Angela Townsend
Fiction
If you are eighteen, lonely, and afraid, I recommend selling your opinions.
In the adolescence of the internet, the Holy Spirit descended like a pixel in the Vassar College computer lab. This is my only explanation for how I found the questions and answers.
It was 2000, and I had spent all my summer earnings on sweaters. There would be no candy-colored iMac in my dorm room. I would write essays on Emily Dickinson in semi-public, between the boy who dressed like Woody Allen and the girl who watched grainy Natalie Merchant concert footage and cried. I was too numb to cry. I was the stray cat whose tail had always stood on end, an exclamation mark against the dark. If I did the math, I had at least seven lives left after the bloodletting of juvenile diabetes and the Swiss cheese of a sensitive heart. Seven should have been sufficient for my first time away from home.
But I excelled in English, not Calculus, and I did not account for the reaper’s twenty-sided die. While I packed my floral suitcase, death dueled my family until four remained. Now I was expected to leave my mother, grandfather, and uncle for a rite of passage. I had sturdy friends, but they were all characters in my own bad fiction. I had no computer, no father, and no idea how to prevail.
I had an invitation to join Chestnut Consumer Opinion. You can’t tell me angels didn’t insert this in my vassar.edu inbox.
I clicked “learn more.”
“We are recruiting individuals in your demographic for our exciting new panel!” Exclamation points abounded, green with excitement at my arrival. “Earn up to $2 per survey!”
I pictured my grandfather convulsing. The retired NYPD captain thundered against the internet. Gnarled fingers could grab you by the wrist and tie you up in addiction’s trunk. Unsavory characters cackled as they traded stolen identities like counterfeit coins. Clicking anything was a mistake.
I clicked “join.” I chose the profile name Childlike_Empress. I was pleased that no previous empresses had preceded me.
Woody Allen was playing Snood, a game whose object is to fire disembodied heads into other disembodied heads while they grimace at you. “Sweet!”
Three yellow heads exploded into dust. He saw me looking at him. He fluoresced within his flannel. “Hi!”
“Hi! Sorry. I’m busy.” I turned back to the questions.
I acquired a rapid education. Faceless friends stood with $2 bills in their hands, anxious to know what I thought of bath tissue. Did I prefer single ply? Did I purchase eight or twelve rolls at once? Did I enjoy tissue that “felt like a luxurious bath towel”?
“That’s gross.”
“What?” Woody hoped I was talking to him but not about him.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Would I give my honest opinion? Of course, I would. I agreed not to tell anyone, not even members of my household, about the proprietary material I was about to behold. I confirmed my preference for protein bars made without animal products. I pressed keys with feral force to disapprove of horror movie premises. I reported to radio buttons, over and over again, that I was single, and that my annual income was under five thousand dollars. I passed attention tests. “Which of the following is not alive? Turkey, Cheetah, Shoelace, Man.” I contemplated hitting “contact us” to clarify that I knew men less lively than the average shoelace.
“Which of the following activities did you do last weekend? Sit in a chair, talk to a human, fly a starship, consume at least one calorie.” I wished I could click all four.
“Click all the pictures of stairs to continue.” I proceeded carefully. Were ladders stairs? Respectable people could disagree. I did not want to be disqualified.
I answered the questions. Forty-five minutes passed. My “wallet” contained twenty-eight dollars.
Panels must have talked about me. I received emails from Hanover Psychology Associates and Product Dream Team. I evaluated ethical dilemmas and vented my distrust of mayonnaise. I ticked off circles at the far side of the seesaw, confirming “yes,” we should let in all the refugees and enshrine select-a-size in all the paper towels.
I was asked about nothing so frequently about paper towels. I found myself thinking about them in the middle of Pacific Rim Ethnography and 18th Century English Literature.
“You know you’re going to need to report your earnings on your tax return,” my mother laughed. We agreed never to tell Grandpa.
I hadn’t planned to tell Woody Allen, but one day Natalie was listening to Ten Thousand Maniacs without headphones, and the dining hall had run out of apples, and I was just lonely enough to confirm that I was a human.
“You wanna know what all this clicking is about?”
He filled with all the colors of the carnival and grew five inches before my eyes, which made him nearly 5’4”. “I thought you were always just working hard.” He scrunched his nose. “You’re too sophisticated for—” he turned his screen “—Snoooood!”
I contemplated telling him that when I couldn’t sleep, I played Snood in the empty computer lab. I contemplated telling him that I was glad he was here at seven every night.
“You’re insightful, but half right. Let me show you my weirdest work.”
He scooted. He smelled like my uncle’s cologne, which, in my opinion, should be named Elderly.
I introduced Woody to my panels.
“What do they ask about?”
“Everything, that’s what makes it so irresistible,” I admitted.
“Movies?”
“Sometimes. More often, household products.”
He squinted at the screen. “One hundred forty-six dollars?”
“Only redeemable in gift cards,” I explained. “Weird ones. CVS, Ross Dress for Less, Lidz.”
I peeked at his screen. A green head was suspended in mid-air. Something strange landed between my ears. It could have been the Holy Spirit.
“Hey, wanna come to CVS with me? I’m Daisy, by the way.”
“I’m Alvin!” He took off his cardigan and reached out his hand. “I live in 164!”
I wanted to click “Cancel.” I wondered if I should have screened out of this one. “I’m in 288.”
“I love CVS!”
He smelled too elderly and sounded too earnest for me to be afraid. We made plans for Tuesday night, the same time we’d normally be in the computer lab, the only time I was willing to confirm my existence.
It happened to be the night of the presidential election, my first. Alvin was only seventeen, but he’d been volunteering at phone banks for Gore. “I have certain advantages.” He wiggled his prematurely caterpillish eyebrows, turning up his collar against the chill. “People say, ‘they have little kids making these calls?’ And then I say, ‘no, I’m just a squeaky adult! Please save democracy!’”
We brought my $148 gift card to the cashier. “Is this real?” I couldn’t stomach the thought that all my answers had been in vain.
She read it carefully. “I’ve seen these. You’re on one of them panels.”
Alvin offered me a high five. I returned it in slow motion. We scoured the clearance aisle.
“So, what’s your opinion of me?” I put two large bags of candy corn in my wagon.
Alvin gazed upon them like grandchildren. “Bravery!”
This was not a word usually clicked next to my name. “You jest.”
“My lady!” Alvin drew his hand to his chest. “Never!” He solemnly pulled on a headband with boinging pumpkin antennae. “For one, you have the courage to publicly appreciate candy corn.”
“You’re right. I am Nelson Mandela.”
He exploded a tiny snort. “You have the posture of a ballerina! You sit as tall as a queen!”
“Still not hearing ‘bravery.’”
“You type like your tail is ablaze!” He tossed three pairs of ghoul socks into the basket. “And you have sweaters in every color!”
“Nominate me for the Presidential Medal of Merino Wool.”
“I nominate you for the Nobel Prize in loveliness!” He knighted me with a cat wand toy. I stared at him. I had questions.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know that you smile at the Snoody dude every night.” Alvin examined a candle scented like Vampire Blood. “What is wrong with people? Hey, it actually smells good.”
“I do?”
“You are scared and kind.”
“Where did you get these answers?”
Alvin tapped the side of his frizzy head. “The heads.”
“Snoooooooood.”
We could only find $36 of desirable merchandise. I considered a ceremonial 20-roll mega pack of paper towels, but they weren’t select-a-size. Besides, we had to get back in time for election returns. Alvin carried the candy corn and offered me his arm. I evaluated my options. Not even my grandfather would think this man was dangerous.
“Do they ever ask you political stuff?” Alvin asked. “Do you think you may have helped craft campaign slogans and that kinda thing?”
“Sometimes, but usually it’s more general,” I explained. “Questions like, ‘do you think most people can be trusted,’ and ‘do you believe your best days are ahead or behind.’”
“And what do you say?”
“I err on the side of ‘yes.’”
We walked in silence. “You should tell the weepy girl about the surveys,” Alvin finally suggested.
“That’s a good idea.”
Back at Raymond House, neighbors we didn’t know were rabid with outrage. A boy with a beard to his belly button was howling about a recount, and a boy with no hair at all was standing on top of the TV room sofa and screaming “we’re going to die in a Bush of thorns!”
“They’re drunk. They’re delinquents.” Alvin shook his head.
“My grandfather would call them ‘derelicts.’”
A wave of light shivered Alvin’s face. “I love that word. I will remember that word.”
“Also ‘reprobates.’ ‘Miscreants.’” I watched the couch turn over as the bald prophet howled. “But do you want to know my opinion?”
“Every time.”
“Alvin, I am fond of people.”
“All people?”
“Entirely too much. It’s dangerous.”
“Bravery.” Alvin was suddenly serious. “People aren’t for everyone, you know.”
“I know.” I tried to discreetly open the candy corn, and it flew everywhere. “They break your heart and bend your tail.”
“No shit.” He surprised both of us, and we snickered like children who have just learned about expletives without knowing how to wield them responsibly.
“But I like them.”
“I like you.”
I was willing to give my honest opinion. “Maybe you can join the panel to help me bear the load of our demographic,” I suggested.
“We’ll be rich!”
“We’ll buy all the sweaters.”
“We’ll move to Canada,” Alvin nodded.
I wanted to ask if he was in good health, if he had any plans of transferring, and if he was capable of cruelty. I wanted him to sign terms and conditions that I would never need to check to make sure he was paying attention. I wanted to go home to my mother and uncle and grandfather. I had so many questions.