Inside Straight

by George R. R. Martin

  Holy cow.

  Still looking up, he said, “Um, would getting rid of the deck help?”

  Silence. He looked down again. Some people rolled their eyes, others shook their heads. “Yes,” said Joe Twitch like he was talking to a five-year-old, “the-the-the deck is our p-p-p-problem.”

  Cripes. Why did they have to get so sore at a guy just for asking? He knew the deck was the problem.

  What’s worse than being hated by some of the biggest weirdos you ever met?

  He tried again. “If we got rid of the deck, would that make things better or worse?” He forged onward. “Because the deck is connected to the house with steel beams.”

  More silence.

  “So they got iron in them.” Wally held up his hands and wiggled his fingers to make his point.

  Through clenched teeth, Hardhat said, “Son-of-a-fucking-bitch, yes, get rid of the deck!”

  The construction worker’s approval galvanized the group into action. It was the work of just a few minutes before they had a plan. Most of the discards went out to the street in front of the house, where they’d be safe if things went wrong. Wally, Hardhat, King Cobalt, Dragon Girl, and Pop Tart stayed behind.

  Wally went back inside the creaking house and came out on the deck. King Cobalt took a position under one end of the deck, with Pop Tart at his side. If things went wrong she’d whisk them both away to safety. Hardhat kept his temporary scaffold in place at the other end of the deck. Dragon Girl and Puffy circled over the house.

  Wally kneeled at the junction between the deck and the house. Wham! Wham! Wham! Using his ironclad fist like a jackhammer, he perforated the concrete every two feet. The noise echoed through the hills. Soon a fine layer of pulverized concrete coated his skin. When he scooped away the rubble he found three I beams inside the deck. Two ran along the sides and one went straight down the middle.

  He took a deep breath. Then, like a blue collar Midas, he touched the central I beam. Steel flashed into oxide under his fingertips. A creeping stain spread out from his handprint, first in little needles of rust, then in an orange wave that coursed through the beam. Chunks of corroded metal flaked away and danced around his hand as the house shuddered. Wally willed the rust deeper until it sundered the beam. Puffs of red dust eddied up around his fingers, sparkling in the sunshine until a gust of Santa Ana wind carried them away.

  “That’s one,” he called.

  The outer beams were too far apart for him to sever at once. As he weakened the second beam, the deck let loose a high-pitched groan. Then it tipped sideways with much shaking, cracking, and the screeching of tortured metal.

  King Cobalt called out from underneath: “Oof!”

  The last remaining beam was so badly stressed that it tore apart even before Wally could push the rust all the way through. The entire deck dropped several feet to where, presumably, King Cobalt held one end overhead. Wally leapt for the second-floor entrance to the house before the masked strongman hurled the deck into the canyon.

  “Yikes!”

  Wally was in midair, approaching the doorway, when he noticed the cameraman standing there. He’d been too busy concentrating to notice the guy filming him as he worked. The cameraman saw a man-shaped lump of iron speeding at him. He yelped, dropped the camera, and hit the floor. Wally tried his best to tuck and roll to the side. He came to a clanking halt in the hallway after rolling over the camera.

  He helped the guy to his feet. “Cripes, are you okay?”

  The man nodded, but he made little wheezing sounds as he breathed. He looked down at the shattered camera. “Damn. That was some beautiful footage.”

  They watched as Hardhat released the scaffold he’d erected with his mind. At the same time, King Cobalt used his prodigious strength to hurl the entire deck out into the midmorning air. Puffy swooped down, caught it in his talons, and gently set it down across the canyon.

  The house didn’t creak anymore.

  Wally went back down to the pool. The others started to congregate and congratulate each other. A few even smiled at him, and gave him “OK” and “thumbs-up” signs.

  A second cameraman was taping “confessionals” from Hardhat, Pop Tart, Dragon Girl, and King Cobalt about how they had felt as they saved the house. Nobody bothered to ask Wally how he felt about it.

  The masked wrestler came over when his stint in front of the camera was over. “You’re not too bad,” he said.

  Wally shrugged.

  “Have you ever thought about wrestling?”

  “Um. No.”

  “Give some thought to my Wild Card Wrestling Federation, okay? Because I tell you, once this thing takes off it’s gonna be huge. And you could get in on the ground floor. You’d be great. The Iron Giant!”

  Wally hadn’t given much thought to what he’d do after American Hero. Probably go back and work in the strip mines with his dad and brothers. But professional wrestling? Gosh.

  “Do I have to wear a mask?”

  “If you want to. But I think people would dig your appearance. Oh! I know! Can you do different accents?”

  “Accents?”

  “Different than that Fargo one you’re always doing, I mean. Russian would be awesome. Imagine it: Iron Ivan, the Russian Robot.”

  Wally wasn’t sure he wanted to be a wrestler, but the masked man seemed very excited, and this was the most anybody had spoken to him since the Stuntman thing. “Well, that’s different. I’ll sure think about it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You bet.”

  “Great.” King Cobalt slapped him on the back. It sounded like somebody hitting a gong with a steak. Then he went off to mingle with the growing crowd.

  “Nice work, cracker.”

  Brave Hawk sidled through the crowd, illusory wings and another cameraman in tow. Simoon tagged along behind the camera, looking uneasy.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, ‘Nice work.”’ His lips curled into a half-smile as he added, “You must be exhausted. It’s hard work.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. Um, what is?”

  The half-smile turned into a full-blown grin. “Trying to convince people you’re not such a bad guy. Pretending you’re something you’re not.”

  “Pretending?”

  “It won’t work, though. I won’t let the others forget that you’re a racist at heart.” Brave Hawk turned and went back to the crowd on the patio. As the cameraman followed him, he said, “Shameful. Just shameful.”

  What’s worse than being hated for what people think you are?

  “Just ignore him.” Simoon patted Wally’s arm. “You did a good job today. He’s just a jackass.”

  Cruel, too. Thing is, I’m darker than Brave Hawk and Stuntman and Gardener and everybody else. Way darker.

  He looked down at Simoon.

  Darker than Simoon and even those poor folks in Egypt.

  “Stuntman made it up, didn’t he?” she whispered.

  Wally went back upstairs to his room. He didn’t come out the rest of the day.

  The studio must have pulled some strings, because housing inspectors arrived bright and early the following morning. Wally thought they’d have to move out, but now that the deck wasn’t tearing the mansion apart, they were much better off than some of their neighbors.

  Electricity was restored soon after that. So while workers from the studio poured over the Discard Pile, patching the cracks and holes, stringing new lights and replacing the cameras that had been damaged in the quake, Wally stayed in his room, rereading Bugsy’s blog.

  Bugsy had updated his blog with more photos and video clips. The shaky video—as if Bugsy had been on the run while he captured it—showed desert-camouflaged tanks rumbling down dirt roads, tossing up plumes of dust, mowing down refugees.

  Wally watched the steel-plated Egyptian tanks.

  He glanced outside, to where the deck had been. He remembered how good it felt to help out, how satisfying it felt when the beams crumbled under his touch.
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  And then he looked at the tanks again.

  Holy cow.

  He was still rereading the blog, and studying the photos, when Ink, one of the production assistants, called everyone into the TV lounge for a “special meeting.” Maybe they’d decided to move everybody out of the damaged mansion after all. Without the gas hooked up, the hot water hadn’t lasted through one morning of showers.

  Wally followed Jade Blossom and Simoon down the stairs. He tapped Simoon on the shoulder. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase; Jade Blossom went on ahead.

  “Simoon?”

  “What?”

  “Do you, I mean, I was wondering—”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. Look, Rusty, I meant what I said yesterday about you doing a good job saving the house, but you’re not my type. You’re a nice guy and all, but you’re made of iron, and I’m not. I just don’t think we’re compatible.” She looked him up and down. “At all.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t worry, though. I’m sure you’ll meet a nice…metal…girl someday.”

  “Oh, cripes, no, no no no. That’s not what I meant.”

  Her gaze darted sideways, toward the TV lounge. A frown flickered across her face and creased her brow. She looked back at Wally. “Then what?”

  “Did you live in Egypt a long time?”

  “Egypt? No. I’ve never lived there. Not ever.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t the response he’d expected. “Do you know a lot about it, though? Egypt, I mean.”

  It took her a few seconds to answer. She sighed, and lowered herself to sit on the bottom stair. “I guess. Why?”

  “I was reading Bugsy’s blog, you know, the bug guy that was on the show with us?” She nodded. “Since he went over there with John Fortune and that German fella—”

  “I never meant for that to happen, I swear.”

  “… he’s been writing about the whole thing, and it’s a heckuva mess.”

  “I know,” said Simoon, looking down. “Look, can we talk about something else, please?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you knew how a guy might—”

  A cameraman sidled closer. Wally stopped in mid-sentence. He wasn’t too keen on the cameras.

  “Hey!” Mr. Berman stood in the archway to the TV lounge. “Go flirt on your own time, you two. We’ve got an episode to film.” He tapped his watch. It probably cost more money than Wally had ever seen in one place in his life. He wondered why the executive was there at all.

  Wally helped Simoon to her feet—she looked real unhappy all of a sudden—and followed her to the lounge, where the other discards were sitting in a large circle. He stopped dead in his tracks. Not only was Mr. Berman here, but so were Peregrine and the judges: Topper, the Harlem Hammer, and Digger Downs.

  And Curveball.

  And Rosa.

  And Stuntman.

  The lying showbiz ace gave Wally a little sneer while the clanking joker hurried to find a seat. All the comfortable spots had been taken. Wally chipped a few bricks as he plopped down on the edge of the fireplace.

  If he thought a chill settled over the room when Stuntman watched him enter, the glare that Peregrine gave Simoon was worthy of the worst blizzards back home.

  The cameraman that Wally had narrowly avoided crushing the previous day circled the room, panning across the faces of the assembled discards. The cameras swiveled in Peregrine’s direction as she stood.

  Wally read the monitor along with her. “Hello, and welcome to all of our current and former contestants. The competition over these past ten weeks has been fierce. Alliances were forged … and broken. Challenges conquered, and failed. Today only three aces are left in the running for the one-million-dollar grand prize. The final three champions vying for the title American Hero.”

  The camera panned across the sofa where Curveball, Rosa, and Stuntman sat. Rosa and Stuntman watched the proceedings with a smirk and a look of superiority, respectively. Curveball was unreadable.

  Peregrine continued: “But for those of you already out of the competition, your challenges are not over yet. Today the Discard Pile will choose the final two competitors, by voting to eliminate one of today’s three.”

  If the announcement bothered Curveball, she didn’t show it. Stuntman now looked very serious. And Rosa looked particularly unhappy. Many of Wally’s fellow discards, on the other hand, looked smug. Some grinned.

  “And since this is the final vote of the competition, we’re doing things a little differently this time.” Peregrine looked around the room, one eyebrow cocked. “We’re not letting you off the hook so easily, Discards. Today’s vote will be an open ballot. No shuffling.”

  The grins disappeared.

  Ink handed three oversize playing cards to each of the discards. “Think carefully about who deserves to become the first American Hero…and about who doesn’t deserve the honor.” Peregrine paused. “When your name is called, show us who you think is not an American Hero.”

  Once everybody held three cards, Peregrine tipped an hourglass-shaped egg timer. “Discards: you have three minutes to consider your choice, starting…now. Contestants: good luck.”

  Wally flipped through the cards. The photos of Stuntman, Rosa, and Curveball looked like the kind of glamorous head shots that all the contestants had submitted with their audition portfolios. His own head shot had been taken on a Polaroid camera in his aunt’s kitchen.

  Wally hadn’t exchanged two words with Curveball, but she seemed like good folk. She even smiled at him once, which was more than he could say for a lot of the current and former contestants.

  Rosa, on the other hand, had said—quietly, under her breath, so that only he could hear but the cameras wouldn’t pick it up—“Good riddance, you retard,” after Wally had been eliminated from Team Spades. She reminded him of the crazy Lacosky sisters from back home, and the time soon after his wild card had turned, when they tried pushing him into one of the drainage ponds up near the mine. Just to see if he’d float.

  And then there was Stuntman. He looked friendlier in his photo than he did sitting across the room. But Wally found it hard to meet the gaze of either version.

  “Discards,” said Peregrine, “your time is up.” Ink went back around the room again, this time collecting two cards from each voter. After she finished, and each member of the Discard Pile held only one card, Peregrine pointed about a third of the way around the circle from Wally. “Tiffani: How do you vote?”

  One cameraman trained his lens on the finalists, and the other turned his own toward Tiffani. The West Virginia ace held up the Rosa photo. “I vote against Rosa. Why? I’d pay cash money to see her thrown under a bus. Any takers?” Rosa sneered; the corner of Stuntman’s mouth curled up.

  By the time Peregrine and the cameras reached Wally, the vote stood at four against Rosa, three against Stuntman, and one against Curveball. Spasm’s was the sole vote against Curveball; Wally suspected that was Rosa’s doing, in the same way that the Lacosky sisters had gotten Lenny Pikkanen to lend them his car, with promises of a wild time when their parents next went out of town.

  “Rustbelt: How do you vote?”

  The cameraman crept closer, the lens glaring at Wally like an unblinking eye. Don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras … Stuntman crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Wally with a bloodless, thin-lipped smile. “I dare you,” it said.

  “How do you vote?”

  Wally glanced around the room. Not at the dozens of aces, nor at the cameramen, nor the lighting guys, nor any of the others. At the room itself. Carpenters and painters had covered up the earthquake damage. But outside of camera range, they hadn’t fixed anything. It was all fake. Fake and meaningless. Just like the books in the library.

  Then he thought about Bugsy’s blog again, and the image of a little girl crushed into the dirt by men driving around in a steel-plated tank. Dead because somebody said she and her family were
dangerous.

  What’s worse than being hated for what people say you are?

  Letting them get away with it.

  Wally held up his Stuntman card. The air pressure dropped as everybody inhaled at once. The Harlem Hammer cocked his head, watching Wally through narrowed eyes.

  “I vote against Stuntman.” He looked Stuntman in the eye. “That’s what you get for being a knucklehead.”

  “Pfff. Figures.” Stuntman tried to dismiss Wally with a wave of his hand, but Wally saw his words hit home.

  “That’s all I said that day, and you know it. I didn’t do anything wrong, but you made everyone hate me. Even people that never met me, for cripes’ sake. You don’t deserve to win. You’re too mean.”

  Stuntman looked away.

  Wally stood. “There’s lots of people like you these days. Some of them even have guns—and worse stuff, gosh damn it.” Hardhat was a bad influence. Nodding to the three judges, Wally added, “I don’t think I want to be on the TV anymore.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  “Hey! Where’s he going? He can’t leave!”

  As Wally clanked up the stairs, he heard Simoon saying, “I… I think he’s going to Egypt.”

  Hardhat blurted, “Why in fuck’s sake would he do that?”

  Cuveball, very quietly: “To be a hero.”

  Back in his room, Wally dug his suitcase out from under his bed. He filled it with the few belongings he’d brought to California: his britches; a few shirts; the photo of Mom and Dad and his brother Pete up at the lake cabin; a box of lemon-scented SOS pads.

  He didn’t own a cell phone from which to call for a taxi. They had a tendency to crumple up in Wally’s hands, unless he was extremely careful. So he went back downstairs to use the kitchen phone.

  Simoon sauntered in and laid her finger on the disconnect button as he was jotting down the number for a taxi company. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I need to call a taxi.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to go to the airport.”

  “I mean, why not take the studio limo?”

  “That’s for the show.”

  “But it’s nicer. And we won’t fit into a single taxi.”