An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes (8 page)

Mari kills the engine and clicks off the lights and wipers. The synchronous
squeak-whoosh-thump
ceases. Mari's world is swallowed by the sound of the rain drumming upon the car. The water streams down the windshield, blurring her view of McCluck's until it melts into a distorted blob of light.

She grabs her umbrella and places her hand on the door handle, but she does not open it.

She reassures herself that Dante is the right person to ask for advice about Archie, about her mom, about contacting her birth mother. After all, he was her first real friend.

In the beginning of the sixth grade, the science teacher had partnered her with Dante, the only other black kid in class. He had been gigantic even then. Mari had sighed, assuming she had just been paired with some idiotic jock.

They were supposed to be using the scientific method to experiment with how different shapes of paper airplanes would fly. Most of the kids in the class were having a blast, launching their planes across the room and disregarding the actual assignment.

For several minutes she and Dante sat eyeing the directions page between them. Dante didn't say anything, so Mari directed him to make the planes while she recorded the results. Dante set to folding the first plane while Mari took out her story notebook and began to write.

Dante peeked over her shoulder. “What are you writing?”

His voice was so deep it sounded like it belonged to someone twice his age. Yet at the same time, he spoke like a turtle poking its head from its shell.

“A story.” Mari turned away then, protecting the page with her arm. “Why'd you stop making the plane?”

“With like spaceships and aliens?”

Mari had pretended to continue writing. “No.”

“Dragons and stuff?”

“No. I write like real life. Only different.”

Crestfallen, Dante went back to quietly folding planes.

But then Mari turned back toward Dante. “Do you write those kind of stories?”

“I don't write stories. I can't. But I met some friends, and they want to play this old game one of them read about.”

“A video game or a board game?”

“Um, neither, I guess. You just make it up.”

“So there aren't any rules?”

“There are,” Dante said, carefully lining up his next fold.

“Then I don't get it.” Mari said. “How do you play?”

“Like I said, you make it up. First, you create characters. Then the Dungeon Master—that's the person in charge—comes up with adventures. Then the players have to follow the game rules to beat the quests.”

“So it's like the Dungeon Master versus everyone else?”

“Kind of, but not really,” Dante said.

“Huh? Isn't the Dungeon Master just trying to come up with an adventure that the players can't beat?”

“No. If the adventure is too hard then it wouldn't be fun. Same if it's too easy. He has to make it so that it's in between.”

Mari thought about this for a second and then asked, “Why does the Dungeon Master have to be a
he
?”

Dante shrugged. “He doesn't.”

“So why do you keep saying
he
?”

Dante shrugged again.

“If you can do almost anything, how do you ever know what to do?”

“Archie says you we just figure it out together.”

“What's to stop someone from just going off on her own and making stupid decisions?” Mari asked.

“Nothing, I guess.”

“And there's no screen or board or anything?”

“Not really.” Dante turned the paper over and folded it again.

“So, like, the game happens in your imagination? Like a video game without a console?”

“Yeah.”

“That's weird.”

Dante's face reddened. He finished folding the plane and quietly said, “I guess.”

“Good weird, though.” Mari looked down at her notebook. “Maybe I could be the person who makes up the stories. The Dungeon Lord.”

“Dungeon Master.”

“Whatever.”

Dante smiled at Mari, held out the plane for her to take. “I'll check with Archie, Sam, and Sarah.”

“What are they like?” Mari asked, taking the plane and turning it over to examine its structural integrity. She was impressed by the precision of the folds.

“Archie's really smart and funny. You'll love him. Sam can be kind of quiet, but he's cool. Sarah is pretty nice.”

“Well, I'll start making up some stories with swords and stuff. But if this turns out to be lame, I'm not going to keep doing it.”

“Okay,” Dante said. “Maybe Archie can give you the rule book today and we can start playing next week.”

“What? He just, like, carries it around with him?”

“Yeah.”

Mari put away her story notebook and made a mental note to read a few fantasy novels soon. She handed the plane back to Dante and turned her attention to the science worksheet. She wrote their names on it, and then told Dante, “You're clear for takeoff.”

Dante tossed the plane like a dart and it swooped left, smashed into the side of a table, and fell to the floor. “Oops,” he said as he picked it up and tried to straighten its crumpled nose. “I hate my hands. They're too big.”

A thunderclap shakes the world, interrupting Mari's memory. She considers the rain, considers how much she will tell Dante.

She counts to three in her head and then in a fluid motion pulls the door handle, pops open her umbrella, steps into the rain, and slams the door shut.

The sound of the falling water magnifies. More thunder rumbles in the distance. She steps quickly through the shallow lake that the parking lot has become, her umbrella insufficient.

She walks in and approaches a Hispanic kid at the counter whose arms are covered in tattoos.

“Hi,” she says.

“S'up, Mami?” he says.

“Can I speak with Dante, please?”

“He's not here,” the kid says. “But you can speak with me.” He winks.

Mari ignores it. “I thought he works Thursdays?”

“He took off.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

He shrugs.

She sighs. “Well, thanks, anyways.”

She pulls her hood back up. Opens her umbrella. Takes a deep breath and plunges back into the rain alone, feeling like a diver dropping into the ocean.

• • •

When Mari looks up, she's surprised by stars. There are so many it makes her dizzy. They fill the black sky, clusters of light denser in some areas than others, but all shining through the eons to reach her. Most are pinpricks of white, but some blink a pale blue or orange. Behind them, the magnificent swath of the galaxy's cloudy center stretches across the heavens like some cosmic gash. Underlining it all, the silhouette of a tree line spans the horizon, backlit by some unseen city.

“It's beautiful,” Mari says as if she were in some cathedral.

Archie puts his arm around Mari and pulls her closer. “I know.”

She rests her head on his chest and takes his hand in hers. She holds it as if it were a bird that might fly away.

A chilly breeze blows over their hill, rustling the surrounding trees and grass. She draws warmth from Archie's body. The blanket beneath them tickles the band of exposed skin below the hem of her sweatshirt. She rolls onto her side still holding Archie's hand.

Mari closes her eyes. “I'm afraid I'll fall in.”

“I won't let you,” he says.

Mari leans in to kiss him, but her lips only find air. She opens her eyes and sees that she's alone.

Above, the sky starts to turn. The stars rotate, anchored to the Northern Star, accelerating with each second. It's as if the Earth is a globe spun by a child.

Mari panics. She reaches out only to remember that nobody is there. She flattens her back against the ground. Stretches her arms out to her sides and grips fistfuls of grass.

It's no use. She's slipping.

She feels the centrifugal force pulling her into space. Her body rises from the ground, just barely at first, but then higher and higher. The grass she holds rips from out of the ground, soil crumbling from the nests of tiny roots. She opens her hands. The grass clumps fall. Loose green blades flutter downward.

Mari closes her eyes. She feels her body ascending, floating upward and outward. She opens her eyes. The sky is now spinning so quickly that the stars have become white streaks of concentric circles.

Mari wakes. The world is still. Still dark. Still raining.

Still lonely.

The homeless guy drops a few sweaty, crumpled dollar bills in front of Dante. He then digs into his pocket and lets a handful of coins clatter onto the counter next to the cash.

“How much was it again?” the man asks, his voice raw.

Dante scoops up the money and returns it to the man. “Don't worry about it,” he says. “I got you.”

The man smiles at Dante, his teeth crooked and yellow. “Thank you, young man.”

He steps aside to wait for his food, and it's not long before Dante returns with a bag stuffed full of fried chicken. The man thanks Dante again and then heads back into the night.

Dante checks the clock. Just a few minutes left before he can lock up. But then he still has to wipe down the tables, put up the chairs, and mop the floor.

He yawns. Rolls his shoulders. Adjusts the notorious McCluck's hat that sits upon his head. It is notorious because the hat is in the shape of a foam chicken, complete with a comb dangling from each side of the beak. The dangling combs look like a pair of red testicles to everyone except, apparently, the person who designed the hat.

Dante is hoping that was the last customer of the night when three guys he recognizes from school walk in. Each wears loafers without socks, a different shade of khaki shorts, and some variation of a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up revealing evenly tanned forearms and shiny watches. Their hair is all mussed in an artificial way and they wear sunglasses despite the fact that it's nighttime.

One of the guys approaches the register and flashes a smile, revealing perfect white teeth indicative of privilege and date rape. He reeks of alcohol. “Gimme a number seven with a diet Coke, bro. Hey, nice balls.”

The guy reaches up and flicks one of the combs. It sways back and forth. His friends crack up. Dante sighs. Even though he's got at least one foot and a hundred pounds on the biggest guy of the group, Dante feels insignificant.

And he wonders at the fact that they haven't recognized him from school yet. It's not like there are that many linebacker-sized black guys lumbering through the hallways. In fact, there's just one. Probably too drunk, he figures.

“Would you like to Cluck-Up your order for only seventy-nine cents more?” Dante asks because he has to.

“What?”

“You know, upgrade to the next size.”

The guy looks above Dante, considers the menu board as if it holds the answer. “Yeah, sure.”

Dante punches the order into the register. “For here or to go?”

The guy holds his credit card out to Dante and doesn't answer the question. Instead, he turns back to his friends to resume their conversation. Dante punches the “To Go” button and then runs the card.

The other two order in the same manner and then stand to the side to wait for their food. He hurriedly fixes their orders, but can't help but overhear their conversation as he does so.

“. . . No way, man.”

“Yeah way, dude.”

“Bro, I thought she was Chad's girl.”

“Well, she wasn't with Chad when Charles and I were tapping that on her parents' bed tonight.”

“Oh, man, what a megaslut!”

The three break out in guffawing laughter and high-fives.

Dante wonders what his own friends are up to. Certainly not “tapping” Chad's girlfriend on her parents' bed.

He fills their orders and calls their numbers. They grab the sacks and leave without saying thanks. Dante locks the door behind them. Removes his chicken hat. Starts working through the closing duties, all the while cursing his coworker Marco who never showed for his shift.

An hour later, Dante finishes counting the cash from the registers and then deposits it into the safe in the manager's office. He clicks off the lights, sets the alarm, and walks out.

Dante drinks in the fresh evening air. And before stepping into his car, he cranes his neck upward and gazes beyond the humming power lines and signs. He imagines distant galaxies. Galaxies where nobody wears chicken hats.

Or where chickens wear human hats.

Dante climbs the stairs carefully. He does not want to wake his grandparents who have been in bed for hours. Like usual, he takes a shower to try to wash away the scent of grease and fried chicken. He feels it's bad enough to be black and work at a fried chicken joint. He doesn't need to smell like the stuff.

After the shower, he returns to his room feeling wide awake. He considers the two PCs on his desk. One works. The other sits with its casing opened and circuitry exposed, like a patient in the middle of surgery.

After powering on the working computer, he glances at the crack under the door and confirms that the hallway is still dark. He listens for a moment, but hears nothing beyond the comforting hum of his computer.

Satisfied, he makes his way to a website he likes to visit while everyone else is fast asleep.

Above rows of attractive, smiling faces a headline proclaims
Hot singles in YOUR area might be searching for YOU right NOW!

On his profile homepage, a small number two appears next to his mailbox icon. Intrigued, Dante clicks it.

The first message is from a user named Wonderboy24. Before reading the message, Dante examines the picture. The man, who appears older than both the number and the word “boy” that the username suggests, has sandy brown hair and retro wire-rim glasses. He has a square jaw and nice smile, but his eyes are too far apart and his nose seems too small for his face. Dante deletes the message without reading it.