[sic]

by Scott Kelly

  I ran straight to Kent and pulled him by the shoulders down onto the pavement. He didn’t resist. I kicked him, aiming for his head but instead glancing off his ear. I tried to kick again, but a weight rushed into me, knocking me to the ground.

  “Stop!” Cameron shouted, her body pressed against me, arms wrapped around my chest and arms, trapping me.

  “He killed Geoff.” I choked on the words.

  She pulled me close, hands on my shoulders, hugging me. “The fire department will be here soon. Don’t make things worse. It’s okay.” She did not sound like she meant it.

  After a few moments, after the blinding rage seeped from me and into the cold cement, I shrugged her away and stood up.

  Kent lay curled up on the ground. I walked over and pulled him up to face me. “What’d you do that for?” I asked.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he blubbered, tears and snot running down chubby cheeks.

  “You killed my friend,” I said, voice calm now, like scolding a child. “Eureka isn’t about getting people killed.”

  He reached out to my arm and gripped my torn skin in his hands. Somewhere through the snapping of timbers, he voiced the words: “Tag. Get it off me. You take it.”

  29. Nature/nurture

  Now

  “Do you think Kent could ever escape who he was?” I ask Mr. Aschen. He seems tense in his chair, leg folded and pressed against the wall. One hand clutches his folder and the other, his trusty metal pen.

  The counselor sighs and looks up at me. “This is one of the big problems with modern psychology. To a certain extent, people are shaped by their upbringing, and also by their genetics. We are not sure exactly to what degree these things control a person, but—”

  “Seems to me like they control a person a whole fucking lot.” Telling the story is like digging my fingers between the stitches in a healing wound and ripping them out. Geoff died.

  “But Eureka ultimately led to this accident occurring,” Mr. Aschen protests. “David is selling snake oil—he is pretending to have the answers to your problems, telling you Eureka can change who you are, giving you false expectations.”

  “Why wouldn’t Eureka change who you are?” I ask. “Isn’t your identity just the choices you make? What could be simpler than making new choices?”

  “It’s not as easy as that. Not everyone can just change who they are by making a few new choices and—”

  “So what exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Aschen? Don’t you go around telling people how they can change their actions? If Eureka doesn’t work, isn’t what you do also a sham?”

  I continue: “I’ve seen the stats, Mr. Aschen. People with abusive parents are more likely to become abusive, people with criminal parents end up going to jail. Call it genetics or the way they are raised, I don’t care. Kent wanted a way to change his past. He wanted a way to rebel against what his father turned him into. What would you have told Kent? That he was doomed to be an abusive loner?”

  My counselor shakes his head, clearly lost for words. I pick up the slack:

  “But, for this one incident, I agree. Eureka seems responsible; or at least, Kent couldn’t handle it well enough, and he made a stupid decision. Geoff shouldn’t have died. It wasn’t lost on me; I quit the game.”

  Now he looks up, alert.

  *

  Senior year

  The fire burned like a virus that infected the Earth, an infernal hunger destroying its host and eventually itself. By the time the firemen arrived, the top half of the apartment was in flames, and a crowd gathered around us. Kent was restrained, crying in the back of a police cruiser, face pressed to the glass. Big smudges where his tears ran tracks through the sweat and grease to collect on the car door.

  Two fire engines parked at angles to the building, and great streams of water arced from the hoses down onto the structure. Where liquid met flame, steam misted into the air, glowing in the light of the fire, so the building was engulfed in a radiant haze.

  About twenty minutes after the fire died down and only the blackened ends of the apartment’s skeleton smoldered, Mr. Gimble arrived.

  Cameron jolted at the sight of him; I gripped her arm. She pulled away, but I held firm. We watched from the opposite end of the parking lot, hidden behind parked cars.

  Mr. Gimble ran from his car, screaming, toward his home. Halfway to his apartment he tripped, fat stomach reaching the ground first, springing his forehead onto the cement with force.

  Paramedics assisted the landlord up and then restrained him as the obese, middle-aged man began howling in rage, cursing the medics for keeping him from surveying the damage, cursing the firemen who stomped through his home with big rubber boots, cursing God for cursing him.

  This was Mr. Gimble. Forever: victim.

  Cameron broke free. I reached to reclaim her, but wasn’t fast enough and instead followed at a close distance, ready to pull her away if needed.

  She approached Mr. Gimble as he raged against the firemen and paramedics. The adrenaline I’d thought was dead surged again; recycled acid much harsher the second time it flooded my veins.

  “I want you to know,” she announced to him. He looked up. At first—rage, but then something else crossed his face. Surprise. Sadness. “You made all this happen. You raised Kent in a way where this was the only thing he knew how to do. You are a blight on this Earth and no one has ever benefited from knowing you. The quicker you commit suicide, the better off the human race will be.”

  Confronted by the girl whose life he’d destroyed, by the mess his son made, Mr. Gimble could do nothing but stare at the ground awkwardly.

  I wanted to start punching him. I wanted to get in his face until he had to admit he was shit, until he had no choice but to own up to his crimes. But Cameron needed this much more.

  She stared at him, disappointed and disapproving, but not angry.

  Realizing she wanted an answer, Mr. Gimble opened his mouth. “I never had…”

  Cameron’s eyes narrowed and he shut up. More excuses. The reason Kent and Cameron lived with such a heavy burden was frustrating, barbaric and simple: Mr. Gimble never blamed himself for anything. It was pointless to try. No good or evil in the world, no swarm of grackles to alight from the trees and attack the landlord until all that remained were clean bones.

  Just excuses. Cameron turned away from him, shaking her head.

  I saw myself in the side mirror of an ambulance. Scary. Almost half my hair, gone. A neat cut ran the length of my forearm and blood dripped down my wrist and into my palm, a souvenir from breaking the window.

  I didn’t hear anything anyone said to me; I went on autopilot again, responding with one word answers and numbly shaking my head.

  By four a.m., the paramedics and police let me go home. Kent was arrested after being checked for injuries, back in jail for the second time that day, presumably for much longer.

  I didn’t need to ask about Geoff. I already knew the answer.

  No chance at sleep. I took a pair of Dad’s clippers and stood in the mirror, staring at my face. Felt ancient, looked like shit. Purple bruises under my eyes, hair burnt. Couldn’t get rid of the smell.

  I switched the mechanical razor into action; it vibrated against the burnt skin on my hands. I squeezed until the tingling sensation turned to pain, then dropped the guard onto its lowest setting and ran it over my head. I watched as my hair fell in clumps into the sink.

  Too angry to cry—angry at Geoff for not getting out of the apartment. Was he drinking? Was he already passed out when the fire started? How was he just lying there?

  Angry at Kent, of course, and almost as sad for him. He’d tagged me at the last moment, but who could think of completing it then? Shaving my head would have to do. I was pretty sure these extenuating circumstances would satisfy my contract with the Six; no one died before.

  Instead of sleeping, I stared into the mirror for what must have been an hour. My father was a familiar snoring lump on his cot; an infomercia
l blared on the television. I didn’t bother to tell him what happened.

  The next day I skipped school, granting myself a three day weekend. I spent all my time alone until that Sunday, when Geoff’s funeral was held. Had to call the town’s two funeral homes to find out when it would be.

  Nora heard what happened from someone. She called me, asking what she could do to help. I told her about the burial and she agreed to come with me. Real concern in her voice. One small victory: she dropped all pretense of playing hard to get. She’d forgiven me. I didn’t dare bring up the fact Eureka was involved in the fire. I wanted to enjoy this truce before her pride convinced her to push me away again.

  So we stood side-by-side in the back of an empty church, except for one older man who sat across from us and three crying women in the front. The chapel was barren and the ceremony was quick and to the point. No body to show and little to say. A preacher who’d never met Geoff read about the sting of losing someone who was so young and of all the promise he had left to fulfill, and whatever, whatever.

  I hung my head and thought about when I’d ignored him. I knew he had problems, and he tried to reach out to me—me, of all people—for some sort of guidance or friendship or compassion. I’d offered nothing, because I’d been too caught up in my own little world.

  Nora sat by my side for the service and the wake. I saw what I assumed was Geoff’s mom or aunt or grandmother and smiled weakly.

  Everything he’d done amounted to this—an hour-long funeral officiated by an old preacher that didn’t even know what he’d looked like.

  Hard to justify Eureka, looking at something like that. Wanting to live a full life, wanting to buck the harness that society put on you—that was fine. But how much was it worth? What sort of life did Geoff have?

  After the funeral, I directed Nora to a nearby stream at the corner end of a public park. We sat by the water, sharing fast food she’d picked up. Everything tasted ashy and gray, like the fire ate this up too.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about why he didn’t come out of that apartment,” I said at last, after several silent minutes.

  “We’ll never know, I guess,” Nora said.

  “I wonder if he was drunk again, or high. Maybe both. I yelled, I banged on the door. How did he not hear?”

  “Maybe he was a heavy sleeper,” Nora said.

  “How did the heat not wake him up? The smoke?”

  “The fire alarms didn’t go off,” Nora supplied, reading back my own story to me: “Sometimes people don’t wake up until it’s too late. This could be that simple, Jacob. He could have suffocated in his sleep. You saved like six people, and you’re a hero. Not many people would run into a burning building.” She turned and looked at me. Our four feet hung over the side of a large rock, and the fast-moving water below was tumbling diamonds.

  I said nothing.

  Nora ran a hand over my shaved head. “I like it,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  I faced Nora. Waves of brunette hair tossed to the side by the wind, big eyes pure pity, unadulterated compassion. The girl who would come save me even if I didn’t deserve it. The girl who cared about me helplessly, who often hated the fact she did so. Indefensible love.

  So I said it: “You were right. Right about Eureka. I’ll quit.”

  Lips met mine. Nora leaned into me and she was this shaking, nervous, fragile creature in my arms, all warm concern. I fell back with her on top of me; my foot slipped into the water. Electric. Freezing cold. Every nerve ending on full alert. The sensations made me dizzy; she buried her face on my neck, lips gentle on my skin, kissing and kissing again, as though pleading with me not to change my mind. I ran a hand through her hair then leaned back, resting on the rocks with Nora in my arms.

  30. The end of Eureka

  I returned to school on Monday, life still skipping by in big chunks, nothing sticking. Just a series of realizations that hours passed since the last time I realized the same thing.

  Surprised by my own guilt. As events unfolded, I hadn’t considered my role. Now that I stood and stared at the rubble, I wondered if I could have prevented Geoff’s death and Kent’s breakdown.

  Could have—like, by not causing it in the first place. Did I instigate this? Cameron wasn’t in love with him, and Steven pushed things too far. More than anything, Kent was delusional about his situation. So, whose fault was it?

  Not such a leap to figure Steven planted the drugs in Kent’s locker. I probably would have noticed if Kent was getting high; he didn’t seem the type. I knew the smells, knew the slack redness of a stoner’s eyes. Never saw that on Kent.

  I looked at the clock again, and realized school was over. I left the building still stuck in my own head.

  Cameron stopped me in the parking lot, hair aglow in the Spring sun.

  “David wants us all to get together,” she said. “We’re having a meeting tonight.”

  “We are?” I asked. I hated the way everyone seemed to use ‘we’ to exclude me.

  “Same time, same place.”

  “Can I get a ride?”

  “Nope,” she replied, turning away from me.

  “Cameron!” I called to her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered. “David has been helping me through it.”

  The way Cameron spoke, it was clear things weren’t fine—but she left before I got to ask another question.

  This time, I brought a thick metal flashlight to guide my way through the woods to David’s trailer. Pitch black, before I even set off. Through the narrow beam of my light, it seemed as though the forest marched across the ground toward me in a bouncing rhythm to match my own. I slipped through the bark army undetected, and found my four friends seated around a campfire, waiting.

  “Hey,” I said to Emily. She waved, grinning. The simple act sent my mind spinning into visions of her panting, moaning, sweating—always this way, when she was around. I forced my attention elsewhere. Didn’t need Emily haunting me, not now.

  Instead, I turned to Steven, searching his face for any clue he might’ve known what would happen with Kent. He looked smug.

  David sat cross-legged in front of the charred shell of his former trailer. Pots and pans were stacked on a blanket nearby and a sleeping bag stretched out behind him, spread open and exposing its innards.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I called this meeting because with Kent gone, we need to determine who’s ‘it.’”

  “That’s the only reason?” I blurted. “Not to talk about if what we did was right, or wrong, or how we could make a new rule to keep this from happening again? You just want to know who’s ‘it’ so we can keep playing without ever stopping to look back and ask what we’re doing.”

  David’s expression didn’t change. “I know exactly what we’re doing. Eureka only gave Kent the freedom to act. He chose what he would do. His actions resulted in a death, but Eureka is not responsible. He’s in prison for who knows how long, though, and we need to figure out how the game will go on.”

  “Kent was a disaster. He didn’t even have a good idea,” Emily supplied, sucking slowly on a cigarette. “He just copied David. Kent shouldn’t have been involved, ever—we’re different, and you know it. The only reason he was ever invited was because Cameron kept bringing him along. Poor bastard shouldn’t have been tagged in the first place.”

  “Geoff’s dead!” I exclaimed. “How can you act like this didn’t matter? Something has to change. When’s the next time someone dies?”

  “Kent did a stupid thing,” Steven said. “It’s like Emily says—he was never one of us. An outsider.”

  I turned to watch Cameron; she stared at the ground sullenly, hands clutching each other in her lap, thick green blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Three dead leaves from the forest floor were tangled into her hair; the blanket matched the sheet inside David’s open sleeping bag.

  �
�Kent did this because of Eureka,” I said, voice rising.

  “He did this because he’s a dumbass,” Emily countered.

  “Cameron, you agree with me, right?” I asked. “You were there.”

  “I would think that you, of all people, would care least,” Steven said. “Kent hated you, right?”

  Thanks to you.

  David answered before I raised a defense: “I don’t know about that, Steven. If Jacob was friends with this guy who died, maybe he feels guilty.”

  No right answer. If I admitted to being Geoff’s friend and feeling guilty, they’d say I was confused, that I wasn’t at fault. But weren’t we all?

  I looked at Cameron helplessly, but her eyes were fixed on David.

  What did I expect? They chose Eureka over a normal life, and now they couldn’t have one. Hell, maybe none of us ever had a chance at being normal.

  “I’m ‘it,’” I claimed. “Kent tagged me after he burned down the apartment. He didn’t want to play anymore. I shaved my head, for my change.”

  Silence.

  “Excuse me for being skeptical,” Steven said, “but this works out in your favor, and you always seem to be ‘it.’”

  “Cameron saw,” I said.

  She shifted her feet and stared into the ground for a long time. Suddenly, very shy.

  “Well?” David asked. “Did you, Cameron?”

  “I saw it,” she said finally, into the dirt. “Jacob’s telling the truth.”

  David nodded, and that settled the issue. “Okay then,” he said. “Jacob decides who gets tagged next. But on that note, we’re running out of people to play Eureka with. I think it’s time we bring in some new blood, maybe even start a few more circles of players.”

  “You can’t all be writing off this Kent disaster,” I interrupted. “Because of this game, someone died—and a lot more people could have. How can that not be a serious concern? You just want to replace him? Will you do that if I die or get arrested?”