Not A Star And Otherwise Pandemonium Part 4

'No. Now it's too embarra.s.sing. I'm still quitting.'

'Paul will be disappointed. I got the impression that he had high hopes for you and Martha. He thought you sounded like...'

'Whoa. Martha?'

'Do you know her?'

'Maybe.'

'Do you like her?'

I tried to be cool about it. 'She's OK. I'll just go and find my trumpet.'

Respect where it's due to Mom: she didn't say anything. Didn't even smile in a way that would have made me freak out all over again. Just waited for me downstairs. She was still in the wrong, though. OK, it turned out well, but there was like a 99.9% chance (or rather, because there are maybe fifteen girls in the band, a ninety-four-point-something percent chance) that it could have been a total disaster. She didn't know it was Martha, or even who Martha is, so she was just plain lucky.

Before we get back to me in the car with Martha, which sounds way more exciting than it actually was, there's one more bit of the story that's important, but I'm not too sure where to put it. It should either go herewhich was roughly where it happenedor later, when I get back from rehearsal, which is where I actually discovered it, and where it has a bit more dramatic effect. But the thing is, if I put it later, you might not believe it. You might think it's just like a story trick, or something I just made up on the spur of the moment to explain something, and it would really p.i.s.s me off if you thought that. And anyway, I don't need any dramatic effects, man. This story I need to calm down, not pump up. So I'll tell you here: I messed up the VCR recording of the Lakers game. I was so mad that I watched five minutes of The Matrix The Matrix, which meant removing the blank tape. I remembered to take out the Matrix Matrix tape, but I forgot to put another one back in. (I forgot because once Mom mentioned Martha, I was in kind of a hurry.) But I didn't know I'd messed up then. See what I mean? If I'd left that part until later, it might have had a little kick to it'Oh, no, he didn't tape the game. So how come...' But if that little kick means you believe me any less, it's not worth it. tape, but I forgot to put another one back in. (I forgot because once Mom mentioned Martha, I was in kind of a hurry.) But I didn't know I'd messed up then. See what I mean? If I'd left that part until later, it might have had a little kick to it'Oh, no, he didn't tape the game. So how come...' But if that little kick means you believe me any less, it's not worth it.

Anyway, again. We got in the car after the rehearsal, me, Martha and her dad, and...You know what? None of this part matters. s.h.i.t, maybe I should have left the tape thing until later, because now I've brought it up, I kind of want to get back to it. I can't just keep it back for suspense purposes. And if you think about it, that's how you know most stories aren't true. I mean, I read a lot of horror writers, and those guys are always delaying the action to build it up a little. As in, I don't know, 'She ran down the path and slammed the front door with a sigh of relief. Little did she know that the Vampire Zombie was in her bathroom.

'MEANWHILE, two thousand miles away, Frank Miller of the NYPD was frowning. There was something about this case that was troubling him...'

See, if that s.h.i.t with the Vampire Zombie was realREAL AND HAPPENING TO YOUyou wouldn't care whether Frank Miller was frowning or not. You've got a zombie in your apartment with a f.u.c.king chain-saw or a blowtorch or something, so what does it matter what a cop does with his eyebrows on the other side of the country? Therefore, if you'll permit me to point something out that may ruin your reading pleasure forever, you know that the story has been made up.

But you know this story, the one I'm telling you, hasn't been made up. You know it a) because I told you that thing about the tape straight away, when it happened, rather than trying to get a little zinger going later, and b) because I'm not going to go into who said what to who on a car ride, just to b.u.mp up the page numbers, or to make you forget about the tape thing. You just need to hear this much: Martha and I didn't say an awful lot, but we did some smiling and whatever, so at the end of the ride we maybe both knew we liked each other. And then I got out of the car, said 'Hi' to Mom, and went upstairs to watch the game.

Well, you know now that there wasn't a tape in the machine, but I didn't. I sat down on the bed and turned on the TV. Letterman was just starting. He was doing one of those dumb list things that everyone pretends is funny but which really no one understands. I pressed the rewind on the remote: nothing. Not surprising, right? And then I pressed the fast-forward b.u.t.ton, I guess because I thought the timer recording hadn't worked, and I wanted to check that there was a tape in there.

This is what happened: I started fast-forwarding through Letterman. I was pretty confused. How could I do that? The show wasn't even finished, so how could I have taped it? I pressed the eject, and finally I found out what you've known for a while: that there was no ca.s.sette in there. With no ca.s.sette, I can't be fast-forwarding. But my TV doesn't seem to know that, because meanwhile, Letterman's waving his hands in the air really really fast, and then we're racing through the ads, and then it's the closing credits, and then it's The Late Late Show The Late Late Show, and then more ads...And that's when I realize what's going on: I'm fast-forwarding through network f.u.c.king television.

I mean, obviously I checked this theory out. I checked it out by keeping my finger on the remote until I got to the next morning's breakfast news, which took maybe an hour. But I got there in the end: they showed the next day's weather, and the best plays from what they said was last night's Lakers gameeven though it wasn't last night to meand, a little later, a big pile-up on the freeway near Candlestick Park that had happened in the early morning fog. I could have stopped it, if I'd known any of the drivers. I got bored after a while, and put the remote down; but it took me a long time to get to sleep.

I woke up late, and I had to rush the next morning, so I didn't get to move any further through the day's TV schedule. On my way to school, I tried to think about it allwhat I could do with it, whether I'd show it to anyone, whatever. Like I said, I'm not as quick as I'd like to be. Mentally speaking, I'm not Maurice Greene. I'm more like one of those Kenyan long-distance runners. I get there in the end, but it takes like two hours and an awful lot of sweat. And to tell you the absolute truth, when I went to school that morning, I didn't see it was such a big deal. I was, like, I saw this morning's weather forecast last night; well, so what? Everyone knew what the weather was now. Same with the pile-up. And I'd seen a few of the best plays from the Lakers game, but everyone who didn't rehea.r.s.e in a stupid jazz band had seen the whole game anyway. Like, I was supposed to boast to people that I'd seen stuff they saw before I did?

Imaginary conversation: 'I saw the best plays from the Lakers game.'

'So did we. We watched the game.'

'Yeah, but I saw them on the breakfast news show.'

'So did we.'

'Yeah, but I saw them on the breakfast news show last night.'

'You're a jerk. You need to have your a.s.s kicked.' What's fun about that? Watching breakfast news seven hours early didn't seem like such a big deal to me.

It took me a while longer than it should have done to get the whole picture: If I just kept fast-forwarding, I could see all kinds of stuff. The rest of the playoffs. The next episodes of Buffy Buffy, or Friends Friends. The next season of Buffy Buffy or or Friends Friends. Next month's weather, whatever that's worth. Some news stuff, like, maybe, a psycho with a gun coming into our school one day next year, so I could warn the people I liked. (In other words not Brian O'Hagan. Or Mrs Fleming.) It took me longer than it should have, but I began to see that fast-forwarding through network TV could be awesome.

And for the next two days, that's all I did: I sat in my bedroom with the remote, watching the TV of the future. I watched the Lakers destroy the Pacers in the NBA finals. I watched the A's get smashed by the Yankees. I watched The One Where Phoebe and Joey Get Married. I fast-forwarded until I got blisters. I watched TV until even my dreams got played out on a 14" screen. I was in my bedroom so often that Mom thought I had just discovered jerking off, and wanted me to call my father and talk. (Like, h.e.l.lo, Mom? I'm fifteen?) I could rewind, too; I could watch reruns of the TV of the future if I wanted.

And none of it was any use to me. Who wants to know stuff before it happens? People might think they do, but believe me, they don't, because if you know stuff before it happens, there's nothing to talk about. A lot of school conversation is about TV and sports; and what people like to talk about is what just happened (which I now can't remember, because it was three games back, or the episode before last) or what might happen. And when people talk about what might happen, they like to argue, or make dumb jokes; they don't want someone coming in and squashing it all flat. It's all, 'No, man, Shaq's not looking so young any more, I think the Pacers can take them.' 'No way! The Pacers have no defense. Shaq's going to destroy them.' Now, what do you say if you know the score? You tell them? Of course not. It sounds too weird, and there's nothing to bounce off anyway. So all I ever did was agree with the guy whose prediction was closest to the truth, to what I knew, and it was like I hadn't seen anything, because the knowledge I had was no f.u.c.king good to anyone. One thing I learned: School life is all about antic.i.p.ation. We're fifteen, and nothing's happened to us yet, so we spend an awful lot of time imagining what things will be like. No one's interested in some jerk who says he knows. That's not what it's about.

But of course I kept going with the remote. I couldn't stop myself. I'd come back from school and watch, I'd wake up in the morning and watch, I'd come back from rehearsals and watch. I was a month, maybe five weeks, into the futuretime enough to know that Frazier gets engaged to some writer, that there's a dumb new sitcom starting soon about a rock star who accidentally becomes three inches tall, and that half the Midwest gets flooded in a freak storm.

And then...Well, OK, maybe I should say that I had noticed something: The news programs were becoming really f.u.c.king long. It took a whole lot of fast-forwarding to get through them. And then one night I came back from school and picked up the remote, and all I could find was news. As far as I could tell, in about six weeks' time, all of network TVevery channelis just like one long f.u.c.king news show. No Buffy Buffy, no sports, no nothing; just guys in suits with maps, and people in weird countries you've never heard of talking into those c.r.a.ppy video things which make them go all jerky and fuzzy. It was like that for a couple days after 9/11, if you remember that long ago, but sooner or later everything went back to normal; I was trying to find that part, but I couldn't get there.

Now and again I stopped to watch the people talking, but I didn't really understand it; there was stuff about India and Pakistan, and Russia, and China, and Iraq and Iran, and Israel and Palestine. There were maps, and pictures of people packing up all their s.h.i.t in all these places and getting the h.e.l.l out. The usual stuff, but worse, I guess.

And then, a few days' TV-time later, I found the President. I watched some of that.i.t was on every channel at the same time. She was sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the American people, with this really intense expression on her face. She was so serious it was scary. And she was telling us that these were the darkest days in our history, and that we were all to face them with courage and determination. She said that freedom came at a price, but that price had to be worth paying, otherwise we had no ident.i.ty or value as a nation. And then she asked G.o.d to bless us all. Straight after the show they cut to live pictures of more people getting the h.e.l.l out of their homes, carrying bundles of their possessions under one arm and small children under another. These people were walking down the steps of a subway station, trying to get underground. The pictures weren't fuzzy or jerky, though. These people lived in New York City.

I didn't want to watch it anymore, so I picked up the remote; never in my life have I wanted to see the opening credits of Sabrina Sabrina so bad. But after a couple of hours of news stuff there was nothing. The TV just stops. Network TV cancelled. I've spent most of my time since then trying to see if I can get beyond the static, but I'm not there yet. so bad. But after a couple of hours of news stuff there was nothing. The TV just stops. Network TV cancelled. I've spent most of my time since then trying to see if I can get beyond the static, but I'm not there yet.

Now, all this time, I haven't spoken to anyone about any of this s.h.i.t. Not to Mom, not to anyone at school, not to Martha. That's one thing they get right in stories, even though I didn't use to think so: You don't want to talk about spooky stuff. In the stories, there's always some reason for it, like, I don't know, the words don't come out when they try to speak, or the magic thing only works for the guy who's telling the story, something like that, but the real reason is, it just sounds dumb. When it finally clicked that I could watch NBA games before they happened, then obviously I thought I was going to ask a bunch of guys to come over to watch. But how do you say it? How do you say, I've got a video recorder that lets me fast-forward through the whole of TV? You don't, is the answer, unless you're a complete jerk. Can you imagine? The only quicker way to get a pounding would be to wear a STA-COOL T-shirt to school. (I just thought of something: If you're reading this, you might not know about STA-COOL. Because if you're reading this, it's way off in the future, after the static, and you might have forgotten about STA-COOL, where you are. Maybe it's a better world where people only listen to good music, not stupid p.u.s.s.y boy-band s.h.i.t, because the world understands that life is too short for boy bands. Well, good. I'm glad. We did not die in vain.) And I was going to tell Mom, but not yet, and then when I got to the static...People should be allowed to enjoy their lives, is my view. Sometimes when she gives me a hard time about my clothes or playing my music loud, I want to say something. Like, 'Don't stress out, Mom, because in a month or so someone's going to drop the big one.' But most of the time I just want her to enjoy her painting, and living in Berkeley. She's happy here.

When I remembered the guy I bought the machine from, though, I wanted to speak to him. He'd seen the static too; that's what that conversation in his shop had been all about, except I didn't know it. He realized why I'd come as soon as I walked in. I didn't even say anything. He just saw it in my face.

'Oh, man,' he said after a little while. 'Oh, man. I never even started my novel.' Which I couldn't believe. I mean, Jesus. What else did this guy need to help him understand that time is running out? He'd seen the end of the f.u.c.king world on live TV, and he still hadn't gotten off his stoned a.s.s. Although maybe he'd figured he wasn't going to find a publisher in time. And he certainly wasn't going to get too many readers.

'Maybe we're both crazy,' I said. 'Maybe we're getting it all wrong.'

'You think network TV would stop for any other reason? Like, to encourage us to get more exercise or something?'

'Maybe the thing just stopped working.'

'Yeah, and all those people were going into the subway with their kids because they couldn't find any childcare. No, we're f.u.c.ked, man. I never voted for that b.i.t.c.h, and now she's killed me. s.h.i.t.'

At least you've had a life, I wanted to say. I haven't done anything yet. And that was when I decided to ask Martha out.

(OK. That was the weird middle. Now I'm going to give you the happy ending: the story of how I got to sleep with the hottest girl in the Little Berkeley Big Band, even though I'm only fifteen, and even though she doesn't look like the sort of girl who gives it up for anybody.)

One thing about knowing the world is going to end: It makes you a lot less nervous about the whole dating thing. So that's a plus. And she made it easy, anyway. We were talking in her dad's car about movies we'd seen, and movies we wanted to see, and it turned out we both wanted to see this Vin Diesel movie about a guy who can turn himself into like a bacteria any time he feels like it and hang out in people and kill them if necessary. (Although to tell you the truth, I used to want to see it more than I do now. There are a lot of things I used to want to do more than I do now. Like, I don't know, buying stuff. It sounds kind of dumb, I guess, but if you see a cool T-shirt, you're thinking about the future, aren't you? You're thinking, hey, I could wear that to Sarah Steiner's party. There are so many things connected to the futureschool, eating vegetables, cleaning your teeth...In my position, it'd be pretty easy to let things slide.) So it seemed like the logical next step to say, hey, why don't we go together?

The movie was OK. And afterwards we went to get a pizza, and we talked about what it would be like to be a bacteria, and about the band, and about her school and my school. And then she told me that one of the reasons she liked me was that I seemed sad.

'Really?'

'Yeah. Does that sound dumb?'

'No.' Because a) nothing she says sounds dumb; b) even if it did, it would be dumb to tell her; c) I'm sad. With good reason. So I'm not surprised I look it.

'Most guys our age don't look sad. They're always laughing about nothing.'

I laugheda littlebecause what she said was so true, and I hadn't even noticed it before.

'So are you really sad? Or is that just the way your face is?'

'I guess...I don't know. I guess I'm sad sometimes.'

'Me too.'

'Yeah? Why?'

'You first.'

Oh, man. I've seen enough movies and soaps to know that the sad guy is supposed to be the quiet, sensitive, poetic one, and I'm not sure that's me. I wasn't sad before I knew there was going to be a terrible catastrophe and we're all in trouble; suddenly, I went from like NBA fan to tortured genius-style dude. I think she's got the wrong impression. If PJ Rogers, who's this really really stupid trombonist kid in the orchestra, the kind of jerk whose wittiest joke is a loud fart, had seen what I'd seen, he'd be a tortured genius too.

'There's some stuff I'm worried about. That's all. It's not like I'm this really deep thinker.'

'Lots of kids don't worry even when there's something to worry about. They're too insensitive.'

'How about you?' I wanted to change the subject. I was getting way too much credit.

'I don't know why I'm sad half the time. I just am.'

I wanted to say to her, now, see, that's the real deal. That's being sensitive and screwed up...the cla.s.sic Breakfast Club stuff. I'm an amateur compared to you. But I didn't. I just nodded, like I knew what she was talking about.

'Do you want to tell me about the things you're worried about? Would it help?'

'It'd help me. I think it would f.u.c.k you up.'

'I can take it.'

'I'm not sure.'

'Try me.'

And I was so sick of being on my own that I took her up on the offer. It's probably the most selfish thing I've ever done in my whole life.

I asked her over to my house for lunch, after a Sat.u.r.day morning rehearsal. Mom took us back and fixed us sandwiches, and when we'd eaten we went up to my room to listen to musicor that's what she thought we were going to do. When we got upstairs, though, I explained everything, right from the beginning. I'd prepared this; I'd rewound to the point where the news started taking over the networks, and I'd found a section where they were talking about what happened when, and all the dates they mentioned were in the future. That was my evidence, and Martha believed it. It took a couple more hours to get back to the New York City subway scenes, but she wanted to see them, so we just sat there waiting. And then she watched, and then she started to cry.

Listen: There's something that's bothering me. Before, when I said that I asked Martha out on a date because I haven't done anything in my life yet...I'm not so much of an a.s.shole that this was the first thing I thought of. It wasn't. It was one of the first, sure, but, you knowsix weeks! There are lots of other things I wanted to achieve in my life, but I'm not going to get them done in six weeks. I'm not going to go to film school, and I'm not going to have a kid, and I'm not going to drive across the U.S.; at least s.e.x is something achievable. And it's not like I was just looking for the first available piece of a.s.s, either. I really like Martha a lot. In fact, if...But let's not go there. This is the happy ending, right?

Anyway. The next part came naturally. She stopped crying, and we talked, and we tried to understand what had happened. Martha knows more about that s.h.i.t than I do; she said things were already pretty bad, now, in the present, but because things are happening in other countries a long ways away, I hadn't noticed. I've been watching the basketball, not the news. And then we had this real sad conversation about the stuff I'd already been thinkingabout what we'd miss, and what we'd never do...

The truth is, she suggested it, not me. I swear. I mean, I wasn't going to say no, but it was her idea. She said that she wanted us to get good at it, which meant starting like straightaway. (She said this before, by the way. She didn't say it in response to anything, if that's what you're thinking.) So I made sure Mom was out, and then we kissed, and then we got undressed and made love in my bed. We didn't use anything. Neither of us can have any s.e.xual disease, and if she gets pregnant, well, that's fine by us. We'd love to have a kid, for obvious reasons.

Well, that's it. That brings you up to date, whoever you are. Martha and I see each other all the time, and this weekend we're going to go away together; I'm going to tell Mom that I want to see Dad, and she's going to give her parents some other excuse, and we'll take off somewhere, somehow. And that'll be something else we've checked on the listwe'll have spent a whole night together. I know it's maybe not the happy ending you were hoping for, but you probably weren't hoping for a happy ending anyway, because you already know about the Time of the Static. Unless you're reading this in the next six weeks, and I'm sure as h.e.l.l not going to show anybody. How is it where you are? Have people learned their lesson? How was that show about the three-inch rock star? Maybe they canceled it.

About the Author.

Nick Hornby is the author of the bestselling novels Slam, A Long Way Down, How to Be Good, High Fidelity, and About a Boy, and the memoir Fever Pitch. He is also the author of Songbook, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, Shakespeare Wrote for Money, Housekeep ing vs. the Dirt, and The Polysyllabic Spree, and editor of the short story collection Speaking with the Angel. A recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E. M. Forster Award, and the Orange Word International Writers' London Award 2003, Hornby lives in North London.

ALSO BY NICK HORNBY.

FICTION.

HIGH FIDELITY.

ABOUT A BOY.

HOW TO BE GOOD.

A LONG WAY DOWN.

SLAM.

JULIET, NAKED.

NONFICTION.

FEVER PITCH.

SONGBOOK.

THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE.

HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT.