“Anyway, at least you didn’t have to do it. Move, that is. Leave all your friends. I mean, it’s not like you can’t stay in touch. But I get a text from one of my old friends, and it’s all about some party some guy I don’t even know threw the night before with a bunch of new people I never met and after a while, what’s the point? And then some people you’d most expect to stay in touch with, they have no interest. Like it’s not as if you moved. It’s like you died.”
I say, “Yeah,” wondering if she’s thinking about some guy, back in New Jersey. And then thinking about how weird it would seem to Hannah to find out that my best friends, like DT, are online. True, I do still see Eric sometimes, but last semester he started hanging out with Becca, who is actually really into gaming. She was in our World of Warcraft guild for a while and now the two of them are inseparable. So mostly I’m online with DT and other guys. Not many people seem to understand how that works.
But that night, when I’m back at home, lying in bed, my mind still firing like a Starfare screen, I keep hearing Hannah’s voice, talking about seeing that painting and the passion for something special.
Back when I was in grade school Mom seemed to worry a lot about my gifted program. She was always saying that everyone is special in their own way and has their own talents and that I shouldn’t think I was better than anyone just because I could do more math than them. Not that that was a problem, because no one gave a crap that you could do long division in first grade. They were more interested in how far you could throw a football or who could run the fastest.
But when I think about it now, I’m thinking Mom was wrong. Not everyone can shoot a basketball into a tiny hoop from thirty feet, over and over like Garrett. Not everyone can paint a picture so great that it can stop a beautiful girl in her tracks. Not everyone can have the mental and physical skills it takes to absorb an entire Starfare map, assess your opponent’s strategy while tapping out commands on the keyboard faster than the hardest song ever on Guitar Hero.
No, very few people have what it takes to be great at any particular thing. And if you find that thing and don’t go for it, that would be the ultimate fail. I try to imagine what it would be like living with that. And all I can come up with is Dad.
21.
The next day I get up relatively early, at least for me, with a fresh determination to make some progress. But one of the hardest things for me is to figure out what I need to do to get better. It’s not like I can simply ask someone. I’m already the best player in Kansas City. Probably by far.
Sometimes I think about how much coaching Garrett got. From school coaches. From older players. From college coaches at sports camps. I once looked it up online. Garrett’s college basketball coach gets paid $350,000 a year. He damn well better know a thing or two about the game.
So I never really know if I should be spending more time watching pro gamers, or reading the strategy message boards, or just playing the best competition I can find. Which is also a problem, because when you get to my level, you can’t just click on a server and expect to pick up a really good game at random. Chances are you’ll be playing someone you can beat without any real effort. And how is that supposed to make you better?
So I do what I normally do, a little bit of everything, and then before I know it it’s time for my evening shift at Saviano’s.
22.
Two good things about work: Hannah, and for every four hours you work you get one ten-inch pizza. Of course there are downsides. Shifts without Hannah. Getting sent home after three hours when things are slow and not getting your ten-inch. And of course, those countless hours of lost training time.
But to be honest, walking from my place to Saviano’s, I’m not thinking about Starfare skills or lost practice opportunity or improving my national ranking. I’m thinking about Hannah.
Even though it’s only a few blocks and the sun is low, I can’t believe how hot it is. It’s not just that’s it hot and still. But the air is so thick and heavy you’d think that it wasn’t normal air at all, but something thicker and murkier, like a winter dream when you have twenty pounds of blankets weighing down your legs and you’re trying to run away from that monster from Alien. After half a block I can already feel the moisture beading on my forehead. It sucks to get all sweated out before you go to work. The air smells of cut grass and tilled gardens and every few seconds a cicada will scream from one of the trees above, quickly joined by dozens of others, wailing like a tornado warning.
The tornado sirens don’t penetrate to the depths of the restaurant, through the piped in music and the rattling of plates in the dishwasher, where Hannah and I are busily assembling pizzas. I don’t know what makes me step away from the counter and down the hall. Only as I approach the back door do I hear a faint whine. When I push the door open to the back parking lot the sirens aren’t nearly as troubling as the sky. A line of dark clouds with a yellow-green hue, oddly humped, are almost straight overhead. A roar from the right turns my head. I can see the massive dark funnel, like a black hand of the devil, spewing debris as it snakes ominously across the ground. Directly towards me. Not more than a mile down the road.
I slam the door and race inside. I scream Hannah’s name and she turns from the counter. Her expression is surprise and concern. I run to her and grab her hand and pull.
“We’ve got to get the cooler!” I yell. And because we don’t have time I half drag her towards the metal door of the walk-in refrigerator.
“Tornado!” I yell and then we are inside and I slam the door shut and pull Hannah down. Just as I lay myself on top of her the world explodes and we can hear what it must sound like to be in the midst of a bomb attack. We can feel the entire room rotating, as if we were on a carousel and not solid ground, and then, as fast as it began, it’s completely quiet. I realize I’m still on top of Hannah and as she stirs, my head on the nape of her neck, I smell her hair and feel her from the tip of my chin all the way to my ankles.
I roll to the side and say, “Sorry.”
“What the hell?” Hannah says as we stand up. She’s brushing the front of her clothes with her hands, as if I had thrown her onto a dirt pile instead of a shiny, stainless steel floor. I try to open the door, and can only move it a few inches.
“Let me help,” Hannah says, and together we push, the sound of something against the door grating. We finally get it open a few feet and step outside. We stare, stunned, at the still-dark sky which somehow glows directly overhead, tornado and emergency vehicle sirens the only sound. Nothing but broken boards and twisted roofing and mounds of debris at our feet and for hundreds of feet around us. The restaurant and the other shops are just gone.
“Oh my God,” Hannah says as she throws her arms around me. “You saved my life!”
The spray of an evening sprinkler hits my face and I step away from the stuttering arcing spray. The restaurant is just a half block ahead.
Stepping into the cool restaurant is like jumping into a pool. I look down at my shirt, a few wet spots of perspiration on my chest. Hopefully not enough to raise a stink.
Hannah and I had worked assembly the previous shift and it had been great. Sometimes she seems like she’s in a bad mood. Won’t talk, does her work robotically. She’ll ask me or Steve or one of the others if they’ll close for her. Then you turn around and she’s gone, disappeared. I figure it has to do with being so far away from all her friends and stuff.
But on Thursday it was just the opposite. The night before she’d seen this Netflix movie called Fur and all she could do was go on and on about it. It was apparently about some famous photographer named Diane something.
All evening it was like, “And then she did this just amazing series of photos of these circus performers who were like deformed and tattooed and grotesque,