Feral Youth

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  I avoid Zoe for the rest of the day. I leave school before homeroom and take a detour on my walk home.

  Back when I was little, I used to take my anger out on a punching bag in the basement, but that’s not an option. I don’t want to go home. Out of all the places where I want to be and all the places where I want to go, I don’t want to go home.

  I walk north instead, to an old office building that’s been empty for years. Zoe and I sneaked in dozens of times. It’s safe enough, as long as you keep to yourself. It’s an excellent place for sharing food or sharing secrets or for simply being alone. And alone is what I need right now.

  I edge around the large fences that are set up haphazardly around the building. I don’t think the owners or the city care anymore that people are coming here. There’s no construction hazard, and at least the building is being put to some use. There are too many empty office buildings around here to begin with.

  Slipping in through one of the broken windows, I make my way to the staircase on the ground floor and walk until I’ve reached the fourteenth floor. Being insensible is a blessing, sometimes. I don’t care about the burning in my legs or the ache in my lungs—I’m not athletic like Zoe is. I don’t care about Zoe—I only care about moving.

  The door to the roof used to be locked, but someone broke the lock months ago, and the roof has turned into a popular nightspot. Now, midway through the afternoon, there’s no one here but the wind and me. The wind howls and whips my long blond hair around my face. It’s not particularly cold, but the chill gets into my bones regardless.

  I sit down near the edge of the building and prop my elbows on my knees. I stare into the distance, focus on nothing in particular. The building isn’t tall, but it’s high enough to see the outline of the Twin Cities in the distance. It’s high enough to turn the people down below into small figurines. And it’s high enough to feel removed from the world.

  I could stay up here forever and not come down. I could stay here, at least, until my parents listened to me. But they won’t, and I won’t. I’m a good girl who gets home on time for dinner because otherwise, what would the neighbors think.

  * * *

  I told you I first noticed the fractures that day. I first noticed the fire that day too. It was a discarded lighter, on the edge of the roof next to me. A cheap thing. Yellowed plastic. Covered in dust. A faded symbol of some sort.

  I don’t even know what drew me to pick it up, but I did. I do.

  I roll the spark wheel carefully. It feels rusty, as if it hasn’t been used for a while. Who knows when someone dropped it there? Judging by what else can be found on the corners of this roof—weed bags, condom wrappers—it’s not like anyone actually comes and cleans here.

  Turning the spark wheel doesn’t do anything, not at first, and I’m tempted to just toss the thing. It’s not like I ever used a lighter before. No one at home smokes, and Mom would kill me if I ever started. It may just be empty. But some stubbornness takes over, and I keep rolling the wheel, faster and faster, until it’s almost a snap.

  When the spark turns into a flame.

  It’s a tiny thing, blue with yellow edges. It doesn’t look like it’s particularly hot. But when I shield it with my hand, against the wind that dances around us, it gently sways along.

  I stare at the flame until the palm of my hand turns red. I stare until the spark wheel becomes hot enough to burn my fingers.

  And for the first time in a long time, I remember what it’s like to hurt.

  It was never meant to be like this. I was never meant to be here, on this rooftop, in this place, in this upside-down world. But the fire reminds me I can still feel, at least.

  * * *

  When I come home, Adam’s in the kitchen, scarfing down a cup of yogurt. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’m going out to study with T. J. Mom and Dad are at the Williamsons’ tonight for that neighborhood watch thing.”

  I grab an apple from the bowl on top of the bar and toss it up into the air before catching it. “ ’S fine. I’ll eat leftovers again.”

  I don’t mean for my words to sound bitter, but somehow they do.

  Adam half turns to stare at me, his eyebrows arched in a perfect copy of Mom’s. He inherited Dad’s unruly hair and green eyes, but he has Mom’s expressional eyebrows, and he has all her expressions down to a T. I don’t look like either of them—apparently, I got my looks from Dad’s younger sister. If you put my childhood photo next to Aunt Beate’s, we could be twins. She lives halfway across the country, so we don’t see her often, but our likeness always makes Dad smile when I bring it up.

  I shrug and take a bite from the apple. “Or I may order a pizza.”

  Adam grins. To his twelve-year-old mind, ordering a pizza is the epitome of adulthood. We used to order massive pepperoni pizzas together, when Dad was working late and Mom was off at some PTA thing or other, but when you’re twelve, hanging out with your friends—even when they live next door—is infinitely cooler than spending time at home with your nerdy older sister. I don’t blame him.

  He dumps his spoon in the dishwasher and grabs his bag. “Save me a slice, okay? Also”—he raises his voice—“Grandpa is home tonight, so you won’t be alone.”

  “I am!” Grandpa’s voice comes from the basement, where he’s working on restoring and repainting his collection of old toy cars.

  The chunk of apple sours in my mouth. Adam pulls the door shut, and the kitchen seems to close in on itself around me.

  * * *

  So I hide. In my own home. In my own room. I hide in daylight.

  Zoe’s texted me a few times, but I haven’t opened any of them. I’ve tossed my phone onto my bed. I don’t know what to tell her. Come over. I’m sorry. Help me. Please don’t leave me on my own. But she would ask to understand, and that is a problem. She would ask me to share secrets I cannot, do not, ever think I can share.

  After all, I tried to share them once and no one listened. I tried to share them twice and no one listened. I cannot do it a third time. Besides, I can’t silence that small voice in the back of my mind that wonders: Am I not to blame? I didn’t stop it. I let it get this far.

  It’s far easier to let myself go numb.

  At the end of the day, all I have left is a house that doesn’t feel like a home anymore either. A body that doesn’t feel like my body anymore. A self that doesn’t feel like myself anymore.

  * * *

  I am fractured.

  I’m not a good person. I don’t try hard enough. I get angry easily. I fight with my brother even when I don’t want to and ignore my friends even when I shouldn’t.

  But I don’t think I deserve this.

  * * *

  According to chaos theory, the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future. One small deviation can change the entire future. That’s known as the butterfly effect. The idea that one flap of a butterfly’s wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever. Or that traveling back in time and stepping on one butterfly can change the history of the human race.

  The idea that one time, a girl was a solid B student who could take pride in her geeky accomplishments, who could laugh and feel her stomach flutter and her heart race, who mattered. Until all that changed and kept changing. Small causes have large effects.

  * * *

  It was raining outside. That was what I remember most clearly. It was the last week of freshman year, and it was hot and humid and raining. The type of rain that clings to you, all dust and warm water.

  Zoe walked me home before she had to go to volleyball practice, and I was soaked through by the time I walked through the front door. I was itching to change into something dry and cool. But when I went to drop my backpack in the living room, I found Dad sitting on the couch.

  I froze in the doorway, sure that something had happened. As a general manager at an insurance company, he worked long days, and we rarely saw him
between dawn and dusk. He seemed out of place here. He’d left his jacket over the armrest, and he’d loosened his tie. His normally flawless hair was sticking up, as if he’d run his hand through it several times.

  “Dad?”

  I don’t think he saw or heard me, at first. “Jenna?”

  I let my soggy backpack slip off my shoulder and onto the hardwood floor. It immediately created a puddle of water around it. On any other day, Dad would not have let that go unmentioned—Mom hates the stains—but right there and then, he didn’t even blink.

  My heart leaped into my throat, and I tried desperately to find my voice. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

  “Jenna?” It took a long time for him to focus on me, longer to find the right words. But eventually they came. “Grandpa just called. We knew it might happen but . . . After everything he went through with the store, the bank is going to foreclose his home, too. He’s lost everything. He’s— Aunt Beate can’t take him in, so he is going to come live with us for a while.”

  * * *

  Grandpa arrived a week later, in his beat-up old car, with nothing but a large suitcase full of clothes, a baseball glove and baseball for Adam, a large photo album for Dad, and an old abacus from the store for me.

  I liked him. He looked younger than I expected. He had an easy smile and a sharp sense of humor. He made Adam and me laugh throughout dinner.

  That first weekend, he sat up with me and let me talk endlessly about math and chaos and fractals, everything that even Dad had grown tired of.

  He took Adam to his games and took him out for milk shakes after while he told him stories about his endless road trips, first with Grandma, then alone. He loved his car as much as Mom hated the look of it.

  The truth is, I didn’t want him to come because although we live comfortably, our house isn’t big enough to fit five. Some days it’s barely big enough for four. And yet he fit in. Easily and without hesitation. He became a part of us.

  * * *

  I didn’t have to murder a butterfly.

  I didn’t realize anything had changed until it was too late.

  * * *

  I slip into my bedroom and sag down against the door. I grab an old matchbox from my stack of collectibles, and I turn it around and around and around between my fingers.

  I started collecting matchboxes when I was eight because matches are great for re-creating geometrical shapes. When my parents discovered what I was up to, they started bringing home matchboxes from every vintage store and every hotel where they could find them.

  I switched to LEGOs, eventually, and virtual building materials. I discovered formulas and coding.

  But I always kept the matches, and my parents kept up the tradition. They didn’t know, but they gave me enough matches to burn down the world.

  Still, I never lit matches before today, and doing so isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

  The first match snaps and splinters.

  The head of the second crumbles.

  The third match lights up, and I’m so shocked I immediately drop it. It sears my jeans and extinguishes.

  The fourth burns all the way down, scorching my fingertips.

  I push the fifth against the tender skin of my forearm.

  Then the sixth. And the seventh.

  The flames are mesmerizing, and I can feel the pain.

  I can feel.

  I make my way through the entire matchbox, until the small blotches on my arm itch and ache and my room smells of sulfur. Until the twilight outside gives way to night and the shadows creep in.

  I tried to lock the door, but the shadows always creep in.

  * * *

  The world burns from the inside out. You don’t see it until it’s too late.

  And then David goes, “Well, thank God someone here knows how to start a fire.”

  “Rude,” Jackie said, and then everyone started going off on David while Jenna retreated into the background.

  The water we found wasn’t more than a slow stream, but we each filled our canteens and swished a couple of drops of bleach around in them so that we didn’t wind up drinking the piss of whatever animals had used it as their toilet upstream. Already, little alliances were forming. We hadn’t had much opportunity for that at the Bend. Dipshit Doug and his minions had worked us each day until the only thing we could think about at night was sleep. For a camp that had emphasized the value of teamwork, they hadn’t actually let us become anything resembling a team. But now that we were out on our own, Cody and Georgia were starting to pair up, which made sense, and David had sort of inserted himself into their group. Jenna, Lucinda, and Tino hung around each other, though I wouldn’t call them friends, while Jackie, Jaila, and Sunday seemed to have formed an uneasy alliance.

  I danced from group to group with ease. That’s always been one of my gifts. The ability to move around like a social chameleon. I fit in wherever the fuck I felt like being. And it’s not that difficult, either. All you have to do is listen a hell of a lot more than you speak.

  Before we’d even had a chance to rest, Tino started in on how we needed to move, figuring we could make the hike in two days instead of three and blow Doug’s idiot mind. That kid was all bluster if you ask me.

  “What’s the point?” Cody asked. Even he looked surprised that he’d spoken up. He lowered his head sheepishly, like he was waiting for someone to tell him to shut his word hole.

  “What do you mean?” Sunday asked.

  Cody mumbled, “Forget it,” and fell behind Georgia.

  Jaila stepped up to finish Cody’s thought, telling Tino that it was stupid to try to rush back to camp because we had nothing to gain by returning early, and if we weren’t careful in the woods, someone might get hurt. It was clear to me, and probably to everyone else, that Jaila had the most experience and that we should listen to her, but Tino couldn’t stand the idea that he wasn’t in charge.

  “I only have one inhaler,” David said, holding the thing up into the air like he thought some of us didn’t know what one was. “I don’t think I can do much running.”

  “As much as I wouldn’t mind abandoning the perv in the woods,” Lucinda said, “Dipshit Doug would probably frown on it.”

  “Great,” Tino said. “So we’re stuck out here an extra day because David can’t breathe. Just fucking great.”

  Lucinda clenched her fists. “That’s not his fault. He can’t breathe because he’s got asthma, whereas you’re just an asshole for no reason.”

  Jackie threw up her hands, grabbed her pack from where she’d dropped it, and started marching northeast, which I know because I asked. It was the direction Jaila had said camp was, and she was the only one even willing to make a guess, so it’s what we went with.

  The rest of us picked up and followed her—even Tino, though he grumbled about it for at least an hour.

  “I’m hungry,” Cody was saying to Georgia while we walked. “What’re we going to do about food?”

  Georgia shrugged.

  “I’m not killing anything,” Cody kept going.

  Now that we had water, food was the next thing on all our minds. Some of them, like Cody and Georgia and Sunday, probably never worried about where their next meal was going to come from. They probably thought the food fairy delivered that shit to their fridges while they slept. But I figured even the rest of us had never hunted our own food. We couldn’t have had at least one delinquent in our group who’d gone hunting or fishing?

  As the day wore on, we started shedding layers. The ground was uneven, and our meandering route through the forest took us up some steep inclines that David struggled with. But he didn’t complain. Much. Yeah, okay, he did some complaining, but he was only voicing the shit we were all thinking. About how this was fucking ridiculous. About how none of this was teaching us anything about being the “good citizens” Doug kept telling us we needed to be if we were going to stay out of juvie. All it had taught any of us so far was that we weren’t cut out for living i
n the wilderness and that adults were a bunch of assholes who got off on torturing kids.

  Jaila fell back to the middle, letting Tino take the lead for a while. It was a smart move on her part. He was walking in the direction she’d laid out, but he thought he was the one making the decisions, which kept him quiet. A good leader knows how to get people to do what she wants without them knowing they’re doing it.

  After we’d walked for about an hour, Cody jogged up to hike beside me. He asked if I really had a hundred dollars, keeping his voice low so that the others wouldn’t hear.

  “I do.” I patted my pocket.

  “Where’d you get it from?”

  “Would you believe me if I said I stole it from Doug?”

  Cody shook his head.

  “Well, I did. I lifted it from his cabin the second night.”

  “That’s a story I’d like to hear.”

  “I’m the judge of the competition,” I said. “You all are the ones supposed to tell stories, not me.”

  Cody chewed on that for a moment. “I stole some money once. A lot more than a hundred bucks.”

  He’d said it loud enough that Lucinda had overheard. “I call bullshit,” she said.

  “It’s not bullshit,” he said. “Here, I’ll prove it.”

  “A RUTHLESS DAME”

  by Tim Floreen

  TWO YEARS AGO this older couple moved into the house next door to mine. I heard they’d just bought the old three-screen movie theater downtown. I found that sort of interesting because I’m obsessed with movies. Not new ones, though, like the kind they show at that theater. I prefer those black-and-white ones with guys in neckties double-crossing each other over suitcases full of cash. “Film noir,” they call movies like that. More than anything, I love the ladies from those movies, with their perfect hair cascading down over their shoulders in shiny waves, and their slinky dresses slit all the way up to the hip, and their cute little guns tucked under a garter. Just so I can stare at those actresses all the time, I printed a bunch of Hollywood glam shots off the Internet and taped them to the wall above my bed. My parents don’t know what the hell to make of them. Probably they’re just glad the pictures aren’t of guys.