04 Filthy/Gorgeous

The only pokémon Delilah had ever caught herself was her furret Snoops; her four others had all been given to her. If she wanted to participate in the Silver Conference Championship Tournament in the summer, she had to have a full team of six pokémon.

Really, she didn't particularly want to participate, but after winning four badges in four months everybody told her she should, and she didn't have anything better to do. Tom Joyner, who was also in Ecruteak, told her about a trail he was taking to Goldenrod; but it also went to Olivine, so she decided to go with him, and find out if there were any pokémon to be seen.

This was not something she usually did; she usually took public transportation to get to another city, or got a ride with somebody heading to the same place. But she decided to give it a try, to see if she could find any pokémon, and anyway it wasn't that long, only a couple of miles, and she didn't think there would be a lot of mosquitoes now that it was getting cool.

She was slightly concerned, since Tom was a friend of Art Christiansen's, who was a runner, so she wondered if he would insist on power-walking or intense off-trail hiking, but she quite liked Tom, and they had had some fun together at the Gym or the library.

"I think it's a pretty popular trail, for pokémon trainers," said Tom. "We'll probably see some others there, even though it's not really a nice day..."

They did; in the building at the start of the trail they met Adam Harlow and Michael Jacobs.

"So where are you guys headed?" asked Delilah.

"I'm going to Bonitaville," said Michael. Bonitaville was a neighborhood in northern Goldenrod, apparently where the trail ended.

"That's where I'm going!" said Tom.

"I'm going to Olivine," said Adam.

"That's where Delilah's going!"

"I guess we'll be separating at some point, then," said Michael.

"At least we'll all have a friend," said Tom.

Michael and Delilah said "aww" at the same time, and laughed.

Spirits were high and conversation was fun as they walked the trail for about half an hour.

Then they separated.

Delilah had been slightly dreading this moment, since she knew Adam didn't really like her, and she did not particularly care for him.

"Well!" she said, after saying goodbye to Tom and Michael. "I guess we're traveling buddies."

He was unenthused. "I guess."

"Oh, I was just being polite," she said in a mock bitchy voice.

He just shrugged.

She laughed. "I'm just joking!" she said, exaggerating her inflection to entertain herself.

"Delilah..." He looked up into the misty rain, sighing heavily. "You joke about joking," he said. "You joke about joking about joking. How many layers of irony are really necessary? Can you even tell when you're being sarcastic?"

"Sometimes..."

"See? Even that's a joke, isn't it."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Chill out," she said.

They walked in silence for a few moments and then he asked, "So what are you doing in Olivine, badges?"

"Yeah," she said. "And my aunt and uncle live there, and Christmas is coming, so, you know. What about you? Why did you decide to try the footpath?"

"I thought I'd see what kinds of animals I could find," he said. "See if anything was worth catching. What kinds of animals live in Johto, really?"

"Um...well, there are lots of snakes, and rodents. Different kinds of birds, xatus. Um, houndooms, and persians. Charizards, too, but they would mostly live on reserves and stuff, you know. They're protected, I don't know if you still find them in the wild. Of course, we're probably not going to see all or any of these."

"That's true," he said. "I'm not getting my hopes up. I just figured I might as well go this way, now I haven't got my motorbike."

"No? What happened to it?"

He seemed to think about this for a moment and then he said, "It broke."

"...Okay," she said. "So, what are you doing in Johto? Are you here for badges?"

"More or less," he said. "My father's got business here, and my mother and I came along. They go back and forth sometimes, here and England, but we're here until next summer. We're at the Piedra Blanca in Olivine, that's why I'm going there, 'cos my stupid dad wouldn't have a car sent for me. Can he expect me to take the bus? Surely not! He's upset with me."

"Why?"

His manner suddenly changed dramatically. "I broke something," he said, scornfully impatient with his father's lack of reason and understanding. "And he wants me to have my hair cut."

She laughed. "Are you going to?"

"No. I mean, it annoys me that I have to comb my hair out every time I wash it...and it annoys me how much of it gets in the drain...and it annoys me that it takes so long to dry..."

"So why don't you get a haircut?"

"Because! It annoys my parents more!"

She was hoping he would say something like that.

She laughed; he didn't.

The color growing out of Adam's head was really very striking. It wasn't orange; there was nothing carroty or fiery about it. It wasn't a spicy, earthy red; it was cold, with no blond in it. Adam's hair was a stop sign that said, "Hey, look at me. Now look at me again."

There was a break in the clouds in the distance, and the sun shining through looked quite poetic as it began to set. They had been walking for what felt like a very long time, and her legs hurt, and it felt like she was getting a blister on her foot. The path had faded into nothingness at some point and they seemed to be walking in the middle of nowhere.

"Do you think we're actually on the trail anymore?" she asked. "There's no more path...do you think we're actually going anywhere?"

"We're going somewhere," he said.

They walked for a while without speaking as it got darker until he abruptly asked her, "So why haven't you got a boyfriend?"

The question caught her off-guard. Her jaw didn't drop, but it certainly thought about it. Why would he ask her something like that? Was it a judgment of her character, or academic curiosity, or a sexual overture, or bitter social commentary?

She gazed stupidly at him, trying to comprehend the question's context, long enough that he repeated, unruffled, "Why not?"

She blinked, becoming aware of her shocked expression and attempting to soften it. "How would you know if I have a boyfriend or not?" she asked, trying consciously not to sound defensive.

"Well, have you got one, then?"

"No."

He shrugged. "Well, then, I was right. I'm only curious."

"Well, I mean, I don't know," she stammered, trying to verbalize something she had never given much thought. "I'm just, I guess, I don't know, I am not interested in dating, I guess."

"Clever girl," he said, and that was it.

Maybe it wasn't that weird of a question; maybe it wasn't that keen of an observation. Maybe if she had a boyfriend it would affect her body language around Adam, or the way she spoke to him. And besides, judging by the tabloid articles Eusine had shared with her, Adam probably had a sixth sense about female availability.

It was quite an experience to read about Adam after already having met him. Occasionally the magazines referred to him as "Adam Harlot", always doing something noteworthy such as mouthing off to authority figures or getting kicked out of a pub for urinating on the floor like some sort of psychologically questionable courtship display for the paparazzi. At any rate, whether he was sneering, snarling, or scowling, his irresponsibly handsome face and visually arresting coloration was extremely photographable and it was really no wonder that the media would be interested in him.

They had, at least, found the road again. Adam stopped and picked something up off the ground.

"Hey, look at this," he said.

It was a ten dollar bill. "Cool," she said, hoping it was a sign of civilization.

"This is the same colour as my eyes," he said, holding it up to his face.

"Yes...I guess so," she agreed.

"Well, anyway," he said, tossing it back to the ground. "I was about to say—"

"Wait a minute," she said, bending to pick it up. "Don't you want this?"

"Why?"

"Why not? Why would anybody want ten dollars?"

"I wasn't aware they did," he said. "Nobody needs ten dollars badly enough just to pick it off the filthy street."

She made a face at him. "What a snob!" she said.

"Ten dollars!" he scoffed. "What will that buy you, anyway? A grape?"

"Well, I'll keep it, then, if you don't want it."

"It's only money," he said. "Exactly how wild can a person get with ten dollars? Besides, money doesn't buy happiness."

"Certainly not," she agreed. "But it makes misery much more enjoyable."

"There are more important things."

"Oh, sure! And your rich father can buy you all of them."

"I hate money," he said. "I think it's disgusting, the way people treat it. If you picked up a toy or a sweet or a shirt or something off the ground all you'd hear is, 'eeuugh, you don't know where that's been do you, put it down, wash your hands,' but money? A bit of paper that you know has been handled by hundreds and hundreds of people, and who knows what else. No, even if it's got a lip print and coffee stains on it, no, that's fine to pick up."

"Yeah, you know, I heard that something like 80% of all banknotes have traces of cocaine on them..."

It was getting sort of dark. Delilah let Toast out and had her flare her ruff to give them some light.

"I didn't think the trail was this long," she said. "I thought we would have made it by now."

"Maybe we got lost," he said. "Maybe we're on an entirely different trail now, taking us to Los Angeles, or Mexico, or something..."

This was an exciting, if rather painful possibility. She felt fairly confident now that she had developed a blister on her foot which had had been smashed, reinflated, and smashed again several times on this walk. She was wearing her most outdoorsy shoes, which were Keds, which were not really very outdoorsy, and they were sort of wet. Adam was wearing green Hunter rainboots, very British with his long tweed coat.

After a while, they were lucky enough to see a building with lights on ahead of them. There was a distinctly horsey smell on the air, and they both stopped dead when they saw a man ushering a miltank into what was apparently a barn.

"Cows?" Delilah exclaimed. "What! We must be near the county limits or something by now!"

Adam didn't say anything.

"Hey, you know what we should do?" she said.

He didn't answer.

"Say, you know what we should do?" she repeated in case he hadn't heard.

"How can I possibly know what 'we' should do?" he asked darkly. "What should we do?"

She was sort of embarrassed to have been spoken to in such a manner. "We should ask the farmer where we are," she said lamely.

Adam looked like he was going to scream. Instead, he just groaned loudly.

They hurried up to the farmer, waving and calling to him.

He looked up and waited for them to approach him.

"Are you the farmer?" Delilah asked whiningly.

"Shut up, Delilah, I'll take care of this!" said Adam impatiently. "We're on our way to Olivine!"

"Are you the farmer?"

"Stop saying that, Delilah, of course he's the fucking farmer! How far is it to Olivine?"

"Well, let's see," said the farmer, squinting into the rain. "It's 24, 812 miles the direction you're going. But if you turn around, it's only thirteen miles."

Because it was so late, he and his wife let them use their guest bedroom and bathroom for the night, and said they would drive them into Olivine the next morning, which was very nice of them.

It was really a nice room. Adam looked at her. "Do you expect me to offer to sleep on the couch?" he asked.

She laughed. "I expect nothing from you," she said, putting her bag down on the bed. "I'm going to take a shower."

Adam was watching the television when she emerged from the bathroom. She sat on the bed and began to brush her hair. Suddenly he said, "I'm going to cut my hair."

He stood up. She raised her eyebrows. "Right now? Yourself?"

"Yeah. I'm going to give him a shock when he sees me."

"Okay," she said, and went back to the TV and brushing her hair. The more time she spent with him, Adam really only got weirder and weirder, cutting his hair in a stranger's house. She heard him rummaging around in the bathroom cabinets, and then he went quiet for a while.

After several minutes he lounged on the doorframe and said, "Delilah, have you got any kirby grips or anything like that."

"Any what?"

"You know, like, hair pins."

"Oh, like bobby pins?" she said, getting up and going to her bag.

"Yeah, it's the same thing."

"Oh. I didn't know."

She handed him the little pouch that held her hair clips and bands and things. It was pink with a graphic of SpongeBob playing a ukulele, but he did not comment on it.

"What do you need them for, anyway?" she asked.

"I'm doing a Mohican," he said, opening the zipper and looking inside. "So I'll need to clip back the hair I don't want to cut."

"Ohhhh...you're going to really shock him."

"Yeah, it should be a laugh," he said humorlessly.

She ended up perching on the edge of the bathtub and doing the back for him.

"Do you know what my dad got me for my twentieth birthday?" he said as he sat in the empty tub.

She thought about it. "Venezuela?"

"Golf clubs," he said. "I hate golf. It is so boring."

"I never understood the rules..."

"I just figured I wouldn't ever touch them. I said, 'Daddy, you know that I'm never going to use these, ever.'"

"Well, I think you're done," she said, standing up and brushing some of his hair off of herself.

He stood up. "What a thoughtless gift! I didn't touch them for months until one day he dragged me golfing with his stupid 'associates'. And, of course, I was amazing at it."

She laughed. "That's typical."

He looked in the mirror. "Brilliant," he said, fluffing what was left of his hair. "I hit it for the first time and it was just letter-perfect, just textbook-neat. And he said, 'Oh. Oh, uh. Well done, Adam.' That put me in such a bad mood, probably even worse than if I had been terrible at it. I just said, 'THANKS,' really snotty. After that day I never, ever touched them, ever again. And he never asked me to."

Adam had a rather lean and angular face with cheekbones that would spread a blush across the White Cliffs of Dover, so that such a rude and provocative hairstyle was flattering and quite chic.

"I'll just get in the shower and wash it now, I guess," he said. He had Sisley shampoo, the kind that cost $80 a bottle. Well, he did have beautiful hair, even in a Mohawk.

She went to bed, thinking that Adam really was a very strange person. She had a bit of a hard time believing that he was actually a real person, with a life and feelings and thoughts, and not just a decorative fixture in her life.

How could Adam be real? How could he possibly function in day-to-day living? He was so vibrantly exaggerated—he was ridiculously mean, ludicrously sexy, everything about him was absurd and stylized—how could he do anything as normal or unremarkable as brushing his teeth, buying pokémon food, catching a cold, reminiscing about his childhood, getting an eyelash in his eye? Presumably he did all of these things, but it all happened off-screen; and if a tree falls with nobody around to hear it, was Adam still a jerk? Delilah may have liked to look at her life as if it were an episode of an off-the-wall sitcom, but with a supporting character like Adam the metaphor itself became a caricature.

They laid there in silent darkness for what could have been minutes or hours before Adam whispered, "Delilah...?"

"What?"

"Are you asleep?"

"...Yes..."

He laughed a little.

She felt him shift around.

"Do you mind if I open that window?" he asked.

So, of course, nothing did happen. She thought this was really for the best because she was extremely ticklish.

If her life were a sitcom, Adam and Delilah would probably become friends after somehow accidentally getting roped into an embarrassing and generically wacky situation and being harmlessly entertaining for half an hour. Or if her life were a romantic comedy, they would probably bond over some shared interest in an obscure hobby so they would have a friendship to worry about ruining. Or if her life were a bad fanfiction, one of them would probably at some point walk in on the other naked and then run away blushing. Or if her life were a low-budget indie film, she would probably casually lose her virginity to him in a starkly-shot scene with no music and miltanks in the background.

But none of this happened. It was unsentimentally anticlimactic.

They were woken up at the unreasonable hour of seven o'clock. Of course, farmers probably got up around three or something.

"Ugh," said Delilah, wiping at her eyes. "I want to go back to bed..."

"Well...I want a Vicodin, but you don't always get what you want, do you."

She laughed. "Sleep is good for you," she said. "For a healthy body and a healthy mind."

He looked skeptical. "It all seems to be going to your body," he said.

Nobody mentioned his hairstyle, apparently assuming that it had always been like that and they just hadn't noticed because it was wet. Even when it wasn't charged, it still looked quite impressive. Adam had already had an overwhelming presence and the confrontational hairdo only intensified it.

Adam's exquisite, vicious face was the whitest she had ever seen, as colorless as paper; not ivory, or creamy, his skin had a rather bluish cast, and his eyes burned cold like jewels on a sheet. Everything about him made a person want to keep looking.

"Look at that bunch of miltanks," exclaimed Delilah as they drove by, amazed at how many there were.

"Herd," said Adam.

She smirked. "Heard what?"

"Herd of miltanks."

"Of course I've heard of miltanks, stupid."

He half-laughed and half-groaned. "No," he said. "A miltank herd."

"So? I don't care if a miltank heard. I don't have any secrets from a miltank."

"Ugh," he said, and laughed.