We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  Eventually our arch-nemeses in blue walked in carrying a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. Ceremoniously Ernie placed it on an empty desk. We knew a bribe when we saw one. “Morning, ladies,” said Bert. Finally. It seemed like these two had been dogging us all season. It was inevitable that we would finally meet in a room over a dozen Boston Kremes.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Sue Yoon who came in ready to throw down. Truly the girl contained multitudes, her hair colored Piña-Pineapple. “Do we need a lawyer?” she asked point-blank.

  “Why would you need a lawyer?” said Bert. Under his unibrow his eyes were working the room. It was obvious he was trying his hardest to stare every which way but at Becca Bjelica’s chest. “Done anything wrong?”

  “I watch L.A. Law,” said Sue. “You don’t have to be charged with anything in order to ask for legal representation.”

  “Sorry sweetie, that’s only if you’re arrested,” said Ernie.

  “Nice try,” retorted Sue. “Under Miranda you have the right to an attorney, and you also have the right to keep quiet,” she said. “Right now, we actually have the right to blow this Popsicle stand anytime we want.”

  Bert and Ernie looked at each other, trying to figure out how to hit the reset button and reestablish their authority. AJ Johnson took particular pleasure in watching them shuck and jive, cops without a road map in a room filled with teen girls who weren’t having it. “You girls know why we asked you here today?” Bert finally said.

  “Because of the locker fires?” offered Julie Minh.

  Shut up! screamed what was left of the Claw.

  Yeah, why don’t you just tell them we like to dance naked in the woods? shouted le Splotch.

  The cops grinned at each other, back on terra firma. Only one minute into their interrogation and it seemed they’d stumbled on our weakest link.

  Poor Julie Minh could already feel herself sweating. This was the police talking! There had been a second locker fire earlier that morning in the lockers surrounding AJ Johnson’s. Strangely, AJ seemed totally unperturbed. “I got more where that came from” was all she’d said, her braids trailing behind her like a macramé room divider.

  “Locker fire?” said Bert. “No, we’re not here for that.”

  “Or for the theft of those books,” said Ernie.

  Books? thought Heather Houston.

  Let’s stay focused, thought Abby Putnam.

  We all sat back quietly, waiting for Bert and Ernie to mention Coach Mullins. Once again, Sue threw them off-kilter.

  “Look, none of us is sleeping with Coach Mullins,” she said, cutting right to the chase. “But if we were sleeping with Coach Mullins, and we were eighteen or older…” Her voice trailed off as if to imply that she was resting her case. In actuality, she was bluffing. She didn’t know if teacher-student romances were illegal or not. Nothing like that had come up on L.A. Law or even her other repository of criminal law, Hill Street Blues. But just the idea that at eighteen we could vote for president but we couldn’t do who we wanted made her feel indignant.

  “Yeah,” said Heather Houston, momentarily putting aside the question of the welfare of books. “What’s the law say about a consensual adult relationship?”

  “He’s not our coach. He’s not our teacher,” added Girl Cory.

  “Maybe we’re all sleeping with him,” said Jen Fiorenza. The Claw gave Ernie a sickly wink.

  Yeah, maybe it was like Murder on the Orient Express. Maybe we were all doing him. Julie Minh remembered the third time she’d flashed Coach Mullins outside the girls’ second-floor bathroom. The way his eyes got big as hub caps, like he wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep. She wondered if what she’d done would be considered a sex act in the court of law.

  “Well, it might not be illegal,” opined Bert.

  “But it’d be uncouth,” said Ernie.

  She didn’t know what it meant, but just the sound of the word “uncouth” made Little Smitty giggle.

  Nowadays Bert and Ernie would have legal standing. If Coach Mullins were indeed involved with a teen girl, there would be questions about abuses of power, intimidation, whether or not a teen girl could really give consent, could really tell a randy teacher no. But things were hazy back then. Please listen very carefully. Are we saying we want to return to the way things were in 1989? No. Do we want our daughters to live in a world where male teachers freely eye them up as potential sexual mates? No. But are we allowed to say it’s complicated? Can we say it’s absolutely nuts that we treat twelve-year-old criminals like adults and lock ’em up and throw away the key, but if you’re seventeen years old and you happily find yourself in bed with cheeky Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell, heaven forbid!

  And that’s how our interrogation went. Us denying denying denying, Bert and Ernie trying harder and harder to bust it out of us. It was pointless. We could smell their donuts, but the smell wasn’t enough to break us. We didn’t know anything about who was schtupping Coach Mullins, but even if we did, we wouldn’t have thrown one of our sisters under the bus. Did Bert and Ernie have any idea who we were? We were about to be Division 1 Massachusetts State Champions. Who were they to question us? We were seventeen and eighteen years old, dammit. This time next year we’d be free to give it up to whoever we wanted however we wanted whenever we wanted. In 1692, Ann Putnam Jr. claimed the spirit of Goody Nurse had pinched her and pricked her with needles, and Ann’s word and the bruises on her arms and legs were good enough to send a Christian woman to the gallows. Who were these fools in blue not to believe us?

  Sue Yoon stood up so fast her chair toppled over. “If you want to talk to us again,” she said, “contact our lawyer.” She typed out a number (using perfect home-row form) on a blank sheet of paper and handed it to Ernie on her way out the door. It was Boy Cory’s home phone.

  My dad does real-estate law, Boy Cory pleaded.

  Relax, thought Sue.

  Yeah, relax, we thought. We got up and followed her out. You could still smell smoke in the corridors. AJ Johnson was right. We knew there was more, lots more, where that came from.

  * * *

  —

  By Thursday the Claw couldn’t rightly be called a Claw anymore. Even half a can of Aqua Net and five generous squirts of Dep couldn’t revive it. Jen Fiorenza stood in her bathroom in the winter dark. It was early in the morning. The heat hadn’t come on yet. She was surprised she didn’t feel cold. The Claw had gotten her through some hard times. There were the months after her dad split followed by her mother’s increased drinking. There were the colorful pills Ana began bringing home from the State Lunatic Hospital. There were all the times Jen had to cover for her mother, calling the hospital and telling them her mom was sick or had twisted her ankle wearing espadrilles out of season or had a court date for child support or whatever else she could come up with. And through it all, the Claw had sheltered her through every storm, Its magnificence never in question, the Claw her own personal Bodhi tree.

  She picked up the bottle of Sun In sitting on the sink, intent on ushering the Claw out with one last hurrah. Suddenly something went scampering over her toes. It was Iggy Pop. She drew her foot back to boot him across the bathroom floor but stopped mid-kick. This was weird. She shook the bottle of Sun In in her hand. Strangely, it felt half full. Just the day before it had been almost empty. Come to think of it this particular bottle had lasted almost twice as long as usual. Jen unscrewed the top, took a sniff. As if to mock her, her mother’s boyfriend’s pet iguana stuck out its tongue and raised the spiny crest at the top of its head.

  On top of her own head, the Claw was ready for Its close-up in what would prove to be Its death scene. Thankfully, It kept things brief. Avenge me, thought the Claw. Those were Its final words. Then It died, the last strands of It fluttering into the sink.

  Jen scooped Iggy up and dropped him in the bathtub. She fed him a sliver
of one of her mom’s sleeping pills, pocketed the rest, and finished getting ready for school, covering her hair with a blue bandana and grabbing everything she’d need for later. She had to admit the bandana really did make her look like a cancer patient, but so be it. There were cancers and then there were cancers. By the time Little Smitty pulled up out front in her pickup truck, Iggy was out cold. Jen stashed him in a grocery bag and took him along. It was going to be a long day. The Crucible was opening that night plus we were holding our last Gathering at the reservoir on the eve of Worcester. Avenge me, she thought, but who avenges the avenger?

  * * *

  —

  As noted on her “Unfinished Business” index card, Little Smitty did indeed have a little something up her sleeve. Thursday she spent all F period during Trigonometry planning the angles. She’d already picked up everything she’d need over at the army-surplus store in Salem. Field hockey hysteria was set to peak. Friday there would be a pep rally in our honor, the whole school awarded a free period to gather in the field house and scream their heads off. It was even open to the public, the town invited to come on down and join in the shouting. Little Smitty was in her element. The Contusion was also eager to see the plan come off without a hitch. The Contusion, same as Frosty the Snowman, had a limited life expectancy. It intended to go out in style.

  At the end of the school day we gathered in the locker room. Jen Fiorenza had set up a cardboard box in the corner and was keeping something scaly and sluggish in it along with a bunch of hair-care products plus a shower cap.

  “What’s up with the lizard?” asked Girl Cory.

  “Iggy’s coming with us to the Gathering tonight after the play,” replied Jen.

  Abby Putnam raised an eyebrow. “We are not biting the head off some oversized gecko,” she said.

  “Relax,” Jen said. “Iggy’s an iguana.”

  “Can you believe we’re having our own pep rally tomorrow?” asked Julie Minh. After storming out en masse on the fuzz, she felt like she’d been given a new lease on life.

  “This town owes us one,” said Mel Boucher. “We make this place rock.”

  “Word,” said Boy Cory.

  We didn’t get dressed for practice. It was cold outside though December sunny. Coach Butler planned on spending the time in the field house talking over our game plan. We gathered around her in our street clothes, waiting for whatever nuggets of wisdom she might drop on us. Sadly, there were plenty of nuggets but not of wisdom. You could tell the poor thing was disoriented. Emilio was playing tricks on her. Why had it seemed like such a good idea to make her one of us? We’d gotten along just fine this long without an inside source in the adult world. It was obvious she was cracking up.

  We’d heard through the grapevine that in Mr. Matthew’s History class, where she’d been subbing, she’d spent the entire period rambling on about added sugar and Huck Finn, the nutrients found in uncooked vegetables, the best way to achieve all-day lift in one’s bangs, Arthur Miller, damnation, and ascending Mount Washington. She’d just been about to embark on a long tirade about the love that shall not be named when thankfully the bell rang. Now here she stood before us trying to talk about the Rotating Rhombus and Greenfield’s star midfielder, #18, who eons ago had been the player at Camp Wildcat up at UNH who’d sniggered during the video about sportsmanship when the one girl complimented the other on her eyeliner, #18 asking the question, “What is she, a lesbo?”

  “This season we’ve really burned the candle at both ends. I’m proud of you ladies,” Marge said, making sense for about half a second, then adding, “What’s ‘confers vandals’ mean?” Finally she gave up. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “How do you think a gun will solve anything?” Warily we looked around at one another. “Class dismissed,” she concluded, and we took off as fast as our Reeboks would carry us. As far as the new and not improved Marge was concerned, we were hoping it was nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix.

  Sue Yoon headed to the Sanisanio Theater at the front of the school to get ready for that night’s show, promising us her Tituba would be one for the ages. Little Smitty drove home, saying she had chores to do back at the farm. It was true. She did indeed have things to do. They just didn’t involve animal husbandry. The rest of us were content to put on our kilts and drive around town, admiring the signs wishing us good luck and to soar high. We then headed to the Liberty Tree and Tower Records, where the new Paula Abdul single “(It’s Just) The Way That You Love Me” had recently dropped. As we sauntered around the mall, we scored free T-shirts at Gadzooks, double scoops at Baskin-Robbins, and a roll of tokens each at the arcade, which resulted in a Millipede marathon that Girl Cory handily won (she’d played Centipede to death at home on her Intellivision).

  Before we knew it, the afternoon was over. We were sitting in the food court eating the bonanza we’d been comped—Fanny Farmer and Cinnabon and Mrs. Fields plus a whole lot of Asian. A little more than three months ago before school started we’d been sitting at the selfsame table during August Double Sessions, trying to imagine just how far we might go.

  “Can you believe we’re headed to Worcester?” said Julie Minh, voicing what the rest of us had been thinking, but just then Jen Fiorenza. Totally. Lost. Her. Shit.

  “Oh. My. God,” she whispered, stabbing the air with her finger as she pointed at someone standing at the Orange Julius counter. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she repeated. For a moment, it looked like the sickly lump under her blue bandana was attempting to stir.

  “It can’t be,” said Heather Houston, ever the rationalist. “What would he be doing here?”

  “Why not?” said Boy Cory, who back in August had joked that he was more of a Judd Nelson man, but now, possibly seeing our god in the flesh, he was starting to reconsider.

  We weren’t the only ones pointing and staring. A small crowd was starting to form politely at a distance, the crowd unsure of what they were seeing.

  “Why would he be at the Liberty Tree Mall on a Thursday?” continued Heather Houston.

  “Yeah, isn’t he in Vancouver filming Young Guns II?” said Girl Cory. Once again, her knowledge of celebrity life left us flabbergasted.

  “Maybe Emilio made it happen,” offered Mel Boucher.

  “He is Emilio,” said AJ Johnson.

  “I mean our Emilio,” said Mel. “The one we’ve all signed our names in.”

  Then just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was off, heading for the exit with two small Orange Juliuses in hand.

  “He’s getting away,” said Becca Bjelica.

  “Let him go,” said Abby.

  “It’s not him,” said Heather.

  “It could be,” offered AJ Johnson.

  “It was him,” said Jen Fiorenza. Though Clawless, we’d never seen her so confident about anything in her entire life. “It means we’re destined to win tomorrow,” she said, popping a Fanny Farmer dark chocolate Carmash in her mouth.

  We sat for a spell eating in silence, each of us trying to work out the significance of the sighting. Was he or wasn’t he? Was the glass half full, or were we nuts? It would take us another thirty years to figure it out. Only Sue Yoon had seen the original Young Guns. Later, when we told her what had happened at the Liberty Tree, she was mostly just surprised to hear they were filming a sequel.

  * * *

  —

  By 6:30, Little Smitty was running through the woods surrounding Danvers High in a green kilt and sweatshirt. She was surprised how warm the black ski mask she’d put on just before entering the woods was keeping her face in the chilly December air. She considered wearing it Friday night in Worcester during the game, but then remembered why she was even wearing it to begin with, and vowed to throw it on the bonfire later at the Gathering.

  Everything was in place. Her truck was already parked at school, a change of clothes stashed in her locker. N
ow it was just a matter of follow-through. Once out of the woods she’d slip into DHS through the back door she’d wedged a rock in earlier to prop it open. The grand entrance she was planning on making would leave some nice blurry footage of a prankster in green entering the field house. Then the fun would begin. True, her kilt wasn’t the exact same shade of kelly green as worn by the Greenfield Waves, but it was close enough to fool any surveillance cameras. In the morning, Principal Yoff would simply see green and turn red. And once Little Smitty had done the deed, she’d change her clothes, slip into The Crucible, and cheer on Sue Yoon in the role of a lifetime, whatever the hell that meant. She just hoped she’d brought along enough green spray paint and toilet paper in her backpack.

  A small pang of regret bubbled up in her mind, but she stuffed it back down. Yeah yeah yeah. It was sad she’d be doing the deed all alone. Trashing the school on the eve of a state championship should’ve been a team effort, but she couldn’t take any chances. This way, when Bert and Ernie came sniffing around the crime scene tomorrow, she and the Contusion would keep their internal mouth zipped, thus allowing the rest of us, like lily-livered Julie Minh, to truly feign innocence. Assuming everything came off as planned, tomorrow morning bright and early when Jack Yoff arrived at Danvers High, he’d find a big green wave spray-painted on the trophy case, toilet paper everywhere decking the halls. And first thing Friday morning halfway across the state, the Greenfield Waves would be talking to the Greenfield police, trying to convince their own Bert and Ernie that they were nowhere near the North Shore Thursday night. What a way to start their championship game day!

  But as Heather Houston liked to say, “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” Little Smitty didn’t know why Heather said this, as Little Smitty hadn’t cracked open the Steinbeck classic. She was 0-4 on doing the reading in Mrs. Sears’ class, but she was still hoping to land a B+. Just living the dream, she’d say if anyone asked what she had against reading.