Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect

by Michael Bailey

  “It’s okay,” I insist. “Honestly.”

  “I’m still going to make it up to you. After school, we’re all going to go out and grab an awesome, non-school lunch, wherever you want, and I’m covering your bill. No arguments.”

  “Who’s arguing? Free food? I am so there. Try to stop me.”

  “Isaac?”

  “Huh?”

  Mrs. Marx’s lips curl in a disappointed frown, but only for a moment. “You seem to be having trouble focusing today, Isaac.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Marx,” the boy says. “I’m not feeling it today.”

  “Did you sleep all right last night?”

  Isaac nods and shrugs simultaneously.

  “Perhaps you’re having an off day. That’s okay, dear, we all have them.” Mrs. Marx reaches across the kitchen table and closes Isaac’s English textbook. “What do you say I put on the kettle and we take a break? See if we can clear the cobwebs out of the attic, hm?”

  “Okay,” Isaac says with a weak smile.

  She’s always so patient with him, Isaac considers as he wanders into the living room, so much more sympathetic to his erratic moods than any of his old teachers. They pushed. They ordered him to work. They refused to cut him the least little slack, but Mrs. Marx, she understands his highs and lows, knows when to encourage him to forge ahead, when to give him some breathing room, and when to firmly insist that he take his medication. She’s a good teacher.

  She’s a good friend as well, but there are days when Isaac would happily throw over Mrs. Marx in a heartbeat, without a second thought and without regret, to have his old friends back — not that they’d want him back. They abandoned him after that final incident at school. Getting into brawls with other students, that was one thing, but certain transgressions are too grave to overlook. In high school, reputations are viral and guilt by association is highly contagious.

  Sometimes Isaac finds himself wishing that his court date, when it finally comes, goes poorly. In jail he’d get to see people other than his mother and his tutor.

  ...who, he now realizes, hasn’t turned off the screaming tea kettle. Isaac takes his time returning to the kitchen, curious more than concerned. After all, Mrs. Marx isn’t that old — fifty, tops — so he certainly doesn’t expect to find her in distress or passed out on the floor.

  Nor does he expect to find her squirming in the grip of a girl that towers over everyone in the kitchen. Isaac has to crane his head slightly to meet her eyes, two dark, cold things shaded by a thick brow. An arm as thick as a telephone pole wraps around Mrs. Marx’s ribcage like an anaconda. The girl’s other hand covers the entire lower half of his tutor’s face, muffling her screams. The giant’s companion rivals her muscular bulk, if not her height. He nudges the third member of the group, the smallest of the intruders, yet she somehow strikes the greatest fear in Isaac’s heart.

  Buzzkill Joy flips off the burner. The kettle’s wail dwindles to a quavering whistle, then to a burbling hiss. “Hey, Isaac. How’re you doing?”

  “Let her go,” Isaac says.

  “Uh, yeah, not happening.”

  “I swear, if you hurt her —”

  The tall girl utters a grunt that, for her, serves as a laugh. “If,” she says.

  “Be cool, Ivy, be cool,” Joy says. “This your mom?”

  “My tutor,” Isaac says. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “Jeez, this kid’s a wuss,” Kurt complains. “Forget him and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Nuh-uh. I think Isaac here’s a team player,” Joy says, “he just doesn’t know it yet. Ivy, give us some privacy here.”

  Ivy presses her hand tight against Mrs. Marx’s face. Her wiggling becomes mad thrashing. Isaac screams a challenge and lunges, but his heroic charge is cut short; Kurt drives his fist into Isaac’s sternum, a brutally efficient move that dropped many a challenger at Sutherland. Isaac crumples, fire filling his lungs instead of air. The world fades to gray.

  When the fog lifts, Isaac is back in the living room, curled into a fetal position in his father’s easy chair. How he got there, he cannot recall. The intruders sit across from him on the couch, their feet on the coffee table. The image has the air of a warped family portrait of Fagan’s favorite ruffians.

  “Your teacher’s fine,” Joy says. “Ivy put her out for a little while so we could talk private-like.” She squints thoughtfully. “Isaac, huh? Never met an Isaac before. What do your friends call you? Izzy?”

  Isaac uncurls, carefully, his eyes on Kurt. “I don’t have friends anymore.”

  “No? Let me guess: They dropped you like a bad habit after you got your dumb ass expelled for hitting a teacher.”

  “How...how did you know about that?”

  “Same way I know about your cool party trick,” Joy says, reveling in Isaac’s increasingly flabbergasted expression. “See, Izzy, I’m a member of this real exclusive club. So’re Kurt and Ivy here. So’re you. Let me tell you about it.”

  Isaac listens, at first under duress, but as Joy dives deeper into her fantastic tale, his resistance morphs into grudging fascination, then turns into a simmering rage. He has no reason to believe the girl, no reason to trust her, yet too much of her claim makes sense. Too many pieces fit the incomplete puzzle of his life to deny the truth lurking within.

  Joy leans back, folds her hands behind her head and waits, giving Isaac the time he needs to digest all he’s heard.

  “All right, so we’re mutants someone cooked up in a lab,” he says, shrugging. “It’s not like we can do anything about it now.”

  “You’re missing the point, Izzy,” Joy says. “The point is, you’ve never been in control of your own life. None of us have. For most people, being born is a big crapshoot. Boy or girl, straight or gay, retard or normal, black or white or red or yellow...you got no say over how you’re born, so it’s a whatchacallit — a level playing field, right?

  “Not for us. We were made this way. We were made crazy. We never had a chance to be something other than what some scientist wanted us to be: a bunch of freaks. And you know what the worst part is?” Joy gives Isaac a thin, sad smile. “They knew damn well what we were and didn’t care. I read the files. They knew we were broken and they didn’t do a single friggin’ thing to fix us. They just sat back and watched and took notes. Tell me that doesn’t piss you off.”

  To this day, that life-changing moment at school remains a black hole in Isaac’s memory. The last clear image he can summon is of the cafeteria, teeming with students sitting down for lunch. He passed Joey, his lifelong tormentor, who threw out some childish comment about his mother — the kind of lazy, uninspired verbal slap that would normally slide by without effect. Joey’s repertoire of insults began stagnating around eighth grade and never quite regained their power to incite, but for whatever reason, on this fateful day, Joey’s dagger hit a bull’s-eye.

  Isaac has no recollection of attacking Joey, or of turning his wrath on Mr. Fulbright, a substitute who had the misfortune of being on cafeteria monitor duty, or of getting tackled and pinned to the dingy tile floor by Mr. Dent and another teacher. His conscious mind did not kick back in until he was actually in the back of a police cruiser, shackled hand and foot, en route to the station for booking on multiple assault and battery charges.

  And yet, inexplicably, he recalls with perfect clarity a single bizarre sensation: a separation of mind and body. He’d heard of people who lost control and later described an out-of-body experience in which they played witness to their own mayhem, and he’d always written off such claims as desperate ploys to prevent the full weight of the justice system from crashing down upon them.

  It sounded no less desperate and unbelievable when he made such a claim to his public defender, who advised working out a plea deal that might — might, he stressed — keep Isaac’s jail time to a minimum.

  “Yeah,” Isaac says, “that pisses me off.”

  “Good. Hold onto that,” Joy says. “You wanted to know w
hat we can do about it? I have an idea, if you want in.”

  “One condition: You leave Mrs. Marx alone.”

  “Sorry, Izzy, no can do.”

  “Then count me out.”

  “I could make you come with us.”

  Isaac swallows. “No. You can’t.”

  “Kid’s not such a wuss after all,” Kurt says.

  A voice in Joy’s head berates her for entertaining Isaac’s demand, chastises her for leaving people alive unnecessarily.

  For no reason she can put her finger on, that patronizing voice annoys the crap out of her.

  “Ivy, throw his teacher in the basement,” Joy says, adding firmly, “alive.”

  Ivy grunts disapprovingly, but does as told — as does Isaac, who, as per Joy’s instructions, throws some clothing into a backpack and leaves his cell phone on his bureau.

  “Ready,” Isaac says. “Uh, where are we going?”

  “I was hoping you had some ideas,” Joy says. “We need somewhere local to hang out for a little while. Know anyplace that’d make a good hideout?”

  “Yeah,” Isaac says after a moment of thought, “I think I do.”

  “Sweet.”

  Joy leads her charges out into the back yard, a secluded patch of lawn surrounded by a low picket fence and, beyond that, sparse woodland. A cheap swing set, rusted beyond the point of reclamation, lurks in the corner. A jagged fault line splits the plastic slide from top to bottom.

  “Hey, Izzy,” Joy says, pausing. “I’ve never seen anyone who can do what you can do. How about a quick demo?”

  “Joy, come on,” Kurt grouses. “We need to go.”

  “Hey, I want to see what I’m getting for my money.”

  “I, uh, I haven’t really used my, um...I’ve only done it a couple of times,” Isaac says. “I got scared being up that high, so I haven’t —”

  “I’m not bringing you along for your good looks,” Joy says, “so you best get over it. Now go on: Give me a show.”

  Isaac takes a few steps back, gesturing for the others to stand clear. He squats, takes a few rapid breaths to steel himself, then leaps. Seconds later, Isaac is nothing more than a dot against a backdrop of blue.

  “Now that,” Joy grins, “is going to be wicked useful.”

  The final bell of the day sounds a lot like a dinner bell to me.

  Knowing what awaited me, I skipped out on a full cafeteria lunch and settled for a small salad. It was an easy decision, in large part because today was Salisbury steak day. Here’s a fun fact: Pre-packaged Salisbury steak is, by US Department of Agriculture standards, a steak-shaped pressed meat patty which must contain no less than sixty-five percent meat (which may include beef heart) and no more than thirty percent fat. The rest may be anything from breadcrumbs to soy protein to plain old flour (the USDA calls these yummy-sounding additives “extenders”); eggs, brine, and vinegar (which the USDA calls “binders”); and seasonings.

  Matt regaled me with this nauseating trivia a few months ago, while I was eating Salisbury steak in blissful ignorance, and I haven’t been able to look at the stuff since without feeling queasy.

  Anyway, the salad served its purpose and sustained me through the day, and I am now ready to gorge.

  “What do you say, Malcolm?” I say as we saunter to my locker. “Ready to watch your girlfriend make a pig of herself twice in one week?”

  “Tempting, but I have to pass,” Malcolm says. “I have to pick Sam up at school and take him to a doctor’s appointment. He’s had a bad cough for a few days, and Mom is getting paranoid he’s contracted pneumonia or whooping cough or something else equally dire.”

  “You’re a good big brother. I understand.”

  “Besides, you already had me all to yourself Friday night. I don’t want to be a Carrie hog.”

  “I wouldn’t object if you did. And hey, maybe I want to be a Malcolm hog. You ever think of that?”

  “No, but I should have. I am great, after all.”

  “Listen to you.” I give him a quick goodbye kiss and rush off to meet the others at my locker.

  “We have to catch bus thirty-five to east Kingsport,” I say as I stuff all my books in my locker. Sorry, homework, you’re getting blown off tonight, because hockey. “There’s a Brazilian barbecue place there that is positively amazing.”

  “Brazilian barbecue? I am officially intrigued,” Stuart says.

  “You’ll love it. You grab a plate, load up on the sides at the buffet, then sit at the table while waiters bring you all kinds of different barbecued meats on these big skewers that look like swords. And? It’s all-you-can-eat.”

  Stuart lights up like a kid realizing he’s getting a new bicycle for Christmas, and then discovers a puppy sitting in the basket on the handlebars. “Unlimited barbecued meat served on swords?” he marvels. “How have I not known about this place?”

  The prospect of hot sword-meat — oh, wow does that sound dirty. Let me rephrase: The prospect of barbecued meat served on giant skewers (much better) has Stuart practically drooling all the way to the restaurant, a modest little place called Latin Heat, Latin Meat. We walk in, and as soon as the hostess shows us to our table and tells us to grab a plate, Stuart is off like a shot to the side-dish buffet.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” he says, ogling the impressive variety of available sides, then something catches his eye and he zeroes in on a particular steamer tray. “Why is there bacon in the French fries?”

  “They fry the bacon with the fries,” I say.

  Stuart’s mouth falls open. “Bacon fries? How have I not known about this place?!”

  My prediction: Stuart will cause the management to reverse the all-you-can-eat policy, oh, after his fourth plate.

  His delight continues as the waiters start presenting him with his meat options: beef sirloin, pork loin, kielbasa, lamb, chicken — he samples it all, but balks when they bring out a skewer of chicken hearts.

  “I’ll eat almost anything you put in front of me,” he says, winning the award for the Biggest “No Duh” Statement of the Year, “but I draw the line at organs. And Miracle Whip.”

  He keeps eating during the ritual gift-giving, which scores me books from everyone (except, of course, Matt, who swears to God “I have a present for you! It’s at home!”), along with the traditional mix CDs. Stuart’s contribution is a history of heavy metal, from some group called Blue Cheer (“Arguably the first metal band,” he says) up through Godsmack. Sara gifts me with a collection of her favorite songs from her favorite musicals, and Missy gives me a CD that is half Foo Fighters, one-quarter AC/DC, and one-quarter assorted songs heavy on crunching electric guitars (and, according to the handwritten note tucked in the jewel case, none of the songs are by the original artists. “I played all of these,” it reads. Wow!).

  “Thank you so much, everyone,” I say, “and yes, that includes you, Captain Forgetful.”

  “I got you a present,” Matt mumbles.

  “I hate to eat and run on you, but I have to eat and run. I’m meeting my dad at home at five so I need to catch the bus. I’ll see you all in the morning.”

  I trade hugs with everyone, throw my backpack full of birthday schwag over my shoulder, and waddle my way toward the bus stop up the road. Oof. Shouldn’t have eaten so much. I’m not going to have any room for dinner with Daddy.

  It’s a struggle not to lapse into a food coma during the ride home. No worries. Once the game starts and the Bruins are kicking the Canadiens’ collective ass, you won’t be able to put me down with a tranquilizer dart full of Thorazine and Nyquil.

  The bus lets me off at the end of my road. About halfway home, a black sedan rolls past me and comes to a stop along the curb. A woman and two men in matching black suits get out. One of the men stands a head taller than the woman, and the other man is a head taller than that.

  “Miss Hauser,” the woman says, producing a leather wallet from an inside jacket pocket. She flips it open to expose a badge and an ID card. “Age
nt Julie Fassbender, Homeland Security. I need to speak to you.”

  Feds? That’s no shock; the dress code is a dead giveaway, but why would a federal agent want to talk to me?

  “Okay,” I say as the big agent moves in a slow, wide circle around me. That’s when I realize: We’re on a stretch of my street that is undeveloped; it’s all wooded area here. The nearest houses are several yards in either direction, and neither is within my line of sight. I’m not entirely secluded, but there aren’t any handy witnesses who might wonder why some suspicious strangers are chatting up their neighbor and step outside to say something. It was no accident they stopped me here, and that realization causes my palms to start itching, but I have to play it cool. This could be nothing, after all.

  Agent Fassbender dispels that theory right quick, and what she says causes my brain to lock up. “We received notification from the Protectorate earlier this afternoon that you violated North American airspace this afternoon, in defiance of a ground order issued against you on March 9.”

  That was only a week ago? Man, time flies.

  Whoa, wait, what? “Excuse me?” I say.

  “Miss Hauser, please don’t play dumb,” Fassbender says. “Your Lightstorm identity is known to us, so I strongly recommend that you don’t —”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. What do you mean, I defied Concorde’s ground order? I haven’t been up once since he took my transponder.”

  The shorter of the male agents sighs loudly. “Bender, come on.”

  Fassbender disciplines him with the merest of glances in his general direction, then turns her steely gaze back to me. “Miss Hauser, this matter is not up for debate.” She reaches into her jacket pocket again, and this time she brings out a folded sheaf of paper, which she shows to me. “I have a warrant for your arrest, to be executed immediately.”

  Her free hand pushes the hem of her jacket aside and hovers near a pistol tucked in a belt holster. The short agent makes a similar gesture, and a rustle of cloth behind me tells me the big agent is doing the same.