Marvelous

by Travis Thrasher

  I remember the old, expressionless driver passing me as I left the quarry. It could have been the same car.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “He or someone is doing some work. The lights in the warehouse go off. Then later on I see the smokestack actually working.”

  “What do you mean working?” I ask.

  “Like billowing smoke.”

  “Maybe he wants to just, like . . . run a smokestack?”

  Devon doesn’t even smile at my attempt at humor.

  “How’d you know he’d be here again?”

  “I’ve come two other nights and he’s been here.”

  It doesn’t look that sinister. “So what’s that have to do with anything?”

  “You tell me,” Devon says. “Something is going on with Otis Sykes. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Artie Duncan, but who knows?”

  “The cops obviously know about him. I’m sure they’re keeping an eye on him.”

  “Don’t you think this is a little weird?”

  “I think it’s weird you sleuthing around like this,” I tell him.

  Then again, Devon always seems to have a new hobby or a strange fascination.

  “You don’t think this guy suddenly coming here out of the blue is a bit odd?”

  “Of course. But I’m having an odd summer.”

  “Mrs. Duncan told someone that Artie liked walking by the river late at night. What if he stumbled into something here? And then one thing led to another.”

  “The cops say Artie wasn’t just killed. That it was a planned thing,” I argue, repeating what Harry told me. “Someone wanted to do that stuff to him.”

  “But what if it was done to look that way?” Devon asks, his voice still in a low whisper.

  “You still think this has something to do with the pot Artie was selling?”

  “I think it’s tied somehow. Yeah.”

  I turn to get a little more comfortable in the seat. “So what do you want to do? Keep spying around until we end up the same way?”

  “That’s why I’m showing you. I figured you’d have some idea.”

  “My idea is we tell a cop.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, totally. I don’t want to have anything to do with the Artie Duncan thing. Seriously. I got enough to worry about.”

  “But what—we just call up the police, or do we go in and see someone?”

  “What about Mike Harden? The cop who came to our school?”

  We keep watching out the window. The car’s lights have gone off now.

  “You really think we should tell them?” he asks.

  “Yes. And I really want to stop sneaking around like this. It’s going to start giving me nightmares.” Even though they seem to have already arrived.

  “I’m not going to the police by myself,” Devon says.

  The car starts up again and turns down the street away from us. Devon and I wait a minute, then head back down the road, passing the warehouse. I try to see if there’s anything odd about it, but nothing stands out.

  “I’ll go with you,” I say. “You get hold of Harden and let me know, and I’ll be there.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I’m just going to listen to you talk. This is your thing.”

  “We might be onto something here.”

  “I really hope we aren’t.”

  A car comes toward us down the street, and I catch a tiny glimpse.

  “What the—” I start to say.

  “What?” Devon asks.

  I turn around in my seat to see where the passing car is headed.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. I feel a falling sensation, the sort of feeling I get when I know my father is waiting for me at home.

  The car that just passed was a black Trans Am. Just like the car Marvel’s uncle drives.

  Are you okay?

  I send this text and then wait a long time. I think I’m just a bit shaken up from my trip with Devon and from seeing the car belonging to Marvel’s uncle pass us. At least Dad wasn’t up when I got home.

  Yep.

  That’s all I get. A yep. Not even a yes. I want more than a yep.

  I wait for a while until I’m thinking about shutting the phone off and trying to sleep. But then I hear the glorious sound of another text coming through.

  Are YOU okay?

  I look at her question. I breathe in. I think, and then I start typing and stop thinking.

  No, I’m not, thank you very much.

  What’s wrong? she asks.

  Everything.

  Like what?

  Again I don’t hesitate. I’m tired of all this, this waiting. This wondering. This whole worrying about Marvel this and that.

  I’m tired of thinking about you. There. I said it.

  No you didn’t, she says.

  What?

  Well, technically, you texted it.

  I stare at her text, then crack up.

  Do you think you’re the only one? she asks.

  The only one what? I type.

  You are always on my mind, Brandon. I pray for you often.

  I’m about to say what I’m thinking, which is something like I want more than your prayers or I’m not sure I want your prayers, when she says more.

  I pray that I do what I’m supposed to do.

  Okay, here she goes again.

  Is that stay away from me? I ask.

  It’s not about staying away from you. It’s about not falling for you. Those are two different things.

  She makes it sound like she actually might fall for me. Like that’s a bad thing.

  Or maybe possibly that she already has.

  I want you to fall.

  Silence.

  Is it SO bad to fall?

  More silence.

  Now I really want to turn my phone off or simply toss it in the Fox River. I wait. I try to remember if I grew this frustrated with Taryn.

  It’s not frustration, it’s confusion.

  Are you there? I type.

  It feels like the clock just starts to nod asleep on the wall, taking its sweet time before it starts ticking again. I sigh and stare at my phone.

  Yes, I’m here.

  I thought you went to bed, I type.

  I’ll be here for as long as I can be, Brandon. I wish you knew that. I wish there was a way for you to see that. I really do.

  As usual, I’m lost, I tell her.

  One day you won’t be. I promise. Good night. Need to climb quickly off this ledge.

  And just like that, she’s gone. Again.

  These are the things I picture in my dreams. This time I know I’m in my bed asleep, deep in Slumberland. But I can see everything in the most clear, vivid way.

  I see a shadow in the dark walking—no, he’s dragging something. Someone. A body. I’m not in front or behind him, nor am I some ghost hovering. It’s more like a movie. Some horror movie I’m watching.

  What is going on here?

  Then I hear the crack of a gunshot and feel the shot against my side and hear my voice scream out in pain even though I’m not hurting anymore.

  Am I dead?

  The clouds move and shift and I see a million stars above, then a rainbow forming and the sunlight fading, just like my vision.

  This is a dream, but it feels real and it feels right in some sick sort of way.

  I see a large plume of black smoke coming from a smokestack and flames rising to the horizon. I hear screams and cries. Awful, hellish sort of cries.

  I move and jerk and try to get out of here, to force myself awake. But I can’t leave. I can’t do a thing.

  Then I see a figure—the same figure as the one dragging the body in the woods?—with a mask over most of his face and some kind of hood over his head. The eyes stand out because they look like angry red embers.

  It’s a killer and he’s out to terrorize the town and he’s just started with Artie Duncan.

  Then I see another figure a
nd know it’s Marvel coming toward me. Rushing, running from somewhere, calling out. But I’m falling, I’m drifting away.

  I hear her calling out my name, and I keep waiting for her to at least hold me one time before I’m finally out. But I never feel her touch or see that sweet smile.

  I wait, and wait, and then open my eyes and see I’m still waiting in my bedroom.

  I’m getting used to these hideous and painful things happening to me, then waking up the next day and going on as usual. Maybe that’s not normal, but I don’t know what you’re supposed to do. In a movie there’s some kind of big standoff, but this is my life and the standoff would have to be with my father. So I do all I know how to do: I just keep going.

  So the day after the weird nightmare of creepy things, I keep going. It doesn’t even faze me. Being beat up by your father gets you down. Nightmares, not so much.

  Morning comes and it’s time for work, both the kind I get paid for and the kind I don’t (but that comes with perks). I don’t tell anybody, including Marvel, about the nightmares. Who knows what she would say. Knowing her, she’d probably tell me she’s seen the same things and has a totally logical explanation for them. Then she’d tell me she can’t tell me what it is.

  I’m busy, and the days pass by quickly. Nothing else comes along. No creepy dreams and no late-night drives with Devon. He hasn’t spoken to the police yet, and I’m not going to push him to. Nobody else is found dead, and so far Marvel and I have nothing to report to each other. I keep looking forward to the first Sunday in August, when we will go to Lollapalooza.

  Yet as each day goes by, something seems to weigh over me. Maybe it’s just the reality of living with a man who would slap a bottle against my forehead. Maybe it’s just wondering how long Marvel will continue to tell me she can’t be with me. Or maybe it’s this constant fear that something bigger is happening that I can’t see or know about, but is happening nonetheless. Something that involves Marvel and myself and my father and her uncle and Artie Duncan and everybody else. Some kind of awful terror I can’t even begin to imagine.

  Or maybe—and this might be even worse—I have started imagining it. Even though I have no idea why.

  “Do you believe God talks to people? Like literally talks to them?”

  Marvel’s question comes out of nowhere, almost like God is asking it. I’m a bit freaked out, to be honest. And this shouldn’t surprise me. Not this sort of question from her.

  The Cure is playing in the background. Harry is around but nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m being serious.”

  Marvel is holding some new T-shirts in her hands. I’m wondering what prompted her question.

  “I . . . guess,” I say in the weakest sort of way.

  Marvel throws the T-shirts at me. I pull away the one hanging off my head and then look at her to see if she’s teasing or angry. She looks somewhere in between.

  “What?” I ask. “What’d I say?”

  “I spend so much time waiting to ask you something, and then I get—that.”

  “You get what?”

  “That.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She comes over and picks up the T-shirts that fell to the floor. “You’re just being honest.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  I give the last one back to her. It’s a Grateful Dead T-shirt.

  “Should I even try to ask why?” I say.

  “No.”

  She walks off. Next time I’ll fake whatever the response should be.

  Marvel will see right through it.

  Later, before the day is over and I’m left with a hundred things I wish I’d said, I apologize for my earlier reply.

  “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “Why?” I say. “You can ask me anything. I want you to ask anything.”

  “No, maybe it’s not that. I shouldn’t have expected a certain kind of response. That’s where I went wrong.”

  “I’m sorry to be flippant about stuff like that.”

  “You’re being yourself. And I like that.”

  “Even if myself can be a moron.”

  “I like that moron,” Marvel says. “Sometimes. Most of the time.”

  “Enough to still go to Lollapalooza with him?”

  “If you’ll go to church.”

  I nod. “I’ll go anytime—doesn’t have to be just that Sunday.”

  “Okay. Sounds good to me.”

  I suddenly realize I need to ask Mom about the concert. Dad—yeah, I’ll pass on asking him. I might have to make something up for Mom.

  I get another idea.

  “Hey—the Superman movie—did you ever see it this summer?”

  Marvel shakes her head.

  “It’s playing at the cheap theater tonight. Any interest?”

  She grimaces.

  “Wow,” I say. “Ouch. That hurts.”

  “I’m making that face ’cause of the film.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  I remember seeing it and thinking it was pretty bad. But I’ll try anything to get her to hang out with me.

  “It’s not a date,” I say, raising my hands at the word date.

  “Of course not. Just two people going to see Man of Steel. Right?”

  “Exactly. No interested parties. Just friends.”

  “Too bad I don’t have a bike to ride.”

  I laugh.

  Wow, she’s full of zingers today.

  “You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

  Marvel heads toward the back room.

  “I can drive my neighbor’s truck,” I say.

  “How romantic,” she calls back at me.

  I expect Marvel to say she’s coming down, but instead I get buzzed upstairs. I didn’t hear a voice, and I wonder if it’s Marvel who actually buzzed me. After going up the stairs and finding number 33 on the third floor, I barely knock before the door opens and a woman gives me a grim stare.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, starting to walk away.

  “Are you here for Marvel?” She has a thick Spanish accent and is short and slender with a hard, square face that reminds me of a hammer.

  I nod.

  “I’m Rosa, her aunt,” she says, offering her hand to shake. She might be in her thirties, or maybe early forties.

  In one way I can totally tell that this is Marvel’s aunt. Yet in another way, she couldn’t seem more different from the girl I’m here to see. Rosa’s got her hair up and a lot of makeup on, and she’s wearing a dress and heels. She looks like she was pretty once, but something about her seems tough. Like somehow all the soft and fun parts about this woman were scraped off years ago.

  She doesn’t move away from the doorway. I get the idea she doesn’t want me to come in, though I wonder why she wanted me to come all the way up here.

  “You’re the boy she’s been seeing a lot of, aren’t you?”

  I realize I didn’t even say my name. “Yeah. I’m Brandon.”

  “Brandon what?”

  I can see muscles in the woman’s neck as though she works out quite a bit.

  “Brandon Jeffrey.”

  Rosa glances back over her shoulder, but keeps the door halfway closed as if to make sure I can’t look inside.

  “She will be coming out in a minute,” Rosa says.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you go to high school?”

  I nod. “I’ll be in Marvel’s class this fall.”

  “Oh.” The way Rosa says this makes it sound like she’s surprised. And disappointed.

  “You do know she probably won’t be there for the whole school year, right?”

  “No.” I’m genuinely surprised to hear this.

  “We’re probably going to move,” she says with her strong accent. “It looks very good like we will.”

  I’m about to say something when Rosa moves and opens the door.

  “Hi,” Marvel says.

  She moves past her aunt as if to mak
e sure I don’t linger. “I won’t be too late,” she tells her aunt.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say as the door closes.

  I think about what Aunt Rosa said and wonder if it’s true. Maybe this is what Marvel has been hinting about. Maybe this is why she can’t get serious and have a boyfriend.

  Or maybe Aunt Rosa is saying that for some other reason.

  I decide to not say anything about Rosa’s comments. For now.

  The date that’s not really a date is fine. The movie is over-the-top (again), and Marvel doesn’t seem to have enjoyed it much. She seems tired and distracted. I try to get her to hang out awhile, but eventually bring her back to the apartment building.

  Later that night, she sends me an e-mail.

  Thanks for tonight. Even though I didn’t really like the movie, it made me think. I keep a journal—did I tell you that? I wrote this and thought I’d share.

  I open the attached document. I’m surprised she had the time to write it, and even more surprised she had the guts to send it to me.

  SUPERMAN

  What would we say if he came down now? Today? This very moment?

  What hope would he offer? What promise would he give?

  How would he stand out in our world full of sounds and images and atrocities and wonders?

  How would he get our attention?

  How would he speak the truth and let the glory and the majesty rush over us like the waves of Niagara Falls?

  How would we know he was the one and only true son?

  How could we see in a world that lets us see everything and feel everything and be anything?

  How would we know? And why would we care?

  What brokenness inside us could be repaired?

  What yearnings could finally be satisfied?

  What noise could finally be stilled?

  How would we know our one and only superhero if we saw him today, in the flesh?

  And seeing him, and realizing his true identity, how could we accept it? How? How?

  A Superman awaits. And not even Kryptonite will stop him.

  I gotta admit, I have goose bumps after reading this. I know it’s because Marvel wrote it and because I can still hear the movie’s theme song in my head. But maybe it’s because of something else. I don’t know.