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Today: Amy Chu, artist and publisher of Camoot.Journal; and Miles Klee, author of the novel Ivyland and culture writer at Rolling Stone, with collaborator Mads Gobbo. Issue No. 373The Window Unit Wanderer
Amy Chu The Ambassadors
Miles Klee and Mads Gobbo The Window Unit WandererSalutations, weary travelers! Camoot here. I created my travel blog, The Window Unit Wanderer, to inspire solo travelers who want to follow their wanderlust to wherever the window unit blows. Here are my top five places to visit, including tips on how you can turn every day into a vacation without splurging on plane tickets or your electricity bill. The Boba Shop
Avoid the trendy neighborhood cafe where they kick everyone out at 3:00 p.m. Instead, I recommend you check out your closest franchise boba shop. Don’t be warded off by the C rating or the bored, cool Asian teenagers watering down your drink. These 3-star establishments appear unassuming but they are FRIGID and effective for budget explorers like myself. The Gong Cha near me is open until midnight, so travelers can really milk that $6 bubble tea until the very last minute of a hot day. Planet Fitness
Our planet’s getting hotter and hotter… and so are you! That is, if you make use of that gym membership you’re paying for anyway. The fitness culture and buff locals can make a vacationer feel out of place, but here’s how you can fit in without breaking a sweat: Simply settle in on an exercise bike and close your eyes. Get a whiff of that ambiguous fishy smell. Don’t you feel it? It’s as if the beach also had an HVAC system! The Man Cave
Thrifty travelers, pay attention to this absolute steal. AC nomads can get a shared room here for the reasonable price of… completely free! Bed and breakfast are included and the weather is pleasurably chilly. Be careful, the deal is so good that it could start to feel like home. There are a few safety tips to keep in mind. What once was a region friendly to tourists has become more hostile; on my last and final visit there, I found the climate to be cold in more ways than one… and my ex wasn’t too happy to see me at his bachelor pad either. The Library
I’ve been visiting this popular location since I was young enough for my parents to leave me illegally unattended. The destination has grown no less popular over the years, and summer is the peak season for bumming free books and free AC. Despite the throngs of tourists, however, nothing rivals the roaring air at the public library. Luckily, I have a travel tip for beating the crowds. Did you know that young people flock to cooler places in the summer months? So, if you’re blessed with a youthful complexion and a perpetually unimpressed expression on your face, you may be able to sneak into the less crowded Teens’ Room instead! Alyssa’s Place
My friend Alyssa is visiting this summer’s hottest, coldest vacation spot—Iceland! Which makes her empty utilities-included apartment with climate control the place to be. While Alyssa’s halfway around the globe admiring waterfalls, I’m running her A.C. While Alyssa’s hiking on glaciers, I’m running her A.C. While Alyssa is enjoying the great outdoors, I’m running her A.C. Beautiful landscapes and a rapidly warming climate make Iceland a must-visit… It also makes Alyssa’s place available for my blissful central air enjoyment. As they say where Alyssa is, loftkælingin mín er loftkælingin þín. AND FIRE IN THE SKYThe Ambassadorsby Miles Klee and Mads Gobbo Zigzig20s [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons I inspected the water’s surface for scum, leaning slightly to block the light, pressing two fingers against my forehead to see if this time they might sink through the skull. There would be a dinner party next to the pool, at the wrought-iron patio table Georgia had had shipped from Italy. I supposed those wroughters or smelters were dead now, along with their fellow pasta makers and belladonnas and nutbrown old gentlemen. Misha insisted our guests would thrill to the risk, even with our guards and electric fence. She made creamed everything. The usuals arrived, morbidly punctual: Zip and Sandra Morlock, Tabitha Slatz, the Dandelobs and their scabby dog, and the vile Doctor Rodney. Once we buzzed him in, Rodney removed two cigars from his breast pocket and beckoned me to stand between the shed and the pool. “My, isn’t it blue,” he puffed. “The temp?” “Seventy-seven degrees,” I mumbled. “Seventy-fucking-seven.” He wasn’t a real doctor. He probably couldn’t pronounce most of the chemicals I put in my pool, I seriously doubted he could. Actual science. He knelt at the edge and ashed right into the water. “Rodney!” “What?” “You’re upsetting the pH.” “Dinner,” Misha called, “and hurry, or Zip will eat everything.” She was thriving. Before this, she’d been alone in knowing hardship—in her distant, shattered country. She left the complaining to me. Zip made ravenous sounds when he saw the spread. Some beast went frisking around the southern perimeter, but the spotlight there hadn’t gone on in a week. “Lovely,” said Tabitha later on, coming up after steady forkfuls. “Misha, it’s like going to a restaurant, really.” His first wife, said Doctor Rodney, made salmon rillettes on Bastille Day. “Hear that rustling?” asked Bob Dandelob. His decrepit terrier, fated to outlive us all, pricked its ears. “Bob’s going deaf,” explained his husband, whose name I could never remember. “He just does this to pretend he’s not.” “I’d happily take a look,” Doctor Rodney offered. “This may be beyond the limits of chiropracty,” I noted. “Oh,” said Sandra—and her gaze redirected ours so that we, too, came to stare at the dirty, naked children standing by the deep end of the pool. I’d always maintained they’d burrow, they were too smart to think of climbing, and now they’d made it in. I might have admired their genius were it not for what came next. Press the call button, summon the guards. Move your finger and this will be over, the evening saved. So I told myself. Curiously, I did not move. Ages since any of us had seen real children. Incredibly small. Made of matchsticks. Their bodies formed against the dusk from ripples of light, light that flowed from the edges of my pool. The eldest was a tawny girl at the edge of puberty whose long hair was stiffened with mud. Her eyes were black and haughty. She swung down on the aluminum ladder and maneuvered her hindquarters out over the water. A blond coil of excrement snaked out. The girl shook like a dog and dipped a paw into the water to splash herself clean. No sooner had the shit bubbled under than two of the smaller children thrust hands in to try and grab it. A third ran up and pushed them both in headfirst. A hunting party split off to plunder the table, scooping from dishes with their whole hands. They snatched wine bottles only to smash them. Zip puked. The Dandelobs’ dog was carried off yipping. Misha reached across me and hit the button. The guards lurched into action, scattering the tribe with harsh, robotic noise. To my great delight, two of the boys were sitting on Doctor Rodney, pummeling him with their rocky little fists as the girl who’d shat in my pool went grasping through his pockets. Mechanical arms took hold of the assailants and flung them casually over the eastern fence. Next they reached for the thief. “Disable,” I said. “Reset.” The guards powered down and stood at the ready. The girl stayed crouched. I saw she was holding a gold money clip with nothing in it, her ragged fingers stroking the metal. “Quick thinking,” moaned Rodney, slowly finding his fat feet. Then he said to the girl: “Let’s have it back.” The Dandelobs were consoling their almost abducted hound. Sandra knelt to rub Zip’s back while he finished being sick. Tabitha was already going about picking up shards of glass. Misha was waiting to see what I did. “What do you need it for,” I said. “Want to let her keep it?” Doctor Rodney whined. But I’d already grabbed the child under an armpit and dragged her squealing to the pool shed. Misha followed; I locked the sliding glass door in her face. (Who has a sliding glass door on a pool shed? I do. I want to be inside with the door fully closed and still be able to see the pool. I want others to see I have nothing to hide.) I switched the bulb on, revealing all the neatly shelved buckets of chlorine, the nets and poles, the spare filter parts. No toys—only the instruments of proper pool hygiene. “You understand my words?” I asked my captive. She nodded. “Good,” I said, “you’re encrusted with filth. Disgusting. You see this?” I asked, pointing to the money clip. “It is clean, but it comes from the dirt. You must keep it clean. Your parents couldn’t keep themselves clean, and that is why they died out there.” I turned her and shoved her against the glass. Her stink was like rotten fruit and burnt bones. “Look at my pool,” I said. “Take it in. The color and the good, clean smell and the webby light that twitches around like you’re in a big, nice kind of dream. It’s better than looking at the sky, I mean it. You look at the sky and you look at the pool and you tell me which seems better to you.” The girl bit my hand and retreated to the corner. Misha stood before me, on the other side of the glass, arms crossed. Why did she still insist on order? Sex was clockwork, punctual. She ran emergency drills in our yard. There was a plan even for this contingency—one I had not followed. Trespassers were not spoken to. We didn’t try to teach them. Doctor Rodney hoisted my net and began to ineptly sweep the pool. I had a vision of Georgia. My first wife, she really knew how not to hold on. Our last, best day, we broke into the Spanish colonial up the hill. We cracked the inhabitants’ skulls with ease, then I bombed their safe and gathered the drugs and jewelry in a pillowcase of Egyptian cotton. Georgia noticed my plundering and grabbed the sack. “Not why I came,” she said. “This is for us,” I told her. The pool’s landscaping mimicked nature. Waterfalls covered invisible pumps. Georgia scooped up and ate some pills, shed her clothes, and poured out the pillowcase. She jumped over diamonds, trickling away and lost in a splash of glare. I wasn’t lost. I lived in the suburbs. The girl was snarling at me now. She was too old to be mine. But, for all I knew, Georgia died to have ours. This is how a species moves on. “You cannot keep her,” came Misha’s voice muffling through the glass. “I’ll go,” said the girl huskily. “We won’t come back. But first, water.” “I could kill you. I’m not pouring you a drink.” “From the pool,” she said. “That you befouled? Besides, it’s full of chemicals. You can’t drink that.” “You don’t care.” She had a point. So I let her. We stood around watching her palm the poolwater to her mouth, sucking at it greedily. After a couple of minutes, her thirst apparently slaked, she stood up and thanked us for the drink. “Cheers,” said Tabitha. “I’ll use the door,” the girl said. “Well—fine,” I said. I was cowed. We all were. We understood that we would never dare to drink from the pool, except in a very extreme circumstance. She walked like something more than she was, leaving greasy footprints across the pale carpet with a terrifying dignity. In the marble foyer, she thanked us again. She said: “I forgot. We’re used to the other way. But happy you’re comfortable, and mean you no harm.” My guests had a good laugh at that. The wild brats showing us mercy! As she left I caught her look, and it said everything she’d seen. We were old, soft, and unprepared. We weren’t worth the trouble to raid. They’d wait a few years and let nature claim us. Misha and I kicked everyone out and started to put our things away. This story is excerpted from the forthcoming collection, Double Black Diamond.
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