Kens

by Raziel Reid

  “That’s exactly what I said! When that little Claude Christie dude submitted his suicide vid to SoFamous, I didn’t want to post it. But then Blaine met me down in the lockers…”

  “Blaine?”

  “Yeah, mang. I thought he wanted a piece—you know how it is. But he got all serious and started telling me how important it was for me to start using #KenSuicides and to blog any suicide posts. He said it was a way to honor Ken Roberts’s message, to keep it going and, like, raise awareness for the oppressed during these tumultuous political times.”

  Tutti has never heard Ken Carson use such big words.

  “Why don’t you explain that to the FBI?” she asks. “You don’t have to leave town.”

  “The truth is, bruh, I’m over it. Willows was chill, but now it’s all stressful and shit. It’s time for a rebrand. I think I’ll try being, like, nice.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “Back to Malibu. I’m going to make the waves pink. I hired a crew to record my death. Forget Ken Roberts: my suicide is going to break the internet. But I need your help.”

  Tutti’s cheeks flush as she stares into Ken Carson’s eyes.

  “They aren’t blue,” she says. “You aren’t wearing your Ken contacts.”

  “I hate those things,” Ken Carson says. “They’re scratchy as fuck. I only wore them because Ken Hilton made me.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re different. Or at least, I thought you were….” Her voice trails off.

  Ken Carson puts his hand on Tutti’s thigh.

  “You know that video you sent me?” he asks.

  “I’d rather forget.”

  “No way, bruh. I was, like, really impressed.”

  Ken Carson leans in and kisses her. Softly at first, until Tutti bites his lip…She can’t help it! Ken Carson pulls back, bringing a finger to the blood. He breaks into a wide smile. When he kisses her again it’s with such force that they fall back on the bed. Ken Carson pulls Tutti’s panties off under her skirt. She balls the sheets in her fists.

  When he looks up, Ken Carson has a shiny, proud smile.

  “Dude,” he says. “I could ride this pink wave all day.”

  UNBOXED

  Willows is still. The moon shines its projector directly on Tommy as he walks down the quiet street. It all feels especially surreal tonight. The dolls’ eyes are wide open and all-seeing, even when they’re sleeping. There is no escape. All the alien toys that exist in other worlds have been put away on shelves and in boxes. A forgotten crayon lies on the carpeted floor next to a plastic dinosaur and awkwardly stacked blocks—on the verge of toppling over and crashing through the roof of the dollhouse like meteors from space.

  Tommy enters the gate of Willows Forever Cemetery. He plucks a daisy from a grave and brings it to his nose. The porcelain flowers never wilt, but they also don’t smell or sway in the breeze or feed bumblebees. They just exist, pretty little meaninglessness, always in bloom. If you grow accustomed to their artificial allure, you might start to believe you’re meant to exist just as untarnished. But when you crush the petals into your hand you bleed. And unlike the tiny pieces of broken glass, you can be healed.

  There’s a shovel in the groundskeeper’s shed. It clicks into Tommy’s bloody palm.

  Ken Hilton’s grave isn’t hard to find—there’s a giant pink bow on the inverted-cross tombstone.

  Tommy starts digging.

  When he opens Ken Hilton’s casket, the moonlight reflects off the cluster of diamonds on the corpse’s face mask. Ken Hilton is perfectly preserved, his bronze arms eternally flexed. The pink-diamond stud remains in the one ear that didn’t melt off in the explosion. Tommy lifts the mask to reach it. Curious, he pulls the mask all the way off.

  Ken: Picasso Edition. Ken Hilton’s eyelashes are fused together, and one eye droops down onto his busted cheek implant. His face is all burnt skin and melted collagen. There are only a few platinum-blond strands left on his scalp.

  It’s like all of the ugliness within came out of the holes in his head and enveloped him.

  Tommy takes off the pink-diamond earring and rolls it between his fingers.

  It slides into his ear painlessly.

  Taking cover under a fake plastic tree next to the stairwell, Tommy watches as hoards of people walk through the front doors for the grand opening of Plastic Place.

  The mall reeks like the floors were washed with Sour Puss and mopped dry with cotton candy.

  A beaming blonde-bimbo saleslady stands at the entrance of a department store, spraying a sample bottle of perfume.

  “Life is your creation,” she coos to passersby.

  The water fountain in the center of the mall is spraying in sync to “Barbie Girl,” which is playing through the mall speakers on repeat.

  Barks players and cheerleaders pass Tommy. Todd is vaping and blowing the smoke through a bubble wand. Bubbles float over heads and into stores where they pop, releasing tiny twisters of smoke.

  A photo booth never stops taking pictures. The flashing bulb is pulsating as fast as Tommy’s heartbeat. He looks up at the ceiling, trying to count fire sprinklers.

  Screaming.

  There’s a life-sized dollhouse around the corner where kids are playing.

  It’s so crowded Tommy almost misses Allan and Tutti as they shuffle past.

  He grabs the handle of Tutti’s cosmetics shopping bag, pulling her and Allan behind the tree.

  “Tommy!” Tutti exclaims. “I was hoping you’d be here. Did you see Ken Carson’s suicide video?”

  “Ken Carson killed himself?”

  “It was just posted,” Allan says. “What are you doing behind a tree?”

  “It deserves an Oscar,” Tutti says, reaching into her purse and pulling out the Kens’ pink-rhinestone iPhone.

  “Where did you get it?” Tommy asks as Tutti passes him the phone.

  “Ken Carson gave it to me.” Tutti can’t meet Tommy’s eyes. “He told me to give it to you.”

  “Why would he want Tommy to have it?” Allan asks.

  “I guess you’re the closest thing to a Ken left in Willows.” Tutti shrugs.

  “There might not be a Willows as we know it for much longer. Have you guys seen Blaine?”

  “I saw his bike in the parking lot,” Allan says.

  “The side door…,” Tommy mutters to himself. “Allan, if someone were to contaminate the mall water system, how would they do it? Through the pipes in the basement?”

  “Possibly. But a building this size might have its own water tower, which would be located on the roof.”

  “The roof!” Tommy is about to run for it, but Allan steps in front of him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You know those chemicals that went missing from the science lab at school? I think Blaine is the one who took them.”

  Tommy leaves Allan and Tutti to try to evacuate shoppers from the mall without ringing the fire alarm. He darts to the top floor, running down the hallway where Blaine took him the first night they visited the Plastic Place construction site. Tommy bursts through the door. His eyes screw up from the blinding sun, and he spots Blaine on top of the water tower.

  Blaine is dumping a container of acid into the water. Even from below, Tommy can tell the water is reacting violently—steaming, boiling and foaming over the side of the tower.

  He hasn’t been noticed. Tommy ducks behind the water tower and pulls out the “camera” gun he surreptitiously took from Blaine’s house while they were watching Ken Roberts’s funeral. After running into Blaine at school, Tommy bought bullets from a kid in the caf capitalizing off the Ken Suicides. He climbs the ladder to the platform on top of the water tower, and points the gun at the back of Blaine’s head.

  “Strike a pose, bitch,” Tommy says.

  Surprise makes Blaine drop the acid. It rolls off the top of the tower and spills across the roof. Tommy is relieved—but there’s a second container next to Blaine’s feet.

 
“Well, well, well.” Blaine slowly turns around, staring through the barrel of the gun. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

  “My head like a mannequin.”

  “You faked your death with a dummy?” Blaine crackles. “Nice! But why’d you trick me, Tommy? I thought we were closer than that.”

  “Were we ever, really? Or was it all in my head like everything else? I was always in my head dreaming about being a Ken, and then I was in my head dreaming of killing them. Were you all in my head too?”

  “Let’s just say you were the tear in the packaging. Because of you, the Kens made themselves vulnerable.”

  “You sick fuck!”

  The gun shakes in Tommy’s hand.

  “Were the Ken Suicides your plan all along?”

  “Who can predict what will fly off the shelf?”

  Blaine unscrews the second container of acid and begins pouring it into the tank. The exothermic reaction is even more intense than with the first batch: the water convulses, hissing with each drop. Tommy’s eyes burn from the fumes.

  “I’ll shoot,” he says. “I swear I’ll shoot!”

  “No, you won’t. You never really had it in you. It was just so easy to wind you up.”

  Blaine empties the container and tosses it over the side of the tower. At the same time, a balloon attached to the roof comes loose, floating above them into the sky. They hear it pop.

  “It has to be done,” Blaine says. “There’s no end to the Kens’ influence! It’s not just school, or Willows: it’s the whole country—all of the Kens’ followers, everyone who has ever used #KenSuicides. We’re not just living life through the filter of a screen, we are the screen. It’s spreading, coating people. Coating families…Don’t you see, Tommy? Plastic Place has to burn to remind the world how to feel.”

  “I won’t let you do it!” Tommy closes his eyes and squeezes the trigger. “Not this time.”

  “Tommy!” Allan pushes through the rooftop door.

  The sound of Allan’s voice makes Tommy release the trigger. He opens his eyes just as Blaine swings at him. The gun is knocked out of his hand; it lands on the roof and spins. Tommy almost falls with it, but manages to grab onto the side of the ladder just in time. Blaine’s quickly on him—he wraps his hands around Tommy’s neck.

  “Where’s your reset button?” he says through gritted teeth.

  Tommy swings at Blaine, hitting him in the nose. Blaine stumbles back, bringing a hand to the blood gushing from his nostrils. He smirks.

  “I expected more from you, Tommy. I thought you were, like, woke,” Blaine says mockingly. “But you never managed to completely deprogram from Ken Hilton’s handiwork. It’s up to me to break the screen.”

  Blaine grabs Tommy’s arm and drags him toward the water.

  “You’re just as bad as the Kens.” Tommy desperately pulls away. “You’re not doing this because you care about changing the superficial world; you’re doing it because you want people to think you broke the mold. It doesn’t matter what you want to be known for. You still want to be known!”

  Tommy manages to reach into his pocket and pull out the iPhone Tutti gave him. He lifts it in the air.

  From below, Allan yells. “It’s over, Blaine!”

  Allan slips in spilled acid as he fires a shot with the gun.

  Simultaneously, Tommy brings the pink-rhinestone iPhone crashing down on Blaine’s head.

  Glittering pink particles rain down into the water, landing on the surface with a spark. The phone crumples to dust in Tommy’s hand. He imagines the Kens in their caskets doing the same. Poof! Plastic just gets smaller and smaller.

  From the shock of being hit by the phone, Blaine releases his grip on Tommy. The blast from the gun blows Tommy into Blaine, pushing them toward the opening of the tank. Tommy steadies himself, but Blaine loses his footing. He rocks back on the heels of his boots, flailing his arms and desperately reaching for Tommy’s hands. Tommy blows Blaine a kiss—and as the sticky sweet doll breath hits him in the face, Blaine is knocked into the water.

  He makes a single, ear-splitting scream. And then nothing.

  Allan drops the gun next to the acid containers and rushes up the ladder. He appears next to Tommy out of breath; he pulls out his inhaler and takes a huff. He and Tommy slowly lean over the opening of the water tower and peer inside.

  Blaine has completely dissolved.

  All that remains is his leather jacket, floating on the surface.

  “You’re bleeding!” Allan gasps and points at Tommy’s chest.

  Tommy looks down. Blood is soaking through his shirt. He’s been shot.

  “ ’Zif,” he says, right before collapsing in Allan’s arms.

  WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED

  Brown roots are starting to show in Tommy’s blond hair. He needs to redo his eyelash implants, and he’s in desperate need of a shot of Botox. The past few weeks have been harsh. His lips look as blown up as they did the day he stepped out of the factory, but eventually they’ll lose their luster. He’s considering asking his mom and dad for plastic surgery for Christmas. They rushed to the hospital when they found out Tommy had been shot, tipping off Stacie Skipper for an exclusive along the way. Tommy just won’t tell them that he wants the surgery to reverse some of the procedures Dr. Hilton performed on him. Maybe he can get featured on an episode of Botched with Barbie Hilton!

  Tommy wants all his implants taken out—butt, cheek, chin and his pecs, even if they did save his life. The bullet Allan fired trying to stop Blaine from throwing Tommy into the water tower lodged in Tommy’s left pectoral. The silicone shielded him. The most damage done was to Allan’s “Parked in a Parallel Universe” graphic tee, which got covered in Tommy’s blood.

  Allan carried Tommy from the water tank into the mall, down the elevator and into the parking lot. He didn’t stop running once, his glasses slipping down his nose with sweat. By some kind of miracle, Allan’s car made it all the way to the hospital without breaking down.

  On the way, Allan called the Willows Police Department and told them about the contaminated water. The mall was shut down over a suspected terrorist attack. Tutti had managed to hustle a few people out earlier by telling them Ken Hilton had been resurrected on the peak. She’d been inspired by a photo a group of hikers posted to social media of the mannequin Tommy used to trick Blaine. Tommy left it up there, along with the empty bottle of ketchup that served as fake blood. Works every time.

  For once, Tommy is glad for the shameless digital extensions he calls parents and agrees to give Willows News an exclusive.

  He tells all of Willows the truth about the Ken Suicides, including the role he played. The WPD interview him right after the Willows News broadcast, but Tommy is off the hook—in part because of mall surveillance footage, which shows him trying to stop Blaine from contaminating the water system. He also suspects it’s because he’s an eyewitness to what the police did to Brad. Tommy gets the feeling they want to avoid more bad publicity than they’ve already suffered. As usual, it all comes down to image.

  It dawns on Tommy that his parents, like other citizens of Willows, need to be superficial to survive. As soon as you start questioning your reality, it unravels, and most people would rather have a red carpet under their feet than wrapped around them so tightly they can’t breathe. He decides to accept his parents for who they are. Not as brave as him. Once you’ve seen through the mannequin matrix you can never be blinded by beauty again.

  Tommy doesn’t expect Willows to change overnight, and the truth is, he doesn’t really want it to. Not everything has to be taken so seriously. Despite its flawless flaws, Willows has some redeemable qualities. It’s a place where life really is your creation—anything is possible if you believe in it. He just hopes that enough people learn something from the Ken Suicides—enough to start believing in something more than rock-hard abs. Like maybe in themselves.

  The doctor tells Tommy he’s lucky to be alive; without the protection of his impla
nt, the bullet would have struck his heart. The idea that his heart might have been stopped by a bullet reminds Tommy that he has one, that he doesn’t have a disco ball rotating in his chest like a Ken. He has a real live beating heart and it’s the accessory that goes with everything.

  Once he’s healed, Tommy will have a small scar from where the bullet struck his chest, but other than that, he’s coming out unscathed. He’s actually looking forward to having a scar again. As he glides his finger across his plumped cheek where his old scar used to be, he thinks of the feeling of his finger swiping across the screen of his phone. Blaine wasn’t totally wrong; it was just his methods that were demented. Maybe the screen is spreading, and a little crack—not enough to break you, just enough to remind you that you can be broken, isn’t such a bad thing after all.

  So one day he’ll wither and decay and eventually disappear and won’t be an eternally mint-condition object of envy and glamour. No one said life is fair. The truth is, there is a glamour to changing, to eventually losing everything. There is a great glamour in disappearing. There’s the great beyond. Or be-lond, as a Ken might say. The uncertainty of it all is the most outrageous, shocking, gag-worthy headline ever written, because you can’t read it until you’re dead.

  A week after being released from the hospital Tommy is up in his room listening to “Hunty” in honor of SoFamous being wiped from the internet. The Stoner Conspiracy Theorists claim it was seized by the FBI, or perhaps by Baphomet himself. Tommy’s just glad to see it go. Maybe the students of Willows High don’t need to be led.

  It doesn’t take long for a new blog to pop up in its place. FuckYeahTutti.tumblr.com is followed by everyone. It’s a page dedicated to Tutti’s makeup photos and tutorials. Tutti plays coy when she stops by his house to visit during his recovery and Tommy asks who she thinks made it. But by the way she smiles to herself, Tommy gets the impression she knows exactly who her number one fan is.

  From the foot of the stairs, Tommy’s mom yells up at him. “Turn that music down! You know I have celiac.” Tommy rolls his eyes. She has no idea what that means. Long before Blaine tried dumping the acid, there must’ve been something in the water in Willows. Maybe he’ll make it past the wall one day and see what the real world is like.