by David Arnold
“Oh right. I forgot, the bountiful bourgeoisie couldn’t possibly understand. Come on, Mad, you know what I mean. Is he, you know . . . ?”
Drag.
Blow.
Calm.
“You waited till we were outside, didn’t you?” I say. “That’s why the smoke break. So you could ask that question without sounding like an ignorant asshole on record?”
“Madeline.”
“Don’t Madeline me. You saw Vic’s face and assumed there was something wrong with him.”
Bundle blows into his cupped hands to warm up. “Well, is there?”
My knee-jerk is to put my cigarette out on his arm. But I don’t.
“You ever read The Outsiders?” I ask.
“You know, Madeline, you have a serious problem answering questions.”
“I’m trying to answer your question. Have you ever read The Outsiders?”
“Not much of a reader,” says Bundle. “Saw the movie years ago. One too many good-looking guys as I recall.”
I bounce up and down on my toes, try to get the blood circulating. “Okay, well, there’s this character called Dally, short for Dallas. He’s one of the roughest greasers. Lived on the streets in New York for a while and all that. Anyway, the main character, at one point, says, ‘Dally was so real he scared me.’”
I feel Bundle staring, waiting for more. “And?”
Drag.
Blow.
Calm.
Until this moment I’d considered Bundle to be my exact opposite, but it seems we’ve reached the heart of our Venn diagram, the fractional intersection where Detective Bundle and Madeline Falco cohabitate. I clear my throat and speak quietly, as if diminishing the volume of the statement might also diminish its gravity.
“I thought there was something wrong with Vic too.” Nope. Gravity intact. “There’s not,” I continue. “Moebius syndrome is this really rare neurological disorder that causes facial paralysis. It’s different for different people, but in Vic’s case he can’t blink and he can’t smile. Since he doesn’t appear to respond during conversations, everyone just assumes he’s not picking up their social cues or whatever. But he’s really smart, maybe the smartest kid I know.”
Detective Bundle nods, his bloated face twisting in thought, his red lips puckering in the frigid air. I stare at the many factions of Bundle, and I wonder at the injustice of the world: Vic’s outsides can’t reflect his insides, as much as I want them to. Bundle’s outsides can’t help but reflect his insides, as much as I don’t want them to. But that’s not even the worst of it. I have to turn away, because what I hate most about Bundle right now has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me.
It’s a sad thing, recognizing yourself in a sad thing.
Drag.
Blow.
Calm.
“What did that have to do with The Outsiders?” asks Bundle.
I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Okay then. Well, the bountiful bourgeoisie is freezing his bountiful nuts off. You about done?”
I drop the butt, stomp it, and follow Bundle inside. Down the hallway, I see Vic’s blurry image again and think about that line from The Outsiders.
Dally was so real he scared me.
I wonder if anyone will ever scare me as much as Vic.
(SIX days ago)
VIC
“You need a haircut.” Mad said it in a yawn the way a person says I need coffee when they first wake up.
“Uh, what?”
Coco snapped her fingers. “Vic! Spoils. Dude. A new cut for the new you.”
“I like the old me,” I said.
False.
However, there was one thing I liked about the old me: his hair. And Old Me’s hair was suddenly facing great peril.
“We have time,” said Baz. “If we hurry. The bus leaves at ten forty, and we still need to stop at Cinema Five for my check, and Rainbow Café for coffee.”
“And a muffin!” said Coco.
The morning sun had just begun to peek in through the plastic ceiling of the greenhouse. Baz didn’t have to work until later that evening, so our plan was to spend the morning and early afternoon on Dad’s list. We would catch a bus from downtown Hackensack to Englewood, then walk up the Palisades Parkway (where buses were not allowed), and stop at the first scenic overlook we came to. There, I would toss Dad off the cliffs of the Palisades and into the Hudson below. Even though it would mean we’d checked off two locations in two days, I felt an impending sense of dread. Of the five clues, the last three were by far the more obscure.
Mad pulled on her yellow knit cap. “Can’t Rachel just pick up your check when she gets hers?”
“Rachel quit,” said Baz. “It was only part-time while she finished nursing school. Now that she has, she got a job at Bergen Regional Medical Center.”
“Rachel is your girlfriend?” I asked.
“Quit trying to change the subject, Spoils,” said Coco. “Mad. Get your tools. Let’s do this.”
Mad grabbed some clippers and a pair of scissors off the Shelf of Improbable Things. “Think of it as a symbol, Vic. Your induction as a Chapter. An outward sign of, you know, something greater within.”
“Like baptism,” said Baz. “An outward sign of inward transformation.”
“Inward transformation,” said Mad, nodding. “Exactly. So what do you say?”
Honestly, after last night’s run-in with Gunther, I was just happy they were still talking to me. The Visine debacle almost cost them their home, which would’ve made me the sideways hug of the century.
So: I agreed to the haircut.
We put on our coats, exited Greenhouse Eleven, and started toward the woodshed. Mad handed me a hat, identical to hers only blue.
“You know, Mad, between this and the haircut, you’re pretty preoccupied with how I style my cranium.”
“That’s kind of a weird thing to say,” said Mad.
“It’s kind of a weird thing to be.”
Still. I put on the hat. It was incredibly comfy.
Baz explained that the idea to live in a greenhouse had come to him when he was considering new settings for his book. It had to be someplace cheap, of course, but he wanted it to be unique, too, bordering on “something out of a fantasy novel.”
I told him he’d pretty much hit the nail on the head.
We arrived at the woodshed, which, according to the kids, was the spot least frequented by Gunther Maywood. And since we couldn’t very well have dead hair all over our living quarters, it was to be the site of my haircut. Basically, the woodshed was this: a dilapidated half barn, total Americana chic, like one of my mom’s Restoration Hardware catalogs had grown hair on its chest. Inside, there was lots of wood, and lots of things made of wood.
The woodshed was a very literal place.
Mad pulled out a stool, dusted it off, and motioned for me to sit.
“Is this necessary?” I asked, looking for a way out (as sideways hugs are wont to do).
“A good shear is therapeutic,” said Mad, running her hand against the shaved side of her head.
Baz and Nzuzi sat in unfinished rocking chairs, while Coco hopped up on a table covered in sawdust, her tiny legs swinging in anticipation. Outmatched, I made my way to the stool and sat. Within seconds my ass was frozen.
“So, what are we doing here?” Mad studied my hair like a block of marble.
Coco clapped her mittens together. “Rattail!”
“What’s the funny one called?” asked Baz. “Business in the front, party in the back?”
“Ooooh, a mullet!” said Coco. “Even better.”
I tugged my new hat (which in a very brief time had become my fortress of wool, a material not known for its wartime prowess, but hey) down low over my ears. For a moment the only
noise was the sound of chairs squeaking as they rocked. And then . . .
“The Cinematic Sodapop,” whispered Mad.
“Oh, hell yes,” said Coco.
Nzuzi snapped once.
“Wait, the what?” I asked.
Mad unplugged some sort of ancient-looking electric saw, and plugged in the clippers. “It’s very cool. Well, not, like, cool in the traditional sense.”
“Oh, good,” I said, sticking my hands into the pockets of my Metpants. “We wouldn’t want anyone thinking I was cool in the traditional sense.”
Coco giggled from her belly. “Sodapop is a character in The Outsiders. Mad says Rob Lowe is dreamy.”
. . .
They had totally lost me.
Mad flipped the clippers on then off then on again, revving them up like the engine of a muscle car. “Sodapop—portrayed in the film by the very fine, very young Rob Lowe—had slightly different hair in the movie than he did the book. So, like, the Literary Sodapop would basically be what you have now, only with a little more shape, and combed straight back. The Cinematic Sodapop is badass in a fifties-slash-eighties sort of way. You basically leave some length on top, and on the sides, then it sort of, you know, tufts out in the back.”
“Tufts out?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I’ll rein it in a bit from how it is in the movie.” She set down the clippers, picked up the scissors, and snipped at the air. “We’ll start with these.”
As if I cared how she went about tearing down my wall.
“You ready?” she asked.
Before I could say, No, in fact, I am not, she pulled off my hat and got to work.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
And the sinking feeling in my gut went away.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
It had been a while since my last haircut.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
I forgot how much leaning and tilting there was.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
I forgot how much touching there was.
MAD
I reread the same paragraph for the fourth time, gave up, and closed the book. It took a lot to break my concentration, to pull me from my world of greasers and Socs, knife fights, and young love. The bus to Englewood did the trick (and then some) by combining the worst parts of Dante’s nine circles of Hell in a reeking smorgasbord of stale food and sweat and visceral misery. I couldn’t wait for the day Baz and Zuz got Renaissance Cabs up and running, and we could kiss public transportation good-bye.
If I’m even here when it happens.
I sipped the last of my coffee, stuck the empty cup in the pocket of the seat in front of me, and tried to focus on the reason we were here: Toss me off the Palisades. Had I not read the Terminal Note myself, I would have assumed Vic’s dad had an incredibly morbid sense of humor. But I’d heard the quiet depth and desperation in his written voice, and knew it was far from morbid. Should I ever be so unlucky as to be terminally ill, I could only hope to handle it with as much headstrong candor as Mr. Benucci had. Helping to toss him off the Palisades was the least I could do for the guy.
The Palisades were a row of steep cliffs lining a twenty-mile stretch of the Hudson River. After some discussion, we’d agreed that tossing some ashes off the first convenient overlook would do. Outside, snow-covered trees passed in a silvery blur. Behind me, Zuz snapped in time with the tires of the bus against the reflector lights on the highway. Coco sat next to me, snoring like a bear in hibernation, muffin crumbs all over the front of her jacket.
I shimmied forward in my seat, pressed my face between the two seats in front of me, where Baz and Vic sat.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” said Baz.
I couldn’t be sure, but over the course of the last few minutes, I thought I’d heard my name uttered a few times. I hopped up on my knees and peered down at the two of them. “You know that makes me crazy.”
“What?” said Baz.
“The whispering. About me. You got something you wanna say?”
They gazed up at me, then at each other. “We weren’t talking about you,” said Baz. “I was just telling Vic that Gunther Maywood is the only Chapter who doesn’t know he’s a Chapter, and how we just trade groceries and supplies for rent.”
“And if your book actually gets published?” asked Vic. “And he reads it? You don’t think he’d recognize his own orchard, or name for that matter?”
I’d had this conversation with Baz a few times—it was nice to see it play out with someone else.
“First off,” said Baz, “it’s not if my book gets published. It’s when. Secondly, as I told you before, all names will be changed. And lastly, the man is a recluse. He’ll never even know the book exists.”
“What about the Internet?” asked Vic.
I smiled down at Baz, wrinkled my forehead dramatically. “Yes, Baz, what about the Internet?”
Baz sighed, turned toward the window, and mumbled something under his breath. I looked at Vic, said, “I’ve been trying to tell him it doesn’t matter whether Gunther leaves the grounds. He’ll find out—”
“We were talking about you,” said Vic, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief.
“What?”
“Earlier. Before we moved on to Gunther, I asked Baz if you ever read anything other than The Outsiders. He said I should ask you about your theory.”
“Okay, well, the Hinton Vortex is not a theory, it’s a fact. The last lines of S. E. Hinton’s masterpiece are, word for word, the same as the first.” I grabbed the book, read the first paragraph, then flipped to the back and read the last. “Brilliant, right?”
“Right,” said Vic.
I shut the book, studied its cover. “You know, Hinton started writing this when she was fifteen. I’m almost eighteen, look what I’ve done. Nada.” Greatness had never been an aspiration of mine, but even so, who didn’t want to leave a mark? Something that said, I was fucking here. Remember me. “Anyway, I guess you could say I keep reading because I haven’t finished yet.”
“The Hinton Vortex,” said Vic.
I nodded. “The Hinton Vortex.”
“Vortex time!” Coco’s voice came out of nowhere. I wasn’t even sure when she woke up.
“What?”
She slid up a full foot in her seat, enough for her feet to touch the floor. “Every time you talk about the vortex, Mad, it makes me think of an amusement park ride or something. Welcome to the infinitous Vortex!”
“Infinitous isn’t a word, Coco.”
“Sure it is. To reflect, you know, the foreverness of a thing. Infinitous.”
I slid down in my seat, gazed out the window at the trees. “Coke, I love you, you know I do. But you are insane.”
She shrugged dramatically, leaned over my lap, and looked out the window too. “I’m not the one stuck in the infinitous of a story.”
VIC
From the Englewood bus stop it was about a two-mile walk to the bottom of the Palisades Parkway, where we ended up hitching a ride with a girl named Jane. We sat in the back of Jane’s SUV while she told us all about Stewart, her long-time boyfriend, now fiancé, who was an “aspiring car rental entrepreneur.”
This, I thought, sounded fairly wishy-washy.
But hey.
I sat in the far back passenger-side seat, and Mad was in the middle-back driver-side seat. Ergo, I had a direct line of vision to the right side of her face, and since I was slightly behind her, I could stare without getting caught.
I was an absolute ace at caddy-cornered-nonchalant-backseat staring, and these were prime conditions for my particular skill set. And so it was, staring at the right side of Mad’s face, I thought about her tone of voice when she spoke of young S. E. Hinton’s accomplishments. I watched her flip her hair to one side, all those waves in a single motion—and I wondered how
someone who could flip her hair with such angelic efficiency could sound so sad. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic balance, or secret human equilibrium. Here, you may take this lovely thing, but not without also taking this awful thing. Knock yourself out.
Here’s what wasn’t a maybe: everything Mad said, every delicate movement she made—from her hair, to her hands, to the way she read a book like it was the last thing on Earth worth doing—was pure verve and value.
If a poem could be a person, it would be Madeline Falco.
And hey. Maybe that was the secret human equilibrium.
Jane pulled over at the first official overlook: Rockefeller Lookout. There was a parking lot and a couple of high-tech, quarter-for-use binoculars. It was all very official.
“Thank you very much, Jane,” said Baz, hopping out of the SUV. “And many congratulations on your engagement.”
“Thanks, dude. You guys want me to hang around till you’re done seeing the sights? I’m totally fascinated watching people watch things.”
. . .
“That’s a pretty strange fascination you got there, Jane,” said Coco. “Anyway, we’re not sightseeing. Vic here is tossing his dad off the cliff.”
The look on Jane’s face turned rascally. Like, clearly this wasn’t her first go at driving a pack of wayward kids up to a cliff so one of them could toss a dead parent into the Hudson.
“Right on, my man,” said Jane, winking and shooting gun-fingers at me. Peugh! Peugh! Peugh! “Careful you don’t toss yourself over with him!”
As Jane drove off, we stood in an uncomfortable silence. Some people, you spend any amount of time with them, and things make sense. Of course Jane was engaged to an aspiring car rental entrepreneur. I could not speak for the others, but after five or so minutes with the girl, I, too, felt like an aspiring car rental entrepreneur.
I put on the blue knit cap; Mad put on her yellow one, then lit a cigarette, and we all stared at the old SUV as it disappeared down the snowy highway.
Coco reached for Baz’s hand. “Frakking freak show, that one.”
Baz just nodded.
* * *