Reprieve

by James Han Mattson

  “Don’t you want someone with experience?”

  “Keep it down. This has to stay top secret. It’s a totally new innovation. But no. My cast needs to really think something is happening.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain.”

  John explained. And as he did, Leonard found himself becoming excited. He’d never been one for John’s business, had secretly agreed with Mary that it was a rotten, perverse place, but now, thinking of being inside, of being a part of it, he couldn’t help but think that this involvement, an involvement that John described as professionally pivotal, would serve as a giant fuck-you to Mary. Look at me! he’d shout from the headlines. Look at me, you ungrateful cunt!

  More important, however: Boonsri was coming! Boonsri was coming! He would do anything. He would lick the Quigley House floor if he had to! Who cared? John was a stand-up guy. John was a true friend. He sat back, beamed.

  “My involvement will be publicized?”

  John leaned back, smiled, and said, “After the fact? Oh yeah. For a minute, you’ll be famous.”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  “One other thing,” John said.

  “Okay?”

  “You have to call me. You have to call me a lot. We have to set this up perfectly, okay? I’m not going to answer, but you need to call. Constantly.”

  “Call you?”

  “This is acting.”

  “Okay?”

  “So here’s the plan.”

  John smiled, drank, told him the plan.

  A month later—jobless but uncaring—Leonard sat in his dining room, waiting and drinking. He’d followed all of John’s directives, had gotten into character; he’d called, written, made scenes. A few days before he was to “perform,” the Quigley House blocked his number. This was how things were supposed to go.

  On this day, April 27, he stayed at home, waited for a call.

  He sat alone, sipped whiskey, imagined cooking dinner for his beloved. He was no chef, but that didn’t matter. Everything would be new to Boonsri, everything, to her, would be exotic. He figured he’d start her off with an exceptionally American meal: cheeseburgers, fries, potato salad, Coke. He’d get a pie for dessert: apple. He’d top it off with ice cream and watch as she squirmed and squealed. When she finished, he’d lift her from her chair, carry her to the bedroom, kiss every inch. They’d have sex all night, and this time, he wouldn’t pay.

  He looked at his watch—9:01 p.m.

  Leonard stood up. His head felt light. But good. Everything was fine.

  John had said the paperwork for Boonsri was nearly complete, that soon she’d be there. Before summer, he’d said. Summer was only a month away.

  Lovely Boonsri, he thought. Lovely, lovely Boonsri.

  He went to the kitchen.

  The knife, he thought. TLB. The Lovely Boonsri. Ha. Ha.

  He removed TLB from the block, inspected it. Fate was right there, he thought, engraved on the side of that stupid knife, the knife that he’d discussed so often with Mary. He looked at the letters. They were jagged, scribbled, unprofessional. They reminded him of tree-trunk carvings, hearts stabbed with arrows containing rough, shaky initials. The lovely Boonsri, he thought. The lovely, lovely Boonsri.

  John had wanted him to bring an actual knife, a real knife, and he’d said, What? No. Because real knives harmed, real knives killed, and this was all a show, wasn’t it? But John had told him that his actors inventoried all the props, knew where they were at all times, and that they needed to think he was a madman, they needed to think he was legit—that was the whole point.

  I need their reactions to be as real as possible, John said. This is gonna be legendary.

  At the house, John had shown him the prosthetic, had cut into it an inch deep.

  See? John had said. You’re not gonna hurt anyone. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

  But what if the actors rush at me? Leonard had said. What if they try—

  Relax, John had said. I’ll be there the whole time. One misstep and I call it quits.

  Leonard checked his watch—9:16 p.m. He went to his computer, logged onto his AOL account. Though he’d been instructed not to email, he wrote a message to John. You gonna call me? He logged out.

  Ten minutes later he got a call. Caller ID said “Unknown.” He picked up. A scrambled voice said, “Go now.” Leonard grabbed the knife, left his apartment.

  Kendra

  One wet March day, Cory called Kendra and told her that John wanted to see her alone: he, Cory, would be over to her apartment in a half hour to pick her up.

  “Alone?” Kendra said.

  “I told you, you’re on the up-and-up,” he replied.

  At the Quigley House, she swung on the porch swing with John. Instead of looking out into dying light as per usual, they now looked out onto bright-gray sky, puddles, gravel, green, green trees. A woman passed by, headed for the west entrance. John waved, said, “Hi, Stacey.” She hurried off.

  “Kendra,” he said, turning toward her. “I’ve got some great news.”

  Her head filled with light. Earlier that week, she’d spoken to Shawn, who’d apologized for being so absent. He said he’d needed time to think about things. He said he’d been confused. There was a girl at school who liked him, and he thought he liked her, but recently all he could think about was Kendra. Kendra, playing cool but burning inside, asked if he’d done anything with this other girl, if he’d kissed her, and when he’d said no, she’d thought: I need to see him. I need to see him now before he just disappears and I have to start over.

  “I’m doing this great promotion,” John said, rapping his fingers against his thighs, “partnering with this bank in Iowa. It’s going to up our press tenfold, I know it. I mean, everyone banks, right? And now we’re part of that system.” He paused, scratched his leg. “It’s gonna blow up, make Quigley go completely mainstream,” he said. “You’re in for a real treat.”

  “Sounds great,” Kendra said.

  “I only have one problem,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “The bank hasn’t been able to get a full team. They have three, but they need one more person.”

  “You want me to be a contestant?” Kendra said, thinking of her time down in Cell Five, John chasing her with a hatchet, Christy leaning into her full-force. She’d let everything overwhelm her then, had run away, but now, with what she knew, she thought she could do it. She thought she could last.

  “Oh no, no, no,” he said. “You’re underage, for one. And you’re an employee.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking at the ground. “Okay.”

  “I was thinking maybe Bryan?”

  “My cousin Bryan?”

  “I was thinking that,” he said.

  She scanned his face, searching for some sign of insincerity. She found none. “I don’t think he’d be into it,” Kendra said.

  “He might,” John said. “If I told you . . .”

  “Huh?” she said.

  He leaned in, whispered, “I need a winning team.”

  She gasped, pulled back, stared at him. “You mean—”

  “Shhh,” he said, smiling. “But yes.”

  “But how would that work? What if they yell the safe word? How does that even work?”

  “I can’t control everything,” he said. “If they yell the safe word, it’s over, but certain things could be made, well, how do I say, simpler.”

  “You’re serious,” she said, imagining Bryan shaking John’s hand, accepting an oversized check, cameras everywhere, people cheering.

  “For starters: your tour.”

  “My tour?”

  “Last season. When I showed you around. I showed you the layout. I showed you the cells. And who’s to say that you wouldn’t pass that important information on? Who’s to say?”

  “So the cells are the same?”

  “I won’t say one way or the other. I’ll say that they’re not much different, tho
ugh.”

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “Indeed,” he said.

  She shook her head. “But even then, I don’t know. I don’t know if he would. He’s not a fan of all this, not like me. He’s—”

  “He just needs convincing by someone like you,” he said. “I think he’d be perfect. He’s athletic. He’s charismatic. He seems like a natural leader. And if you did that for me, convinced him to compete, that is, for a cash prize, mind you, a cash prize that he’d have a very good chance of winning, I might be feeling generous in other regards.”

  “Huh?”

  “A little business deal, perhaps? You get Bryan here. I get Shawn here.”

  “What?” she said, her chest tight.

  “That is his name, right? Shawn? Your friend back in D.C.? The Quigley House superfan?”

  “Well yeah. But what do you mean, get him here?”

  “Exactly that. I fly him out here. He actually stays here, with me, in one of my guest rooms, and I, his humble servant, give him a grand tour of the place, show him some of our neatest tricks. Of course, he’ll have to sign an NDA, but if he’s as big of a fan as you say he is . . .”

  “Wow,” Kendra said, thinking how perfect his arrangement was, how stunningly flawless. “Wow.”

  “Pretty sweet, huh?” he said.

  “And Shawn would stay here? With you?”

  “Or at the Claymont. Or with you.” John grinned. “It doesn’t really matter. Wherever he stays, I’ll make sure to show him a whole hell of a lot. Can’t have too many superfans.” He winked.

  “Wow,” Kendra said.

  “What you’re saying with these wows is that he’d be happy to come out here?”

  “Over the moon,” she said.

  “It’s settled, then?” John said, running a hand over his scalp. “You’ll ask Bryan?”

  “I’ll ask Bryan. I can’t guarantee—”

  “Here,” he said, pulling out a folded sheet of paper, “I have all the info Bryan needs right here. People, dates, times . . . looks like the eight thirty tour on April twenty-seventh.”

  Kendra took the paper, perused it. On the first page, in caps, were three names—Victor Dunlap, Jane Roth, Jaidee Charoensuk—followed by a blank line under which was the word “alternate.” Kendra read over the names again. “Jaidee Charoensuk?” she said. Her mouth went dry.

  “Yeah?” John said.

  “Is he from Des Moines as well?”

  “He’s actually from Thailand, of all places,” John said, grinning. “But he’s a student at UNL.”

  “A student,” she said, biting her lip. “I mean, is Jaidee a common Thailand name?”

  John shrugged. “How should I know?”

  “Bryan has a roommate,” Kendra said, feeling her insides bunch up.

  “Yeah?” John said, staring at the driveway.

  “His roommate is named Jaidee.”

  “I don’t make the teams,” he said.

  “They’re not the best of friends,” she said.

  John exhaled. “Be persuasive,” he said, leaning close to her, drilling holes into her head with his sharp gray stare. “I know you can be. I know you’ve got skills.”

  “I’ll try,” Kendra said.

  “You do that, Kendra Brown,” he said. “You do that, and we’ll all be A-okay.”

  A week later, after Bryan and she had dinner with Rae and Lynette, Kendra told him about John’s proposal. They sat in her room on her bed while she rehashed John’s plan. The further she got into it, however, the more his face squirmed, and when she finally finished, showing him the papers that contained Jaidee’s name, he said, “No. Fuck no.”

  “But why not?” Kendra said. She leaned back on her pillow, crossed her arms. It was a Tuesday, after school; the dying sunlight drew long orange lines across the white carpet. Bryan sat at the foot, one leg tucked in, one dangling over the side. Kendra thought he looked uncomfortable.

  “You know my take on that shitshow,” he said.

  “But you don’t get it,” she said. “It’s almost certain that you’ll get the money! John himself told me as much.”

  Bryan shook his head. “He’s gonna rig it?”

  “It’s a business decision,” she said. “All the major attractions do it. And no, he’s not gonna rig it. You’d still have to go through it. But you’d have advantages. Major ones. And think about it, Bryan. You’d make fifteen grand just for an hour or so of running around.”

  “But why me?” Bryan said. “Why would he single me out?”

  “He knows you’re athletic,” she said. “He knows you’d have a good chance of actually getting through. He knows that it wouldn’t look weird if you got through, because you’re athletic.”

  “And how do you know what he’s thinking?” Bryan said. He stood up.

  “We talk,” she said. “Like, all the time.”

  He paced the length of the bed. “Fifteen grand, huh?” he said.

  “Think what you could use that money for,” Kendra said, her heart in her throat. “You could get your car fixed. You could help Rae out. You could pay off your credit card. You could take Simone on a vacation or something. You two are back together, right?” she said. “I mean, you’re over there—”

  “It’s complicated,” he said. “But Jesus. Quigley House?”

  “Who knows,” Kendra said. “It could be fun.”

  “But Jaidee?” he said. “Is that some sick fucking joke? Did you arrange it? Some sort of demented bonding exercise?”

  “Think of it this way,” she said, breathing deep, “you know him: that’s a big deal in the game. Plus, he complements your height—there’s bound to be challenges that require a range of sizes. And really, when else will you ever get to watch him get bruised?”

  Bryan smiled, sat back down. “You’ve been practicing that,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Why do you even care so much?” he said. “You think I’m gonna share the money?”

  “Well, I can’t keep riding Rae’s Schwinn all over town,” she said.

  “That’s it?” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, picking at some fluff on her comforter. “No, that’s not all of it. There’s something bigger, I guess. Weird to say, but Quigley means something to me now.”

  “Well, damn. Kendra Brown!” Bryan said, laughing. “Are you getting sentimental about a part-time job? You with all your sullen counterculture ways? You’re having strong feelings about something?”

  “Oh, fuck off,” she said, smiling. “I have plenty of feelings.”

  “Is there a boy?” he said. “Or a girl? I don’t judge. But don’t tell me it’s one of those carny-lookin’ white dudes from Quigley.”

  “No,” she said, thinking of Shawn, thinking of him on top of her, pressing down, his hot breath on her neck, telling her he thought of her all the time. Camille had told her it would hurt, but that it’d be a good hurt, a necessary hurt. Just make sure he knows how to put on a fucking condom, she’d said. My first got it backwards and we had, you know, that scare, which completely dampens the magic.

  “Well,” Bryan said, “I don’t know.”

  “I need to know,” Kendra said.

  “I know, I know,” Bryan said. “It’s just that—”

  “You don’t have to do it,” she said, feeling suddenly somber. “You don’t have to. I mean, I keep thinking about my dad, what he’d say. He’d think it was all a big joke. He’d probably think I was a big joke, doing this, caring about this.”

  “Hey,” Bryan said. “Hey now.”

  Kendra looked at Bryan, realizing, with a flutter in her chest, that the mention of her father had instantly turned him serious. She wiped her eyes, sniffled, hugged her pillow, tried to drum up more explicit emotion. Bryan grabbed her foot, massaged it. “You’re fine,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “He would’ve, though,” she said, leaning into the drama. “He would’ve thought this
was a big stupid joke.”

  Bryan bit his lip, sighed. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his legs. “Hey,” he said. “Remember when we first went to Quigley? After we talked to John and saw the costume room and everything?”

  Kendra nodded.

  “Well, you asked me if I thought your dad was a good person, and I’ve been meaning to get back to you on that.” He stretched his arms to the sides, breathed in deep. “I couldn’t answer that right then because I didn’t know, you know? I mean, on the one hand, he was sort of a shit to you and your mom. But on the other hand . . .” He paused, looked at Kendra with glassy eyes. “You know right after the acquittal of those four cops in the Rodney King beating, he called me? Yeah. The riots were starting. He was nervous. But he called me. I was like, what, seventeen? Everything sucked—school, friends, everything. I didn’t know what was going on with my life. But that call, that call changed me.”

  “What did he say?” Kendra said, wiping her nose.

  “He said a lot of things, most of which went over my head, to be honest. But what stuck with me was when he started crying—like, sobbing, Kendra—and he said, ‘I do what I do because someday you’ll be him, and someday Kendra’ll be him, and I can’t stop that, but I can try as hard as I can to make people hate it. That’s what I can do.’”

  “Wow,” Kendra said.

  “And I thought about that for weeks and weeks, about being Rodney King, about making people hate it, and it depressed the shit out of me, because how the fuck would anyone have to make someone hate that shit? How the fuck could a human being watch that video and not feel anything but fucking revulsion? Why would an attorney have to dedicate his life to making people hate something that is the embodiment of hate? What kind of world is that, Kendra, where that happens?”

  Kendra shook her head. She really was thinking of her father now. She really was missing him. She felt a pang of regret for what she’d done, using him like she had. She said, “Bryan, listen, you don’t have to—”

  “Your dad wasn’t a good man,” Bryan said. “He was a complicated man. He was a principled man. He was a fucking brilliant man. But good? How can anyone be good when good and bad are defined by people who’ve categorized you as bad since the dawn of time? What I’m saying is fuck that question about goodness, okay? Just fuck that question.”