Wild and Crooked

by Leah Thomas

  Officer Newton spots another threat, a screaming woman—Who was James Ellis to her? What right does she have to claim my dad with her screams, this stranger who never came to see us?—and heads her off. Has he had that baton with him all day?

  We pass Maverick’s Diner. The patio is full of onlookers. Over their heads, the walls of the building are wallpapered with Spences Behind Fences posters.

  One glance at the other side of the street proves we’ll be seeing that pumpkin patch picture for the remainder of the parade. There are three blocks to go. The band marches on, oblivious to the booing that trails them. The booing can’t bother me.

  I’ve spent my whole life being stared at.

  I look forward. My dead leg is trying to spasm. But I don’t plan to stop, not yet.

  I turn to Kalyn, too breathless to speak.

  “If this is their worst?” She grins, showing every crooked tooth. “It’s nothin’.”

  At the penultimate block stands Samsboro Cinema, old-timey and neon bright. I’m not surprised to see that three-worded phrase up on the marquee; it’s clear that most of the downtown businesses have decided where they stand.

  I am surprised to see the dummy dangling from the marquee, a dummy that would seem normal this close to Halloween, except it’s wearing the same face we’re wearing.

  I take a step forward and a weight pulls me back. I’ve spent my whole life being stared at by a dead dad, but Kalyn hasn’t. The sound of the crowd is white noise, but the hiss of air that slips from between her teeth is anything but.

  “ ‘Death is a fearful thing,’ ” says Phil.

  We stop for so long that the hayride kisses our heels.

  “Kay.” I repeat our chant: “We don’t care what they think. We don’t care.”

  She nods, shaken for once, and starts forward again—­

  Someone blocks our way. Mr. Lewis, owner of the hardware store.

  “That’s enough, kids. Get the hell off our street.”

  Officer Newton throws an arm across us. “Coach Lewis, this is a peaceful protest. Pull any stunts and we can have words at the station.”

  Mr. Lewis spits on the pavement. “They still let you in there, huh? You ain’t a real cop, Earl Newton. The way you talk, you’re still a picked-last freshman burnout. No wonder they demoted you to babysitting.”

  I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone in Samsboro knows everyone else.

  “Mr. Lewis. You’re holding up the procession.”

  “I’m defending the rights of a wounded family!” Mr. Lewis catches sight of me. “Son, did she threaten you? Come on, now. We’ll get you to your mother.”

  I grit my teeth. “I’m not a damn baby.”

  Andy Lewis isn’t listening. He’s happy to feel righteous and feel people rallying with him. Townsfolk leak into the street, too many to stop, gathering behind him and around us. The parade marches on, but from here back it’s a standstill.

  “Raining on your parade, are we?” he continues. “Sorry I’m not inclined to listen to a cop who sides with criminals. You and Gary still best friends? Write him weekly?”

  “Best friends?” Kalyn blurts. Her eyes cut Andy Lewis to ribbons.

  “I went to school with your father,” Officer Newton says, raising his voice in turn, “and so did half the people here, and most would have called him friend, too, before this turned into a goddamn crusade.”

  There are revelations happening, but it’s hard enough to focus on standing with bodies pressing in on me. I’m being compressed like a tube of toothpaste—­

  Kalyn drops my hand when a Styrofoam cup smacks the back of her head. Cocoa splashes my visor and face, hot enough to singe my skin, and I can’t help but yelp.

  Kalyn yells and rounds on the crowd, looking for our attacker. Officer Newton is preoccupied with Andy Lewis.

  I let go of Sarah’s hand to pull my helmet off, and I manage it with Phil’s help.

  “Hey!” Sarah cries. “That’s not okay!”

  The cup came from the hayride. The sophomore boy leans over the wooden railing while the juniors pull on his jacket. Sarah breaks away from our chain to climb over the hay bales.

  Someone grabs my hand. It’s not Phil—he’s craning his neck, distracted by some chaos I can’t see.

  A stranger wearing hoop earrings drags me away from my friends.

  “It’s all right, honey, I’ve got you—”

  “Nnn!” I’m past coherence. I try to pull free, but I’m wobbly, and my jaw locks—­

  “Poor thing, this must be traumatizing for you—”

  Mostly she’s traumatizing, and she’s pulled me to the sidewalk—­

  And Phil’s between the pair of us, hollering “Avast!” before severing the woman’s grip with a single karate chop to her forearm. She lets go, but her squeal sets off a new surge of yelling.

  “Exit, Gus. Exit!”

  I anchor my feet in my cherry boots. “Where’s Kalyn?”

  “Don’t worry, she’s—”

  A fist hits Phil hard enough to bowl him over. It’s followed by a kick and then the screams of nearby witnesses. I don’t recognize our attacker—some guy in khakis and a rugby polo. I don’t care who he is, so long as he stops hurting my best friend. I fight my aching body and grab the stranger’s arm.

  The sirens wailing now aren’t in the parade. It’s hard to imagine how this plan could have gone worse. But it feels right, seeing my hometown fall apart like this. For so long it was just me and Kalyn living with the lies here. Now the struggle is everyone’s.

  I look beyond the terrible preppy outfit to the face of Phil’s assailant.

  “Gus, thank god, man!” Even with his face devoid of makeup and bruised to pieces, Garth’s smile remains charming. “I’m here to save you!”

  I can’t hit him without letting go, so I settle for spitting on him.

  Garth isn’t what I dreamed he was, but it’s still a shock when his face twists and he grabs my coiled right arm and pulls down on it. My shortened muscles scream and I do, too. It’s the worst agony. My tendons are threads of string cheese being stripped apart.

  “Sorry, Gus.” Garth lets go of my bad arm—I whimper—then twists my good one behind my back. He pushes me forward, leaving Phil alone and bleeding at the feet of confused strangers.

  I tell myself anyone would feel helpless in a situation like this. But as my right arm spasms, I have to wonder whether other people would have already escaped, whether others could be dragged toward the Maverick Diner’s patio.

  “Got him for you, Mr. E.,” Garth says, like some comic book cliché.

  “Thank you, Garth.” An old man in a golf shirt stands up from his table. “These bones aren’t what they used to be.”

  Garth beams wide. “Just trying to help.”

  The old man turns his cataracts on me. “Enough, Gus. Time to come home.”

  I stop, and I listen to the shouting and the sudden silence as the band finishes marching. I let the story take over. Grandpa Ellis is here to take me away, but that’s not what numbs me.

  Mom is with him, sitting at the table with fries in front of her, wearing that black blazer and absolutely no expression on her face.

  PHIL

  WHEN I EXPRESSED interest in becoming a vital character in the story unfolding in Samsboro, I did not account for the bruises I might sustain upon entering the spotlight.

  Certainly, nameless characters die regularly in Hollywood films. The red shirts of Star Trek, the Jane and John Does of crime series.

  Yet the maiming of main characters is generally managed with more care. A grave disfigurement often precludes the progression of plot or a character arc. Oedipus limps for a reason, a reason that contributes to solving an unsavory mystery. The loss of Frodo’s finger is symbolic of a loss much greater.

  Gus would deem this line of thinking sickening. He has cause to be critical. But like so many storytelling tropes, the idea that injury should serve a purpose comforts me.

  I have
nursed an invisible injury all my life, longing to find purpose within it.

  Garth shoves me into the sidewalk. I see no poetry in it.

  I cannot fathom how Garth’s vengeance improves my character.

  “ ‘It will have blood they say,’ ” I mutter. “ ‘Blood will have blood.’ ”

  I could defer now. Retreat to the family basement, let the lens slip from me.

  What says it of my burgeoning humanity that this thought is a brief one? Perhaps it is not humanity but anger that my tongue will tell. It propels me to my feet and through the crowd Garth has torn asunder.

  I discover Garth leaning against the railing of Maverick’s patio alongside the remnants of his Gaggle. They pluck fries from abandoned tables.

  There’s neither whisper nor whiff of our hero.

  “Need something, Phil?” Garth licks salt from his fingers. His disaffection rivals my own on my coldest days, but his is so self-conscious. I think that Garth wishes he lacked a conscience, but cannot quite manage it.

  Perhaps my maiming is not a sign of development, but evidence that I remain inconsequential. With Gus and Kalyn in absentia, what director would waste precious moments turning a camera upon Phil Wheeler?

  “Guess not.” Garth straightens.

  I refuse to revert to empty space. I will not be the body in a basement, the unpleasant reminder that people are not guaranteed good souls when they are born, any more than they are guaranteed eyes or legs or hearts or brains.

  If Gus is not here to make meaning of my existence, I must create it myself.

  “ ‘Be great in act, as you have been in thought.’ ”

  I see in Garth’s eyes a reflection of myself. Except I have aligned myself with underdogs, not monsters. If I hurt him, will it be righteous?

  “Where’s Gus?”

  Garth looks to his Gaggle. They are more than decorative; they bolster him. “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “I’d prefer a rational negotiation.” When we used select video games on rainy days, I chose those with intricate plots. Garth chose those with the most decapitations. He was always captivated by the idea of violence, the shock of it.

  “Because you’re frightened?”

  The crowd has dispersed, but this patio is an arena. I set my mask on a tabletop. A glass overturns. Ice skitters across its surface. No one moves.

  Tell me we aren’t gunslingers. Tell me we aren’t worth watching.

  “Garth. Negotiation is preferable to the alternative.”

  I know myself. I am well acquainted with my desires and limitations, have spent a lifetime defying and denying them. I can dismantle Garth and feel not the slightest remorse. Any Phil that might regret beating Garth over the head with my helmet died the day he fell off a bicycle.

  I wonder if the crowd can smell the tension, as hounds smell an earthquake.

  “Okay, Phil. What do you plan to negotiate with? Got knives in your pockets?”

  “I’ve never seen you wear those clothes.” Those stripes are wide and ugly.

  “Just getting into character.”

  “Is it a character, or is it a disguise?”

  “Same difference, Wheeler.”

  I take one step closer and reach beneath my robes. Garth’s eyes track me. I retrieve my PSP and scrape my finger down the screen for effect. “Have you cleared your internet history of late? Do you believe your disguises there might be mistaken for characters? Wouldn’t that be fortunate for you.”

  Garth blinks twice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But I have him. “I think, Garth, that you value yourself more than you value this newfound attention. If the truth is made known, no number of rugby shirts will make you seem decent.”

  Garth watches me. On either side of him, Gagglers bear witness. “You don’t have anything on me. You’re full of shit.”

  “If you’re certain, and you’ve nothing to hide, I suppose this negotiation is over. You win.” I begin my retreat, willing dramatic timing to indulge me this once—­

  “Wait.” Garth is ruffled now. “Fucking wait. He’s with his grandpa. Not exactly news, and there’s jack all you can do about it.”

  I put my PSP away. I tuck my helmet beneath my arm. “I see. Thank you.”

  Even as I turn away from him, I feel him bubbling over. I prepare for another blow, curling my bruised fist. En garde.

  But I do not expect him to swing a patio chair at the back of my head. And when the leg of the chair grazes my skull, my first thought is nonsensical—­

  If Garth happened to hit the place I hit all those years ago, could I go back to being a normal, caring creature?

  The answer seems to be no, because along with the stinging pain that knocks me into a table while Gagglers cry out, within me rises a rage that spreads from that spot to obscure all of me. It’s as though I’ve sprung a leak in that place, and the container holding the cold reality of what I really am has broken asunder.

  Perhaps I am only a red shirt, but that is not the only red part of me. All I see is red, all I feel is red when I whip my helmet against the side of his face.

  Garth goes down with a yelp, but the red isn’t finished yet. Perhaps I was never qualified to be an underdog. I have been trying very hard to miscast myself.

  Garth gasps; I hit him again, with all my might. Somebody screams, and somebody else grabs the back of my shirt. I hit him again, with the flat of my left palm, but when I raise the helmet again, someone takes hold of my arm.

  “Let him go, Phil!” It’s not until she knocks me upside the head that I realize the person hollering at me is Kalyn, the catalyst.

  I hit him again, and the pain in my hand mirrors the pounding in the back of my head. Kalyn yells and throws her arm around my neck, pulling me back.

  But she’s not the one who ultimately pins my arms—that’s Officer Newton, who separates us in one sweeping motion. All humor is gone from his voice when he hollers profanities at us, kneels on my back, cuffs my hands behind me, and yanks me to standing. Garth groans on the ground, bruised and bloody.

  The cuffs are cold, but they don’t shock me. After all these years of trying to be other than what I am, they seem fated. Gus hates the idea of our lives being fictional. He felt certain of the role he would be stuck playing. Why did I never tell him that I felt it was the opposite—in a fiction, we could escape the futures prescribed for us.

  “I can’t believe you made me hit you,” Kalyn gasps, glaring at me with tears in her eyes. She has abandoned her robes. Now she wears torn jeans and one of John’s old Gwar T-shirts. “I’ve never had to hit a friend!”

  Perhaps it’s the pounding in the back of my skull, or perhaps her fist has loosened my jaw, because I laugh at this.

  “What the hell is funny about this, Phil?” she demands.

  “You think I’m your friend.”

  “I’ll hit you again,” she says, but her gaze wavers.

  “You won’t,” Officer Newton growls. He glares at me. “I’m giving you a choice—you go straight to the hospital with this kid, or you go straight to the station.”

  I shrug.

  “Fuck’s sake, Phil.” Kalyn shakes her head. “You think this is what Gus wants?”

  I shrug. With a herculean effort, Kalyn hoists Garth to his feet. It’s clear who the hero is here, and who the victim is, and I know where that leaves me. One of the main players has returned. And I welcome the eclipse.

  KALYN

  I WASN’T DOING so hot even before I caught Phil going batshit on the Gaggler, truth be told. I wasn’t thinking about Hart Island or Dad or this shitty town.

  I was thinking about how I let Gus go. I let him go because I got hotheaded, like I’m hotheaded now. I can’t believe I dropped his hand so I could go scream at someone.

  He’d take beef with my disbelief, say that I’m treating him like a little kid. But it’s not that. Gus is my best friend, and I let someone take him away.

  I wasn’t alive to stop it
when Dad was taken. There’s nothing I could have done about the people of Samsboro then. But I’m alive now, so what’s my excuse? When I gape at Phil, maybe I’m jealous—it’s horrible the way he pummels Garth’s face, but I understand the temptation. This jerk sold Gus down the river.

  I don’t know what to feel.

  I guess that dummy shook me a little. Or a lot. By the time Officer Newton wrenched me away from Andy Lewis—I was trying to claw his skin off—Sarah was gone, Phil was gone, and Gus was gone, and we were surrounded by angry small-towners. A policeman with a megaphone called for the crowd to disperse, but our faction was already broken. Just like that.

  “Took my eyes off you for one second—” Officer Newton hollered.

  I was already sprinting, shoving more than one person over. Gus is short, and the crowd was tall and full of people who didn’t want me going anywhere. I threw off the robe. October air numbed me, especially the bald half of my head, especially my heart.

  Officer Newton got caught up talking to some police, but by the time I spotted Phil, pounding Garth’s face into hamburger, he wasn’t far behind me.

  So here I am, with the pointless hollering and hitting, pointless like most things I do. I can’t seem to change. If I’m not a murderer’s daughter, why can’t I change?

  “Fuck’s sake, Phil!” There’s something dead about Phil’s eyes. His glasses were knocked away in the scuffle. “You think this is what Gus wants?”

  He shrugs. His eyes are stones.

  “Thanks,” Garth murmurs in my ear, and it makes me feel queasier.

  “Shut up.” I deposit him in a chair; two of the other Gagglers hurry forward to help him. “Where do you get off, you toddler-lookin’ shit-monger?”

  Garth has about as much face as a broken watch, but his eyes are still locked on Phil, and they look way beyond spooked. He doesn’t answer.

  “Toddler-looking is not especially profound, as insults go,” Phil says dully, “but there is something Shakespearean about it.”