Destroy All Cars (3 page)

My friend Jessica Carlucci's parents are the smartest of all my friends'. Her dad is an architect and makes houses out of alternative materials with solar panels and non-detergent washing machines. Jessica's mom does yoga and eats organic food. Jessica's parents are the only grown-ups I've met who seem to know what's up. But when you look at them closely, most of it is just surface. Like her dad has a garage full of useless luxury items, along with a full arsenal of the same gas-powered crap my dad has. Their gardener soaks their lawn every week with poisons and chemicals to get it just the right shade of green. And her mom, too; beneath the yoga exterior, what is there? She shops at Nordstrom. She buys plastic water bottles by the case. She never thinks about how much jet fuel she's using when she's flying around doing her consulting business.

Does being smarter and a little more aware do anything? Does it change anything? No. I never say this to Jessica, though. She's sensitive about her family because her dad had an affair when she was little and their family almost broke up. So there's a “no talking about anything” policy in their house. Everything is FINE.

The End

Wow. I never got a D before. It felt kind of liberating. You can only go up from a D.

Cogs didn't look too well today. I hope he's feeling all right. He stood over me for several seconds when we got our papers back, giving me the Cogweiller stare.

After school I asked if I could do another makeup. He strongly encouraged me to do so.

Hung out with Jessica Carlucci after school. We went to the gym to watch her sister's JV basketball game. Jessica was talking about college stuff. All the smart kids are thinking about college stuff now.

Last year when I broke up with Sadie, Jessica helped me a lot. That was the period when we changed from knowing each other to becoming actual friends. I wonder why we never went out. She does seem to like me. I'm not sure why. Because I understand her, I guess. I don't judge her. I don't know
why
I don't judge her. I judge everybody else.

Jessica is very pretty. And she wears really nice clothes and earrings and gets her hair done and all that. She'll marry some good-looking rich guy someday. That's what I thought as I watched the girl basketball players fall over each other chasing a loose ball. And she'll live in the West Hills and take her kids to tennis lessons at the club. She will grow up to represent everything I hate.

But you know what? Jessica Carlucci was the only one who understood what it did to me to break up with Sadie. Nobody else got it. Nobody else understood. She used to call me late at night, to see if I was okay.

So there you go.

James Hoff

Junior AP English

Mr. Cogweiller

MAKEUP TO THE MAKEUP ASSIGNMENT:
four-page essay on a person who has influenced you

One person who has influenced me is Karl Marx. He was a revolutionary and the first Marxist (duh), and an important thinker who has influenced people around the world.

Karl Marx was alive during the Industrial Revolution, when the first factories were being invented. He looked around and saw that poor people were going to have to work in the factories, and he realized that the men who ran the factories were going to take advantage of the poor people, like make them work twelve hours a day and make little kids work and just generally screw them over in every way possible. It was a very bad situation and it was only going to get worse.

So Marx got involved.

Actually, he didn't get involved. He went to the library and read a lot of books and let his hair grow so that when he became famous he would look distinguished and have a huge beard like other notable philosophers.

Anyway, after he read a lot of books, he wrote
The Communist Manifesto,
which is awesome and one of my favorite books.

The Communist Manifesto
tells all those poor people to get together, not take any crap from the factory owners, and fight back. There's some philosophy and other complicated stuff, too, so that people can study it in college and write books about it.

The main thing I like about Marx is all those years he spent hanging around the library. Whenever I'm at the Central Library downtown and I see homeless people wearing pots on their heads or talking to newspaper boxes, I think:
That might be the next Karl Marx.

Or maybe I am the next Karl Marx. Because I spend a lot of time thinking about the evils of the world and wandering around the public libraries. Also, as soon as I can, I'm going to grow a huge beard because huge beards are rad.

The End

Yes! This is what Cogs wrote on the bottom of my essay:

You are not Karl Marx. And you need a conclusion to this essay. But good explanation of Marxist ideas. B+

I can't believe it. B+! I'm getting to him. The Cogster!

Will and Sadie broke up. They've broken up before, but now it's definitely over. It's official. I guess all the Activist Girls were talking about it before school. Jessica gave me the full update.

It's always bugged me that I didn't get a new girlfriend and Sadie got Will. It seemed so like her to get with someone right away. And so like me not to.

To be honest, the news kinda weirded me out. After school I walked with Gabe to Fred Meyer's where we wandered the aisles like we do. We went into the sports section and threw the nerf football around. Then we played some frisbee golf. I couldn't stop thinking about Sadie. It's hard to imagine her without a boyfriend. I don't know why exactly. It's not like I care what she does.

When I finally got home, dinner was almost ready. I ran upstairs really fast to check if Sadie had designated herself as single on her Facebook page. She had. Wow. That was interesting. She had a bunch of new friends, too. Twenty or so, since I last looked. Some of these were older activist types. People she met doing her bike path project. A lot of them were guys, I noticed. Had she gone out with any of them? What if she'd had sex with one of them?

Yikes.

That was the other big thing about Sadie and me—we never had sex. I always pretend that I wanted to and she didn't, but that's not really true. Gabe says she would
have, if I'd made a big deal about it. We were just too young, really. We were sophomores. We were clueless.

Downstairs, my mother kept yelling for me to come to dinner. My dad finally came up and knocked on the door. I was to come now and eat “with the family.” I was like, okay, okay, and I went downstairs and sat there and ate “with the family.” Like that means anything.

Fortunately, Libby talked the whole time about some girl at her school who had a rash. I mentioned that I had met another freshman girl who had a rash. Thus I participated in the conversation “with the family.”

After dinner I still felt restless and weird. I tried a little Spanish homework but that was not happening. So I hopped on my bike and rode down to Shari's, the local 24-hour restaurant, and drank a bunch of coffee and wrote a bunch of crap in my notebook.

But that didn't help. When I rode back, it was misting and cold and not the best bike-riding weather. Back home, I went online again and checked Sadie's page to see if she'd added anything new in the last three hours. She hadn't. She obviously has better things to do than waste time on the internet…unlike me, who spent an hour and a half doing this:

Name:

James Hoff

Age:

17

Birthplace:

Portland, Oregon

Current Location:

Upstairs, in bedroom, at computer, 11:52 p.m.

High School:

Evergreen High School: Home of The Fighting Owls! (?)

Eye Color:

Black (from seeing the future)

Hair
Lung Color:

Black (from breathing the air of the future)

Height:

5′11″

Right Handed or Left Handed:

Right

Your Heritage:

CONSUMER AMERICAN

The Shoes You Wore Today:

White deck shoes. I love them. They are the only thing I love.

Your Weakness:

Robots, girls, girl robots.

Your Fears:

That dumb people are happier than I am; that clueless people have more fun.

Your Perfect Pizza:

Canadian bacon with pineapple

Goals You Would Like To Achieve This Year:

1) Overthrow petroleum-based world economic order;

2) Have sex

Your Most Overused Phrase On an Instant Messenger:

WTF

Thoughts First Waking Up:

How much longer will our travesty of a civilization last?

Your Best Physical Feature:

Pointing finger.

Your Bedtime:

When I can't take it anymore.

Your Most Missed Memory:

Being so young I did not understand what was happening to the world.

Pepsi or Coke:

Is that a choice?

McDonald's or Burger King:

For what? Killing yourself?

Lipton Iced Tea or Nestea:

You're joking.

Chocolate or Vanilla:

Shut up.

Tea or Coffee:

Nobody cares!

Do you Smoke:

I don't but I might as well.

Do you Sing:

I scream pretty damn good.

Do you Shower Daily:

I scrub the sickness of my species off myself every day. It always comes back.

Have you been in Love:

It took you long enough. Yes, I have been in love. Now ask me some questions about it. And how about some questions about sex?

Do you want to go to College:

I thought these quizzes were supposed to be about sex? And dating. And girls. I want to answer questions about my love life and if I like long walks on the beach and what my favorite color is. Then I want you to calculate my “score” or my “type” and tell me what kind of girl I should be with and preferably arrange a meeting with her so that I don't have to leave my room.
Also some pictures of that (or any) girl in various states of undress would be nice.

Do you want to get Married:

Married? I haven't even got laid yet! What is your problem? These tests are supposed to be fun! It said right on the top: “For amusement purposes only.”

Do you believe in yourself:

That is the only thing I believe in.

Do you think you are Attractive:

I am a certain type. If you like that type, you'll like me.

Are you a Health Freak:

In a way.

Do you get along with your Parents:

I do not waste my time fighting with my parents, who are typical CONSUMER AMERICANS. They don't understand me, anyway. I never ask for the car. I never ask for money. What's wrong with me? I wear old clothes that I buy myself. I must be mentally ill. That's how my parents think, all right? They are not worth talking about, and they are definitely not worth fighting with. What would be the point?

Do you like Thunderstorms:

Yes! And there are going to be a lot of them in the future, so I am in luck! There will also be more hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and other “unusual” weather patterns because we're filling the
atmosphere full of ungodly chemicals. “Gee,” we say as we sit in our CO2-spewing SUVs, “what's up with the weird weather?”

Do you play an Instrument:

Only when I consume certain gaseous combustibles.

In the past month have you Drunk Alcohol:

Bud Light, (burp) every chance I git.

In the past month have you Smoked:

Marlboro Reds, (cough) ever chance I git.

In the past month have you been on Drugs:

Spark a bowl (cough cough hacking cough) every chance I git.

In the past month have you gone on a Date:

With my hand! Har har har!

In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:

Oreos are irrelevant to everything that I stand for. But I like them. And I consume them on occasion.

In the past month have you eaten Sushi:

Sushi is from Japan. The important thing to know about Japan is that their robot technology is far advanced over ours. This is a national disgrace. When it is 200 degrees on the face of the earth and all the people are
dead, the Japanese robots will be sipping iced drinks in their shady palaces while our feeble American robots fan them with palm leaves.

What is your favorite TV Show:

Nova, Discovery Channel, anything with robots in it.

What is your Favorite Band:

Ima Robot

What is your Favorite Movie:

I, Robot

What is your Favorite Book:

The Robot Manifesto

In the past month have you been Dumped:

Depends on what you mean by dumped. Do you mean emotionally devastated by the sudden withdrawal of love by someone you totally trust and depend on? Do you mean sent into a death spiral of mental anguish by your soulmate tearing herself away from you without warning? Do you mean your whole world collapsing all around you, to the point where you don't care if you're alive or dead? No, I have not been dumped.

In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:

I denounce lame attempts at “rebellion” that serve only to maintain the current system. Why? Is somebody going?

In the past month have you Stolen Anything:

Stealing implies possession. I denounce possession. However, I have on occasion moved certain objects from one place to another.

Ever been Drunk?

The only people in America who haven't been drunk are people who don't own television sets. To these people I say: Go to the store, buy a TV, turn it on. Observe how the people in Bud Light commercials act. Now imitate these people: Dress like a “slacker,” drive your humorously feeble vehicle to a convenience store, buy some Bud Light, and drink it. Notice that sickening feeling in your stomach? Feel that wooziness in your head? That is drunkenness. You are now drunk.

Ever been called a Tease:

What?

Ever been Beaten Up:

Yes. I considered it an honor.

Ever Shoplifted:

Why would I have to shoplift? My parents are CONSUMER AMERICANS. They bring home carloads of useless crap every day.

How do you want to Die:

From natural causes. Not because of other people's greed and stupidity.

What do you want to be when you Grow Up:

Alive.

Number of Drugs I have taken:

72 aspirin, 37 Tylenol, 48 Advil (to ease the pain)

Number of CDs I own:

76, not counting Bob Dylan's “Masterworks,” which my dad insisted on buying me for Christmas. Thanks, Dad.

Number of things in my Past I Regret:

One. Falling in love with Sadie Kinnell. But no. I don't regret it.

No, I don't regret my time with Sadie. To be honest, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

The problem is what's happened after. In the last nine months my life has gone pretty much straight downhill. I don't even feel like myself anymore. I go to school. I eat lunch. I feel like I'm watching everything through glass. When I try to talk to other girls, I'm having a whole other conversation with myself at the same time. Talking is a waste, anyway. No one actually hears what you say. They just start talking themselves, saying irrelevant, pointless things that I already know or don't need to know. And then I get pissed off when I don't have anything to do on Friday night. The only time I can make sense of anything is when I write it down. But you can't show up at keg parties with a laptop.

It's so weird that Sadie's single again, that she's
out
there
again. I can feel this tingle in the air, like she's
right there,
like she might be sitting in her room typing something at this exact moment, or lying in her bed, or downstairs having warm milk in her kitchen.

I can feel her presence. I can see her perfectly in my mind. Sadie. She is out there. And she is free.

Went downtown yesterday to the Central Library so I could get some Russian stuff for my World History class. I gathered an armload of books and camped out in the main reading room.

Then, coincidence of coincidences, who walks in? Sadie Kinnell. At first I thought she was with Will because I thought I heard his annoying dork voice, but it wasn't him. She was by herself. I was at a back table, and she didn't see me, so I slid down in my chair and hid behind
The Bolshevik Revolution: A Pictorial Account.

Sadie and I used to hang out at the downtown library a lot. It was one of our favorite things to do when we first started going out. We'd sit around talking and not doing our homework. Then we'd get coffees across the street at Café Artiste and talk more. She was big into animal rights then. I was into existentialism,
The Stranger,
anything involving cool French dudes with slicked-back hair and cigarettes.

Anyway, so there I am, hiding behind
The Bolshevik Revolution
and sneaking looks across the room. Of course Sadie can't quietly look something up on the computer. She has to go right up to the reference person and announce herself. The library information guy stares up at her with his thick glasses. Sadie is a people person. Why get it done in half the time on the computer when you can interact with a fellow human and impress
him with your earnest caring, plus maybe someday he will vote for you when you run for president? Sadie used to say there was something special and important about every person on the earth. I was like, yeah, they are all taking the place of a salmon or a bear or one of the other animals we have driven to extinction.

Sadie and thick glasses guy start chatting and researching and bonding. Everyone bonds with Sadie Kinnell. When he's done everything one human can possibly do for another, she thanks him sincerely and goes upstairs to continue her search. I watch her go. Meanwhile, thick glasses guy goes back to his desk, all smiles. He's totally in love with her. It can happen that quick.

I sit there, watching all of this, slunk down in my chair, gazing over the top of my book. The room is still electric with the presence of Sadie, even after she's gone. I look at the clock. I look at my stuff. What should I do? Go find her? Sit here? Pretend I don't know she's somewhere above me, in the same building I'm in?

Before I can stop myself, I get up and grab my coat and backpack. I'm going upstairs to see what she's doing. Maybe I'll pretend I'm looking for something myself. Or maybe I'll spy on her. Or maybe I'll hide in the bathroom.