Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📖

“Jesus,” I said, as I sat down next to him. “You look like hell, Dan.”

He nodded. “Appearances can be deceptive,” he said. “But in this case, they’re bang-on.”

“You want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Somewhere else, huh? I hear they ring in the New Year every night at midnight; I think that’d be a little too much for me right now.”

I led him out to my cart and cruised back to the place I shared with Lil, out in Kissimmee. He smoked eight cigarettes on the twenty minute ride, hammering one after another into his mouth, filling my runabout with stinging clouds. I kept glancing at him in the rear-view. He had his eyes closed, and in repose he looked dead. I could hardly believe that this was my vibrant action-hero pal of yore.

Surreptitiously, I called Lil’s phone. “I’m bringing him home,” I subvocalized. “He’s in rough shape. Not sure what it’s all about.”

“I’ll make up the couch,” she said. “And get some coffee together. Love you.”

“Back atcha, kid,” I said.

As we approached the tacky little swaybacked ranch-house, he opened his eyes. “You’re a pal, Jules.” I waved him off. “No, really. I tried to think of who I could call, and you were the only one. I’ve missed you, bud.”

“Lil said she’d put some coffee on,” I said. “You sound like you need it.”

Lil was waiting on the sofa, a folded blanket and an extra pillow on the side table, a pot of coffee and some Disneyland Beijing mugs beside them. She stood and extended her hand. “I’m Lil,” she said.

“Dan,” he said. “It’s a pleasure.”

I knew she was pinging his Whuffie and I caught her look of surprised disapproval. Us oldsters who predate Whuffie know that it’s important; but to the kids, it’s the world. Someone without any is automatically suspect. I watched her recover quickly, smile, and surreptitiously wipe her hand on her jeans. “Coffee?” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” Dan said, and slumped on the sofa.

She poured him a cup and set it on a coaster on the coffee table. “I’ll let you boys catch up, then,” she said, and started for the bedroom.

“No,” Dan said. “Wait. If you don’t mind. I think it’d help if I could talk to someone … younger, too.”

She set her face in the look of chirpy helpfulness that all the second-gen castmembers have at their instant disposal and settled into an armchair. She pulled out her pipe and lit a rock. I went through my crack period before she was born, just after they made it decaf, and I always felt old when I saw her and her friends light up. Dan surprised me by holding out a hand to her and taking the pipe. He toked heavily, then passed it back.

Dan closed his eyes again, then ground his fists into them, sipped his coffee. It was clear he was trying to figure out where to start.

“I believed that I was braver than I really am, is what it boils down to,” he said.

“Who doesn’t?” I said.

“I really thought I could do it. I knew that someday I’d run out of things to do, things to see. I knew that I’d finish some day. You remember, we used to argue about it. I swore I’d be done, and that would be the end of it. And now I am. There isn’t a single place left on-world that isn’t part of the Bitchun Society. There isn’t a single thing left that I want any part of.”

“So deadhead for a few centuries,” I said. “Put the decision off.”

“No!” he shouted, startling both of us. “I’m done. It’s over.”

“So do it,” Lil said.

“I can’t,” he sobbed, and buried his face in his hands. He cried like a baby, in great, snoring sobs that shook his whole body. Lil went into the kitchen and got some tissue, and passed it to me. I sat alongside him and awkwardly patted his back.

“Jesus,” he said, into his palms. “Jesus.”

“Dan?” I said, quietly.

He sat up and took the tissue, wiped off his face and hands. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve tried to make a go of it, really I have. I’ve spent the last eight years in Istanbul, writing papers on my missions, about the communities. I did some followup studies, interviews. No one was interested. Not even me. I smoked a lot of hash. It didn’t help. So, one morning I woke up and went to the bazaar and said good bye to the friends I’d made there. Then I went to a pharmacy and had the man make me up a lethal injection. He wished me good luck and I went back to my rooms. I sat there with the hypo all afternoon, then I decided to sleep on it, and I got up the next morning and did it all over again. I looked inside myself, and I saw that I didn’t have the guts. I just didn’t have the guts. I’ve stared down the barrels of a hundred guns, had a thousand knives pressed up against my throat, but I didn’t have the guts to press that button.”

“You were too late,” Lil said.

We both turned to look at her.

“You were a decade too late. Look at you. You’re pathetic. If you killed yourself right now, you’d just be a washed-up loser who couldn’t hack it. If you’d done it ten years earlier, you would’ve been going out on top—a champion, retiring permanently.” She set her mug down with a harder-than-necessary clunk.

Sometimes, Lil and I are right on the same wavelength. Sometimes, it’s like she’s on a different planet. All I could do was sit there, horrified, and she was happy to discuss the timing of my pal’s suicide.

But she was right. Dan nodded heavily, and I saw that he knew it, too.

“A day late and a dollar short,” he sighed.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” she said. “You know what you’ve got to do.”

“What?” I said, involuntarily irritated by her tone.

She looked at me like I was being deliberately stupid. “He’s got to get back on top. Cleaned up, dried out, into some productive work. Get that Whuffie up, too. Then he can kill himself with dignity.”

It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Dan, though, was cocking an eyebrow at her and thinking hard. “How old did you say you were?” he asked.

“Twenty-three,” she said.

“Wish I’d had your smarts at twenty-three,” he said, and heaved a sigh, straightening up. “Can I stay here while I get the job done?”

I looked askance at Lil, who considered for a moment, then nodded.

“Sure, pal, sure,” I said. I clapped him on the shoulder. “You look beat.”

“Beat doesn’t begin to cover it,” he said.

“Good night, then,” I said.