Dread Locks

by Neal Shusterman

  “That’s what everyone says, but it’s not true. People are more afraid of other things. Think. What do you really fear?”

  I closed my eyes and thought. I wasn’t in the habit of dwelling on what frightened me—I usually had better things to do—and it wasn’t very often that I was challenged to think too deeply. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  “What am I afraid of?” I said, stalling. “I’m afraid of... being forgotten.” I wasn’t sure I meant it until I said it. I opened my eyes. “I mean, I guess we all have to die someday, but to live and have such a pointless life that you’re forgotten right after you die ... that’s what I’m most afraid of.”

  Tara smiled. “I believe you. I believe you’re telling the truth.”

  I gazed toward the mantis heads again. They were slowing down. They could move only so long from the momentum we had given them.

  “What if I told you that you WILL make a difference,” Tara said. “What if I told you that you don’t even have to die?”

  I turned to her. Was she crazy? In the half-light of twilight, with Tara sitting there wearing her mirrored shades, it sure seemed possible. No. More likely she was just trying to freak me out again. She liked doing that. And I liked when she did it. This time, though, it felt one step over the edge.

  “If you told me that, I would say you were nuts.”

  She didn’t have any answer to that.

  “My sister thinks you’re a vampire,” I spouted out in the discomfort of the moment.

  Tara laughed. “A vampire? Hah! I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that simple.” She sighed. “Well, Parker, rest assured that I don’t drink blood or turn into a bat.”

  “My sister will be relieved.” I moved a little bit closer to her. “How about you, Tara? What are you afraid of?”

  I could see her shoulders move uncomfortably, like she had a chill. “Never mind that.”

  “C’mon, you asked me. Why can’t I ask you?”

  She looked at me through those impenetrable lenses of hers. I wondered if this was the way she had looked at Ernest—or if that look had been something different.

  “I’m afraid of ...” She took a long time to think about it. “... more of the same.”

  I didn’t know what it meant, but I could tell she was being honest. “So, is sitting here with me more of the same?”

  “No,” she answered. “Being here with you is ... new.” Then her tone of voice suddenly changed. She became more focused. “I want you to do something for me,” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I want you to introduce me to your brother.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Why would you want me to do that?”

  “Maybe I want to get to know him,” she said. “Maybe I think he’s cute.” And then she whispered, “Or maybe I just want to prove to you that you’re not a joke.”

  And although I had no idea how meeting my brother might prove anything to me, I agreed to introduce them. I wanted to say something to her that sent all of her feelings spinning out of whack, like she had just done to me, but I couldn’t tweak people like that. Especially not her. Tara was untweakable.

  We sat there in silence until the sun was below the horizon and the mantis heads had all ground to a halt. But there was a gear work still moving—a silent machine that was all Tara’s—and I knew that whatever she was planning, I was helping to grease the gears.

  9

  THE FIRST LOCK

  Even though I didn’t understand her request, I was curious. Tara never did anything without some larger plan. Introducing her to Garrett was not going to be fun. Garrett would do his best to make me look bad in front of her and make himself look good. The only good part about it was that I had complete control over the time and place. I put a little thought into it and came up with a perfectly wicked way to introduce them.

  I swung by Tara’s place on my dirt bike the next Saturday afternoon to take her to the mall. It was before Halloween, and the mall was a zoo with shoppers, and I knew that Garrett would be hard at work. He had a part-time job at the Pound-a-Beef, everyone’s favorite awful fast-food place. He worked there not because he needed the money, but because Mom and Dad n-sisted he develop some sort of work ethic, just in case he couldn’t fake his way through the rest of his life.

  This was where I would introduce Tara to him. I wanted Garrett to be in the position of having to serve us. “Hi, Garrett—this is Tara,” I would say, and I imagined him going all red in the face when he had to say, “Hi, Tara. You want fries with that?” What a great moment it would be. And besides, he’d looked like a moron in the beige-and-pink uniform he had to wear.

  I didn’t tell Tara any of this, of course. I wanted her to be as unprepared as Garrett for the meeting. Whatever her game was, she was going to have to think on her toes.

  We got to the Pound-a-Beef just after the lunch rush. Garrett was at the second register. He hadn’t noticed us yet because he was busy taking an order from a woman with two bratty kids.

  “No, no,” the mom was saying. “Ketchup.”

  “So that’s two burgers, one with no ketchup?” Garrett said.

  “Extra ketchup! Extra ketchup!” howled one of the kids.

  “Oh,” said Garrett, staring cluelessly at the readout on his register. “I thought you said extra mustard.”

  The woman sighed. “I said no mustard on the first, and extra ketchup on the other, double cheese, but no tomato, put their onions on my burger, and fries. Well-done.”

  “Fries well-done?” said Garrett, quickly punching buttons on the touch pad in front of him.

  “No, the burgers!”

  I held back a laugh. He would definitely look like a moron to Tara now. Finally, he completed the order, collected the woman’s crumbled bills, and said, “Next, please.”

  As soon as he saw it was me, he started to scowl. “No free lunch for family members,” he said. “You want to eat; you pay like everyone else.”

  Garrett’s eyes shifted to my left. I could see him freeze up slightly when he saw Tara.

  “Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual and effortless. “Tara, this is my brother, Garrett. Garrett, Tara.”

  They shook hands. “So you’re the infamous Tara,” he said, grinning.

  “In the flesh.”

  “Nice shades.”

  “I got them on the French Riviera.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Can we order now?”

  “Sure,” said Garrett. “What do you want?”

  Tara and I placed our orders, but as I reached for my wallet, Garrett held up his hand and said, “Well, whaddaya know! I accidentally rang it up for free.” And he winked at Tara. I was too stupefied to say anything. “I guess it’s on the house,” he said.

  “That’s awfully sweet of you,” said Tara, smiling. “By the way, I like that uniform on you. That color combination suits you. Very fashion forward.”

  Garrett puffed up like a balloon. “Thanks.”

  Tara smiled at him a bit too long, then he went off to get us our food.

  Tara and I sat uncomfortably on the plastic chairs at the plastic table, chewing our plastic food. “What was that all about?” I asked. No sense hiding how annoyed it all made me feel.

  “Be a good boy, Baby Baer,” she said. “Play your part, and you’ll have your reward.”

  I heard someone approaching and turned to see Garrett. He pulled up a chair beside us. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I asked, irritated.

  “I’m on my break,” he said. “I thought I’d take it with my little brother.”

  I squirmed in my seat, but said nothing.

  “So, Tara,” Garrett said, “done any more breaking and entering lately?”

  “I think trespassing is the most I could be charged with,” Tara answered, smiling. Then she reached for a fry and knocked over her drink. She tried to make it look like an accident, but I knew it was intentional. Orange soda poured onto the floor, splattering my shoes.

  “Oo
ps! Parker, could you get me a refill?”

  “Have Garrett get it,” I said. “He works here.”

  “But I asked you.” She held up her empty cup to me. I stared at it for a moment, then grabbed it in frustration and left. Play my part. Play my part. Was this my part? Fetching her a drink? Fetching her my brother? What else was I supposed to fetch her?

  I refilled her soda, silently stewing to myself, and by the time I returned I knew that something had changed. Some deal had been struck between the two of them while I was gone.

  As soon as I sat down, Garrett got up. “Well, I’d better get back to work,” he said. “See you tonight, Tara.” Then he left.

  I turned to Tara for an explanation. “What about tonight?”

  “Garrett’s taking me for a ride in his Lexus,” she said. “Then we’re going to the rodeo—it’s in town this weekend.”

  I was speechless for three seconds that felt like twenty. “I was going to ask you to the rodeo!”

  But instead of answering, she looked at me thoughtfully. All I could see was my own frustration reflected back at me in her lenses. Then she reached out and caught a lock of my hair just next to my left temple. She wrapped it tightly around her finger.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see,” she said. She took her hand away and smiled, satisfied. I had no idea what that was all about until I went to the bathroom a few minutes later and caught sight of myself in the mirror. There, just in front of my left ear, a clump of my normally straight hair seemed like it had fused together. It now hung in a tightly wound auburn curl.

  I left the mall and rode Tara home without saying another word to her. Then I rode my bike up and around the hills outside of town until I didn’t know what time it was. Had Tara been using me to get to Garrett, or was she plotting something against him? Was I a conspirator, a stooge, or a victim? The curl she had weirdly, miraculously given me was like a worm squirming its way through my head. I wanted to stop thinking about everything, but I couldn’t.

  My aimless riding took me past Danté’s house, and I saw him and Freddy playing basketball on his driveway. It’s funny, but ever since that night with Freddy and Dante in the coffee shop, I hadn’t been that interested in hanging out with them—and just because I didn’t feel like playing ball with them, I forced myself to go over and do just that.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Freddy answered. Then he passed me the basketball. It was the usual greeting, but it didn’t feel usual anymore.

  I dribbled slowly up the court toward the basket. Dante trie to block me, but with a burst of speed I blew past him and hit perfect layup, feeling the ball roll off my fingertips and into tl hoop. I don’t think I had ever jumped so high.

  “Hey, it’s no fun if you’re not even gonna try,” I said Dante, mocking his effort.

  “Two on one,” Dante said to Freddy. Freddy nodded.

  “Fine,” I said. “You’re on.”

  Freddy and Dante had both been on the team with me la year. In fact, they had stayed on the team after I had lost intei est. They were pretty good, but the way I was feeling at the mc ment—with energy to burn and the need to burn it—they migl as well have been playing hopscotch.

  I stole the ball from Freddy, leaped up to the basket, an practically dunked it.

  “Hey!” Freddy said. “Foul!” But it wasn’t a foul, and he kne it—I had stolen the ball with such speed and skill, he hadn’t eve noticed where the ball had gone until he saw it in my hands.

  I soon lost count of the score. It didn’t matter. I just kne that no matter how well they were playing, I was hitting thre baskets for every one of theirs.

  We burned out in less than half an hour, and when we wei done, the three of us lay on our backs on the driveway, knee bent to the darkening sky. The cement was still warm long afte the sun had hidden itself behind the trees.

  “If you keep playing like that,” Freddy said to me, “they’ draft you right into college ball. Never mind that you’re not o the team anymore.”

  “Coach woulda flipped to see you play like that,” Dante said.

  We caught our breaths for a few more moments, then Danté sat up and looked at me. “So what’s with the hair?” he asked. “A new look?”

  I touched the tightly spun lock dangling just out of my vision. I could feel it tugging on me, as if Tara’s finger were still wound up in it, pulling it tight. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Ask me again tomorrow.”

  But I knew they wouldn’t ask me tomorrow. Just like I knew I wouldn’t be hanging out with them much anymore. It was like I could sense a door closing behind me as a new one opened in front of me. Dante and Freddy ... well ... they were just on the wrong side of that closing door.

  I went home and just sat in my room in the dark. So a door had closed behind me, but I wasn’t sure I liked the one opening in front of me ... because Tara was out with Garrett. Garrett was gone by the time I got home, and I knew where he was. I could just imagine them sitting together at the rodeo, sharing popcorn and cotton candy. It should have been my cotton candy she was sharing. At that moment I hated my brother so much, I could feel it like a fever burning behind my eyes.

  I didn’t know what time it was when I heard his car pull into the driveway, but it must have been late. I waited for the front door to open. When it didn’t, my curiosity got the best of me and I moved to my window and peered out.

  I could see Garrett’s Lexus in the driveway. No one got out. Our yard lights were bright enough for me to make out a single figure in the car, behind the driver’s seat. Garrett was alone, and he was sitting as still as a statue. It wasn’t like him; Garrett was usually out of his car before it stopped rolling.

  Finally, as though pulling himself from a trance, Garrett opened the car door. The interior light flicked on, and I could see him better as he climbed stiffly out of the car and rose unsteadily to his feet.

  I met him at the front door.

  “How was the rodeo?” I asked as he walked in the house. I had been practicing my delivery of that line for hours. Bitter. Nasty. An accusation more than a question. My tone of voice was lost on Garrett, however, who seemed a million miles away.

  “Huh?” he asked, blinking his eyes several times, as though he couldn’t see me in the dim light of the entryway.

  “The rodeo? With Tara?”

  “Fine. It was fine.” He stumbled past me. “Man, I’m thirsty.”

  I followed him into the kitchen. “How about Tara? Did she think it was ‘fine’?”

  Garrett poked his head into the refrigerator. In the colorless, cold light, his face looked a sickly shade of pale. He found a can of soda and popped it.

  “Are you listening to me? I asked you about Tara.”

  He took a few swallows from the can, then gagged and spat it out into the sink. “That’s rank.”

  I took the can away from him. “What’s wrong with you? Are you deaf? I asked you a question.”

  He spotted a half-gallon carton of milk in the fridge, grabbed it, and chugged it all the way down. Little rivers of milk spilled from the corners of his mouth. Garrett has always made a habit of ignoring me, so that wasn’t all that unusual—but you first have to notice someone before you can ignore them.

  I grabbed his arm and forced him to face me. The milk carton dropped to the ground, but he had already emptied it.

  “What happened tonight?” I asked, speaking each word slowly and clearly.

  Garrett looked at me. It seemed like he was trying to remember who I was. Finally, he shook his head and for a moment seemed to come back from whatever mental vacation he was on.

  “To tell you the truth, Parker, I don’t remember. Isn’t that a hoot?”

  And I believed him. It didn’t make any sense at all, but I believed him. I turned, troubled, and started to walk away, but then he suddenly spoke up.

  “I do remember one thing, though. I do remember one thing.”

  I turned back to face
him. He was staring off into the distance, like an old man trying to remember things that had happened to him a long time ago.

  “I do remember one thing,” he said again.

  “What?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  Then he looked straight at me.

  “She took off her glasses.”

  10

  BECOMING IGOR

  Lethargy. It’s a word I know, because it’s in one of my father’s favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing nothing. Your limbs and your mind feel so heavy that it becomes a major effort just to lift your arm to channel surf.

  When you’ve got money and time, lethargy becomes like a disease. You’ve got so many choices of things to do that nothing seems worthwhile anymore. That’s the way it had been with me and basketball. That’s the way it had been with me and so many other things. I remember how my friends and I used to hang around on weekends, saying to one another, “So what do you want to do?” only to get shrugs and the same question back. After a while on those long, boring weekends, it would feel like your body was turning to stone and your mind was turning to mush. I never really thought about it much, but seeing Garrett acting so strangely started me thinking about a lot of things.

  Laziness and attitude ran rampant at my school, so maybe that’s why it took so long for people to notice the hardening of the social arteries. It began with Ernest, then spread with the tireless growth of a creeping vine. I knew the symptoms. The dull, pasty skin. The glazing of the eyes, and a weariness that went bone deep. I could spot them in the lunchroom. The girl who would lift her spoon to her mouth as if her arm were moving through dense Jell-O instead of air. There was the guy in English class who, when everyone else rushed out with the bell, would take a deep, shuddering breath and rise from his seat like Atlas with the world on his shoulders. And then there was the thing about food. That was perhaps the strangest of all.