by Неизвестный
“Thirty-four years, four months, eighteen days, and change,” John said with determination. “Then when a zephyr finally blows you gently away, I’ll muster out of the navy, get a condo on Mars, and be sad. But don’t you worry about me. I’ll be celebrating your life for up to three years after that.”
“At the finest nightclubs and casinos,” I deadpanned.
“At the finest nightclubs and casinos!” John agreed without missing a beat. “Every night until, well… you know.” He tried to look ashamed, but he was smiling.
I had to just roll my eyes. “You damn Lucky Bastard.”
* * *
Story by George Page III
Illustration by c.billadeau
EXECUTION BY BEHEADING
THE THUNDERSTORM MOVED IN WITH breathtaking speed. In a matter of seconds, or so it felt to ten-year-old Bradley Little, the sky went from clear and blue to bubbly and green like some foul witch’s brew coming to boil. Lightning arced behind the willow trees whipping in the fierce wind. The drone of the tornado siren drove day campers and counselors in from the woods and fields.
Matthew will be scared, Bradley thought. He searched for his younger brother among the horde scrambling toward the community center.
The downpour held off until they made it indoors. Then the storm struck full force. Rain lashed the building in sheets and the lightning strobe was constant through the high gymnasium windows.
In the pandemonium, Bradley found his group, number seven, gathered along the wall near the drinking fountains. He got his backpack from the big wooden group box.
“I gotta go find my brother,” he told his counselor, Jen.
“Please stay with the group,” she said.
“He’ll be scared.”
He choked on the last word. To his horror, he felt his eyes well up with tears.
Stop acting like such a baby!
But he couldn’t help it. Day camp had always been tough. Bradley was a shy kid—a “homebody” was Mom’s word for it—and making friends didn’t come easily. Much as his little brother needed Bradley—and Bradley was sure the storm had shaken Matthew up pretty badly by now, wherever he was—Bradley needed Matthew, too.
Jen relented. Her expression softened.
“Go find your brother,” she said. “But don’t leave the gym, okay?”
Bradley wandered through the maze of group boxes until he spotted Audrey, Matthew’s counselor. Sure enough, she was crouched in front of Matthew, wiping his face with a tissue.
“Thank God,” she said when Bradley walked up. She gratefully turned Matthew over to him.
The other kids stared as Bradley led Matthew away from his group. They sat together against the cinder-block wall.
“Come on, now,” Bradley said. “Stop crying. It’s going to be fine.” It was easier to be brave when you had to be brave for someone else.
“Tor-tor-tor—”
“There’s not going to be a tornado,” Bradley said. “Have you ever seen a tornado in real life?” He pointed at the windows. “Look, see? It’s lighter already.”
Matthew immediately began to calm down. All around them, kids were starting to eat lunch. Bradley took Matthew’s lunch bag out of his backpack. He emptied it, then ripped the brown paper sack apart along the seams, spreading it between them like a tablecloth.
“Eat your peanut butter,” he said, taking his own lunch out of his backpack.
Matthew unwrapped his sandwich.
A bulging blue newspaper bag thunked on the polished floor beside Bradley.
“Mind if I eat with you guys?”
The girl, Izzy Severs, plopped down and crossed her legs.
“I was eating with Christina and Bri,” Izzy said. She turned and yelled, so the other girls could hear her: “But they’re acting like a couple of douches!”
Izzy’s voice echoed and the groups around them got silent. Mike, the counselor for group sixteen, shot Izzy an angry look but didn’t come over. The ruckus picked up again.
Bradley’s cheeks burned, not just because Izzy had made everyone look. He could smell her body spray—something flowery, just barely detectable beneath her sunblock and sweat.
Izzy dumped out her sack. Her lunch was all junk food—Fritos, Twinkies, Ding Dongs, a strawberry pop.
“You all right, Matt?” she asked Matthew.
Matthew nodded. His cheeks were blotchy.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said in a small voice.
“There’s a big man, Big Mateo, not even scared of a twister,” she said, punching him lightly on the arm. Matthew smiled. “Here, let me do your juice box for you.”
Holding a Ding Dong in her teeth, Izzy unwrapped the straw from Matthew’s juice box and jabbed it through the foil. Juice squirted out the straw. Matthew laughed. Even for a six-year-old, Bradley thought, Matthew still seemed like such a little kid sometimes.
“Hey!” Izzy said to Bradley, eyes wide, mouth full of cake. “Wasn’t it your birthday yesterday?”
“Yeah,” Bradley said, shrugging.
“The big one-oh,” Izzy said. “Double digits. Exciting.” She chugged her pop and grinned. The spaces between her teeth were lined bright red.
“I guess,” Bradley said.
“Or not?”
“I don’t know,” Bradley said. “It feels weird to have the one in front of my age. Like, I don’t want it there.”
“Aw, you’ll get used to it,” Izzy said, waving her hand. “The first couple weeks are the weirdest. Then it seems normal.” She slid her second Ding Dong out of the package and held it out to Bradley. “Here, I bought you a birthday cake.”
Bradley was so surprised he didn’t even reach for it.
“You gonna wait till it starts growing mold?” Izzy asked.
She shoved the Ding Dong at Bradley’s face and he opened his mouth in time to save his chin from getting smeared.
“Thanks,” he said around the cake. He took it out of his mouth and placed it reverently on the paper sack. He picked up his bag of Famous Amos and held them out to Izzy. “Here.”
“No way,” Izzy said.
“We’ll trade for—”
“Will you stop it? It’s your birthday cake.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Well, happy birthday.”
Bradley saved the Ding Dong till last and took a long time eating it, savoring every crumb—thinking, with each bite, that she had given it to him, that it had been hers.
Izzy guzzled the rest of her pop.
“Watch this,” she said.
She crushed the can against her forehead. Matthew laughed, clapping wildly.
“Do it again!” he said.
“You got another can for me?”
Matthew looked dejectedly at his juice box. Izzy wrapped up her trash.
“So,” she said to Bradley, slapping the crumbs off her hands, “did you get anything good?”
“Huh?”
“For your birthday. Any good presents?”
“Oh. Yeah, actually.”
Bradley unzipped his backpack and dug through it. He’d been looking forward to this moment—he just hadn’t expected it to come so soon. He and Izzy lived in the same apartment complex—in the same building—but they were in different groups at camp, and they usually only got to hang out on weekends, at the pool.
“He got cod cards!” Matthew blurted. He had his hands under his butt and was excitedly bouncing up and down on them.
“What the crap, Matthew!” Bradley snapped. “Will you shut up, please? They’re my present.”
“I got some too!” Matthew said, and started digging through his own backpack.
“So you’re finally joining this century,” Izzy said. She slapped Bradley’s shoulder and he relished the sting.
He drew a thick black binder from his backpack. The vinyl was new, so smooth and shiny it reflected their faces. There was a crimson skull etched on the front. Above the skull were the words “C.O.D.
CARDS,” and underneath, in smaller type, “STARTER SET #3.”
“Fancy,” Izzy said. “Number three’s a good place to start. You get a Cirrhosis with this one.”
Bradley opened the album. There were plastic sheets with pockets for cod cards inside. The first several pages were full. Izzy took the album and began flipping through it.
“I forget,” she said, “do they give you a Hypertension?”
“Yep.”
“Diabetes?”
“Type 2,” Bradley said. “But not type 1.”
“I’ll have to bring some of my albums by after camp so we can compare.”
Bradley felt tingly.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be great.”
Izzy stopped on the second-to-last page.
“No way! You have a Homicide by Strangulation! That does not come with this set.”
“Nah,” Bradley said, feeling a surge of pride. “My dad’s a cop, remember? He’s certified to test blood. He brought the Homicide from work. It used to be part of a training kit or something.”
“Mind if I take it out?”
Bradley shook his head.
Izzy carefully slid the card out of its protective pocket. She held it by the edges and examined it. It was visibly more battered than the cards that had come in the starter set, but at that moment, Bradley loved it twice as much as the rest of them combined.
“Man, this is an old one,” Izzy said. “This is from, like, before we were born.”
Matthew found his own tiny bundle of cod cards, wrapped in a rubber band, and thrust them at Izzy.
“I have some too! See?”
Bradley cringed. On Bradley’s birthday, his parents always gave Matthew duplicates of most of Bradley’s presents so he wouldn’t feel left out. “Matthew’s littler than you,” his mother always said. “He looks up to you. He wants to be just like you. Try to understand.”
Izzy took the cards from Matthew and admired them.
“They’re just dupes of some of the throwaways,” Bradley said.
“These are really cool!” Izzy told Matthew, flipping through them.
“Better than Bradley’s?” Matthew asked.
“They’re just as cool as Bradley’s,” Izzy said.
Matthew beamed.
At that moment, a kid walking behind Izzy stopped, crouched, and belched in her ear. Even where he sat, Bradley got a nasty whiff of bologna and Cheetos.
Izzy cried out in disgust and threw an elbow over her shoulder. The kid dodged it.
She whirled around, still seated, and looked up.
“Fuck off, you freak,” she said, loud enough so the kid—Kip Steinmiller—could hear her, but not the counselors.
Matthew clapped both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide.
“Swearing,” he mouthed at Bradley.
“Whoa, whoa!” Kip said, laughing and holding his hands up. “That wasn’t a comment on your looks, Izzy. Just that pile of crap you call a cod collection.”
Kip’s collection of cod cards was legendary at camp. His parents were rich and could buy him almost any card he wanted. On top of which, Kip had been collecting cod cards longer than anyone Bradley knew.
“They’re not mine,” Izzy said. “They’re Bradley’s.”
Bradley’s face burned. Izzy sounded embarrassed that Kip might think Bradley’s collection was hers.
“They’re Bradley’s,” Kip mimicked in a screechy falsetto.
“You’re such an asshole,” Izzy said.
“At least I’m not poor white trash with a pill-popping mother.”
Izzy shot to her feet. She snatched Matthew’s juice box off the floor, aimed it at Kip, and squeezed. Purple Kool-Aid shot through the straw and spattered the front of Kip’s pristine white camp shirt.
Kip lunged at her. Mike, group sixteen’s counselor, caught him from behind while Audrey rushed over and held Izzy back.
“That’s enough!” Audrey shrieked at Izzy. “Into the office! Now!”
“He started it!”
“Yeah, well, who sprayed the juice box?”
“You’re just scared to get him in trouble ’cause you’re scared of his dad!”
“Into the office!”
Izzy stormed toward the glass-enclosed office in the corner of the gym.
Kip took a parting shot: “It’s not Audrey’s problem your dad’s such a drunk he wouldn’t stick up for you if somebody took a dump on your head.”
Izzy stopped dead but Audrey was right behind her.
“Don’t even think about it,” Audrey said over Izzy’s shoulder. “Now, march.”
After the near fight, all Bradley could think about was the expression on his dad’s face as Dad watched him unwrap the cod cards on his birthday. Dad had been so excited—almost more than Bradley. Cod starter sets weren’t cheap, and Bradley had been asking for one every occasion since he’d turned nine.
Now he slid the album back into his backpack like a cheap embarrassment.
Matthew balled up his lunch wrappers. He picked up his own little bundle of cod cards, looked at them for a moment, and wadded them up with the trash.
“Your cards,” Bradley said.
Matthew looked up.
“You’re throwing your cod cards out?”
Matthew shrugged.
“I don’t want them anymore,” he said. “You can have them if you want.”
Bradley looked at the sad, crumpled cards in their tatty rubber band.
“Give them to me,” he said gruffly.
Matthew picked the cards out of the ball of trash and handed them over. Bradley threw them into his backpack and zipped it up. Matthew’s forehead wrinkled.
“Are you mad, Bradley?”
“No.”
Bradley thought again of Dad’s face. Of Izzy, sitting in the glass office, probably suspended from camp and definitely in huge trouble at home after this.
He hated Kip Steinmiller.
Thursday morning, Bradley was bent over the water fountain, lapping at the icy stream, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He stood up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Izzy grinned at him, eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Hey, welcome back,” Bradley said. “What’s going on?”
“I got something to tell you.”
The gym doors opened and Izzy’s counselor, Bethany, stuck her head out.
“Ms. Severs,” Bethany said, “what did I say? Straight to the restroom, then straight back. You need a babysitter?”
“Coming!” Izzy called over her shoulder. Then, to Bradley, “You walking home after camp?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait up for me.”
She disappeared into the gym, and Bradley headed back outside, where his own group was playing capture the flag.
A date, he thought, grinning.
“Damn it, Matthew, can’t you just go here?”
Matthew’s eyes got wide, and for a second, Bradley was afraid he was going to cry.
“Nooo,” Matthew whined. “I really gotta.”
He reached behind himself and squeezed his butt.
“Damn it,” Bradley said again.
He looked up and down the hallway, searching for Izzy. Half the campers had spent the afternoon at the pool; the other half had stayed in the gym.
I should have gone to the pool.
“Bradleeey!”
“Fine, fine, just… fine. Let’s go.”
Bradley swung his backpack over his shoulder and Matthew danced behind him down the corridor.
“You really have to get over this thing you’ve got against sitting on public toilets,” Bradley said.
“They’re gross.”
“That’s stupid. That’s babyish.”
“You’re babyish!”
They bickered all the way back to their apartment building. Inside, Matthew rushed for the bathroom.
Bradley poured himself a glass of Kool-Aid and had just taken a seat at the kitchen counter when t
here was a knock on the door.
As soon as Bradley answered it, Izzy shoved past him.
“I told you to wait up,” she said.
“I tried,” Bradley said. “My stupid brother had to…”
He trailed off. Izzy slung her backpack on the counter. She turned around and stared, waiting for him to continue.
“Had to what?” she asked.
“You know. Go.”
“So?”
“So he won’t use a public toilet. He always has to go number two at home.”
Izzy snorted.
“That kid’s a daisy,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
She pulled a barstool around to the other side of the counter and sat facing Bradley.
“Drink?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He glanced at the clock over the stove. Though Bradley could have happily spent the rest of forever with Izzy, he needed her gone by the time Mom got home from work. Once, Mom saw Izzy and another girl trying a cigarette behind the pool clubhouse, and ever since then she didn’t like Bradley hanging out with Izzy unsupervised.
Izzy noticed him looking at the clock and rolled her eyes.
“Oh, don’t worry, precious little altar boy,” she said. “The evil hussy will be long gone by the time Mommy gets home.”
Matthew appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“What’s a hussy?” he asked, hitching up his shorts.
Both Bradley and Izzy collapsed in giggles.
“What?” Matthew demanded. “What does it mean?”
They laughed harder. Though, if Bradley were being honest, he only had the vaguest idea himself.
“Go play video games,” he said.
“I want a snack.”
“Tell you what,” Izzy said. “I got Fudgsicles in my freezer at home. You go play video games for a few minutes, and I’ll bring you one.” Matthew’s eyes lit up. “But you gotta go play now so there’s time for me to get one and come back.”
Matthew tore out of the room. As soon as he was gone, Izzy leaned over the counter and grinned. She spoke very slowly.
“Want to beat the shit out of Kip Steinmiller’s cod collection?”
Bradley smiled.
“How?” he asked.
“You know Mr. Al-Zahrani on my floor?” she said.
Bradley nodded.