How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

Chapter Fourteen


Augie Manners plays the lovable stoner every single time he’s onscreen‌—‌from Castaway Planet to those old burger commercials where his catchphrase was “Dude, can I have your pickle?” When he scuffs onstage for his Q&A there are zero surprises. Surf-shop t-shirt, sleepy smile, dumb fisherman hat hiding raggedy red-blond hair. His cargo pants look slept in and his weird rope sandals are almost certainly made of hemp. If he was in a comic strip, squiggly lines of visible weed fumes would follow him everywhere.

He throws his arms wide open. “Hel-loooooooo San Antonio!”

Cheers and wolf-whistles from the girls. Abel and I shoot we’ve-got-a-secret looks at each other.

“Wooooo! Yeah! Dutchie is in la casa, so let the party commence!” Augie Manners lifts his arms above his head and cracks his knuckles one by one, just like he does on the show. There’s a firefly-flash of cameras. “Oh, wow, you guys‌—‌seriously, are you Castaway Planet fans, for real? I was expecting geeks out the yin-yang but you guys are hot. Lorda-mercy!”

He tosses his dirty hat in the crowd and starts in on some story about a Riverwalk bar that has eighty-six kinds of beer, and I have to smile a little. I hated the Dutch Jones character for the first half of Season 1 when he was just crude comic relief, but he got pretty interesting with the OCD and the photographic memory and the talent for peacemaking, which kind of came out of nowhere but somehow made perfect sense.

I can’t focus on him for the first five or six questions, though. Because Abel is leaning close to me, whispering Castaway Planet lines in my ear so it looks like we’ve got secrets.

“You ready to take it a teeny bit further?” he murmurs. Some girl just asked Manners about that episode where Xaarg makes Dutchie walk on his hands the whole time. He’s eagerly reenacting, his hemp sandals waggling in the air.

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

“You sure? No imminent freakouts?”

“All clear.”

“You should know the risks ahead of time.”

“Of what?”

He sighs. “My sexual charisma.”

“Give me the disclaimers.”

“Well, side effects may include dry mouth, nausea, dizziness, blood clots, cardiac arrhythmia, dia-bee-tus‌—‌”

“Only in people over fifty. I heard.”

He narrows his eyes. “Would I wound you like that?”

“You might.”

“That’s it. I’m going to whisper something highly provocative.”

I bump him with my hip. “Go ahead.”

“It may reorder your entire universe.”

“I’m ready.”

He touches his lips to the rim of my ear. “Duuude. Can I have your pickle?”

I snort. I can’t help it.

“Shh!” he hisses. “Don’t laugh!”

“Don’t make me.”

“You think retro robot saw?”

“I don’t know.” I crane my neck.

“Zzt! You’ll make her suspicious.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and murmurs, “Just enjoy my attentions while you can.”

“Oh, so this is a privilege?”

“I’ll have you know I’m in high demand.”

“Right, right.” I flick his hair. “Who wouldn’t love the cockatoo version of Laurence Olivier?”

He giggles and pulls me closer. I tense automatically, but then I let myself relax, muscle by muscle.

It’s nice. Really nice.

“Oh by the way, guys and dolls‌—‌I brought a present for whoever’s got the best question today.” Augie Manners holds up this grubby burlap hippie sack with a happy face embroidered on it. “So lemme hear from someone sexy now‌—‌yeah! You in the Xaarg shirt.”

A chubby guy with a black samurai braid lowers his question paddle. “Yes, in your opinion, are the writers purposefully ratcheting up the tension between Cadmus and Xaarg as a commentary on the futility of prayer in the face of an indifferent god, or is the conflict actually going somewhere?”

I don’t hear the answer. Abel’s hand has slowly migrated down my back and now it’s in this scary normal teenage-boyfriend place, fingertips tucked in my back pocket. He leaves it there for one more question and then two more, adding little whispers in my ear about retro robot and great photo ops while the stubborn enemy part of my brain tries to talk my body into freaking out.

My hands stay dry. I slip one into the slim back pocket of his dark jeans.

Brandon, who are you? Father Mike, but faded now. I don’t recognize you, bud.

hey_mamacita answers for me: I’m your worst nightmare, Brandon said, waving the dagger like an outlaw. I am a VIGILANTE OF LOVE.

Father Mike tries to say something else, but I paper right over his face with hey_mamacita’s silly Father X‌—‌the craggy sunken cheeks, the feral teeth. A fun villain, the kind that’s good for cheap scares and cheaper Halloween costumes, powerless once the book is closed or the TV’s switched off.

He keeps quiet.

A giddy laugh throbs in the back of my throat. It’s like Episode 2-14, the scene where Sim first got his evolution chip. His skin went transparent; all his nerve endings crackled with white-hot sparks and his silver eyes sizzled into tropical blue and he threw his head back and let out a full-body wail I used to think was all about pain, but now I know better.

I curl an arm around Abel’s waist.

“Let me ask the question.”

My voice doesn’t sound like mine. He startles.

“What?

“The question. I’ll ask Manners.”

“You want to?”

“I do.”

Abel whistles. “Look at you, all bold and brazen.”

I grab the question paddle and wave it around. Augie Manners calls on me right away. He locks eyes with me when I ask the question about the cave episode, and I’m not even nervous‌—‌it’s as easy as a vocal warmup with the Timbrewolves, the lip trills and scales I can do in my sleep.

“Ooh, Cadmus and Sim.” Augie Manners rubs his hands together. “The bazillion dollar question. Right?”

Girly cheers clash with some baritone boos. Abel gazes at the side of my face and smooths a wisp of hair off my forehead. I catch an eyeroll from Bec. She looks away fast, goes back to her camera.

“I think,” says Manners, “that humble ole me is going to kick that question to the lovely and very intuitive ladies here in the audience. Should I?”

“Cheater,” Abel grouses, but he’s grinning.

More cheers; an awwwww yeah that was probably louder than the shouter intended. Augie Manners steps up to the lip of the stage and hunches down, hands on thighs.

“A’ight, ready? Ladies who think Cadmus and Sim didn’t do the ol’ coitus androidicus in the crystal spider cave, lemme hear you put your hands together.”

A sprinkle of claps and a low frat-boy howl.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now if you think they totally boned, make some noise!”

Full-on eardrum assault.

“Whoa nellie!” Augie Manners shouts, trying to quiet the crowd a little. “I guess that’s a yes, guys!”

“Guess so,” I say.

“Sounds clear to me,” says Abel.

“How ‘bout you two guys? What do you think?”

We glance at each other. He set us up perfectly.

“We’re‌…‌actually not sure yet,” Abel fibs.

“Yeah. We’re, uh, trying to keep an open mind, right?”

“Absolutely. Cause you know, sometimes you think you feel one way‌—‌”

“‌—‌and then something changes and you realize you might have been totally and completely wrong.”

We indulge in some moony eye contact. I hope retro robot’s filming; they’ll go nuts for this. I see Bec out of the corner of my eye, shaking her head like a mom watching her kids gorge on blueberries despite warnings of tummyaches and purple fingers.

“That is so true, you guys,” Augie Manners says. “So true. Awesome! Okay, any other questions for me before I hit the Alamo?”

Abel pinches me. “Did you see that?” he hisses.

“What?”

“His eyes, like, lingered on you!”

“They did not.”

“Did too.”

I pinch him back. “Maybe it’s my quiet yet forceful magnetism.”

“Is that from a fic?”

“Yep.”

“Whose?”

“No one’s. Forget it.” It’s weird. I can’t even say her name.

Onstage, Augie Manners shouts “Know what? You all win!” He opens up his hippie sack and flings a huge handful of Castaway Planet trading cards into the crowd, and then another and another till chaos breaks out, everyone squealing and shoving while the silver-backed cards snow down. Abel and I dive right in, trying to get our hands on the good ones: Sim in his charging dock, Cadmus brave and bloody in the Starsetter wreckage.

“Brandon!”

“What?”

He dangles a card from the cave scene.

“Oh God!”

He mimics the Meaningful Look in the photo and makes a wet kissy noise. I flick a card at him sideways. He flicks one back. It nicks my ear. I put up my fists and he yelps and takes off and this is what it feels like to chase a boy, no fear or shame or anything, just the two of us gasping and laughing like kids as we zigzag the ballroom and skid around chairs and run right into the shiny gold badge and foreboding beige shirt of Johnny Law.

Johnny Law is what my dad calls cops, or anyone in a vageuely coplike uniform. He’s probably the only person who uses the term with hushed respect and not irony: Slow around this bend; Johnny Law hides out there. If I ever get a call from Johnny Law saying you’ve been drinking‌…‌

“You two,” says the security guard. “Hold up.”

My stomach knots. Johnny Laws make me nervous, even when I haven’t done anything wrong, and even when they’re frog-eyed and freckled with a friendly broom of orange bristles right below the nose.

“He started it,” Abel says. “He’s a terrible influence.”

I smack him. “Sorry, sir,” I say. “We’ll stop running. I guess we got‌—‌”

“No no no. That’s not it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s Mr. Manners. He’d like to see you backstage.” Johnny Law lets out a tiny sigh and loosens his stiff brown tie. “It’s, uh. Urgent.”

***


The corridor smells like chlorine and coleslaw. We follow Johnny Law past the glassed-in pool and seven or eight closed doors. The change in his pocket jing-jangs like cowboy spurs.

Abel’s going omigod omigod.

“I know,” I whisper.

“My heart’s going supernova.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“You.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s got a girlfriend.”

“He could be bi.”

“This is crazy.”

“Eh. Maybe he’s just a fan.”

“Of us?”

“We have fans!”

“What, so he sits around in his trailer watching fan vlogs?”

“Maybe he’s bored.”

“Maybe he ships Abandon.”

He shoves my shoulder. I crack up.

“Guys‌—‌guys.” Johnny Law makes a simmer motion. “He asked that the room be kept quiet, okay?”

“Yeah. No problem.” Behind his back, Abel gives me an exaggerated shrug, eyes wide and laughing.

The door we go through has a VIP sign taped to it, but the meeting room inside doesn’t look too special. There’s a bunch of long tables and folding chairs with convention equipment scattered around‌—‌stacks of crinkled programs, empty boxes with bubblewrap crumpled beside them. Johnny Law marches us up to a partition of flimsy black curtains. One of the curtains has a paper sign pinned to it: ACTORS LOUNGE. QUIET PLEASE!!

I hold my breath as he nudges the curtain aside. Augie Manners is right there, right in front of me, so close I could take three steps and touch his arm. It’s so weird. Usually he’s covered with grease from trying to patch up the Starsetter, or he’s roasting a sand rat over the crew’s campfire, his fingers caked with dirt and blood. Now he’s nibbling from a tray of rolled-up deli meats, wearing noise-canceling headphones and reading some book called Still Life with Woodpecker.

“Heyyyyy, guys,” he says. “Come on into mi casa here.”

The guard’s like, “Should I stay?”

“Naw, they’re cool. Right?”

“Definitely,” says Abel.

Johnny Law looks us up and down like he expects to see us in a lineup later, but he leaves. When he’s out of sight, Abel immediately dorks out:

“Mr. Manners I just want to say we’re such huge fans of the show, like since episode one, and I know we have this vlog and we kind of make fun of things a little but for real, just being able to be here and meet you is amazing and we‌—‌”

“Awesome, yeah, that’s sweet, man.” He’s looking at me. He steps closer and rests his hand on my upper arm. Dutch Jones, I tell myself. His hand. My arm.

“Lemme ask you something, okay?”

“Sure.”

“It’s gonna seem‌…‌” He shakes his head. “ ‌…‌totally out of the blue.”

“Okay.”

“Can I have your shirt?”

“My‌—‌”

“Yeah, not the blue button-down thing, that’s like J.C. Penney or some shit, right?”

“I don’t know‌…‌”

“This t-shirt.” He opens up my button-down and ogles the tee underneath. “Ohhhh, yeah. Oh, baby. Ka. Ching.”

My starstruck-ness starts to fade; he smells like old socks and this is really pretty goofy. The shirt he’s salivating over is a baggy old Bob Dylan concert tee, and it’s not very sexy. The image on front is a foursquare grid‌—‌three of the squares hold cartoon outlines of faces, and then the fourth one is filled in with Dylan. There’s a rip near the neckline and it’s been washed about five thousand times, so I can’t imagine what he wants with it.

Manners cracks open a beer. “My mom, right, is this huuuuuge Dylan fan, like she’s got a Scottie dog named Zimmy and she makes these giant replicas of his album covers with bottle caps and everything‌—‌Beer?”

“No thanks.”

He takes a big swig. “‌—‌and so this one time in college I took one of her t-shirts, like that exact shirt, and I left it at the beach like an effing moron and oh my God you’d think I murdered her dog ‘cause she never let me forget it. This is authentic, right?”

“Yeah.”

“From the ‘88 tour or whatever?”

“I guess.”

“Where’d you get it? It’s super-rare. I’ve looked seriously everywhere!”

“I don’t know. My sister got it for my birthday.”

“Birthday. Exactly. Mom’s birthday’s in two days.” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “So how much you want for the shirt? Two hundred?”

I glance from Abel to Manners. The character I am in “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart” clicks to life. Brandon realized that the man looming before him was just a person, not a god. He felt a white streak of power surge through him. He could say anything. Do anything he wanted.

“It’s pretty sentimental, sir,” I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Two-fifty. And my shirt, here‌—‌” He starts peeling off the surf-shop tee, unveiling his pale freckled chest. “You can sell it to some fan or whatever. My sweat’s all over it.”

I glance at Abel. Vibrating, sucking his lips in.

“Well, that’s a generous offer,” I say. “But‌—‌”

“Your sister would freak, Brandon,” Abel tsks. “You know how Natalie gets.”

“Mm. You know she just had another breakdown, right?”

“Did she? No! I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head. “I thought she’d gotten so much better since the staple gun incident.”

Augie Manners gets this shifty, desperate look on his face. “Okay. Okay okay oh-kay.” He peers outside the curtain, and then he goes, “THREE-fifty, plus my shirt, plus my official Series 1 action figure, still in the box, which I will autograph RIGHT NOW, plus this‌—‌” He digs deep in his army-green rucksack and pulls out a wrinkled envelope with a coffee ring and a smudged Happy Birthday! on the front. He leans close to me and talks through his teeth. “Keep this on your person and if anyone asks, I didn’t give it to you. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” I peek inside. Six thin homemade cigarettes rolled in blue paper.

“They’re Spaceman Straws. You drink in some serious wisdom with these.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. I’m not responsible for what happens if you decide to partake.” He claps me on the shoulder like a grandpa, stuffs the envelope in my shorts pocket. My eyes trace the Big Dipper in his chest freckles. “Just make sure you’re someplace safe. Comprende?”

***


I don’t plan to exit the Actors’ Lounge naked from the waist up. It just sort of happens. When we pass Johnny Law he barely lifts an eyebrow, which kind of makes me wonder what kind of deranged stuff a hotel security guard sees on a daily basis. I button my shorts pocket over the joints.

Abel’s dying. He’s absolutely losing his mind, bouncing all over the corridor like a sheepdog on uppers.

“Ohmygodohmygod,” he says. “Augie Manners gave us‌—‌”

“Shhhhhh! Don’t broadcast.”

“Brandon. Brandon. Tell me you’re going to do it!”

“Smoke?”

“Walk back through CastieCon shirtless.”

“Well,” I spin the Augie Manners shirt on one finger. “retro robot’s probably still hanging around, right?”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“So let’s give her a show.”

He skids to one knee and grabs my hand.

“Brandon Gregory Page,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Will you have my fictional space-babies?”

“What will the neighbors think?”

“Do we care?”

Brandon planted himself behind the wheel and gunned the engine, says hey_mamacita. He knew the torments of his past might trail them all the way west, but for now they shrunk in the rearview and he surrendered every last care.

I grab his hand and run.