Sonder

Chapter 31

*ANNOYING ALARM WAIL*

UG. 6:32. Nick has already hit the snooze button twice. He snoozed through Ryan's cereal bowl chimes. And the heavy door's vacuum-seal woosh.

Nick steeled himself by running some numbers: 62 days until he ships. 44 days until school is done. 33 days of school remain. It'll only be 32 days as soon as you get out of your cocoon and get moving. 

If you get out of bed now, you can be back here, snoozing again in 14 hours.

Conceding to the internal coercion, he stretches and roars his loudest roar. This seems to help. Whatever it is. These wake-up roars seem to get the blood flowing. As for the Rainman-style number crunching, he never imagined himself a "numbers-person" but, numbers can sure be motivating.

***

"There's a package here for you." His dad tells him over the phone.

"Oh. Ok? What does it look like?" Nick doesn't get packages. But, then he remembers. "I got a call on my other line. Gotta go dad."

Nick hangs up. Corey is on the other line. He's frantically telling Nick that AO2 called and his shipping day is TODAY. Not tomorrow as he'd thought. It's TODAY. They had messed up, not accounting for the fact that he needed to report to MEPS the day before he was due at boot camp. While listening to Corey, Nick is speeding across town to grab the package from his dad. 

"It's here! It's here!" Nick cries out as he bursts into Corey's apartment. Richie, Alicia, and Tomas are already there. His energy is like Ralphie from A Christmas Story. He's flailing the package around as if it contains the 21st-century version of an Orphan Annie Decoder Ring. It's the shiny trinket that an entire generation of boys have been wringing their hands over for years. The object of longing that occupied their imaginations every time they stayed up late, watching tv after midnight. But, this trinket couldn't be obtained by collecting boxtops. In so many ways, it seemed like something that would be eternally longed for, never obtained. A mirage, forever shimmering on the horizon.

"GIRLS GONE WILD!" They all shout as the packaging is ripped off. They are all jogging in place as if they were prancing to Richard Simmons's prompting. Tomas grabs the disc and throws it into Corey's PS2. All these overgrown boys and girls crowd around the tv. 

"What are y'all doing back there?" Corey's mom hollers from the living room.

"Porn Mom! Girls Gone Wild! You wanna watch!?"

"No! You all are sick! Sick! Sick I say!"

Her laughter is audible. Over the bumping music that plays as the DVD menu appears on screen. Cancun. Key West. Tuscon. Tijuana... There are bubbles and lasers, screaming, shots, micro-skirts. All these distinguished American Collegiates. Drinking themselves unconscious.

"Press play!" someone shouts.

It's 42 minutes. Fast forward! At double speed, they watch the girl shuffle. Tuck her bangs. She shows her teeth. She stretches her blouse hem. She wags her head. Then she laughs. She lifts her shirt. She touches the bra. She wags her head 'no' again. There is laughter. A sigh. She removes the bra. More talking. She spins. 

"Boring! Next! Quick" *click, click, click*

This is the infamous one. The one with two girls. "All Right!" the voices in the room chuckle with recognition and optimism. They speed it up to quadruple speed. It's the same kind of dance. The girls say no. But then they are persuaded. They're on the bed. Nearly naked. 

"Next!" 

The viewers are getting restless. Critical commentary. They joke awkwardly.

The next video is more of the same. At quadruple speed, they watch the girl go through the "Getting naked macarena" occasionally they slow it down to hear the girl talk. They share theories about her intellect. Her wealth. Her inebriation. 

There it is. No more censorship bars. No more CGI stars. It's just goofy gals and sleazy guys. It's nothing special. Hell, Richie's homemade porn had been more entertaining... while more awkward, sure, but more entertaining.

Here they are. A generation of boys and girls who have had access to hardcore pornography since the internet first entered their homes nearly ten years earlier. How had they ever convinced themselves that these videos would ever be anything other than token collectibles of coerced exhibitionism? Sure, there's that appeal of the theoretical "girl next door". But, it's that very reliability that makes the preposterous lines of the sleazy cameraman even more disappointing when the girls acquiesce. Corey's mom saves them from contemplating the implications of this milestone too deeply. It's smelly. Unsatisfying.

"Common you guys! Time is running out!"