by Alan Janney
“You better start working out. Or get a real tank. Otherwise this will be a real short rivalry.”
He laughed, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy the insult. “How about evil henchmen?” he jerked this thumb towards his posse, who didn’t look thrilled about being recruited.
“You’re going to need a lot more of them.”
A block away, the signal light changed and a car came around the corner. It approached, slowed, and its lights flared. I was instantly and fully illuminated, entirely visible. So was Tank. The car screeched to a halt, revved its engines, and started reversing away from us.
“I expect the police will be arriving soon, Tank,” I said, watching the automobile hastily retreat.
“And I expect we still have a few minutes,” he replied.
“It appears we are at an impasse,” I said.
“We are not, I’m afraid, at an impasse,” he said. “Because I’m going to break Beans’ fingers. One by one. Until you stop me.”
“Leave him alone, Tank.”
“No,” he said simply over his shoulder. He crouched beside Beans, who had begun moaning and shaking his head.
“Don’t!” I said, bouncing on my toes, breaking into a sweat. What could I do? I had no idea. There were five of them and one of me. But I couldn’t just let him break someone’s bones.
“Stop me,” he said.
I didn’t know how.
A pop, soft and pulpy. One broken finger.
Beans cried out. Tank laughed.
He was baiting me, hoping I’d react. He was anticipating it, expecting it, planning on it. Even still, I moved so quickly I caught him unprepared. I closed the distance in a heartbeat and drove my shoulder into him, like a bone-jarring hit on the football field. The collision would have half-killed anyone else. Tank barely fell over.
He roared and swung a titanic fist, but I’d already danced away. I threw the heel of my hand into the jaw of his closest minion and then retreated.
Tank bounced up and charged, and so did the others. Four against one.
“No fair,” I breathed and I took off running. Running?? I’m running away?? Superman never runs away!
You’re not Superman, idiot! You’re a kid! And you’re about to be a dead kid!
I flew around the corner and they were chasing hard, just steps behind. Beans required medical attention. I needed to get my pursuers away from here, lose them, and then circle back and help the kid.
They chased me two more blocks, past an open doughnut shop and an absolutely astonished homeless guy, and I turned down an alley. Dead end. But I didn’t stop, didn’t think. I went straight up the wall.
“How’d he do that?!” They also used a lot of naughty words.
Good question, kid. I had no time to chat, however. I reversed my direction, hidden in the darkness twenty feet above the ground, and hurried back towards Beans.
I found him quickly. He was staggering, holding onto a No Parking sign with his good hand. On our trek downtown I had noticed Hospital signs. Maybe I could find it on the way out. I barely slowed when I reached Beans, tucking my shoulder into his waist and hoisting him in a fireman’s carry. He called out in alarm.
“It’s alright, Beans,” I said and did my best to pat him on the back. “We’re getting you to a hospital.” I kept running, hoping the jostling wouldn’t injure him further. We ran past a handful of pedestrians, who looked at us like we belonged in a circus.
Beans was not light. Three blocks later I carried him under the highway overpass sweating liberally. I think he’d lost consciousness again, but I couldn’t be sure. By the fifth block, my gasps had grown ragged.
Then we got lucky. Good Samaritan Hospital sat one block away, glowing like it’d been sent straight from heaven. I lurched into the parking lot (that seemed to expand as I crossed it), weaving through parked cars, and I ran all the way to the sliding emergency room doors before toppling over. The lights were brilliant after the comparative darkness of the streets, and we laid underneath them like objects on display. I closed my eyes and sucked in breath as best I could through the mask.
Footsteps, rubber soles slapping the linoleum, ran up to us.
“This boy…” I wheezed. “Has been assaulted. Head injury. And his pinky…is broken.” No reply. I opened my eyes and saw two nurses staring wide-eyed at me. I couldn’t breathe. I reached up to yank the mask off, but caught myself. The mask. That’s why they’re staring at me! I can’t take my mask off. I have to get out of here.
“Thanks, ladies,” I gasped, and I forced myself to rise and jog out of the light and back into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thursday, October 18. 2017
The Outlaw story had grown. No longer was it a cute Los Angeles feel-good story; now it headlined the national news.
Tuesday’s escapades became a media firestorm. Each major news network came up with a catchy Outlaw slogan, like ‘Super Hero or Super Menace?’ and ‘Outlaw or Out of Line?” Unbeknownst to me, the showdown with Tank on the street had been captured by a deli’s security camera. The video wasn’t grainy either; it was a high-quality night filter. Tank was never fully exposed, as if he had known the camera’s location, but I positioned myself perfectly for the video, which caught everything in a clear gray and green picture like night-vision. During part of the silent footage, audio of the 911 call placed by the passenger riding in the reversing car played.
911 Response, what is your emergency? Yes, this sounds ridiculous, I know, but it looks like there’s a fight downtown, gosh, I’m not sure what street this is, and I think it’s that guy called Outlaw? There’s a lot of them. I think someone’s hurt. (turn here, I don’t care, just turn here!) Ma’am, where are you calling from? Downtown. We’re getting out of here, but I know we’re not far from the Biltmore Hotel, and it looks like the Outlaw needs help, maybe? I don’t know, we just drove away and I can’t see them anymore.
The video also partially captured me picking Beans up and carrying him away. The hospital run with my unconscious luggage looked even more dramatic in the black and white photographs taken by a traffic camera. The nurses had been interviewed. Their account cast the Outlaw even further into a valiant light, with their wide-eyes and goofy smiles and breathless retelling of the wounded Outlaw staggering to the hospital from the urban jungle with an unconscious victim before collapsing, thanking them, and then rushing off into the night.
“…he looked exhausted.”
“Like he just escaped a brawl.”
“Right. He was sweating, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely. Suffering from dehydration, my guess.”
“I don’t know if he gets proper air flow through that mask.”
“Poor oxygen circulation, no doubt.”
“He didn’t look that old. I’d guess twenty-five?”
“Yes, or maybe a little younger.”
“But very strong.”
“Very.”
“In excellent shape. Like a boxer.”
To throw even more fuel on the fire, Natalie North’s publicist had seized the moment and released her photograph of Natalie and me. Her flash had thrown us in sharp relief against the night, my broad back to the camera and Natalie reaching for my shoulder. So far Natalie had refused to answer questions.
Her publicist Glenda, however, had not kept quiet. She posted the photograph on Twitter and kept tweeting about it.
After this photograph was taken, he jumped off the roof!!
Straight off! Five stories high!!!
Don’t he and Natalie make a dashing couple??
She failed to mention I hadn’t fallen five stories - only three - onto the roof of the adjacent building. I still didn’t know how I’d survived that.
Katie and I watched all this from her kitchen table Thursday evening after practice, our Spanish books open but momentarily forgotten. Her mom had made us chocolate chip cookies.
“What a mess,” Katie said. I grunted, but I couldn’t hav
e agreed more. “Do you think he has super powers?”
“No way,” I said.
“I don’t know, Chase,” she said. “He climbed that wall away from the police. He jumped off a roof. He fought all those guys at that house and then again Tuesday night in the street. Do you think he killed them?”
“No. I think he ran away for a reason,” I said. “There were five of them.”
“Did you know that guy he carried to the hospital is Latino?”
“No he’s not,” I corrected her without thinking. “He’s black.”
“Oh. Well whatever he is, he’s minority. He’s not white.”
“So?”
“So,” she explained, “Maybe it’ll help the racial riots. Maybe the protestors will relax about the Outlaw being a racist.”
“Huh,” I said, pulling at my lip. “I hadn’t thought of that. I hope so.”
“You don’t care much about the Outlaw, do you?”
“Not much, I guess. Do you?” I asked.
“Of course I do. So does everyone who has an adventurous and romantic bone in their body.”
“Romantic?” I asked, perplexed.
“You would know he’s a romantic figure if you knew anything about romance.”
“I know about romance.”
“You do?” she laughed. “Have you taken your girlfriend out on a real date, yet?”
“Well…no.”
“What’s her favorite flower?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
“Have you even brought her flowers?”
“No. Where would I get flowers?”
“You’re hopeless,” she shook her head.
Both our phones vibrated simultaneously. I checked mine and she checked hers. The new message for me was on the pink phone. From Natalie North.
>> I’m sorry about the picture on the internet. =(
I put the phone back in my pocket.
“Who’s it from?” Katie asked.
“Oh…just…someone.”
“Hannah?”
“Yeah. Hannah,” I lied.
“How are you two doing?” she asked, looking at her pencil.
“Oh, I don’t know. Good. I guess.”
“You know,” she said. “You can talk to me. About her. About you two. We’ve always told each other everything. It doesn’t have to change.”
“Doesn’t it feel…weird, now? Katie, I’ll be completely honest with you. I have no idea what I’m doing with Hannah. And so many times I’ve wanted to discuss it with you, but…I don’t know. Somehow things have changed. Between you and me.”
“I know they have,” she nodded and her cheeks colored a little. “But we can discuss that in a minute. First though, I don’t mind if you ask me questions about Hannah. We can talk about it. I’m super curious about your relationship.”
“Okay,” I said and I blew air up at the ceiling. “I guess what I want to know most…alright, tell me this. Don’t boyfriends and girlfriends usually want to spend a lot of time together?”
“Sure, I think so.”
“Hannah and I spend almost zero time together.”
“What do you mean?” Katie asked, smiling.
“You know that party? When you and I danced? Hannah made a big deal out of going home together, and when we got to her house? She kissed my cheek and ran inside.”
“She’s probably just shy.”
“We don’t go out on dates. Whenever I ask, she says she’s too busy practicing cheering with her mom or studying.”
“Cheering with her mom?” Katie laughed. “That is strange. But I know for a fact she studies a lot. She’s at the library a lot when we have debate meetings.”
“We don’t talk on the phone. We don’t text much. And whenever she talks about our relationship she calls it our partnership. I may not be very romantic but romance is like a foreign concept to her.”
“I’ve heard she’s very driven. Doesn’t party much,” Katie nodded. “Do you like her?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” I said. “But…”
“But what?” Katie asked, intently learning forward.
“I’m not…crazy about her. Shouldn’t boyfriends be crazy about their girlfriends? The only time I think about her is when we’re together. She overloads my brain when we’re close, you know?”
“She tends to have that effect on guys,” Katie said wryly.
“Although she was so sweet when I got a concussion,” I remembered. “Maybe I’m just expecting too much.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I’m not sure. Most of the time, I just wish I was with you.”
She sat up straight, like I’d poked her, and said, “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh…I meant…you know…”
“No,” she said. “Tell me.”
“Just that you’re fun. Right? It’s easy with you, I’m happy around you.”
I was sweating. I’d never been more aware of her. It was like she was throwing off heat. I couldn’t look her in the eye or else the truth would come pouring out of me.
“It’s easy with me?” Katie repeated.
“You know what I mean. We’re not complicated. Or we didn’t used to be.”
She reached out and squeezed my hand. I didn’t know what to say. Neither did she. The silence lengthened into forever and it was unbearable.
I was about to kiss her when she said, “I think you’re right.”
“About what?”
“Boyfriends should be crazy about their girlfriends.”
“Like Sammy is about you?” I asked.
“Sammy?” she repeated, stammering.
“Wasn’t that who texted you earlier?”
“Sammy and I…sort of broke up.”
Now it was my turn to sit up straight. “You broke up? When? Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t even know if we broke up. We were never an official couple,” she sighed.
“What happened?”
“To put it plainly, he is a doofus. A short doofus, to borrow your phrase. Stop laughing. I wasn’t crazy about him. Plus, I can do better.”
“Yes. Yes you can,” I agreed.
“Have anyone in mind?”
“Yes I do,” I said.
“Who?”
“Lee.”
“Ugh,” she said and she threw her pencil at me.
“Well, if it wasn’t Sammy then who texted you?” I asked her.
“You don’t want to know,” she said, growing serious. And worried.
Tank. Tank texted her. The room closed around us.
“It’s from that guy again, isn’t it? The guy that calls himself T?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “He’s starting to scare me.”
“I was hoping he got run over by a truck Saturday night. Or…Sunday night. Or whenever. Let me see?”
She handed me her phone.
>> I hope to meet you very soon. Please tell the Outlaw I said ‘Hello.’ - T
“What is he talking about? I don’t understand,” Katie said.
“I don’t either, Katie. I don’t understand him either.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Friday, October 19. 2017
“Yo Chase. You see the article about you?” Adam Mendoza asked me. He sat on the padded bench across from me and held the newspaper in his hands. We’d traveled to play Orange County, a very wealthy school. Even their visitor locker room was luxurious. They had a towel warmer!
“No, I didn’t see it,” I said, and I gave my shoelaces an extra tug. “I’ll read it after the game.”
“You know how many touchdowns you got?” he asked. This was one of the first times Adam had spoken to me unprompted.
“No. Twelve?” I guessed.
Cory chimed in, “Twenty-one.” He was sitting beside me on the bench, adjusting a thigh pad.
“That’s right,” Adam agreed. “Twenty-one. You read the article?”
“No,” Cory replied. “Just ke
ep track.”
“Twelve passing touchdowns, and nine rushing touchdowns,” Adam said. “They also interviewed that linebacker from Patrick Henry.”
“Patrick Henry,” Cory grunted beside me. “Hate those guys.”
“How many sacks does the Patrick Henry guy have?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” Adam said. Jeez, that’s a lot.”
“That is a lot,” Cory mused, pausing in his pad adjustment. That number seemed too big for him to digest. He was an offensive lineman, so to him letting the quarterback get sacked was the ultimate failure.
“Twenty-one touchdowns,” I said, stomping my feet to settle them in my cleats. “Let’s go get a few more.”
The Orange County Paladins are rich but terrible at football. Obliterating them was just what our fractured football team needed. Coach Garrett sent a squad onto the field that badly wanted to redeem itself from last week’s embarrassment. The Andy Babington controversy had been squashed by Garrett’s bold strategy. Andy Babington’s legacy was not worth being benched, it appeared.
Our defense only gave up one field goal. Jesse Salt ran for two touchdowns, including one sixty-four yard scamper. I ran for a touchdown and threw two more. In the fourth quarter, Coach Garrett finally put in Andy and he threw two touchdowns too. After the game, in the locker room, Coach Garrett reminded us that we were still on track to play Patrick Henry for the district championship.
Hannah had been distant on our ninety-minute trip to Orange County. On our return ride she seemed almost ill. She sat beside me but her eyes were vacant, her hands shook, and her conversation lacked focus. In the end, she laid her head in my lap and gazed silently at the seat in front of us. I’d never seen her this way. I pulled strands of hair away from her face and curled them behind her ear.
We made it home around eleven, and I helped load her Audi with her bags.
“Can you tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, feeling way out of my comfort zone. I cared about Hannah. I think. And she cared about me, but we’d never really shared our problems with one another before. Despite my exhaustion I’d sleep better if she confided in me.
“It’s nothing,” she murmured.