froM CHAPTER 16
SIGNING A FREE AGENT
Before dismissing the Kitchen Patrol, Ken double-checked with Calvin for his Troop’s number. “Six-Sixty-Six, how could I forget,” he said. “Sucks but I gotta report Jon for skipping out.”
“Guess we seen the last o’ him,” Dale said. “He’ll be polishing shit-stalls from now on.”
Dryly, Calvin noted, “We already got that job too.”
“You guys are friggin’ war criminals! Himmler and Göring in the house! You gotta tell us about that fight you were in!”
“If I did, Dale, you wouldn’t believe it. I was there and I don’t believe it! See you guys at supper.”
“See ya,” the others mumbled, departing the kitchen. Calvin was the last to go. And, in fact, he didn’t leave at all.
This guy from the Cutting Crew entered a terminal state whenever a) it was after sunset, and b) he was held by you.
Cindy stood by the yellow fridge, sipping a can of her precious Dr. Pepper, and pretended not to notice him. She still steamed over whatever Jon had pulled. The dishwashing session had been tense and quiet. Pink-cheeked Mike had, once more, done most of the work.
Calvin shut the door behind him and walked over to the automatic dish machine, a large contraption with two sets of doors to allow racks to be slid in and out simultaneously. The far side of the machine was unspoilt by soap resin and water marks. As Cindy had said, it quite nicely doubled as a mirror.
And what a sight! Face haggard. Lip and nose swollen, still carrying a twinge of pain, much like sticking a tongue on a dying nine-volt battery’s terminals. Icky hair pushed down over forehead and ears to cover his bandage and gauze.
He carefully experimented with pulling his long hair back, as he normally wore it. The locks stuck to his fingers queasily. He hadn’t washed his hair since Saturday night and made to instantly remedy that. He turned on the triple-sink’s tap. Remembering the cold water line was broken, he shut it off.
Cindy came over to him. “Turn around.”
Calvin’s mouth opened.
“Don’t talk.”
His mouth shut. He turned around, his back to the sinks.
She set her soda can on the icky shelf above the sinks, fired up the tap, and used her hands to guide him into position. “Now lean back,” she bade him.
His skin was alive, tingling and hot. He couldn’t believe this was happening (whatever it was!). He leaned back as told.
She turned to face the sinks and put a hand on his chest to push him back. “Further down,” she said.
She meant to put his head backwards in the sink, so the tap would run water down his scalp, like at a hair salon’s washing station. He bent his knees and reached back to grab the sink edge for leverage. During this maneuver, his left hand bumped into her lower back.
She calmly moved his hand to its proper destination, which made his underarm brush against her belly. “Almost there,” she said. “I’ll try to keep it off your forehead.”
He looked at the grease-spotted ceiling. Flickering fluorescents tickled his eyes. She pulled the long bits of his hair away from his head and fluttered them in and out of the steaming jet of water. “No shampoo like Dawn, right?” she said.
“W—”
“Don’t talk.” He felt pressure on the roots; she may have been pulling his hair apart, or scrubbing it. Drops of near-boiling water sprayed on his forehead and the back of his neck, but he gritted his teeth and silently endured their heat.
“You’re doing great,” she purred. “Almost done.”
She moved closer to scrub the hair on the back of his head, and now her hip dug into his ribs and his view of the ceiling suddenly included what might’ve been a bit of T-shirt-covered breast. He tightened his grip on the sink edge and locked his leg muscles so he wouldn’t slip, and commanded his cock to stop hardening. He didn’t know how much longer he could—
She slapped the tap off. “All done,” she said, squeezing out his hair one last time. She went to fetch a roll of paper towels.
Slowly, Calvin untwisted himself to stand normally. His back smarted and the wet hair was hot on his neck. He felt the water soaking into the back of his T-shirt.
After drying her hands, Cindy held up the used paper towel—pink/brown from soda and blood. “Gross me out!” she declared, handing him the roll. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Neither can I. Thank you,” Calvin smiled, running some towels through his locks.
“I tried to keep the bandage dry. Why do you have it?”
“Just a flesh wound.”
“Even with your hair pulled down, everyone could see it.” Her black eyebrows curled. “I couldn’t let you keep walkin’ around with that filthy hair anymore though!”
“Again,” he said, “thank you.”
She laughed. “If there’s one thing I can figure out about you, it’s that you’re not vain about your looks.”
Calvin shrugged. “Except when gore forces me to.”
“Gore blows.” She took off her cap. “Here, try this instead.”
Gracefully, Calvin accepted the Whalers cap and adjusted it to fit his head. He pushed back his damp hair, slipped it on, and looked at himself in the dish machine’s “mirror.”
“Can still see the wrapping from behind,” she pointed out.
“But it does the job up front.” Calvin smiled at himself. He looked normal. He took off the cap and made to hand it back.
“You can keep that,” she said.
“But this is all you have from your last rela—”
“Fuck him and his hat. I’m better off without it.”
“… thanks. Again. I keep saying that!”
Cindy hoisted herself up on the dishroom’s stainless steel table to sit with her short legs dangling. Her eyes told the tale of weary feet. “No problem. I think I’ll let my hair flow in the breeze.”
“Good for you, Cindy.”
The lad from New Order spun a tale about this nervous dude who genuflected whenever he saw his mate putting the theory of gravity to the test.
“Cindy!” she burped, laughter exploding out. “So weird to have a normal name for a change!” Her brown eyes smiled at him. “Why’d you pick Cindy?”
“Just popped in my head. I used to have the hots for this girl named Cindy in my school.”
More laughs. “I’m sorry, it’s just sooo weird to hear ‘I have the hots’ in your accent!”
“Everyone loves an Irish brogue,” he nodded.
Rolling her eyes: “Do they. So let me guess—your Cindy was blond hair/big boobs?”
“No, black hair, like yours used to be. And her boobs are … underdeveloped.” His mind drifted. “Blonde hair/big boobs—that’s such a shite stereotype, Cindy.”
“Shite,” she tittered to herself.
“I mean it! Not every lad looks for blonde hair/big boobs.”
“But every lad looks at blonde hair/big boobs! Deny that!”
“I deny nothing!” he chortled.
She raised a warning finger. “Spare me your next line about how perfect I am.” An aloof grin grew on her lips.
Calvin let a pause go by. “Not sure how you knew, but—”
“Always the thing you guys say. Guy looks at the TV: ‘Brooke Shields is hot.’ Then guy looks over at me: ‘Not as hot as you, though. You’re perfect.’”
“Huh,” was all Calvin had for that. “Guess it is predictable.”
“It’s corny, is what it is,” Cindy said.
He looked at her aloof face. “It’s a shame.”
“What’s a shame?”
“In a few days we’ll go home, and I’ll never see you again. You’re the most perfect girl I’ve ever met. I’ll miss seeing you.”
Her jaw dropped. “Okay, less corny, but more sleazy!”
“That’s not fair!” Calvin coughed, letting his emotions run free. “You asked me to spare you the corny lines, and—”
“You just said it anyway, so how’s that ‘sparing’ it?”
“I had a legit reason why I said it! Please listen to the words I say, Cindy, it’s totally worth it.”
Desperately trying not to laugh: “I get it. But why Cindy? If I’m the ‘most perfect girl ever’ but your Cindy from school is an underdeveloped Plain Jane … why use her name?”
“Plain Jane, I like that. Some lads call our Cindy ‘Sigourney’ behind her back cuz she looks like the woman in Ghostbusters.”
“Now why would you ‘have the hots’ for a girl who looked like Sigourney Weaver, Calvin?”
“Cuz I liked her. And I come on to women I like.” Before he could stop himself: “She was a girl onto which I tried to come.”
She almost shit. Did this guy really just structure his sentence that way?! “You did that on purpose!” she whooped. “It’s not just dork-talk, but like, porno dork-talk! Come on to her, like hitting on her, then cum onto her.” She mimed jerking off.
He flashed his shite-eating grin which she nearly fell for. “You want to have English class or hear my story?”
Concerned she was laughing too much, Cindy choked the latest batch back. “Your story. What’s her whole name?”
“Cindy McKee.”
“And, what’d you guys do for your first date?”
“We never went out. After months chatting her up, I got bored of her not taking an interest in me.”
“So you were obsessed with her? Hanging out below her bedroom window like Romeo?”
“Whatever! I just moved on. I have a girlfriend, you know.”
“Maybe you do,” Cindy smirked. “Or, maybe not.”
“Maybe her name is Jenny.”
“Jenny. Who did take an interest in you.”
“She did.”
“Why’d Jenny say yes but Sigourney say no?”
Calvin bit his lip. “Jenny liked me, I guess. Our very first conversation was an argument in Gym class. And it was obvious she liked the way I fought back. We just clicked.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Cindy intoned. “How long you two been going out?”
“Since February. That’s when she moved to my town.”
“There’s the answer! You ain’t the only detective, Sherlock!” Cindy piqued up to explain her deduction: “Cindy McKee knew you from years of being at the same school. This Jenny was brand new to your act, your accent, your confident way of speaking.” She waved a hand up and down at him: “This whole thing you do, Calvin.”
“You make me sound like a carnival freak. And you’re assuming I’m the only boy from Ireland in my school!”
“Stop it,” she barked. “Jenny probably just felt grateful that some guy was standing up to her, instead of all fawning and drooling and offering to show the new girl around town.”
“Explain why we’re still dating,” Calvin challenged. “My ‘act,’ the whole ‘thing’ I do … woulda gotten old, fast. Right?”
“Maybe yer more than that,” flapped Cindy. “Maybe yer a great kisser with a huge dong. That’d keep her coming back.”
“That would get old fast, too!” Calvin laughed. “Admit it!”
A particular member of Genesis wanted to alter things, but couldn’t, since he was at a depth over his head.
“Sounds like you got lucky, Calvin. I bet Jenny’s a real cunt. That no one else at school even likes her.”
“That’s, uh, a good guess. But I don’t care what people say about her.” A fading smile. “You sound like my ma. She thinks Jenny latched on to me too quickly, so everyone would talk about her. Make her instantly popular.”
“In other words, using you.”
“What bollocks.”
“What what?”
“Bollocks. Bullshit. I don’t put up with people like that—fakers and users. Jenny says she likes how I don’t give a crap about what others think. That I make my own waves. Tell me—is that something a user would say?”
“Yes,” Cindy admonished, genuinely concerned. “Jenny’s using you just right, Calvin. Users always make the people they use feel like they’re the most important person in the world.”
“What do you know?” Calvin said dismissively.
“Oh I know. I know enough. How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen?! Shit. I thought you were older than me, like sixteen or something. Well, I’d keep an eye on this Jenny if I were you, and don’t get too attached. Is she hot?”
“Blonde hair/big boobs. I’m the envy of my grade.”
Cindy’s whole body bucked as if to say, Bullshit!
Out came Calvin’s leather wallet again.
“Gonna pay me to believe you?” Cindy teased.
“Shut up,” Calvin said. He poked through the wallet and found half of a photo booth strip: two black-and-white frames of Calvin hugging and mugging with a bright-eyed blonde bombshell of a teenage girl. He handed it over with relish.
Cindy looked the photo strip over for a long moment. She examined the back, then ran her finger along the torn bottom edge. She handed it back without a word, and looked away.
Calvin put the photo in his wallet and became aware of her mood change. Clearly he’d fucked up at the end there, and needed to switch topics. “Leaf,” he said softly.
“What?” she chanced, her eyes bent in puzzlement.
“Your name is Leaf, right?”
“No, but—and I fucking hate to admit it—you’re on the right track. Was that just a guess?”
“Just a guess,” grinned Calvin. “Give me a hint.”
“It’s got something to do with leaves, but—” (she raised her dark brows tightly) “—not really.”
“Ooookay: Branch?”
“No.”
“Rings.”
“No!”
“Sap.”
“Definitely not!”
They laughed. Settled down casually. Paused in silence together. Calvin fiddled with the brim of the Whalers cap. “So. Going to this dance tonight?”
“Not if I can help it,” Cindy said. “They have one every Monday night and I’ve managed to miss them all so far. You?”
She’d returned the question! Good sign. “I love dances but I hate pop music.”
She was appalled. “Really? Even rock and roll?”
“S’all shite. Well, the Beach Boys.”
“Wow, nothing from this century even.”
Calvin made himself casual. “Me, Art, and Sandy—mates of mine in Troop 666—we’ve got a routine for this. Every spring we go to Lewis & Clark Camp near Gettysburg. Tons of Troops and Cookie Girls go. They put on a party Saturday night, with pairing off of boys and girls for square dancing, and then they go to your Def Leppard and so on. Me, Art, and Sandy find it in-fucking-tolerable: the girls who camp like us boys tend to look like us boys. So, what we do is, go for about ten minutes—then sneak back to our tent and get drunk.”
Her eyes lit up. “Get drunk?!”
“Sure,” Calvin purred. “Sandy’s famous for it. You never know what’ll be in his canteen!”
Her amazement grew. “I’ve seen some wacky boys here. A lot of assholes. But never one who says he gets drunk.”
“True.”
“Now you’re speaking my language, know what I mean?! But it goes so much against Trooping ideals!” She was dubious. “I’m sorry, Calvin, it’s just hard to swallow.”
“Care to join us and see for yourself?”
She ruffled her lips. “I don’t know.” A polite no.
“Come on,” he egged, “you must be sick of this dishroom. Listen: while you’re there, you can prank Jon’s stuff. Maybe piss in his sleeping bag or something.”
She didn’t seem thrilled with this idea.
“Cindy,” said Calvin warmly, “we just have a good time. You can too, if you join us. No one will hit on you or treat you bad; and you will smile.”
Her flat expression continued unabated. “Oh, what the hell. You’re on.” To herself: “I must be on crack.”
CHAPTER 20
SCARING OFF A MURDER
The sun shone bleak orange on a curl of woods. A low breeze swayed the tired trees, sending shadows slow dancing across the snowy earth. A crow scout, standing high atop a bald maple, went “Rrwk.”
Art Maguire’s calculator watch beeped. “Top of the hour here on News Radio 1240 AM,” he cracked.
Calvin Connor checked his White Window Swatch, the black face and hands barely readable in the gloam. “Mine’s old-timey, no beeps.”
“Mine’s digital like his,” said Ryan Phillips, “but I turn the beep off so it won’t give away my position.”
“Very tactical, Phillips Eclipse,” said William Watson. “The Spazzster don’t wear no timepiece—it’s how the Man keeps ya down!”
“Shhh!” said Valerie Crenshaw. “You’ll scare ’em off, Liam. They’re sooo cute!”
“They already know we’re here,” said Abby Malone, her slanted face craned up to admire the crow.
“Crows are okay with humans being around,” said Kitty Howe. Parked on the snowy ground with Calvin, she tilted her head to aim an ear towards the edge of the copse, where the rest of the murder noshed.
“A lot of humans ain’t so okay when crows are around,” said Art.
“Like farmers,” said Calvin.
“And white folk.”
A ripple of embarrassed laughter raced through the kids.
“Don’t make this about that,” said Calvin.
“In my life, it’s always about that,” said Art. “One time I was walkin’ across these fields and this freight train was comin’—”
“Ooh did it have the kitty on the side?” said Abby. She reached over to lovingly grab Kitty’s arm.
“Yeah, it was a Chessie System one,” snapped Art. “Anyway. The engineer leans out the window, shakin’ a fist at me, and he was all, ‘Get the fuck away from the tracks, you dumb n——!’”
“That never happened, mate,” said Calvin.
“Blow me, Irish! You weren’t there!”
“Neither were you, African, cuz it never happened. Freight trains are so bloody loud … but you heard the driver yelling over that?”
Abby nodded at this logic. Spazz blew a snot rocket in concurrence.
The Ape went on: “Up close and standing still, no one can tell you’re black, but some prick in a speeding train could?”
Art’s long face dripped down, an ice cream cone melting. “You never believe me.”
Val went “Aww,” at Art like he was a sick puppy.
“I believe it,” said Ryan. “If it happened in your mind, Art, then it happened. Somewhere in the infinite reaches, it happened.”
Abby perked up. “In some parallel dimension? What an awesome idea! Somewhere, there’s me with a million bucks!”
“And me with a Lambo,” said Calvin.
“And me with sight,” said Kitty.
“And me with all of Maiden’s albums on CD,” said Spazz. At their gawks: “What? Mirror Universe Spazz has realistic goals!”
Art always had to come out on top when it came to weird examples: “And me married to Mary Jo Powell.”
Abby sputtered. “The Action News lady?”
“Hell yeah. She’s got that Janine from Ghostbusters thing goin’ on. Nerdy girls want some of what I got!”
The others laughed.
Calvin said, “There’s a dimension where you’re actually black.”
Art said, “I am actually black.”
“Where you look actually black.”
“But I still am black. You keep denyin’ it but I’m black. I’m stuck between two worlds here. You wouldn’t understand.”
“The half-American bloke born in a foreign country has no hope of understanding,” said Calvin, rolling his eyes.
“Just shut up.”
“Y’know what I don’t understand?” said Kitty. “Racism.”
“Duh, cuz you can’t see it,” Art said, snippier than called for.
“Exactly. Close your eyes and everyone’s the same. But people see colors and judge. That’s why it’s so stupid.”
Art mulled that over and changed his mind. He lowered his glasses to peer over them and issue an appreciative nod to her.
“He nodded at you, like thanks,” Abby supplied.
Kitty smiled between her wide cheeks. “You’re welcome, Art.”
“Wait up,” said Calvin. “We say a dark stormcloud is bad but a fluffy white cloud is beautiful. Is that only cuz of their color?”
“See how racism is embedded in the way you think?” said Art.
“ ‘See’ how sight is embedded in your talk?” said Calvin.
“ ‘See’ how colors lead to generalizations?” said Kitty.
“Okay, I gotta stop you there,” said Art, getting snippy again. “The color of a cloud isn’t just pigment. It says something about the nature of it.”
“The dark ones bring storms,” said Calvin.
“Is that bad? Rain is good for crops.”
“I get what you mean,” Val said to Art, “but it’s, like, instinct too. Bright colors make little kids happy. Dark rooms make them scared.”
“My mom is bright white and my dad is dark,” said Art. “As a little kid, I was never scared of him. I was happy to see them both.”
“Hmmm,” the kids said, mulling it over.
“Quit it, all of you,” Kitty said, whipping her hands up and down at the elbow, her Arms of Frustration gesture. “Clouds and people are beautiful. Quit putting bad things on them. We’re all God’s creations.”
“Even my herpes,” said Spazz, scratching his nuts. “My beautiful Godly herpes.”
The crow scout cast an eye down at him and went, “Rewwww.”
Art said to Kitty, “How do you envision color?”
“She don’t ‘envision’ anything, you arse,” said Calvin.
Kitty grabbed his arm to calm him. “No, I get this a lot and Art wants to understand, so let me explain.”
Calvin sighed like Okay, whatever.
“I’ve never had sight so there’s certain concepts I can’t grasp,” the lass told them. “Like how pictures don’t just show a person but also how the photographer took it, the lighting and angle and stuff.
“If there’s two sheets of paper that are exactly the same except one’s red and one’s green, I’ll never know, but most of the time there’s other differences. People see mold on fruit and know it’s bad. I can smell it a mile off. People think that when hair turns white, that’s the only difference, but I can feel it. Hair that’s lost its color feels different.”
“That’s cool and all,” interrupted Art, “but I wanna know why green is your favorite color. How you can even have a favorite.”
“I’m allowed to have a favorite, Art.”
“No you can’t, if you’ve never seen it!”
“Yes I can, cuz long ago I was taught how to make associations. That’s how blind people ‘envision’ color—we are taught to tie each color’s name with concepts that will define it for us.”
Art gave her a snotty look.
Abby told Kitty, “His face says you’re full of shit.”
“Green,” said Kitty, “is the color of grass and leaves, of things that grow, vegetables that are fresh, springtime after winter. Green makes me feel happy and ready to take on challenges. Green says Go! at the traffic light. It’s the color of Christmas trees, when kids get excited and tear off the wrapping paper. I love that sound. Very few people have green eyes and they’re considered special and beautiful.”
“Okay,” said Spazz, warming up to the idea, “but green’s also the color of rotten flesh and snot and toxic waste and alien goo.”
“And money,” said Val.
“Too right,” said Calvin, “greed and envy.”
“Yes,” said Kitty patiently. “Every color is tied to good things and bad things, or what people call good or bad. Green’s still my favorite.”
“How ’bout red?” asked Spazz. “Blood an’ fire an’ heat an’ sex?”
“What about purple?” asked Val. “Grapes and kings?”
“Blue?” said Calvin. “Water and fish and floating?”
“Brown?” said Spazz. “Mud and squishy and havin’ the squirts?”
The kids flooded Kitty with every color they could think of and everything they could associate those colors with. Abby, who’d been Kitty’s friend their whole lives, helped answer the questions.
When it died down, Kitty took a breath. “You didn’t ask about black or white,” she said …
… to Art. “Yo, I’m afraid of the answer!”
“What you think I’m gonna say is, adults taught me to stereotype them—white equals good and hope, black equals evil and despair,” said Kitty. “But I don’t do that. Black to me is cold, like at night. Mystery, like the night sky. Poetry and knowledge, like the ink on the page that forms the words. Silence, like in death. White is emptiness, like that blank piece of paper. It’s cold and frozen, like ice and snow.”
“I associate black with looking bad-ass,” Ryan put in, sweeping a hand down his attire. Every stitch was black.
“For me, black is heavy metal!” said Spazz, making devil horns with his hands and banging his head.
“Sci-fi space battles and spiders and witches!” said Val.
“Guinness,” said Calvin. “You all hate it but stout is God’s gift!”
“For me, black is beauty,” said Art. “Power. Strength. The hammer head and the anvil that break the chain. Black rules!”
“Unless it’s in yer stool,” said Spazz. “That means ya gots blood ups yer butt.”
“Ewww!” they all went, then all leapt in the air as the Axsubewa Valley got rocked by a deep, groaning HONNNNNK!
A second groaning HONNNNNK! came, and a third, one every other second, echoing off the tall ridges surrounding the borough.
“It really is the dumbest fucking sound now,” Calvin guffawed.
“It’s the scariest noise I’ve ever heard,” said Art, dashing to the edge of the copse and scanning the horizon for smoke.
“It’s annoying is what it is!” said Abby, gnashing her teeth.
“I hear it in my nightmares,” said Val.
“Me too,” Art called. “That noise means people are in trouble. And other people, like my dad, are running toward that trouble.” He came back to join the others. “Firefighters die all the time.”
“Axsubeen Fire Brigade needs to get a normal alarm,” said Calvin.
Spazz nodded. “One that don’t sound like no rhino cumming.”
The girls all went “Ewww!”
This gang’s crow scout, Ryan, sat up abruptly. “Mummy alert!”
A loud BOOM rushed into the copse and the murder of crows dashed off, caw!ing crossly. The kids got to their feet. Art’s gangly hand tugged at the strap holding his .410 across his back, debating whether he should brandish it or not.
The “mummy” left the sun-lit fallow farm fields for the copse’s shade. It was Old Man Mueller, in the flesh (er, wrappings). His baggy duck canvas clothing creaked in contempt. His back was bent from years of servitude to the earth. Thick and shiny skin, like PVC piping. The mummy had no eyes to speak of. He carried his trusty Winchester Model 12 before him, keeping the dangerous end up and to his left. A wisp of smoke dribbled out of the barrel.
“Hey, Mr. Mueller,” called Art, as friend and not foe. He dusted his hands to cancel out the invisibility afforded by his white arctic camo.
The other teenagers stood to form a clean row with Art. Some were nervous. Kitty smelled the anxiety and clutched Calvin.
“That you, Maguire?” Old Man Mueller’s voice was crisp and crazy. He halted four paces away, close enough to be point-blank range but far enough to not get showered in ricochets and spatter. “Yer on the wrong side of the tracks again.”
“So’s you know,” said Art, “I got my .410 across my back.”
“That a fact?” Hans Mueller racked his shotgun. The spent cartridge flew out the ejection port, bounced on the snowy mud, and landed near Calvin’s Reeboks. The fleeing crows laughed over their shoulders.
Art raised open hands. “You got coyotes in your woods!”
Spazz held up hands like a haunting specter. “And ghosts!”
“Ghosts?” the old man said. His teeth were on vacation.
“All the tunnels under your land,” said Val, “from the old mines!”
“Christ almighty,” said Mueller. “There ain’t no tunnels under my land, I ain’t buried no granddaughters in my pond, and there ain’t no ghosts in my woods! You kids need to quit that shit about the Maggot Man. He’s been dead goin’ on seven, eight years now!”
The mummy’s dry, crumpled face suddenly noticed Abby and Kitty in the line of kids and went pale, like he’d seen a ghost himself. The girls held each other but dared not breathe …