Geek Bomb part 2

I hate attention. I am uncomfortable with people crawling to me, treating me as though I am better than them, running after me like servants. At least, I imagine I would be if it happened. So I am surprised by my disappointment when I am not met by anyone at the sci-fi convention, and am merely left to wonder through Doncaster Leisure Centre in a bewildered and frustrated state.

I spent the morning and afternoon in the hotel pretending I wasn’t fighting the urge to be sick, as though admitting I was hung-over would confirm in Cheryl’s eyes that last night’s drunken behaviour was indeed as pathetic as we both know it was. At one point I even leapt off the bed and did twenty press-ups, even though alcohol-laced blood flooded into my brain and caused my vision to white out and a thin trail of bile to ooze up my throat. When I finished I disguised my desperate clinging to the wall for support with a leg stretch. At lunch I ordered a dry sandwich rather than the grease-mess I would normally gobble down in a pained frenzy, and left some of it even though my belly was still gurgling for nourishment. (Later I shovelled a family-sized packet of Kettle Chips into my mouth in the tiny hotel hot tub, ignoring the awful shouty kids standing on my legs and splashing chlorine onto my crisps. Then, back on the bed with Cheryl watching music videos with the volume almost all the way down, my chest suddenly began burning up but I didn’t lift my shirt to cool it because somehow I knew that the sight of my fat white hairy stomach would depress me and admit too many truths about everything.)

Now we walk through the convention and I squint pathetically at the surrounding throng. It is as though a geek bomb has exploded. These are people who have become so expertly nerdish they have long since abandoned any pretence of being accepted by normal society and have embraced the world of Geekdom so intensely that they openly, even loudly, discuss their lack of lives and are far happier for doing so.

We walk round the stalls where people are pointlessly selling bootleg tapes of films at the same price legal copies can be purchased. Old horror film stars sit at tables desperately attempting to sell their autographs for five, ten, even twenty pounds. A porn star encourages us to flick through her catalogue of (laminated) nude photographs. Someone has a DVD he claims is packed with clips of Robert DeNiro corpsing. I feel faint, then bent down and re-tie my shoe laces.

Finally I find the girl with the clipboard. She doesn’t recognise me from yesterday. When she finds my name on the list she confirms that I will be reading at 9pm. “Right,” I say. “Where’s the green room?”

“The green room?”

“Yes. Or a dressing room, or just somewhere backstage I can relax and prepare.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We don’t have anything like that.”

“What, so I’m just supposed to hang around here until my slot? What does Michael Marshall Smith have to say about that?”

“Well, he does have a little room. But at least two of the other readers today don’t. It’s not a personal thing, Mr. Hardy. We only have limited resources.”

“What about when my name is called? I can’t come from front-of-stage. That would look ridiculous. I have to appear from somewhere different from the punters, otherwise it looks as though I’m on the same level as them. I mean, I don’t have any delusions of grandeur but how can they respect me or take me seriously as an author if I’m just the bloke sitting next to them in the audience who suddenly gets up on stage like some kind of Open Mic night.”

“I think you might be over thinking it a little,” she suggests. “Do you know Mr. Marshall Smith?”

“No.”

“Oh. I was going to suggest that you could ask him if you could hide behind the curtain outside his dressing room. Other than that…”

She trails off. I sigh. “Can I get a cup of tea, at least?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” I say with heavy sarcasm.

“The café is down the hall.”

“You won’t get it for me?”

“I’m really busy.”

Is that a public cafe?”

“Yes. That’s all we have.”

“I’m going back to the hotel.”

“Your contract said you would be on the premises from 5pm.”

“But there’s nowhere to go!”

“You could watch the other authors reading.”

I wave her away. Suddenly I realise that Cheryl hasn’t been interjecting. I turn and see her hanging up her mobile. “Well, if you’re sorted,” she says, “I’m going to meet Jason for a drink.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t I come?”

“No. No drinking before public appearances. We all remember the pub quiz you hosted…” I don’t and I put my hands over my ears because I don’t want to know. “You can’t keep running from the consequences of your actions,” Cheryl says.

“I can,” I say, and I run through the crowd of Star Wars and heavy metal t-shirts.