Going Bovine (39 page)

“Excuse me for a sec.” She locates the ringing device and attaches herself to a headset. “This is Iphigenia. Uh-huh … uh-huh … do you want the Rad XL, the Rad Diet, the Rad Sport, or the Rad Clear and Brite?” Iphigenia makes some notes on a pad with her kitty pen. “Nuclear!” she says brightly, and hangs up.

I’m still puzzling over the realitymercial thing. “I don’t get it. Why would anybody want to order up somebody else’s life?”

Iphigenia looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Why? Because figuring out who you really are is hard work. Why do all that if somebody else has done it for you, if they can tell you who to be? It’s like me with Iphigenia.” She whispers, “That’s not my real name.”

“No?”

“No. My real name? Ann. Jones.” She rolls her eyes and giggles. “Can you imagine anything more boring? Yeah, Ann Jones is not going to get behind the velvet rope. So I changed it. I read that name in some Fake It! Notes and liked it.”

“You know, the Greeks sacrifice Iphigenia. So they can get home.”

She lights up. “Hey, so it has a tragic feel to it? Big drama name. I love that!”

“But why not just be who you are?”

“Hello!” she says, pushing away from the desk and twirling around in the rolling chair till she’s facing me again. “Nobody wants to be themselves. That’s why there’s TV. So you know what to want and who to be. That’s what I did. I mean, Ann Jones? Ann Jones played flute in marching band, okay? Ann Jones’s future was going to include a good state college and a few boyfriends and, you know, like maybe a used compact car to get to her job at a yogurt shop. But Iphigenia, one name, is, like, a totally different person. She’s ethnically ambiguous—you’re like, ‘Is she Afro-Greek-Japo-Indian chic?’ She has a dad who had a slight alcohol problem, which gives her street cred, and a mom who used to model in her native country, wherever that is, which makes her hot. She wears the latest jeans and everybody copies her. Everybody listens to her and sees her and wants to be her. I mean, you’re nobody unless everybody knows who you are.”

I nod, speechless.

She grabs her pen, all business. “Questionnaire time. Where are you from, Cameron?”

“Texas.”

“Ride ’em, cowboy!” she says, apropos of nothing. “So, who are your best friends?”

“Gonzo and Balder,” I say. I like the way it sounds.

“What do you guys like to do?”

Go on insane road trips dictated by personal ads in tabloids. Search for fugitive, time-traveling doctors. Evade the cops. Steal money from low-rent druggies. Fight beings from parallel worlds.

“Hang out,” I answer.

“Mm-kay. Good. Anything interesting you want to add?”

I should tell her a bunch of bullshit, but for some reason, I want to be honest.

“I’ve got a fatal illness. Creutzfeldt-Jakob.”

Iphigenia writes something, then scratches it out. “How do you spell that?”

“Just put mad cow disease.”

“Great!” She jots it down. “Now for the really important questions. Do you drink Rad soda? And if so, how often? Frequently. Often. Rarely. Never.”

“Rarely.”

The kitty pen bounces across the page like a deranged pet. “Which of these situations would most increase your thirst for a Rad soda? Hanging with friends. Talking with Mom and Dad. Playing a game of hoops. Going to the mall. Doing homework. Attending a funeral …”

“Attending a funeral?”

She shows me the paper and I see the question right there. “New marketing strategy. They’re getting ready to launch a new teen drink? Rad Grief—‘For those times when your thirst needs a friend.’ So, do you think you would drink Rad Grief?”

Death and soda don’t really go together in my head, but it’s getting late and I need to find Gonzo. “Sure. You bet.”

Iphigenia lets out a little squeak and bops in her chair. “Excellent! You’re my first yes. Hey, Cameron, you’re so nice. Would you like me to get you on one of the shows? They need players for What’s Your Category? today. Whaddaya say?”

“I don’t think …”

“I could totally hook you up with the producers. You can win a lot of money,” she singsongs.

My brain does a cost analysis: could I win us some cash, find Balder, and get our butts out of here before we’re found out? The Party House crowd doesn’t really watch the news, and the bounty hunters probably aren’t watching YA! TV. It’s a risk, but a risk with a lot of money attached, and we desperately need the money.

“Sign me up.”

“Nuclear!” Iphigenia says. “Okay, we need to figure out what category you go in.”

“Category.”

“Yeah, like are you a techno gadgetronic, a Saturday cinephile, sports authority, sex machine, audio boss, comics crusader, party hopper? You know. Where do you fit in?”

“What’s an audio boss?”

Iphigenia gives herself two big twirls in the rolling chair, first going left, then going right. “Somebody who’s obsessed with music. Is that you? You seem sort of audio savvy to me.”

“Well, there’s this music store I like back home called Eubie’s Hot—”

She brings the chair to a dead stop. “Great. So audio boss.”

“Wait! I don’t know that that’s how I want to be categorized. I mean, maybe I’m a sex machine.”

Iphigenia taps her pen while looking me up and down. “Doubtful.”

“Or a techno gadg-a … gadge …”

“Gadgetronic. It’s somebody who’s way into electronics and wants the latest gears gear.” Iphigenia’s mouth forms an excited O. “Didya hear me say that? ‘Gears Gear.’ Omigod. No one’s ever said that here before. So it’s mine! I made it up. I have to fill out the form to make it officially my trademark phrase. Hold on a sec, ’kay?”

Iphigenia’s fingers fly over the keyboard. She hits Send. “Done. God, that would be so cool, wouldn’t it? I could probably turn that into a clothing line—Gears Gear. Anyway, back to you. So would you say you’re a techno gadgetronic, then?”

“No. I mean, not really.”

Iphigenia’s getting antsy. She taps her fake nails against the tabletop. “Well, you have to be something.”

“What if I’m a lot of different somethings?”

“No can do. It messes with the marketing plan. Just one thing. If we can’t categorize you, then you can’t play.”

“What category are you?”

Iphigenia smiles. “Oh! I’m a trendinator.”

“Trendinator?”

“Yeah. That’s somebody who’s totally ahead of the curve on trends. Like, we sort of predict what’s going to be hot next. Trendinators are sort of the top. God! I wish I had trademarked that phrase, because the merch is out of control. The handbags alone go for two fifty a pop.”

“Just because they say trendinator on them?”

“No! They don’t say anything at all on them! That’s the genius of it. It’s like, you’re so far ahead of the curve that all there is is blankness.”

Iphigenia’s feather sparkle pen with the One Love Kitty hovers over the page. She’s itching to categorize me.

“Audio boss,” I say.

“Cool! Hey, you wanna see the rest of the Party House? We’ve got a pool that shoots Rad XL Soda—‘The Soda for Our Generation’—out of a fountain in the back. It is so nuclear.” She sighs. “I’ve been trying to get ‘nuclear’ to catch on for ages—like, at least three weeks—but so far, all the feedback forms say it’s just not time for it yet. Sometimes I’m so far ahead of the curve that no one gets me.”

When we leave the office I’m officially signed up as a contestant for What’s Your Category? to film at three-thirty. Iphigenia takes me to meet the show people and I sign a form saying I won’t sue them for anything that happens to me as a result of being on their show. Ten feet away, Parker Day sits in his chair getting his hair and makeup done by a stylist while arguing with his agent on a cell phone that some poor schmuck assistant holds up to his ear. A bank of TVs above his head broadcasts live from the Party House, where Marisol inter views some shirtless jocks down by the pool before introducing a new video clip. Keith wasn’t lying about Marisol. She is seriously fine, with coffee-brown skin, hazel eyes, and long, curly black hair. I keep hoping I’ll see the guys and Balder in the crowd, but they cut to the video and there’s nothing to do but hook up with Gonzo again and try our luck together.

* * *

Gonzo is ten minutes late. “Dude,” he yells, running up to me all out of breath. “This place is amazing!”

“You’re late,” I say.

“Sorry,” Gonzo says, even though I can tell he’s not.

I fill him in about What’s Your Category?

“Awesome!” Gonzo says. “Look, this guy just gave me his card. He said I’d be perfect for a show they’ve got in development where a bunch of rich, spoiled kids live with kids who have abnormalities. It’s called Freaks Versus Fantastics.”

I snort. “Who’s the sadistic shithead who thought that up?”

“Dude—I could be on TV! They’ve already got this kid with flippers for hands. He hates Little People. He’d be my roommate. They said the potential for drama is off the charts.”

“Gonzo. Reality check. We’re not staying. We still have to find Dr. X.” I hold up my E-ticket meter. Fantasyland is losing color fast. “We’re only here long enough to score some cash and find Balder.”

Gonzo looks let down, and I feel like the asshole who just told him Santa’s a front.

“Look, after that, if you wanna come back, that’s cool. In the meantime,” I say, showing him my contestant’s backstage pass, “we have access to the green room and free food. Let’s eat.”

CHAPTER FORTY

Of What Happens When I Take My Chances on TV

At three o’clock, the What’s Your Category? assistants come to the green room and escort me to makeup. Parker Day’s sitting in the chair getting a touch-up, a phone pressed to his ear. I can hear him making deals with this soda company, that shoe corporation, arguing with his agent, telling an assistant that he shouldn’t have to ask her to pick up his dry cleaning, she should just know. Our chairs are less than five feet from each other, and while the makeup lady does her thing, I keep stealing glances at Parker, trying to dissect what makes him a star. There’s the short brown hair with subtle blond tips. A worked-out body under a form-fitting vintage rocker tee. The year-round tan. The roughed-up jeans that probably cost more than I could make from twelve Buddha Burger shifts. No doubt about it, he’s a good-looking guy, but in a generic way, like some kind of human wallpaper you’ll want to change out for something else in a few years.

Once I’m camera-ready, the assistants lead me to my spot on the re-created beach stage complete with grass huts and tiki torches on the sides. The director downloads info about the camera, which I can’t take in because in front of me is a sea of people and my stomach is in free fall. Down in front, I see Gonzo giving me a thumbs-up and a nervous smile. Off to the side of the stage, Parker examines his notecards while a wardrobe lady steams the creases out of his jeans. The director calls for places. The cameraman gives us a three, two, one. The little light goes on and Parker Day walks out to a thunderous roar from the crowd. He works it, shaking hands and giving a big “Ho-oh!” into the mike, which everybody repeats to him.

“Hel-lo! I’m Parker Day, coming to ya live from the Party House in Daytona Beach, Flo-ri-da!”

The crowd goes wild, and Parker gives them a moment while he mugs for the camera. “Brought to you in living madness by Rad Soda—the Soda of Our Generation.” Parker takes a slug from his Rad XL can and hands it to an assistant. “Today on What’s Your Category? we’ve got a new challenger, Cameron, an audio boss from Te-jas. Cameron, come on down, my man.”

I move to my appointed spot beside Parker, who has a cheat sheet with all my info filled in, courtesy of Ann “Iphigenia” Jones. “Cam—it says here that you have mad cow disease. Is that right?”

“Yeah.” Man, I hope we’re long gone before this airs.

“So how’s that going for you?”

“Uh … it sucks?” I say.

Everybody laughs and Parker slaps me on the back. “You’re funny, Cameron. I like that. Okay, Cam, as you know, on What’s Your Category? we ask you questions about your area of expertise, which is …” He puts his mug right up in the camera and drops his voice low. “Audio boss!” I’ve seen Parker Day enough to know that they’re doing some cheesy reverb action on his voice when he says “audio boss.” It gets the whoops and hollers from the audience, though. They’re expecting it. “So. I will ask you the questions printed out on these white cards in my hands. If you answer successfully, you will advance to the next round of questions, where the cash values are even higher. But if you miss a question, we’ll be forced to take a toe. Just kidding.”

The crowd laughs at his lame joke. I glance down at Gonzo, who mouths the word pendejo, which makes me feel a little better.

“No, if you miss a question, you’ll be forced to sit in the …”

“Dunking chamber!” the audience screams.

A couple of stagehands in black T-shirts and jeans hustle a portable potty with a big red HIT ME button on its side onto the stage. Parker opens the door so that everyone can see inside. The smell knocks me back. A rickety platform is poised above the open latrine. Somebody’s placed a shoe on the platform.

Parker pinches his nose with his free hand. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen and Cameron. Once you’re placed in the Dunking Chamber you will be asked an all-or-nothing question. If you answer correctly, we will double your winnings and you will not need to shower with a household pine cleaner for a week. But if you answer it incorrectly …”

Parker hits the HIT ME button. The chair above the potty releases the shoe into the latrine with a loud flushing sound. The shoe is sucked down into a hose large enough to hold a person and flushed out into God only knows where. The camera zooms in on the clear plastic tube so that the fans back home don’t miss a single disgusting minute of human waste. In the front row, Gonzo looks like he might be sick, and I’m wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

“You’ve had all your shots, right?” The audience laughs and Parker gives one of those dazzling smiles he’s so famous for.

A stagehand helps me up the ladder and gets me in position on the platform. It smells like the kind of farts your grandfather lays down. The lights are hot, and all I can see in front of me is a mass of tanned, half-dressed bodies in various stages of drunkenness.