“I paid almost thirty bucks for this and now the fries are cold?”

  I only wish I could take you by the hand through life. I only wish to be there when the real disappointments come. The ones that don’t involve a deep fat fryer. The ones that don’t involve how much ice I put in your Sprite. You never hear a stranger chasing you. You don’t even think you’re alone in the world.

  But we all are.

  * * *

  We’re all products of convenience. I don’t judge. I like potato cakes and curly fries as much as the next person. I understand you don’t have time to make dinner. I see your kids in the back seat in their football gear, in their field hockey kilts, next to their pom-poms and their baritone cases. Parades and pep rallies and high school clubs. You parents do what you can.

  Six Drive-Thru windows in a mile stretch. Maybe eight. Six pizza places, five that deliver. We’ve been ordering groceries on the Internet and getting them delivered right to our door for three years now.

  Ian works at the Weis Market and shops for other people. One time he accidentally got the wrong kind of cat litter for some woman, and she tried to get him fired because she said her cat broke out in hives. This happens more often with Ian than the other personal shoppers at Weis. Probably because Ian isn’t white.

  “Why do people care so much about stupid shit?” he asked me last week.

  “Maybe they don’t have any real problems,” I answered.

  “Everyone has problems.”

  “Everyone,” I echoed.

  “The wrong brand of yogurt—that was today’s drama.” He shakes his head. “You know Gemma’s dad? She’s taking pills and shoplifting and shit, and he’s worried about dairy?”

  “Yeah. I know. Gemma’s a client.”

  “Dairy,” he said.

  Ian is my best friend. Everyone thinks that one day we’ll get married and have babies and live a happy life. But the fact is that Ian and I are best friends. Since fourth grade. And neither of us can live a happy life. At least, not here. In this town when your mother is white and your father is black, people can only see the father’s side—that’s Ian’s reason. My reason is different and not as easy to spot at the annual block party.

  We’re both off work at eight and he wants to go to a movie but I have to go see three clients before nine. Saturday night. Everyone wants to get wasted.

  The beep sounds.

  “Hi! Welcome to Arby’s Drive-Thru. We have two new flavors of smoothies! Would you like to try a mango-and-pineapple today?”

  “Gimme a Classic meal, large.”

  “What drink would you like with that?”

  “Coffee. You got coffee?”

  “Cream and sugar with that?”

  “Black.”

  “Your total is seven oh five. Please drive to the first window.”

  “Seven bucks? Menu says it’s five fifty nine.”

  “The coffee replacement for a soft drink costs a bit extra, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Would you like a Coke instead?”

  “I want coffee.”

  “Okay, sir, drive to the first window please.”

  “No. I want coffee instead of the Coke. And I want it to cost the same thing.”

  “I’ll arrange for the manager to meet you at the first window, sir.”

  “Fine.”

  I get Len. He’s the owner and he usually doesn’t stoop to work here but the actual manager called off, and Len has to fill in for two hours. It’s impossible to pry him from the mirror behind the fry station. Every minute of his “shift” he smooths his hair and looks at it from every angle. If there is a god, I’d like to put my order in now for Len going bald before age forty, please.

  “Guy wants coffee with his meal but doesn’t want to pay for the change,” I say.

  “You told him it’s policy?”

  “He wants to talk to you,” I say.

  I stand behind him to see how he negotiates. I can’t figure it out. I’ve been doing the exact same thing for a year and it never works for me. Men are always trying to talk me into things at the Drive-Thru window. Free stuff, usually. A guy asked me if I could give him a case of straws one time. He told me that ours were his favorite straws. He said, “The ones from McDonald’s are too wide. Yours are just right.” I told him I couldn’t. He shrugged and said okay, and then he asked me for extra straws. Fifty extra. “Sorry, I can give you maybe ten.” He pouted. Only after I threw in a wad of napkins and several handfuls of condiments was he happy enough with ten.

  This guy isn’t happy about his coffee, though. Len isn’t helping. He’s coming up with solutions that don’t solve anything. He says, “I can give you a large coffee if you want.” He says, “I can pour the coffee into a regular cup.” He says, “Like iced coffee!” The guy just wants the menu to be fair to him.

  My pity is enormous. It’s bigger than a case of straws and a large iced coffee and our new mango-and-pineapple smoothie. Larger than the pile of dishes in the back sink that I’ll have to do before I leave at eight.

  In the end, the coffee guy yells at Len and Len doesn’t charge him for the coffee, and gets a large Coke for the wife so the guy doesn’t have to pay for something he didn’t get.

  When he drives away, I see his bumper stickers. One says I LOVE MY RESCUED YORKIE! The other says SUPPORT OUR POLICE!

  I get a half hour for lunch. I start with a cigarette break out by the dumpster because I started smoking again. It’s something I do twice a month—quit then start, quit then start. I have an addiction situation. I was born with it. My birth canal was coated in cravings. And now I cater to my clients who were born the same way. In third grade I said I wanted to be a pharmacist. My dreams have come true.

  I check my phone. Two texts from Ian about people who complained about him today. Three texts from clients. Coded. I need one page of chem notes. Can you bring me a large bag of cat food? How much for five more of those lollipops? An email from my mother—a forwarded email from the school automated system. The subject says Missing Assignment Report.

  I don’t need an email.

  I know I don’t do my work.

  What’s the point?

  CanIHelpYou?: What’s the Point?

  We could all be shot dead by a crazy asshole with a gun because nobody really cares about dead schoolkids. We could all be kidnapped and no one would look for us. The chances of me getting raped before I graduate college are ridiculously high. The chances of me being abused by a future partner are about 40 percent. And there’s no class about that at school.

  I ask you: What’s the fucking point?

  The point of being in school is to graduate—switch the tassel to the other side of your mortarboard and then go to a party where there’s a decent chance that at least one of your friends will attempt to drive home drunk and maybe die. Years of tying teddy bears and balloons to an electrical pole are ahead of you. That’s the point.

  You think I sound alarmist. You think I sound negative. High school isn’t about graduating or getting out but learning. Learning a lot of stuff. Preparing for college. Being involved and doing the musical because it’s fun. But you’re the same one who argues with me about coffee and curly fries, eyes wide and angry. What did your hard work and memorizing lines and songs do for you? This?

  Ian is the only one who gets it. We’re not negative. We have a lot of fun. But we already know that adults are mostly assholes who think we’re mostly assholes. Sounds dramatic to you, maybe, but at least I don’t say gimme-gimme-gimme out of one side of my mouth while dishing life advice out of the other.

  * * *

  Either way, this email from my mom means something. She forwarded it to send a message. The message is: She thinks she’s in charge. She has this bell she rings when she wants us to listen to her. It’s an actual bell. My dad sits at attention as if she hypnotized him with the bell when they got married. I fidget, usually, and in my head I add up the money I made that day selling her own Benzos to her friends.

  The bell is disgusting. You have to see it to understand it.

  I don’t want to tell you about the bell.

  It makes me think about what else lined my birth canal the day I was born into this fucked-up family.

  While I’m doing dishes, Ian texts about a white woman who lost her shit over him accidentally getting her acidophilus milk. I dry my hands off on my khakis and reply: Let’s find a way to get really messed up tonight. Okay?

  Jake & Bill eat old pie

  “Saturday nights aren’t supposed to be like this,” Jake says. He’s talking to the snake. Bill isn’t there because Bill is out with his girl.

  Jake is drunk for the twenty-ninth night in a row. Ever since Bill brought him that bottle of Southern Comfort, he’s climbed into one after the other. There’s only enough room for one there, so Bill can go out with his girl all he wants. Jake is fine. He falls asleep next to the snake’s heated tank.

  * * *

  “What’s up, fuckers?” Bill says, when he walks into the room. Jake wakes up and feels a bit sick but would never say it. Just keeps swallowing to balance his guts.

  “What time is it?” Jake asks. His tongue feels like it fell asleep in the snake tank on the hot rock.

  “It’s pie o’clock!” Bill says. He’s high and happy. Probably got laid, Jake thinks. Then he unthinks it because of the trip to New Jersey and the smell of wet leaves and pine needles and bourbon. Swallows again.

  Bill produces four pies from the factory. Apple, cherry, peach, and shoofly. He pulls a box cutter from his pocket and starts to hack away at the peach pie. The blade goes through the aluminum pie plate and stabs him in the thigh. Blood soaks through. Bill laughs. Jake laughs.

  Jake knows he has to eat a slice or else Bill will call him a pussy, so he takes the first slice of peach pie. It tastes like plastic and the crust is soggy.

  “What’s the expiration date on those?” Jake asks.

  Bill mocks in a high-pitched voice. “What’s the expiration date on those?” Bill takes a bite and chases it with milk, straight from the carton. A single white dribble runs down his chin.

  This acts as a paddle inside of Jake. It stirs. It stirs.

  Never once has Bill helped Jake throw up. This time is no different.

  CanIHelpYou?: Healthy Bacteria

  In Ian’s back pocket are three things.

  A fat quarter ounce of weed that tastes like lemon meringue pie, a baseball-card-sized vaporizer, and two tabs of pyramid gel.

  “You always said you wanted to try,” he says.

  I do. I do. I do. I move the shit like crazy, but I’ve never tried.

  We go to the park because that seems like the right place to do our first hit of acid. The place is empty in the dark aside from a few walkers-by.

  “Do you even know what acidophilus milk is?” Ian asks me.

  I say, “It sounds gross.”

  “I looked it up. It’s got healthy bacteria in it. I’m gonna try some.”

  * * *

  The shoveler is here, walking along with a snow shovel like it’s a completely normal thing to do in a public park. It’s been a warmer-than-usual February and all the snow has melted. He’s a new neighborhood crazy—everyone has heard about him and they talk because there’s nothing else to do here. I don’t know his name or anything about him. He lives in the city and carries his shovel with him everywhere, that’s all I know. I wish I knew why he walks all the way down here to be crazy. Maybe it’s safer. Mom says the city isn’t safe anymore because—just because. Her logic is faulty, so her reasons don’t matter.

  My phone dings with a text. It’s a link from my mother. A Teen Vogue article called “Here’s Exactly What to Do If You Think You’re Being Kidnapped.” She’s sent it to me six times before. This time she adds, “PLSE DON’T GO TO THE MALL.” It’s always the mall, as if that’s the worst place anyone could go. She says it’s because a friend of hers had their kid kidnapped from a mall in California. Then some girl went missing here, too. Whatever. She probably doesn’t really care. She’s just trying to control me.

  Ian says, “You okay?” after I’m lost in the article for a minute.

  “I had a dream last night about a giant owl,” I say.

  Ian’s sitting with his chin on his hand, looking at me the way he does. He seems to think I’m interesting. I have no idea why. “Giant? Like how big?”

  “When it landed and spread its wings, there were billboards inside. So probably really big.” I spread my arms as wide as they can go. “I was here. At the park.”

  We both look around the park. No giant owls.

  “What did the billboards say?”

  “They were billboards for Idaho potatoes.”

  “What time is it?” he asks.

  I check my phone. Three texts from my mother. I don’t read them. “Eight fifty.”

  “Let’s do this,” he says.

  I look around the park. There’s an older couple walking, holding hands, heading for Main Street. The shoveler is shoveling over by the fountain, his shovel bucket a centimeter off the ground, like a mime with a prop. When I turn my attention to Ian again, he’s already put the tiny piece of gel acid into his mouth and he’s handing me mine with his other hand. I take it. Look at it. A tiny green pyramid. I wonder what the billboards under the owl’s wings will say tonight.

  I put it on my tongue and let it dissolve. Ian hands me a bottle of water and I take a swig, and then I ask him for a cigarette. He lights two and hands me one. We wait. Time stretches. I can’t keep my mind focused. My mother’s texts fade into the clouds. The Drive-Thru customers fade. The missing mall-girl fades.

  * * *

  We decide to walk up and down Main Street. We trade coats in case people recognize us, as if this makes sense. It’s Saturday. (I think. Saturday, right?) Main Street is empty except for drunk adults outside our faux-British pub, smoking. I look at one woman laughing and she’s a cartoon witch and I want to ask Ian if he sees it, too, but when I look over at him, he’s staring into a streetlight, smiling.

  Main Street was probably a bad idea.

  “I’m going back to the park,” I say. I grab his hand.

  “Okay.”

  I cross the street and head for the pavilion and lie on a picnic table. Ian lies on the picnic table next to mine and we’re quiet for what feels like a half an hour. Everything is quiet. The body rushes are overwhelming—like I’m on a roller coaster but I’m lying as still as I’ve ever been.

  My phone rings and it’s my mother’s ringtone. I don’t answer it because I have nothing to say to my mother. Not now. Life is too happy here. Life is never happy with her.

  You probably think I’m some cliché kid who hates her parents. I don’t. I have reasons I don’t like to spend time with them. For one thing, they hate gay people. And Jewish people. And black people. And Mexicans. And Muslims. My mom doesn’t even know a Muslim from a Sikh. She just talks about how great it is that their god makes them wear “turbans” so she can pick them out in a crowd. She thinks this is funny.

  Shocked? I bet you aren’t. All you gimme-gimme people have met someone like my parents.

  It’s not just a passing comment or a racist quip in the hallway. My whole house is wallpapered with hate. My dinner is made with hate. My Christmas gifts are bought with hate. I started doing my own wash when I was ten just so my clothes can feel clean when everything else feels dirty.

  It’s not like they burn crosses, no. And people still do that around here. But they wouldn’t go out of their way to put the fire out.

  I’ve never known what to do about it. I can’t argue with them because they don’t listen. I can’t reason with them because you can’t reason with people like that. I wish there was a healthy bacteria—like in acidophilus milk—I could put in their food that would change them.

  I try to be the healthy bacteria.

  CanIHelpYou?: They Always Call Back

  “My parents are in there,” Ian says, pointing to the faux-British pub. “I should go see them. I bet they’re beautiful.”

  My phone is filling up with texts from clients. I can’t even read them. I couldn’t do business now anyway. Can’t even understand money. Clients can wait. They always call back.

  Ian wants to walk around the neighborhood so we do, but I make sure we avoid Main. Block by block, street by street, we look at people’s rough pre-spring lawns and flower gardens. We trip over uneven sidewalks and go single file to avoid late-night walkers. I have no sense of time. I don’t know whether Ian and I are talking to each other or whether we’ve become telepathic. I don’t hear sounds the way I usually do.

  There’s a grin plastered on my face like I love the whole world. Ian has it, too. It’s almost creepy how we can’t get rid of them. We hold hands sometimes because it explains our late-night walk to people who see us even if it’s a lie. Ian even kisses me once just because it seems like the right thing to do. Somewhere on Elm Street. I won’t find out until Monday if anyone saw it.

  “I’m inside your tunnel,” Ian says.

  “Are you?”

  “It’s scary. Everything echoes.”

  He can’t be lying because that’s a detail about my tunnel that no one else knows. Everything echoes. His mention of it makes me hear it. I listen closely to what’s echoing now. Everything is echoing now.

  “You okay?” He bends his eyebrow down.

  Ian is looking at me and I’m looking at him and his eyes are beautiful. Pupils dilated almost completely, he looks like he has black irises and I know I must look the same way and I don’t know what time it is.