We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  Thursday night the mice and men who were going to fuck everything up were huddled behind a boulder. Little Smitty didn’t see the light from their fire until it was too late.

  “What the hell?” yelled Brian Robinson.

  They were lying on a blanket, a six-pack beside them. They probably thought it was a safe spot. Normally no one came through the woods in winter. But here she was, a girl in a green kilt wearing a ski mask and carrying a field hockey stick like some kind of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. And there they were. Two boys with their hands hungrily down each other’s pants. The school bully and the gayest kid north of Boston. Brian Robinson and Sebastian Abrams. Little Smitty could practically hear Heather Houston bemoaning the fact that it was all so cliché. Why couldn’t people be a little more original? Well, for starters, we weren’t original because we were teenagers trying to find our way in a world we hadn’t invented. If being a raging homophobe in public and then slobbering all over another boy in private was the best you could do, it was the best you could do, original or not.

  Little Smitty really didn’t care how Brian Robinson or anyone else got their rocks off. More and more there was a prominent rainbow flag floating freely through our hive mind. It was obvious Boy Cory had something going on, but now there was another voice in the mix, another flag run up someone’s pole, though whose pole exactly we weren’t quite sure. All we could tell was that after the flurry of loose kisses at the last Gathering, one of us had awakened with a newfound curiosity. The rest of us were just waiting for whoever it was to step forward. For as long as we could remember, we’d always assumed Mel Boucher, with her boy’s haircut and her overall boxiness, her shoulders wide as a linebacker’s, was into Barbie but not in the way the TV commercial urged. Whatever. She was still our friend.

  Sebastian Abrams lit a cigarette and chilled. “Hey, Green Goblin,” he said. “What’s shaking?”

  Little Smitty pitched her voice deep and kept it in character. “Just going to trash your school,” she said.

  Sebastian nodded. “Go get ’em, tiger,” he replied. “Mi casa, su casa.”

  Brian Robinson also lit a cigarette, but he most definitely was not chilling. “What are we gonna do?” he said, practically sucking the entire Marlboro down to ash in one awful drag. “She’s seen us.”

  Sebastian rolled his eyes. “What do I care?” he said. “Everyone knows about me.”

  “Yeah, but nobody knows about me,” wailed Brian. “We can’t just let her go,” he said.

  “Look, I’m from Greenfield,” said Little Smitty. “I don’t even know you. I’m just here to mess up your school.”

  Brian picked up a rock. It was obvious he was out of his mind.

  “None of that now,” said Sebastian, cracking open another beer. “Let’s play nice.”

  Little Smitty sighed and reached into her backpack. She’d brought it along in case of emergency. This seemed to qualify. In the firelight, it gleamed like a small black hole in her hands. “Listen up,” she said. “Do you boys wanna have the time of your lives, or do you wanna stay here and bone?”

  Sebastian laughed. “Why do we have to choose?” he said.

  * * *

  —

  The second Sue Yoon walked out onstage you knew it was going to be good. At least nobody had been dumb enough to suggest she darken her skin. Still, AJ Johnson shook her head but kept watching, unable to take her eyes off the giant black Afro Sue was sporting. She looked like one of the Harlem Globetrotters circa 1973, or maybe she looked as if she should be walking the line on Soul Train. Either way, the wig should’ve gotten its own credit in the playbill, but alas.

  We hadn’t known what to expect. Though it was a weeknight opening, the theater was mostly full. Who knew the drama geeks had so many friends? Even Log Winters was there. His little sister Trish was playing the much-afflicted Betty Parris. He looked on proudly when she came onstage, flailing her arms around like a beached octopus. Most of us had never been to a high-school play before. We were surprised by the quality of the production. Secretly we’d been expecting it to look like something small children do to pass a rainy day in their garage. But it didn’t. It looked real. Maybe it was their being up there onstage. Maybe it was their holding forth all alone in the lights while speaking from the diaphragm. The cast didn’t seem like our peers anymore. Somehow they’d transformed into actors, potentially famous actors. People whose autographs you might want to collect now just in case. Every one of them seemed believable, even Charlie Houlihan as God-fearing Puritan hunk of the hour John Proctor. Tonight the Sanisanio Theater in Danvers High, tomorrow Broadway.

  Wig or no wig, Sue was no exception. Tituba didn’t even come out onstage until the forty-minute mark, but when she did, the play was hers. Think of that guy in the white suit in the 7Up ads on TV, the dude with a deep vaguely Caribbean voice who says, “7Up. Never had it, never will. Ha-ha-ha.” Now picture our little Sujin Yoon saying things like “No, no, chicken blood—I give she chicken blood” and “I love me Betty!” and “I don’t compact with no Devil!” Though it was lost on most of us, Tituba was probably the hardest part to play, as it would’ve been easy to fall into some mash-up of camp and melodrama. But Sue played it straight, letting the pathos of a woman fighting for her life speak for itself. What Sue recognized: Tituba is a conjurer. She reads the weather in a room full of religious nuts and makes up a story to save her life. Who among us has never found herself in a place where the small lie now will serve the greater good later? Back in August when we’d signed our names in Emilio, were we really believers in the powers of darkness, or were we simply manifesting our own destinies, writing the plotlines to our own stories by taking our individual lives by the reins? “ ‘Oh, God, protect Tituba!’ ” Sue moaned. By the end of Act 1, Julie Minh actually teared up, and many of the rest of us were starting to consider it.

  Dr. and Mrs. Yoon were sitting in the third row. We couldn’t see their faces, but at intermission they looked a little less stricken. When the final curtain came down on Elizabeth Proctor’s shining face as she relates that her husband has willingly gone forth to his death and thus saved his soul, we were on our feet, the applause thunderous. The next day’s review in the Falcon Fire gave Sue a special shout-out. “An unrecognizable Sue Yoon makes the scapegoat Tituba a sympathetic character—brava!” Later in spring when Sue got accepted to Tisch at NYU, her parents did their fair share of grumbling, though their grumblings were mostly about the exorbitant cost of tuition and not about her major.

  * * *

  —

  We got to the reservoir a little before eleven. Everywhere the winter trees were completely bare, the earth as if naked. To compensate, we walked farther into the woods, away from the road. The plan was to Gather until past midnight, then go home and sleep it off, making sure we made it to school at least in time for the pep rally.

  “Champions need their beauty rest,” said Jen Fiorenza. She was carrying the box with the lizard in it under one arm. “No one’s gonna care if we don’t roll in until noon.” We waited for the Claw to chime in with Its two cents, but then remembered It was dead. The blue bandana Jen was wearing was Its tombstone.

  We staked out a spot in the woods. By now we were professionals. We got the fire going lickety-split, then Heather Houston, acting as a one-woman Army Corps of Engineers, decided we needed two more. Le Splotch gave her the stink eye, but it turned out to be a stroke of pure genius. With three fires going we could stand in the middle of our triangle of flames, the December cold banished beyond the walls of our isosceles. Within our heated oasis, we had AJ Johnson’s boom box cranked, Janet Jackson’s Control filling the night sky with synthesized beats. At one point we needed more kindling. That’s when AJ dumped out what was in the two duffel bags she’d brought along and began handing us each a copy.

  Abby Putnam looked skeptical. “What’s this?” she said.

&
nbsp; “It’s all I got left,” explained AJ. “I was saving them for tonight, but this morning’s locker fire wiped out half my stash.”

  Sue Yoon was still wearing her giant Tituba Afro and not much more. She was always the first of us to get naked, though in the past, she’d done so after a few shots of whatever we had on hand. Tonight she simply walked into the middle of the fires and stripped. AJ handed her a book. “Huck Finn,” Sue said. “Wow! You finally did it.”

  “We’re book burning?” said Heather Houston.

  “I hate this fucking book,” explained AJ, and left it at that. Her long black braids trailed behind her like a shadow.

  “It’s an American classic,” whined Heather.

  “Two white boys treat a grown-ass black man like a child and you call that a classic?” said AJ. She offered Heather a copy.

  “Take it,” said Mel Boucher. “It’s just what we need.”

  Yeah, it’s practically like burning the Bible, thought le Splotch. In the firelight, le Splotch seemed to be drooling over the thought of torching the Good Book, Its lips glistening, presumably with spit. Heather sighed and took the paperback.

  “Speaking of the Holy Bible, anyone got a copy?” asked Jen Fiorenza.

  We all stared at Julie Minh. “What?” she said. We’d never seen her look so pale before, her whole body as if bereft of blood. “I don’t carry it with me,” she said, but we knew she did and that it was somewhere in her purse.

  “Let’s just start with what we got,” said Girl Cory.

  “Agreed,” said Boy Cory.

  “Should we say something first?” asked Becca Bjelica. “You know, abracadabra or something to make sure we get all the juice out of doing this?”

  “I think the act speaks for itself,” said Abby Putnam.

  Without further ado, Little Smitty stepped up to bat and pitched hers in the flames. For the briefest instant, the fire seemed to change color, the flames turning a dark blood-red. How to describe the sensation it generated? It was a kind of sugar rush. We all felt it, this small surge in body heat, our skin flushing. Then Mel Boucher threw her copy in and the sensation grew, a feeling of energy racing straight to your head, like opening a bottle of Coke that’s been shaken hard, the effervescence shooting straight out the top. We were left with a feeling of giddiness and power. The world was ours.

  “On the count of three,” said Sue. Except for the fact that she was naked, she seemed as if she was back in character, her voice slightly accented and deep, Tituba of Old Salem Village walking the earth this very night, her wig a small bush. “One…two…”

  Three, we shouted.

  Heather Houston could taste vomit rising in the back of her throat, but she threw The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the fire same as the rest of us, the flames suddenly scarlet. Internally Heather must have crossed some mental Rubicon because she grabbed another copy pronto as if driven to act by a flight of angels and threw it on the fire. There was no need to ask. It was obvious Emilio made her do it. Overhead, the waxing moon burned with a combination of poise and spite.

  * * *

  —

  Per usual, we got naked. We all did this time, even Boy Cory. And we danced, “Nasty” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” a call to arms. Shortly before midnight it began to snow, fat buttery flakes swirling in the night air though we remained warm and cozy on our island of heat. There was a bottle of watermelon schnapps going around, a few wine coolers. Le Splotch said as long as we drank one glass of water for every drink, we’d be fine for tomorrow. Heather Houston and Julie Minh had brought along the orange Gatorade-brand water cooler we took to games. Some of us noticed green paint spattered all over Little Smitty’s fingers but we didn’t ask. Yes, there was intermittent kissing, hands grazing the human form here and there. Even if you weren’t in on the action, it felt like you were. We were one vast hive of sensation without beginning or end. The books were all burned up, the three-pronged fires raging as if fueled solely by our dark intentions. Jen Fiorenza began rooting around in her cardboard box. She pulled Iggy out and cradled him in her arms. From the looks of it she seemed fond of the little monster. We had no idea what she had planned. Abby kept an eye on her just in case.

  If our lives were a Shakespeare play, what happened next would be the dizzying fourth act when everything gets called into question, the characters’ fortunes suddenly reversed. For those of us in the audience, it was a helluva fun to watch. For those of us up on the stage, it was anything but.

  First someone stepped out of the darkness. Julie Minh screamed. It was as if a figure had materialized out of thin air, a shadow forming in the firelight. The figure was wearing a pair of Lee relaxed-fit jeans and an ugly sweater under a plain blue winter jacket, the kind you might find at Marshalls or Sears. Its hair was permed but otherwise unremarkable, maybe even graying.

  “What are you doing here?” shrieked a mortified Girl Cory.

  Even with that, it took us a moment to realize who we were looking at. It was Lynn Gillis, Girl Cory’s mom. Honestly, we hadn’t seen her since she’d married her prince and shut herself off in his hilltop castle. In the case of Girl Cory, we’d forgotten how far the gorgeous apple had fallen from the nondescript tree. Lynn Gillis was no fashionista. To tell the truth, she looked pretty much like a normal mom, not like the mother of a goddess.

  “Mom,” bemoaned Girl Cory. It was strange to watch her morph from It Girl to ten-year-old in a matter of seconds. “Why are you here?”

  You had to give credit where credit was due. Mrs. Gillis was one cool customer. She’d just wandered through the snowy woods to discover her daughter and her daughter’s friends all naked and dancing around in the moonlight, a few of us with our arms around each other, Janet Jackson’s “Pleasure Principle” blasting through the dark.

  “Just tell me,” Mrs. Gillis said. She waved what looked like a postcard in the air. “Is it you?”

  “Is what me?” asked Girl Cory.

  Mrs. Gillis waved the card even harder. “Is it? Does your stepfather know?”

  Then another figure appeared out of nowhere. Act IV was heating up. This one was wearing a pink bandana neatly twisted around her head à la Olivia Newton-John in “Let’s Get Physical.” She also had on matching pink leg warmers and was probably wearing a pink unitard under her coat also à la “Let’s Get Physical” though it was obvious the leg warmers were more for style than warmth.

  “Cory baby,” she said. Cory? we thought. Oh, Boy Cory. It was Mrs. Young.

  Unlike Mrs. Gillis, Mrs. Young was not a cool customer. Here was her boy romping around naked with ten girls his own age. He was either the world’s biggest stud or it was finally time for the Youngs to accept that something was going on with their son. Like Mrs. Gillis, Mrs. Young was also clutching a postcard. “Is it one of these young women?” she asked. She looked crazed. Then we realized she was crazy with hope.

  Ana Fiorenza and Dr. Monique Johnson were the next to arrive. AJ was luckier than the rest of us as she could use her braids to cover up much of her nakedness. Dr. Johnson surveyed the scene as if doing triage and assessing who to save first. At the edge of one of the fires right smack-dab by her daughter’s feet was the seared cover of a paperback book. She bent down to pick it up.

  “Althea,” her mom said, after studying the cover. “Have I failed you?”

  “What?” said AJ.

  “Are you angry?”

  AJ crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Aren’t you?” she said.

  “You think I’m angry?” said Monique Johnson.

  “You’re always going on about how people treat you at the hospital,” replied AJ. “Asking you to mop up their spills.”

  “But do you think I’m angry in here?” asked Dr. Johnson, tapping her heart with her fingers.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the stage, Ana Fiorenza was wa
ving a postcard in Jen’s face. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, Mom,” said Jen, before turning the tables. “Are you?”

  “Me?” said Ana.

  “Yeah,” said Jen, putting on her concerned-mother hat. “I noticed you forgot to take your birth control pill at least twice last week.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” said Ana. “Iggy’s all the baby I need.” She reached out and gently took the iguana from her daughter. “What were you planning on doing to Mama’s little darling?” Lovingly she rubbed the creature with her nose.

  “I need his tail,” whined Jen. “To regrow my hair. Iguanas can lose their tails and grow a new one no problem.” She ripped off her bandana. “Clay did this to me,” she said. In the moonlight, you could see the full extent of the Claw’s death, Jen’s head as if ravaged by a forest fire.

  “What? Clay?”

  “He put bleach in my Sun In,” Jen cried. “He’s not a real blond and now that it’s winter he’s been trying to maintain his highlights so he monkeyed with my Sun In and now I’m bald!” Tears glittered in her eyes like rhinestones.

  We tuned back in to the Girl Cory/Mrs. Gillis story line. “You and your stepfather are two peas in a pod,” said Mrs. Gillis. Her bad perm looked as if it were anticipating the rise of goldendoodles. She continued with her list of complaints. “The two of you are always so buddy-buddy, always leaving me out.”

  “I thought you liked me letting him spoil me rotten,” said Girl Cory. “I was just trying to act like he was my real dad.”

  “And I thought you liked it,” said Mrs. Gillis. “All my little notes and gifts, those little inside jokes—it was the only way I could talk to you, the only way I could show I cared.”

  Internally we did the math. Those of us who carried the one let out a gasp.

  What? thought Abby Putnam.

  J’accuse, thought le Splotch.