Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 01:59:01 -0400
From: EleCivil <elecivil@gmail.com>
Subject: Laika - Chapter 5

Intro/Disclaimer:

The following story should not be read by (1) people too young to read it
or (2) people too easilly offended to enjoy it.  All characters and events
are fictional, and any simularities to persons living or dead is entirely
coincidental and unintentional.

Once again, thanks to Nifty.org and AwesomeDude.com for hosting this.
AwesomeDude gets chapters first, and is usually about 2 chapters ahead.
Also, major thanks to everybody who wrote to let me know that you're
reading the story.

Anyway, you're probably skipping through this so that you can get to the
next chapter of the story, so I won't hold you up any longer.


---------------------
Laika by EleCivil (EleCivil@gmail.com)
Chapter Five:  Canine
---------------------


Once winter break hit, it felt like I had accidentally stepped into a
wormhole that caused time to speed up.  Vacation days always go faster than
school days, but I knew that by the end of this particular break, Mark
would be leaving, and I was feeling anxious about that.  Whenever there's
something in the future that you're not looking forward to, time speeds up
even more.  On top of that, the days were getting a lot shorter, thanks to
whatever cosmic jerk had decided that we didn't really need all that much
sunlight in the winter.

The vacation-speed, anxiety-speed, and quickly setting sun had swirled
together into something the meth-heads at school could only dream about.
As with most school vacations, Mark and I spent most of the days working at
Mom and Dad's restaurant, bussing tables and washing dishes.  Somehow, not
even grunt work could slow things down.  I'd wake up, close my eyes for
maybe two seconds to get my head calibrated, and when I opened them, I'd be
washing dishes.  I'd step outside to shovel snow or get the mail, and it
would be night.  I made the mistake of trying to read a book, but by the
time I had finished, three more days had passed.

The only thing holding time together for me was Christmas.  I was
reasonably sure that it would fall on the twenty-fifth, and I used it as an
anchor.  I would wake up and think, "Uh-oh, is vacation over?  Do I have to
go to school now?  Is Mark gone?", but then I'd remember: "No, it's not
even Christmas yet."  It was a good system.  At least, until Christmas.

I woke up Christmas morning with a cold, sinking feeling in my chest.  Or
rather, on my chest.  In keeping with a yearly tradition, Mark had snuck
into my room and slid a snowball under my covers to wake me up.  I grabbed
for it, but as usual, the combination of blankets and body heat had reduced
it to little more than a puddle on my chest.  This particular ritual dated
back to when Mark still believed in Santa Claus.  He would refrain from
hitting me with snowballs for all of winter break, to keep on the "nice
kid" list, but on Christmas morning, the loot was under the tree, and he
could do things like this without fear of stockings full of coal.
Personally, I think coal - being flammable - would have been a bad choice,
anyway.  I'd much rather wake up wet than aflame.

Once I was dried off and dressed, I went out to the living room, where Mom,
Dad, and Mark were watching TV.  Even before I entered the room, I could
hear the unmistakable shouting of Reverend Brimstone Patton's Christmas
sermon, before it was changed to the local news.  Nick was probably stuck
there in the first row of First Baptist Church right now, listening to his
dad, who sounded just as angry on Christmas as he did every other day he
was on TV.  It occurred to me that, most likely, no one had stuck a
snowball into Nick's sheets this morning.

"Back from the dead?"  Mom asked, seeing me emerge from the hall.

"I didn't sleep that long."  I looked at the clock.  Quarter after eleven.
"Oh.  That is pretty late, huh?"

"Would've been up a lot sooner if they hadn't stopped me."  Mark muttered.

"We caught him carrying snow inside at eight this morning," Dad said.  "But
we made him wait.  Consider those extra three hours a Christmas present."

"Come on."  Mark sprang up and walked to his room, motioning for me to
follow.

Our Christmas tradition has always been to give gifts in private, rather
than circling around the tree to open them all at once.  It was Mom's idea,
something that her family had done.  She said it was to remove any thoughts
of competition and any insecurity about giving personal things.  I
preferred not to think about what kinds of "personal things" Mom and Dad
gave each other, and was more than happy to have them do it in private.

Mark handed me a box wrapped in newspaper - the comics section, of course -
and wished me a happy non-denominational period of winter celebration.  And
then he snickered at the word "period."  Another Christmas tradition,
dating back to his seventh grade year, when he was introduced to both sex
ed and multiculturalism.

I unwrapped it to find a pre-paid cell phone - a nice, barebones model that
was perfect for someone that doesn't talk too often, like me.

"Now you've got to keep in touch when I leave."  He said.  It was the first
time either of us had mentioned his leaving out loud since the first day it
was brought up.  "No excuse for not calling me."

"I will.  Thanks."  This brought whole new levels of reality to it.  In not
too much time, I'd be talking to him through this phone, and that was it.
"Thank you."

"You're not getting all goofy on me, are you?"

I smiled, despite the conflicting feelings.  "Me, goofy?  Never.  Wait
right here."  It took me a few seconds to run to my room and return with
Mark's present.

He unwrapped it to find a hardback copy of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte
Simmons - his book about a small-town kid going off to college.  He had
been hinting about wanting to read it even before he told me he was
leaving.

"Hey, thanks, Bran."

 "I hear it's really realistic.  Apparently, he went around doing years of
research, and he found out that college kids drink too much and say 'fuck'
a whole lot.  Who would've guessed?"

"So...it's like high school, but I don't get to come home afterwards?
Damn.  I mean, 'fuck.'"  He was joking, but I could tell that he was
nervous about leaving.  Really nervous.  That was the first time I really
and truly realized that it was probably bothering him way more than it was
bothering me.  I guess, in my mind, I'd never imagined Mark as getting
nervous about anything.  He always seemed to laugh off everything that
halfway troubled him.  He was never hesitant to jump his bike off of
something, pick up a spider, cut though a strange yard, ask out a girl -
but now, I had to face the idea that maybe nobody was fearless, and that
was scary.

The rest of the day ran smoothly - it was one of the days where I didn't
have to go to school or work at the restaurant, so I didn't really know
what to do with myself.  I gave Mom and Dad their presents, and they gave
me mine - an enrollment in driving school and a promise to take me to get
my learner's permit as soon as Winter Break was over.  With all the other
things I'd been thinking about, driving had slipped my mind, but now it was
on the forefront.  Even if it meant that I'd be the official errand boy of
the family, always being sent to "pick up a few things," that seemed like a
small price to pay in exchange for mobility.

As soon as it had come, it was over, and the rest of the vacation days as
well.  I washed dishes, hung out with Dixie, spent some time with Mark, and
generally tried my best to relax.  Not sure if you've picked up on it, but
I'm usually a fairly high-strung kind of person.  In the end, like all
vacations, it was fun, but way too short.

---------------------

It wasn't raining the day Mark left.  I wish it had been raining, because
rain makes everything seem more dramatic.  That day was nothing but cold,
grey stillness.  It felt like it was going to rain and looked like it was
going to rain, but it didn't rain.  You could almost feel the rain,
perching there on the edge of the clouds, big black buzzards of moisture
just waiting to dive at you, but something held them back.  I guess it was
for the best, since we had to take a bunch of his stuff from his room to
his car, and it didn't get all wet.  Still, I wish it had rained.

With all of us helping, we got Mark's car loaded up quickly.  That left us
all standing outside.  Dad, doing last minute checks on the car.  Mom,
tearing up and telling Mark how much she'll miss him.  Me, standing with my
hands in my pockets, not sure how to act.

Mark hugged Mom and Dad, which took quite some time thanks to Mom's
tentacle-grip.  Then he came to me.  It was awkward at first.  I'm not a
huggy type of guy.  Usually, shaking hands is enough to make me
uncomfortable.

He saw right through me, as always, and initiated it.  He pulled me into
one of those quick, one-armed "Care about ya and everything, but I'm still
a man" hugs.  I felt my eyes stinging, and blinked hard.  I wanted to say
something, to shout to him, "Hey, I'm scared and confused and I'm not sure
who I am or what I'm doing, help me!" but it wasn't happening.

He pressed something into my hand before he got in his car and drove off.
It was a pair of socks.  Well, not a 'pair,' exactly, but there were two of
them.  One was an ordinary grey work sock, and the other was a red and
white candy striped sock that would make my one ankle look not unlike a
barber pole.

---------------------

It was the first Friday of the second semester when I found myself looking
at other people.  I realized that I'd never really done that before.  I
mean, sure, I'd seen them out of the corner of my eye and even talked to
some of them face-to-face before, but I had never taken the time to really
look at anyone.

Since Mark had left, the Weasel had made a grand re-appearance.  It seemed
like my brain, in all its analytical glory, could only really deal with one
major concern at a time.  As long as my brother's leaving was still at the
top of the list, the 'am-I-or-aren't-I?' thoughts were all pushed to the
back of my mental warehouse, sealed in a crate with the words "HOMO: Y/N?"
stamped on the side.  That day, though, it was pried wide open.

It was quite the revelation.  I started by looking at the girls.  Seemed
like a good place to start.  I would see a girl and think, "Oh, she's
attractive," but the thought of she and I kissing (or more) did nothing for
me.  It was one of those sinking-feeling moments that the Weasel seemed to
thrive on.

It took until last period for me to work up the courage to take a look at
some of the guys.  It took less than five minutes to realize that - if I
was going to be honest with myself - yeah, I was probably gay.  Those
thoughts that had no effect when directed toward girls?  They had a
definite effect when directed toward the other gender.  I felt an intense
guilt about it at first, using people I barely even talked to as tools of
self-examination, but that was quickly replaced with something even deeper:
fear.

I had been checking out guys.  Now, I knew Michigan was a "blue state" and
everything, but that didn't mean much when it came to high school.  This
was a building filled with raging chemical imbalances, constant
insecurities, clashing social groups, and in some cases, deep resentment at
even having to be there.  Kind of like a prison, except we didn't have an
exercise yard or the slick neon uniforms.  My method of survival had always
been to stay under the radar by having nothing about me stand out.
Somebody starts spreading it around that Brandon Collier stares at the boys
all day, and all of a sudden, I'm a household name.  Low-key, that was how
I was going to play it.  It wasn't like I didn't have any practice staying
hidden.  It was just that now, there was something worth hiding.

After school, in keeping with my plan of hiding, I immediately thought of
who I could tell.  Dixie, of course, since I had pre-emptively come out to
her already.  Mark would be fine with it - hell, he'd probably think it was
about time that I started doing something abnormal.  As for Mom and Dad,
their views were made clear in our first major sex-talk.  It went something
like this:

Dad had seated us in Mark's room and said, in classiest attempt at
euphemism possible, "I don't care where you want to put it; I don't want to
catch you putting it anywhere as long as you're living here.  And if you do
put it somewhere - no matter where that may be - use protection."

Mark, eleven years old at the time, had slowly reached under the bed and
produced a bike helmet.  Dad sighed, realized that he'd have to spell it
out further, mumbled uncomfortably for a few seconds, and recruited Mom to
come clear things up.  I remembered thinking that maybe he hadn't done it
before, and that's why he couldn't explain it.  That Mom must have been an
expert where he was a novice.

She had breached the topic then, basically giving us an "everyone is
different and special and no matter what happens we'll always et cetera"
speech along with the standard birds, bees, flowers, love, and such.
Actually, looking back on it, I'm pretty sure they thought that Mark was
gay, and were trying to make sure that he knew it was okay with them.  And
now it turns out that he was just weird, and I was the gay one.  Well, they
were close.

I took out the cell phone Mark had given me and turned it on.  The only
numbers saved on it were Mark's, Dixie's, and Mom and Dad's work number.  I
decided I didn't really want to tell my parents just yet.  Even if I knew
they would support me, coming out is pretty much saying "Hey, I've decided
who I want to have sex with!", and that wasn't a conversation I was dying
to have with them.  Instead, I tried Mark's number, getting only his
voicemail.

"This is Mark.  You can leave a message, but I probably won't get it, since
my plan charges for opening voicemails, and I'm broke."  It beeped, and I
left a quick message telling him to call me back if he ever scraped
together the fifty cents he needed to hear it.

I figured maybe it was for the best, anyway.  No need to tell him over the
phone.  I could wait until he came back for spring break or summer break or
whatever.  Next, I tried Dixie's number.  Another voicemail service, but
this time the impersonal drone of a pre-recorded default message.  I didn't
bother to leave her a message, since I saw her all the time, anyway.

That left me alone at home with nothing to do, and my thoughts started to
drift.  It had been weeks since I had given Nick my number, but he hadn't
called.  Maybe I'd been reading too much into it.  Not that I'd been
reading into it - rather, I'd been constantly telling myself to avoid doing
just that - but I thought that he'd had fun when we hung out, and would
want to do it again.  I did.  No insidious intentions here.  Whether or not
he was fun to stare at, I just wanted a friend.

For the first time in a long time, I was lonely.  The house was empty.  I'd
never been especially social, but now it was clear just how few friends I
had.  Dixie, of course, and Mark if you can count family members...but
other than that, no one.  It was a funny feeling, and I didn't like it.

I was riding a burst of jittery self-discovery, and felt like getting out
and doing something.  Problem was, with Mark gone and Dixie busy, that
didn't leave anyone to get out and do something with me.

That's when I thought of that encounter I'd had after the Cursives meeting.
The guy with the pins and patches, who told me to give him a call if I was
interested in checking out his band.  Something that I would usually never
think of doing, but things were different.  I was different, I was sure of
it.  I was different, and I was alone, and I was going to do something
about it.

I found the slip of paper he had given me still stuffed in one of my inside
coat pockets.  For at least five minutes, I stared at it.  It had been
weeks since I had bumped into this guy.  He probably didn't even remember
me.  What was I supposed to say?

I knew that if I thought about it any more, I wouldn't do it.  I punched
the number into my cell as quick as I could.  Now there was no turning
back.  It was ringing, and chances are, he had caller ID, so I couldn't
just hang up.  In a way, I was glad, because it forced me to go through
with it.

"Hi-ho.  Corey's phone, Alex speaking."

"Uh...hi.  Is Corey there?"

"Yeah, but he's driving.  I don't trust his driving skills enough to let
him talk and drive at the same time."  I heard something being yelled in
the background.  "Alright, we just hit a red light, so I'll let him talk."
The phone was passed off, and another voice came through.

"Hey, who's this?"

"Brandon.  You asked me before if I might want to write some lyrics or
something..."

"Ohhh, writer-dude!  Yeah, yeah.  What's up?  You up for it?"

"Yeah."  I agreed before actually thinking about it.

"We were just on our way to practice.  You want to come?  See how we sound,
see what you'd have to work with?"  I heard the sharp blast of a car horn
in the distance.  "Oh shit, green light.  Hang on, talk to Alex for a
while."

The phone was passed again, and Alex's voice came back on.

"So, you're the writer-dude?  Cor mentioned talking to you, but we didn't
know if you'd ever call."  I heard Corey say something in the background.
"He wants to know if we should pick you up."

"Sure.  Oh, but I'd have to get back in a couple hours."

"Hang on."  Some more muted conversation between the driver and passenger.
"He can give you a ride back at around six.  Sound cool?"

"Yeah.  Yeah, sounds good."  Mom and Dad would probably beat me home, so
I'd have to leave a note, but considering my record, I didn't think six was
unreasonable at all.

"All right.  Now...where are you?"

I looked around.  "Home."

I could practically hear his eyes roll.  "Okay.  But we need directions to
where your home is if we're going to pick you up."

"Oh, right."  I called up my mental map of Curson and gave them directions
from there, along with my number in case they got lost on the way.

Once I was off the phone, I paced around for a while, checking the mirror
every now and then.  Not in a narcissistic way, but in an "I hope I don't
look like as big of a geek as I think I do" way.  Eventually, just to stop
myself from doing that, I did some homework.  That's right - to alleviate
my feelings of geekishness, I did algebra problems on a Friday.
Surprisingly enough, it worked.  The next thing I knew, I saw a small car
pull into the driveway - a puke-green coupe with grey stripes down the
sides.  I grabbed my coat and headed out.

The passenger side door popped open when I approached.  Corey leaned over
and called "Our stuff's in the back seat.  You're going to have to sit on
Alex's lap."

The guy I assumed to be Alex punched him in the shoulder and stepped out.
I tried to keep my base chemical urges under control.  Of all the days I
had to pick to start looking at people, it had to be the day I saw him.

He was only a little taller than me, with straight blond hair that got
caught in the wind as soon as he stepped out from the car's shelter.  He
was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt with a logo I didn't recognize.
Conservative compared to Corey's safety pins and patches, but he might as
well have been wearing a flashing neon sign as far as my eyes were
concerned.  I had to physically pull them away from his soft, wind-swept
features before things started getting obvious.  A strange thought hit me,
and a small voice in the back of my head asked whether it was possible to
impregnate someone using only one's eyes and force of will.  Don't spend
too much time pondering that, because I didn't.

Alex pushed down the seat and climbed into the back, re-arranging things as
he went.  He then pulled the seat back into position, leaving it open for
me.

"You coming?"  Corey asked.

I climbed in, closing the door behind me, and we took off.

"I should probably warn you," He said, "Not everybody wants to have an
outside writer.  Our guitarist, Sarah, actually thinks that she can write.
She can't, and everyone else knows it, but if she gives you some
passive-aggressive shit once we get in there, that's why."

I nodded.

"So, what do you listen to?"  Alex asked from the back.

"Uh...not too much, really.  I never really got into music."

Corey grinned.  "Virgin ears.  We get to break him in."

"So...what kind of music do you guys play?"

"Post-hardcore anarch-emo with some heavy oi and crust influences," Corey
said, "Kind of like Reagan Youth meets Vincent Price's Orphan-Powered Death
Machine."

"...Oh."  I paused, then turned around to Alex, my blank expression
apparent.  "What'd he say?"

 "Short answer, punk.  We play punk.  Badly." He said, then raised his
voice slightly.  "But it's all our drummer's fault.  I don't know what's
wrong with that guy."

Corey hoisted a finger in the direction of the back seat.  The rest of the
trip was filled with small talk - I found out that Alex had just turned
sixteen, and didn't go to school.  Corey was eighteen, and graduating in
June.  Eventually, we pulled up to a small house.  Corey parked on the
front lawn, since the driveway was already occupied.

I followed them inside.  The living room was mostly empty - there was one
couch, a few crates, and a stack of garbage bags.  They led me through a
hall and down a set of stairs into the basement.  The amount of stuff in
the basement more than made up for the Spartan living room.  There were two
couches, a couple of recliners, and a table set up on one side of the room,
facing a TV set.  None of it matched, of course, and most looked like it
had been scavenged from a dump, but it was still cool.  On the other side
were a complete drum kit, a bunch of amps, some guitar cases, and two vocal
mics, along with some other equipment I didn't recognize.

A slightly older looking guy, maybe twenty-one or so, was lying on one of
the couches.  A girl who looked the same age as him was sitting in a
recliner.  They both had long, black hair, and if it wasn't for the girl
having breasts, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.  They looked
over as we entered.

"Who's the kid?"  The guy stood up and turned to Corey.  "I'm not running a
daycare, man."

"Our new lyricist."  He said.

"You got a fuckin' thirteen year old to write for us?"  The girl said,
standing up as well.

"He's not thirteen.  He's..."  Corey looked back at me.  "Uh..."

"Fifteen."  I said.

"Ooohhh, fifteen.  That's a huge difference."  She put on an awed
expression.  "Why, I bet this one can even do long division."

"All right, here's the deal."  The older guy said.  "Anybody asks, you're
sixteen.  And you don't get to drink anything but water."

I nodded.

"I'm Scott Maher.  That's Sarah.  You are?"

"Brandon.  Collier."

"Collie?  Like the dog?"

"Er, Col-"

"Yeah, he looks kinda like a dog."  Sarah said, walking over and ruffling
my hair.

"I'm sure she meant it in the best possible way."  Alex said, lifting her
hand off of my head.

"Uh, thanks."

"Well, he does kind of have a lost-dog expression."  Scott said.  "Oh!
What was that one dog?"

"Which one?"  Alex asked.

"The one in space.  Russian, or Cuban, or one of those countries we didn't
like for a while."

"Space dog?"  Sarah cocked her head at him.

"Yeah.  I mean, look at him.  Isn't that the kind of expression you'd see
on a dog in space?  You know, dogs not being too familiar with relative
gravity or whatever, they'd look pretty confused and out-of-place all the
time.  Man, I know I heard that name before.  This is going to drive me
nuts."

"Yeah, I love the space program."  Corey said, grinning and giving Sarah
and obvious wink.  "Lift off.  Thrust.  Re-entry..."

"Dude, you know it's really hard to think when I've got you propositioning
my fucking sister over there, right?"  He paced for a few seconds.  "Gah!
I'm going to look this up.  One second."

"He's kind of...spontaneous."  Alex whispered.  "You'll get used to it."

Of course, having grown up with Mark, I was already used to it.  I'll
admit, it was a little surreal, hearing them talk about whether or not I
looked like a dog, and if I did, what that dog's name would be.

"Laika!"  Came a shout from upstairs, followed by a series of heavy
footfalls before Scott swung back into the room, slapping the doorway on
the way in.  "First dog in space.  I knew I heard the name of that dog
somewhere."

"So now that we know the name of the first dog in space, can we practice?"
Sarah asked, rolling her eyes.  "Or do you want to look up the name of the
dog on Frasier, too?"

"Nah, I already know that one.  So I guess now we can play."

Corey and Alex set up the remaining equipment they had brought along, and
they all got into position: Alex on the bass, Scott and Sarah at the
microphones with their guitars, and Corey behind the drum kit.

This is usually the part of the story where the narrator talks about how
beautiful the music is - the lilting, uplifting vocals; the slowly climbing
and falling drums and bass lines; the swirling guitars.  The way it moves
him, touches him, lets him feel the soul of the artists.  Not quite the
case.  It was, quite possibly, the most repulsive sound I had ever heard
four humans produce.

I don't know anything about music.  I couldn't tell you the difference
between a rock band and an R&B band, except that the R&B videos usually
have a guy with his shirt off in the rain, while rock videos usually have
guys with their shirts on in the rain.  I can't tell whether or not someone
is singing in tune or on key.  All I knew for sure was that this music made
my ears want to go on strike.

They played a handful of songs, I think, because every now and then they
would pause and call out what sounded like a title.  Other than that, I
couldn't tell where one stopped and the other began.  Maybe I just didn't
"get it."  Maybe I wasn't supposed to.  Anyway, aside from the horrible
sounds that were invading my ears, they were pretty entertaining.  It was
like, all that time that other bands spend learning how to play their
instruments well and harmonize with each other, these guys spent learning
how to strike cool poses and jump around wildly while they played.

Thankfully for me, all that jumping around got them exhausted after about
an hour, and they came over and collapsed into the furniture, breathing
deeply.  Corey in one of the recliners, Scott and Sarah together on one
couch, and Alex and I on another.  I noticed that Alex had taken the seat
next to me on the couch, even though there was another recliner open, but
figured that he was probably too tired to care where he sat down.  There
was a tiny stream of sweat creeping down his temple.  I briefly wondered
what would happen if I took my thumb and brushed it off.

"So..."  Corey said.  "What'd you think?"

I thought that it was the most awful thing I'd ever heard.  I thought that
I'd have a headache for the next week.  I thought-

"That was cool."  I said.  "But...why do you need me?"

"We don't."  Sarah said, but everyone ignored it.

"What do you mean?"  Alex asked.

"I mean, I couldn't really hear any of the lyrics.  The instruments were
way louder than the mics, and since you guys were screaming most of the
time...I couldn't make out any of it."

"Yeah, but think about the liner notes."  Scott said.  "Sure, I could go up
there and scream the lyrics to the Mister Ed theme song if I wanted to, and
nobody would really know, but on the liner notes, we want to look like
we're saying something...worth saying."

I knew even less about music than I thought.

"Didn't you try the Mister Ed theme once?"  Corey asked.

"No, that was Green Acres," Scott said.  "Which I understand is the place
to be."

"So, you think you can write something for us?  It doesn't even have to
rhyme or anything, though it'd be cool if it did."  Corey said.

"Yeah, I could give it a try," I said.  "Do you guys meet here every week?"

"Way more than that.  But, if you could throw some ideas together by next
Friday, that'd be awesome.  We could pay you maybe ten bucks for each song
we like."  Scott said.

"Yeah, okay."

A dog came bounding into the room, followed closely by a guy who I assumed
to be its owner.  I wasn't sure which deserved more attention.

The guy was dressed in dress pants and a dress shirt, an overall "business
causal" kind of style, but his hair was gelled up in thick spikes that were
at least five inches long and dyed bright red.  That, combined with his
almost gaunt frame made him look like a rake standing on end.

The dog raced over to me and started sniffing my legs, my shoes, my hands -
anything within nose distance.  I tensed up.  Whether or not I looked like
one, I didn't really like dogs.  At least, not big ones that jumped on me,
like this one was preparing to do.

The guy whistled, and the dog's head snapped back toward him.  It gave me
one last look, then ran back to meet him.

"Brandon," Scott said, "Our third housemate, Carl.  Carl, this is our new
lyricist."

"Maybe."  Sarah added.

"Hey."  He nodded to me.  "Uh, about the hair thing...don't get the wrong
impression.  These guys bet me I wouldn't do it.  Speaking of which," He
turned to Scott, "You owe me."

"One week.  It's only been six days and..." He checked his watch, "Seven
hours."

Carl groaned and plopped down in the other recliner.

"He's a poli-sci major," Alex explained, "Which, as far as I can tell,
means he yells at the screen a lot when he watches CNN."

The dog ran at me again, but Carl grabbed it by the collar and told it to
sit.  It didn't.

"What's your dog's name?"  I asked.

"Emma Goldman-Retriever."  He grabbed the dog by the face, gently, and
talked to it in that voice reserved for talking to dogs and babies.  "She
stands for the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that
hinders human growth.  Yes, she does.  Yes, she does."

I turned to Corey and gave him a questioning look.  He shrugged.  "Poli-sci
humor.  Pretend to laugh at it, and people think you're smart."

"I'm sorry, Corey.  I forgot that you only get jokes that start with a man
walking into a bar."  Carl said, getting back to his normal voice.

"Not true.  Sometimes it's a duck that walks into the bar.  Oh, or a
mushroom.  The mushroom walks into a bar, goes up to this girl, and starts
hitting on her, see, and they really hit it off.  After a while, she says,
'You know, from the looks of you, I thought you'd be pretty boring, but
you're actually a fungi.'  Heh heh.  Fungi.  Fun guy.  No?"  He looked
around.  "Well, screw you guys."

We talked and joked around for a while, me feeling very much like a fifth
wheel, mostly just watching the rest of them interact.  I didn't get more
than a few words in, but listening to them was fun.  I felt very much like
a dog in space.  I was absolutely out of my element, which was unnerving,
but at the same time, I got to mess around in zero gravity.

Woof.

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