Jacked Up

by Erica Sage

  She was too. The way she looked around, all bright-lights-in-her-eyes, all that delight when the pages of herself were f lipping from this to that. With her hair and cheekbones all sexy and strong like Rosie the Riveter.

  “I suppose you’ve marginalized On the Road?” I asked.

  “No, I haven’t, actually. I’ve read it, but haven’t taken pen to page.”

  “No doubt it needs marginalizing for anyone to like it,” I said, hoping Jack would hear that part.

  “You’re quite the harsh critic.”

  “He just talks and talks and talks, and never really says anything.”

  “So you’ve read it?”

  Crap. “Just parts of it. And then, you know, my sister and her obsession.”

  “Why does she like him so much?”

  “She wanted to join the circus and hit the road. And he did. Well, hit the road, not the circus part.”

  “She doesn’t want to anymore?”

  And I said the next part before I could stop myself. “She committed suicide.”

  Natalie’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my gosh, Nick, I’m so sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay. I just—” I stopped rambling before the rest of the story spilled out. With the way people talked about everyone at camp, maybe she’d already heard about the Ouija board. But nobody knew the rest of it.

  Natalie had stopped eating and was looking at me. Really looking, in a way that made me suspicious that she might see the nonwords, and she’d read me anyway.

  “My sister was this crazy beautiful thing,” I said. “She kind of butterf lied through life.”

  “Butterf lied through life … I like that.”

  “New verb.”

  “From Urban Dictionary?”

  “It is pretty gangster.”

  She nudged my shoulder. “Your sister was a mad one then?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “And she dragged me around with her like a toy and I had some vicarious fun.”

  Natalie was smiling. “She danced, and you stood against the wall?”

  “Well, she was always trying to get me to dance.”

  “At least you showed up?”

  “Can’t take credit for that either. She forced me.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t used to dance, or even stand against the wall. I was, like, on the other side of the wall, peeping through a small hole. I was scared to do anything.”

  “I can’t imagine Rosie the Riveter not dancing.”

  “I was shy, scared.”

  I couldn’t imagine that of the girl from pretty road. “What changed?”

  “I don’t know really. I guess there was something I wanted bad enough. Like, I lived behind that wall. And then one day, I walked around it. Whatever I was afraid of stopped scaring me.” She was looking off again. “But honestly, I don’t remember what it was.”

  “No epiphany?”

  “Nope. I just started trying things and doing things, and finding I loved the things. And the world just kept getting bigger and bigger.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, the f lute. I tried that. I was horrible. And fishing. Worms, gross. But I like swimming, and I like painting, and I like—”

  “Marginalizing.”

  “I’m an expert marginalizer.”

  We both laughed.

  “You know how they say eyes are the window to the soul and all that? For me, art is like the door out of my soul. It’s safe to come out that way.” She looked at me, searching. “You know?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “It’s why I have to go to City School, why I have to go to RISD. It’s just another kind of church, for another part of my spirit.” She paused. “What about you? What are you good at?”

  “Not much.”

  “What?! You can’t not be good at something.”

  “Okay, I’m good at grammar.”

  She shook her head and smirked. “This situation is grave.”

  “I never met a dangling participle I couldn’t nail back into place.”

  “You just keep talkin’ sexy.”

  “Apostrophes, pronoun usage, split infinitives.”

  “So hot.”

  “I have very strong opinions about the Oxford comma.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  We laughed.

  “I never should’ve admitted to writing in books,” she said.

  “My stomach curdled to witness it.”

  “There are the people who write in books and then there are the people who don’t.”

  I nodded. “I’m Team Not Writing in Books.”

  “But you’re Team Secretly Correcting Grammar.”

  “I’m not so secret about it.”

  “Charming.”

  We sat there for a while, but I didn’t want to go just yet. I liked being around her. The easy banter.

  I cleared my throat. “So what do they do at zombie camp? Like, costumes and stuff? Crawl around on the ground like their limbs are falling off, perhaps?”

  She looked off to where the sun was dipping below the horizon. “I guess.” She started packing up our picnic garbage. “I’m gonna head back, okay?”

  Her mood had changed. Just like that. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh. No, it’s not you.” She smiled weakly. “You didn’t do anything.” But I had done something. Or hadn’t done something. I didn’t even know.

  She stood up and brushed off her shorts.

  “I’m gonna go the long way back, okay?” She pointed to a trail that I supposed was the one we would return by when the whole camp walked up here for testimonies. I could tell it wasn’t an invitation to follow her.

  “Yeah, I’ll just slip down my little hill over there like a ninja.”

  She didn’t laugh. Just swung her backpack over her shoulder and slipped her other arm through. She took a couple of steps toward the trail and then turned around. “I’m glad you broke the rules to stalk me,” she said, which made me feel a little better.

  I smiled, nodded, put my hands in my pocket. “Thanks for the snacks.”

  She waved and resumed her walk toward the trail. I looked up at the three crosses, no longer casting much of a shadow as dusk descended. I leaned against the middle one and watched Natalie wind her way into the valley until I couldn’t see her anymore.

  I was well aware that I was still looking for her when she was long past the point of being seen.

  Before Dan returned from his nightly counselor meeting, the Ouija board was out again. But this time, I had an idea. No search for the Holy Ghost this time.

  “Let’s ask about the PC Box,” I suggested. I had returned to Healing Hands! after hanging out at Golgotha with Natalie, but found the door still locked. I’d peeked into the sanctuary, visited the barn, walked circles around the camp. Jesus was nowhere to be found, and he hadn’t shown up for the evening’s sermon.

  Surely Jack, know-it-all and stalker, had seen who took the box. And he insisted he was roaming around camp with the likes of Jesus and Ra and the Buddha. Surely, one of them would be able to shed some light on the truth here.

  Maybe Jack would talk to me through the board. Maybe he’d stop with his word puzzles.

  We were all in the cabin—Chris, Payton, Goth, Charles, Matthew, and me. Chris and I put our fingers on the planchette. After doing the infinity thing like the night before, it started settling on letters.

  F-

  R-

  A-

  N-

  K-

  “Frank?” Chris said. “Someone named Frank stole the box?”

  “There’s no Frank at camp,” Goth said.

  Matthew added, “Though it does sound very criminal. Very 1920s mafia.”

  But the planchette had still been moving while we talked. There’d been something else, and we’d missed it.

  M-

  “Matthew?” Charles called from his bunk.

  Our heads spun toward our very own Matthew.
<
br />   “Dude, are you serious?”

  “I’m just making inferences based on the text,” Charles defended. He had that look on his face again, the darting eyes and fidgety hands. Was he concerned for us? His cheerleader confession was already public. But worrying on behalf of other people didn’t seem like Charles.

  Y-

  R-

  R-

  H

  “Common Core failed you,” I called up to Charles.

  Someone made a buzzer sound.

  “That’s not even a word. That’s the sound you make while taking a shit,” Payton said.

  “It’s myrrh,” Goth pointed out.

  “Is that even a name?” We all looked at Payton.

  The board spelled out B-E-T-H.

  “Beth and Frank?” Matthew’s brow furrowed in disgust. “Nobody names their kids that anymore. Those are grandma and grandpa names.”

  “Bethlehem,” Charles said. He’d been watching when we hadn’t. Like before, the planchette had kept moving.

  “Wait, then,” I said. Bethlehem, myrrh … “Frankincense. I bet that’s what the other word was. Not Frank.”

  They all nodded.

  The Ouija board spelled MANGER. WISE MEN. MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR.

  This was absolutely Jack Kerouac having fun with us.

  The planchette circled. Then, S- I- L- E- N- T- N- I-.

  “Silent Night!” Payton shouted.

  J- I- N- G

  “Jingle Bells!” Again, Payton.

  “F- R- O- S-”

  “Frosty the Snowman!”

  “Seriously, let us have a chance,” Chris whined.

  “It’s like Name That Tune, without the tune,” Payton said.

  Chris added, “And with the Holy Ghost.”

  T- A- N- N- E- N- B- A- U- M.

  “The Royal Tenenbaums? That’s not a Christmas song.”

  “It’s a movie. And not a Christmas one either.”

  “That’s the German name for ‘Oh, Christmas Tree,’” Charles said. “‘O Tannenbaum.’”

  Clearly we’d gotten too cocky. Jack had upped the ante.

  The Ouija spelled FELIZ NAVIDAD.

  “The Holy Spirit is going multicultural,” Matthew said.

  How PC of the PC Box.

  The planchette spelled song after song, like a YouTube Yule log playlist.

  YULETIDE.

  CAROL OF THE BELLS.

  THE HOLLY AND THE IVY.

  The planchette stopped moving.

  Payton begged for more. “Come on …”

  “Are you serious right now?” Chris actually shouted.

  I shook the game piece across the board. “I guess the Holy Ghost got bored,” I said. But what I really wanted to say was, Jack is an asshole.

  PRAYERS AND CONFESSIONS

  Pastor Kyle: Lord, thank you for bringing these kids here to camp. Please help me guide them through this dark time, Heavenly Father. We’ve all experienced dark hours. And You’ve been there for me in the worst of times.

  Dan: My dad’s nightmares are getting worse. Last week I woke up and found his shotgun leaning up against the wall by my bed. He has no recollection of putting it there. Alcohol + PTSD = a negative equation. I don’t need Charles’s help to know that.

  Holly: I’m not sorry for going to that stupid party. I just should’ve known better. They’re always looking for a story.

  Dan was back and ready for action. He talked about Jesus as our BAE. We said a prayer. “Okay, let’s trust it out, pray it out, and prank it out, fellas!”

  “What about the PC Box?” Charles asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, doesn’t it seem inappropriate to continue your pranks?”

  “Yeah, seems kinda weird,” Goth said.

  While I didn’t say it aloud, I was ready to get back out there. But this wasn’t pranks for me. I was going to search for clues.

  If only Charles knew. He could be the Robin to my Batman on this camp-wide hunt for justice. The Pythagoras to my Euclid.

  “Inappropriate,” Dan sang back in a baby voice. “Kinda weird.” He put his hands on his hips and returned to drill sergeant mode. “Don’t be a bunch of pussies.”

  So the cabin chanted the prank rules while Charles crawled up into his bunk. I mouthed watermelon, watermelon, watermelon so that it would look like I knew the rules.

  “Lower cabins got it last night. Upper cabins tonight.”

  Dan led us through the darkness to the sanctuary. “Nick,” he whisper-growled. “Get in there and get duct tape and superglue.”

  “Me?”

  “You know where the custodian’s office is. Now go.”

  Dan seemed to want me to get in trouble. As if carrying that cross hadn’t been enough. “Payton’s on work crew; he knows that office better than me.”

  “I do grounds. I don’t go in there,” Payton said.

  But then I realized: this was something like divine intervention. I had just been given permission to snoop for evidence. Magic Jesus had had the opportunity to steal those confessions. And Dan had just directed me to dig around in his office.

  I walked through the door and down the hall. I knew this time which door was for backstage and which was the custodian’s. The light was on in Magic Jesus’s office, but he wasn’t in there. So I tiptoed in and slowly closed the door behind me, to keep any of my shadows or noise from the hallway.

  I looked on the shelves. Leaf blower, several large toolboxes, toilet paper. I opened the cupboard, looked through boxes, shoved cans of paint aside. Nothing.

  No doubt Jack was loving this. Two-time rule breaker.

  Unlike when I’d snuck up the hill after Natalie, though, this time I had clear purpose. If Jesus was the one who stole the PC Box, it would be in this office. That little paper confession from the hall the night before would not be the only one f loating around. While sign after sign of spilled confessions had already been posted, there had to be hundreds more. And this would be the perfect place to store them; no one else would be in here.

  I checked the desk. Pens, Post-its, a f lash drive, and a deck of cards in the center drawer. Magic Jesus’s magic cards.

  I opened the side drawers one by one. The top drawer had the tape. Second one had the glue. I didn’t need to open the big bottom drawer. I had the supplies. But just in case.

  I slid the drawer open to reveal a set of hanging file folders with campers’ names on them. Maybe ten. Payton’s name was there. So this was his work crew. Not surprisingly, Holly’s name was in there too. Maybe she was on crew for a scholarship, or maybe she just wanted to follow Payton around. I didn’t recognize any of the other names.

  The door swung open.

  “What’re you doing?”

  I whipped around, snagged my foot on a cord.

  Dan caught the laptop as it slid across the desk.

  “What is taking so long?” he snarled.

  My heart raced. “I couldn’t find it at first.”

  Dan situated the laptop back the way it had been. “Wanna bet this is full of child porn?”

  He sat down in the chair. He was an asshole, and he was really going to check the laptop.

  “Let’s just go,” I said.

  And he did, thank God.

  I hadn’t been caught searching. But I also hadn’t found anything. Yet.

  Dan explained our mission and then assigned each of us a partner and a cabin. I was with Goth, pranking Jericho.

  “That’s Holly’s cabin.” Payton balked.

  “Which is why you’re not going in, man-whore,” Dan said.

  “We’ll get our hands on the box while we’re in there, Payton,” Goth said.

  “Shut the hell up,” Payton said.

  “Get in, get out,” Dan laughed, dragging Payton to their cabin.

  “That’s what he said,” Chris joked.

  “Or she.”

  “Depends on if it’s good or bad.”

  “Depends on if it’s hetero or homo,
” Goth said.

  “Holly definitely says that to Payton.”

  “Hurry up!” Matthew imitated a girl’s voice. “Get in, get out.”

  Something heavy settled inside me. I didn’t care about Payton. But I kept thinking about Kim’s nasty remark to Holly. “Come on, you guys,” I said.

  They stif led their laughter as we reached the cabins.

  “Okay, but seriously. Look for the box,” I said.

  “We’re always looking for the box,” Matthew said.

  “I’m not,” Goth said.

  More laughs.

  “Okay, but seriously,” I said.

  “Dude, okay, we’re going to.”

  We split up.

  When Goth and I reached the back of Jericho, one of the girls’ cabins, we walked carefully around the side and up the stairs to the second story. This was one of the bigger cabins. Two entrances, and way more campers with stuff to mess with. More potential thieves.

  I held the duct tape, aware my hands were sweaty. Goth had the superglue.

  “Let’s start with the glue in the bathroom,” Goth whispered.

  The bathrooms were farthest from the front door, our escape route. It made sense to get the hardest part of the job done first. We climbed the cabin stairs like cartoon robbers and stopped at the first door, but I signaled right, and we crept over to that door. I put my hand on the knob and nodded. He nodded back. I opened the door a crack, and Goth sneaked in. I shut the door and waited outside for a brief moment. When he didn’t come out screaming, I opened the door and slipped inside.

  With the curtains closed, it was too dark to see Goth’s whereabouts. I waited for my eyes to adjust, listening to the sleep-breathing of the girls. One girl snored, but it was a soft sound, not like guys’ snores, which always sound like we’re chomping at the air.

  Their light snoring was one reason why I couldn’t imagine the PC Box being in a girls’ cabin. Plus, I didn’t know who was staying in this cabin, and I didn’t know about motives and opportunities for these girls. But then I thought about talking to Natalie up at Golgotha. She hadn’t seemed that interested in finding the PC Box at all. So poised, for someone whose secrets could be leaked at any moment.

  I definitely wasn’t going to pass up the chance to poke around.

  My eyes weren’t really adjusting, so I walked straight through the dark with my hands out in front of me.