Do it!
He pushes himself off the ground until the pedal, the bike, the kickstand holds … holds … yes! Swings his right leg upward, catches the saddle on his knee-bend while shooting his right hand forward to the right grip, left hand to left grip, pulling, pulling up with his bent knee, pushing up with his hands … up … up … and over! He’s in the saddle! Aboard Scramjet! Harold Peter Bitterman Jr. tall in the saddle on Scramjet the Magnificent! His feet dangle freely, pedals far below. His arms are stretched to the limit, elbows locked. He leans into the grips. He dares whisper, “Let’s go, boy.”
And feels a shudder in the withers.
JUBILEE
“OH NO!”
Water comes gushing up from the bottom of the hole. Suddenly she’s knee-deep in it. She wallops the Hut’s wall with the spade. The red blade breaks off. “Crappo!” she yells, and pounds the broken handle upon the ground.
Ana Mae says, “Ace, shut up. Listen.”
She follows Ana Mae’s eyes back across the trees. “What?”
Ana Mae stands. “Hear that?”
At first there is only the soft, friendly chuckle of the creek. Then, from the bluff, a scream. A little-kid scream.
Jubilee is up and out of the water hole. The little-kid scream is snipped, as if by scissors, by another sound, an inhuman sound, a sound they have never heard before and yet instinctively recognize.
Jubilee drops the handle. The girls gape at each other. “Hazel!”
They run.
DESTROYER
THE CHAIN IS NOT SINGING. The sound it makes cannot be described. It sets puppies and Newbies howling. Strangulated shrieks rise from deep in the loamy furrows of Doll Farm. Snugger pinkens. And Destroyer believes the sound is ripping him a third earhole between his eyes. He knows in this moment two things better than he has ever known anything:
1. He has made a big mistake.
2. It’s too late to do anything about it.
The yellow beast is going so fast he feels his butt rising, his legs trailing in the wind. He is flat-out now, his stomach over the saddle, only his hands in touch with the bike. He is a superhero flying, swinging this way and that as the bike races past Stuff, nips the DON’T sign. Hippodrome, The Kid are blurs. Grass-sitters scatter at Cartoons. Destroyer sees Playground coming up, and now his stomach flops onto the saddle—Scramjet is slowing down. The indescribable noise becomes a whine, now a whispery whistle. The bike canters among the swings and comes to a stop. Destroyer is draped over the saddle, fingers frozen around the grips, too terrified to move. Suddenly the bike rears on its hind wheel and deposits him onto the ground as neatly as a truck-dumped load.
JACK
HIS HEART LEAPS!
Scramjet is coming toward them and it’s not the girl aboard. It’s a little kid, flying flat-out Superman-style from the handlegrips. Scramjet is making a noise that would split the moon, but it’s music to Jack’s ears.
He stands stunned with his Amigos as Superkid and Scramjet go by in a flash of yellow, two legs and a string of pom-poms.
“It’s that little runt creep,” Dusty shouts over the noise.
They watch as Scramjet barrels, veers, tilts, gallops through Hokey Pokey, sometimes losing sight except for the yellow cloud of dust. Jack wonders how in the world the kid got the bike from the girl, but he’s too happy to wonder for long. When they see the bike finally slowing down in Playground, they head over there. They laugh as the bike rears and dumps the runt.
A crowd has already gathered. It parts as Jack and his boys come through to backslaps and hearty greetings: “Hey, Jack! … Hey, Jack!” Scramjet appears to be at rest, but Jack knows better. He feels the energy coming off the violated flanks. He knows if he touches the tires, they will be hot and hard as rock and pulsing. He knows you can take the bike out of the herd but you can’t take the herd out of the bike. He knows his high-strung steed, after a fast ride, needs no one and no thing, and that’s why it stands straight though the kickstand is up.
Dusty bestrides the dumped kid. “Runt,” he sneers. “Wha’d you think would happen?”
“Lay off,” says LaJo, a rare lilt in his voice. “He did us a favor. Give him a medal.”
The runt, his terror thawing like a hokey pokey at high noon, begins to shake and sob and crawls away on hands and knees. A boyvoice calls: “It’s yours, Jack! Take it back!”
Someone else picks up the call—“Take it back, Jack!”—and now there’s a chant of mobbed boyvoices:
“TAKE IT BACK, JACK!”
“TAKE IT BACK, JACK!”
“TAKE IT BACK, JACK!”
Jack trades a look with his Amigos, grins: as if he had anything else in mind. Dusty and LaJo back off, respecting Jack’s moment.
Jack approaches his bike. He’s torn between laughing (for joy) and crying (at the paint job, which, he can see up close now, is sloppy, as if done by a Snotsipper). Joy wins, but he keeps the laugh inside.
For starters, he rips off the pom-pom tail and pink ribbons. The mob cheers. The rest of the atrocities—the pink grips, the saddle fuzz, the paint job, the name—can wait. He leans into the bar, whispers “Scramjet,” and believes he hears it whisperwhinny back: “Jack.” He mounts. Feels all the tension of the morning drain out of him. Thinks: I’m home. His swallow double-clutches. Until today he had not known he could be so emotional. No pedal push is needed—Scramjet moves. The mob parts in reverent silence. There is only the soft crunch of tire rolling over ground and the distant tootle of Hippodrome.
He guides Scramjet out of Playground. He is in no hurry. There will be time for fast. For now he is content to canter, to gratefully reclaim his bike, his world, himself. Jailhouse … Tattooer … Cartoons … on they roll. With every passing Hokey Pokey feature, he recovers another piece of his life. Trucks … Tantrums … Everywhere kids stop what they’re doing and watch. The occasional Snotsipper or Sillynilly blurts “Hey, Jack!” while the oldest kids, shocked at the pairing of girl bike and boy rider, stand mutely and wonder uneasily about themselves.
Beyond Tantrums, Mitchell now appears to have uncovered all the petrified remains of the fossil mega-bike. Bikasaurus, Mitchell is calling it. He’s got the frame together and is trying to fit a wheel. A couple of Snotsippers sit on their haunches nearby, rapt.
They roll on toward The Kid. They pass beneath the great stone arm: it seems a blessing. He sees Gorilla Hill in the distance. He hears again the girl’s demonic scream, as surely embedded in his brain as any fossil in the ground. He knows the only way to disinter that scream is to cancel it with a downhill ride of his own. He’s about to rein toward the Hill when Scramjet veers sharply to the right. Must have gone over a stone. Jack tugs on the left grip and a funny thing happens: nothing. The handlebar doesn’t move; the front wheel maintains its course. Jack tugs harder—again, nothing. Jack looks down. Chain, sprocket, steering column—all seem in order.
This time Jack tugs with both hands, wrenches hard, actually, but the bike stubbornly refuses to budge. He leans in the saddle, whispers, “Hey, boy, what’s up?” That girl, he thinks. She’s done something to his bike, bunged it up somehow, and now it won’t turn.
Just for the heck of it, Jack presses on the pedal. Nothing happens. He presses hard. Tromps. The bike keeps its steady, unhurried pace. It seems to be heading for the bluff. Alarm comes as a quick nip between the shoulders. He squeezes the brakes—nothing. And suddenly knows: I’m not driving it—it’s driving me.
Once again he feels the day falling apart. Dreading yet unable to stop himself, he pulls up his shirt and dares to look: Dusty’s felt-tip tattoo has already faded to a faint gray smear. An enormous sadness comes over him. His mouth feels furry. In the shimmering, shadowless distance he sees two figures running his way.…
JUBILEE
ANA MAE IS FIRST TO SEE. “Look!”
They stop.
Jubilee squints under her cap brim. “You think?”
“Yeah. It’s him.”
“What�
��s he doing?”
“He’s coming this way.”
“I can see that, dummy. Why?”
They stand in the dust. Bike and rider are coming slowly.
“Maybe he doesn’t know it’s you,” says Ana Mae.
“Maybe he does,” says Jubilee. “I should’ve brought that shovel.”
“He’s alone,” says Ana Mae. “We’re two.”
There seems nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. They stand, wait, wait.
Slowly bike and rider emerge from the heatshimmer.
“He’s not pedaling,” Jubilee says.
Now they hear the soft tire crunch. Now they see his face. Jubilee is surprised. It is not the face she expected. Her fisted fingers uncurl.
The bike stops directly in front of her. The boy seems in shock, as if he’s just awakened in a strange place. He does not look at her. She sees that the handlegrip ribbons and the pom-pom tail are gone. Otherwise, Hazel looks the same. It occurs to Jubilee that the boy and bike might stay there all day. All she knows for sure is that the next move is not hers. At last the boy drops a foot to the ground, swings the other leg over, dismounts. He looks at her now. All she sees in his eyes is sadness, a sadness as big as the sky. He does not put the kickstand down; he simply releases the bike. As it falls, she instinctively reaches out, catches it by a grip. When she looks up, he’s walking away, and in the distance she hears the familiar wooguh! wooguh! of the red rubber cart horn and the excited cries that fly across Hokey Pokey every day at high noon: “He’s here! … He’s here!”
HOKEY POKEY MAN
IN THE SKY the sun has stopped directly over The Kid. In all of Hokey Pokey only The Kid’s arm casts a shadow.
The Hokey Pokey Man gives the red rubber bladder another squeeze: wooguh! wooguh! Kids are running from all directions, many already shouting:
“Cherry!”
“Root beer!”
“Black cherry!”
“Grape!”
The Hokey Pokey Man mops his brow with a large red handkerchief, stuffs it back in the bib pocket of his white overalls. A white stubble of whiskers covers his face. A bright green beret tops his head.
A great block of ice sits in the bed of the white hand-pushed cart. It is flanked on three sides by all the colors of the world: bottled syrup in every flavor a kid could desire. With a flourish he sweeps a striped towel from the ice, jerks the scraper from its well and gruffs, “First up.”
A boy Snotsipper steps up, barks “Orange.” Immediately the Hokey Pokey Man sets to work. Leaning forward, with a grunt that is more form than necessity, he pushes the scraper three times along the length of the ice block, which gleams in the sun like a diamond. The teeth that shave the ice feed slush into the square metal bowl. The left hand plucks a white cone-shaped paper cup from a tall stack. A tap to settle the slush, the bowl hatch swings open and deposited into the cup is a perfectly square snowball—a hokey pokey. The right hand returns the scraper to the well, reaches for the orange bottle of syrup. A multitude of eyes gawk as the upturned bottle delivers one … two … three … four … five squirts—and long squirts they are—into the slush, blushing it into such pure essence that it virtually cries out: Orange!
The Snotsipper is speechless, entranced. The hokey pokey floats before his eyes until someone jabs him. He comes to his senses, snatches it and walks off. A mob of tongues salivate at the sound of his teeth sinking into sweet ice.
“Grape,” says the next in line.
All is orderly. There is little noise, no fooling around. A sense that nonsense will not be tolerated pervades the crowd. Kids who a minute ago were squalling and brawling now stand quietly in line, awaiting their turn.
“Chocolate.”
“Watermelon.”
“Strawberry.”
Occasionally one of the youngest will say, “Do you have such-and-such?” The Hokey Pokey Man does not answer. He simply reaches for the bottle of such-and-such. There is no flavor he does not have.
“Licorice.”
“Bubble gum.”
“Jalapeño.”
Now and then a “Please” or “Thank you” is heard. Most say nothing. With older kids it simply is what it always is: high noon and the Hokey Pokey Man. Should they thank the sky for being blue? Younger ones are struck speechless by the dazzle of the Man’s hands, the rainbow of syrup bottles, the castaneting clack of the ice scraper. By the time they reach the head of the line, they are too famished for words, too grateful for manners.
The population is served quickly. As the last of the patrons walk off, the Hokey Pokey Man mops his brow and pulls the towel over the great block of ice. The sun moves. From objects and bodies everywhere shadows begin to seep.
JACK
PAPER CUPS LITTER THE LANDSCAPE, bleed flavors, darken the dust.
Jack walks.
He is empty.
When Scramjet went to the girl, a plug was pulled and everything inside him poured out. He is nothing but skin and a name. Maybe not even that. He wants to say it aloud—Jack!—to confirm his existence, but he cannot summon the strength to do so. He doesn’t bother to lift his shirt and check Dusty’s tattoo. He knows it’s gone.
He would call his Amigos, but there is only empty air where his Tarzan yell used to be.
Something is over. Something is finished. He knows this now. Whatever it is, it’s more than a tattoo, more than a bike. An incredible thought comes to him as he drags across the barren landscape. He has just suffered the greatest tragedy of his life. He has lost his beloved bike, his Scramjet, and to a girl—to the girl—no less. But even that is not the incredible thought. The incredible thought is this: I don’t even care.
At first, in the distance, it is merely a wrinkle in the heatshimmer, but it soon becomes the Hokey Pokey Man pushing his cart, going wherever it is he goes each day, one more element of Jack’s life draining away. The wheels of the cart waver in the shimmer. No more hokey pokeys for me, Jack thinks as he plods on, and so, when he looks up again, is surprised to find the distance shrinking. He can now hear the tinkle of the bottles, the crunch of the cart’s wheels. The Hokey Pokey Man has stopped. He seems to be waiting. He throws the towel off the block of ice, grabs the scraper. Jack looks around, sees no one else. Hears a voice, crusty: “Time’s flyin, Mr. Boy.”
Was that him? Did he speak? To me?
As Jack approaches, he sees the Hokey Pokey Man has already set to work. He dumps the hokey pokey into a cup, drenches it with generous slugs of Jack’s usual—root beer. As he hands Jack the square snowball, he does something he’s never done before: he looks at Jack. The stubbled face is as stony as ever, like The Kid’s, and yet somehow Jack feels himself washed over by something he can only perceive as a smile. The look lasts but a moment, and already the Hokey Pokey Man is slinging the towel over the ice and pushing off. Jack watches. He is mesmerized by the crunch and tinkle of the cart—a music he has never heard before—and now the unexpected, crusty voice: “Sayonara, kid.” And now, from somewhere beyond the sun, the whistle of a train.
AMIGOS
DUSTY IS STOMPING ABOUT, decapitating dandelion puffballs. When he spots a new one, he stomps over to it and kicks, sending fuzz flying. All the while muttering: “What’s goin on? … What’s goin on?” He no longer addresses himself to LaJo. He seeks answers from the great blue cosmos above, the ground below, the dandelions, as if kicking them will knock answers loose. His flung-off cap lies in the dust.
From afar they watched in stunned disbelief as Jack rode his violated Scramjet right up to the girl, handed it over to her and walked away. Dusty has been ranting ever since.
“Your nose is running,” says LaJo, who takes a seat on a home-plate-size rock.
Dusty wipes his nose with his shirtsleeve. Stomps, kicks. “Where did his tattoo go? … Why’s he acting like this? … Is this some kinda nightmare we’re in? … Is somebody playin a trick on us?” He faces the faceless sky, bellows: “Huh?”
The sky does not reply,
but LaJo does. “If you shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you.”
Dusty, who breathes befuddlement like others breathe air, has not really been expecting an answer to his questions, so he is surprised at LaJo’s remark. He is constantly surprised to find that LaJo seems to know more about life than he does. He turns, waits.
LaJo keeps him waiting. He often does this. LaJo picks up a pebble and tosses it idly. He spots a dandelion fuzzball. He rears back, honks and—pthoo!—fires a hocker. Misses. At last he says, “He’s leaving.” This is another thing LaJo does. His answers, when they finally come, are too short.
Dusty’s jaw drops, eyes bulge. He waits. Waits for more. When he realizes nothing more is coming, he screeches: “Huh? … What? … Waddaya mean leaving? … What’s that s’pose to mean?”
LaJo shrugs. “Leaving. Away. Gone. Vamoosed.”
Dusty stands there gaping, blinking.
A Newbie comes running, yelling, “LaJo!” It’s the red-haired runt LaJo got stuck with at Tattooer. The Newbie crashes into LaJo. “LaJo! C’mon! Let’s play! C’mon!” The kid is pulling so hard on LaJo’s hand his tiny butt is scraping the ground.
LaJo glances down, looks away. “No.”
The kid yammers on. “C’mon, LaJo! Play with me! Play! Play! Play!”
LaJo leans down. The kid stops pulling. He thinks LaJo is going to play. LaJo bends until his face is one inch from the kid’s. LaJo bellows: “Beat it!”
The force of LaJo’s voice knocks the runt onto his butt. His eyes are round as bike wheels. He gets up. He kicks LaJo in the shin and runs off. He does not cry.
The incident with the Newbie has barely dented Dusty’s brain. He stares at LaJo. He shakes his head with vigor. “No,” he says.
LaJo’s eyebrows arch. “No?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“Jack ain’t gone nowhere.”
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