Spontaneous

by Aaron Starmer

  “Am I . . . is everything . . . ?”

  I sat up, which was actually easier than I expected. I ached. I was dizzy, but dizzy was hardly a new sensation for me.

  “You have a mild concussion,” he said. “Some bruises and sprains but, thankfully, you’re still you. You’re still you.”

  But who was I at this point? The girl who’d been splattered by four spontaneous combustions? The girl who’d been pulled from a mangled car? The girl who survived? Which is a horrible thing to be sometimes.

  “Was it only the twins?” I asked. “The car didn’t hit anyone, did it?”

  “Quilts,” Dad said. “Expensive ones, I guess, but quilts are nothing but quilts.”

  I’m sure the proprietors of the Covington Quilt Museum would protest such a notion, but I suspect the proprietors of the Covington Quilt Museum doth protest too much. They were undoubtedly part of the next wave of fist-shakers who quickly jumped on the bandwagon that I had helped launch. Because as the blur slipped from my eyes, I could finally read the breaking news.

  PRESIDENT CALLS SITUATION “A NATIONAL TRAGEDY” AS SEVENTH VICTIM OF THE COVINGTON CURSE CONFIRMED.

  And there was a picture of Kamal Patel in all his stonerific, assholish glory.

  sorry, not sorry

  Kamal Patel blew up halfway through a gravity bong hit, his body liquefying and cascading down into the orange Home Depot bucket of bong water that Laura Riggs was holding steady with her bare feet. It was a special bong hit, a bong hit of purpose, though Kamal hardly required his bong hits to be purposeful. And it’s no coincidence that this hit took place hours after the deaths of the Dalton twins, because it was meant to eulogize them.

  Upon learning of Joe’s and Jenna’s spontaneous combustions, Kamal, Laura, and Greer Holloway gathered in the rickety remains of a tree house perched in a willow on the edge of Laura’s backyard. This is where, in seventh grade, they first got high together. Those three and the Dalton twins all huddled around a balloon full of nitrous, giggling their way into a new hobby.

  It was a defining moment for them, and I remember hearing whispers in middle school about the “crack tree house” and all the debauchery that took place up there, including make-out games and partial nudity to go along with, well, not crack, but a mix of mild sedatives and hallucinogens.

  Back then, the stories terrified me. By sophomore year, when they finally tickled my curiosity, the crack tree house had been replaced by Laura’s basement, which had the added comforts of indoor plumbing, Wi-Fi, and parents who did not give the first shit about teenage hooligans hanging out downstairs amid clouds of carcinogens. They had one of those we’d-rather-it-happen-in-our-basement-than-out-on-the-streets attitudes, which is great in theory, but in reality the streets can be fucking cold at night and the streets don’t have fold-out couches. So, as far as environments conducive to shenanigans go, basements are always preferable to streets.

  Actually, I hate to refer to what went on down there as shenanigans. It was at first, I guess, and it was most of the other times too, but a few undeniably dark things happened in Laura’s basement as well.

  They all involved Kamal Patel. Now, I can’t tell you too much about Kamal without getting all stabby. I’m not ashamed to admit that I hated the bastard. The fact that girls like Laura and Greer still hung out with him made me question my feelings about them too. He was that toxic a person. I only hoped they didn’t know the stories.

  The stories were multiple and despicable. For the sake of protecting those who should be protected, I’ll simply say that more than one girl passed out in Laura’s basement over the years, and more than one girl woke up alone in the dark with Kamal Patel on top of them, his stank breath creeping down their neck and his knuckly hands creeping everywhere else.

  Christ. The tears shed because of that slime, the shame tucked away and only shared with those who promised not to say a thing. Including me. And yes, I’m saying a few things now, but I’m only naming one name. Kamal Patel.

  To many, Kamal was a lovable stoner. To me and a few others, he was a predator, and whenever I was invited to Laura’s house, I always had to ask “Who’s gonna be there?” If his name was on the guest list, then I made my excuses and had my fun elsewhere. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I was disgusted by him.

  So when I saw his picture on the TV screen in my hospital room and learned that he was lucky number seven in our ever-growing list of spontaneous combustions, I certainly didn’t shed a tear. If anything, I felt relief. Not that he deserved death, but he certainly deserved it more than the others. Still, what Kamal deserved had little to do with what this meant. A bloody car full of drugs plus a bloody tree house full of drugs equals a community about to rip itself apart.

  because of that

  The exodus gained steam. On the drive home from the hospital the next afternoon, I lost count of the U-Hauls. Neighbors were packing up the valuables and heading to Grandma’s house or the beach house or anywhere far from here where they could afford to stay until the madness blew over. Sure, there’d been some refugees in the days leading up to this, but running away was now a full-blown fad.

  Like always, my parents weren’t about to follow any fads. With all the reporters and camera crews still in town, Covington Kitchen was busier than ever. The legend of the Oinker was spreading and seeing Oinker Oil on the shelf of every grocery store in the country suddenly seemed like a possibility. Besides, the evidence seemed incontrovertible: Stay away from the drugs and everything will be a-okay.

  “We don’t care if you tried it once or twice,” Mom said to me on the drive. “Just promise to never, ever do that shit again?”

  I’ve made a lot of promises I never planned to keep, but this one was legit. “I swear. I’m not about to fill my bloodstream with that TNT. No thank you, ma’am. As for what happened—”

  “I know, I know” she said with a hand up. “You were only trying to help. Agent Rosetti explained everything to me.”

  My parents aren’t litigious folks, but a government employee sending their daughter into a drug-mobile with a couple of teenage time bombs should have been enough for them to at least consider a lawsuit. So I had to ask, “What exactly is everything? My memory is . . . fuzzy.”

  “Well, we certainly don’t need you to relive the moment again, but she said that you were incredibly brave and intuitive and you had only the best intentions. She also said that next time you should contact her first before you go trying to collect evidence. I’m still shocked that the Daltons went down such a dark path. But these are desperate times.”

  “The desperatest,” I said.

  By bending the truth, Rosetti was covering both of our asses, so I couldn’t exactly be pissed. I only hoped that she had recovered at least some evidence from the car, something that would help put this madness to an end. My hopes were fulfilled almost as soon as I arrived home.

  Now, as we all know, a group of dolphins is called a pod, a group of crows is called a murder, and so on. Henceforth, I’d like all groups of people who call themselves reporters but are actually only bloggers writing listicles to be known as a scumbag. Because that’s what was waiting in front of our house, an absolute scumbag of . . . listiclists. And they brought with them tidings of the investigation.

  They were sitting in folding chairs along the edge of our yard, their phones and faces moving from their laps to the car as we pulled into the driveway. They didn’t besiege me. That might’ve been acceptable, or at least instinctual, like hyenas going in for the kill. Instead, they strolled over saying things like, “What’s poppin’, Mara?” and “Have a sec for a powwow, girl?”

  Dressed in their ridiculous floppy caps and fingerless gloves, they were all acting like they were my friends, and yet I knew absolutely nothing about them other than that they were probably in their thirties and still lived with roommates in some neighborhood in the city that they w
ould refer to as “authentic.” I could only imagine what they’d dredged up about me and how they were going to use that information against me.

  “She needs some rest, for fuck’s sake,” Mom said and, working up some mom sorcery, put her hand out and kept them at bay as I slipped through the front door.

  Though not before I heard a nasally voice cry out, “Tell us, Mara, have you ever had sexual relations with Dr. Wonderman in exchange for drugs?”

  The answer to that question was an unequivocal “are you trying to make me vomit? Because I’m already nauseous from the concussion and questions like that tend to push a girl over the edge.”

  Oh, Dr. Wonderman. Make no mistake about it, the man is vile. Everyone who knows him will tell you this, and almost everyone in Covington knows him, because almost everyone in Covington has straight teeth, thanks to our dethroned king of orthodontia.

  DR. WONDERMAN WORKS WONDERS! read the billboards, and they weren’t false advertising. The guy did a bang-up job when it came to braces, retainers, and other dental torture devices. I’m a satisfied customer myself, having spent all of sixth grade with a set of ceramics putting my bicuspids through boot camp.

  The irony is that the man himself had a horrid set of chompers. I guess it speaks to that old riddle: If there are two barbers in town, which one do you ask to cut your hair? The one who has a terrible haircut and filthy barbershop or the one rocking a tight do and a spick-and-span establishment?

  You take the slob, in case you haven’t figured it out. Also, you move out of town, because I don’t care where you live, you need more than two dudes who know how to cut hair. How about a Supercuts, at the very least?

  Which is all to say that Dr. Wonderman had an orthodontic monopoly in Covington. There wasn’t even competition around to straighten his own teeth. And it turns out this wasn’t the only monopoly he had. For as I was contemplating the sickening notion of Dr. Wonderman in nothing but striped socks and tighty-whities, I was greeted by Harold Frolic’s wagging finger. The family lawyer was now part of the family, it seemed, and he had been waiting in our living room for my arrival. He strode toward me saying, “Don’t speak to any of them. Don’t speak to anyone about Dr. Wonderman.”

  Dad was there too, pacing back and forth across the room and adding, “Mr. Frolic came over as soon as the news broke.”

  “Another one?” I asked.

  Frolic shook his head and replied, “They arrested Dr. Wonderman in his driveway a few hours ago. He was packing up his Corvette and heading out of town. They confiscated his phone and an obscene amount of illegal substances. Please tell us your phone number is not on his contact list?”

  “Do you mean to imply that I chat with my disgusting, fifty-year-old, married orthodontist on the regular?” I asked.

  If Frolic was amused by my witticisms, he didn’t show it. “Thanks to assurances from Agent Rosetti, the police aren’t investigating you in conjunction with what they found in the Daltons’ car,” he said. “But should they find out you’ve been in contact with Dr. Wonderman, then—”

  “Harold,” Dad piped in, as he stepped between me and Frolic. “If my daughter said she’s not associated with the man, then she’s not associated with the man. End of story.”

  Frolic put up his hands in surrender and replied, “Only doing my job here. Because things are about to get messy.”

  “About to get messy?” I said. I swear I could still taste the iron from the Daltons’ blood on my teeth and this prick was pretending like there was still some tipping point to reach.

  Mom cupped my ears with her hands and kissed my forehead. “Rest,” she said. “Let us figure out what strategy we have to take.”

  The fact that our family even required a strategy was insane to me, and I made my frustration known with a hearty huff and dramatic turn for the door. But, honestly, I was more than happy to take the cue to leave. Because as soon as I was in my room, I was on my laptop trying to get a hold of Dylan. My parents had declared my hospital room off-limits and the police had confiscated my phone, so I hadn’t been in contact with him for two days. Mom had informed Tess that I was okay, so I suspected the news had reached Dylan, but I still needed him, like I needed sunlight, like I needed laughter, like I needed . . .

  Actually, needing someone isn’t like needing anything else, because nothing else makes you feel the way you do when it’s been too long since you’ve heard a certain voice and then you hear that voice and that voice fills in all the cracks of your splintered little soul.

  “She lives,” Dylan said with a smirk as he peered across the cosmos and through my laptop screen at me.

  “It’s gotten . . . how has it gotten like this?” I asked.

  “I’m glad it was you who was with the Daltons. To have your face as the last image they saw, that’s a blessing.”

  “Tell that to their parents. God, I’m so confused and so scared right now. Have you heard about Dr. Wonderman?”

  “The man is trending. Someone tweeted a picture of him and Carla.”

  It took me about five seconds to find it, and as iconic photos go, this is one of a handful that everyone associates with Covington. It’s that shot of a bedraggled Dr. Wonderman hunched over in cuffs and surrounded by a SWAT team dressed in hazmat gear, except for Special Agent Carla Rosetti, who’s leading the perp walk and throwing caution to the wind, dressed in black and rocking the pumps. In the background, a bomb squad surrounds Baggies of drugs laid out on a driveway.

  “Just so you know, I’m not touching that stuff anymore,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “And if they’re claiming Wonderman is the source, then I never had a clue.”

  “I know.”

  “So do you think it all ends now? Or do you think there’s something lingering inside of people . . . like me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you ever partake?”

  “Never have.”

  “Thank God. You do realize you have to get over here right this minute. Or the minute after my parents go to bed, which is like ten thirty.”

  “Ten thirty-one then.”

  at 10:31

  Dylan tapped on my window and then climbed through like boyfriends have been doing since windows were invented. I’d been napping on and off throughout the evening, trying to chase away the headaches and the veiny pink webs from my eyes. Tess and I had chatted for a bit in the afternoon, though she kept dodging the obvious: if I had to pee in a cup right that very minute, then my blood would come back chock-full of illicit substances, which seemed to indicate my status as a ticking time bomb.

  The closest she came was saying, “You survived, Mara. No matter what you do, you survive. And you will survive. Everyone knows this.”

  I know it can be empowering to some, but I hate that word in all its forms. Survive. Survival. Survivor. Blah! So temporary and meaningless. “Congratulations! You didn’t die! At least not yet! But you will! Oh, trust us, you most certainly will!”

  I didn’t want to be considered a survivor because who wants to even think about surviving? That’s what starving animals think about and I assure you there’s no glory in being some skinny-ass raccoon. Fighting against death may be noble, but it’s no way to live. What I realized when I hugged Dylan in my bedroom is that I wanted to die oblivious to death. I wanted to be so distracted by life that I hardly knew what death was. Quite the herculean task given the situation, I know. Still, it’s my best explanation for why I did what I did. Which is put my hands down the side of Dylan’s pants and get a firm grip of his butt cheek.

  My forearm could feel the muscles in his stomach clench up, a comforting result. A hand down his pants wasn’t an everyday occurrence for him, and it certainly wasn’t something he felt entitled to. “Hey there,” he said, in the same wide-eyed, wondrous way that someone greets a furry little forest animal.

  “
I know this isn’t even close to your first time,” I said. “But if you’re really good at it, then take it down a notch. I’m strictly junior varsity over here.”

  He giggled, a breathy spasm that made his chin dip and his eyes squint closed. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make the varsity cut.”

  “But you already have . . .”

  The triplets. I didn’t say it because I didn’t have to. This was a boy who knew actions had consequences. Or potential ones.“Why the hell hasn’t he just gotten the damn blood tests?” I suddenly thought, and with his cheek in my hand, I felt angry at him for the first time. And I felt angry at myself. How’d I let things get to this point?

  “Ow, ow, ow,” he said, turning his hips, and I realized that I was squeezing him a bit too hard.

  “Sorry,” I said, and pulled my hand out. I flopped onto my bed.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked as he contemplated his cockeyed jeans.

  “Of course not.”

  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he said, which is the right thing to say, even if it’s not incredibly sexy.

  “You’re a dad,” I said, and I grabbed a pillow and hugged it. “With three kids. And you make bomb threats. And you actually think there’s value in seeing people explode. None of that is right. None of that fits. None of that is what I need right now.”

  He nodded. “So what do you need?”

  “I don’t know,” I said as I rolled over and faced the wall. I felt like I was carsick for a moment, then a headache rushed in. “I need you to tell me that I’m not making another mistake in my long and storied history of mistakes. I need you to tell me that I shouldn’t be putting my hands down Clint Jessup’s pants instead of yours.”

  “Do you want to have your hands down Clint Jessup’s pants?”