The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
Pull Off Their Socks
11-09-1999

I have an exam in the morning, so I go with Aziz to school. He needs to take a side trip, so we park and get on bus. I spot two girls on the bus with us. They are together, and one is turned in another direction. I look in her direction for a while until she turns around. She's cute. She meets my eyes just as I avert them. I chance another glance and I meet them again.

I consider asking her out, wondering how old she is. I imagine myself walking up to her and doing so. The bus stops. The other girls starst to get off. I figure this is my chance to get alone with the one I want. But then she makes to leave, too. Then Aziz starts to exit, and since I'm with him, I follow.

It's winter and cold. We follow the same road as the two girls, and approach the same house they've entered. Apparently Aziz is taking a history class and was going to have these girls give him a sort of priming lesson.

I go back to the bus, which goes down the road and turns a corner. I'm sitting up front. I realize there's no driver, and no other passengers. I look back and see the bus driver sitting back there with his arms crossed, like it's on automatic pilot, and I should have known this. A black man in a white uniform, like the security guy on the ground floor of the med school building. I suddenly realize that I'm so far from school that I'll never make it back for my exam in time. I see a sign saying this bus is taking the "OLD 26-31 route". I somehow guess this is nowhere near where I need to be. I get off at the next stop and start walking back. Then I lament that I left my backpack on the bus, but it's gone now.

The street is completely deserted and completely white with snow. Cars are parked on the sides, one car in particular is in the middle of the street, as if blown there over night. Some scantily clad guy in a beaten leather jacket follows me, but he turns his back as if he's not paying attention every time I look at him.

I walk back to the house, which is actually more like a townhouse (but I notice is says something like "Haly Hall", as if it's a dorm building), from behind along a forest-like path. The guy in the jacket overtakes me. I somehow know he intends to mug me. Before he even reaches where his gun must be, I say, "How much you want? I've only got three bucks." He drags on a cigarette and I hand him the cash, wondering why the hell I don't just kick his ass now. He asks, "Where are your friends? Aren't they around here somewhere?" I say they aren't. I go inside.

I shout that I was just mugged. They quiet me and tell me to listen. I can hear the mugger next door, talking to his parents. They're very jovial. He makes a joke about Scooby-doo.

One of the girls is ill. A third girl comes out of nowhere, someone I supposedly know, and administers some natural healing herb stuff to both girls to make them better. They rest.

I go outside again, to the porch. I don't have my shoes on. Aziz exits the building, dressed for a religious function. The mugger has his brother with him. They're both in pajamas. The mugger says, "Take a look at this guy's ", referring to some strange weight-belt like thing Aziz is wearing. They get on both sides of him and challenge him to some sort of strange karate/wrestling fight. His brother looks over his shoulder at me as I rush to put on my shoes. I say, "Yeah that's right, as soon as I get these on I'm going to take you out!" Aziz, to my surprise, puts up his dukes and says, "Cmon then." They jump him, and he does something weird by extending his legs and arms, and they end up sprawled on the ground.

"Pull off their socks," I yell. I rip of the one guy's socks. We throw snow on them. They start crying and begging for mercy. He holds up some cash, about eight bucks. "Here, take your money back" he wimpers. I snatch it all. He protests and I silence him.

I go back to the porch and one of the girls is sitting there. "Guys have to poop," she says, as if making a reference to some socially derogatory manly characteristic. I try to explain this guy thing to that girl.

I go back inside. The cute girl is still taking up half of a silky bed. I lie down on the other half. She rolls closer. I slip off. I move around to the other side and talk to her a bit. Eventually my hand ends up on top of hers, and I'm snuggling her from behind when it's announced we have to leave.

We're all in Aziz's jeep, driving to the airport. We have to stop because the other girl has a headache and needs to stop at the store. I take the chance to move to the back of the jeep with the cute girl and talk to her. I notice for the first time that she has multiple piercings. I ask if she's ever been to Ann Arbor. She says she hasn't. I tell her she'd fit right in there. When her friend gets back, she says something to the effect that she told her wouldn't be the right place for them. She calls me her boyfriend. I roll my eyes at her friend at these words, thinking it a bit premature to call me her boyfriend when we've only known each other less than a day and haven't even kissed yet. We stop at some construction, and it takes Aziz a moment to realize the construction worker is signalling us to go around.

We split ways at the airport for a bit, and I start to complain, but Tasneem is suddenly there and reminds me that we'll meet up again at the terminal. I ask how far of a drive it is from Houston to . She says about 14 hours. But that can't be, because it only took Aziz and I a few hours to get there. We come to the conclusion that it was because of time zone changes. When I see the girl step off the moving sidewalk, I notice she has a note in her hand. I was hoping she'd give me her number, since I had nothing to write on.

I end up in a race. It's nighttime, and I'm lined up with a bunch of cars in a parking lot. I'm on my motorcycle. There's a cop ahead of us with a flag, counting down the start time. I notice my handlebars are messed up, so I tell him to wait a second while I bend them back. Then the race begins. Some other guy on a motorcycle takes off first, with me not too far behind. Just as I'm catching up, he turns left into a parking structure. I see the cop waving me in that direction, so I need to turn around and follow. Still in 2nd place. The guy ahead of me bangs into some other cyclists in the tunnel, scraping against the wall. The cop whistles after him, scolding him for being wreckless. It goes up a ramp and ends at the top of some stairs. I see a small yellow sign indicating this is the way to go, so I ride down the stairs.

At the bottom, I find myself on my feet. I'm in a mall. There's another yellow sign pointing across the hall into another store, with instructions on it. I start to read them but get bored. Something about a reed, I dunno. A couple other kids actually stop to read them while I get back into the lead.

I walk into a store. It's huge. There's an escalator going to the 2nd floor. People everywhere. I assumably know most of them as other contestants. I hear someone mention that the secret word is in the "starfox stall" or something. In the bathroom. How did people get ahead of me? I spend several minutes navigating through people, reminding myself of the old high school days of getting to lunch quickly. Some guy I supposedly know walks out of a stall, indicating that's the one to me. I go in, cutting in front of someone else. I look around but don't see the word. Finally I look in the toilet, and it's there inside the bowl, but obscured by a bunch of toilet paper. The flush handle is on the ground in front of the toilet. Some guy opens the door. I tell him, "Just a second. I just need to flush this..." I step on the handle, it flushes, and the paper washes away enough that I can see "W...CUTT". "wumpscut!" I exclaim. "I could have GUESSED *THAT*!!" I ran out of the stall and down the stairs/escalator. I didn't see any of the people I'd supposedly joined up with since I entered the store. I decided to screw them and leave, but then I saw Greg E. "The witch is over there," he said, pointing toward his ex-gf. I told him I was about to leave everyone. I spot a girl who looks kind of like Heather N at the top of the stairs. Some other girl gets into my face, telling me she just saw Heather N. I say, "No no no! I KNOW Heather, and THAT is not her. She's a girl I've seen around who LOOKS like Heather." Just then the real Heather appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Heather!" I exclaim. "That girl up there looks just like you! Well, your 10th grade self anyway. You're much cuter now, of course." Some other guy we're with says, "Eric, you're such a gentleman." We leave.

We're in a car, driving to our next destination. Greg says, "I can get you guys two bonus points." So he's helping us cheat, I think. "People stop going for the clues when the time gets short," he explains. "So they just go straight to the finish line to say they've won?" I ask.

We arrive at our new destination. Another group is still ahead of us. It's a huge forest, with savanna-like grass filling it in, and huge stone walls encasing rectangular areas that reach into the trees. The other group is huge, and they're all dressed in white safari outfits. Two men are hunched over a human brain. I hear some guy in my group ask, "What's this? Find the clue already?" I stop over by what looks like the leader. Some guys are standing in a little stream of water through the grass. At first I think snakes are moving around their feet, but it's just a visual trick that the current is playing on my eyes. The leader's croney, I forget what they called him, recognizes me and offers to trade groups with me. I say, "I don't deal well with authority figures." He walks in my direction, and I back away, making a weird face. I notice that the stream in the group was actually formed by huge truck tracks. We follow them.

Looking around this strange environment, I note how this is the kind of place I could only see in my dreams. I approach a table. It's transparent. Looking inside, I see a magnified image of ants filling in a little river of their own with dirt. I shout to the others in a nasal voice for some reason, to come look. We throw some dirt on the glass. Someone else notices that the dirt kills them when they get close to it. I wonder how I missed that observation. I see a flying ant trying to get out of the glass. I throw more dirt on the glass table.


posted by Phlegm at 11/25/2003