Spinning Out

by David Stahler Jr.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? What am I doing here? What the fuck are you doing here? That’s the real question, Stewart. Aren’t you supposed to be in Burlington?”

  He frowned. “I changed my mind,” he said. “I needed time.”

  “For what? To work on your precious project? What the hell is that in there, anyway?”

  He paused. “You told me to take care of it, so that’s what I’m doing.” He glanced at the ground and poked a stone with his toe. “Welding relaxes me,” he said at last.

  “Oh, great. I’m glad somebody around here is relaxed, because it sure as shit isn’t me.”

  “I told you not to worry.” He paused again, his eyes narrowing. “It’s not like I’m going to kill myself or anything.”

  For the first time since we’d met, I actually hated him. “You’re a real first-class asshole.”

  He shook his head. He knew he’d crossed the line. I could see the familiar panic return to his eyes.

  “Who told you to come here and spy on me, anyway?” His voice was shaking now. “I thought I could trust you, Sancho, but you’re with them, aren’t you? You’ve joined them.”

  “Them?” I shouted. “Who is ‘them,’ anyway? You mean them?” I pointed at the towers on the distant ridge. “You mean those big pieces of metal that can’t talk, can’t think, and have never done anything to you? Listen to yourself, Stewart. Do you have any idea how you sound? This is just like the other day. It’s crazy, Stewart. Fucking crazy.”

  His face turned red. “I’m not crazy!” he screamed. “Your dad, he was the psycho! Not me! You understand?”

  I could hear myself utter this weird noise—part growl, part scream. I wanted to smash his face in, and if he’d been closer to me, I just might have done it. But that rage had to go somewhere, and the next thing I knew, my boot was driving into the side of his Volvo with all the force I had.

  Ka-thunk!

  For a second I just stared down at the huge dent in the panel of his back passenger-side door. I glanced over to see him standing there, his arms hanging at his sides, a look of shock on his face.

  Without a word, I stormed off, walking, then running down the driveway, not stopping until I got home. I got back to find my mother had just left for her shift. A lucky break. But I needed to get away. Besides Shangri La, this was the last place I wanted to be. I picked up the phone and dialed the number I still carried in my pocket.

  “What’s up, Frenchy baby?” Kaela said.

  “Still want to get that pizza?” I asked, trying to control the shaking in my voice.

  “Oh, so now you want some face time with the stage manager.”

  “Something like that.”

  She could tell something was up. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  She pulled into the driveway about twenty minutes later. I jumped into the passenger side.

  “Thanks, Kaela.”

  She didn’t say anything. She just grabbed me and pulled me toward her, and the next thing I knew, we were kissing. Her lips were so soft; everything about her was soft. I could feel myself letting go as a wave of giddiness washed over me. It felt so strange after the fucked-up day I’d had.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered, patting my cheek when it was over.

  She backed up and was about to take off when she suddenly looked up into the rearview mirror.

  “Oh,” she said. “Stewart.”

  I turned around to see Stewart running down the road, waving his hands for us to stop, his cloak flowing behind him.

  “Just go.”

  She hesitated. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Please, Kaela.”

  She nodded and we took off. I watched Stewart continue to run past my house before drifting to a stop as we sped away. Then I turned around, forcing myself to look ahead and ignore the shrinking figure in the side-view mirror.

  I was getting ready to call Kaela the next morning to see if she could bring me to school when, to my shock, Stewart pulled in at his usual time. I hesitated at the door, watching him through the window as the Volvo steamed in the morning sun. Finally I grabbed my bag and left the house. Coming around the front to the passenger’s side, I could see a crease on the back door. It looked even bigger in the light of morning.

  Stewart was still in costume, still tired, but he managed a big smile as I got in, as if yesterday had never happened.

  “Morning, old friend,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s morning.”

  “And a beautiful one at that.”

  I glanced over at him as we started off down the Heights.

  “You’re awful chipper.”

  “I feel better today, Sancho. Progress has been made. All is coming together. You’ll see. You’ll be quite pleased, I’m sure.”

  “You call yesterday progress?”

  His smile faded. “I wasn’t myself when you came over. I said things I shouldn’t have. You forgive me, don’t you? You have to. You don’t have it in you to stay angry.”

  He had me there. Or thought he did, at least.

  “I just don’t know how much more of this I can take, Stewart.”

  He nodded a little. I could see his knuckles whiten along the rim of the steering wheel. “I know the feeling.”

  “Sorry about your car, by the way.”

  “All good armor has some dents,” he replied with a smile. We rounded the corner and passed the pit stop. Beyond the naked maples, the towers gleamed in the distance.

  “Those fuckers,” he said, pointing toward the ridge, “are going to come down.”

  He gave me a sideways glance, but this time I didn’t feel like laughing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Stewart’s good mood carried through the rest of the day. In fact, as the week went on, Stewart seemed to grow more relaxed, less withdrawn. One morning he even showed up without his costume.

  “Where’s Quixote?” I asked, doing a slight double take as I hopped in the car.

  He shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it, I guess. Takes forever to put on.”

  “I hardly recognized you for a second.” I leaned over and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. He looked up in the rearview mirror with an intense stare and traced his fingers along his face.

  “I feel naked.”

  “Well, you look better.” I hesitated. “You feel better? You pulling out of this?”

  He did his little wave, as if brushing off a fly. The next day the costume was back, though he did call me Frenchy a few times.

  I figured he was coming out of it, the phase was phasing out. I wondered if the top-secret project he was working on was doing the trick. Whatever the reason, I felt a general sense of relief. I got over the nasty things he’d said on Sunday. Even the smoking rock episode started to seem like a long time ago, seem somehow less real, like just another scene from the play, and I started to let my guard down so that by the end of the week, I was hardly paying attention.

  Of course, I had other distractions. I kept thinking about the kiss. A few more had followed since, but that first one had been a doozy. I’d be sitting in class when the memory of it would spring up, and I’d find myself trying not to laugh, trying to figure out how I’d suddenly gotten so lucky. I’d flirted with girls, even had a few girlfriends, but mostly lame junior-high stuff. Things had been pretty dry these last couple years. Then again, like most things in my life, I hadn’t been working too hard at it. Hanging out with Stewart, getting baked and doing stupid shit—I’d thought it was enough. It was just plain sad that it had taken so long to find out it wasn’t. Idiot.

  Things started out well enough that Friday. It was a clear, sunny morning. Stewart picked me up as usual. We joked around a bit on the way to school and talked about the afternoon practice schedule. With opening night a week away, we were wrapping up work scenes and getting ready for next week’s dress rehearsals.

  Then came lunch. Then came the Pokers.

  Not knowing what to m
ake of Stewart’s getup—or of the popularity we’d both started enjoying as word about the upcoming performance spread—they’d been dormant for quite a while. Besides, Mr. Ruggles kept a watchful eye on them at lunch—he liked them even less than we did—and now that we were stuck late in rehearsals every day, we never ran into them after school, either.

  But the last few days had brought some name-calling. Weirded out by the costume and whispers about some of Stewart’s more eccentric behaviors, they’d shifted focus—now it was Little Donny Whack Job, Fuck Freak, the old classic Psycho, stuff like that.

  “At least they’re not calling you a homo anymore,” I offered. “Maybe they’re evolving.”

  He didn’t laugh. In fact, the new names seemed to bother him even more than the old ones. It wasn’t hard to guess why.

  We’d almost made it through lunch when Mr. Ruggles got called out of the cafeteria. Stewart and I were returning our trays. Out of nowhere, Scott slipped between us and stepped on Stewart’s cloak.

  There was a loud ripping sound as the cloak tore along one side. Even worse, the force caught Stewart by the throat, yanking him backward so that he lost his balance and fell with a crash of armor, broken dishes, and scattered silverware. Everything stopped in the cafeteria as kids turned to gawk, then laugh.

  Shaking off my efforts to help, Stewart struggled to his feet before the gathered Pokers.

  “Monsters!” he shouted, his face red and trembling.

  “What’s the matter, Sir Whacks-a-Lot?” sneered one of the Pokers, a sophomore everyone called Pimples.

  “Oh, thou heart of flint and bowels of cork!” Stewart shook his fist at them. “Now shall I chastise thee!”

  I groaned. More lines from the play. The Pokers, meanwhile, began yukking it up, laughing among themselves in hilarious disbelief. Other students were starting to whisper to one another and giggle, too.

  “Come on, Stewart.” I took him by the arm. “Fuck ’em.”

  “No!” he shouted, shrugging me off again. He picked up his torn cloak. “Look at what they did, Sancho. I cannot let this insult stand.”

  The Pokers laughed even louder. Taking on the implied challenge, a few even started toward us with nasty looks in their eyes when a voice stopped them in their tracks.

  “What’s going on here?” Mr. Ruggles roared. The cafeteria went quiet again.

  It was a rhetorical question, really. Ruggles was sharp enough to guess right away what had happened.

  “Get your butts in my office,” he snapped to the Pokers, who shot us one last glare before slinking out.

  He glanced back to Stewart and me. Stewart was still red and shaking. Ruggles looked us over and shook his head.

  “Clean this mess up.” He turned and followed the Pokers out.

  The bell rang just as we got down on our knees and started gathering all the pieces back onto the tray. Kids were trying to step around us; Stewart was still rattled. The whole thing just plain sucked.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said when we finished, removing the tray from his shaking hands. He nodded his thanks, eyes still down at the floor. “See you after school?” I asked, but he just turned and left.

  Practice started out fine. We finished working the last few scenes, took a break, then spent the last hour getting fitted for our costumes. Since Stewart and I already had ours, there wasn’t much for us to do. We could’ve just gone home, but Stewart wanted to get his cloak stitched back up by one of the mothers who’d volunteered to help with the costuming. Fine by me—it gave me a chance to hang out with Kaela and help her get one of the last set pieces painted.

  “Hey, when are you going to get us some real brushes?” I said, looking at the smattering of bristles stuck to the plywood with fresh paint.

  “When I get a real painter.”

  “I was hired for my good looks and sweet pipes. You’re the one with the mad skills, sweetheart.” I reached over and dabbed her cheek with the brush.

  She reached up and wiped at the smear of paint. “You bastard!”

  Whap! The width of her brush caught me broadside. I could feel the paint running the length of my face. We both stared at each other for a second in shock before she burst out laughing.

  “Definitely an improvement,” she said.

  “I’m sure. Whatever. It’s just good to hear you laugh for a change. You’ve been all business this week.”

  “Yeah, well, dress rehearsal’s coming up. Somebody’s got to make sure this place is ready when you finally put on your pretty little costumes and play make-believe. But we’re in good shape. Things are falling into place. I mean, look around.”

  We were all in a good mood, going about our business—sorting through clothes and props, applying finishing touches to the set, laughing, joking, singing sometimes, just trying to relax a little. Tomorrow was our second Hell Saturday, and we all wanted to savor the last few moments of downtime before the real crunch began.

  Some of the techs started talking about going out after for dinner, and they invited me and Stewart along. In spite of the scene at lunch, he’d been doing better these last few days, and I figured I could get him to go. He owed me.

  I searched around but couldn’t spot him. In fact, it had been a few minutes since anyone had seen him.

  I was just about to go check the lobby when Stacey McGovern’s voice—loud, agitated—broke through the general murmur, silencing cast and crew one by one until everyone was quiet. She marched out from the wings, looking seriously pissed off, with Stewart in pursuit, muttering words I couldn’t hear.

  “Oh, my God!” she yelled, stopping in the middle of the stage, then whirling around to face Stewart, who dropped down on his knees before her. “How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?”

  For a second I thought it was an act, the variation of a scene. The moment had this dramatic charge, the kind I’d seen only when Stewart was fully immersed in the role and Stacey was at her fiercest best.

  “My lady knows better in her heart,” he said, murmuring a line from the play.

  “Stop staying that! We’re not rehearsing.”

  “But, Dulcinea, I do protest—”

  “Shut up!” She stamped her foot. “Shut up with that crap! God, I’m so sick of hearing it. For the last time, it’s not happening, Stewart. I don’t even like you, you freak!”

  Stewart flinched. Stacey turned and walked away from him in a huff. Kids were whispering now to one another, trying to figure out what to make of the scene. Even Ms. Vale seemed bewildered at the outburst. Stewart glanced from side to side at the assembled crowd in dismay, as if noticing them for the first time. I could see the fear, the confusion on his face. There was a long pause as everyone tried to figure out what to do.

  “You better get over there,” Kaela said.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.” I headed for Stewart. All I could think about was the cafeteria scene, how much it had rattled him. That, or I’d been fooling myself all week that things were better. Either way, it was time to get him out. Exit, stage right.

  Unfortunately, Quentin got there first.

  “Are you okay?” he said, sidling up to Stacey, who stood nearby with her arms crossed, glaring at Stewart.

  Stacey muttered something in response. At first I wondered if she’d staged this entire humiliation to put Stewart in his place, but she seemed as mortified as anyone. Fortunately, it looked like the scene was pretty much over now. People were breaking up, going back to whatever they’d been doing before, though some still whispered.

  “Hope you’re happy,” Quentin spat, looking down at Stewart before putting his arm around Stacey’s shoulder.

  “Unhand her!” Stewart shouted, leaping to his feet. “How dare you defile her with your sordid touch!”

  “Come on, Stewart,” I hissed, tugging at his cloak.

  “What was that you said?” Quentin replied, raising his voice to draw attention. Sensing another scene, everyone grew quiet again, turning back to
the center of the stage.

  “I know who you are,” Stewart growled. “I know what you do. You’re with him, aren’t you?”

  I looked over to see Ms. Vale approaching with a frown. I grabbed Stewart’s arm to pull him away, but he shook me off like before.

  “Oh boy, here we go,” Quentin said, gesturing toward Stewart as he glanced around at the crowd. Catching sight of Ms. Vale, he turned to face her. “Come on, Ms. Vale. Are you listening to this?”

  “That’s enough, Quentin,” Ms. Vale said, narrowing her eyes.

  But Quentin wouldn’t quit. “I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. I mean, have you seen him rocking on his little stool in the wings these last few weeks, muttering under his breath? He won’t leave poor Stacey alone. And that costume—he’s turning this entire production into a joke. You should hear what everyone in school is saying.”

  Stewart shrank all over again, even worse than before.

  “Quentin, this isn’t the time to—”

  “I can do it, Ms. Vale! I know the part as well as he does. You know I do. It’s only a matter of time before he loses it and takes us all down with him.”

  He turned to me. So did everyone else.

  “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You must know better than anyone,” he said. “Come on, Frenchy. We could do it together. There’s still time.”

  I hesitated for a second, standing there in the middle of the stage, in the middle of the cast and crew, with all eyes on me, with Stewart beside me watching too, shaken and pale. The next thing I knew, the words were just coming out of my mouth.

  “Fuck you, Quentin,” I said. “If he goes, I go.”

  Quentin laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Try me.”

  “You’re telling me you’d really quit? After all this work? I don’t think so.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you think, Quentin,” I said, “because Stewart and me are staying right where we are. Stewart’s the best thing about this play and everyone knows it. So get over yourself and leave him alone.”

  “Leave him alone?” he sneered. “Or what? Is he going to start crying or something?”