Chapter Text
“—and also, I hate that thing where a show feels the need to insult its own fans or act like it's above them. Like, ‘fuck you for watching this.’ And I’m like, okay, fuck you, too. You were written by a depressed white guy who thinks he's some kind of tragic genius because the universe keeps congratulating him and putting him on a pedestal for his mediocre intelligence. But it's gotten old. No one is impressed. You’re the only one who’s getting high off your own self-awareness.”
“Velma…can we have a conversation?”
“We’re already having one. About how Rick and Morty went downhill when it started getting too meta.”
“I mean, about…real stuff.”
"What, this isn't real?"
Deep breath. Norville's hands remained locked around the steering wheel, palms sweaty. Rain ticked against the windshield. “I’ve told you how I feel about you. More than once. And every time, you just laugh it off. And I know you don’t feel the same, and that’s—okay—”
“Gee, thanks for giving me permission. I really needed that.”
“See, this is what I mean. You deflect with sarcasm.”
“And here we go with the therapy words. Look, if you know I don't feel the same, what is there to say? Can we go back to complaining about shows we don’t like? I feel like that’s really where we’re at our strongest, you know?”
“Just be real with me for two minutes. Please.”
She scowled, arms crossed over her chest. Then her shoulders deflated subtly, and her scowl softened, and beneath it was a deep weariness that he had come to recognize. “Okay, but you get literally two minutes.” She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “See?” She held up the phone. “I’m setting a timer. Starting—now.”
“It hurts. The way you turn it into a joke. Because I really do. Love you, I mean.”
She turned her face away. “We’ve known each other for years now. I never pretended to be anything other than the sort of person who would turn something like that into a joke. You said you liked that about me. That I don’t do the whole fake-nice thing. But now you want me to make a special exception for you?”
“Aren’t we friends?”
“Yeah. We are.” A half-hearted smirk. “You should see how I treat the people I hate.”
“Well, you always said you hated Daphne, but…”
“Ugh.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This again?”
“You said two minutes. My time’s not up yet.”
“Fine, yes. And I do hate her. And I’m also kind of into her. Maybe I only feel attracted to people who I hate. I don’t hate you. So there you go.”
They stopped at a light. The red glow caught in the rivulets of rain running down the glass. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
“Maybe. But you know what’s sadder? A baby with cancer.”
“I mean—yeah, but that’s not really relevant to—”
“Or the Holocaust. Or the fact that there are still actual, literal slaves in the world today. Not to mention millions of people working in conditions so bad it might as well be slavery, all so we can have our fucking iPhones so we can scroll through Twitter and ‘like’ a catty tweet about some celebrity we hate. Or hey, how about the fact that throughout most of human history, up to forty percent of kids died before they reached the age of five. Infant mortality rates were through the fucking roof. It’s 1375, you’re born, two years later you get fucking dysentery because there’s shit in the water, and that’s all, folks. Or how about the fact that no human being will ever live long enough to fulfill their potential? We can imagine like a thousand different futures for ourselves but we’ll only get to pick one. All those other potential selves, they die, too. No matter how long you live or what you accomplish, when you're on your death bed, you're never going to feel satisfied.”
“You…think about stuff like that?”
“I try not to. But anyway, I think all that is a lot sadder than the fact that I can only get off to the thought of breaking Daphne’s stupid, fucking perfect little nose. With my clit.”
Silence.
“So, anyway. Yeah. Sorry about the whole ‘not wanting to fuck you.’ But it’s your choice to keep hanging out with me.”
“You know it’s not just about that. Right? Like it’s not just phys—”
“So how about that local sports team? You know. The one with the balls. Gosh, the weather sure is weathery today. Did you ever read those James Joyce love letters? The ones where he talks about his fart and poop fetish? Imagine that. You’re a celebrated literary genius, but as soon as that comes out, you’re never going to be anything but the fart fetish guy. Or hey, there’s the fact that girls in our town are still being murdered and having their brains scooped out—”
“Fine. I get it. My two minutes are up.”
“You want tacos? I could do tacos.” After a brief pause, she said, “Actually, just drop me off at home. I feel kind of weird.”
* * *
Norville had been trying to work on his four-part symphonic metal album—each movement dedicated to the dangers of a different street drug, with a corresponding map of a fantasy kingdom through which the musical journey took place—but he couldn’t focus. The conversation with Velma kept running through his head. He turned off the monitor and turned his chair away from his desktop.
He was supposed to be good at understanding feelings, good at communicating. He had a therapist dad. Okay, guidance counselor who’d never finished his Psychology degree, but it still counted. Ever since Norville was five years old, his family had been doing “I” statement exercises around the breakfast table. He kept a dream journal. And of course, there was the cardigan.
Maybe Velma was right and it was all bullshit.
No—no, he couldn’t start letting her nihilism infect him. She was like that because she carried a lot of pain in her soul, even if she would never admit it, and it was his job to be the voice of reason, the moral center, the one who wouldn’t let her be devoured by the emptiness. Even if he was kind of shit at it. Maybe it was arrogant to think that way. She'd never asked him to do that, had she?
He had once impulsively sent her the last two lines of a Yeats poem:
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
She'd responded with LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Followed by a gif from that Saturday Night Live skit of Rick James cackling and thrashing his muddy boots on Charlie Murphy's couch, with the message: Fuck your dreams n*gga.
Maybe he was supposed to respond with a gif of Charlie Murphy breaking Rick James' legs and dragging him out of the room, but he'd meant those words sincerely and was actually pretty stung. This had prompted a lot of journal-writing on Norville's part, about why he was so attracted to someone who was so cartoonishly mean to him on such a consistent basis, and why he seemed to invite it. He thought about what Velma had said about hate and attraction.
He stretched out on his bed, on his back, and stared at the ceiling.
His phone buzzed. He checked the number.
Fred? Why would Fred, of all people, be calling him? He’d given him his number at one point, saying if he had any additional information to share on the case—or if he just wanted to chat, of course—that he could feel free to call or text or leave a VM (voicemail) if Norville wasn’t around.
He thought briefly about letting it go to VM (voicemail). He wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone.
But also, he knew what it felt like to be ignored.
He answered. “Hey, Fred.”
“Hey, Norville,” Fred said in his watery, nasally voice. His tone was difficult to read. It sounded artificial, but in an earnest way—like a kid practicing lines for the school play. He drew out the “hey” for several seconds and pronounced Norville’s name like a word in a language he was still trying to learn.
Norville waited a few seconds, listening to Fred’s raspy breathing on the other end of the line. This was the guy that Velma liked. Of course, she also liked Daphne. What did the two of them have in common? Well, they were both popular. Neither one of them wrote four-part symphonic metal albums about heroin addiction. Also, neither of them had attempted to sell their own kidney in an attempt to get five hundred dollars in an attempt to buy the case file that would (according to rom-com logic) buy Velma's love. If he’d gone through with that, no doubt, Velma would have found it hilarious. He could have sent her a photo of the scar and she would respond with memes.
“So,” Norville said, once it became clear Fred wasn’t going to break the silence. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Oh, everything’s fine,” Fred said in that awkward, stilted tone.
“Did you, by any chance, remember any more details about that time you saw Velma’s mother? Before her disappearance?” He sat up on the edge of the bed and grabbed a notebook and pen, just in case.
“No. Sorry.” Norville heard muffled footsteps—pacing—on the other end of the line. “I was, uh…I was thinking. You said that I could call you if I just wanted to talk.”
The last thing he’d expected was for Fred to take him up on the offer. "Oh. Yeah, I did."
“So. Can we?”
“Uh. Sure. About what?”
“Just…stuff. You know. Like how we talked when you visited me in prison.” Then, after a pause, “I’ve been having some—” his voice dropped to a whisper, as though he were about to say something scandalous, “—feelings.”
Norville rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, it’s pretty normal to have feelings. I should level with you, though. I don’t really have any training as a therapist. If you want a professional, you’re better off talking to my dad. At school, I mean. His door is always open.”
“Oh.” His tone was flat. Dejected. "It's okay. I get it."
Norville cleared his throat. “But I mean, I could just listen, if you want. We’ve all been through some pretty weird stuff lately. With the brain-scooping and the murders and whatnot. And you being falsely accused.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about. That whole trial. And the part where I tried to cut a steak and couldn’t do it, and they all laughed at me. That keeps…replaying. In my mind.”
“Ah—you mean when Velma publicly humiliated and infantilized you in order to prove your innocence. Harsh, but effective.”
“That was Velma?”
In the pause that followed, Norville blinked once, loudly. “It’s been replaying in your head, but you didn’t remember the identity of the person who humiliated you?”
“In my memories, it’s one of those cartoon goblins from the Rankin-Bass hobbit movie. But yeah, if it was Vermin I guess that makes sense.”
“Velma.”
"I have face blindness. And name blindness. Specifically for people who aren’t conventionally hot or popular. Even if I’m looking at their name on a phone, it goes blurry, and when I’m looking at them they turn into goblins or potatoes with legs. It’s a real thing, I swear. I went to the doctor. They’ve done MRIs on my head and everything.”
“Okay, okay. So. You’ve been thinking about the steak incident.”
“Yeah. A lot. And I figured, you’re a guy who knows stuff. So I wanted to ask if there’s a surgery or something that could remove the memory. You know, like when they laser out a mole or a freckle.”
“I…don’t think so.”
“Expense isn’t an issue.”
“No. Sorry. The technology isn’t there yet. In any case, if you’re struggling with a trauma, I don’t recommend brain surgery as a first resort. Why don’t you just try talking about it some more?” Based on what Fred had told him about his childhood, he had some unresolved issues. To put it mildly. That thing about how his mom liked to watch him pee…how the hell did you even respond to something like that? Norville already felt like he was in over his head, but there was no harm in just listening as a—friend? Was that the word? Were they friends?
He realized Fred hadn’t spoken for almost ten seconds. “Fred?”
“Sorry, I just…” He drew in a breath. “My dad is embarrassed by me. And Daphne’s losing patience with me because I don’t want to take my pants off around her, because I know she’s going to be disappointed when she sees—well, at this point I guess it’s not a secret. Venmo told everyone that I have a tiny dong, and lots of people saw it. When my pants fell off, someone took a video and posted it on TikTok.”
“Damn. That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, TikTok deleted it but it kept coming back. My parents had to go all the way to the CIA to get it taken care of. Plus I technically haven’t completed puberty yet, and I don’t know how to do normal things like change a roll of toilet paper or open a box of cereal or operate a toaster. My mom keeps telling me I don’t need to learn those things because that’s why God created butlers, but…it’s weird, isn’t it? That I don’t know?”
“Well, I mean—it’s a little unusual, but it's not a big deal. You could learn. I could show you sometime if you like.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I like to help people. As for the other thing, there’s nothing wrong with having a baby carrot.”
“You don’t think there’s…something wrong? With me?”
His mind flickered back to the conversation with Velma, and a shadow crept over his thoughts. “Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with all of us. Everyone. We’re all a little…off. It’s like we’re in some funhouse mirror world where nothing is the way it should be. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I do. It’s weird. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really ‘me.’ If that makes sense.”
“I know the feeling. Maybe everyone feels that way sometimes, I don’t know. But as far as all the stuff you were talking about—I mean, we all develop at our own pace. Our culture likes to body shame anyone who doesn’t fit into its narrow standards of beauty, and I get that it’s scary, knowing there are people out there who will judge you for those things. We’re social creatures. Humans, that is. We can’t help but care about other people’s opinions. But anyone who doesn’t love you for you isn’t worth your time.”
“What if there’s no one out there who loves me for me?”
Damn. How did he answer that in a reassuring way when he’d had the same thoughts about himself? He scratched his head.
“Uh…well, Velma’s really into you, you know. Even though she knows all those things about you. I realize she’s not your type, especially after the whole public humiliation thing, but—”
“Vulva likes me?”
“I said her name less than five seconds ago. Can you genuinely not remember?”
“I told you. Name blindness. Anyway, I'm pretty sure she feels enormous contempt for me. She wasn't exactly subtle about it.”
“Attraction and contempt are very intertwined for her. It’s kinda unhealthy, but—my point is, you’re not inherently unlovable. No one is. Beauty, attraction, it’s all subjective. Somewhere out there, there’s a person who’s pining for someone exactly like you, someone who's experiencing those same feelings of loneliness and doubt, someone you’d click with perfectly. There are so many people in the world, it’s almost a statistical inevitability that that person exists. It’s just a matter of finding them. And you’ve got plenty of time.”
“I hope you’re right. Lately I feel like everything about me is kind of a bad joke.”
It was—unexpected. This vulnerable, honest side to him. He felt as though his world had been knocked askew. “You’re not a bad joke, Fred. You’re a human being.”
“Hey,” Fred said, sudden brightness and curiosity in his tone, “do you have a tiny dong too? Did you find someone who loved you anyway?”
Norville winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not really a socially acceptable—” but then, Fred probably didn’t know any better. If he’d never been taught how to operate a toaster, he probably hadn’t been taught basic boundaries either. He’d grown up in a sheltered, distorted universe, both hyper-visible and completely unseen.
“If you’re really curious,” Norville said, “my dick is five-point-six inches erect. Pretty average. But no, I haven’t really, uh—gotten to that stage with anyone yet. Also, just FYI, asking people about their genitals is considered impolite.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”
“No problem. You can ask me anything you like. It doesn’t bother me. Just—not everyone is quite as open about that stuff, you know?”
“Yeah.” A brief pause. “Thanks for talking to me, Norville. I feel a little better. Could I…could I call you again? If I need to?”
“Anytime, man.”
“Okay. Well. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, I guess.”
“See you then. I can show you how to change a roll of toilet paper, if you like. Oh—and don’t do drugs.”
“Uh…”
“Unless they’re prescribed by a doctor. In which case, only take them as directed. There’s some new drugs going around at school. Jinkies, Zoinks, Scooby Snacks—don’t let those demons into your head. Your body is a temple.”
There was a brief silence, and then a short, high-pitched, oddly childlike giggle.
“Fred?”
“Nothing, just…it’s funny.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“I know. You’re sort of weird. But I don’t mind. Oh—” his voice dropped to a whisper. “I gotta go, Mother’s coming to check on me. She can’t know I’m talking to an unpopular, or she’ll put me in the Room again.”
“Wait, what?”
Fred hung up.
Norville stared at his phone for a few seconds, then set it down. Outside, it was still raining lightly. His air purifier hummed. He started to text Velma: I’m concerned about Fred. But before he sent it, he second guessed himself and deleted it. She probably wouldn’t want to hear from him after that uncomfortable conversation in the car.
Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe by then, there would be another murder, another absurd thing to distract them, another distortion. He looked at his reflection in the dark rectangle of his turned-off monitor and wondered how it had gotten to this point, why everything felt this way. Reflections of reflections, an existence spiraling in on itself and collapsing under the weight of its own self-awareness, so far from anything real. There was a piece missing at the center, an absence that defined everything around it. The others felt it too, he was sure, even if they couldn't explain it.
And yet just now, just for a moment, he had felt real.