The Hurricane Read Free Page B

text, but the cramped keypad made it an exercise in
futility, especially for someone with slow thumbs like himself. As he watched
the surreal, quiet flow of thumb-clacking traffic, Daniel wondered if perhaps
his physical unpopularity had something to do with his being a digital
non-entity. The summer of the cellphone had arrived, and just in time for him
to change his number and downgrade his model (on his own dime). All because of
a looped vidchat tease that turned out to be a damned 1-900 trap.
    Daniel double-checked the location of his next class, put
his notes away, and bent over his basic phone, both thumbs on the keys. He
merged with the flow of traffic, jabbing numbers randomly, laughing at nothing,
and pretending to be as connected as the rest of his peers: all completely
absorbed in what took place between the backs of their hands and on their tiny
screens.
    ••••
    After his final class—a mind-numbing mathematical affair
wherein his teacher crammed three years of review into fifty minutes—Daniel met
Roby in the courtyard, where he found his friend absorbed in a game on his new
iPhone. It must’ve been one of the games that used the device’s accelerometer,
as Roby chewed his lip and cradled the phone in both hands, his elbows thrown
wide as he fought to make fine motions with the small screen. Daniel strode up
and bumped Roby’s elbow, which elicited a sound effect from the game like glass
shattering, followed by an explosion.
    “You shit!”
    Daniel laughed. “What level were you on?”
    “Twelve.”
    “Is that good?”
    Roby shoved his phone into his back pocket. “Not really, to
be honest. Still, you’re a shit.”
    “Thanks.” Daniel tucked his thumbs into his backpack’s
shoulder straps. “Whatcha feel like doing?”
    “I’ve gotta get home, actually. Jada’s Skyping me this
afternoon so we can work on this duet we’ve come up with.”
    “Jada? That’s the girl?”
    “She’s not the girl , she’s my girlfriend. And
yeah, her name’s Jada.”
    “Is that like Jada the hut? Is she, like, enormous?”
    “No, ass, it’s from the name Yada. It’s Hebrew. It means ‘He
who knows,’ or something like that.” Roby jerked his head toward the front of
the school where the worn out brakes on the busses could be heard squealing and
hissing. He started walking that way, out toward the parking lot. “And she’s
not fat. She’s hot. You’ll see.”
    “Yeah? When?”
    “Well, she might be coming down this weekend, actually. I’m
thinking of taking her to Jeremy Stevens’s party.”
    “You got invited to that?”
    Roby shrugged. “I’m the reason Jeremy didn’t have to take
summer school. He kinda copied off my finals in English last year.”
    “And you let him?”
    “Yes, I chose to not have my ass kicked after school, and
now I’m taking my girlfriend to his party.”
    “Well, I heard it was gonna get rained out. It was
originally supposed to be a pool party or something.”
    The two boys exited under the bus awning and weaved through
a long file of kids in band uniforms, the drummers practicing quietly on their
rims, the sax players clicking valves and pretending to blow through the reeds.
Each kid seemed to be working on different parts of obviously very different
songs.
    “The party’ll just move inside if it rains. Besides, I hear
the storm is dying down and moving more south. It’ll probably hit Florida and
cross over into the gulf.”
    “Shit always hits Florida, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah. I think God shaped it like a penis on purpose just so
he could have fun kicking it repeatedly.”
    “Haha.”
    “So, are you going to the party?”
    Daniel stopped at the curb. He saw his sister in a cluster
of freshman girls a dozen feet away. They were giggling amongst themselves,
staring at their phones, a few of them holding theirs up to take pictures or
videos of the others.
    “I dunno,” Daniel said. “It’s not really my scene.”
    “We don’t have a scene,”