Chapter 21

The week following the phone call passes in a gray haze for the Ritter family in spite of the sunny summer days. They wait for news that doesn’t come, knowing that nothing they do will have any meaning until the other shoe drops.

Jessica immerses herself in her husband’s artifacts—she refuses to think of them as his relics—when she isn’t sitting at her computer failing to focus on her work and succumbing to the obsessive temptations of the internet, turning to that cloudy digital crystal ball for scraps of hope with which she might stitch back together her slowly unraveling life. She wears Matt’s Patriots jersey and spends a little time each day in the garage where he spent most of his time. It soothes her to be among his tools, listening to his CDs, the short stack that he kept in steady rotation when he was out here tinkering with repairs or nursing a beer over some woodworking project.

She first came out here at dawn, the day after the DUSTWUN call, and sat on the cracked leather seat of his neglected motorcycle, remembering the hours they’d spent on it before Gavin was born. The hum of the road, the wind on her face, leaning into curves together, her arms wrapped tight around his strong body. She had unscrewed the fuel tank cap and inhaled the smell of gasoline, a scent she could imagine lingering on his hands. For a wild moment, she even considered rolling the bike out of the garage and starting the engine, driving it away without telling Gavin, without a helmet. She was sure it would start without a tune up. He was a man of few possessions, but he took care of what he kept. And then it hit her, the impossible injustice that the machine could have outlived its owner, that it could still roar to life and do what it was made for. Did it have no respect?

She had spun away from it, prepared to kick the vehicle over on its side, irrationally angry at it. But the rage drained out of her as quickly as it rose, and she climbed back on. Anger and grief weren’t allowed to her because no one had told her Matt was dead. They were betrayals she had no right to indulge in. She sat on the bike, trembling with tension, until finally she crossed her arms over the handlebars, rested her forehead on them, and wept hot tears, her body wracked with sobs.

When she had cried it all out, she looked up at the workbench and saw the framed photo from their honeymoon, the one a fellow tourist had taken of them at the Waimea Canyon lookout on Kauai, the two of them smiling through the dust on the glass, grinning like idiots who believed they had all the time in the world. She swung her leg over the motorcycle seat, strode to the bench, and knocked the picture frame down from where it hung on the pegboard. Before she knew what she was doing, she had a hammer in her hand and was smashing the glass with the needless repetition of someone who has killed a scorpion but wants to make damned sure it’s dead. Glass shards jumped on the scarred work surface with every blow, blurring and melting in the heat of more tears.

Done crying for the second time, she decided she was done until someone told her she had a reason for it. In the days since that first morning, she hasn’t allowed herself a single tear. She has been strong for Gavin.

Watching him, Jessica can’t help thinking about the five stages of grief. They vacillate and overlap, but if she has claimed ANGER as her primary response to the news, there is one incident that makes her think Gavin has claimed BARGAINING.

It’s the day when she finds him sitting on the living room rug, running his hands gently through a scattered pile of coins he has poured out of the loose change jar that usually lives on a kitchen shelf beside the key hooks. Matt’s Fifty States Quarters collection lies on the floor beside him, a colorful cardboard map of the country with a slot for each of the state-themed coins. Her first reaction is to take it away from him, so he won’t… what? Damage it? Like she did to the honeymoon photo? A flash of guilt washes through her followed by tender sympathy for her boy, who is doing in his own way what she had been doing in the garage: seeking a sense of proximity to Matt through his artifacts.

There was a time when Matt and Gavin would spend hours sifting coins to fill the holes on the map. Matt had collected most of the quarters before their son was born, but when Gavin discovered the project, the remaining slots filled up fast. For a period of six months when he was nine, Gavin never missed an opportunity to ask people if they had any change in their pockets that he could take a look at. He would carry a couple of plain quarters with him to trade for any state quarter he and his dad hadn’t found yet, but most people freely gave him what they had, delighted by his excitement. When the last slot remained unfilled for more than a year, Gavin went through a period of obsession with finding the Maine lighthouse before finally giving up and forgetting about the coins as other things came into his life. Jessica recalled one night at the kitchen table, shortly before Gavin stopped carrying trading coins in his pocket everywhere he went, when he’d asked Matt how that one empty slot didn’t drive him crazy.

Sweeping the change back into the jar after a fruitless search, Matt just smiled and shrugged. “It gives us something to look forward to.”

Gavin groaned. “How can that be the last one? Maine isn’t even that far from here. Shouldn’t it be Hawaii or Alaska?”

“It doesn’t work like that. They don’t distribute more to the state represented on the back.”

“Can’t we just buy one on eBay? I’ve seen them for like a dollar.”

“You could. But that would be cheating. And we’re not paying a dollar for a quarter.”

And with that, Gavin had seemed to reach the end of his patience with the whole undertaking. But here he sits, sifting change for the first time in over a year. The word AFTERMATH forms in Jessica’s mind, like a sign in a foreign language, a word that indicates her current location, but whose meaning she must decipher. She wonders for the first time about the roots of the word. Why math? Does it have to do with counting the cost of a catastrophic event? Like counting coins? She looks at the empty slot on the map and wonders if Matt will ever see it filled. It’s the least of the things he could leave unfinished, but for a moment it represents them all.

Sifting change. Isn’t that what they’re all doing now?

“Looking for Maine?” she asks, gently.

Gavin looks up at her with a furtive expression, as if she’s caught him at something inappropriate. He nods. “I want to find it before Daddy comes home.”

Jessica nods back and doesn’t press him for more, but she knows what he’s really thinking: If I find it, he will come home.

* * *

Gavin avoids the iPad in those long summer days when he and his mother are adrift. This is partly because the device is less alluring without the Wi-Fi connection his mother has revoked, but more because it reminds him of the night when the news came. Nothing concrete has changed—Daddy wasn’t home and he’s still not home—but everything has changed. He still turns on the TV at four every day for the latest episode of Scream Time on YouTube. But six days after the phone call, Rainbow Dave stops posting new episodes with no explanation; just vanishes again, like Gavin’s father, leaving him doubly abandoned.

Even at ten, Gavin has the self-awareness to know he depends on a certain amount of distraction and escapism in his day to avoid thinking about what might have happened to his father. And without the work and social drama of school to engage him, he’s unmoored, restless, and sick with his mother’s contagious anxiety. When she makes a point of sitting him down to discuss his father’s status, her words are reassuring, rational, and hopeful. But her manner throughout the long days and nights that follow the dreadful phone call betrays this mask of optimism. Her frustration rattles through in every gesture, every kitchen chore. And her own time on the internet is obsessive—clicking between tabs that are always open: the FRC message board, a handful of news sites, and Google Earth.

Sometimes Gavin stands beside her desk, staring at the screen as she clicks and drags and zooms in on some little patchwork piece of Afghanistan, scanning the mountains, roads, and ravines—looking for what? Bases? Tents? Daddy standing on a rock and waving up at the satellite? She’s not going to find him that way. Even Gavin knows it. But what scares him most about her behavior is that when she’s in that zone, she doesn’t even know he’s standing beside her, looking over her shoulder. She doesn’t hear him approach, even though he makes no effort to be quiet. More than once, he has startled her, caused her to jump in her seat and cry out when he finally spoke to ask her for lunch.

Gavin suspects he could do anything he likes these days and she would scarcely notice, including signing himself back into the Wi-Fi and binge gaming. But the more he watches her, the more unsettled he is by the zombie that used to be his mom. And the more he sees what he must sometimes look like to her. Maybe the best thing for her would be a baseball bat to the cable modem. But then she’d probably just move to her phone, which miraculously didn’t break when she threw it at the dishwasher.

New episodes of Scream Time fail to appear on Dave’s channel for five whole days, which is a record. Over the past year, Gavin has gone back and watched all the previous episodes from before he got hooked on Dave’s channel. During the blackout week, he watches his favorites again. Some of these aren’t about Minecraft, mods, or gaming at all, but instead focus on Dave’s pets, favorite movies, or (best of all) his tips for being a successful YouTuber.

Gavin wants to be a YouTuber when he grows up and has studied these episodes, dreaming of the day when he will be allowed to start his own channel. And he knows that one of the top five rules for running a successful channel is posting every day. Dave has gone on two vacations since becoming a professional full-time YouTuber—one to Disney World and one to Egypt to see the pyramids—and in both cases, he recorded extra episodes in advance and queued them up to post daily in his absence. He treats it just like a real job and Gavin knows that’s why Dave has been so successful. That, and how funny and exciting he is. But even those traits came from practice. In the earliest videos, his voice sounds pretty dull, with long pauses and none of the familiar rhythm Gavin and millions of other kids have come to know and love.

Gavin longs for the company of that voice to the point of depression. He feels guilty knowing that in some ways, he misses Rainbow Dave more than his own father.

When the five-day blackout finally ends, and a new thumbnail appears with a wacky graphic of Dave’s head against a cartoon background, Gavin almost can’t believe his eyes. He glances over the back of the couch to see if his mother is around. It’s crazy to think that Dave might address him directly in a public video to millions of subscribers, but he can’t help thinking it could happen. There’s no sign of her, though. He knows the internet is sometimes called the web, and while he never understood why before now, he’s starting to see that his mother is caught in it like a fly.

He reaches for the remote and turns the volume down anyway, then clicks on the thumbnail. The familiar techno theme music starts pumping—soothing and exhilarating all at once.

After the opening graphics, Dave appears, sitting in his deluxe gaming chair, his Thor hammer, Captain America shield, and Gandalf sword hanging on the wall behind him, same as always. But the trademark rainbow mohawk is now Gatorade green, and when he turns his head, Gavin gasps. The fuzz below the mohawk is buzzed into the shape of a lizard gripping the sides of Dave’s head.

“Heyyy everybody! It’s Scream Time! Are you ready to rave with Rainbow Dave? All right, then, let’s do it! I am so, so sorry that I haven’t posted any new episodes in… what is it? A week? Almost a week! Yikes, you guys. You must have been worried. I’m a bad boy. What can I say, I’ve just been so busy with a new project, and I know I should have given you some notice about the hiatus, but let me tell you, when you see what I’ve got in store for you, you are gonna flip. You… are… going… to… FLIP!

“And I think it’s better that you didn’t know about what was keeping me so busy because aren’t surprises better than waiting for something? Don’t you think? I don’t know about you, but me? Personally, I like a surprise. I would always rather have something awesome just sprung on me when I’m not expecting anything good than to be waiting for something that I know is cool and I know is coming. Because you get kind of crabby when you’re waiting for a cool thing, right? By today you probably got used to no new videos and so you weren’t even expecting a lousy video—not that my videos are lousy, of course—but instead of just getting a new video and a lame excuse about why I was gone, you get… A SURPRISE! You get to see what I’ve been working on, what I’m going to share with some of you, my best and brightest gamers. Are you ready?”

Gavin nods at the TV screen, smiling.

“Okay. Wait… what did you say? My hair?” Dave leans into the camera, squints comically, and touches his lizard mohawk with a tentative finger. “Oh my God, what is on my head? Lime, get off my head! Ha ha! Just kidding, I did that. I put that there. Do you like it? It’s a tribute to my pet lizard, Lime, of course. Those of you who follow the show have met Lime. So why is his likeness on my head today? Time to find out. And of course, it’s all about today’s surprise. Because today I am revealing the first in a new line of interactive gaming figurines for Rainblocks!”

Dave reaches out of the frame and when his hand returns, he’s holding a plastic lizard the same color as his hair. He holds it up to the camera until it’s in focus. Gavin gasps at the resemblance to the real lizard. Or, maybe more accurately, to the cartoon version of Lime used in the show’s graphics.

“Meet Lime! Doesn’t he just look too cool? And you guessed it: he’s going to be fully integrated into the game. Which means there will be a dock that you can connect to your tablet and when you put Lime—or one of the other forthcoming characters in the series—on the dock, he will appear as a fully playable interactive character in Rainblocks! And just wait until you see what his powers are. It’s AMAZING!”

Gavin, grinning at the screen, chuckles with glee. This was so worth the wait.

“Now, this is just a prototype, and even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to demonstrate it for you in a video. What, Dave? Why not? You demo everything. That’s what Scream Time is all about. Right? Well, yes, but not this. Because I want you guys to experience it for yourselves the first time you plug it in and put the figure on the dock. Each and every one of you who gets one of these should have that experience for yourselves. And… I know this will be hard news for many of you, but I’ve been trying to think of a way to reward my best and brightest, the young players who have proven themselves with the greatest in-game accomplishments, the most insane quest achievements. So…”

Gavin squirms on the couch. Suddenly he needs to pee, but he can’t bear to press pause.

“The first players to get their hands on a Lime figure will be a select group of high score players, and if you are in that group, I will be sending you a Lime figure for FREE! That’s right, you heard me, free!

“What do you think of that, Lime?” Dave asks the figurine, then wiggles it at the camera. “Don’t worry, you’re going to end up in good hands, my little buddy, because here’s the deal: I am going to go through the list of early adopters. Do you know what that means? It means the first kids—and I do mean kids, not adults or even teens, but the first kids under thirteen who played the game—are going to get a free Lime figurine in the mail from me!

“Why under thirteen, you ask? Because I love all of you guys who follow my channel and who bought the game, but I really do this for the kids. I try to create things that I would have liked when I was a kid, and also, in this case, I want it to be fair. Because I’m going to also be looking at the highest scores in that age group.

“Now, I know some of you guys and girls under thirteen are better players than a lot of adults, but if someone my age who has a lot more experience gaming was to win a figurine instead of a kid who is great for his age, that would make me feel sad. Because I only have a limited number of these to give away for this special event. Later, you will be able to buy one, so don’t worry about that, but for this event, I’ll be giving away just twenty-five of these figures.”

Sweat prickles at Gavin’s hairline.

“I know that doesn’t sound like a lot when you consider how many followers I have, but again, I’m talking about free figures for the top scoring kids, and there’s one more criterion for this event…

“I keep talking about an event, right? So, what is this special event? Well, it’s exactly that: a live event where some of you will be invited to see me in person! It’s going to be a mini tour, actually, to celebrate what a successful release we’ve had for Rainblocks. This is the first place I’m announcing it, and the idea behind the tour is to thank those of you who have made Scream Time and Rainblocks such a wild success. And—this is the most important part of all—to share with you an INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE!

“What do you think about that?”

“Cool,” Gavin whispers.

“I’ll be visiting only three American cities on this tour. Boston, New York, and San Diego! I’m sorry if you don’t live near one of those, and I do plan to get to Europe later this year, I know I have a lot of fans in the UK, especially, but for now, because I live in New York and because those cities are the ones with the most high-scoring Rainblocks gamers, those are the places I’ll be visiting.

“Now Boston is up first. If you are one of the winners in the Boston area, you will receive an in-game notification in the form of a lizard trophy at midnight tonight! Don’t stay up late for it,” Dave says with a mischievous grin. “Although I guess it is summer, so you don’t have to be up early for school. But yeah, check it first thing tomorrow morning if you think you’re in the running. And then at 10 A.M. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow, for those of you who haven’t received a trophy, tickets will go on sale for Boston. The Boston event is happening on August seventeenth at the Berklee Performance Center.

“If you do get a trophy in the game at midnight tonight, that means you will receive a Lime figure and docking station in the mail. That figurine is also your ticket to the event. Remember, when you registered for the game, you verified your age and typed in your address? And remember I said I would never abuse that information, but only use it to send you cool stuff? Well, how cool is this? Right?

“So again, if you’re one of my Rainblocks best and brightest, you will not only get a figure, but you will also be invited to the event for FREE! How cool is that? And… And… you’ll need to bring your mobile device with you to the event because—oh my god, this is my favorite part—at the event, I will be playing a new Rainblocks level from my computer on stage and all of you will get to see it for the first time LIVE! But not only that… Oh my God, Dear Lord Choronzon… the winners who bring their lizards, docks, and devices to the event will each be awarded special in-game character abilities based on how well they’ve done on the quests.

“Can you believe that? There has never been anything like this. Can you see now why I’ve been so busy that I missed a few episodes? It’s just sick, am I right? No YouTuber, no game developer has ever rewarded their fans with anything like this, and you guys have no idea how cool this is going to be. You might think you do because I just described it to you, but trust me, you don’t. It’s going to be like waking up on Christmas day. Better, even. It’s going to be like waking up to a whole new reality.

“So that’s it. Don’t forget to check for those trophies and buy those tickets if you don’t get one because they’re gonna go fast. Also, don’t forget to give this video a like and a share because each and every one of you is part of something amazing and I’m just so lucky to share it with you guys. If you don’t get a trophy, I hope to see you at an event anyway and you will not be disappointed, I promise. I’m going to make sure everyone who comes out to see me has the experience of a lifetime. Rainbow Dave out!”

Dave flashes a peace sign, and the screen freezes on the familiar title card with the share, like, and subscribe icons. Gavin blinks, gets up off the carpet, and suddenly remembering that he has a body with needs, runs to the bathroom. The toilet is still flushing when he yells through the house over the sound of running water, “Mom! I think I won a contest! We have to get the iPad back on the internet!”