Computer Hope

Part two of this strange and estoeric short story continues. For part one, click here. We now find our nameless hero struggling to right the situation he further wronged from last time.

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Part Two - The Laptop

"I just hate it when my boobs jiggle on the metro."

I was sort of taken aback. i wasn't used to having seemingly nice girls blurt out these sort of observations casually. I offered my best transition to sort of bridge the gap between her taking a pause during a monologue.

"Really?"

"Yea, you know when you go through bumpy sections in the tunnels. I have to sort of cover up by crossing my arms or holding like a book to my chest. It's annoying."

Fay and me were riding on the metro to meet with a dude who lived in the pointe. It had been two days since the destruction of my computer. The guy, I think his name was Sean or Alex or something put an ad on craigslist for a P3-700mhz ThinkPad with a DVD-ROM and 802.11.b wi-fi card. Not bad. It was probably a good 8-9 years old, but the dude was asking for 350. That meant I'd offer 250, and then we'd work something out.

To doubleback, Fay had gotten home to find her computer still fucked and her brother telling her the story of how I had fucked my own computer in the process of repairing hers. She had called me that night in a rather angry state of mind and unleashed a strong tirade into my sensitive ears. I had spent the evening after getting home from Tony's thoroughly intoxicating myself in hopes of dulling the pain that my laptop was fried, I was 1200$ in the hole, my exlemplary collection of mp3s, video clips, school work, bookmarks and other digital crap were gone and my computer life for the time being dead. So I got high.

And then she called, rebuking and lecturing me for a good 15 minutes with myself managing to interject only with the rare "oh," "okay," and "uh-huh." This was most definitely a way to kill a guy's buzz, if that's what she was intending. in any case, I let her vent and finally got in an apology before hanging up and passing out.

The next day, I had showered, eaten breakfast and smoked a cigarette before heading to where I usually kept my laptop. Seeing the empty space on my desk, I remembered her call and that my intentions of checking my e-mail were futile. Cursing myself, I had to head down to the wastelands of the public library and stand in line with all the other outcasts who for reasons I could not fathom didn't have home internet.

In this day and age, why the hell didn't they? Cost? We spend something like 45-90$ on cellphones, 9$ a pack on cigs, 35$ a month on buspasses (fucking STM) and God knows how much on weed but don't want to drop the cash on internet? I mean, this is 2007. It's as essential as running water to anyone under 25.

Anyway, so yea, I was down at the library. I took a number and roamed around waiting until the seniors and sleazy middle-aged men finished doing whatever it was they did on the net at 4 in the afternoon. My eyes caught sight of a lot of names on the shelves, imprinted on the sides of books. Card, Martel, Tolkien, Rowling, Brooks, Ppalahniuk, Chomsky, Steinbeck, Brownlow. But it was a copy of "Windows Vista for Dummies" that I ended up picking up and browsing through. In the 10 minutes I had before my number was called, all that book did was fuel my contempt for Microsoft for frying my computer and pushing this 50 million code-line behemoth on the computing population of the world. Piece of rubbish.

Finally relieving my internet anxiety, I began to browse. News, e-mail, myspace, facebook *ick,* news.com, zdnet, slashdot, craigslist. The pages raced by. I had a time-limit, so I was browsing faster than Ii usually did and not going off on tangents whenever a link grabbed my attention.
It was only after glances at zdnet and news.com and froogle that I realized that buying a new laptop meant buying Vista with it. My heart and soul refused such a deal and I sank into a mini-depression. But it was on craigslist that I found my guy Ian, a guy up in the Pointe that had listed his number and the ad for a certain laptop. My depression turned into hope. Despair and salvation channeled through phonelines.

After calling and dealing with the man, I began to realize my already troubled financial situation. The full 350 was pretty much out of the question for my budget. But Tom or Ian or whatever sounded like a fellow who could be negotiated with. And on an investment such as this, I wasn't about to go it alone.

I dialed Tony's number. He picked up, probably after seeing the caller ID. "Here goes an awkward conversation," I thought:

"yo."
"yea."
"uh yea, could i talk to your sister?"
"what?"
"could i talk to fay please?"
"hold up."

(The usual background noises as he retrieved his sister. I exhaled quietly seeing as I thought the hard part was over.)

"hello."
"hi fay..."
"who's this?"
"its tony's friend who..."
"oh you. what do you want?"
"okay, first listen. i'm sorry your stuff is probably deleted and i couldn't fix the computer. but i've got a solution. i found a laptop for sale, a pretty good one that runs Word and does all the stuff you need."
"..."
"and the guy seems pretty nice and it's for a good price too. so i was thinking, maybe you and i could work something out and maybe, if it's okay with you, buy the laptop."
"together?"
"yea, like we could split it. it's a good price, and it'll kill two birds with one stone, heh."
"...no. don't call back."

She hung up.

I was sort of stunned for a moment before I realized what had happened. I hesitated for another minute or two, trying to think up some sort of counter to her abrupt dismissal of my proposal. I decided to give it another try. This time, she was the one who picked up.

"now what?"
"okay, fine, i admit all wrongdoing, even though I had nothing to do with the initial breaking of the computer. but i think we could work something out that would solve both our problems. you need a computer for school, i need a computer for whatever, and like, you sound like a smart, educated woman who understands an opportunity when she comes across one. so what do you think?"
"no."

Now i think i'm really in trouble. I decide to just go for broke and try the last resort.
"okay, 60-40 me."
"70-30."
"what!?"
"70-30, and you've got a deal."
"..."
"look, i've got my show i'm watching..."
"OKOK, 70-30."
Her voice changed from its hard, monotonous tone and for the first time showed something besides scorn and derision. In the twinkle of an eye, it switched to a cheery, airy, girl's voice.
"Great! Call me tomorrow after work and we'll go see it. Bye!"
"Bye."

I hung up.

Part Three coming soon...

=//Turnquest