Verwandte Artikel zu The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millenial Anxiety

The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millenial Anxiety - Softcover

Shay, Kevin

 
9780307276728: The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millenial Anxiety
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0307276724 ISBN 13: 9780307276728
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

An edgy, hilarious novel about one man's attempt to alert his friends to the catastrophe sure to arrive on the eve of Y2K.

It's 1998. Randall, a twenty-five-year-old children's singer and puppeteer, has discovered the clock is ticking toward a worldwide technological cataclysm. But he may be able to save his loved ones-if he can convince them to prepare for the looming threat. That's why he's quit his job, moved into his car, and set out to sound the alarm. The End As I Know It follows Randall on his poignant and funny coast-to-coast Cassandra tour.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kevin Shay's humor writing has appeared in print and online in McSweeney's, eCompany Now, Salon, Modern Humorist, and the anthology 101 Damnations. He was the online editor of McSweeney's in 2000 and 2001 and recently co-edited Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, a collection of humor pieces from the site. He lives in New York.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

450 Days


Cutting through six layers of hangover and hideous dream, a no-nonsense knock on the door. “ ’Ousekeeping!” Must have forgotten to hang the do not disturb again. “ ’Ousekeeping!” A booming Caribbean contralto. The handle turning. But aha, I remembered the chain, which—clank!—thwarts the maid's entry. “Clean y’room?” she bellows through the crack. “Later, please,” I find it in me to croak.

She retreats. I like this maid—encountered her yesterday as I was checking in. A fiftyish hillside of a lady with steak–sized hands that make short work of motel detritus. Probably has five to seven children and cousins uncountable. If they’re the close-knit family I envision, if they have a good community around them—where am I, Illinois? Bet they have some good communities here—if they can lie low and hang together through the first few months, I like to think she and hers might make it to the other side.

Ah, who am I kidding? She’s a goner. Too bad. It crosses my mind to drop a little knowledge on her, but coming from some bleary–eyed white boy holed up in a room she only wants to tidy, it would never take. Maybe if her husband or her pastor wises up in time, she can be convinced. She seems sensible. Oh well—I can’t save everyone.

About time to pack up and check out, though I’d love to spend another day, nap until early afternoon and then drive into whatever passes for town around here. Take a stroll, grab a grilled cheese and fries, then retire to these antiseptic quarters with maybe some Doritos and a fresh bottle of Cuervo. Pass out, wake, repeat. But the deadline looms, the ironclad terrible deadline. No slots for sloth penciled into my calendar, and my plan, windpissing though it may be, is all I’ve got going. I can relax in, say, 2002, on the off chance I’m still alive.

I stand at the sink and grimace at my reflection. Underfed and out of shape, an unimpressive torso sheathed in a shrunken fraying T–shirt bearing the faded logo of some band my ex–girlfriend used to like, puffy pockets under my dry pink eyes. A drifter, that’s what I look like, the kind the police in movies are always searching for in connection with an incident. I do what can be done with my unruly ash–brown curls. Should shower, should drink water, but both prospects repel me. Is this hydrophobia? Man, rabies is the last thing I need. But no, that would require contact with wildlife of some kind. Except for speeding by roadkill, I’ve barely laid eyes on any fauna for weeks. And damn little flora, for that matter. Sounds like a Broadway musical: Damn Little Flora. I extemporize a refrain, Cole Porterwise, while taking a futile brush to my hair: “Hey! You’re in a jam, Little Flora. Too bad! You’re on the lam, Little Flora. All I can say is, Damn, Little Flora! Goodbyeeeee.”

Let’s see, when’s checkout? A chintzy ten–thirty, giving me a half-hour to gather my wits and belongings. Normally I bring at least the guitars and puppets into the room, but no thief would bother to hit the parking lot of this generic Super 8 off a down–at–heels section of interstate, so last night I rolled the dice and left everything in the car but the small duffel bag.

OK, time to get my bearings. I sit down on the bed and lay out the components of the makeshift TripTik for my coast–to–coast Cassandra tour. My trusty road atlas. My itinerary, penciled on pages torn from a wall calendar given away by a Century 21 agent in a town I’ve never been to. And my list of names. Looking at this list used to energize me. Not so much anymore, as the column of X’s to the left of the names marches further down the page. Eight down, eight to go. Halfway through my nearest and dearest, and only one checkmark—Grandma, my most recent attempt and sole success, a few days ago in Boca Raton. But hey, I’m on a one–game winning streak. Next on the list, Damien, my best friend from college, who now warms a carrel under the auspices of the Ancient Mediterranean World Department at the University of Chicago. Maybe he’ll be an easy sell. A student of the Roman Empire ought to fathom how civilizations can collapse under their own weight. Although spending his days among tomes in dead tongues might have rendered him blind to the doomed silicon engine that drives the present-day world. Could go either way.

I open my atlas and with eyes and index finger trace and retrace the route between here and Damien’s address until it starts to sink in. Once I’m reasonably confident I can find my way to Chicago, I pick up the phone, punch a baroque sequence of calling–card digits, and wait for my manager to pick up. Which he will. I’ve never once failed to get Gene Denley on the phone on the first try, at any hour of the day. This strikes me as unseemly for a manager.

“Denley Associates.” That slow, soothing voice, giving the “so” in “Associates” that diphthongal pronunciation I initially took for Southern but later learned is pre–urban–blight Bronx. There are no associates. Gene works alone, as he has in four or five prior careers, none of which held his interest. Layers of yellowing paperwork from all these enterprises threaten to burst the seams of his little Somerville office. Another of his clients, a clown, told me she’d heard he was independently wealthy, his businesses a succession of larks. Well, if Gene has money, he hides it well.

“It's Randall,” I say.

“Randall! You're in Chicago?”

“Or thereabouts.”

“Your parents are trying to reach you, kid.”

“Both of them?”

“I wish you'd get a damn cell phone. Hell, I’d pay for it.”

He makes this offer frequently because he knows I'll refuse. This time, to tweak him, I feign interest.

“Really? You’d do that for me, Gene?”

He backpedals instantly. “Well, I could maybe help out with the phone itself. The service, you’re on your own.”

“Forget it. So who called?”

“Mom yesterday, and stepdad the day before that.”

Fishy. Ted wouldn’t call unless something was wrong with Mom, and in that case he would’ve told Gene about it. “Are you sure it was my stepfather? What number did he leave?”

“Eight hundred something. Where is it …”

I wince. My father must have signed up for a toll–free number just for this purpose. Thought I wouldn’t recognize the number, so I’d call. Sad, albeit resourceful.

“That's gotta be Dad, sneaking up on me.”

Gene sighs. “Look, just call the poor guy, why don't you? Life’s too short to burn bridges.” He doesn’t sound like he really believes this. I have a feeling Gene’s a bridge–burner from way back.

“Gene, I have a checkout time. Can we talk schedule?”

“All right. Don’t say I didn't try. So let’s see. Nothing much new. Tentatives in Connecticut and Vermont on December fourth and eighth.” As if a switch had been thrown, he’s gone from avuncular to efficient, the gentle drawl replaced by clipped consonants and a let’s–get–this–done cadence, what I think of as his public school persona. He flips between these two modes as needed. When dealing with public schools, he’s generally selling bean–counters on my affordability as a surefire crowd–pleaser and takes the businesslike tone. Pitching me...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307276724
ISBN 13 
9780307276728
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
385
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar