There were lamp posts and shopping carts and we shrunk the hell out of them.
There was the old dumpster behind the Milk Mart and we shrunk the hell out of it.
There was Todd’s stepfather’s Buick Super Rivera and we shrunk the hell out of it.
There was the baseball diamond in Glenn Park and we shrunk the hell out of it.
We stopped to pick up moon pies and Boyer Smoothie Peanut Butter Cups at the 7-Eleven and the attendant shortchanged us a nickel.
“Whaddya think you’re doing?” said Marvin and his forehead was sweaty and red like he was getting a sunburn. His hair was an electrified bird’s nest. “I want my nickel!”
“Go screw,” said the attendant. His nametag read Jimmy. “Clear out, wouldya?”
And in that moment Jimmy was everything we hated about the world. He was everyone who was always telling us to go screw. Who was screwing us. Who was gypping us. So Todd shrunk the hell out of him, and when the air had finally settled, Marvin gave him the finger.
“Whaddya think of that?” he asked. “Whaddya think of that now, huh?”
“Marv,” said Larry. He sounded worried. Like real worried. “Marv.”
He was staring at Jimmy the attendant. Jimmy the inchworm. He was even smaller than Larry, flailing his arms around and trying to shout something that none of us could make out. Small enough that Todd could squish him between his fingers like a mosquito if he wanted to.
“Shit,” said Marv. “We can’t just leave him, can we? Not like that?”
“Sure we can,” said Todd uncertainly. “I mean, he’ll get better, right? Just on his own?” And Todd had a look on his face like he wished he could take it back. Like he thought maybe this was all going a bit further than he really wanted it to. And maybe it was. Maybe it was.
But still.
It was the middle of August. School was right around the corner. We knew the last of the sunlight was going to slip away before we’d hardly had a chance to do anything at all. And here was something. Here was something that was ours. The one bright and shiny thing the universe had dropped into our laps. Would we give it up? Maybe eventually. Maybe someday. But right now?
No effing way.
“Let’s split!” I yelled, and we did.
Sometimes something happens when you’re stupid. If you’re lucky enough not to get caught then there’s such a feeling of relief you swear off whatever badness you were up to forever, and then it’s as good as if you did get caught in the first place. Sometimes. But there are those other times when getting away with something is just the beginning. Sometimes getting away with it can make you wilder and crazier than you ever thought possible.
And that’s how it was with us.
The four of us wailed out of there, Todd with the shrink ray, Marvin with Larry, and Larry munching away happily on a Boyer Smoothie Peanut Butter Cup twice the size of his head.
There was Sinclair Pumps and we shrunk the hell out of it.
There was the Route 9 City Bus to Port Hope and we shrunk the hell out of it.
There was Washington Memorial School and we sure as hell shrunk the hell out of that.
We shrunk the hell out of the cop car that chased us out by Highway 29.
We even shrunk the hell out of Grace Presbyterian where Pastor Davis liked to preach, and then Pastor Davis himself and the whole Saturday Night congregation that was gathered with him.
Pretty soon it was starting to look like we were living in Shrinky Dink, USA and that’s when the feeling of it all going sideways on us started to get worse. We were getting scared again. Real scared.
And maybe then it’s no surprise that we ended up at Melanie’s doorstep a little bit after nine. After all, she was the one always knew best. And what was the whole point of this if it wasn’t her?
Marvin was going to try the bell, but Todd shushed him down.
“Whaddya mean be quiet?”
“Don’t be such a spazz!”
“Don’t be such a jerkoff!”
“Hey, be careful with that, willya?” I cut in, slapping down the shrink ray before Todd could get off a shot. “Let’s be cool for once in our lives now, dig it? Her old man’s not gonna let her out this late.”
Marvin nodded.
There were rules for Melanie now. It was like her parents had gone to bed and woken up thinking the world had turned dangerous for a girl like her overnight. There was curfew. There were long shouting matches about what kind of clothes she could wear, what kind of friends she could have. And boys? We were suddenly finks and fakes to them. Space cadets. Shucksters, one and all. Were we good enough for their daughter? Hoo-boy! Not a chance!
So I took a handful of gravel and I chucked it at her window. This was how we used to do it back when Melanie was Mel and she’d come out with us to play ball or drink the brewskis that Joe would sometimes buy for us.
Eventually there she was at the window and she was beautiful as ever with her hair done up in these big pin curls that just made my heart melt. Her eyes were green as a chemist’s bottle, luminous, I could see them perfectly even though the sun had mostly cut out at this point.
“Hey, Mel!” Todd called softly, forgetting for a moment that she was Melanie now and she was not one of us. I could have kicked him for that. It was an unspoken rule between us that we wouldn’t call her that anymore.
“Hey, yourself,” she said. “What’s the story?”
A moment later, she was wedging the window open and climbing her way down the drainpipe the way she used to. She shimmied her way to the bottom, her pedal pushers hugging her thighs, and then she was standing in front of us panting and pink in the soft, filmy glow of the evening.
“You boys raising some Cain?” she asked.
“Maybe,” said Todd.
“You too?” she asked looking at me. I felt that look travel like electricity right through me and give my balls a good jolt. I blushed. I blinked. Wiped at dirt on my face and hoped my hair didn’t look as nuts as Todd’s and Marv’s did.
“I guess.”
“Where’s Larry?”
Marv took Larry out of his pocket, and the kid was curled up there like a kitten in his palms.
“What’s that supposed to be?” said Melanie.
“Larry’s gone looking for his dog,” Todd burst in. “Ya know, Rufus the Miniature Pooch? Heeeeeeeeeeere, puppy puppy puppy!” I punched him in the arm. “Aw man,” he said. “Whaddya do that for?”
“Can it, willya?” I said.
And just then Larry started to stir. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Said in that high voice of his, “What’s up, Doc?”
Marv giggled, but Melanie just stared.
“Cool,” she said. The tiniest of grins was starting to tug at her lips.
“Come out with us tonight,” I said. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. She was too pretty in the evening light just then.
“I can’t, boys,” she said. She shook her head very gently and those big pin curls of hers did a lazy bob around her shoulders.
We could all feel something drain out of us then, like piss down a pant leg. I don’t know what it was. Craziness? Courage? Whatever it was that Larry’s brother had joined the Air Force to find?
“Course you can,” I tried. It was important. She had to come with us. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? “Nights like tonight? They’re limited supply only. Act now.”
She looked at me funny then. Like she was sad. Like she knew I was righter than I meant to be.
But she also looked at me like she knew I wasn’t being straight with her. And maybe I wasn’t but maybe that was because we were never straight with her anymore. We didn’t ever tell her we loved her. We didn’t ever tell her that’s why we had showed up at her place on a Saturday night with a shrunken boy in our pocket and the kind of ray gun that only ever works in comic books.
We didn’t tell h
er that maybe we’d gone a bit too far.
We didn’t tell her that maybe we were thinking of going a bit further but we only wanted to do it if she was there. We woulda laid the whole stinking world at her feet if we coulda.
“Peachy,” she said.
So that was how it happened.
We took Melanie into town and we showed her just what kinda Cain we’d been raising.
We walked like giants through what was left of Main Street, tiny cars motoring around our feet and honking at our knees. Tiny parents clutching at their tiny babies, holding them tightly behind their tiny bedroom windows.
It was like we were kings.
It was like we were on top of the effing world!
And Melanie? Her eyes were wide as saucers and pretty soon she was laughing with strange delight at Jefferson’s clock tower which we’d shrunk to the size of a putt-putt club, and she was putting her hand on my arm, and her touch was soft and warm, and her laugh was beautiful, and she was whispering to me, “Oh, you boys, you boys, just look what you’ve done, you crazy things!”
And Todd poked me in the shoulder, and, God, could I have told him to scram just then!
We walked up to the lookout where all the lovers go to play backseat bingo. None of us had ever dared go there before far as I knew. Except Melanie knew the way. She knew things now that our Mel wouldn’t have known.
The evening sky had darkened until there was just a hazy glow of light and the moon was big and sitting heavy and yellow on the horizon. Todd pointed the shrink ray at it but this time it was Melanie who shook her head, batted down the gun.
“Oh no, boys,” she said. “You can’t go shrinking the moon!”
“I bet I could,” Todd said with a grin.
“But,” Melanie replied, “whatcha gonna do without a moon in June?”
And Todd stared at her. And Melanie grinned. And then we all burst into giggles like a bunch of stupid kids.
The lookout was empty. Not a car in sight. Made me wonder where all the lovers had ended up, or if maybe we’d shrunk the hell out of them already. Maybe there were tiny little boys and girls somewhere sharing tiny little kisses under a moon that was now big enough to swallow them.
We settled in the grass together, the five of us. Shared out the last of the moon pies and the Boyer Smoothie Peanut Butter Cups. The night was beautiful. Melanie was beautiful. And I felt happy. Buoyant. I felt grown up, nine feet tall, like I coulda done anything. Like I coulda even kissed Melanie up here at the lookout where the boys and girls went for that sort of thing. If I wanted to. Which I did. Of course I did.
And then we heard a noise. It was so soft it coulda been drowned in the crickets but I strained my ears.
It was crying.
It was this weird, breathless, tinny crying sound.
And I looked down and there was Larry, tucked into Marv’s shirt pocket, holding onto his Boyer Smoothie Peanut Butter Cup and sobbing away like it was the end of the world.
“What’s wrong, Larry?” I asked.
And he didn’t say anything.
“Larry?” Melanie said. And Marv fished him out of the pocket and Marv held him up in the palm of his hands so we could all get a look at him, his tiny shrunken glasses sitting crooked on his face. His tiny shrunken mouth smeared with chocolate.
“I dunno, guys,” he said. “It’s just. Well. We got a shrink ray, didn’t we?”
We all nodded.
“We got a shrink ray and it worked. It worked. It really really worked! And that’s just boss, ya know? It might be the bossest thing of all.”
“Then why’re you weeping?” Todd asked him.
“Because. It’s just. Well. What about Rufus? What about the little guy? How come we got the shrink ray and I ain’t got my miniature dog? I mean, what if he really did escape? What if he’s lost out there?”
“Oh god,” cried Larry, “What if he’s dead?”
And Larry’s voice had turned into a wail. We all looked at one another, but no one had a thing to say. Todd coughed. Marv scratched at his nose.
“What if he’s dead?” Larry went on, his voice hiccoughing and broken. We all had to lean in to hear him properly. “I mean it’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, I think I can see Port Hope from here. Do ya think we could shrink Port Hope?” he asked. “I mean, do ya think we could just . . . shrink all of it? We could just shrink the hell out of it! And then all of Michigan, ya know, just ker-blammo! Shrinksville!” His voice had taken on a desperate quality that made me feel weak and scared to hear it. “And then maybe, I mean maybe, maybe we could just shrink our way to Korea, ya know? Just shrink the hell out of it, just shrink the hell out of all those fucking shovelheads, just shrink ’em down and step on them until they’re dead! Whaddya think, boys? Whaddya think? Do ya think we could? Huh?”
His tiny face was red and heartbroken. But his eyes, man, even at only five inches tall we could all see that there was something real and alive in his eyes, something crazy, but a different sorta crazy than the crazy the rest of us had caught.
And whaddya say to that? Whaddya say to a thing like that?
Pastor Davis would know, but we sure as shit didn’t.
“We could do all that,” Todd said slowly. “Course we could. Right, boys? We could? We got a shrink ray, don’t we? We could shrink it all down?”
And then he took out the shrink ray. He pointed it out over the edge of the lookout.
And Larry nodded miserably.
And we all knew Todd woulda done it. His hands were shaking. Right then the shrink ray didn’t look like a dumb plastic toy in his hands, like it coulda come out of a Cracker Jack box. It looked like something else. Like something real dangerous. We had all heard that thunder that wasn’t thunder, after all. We’d all seen what it could do.
And Todd gulped. I could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down like a yo-yo, and I could see the way his hands were starting to shake now, like he knew it was dangerous. Like he hated the thought of pressing down on that button but he was going to do it anyway.
And I know he woulda.
He woulda shrunk Port Hope.
He woulda shrunk all of Michigan.
He woulda shrunk the whole world down if Larry had asked him to. Just shrunk the hell out of it.
Because that’s the way it was with us. That’s how it had always been between us. We all knew it. No one questioned it.
Except for Melanie. Except, of course, for Melanie. And that’s why we’d gone for her, wasn’t it? Because some part of us knew. Some part of us knew that she had to be here. That we needed her. It wasn’t just that we loved her, though we did, of course, sure as shit, but there was something else too.
“No,” she said, and at first it was a soft thing, just a little exclamation. And then she said it again. Louder. “No!”
Todd looked at her.
“Christ, no! For eff sakes, no!” And now we could see that she was shaking. She was grabbing Todd’s arm and she was wrenching the shrink ray out of his hands. “No, you stupid kid! No!” And she was pounding on his chest. Todd had a stunned, slightly surprised look on his face. He was bigger than her. She still hadn’t hit her full height yet, and Todd had already shot up six inches in the last couple of months, and his arms were big and bulky even if he didn’t quite know what to do with them yet, but she was just wailing on him anyway. She was punching his shoulder. She was tearing at his shirt.
“Mel?” I asked, feeling scared. Unsure what to do.
“Oh god,” she said. “Why ya always gotta go doing that? Why ya always gotta go making things small just so that you can grow up? It doesn’t have to be like that, you know? Why do ya wanna go on being the kids that just wreck everything because ya don’t know better?”
And she wiped the tears from her eyes, leaving big black stains like the grease quarterbacks use to keep the glare from the sun down.
“We
could do all that. We could do it just like you said, and we could scoop Joe outta Korea, maybe, bring him home safe and sound. But then what? Do you want to live in a world that’s only three inches tall? You want to tower over it and crush the hell out of it every time you take a step?”
And then she wasn’t wailing on him anymore. She was just crying. Crying like we’d never seen our Mel cry before. Her pin curls were wilting like old party streamers and her pedal pushers had grass stains and dirt from where she’d been sitting.
“I dunno why I go around with you boys. You’re just stupid kids, ain’t ya? You’re just kids!”
And Todd was holding her in his arms, first to stop her wailing on him, and now like he just didn’t know what to do with her. The look on his face woulda been priceless if it didn’t make some sort of anger boil up in me just to see the two of them like that, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
And so because of that anger I almost missed what Larry said next. Larry who still had that strange, crazy look in his eyes, even if he was only five inches tall.
“Why’s that?” he said softly. Dangerously, even. “You tell me why it’s gotta be like that?”
And I wanted to say something back to him because right then he didn’t look like Larry at all. He looked more like his brother Joe, even if he was small. Even if he was tiny. But I was still too scared, and that’s when it struck me that Melanie was right. She was so right. We were just kids. We were just kids playing at something stupid, and why didn’t we see that before? Why couldn’t we have been better for her? More like men? Why was it that whenever we tried something that’d make us a bit closer to her it just kept pushing us farther and farther away?
I could tell the other boys were thinking it too. Marv with the little guy cupped between his hands. Todd with his bruised shoulder, holding the girl we all wanted to be holding and still not a clue about what to do next.
And finally it was Marv who just shrugged.
“I don’t know, Larry,” he said, “but she’s right. That’s how it is. Maybe ya got a miniature dog out there. Maybe ya don’t. But the world’s a big place. And I. I don’t think I wanna be one of those folks who’s always trying to burn it all down. I don’t wanna grow up just so’s I can make everything around me like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t matter for shit.”
Gifts for the One Who Comes After Page 22