by Alan Janney
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said honestly.
“I just checked. You haven’t sent those pictures to anyone. Or read my mail. How noble. And unusual.”
“You can delete them if it would make you feel better.”
“No,” she said. “I believe in you.”
“Good.”
“So,” she said, and she leaned forward to examine me more closely through squinted eyes. “I gave that reporter an inaccurate description of you. You don’t wear the bandanna around your mouth. It keeps your hair out of your face. You don’t wear it like a stagecoach robber.”
I nodded.
She mused, “I guess ‘The Outlaw’ isn’t a very good name for you.”
“I like the name. I especially like it when hoodlums scream it and run away.”
She laughed and said, “They do that?”
I nodded and said, “You should try it with your mask sometime.”
“That would be a disaster. You’d have to come rescue me again from the hoodlums.”
“I would enjoy that,” I said.
“Please take your mask off?” she asked. I shook my head, and she asked, “How am I going to kiss you with that on?”
I arched an eyebrow, hoping she didn’t hear my breath catch.
“Well,” she smiled boldly. “I’ll have to get creative. When the time is right.”
I couldn’t breathe! When would the time be right???
“Did you just happen to be in the neighborhood when I texted you?” she asked.
My heart had restarted but I was a little lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. “My Batcave is nearby.”
She laughed and looked around quizzically. “How did you get up here, anyway?”
“Quietly.”
“I’m really going to be disappointed if you’re my neighbor Frank.”
I chuckled. “I’m not Frank.”
“Can we hold hands?”
I held out my hand and she scooted closer. Her smile was eager, but she reached out tentatively. She touched my fingertips.
“You’re real,” she said and slid her hand up mine until our palms were touching. “In my mind you’re something other than human.” She pressed her fingers between mine and rubbed my skin with her thumb. My hands dwarfed hers. “Not an alien, but just…like a dream. Because of the rescue. And then that police report from the other night. And who knows what else. But you feel like a man.”
“You don’t feel like a movie star. You feel like a woman.”
“I’m not a woman,” she frowned. “I’m still a girl.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen, but just barely,” she said.
“Nineteen?” I asked, stunned. “I thought you were older than that.”
“I’m an adult,” she said defensively. “How old are you? No wait. I’ll guess.”
“Okay,” I said. I’d have to lie if I didn’t want her to laugh at me.
“Twenty-five?”
“No.”
“Older?”
“Closer to your age,” I said.
“Good,” she beamed, and then her phone started ringing. The suddenness of the noise caught us both off guard and she jumped and started giggling. The joy on her face faded to disgust when she saw the screen. “Ugh. My ex-boyfriend.”
“Whoever he is, turn him off.”
She didn’t answer immediately but regarded me closely, penetratingly. “Do you really not know?”
“Not know what?”
“Who my ex-boyfriend is?”
“How would I know that?” I asked, genuinely befuddled.
“Wow,” she said. “You live in the wrong city. Our breakup was splashed across every magazine in every store. I figured all of Los Angeles was as sick of it as I was.”
“I’m not very good at pop culture,” I said.
“That is one of the reasons I’m so unrelentingly drawn to you.”
“You need healthier hobbies,” I told her.
“You are a healthier hobby,” she said, her eyes fixating on something past my shoulder like she could see her thoughts there. “Earlier today a photographer at the grocery store offered me twenty thousand dollars to pull up my shirt for the camera.”
I didn’t say anything, just listened.
“I ignored him, so he upped the price and said he’d split the profits with me after he sold the pictures. And the sad part is? That does not happen infrequently. The cameramen don’t ask that stuff when my body guard is around, but we don’t hire him during the school year. My attorney was trying to track down and keep a file on the worst of them, but there are too many to get restraining orders. I just have to live with it. So whenever I need lettuce or lemons or something, I go wondering if I’m going to be humiliated in front of an entire store. And when Dillon and I broke up, I couldn’t go anywhere. I was trapped. If I frowned even once in public I knew it’d be on the television that night.”
She was silent for a minute, as still as a statue except for her hair, which stirred in the fall breeze. She said, “I wish I could see your face. Then I could read your reactions.”
“Sorry,” I said, and I was. Being a stoic superhero, even pretending to be one, didn’t allow me much emotional leeway.
“Anyway, that’s why I’ve enjoyed communicating with you. I was thrilled to be interviewed by that reporter Teresa, because it wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about a movie. She asked me questions about somebody else. Someone exciting. Someone who didn’t care about my summer box-office numbers.”
I became aware that somehow during her conversation she’d gotten closer to me. Much closer. Our knees were touching. She had a hungry glint in her eyes.
“You’re a mystery,” she continued, her words speeding up and growing hotter. “And you’re immense, and you’re strong, and you’re sexy, and dashing, and you’re not pursuing me, and I don’t have to worry about your motives. You’re safe, but you’re exciting and scary. I feel like I’m cheating on America with you, like we’re having a covert affair. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to normal, because it’s a crush the public doesn’t know about and I’m free to fantasize about you.”
And then she was in my lap and I was helpless.
“Oh gosh,” she groaned as her fingers pushed into my chest and rubbed up to my shoulders. “You’re even more perfect than I thought you’d be,” she sighed and her forehead was touching mine, her nose brushing my nose. “You’re not wearing body armor like Batman. This outfit is just tightly stretched across your muscles, like…like Spiderman. How’d you get like this? Why are your arms so big? Why is your waist so small and your stomach so hard? Are you a body builder too?”
Why on earth was she describing me like this?? I was a scrawny wimp compared to most of the football team.
“Natalie,” I breathed with every ounce of will power I possessed, and I caught her dainty wrists in my fists. “I can’t.”
“I’ll close my eyes,” she said, and she did. She strained futilely against my grip. “Let me feel your face. I promise I won’t look. I’ll touch your features with my fingers.”
“Natalie-”
“Don’t say no. My eyes are shut so tight. Trust me as I trust you. Please.”
I finally said, “Keep your eyes closed.”
“Okay,” she smiled. I undid my bandanna and wrapped it around her head like a blindfold. I made absolutely sure she couldn’t see my face. “Hold still,” she said, her voice wavering, and she raised up on her knees so her face was a little higher than mine. Her trembling fingers found my temples and encircled my ears before running into my hair, her nails scorching lines across my scalp. She combed my hair backwards over and over. She didn’t say anything but her chest heaved with deep breaths. Her thumbs ran across my eyebrows and my lashes. I almost stopped it when her fingertips snuck under the mask’s edge at my cheekbone. “I promise I won’t look,” she whispered again. “I promise promise promise,” she repeated again and again as she drew the mask down m
y face until the velcro surrendered and tore free. The night air cooled my skin, free at last from the hot mask. My stubble pricked at her skin when she drew her hands under my chin, and her fingers brushed my lips. “I promise I promise I promise,” she kept saying, cupping my cheeks with the palms of her hands and then her mouth was on mine.
Her lips were soft and real. I lost the ability to think and reason and time spun away from meaning. I don’t know how long we kissed but the magic of the moment filled me, overwhelmed me. Finally she drew away, flushed with intimacy. Her breathing came raggedly and her mouth tried to form words.
I picked her up and stood, hefting her slim body easily. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover we’d kissed for an hour and I had to go, but instead I pulled her harder against me and kissed her again. She moaned softly against my mouth and her arms went around my neck.
After a long minute, I set her feet on the ground. She sagged against me until I took her shoulders and turned her away. I stretched the ski mask tight around my face and undid her bandanna. She turned to look at me as I was retying it behind my head.
“That did not cure my obsession,” she murmured.
I could think of nothing else to say other than, “This is the first time I’ve enjoyed being a vigilante.”
She laughed and then her expression grew serious. “Are you really a super hero?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have, you know...powers?”
“No,” I smiled under my mask.
“Then how’d you get up here? And how did you beat up all those guys?”
“Batman doesn’t have super hero powers,” I pointed out. “And he beats guys up.”
“So you’re like Batman?” she grinned wryly.
“Goodnight Natalie.”
“Goodnight Superhero.”
Five minutes later I was staring over the lip of the parapet at the sheer drop to my car. “How did I climb this?” And how do I get down?
I’m the worst superhero ever.
A long ribbon of angry brake lights prevented me from merging onto Highway 110. The congestion crawled forward until it became clear traffic was being detoured. Above the red glow of automobile lights, I detected a distant luminescence in the night sky beyond the highway.
We slowly approached a police officer using a flashlight to redirect the flow of traffic. I rolled down my windows and heard the driver in front of me conversing with the cop.
“Sorry ma’am, nothing we can do. Move along,” he said, and I didn’t hear her next question. “No ma’am, it’s not sanctioned by the city. It’s an illegal protest. Drive on, you’re impeding the flow of traffic.”
As I passed him, I said, “Looks like fire.”
“Yes sir. Rioters set fire to Dodger Stadium. Move along.”
Chapter Eighteen
Monday, October 1. 2017
Thirty-six hours later I could still feel the impression of her lips on mine. I will remember Saturday night the rest of my life. My brain was still rendering the fact that my first kiss had been with Natalie North. Actually it was the Outlaw’s first kiss. Chase Jackson had kissed exactly Nobody, still striking out even with his girlfriend.
Did I have a girlfriend? I had asked Hannah Walker out on a date and, even though we hadn’t technically gone out just the two of us, everyone had begun calling us a couple. Even she had called me her boyfriend. Is that how this worked? Did I now have a girlfriend?
Did the Outlaw have a girlfriend? Is that what Natalie was?
I really needed to stop thinking of the Outlaw as a person. He didn’t exist. I was buying into the media’s grossly over-romanticized fictional character. If I told the world the truth then I’d be laughed out of the city.
“Congrats, bro!” Lee elbowed me.
“For what?” I said, shaking my head to clear the jumbled thoughts.
“Are you not even watching?” he asked and indicated the morning news show on the screen.
“No.”
“The Homecoming Court was just announced. You’re the Junior Class’s nomination.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking around. The whole math class was smiling at me.
“It means they’ll give you an award or something at Thursday’s football game, dude,” he said.
“Oh. Cool.”
“And at Friday’s dance they’ll crown the Homecoming King and Queen. And honor the rest of the Court,” he explained.
“That means I have to actually attend the dance,” I said.
“Of course you do, man,” he glared at me. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Because I’m broke.
“Did you hear about the riots Saturday night?” I asked.
“Dodgers stadium almost being burnt down? Duh, dude. It was international news. Most of the planet heard about it.”
“Was it racially driven?”
“Obviously. Police arrested like a hundred illegal immigrants. They set fire to the left field pavilion before order was restored. I sat there once with my dad, two years ago.”
The grip Natalie North held on me broke the moment I saw Katie in our Spanish class. In fact, I suddenly saw my entire romantic situation in crystal clarity.
Natalie North belonged to the Outlaw. Not me.
When I was with Hannah Walker, she overloaded my sensorium and I could think of nothing but her.
But at every other moment of the day my entire being wanted to be with Katie.
This compartmentalization helped explain and settle the jumbled emotions in my heart, but this epiphany did not, however, provide me with any ability to act on it. Nor did it provide me with the stupidity it would require to try articulating this out loud to any of them.
Katie had been my closest friend for years, and now she had been snatched up by someone else. And I couldn’t have her. Knowing this cold truth did provide me with some stability that I’d been missing around her. I knew where I stood.
“Hello Katie,” I said, dropping onto the desk next to her.
“Hi, sweetie.”
“I like you better when you’re wearing my jersey,” I said.
“I’m sure you do,” she laughed, a magical and musical sound that I cherish.
“I bet Sammy’s jerseys are too short for you to wear.”
“Hey!” she cried and whacked me in the arm. She feigned anger but she couldn’t hide her smile. “Be nice. He’s not that short.”
“Did you two have a nice time at the party?”
“Yes,” she answered vaguely. “Where’d you go so quickly Friday night?”
“Back to her place,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Back to her place? Did you have a nice time? Is her house really big? Did you stay…you know, for a few hours?”
“I didn’t stay,” I said. “I just kicked her out of the door as I drove past.”
She thought that was really really funny.
“So, dancing was fun,” I said.
“Very,” she responded.
“Is Sammy tall enough to slow dance with?” I asked, and she glared at me. “Is it like dancing with a toddler at a wedding?”
“Chase Jackson, you stop it right now,” she scolded me. “If you’re done being a jerk, you can help me figure out who sent me this text.” She pulled her phone out from her backpack.
“What text?”
“This one. I have no idea what it means or who it’s from,” she said and handed me the cell.
>>…I’m glad you got your phone back. But the timing is curious. - T
I read it again. The hairs on my neck started to rise.
...got your phone back...the timing is curious...
The text was signed by T.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the Goliath named Tee standing on the stairs, staring at me. I’m going to find you, Outlaw. He made a promise. I also recalled the cell phones on the desks were laid out, methodically documented and labeled with cell numbers. Had they already written down Katie’s cell phone number? B
efore I took it back?
“Chase? Chase, what’s wrong?”
“Katie,” I said and I had to swallow because my mouth had gone dry. “Have you responded to this text?”
“Chase, you’re scaring me. You look like you’re about to kill someone.”
“Answer me, Katie. Did you reply?”
“Yes. Why? I’ve never seen you this mad. What’s wrong?” she asked again.
“What did you say?”
“I replied I was really glad to get my phone back and I thought it was curious too. I thought it might be from Tina. Maybe she got a new number,” she explained.
“Did he write back?”
“Did who write back? And no. No one responded.”
The class started and we had to fall silent.
Blood pounded hot in my ears and I could focus on nothing except that text message. Tee must have noticed that one of the stolen phones had gone missing on the night the pit bull died. He knew they’d had an intruder. Then when the Outlaw showed up soon after and told him he was there to take back something stolen, Tee started putting the puzzle pieces together. The easy conclusion for Tee to make was that the Outlaw had reclaimed that missing phone. I was hoping and praying for another explanation, an obvious one that I was missing. But even as I searched for one, I already knew it was useless.
Tee had texted Katie. She was his only link to the Outlaw. He was hunting me.
Could he track her down? How much information about her had been extracted from the phone? Probably not much. He knew where she’d been mugged, and if he was fixated strongly enough on the Outlaw then he could return to the scene of the crime and investigate her whereabouts.
Katie could be in danger.
Katie.
“Katie,” I groaned softly under my breath.
“What?” she hissed.
A minute later she passed me a note.
Okay what has gotten into you? What do you think the text means? You’re freaking me out.
My pen paused above the paper. What should I say? I didn’t want to scare her. And I truly wasn’t positive who the text was from. But if I confessed my suspicions then she might be more careful than usual.
I wrote, I think it might be from whoever mugged us.