2 / welcome to the world of the plastic beach
It isn't her responsibility to fix him, or risk him, or flush him down the drain to protect anyone else but herself. She knows this, and still finds herself turning the volume dial up in her car to drown out the sound of his continual chatter from the passenger seat.
"So was I right about the chai though?" he asks.
When she doesn't answer, he just talks over the awkwardness.
"Can we stop at a record store? We need CDs. I went to this record store in Portland when I got out and they had like, so much stuff. And I had this moment where I was like...ok, I have a lot to catch up on. I already picked up some new CDs and gave them a listen, learned how to use an iPod and such, it's already practically full. I have to say though, I am not impressed so far. Music is different. You know? You ever feel like that?"
"Should music never change?"
"Ok, how sad is it about Soundgarden breaking up, though? And Sonic Youth? Like what the fuck was going on while I was gone? All the best bands disappeared and NSYNC happened."
"There's still good music." She can't allow him to keep thinking there isn't.
"Name one band."
"I could name fifty."
"Ok, go."
She sighs. She doesn't want to talk to him so much.
"There's a CD case under your seat. Pick one. Discover."
His erratic movements as he leans over and retrieves the CD case make her nervous. As he flips through the pages of CDs, he's actually quiet. She wonders how his level of whelm compares with hers, transitioning from the isolation of 1994 where content was finite to the busy real world where new content is churned out for consumption each day.
When he finally picks a CD, he feeds it into the dashboard and Plastic Beach starts. He listens for about three seconds.
"Can I just plug my iPod in?"
Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Give it more time."
"One more song."
"Three."
"Three?!"
"I'm just saying, if you're not hooked by three, then we'll know you need to get your hearing checked."
"I don't do doctors."
"You'll need to if you keep talking."
He groans. "Can I pleeease plug in my iPod."
She shakes her head, wants to bang it against the steering wheel, or swerve so sharp he flies out the window.
"You should put your seatbelt on," she mutters.
"If I put my seat belt on, can I plug in my iPod?"
"Whatever is the thing that will shut you up, I swear to god."
"Mean," he says.
She tries to ignore him and the little scrolling sounds his iPod makes as best she can. She can will herself to endure him, but her body remembers the things he's done to it. His physical nearness has an oppressive quality to her skin, like a balloon filling up the car, inflating, inflating until it pushes against her and she can't help but feel suffocated. She can already feel a tension headache coming on.
But she is patient.
It is a plan not fully formed but developing, embryonic, in the back of her mind that she will lie in wait for the opportune moment to claim a vengeance so cruel he could not mistake it for anything other than her wickedest of selves, the one she has become because of him, taking ten-fold what he's taken from her. Let Nirvana play on, he will not live long.