Radical

by E. M. Kokie

  She doesn’t understand. Or maybe she does.

  “Well,” Mom says, “you can shave your whole damn head. Dye it blue while you’re at it. I don’t give a fig anymore. But this was selfish, and it was childish, and it was disrespectful.”

  “It’s my hair!”

  “You don’t think how you look reflects on this family? That people won’t judge us based on this?” She gets up from the sofa and walks toward me, turning me toward the mirror on the wall. “Look at yourself. Is this who you want to be? Someone who people stare at? Who people think is, is —?”

  “What?” She doesn’t respond. “What, Mom?”

  Just when I think she’s not going to answer me, she whispers, “Damaged. People will think you’re damaged.”

  “I’m not damaged. Or confused. You don’t have to fix me.” I don’t look at her, or at Dad. “You can’t change me,” I say, looking at her in the mirror.

  We stare at each other.

  “Well?” Mom finally says, but it’s not directed at me.

  Dad clears his throat, looks at me until he can’t anymore, and then says, “What do you want me to say?”

  Mom looks like she wants to hit him. “Nothing, David, as usual.” Then she turns to me. “I can’t bring you to Lorraine’s like this. Can’t fix it,” she says.

  Nope. I bite my cheek to not smile.

  “I can’t even send you to Arizona looking like this.”

  Gran would have another heart attack.

  “Go,” Mom says. “I can’t look at you anymore.”

  Mission accomplished. So why do I feel like crap?

  I changed my mind about the Bobcat every five minutes, and I had more than a week to debate it. But when Boyd finally called to set up a time to meet for the exchange, he caught me in a yes frame of mind. Which is how the Bobcat and ammo come to be in my backpack by my feet, within reach of Uncle Skip, who would seriously wig out right now if he knew.

  When Uncle Skip and I pull down the drive, Dad and Mark are over by the grill. Talking, sipping beer. They’ve been a little boys’ club lately. For the past few weeks, Mark’s been out to Clearview nearly every day, and Dad’s been out there or at meetings about Clearview almost as much. Mom hasn’t totally warmed to the idea of their joining. I get the sense it’s her pressure on Dad keeping me out. She gave up on me going to the city, but she’s pissed and so won’t give in on me going to Clearview. I should have acted like I didn’t want to go; then she’d probably make me.

  Dad and I used to talk all the time, on the porch, in the truck when we went to the range or when he picked me up from work. I’d even sit through baseball with him sometimes, for the talking in between any action. I wonder if he even realizes he’s swapped one kid for the other.

  Uncle Skip is ahead of me when we go in, but I can hear the radio on, Mom singing along. Inside, the table is already set.

  “Oh, good,” Mom says to Uncle Skip, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’re just in time. Wash up.” She did her hair and put on lipstick. This is an event. “You, too, Bex. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  Ribs outside. Potato salad. Biscuits. Pie on the counter. My mouth is watering, but this much effort has me on edge.

  “I’m going to go change,” I say, keeping my backpack slung over one shoulder.

  Mom turns and looks at me. “You’re fine,” she says. “Just wash up.”

  “The ribs have arrived,” Dad says, coming in the door carrying the platter.

  I put my backpack in the laundry room, behind the hamper, where no one’s likely to mess with it, and then scrub my hands and arms in the laundry-room sink, using the brush to get the oil out from under my nails and the wrinkles at my knuckles and wrists.

  Leaving my backpack there, with the bundle of stuff from Boyd inside, makes me crazy nervous, but I have to play it cool. The last thing I need is for Mom or Dad to try to take it from me or to move it and feel the weight.

  Mark puts two more cans of beer on the table, and Dad just smiles. A few weeks of Clearview bonding, and it’s totally cool for Mark to drink out in the open now.

  “Looks wonderful, Charlotte,” Uncle Skip says, pouring himself some tea from the pitcher and then reaching for my glass without asking.

  “Thank you, Skip.” Mom is beaming.

  Dad’s grace is shorter than usual, maybe because he’s as hungry as the rest of us.

  Dad and Mark pretend to fight over the ribs.

  Plates and platters are passed. Uncle Skip, who doesn’t usually say much at dinner, is telling them about the guy who thought he could haggle the price of his repairs down today.

  I open two warm biscuits and slather them with butter, then look for the honey. I always put honey on my biscuits. But it’s not on the table. I have to get up and get it from the shelf. Before my hair, Mom would have put it next to my plate.

  “In the morning we did some painting — I worked on the porch — and then he bought the whole crew lunch,” Mark says. “Then this afternoon we finished marking the section of trail we started the other day.” Smiles all around — like I haven’t been working for almost a year.

  “Make sure you’re done on time tomorrow,” Dad says. “We need to leave early. I told Jim that I would go with him to check out some equipment.”

  “Sh’okay,” Mark says with a last mouthful of potato salad. He swallows it down before saying, “Darnell says he can use us all weekend helping him turn around a rental that needs to be ready by Monday. I’m going to crash at Daniel’s tomorrow night, and maybe Saturday if the job goes to Sunday.”

  “Which one’s Darnell?” Mom asks.

  “The black guy,” Mark says. Dad gives him a look. “What? He is!”

  “And he’s a member of the club?” Mom asks, skeptical.

  “Yes,” Dad says, as if it was a stupid question. “Darnell and Frank served in Iraq together. Darnell’s the one who went with me to look at the prefab structures.”

  I bet Darnell is Delia’s father. Most of the younger members have parents who are involved in the organization. Delia probably gets to go to Clearview all the time. “When do I get to go out to Clearview again?” I ask.

  Conversation stops.

  Dad looks at Mom and then at me, and then says, “Soon.” From Mom’s look, that wasn’t the right answer. “They’re coming up with a schedule for training sessions now. We’ll get you back out there before they have the schedule set so you’re ready to go.”

  “Everyone ready for pie?” Mom asks, getting up and clearing dishes, obviously changing the subject.

  “Dinner was wonderful, Charlotte,” Uncle Skip says, taking some of the plates to the counter.

  With Mom away from the table, Dad gives me a small smile and a wink. Then shakes his head at my smile, nodding toward Mom. I swallow it back but still look at Dad. He’s already decided to let me go back. And soon.

  Once everyone has pie, Dad says, “Okay, Charlotte, out with it. Is this a celebration?”

  “It’s nothing big,” Mom says. “At least not yet. But the new placement feels like a good fit. The office manager said I’ve caught on real quick, and he heard I was taking those online Excel classes and said they might be able to use me full-time when the lady I’m covering for comes back from maternity leave.”

  “Well, that’s great,” Uncle Skip says when the rest of us don’t immediately respond.

  “Yeah, great,” Mark adds.

  “Real proud of you, honey,” Dad says.

  Everyone looks at me. I try to make my mouth work, but my brain is running in another direction. “Full-time? So you’d stay with Aunt Lorraine, like, permanently?”

  “Well, no,” Mom says. “If it works out, we’ll find someplace of our own, soon, somewhere closer to the city.”

  None of us wants to move down by Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Nathan. Well, none of us but Mom. The silence drags on.

  “Well, that’s great,” Uncle Skip finally says again. “Sounds like a great opportunity.” He takes a si
p of his iced tea. “But you know, you’re all welcome here as long as you like,” he says, looking around the table. “There’s no rush.”

  That’s my plan. Just have to convince him to let me stay even if they go.

  “We know, Skip. And you’ve been so generous, but if we could get settled before the fall, Bex could start at the high school in September,” Mom says, like that’s a selling point.

  “I’m all caught up,” I lie. “You said if I stayed caught up, I could keep doing the distance-learning program.”

  “I said we’d discuss it if we were still out here,” Mom says.

  “And there’s no need to make any decisions now,” Dad says. “Let’s just wait and see. Might be getting worked up for nothing.”

  Mom’s face falls.

  “I mean about the school,” Dad adds. “The job sounds great. Here’s to being a dual-income family again”— he lifts his glass —“soon.”

  “Really?” Mom asks.

  Uncle Skip stares at Dad. “When did that happen?”

  “The meetings have been going well,” Dad says, looking at Mom more than the rest of us. “Frank, Norman, Jim, and I met this afternoon. We’re hoping to present the plans to the organizational committee at the end of the month for preliminary approval. If all goes well, we’ll start building the first tactical course later this summer.”

  “Well, great,” Mom says, but she has the same forced excitement we did about possibly moving to the city.

  Mark asks Uncle Skip about fixing his truck, and Dad chimes in about the insurance, and Mom adds her two cents, and I just pulverize my piece of pie. No way I’m going to the city. Maybe it’s time to be less picky about finding a truck. If I’m going to stay out here on my own, I’ll need a vehicle.

  Uncle Skip excuses himself as soon as he’s done and heads out to the workshop to sand wood and listen to the baseball game in peace.

  Mom gets up and starts to clear the table.

  “Let the kids do that,” Dad says, waving us to take over and then shoving Mark when he doesn’t immediately jump up to help.

  “Come on,” Dad says to Mom. “Let’s take our iced tea outside and sit on the porch swing. They can handle this mess.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I’ll try and get fresh with you.”

  “Gross,” Mark says.

  Mom shakes her head like she’s exasperated, but she touches Dad’s cheek, and he takes her hand, leading her toward the porch.

  “Oh, Bex,” she says at the door to the porch, “Lorraine sent more books. Some of the ones Hannah read in her ninth- and tenth-grade classes, so you won’t be lost if they come up next year. I put the bag near the stairs.”

  “Why do I have to read all these books if we’re waiting and seeing?”

  “Reading a few books won’t hurt you,” Mom says.

  “Far from it,” Dad adds.

  “And then if you do enroll in September, you won’t start off any more behind than you already are.”

  “But . . .” I scramble for a viable reason to wait.

  “Hey,” Dad says. It’s an all-encompassing Stop, do as your mother says, and I’m tired of the chatter.

  As soon as Mom and Dad leave the kitchen, Mark backs through the doorway and into the living room. “Have fun,” he says, turning and heading upstairs.

  “Mark!” I yell after him, but it’s no use.

  I put away the leftovers and wash the dishes, piling them high on the drain board to dry. Sometimes slamming a cabinet or drawer just to feel better.

  I can hear Uncle Skip join Mom and Dad on the porch, and smell his pipe after a while.

  When Uncle Skip comes inside, he gets a glass out of the cabinet and some ice out of the freezer.

  “You’re going to join this Clearview, too?” he asks.

  “Maybe.”

  He hands me the glass to fill from the tap. “I know that you’re worried about the future. That you think there’s going to be some big war or plague or something. I know the training is important to you. Just don’t be so ready to throw your lot in with strangers, okay? At least until you get a better idea who they are.”

  “Okay.” I smile at his grumbly face.

  “I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “You be careful.”

  I just nod.

  When I’m about done, Mom comes back inside. I know I’m sulking, but I can’t make my face stop.

  “Look,” Mom says, grabbing my arm before I can leave the kitchen. “When training was you and your father and Mark camping out and shooting some, well . . .” She thought it was like Girl Scouts. “But the sneaking around, the packs, the . . . blowing stuff up. It’s scaring me. You’re scaring me. But I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to see what about this, the training, makes you happy. Your father says there are nice girls in this club. That would be nice, right? Having girls who like what you like?” She rubs my arm. “You’ve been isolated out here, no friends, not even school with the distance learning — maybe this will be good.”

  I want to rant at her about how this isn’t for fun, it’s not what I “like”— that this is serious and that maybe, hopefully, those girls are more like me than Hannah. That I’d take strong over nice.

  “So, we’ll give this a try,” she continues. “And I’ll try to keep more of an open mind.” I stare at her face, waiting for the but. “And since I’m meeting you partway, I want you to keep an open mind about school. And read the books. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I say, and she pulls me into a loose hug.

  Upstairs, I unpack my backpack, carefully unrolling the shirt I used to wrap up the bundle from Boyd.

  A lot of people probably think Boyd’s a loser. But he’s never treated me like a kid, or a girl. He talks to me about stuff and listens when I talk. He has skills. I had him on my unofficial MAG list, if the shit hit the fan and I had to assemble one on the fly.

  Now he’s headed to Montana. That’s one less person who might have my back. One less person who might help me get my family to safety.

  Maybe my last friend.

  I take a few minutes to look at the Bobcat properly. To hold it in my hand. I wish I could carry it all the time, the weight of it just enough to be a comfort at my hip or ankle. Not yet.

  I double-check to make sure it’s unloaded and then wedge myself between the wall and the dresser so that I can slide the boxes of ammo and the Bobcat behind and under the dresser. No one else is small enough to get back there, even if they go snooping. It’s fine for now.

  Tomorrow, when everyone’s out, I’ll hide them under the floorboards in my closet, with the rest of my stash.

  Clearview has been busy. There’s now a sign, small but official, just before the turnoff. And there’s a new gate. A stronger, more serious gate, one that is closed across the road. And now there is barbed wire on top of the gate, and on top of the fence from the gate to where it disappears into the trees. Dad punches a code into a keypad in the center of a metal box and waits, staring at the gate. When nothing happens, he tries again. Still nothing. After a few clicks and a beep, static, and then, “Yeah?” an annoyed voice says.

  “Uh, hi,” Dad says, leaning toward the metal box. “I tried the code, but —”

  “Name?”

  “David.” He leans a little closer and looks up, where I see a camera pointed toward the car. “Mullin. David Mullin,” he says again, friendlier. When still nothing happens, he says, “Oh, and my daughter, Bex. Rebecca, but she goes by Bex. I’m supposed to —”

  A loud buzz and then the metallic clanking of the gate slowly sliding open in front of us.

  “There we go,” Dad says, smiling at me. “Thank you!” he shouts toward the box.

  After we drive through, the gate closes behind us. Locking us in.

  There are more cars and trucks in the large gravel parking lot. And someone has added two more picnic tables. And a gazebo. White, with big open arches and low railings, like for parties. Kin
d of cheesy, really, especially next to the other buildings, including the new one that was just poles in the ground last time I was here.

  Dad waves to someone. Two women walking into the new building pause and wave, but they don’t look very friendly.

  Outside the truck I can hear some shots off in the distance, from more than one gun, different guns. Voices from somewhere nearby.

  And another new sign, this one big and fancy. Carved wood, snooty enough for any rich-boy club.

  We cross the grass, and by the time we’re walking across the road, I can see there are also more trucks and campers parked on the other side.

  “Are there people living here now?”

  “Camping out. Families on vacation. Members who’ve driven in for a few days. Some of the young people who have the summer off. Work crews. We hope to have some shelters up by winter. It’s starting to come together.”

  He smiles like he had a part in it. Not like he just got here less than a month ago. On a guest pass. A charity pass.

  “You were the one saying we needed to train harder, right?” Dad asks. “Take preparation more seriously? I didn’t get it until Jim laid out their heightened response plans. You were right,” he says, glancing at me. “We do need to be more serious.”

  Serious is good. But are they really serious? Serious about training, about being organized and prepared? So far this is all still just buildings and talk about squads and organization and more serious prep. And Dad talks about Riggs and the other men like they’re his friends. Mark, too. The guy with the MAG in Virginia says screw friendship — select your members based on maximum survival, for what each can offer the group. How does Clearview choose? Can anyone buy in if they have enough money? And if membership is about money, and we don’t have any, then what do we have that they want?

  We walk past the first building. Dad says hellos to the people we pass. They mostly nod or say hello back, but it’s forced. They’re distracted by my hair.

  “Good morning,” Riggs says, coming out of one of the buildings and walking down the steps. Dad stands up straighter, grins bigger. His new best friend.