Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson Page B

to lead a revolution. I want to tear my society down to the ground and start over. But maybe every seventeen-year-old thinks that.
    One thing is for sure: People are not going to change. Our single worst problem is population growth, but adults are not capable of not having children. Adult CONSUMER AMERICANS are not capable of controlling any impulse they experience. Kids are cute. They must have them. The neighbors have kids. They must have them. Mrs. Jones is bored at the tennis club and she sawanother woman with a baby. She must have one. This is how we operate. WE SEE SHINY OBJECTS—CARS, PUPPIES, KITTENS, LITTLE BABIES—AND WE MUST HAVE THEM. I think most adults figure someone else will deal with the big problems. Someone else will figure it out. And if they can’t, well, we might as well live it up for now. Nothing we can do. Might as well get ours, while there’s still something to get.
    Sometimes I think about my relationship with Sadie. We were like brother and sister, always bickering, but deeply joined. I remember our fight about plastic fork recycling in the lunchroom. We barely spoke to each other for a week. But when we finally made up, it was like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders.
    What would Lucy and I fight about? Or talk about? Or do anything about? I am not the first boy to like a girl based on her physical attributes. Lots of cute people go out with other cute people based on mutual cuteness. But how does that work? What holds them together? Why do they care?
    Maybe they don’t care.
    It’s true what Gabe said about Shari’s Restaurant. I do come here too much. I’m here right now. It’s dark here, warm, and there’s lots of carpet. It’s like being inside a sponge. The waitresses bring me coffee the minute I sit down. They know me here. They know my type: the pimply kid writing poetry, or drawing wizards, orwriting Star Trek fan fiction. I hate being a kid. Are any of these thoughts I have even logical? I have no idea. At the same time, I look around at Shari’s and I see the people who hang out here. Truckers. Salesmen. Divorcées. The common people. The people who punch the clock. What do they think about? Anything? Can they imagine real change? Can our government? Can anybody?
    Population. There are too many of us. But any time people and animals come in contact, what is our first response? SAVE THE PEOPLE. A bear wanders into a neighborhood, lost and confused because there is no more wilderness left for him to go to. What do the authorities do? They shoot him. A coyote gets stuck in someone’s backyard? They shoot her. A wolf in the town dump? The local deputies draw straws for the privilege of shooting him. In any situation where a human and a wild animal come together, and where there is even the remotest possibility that the human might be inconvenienced, the animal is “destroyed.” There are 300,000,000 people in the United States. There are probably fewer than 300,000 bears. But the bear dies. The thinking is: We are humans, we are precious, we are above the other creatures. But there are too many of us already. We are choking the world to death. Shouldn’t we, logically, be willing to sacrifice a few humans to save a bear? A bear that we put in this situation in the first place?
    Basically, the solution is that we have to stop having so many children and driving gas-guzzling tanks around. But we won’t.
    Gabe offered to get Lucy’s number from her friend. I can’t imagine calling her up. What would I say? I look terrible, anyway. I can barely talk. I walk around mumbling to myself, scratching my dirty hair, trying not to touch the zit on my neck.
    And what would I do with her? Where would we go? I could take her to Shari’s. “Welcome, Lucy. This is my home, these are my people.”
    God help me.
March 6
    Junior Hall. End of lunch period.
    ME: Hey, Lucy.
    LUCY ( at her locker ):