Real World

I'll call him Pippin. He always looked a little like a hobbit: short, with bright eyes and determinedly curly hair. He dropped out of high school when he found a hack for a popular piece of hardware. He traded the hacked hardware for a car which he selected because he'd recently seen it in a movie. Driving that around was fun for a while, but he sold his toy pretty promptly when he found out the price of an oil change. He tried college for a year, then started bumming around Umbrella, and rooming with Carne, which is how I met him. A year later I ran into him in Vegas and he hitched back with us to California to sleep on the couch. Now he sat in the living room couch of Alpha, sprawled in the pile of clothes he dumped out of his backpack.

"I need a job," I said, "Acad's ending soon, and I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Jobs suck. You're smart, why should you have to work 8 hours a day?"

***

Green actually finished school, but that was mostly because he enjoyed it. Writing apps for the iPhone had always been his real source of income.

I met him when he emailed a list of about 400 some people asking if anybody could give him a ride from the train station to the Torii. At the time I was sure I didn't like this kid who couldn't figure out how the public transit worked, but it is hard to stay mad at anybody who always smiles and means it. He stayed with Nexus for a week then disappeared, to return for one of Tynan's lectures. We asked him how long he planned to stay in the area, and he shrugged.

In reality he lived on our couch for about a month. Pretty sick deal for us, since he kept cleaning the house for us during that time.

***

"Hey," Ray says into the phone, "You should come out here." He puts his hand over his other year and tilts his head to smile at the phone, "You'll never guess who's here." There was a pause, and the bounty hunters in the lab and I looked at each other. "She says she knows you," he continued, "honestly, I didn't even know you knew Pika."

Pippin arrived from Chicago two days later. Apparently he'd been bumming around there buying beer for a fraternity in exchange for a spot on the couch to sleep. During the day he snuck into classes at the local university, sometimes to learn things, but mostly pretending to be an English major in order to pick up chicks.

"Good to see you again,"

"You too," he smiled, "you still working full-time jobs?"

***

"I'm going to Vietnam," Green said.

"Why?"

"Frozen yogurt?"

"What?"

He laughed a little, "my friend is opening a frozen yogurt shop there, I figured I'd come up for the grand opening."

I didn't get it.

"Cost of living is low there, and I'm self-employed, so I can work from wherever I want really."

There was a pause.

"Don't look jealous like that. Why don't you come with me?"

"I... can't program iPhone, I don't even have one."

"You'll figure it out, and if not that something else. You just need to believe you can really do it."

I sat, and I thought about it, but his plane was leaving before I had really gotten together the nerve to do it.

"I'm leaving this book with you," he said, "I want you to believe you can do it."

It was called "The four hour work week" and had a picture of a man on the cover laying in a hammock under palm trees. It called people like Pippin and Green 'the new rich.'

***

It's one of those relaxed evenings, and we're both sitting on couches staring at the ceiling in Alpha. I'm playing with a ball, and Pippin is idly turning a new Defcon blackbadge over in his hands.

"Do you think you could go back to the real world if you wanted to?"

"I live in the real world."

There is a funny sort of pause as I raise my eyebrows and catch his eyes.

"Ok, so I don't, but why would I want to go back there? The real world sucks."

"Yeah, well lets say you wanted to."

"Of course. I can do anything if I want to."

Dress Up

There's a new girl with purple hair here handing me a ukulele. "Do you know how to play?"

"No," I take it anyway and imitate her in picking out the guitar opening to 'Brown-eyed-girl.' It's a shame Ginger and Giraffe aren't here, they fucking hate this song.

Enron lags a little behind us, smartphone pressed against his face, one finger from his other hand covering the opposing ear, "No Jason, that isn't what we agreed to..." He's interviewing a candidate at noon just as we finish lunch, and discussing the results of it with his peers as we wander the next beach. He's got somebody calling him to schedule an appointment during the car ride home, and when we get back to the Torii he paces the front lawn working out the details.

"It's alright," Kaleidoscope laughs, "I looked at Nexus, I realized what a CEO was, and I knew exactly what I was getting in to when I decided to date him."

He's on the phone a few weeks later in the park, and he's huddled over his laptop while Kalei(doscope) and I are enjoying a beer. I'm not about to tear into Enron for being so involved in his work. He's as happy a person as any of us, and this is what he would do for fun anyway.

***

"I can't fucking believe this."

DC giggles and covers the microphone on the radio, "Hush a minute, we can't swear on the radio."

I can hear Sid's voice over the crackle through the radio, "You guys will never make it in that car..."

"Well if it's got to die, right in front of the dorms isn't a bad place..."

"WY1HBT here," the radio chirps, "I got this covered."

"Who's that?" I ask my carmates.

DC grins, "Whacker."

A few minutes later Whacker rolls up in an oversized truck grinning from ear to ear. There's a yellow lightbar bolted to the top of the truck, and seems like he just couldn't be more excited to be jumping the car.

"What's with him?"

"He's proud to be saving the day."

***

If I had known it was going to be this sort of party I probably would have tried to find some less ratty jeans to wear. The bar is full of people who believe they are slick and sophisticated. It is somewhat amazing to watch the similarities between people flirting and explaining their business plans to one another. I can watch streams of my contacts interact with one another from the balcony, and they all believe they're very important and influential.

***

"Yeah," he says taking a drink, "You see a lot of stuff."

"We had a sophomore come up with doll-eyes a few weeks ago."

"Oh for the love of CHRIST," CoLo looks exasperated, "No more EMS talk at parties!"

***

"It's like playing dress-up,"

We're back in the Torii parking lot, watching Enron pace around on his phone, and Kalei is giving me a very puzzled look. "But it's real..."

"That doesn't mean they're playing any less!"

I can watch Kalei trying to be very very patient with me.

"It's all just games. It's no different from when we were small and pretending to be important, except that, as a side effect of pretending for so long, some of these people actually made it real. That isn't the point, though, because they're still just playing. They don't do all this theater because it's needed. They do it because they love it, because they enjoy being the important person they dreamed of more than they enjoy the actual tasks of the job."

Kalei laughs, "Maybe we should get him a pretty princess hat..."

Acquaintances and Friends

We jumped behind the rock the first time the cops came past. Black clothes, black tar, and what was steadily becoming a black rock.

When the car came around the second time Magpie was standing up but I got behind the rock in time. He ducked, and the car sat and idled what seemed like forever.

"They saw me," he said.

"Let's run for it,"

"He's going to come over here."

"Let's book it, he's not going to catch us."

"You stay here, I'm going before he sees you."

"No!"

And, before I could argue, Magpie was bounding up to the car. "Good evening officer!"

***

Sometimes the sunshine and warmth here is surreal and almost too good to be real. Three thousand miles away in a convertible I sometimes feel like I'm in a completely different world.

"Where you from?"

"Boston," Nexus grins.

"I love New England! Why'd you leave?"

He points to the sky.

"I guess."

"People are nice here, friendly."

I must have frowned.

"It's not that people out there aren't friendly, it is just I love the community here."

"I think there's a scale. There places where the norm is a broad sprawling social networks of acquaintances, and then there are people that you know will have your back when things go badly."

There are other two people in the car and they both smile a smile that says they think I'm very silly. I can't see Nexus' face. All I can think is that must have simply lived lives where they have never been in a situation where they really needed somebody to bail them out.

"I was told once the difference between acquaintances and friends is a friend is somebody who you'd feel comfortable calling at 2AM when you really need help, and who wouldn't mind such a call."

I considered that for a moment, but mostly thought of how different taking a call at 2AM was from directly approaching an annoyed police officer so your friend can get away.

"I think you'd be surprised Pika, at how many people will come to help you out when you're in trouble. You need to have a little more faith."