Permanent Adhesives

by Melissa T. Liban

  “Wait right here,” Nicki said, and she ran out of the restaurant. A second later she appeared outside on the sidewalk. She nodded to make sure we were all watching. Nicki then ran backwards and leapt into the air in a spiral, landed, and then leapt up into another little spinny thing-a-ma-do. I’m going to say it was some kind of axle followed by a toe-loop. I’m not quite up on figure skating, so those were my guesses. Wow, I thought, she really is a figure skater.

  “Holy crap,” Kate said, punching me in the shoulder.

  Nicki did a little curtsey and ran back inside.

  “We believe you,” Roberto said with a big grin.

  “But why were you hiding the fact that you figure skate?” I asked, thinking how I might have kind of wanted a glittery little outfit too.

  Nicki sighed and pulled at her sleeve. “It doesn’t really fit my whole persona, ya know?”

  Kate snorted. “No, it fits. I think it somehow enforces your oddness. You wear 1950’s house dresses with raincoats, and you figure skate. That’s not a combo you find every day.”

  Nicki then looked at me with a small sweet smile. “I kinda feel complete now that I’ve unleashed my superbness.”

  *************************

  Jump to hours later and we were all at the corner of Belmont and Clark, and Nicki was dancing in the middle of the Bunkin Donuts parking lot. A couple of people from the donut establishment stared out the large glass windows at her as they consumed unhealthy levels of sugary goodness. Curious passer-bys’ glanced her way, but nobody really thought that much of it because there’re a lot of crazies in the city, so seeing a girl doing the running man in a parking lot really wasn’t that odd. She wasn’t carrying around a life-sized crucifix like this one guy I always saw, and she wasn’t standing on a plastic crate screaming about the end of the world. She was just a girl doing an outdated dance move.

  “We need some music,” Nicki shouted at us. Us being: Kate, Roberto, Brian, Reynaldo, Dean, me, and Anna. We all leaned against the wrought-iron fence that ran around the parking lot.

  An idea popped into my head. I told them I’d be right back and ran to the corner, waited for the light to change, and ran down to Elias’ work. I bounded in the door and whipped around the front counter to find Elias in the same exact position as when I first visited him at the store. He was even wearing the same hoodie.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He held up a finger, finished typing a sentence, and looked up at me with a totally blank expression.

  “Are hot pink striped hoodies part of the uniform?” I asked.

  “No, I just wear this when it’s cold in here, which is like always. You guys up here with Nicki?”

  “Yeah, right now she’s dancing in the Bunkin Donuts parking lot. It’s pretty interesting. She’s sure to get kicked out soon, but she says she needs music.”

  “Okay,” Elias said pensively.

  “So I was thinking,” I said, wringing my hands together.

  “That I happen to have a boom box lying around?”

  “No, can I borrow your phone?”

  “For what?”

  “I wanted to play Nicki and them your song. She’ll then have something awesome to dance to.”

  “Oh, so very no,” Elias said, vigorously shaking his head.

  “But didn’t you make it for this kinda stuff, like a theme song? We can like film Nicki dancing to the song and stick it on YoobToob.”

  Elias licked his lips and then pursued them together. It looked like he was holding his breath. He shook his head no again.

  I frowned and sighed. “But I really like it.”

  “Good, but no, so no, we can use the song, but the only way it will ever be heard is if someone else sings it.”

  “But…” I said.

  “Please no,” Elias pleaded. He looked terrified at the prospect of someone hearing him sing the song. I mean like really freaked, like somebody just told him they were going to stab him to death in a minute.

  “Okay,” I said, sighing. I recognized that look of terror, fright. I’m sure my face had held that expression many times before. Mainly due to something my father did or was about to do. Like threaten my mother, or break in a back porch window with a chair. So I decided to let Elias be because I was familiar with being scared. “Do you work tomorrow?”

  He nodded yes.

  “What about Saturday?”

  Elias shook his head no.

  “Come over to Kate’s then with me, and we’ll record the song with her, okay?”

  He meekly shook his head yes. “I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing.

  “Don’t be, it’s okay.”

  He sucked on his lip and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I should go make sure Nicki hasn’t been hauled away somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Elias whispered.

  I leaned over the counter, took my fingers, and stuck one in each corner of his lips and made him smile.

  “Stop,” he said, laughing and swatting me away.

  I walked out to leave, stopped in my tracks, and turned around. I went back over to the counter. “Hey, what ya doing after work tonight?”

  “Finishing up a paper probably.”

  “Wanna meet in front of my house around midnight, just one quick mission?”

  “All right.” Elias took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Um, real quick maybe, maybe now, can we talk about…”

  I didn’t give him a chance to finish his question. I was still in avoidance mode of what I was sure he wanted to talk about. “Tonight, we can talk then.”

  Elias nodded, and I went back outside where Nicki was out of the parking lot and on the corner screaming, “Ask me who I am,” and handing out my stickers. People probably really thought she had problems. She turned to us all, and her face lit up. “Let’s all dance together!”

  I myself, had very little to no dancing skills, so I remained still, as did the founding members trio, but Roberto and Anna both gladly joined her. I handed them stickers. “Have fun.”

  Around Midnight:

  “Up there,” Elias said, pointing to the side of a building. It wasn’t just the side. It was the side that was exposed up near the second floor; the first floor side was covered by a one-story building next to it.

  “Oh, I dunno.”

  “You know how many people would see it up there? It’d be classic.”

  “Isn’t it kinda risky for us?”

  “I’ll keep an eye out, and if we caught I’ll take all the blame,” Elias said, flashing me a smile.

  “Okay,” I answered, giving in to his adorable grin.

  We walked around to the back of the building to the alley and contemplated how we’d get up on the roof of the one building, so we could apply my cutout to the other. It didn’t take too long before Elias came up with a solution (which he really held all along). A large green dumpster sat right at the back of the building that we needed to get on top of. Elias quickly climbed on top of the dumpster and stood at the back edge of the lid. He looked up at the building, turned, and waved me up. I lamely tried crawling up on the dumpster, but couldn’t quite hoist myself up. Elias walked down the lid, grabbed me under the armpits, and pulled me up. The two of us stood with our faces barely an inch apart. I smiled and realized how bad the dumpster smelled. “Let’s get on that roof before I puke,” I said, purposely crushing any chance of a romantic moment. Well, romantic as far as standing on top of dumpsters would go. Elias smiled at me, swung off his backpack, and squat down. He unzipped his pack and pulled out a collapsible grappling hook with a rope attached.

  “You own a grappling hook?” I was totally taken by surprise.

  Elias nodded yes with a huge smile on his face.

  “Where do you even purchase one of those?”

  “The Internet.”

  “And why do you own one?”

  “Ya never know when you’re going to go on a secret midnight mission,” he said nonchalantly.

  I accepted h
is answer with a smile.

  “Watch out,” he said, standing up. He spun his arm with the grappling hook in hand, and I ducked and covered my head, just in case he missed. After a sec, I heard a clunking noise and stood up. Elias slipped his backpack back on and tested the resistance of the rope. Satisfied, he grabbed the rope in both hands, leaned back a bit, and started making his way up the side of the building. Up he went; hand over hand on the rope, foot after foot against the brick wall. He made his way up quite quick, reached the top, and pulled himself over the edge. He then motioned for me to get going.

  “What if I’m not strong enough?” I asked in a loud whisper, worried that my lack of exercise was going to seek its revenge in the form of weakness.

  “I’ll pull ya up then.”

  With a deep sigh and my heart wildly beating, I took the rope between my hands. I looked to either side of me just to make sure nobody was standing around taking a photo or gearing up for arrest. The coast was clear. I swallowed down any fear that I had about plummeting to the ground when my arms gave out, leaned back, and put a foot up on the brick. I surprised myself and started to scale the building.

  *************************

  “So awesome,” I said as we walked down the alley. The mission was complete. We totally did it. So many people were going to see Sasha. We pumped our campaign up to the next level. My heart was racing and my stomach felt all fluttery, mainly because I was excited that I did something so crazy awesome. I scaled a building like a super hero. I got up my life-sized paste up, all while the cars on the street whished by below oblivious to what we were up to. And I had an awesome friend who owned a grappling hook.

  With a sense of fulfillment, Elias and I walked past quiet backyards, garages, and sleeping windows on the right-hand side of the alley and the back of businesses and some parking spots on the left-hand side. I ran ahead of Elias a few feet and started walking backwards. He threw me a smile, a nice big one that showed his dimple, so cute. I was pumped. I truly was. I never really got that excited over things; maybe it was adrenaline from what we did, but whatever it was, I couldn’t stop smiling or curb my feeling of elation. I was walking backwards, well, almost jogging really and smiling, and Elias was smiling back at me. And it was a great evening, and the air was crisp and sweet—even though we were in an alley—, and I’m pretty sure all the planets were aligned, and my heart felt light and then BAM!

  Out of the gangway between two garages, somebody shot out and tackled Elias. Well, it was more like a body check. The guy just jumped into Elias’ back with his shoulder sending him flying to the ground. Elias didn’t even have time to catch himself. The heels of his hands scarped across the alley trying to stop the momentum; his forehead bounced off the cracked blacktop. The guy just came out of nowhere, total sneak attack.

  “Ahh,” I screamed. It scared the crap out of me. The guy, who had at least eighty pounds on Elias, put a slippered foot right at the top of Elias’ back. Along with his slippers, this guy was wearing plaid pajama bottoms, and a track jacket. I was so freaked I didn’t know what to do.

  Elias scrambled to get up, but the guy grabbed his hood and pushed him to the ground. He then straddled Elias’ back and pushed the side of his face into the crumbly blacktop. I was hoping the grappling hook would un-collapse, pierce through the material of Elias’ backpack, and catch the guy in a certain region, but no such luck. Elias clawed at the ground trying to pull himself free.

  The guy looked up at me with beady eyes and oversized caterpillars for eyebrows that were raised to the top of his forehead. “I saw the two of you trying to break in.” He then started screaming, “Citizen’s arrest, citizen’s arrest!”

  My heart was going to explode out of my chest. I had no words to answer him with, so instead I ran to the guy and tried to shove him off Elias. My attempt miserably failed, and he shoved me back with his free hand.

  “Stop that,” Elias yelled. “Leave her alone.”

  The guy bent over and put his face next to Elias’. “You’re drunk too, breaking and entering and drunk and disorderly while underage.”

  “You’re crazy. I’m screaming for help,” I yelled at the guy, frantically looking around for any form of possible assistance.

  “Good, it’ll get the police here faster,” he said, pulling a cell phone out of his track jacket pocket.

  I had to do something. Elias was pinned—even though his arms were free he was trapped. I pulled my backpack off, and with all my might, swung it around and whacked the guy in the face with it. He was caught quite by surprise and fell backwards catching himself with his arm propped back and giving Elias a chance to escape. Elias got to his feet, and we started booking down the alley. Pajama pants man quickly regained his composure and started after us, running and screaming, “Citizen’s arrest, citizen’s arrest.”

  At top speed, Elias and I ran past the backs of businesses, dumpsters, and telephone poles. Crazed dude’s outstretched fingers just barely grazed my hood, and I kicked it into high gear yelling at Elias to run. We reached the end of the alley and turned right onto a sidewalk. I took a sharp left between two cars and darted across the street to the middle. The guy was almost on us. He was waiting for a car to pass, and I grabbed Elias’s arm, and we ran across the other half of the street making a narrow escape from the hood of a sedan. The car honked as it whizzed by our backs, and Elias and I didn’t pause and continued down the sidewalk. At that point, I was pretty sure we lost the guy, but I wasn’t going to slow down to check. I slipped my bag back on my shoulders. I was very thankful for my plastic bucket and the heavy encyclopedia it sat on. After a few blocks, my lungs couldn’t take it anymore, and my adrenaline was wearing off. I tapped Elias’ shoulder.

  “If we don’t slow down I will die,” I sputtered between deep breaths.

  Elias slowed down to a quick walk, and I fell in step next to him.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  “What about you?” I asked. We came to the corner of a side street, and I turned left so we could stop and take a breather and hopefully be out of sight in case pajama pants man was looking for us.

  “That was unexpected,” Elias said. He wasn’t struggling for breath nearly as much as I was. I was deeply jealous of his lung capacity.

  “Scared the crap outta me. Did he hurt you?”

  “No, my forehead didn’t really appreciate it, but I’ll live.”

  “Lemme see,” I said, pushing his hair back. He had a serious egg on his head that was already turning blue and purple, and the middle of it was all raw and bleedy like.

  “Ouch, we’re gonna have to clean that up.”

  “When we get home. Let’s get outtta this neighborhood first,” Elias said.

  “Good idea.”

  We started walking down a couple of blocks, and we were going to have to circle back, so we could get home.

  “How much did that scare you?” I asked, looking around, making sure the guy wasn’t secretly tailing us.

  “It scared me shitless. That was crazy.”

  “You’re telling me. My hands won’t stop shaking. I’m still totally freaked.”

  “We’re going to need some extra lookouts next time.”

  “I’m not so sure there’s going to be a next time.”

  “Once you get over the initial shock of what just happened, there will be.”

  “We’ll see on that one, but before that guy attacked you, it was a pretty awesome evening.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah and hey, he didn’t really know what we were up to,” I said.

  “True and he thought I was drunk.”

  “He’s a crazed idiot.”

  Elias sighed. “Reasons why I generally don’t talk.”

  “You shouldn’t let morons hold you back from talking.”

  “Easy to say, difficult for me to do.” Elias looked over at me. “Ya know that one night? I’m sure you know which one I’m speaking of?”

  I nodded my head
yes.

  “I wasn’t that drunk. People just assumed I was cuz the way I talk. That was the first time most of them heard me say more than a word.” Elias took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Can you understand me?”

  “Yes, at first it took some getting used to, but I understand you fine now.”

  “I think you’re the only person alive who can actually understand what I say.”

  I knew then when Elias said I was different it wasn’t an insult in any way to me. “I think most people just don’t take the time to listen.”

  “Well, I’m glad you do, so thanks.”

  “Well, thanks for talking to me,” I said, grabbing his hand. We interlocked fingers and walked the rest of the way home like that—holding hands.

  *************************

  We stood at the bottom of the steps in front of my building. I was ready to crash. It was a good few miles that we walked home. We could have hopped on the ‘L’, but it was just nice walking, holding hands, reflecting on our evening. Granted, Elias got attacked, but somehow it still seemed like a great evening. But the great evening vibe quickly vanished when Elias took a deep breath and asked, “What are we exactly?”

  I pursed my lips together because I liked kissing him and holding hands with him and would have liked him to be my boyfriend, but things remained nice and uncomplicated as they were. I still had some hang ups fully committing myself to Elias. So, here was this boy standing in front of me with a nasty wound on his head that he got because he was helping me with something, and he’s looking all cute. His cheeks a bright pink from the city wind and our exerting evening, with his sad, squinty little eyes hidden behind his bangs and lips pouting out after he asked his question.

  This boy, Elias, who was like some kind of secret creative genius and seemed to be able to do everything and was so smart, but yet was so unsure of himself and was hiding who he was from the world and seemed scared of it all. I think that was the one thing we really had in common; the thing I felt that night when I talked to him at the party. It wasn’t the connection of us both having messed up family lives. I think it was that we were actually both harboring some major fears, and somehow we felt that in each other. And that was what was holding me back—my fear. I think it was a fear that I’d be stuck in some crap shit life and end up like my mother because I let some guy treat me like dirt. A fear that Elias going off on me that night at the party wasn’t a onetime deal, and that he’d do again and again. I didn’t want to be some poor brainwashed girl stuck in some cycle of abuse, telling myself oh, it was just that one time, just that one time he really made me feel like crap. I don’t know, at that moment the past seemed ready to dictate my future. My thoughts were once again, all over the place because then he did seem so sincere when he apologized, and he knew he stooped to a very low level, and he was so sweet, and I’m sure I was over-reacting, but I said, “I dunno, you’re the boy that I like to kiss on occasion.”