Merriton

“I’d appreciate it if you helped my wife.” Eight words was all that Roscoe said. Randy had jumped at the sound of the doorbell and assumed it was Elvis exchanging thumb drives. When Elvis bought his new laptop, Randy gathered a couple of USB thumb drives to exchange with Elvis when they made backups. He even handed off his own backup to Elvis, in a sense. His encryption password to his backup with Zaunter was on his thumb drive, but he had noticed how proud Elvis was to be entrusted with the protection of Randy’s data.

Instead, a different cowboy stood at his door with a tiny mouse of a woman clutching an Apple Macbook. Randy was so surprised that he just stood there looking at Roscoe, but the eight words just hung in the cold air until Randy finally understood them. “Oh! Yes, anything! Come on in!” He stepped aside and motioned for them to come into the house. They stood in the foyer while he shut the door and Randy pointed at the living room. “Come on in. Sit down.”

The three of them walked into the living room. Randy sat at his desk, Roscoe and his wife sat on the futon. It was as if an umbrella shut. The huge figure of Roscoe’s frame folded up onto the futon until he appeared to be nearly the same height as his tiny wife. Randy looked at Roscoe’s long legs awkwardly folded nearly to his chin and waited for one of them to tell him their problem, but they just sat there looking at him.

Randy rolled his chair in front of them. “What’s the matter?” He pointed at the laptop in the woman’s arms. She glared at Roscoe, clutching the computer to her chest. Roscoe took off his ranger hat and ran his hands through his hair and then replaced the hat. Neither of them said anything. “Is the computer broken?” Randy scanned his mind for the kinds of things he could fix on an Apple Macbook, hoping for something simple like a software tweak. Visions of overheated batteries burning through LCD screens flew through his mind and he checked the machine in her arms for scorch marks, but she held it too tightly to see anything.

“Are either of you going to talk to me?” Roscoe quickly stood up, towering over Randy and the woman. “You gotta talk some sense into her. The school gives ‘em all these brand new computers and she just write stuff down on a graph paper for years, but now the school is gonna make her keep her grades on the computer instead ‘a fillin’ out the little dots on the paper and she says she ain’t gonna do it and you gotta talk some sense into her!” His thunderous last words echoed in the small house. Randy could hear Sierra creeping down the stairs and peeking into the living room. “Is everything okay down here?”

Randy motioned for Sierra to come in. “Sierra, take Roscoe to Roasters…er? What are they called now?” Sierra shook her head. “They haven’t come up with a new name yet. They just took down the signs.” Randy shook his head and put his hand on Roscoe’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go to coffee with Sierra, while I talk some sense into…” Randy turned to Roscoe’s wife. “What’s your name?” The small woman squeaked, “Dora.”

Sierra pulled on her coat and boots and motioned for Roscoe to follow her. The cold air rushed through the living room as they left. Randy breathed in deeply and tried to think of the right words. A flash of memory came to him.

“We’re supposed to have a conversation about you using that computer the school gave you.” Dora clutched the computer tighter and her eyes squinted in anger at him. “I’m supposed to tell you that you need to keep track of your grades on your computer. I’m supposed to tell you about how great computers are and how easy your life will be if you just take the time to learn them. Let’s just tell them that we had that conversation and that you’re learning how to use it but you’re not an expert yet, okay?”

For the first time since she had walked into the house, she loosened her grip on the laptop. She looked around the living room. “So what do we do while they’re gone?” Randy shrugged and held out his hand. “So what kind of computer did they give you?”

Dora handed him her Macbook and Randy opened it. It was one of the new ones with the faster processors. He smiled, “Oh I love these things! There were rumors of these before we left San Francisco. I haven’t actually seen one in person.” He set the Macbook on his desk and played with it. He loaded up Photobooth. It was the one thing he wished he had a Mac for. Sure, the Mac OS was basically UNIX with a shiny wrapper, so it was something he could easily wrap his head around, but Photobooth was the thing that made him jealous.

He sat there making faces at the web camera and watched it. He laughed at the effects that Apple had put into the software to manipulate his face. Dora watched him and he apologized, “I’m sorry. I just love this Photobooth thing. I wish Sierra was here so I could show her.” Dora stood up from the futon and walked behind Randy. “What is it?”

“It’s a thing that takes a picture of you. I know that sounds like a camera, but it’s kind of hard to take a self portrait without something like this.” He snapped another photo of himself. “Plus it does all these weird things to your photo if you want.” He pulled up the effects and Dora drew in a breath. He chose the glow view and snapped a photo. He looked soft and fuzzy. “Can I try one?” Randy stood up and Dora sat on his chair and haphazardly snapped a photo of herself.

She looked at the picture. “That’s interesting.” Randy pulled a chair over and sat at his desk. “Well, it’s more than interesting. It’s totally awesome. Come, look at this.” Randy pulled up a file and loaded it into Photoshop. “See this picture?” Dora nodded. “It took me about four hours to make it.” He hunted around and grabbed his camera and the tabletop tripod. “First I had to take the picture of myself with these.” He connected the camera to the tripod and aimed it at himself. “But I couldn’t see myself in the camera, so I had to take about fifty pictures to get this one that was even halfway decent.” He pulled up the folder of rejected pictures and scrolled through them, showing her all the attempts that cut off his chin and the top of his head.

“Then I had to pull it into Photoshop.” He loaded up the original photo and subconsciously erased a blemish and started working with the photograph in the software. “To make that soft fuzzy thing, I had to create another layer and then do a Gaussian blur and then I had to adjust the contrast.” His picture was partially through the process and he stopped. “Anyway, it took me four hours to make this photo look as good as that one you just snapped of yourself.”

Dora looked from Randy’s computer to her own. “Why didn’t you just do this?” She pointed at her laptop running Photobooth. Randy shrugged. “I don’t have a Mac. I really should get one, actually. Macs are great for art.” Dora pointed at Randy’s computer. “What are you using?” Randy shrugged. “Oh, this is Photoshop. It’s kind of expensive. I don’t know of anything better, though.” He reached past her and looked at the Applications folder for her computer. “Wow! Looks like you have the entire Adobe Suite! The school gave this to you?” Dora nodded.

He loaded up Photoshop on her computer. “You’re lucky. That suite costs a ton of money! I’m too cheap to buy the whole thing. Wow!” He loaded one of the photos he had clicked of himself in Photobooth and started tweaking it in Photoshop. “Lucky,” he mumbled to himself.

The door opened and Sierra lead Roscoe back into the house. Randy felt the freezing air cut through his light clothing. Roscoe asked, “So, you gonna use your computer?” Dora shut the Macbook and clutched it to her chest. “Yeah, but I’m not an expert yet. I’m still learning.”

Roscoe faced Randy, “I keep tellin’ her that the computer is just a different pot of paints.” He faced Dora. “You know how you like to teach with a new set of paints. That computer is just a new set of paints, Dora.” Dora nodded, looking at Randy’s half-finished picture on his PC.