“Help yourself,” says Matthew, prompted by BW, indicating his nachos. “God knows there’s enough here for a crowd.”
The boys accept this invitation at once, in the manner of guys, reaching over and around the girls and taking a chip or two at once, jostling for positions that give them better access to the garnishes they prefer, and the girls are only slightly more reticent; they all join in, even Tracy, who pivots on her stool to take a chip (just a chip, one with nothing at all on it, probing beneath the crust and toppings to find one), so that she is now turned toward Matthew, not toward her friends.
I don’t believe it, Matthew thinks. I’m getting a second chance. Maybe you were right. Leila wasn’t for me. This is what I need. This is what we need. She’s adorable.
That ass of hers, that ass. Two piglets in a sack.
Cut that out. You know I don’t like that.
“So, what do you do, BW?” asks one of the boys.
Make toys? Review restaurants?
“I design computer games.” Where did that come from? Belinda. Of course.
“No kidding?”
The right choice. The right choice. “No kidding.”
“Like what?”
“Well, the one I’m working on now is called — Picture Frame. It’s — it’s not one of those games that involves shooting helicopters down or killing dragons — it’s a game that takes some thought — a mystery.”
“Sort of like ‘Where Am I’?”
Uh-oh. What’s that?
“Similar, I suppose, but — well, the premise here is that you’re in someone’s apartment, and you wander around in it.”
“Hm.”
“You listen to the messages on his answering machine, read his mail, browse through his books, and so on.”
“Mm.”
“And — this is the best part — he has a computer. So you can get into his computer. And you find out a lot of interesting things about him that way.”
“Why?”
“Hm?”
“Why do you do it? I mean, why do you wander around the guy’s apartment? Are you looking for clues? What’s the mystery?”
Shit, thinks Matthew. It’s the same question. I should tell Belinda about this.
“Well,” says Matthew, defending Belinda and her game, “the real mystery is just finding out what the guy is like. Getting into his life. I mean, how far do we ever penetrate — ”
Oh, I like that, but you’re on dangerous ground here, tricky footing, thrilling, though, quite thrilling.
“ — into someone else’s life, thoughts, heart, you know?”
That won’t do, Matthew, says BW. They want more than that. Allow me.
“To tell you the truth,” says Matthew, “I wanted to leave it that way — a pure intellectual exercise. But I had to take the practical view, you know? I knew that the half-witted video slaves who are going to buy this thing are not looking for pure intellectual exercises.”
Smiles. A chuckle or two.
“They want the highest goal of modern life, the thing that everyone’s looking for — they want to be entertained.”
More chuckles.
“So, of course, I knew it had to have a mystery. A little violence. A little sex.”
Nods and uh-huhs from the kids, suggesting that they share BW’s attitude toward the base tastes of his audience. How do you like that for improvisation? asks BW. And the little assholes don’t even recognize themselves.
Come on, BW. They’re being nice to us, aren’t they? Treating us nicely?
Shut up, Matthew. Leave this to me.
“I mean,” Matthew continues, in a voice he hardly recognizes, “otherwise who gives a shit about this guy, right?”
Laughter.
See? That’s their idiom, says BW.
[to be continued]
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