by Neil Smith
“There is a family resemblance,” I say. “You have the same coppery eyes. Also the same dimple in your left cheek.”
“Oh, I have to introduce you two. She’ll frigging flip out. Stay put, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Johnny pushes the door open and heads into Zoo. I can hear a customer talking loudly to Brenda about Zig knows what. “Are you sure it clumps?” the lady says. “I need it to clump. And it’s gotta flush. It’s gotta flush and clump.”
Taped to the opposite wall of the back room are dozens of photographs of Johnny and Brenda. I cross the floor for a better look. My eyes dart here and there, seeing Johnny throughout his life. A prom-goer in a baby blue tuxedo with his arm around an older Cynthia Orwell. A seventh-grade track star with a gold medal around his neck. A young driver sitting at the wheel of a convertible, a basset hound beside him in the passenger’s seat. A squinting bearded artist standing beside a swirling abstract mural painted on a brick wall.
Then I see this photo: a hollow-eyed eighth grader sitting up in bed, his head in bandages. Johnny is clutching a heart-shaped throw cushion. Stitched across the heart is a single word: HERO.
An odd gift for a boy who shot another.
“I have customers, Johnny,” Brenda says out in Zoo. “Your surprise can’t wait?”
I turn around as Johnny and his sister walk into the back room. They stop in the doorway.
Johnny grins wildly.
Brenda frowns. “Customers aren’t allowed back here,” she says. Then her frown vanishes, and she gapes at me.
“No, no,” she whispers. “No freaking way.”
“Yes freaking way,” Johnny replies.
Brenda takes a few steps forward, one arm outstretched. She wants to touch me, I think. She wants to see whether her hand passes right through.
“He’s solid,” Johnny says.
“Hello, Brenda Henzel,” I say, backing against the wall. “You have certainly matured since last we met.”
A strangled whimper escapes her mouth. Her arm drops to her side. Her eyes roll backward. Her knees buckle, and she falls hard, slapping against the concrete floor.
“Dear me,” I say to the heap of purple velour.
Johnny hurries over. “Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t,” he mutters as he goes down on his knees to help his sister.
“She experienced a drop in the amount of blood flow to her brain,” I say to explain why a person faints.
Johnny turns Brenda faceup and gently pats her cheek. She is as white as a sliced potato, except for a red mark at her hairline where her head must have bounced off the concrete.
“Have any smelling salts?” I ask, standing over them.
“Smelling salts?” Johnny says. “What the f*ck’s that?”
“Ammonia carbonate.”
The chemical formula is (NH4)2CO3, but I do not say so because now is not the time.
“The only ammonia I got here is Windex,” Johnny says, his voice shriller.
Brenda flutters her eyelids and emits a groan. The Siamese jumps down from its 9 Lives and sniffs her scalp.
“Perhaps I should skedaddle,” I say. “She may black out again if she comes to and sees a ghost hovering.”
Johnny gives me a look of regret. “But where’ll you go?”
“Back home. Back to Town.”
“How’ll you get there, Boo?”
Like a religious fanatic, I say, “Zig will show me the way.”
I undo my Casper the Friendly Ghost wristwatch and hand it over as a souvenir. “So you will always remember the time,” I say.
I mean not only this moment in time, but also our time together in Town.
Johnny’s mouth is smiling, but his eyes still look somewhat doleful. “As if I would’ve forgot,” he says.
“ ‘Forgotten,’ ” I correct.
Then Brenda opens her eyes, focuses on my face, and screams blue murder.
After I bolt away from zoo, I drift through the vast stretches of bungalows that populate Hoffman Estates. On one street, a little girl about seven years old asks if I would like a before-dinner mint. She is standing at the end of her driveway with a fake tiara on her head. In her hand, she has a hard candy wrapped in green cellophane. I am touched by her kindness, particularly since Zig does not give us townies candy.
A little later, as I am sucking on the mint, I step into the road without looking both ways and nearly get clipped by a station wagon. “Watch it, goofball!” the driver yells. I realize I am now on Meadow Lane, the street where Johnny and I once lay in the snow to watch the heavens.
I meander around Sandpits for a while. Have you gone to Anchorage, dear Mother and Father? When we sailed to Alaska, we all expressed a wish to move there one day. Are you in the land of the moose? Without your presence here, Sandpits no longer holds much appeal, so I vamoose and head toward Helen Keller.
As I cross the long field that stretches out behind the school, I feel a queasiness in my gut. I do not understand my reaction until, in the yellowing grass, I spot an empty can of cola lying on its side. I stop in my tracks. I recall that this is the field where Kevin Stein, Nelson Bliss, and Henry Axworthy attacked me with stones on the first day of eighth grade.
I also remember something I had forgotten.
After my attackers threw their rocks and I fell to the ground stunned and bleeding, they stood over me and made a pact. Pig-nosed Kevin held his hand to his heart and put on a solemn voice. “I pledge to make every day of this school year a living hell for Oliver ‘Boo’ Dalrymple,” he said. Nelson repeated the line, and so did Henry. Then, the three of them together cried, “One nation under God, amen!”
There was an empty can of pop lying nearby. Lemon soda. Kevin picked up the can. Then he unzipped the fly of his jeans and fished around for his penis. He did not turn away. He dared me to watch. I closed my eyes, but I could hear him. He was urinating into the pop can. The sound was like liquid being poured into a beaker.
“Hold him down,” he told Nelson and Henry, who then sat on my arms.
I told myself it did not matter: after all, it was mostly water with traces of inorganic salts and organic compounds. Relax and just swallow, I told myself. Yet I did not surrender quietly this time. I fought. I screamed. I tried hooking my legs around my assailants to knock them off. I did not manage, though. Nelson’s grimy fingers wrenched my mouth open, and Kevin poured the warm urine down my throat. I sputtered and choked. It went up my bloody nose, all over my face, in my hair, and even in my ears.
They won. They would always win.
How strange that I am recalling this now.
It is a memory that Zig found fit to erase.
For thirteen years, this memory lay in a kind of vault. Also in there was the despair I felt. It comes back to me now. Even after they left me, I remained lying in this field for an hour or two. Drained. Forlorn. Beaten.
Now, in the distance, a half dozen kids run screaming across the same field. Whether they are terrorizing one another or just playing I cannot tell. A robin lands a yard away. It stares at me, head tilted one way and then the other, as though I am a tricky puzzle it is trying to solve.
“Hello, angel,” I say to the bird.
It flies away, and then I walk over to the empty can of pop. I jump up and down on the thing till it is good and flat. Then I pick it up and wing it across the field like a Frisbee.
I head back to the long brick school that is Helen Keller. I worry its doors may be locked because it is now suppertime. Will I need to break in? But no, the doors are open, and a few boys mill around in the lobby. They are dressed in what look like pajamas but are actually judo uniforms tied with orange belts. They pay me no mind. I walk down the hall past showcases with sports trophies locked behind glass.
Johnny won track-and-field trophies for Helen Keller in seventh grade. I expect, however, that he was not allowed to complete eighth grade here. Which school did he attend instead? A kind of reform school, I imagine.
Zig permitted this hauntin
g, I suppose, to show me that Johnny has managed to carry on with his life, even though certain ghosts haunt him still. I am one of those ghosts. Perhaps I helped him today. I dearly hope so.
When I reach my old locker, I see that No. 106 is padlocked. I assume I know the combination: I turn the dial to 7, to 25, and then to 34. I yank the lock and it opens.
I check behind me, but no one is around. Only Helen Keller’s eyes watch from across the hall.
I squeak the door open, expecting the rear panel to be missing and the locker to be empty. But the panel is in place and the locker full. The objects in it, though, do not belong to the Asian girl I met earlier in the hallway. Holy moly, they belong to me!
My periodic table is taped to the back of the door. Above it are my photos of Jane Goodall and Richard Dawkins. Jane with her sleek blond ponytail and her pursed lips. Richard with his impish grin and his unruly eyebrows. “Hello there, hello,” I say. “You two look good. You have not aged a single day.”
My compass and protractor set is in my locker, as are my chemistry and mathematics textbooks. My school copy of Lord of the Flies, its spine still unbroken. My forest green cardigan sweater that Grandmother gave me for my thirteenth birthday. My French-English dictionary. My cracked-vinyl gym bag with my gym clothes still inside: yellow shorts, Trojan T-shirt, even a jockstrap.
I riffle through my belongings. At the back of the top shelf is a paper bag. I assume it is the lunch you made me thirteen years ago, Mother and Father. I pull it toward me. It is heavy. Heavier than a peanut butter sandwich, a granola bar, and a box of raisins should be.
I open the paper bag.
Inside is a revolver.
Not the one from Curios.
Uncle Seymour’s gun.
I glance up. Helen Keller stares at me from her wall. She nods her mortarboard head. At least in my mind she does.
Then I remember.
Me aiming this gun at my own chest. Johnny yelling, “No!” Throwing himself at me. The panic in his eyes. The scars on his wrists. The wrenching and the wrestling. The loud bang.
Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon, potassium, calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gallium, germanium, arsenic, selenium, bromine, krypton, rubidium, strontium, yttrium, zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, silver, cadmium, indium, tin, antimony, tellurium, iodine, xenon, cesium, barium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, rhenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, gold, mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, polonium, astatine, radon, francium, radium, actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium.
I curl myself into No. 106 and slam the door. I am swallowed by darkness. I am cramped, sweaty, shaky. I gasp for breath. There is a paper bag in my hand, but I cannot use it for CO2. I let it go, and the gun clunks at my feet. I start weeping quietly, and the sleeves of my cardigan sweater hang around me like an embrace. This locker is my coffin. May I never leave it.
Time creeps along. I cannot tell how much time. Twenty minutes? Two hours? But eventually the locker’s back panel is tugged open, and before me stands a boy with a Mohawk stiffened with white glue (polyvinyl acetate). “Jesus!” he cries. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
When I unfold myself and slip out of the locker, I feel lifeless. I am a zombie. The walking dead. The warehouse is now filled with dozens of sorters rummaging through the delivered goods and piling items into buggies and onto dollies. They are as diligent as worker ants.
“What were you doing in there?” the punk rocker asks.
“Looking for unusual finds,” I mutter.
“There’s nothing unusual about this beat-up locker.”
“Au contraire,” I reply.
I glance back inside the locker. It is empty once again. All my belongings are gone, including the paper bag. I close the locker door.
I arrange for the punk rocker to deliver No. 106 to Curios later in the week. I ask him the time now, and he says five to eleven. I was away for several hours.
I pick up my rock-filled flashlight and shuffle back to the Guy Montag Library. Coming up the library’s walkway, I hear a yapping, and Pierre clambers out of the bushes that grow alongside the building. Heavens, I had forgotten all about the dog. He leaps up and down to welcome me back. I carry him inside. When we reach Curios on the third floor, I am hesitant to enter, but I force myself to undo the chain lock. My footsteps echo and Pierre’s nails clickety-clack as we walk through the exhibit halls. Despite the dozens of displays, the space feels empty, as though not a soul is around. I say to Pierre, “Let’s see if his soul is still here.”
We head to Johnny’s room, and I drag the armoire away from his door. When I go inside, I am not shocked to find the bed empty. Lying atop it are red gym shorts, a white tank top, and a blue bauble. I slip the items into the drawer underneath the bed where the revolver still resides.
Just in case, I check to see whether Zig filled the gun with bullets during my absence, but there are none inside. Well, I guess I cannot shoot myself in my stupid brain or defective heart.
I doff my T-shirt and jeans and climb under the covers in only my shorts. A slight whiff of onions lingers. Pierre hops onto the bed and curls up at my feet. I am very, very tired, yet I wonder whether I will ever fall asleep again, and if I do, will I ever wake?
My voice trembles slightly when, to the ceiling fan, I say, “Tell me a bedtime story, Zig. But please, no more fairy tales. No more fiction.”
The ceiling fan whirls and twirls.
“I want the truth.”
As usual, Zig says nothing. But he does not need to reply. I now know the truth. I know in my holey heart what you, dear Mother and Father, have long known: your son was Gunboy.
Please.
Please.
Forgive me.
Seven weeks have passed, Mother and Father, and during this time, I have told not a soul but you about my haunting and the mysteries it unraveled. To keep my sanity, I have kept busy. I have revamped Curios. Let me share with you an exhibition I have designed called Curiouser and Curiouser. Esther suggested the title, which comes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a fictional book I intend to read one day.
Tonight is the grand reopening of Curios. In the past weeks, I moved every object in the museum’s collection into basement storage at the library. Down went our dollar coins, Chinese kite, batteries, out-of-order phones, personal computer (a new arrival), condoms, diapers, Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume Ma to Mi, roll-on deodorant, pet terrariums, animal replicas, corned beef, boxes of Hamburger Helper, lucky rabbit’s foot, ceramic statue of Jesus’s supposedly virgin mother, wallaby postal stamps from Australia, and on and on.
As for the little revolver, I threw it down the garbage chute. It is gone forever. Or perhaps not forever, because for all I know Zig may boomerang it back one day.
After I moved all the curiosities downstairs, I began traveling to Town’s infirmaries, which, over the years, have all received photocopiers from Zig’s warehouse deliveries. I spent day after day photocopying the documents I planned to display as part of Curiouser and Curiouser.
Tonight is October 31. As on every Halloween, I simply throw a white sheet over my head. Through its eyeholes, I can gauge the reactions of my visitors, who come as zombies, witches, mummies, monsters, archangels, goblins, and the like. They come with their fake blood and gore. They come with fake arrows through their heads. They come with fake knives sticking out of their backs. These dead children walk around the halls of my museum in wonder. I cannot always see their wonder under their ma
sks and makeup, but I can sense it.
There are no displays tonight as such. Instead, the actual walls are the exhibits. I have divided the museum into thirteen areas, each identified by a large number painted its own distinct color on bristol board. Using simple glue sticks, I wallpapered the walls with photocopies of every page of the surviving rebirthing books from the thirteen infirmaries. On these pages are listed newborns’ names, the city they came from, the date of their rebirth, the cause of their passing, and the zip code of their assigned address. Most of the pages are typewritten, but the oldest books (I found one dating back to 1938) are handwritten, the ink so faded it is often illegible. The pages run chronologically in a horizontal fashion across the walls, the oldest in the top left corner, the newest in the bottom right corner.
Curiouser and Curiouser is a memorial to everyone who has ever come to Town. My aim is for each of my fellow townies to feel he or she is a beautiful, curious object.
I did not know how people would react. Would they be impressed? Bored? It appears the former is the case. They are reading the documents as though they are pages from a fascinating novel. Council president Reginald Washington (a pirate) is here, as are jail warden Lydia Finkle (a witch), asylum manager Dr. Albert Schmidt (a ghoul), and former Schaumburg resident Sandy Goldberg (a giant felt peanut).
The irksome twins Tim and Tom Lu come as well, wearing fake mustaches and carrying canes. They are dressed as Thompson and Thomson from Tintin.
Tim says to Tom, “I wonder if after all these years Oliver Dalrymple is still the victim.”
“Would it were true,” I reply.
Like many other visitors, Tim and Tom climb the stepladders placed in the halls to search for their own names on the rebirthing lists. Meanwhile, Pierre weaves in and out of people’s legs and yaps like a mad dog and, when egged on, does his wee-ooo-wee-ooo.
My friends are here too. Thelma is dressed as Sherlock Holmes in a tweed deerstalker, Esther as a gypsy medium in a headscarf decorated with signs of the zodiac, and Ringo as a mummy wrapped in white bandages stained with fake blood.