The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters

by M. J. Beaufrand

  I got beneath the ladder to hold it steady. I kicked the stops into place.

  “Have you got her?” I called up. Nothing.

  From below, I watched as Evan grabbed something long and red. Jaime’s arm? Come on come on heave! I willed him. With a giant grunt he pulled, and she came out onto his lap. Her skin was red as a lobster’s. Everything about her was slack and unmoving.

  “Is she breathing?” I called up, and then I was slammed forward. My head hit concrete.

  I rolled over to see what had hit me. Blood was dripping from my forehead into my eyes, but I could still make out Little Pfeffer standing over me. “You g-g-got no right,” he said. “She was m-m-mine.”

  He was nursing his twisted wrist. He probably couldn’t throw a punch. He didn’t need to. He was like me. He was a kicker. He got a running start and slammed a penny loafer on the side of my head. And he kept slamming—my nuts, my ribs, my kidneys, my ears. I tried to kick back, to make him go over, but nothing seemed to stop him.

  I curled myself into a ball, willing him to stop. But the kicks kept coming and coming.

  Snickt!

  The pounding let up.

  I dared to uncurl myself. Little Pfeffer was still standing above me, but a glazed look had come over his eyes. His hand was at his throat as though he were the one drowning. Then came the blood. At first just a trickle under his left ear. Then there was a waterfall of it coming from all around his neck.

  He fell forward, right onto me.

  I kicked and pushed and finally managed to get him off. Above me, Terrence wiped his hunting knife on his filthy pants. He offered me a hand. “You all right, son?” he said, dusting me off. “You probably cracked a rib or two.”

  I wiped blood from my eyes. “Jaime?” I asked.

  Terrence glanced up at the rolling stairs.

  I knew Jaime was alive because she was shaking. Evan had her face pressed against his velvet jacket. “Don’t look,” he said to her, staring down at us in horror and relief. Then he started humming a soft lullaby to her, the way Cilla used to do to me when things got to be too much.

  “That boy up there,” Terrence said. “He’s not bad in a fight.” Then he spat heroically. Right on Little Pfeffer’s face.

  I heard voices in the distance, but I couldn’t make out where they were coming from.

  I looked down at the spreading pool of blood at my feet. Little Pfeffer wasn’t getting up. He couldn’t hurt any more girls.

  Poor Terrence. What was going to happen to him? He’d saved all our lives.

  I looked to Ziggy to say something, but he was blurry around the edges. And no wonder—when I brought my hand up to my right eye, I found it puffing up like a golf ball.

  But I could still see the monster at my feet. “I don’t know how this is going to go for you, Terrence. If you like, I can say I did it.” And I meant it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been in this kind of trouble.

  “Don’t be an idiot, boy. You got your whole life in front of you. Me?” He scratched his head using the handle of his hunting knife. His tinfoil crown slid over just a bit, exposing the skin covering the gray jelly of his damaged brain. Only, now I wondered how damaged it really was. “I don’t do so well on the outside.”

  I heard voices calling my name.

  “Over here!” I called back. I knew this place was a maze. I knew I should get Willy. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Evan and Jaime, two stories above, and yet so far away they were in a story of their own. One that didn’t include me.

  But had I wanted to be the star of this particular show? Had I wanted to be the hero of her life? Did I want to be the one pressing her, grateful and trembling, against me while I hushed her down with lullabies?

  It was only now, when I saw them together, that I realized the answer was yes.

  Too late.

  Ziggy came into focus. He was standing by my side. I realized he’d always been there. I felt something feathery brush my hair, and it was like a blessing. “Do you see now, lad?”

  I could only nod. Because I did see.

  I saw the way Evan smiled when he held her close and whispered in her ear. There would be no thanks, ’bye for this girl.

  I understood what I should’ve known since the seventh grade with that stupid game of Mafia when he told me later that I should’ve killed Jaime last: She had always been the one Evan wanted. And then he’d gotten sick, and too scared to make a move.

  I didn’t know how long he’d been holding back this little tidbit from me, or why. Maybe he didn’t know if I’d approve.

  I like to think that since he’d told me about his operation, he would’ve eventually told me about Jaime, but now he didn’t have to. I could see for myself, I could hear it in the way he hummed.

  I listened to my breath whistle in and out and watched them through unreliable eyes.

  More than anything, I understood that, much as I might have wished differently, this was the only way it could be—Ev was the one to save her, and I was the one left down here in a spreading pool of blood.

  After all: He’s the angel of the story.

  And me? I’m the one who did what needed to be done.

  I heard Willy calling again. Closer this time.

  “Over here!” I called back.

  There were more footsteps. Lots of them. Then Willy grabbed me by the arms, and, no matter how disgusting I was, all busted up and covered in blood, he hugged me like I was his own child. It hurt, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t want him to let me go.

  But he did, and stood back. “Oh god. Not again, Noah. What happened to you? Are you all right? Where’s Jaime?” He didn’t need my help on that one. He heard the sobs, and soft humming, and looked up.

  He tugged on his mustache, and as he pulled his hand away from his face, years of worry seemed to come away with it. I didn’t care what Crock said: Willy was an okay guy. A defender of people who needed defending.

  “And the suspect?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I lifted my arm, as though it was what I’d been put on this planet to do, and I pointed.

  “HE DIDN’T HAVE AN ACCENT,” JAIME SAID in the PfefferBrau break room a little later. The place was crackling with activity. Or maybe it was just static from the walkie-talkies of a dozen police officers who came in and out and took a lot of statements. Medics came and put blankets over us, but Jaime was the only one who needed one. When Ev had fished her out she’d been red all over, like she’d been boiled. But gradually her color was fading back to normal, even if her smell wasn’t.

  A cool shower and fresh clothes could fix that.

  The rest of us got blankets and Cheez Doodles and foam cups of coffee, plus a steak for my puffed-up eye. Too bad I couldn’t put a steak on my ribs too, and draw out the breakages.

  Yeah. I thought I’d been worked over before, but that was nothing compared to getting my ass kicked by a 250-pound psycho bodybuilder. He’d been dead for an hour and I still felt shock waves, like he was slamming me against the floor over and over again.

  Jaime went on: “I handed Pfeffer a Coke and he said, ‘Thank you.’ Didn’t sound German at all. I suppose it could’ve meant a lot of things. I don’t know why it creeped me out, but it did. I told him I had to go to the bathroom, mostly so I could get away without offending him. Can you believe it? I still thought the worst thing he could do was kick us out.”

  Jay was sitting in an elaborate oak chair that might’ve been a throne. Lions were carved into the armrests. Ev’s velvet jacket was draped around her shoulders, and Ev himself was draped around that. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. He was acting like it was painful for there to be even an inch of space between them. And Jaime kept looking up at him, like she couldn’t believe that Evan had such a profile, and that he was smiling a lopsided, soft smile at her.

  Willy was taking notes on a flip pad. “And then what happened?”

  “I’m not really sure, it was so sudden. One second I wa
s looking for the bathroom, and the next he jumped me.” Her lower lip started to wobble. “I tried to scream but he covered my mouth and told me that I couldn’t just hand him a Coke like that and then walk away, that I was a tease and that it wasn’t his fault.”

  “What wasn’t his fault?” Sonia said.

  “Killing me, I guess.” She took a deep breath and leaned in closer to Ev. “He even tried to shut me up by singing a lullaby. He was a horrible singer. I kept thinking Noah would’ve had a cow.”

  I smiled. Bad idea. I almost spat out another molar.

  Bad singer. Not German. Who knew?

  Although, now that I looked around, the clues were there. The break room was decorated with posters of guys in lederhosen drinking foamy beer from giant steins; snowy Alps; and a white, princessy castle standing on a forested hilltop. The vending machines stocked Toblerone and Lindt chocolate.

  They were trying too hard to be German—Jurgen with his Eurotrash suits, Arnie with his blond flattop—and the whole city had bought it. How pathetic were we?

  Over the next few weeks, we’d learn from newspapers and TV that Jurgen and Arnie were actually George and Alf Cross. When Alf’s charming little party trick of making teenage girls disappear threatened to catch up to them in their hometown of Cleveland, George suggested not only that they move here to the end of the map (where, among other things, there was more wilderness to bury bodies), but that they reinvent themselves.

  Look at us. We’re both blond. We could be German. What do German guys do? They drink a lot of beer. I know—we’ll buy a brewery! It’s brilliant!

  I was disgusted with all of us. Except Evan and Jaime. And Willy. And Terrence, who had blood on his hands so I wouldn’t have any on mine. I closed my good eye. I didn’t know where he was now, but I hoped that, wherever it was, he was getting the medical attention he needed and deserved.

  Now there was a scuffle outside the break room door.

  “Let me through, man! I need to see the kids!”

  I heard a female officer say, “Are you immediate family?”

  “Hell, yeah. I’m their roadie.”

  The break room door opened a crack and then closed again without anyone coming through. Our police guard must’ve realized that “roadie” wasn’t mother or father. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  I heard Jojo yell. He actually raised his voice. “Don’t patronize me, lady . . .”

  “Sir—”

  “I once spent three days covered in mud at Woodstock so I could haul around amps for the Who.”

  “Sir—”

  “I smoked reefer with John Lennon . . .”

  “Sir—”

  “And did coke with David Bowie in the back room of Max’s Kansas City.”

  “Sir, if you’re not a parent or legal guardian, you can’t . . . Wait, you’ve met Bowie?”

  Jojo’s voice quieted. “Yeah. Way back when he was still gay. Or at least he thought he was. But he wasn’t gay with me. At least, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that . . .”

  Willy cracked open the door. “It’s all right, DeeDee. Let him in.”

  Jojo came swaggering through and took in the scene— me sitting on one table, trying not to look pulped, and Evan draped around Jaime like a blanket.

  “Evan! Dude!” Jojo said. “You finally made your move! That is so awesome. Whoa, Noah. Do you realize you’re wearing eight ounces of chuck?”

  I took the steak off my eye.

  Jojo turned to Willy, still wearing his Hawaiian shirt but now with a badge hanging over his belt. “I thought you said they were all right.”

  “They are,” Willy said. “Noah here took the biggest pounding.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve had the most practice getting knocked around.”

  “Don’t think that, dude. Don’t ever think that. No one ever deserves to get busted up the way you did. Hey, are those Cheez Doodles?”

  I handed him the bag I didn’t even realize I was holding and put the steak back over my eye.

  He took it and hopped up next to me on the octagonal lunch table.

  Willy flicked his notepad shut. “I think that’s all we need for now. Let’s get Jaime home and cleaned up.”

  Jaime spoke so softly, I almost didn’t hear her.

  “Come again, hon?” Willy said.

  “I said, I wanna play our set. We’ve been practicing for months. I feel like, if we don’t play tonight, those two psychos win. And I don’t want them to win.”

  “Jay. Sweetie,” Jojo said, his mouth outlined in neon-orange dust. “You’re breathing. They’ve already lost.”

  Evan added, “You don’t have to do this, you know. You’ve been through a lot. There’ll be other gigs.” He wouldn’t look at me, as if in not looking at me, he could make me shut up about the fact that there wouldn’t be other gigs. Which meant that, however much he wanted to be a rock star, he wanted Jaime more. And again I wondered how I could’ve missed it. All that longing—it should have made him as raw as this piece of beef covering my right eye. And it probably did.

  I must’ve been in a world of my own.

  Jaime went on: “Look, I know what I’m asking. If I go home now, I’m a survivor. Just me. But if we play, then all of us are something more. I’m asking you. Please don’t make the one image I see before I go to sleep tonight be that sicko with his throat cut.”

  And that was when Evan kissed her. I mean really kissed her, like if he tried, he could scour her brain with his tongue.

  The room was filled with static and feet shuffling and other sounds of people trying not to look.

  Jojo nudged me. “Cheez Doodle?”

  Willy cleared his throat loudly to make Evan break away. “I wish I could help you. I really do. But we’ve got to close this place down. It’s going to take forensics months to go over everything as it is. They tend to frown on having hordes of kids trampling evidence. They’re funny that way.”

  Jojo hopped down from the table. “No prob. I got this one. Come on, Noah. Leave the steak here.”

  I slapped the raw meat down on the table and followed him out, going slowly because with every step I felt like I was being skewered by my own ribs. At some point I’d have to get Dr. Tillstrom to fix me up. Again. Something told me that he wouldn’t mind. With the Pfeffer brothers out of the way, our gallivanting days were almost over.

  But not quite.

  The break room must’ve been soundproof, because as soon as I stepped out, I heard a dull roar. I looked at the pipes running along the ceiling. What kind of brew made that noise? It got louder as we wove down a bunch of corridors, left and left and left again. I felt like some kind of Greek hero, who slew the monster and now had to get out of the labyrinth.

  We climbed up a half set of stairs that were camouflaged by a pile of kegs, emerging behind the loading dock stage that opened onto the courtyard.

  The roar hadn’t come from the brew—it had come from the crowd. The whole courtyard was a mosh pit of kids, slamming each other forward, ready to start a riot.

  Deputy Chief Simmons was there, decked out in gold gewgaws. He was standing in front of the mic, urging calm. I wondered how he could possibly think he could control a riot of teenagers when he was wearing something that was obviously polyester.

  “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. I’m going to have to ask you all to disperse and go home.”

  It didn’t work. Kids hurled questions at him, and someone even pitched a gray sausage onto the dock.

  Jojo had his arms tucked into his armpits. “The guy’s got no idea what makes a good intro,” he said, and strode out onto the stage, his arms lifted high in a victory sign. And even though nobody probably knew who he was, they all cheered him anyway.

  Jojo grabbed the mic away from Deputy Chief Simmons and tapped it.

  “This thing on?” A hush settled over everyone. I felt like the whole city was waiting. “Who wants to hear some rock �
��n’ roll?” I thought the roar of the crowd had been loud before. But when they yelled now, you could hear it in outer space. “Well, all right, then! Party at Jojo’s Records!”

  THE SIGHT OF JOJO’S BACK, TRIUMPHANT, whipping up the crowds to a celebratory frenzy—that’s a memory I love.

  There are other memories I keep of that year, but I don’t treasure them as much. I don’t even really like them, but I guard them anyway. Even if, by some miracle, someone came up to me and said, “I can take them from you, just for a while, so you can rest,” I wouldn’t give them up, because I don’t trust anyone other than me not to forget.

  And so I scrub them down and polish them up at night after the lights go out so I can keep them fresh.

  To begin with, there’s my first sight of Evan’s bald skull and the line of black sutures, like ants, all around it. Or the look on Jaime’s face when the surgeon told us he couldn’t get all the tumors from Evan’s head and urged us to get a second opinion.

  Or the club gig in August, at Luis La Bamba, when Ev, bald and bewigged, had to play sitting in a camp chair because chemo had made him too weak even to stand up.

  And then there was that little scene in Emanuel Hospital over Labor Day weekend, when Jaime told Ev she wasn’t going to go to her swanky New England college after all. He was so mad he threw everything he could at her. Lemon Jell-O. A vase of tulips. A bedpan, thankfully empty.

  Or how, right after Jaime and Evan’s colossal bedpanflinging fight, I found Jaime in the hospital courtyard, sitting next to a planter of wilted purple flowers. She was all hunched over and racked with sobs, and she looked at me with snot running all over her face and told me she didn’t blow off college completely, that she’d just deferred until January. “Mom says any longer and she’ll lose the security deposit. She says we have to be practical. She asked me if I thought Evan would linger longer than that, and I said no. Can you believe it? I sped up his death for five hundred bucks.”

  I told her it wasn’t her fault, and that Ev appreciated her sticking around even though he didn’t show it. I told her that it had been her mom’s idea to defer, so she had nothing to blame herself for. But I know what really wrecked her, which was that there was no going back. We’d put a timeline on Evan’s life—something even the doctors wouldn’t do, and that from now on it would take some serious stagecraft to make Ev think we still believed that anything was possible.