A-necks and skunk-striped Adidas breakaway pants. Vijay was a wonderful aberration in the World of Darkness’s social universe—heseemed
Regarding fire and oxygen: whatever minor administrative deity in the World of Darkness’s pantheon controlled the central AC, he or she liked to keep this basement at a freezing temperature. You could hear the whir of the air conditioner deep in your sleep. Kiwi had dreams in which he crawled along the World’s hallways and subterranean pipelines until he discovered a CONTROL PANEL , labeled in buzzing gold letters; each night he reached out for it and shut off the air to the dormitory vents. Then he’d wake up under four blankets with a sense of relief, thinking that he’d switched off the indoor winter.
This is not forever
, Kiwi would think as he held his breath and plunged one of the World of Darkness latrines with the clown-nose suction cup.
You are still a genius. You are just a temporary worker
. That was the rank that Kiwi had been hired at—full-time staffers all had their high school diplomas. The HR lady had flicked her dry eyeballs over Kiwi’s body and shouted (Why so loud, madam?), “Women’s size medium!” into an intercom. “And get me a temporary ID badge.” Temporary workers, as opposed to staffers, got paid a dollar less and clockedout to take their lunch hour. Temporary workers were uninsured. This meant that if something fell on you, a flaming pretzel or one of the tinted panes from the Leviathan’s intestinal slides, you were shit out of luck.
“Why do I have to be a peon in this system?” Kiwi grumbled.
“Aww, when you get your high school diploma they’ll make you staff, Margine,” Vijay said, trying to cheer him.
“Please do not call me that.” Why were other dudes his age so averse to calling him M&M? “When I get my high school diploma I’m going to Harvard.”
“Ooh, sorry, Mrs. Mead. Goddamn. Bring me back a sweatshirt.”
But in the staff cafeteria, Kiwi’s colleagues taught him that it was unwise to self-describe as a genius here in the World. It was unwise to mention colleges, or hopes. Telling your fellow workers that you were going to Harvard was a request to have your testicles compared to honey-roasted peanuts and your status as a virgin confirmed, your virginity suddenly as radiant and evident to all as a wad of toilet paper that was stuck to your shoe, something embarrassing that you trailed through the World. The other guys went after him with such vim (another pointless word from Kiwi’s SAT box) that afterward he never mentioned college to anyone besides Vijay and Carl Jenks, whom he figured he’d need later as a reference.
Three
people had to recommend you, apparently. Yvans had already offered to write Kiwi “a two-thumbs-up letter” if Kiwi continued to cover for him, and to call his wife on Adultery Fridays and say that Yvans was going to be “in an after-hours conference” with Carl Jenks until the moon rose. Vijay said that he would sign any letter that Margaret put in front of him. That left Carl himself. Kiwi was more deferential to Carl Jenks than he’d ever been to the Chief. He tried to scrub children’s vomit from the webbing of the Tongue in a way that suggested deep reservoirs of genius. When a three-year-old Lost Soul came howling around the corner and knocked over a garbage can of Dante’s Tamales—which looked like masticated rubies and burned your bare skin—Kiwi righted it. He was monastic, scrupulous. He really hoped that Carl Jenks was keeping track of this.
Vijay Montañez, Kiwi realized, was actually an angel disguised in smelly A-necks and skunk-striped Adidas breakaway pants. Vijay was a wonderful aberration in the World of Darkness’s social universe—heseemed
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