by Lisa Mangum
I was sixteen and at a high school party near Globe, Arizona, where I grew up. Tommy and I fought over a girl whose name I can’t even remember. We were both drunk, and I was trying to leave and he wouldn’t get out of the way, banging on the hood of my old Toyota pickup and screaming at me while I revved the engine. My foot slipped off the clutch and …
It was big news in Arizona. I did my time in the juvenile system, had my records sealed, but people around here remember my name. That’s why I changed it, even though it broke my dad’s heart. That’s the reason behind the whole fake Australian thing. That’s why my life is such a—
“What?” I ask. Irene had just said something.
She smiles and points at the vitamin water. “Can I have one of those? The purple one, please.”
I blink at her a few times and nod, grabbing two of the plastic bottles and handing them to her. I turn my back on the obscene array of alcohol. Maybe tonight I can sleep without the beer.
* * *
I’m not thinking well. I drive right to my ten acres, a few miles from the Circle K, and pull in. Irene is babbling on like happy kids do, her words bright shards bouncing around my car. My fatigue and her happiness seem to lull me into a peaceful state. She goes on and on that when she grows up she’s going to make a “My Little Unicorn” toy for girls, like the one already made for horses. That since unicorns are real, and once she finds one and gets her picture taken with it, everyone girl in the world will want one.
I still haven’t told her about the harness.
“Maybe instead of ‘My Little Unicorn,’” she says as I unlock the door to my dingy single-wide trailer, “I will name it after you.” She’s beaming at me now, like I’m someone important. “I’ll call it ‘Unicorn Bright.’ That’s a wonderful name.”
I step into the house and am nodding when the clenched fist of Alligator Boots connects with my jaw, fiery pain radiating through the left side of my face. He was waiting behind the door.
As I go down, I curse my fatigue. He had tailed me long enough to get a look at my license plate. From there it wasn’t hard to get my address or break in.
Irene screams and our food goes tumbling to the floor. On my way down I get a look at the chaotic mess of my living room. Dust covering the flat screen, piles of clothes, trash, dirty carpet.
I have a horrible realization: If I can’t take care of my own living room, how am I going to take care of Irene? The thought doesn’t last long. My head bounces off the carpet with a sharp crack and darkness descends.
* * *
I wake up with a start, the light of the full moon shining above me, hard ground below me, and cool air on my skin. My head is pounding and my jaw aches. My mouth is dry and my stomach clenches. I roll over and try to vomit, but there’s nothing in me.
I hear the snort of a horse and bolt upright, the motion making my stomach try to empty itself again.
“Stand up,” Alligator Boots says. He’s mounted on what looks like a purple unicorn, a white horn jutting from its forehead, its coat a dark purple. In the moonlight it’s hard to see the harness on the horse’s head, but I know it’s there.
“Why might I be doing that?” I ask, trying to hide the pain and desperation in my voice.
“Because if you don’t, it will go badly for the girl.”
We’re back behind my trailer. It used to be a horse corral, back when I could afford to keep a horse. Now it’s a falling down fence and a weedy expanse of dirt. Back behind the horse and Alligator Boots, I see the trailer, my El Camino, and his F-150 with a horse trailer attached.
“What?” I ask, trying desperately to get my mind to turn over.
Alligator Boots staged Edwardo Campos’s death as an attack by a unicorn. Why? So Irene, a little girl obsessed with unicorns, would see it. Would talk about it. Would be dismissed. He put Edwardo’s blood on that bull’s horn. He also took something from the safe, just papers and not money.
This was all about Irene. The way her great-uncle had died had been a show for her.
Alligator Boots points to his right and I see Irene. She’s tied to one of my cheap plastic chairs. She’s gagged and her eyes are wide, her cheeks stained with tears.
I nod, make a show of getting up, and then slump back to the ground with a grunt. “What is it you needed from that safe?” I’m leaning on my right side, where my bowie knife should be, but he’s taken it.
“Stand up!” he yells.
“You’re the ranch hand Mr. Campos had a recent falling out with, ain’t ya? The one that was once like a son to him.”
He pulls a gun from his side and points it at Irene. “Stand. Now.” He’s not yelling anymore and that’s a bad sign.
I slowly get into a squatting position. I feel in my right boot. That knife is still there.
I remember what Sanchez had told me about Edwardo Campos’s recently remembered stock. What the bartender at Sugar and Spice had said when I showed him Edwardo’s picture. How Edwardo had hinted to Irene that things were about to change for her.
“He wrote you out of his will,” I say as I pull the knife from my boot and hold it behind my back, shakily standing up. “That’s what ya took, the will that left everything to Irene. I’m guessing he hadn’t signed it yet, but was about to. He had told all his buddies at Sugar and Spice about his windfall, about how he was leaving it all to his delightful niece that loves unicorns and the color purple. Someone there told ya.”
Alligator Boots doesn’t speak. He spurs the horse hard, and it leaps forward. As I stand there, I have empathy for Edwardo Campos. He came out in the middle of the night under the bright moonlight expecting a coyote and saw a galloping unicorn bearing down on him. He had the shotgun in his hand, but he didn’t use it. His grandniece had been babbling about unicorns, and now seeing one made him dumb for an instant, just one small instant.
Adrenaline dumps into my bloodstream, my heart pounding in my ears in time with the thundering of the hooves. But I don’t move. I stand there swaying, still trying to get my bearings, hoping my body still remembers my time at the rodeo.
I wonder what Detective Sanchez will do if she finds my body just like Edwardo’s, if she has a hysterical girl that talks about yet another man being run through by a purple unicorn. Once, she might brush off, twice, never. It’s all over for Alligator Boots, even if I don’t survive. This thought gives me comfort. Briefly.
But what of Irene? I remember how she clung to me outside Sugar and Spice, how she sat so close to me in the El Camino, how she held my hand in the Circle K. It felt strange, but good, to be depended on. My eyes flick to her. I can’t hear her over the pounding hooves or through her gag, but it’s clear she’s screaming.
The unicorn is upon me. I smell dust, paint, and its sweat. I quickly rotate my body around, moving just to the side. I pull the knife from behind my back. I do what I need to do.
* * *
I wake up slowly and groan, realizing I’m fully dressed again. I’m slumped in a half-seated position, my lower back and my neck aching, my mouth dry as the desert.
“Take it easy.” I’m not sure who it is at first, a woman with a sweet voice. Helen.
And then the events of the last day tumble onto me like a monsoon cloudburst. I bolt upright and open my eyes. “Irene,” I croak.
“She’s fine,” Helen says, putting a hand on my back, a gentle smile on her lips.
“Where is she?” Part of me feels silly. I hardly know the girl. Another part of me is desperate for her to be okay.
“CPS came while you were sleeping. She’s just fine, Conner.”
I nod and rub at my face, trying to wake myself up, feeling several days of stubble. I remember the charging unicorn. I remember rotating out of the way and jamming my knife through one of those alligator skin boots. I remember him screaming and falling off that spray-painted horse, struggling to get up. Me punching him in the face. Him lying still. Untying Irene. Her sobbing and clinging to me while I call Detective Sanchez.
Helen is looking at me, her soft blue eyes searching my face like I’m not the man she knows.
I remember what it had felt like as Irene clung to me while we waited for the sheriff’s deputies to arrive. How the ambulance had come and I had refused it and Irene had refused to leave me. How they had hauled Alligator Boots away. How Helen had finally come and we had gone into the trailer. I had given Irene my bed and held her hand for hours until she fell asleep and then stumbled out to the couch. Helen had insisted on staying.
“That horn,” Helen says, pulling out her phone and showing me a picture that looks like a whale with a unicorn horn sticking out of its head. “It was real. This is a narwhal, that tusk is some crazy tooth.”
It all makes sense … except for how I feel.
I look up to the tin of ashes on top of my entertainment center. I lever myself up, stumble over, and say, “Hey, Dad. The girl’s safe.” I reach down, my head screaming at me, and pick up a stray piece of paper, a microwave burrito wrapper.
“What are you doing?” Helen asks.
“I’m cleaning up.” She’s staring at me, like she doesn’t know me. Like we’ve never danced or touched or had meals together. “Will you help me?”
* * *
The door is a faded yellow and the neighborhood’s somewhat faded, too. It might have been cheery three decades ago, but now it’s looking a little sad.
It’s been ten days since I met Irene, and two days since I’ve had a drink. I would have come sooner, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t do it unless I had been dry for at least two days. My hand is shaking as I knock.
A plump woman with a pinched face answers the door.
“I’m here to see Irene,” I say. “I called earlier.”
She nods, lets me in, and leaves me in the living room. There’s a TV playing loudly with strange blue creatures on it dancing around. There’s a couple of kids, much younger than Irene, watching it, their eyes wide.
And then she’s there. This time I’m expecting it and kneel down before she gets to me. “You okay?” I whisper.
She hugs me hard. She nods and sniffs. I can feel her tears on my shoulder. I can feel my own tears on my cheek. “What took you so long?” She says it gently but it feels like a horse kicked me in the chest.
“I was … I …” I stammer. “I was trying to …” I can’t finish. I can’t tell this girl that I was trying to be worthy of her. That I have been ever since we met. That I will be as long as she’ll have me.
I don’t know if she understands, but she hugs me even harder and that’s enough.
***
My Hero
Mark Ryan
Based in the VilleAnne universe created by Peter J. Wacks and Steven L. Sears
“Do really think you’ll find anything for him here?” Jill asked.
Christine shrugged and let loose a sigh. “He’s always been a fan of Star Wars, but you just can’t find the original collectibles anymore.” She gestured to a cheap plastic Millennium Falcon that was missing several pieces. “He goes on and on about the ones he had when he was younger.”
“Good luck finding any in a thrift shop.” Jill lifted a piece of a china set to examine the price.
Christine smiled as she picked through the shelves of collectibles. The thrift store was huge and filled with all manner of junk, or treasure, depending on one’s perspective. A set of giant, hot cocoa mugs caught her attention.
“Alora, what do you think of these?” She turned with one of the mugs in hand. “Where did she run off to?”
“Probably looking for Supers toys.” Jill scanned the store. “Though, I doubt she’ll find any of those, either.”
Christine let out another sigh. “I’d better find her before she breaks something that just went up in price.” She weaved her way back to the main aisle of the store and started scanning the offshoots.
It didn’t take her long to find her daughter once she saw the giant banner labeled toys. Jill was right about the Supers toys. They were expensive to say the least, and some were incredibly rare. It was no surprise when all the money from the merchandise of heroes like Darkest Knight went to charities, for education or something like that.
She came up behind her daughter and put her hands on her hips. “I believe I asked you to stay close.”
Alora turned and looked at her with an innocent smile, holding up a toy. “Mommy, what’s this?”
Shock hit Christine, making her heart skip a beat. Sinking to her knees, she gently took the soft plastic toy. It was a Twilight Sparkle purple unicorn. Its left hind leg was warped from heat, and strands of its glittery mane and tail were melted into clumps. The left eye had been lovingly, though poorly, painted back on the slightly drooping face.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?”
Tears splashed on the purple unicorn.
* * *
The smell of pancakes filled the air as the cheer of the crowd blared out of the tinny-sounding speakers mounted into the giant wooden television.
“Christine, breakfast is ready,” her father called from the kitchen.
She barely heard him, continuing to watch the televised parade with fascination. Yesterday was Supersday, and Xonometer—her favorite Super—had been front and center. To top it off, today was her tenth birthday. Xonometer raised a muscled arm and waved at the crowd, his silver, power-augmenting armor—highlighted with crimson and blue—glinting in the bright sunlight.
“Christine?” her father called again.
“Just a minute,” she said absently.
“Come and eat now, before your pancakes get cold,” her mother added.
Heaving an oppressed sigh, she tore her eyes from the screen and plodded into the kitchen.
“Good morning, birthday girl,” Jim said as he curled the newspaper in half and peered over it through his thick spectacles at his daughter’s wild, sleep-messed hair. He was already showered and clean-shaven, his wavy dark hair neatly combed and parted.
Christine tried to hide her smile as she rubbed her brown eyes. He hadn’t been home for breakfast in longer than she could remember; he was usually at work before the sun rose. She pulled a chair away from the table and sat, savoring the sweet smell of pancakes that hung in the air, mingling with the tang of freshly cut grass. The droning of several neighbors mowing their lawns before the summer day grew too warm hummed a slightly dissonant harmony that drifted in through the open windows alongside a cool breeze.
Slipping a third small cake on the top of a stack, her mother set the plate on the table in front of Christine. She was an Englishwoman. Blonde-haired, blued-eyed, and as beautiful as the day her father had met her, or so he always said.
“Thank you,” Christine said drowsily as she reached for the syrup. She usually got only two pancakes, but she was ten now.
Her mother leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Happy birthday, honey,” she said as she smoothed her daughter’s dark, curly hair. “What are you two going to do today?”
“You’re not joining us?” Jim asked, his eyes following her as she returned to the stove and placed the pan back on the burner before adding a dollop of batter.
“I have to get the house cleaned up before my parents arrive, or were you not listening when I told you they were coming?”
Jim’s mouth hung open for a moment, making him look slightly imbecilic. “That’s right. I’m sorry, Diane. It slipped my mind.”
Diane brought the coffeepot to the table where she filled his empty mug, kissing him on the top of his head. “How many pancakes would you like?” she asked as she turned away.
“Three sounds about right.” He stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee.
Pancakes now thoroughly saturated in syrup, Christine cut away a large bite and stuffed it into her mouth. The rich buttery taste of the cake, mixed with the sweet caramel of the syrup, made her eyelids droop with pleasure as she chewed blissfully. Pancakes were he
r favorite.
The telephone’s obnoxiously loud ringing rattled the end table in the family room. Christine stopped chewing and her eyes locked on her father. Her mother’s eyes did the same. The phone rang several more times and went silent.
“Did you hear something?” Jim said as he looked up from his paper. Christine started giggling as she began to chew again.
“Chris, honey, don’t laugh with your mouth full,” Diane said, smiling happily at Jim. She flopped a cake onto a plate and added more batter to the sizzling pan.
“What do you want to do today?” Jim asked as he set his paper aside.
Christine swallowed and peered around the room, searching. “We could start with opening presents.”
“Presents?” her father teased. “What presents?”
Christine rolled her eyes and looked at her mother, doing her best to imitate the expression she had seen on her face so many times. Jim took a drink of his coffee, hiding his grin as he looked at his wife, who rolled her eyes from Christine to him in the same fashion. Coffee splashed from his mug as he nearly choked.
“Serves you right for teasing her like that, Jim.” Diane flopped another cake onto his stack.
“What did you get me?” Christine asked.
He dabbed at the coffee soaking into his shirt with a napkin. “I’ll go get them,” he said and rose from the table.
Diane flashed her daughter a grin.
Jim returned a few moments later with two presents. One that was haphazardly wrapped with what appeared to be as much tape as paper, and another that was so perfectly decorated it seemed almost a shame to tear the paper. “Which do you want first?”
Christine eyed the presents, scrunching her nose, trying to decide which of her parents had guessed her desires more accurately. Going against her instincts, she took a chance and pointed to the disastrously wrapped present. The grin on her father’s face widened as he handed over the gift he had picked for her.
Her mother settled the last pancake on her father’s stack and brought the plate to the table, setting it in front of him. She put her hand on his shoulder as he sat.