Merriton

It had made perfect sense on the drive to Emigration. Randy was going to stop Tank before he boarded his bus for Merriton and have a talk with him on the way home. As he sat in front of the tiny high school, however, all the teens spilling out of the doors looked the same.

Was that Tank? The strapping kid with the huge backpack? No, that one had a skateboard. Was that Tank? The jock in the letter jacket? No, that one had a blond streak of hair at the top of his forehead. Was that Tank? The big guy with two girls following his every movement? Yes, that was him.

“Tank!!” Randy screamed and honked his horn. He had gotten out of his car and was waving. Tank looked up at the noise. Randy suddenly worried that he would embarrass Tank. He had forgotten that he was a dorky grownup and showing up to the high school would have shamed any teen beyond belief, despite the honking and waving. Instead of a flush of embarrassment, Tank kissed the cheek of one of the girls and eagerly joined Randy.

“Random! What’s up?!” Randy sighed with relief. He hadn’t embarrassed Tank. Quite the opposite. The kid seemed excited to see him. “We have to have a talk. Can I give you a ride home?” Tank eagerly ran to the passenger side door of Randy’s car and jumped in without another word.

They headed past the school buses and crowd of the only high school for the surrounding towns and drove to the road back to Merriton. Randy took it slow because he thought he had a lot to say. Randy started the conversation immediately, “Did you hear about Zerbitz?” Tank plunked his books in the back seat. The snow on his boots hadn’t started melting. “The part where they fired Kevin using a snarky message on Valleywag or the fact that they’re doomed and will go out of business within six months?”

Randy was taken aback. “Umm… The firing Kevin one…” He fumbled for words. The thought of Zerbitz going out of business made his stomach turn. He tried to remember what he was trying to tell Tank. “We picked Kevin up from San Francisco last week. I’ve kept him hidden at the house, but now that Mt. Zen has a good snow pack, he’s going to be skiing.” Tank nodded. “I figured he must be here… dropped off the face of the planet… that’s what Merriton is for, right?” Randy nodded and the slush from the road hit the bottom of his car.

It had seemed so easy when he was driving to Emigration. He was just going to have a talk with Tank about how this is a very dangerous time for Kevin and about how hard it had been for Randy when he had lost MRNG. He wanted to tell Tank that what Kevin needed now was diversion. He didn’t need anyone gossiping with him about Silicon Valley. He needed someone to help him through this time. Sierra had helped Randy through MRNG and he had survived so well that when Zerbitz turned sour, Randy had known exactly what to do. He just wanted to protect Kevin, but he had no words to tell Tank all of this.

The snow was starting to pile up on the sides of the roads. Randy had never seen Merriton in this in-between time before the ski resorts filled up. He found himself enjoying the drive and wishing he didn’t need to tell Tank about how gut-wrenching it can be to be in Kevin’s situation.

“Well, these things… Tank, I don’t know how to talk about this.” Tank shook his head. “You don’t want me to tell Valleywag where he is.” Randy sighed with relief. “Yes. Valleywag or anybody else who might contact you. It’s really hard not to tell, believe me. They’ve been calling me every day and I’ve just been keeping the ringer on my phone off. It vibrates all day long in my pocket.” Just as he said it, his phone went off and the two of them could feel it vibrate in the little car.

“I wouldn’t tell Valleywag nothing. No better than Star magazine, except the pictures they have aren’t of pretty actresses. I’d rather read about Paris Hilton.” A large puddle of slush sloshed around the car and Randy’s phone finally stopped vibrating. Randy nodded, “You’re right, Tank. They’re like the National Enquirer for geeks. If they want to write about Kevin, they’re going to have to come here for the story. It’s about time they started earning their page views. So, Tank, I need your promise that you won’t tell anyone about Kevin being here, okay?”

The car was quiet. A big pine tree dropped a load of snow on the car as it drove under and Randy turned the windshield wipers on full to remove it. The car had been quiet for so long that he wondered, “Have you already told someone that you thought Kevin might be here?” Tank sucked in a breath of air, “Oh no! Those guys can just kiss my butt. I was just thinkin’.” Randy nodded, “What?”

“Anything you say, Random. I owe you, man. That first day when I met you and you said you weren’t gonna call me Pudgy and that we all are gonna call me Tank? That day changed my life and I owe you whatever you want. I shoulda known you needed your property mowed and was right there, but I’m sorry I didn’t know. Whatever you need.”

Randy shook his head. “Tank, you don’t owe me anything.” Tank protested, “You don’t know, Random. You don’t know what it was like when I was Pudgy. I think I told you that it didn’t matter what you called me that I’d be the same, but I was wrong. The day you changed my name to Tank, everything turned around. Now, I’m on the football team and girls like me and I won’t have to go to Iraq…”

Tank’s voice broke and he turned away from Randy and looked out the window. Randy didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand half of what Tank was trying to say, but the other half, he felt he could argue with. “You know, life as a sophomore is vastly different than life as a freshman. It wasn’t me that changed your life. It was just normal changes.” Tank ran his finger along the seam between the passenger window and door. He shook his head. “Nope, you don’t even know. I’m on the varsity football team. They don’t do that for sophmores. ‘Specially not me. It’s not like I ever played football before. You know me. I’m a computer geek. Now, I’m throwing a football and it looks like I’ll get a chance to go to college without joining the army like my brother did.”

Randy tried to argue, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Tank had the final word, “I owe you big time.”