The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (reading fiction .TXT) 📗

was friends with every flowering tree, every fire hydrant, every lamppost, every grinning puppy, every brick wall worth taking a photo in front of. She knew the names of weeds sprouting through cracks in cement, the dreams of bodega cashiers. If she crossed streets without looking, cars swerved around her in deference. Dyson and I were always in awe of people like Cassandra. City Kids. We’d known a few in high school, transplants beset by restlessness and self-assurance, possessed of indifferent magnetism and the will to explore. They wanted in ways we never could. Desire came naturally to them. They were born in its belly. That night, Cassandra led me to underground bars and rooftop bars and garden bars and bars housed in abandoned apartments and whatever pity I felt for her in the restaurant hardened into handcuffing envy. We ended the night at a club that required a password—delivered forward, then backwards.

I regret not dancing more with Cassandra. I regret that, although I drank, I didn’t drink to excess and wake up on her living room couch—our night a blackout blur of nothingness. In the club, I nursed a vodka-and-soda in a tucked-away booth, refusing Cassandra as she begged me back onto the dance floor. My perch granted me a sense of superiority, which I believed I deserved. From this vantage, the club played like a performance put on for my enjoyment. Blades of light swept through the room. Confidence welled inside of me. I was sure that everything Cassandra predicted would come true: The islands and the yachts and the photo shoots. The fame. She had given me a beautiful future. And I could do nothing for her. I couldn’t even tell her she wouldn’t appear on TV. The Cassandra on the dance floor was already lost to me, already embittered by my success, and I liked looking down on her, thinking more would come of my life than of hers.

She gave me a waist-cinching hug at the end of the night. Drinking always made her a little too grippy—normally, I resisted the intensity of her touch, but there was something gentle in it that night, an obvious sense of pride. “We’re doing this,” she said. “Me and you. We’re really doing this.” We split into separate cars.

I posted a photo of us posing in front of the Iberian restaurant earlier in the night. A crowd of walk-ins packed the glass lobby behind us. The caption was simple, meant to intrigue: Big News Soon. On the ride home, I scrolled through congratulatory comments, liking as many as I could—to show I cared—and bottling up an impulse to spill to everyone begging for me to tell them my news. I tingled with joy, impatient for my new life to begin.

Lucas Devry commented using his latest account—he made a new one whenever I reported him. DevLuke42937814666: ur finally gonna put your mouth on my cock.

It was standard for him. Unimaginative and vile. I normally deleted his comments and reported him, but these weren’t permanent solutions. And that night I was drunk on my future—and champagne. Reporting Lucas Devry to the social media cops was now beneath me. I felt a responsibility to confront him. No: I wanted to confront him, to stomp him out, to flatten him, ruin him, to shame him so he never wrote to me ever again. He responded this way to every photo I posted. It wasn’t enough to report him because he always found a way back. There was always a new name to use, a new email to plug in. I wanted him gone. Forever.

I replied: I’m trying to make a beautiful world. And the world would be so much more beautiful if you and everyone like you were dead.

eleven

IT WAS NEARLY night by the time I got home. Dyson waited for me outside the cabin as if he were about to ground me. He tilted back on the rear legs of a chair; his feet were crossed on the railing. Barney purred in his lap. “I saw you on TV,” he said.

I dropped the uniforms on the porch, too tired to answer.

“A story about you.” He made scare quotes: “ ‘Elderly Small-Business Owners Robbed by Disgraced Influencer.’ It’s all over the internet.”

“I thought we didn’t have internet,” I said.

“We have a hot spot for emergencies. Emergencies like local news reports about you robbing a print-making shop.” He trailed me inside.

“They held the uniforms hostage.”

“You’ve brought a lot of attention to us,” he said. “A lot of attention to yourself.”

“We needed these uniforms. To fix your men.”

“They’re everyone’s men. They’re society’s men. And we’re the ones taking responsibility.” He inhaled deliberately to settle himself—four enormous breaths.

“You’re being combative. I’ve been out all day dealing with an aggressive elderly couple as you swim and Skype with the men. Your men. Can I shower before you interrogate me?”

“Take all the time you need,” he said without meaning it.

I slammed the bathroom door and locked it behind me—the first time I’d locked it since I arrived. I unlocked and locked the door again, as loudly as I could, to ensure Dyson knew I was walling him off. Both of us could be dramatic when angry. And I wanted to be more dramatic than him. I dunked my head under the running faucet. A whitehead appeared in the crease between my left nostril and cheek. I pinched two fingernails into the crease. Vertically, horizontally, angling my head like it might offer leverage—it didn’t. How many times had I advised my clients to do nothing in this same situation? Ignore it! Have patience! Breathe! Meditate and relax! Everything painful will pass! I had never felt like more of a fraud than I did in this moment. Of course my clients had ditched me. I’d failed to see the great pleasure in doing something, the joy of making things worse. I continued digging and scraping, until the whitehead bled a slim string of red over my lips