Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  She opened her eyes, squinted against the slanted daylight. For a fraction of a second she imagined that she was back in her Claremont trailer, but swiftly realized that wasn’t the case. She was in Prescott, Arizona. She and Patrick were healthy and fine.

  She heard the buzz of teen talk outside her windows, and also the woods murmurs, the bird sounds. They were a long way from whatever danger had threatened her tiny family of two, and everything was—

  Another knock.

  Vivian rolled out of bed. Her bare feet flinched at the rough, splintered wood floor, but otherwise she was dressed. Was it already time for lunch? But hadn’t Janie said that she didn’t have to work lunch today? Surely there was—

  She opened the door, and there stood Renny Sand.

  She gawked at him, sure for a moment that this was merely a particularly sadistic part of her dream. To her horror, she realized that he was actually framed in her doorway.

  “Hi, Vivian. I was in the area—” he began brightly. She squawked, and slammed the door in his face. Jesus!

  “How could you?” She braced her back against the door and screamed at him. “I didn’t know you were coming!” Her mind raced. Makeup, shower, shampoo, oh, God—why hadn’t he told her?

  When he spoke again, his muffled voice sounded terribly embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be a good surprise.”

  “Give me five minutes,” she said. She must look a fright. There was no sink in the cabin, but she did have a sports bottle filled with water, which she used to dampen a face towel and scrub her face. She used the same water to moisten a toothbrush, and scrub her teeth. Finally she spit discreetly into the towel, hoping that she wouldn’t need it again later. She found a hand mirror and brushed her hair, bunned it back, then smoothed down her shirt, sniffing under her arms. That perfume was not Revlon, but this was camp, and it was his fault for not giving her notice, and … oh, shit.

  She opened the door again.

  To his credit, Renny Sand had backed up several steps and was sitting on a low bench. He looked up at her sheepishly, his expression one of those Gawd-have-I-screwed-up puppy-dog specials, apology and explanation in one.

  She wanted to be mad, but was too happy to see him. When their eyes met she understood exactly why he had come. He stood. He was shorter, thinner than she had remembered. Somehow, her imagination had ballooned him up to nearer Otis’s mass. Sand was dressed in Nikes, faded jeans and a short-sleeved khaki work shirt. He was slender, fit, his body more runner than weightlifter or laborer. A blue Universal City baseball cap was pulled snugly over his short dark hair. His smile was softer than she remembered, his eyes ringed with fatigue. The air around him seemed to crackle with energy: excitement, expectation, hope? About her? This visit was to have been a surprise, a present. He had trusted their sense of connection, had just wanted to see her face when she saw his.

  Why the deep creases at the corners of his eyes? The redness? Even scanning briefly, she counted five gray hairs. Could life have been as hard for him as it had for her? Merciful God, could they really be so compatible?

  And if the joy in his eyes, and the abashed grin that suddenly made him look right at home with the rabbiting thirteen-year-olds told her nothing, then she could have looked into her own heart, and felt the last bad years melting away. A doorway to her heart was opening. Perhaps the midnight e-mails hadn’t been the worst and most self-deluded kind of foolery. Just possibly they had been some sort of instinctive grasping toward an emotional safety line thrown to her from a thousand miles away. They were a whispered promise that her life was not over, that other possibilities existed, awaiting only her decision to live again.

  “Hi, Vivian,” he said humbly, and that was absolutely all that he had to say.

  71

  Patrick and the other campers sat crosslegged, ringing a cluster of blue mats.

  Ocean stood at the center, barefoot and clad in gray sweats, his long blond hair knotted behind him in a pony tail. For the first time Patrick thought that Ocean seemed to really deserve the belt cinched around his waist. In fact, he could imagine a frayed, ancient black belt there, snug around his waist, a shadow of things to come.

  “This is going to work in a very special way,” Ocean said. “Everyone gets graded: for spirit, technique in attack, technique in defense, and the other teams will be graded for their spirit in cheering you on. This isn’t about you competing with someone else. This is about you learning to defend yourself.”

  Patrick’s stomach crawled with adrenaline. He felt slightly nauseated. He looked up into the nearly empty bleachers, and found his mother, sitting next to the Witherses and that reporter, Sand. Vivian gave him an encouraging little wave, and he waved back with three fingers.

  She had introduced him to Sand, and told him they had met years ago. Patrick didn’t remember, and didn’t appreciate the way she sat next to the man. Too damned close for his liking. Patrick forced his attention back to the here-and-now. He’d deal with the reporter later.

  “Red team first,” Ocean said. “Two boys up. One does nothing but attack, the other nothing but defend.” Clint and a chunky boy named Rory jumped up eagerly. Both wore twelve-ounce boxing gloves and protective head gear. Clint was designated “A” and Rory “B.” Ocean said, “All right, B’s go first.”

  Clint and Rory squared off with each other, and gave shallow bows. Rory blitzed in. Clint kept his hands high, catching punches on forearms and elbows and gloves. A few blows slipped through, snapping Clint’s head back, but he kept his hands high and never lost his composure.

  The entire sports dome transformed into a howling, stomping, shouting cacophony as the kids cheered both attacker and defender, spurring them on.

  The air of sheer controlled violence mesmerized Patrick. By the clock the first match lasted only sixty seconds. Emotionally, it seemed an eternity. When it was finally over, Clint and Rory reversed roles and the clobbering began anew. The crowd roared approval.

  Patrick searched the stands again. His mother’s thigh was touching that damned reporter’s leg. That thought brought up a startling burst of anger, one swiftly quelled.

  Ocean called his name, and Patrick’s anger fluxed into a burst of fear. He was shocked to feel how afraid he was. They had been practicing this exercise every day for the past four, but he still wasn’t ready. Maybe this was the kind of thing you couldn’t get ready for. You just had to be ready for the fact that you weren’t ready.

  Heart leaping against his ribcage, he raised his thin arms, and waited as Colin got in front of him. Colin was one of the bigger boys, and had always carried himself as if he were the master of secret, awesome knowledge. But Colin wasn’t smirking now. Instead, the boy held both gloves in front of his face and whispered, “Ah’m gonna kick yo natural ass,” between them.

  “Not a chance,” Patrick said. The nervousness was transforming into something else. It was becoming eagerness. It was turning into Let’s get it on.

  Then came the signal to begin. Patrick flew at Colin, punching, trying not to swing too wildly, hammering in and feeling the meat of the Mississippian’s forearms and elbows as he hammered, hammered, hammered.

  On and on it went. Patrick was tiring rapidly, wondering when it would stop, but kept pounding away. When he reached the point of utter exhaustion, when his arms were as hot and heavy as flaming sausages, he used one of the tricks Ocean had taught. If he gets past me, he’ll hurt my mom, he thought. Panic sent new strength pumping into his arms and lungs, and he kept going.

  Then suddenly Ocean had jumped between them, yelling, “Time!” Patrick wiped sweat from his brow, panting. They were given a minute to rest, then reversed roles. The instant the command was given, Colin began to hammer at him.

  Although he knew very well that Colin wasn’t using his full strength (those big shoulders would have lifted him up and hurled him across the room!) he still felt the brute strength and weight of the blows as they smashed against his arms. But even muffled as they w
ere, if he didn’t keep focused, one of those haymakers would slip through and murder him.

  Terror began to boil up again. I can’t take it, he thought. I’m not big enough, strong enough, tough enough—

  Then he glimpsed Colin’s eyes. Focused, concentrated. But there was no anger there, just … intensity. When their eyes met, something like an e-mail flew between them. There were no words, just communication of intent. There was action here, force and fury, but no real violence. Nothing to fear. Just pressure, stress and the possibility of pain. Colin was not the enemy. The enemy was his own mind. Colin was like a mile waiting to be run on a track, a barbell waiting to be lifted. An obstacle, not an enemy. Just keep your hands up. And move, don’t blink, don’t let the sweat running into your eyes blind you to the truth.

  And then suddenly, blessedly, it was over.

  Colin’s sweaty arms went around Patrick, hugging him tight. He felt the boy’s racing heartbeat, smelled the sweat and heat rolling off his meaty chest, and thought: he was scared too! As the crowd cheered he reveled in the new understanding.

  In sets of two, the other boys went through their ritual. There were split lips and one bloody nose, but no one quit, and no one cried. When the last boy had performed, applause rang like thunder.

  And now it was the girls’ turn.

  Ocean addressed them again. “These rounds will be performed differently,” he said. “On the street, very few of the girls will ever have to defend themselves against other girls. Most of the threats will be boys. Men. So now is the time to learn to face that energy.”

  Now he seemed almost imperious, as if he was attempting to call, by example, the very best from the young people in his charge.

  “You are tribes! You are warriors! And these are your sisters, the women of the tribe. It is your job to protect them, and the way you can protect them today is by presenting them with your strength, your force, that they can experience the male energy, and prepare themselves emotionally.

  “You may strike at them—but not with the intent to harm. It is only to strengthen them. Your job is to protect. The girls both block and attack. They must use everything they have, and they have to trust you, as brothers, to protect them in their efforts.”

  Somewhat surprisingly, the first called from the Blue team was Frankie. Opposite him was a small blond girl with the eyes of a frightened, intelligent animal.

  Jessica. One of the youngest at camp, barely twelve, round and hyper, but right now she shook so hard she seemed like a little old woman. She was battling for each breath, and blinked at Frankie with wild, staring eyes.

  Ocean helped her slow and deepen her breathing, but her hands were still trembling, and she gnawed at her underlip.

  Ocean looked carefully into Frankie’s eyes, as if searching to be sure that the only motivations there were clean and direct.

  “What is your only job, Frankie?”

  Patrick held his breath. Frankie, little awkward Frankie. Last chosen for any game except murderball, darling of the leadership class although, or perhaps because, they knew he would never win any office except mascot.

  Frankie stared at Jessica, and he might not have heard Ocean’s words. Ocean repeated them.

  “Frankie,” Ocean said, forcing the boy to tear his eyes away from his shuddering partner. “What is your only job?”

  “To protect the women of my tribe,” he whispered. There was no doubt in his eyes, no dissembling in his voice or manner. At that moment, Frankie was speaking the simple truth.

  Jessica raised her arms, chubby forearms locked together, blocking her face. She was panting, but bent and braced her knees as Frankie came at her.

  He punched with controlled ferocity, aiming at her arms. Jessica shielded herself, backing up one unsteady step after another, head hunched down as Frankie slid forward one precisely measured step after another. At first Patrick thought Jessica would remain totally defensive, but the instant Frankie tired and slacked off just a little, Jessica screamed and jumped at him.

  She was all fire and spark, all small toothy animal ferocity, and if not for Frankie’s helmet she might have torn his head off. He retreated two, three steps and then tumbled backwards. As he went down, she was right on top of him, swinging wildly, shouting, hammering with thin frantic arms. She had to be pulled off when Ocean called “Time.”

  Frankie staggered to his feet. Jessica stepped back and began to shake again. Then she burst into tears and fled from the room. After a glance at Ocean, Frankie followed.

  * * *

  Jessica stood by the water fountain, arms braced against the rock. Her limp, wet blond hair streamed down over her face, and her small rounded body shook.

  Frankie came close to her, but had sense enough not to touch. “Are you all right?”

  Her blue eyes were wide and frightened, and she made little catching sounds in the back of her throat. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”

  Janie emerged from the sports center and started to intervene, but Jessica waved the head counselor away.

  For the moment she and Frankie seemed to be enmeshed in some kind of web, something that surrounded the two of them and no one else. Frankie felt very strange, whiplashed by a sensation he had never experienced. It was, simply, a sense of being in synch with a single human being. A single, very female human being.

  “My stepfather went to jail last year for what he did to me,” Jessica whispered. “They took me away from my mommy. She wouldn’t believe me. Nobody did. An aunt turned him in, and … and…” She looked up at him, miserable. “I didn’t ever fight. I just laid there. I didn’t ever fight that motherfucker. And when I was hitting you, I was hitting him. I…”

  Jessica was crying again, quietly this time, her head against his chest. Then she shook herself out of it, and looked at Frankie with such a profoundly affectionate expression that he barely knew how to react. She darted forward and kissed his cheek. Then she disappeared back inside, leaving a stunned Frankie standing by the fountain.

  He sat, looking out at the woods, not knowing what to say or think, or, in some ways, even really knowing who he was.

  During a break, Ocean came outside. “Are you all right, Frankie?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I guess.”

  “You did a good thing in there,” Ocean said.

  “I did?” Frankie’s voice was ragged.

  Ocean nodded. “Listen. In my school we always acknowledge when people have made jumps, you know? Leaps forward.” He opened his notebook, and pulled out a little pin-mounted plastic gold ribbon.

  “This is a yellow stripe. You would have been given a white belt when you first came into the school. Then you’d get three yellow stripes, one after the other, tack ’em onto the end of your belt, and trade it in for a yellow belt. Start over again with green stripes, and so on. You understand?”

  Frankie nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “This is for you,” Ocean said, and handed him the pin. “For what you did today. You gave Jessica exactly what she needed.”

  Frankie held it, looking at it, the precious yellow pin that represented his first step along a long and winding road. He could see himself. Yellow belt. Blue belt. Green. Then brown, and then …

  He could see it all, stretching out in front of him, a path to accomplishment, to healing, to reconciliation. To power and health and beauty. His heart beat wildly, and the world swirled around him.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  Ocean’s voice was very kind, and soft, but somehow piercing. “What is your only obligation?” he said.

  “‘To protect the women of my tribe,’” Frankie said.

  “Did you do that?”

  Frankie nodded again.

  “Then, this day, you have become a warrior.”

  Frankie’s eyes brimmed with tears. A great shuddering cry poured out of him and he threw his arms around Ocean, buried his face in the counselor’s chest, and cried tears as if he had been
saving them up for all his young life.

  72

  The girls were clustered in the shower room, crowded in front of the splotchy mirror, attempting to perfect clothing and makeup in the terrible incandescence of the naked overhead bulbs.

  The room was all makeup and perfume, stockings and heels stuffed into the backs of duffle bags. The air boiled with excitement and expectation.

  All week it had been skinned knees and scuffed elbows, dirt and sweat and competition. But tonight, something else entirely was emerging.

  “This is gonna be great,” Heather whispered. “There’s three of them for every two of us. We get our pick.”

  “I always do,” Courtney said. Heather elbowed her.

  Destiny was hanging back, trying to find a way to get her jumper to look more feminine. She struggled with (in her opinion) achingly small success when Courtney managed to catch her eye. What’s wrong? Courtney mouthed.

  Again Destiny examined her mirror image, comparing herself to the other girls and not enjoying what she saw. She flushed, running out of the bathroom and back to her cabin.

  * * *

  When Courtney entered, Destiny was sitting motionless on the bed, staring miserably at the wall.

  “What up?” Courtney asked.

  Destiny wagged her head. “I can’t do that. I can’t wear makeup and stuff.”

  “Why are you tripping like that?”

  “It’s just not me.”

  Courtney clucked. “Bullshit. If you worked with that hair a little, just let yourself be pretty for a change, you’d be fine.”

  Destiny looked up at her doubtfully. “Would you help me?”

  Courtney brightened and said, “Let’s go back to the bathroom.”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t compete with you.”

  Heather had drifted in in time to overhear the last statement. Destiny flinched away, as if fearful of being struck. “Oh, come on, Dest. Didn’t you help me with the archery?”

  “Stuff like that just comes naturally to me,” Destiny sniffed.