Microserfs

"I wasn't supposed to fall in love. I didn't even know it was love. I didn't even know that love was some sort of option. All I knew was that I couldn't take my eyes off him. I wasn't even looking around, but somehow this guy drew my attention magnetically, and I was bewitched."

Unsolicited confession: woah!

"This guy . . . he worked at the SeaFirst on Sherman Avenue in Coeur d'Alene. I'm not saying his name - as if it matters now. No. I will say his name. His name was Allan. So I've said his name. I've never done that before." A pause. "Allan."

Bug removed the roof completely from the house and plucked out, brick by brick, the interior.

"I came in one day around lunch hour - just before lunch hour - and I asked if he was into a quick bite nearby. He said yes. We went to a Sizzler, and it was such a loser lunch. Anonymous food, but it didn't matter. Allan was acknowledging the fact I existed, and I was half crazy for him. Hell, I was totally crazy for him."

Bug asked Susan if she had some extra six-stud white beams, and she gave him some.

"I asked Allan what he did on Friday nights. He said he went to this one bar. I don't even think it had a name. A dive. Truck stop with grease burgers and piss beer. I went there three weekends in a row, and on the third weekend, he showed up, and I tried to be so casual. And we talked, and we got really deep really quickly - that scary kind of deep you experience when someone has you entranced.

"And he asked me to go for a drive with him. And so ask me, did I go?"

"Did you go?" asked Michael.

"Oh yeah. We drove around for an hour in his pickup and we talked and drank Bud Light, and I kept waiting for it to go somewhere, but my problem was I didn't know what it was, or where it was supposed to go . . . where there was.

He'd swig and wipe his mouth and wipe his hand on the upholstery and nothing seemed to happen. Finally we returned to the bar. Back there, at the bar, he said he had to go, back to his . . . girlfriend. But before he went he held my hand and he stroked it, and I thought I'd die of excitement."

Bug sighed.

"What happened next?" asked Susan.

"Me? I hounded him. Oh fuck, what a loser I was. I made all these needless deposits and withdrawals at the bank. $20. $50. $10. The manager finally came over and pointedly showed me the ATM machine. Allan always managed to elude me, so I never talked to him again.

"Around the same time, I got a job offer at Microsoft and I took it - talk about escape hatch! And so there was never any closure with Allan. He's probably married now, and has 44 kids. I've been avoiding people ever since.

"But there was one final incident, though. The weekend before I left for Microsoft, I went back to the dive, and there was Allan. I felt something swell in my heart, that maybe I'd have a second chance after all to really find out what it was that I wanted to happen, and I bought two beers and was carrying them over when I saw him go out to the parking lot with some other guy, taking some other guy out for a drive, and my heart fell like a bowl of goldfish smashing onto a cathedral floor. I guess it's his gig - little drives that go nowhere, with lonely boys. Whatta sleazebag."

Total silence had fallen over our office, save for a few machines purring. Bug picked up his Lego house and held it and smelled it.

"Sure, I know I'm a geek, and I know that predisposes me to introversion. And Microsoft did allow me to feed the introversion. But as you're all noticing for yourselves, you can't retreat like that here in the Valley. There's no excuse anymore to introvert. You can't use tech culture as an excuse not to confront personal issues for astounding periods of time. It's like outer space, where the vacuum makes your body explode unless you locate sanctuary."

Ethan said, "You mean to say you haven't . . . done anything since the mid-1980s?"

Susan said, "What do you mean, done, Ethan?"

"You know - made whoopee, for Christ's sake."

Bug said, "More like ever, Eth . . . I had my hand held once. Woo-ee! I'd be a lousy contestant on The Newlywed Game."

Michael had gone to the bathroom when this subject came up.

Susan asked, "Well, Bug, what about now?"

Bug said, "Now? I don't know if it's because I was afraid of being gay or because I was afraid of being rejected, but all I know is that now feels like the first chance at having some sort of go at being in love with someone else. I was so busy geeking out that I never had to examine my feelings about anything. I jumped into one of those little cartoon holes they use in old Merry Melodies, and I just came out the other side, and the other side is here. Didn't you ever wonder where the other side was?"

This was actually a pretty good question, and I got to remembering that I did sort of used to wonder where the cartoon holes would take you if you hopped into them.