by David Arnold
“Something something fireworks,” he says softly. “Then other somethings. I don’t know. I have firework thoughts, too.”
Now it’s my turn to go under. Dipping my choppy hair back, I push my sopping bangs out of my eyes and turn my head from Walt. So the kid heard my Big Things after all.
“I understand,” he whispers. “Your mom needs you. And you need her.”
There are times when talking just pushes out the tears. So I float in silence, watching the final touches of this perfect moonrise, and in a moment of heavenly revelation, it occurs to me that detours are not without purpose. They provide safe passage to a destination, avoiding pitfalls in the process. Floating in this lake with Walt is most certainly a detour. And maybe I’ll never know the pitfalls I’ve avoided, but I can say this with certainty: a sincere soul is damn near impossible to find, and if Walt is my detour, I’ll take it. In fact, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to hear him use the word pizzazz in a sentence.
I close my good eye and see myself as I might look from above, as I might look to a mosquito hovering over a hot lake. I see Mim: her face, pallid and feeble; her skin, pale and glistening; her bones, brittle and twiggy; an army of trees surrounding her. She floats next to a boy she met only hours ago, missing her mother, missing her old life, missing the way things used to be. Now she is crying because even after all that laughter, she can’t shake that feeling, one of the worst in the world . . .
I am tired of being alone.
“You need help?” Walt’s quiet voice brings me back to the now, the real, the detour.
I, Mary Iris Malone, smile at the bright new moon. Wiping away my tears, I wonder if things are finally changing. “Yeah, Walt. I might.”
18
Caleb
WHEN IT COMES to my war paint, my circle of trust is sparse. Nonexistent, really. There is no circle. Up until the bus accident, it had been a complete secret. And maybe it still is. Between the weight of imminent death, followed by the rush of having succeeded where others had failed—and there really is no kind of success like survival—it’s possible the passengers had issues more pressing than that of Mim Malone walking among the wreckage, wearing lipstick on her face like Athena, goddess of war. I sure hope so. Because the idea of Poncho Man witnessing that side of me is enough to make me rip my bangs out by the root.
“Who are we fighting?”
“No one, Walt. Hold still.”
In the light of a crackling campfire, I cup Walt’s face in my hands and induct him into my über-exclusive club. Though without the lipstick (which must be in that blue tent of his), I’m forced to use mud. Luckily, there’s no shortage.
“There,” I say, topping off his two-sided arrow with a dot in the middle. “Done.”
He smiles, laughs, and does a little jig around the campfire. “You want me to do you now, Mim?”
“No thanks, buddy. I can manage.”
I dip my finger in the soft mud and with the precision of a surgeon, apply the makeshift war paint. It’s my first time without a mirror, but as it turns out, I have superior muscle memory. Once done, I grab another tin of ham and sprawl in front of the fire, feeling more Mim than ever before. The two of us sit with mud-painted faces, eating like the King and Queen of I-don’t-know-what . . . Hamelot, I suppose. Walt belches, then covers his mouth and laughs uncontrollably, and I’m wondering who I need to see about protecting that laugh as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Its echo finally subsides as he pulls out his Rubik’s Cube.
“I like our mosquito makeup,” he says softly.
I imagine the state of Mississippi crumbling, then sinking into the Gulf, just like in my dream, leaving naught but an army of vengeful mosquitos. “What?”
Happily working on his cube, Walt points to his face and says, “It’s a mosquito.”
And he’s right. These lines I’ve spent hours perfecting—vertically from forehead to chin, the two-sided arrows on either cheek, then, a horizontal one just above the eyebrows—could easily be the outline of a mosquito. An anemic stick figure mosquito, but a mosquito nonetheless.
“Do you like the ham?” he asks between clicks.
Still processing the fact that I’ve been drawing a mosquito this whole time, I don’t answer.
“I bought it with my father-money,” he says.
“Your what?” I ask in a fog.
“My father-money. He gave it to me before sending me to Charlotte. It’s in a secret hiding spot, with my shiny things.”
I don’t know which part of his story to WTF.
Wait. Yes I do.
“Walt—your father sent you to Charlotte?”
Head down, he works silently on his Rubik’s Cube. In no time flat, the red cubes are aligned.
“Walt, where’s your dad?”
He looks up at the sky for a moment, lost in thought.
“Walt?”
“Chicago,” he says, turning back to his cube. The green ones are lined up. “Hey, hey, green are good.”
As direct as possible, I try again. “Why aren’t you living with your dad, Walt?”
He’s twisting and clicking and all-out ignoring me. I consider what he said earlier, about his mother being in a casket. If his father was left alone to take care of a kid with Down syndrome—God, surely he didn’t just hand money to his kid and send him packing. Walt can’t be more than fifteen, sixteen tops.
“The Cubs are in Chicago,” he says, white squares intact. “They’re good. They’re my favorite.”
Poor kid. I don’t have the heart to tell him, on top of everything else, his favorite baseball team is the absolute worst. “Yeah, Walt. Those Cubbies are something else.”
“Yeah, man,” he says, shaking his head. “Those Cubbies are something else. We should go to a game sometime. But we have to get tickets first.” He throws his finger in the air. “Tickets.”
“What are you guys talking about?”
The shadow behind Walt could have been there five seconds or an hour. It’s creepy, but creepier still—Walt isn’t fazed. He doesn’t jump, doesn’t look up from his Rubik’s Cube, isn’t startled in the slightest. The owner of this new voice steps from the trees like a cautious predator. He’s tall. Freakishly so. And wearing a red hoodie like mine.
“Cubbies, Caleb,” says Walt. “We’re talking about the Cubs.”
The kid called Caleb grabs a tin of ham and plops down next to Walt. Sticking the edge of the can between his teeth, he pops it open. “Walt, what have I told you about the Cubs?”
Walt frowns, finishing off the blue squares. “The Cubs suck balls.”
Caleb nods and takes a giant bite. “Right on. The Cubs suck balls, dude. Always have, always will, you follow?”
I am suddenly aware of my lack of clothing. For some reason, I hadn’t minded the daisy dukes in front of Walt, but with this new kid . . . well, I’m not about to stand up and walk around in these short cutoffs and a soaking wet T-shirt. I pull the blankets up around my legs, covering as much as I can.
“Whaddaya guys got on your face?” says Caleb, staring at me from across the fire.
Suck a duck. I forgot about the war paint. My circle of trust, it seems, is ever-expanding.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to think up an excuse. “We were just—nothing.”
Caleb nods and smiles, his teeth full of processed ham. There’s something about his voice, smile, smell, clothes, hair, hook nose, and shifty eyes that makes me about as uncomfortable as a nun in a whorehouse, as my mom used to say. He’s sitting right here in front of me, a physical being, but hand-to-God, Caleb feels more like a shadow than a person. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, sticks one in his mouth—along with the canned ham—and lights up.
“You were just nothing, huh?” Now he’s talking, on top of chewing and smoking. “Real eloquent there, sweetheart.”
&n
bsp; “My name’s Mim, jackass.” I pull the blanket up close to my chin, and imagine myself in a small room alone with Caleb. He’s tied down, and I have one pair nunchucks, one pair katanas, one pair sais, and one bo staff. I am Mim the lost Turtle in a Half Shell.
He tosses a half-eaten canned ham into the woods and gets up to grab a new one. “Okay, then, Mim Jackass. Sounded like you guys were having a real nice discussion about moms and dads and roses and rainbows and shit. Now my old man—he was a real creative son of a bitch. Used to beat the hell outta me with household appliances, you follow? Irons, pots, pans, toasters, and the like. For no good reason, too. He wasn’t a drunk, which I guess would have been a reason. Thing is, he didn’t need a drink to be hateful, you follow? He was just fine at it sober. But one day, I was all growed-up, see. So you know what I did? Pulled the fire extinguisher out of his garage and beat the shit out of him.”
Caleb howls, tossing his second can into the woods. I’m beginning to wonder if he isn’t my exact opposite: a violent, smoking moron who throws tin cans into nature. His laugh morphs into a hacking cough, reminiscent of old Arlene’s respiratory issues. The main difference being, she was ancient, and he can’t be more than eighteen.
“So the state sent me to live with foster parents,” Caleb continues, having pulled it together. “Second night I’m there, my foster dad, a guy named . . .” He taps his chin with his finger, but I can tell it’s an act. He knows the guy’s name, or else he’s making it up. “Raymond, that’s it. Raymond raises a fist, but I’d had enough of that, see. Out of the frying pan, as they say.” Caleb puts down his spoon, then peers across the fire at me, eyes ablaze. “I stabbed that son of a bitch right there in his kitchen.”
I swear it’s a shadow. A talking, eating, smoking, cursing shadow.
Walt stands up, fidgets with his spoon, puts it in his pocket, then walks toward the tent. “I’ll get blankets.”
For a moment, Caleb and I are alone. I avoid eye contact by studying the dirt.
Don’t look up.
The sound of Walt rustling around in the tent mixes with the fire’s crackling, which mixes with my heart pounding, which mixes with my blood pumping, which mixes with, mixes with, mixes with . . .
I look up.
Through the dying flames, Caleb is staring at me, and I’m reminded of the familiar nothingness of an old television set. Growing up, my dad refused to buy a new TV. The colors in the corners of the screen were beginning to fade, a promise that before long, every movie would be black-and-white. But here’s what I remember most: That old television, when turned off, produced a little click just as the screen went blank. And within that click, the stories and characters of my shows were swept away, as if they’d never existed at all.
In Caleb’s eyes, I see that old television.
Turned off.
Like the shows never existed.
> September 2—late at night
Dear Isabel,
Topics of substance and despair abound! They’re sprouting up all over the place, in fact. To wit, I just met someone who scares the shit out of me. As I write this, he’s sleeping (I think-hope-pray) on the other side of a campfire, so I need to be quiet and quick.
Here’s the thing: this person reminds me of a terrible feeling I once had, and it’s one of those terrible feelings that might not be as bad as I remember it. So I need to write it down, because sometimes writing a thing down is a good way to work something out. So here goes.
Three straight birthdays, I snuck out of the house with my friend Henry Timoney to the Retro Movie Plex. Henry and I first became friends in the school library, where we each noticed the other reading a Crichton Collection copy of Jurassic Park. Our relationship gained traction when Henry berated the movie for allowing Mr. Hammond to escape Isla Nublar alive. I, being a rationally minded literary purist, agreed. However, I voiced my opinion that what the film lacked in the way of subtle nuances and erudite accuracy, it more than made up for in special effects, cinematography, and Jeff Goldblum goodness. Henry, being a rationally minded cinematic purist, agreed. (My parents, film-rating sticklers that they were, had no idea I’d taped over their Carol Burnett marathon when Jurassic Park was aired during a free trial of HBO. I’d been watching it in secret for years.)
“You sure know a lot about Jurassic Park,” said Henry. “For a girl.”
“I know a lot about a lot of things,” I said. “For anybody.”
Henry nodded and straightened his glasses, and we quickly became what we’d always be: friends by default.
Now, as fate would have it, Retro Movie Plex, a theater that only aired older movies, happened to be showing Jurassic Park that very weekend—the weekend of my eleventh birthday. But as the film was rated PG-13, there was no way my parents would allow me to go.
So Henry and I developed a foolproof plan.
It began with my sneaking out the front door after dinner while my parents watched the nightly news. Henry’s big brother, a meathead named Steve, had a friend who worked at the theater and had agreed to sell us tickets even though we were underage. Steve would be our ride to and from the theater. I was sexually attracted to Steve insomuch as I was an indiscriminate, preadolescent girl. Was he good-looking? Sure. Very. Extremely. But no amount of hotness could make up for his constant misuse of the word literally, overuse of the word bra, and downright baffling pronunciation of the word library. As in, Check it, bra, I literally died yesterday in the libary, when . . . Alas, I was eleven, and he was devastatingly male—my hands were tied.
Lack of subtle nuances and erudite inaccuracies notwithstanding, Jurassic Park was ten times better on the big screen, and by the time it was over, Henry and I vowed never to criticize the film again. On the way home, I sat in the backseat of Steve’s Jetta, and while he navigated the snowy streets of downtown Ashland, I navigated the ripple of muscle at the base of his neck. (Yeah, okay, that’s weird, but I’m being honest here—before I ever knew about sex, it knew about me.) As the car rounded into my driveway, I saw the light in the den turn on, and in that instant, I knew I was in trouble. Steve and Henry wished me luck as I walked inside. My parents were waiting on the couch, cross-legged and tongue-tied. Mom got up and clicked the TV off. No need for conversational details. I had walked right into the thick air of punishment.
Grounded. One week.
On my twelfth birthday, my theatric insubordination paid dividends to the tune of Highlander II: The Quickening. (I have to say, my parents could have saved their punishment on this one, as the movie was punishment enough. Blimey.) Afterward, Sexy Steve drove us home, and as I was a year older, new images sprang to mind: less boxing-ring-chest-pounding, more bedroom-floor-topless-romping. And, upon pulling into my icy driveway, I was not at all surprised to find the den light on. Steve and Henry wished me luck. I went inside, and—another week grounded.
For my thirteenth birthday, we chose The Shining, which messed me up for weeks. Afterward, Steve drove us home, and as I was now thirteen, I saw through the bullshit. Sexually speaking, Steve was dead to me.
As he made the turn onto my street, I geared myself up for a grounding. Sneaking out to a bad movie, having goofy fun with Henry, riding home with Steve, then getting caught—at the time, I wouldn’t have admitted this, but the getting caught was just as much a part of my birthday tradition as anything else.
But on this night, the den lights were off. Climbing out of the Jetta, both Steve and Henry congratulated me on finally getting away with it. I nodded in a daze and walked inside.
The TV was on in the empty den, but muted.
No one was awake.
No one was mad.
No one cared.
My God, Iz . . . I hope you don’t know what that feels like.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Friend by Default
P.S.—I wish I hadn’t written this d
own.
19
The Talismans of Disappointment
I WAKE UP in cutoffs, mud caked to my face, and a roaring stomachache. The moan—which started in my toes, then wriggled its way through my veins and arteries, organs and muscles, all the way to my lungs—almost escapes. But the kinetic power of a moan is nothing compared to the willpower of a Mim.
It’s the kind of middle-of-the-night you feel in your bones. I don’t know what time it is, but my bones tell me it’s somewhere between two and four a.m.
As I sit up, the journal topples off my chest. I stick it back in my bag, slip on my high-tops, and creep off toward the shit pit. (Congrats again, Universe. Yours is a suspiciously acute sense of humor.) Circling the dying embers of the campfire, I notice Caleb’s empty bedding, but in the slipstream of such indigestion, it seems almost trivial. In fact, nothing means much of anything right now, other than the immediacy of my bellowing bowels and a permanent embargo on canned ham.
After the silencing of the bellows—well, things begin to mean things again. And Caleb’s empty bedding is a definite something. Before I have a chance to guess what, I hear a noise just outside the clearing.
I freeze . . . quiet . . . listening.
At some point during my time in New Chicago, my ears acclimated to the echoing cacophony of birds chirping, leaves cracking, twigs snapping—the natural sounds of autumnal nature. I shut my good eye and sift through these noises like a forty-niner panning for gold.
Yes, there—right there—definite whispers.
I creep toward the edge of the clearing. Spidery trees and wispy branches, dead leaves crackling like old parchment, and a moonlight subdued—middle-of-the-night-forest is one creepy-ass place. I follow the soft speech toward an oak. At its base, a single shadow, tall and wiry, turned sideways, talking animatedly to someone just out of sight. I squat down on my hands and knees, sinking my knuckles into the soft dirt, willing the sound of my breath away. There are two distinct voices.
“. . . it, that’s the plan. Get the whole stash, though. None of this half-ass horseshit.”