Guy in Real Life Page 4

  I sigh and smile, because I’m not under my poncho anymore. I’m not at that soccer game’s tailgate extravaganza. I’m not even in my wonderful attic bedroom.

  I’m in that forest oasis, my hand on the centaur’s velvety haunches, my toes in the cool babbling stream. I sit down on its edge and let it run over my calves for a moment. Then I lie back in the grass, and the dew soaks through my dress. Soon my hair is drenched. Thunder claps somewhere far off, and the centaur is spooked, and he gallops off. The wildcat, crouched beside me and lapping up the water, stiffens, and when the lightning cracks across the sky, lighting up the forest, he bolts too. I sit up. I am soaked to the skin.

  Fry stands in front of me, holding my poncho, which he has obviously tugged from my very person. The canopy is gone; I look around and spot Mom and Dad and Hen—each shouldering a bag of food and drink—heading for the stadium entrance. They probably called my name ten times and finally gave me up for lost in a dream. It sort of happens a lot.

  Fry’s stupid grin is bigger than the whole outdoors, but with crookeder teeth. “Finally,” he says. “I thought you were dead under there.”

  I stick out my jaw and grab for my poncho, but he pulls it away. “Your family went in without you,” he says, the poncho now behind his back. “I was gallant enough to wait, though.”

  “I’m thrilled,” I say, crossing my arms, mostly because I’m freezing my stupid, narcoleptic butt off. “Just give me the poncho, please, so I can catch up with them.”

  “Not so fast,” Fry says. He looks at me, hard, as he taps his chin with a crooked index finger, diabolical. “If you want your poncho back, you have to make me a promise first.”

  “Well?” I say.

  “Tuesday, in school,” he said, bringing the poncho out from behind his back, “have lunch with me.”

  I clench my teeth, grab the poncho with my left hand, and suddenly he’s a boy in black. I mean, not literally, but all my anger at that rude drunk jerk just surges into my right arm. So I punch Fry in the stomach. Then I stomp across the puddling short grass around the parking lot toward the ticket collector, listening to him groan, no doubt on his knees in the mud, behind me.

  I’ll spend the next two and change hours in the back row of the bleachers—in the crazies section—with my poncho over my head and a plastic tray of nachos congealing on my knees, feeling like the biggest rhymes-with-witch in Mean Town.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  …………………………………………………………

  CHAPTER 7

  LESH TUNGSTEN

 

  I wasn’t going anywhere anyway, most likely. I mean, it’s Sunday night. Who goes out on Sunday night anyway? Sure, tomorrow is Labor Day, and the next day is the first of school, so ideally I should be doing something, as a last hurrah for summer.

  Okay, fine. This blows.

  I’m in my room, lying on my back on my bed, staring at the flickering light fixture in the middle of the ceiling and ignoring the incessant bong! of Greg trying to get my attention in chat. But I know what he wants, and my feet are cold—like, shivering, like a groom’s get. I know exactly what I’m in for when I get up and reply to Greg and enter his pixelated world. And I know I’m grounded until the stars fall from the sky. Those two things add up to a lot of time with Greg, in his world. The good news is Mom did talk to Dad, and rather than a forever grounding, I’ve got two weeks.

  I sigh. I sigh again. I pick up the old copy of Metal Hammer on the nightstand. It’s got Lamb of God on the cover. I’ve read every word in this thing probably five times each, so I toss it aside, sigh again, and roll to my feet.

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  My cell is vibrating on the desk, next to my computer, so I slide into the desk chair and hit the speaker. “What.”

  “Log in,” Greg says. He’s probably slipping on his gaming headset, leaning over his gaming keyboard, and stroking his gaming mouse. “Let’s get you started.”

  So I do. The fact is, he’s right. I’m stuck here, in this bedroom, really, for the next several lifetimes. If the best escape I can get is into a magical wonderland of spells and demons and elves with great bouncing bosoms, things could be worse.

  “All right, I’m in,” I say, staring at a green muscular giant, gaping at me, breathing heavily, and holding a big ax. He is, bar none, the ugliest humanoid I’ve ever seen.

  “That’s an orc,” Greg explains.

  “I can read.”

  “Good job!” he says, thick with sarcasm. This is Greg’s territory, you see, and when you’re in Greg’s territory you get the worst kind of Greg: know-it-all, intellectual bully, all-around unbearable Greg. This is why we don’t traditionally game together. But nobody ever said being grounded would be easy. I persevere.

  “Okay, now choose warrior,” he says, and waits for me to find the place to click, which eventually I do. “Then pick a name.”

  “Wait, a warrior?” I say, looking at the ax man again, ugly and mean and probably smelly. When they invent games in smell 3D—or whatever—I predict anything with orcs in it will suffer a severe loss in market share. “I don’t want to be a warrior. I want to cast spells, raise the dead, bring the fury of hellfire down from above. You know, warlock stuff.”

  I click on the warlock now, and though the orc dude is still the ugliest living thing in God’s creation, he’s now wearing a dress and has a little imp next to him, tossing fireballs.

  Greg laughs—gives me a short “Ha-ha!” like Nelson from The Simpsons. “You can’t handle a warlock, Tung.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated,” he says. “But the short version is: you’re a noob. Noobs roll warriors. In fact, noobs usually roll human warriors, but luckily I’m here to make sure you don’t roll a human.”

  “What’s wrong with a human?”

  “First of all,” he says, sighing, “they’re boring. Second, wrong faction. They’re the good guys. Boring, nice, clean, and gay.”

  “Gay?”

  “Gay.” Greg clears his throat. I can hear his fingers sometimes slapping at his keyboard over there. He’s probably already in the game, playing one of his über-leveled toons while I pitter away my time on the character-creation screen. “So did you pick a name yet?”

  “Oh, right,” I say, and click into the little name box. The cursor flashes, waiting for inspiration to strike.

  “Don’t overthink it,” Greg says. “You’ll just come up with something gay.”

  “Lesh,” I say, and I type it in.

  “Taken,” Greg says.

  “How do you know?” I ask just as the alert comes back: Name Unavailable.

  “Dude, anything remotely like a real word or name is taken,” Greg says, “and there are serious Deadheads who play this game. Hence, Lesh is taken.”

  I should explain. I was named for the bassist of the Grateful Dead. Phil Lesh. It’s a weird name, yes, but I’m glad I wasn’t burdened with Phil instead. Phil Tungsten sounds like someone’s weird uncle, who maybe works as a postal clerk and collects Civil War miniatures. Lesh Tungsten, though, sounds like the lead guitarist of a death metal band, and that’s all right by me.

  “Tungsten,” I try.

  “Taken,” Greg says, and again he’s right, which is getting old already. A whole grounding in this magical world with know-it-all Greg Deel is sounding worse all the time.

  “What would you suggest?” I ask.

  “Just let it randomize for you.”

  I click the appropriate button and am offered a name.

  “Kugnar?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Greg says, letting his im
patience come through as loud and clear as possible. “Just freaking start, loser.”

  “I did,” I say. I watch the screen and click up the volume a little. A quasi-British narrator speaks over sweeping footage of a clay-red landscape. “It’s a movie.”

  “Hit escape,” Greg says, “and skip it, unless you’re a dork.”

  I roll my eyes and watch the short cut scene. The narrator explains the orcs’ history, and soon the point of view dives to eye level. Now I’m in control of the newest member of the orc army: Kugnar the warrior.

  “See the guy in front of you?”

  “The one with the exclamation point on his head?”

  “That’s the one,” Greg says. “Go talk to him.”

  “Um,” I say, scanning the keyboard, as though the directional keys will glow or something and tell me how to use them. I shake the mouse, and the cursor flies back and forth on the screen. I click on the guy with the golden bang on his head. Nothing happens. “How?”

  “Lord,” Greg says. “Let’s start with basics. Form your left hand into a claw and hover it over W, A, S, and D.”

  I obey, and Greg goes on to explain how to move, how to interact, and how to attack something or pick something up.

  “So, you getting the hang of it?” Greg asks after a few minutes.

  “Easy,” I say, and then I don’t say, And this is what you do for hours at a time? I don’t get it. At all. But it’s not even eight, and I’m definitely not showing my face downstairs tonight. So fine. I’ll crawl into this disgusting monster’s skin for a while and see how it feels.

  “I’ll leave you to it then,” Greg says. “I have a guild raid in like five minutes.”

  “Peace,” I say, and hang up.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  …………………………………………………………

  CHAPTER 8

  KUGNAR

 

  Meat. Blood, thunder, and meat.

  The sky fire is low and hot, and the ground is dry and orange. Dust fills the air and stings his eyes and his lungs. He grunts and tests the weight of his ax. It is a good day to die.

  “I am Kugnar!” he shouts.

  The orc before him nods gravely. He rambles on about honor and blood and thunder and the great orc god. Kugnar is sweating profusely now. He grunts loud and kicks the earth with his heavily shod foot.

  The orc before him flexes. His leathery skin ripples under the low sun. “Kill six pigs,” he says. “I will give you some new boots.”

  Kugnar raises his ax and lets loose a deafening guttural battle cry. He runs off, just a few loping steps from the village, and then stops. In every direction—besides behind him, where the huts and leather tents of the village squat around the great brazier at the center—the landscape is the same: a dusty, red-rock field, leading to a great mountain range in the long distance. Here and there, Kugnar sees something move, but as he tries to catch it with his eye, it vanishes into the waves of heat off the parched ground.

  “Where are the pigs?” he shouts. No one replies.

  “WHERE ARE THE PIGS?!” he shouts again, louder this time, in all caps and everything. He waits. Again, there is no reply.

  Kugnar grunts. This time the sound from the back of his throat has an irritated air, and he runs farther from the village. His boots slam the earth as he jogs. His shoulders and hips rock and twist. He is not the picture of grace. He is the picture of fearsome death come to town.

  “A pig!” he says. “Smash pig!”

  Kugnar raises his ax and brings it down. He misses, even though the pig did not move. Perhaps he needs more practice. Now, though, the pig is angry, and it turns to face him. Though it is small, and its tusks hardly appear a match for Kugnar’s mighty ax, the pig is a worthy opponent. Kugnar withstands a terrible strike—presumably to his ankle or maybe knee—and his health begins to falter. As quickly as he can, he raises his ax once more. This time the strike is a powerful one. The pig limps briefly and attacks again.

  Kugnar is thrown back. He is bleeding badly now. With a great shout, he raises his ax one last time and, with a flourish and a spin, brings it down on the pig’s already bloody head. The beast lets out a plaintive wail, and it falls to the dusty ground, dead. Kugnar catches his breath as he gropes the decimated corpse. He takes the pig’s tusks and a good chunk of pig meat.

  It is a good day to kill, as well.

  “I have killed many pigs this day,” Kugnar says, standing once again before the quest-giver in the center of the village. His gear is battered. His knees and ankles are badly bruised and bloody. His small bag is bulging with pig meat.

  The quest-giver, seated cross-legged before the brazier, hands the young warrior a pair of boots and then nods slowly, and Kugnar is overcome with light and honor. He swells with pride and flexes his great and muscular chest, for he has reached level two.

  “Only forty-eight to go,” says a voice near Kugnar’s head, and he grunts.

  Kugnar stands beside the raging fire in the center of the village. His quest log is weakly populated: he must kill several humans and collect several pieces of fruit. The great warrior—swollen of chest and pride—sighs. Other new orcs—some warriors, some warlocks—are nearby, and they move quickly in and out of his field of vision. There is great purpose in their bearing, or sometimes there is great jumping up and down and spinning in circles.

  Kugnar watches the other orcs, but he cannot speak to them unless they speak first to him; his is a trial account. So alone, he jogs afield of the village once again and raises his ax, for the human scouts will not be tolerated, and their end will be bloody. None presents a greater challenge than the tame little piggies, and soon a great many human corpses litter the landscape. Kugnar growls and glows with pride as he hits level three.

  But he is not satisfied, and he slaughters now without thought, without remorse, and without reason. Human scouts, despite valiant effort, are no match. His ax is bloody, and his head is light with the intoxicating smell of death. There is great honor today in the fields around his village. Level four.

  As the rush and light of honor flood his body, and then recede, his great shoulders sag. He sighs—it sounds like a wild boar exhaling through a pile of its own feces—and plods back to the village for his rewards. They are insignificant. He feels no sense of honor, nor of accomplishment at their receipt. He turns and faces the human—the one who controls him—and intones, “Bored now.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  …………………………………………………………

  CHAPTER 9

  LESH TUNGSTEN

 

  I lean back in my chair to stretch. The crick in my neck is a surprise, and when I check the time, it’s a surprise too. I’ve been playing this game for almost an hour.

  “How the hell … ?” I mutter to no one in particular. Then I tab out—that is, hit Alt-Tab to switch to a different program—and find Greg in chat.

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  Greg loves the owl faces.

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  # # #

  I tab back over, and there’s my big dumb orc, sitting in the middle of the little orc village, level four, halfway to five, and I just don’t care. I have no empathy for this green monstrosity, no affection. I have no desire to navigate through this hellish environment for his sake.

  I log out and click “Create New Character.” Maybe I can try some other race—that’s what they call the different species you can play. Maybe species isn’t the right word, though. And now I’m wondering if they can breed, because isn’t that one way of defining species—so
mething that can breed and create fertile offspring? And that’s what I’m thinking about—fertility and breeding—when I click over to the elf race. Suddenly breeding among these pixelated characters doesn’t sound so strange.

  She’s staring at me, with glowing, silver eyes. She smiles, and bounces on her toes, so her breasts bounce too. It’s not unappealing. It’s in fact tingly. I’m a little uncomfortable. I begin to randomize her appearance now—a feature I hadn’t bothered trying with the foul-smelling (I’m sure) orc—and her hair goes short, then very long, then green, then purple. Her face comes alive with bright tattoos of leaves and hawks and butterflies and then, most perfect, no tattoo at all. My heart races, my head goes light, as I watch her change on the display, coming closer to something familiar, something magical. Her hair is very long now, and one more click, and it’s shimmering and silvery white.

  My breath catches in my throat, because this is her.

  I’ll grant you, it’s not her. This is an elf, and as such seven feet tall (to scale) and with ears that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Mr. Spock wannabe at a Star Trek convention. Also: voluptuous—like, 1950s Hollywood voluptuous. Betty and Marilyn.

  But to me, it’s her. It’s the girl on the bike—and off the bike, on the street, glaring at me and remounting to ride off into the night. I wonder if the big light in the Super USA parking lot shined a magical white light over her blond hair and alabaster skin, because something other than the vodka was messing with my brain last night.