As a Jennifer, I look way more manly than I think normal Jennifer does. My beard is a dead give away. My date, Jason, doesn't seem to mind at all though. Oh, his real name isn't Jason either. It was what was printed on his ticket. And according to those tickets, I'm his girlfriend. Free food is an easy way to get to a man's heart named Jennifer.
I take a bite of my free bruschetta thingy, I've had like 12. I wash it down with a free local beer. The judges are tallying up the votes and I'm passing the time by stuffing my face. Later, after the trivia contest is over, I'll mosey on over to the free BBQ booth. It's near the children's section for some reason.
"We have a tie!" one of the judges say. Cool, whatevs. Let's hurry up and announce the winner because I'm worried that the fudge booth will be out of brownies by the time we get there. Jason is a cheap date but at least he takes me to nice places. When he asked me to come, with a free ticket, I was pretty excited. When he told me about the food and beer, I would have slept with him right then and there. Turns out Jennifer is easy.
"P.T. has a total of 12 points," the judge says. I look over at the table where Team P.T. sits. Distinguished and regal comes to mind. Two men, Two ladies, a whole lot of black formal wear between them. They laugh and give awkward high-fives--the kind that people over 50 give. It's like their trademark. I'm still in my young 40's so I've got plenty of time to practice the missed high-five that turns into an awkward handshake. I'll get it down eventually and be ready to use it after I visit accountants on the weekends because that's what it looks like these people do.
"They are tied with Anyonomous Nerds!"
Woah. Now this shit just got real.
Jason and I are Team Nerds. Holy crap, we are in a tie for first place. I almost choke on a cracker thing when I heard our team name called.
I didn't think we would make it this far in the trivia contest. There were two rounds, eight questions each. Some of the questions were easy: What Star Trek actor hosts reading rainbow? Jordy, of course! What is this sequence of numbers called: 0, 1, 1,2,3,5,8...? That one I knew, thank you very much Da Vinci Code. It was the only literary question that I was able to get tonight. If it's popular book over the last ten years, I've got a pretty good chance of at least a solid guess.
Jason handled the other areas. A book cover came on the large screen in front of our table. There were no words. A weird looking horse in red and white. I had no idea which book this was from. Jason did though.
"Catcher in the Rye," he said. Jason is a literary bastard. His Achilles heel though is recent popular fiction. The man hasn't read Harry Potter yet. When I tease him about it at writer's group, he keeps promising me that he will eventually get to it. It's an empty promise but I nod because I like to keep the joke going. I know he'll eventually read it and then talk about the "prose" for 20 minutes while ignoring the fact that the Dursley's are complete assholes. He writes beautifully though, words weaving stories with sub-text intertwined with sub-plots.
I've learned a lot from him over the last 8 months. That and he apparently can get tickets to a free swank fundraiser.
"We will now have a final round with just the two teams," the judge squawks over the loudspeaker. I study our competition a bit more closely now
I'm betting that we have at least one banker in that group of four. Maybe the balding guy. His suit looks tailored and his tie knot appears intentional. His wife is probably not his wife at all. A mistress for sure with a guy like that. He has no morals, probably has a steak dinner while foreclosing on someone's family farm.
His buddy, the trim guy with freshly cut gray hair, is smiling like he just ate some of that bruschetta. I can forgive him for that, the bruschetta was fucking good. But there is something behind that smile that I can't quite place yet. Perhaps a proclivity toward Satan worshiping? He has a goatee, it's certainly plausible. Which would make his date, some woman in a black strapless hoochie mama dress, the supreme grand sorcerous to their cult. I'm betting she calls all the shots in the group. Her eyes are stern and focused, seeming to cow the others.
Four of them, two of us. Jason and I lack their experience. Both in our early 40's, we haven't become bankers and manipulators of global interests just yet. We write. That's what we do. We don't have time for nefarious plots (writer's joke, sorry). They out number us. Shit, I really want first prize now. Victory goes well with locally sourced cheese curds--found by the adult fiction section.
First prize is a book, which isn't surprising since this is a fundraiser for a library. But the books are signed. I want a signed book. I'm an author, I deserve a signed book. It's like getting your first forclosed farm as a banker. You tend to cheerish those things. But we are out numbered and out gunned.
"The final catagory will be book titles, with bonus points for the author," the judge says.
I want to stand back from my table and throw my hands up in victory. Book titles! I've got Jason! Fuck yeah, book titles! This is over, cash in your 401(k) and your golden parachute Team P.T. We are going to take this home.
"And they will be written in emojis!"
That sick fuck.
Son of a bitch. So close, so very close! I'm a middle aged man. I understand emojis as some sort of cyrillic language written by Eastern monks. I want to call Vivi, my 11-year-old daughter. She practices in emoji speak like a painter works in oils. But I can't, it's cheating and I'm not ready to become part of Team P.T. just yet. They are probably calling up interns to begin research because you know cheating at a trivia game is easy for people that suck the life force out of nuns. Fucking emojis. So close.
The screen goes black, there is a beat before anything happens 40 people look forward, waiting for the final five questions to pop up on the board. One of the librarians mumbles under his breath as the technology seems too great for him. This is the guy that picked the emojis. We are doomed.
The screen flashes white and then the questions come up. Immediatly, I know that we are lost.
Who knew that Freddie Mecury could be an emoji? But more importantly, what the hell does Freddy Mecury have to do with a title? He's followed by dead looking face, stars, and ant. Then some sort of bug again.
The whole list is like this. I go from one to the another, starting by going top down. Once I confirm that I don't know what any of these emojis mean, I start bouncing around. I'm willing myself to understand. I'm thinking of my daughter, my sweet girl. She would know what these mean. She texts me all the time in emoji speak and I have to tell her to knock it off because Dad can't understand her.
Jason is deep in thought. Not breathing, concentrating. His face seems blank for a second, then his forehead creases like he's got something. It goes smooth again when he discoves that he does not.
Team P.T. is starting to write on their slip of white paper now. Long nailed hands scribble, laughing that shrivels angel's wings, heated whipsers planning our downfall.
God damnit. I want a signed book.
"A Clockwork Orange," Jason says. I look over at him. "Number four, A Clockwork Orange."
He's right. There is an alarm clock and then something that I thought was a peach. He's right though. Now that I see it, I can't unsee it.
"Do you know who wrote it?" I ask him. I don't know why I asked, of course he knows who wrote it. He's Jason.
Somehow the dam breaks. Jason is off and running. I'm cheering him from the side. I'm trying not to distract him but I may mention the stakes that these emojis now have. We either go home winners or Team Evil sacrifices a bus full of babies. No pressure.
Jason writes fast, the pen leaving deep indentations on the paper. A part of the paper tears where he was writing to hard. He doesn't slow down.
I don't know how but he is reading emoji speak like a teen girl breaking up with her boyfriend. Title after title comes. He pauses once to remember who wrote a book, remembers and starts to scratch the page again.
He gets to Freddie Mecury.
"Metamorphisis," he says. The title of the book is Metamorphisis. How the hell he got that out of Freddie and an Ant, I have no idea. "Kafka. Kafka wrote that."
And then it is over.
The judges don't announce the final score because I imagine it wasn't close and he doens't want to upset his evil overlords. Jason and Jennifer, the Anyomous Nerds, go to the front to collect our prize. There is applause but it's muted like these poeple are afraid to show favor to the underdogs in front of Team P.T. I don't care, I'm going to get a book.
On the table is the book "All The Light We Cannot See." It's been on my list for a while. But next to it, a little pushed back is another one. A black cover, a woman on the front in a red dress The YA novel Dumpling. The kind of book that my daughter would love. It's signed by the author Julie Murphy. I barely think it over before I grab the book and run away before Team P.T. gets some literay thugs dressed in tweed jackets to rip it out of my hand. I'm just kidding, I would destroy guys like that. Jennifer can throw a punch.
At home, I give the book to Vivi. I show her where it's signed. She jumps up and down, she twirls and falls over the dog. She tears up a little bit. Vivi tells me that she is going to take it to school to show all her friends. After that, she wants to visit her writing teacher so she can show her very own author signed book.
Sometimes being a hero means just hanging out with the right people. I don't have a copy of a signed book myself. Instead, I have a duaghter that thinks that Daddy and his friends are awesome. That's a feather in my cap that says something way better about my qualifications than a dusty book.
No comments:
Post a Comment