Rating: PG

Summary: "Language and Information Systems" is my favorite book in the world on linguistics and cybernetics. Actually, it's just one of my favorite books, period. It formed the basis of my master's thesis, and even though I hated my thesis by the time I finished it, I still love the book. In spite of its vintage-1982-the theoretical concepts in the book still hold, and it's also lots of fun to read. Imagine that. Author is Jeremy Campbell, who was at MIT at the time the work was published, and I can't recommend it enough. (And I think Byers would like it a lot, since the work owes a huge debt to Noam Chomsky, a Byers idol)

Michael just can't seem to stay out of trouble...and it's Christmas Eve...

Spoilers: Nope.
 

Kelly hands me a small package that feels strangely enough like a book.

Great minds think alike.

We're back at the picnic table, and I'm ripping open the package-she wraps way better than I do.

It's a small volume, blue, entitled "Language and Information Systems." Author is Jeremy Campbell. Haven't heard of him, but then, I have heard of Danielle Steel, and I can't say I go in much for her stuff.

Kelly's blushing. "I...I didn't know what to get you. And I know you're a writer and you're really good at computer related things...so I asked your writing teacher what she'd recommend."

This cracks me up, and she looks hurt.

"What's so funny?"

"Hey, I'm not laughing at you. It's just, I think Casey is our guardian Christmas shopping angel. I was in Borders when I met up with her, and she recommended your gift to me."

"That is so weird!" She's laughing now. "Can you believe, we ended up asking the same teacher for shopping advice!"

I read the abstract on the back...this could be way interesting.

I lean over and give her a hug, and then I give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

I don't want to break it, but her mom comes out.

"Kelly, you got a customer." She lights up a Marlboro Red.

"I'm on break, Mom. I've got eight more minutes."

"It's Joe, and he always asks for you, just put in his order and you can finish your break."

"He always gets the same thing. Why do I have to do it? Okay, okay." She says to wait and she'll be right back.

She looks over at me, and she's not looking too friendly. What is with these people?

"Ain't you the kid who says you tutor Kelly?"

"Yeah. I'm Michael. She's a real smart girl."

"Kelly? Yeah. But full of weird ideas. Thinks she's gonna be a doctor. I hate to bust her bubble, but there ain't no way."

What did Kelly say her name was?

"Sure she could. Kelly's real smart, she could do anything."

"Then why don't she do somethin' where it wouldn't take so long and she could be helping her family out? She's always been like this, and goin' to college, she's just getting' worse all the time. You kids think you's too damn good for the likes of us."

"Kelly's not like that. She cares a lot about you."

"Then why's she quittin' a perfeckly decent job here, where I need her, I don't know what I'm gonna do without her...I need Kelly here. She's got a good head, and it ain't right for her to be runnin' off and workin' in DC for some Indian doctor."

I don't like this woman at all. Kelly says she's not a bad person.

But she was right: the woman is dumb as a post.

And even five feet away from her, I can smell alcohol all over her.

Shit. Woman's a drunk.

No wonder Kelly protects her so much.

I'm saved from this boozy floozy by Kelly coming back out. "And I'm taking my eight minutes, Mom. We're not busy."

"Fine, fine. Have fun out here with your college friends." She says the last words like they're an obscenity.

Kelly shakes her head sadly.

I look at her. "She drinks, doesn't she?"

Kelly looks ashamed. "Uh-huh. She can't help it. And she's really upset that I'm leaving work here. She depends on me. But I have to do this." I see her wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. "I worry about her. But I can't let my worrying about her keep me here. I just can't." She's fighting tears big time. "I'm doing what I want? Why do I feel so awful?"

She sniffs hard, wipes her eyes again. "I've got to go back."

"You working tomorrow?"

"Yeah. But can you call me tomorrow night? We close at 7."

I don't want her to go back. I want to just take her in my arms and hold her and tell her it's gonna be okay.

Maybe it's a lie, but I want to tell her that anyway, and just make her feel better...

"Sure."

"What're you doing tonight? Anything?"

"Party at Chateau Langly. Which you were invited to, but I guess you gotta stay till closing."

"I really should. I'd rather have gone."

I feel a little better.

"And then my dad and me, we'll probably come home and watch Christmas movies till dawn."

"That sounds nice. My mom and Troy will probably go out, get drunk, come home, and live it up." Her voice sounds real hard in this moment.

"What about your sister? Can't she help your mom?"

"Tracy? Michael, I love Tracy dearly...but she's utterly useless. Part of the reason I have to work till close is because she's going to Christmas Eve with her new boyfriend at his house. Maybe he'll knock her up for her Christmas gift." The bitterness returns.

Nobody should be that hard at 18.

I should know.

But then her face softens a little, and she looks like the Kelly I know.

"Merry Christmas, Michael."

"Same to you." I give her a quick buddy-hug, and she goes back inside.

I ache for her. So bad.

And not just in the usual ways.
 

I parked down a ways from the diner. Ally's car is anything but distinctive, but here in this town it looks so...suburban.

In spite of everything, I'm floating.

She kissed me. I kissed her.

Okay, nothing heavy or romantic, but God...

I'm dreaming this, aren't I?

No. I saw the hovel she calls home, the lush she calls her mom, the asshole taking up their sofa and their money and their lives...

My thoughts get interrupted by somebody giving me a sharp shove.

Oh fuck. It's Troy, Mom's boy toy.

And he's even bigger than Langly.

And he's drunk, and he's looking more than a little pissed off.

"Listen here, dwarf," he growls at me-I don't think this guy has come out of the cave yet-"we don't want your kind comin' around here."

"My what?"

"You, with the earrin' and the nose ring and the lesbo glasses and looking like some punk-"

"Hey, I just said to leave Kelly alone."

"Yeah, well, Kelly's a smartass, and she needs some trainin', if you know what I mean."

"Leave her alone." I am prepared to defend milady's honor...

OH SHIT!

And all of a sudden everything goes black...
 

I come to - was it a second? A minute? An hour? Did I wake up in another universe?

I'm dizzy. My head is killing me.

I can't see.

My glasses are missing. Shit. Shit. Shit. I'm blind as a bat without them.

I try to stand up, and I fall back down-and I feel sick.

Oh God. What the fuck happened?

Last thing I remember, I think Troy took a swing at me...

My nose feels about the size of a small mountain. I touch it, and there's blood coming out of it.

I grope around, trying to feel for my glasses, and finally, I find...

A piece of them. One of the temples is off, the lenses are smashed, they're like totally gone.

I can't drive like this. I can barely see anyway, and with my head like this, I'm even worse.

Everything is wobbling around me. Or is it just me?

And I'm out here in hicksville with Ally's car.

I could call Langly...but I borrowed the car from Langly.

Shit.

Maybe Kelly can help me out. At least call somebody for me, even if her mom won't let her leave.

The diner? I can't even tell how far away it is right now.

I can't see anything.

Someday, I'm gonna get LASIK.
 

It seems like the diner is a hundred miles away. I walk in, and a blonde girl is at the register, must be Kelly.

"No. Kelly's on the floor. I'm Tracy."

"Uh...can you get Kelly for me?"

"Yeah...what happened to your face?"

"Just get Kelly, okay?" Kelly says she's slow on the uptake. Better to use the direct approach.

I feel like I'm gonna puke. I take deep breaths.

I can't see her coming, but I hear her footsteps, and she just about shrieks when she sees me.

"Oh My God! Michael! What the hell happened?!" She runs over with some napkins. "Here, tip your head back and squeeze your nose...Michael, how did this-"

"I think Troy wasn't happy with me."

I can't make out her face, but I just can about feel her anger burning next to me.

I'm having trouble breathing here.

"Okay. You need to get to the hospital. I'll take you."

"Kelly...I got Ally's car...Langly's at my house...I gotta get the car back to him..."

"Okay, then I'll drive hers. Keys?"

"Isn't your mom gonna kill you?" I can barely talk. Everything hurts. My face hurts, my chest hurts, my brain hurts.

And I thought pneumonia was gonna kill me.

"If my mom had better taste in men, this wouldn't happen. Let's go." She takes my arm, and we move very slowly, but everything is fading to black.

I hear her sister's voice. "Kelly, where you goin'?"
 

We're trying to get to the car, but it's getting to be too much. I feel like...

Oh God... here it comes.

I lose my lunch all over the place.

I really know how to show a girl a good time.

But Kelly's cool. She sits me down, puts my head between my knees, says she's gonna get the car.

"He broke my glasses," I moan to Kelly as we take off. She leans the passenger seat back so I can recline-not comfortable, but better than the alternative.

"Yeah, well, that asshole may have broken a lot more than your glasses. You really need to get to the hospital."

"Kelly...we gotta stop and get Langly."

"Okay, okay, why do we need to get Langly?"

"'Cause I have his car. Actually, his wife's car...but he's at my house...and my Blue Cross card's at home."

"Well, God forbid you go anywhere these days without a Blue Cross card...same hospital you were in?"

"Why not? They didn't kill me there."

It hurts too much to talk anymore.
 

We must be at our place, because Kelly turns off the car, says she's gonna get Langly and my card and she'll be right out.

I feel like I'm vibrating. I'm not sure I can keep it together much longer here.

And then I hear a familiar whiny voice.

"Jesus fuck, Junior. What did you do NOW?"

Langly takes the keys from Kelly, she crawls in back, but she's holding my nose, trying to keep the bleeding down.

The trip is torture. I feel like I'm gonna puke the whole way there.

I can't do that. I will NEVER EVER EVER hear the end of it.

And Kelly's seen me do it once already today.

Haven't I shown her enough of the real me?

So I hold it off, and we get there, and Kelly and Langly are trying to get me into the ER...

Where I puke all over the floor.

I am truly pathetic.
 

This is not like pneumonia. I hear the words 'suspected head injury' and that means, only if you got chest pains do they take you ahead of that.

The good part is, I don't have to wait.

The bad part is, I feel like hell.

I want to go to sleep, and maybe when I wake up I'll feel better...

But nobody's letting me go to sleep. Everyone's trying to keep me awake and talking, and this is horrible, because the last thing I want to do right now is talk.

When I feel like talking, nobody wants to listen.

When I don't feel like it, everybody wants me to say something.

Can't please anybody these days.
 

Langly says he's gotta make some phone calls, he'll be right back though, don't go anywhere, Junior.

Kelly stays with me. She's massaging my temples, and that helps a little.

I'm just glad she's there.

She probably doesn't feel the same way, but then again, if she's gonna be a doc, well, she's getting plenty of practice on me at least.

I can be good for something.

I tell her I'm sorry.

And she's like, real sharp, for what?

I don't know. For being a pathetic human being?

She's like, I don't owe her any apology, but Troy sure as hell does, and he'd better be ready to give her one, and me.

I tell her he apologizes to her, good enough for me. I'd just as soon not see him again.

Langly's back. He says he told my dad he'd bring me over to their place, but he didn't tell him what happened.

"If I did, he'd be all over MY case."

This is true. And it makes me feel a little better to know that my dad doesn't always believe that Langly can do no wrong.

How about never.

I wish my dad was here right now. But he's been through enough.

Besides, I have to think of something to tell him when I see him.

I ask Langly what I should say.

"Tell him the truth, man. He'll figure it out, anyway. And why do you think it's your fault, dude? Guy's an asshole from what Kelly here tells me."

"He's all that and more," Kelly says, agreeing with him. "Oh, God Michael, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have let you-"

"Look, I wanted to, and I don't want that dude near you." I'm having a hard time talking still. My face and my chest hurt too much, and the taste of blood fills my throat.

I feel sorrier for Kelly than me, though. Tonight I'll go home and sleep in my comfortable bed in my quiet apartment with my dad there who really loves me.

And she'll go home to two alleged adults who'll probably be totally wasted, in a bad mood, and boffing each other's brains out in a place about the size of my dad's last apartment, with a little sister who has grits for brains.

This really sucks.

She's got her hand on my forehead, and I don't want her to move it.

The good news is, I don't have anything broken. My nose got kind of bent, but not broken, thankfully. And I'll have to get new glasses.

The bad news is I suffered a mild concussion. They want to observe me for a few hours.

Shit. I hate this place. I had enough of it the last time.

This is where Langly's skills at manipulation start to come in handy.

I can hear him wheedling away that it's Christmas Eve, that we have medical personnel on hand at home (they won't be there tonight, but nobody here needs to know that), that we'll watch him real carefully and blah blah blah...and when Langly gets going, you'll do damn near anything just to shut him up.

So they say they have to observe me for two more hours, but if nothing goes bad, I can go home after that.

"He's an operator," Kelly's marveling at his talents.

"He's a pain in the ass." I struggle to choke the words out. "Wish they'd give me some Demerol."

"They don't do Demerol when you've had a head injury. Trust me, I've learned this."

"Oh?"

"Hey, I've had a lot of experience with my mom...after one of her boyfriends has beat her up." The voice turns hard, bitter again.

I don't want her to be this way.

"I'm sorry." Langly once told me, even if you have no idea what you did, with women, say you're sorry. You probably did something, anyway.

"I hate to say it, but it's her own fault. I mean, I don't think these guys have the right to knock you around, not in the least. But my mom needs to find a different class of boyfriend, and she keeps doing the same stupid thing over and over and over."

"Hope they never hurt you."

"She had one that starting hitting Tracy and me...but she did get rid of him. I wish she'd apply the same logic to herself."

My head is pounding. I want to go home. I want to get in my own bed and sleep for about a hundred years...

And this time, instead of everyone saying to go to sleep, everyone's telling me to stay awake.

I can't win.

I can't break even.

I can't even quit.

Oh God.

But Kelly's here, and she's holding my hand right now...

I can live through this.

END OF PART 30