II. Accumulation

When David had first experienced one of the massive inputs that had now become daily brunch for his grey matter he had been both petrified and fascinated. Any teenager with a fragile self esteem and dreams of making an eventual difference might have felt the same way.

He had just finished with his freshman year in high school and was enjoying his summer like any other good little capitalist consumer in training. He spent most of this time trying to figure out whether or not he was a normal person. He wondered if he would ever have sex and with who, what he could do to make more and higher quality friends, how he could afford some new bit of high-end technology and if some of his teachers were mentally retarded instead of just cruel tyrants. He had complicated and reasonable theories applied to both.

David was an absolutely normal teenager whose problems mirrored those of everyone else his age. In short, he was unremarkable, but longed to be remembered.

On the day his life started its long spiral into the depths of madness and self-imposed hermitism, he was sitting across from his friend Ryan McDonald in a crowded Burger King. The irony of that name and their location had not been lost on David.

They had spent most of the afternoon making fun of the other patrons and their horrifying weight issues. A common theme surrounded the choice they had made to feed their hunger in a place like this, and whether they had considered the challenges of showering and visibility of their genitals prior to making that decision.

David had never felt guilt about these thoughts and conversations before that day because he had no reason to. He didn’t know anything about these livestock sized people or why they had all fallen into the same trap which kept them from being able to sit anywhere comfortably or thoroughly wash the bottoms of their feet. Ignorance truly was bliss.

“OK, man. How many burgers for this guy? I got five bucks on anything more than two.”

Ryan was destined to be a gambling addict before he was even old enough to sample the cuisine. He had subtly gestured to the hulk of a man that had just entered through the comprehensive sliding doors into the restaurant covered in colors that had they been combined, would have produced a truly horrible brown. There was no end to this gentleman.

            His entire body seemed to be stretched in the effort of storing insulation and feeding on the things around him. Much of him was not visible at all. The folds had taken possession of a good third of the skin covering him and God knew if that portion had seen daylight in the past decade. Sweat and grime lubricated any part that met others, and it honestly seemed as if every small shuffling step he took coincided with an imperceptible cardiac emergency. There were entire South American countries whose gross domestic product bulged when this man bought microwave meals and sweatpants at Wal-Mart.

“I don’t know man. He looked pretty chipper walking in here. May have just gotten done at the gym. This might be a Chicken Caesar Salad and gallon of Diet Coke kind of day. He looks like he’s been fuckin’ dieting.” David’s voice was a bit too loud, but being teenagers meant that they didn’t have to worry about these pesky details.

They both snickered. Exaggeration and sarcasm were the only languages these two spoke.

“No way in Hell.” Ryan rolled his eyes enough for the whites to show. “He’s sweating too much to be careful. That guy needs some beef.”

“Isn’t that your queue, Ry? Go and give him what he’s hungry for.”

The boy’s laughter and slaps to the plastic table suddenly filled the restaurant and the people at the troughs only looked up long enough to swallow. They all knew a version of what had been said, but most made the decision that they couldn’t quite hear the conversational insults through all the calories.

Customers who did fit naturally into the driver’s seats of their cars were not interested and only wanted to get out of this monument to slovenly behavior as quickly, and while carrying as little of the infection as possible.

The boys continued their giggling while eating their fries. Ryan and David had been good friends since the third grade because somehow their sense of humor corresponded almost perfectly. This was a requirement for two committed male friends of any age, and they were masters of never taking anything too seriously. Serious things happened to others, and therefore, were fair game.

They had gone about any time spent apart by forming new idealistic opinions coupled with snarky descriptions and rebuke of those whose actions or politics didn’t align seamlessly with theirs. They then shared their new laws and requirements when they met again. Each had a perfect set of eyes for changing the world into somewhere magical. If only all the morons and fucking imbeciles inhabiting it were separated immediately from the crust of the planet, they could start their work.

Both David and Ryan were reasonably popular and had friends across all aspects of teenage life. They had contacts imbedded with the computer nerds, jocks and of course, the drug crowd. Each member they had chosen, covertly, because they were not taking their status in their group with quite as much weight as the other devotees. David and Ryan were able to stay just outside the defining lines which concerned most others their age and quietly ridicule every labeled group member around them. It was a perfect balance that led to a lot of uproarious laughter, but virtually no contact with any girl or the body parts they stingily possessed.

This was why all the joy and merriment dropped heavily from their bodies and voices when Laurel McAndless walked into their fort made of fast food and judgment. The air escaping the large glass doors seemed a little louder, and the foreign body which entered this church of horrible priorities made its presence known quickly. 

            Both of the boys had known Laurel since back when their ages had meant that different genders’ playing together wasn’t so awkward. They all still lived in the same neighborhood and each of them could still see the other’s houses whenever in their yards without much effort even though Laurel’s was much bigger and nicely furnished. Since High School had started though, they hadn’t even lived on the same planet.

Laurel was a sitcom’s definition of the popular girl and a laugh track followed her around with anticipation and diligence. She was a cheerleader that didn’t take it too seriously, had a mother in the PTA who chaperoned dances and hosted hostile takeovers of neighborhood bake sale committees, and her father was the sort of business professional whose employment and income required him to wear uncomfortable looking clothing and drive a car that made it seem as if he was always headed to the beach. The boys often thought that if Laurel were offered three wishes from a genie, she’d ask for heaping servings of the same please, and don’t skimp on the positive attention. She seemed comfortable in her own shoes, and all of these facts made speaking to her utterly terrifying.

She had stridden in the front door seemingly full of purpose and intensity, but now that she was surrounded by the meat and sweat smell her focus seemed to waver. She looked to be trapped by all the fat floating through the air, wavering like she had accidentally wandered off of the Yellow Brick Road and onto the grungy path the flying monkeys used for their games of fecal dodge ball.

Seeing the boys sitting in the corner surrounded by a table covered with loose packaging she made a quick and steady line for them. David and Ryan cringed at the same moment with the intensity usually reserved for men at their first prostate exam, the sausage fingered Doctor trying in vain to get an extra large rubber glove to stretch into place.

Maybe she won’t see us, they both hoped. That was the only way they could escape this situation without being embarrassed and having most of their self-esteem stolen. Teenage boys felt forever stuck pretending they wanted nothing while surrounded by things they would gladly trade fingers or appendages for. This admission though, would never be spoken of within the hearing of a single human with working ear drums. So many secrets, and you only found out later in life that everyone trapped in suburbia with you sheltered the exact same enigmas during their teenage years.

David later wondered what would occur if all teens were forced to share these things in some kind of AA meeting? Made to tell each other that all their fears were similar and tasted of the same hormones. He imagined the whole building would be destroyed by all the secret anxieties’ alleviation, leaving a smoke cloud smelling of Axe body spray and splinters covered in, well, future teenagers.

Laurel slid into the booth roughly next to David and looked them over with eyes bereft of fear or blunder, trying to take them off guard. She didn’t need to try at all, but being young herself; she wouldn’t realize beautiful women always had the upper hand in a well lit area with moral males for a few more years yet.

“Have you guys seen Lisa? She told me to meet her here but I can’t find her anywhere. I figured she was out having a smoke, but there’s no one out there except creepy looking fat people.”

That was why they had chosen this place. No shortage of raw material and all the Chicken Whoppers they could eat. One day maybe they would turn into one of the large land mammals they had judged here, but somehow David doubted that. How could you rule over and make light of someone else’s pathetic choices if you had selected poorly yourself? The ability to humorously mock and judge would most likely keep them healthy looking their entire lives. That and vanity.

They tried to respond to Laurel’s questions in the way royalty would expect to be addressed, but it came out dripping with fear and nervous hormonal detractors.

“Nope, haven’t seen her. What’s up?”

The casual and overly friendly way she spoke to them showed she was out of her element. She was only looking for something familiar to ground her to the only movie that ever ran behind her eyes; one made up of calmly getting everything you wanted, needed or expected. This film starred a girl who effortlessly achieved all the deeds she hadn’t even considered setting goals for yet. These boys had no idea what language she was speaking.

“Nothing. Just running around. We’re all going camping tonight so we’re headed to Wal-Mart to pick up all the shit. I don’t really want to go, but its Lisa’s birthday so she wants to take these shrooms she’s had since Christmas and well, you know.”

She spoke so quickly that David didn’t even think of replying. He might have focused his comment or reaction on something that had come ages before during an ancient war or inquisition. That kind of thing was frowned upon when you were a male this age, and it seemed to be the only output he could produce when his mouth was open.

Ryan sat staring down at a burger wrapper and looked like he was slowly trying to twist it into a diamond. Fingers worked nervously while praying that the next thing out of his mouth wouldn’t be a joke that demeaned women or gave away any details which most embarrassed teenage boys. He was usually good at doing that sort of thing without even knowing it. 

If any female had ever wondered what it was like to go through male puberty, all they really needed to do was imagine unconsciously saying or doing the absolute worst thing in every situation that involved a person you didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of. You had to become accustomed to the taste of your own athlete’s foot.

In the awkward silence, David couldn’t help but take a peek at Laurel and whatever expanses of skin she had chosen to share with the world that day. That was when it had all started.

He had felt a disturbing and intense desire for girls for the past two years. This was normal for a boy his age, and whenever he saw something he liked, his body and mind, (mostly body) was filled with a longing that couldn’t be described or measured. Hormones were a mother fucker, but this was definitely something wholly different.

His brain instantly bulged with every tiny scrap of knowledge that had to do with Laurel McAndless. Everything. He felt invaded and trespassed against, sick to his stomach considering the unwelcome things inside his own mind.

He now knew that she had been a breech birth (and now instantly he knew what that meant), and had almost killed her mother. He knew the Doctor had flatly muttered every curse word from “fuck”, to “cunt” as he had brought her into the world. He knew that in the first grade she had wet her pants and hid in the little rolling wooden coat closet behind the other children’s outdoor gear for the whole lunch hour and beyond, just wishing and praying that the stains would dry and she wouldn’t be discovered. He could almost see the first time her father had turned to sneer at her mother with a seething lack of respect she would never forget. David knew that sometimes when she was sad she fell asleep holding an ancient music box that her grandmother had given her (it had belonged to a small woman born in Poland who had barely survived through the war.  She had sold it grudgingly when she came to this country to pay for rotten food which would eventually kill her youngest son. The woman from Poland never found out why he had died.), without ever turning it on. He knew that sometimes she wrote in pages that she would later burn or put in the garbage disposal, all the details and plans about hurting everyone who now claimed to love her. He couldn’t tell if she ever meant to go through with these though.

David struggled with all this knowledge that he had no right to have in his mind. He knew all about Laurel in extremely embarrassing positions and situations his teenaged brain hadn’t yet dreamed could be real. When compared to his own sheltered memories, they didn’t seem so bad, but these were things no one should ever know about anyone. He knew what color underwear she had on and that she had cut the inside of her thigh this morning while shaving her legs. He knew the color and dullness of the razor she used and where exactly on the tub she had placed it when she finished. He also knew that the razor was made in Thailand and the workers had included a ten year old child who had marveled at its beauty before taping up the box that would usher these fine tools to the good ol’ U.S. of A.. David cringed at the circumstances surrounding Laurel’s first bout with womanhood, those of which she had told no-one at all, not even her mother or best friends involving poor timing and white pants.

He saw Laurel’s dining room twelve days ago as her father had pulled his wife into the den to chastise her about going out late with her friends again. He heard the loud slap she received for standing up for herself and saw the posturing smiles on both of their faces after they were composed and ready to reenter the world. David knew about the mark on her mother’s face that had slowly faded from red to white, and that Laurel couldn’t stop staring at it while eating her roast beef. He knew all the lies, all the circumstances, and all the facts that even Laurel couldn’t have admitted to herself in the dark while clutching her music box. 

David’s cumulative knowledge was increased a hundred fold by just adding every instance of perception from a seventeen year old girl. Also included was everything that had happened to everything and everyone she had interacted with, so the effect was quite jarring. His mind finally reached the end of the categorization and started to make as much sense as possible of the new order to the storage locker. Suddenly it was much too finite. 

“Hey you dick, what the fuck are you doing??”

All of a sudden Laurel and the rest of reality were back in view and she looked like she would rather crawl into a windowless black van with a shaky old clown than continue sitting next to David.

He realized with too little alarm and reaction that he had hold of the length of shoulder strap on Laurel’s shirt. It was thin and soft and a shiny orange, looking as if it had never been dirty or washed. He was rubbing it methodically between his fingers and ignorantly staring at the place where hopefully her breasts would eventually grow to full size. He didn’t have the ability to move at all and the thought of pulling away couldn’t find purchase in the new expanse of knowledge within his mind.

“Dude, stop doing that!” Ryan slapped his hand away.

“You’ve been staring at her like that forever! You having a fucking seizure or something?”

David slumped down in his seat and tried to think of something to say that would alleviate all this stress and pressure. Something, anything, to get all their eyes off of him and the subject changed. For the first time he felt buried by other’s gazes. Their concern, fear, or revulsion slowly pressing down on his chest until breathing in felt like surrendering to death.

“I know your father beats your mother. I know you have on purple underwear, and like your mother, you cry when you think no one can hear you before you go to sleep. I know about the inside of your thigh. That was a decent cut and you bled a lot more than you expected. I also know about the lists you burn.”

The words had come out of his mouth strapped to a fast moving train. There was no way to stop them. He hadn’t even wanted to utter hello to this girl for fear of fucking it up. Now look at what he had done.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?!?” Laurel’s face had gone white and it looked as though something might spring from her mouth that would make all the people gorging themselves in this fast food Hell finally cease eating and chose a more respectable life path.

“Come on man.” Ryan pulled him over the table with a quick and thoughtless explosion, shuttering him quickly out the front door. David couldn’t tell where he was or who mattered as he stumbled under his friend’s direction through the parking lot tripping over curbs and spinning off of cars, his childhood ending with every new step he took. He thought something amazing had happened, but unlike all the things he now knew for certain about Laurel McAndless, his mind had not fashioned an appropriate place to store that something yet. 

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            At that point in David’s life, there were two options. He could be an ineffective superhero or a lunatic too touchy to be allowed near the normals. All of his visions of superheroes required a chiseled physique and strong jaw line. David had neither of these in abundance, and at that stage he couldn’t see one practical use for knowing every detail of a teenage girl’s life and menstrual cycle against her will. He would have to acclimate to lunatic he supposed. He wondered if his shoulders would still be disappointing and too narrow while strapped inside a straight jacket. Did they offer you different sizes when you were checked into Arkham? Were you presented with options like preshrunk or shrink to fit, and what was their policy about wire hangers?

The boys were now walking down the sidewalk towards their neighborhood and David silently and subtly shifted his course and tried to leave Ryan behind, all while being questioned and demanded of. He couldn’t be around anyone right then and had no time or energy to explain to those left trailing. He could hear Ryan yelling after him, but he couldn’t force himself to care or change his pace as he stepped quickly and firmly through an intersection. Ryan was yelling something angry about getting laid, ruined chances and embarrassment, but David just couldn’t care about things like that after what had happened at the local Burger King.

Too much had changed there in the last ten minutes. The waves of details that had burrowed their way inside his mind were now waiting patiently, sitting respectfully beside all his knowledge about his own life, his school work, and what he really enjoyed masturbating to. The simple and comfortable way it had settled up there and claimed squatter’s rights unnerved him, making him feel as if he had stolen it all through very immoral practices. He saw himself as a window lurker or pedophile that hadn’t had to go through the real work of finding the perfect tree branch while still remembering his best binoculars, or creating a false and attractive internet persona. He was a potential grifter who had stumbled on the score of a lifetime before he’d even learned how to forge a fake ID.

David picked up his pace and started taking much larger steps. Home quickly was the primary goal. He had tried in his haze to explain away what had happened with Laurel. Maybe it was a hallucination. Maybe some after effect stemming from the night last summer when he and Ryan had taken acid and slept under the massive Elm trees in the park. Maybe he cracked his back wrong and had released something monstrous yet temporary into his psyche. Unfortunately, any explanation he could muster was wholly laughable when applied to the circumstances.

His legs pumped and he failed to realize he was now running at a full clip with sweat running down his face. As his pace quickened, so shrank his attention to the surroundings and the funny little lights, signs and signals around him didn’t matter anymore. The colors and shapes that made them up had faded to gray until all he saw were his own thoughts. All he knew now were the erratic and alien facts floating aimlessly inside his skull.

Amusingly, he had never even considered that the newcomers to the life experience catalogued in his mind weren’t absolutely true. He knew they were, the same way you knew that your hands were yours and that most people you saw during your time on earth were horrible and selfish. That they were facts was a given and not to be questioned by sane people. He wondered if he would ever be welcomed into the clubhouse again by those who possessed clarity of vision. No psychic nutbags allowed.

In this frame of mind, how could he have noticed the orange light flashing twenty feet away, or the turns change in the contest that occurred between the metal boxes seemingly trapped inside the painted lines all around him? He stepped off of the curb onto the main cross street than ran the length of the property his parents had purchased before he was born and was instantly presented with a choice he hadn’t been expecting.

Young David had looked up, his eyes widening to the limits of their circumference, and considered. He could stand there shocked and deer-like while the oncoming Ryder truck separated his torso from his legs, or he could dive back onto the sidewalk and live to be confused another day. His body, in its ever self-sustaining automatic wisdom chose the second option and he found himself seconds later sitting on the hot cement, picking bits of broken glass from his bleeding hands while trying to remember what the Hell it was that he was running from. 

Next Chapter: III. Discoveries