ALSO BY DAVID ARNOLD
Mosquitoland
Kids of Appetite
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018
Copyright © 2018 by David Arnold
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Ebook ISBN: 9780425288887Z
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Arnold, David, 1981– author.
Title: The strange fascinations of Noah Hypnotik / David Arnold.
Description: New York : Viking Books for Young Readers, [2018] | Summary: “This is Noah Oakman, sixteen, Bowie believer, concise historian, disillusioned swimmer, son, brother, friend. Then Noah gets hypnotized. Now Noah sees changes—inexplicable scars, odd behaviors, rewritten histories—in all those around him. All except his Strange Fascinations” —Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038030 | ISBN 9780425288863 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Hypnotism—Fiction. | Family life—Illinois—Fiction. | Illinois—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.A7349 Str 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038030
Version_1
CONTENTS
ALSO BY DAVID ARNOLD
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
THIS IS → PART ONE1 → that sadness feels heavier underwater
2 → the delicate triangle
3 → some thoughts on Iverton and home and walking while walking home through Iverton
4 → a concise history of me, part nineteen
5 → I am thinking about wolves again
6 → the further away, the stronger the urge
7 → I go to some dumb party
8 → the sunlit narrative of Philip Parish
9 → they are talking about Tweedy and college and things of that nature
10 → exit the robot
11 → Circuit, a conversation
12 → unfortunate fates
13 → a concise history of me, part twenty-two
14 → my new sweater
LOOK, IT’S → PART TWO15 → the fog
16 → that night in a dream I am suspended from the ceiling
17 → passage of time (I)
18 → the colors and quirks of Penny Oakman
19 → OMG
20 → one school is like the other
21 → joyous virgins
22 → dinge beginnen für Norbert weirden zu bekommen
23 → the pros and cons of Penny Oakman
24 → the arpanet, the golden age, and an exclusive look inside the first celebrity canine wedding!
25 → monsters
26 → a concise history of me, part twenty-six
27 → application
NOW FOR → PART THREE28 → I think writing is less about the words and more about the silence between them
29 → ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
30 → between my sixth viewing and falling asleep
31 → between the moon and LA
32 → Sara, a regrettably brief conversation
33 → Circuit, another conversation
34 → the vase
35 → that sadness feels heavier suspended in midair
36 → harmjoy
37 → action item number two
38 → passage of time (II)
39 → a concise history of me, part twenty-nine
40 → senioritis
41 → s’BOOk-tastic!
42 → the tender arms of madness
PRESENTING → PART FOUR43 → Mark Wahlberg has a very refined palate
44 → to the Wormhole, through the Wormhole
45 → two weeks a tide
46 → a concise history of me, part thirty-two
47 → just another yard
48 → the life and times of Mr. Elam
49 → productivity begets productivity
YOU GUESSED IT → PART FIVE50 → omen
51 → fifty shades of beige
52 → hypnotik returns
53 → over one billion served
54 → masks
55 → meanwhile, on my fun gay ballsack
56 → revolution in their bones
57 → Philip Parish, a conversation
58 → and the bird sang
59 → hey there, slugger
60 → fabrics and flapjacks
61 → the curious case of Len Kowalski
62 → floods
63 → a concise history of me, part thirty-seven
64 → give thought, receive advice, take action
HERE IS → PART SIX65 → this can only get better
66 → moby dick sucks
67 → alone or lonely
68 → #blessed
69 → attractions, coming and going
70 → (no subject)
71 → there are two kinds of plans
72 → what I think when I look down on the clouds
73 → planes, trains, and glockenspiels
74 → Manhattan State University is not in Manhattan, nor is Manhattan a state
75 → girl, faded
76 → Ava Phoenix, a conversation
77 → the advancing world
YES, IT IS TIME FOR → PART SEVEN78 → but first, a drink
79 → and the ice
80 → facing the world as Penelope Oakman
81 → the herculean curtain call
82 → a concise history of me, part forty
83 → the cursor blinks
84 → Piedmont
85 → the oracle
86 → just pretend you live here
87 → the closest word
88 → mirrored lives
89 → passage of time (III)
90 → relive
91 → the contingency of caring
92 → peculiar way
93 → the maze
94 → affectionate roots
AND FINALLY → PART EIGHT95 → my immortal tree
96 → our best lives
97 → animals
98 → the sun will rise
99 → and how perf
ect
100 → a beautiful piece of land
epilogue → and lo! the world emerges a strange and fascinating place
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Mom and Dad, for helping me through the maze
THIS IS → PART ONE
“It’s not enough to put myself into my art—I have to die to it. And that’s how I know it’s something.”
—Mila Henry,
excerpt from the Portland Press Herald interview, 1959
1 → that sadness feels heavier underwater
I’ll hold my breath and tell you what I mean: I first discovered the Fading Girl two months and two days ago, soon after summer began dripping its smugly sunny smile all over the place. I was with Alan, per usual. We had fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole, which was a thing we did from time to time. Generally speaking, I hate YouTube, mostly because Alan is all, I just have to show you this one thing, yo, but inevitably one thing becomes seventeen things, and before I know it, I’m watching a sea otter operate a vending machine, thinking, Where the fuck did I go wrong? And look: I am not immune to the allure of the sea otter, but at a certain point a guy has to wonder about all the life decisions he’s made that have landed him on a couch, watching a glorified weasel press H9 for a bag of SunChips.
Quiet, and a little sad, but in a real way, drifting through the Rosa-Haas pool—I fucking love it here.
I would live here.
For the sake of precision: the Fading Girl video is a rapid time-lapse compilation of photographs clocking in at just over twelve minutes. It’s entitled One Face, Forty Years: An Examination of the Aging Process, and underneath it a caption reads: “Daily self-portraits from 1977 to 2015. I got tired.” (I love that last part, as if the Fading Girl felt the need to explain why she hadn’t quite made it the full forty years.) In the beginning, she’s probably in her early twenties, with blonde hair, long and shimmery, and bright eyes like a sunrise through a waterfall. At about the halfway mark the room changes, which I can only assume means she moved, but in the background, her possessions remain the same: a framed watercolor of mountains, a porcelain Chewbacca figurine, and elephants everywhere. Statues, posters, T-shirts—the Fading Girl had an elephant obsession, safe to say. She’s always indoors, always alone, and—other than the move, and a variety of haircuts—she looks the same in every photo: no smile, staring straight into the camera, every day for forty years.
Okay, I have to breathe now.
* * *
I love this moment: breaking the surface, inhale, wet hair in the hot sun.
Alan is all, “Dude.”
The moment would be better alone, to be honest.
“That was like a record,” says Val. “You okay?”
A few more deep breaths, a quick smile, and . . .
I love this moment even more: dipping beneath the surface. Something about being underwater allows me to feel at a higher capacity—the silence and weightlessness, I think.
It’s my favorite thing about swimming.
* * *
The earlier shots are scanned-in Polaroids, but as the time lapse progresses and the resolution of the photos increases, the brightness of the Fading Girl begins to diminish: little by little, the hair thins; little by little, the eyes dim; little by little, the face withers, the skin droops, the bright young waterfall becomes a darkened millpond, one more victim in the septic tank of aging. And it doesn’t make me sad so much as leave an impression of sadness, like watching a stone sink but never hit bottom.
Every day for forty years.
I’ve watched the video hundreds of times now: at night before bed, in the morning before school, in the library during lunch, on my phone during class, in my head during the in-betweens, I hum the Fading Girl like a song over and over again, and every time it ends I swear I’ll never watch it again. But like the saddest human boomerang, I always come back.
Twelve minutes of staring at your screen and watching a person die. It’s not violent. It’s not immoral or shameful; nothing is done to her that isn’t done to all of us, in turn. It’s called An Examination of the Aging Process, but I call bullshit. That girl isn’t aging; she’s fading. And I can’t look away.
There it is, the inevitable shoulder tap.
Time to join the land of the breathing.
2 → the delicate triangle
“The fuck, Noah? You trying to drown yourself?” Val is on a float in the middle of the pool, wearing these giant sunglasses, sipping some kind of homemade daiquiri.
“For real,” says Alan, popping a handful of caramel corn into his mouth. He’s been working on this giant tin can (the kind with forests and snow and frolicking deer painted on the side) most of the afternoon. “Ours is a delicate triangle, yo. You drowning fucks up the whole system.”
Val and Alan Rosa-Haas are twins. The Rosa-Haas house is a quick walk from my own, plus it has this amazing in-ground pool and Mr. and Mrs. Rosa-Haas are rarely around, so you tell me.
Alan was the first kid I met when my family moved to Iverton. We were twelve and he came over to my house and we read in my room, and he told me he thought he was gay, and I was like, “Uh, okay,” and he was all, “Um, uh,” and it was totally squirrely. And then he said not to tell anyone, and I said I wouldn’t. And he said, “If you do tell, I’ll whiz on your hamster.” Back then I had this arthritic hamster called Goliath, and I didn’t want some kid whizzing on him, so I assured Alan that my lips were pretty much sealed. Later I found out I was the first person Alan had come out to, and, at twelve, I had no idea how important a step this was. All I knew was my hamster was in dangerous proximity to a person threatening whiz. I asked Alan why he didn’t want me to say anything, and he told me I wouldn’t understand. A couple years later he came out publicly—and kids called him terrible names, and kids jumped a mile in the air when he bumped into them in the halls, and kids moved tables when he sat with them at lunch, not all kids, but so many kids—and I found out just how right he’d been. “I hadn’t planned to tell you,” he’d said in my room that day when we were twelve. And he told me how he felt like a shaken-up can of Coke, and how I just happened to be around when the lid blew off. I told him I was fine with that. So long as he didn’t whiz on Goliath.
We made a pact.
And then we whizzed out the window together.
Truth is, from the moment I met Alan, I knew I loved him. He loves me a lot too. When we were younger, we talked about what it would be like if I were gay, to which he always said, “As if I’d even be into you, Oakman,” to which I usually flexed a budding bicep, raised a single eyebrow, and nodded in slo-mo, as if to say, How could anyone not be into this?, and we laughed and imagined it was so. We imagined how we’d get married and buy a cabin in the mountains somewhere and just spend our days weaving baskets and eating out of iron skillets and talking about deep things.
But that was a long time ago.
“Who gave us this, anyway?” asks Alan, perched out on the edge of the diving board, swinging his pruned feet over the water.
“Who gave us what?” asks Val.
“This piece of shit.” He holds the now-empty tin above his head.
“Okay, you basically just made love to that caramel corn,” says Val. “Now you’re done with it, you’re calling it names?”
“That’s not his point,” I say, treading water by the edge of the pool.
“Exactly. No one buys these things for themselves,” says Alan. “It’s a blow-off gift, an afterthought. Should come with a card that says, You mean next to nothing to me.”
Val is all, “Well, I think it’s a nice gesture, but I’ll be sure to express your displeasure with the Lovelocks next time I see them.”
“Wait, like, the Lovelocks? Up on Piedmont?”
“They were over for dinner the other night. You were at pr
actice.”
Alan tosses the empty tin into the swimming pool, all, “A pox on the Lovelocks!” and dives in with a yell.
Val rolls her eyes, lays her head back on the float. Unlike Alan—who is pale year-round, taking after his father in what he calls the “perpetual Haas hue”—Val is always the first of us to tan. When we were young, she was just my best friend’s annoying sister, a constant unwanted presence like a gnat buzzing our faces. Cut to the summer before high school, and one day she opens the door and I’m all, Uh, hey, Val, uh, um, like, uh. It’s a deafening finality, getting smacked in the face with that first notion that perhaps sex isn’t gross after all.
Like a two-by-four, really.
I don’t know if it happened slowly, right under my nose, or if it was an overnight thing, but I suddenly found Val’s presence far less annoying. That year I asked her to homecoming, and she said yes, and it was a little weird because we’d known each other so long, but it also felt like one of those things that needed trying. So we tried it. And here’s what that looked like: me holding Val’s hand in the hallway for all of two minutes before Alan sees us; thinking it’s a joke, Alan busts a gut laughing; realizing it’s not, he swings into complete and utter berserkery.
That was the last time we held hands, and the first time Alan referred to us as “the delicate triangle.”
Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally think about her like that. Val has this charm about her, smart without being arrogant, funny without taking over the room. She makes little comments under her breath as if annotating the situation, and you get the feeling she’d do this whether anyone was within earshot or not, which makes you feel lucky just being in her orbit.
Also, she has perfect breasts.
Alan backstrokes the length of the pool. He’s getting faster, which I almost say out loud, but I know where that will lead: The team misses you, Noah. We need you, No. How’s the back, No? You okay, No?