Clicked aka The Porn Book by Patrick Jones (work in progress)
“Welcome home,” my dad says as I walk in the front door. He’s sitting where I left him a few hours ago: in the living room, watching sports on TV while solving a newspaper crossword during the commercials. Dad used to look at the want ads in the paper, but he’s abandoned that hopeless pursuit. I mumble a non-response. Talking with Dad forces me to ponder the economic landslide crushing Flint, my family, and my future. I quickly scale the stairs as my mind spins with the simple significance of that compound word: homecoming.
Homecoming is no ordinary word. I should know because as a future best-selling award-winning novelist, I’m good with words. Tonight, homecoming meant the football game I watched to report on for my school newspaper. I write about sports, instead of playing them, much to my shame and regret. Tomorrow night will be the homecoming dance, which I also won’t attend. While I refuse to surrender my romantic dreams, I’m glad not to be attending a school dance after last spring’s prom fiasco with Thien Nguyen.
Thien was my last girlfriend in two senses of the word. Last, because I’ve not hooked up with any one since; last because I don’t think anyone will go out with me again. In the break-up, she got custody of our friends, except my best bud Tim. She and I share joint custody of our secrets. But as I walk up the family photo free staircase toward my room, I’m not thinking about the prom last spring, but a Christmas almost three years ago. The day my sister vanished.
Carrie left home when she was seventeen, the same age I am now. I didn’t see the final argument; I only heard it from the top of the stairs. Yet, the memory of it clicks in my brain like the barrel of a pistol spinning around. Every morning I Google her name “Carrie Banks”, but she remains missing like a haunting memory or elusive mirage. My parents gave up searching, mentioning her name, and even having her photos in the house. I pray they still have hope; I do.
In seconds, my sleek and speedy four-year-old Mac comes on and I start clicking away at the keyboard and mouse, the sound echoing in the silence. Miles away, there’s some loud after-game party where people clink beer bottles together and drain batteries clicking their cameras and phones. It’s homecoming weekend and the unwritten rules of high school tell me that I’m supposed to partying. Many will come in Monday telling tall tales of getting drunk or baked after tonight’s game and tomorrow’s dance. Similar to holidays like Christmas, high school milestones like homecoming and prom create expectations which rain down disappointment that dissolve into despair. Is despair the difference between your daily life and your dreams? In some parts of my life, it feels like I’m living in a valley of ashes rather than in the flatlands of the Flint burbs. Why can’t I bridge the distance between who I am and who I want to be?
I see on the screen that I’m not the only one in front of a computer instead of a keg. It looks like many of my friends – NHS all stars and newspaper nerds – are online as well. I chat to fight the loneliness that a weekend like this magnifies a million times. Finishing the football story for the paper comes easily, so I ease into the pursuit of seventeen-year-old boys everywhere. Every time I look at porn, I feel guilty, but I’m not sure why.
I’m sitting alone in my room in my parent’s house in suburban Flint surfing worldwide porn when I see a thumbnail on a site I’ve never visited before: a white guy and a black guy, between them a young blonde girl with nice natural tits. This photo is stored on a computer some place, but these pixels started in one location, they’re everywhere now. Everybody’s dream about getting fifteen minute of fame lasts forever in this wired world. I click the image, it grows larger and the world grows smaller. The naked girl on the screen is my sister Carrie.