by Randy Ribay
The guy behind the wheel looks up and spots Archie. He says something Archie cannot hear. The guy in the backseat releases the bag. The rear door, behind Dante, opens.
Archie rushes at the guy as he emerges, throwing a wild punch. The guy easily dodges it and then grips Archie by the collar. He slams Archie into the side of the SUV and buries a fist into his stomach. The air rushes from Archie’s lungs. He crumples to the ground.
The guy spits on him. “Fucking faggots.” He rears his leg back to deliver a kick to Archie’s head.
“Stop!”
The guy actually stops and turns to look just as Sam dives at him. In some poor attempt at a tackle, Sam wraps his arms around the guy’s legs.
“The fuck is this?” The guy twists away, freeing himself from Sam’s awkward, feeble grip. “How many of you fuckers are there?”
The other guy starts to climb out from behind the wheel to join the fight, but Mari slams his door shut.
“Four,” she says. Holding her phone to her ear with her other hand, she adds, “A few more might be joining us. They’ll probably bring handcuffs.”
“Forget them. Let’s get out of here,” the driver calls to his friend. And then to Mari. “God. We were just fucking with him. Can’t you take a joke?”
The other guy yanks open the front door on the passenger’s side. He pulls out Dante, letting his body collapse onto the pavement, and then takes his place in the front seat. The SUV reverses and then peels out of the parking lot, tires squealing.
As Mari explains what is happening to the 911 dispatcher, Archie rushes over to Dante’s side. He yanks the plastic bag off Dante’s head and rolls him onto his back.
“Dante?” Archie asks, laying his hands on his large friend. Sam peers over his shoulder.
Dante’s face is bruised and bloody. His eyes are closed, his lips blue. He is motionless.
“No, no, no,” Archie says. He does not know what to do.
Sam says, “Check his pulse.”
Archie presses his fingers to the side of Dante’s neck. He tries to calm himself enough so he can feel for a heartbeat.
But there’s nothing.
Inventing Constellations
Tuesday, 1:26 A.M.
“Dante. Please, Dante,” Archie cries over the body of his friend. “I’m sorry.”
“You know CPR?” Mari asks.
Archie does. He took a class once. He regains his composure, tries to remember everything. He sits up. Sets his hands over the center of Dante’s chest. He starts pressing down in time with “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” just like he was taught. He counts to thirty. Stops. Pinching the bridge of Dante’s nose, Archie tilts his friend’s head back and blows into his mouth.
Dante’s massive chest rises.
And then falls.
It does not rise again.
Archie looks up at Mari, lost.
“Do it again,” she says.
Archie repeats. Presses his chest thirty times. Gives Dante his breath.
Watches his chest rise . . . and fall . . .
Dante sputters and coughs.
Archie smiles, leans back. He looks from Sam to Mari and then back to Dante. “It’s me. It’s us. We’re here. You’re safe now. You okay, buddy?”
Dante coughs a few more times. His eyes flutter open. Bloodshot. Unfocused. “Am I dead?” His voice is faint and hoarse.
Archie laughs. “No, big guy. I cast a resurrection spell.”
“Help me up,” Dante says.
“Maybe you should—”
But Dante is already pushing himself up. His movements are slow and stiff, so Sam and Archie help him into a sitting position on a curb.
“We should get you to the hospital,” Archie says.
Dante breathes in and out slowly, testing his lungs. He touches his hands to his mouth, it comes away bloody. He spits. A sharp pain burns in his side. Probably a broken rib or two. “No—I’m all right. Let’s just go back to the room.”
“We have to wait for the police,” Mari says, still on the line. “By the way, anyone happen to get the plate number on that SUV?”
“Of course,” Archie says and rattles off the numbers and letters from memory.
Down the hallway, the ice machine rumbles. A door opens and then closes.
“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Sam asks.
Dante rubs his throat and nods.
“So you want to tell us what happened?” Archie asks.
Dante shrugs. “I’m gay. Some people don’t seem to like that.”
Dante’s words hang in the air. Archie looks down at his feet.
“I’m not like them,” Archie finally says.
“But you don’t like it, do you? That I’m gay.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“This. Look at you. Look at what they did to you.”
Dante nods.
Archie starts to say something else, but an old woman in a bathrobe suddenly appears from around the corner. She stops short upon seeing the three boys sitting there, one of them beaten bloody.
“Jesus H. Christ! You boys been fighting?” She’s holding a bucket in one hand and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s with her other.
“Something like that,” Dante says.
She looks at Archie and Sam, puzzled that they appear uninjured, then turns to Dante.
“Here. Looks like you need it more than I do.” He shakes his head. “Let me fetch you some ice, then. Just sit tight.” The old woman trots away.
They wait for her in silence. They hear the ice machine rumble, and a few moments later the woman reappears. She hands the bucket to Dante. “Here, take this.” She hands him a towel that had been draped over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” Dante says. “Thank you.”
The woman nods and then returns to her room.
“Here.” Archie takes the towel from Dante and spreads it out on the ground. He pours some ice onto it, and then ties it up. He hands it back to Dante.
Dante presses it against his side. “Thanks.”
“I just don’t understand,” Archie says, crossing his arms.
“What?”
“Why didn’t you just wait?”
“For what?”
“To, you know . . . come out.”
“Why should I have waited?”
“People can be pretty horrible.”
“So what, Arch?”
Archie looks down at his feet. “Why not wait? Until you’re somewhere safe where nobody is going to do something like this to you.”
“Like where?”
“Geez, I don’t know. San Francisco.”
Dante laughs, wincing as it triggers pain. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about that, Arch? Don’t you think I haven’t thought about waiting until college to come out? Or don’t you think I’ve thought about never telling anyone at all?”
“So why did you?”
“I realized it’s never going to be safe, Arch. Nowhere is, for anyone. Not for people like me and your dad.” Archie bristles at the mention of his father, but Dante continues. “Not even for you. Or Mari. Or Sam. Horrible people are everywhere.”
Archie scratches the back of his head and kicks idly at some loose pieces of gravel. Sam listens to their conversation, trying to understand.
Dante continues. “But you get to a point, Arch, where you just get sick of hiding, of lying to everyone. You have to stop caring what they think to survive. Because that feeling—that silencing you’re doing to yourself—it becomes worse than anything anyone else could ever do to you.”
“Even this?” Archie gestures toward the bruises on Dante’s beaten body.
Dante nods. “Even this.”
“You sure?”
“Constantly living with that fear? That shame? It’s a million times worse than this.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that. It scares the hell out of me that something like that could happen to you . . . or to my
dad.”
“But most people aren’t horrible,” Dante says.
“I beg to differ,” Sam says. Archie nods.
“What about that woman who gave me the ice? Zaius and the others? Sunshine? Mari? You guys? You’re still here.”
“Don’t think I’ve been much help,” Sam says. “Being all obsessed with Sarah, I kind of forgot anyone else existed.”
Archie says, “And I clearly haven’t been what you needed me to be. The friend you’ve needed.”
“Then start now. And when we get home, be the son your father needs.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good,” Dante says, readjusting the bundle of ice.
Sam nods.
“They’re on their way,” Mari says as she returns, sliding her phone back into her pocket. She wipes her eyes. Seeing her boys sitting on the curb, all sad-looking, she kisses them each on the top of the head and then sits down next to Archie.
They lift their eyes to the stars. It is a clear night, the kind of night for inventing constellations.
A letter starts to flicker in the motel’s sign. But just as it looks like it’s about to blink out, the light returns, glowing brighter and steadier than before.
“Can I ask you something?” asks Archie.
“Sure,” Dante answers.
“And promise you’ll answer honestly?”
“Of course.”
“You ever think about me . . . you know . . . sexually?”
They all laugh.
“No offense, Arch,” Dante chuckles. “But you’re not my type.”
Archie shakes his head. “Story of my life.”
Mari leans her head against Archie’s shoulder and takes his hand. “Not anymore.”
Broken and Healed, Awake
Tuesday, 6:52 A.M.
Archie, Sam, Mari, and Dante gaze at the tarmac through their reflections in the window. Workers in bright orange vests and huge headsets bustle about the plane in the dawn’s grey light. They attach a fuel line. They empty the cargo hold of bags, and they load it with new ones. They inspect the body of the aircraft to ensure it’s safe for flight. In the distance another plane rolls down the runway and rises into the sky.
There is an announcement. Their flight has been delayed three hours. Storms in the Midwest. The friends set down their bags and sit on the floor in a circle.
“What are we going to do for three hours?” Sam asks.
“I’ve got an idea,” Mari says. She reaches into her bag and brings out a folder. From the folder, she pulls out a square of paper that she unfolds and lays out in the middle of their circle.
They all smile. It’s their Dungeons & Dragons game map.
But then Dante points out, “We don’t have any dice. Or our figures.”
Archie holds up his phone. “Dice app! And we can just use scraps of paper for our characters.”
“And we’re still out a rogue,” Dante adds.
“I think we’ll manage,” Sam says.
Dante shrugs. “So where were we?”
Mari smiles. She hands out the rest of the character sheets and sets up the folder like a shield. She pulls out her notebook and turns to the page filled with their adventure.
She reads, “You walk into the village and find it completely destroyed. Everywhere you look the ruins of huts and buildings are still smoldering. Charred corpses litter the ground as far as the eye can see—including that of your unfortunate rogue, Leera.” She winks at Sam. He laughs. She continues, “A handful of survivors forlornly pick through the rubble, perhaps looking for their valuables . . . or the bodies of their loved ones. You see a maiden—”
“Is she hot?” Archie interrupts.
“What?” Mari said.
“You know, is she hot? What’s she look like?”
Mari glares at Archie.
Sam grins.
Dante starts chuckling in short bursts of deep laughter that sound like an engine trying to catch.
Archie removes his glasses, breathes onto the lenses, and then wipes them with the bottom of his shirt. “Well?”
“She’s average. An average maiden.”
“Average can be hot. Seriously. What’s she look like?”
“What’s it matter?” Mari says. “She’s fictional. Just a random peasant in the background.”
Archie shrugs. “So? I want to feel like I’m there. Paint me a picture.”
Dante’s laughter rises. Sam’s smile widens.
Mari sighs. “She looks . . . average. She wears average clothes. She is of average height. She has an average build.”
Archie considers this. “An average build, you say . . . so that would be like a B-cup? Or C?” He cups his hands in front of his own chest and grins. He moves them outward and awaits confirmation from Mari. Mari says nothing, so Archie continues to expand his imaginary bosom to pornographic proportions.
Mari scratches something out in her notebook and then resumes the story. “The maiden trips over a stone and dies.”
“Oh, my,” Archie says. “Poor girl.”
They continue.
As it usually does, it comes down to the boss battle. This time, the boss is an evil, winged minotaur that calls itself Sh’rgoth. This is the creature that has been terrorizing the countryside for so many years.
They have been battling Sh’rgoth for almost an hour straight. He is close to death, but only Mari knows exactly how close. The others fight on, waiting and hoping for its death, doing what they can to prevent their own.
Which is proving difficult. Archie’s mage has used up his best spells. Sam’s cleric has been rendered paralyzed. Dante’s warrior is poisoned and on the brink of death.
It is Sh’rgoth’s turn to attack. He swings his flaming broad sword in a sweeping arc that affects all members of the party. They roll for damage using the app on Archie’s phone.
Archie takes five.
Sam takes seven.
Luckily, Dante only takes one.
It’s not a lot of damage, but it’s enough that Dante knows he will probably not survive another turn. This one has to count.
There is an announcement. Their plane has arrived. Preboarding will begin shortly. But the four friends stay on the floor, stay in their world.
It is Sam’s turn, but he is paralyzed so gets skipped.
“What do you want to do?” Mari asks Dante.
“I strike.” Dante’s finger hovers above Archie’s phone. It is much less climactic than rolling an actual die, but such is life.
He taps the screen.
Everyone leans in to watch the digital twenty-sided die spin in place.
“Twenty!” Dante shouts, as the animation stops. He raises his hands in victory. “Critical hit!”
But before they celebrate too much, they turn to Mari who is calculating Dante’s attack roll against the demon’s defenses in her notebook behind the folder-screen.
She puts her pen down. Lifts her eyes to the party. Adjusts her glasses.
She says, “Sh’rgoth lets out an agonizing cry as the great axe sinks into his chest. His wings go limp, and he falls from the sky. His massive body, so strong and feared for centuries, slams into the ground below. The heroes rejoice over the crumpled form of their defeated foe.”
Sam and Dante and Archie celebrate with cheers and high-fives and hugs. Mari joins them. People stare, but the friends couldn’t care less.
“Well played, guys,” she says.
“That was a great quest, Mari,” says Dante.
“Brilliant,” Archie says.
“Can’t wait until next week,” adds Sam.
All around them, people stand and gather their things. The first boarding announcement crackles over the speaker. An imperfect line forms. Archie, Mari, Sam, and Dante hurry up and put everything from their game back into the folder.
They finish just as their section is called. They stand, still in a daze from the game.
Archie looks around the airport. He considers the destination boa
rd with its projected time of departure and arrival. He casts one more glance at the plane that will carry them over and across the continent.
“This isn’t travelling,” he says.
The others nod. Without speaking, their minds fill with everything they’ve been through by themselves in the last few weeks, and then everything they’ve been through together in the last few days. Sneaking away in the middle of the night. Picking up a hitchhiker. Swimming naked in a lake. Surviving a tornado. Fighting with each other. Obtaining a free baby alligator. Watching the car burn. Going to Seattle for no reason and every reason. Saving Dante. Saving each other.
They step forward. Real life awaits. Together, they prepare to board, nervous and brave, broken and healed, awake and ready to return.