Not That Cool | Teen Ink

Not That Cool MAG

December 16, 2008
By Robert Homan BRONZE, Delaware, Ohio
Robert Homan BRONZE, Delaware, Ohio
3 articles 0 photos 3 comments

The final shot ricocheted off a tree.

“No one showed up.”

“It’s a Thursday. People are working late or studying.”

“So should I just stick to Fridays from now on?”

“I’ve gotta get going.”

“Um, yeah, me too. Paper due ­Monday.”

“Sucks. See ya next week?” He ­didn’t wait for a reply.

Peter watched him leave the screen, then looked around his dark room. It was lit only by an effusive green glow from the white box on the floor in front of the TV. He pressed a button and let the machine whir down. The television blinked off and the room was devoid of light. Taking off the headset that had become imprinted on his ear, ­Peter got up from the couch, absent-mindedly fiddling with the controller in his hands. Darkness seemed to ­envelop him as the empty feeling ­returned.

It doesn’t do much good to host a party when no one’s playing, he thought. Stupid. Stick to what you know will work.

His two-room apartment was pitch black except for the light creeping in through the cracked window behind his couch. It was getting cold in Denver, and Peter knew that the luxury of leaving the windows open would only last a few more weeks. He gazed at the building across the street. Wide and tall, it held hundreds of offices looming over the city. Even at 9 p.m., he knew that in the countless cubicles hard-workers were completing assignments or gaining an upper hand on competitive colleagues. Such urgency was lost in the void of Peter’s living room.

Turning on his old Dell laptop and taking a seat at the desk near the window, Peter let his mind wander. He had to work, but the empty feeling, which clamped his body in a sort of vice, prevented him. He longed to be back where he was comfortable, in his games, talking to people thousands of miles away whom he knew only by how they accumulated kills or trash-talked opponents. No one, however, was playing on a Thursday ….

The computer booted up. Studying on the Internet was not the same as studying on a campus, and Peter was finally beginning to come to terms with that. Staring at page upon page of digital text, set starkly against the white “Phoenix Online” background, his shoulders drooped and his mind numbed. The irony of reading about how to fix computers on a computer didn’t register. Nonetheless, it was ­beginning to take its toll on his emotional and mental state. He worked five hours each morning, then spent nearly as much time poring over the computer at night, and menial hours in between wasting away on his couch.

About 45 minutes later, knee deep in “Servers and their Switches,” the noise started – a girl’s voice, then a man’s, then a third, deeper voice. Peter glanced at the thin door separating his cocoon from the outside world. Warm, yellow light shone through the crack at the bottom, glancing off the dark walls and colliding with the inhuman white glow of the laptop.

Laughter chased ­conversation, and Peter pegged what he knew was drunken revelry ­taking place across the hall. Colorado State’s campus was a half-mile away, and some football players had recently moved into the adjacent apartment, transforming it ­into an alcohol-soaked, drug-fueled party headquarters for the less academically inclined.

For six months, since the beginning of summer training, Peter had known days of silence and nights of loud get-togethers. He had become accustomed to it, never so much as knocking on their door, but he occasionally wondered.

This was their “Thursday Trifecta,” whatever that meant, and Peter knew that the partying would continue late into the night. He continued to gaze at the fake wood-grain door standing ­between the dead space of his apartment and those streaming into fun land. After a minute, he was sucked back into the screen.

He was interrupted by a sudden crash and a bellowed swear from an ­intoxicated frat boy. A girl screamed and the noise grew louder. Peter sat up. Drunken outbursts were the norm, but rarely did the cacophony rise above what it was now. It seemed as if the ­entire group was yelling, hooting and hollering at the man who swore.

Peter heard the door across the hall slam open. The man was in the corridor, yelling in a deep drunken voice: “You think you can just pull that type of s---? You’re always doing something, Laura, aren’t you? Always with the next guy you see. Think it just happens? Give me a g-ddamn break!”

The man fired off another string of expletives; his shoes made reverberating clunks. Peter could see a sliver of them under the door. He was stumbling around like a muscled loon.

That harbinger of unwanted circumstances, sweat, trickled down Peter’s arm; his body tensed. The man banged against the walls of the hallway, testing their structural integrity and daring one to give way to his bulk. Peter leapt from his desk chair, sending it twirling toward the television. He lunged forward, but not before the drunken mass made a fatal miscalculation.

Bouncing against the walls, he had come to the door and laid his massive right shoulder into its flimsy construct. A crack sounded and the hinges flew off. The wooden sheet didn’t stand a chance against his 6ƍ" frame, and it thumped to the floor. The man couldn’t stop his fall either, and the momentum carried him down, crashing into Peter’s apartment like a felled tree.

As soon as he was down, he was up, hunched over in a rage that caused ­Peter to step back. With dizzy, glazed eyes, the man stumbled toward the couch. After a few steps he made ­contact with the floor again. The hulk came to rest on his back between the couch and the television, eyes closed and chest heaving.

Peter stood above him, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. His face was scrunched up, eyes furrowed, and mouth gaping at the body now ­occupying the nexus of his home. ­Peter did not notice the door across the hall open.

“Wow, I always knew he was crazy when he drank, but not like this.”

Peter looked up, bewildered. A girl was frowning at the man spread-eagle on the floor. Peter blinked in surprise at the figure in a bright yellow T-shirt and dark jeans that fit her svelte form perfectly. Long black hair cascaded down her back and white pearl earrings glinted. She smiled bashfully.

“So, this is your apartment?” White teeth completed a picture Peter was not quite sure existed. Her face glowed in the soft light, and he was conscious of the sweat trickling down his arm. She looked carefree, though her eyes didn’t fit.

“Um, yeah, it is, actually.” Peter struggled not to stare.

“Sometimes he’s such a lug. I’m so sorry about this,” she said, sighing.

“It’s not your fault … I mean … he just … kind of … fell in here.” Peter’s words came out in bits and pieces, and he was not sure the girl even understood what he was saying. She seemed focused on the guy.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She grinned up at him. Peter was above ­average in height. Her sleek heels only made her slightly tall.

“So, uh … Peter, what should we do about this?” she asked, noticing the name tag clinging to his drab work shirt.

“I don’t know. What do you care?” That came out wrong, he thought, but she continued to smile. Peter fumbled about in his mind. Why is she amused?

“I’m just a … a friend of his,” she answered. “I was sent from the party to see if I could gather the remains.” She laughed, and, for the first time, Peter let his shoulders loosen and his body relax. He laughed with her.

Her face, a smile.

“I could probably just leave him and come back later if you need to get back to work,” she said, suddenly seeming downtrodden and tired. “Why haven’t I seen you around campus?” She glanced at the computer screen, which displayed a picture of a microprocessor.

“That’s an online course. I’m not at CSU … not that cool,” he muttered.

“I always wondered how those worked. It must be pretty fun not ­having to leave where you live to go to class.”

“Yeah,” he replied, feeling the ­opposite.

“Well, uh …” She looked down. “Don here will probably be out cold for quite a while. He’s been drinking all day.” She grimaced at the closed door to the party. “They’re probably wondering where I am,” she said feebly. “Sometimes I just can’t take it. Need to get away from people yelling …”

Obnoxious bass thumped from the party room. Catching a glimpse of her unhappy face, Peter gained confidence, years of loneliness spurring him on.

“If you wanna … wait here until he wakes up, you could …,” he muttered, speaking more to the floor than to the face half-obscured by darkness. “I mean, if you want to.”

For a second her face was a blank slate. A chant of “Chug! Chug!” escaped into the hallway. Peter’s stomach lurched – Why, he thought, why … – until her face relaxed and broke into a toothy smile.

“Sure. I’ve had enough of that party. The music’s too loud.”

“True,” Peter responded, and walked over to the door, picked it up, and leaned it in the doorway, covering the void. Gone.

An unrecognizable sensation filled him.

“He’ll be out for a while. Don’t worry.”

The girl, the woman, had made ­herself comfortable on the couch and was using the man’s hulking chest as an ottoman. Peter sat close to her. Her side was against his, and the foreign feeling washed over him and he smiled. One hour later, he thought. He felt more a part of the world than ever before.

“What’s your name?” Peter asked.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No.” Not at all.

The room was dark again, except for the flickering TV screen, but its three occupants didn’t seem to care.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 122 comments.


TrulySecrets said...
on Jun. 17 2009 at 4:39 am
TrulySecrets, West Linn, Oregon
0 articles 0 photos 9 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Being the freak that I am..." TrulySecrets

Others are wrong. It was a wonderful piece of work, you should continue finishing this.

on Jun. 10 2009 at 4:06 pm
LoveLikeWoe DIAMOND, LeSueur, MN, Minnesota
54 articles 2 photos 748 comments

Favorite Quote:
Whoever laughs first has the sickest mind.

i loved it.

on May. 14 2009 at 10:32 pm
ElizabethS. PLATINUM, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
32 articles 0 photos 16 comments
Honestly, I didn't like it that much, but it's just not my type of story. It was written very well and it was very sweet. Good job.

Kerri said...
on May. 12 2009 at 9:59 pm
Kerri, East Greenwich, Rhode Island
0 articles 0 photos 17 comments
That was really nice...you pulled that together really subtly, and it gave the story a lot of emphasis. I felt like I really knew the main character. Good job!

on May. 8 2009 at 11:44 pm
thedaydreamer13 BRONZE, Delta, Ohio
3 articles 6 photos 40 comments
that was good!! it seemed a little slow. but good in the end. :)

-em ILY said...
on May. 8 2009 at 6:28 pm
That was amazing you should totally write a book!!! I would totally get up at midnight 4 this one!!! :D

on May. 4 2009 at 3:54 pm
yael krifcher BRONZE, Potomac, Maryland
3 articles 0 photos 32 comments
eh i actually didnt like ti that much, sorry, i just thought it was kinda pointless, like it didnt develop much...not realistic...sorry!

on Apr. 22 2009 at 5:40 pm
Iheartthearts, Ayer, Massachusetts
0 articles 3 photos 22 comments

Favorite Quote:
Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower." - Hans Christian Andersen

Ah..tres bien, tres bien! I truly love it! I can't wait to read more of your work.:D

on Apr. 18 2009 at 7:25 pm
MomoSaysRawrr BRONZE, Kankakee, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 65 comments

Favorite Quote:
"In the end, everyone's going to hurt you. You just have to find the ones worth suffering for."
-Bob Marely

"Don't narrate... Paint! Draw! Build! CREATE!" -Jack London

good job. wow

on Apr. 7 2009 at 8:59 pm
bcookie PLATINUM, Ashville, Ohio
27 articles 5 photos 46 comments

Favorite Quote:
“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

that was great!

celeste333 said...
on Apr. 7 2009 at 4:17 pm
man that was geat...although i have no idea what 6q" means...

i loved the subtle descriptions...

nice work

on Apr. 1 2009 at 1:56 am
Robert Homan BRONZE, Delaware, Ohio
3 articles 0 photos 3 comments
Thank you.

on Mar. 30 2009 at 7:19 pm
okeydokey SILVER, Cle Elum, Washington
9 articles 0 photos 13 comments
you're really good. like, really really good. keep writing. i'd read it. =)

on Mar. 25 2009 at 8:28 pm
MySocksAreYellow, Utuado, Other
0 articles 0 photos 8 comments
I thought that was really good! I loved it!

on Mar. 24 2009 at 10:26 pm
Robert Homan BRONZE, Delaware, Ohio
3 articles 0 photos 3 comments
Thanks a lot Sally!

Sally F said...
on Mar. 23 2009 at 10:44 pm
OMG! Robert, that was so good. I showed it to my sister and she thought it was great...

on Mar. 21 2009 at 8:22 pm
Robert Homan BRONZE, Delaware, Ohio
3 articles 0 photos 3 comments
Thanks. There does seem to be many more girls than boys writing on here and in general.

on Mar. 21 2009 at 2:14 am
yourworstnightmare BRONZE, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
4 articles 0 photos 96 comments

Favorite Quote:
The best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. (Teddy Roosevelt)

Wow, Robert. This was just amazing. I loved the story. *speechless

on Mar. 14 2009 at 10:04 pm
Toxic_Wasteland PLATINUM, Andowver, New Jersey
23 articles 0 photos 31 comments

Favorite Quote:
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life... It Goes On."~Robet Frost

Thank you i loved this espically from a guy, it proves so much. but really i did really like this. your name, by the way, was parshly the reason i read this and i'm glad i did great job.

Madison R said...
on Feb. 12 2009 at 1:22 am
Way to go Robert. You may think it could be more exciting, but the simlicity of it is what gives it its character.



Although, I think the title needs to be more entwined into the story. "Coolness" is only mentioned once, and I neveer really got the impression of it anywhere else.