by Gordon Jack
“I can lend you some items that will help you disguise your disguise.”
Spencer went inside and returned a few moments later carrying a plastic sword, shield, and phony beard. “Where did you get this stuff?” I asked.
“I’m going to dress as the Duke of Cornwall for Halloween.”
“Of course you are.”
A piercing scream shattered the quiet of the evening. I heard a door slam in the distance, followed by the slap of feet against pavement. Suddenly, a frantic woman was standing between me and Spencer, shielding my little mentee with her body. The woman was what most would call stout, like she had once wrestled professionally. Even if she never opened her mouth, you could tell she wasn’t from this country. Her hair was gray, which is not something you see on most women in their early forties. She dressed like an Amish person, with an apron tied around a plain dress. In her hand was some long utensil that looked like a combination of a strainer and a spork. Even in the dark, I could tell she was freaking out. She looked at me like I was some serial killer trying to lure her son into a van with the promise of candy.
Spencer attempted to calm her down, but she wasn’t buying his explanation. She grabbed him by the shoulders and marched him back inside the house, leaving his telescope standing alone on the apartment building’s shared lawn. It wasn’t until I heard the door slam that I realized my Viking attire might have made me seem a little strange. If I had looked out my kitchen window to see my son talking to a teenage boy in a dress and brynja, I might have been a little overprotective too.
I picked up Spencer’s costume accessories and made my way toward Arroyo Park.
THIRTEEN
The lights near the tennis courts illuminated the patch of lawn reserved, I assumed, for LARPing. A group of men and women stood around two guys in the middle of a spirited bit of swordplay. Their armor and weapons looked much more authentic than what I was wearing and I suddenly felt self-conscious about my plastic shield and sword, like I was showing up at a polo tournament riding a hobby horse.
“What ho!” a voice boomed from my left. I turned and saw a buxom Renaissance woman approaching with a ring of flowers resting on her gray hair.
“Oh, I—”
“Methinks I spy a challenger!” She grabbed me by the arm and led me into the crowd.
“Huzzah!” cried a group of merry men. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was surprised by the number of adults in the crowd. Didn’t these people have more responsible things to do than prance around the park at night in decorative frocks, silly hats, and knee-high boots? Their long, stringy hair stuck to their sweaty foreheads from their fourteenth-century workout. Some men drank out of heavy cast-iron beer steins, breaking a number of city ordinances, I’m sure, about open containers in public parks.
I scanned the crowd for kids my age but didn’t see anyone I recognized. All the teenage LARPers wore some kind of helmet or face mask, which not only protected them from getting stabbed in the face, but also saved them from being recognized by normal people.
“Actually, I was kind of hoping—” I began, but was cut off by a dwarf in full combat gear.
“I challenge thee to duel, thou beef-witted clotpole!”
“Excuse me?”
More cheers of “Huzzah!” accompanied the dwarf’s pronouncement. These cries distracted me enough so that I didn’t see the little guy rush and strike me squarely in the kneecaps. I don’t know what his sword was made of but it was a stronger alloy than my plastic toy. I fell like a clipped toenail. “What the fuck?” I spat.
“Thou utterest a most strange and vexing language,” an older woman dressed as the queen said. She looked like my aunt Betty, the one who gave me a spice rack for my last birthday. “Whence comest thou?”
The dwarf looked ready to rush me again. I figured I had better get into character and plead my case.
“Please, kind sirs and wenches,” I began, hoping “wenches” was a term of endearment. “I needeth your assistance to protecteth me from a villain who meaneth to doeth me harm.”
“Dost thou speak of Sir Watkyn, most dreaded foe of Shadow Lake?” someone cried.
“I do, sir.” I had no idea what I was saying but figured I was better off agreeing whenever possible with this merry band of lunatics.
“Oh, he is a knotty-pated pignut if ever there was one,” another boy cried.
“He attacketh my army neareth the sacred place of learning,” I said, pointing toward the high school. “I am the sole survivor and require safe passage back to my vehicle.”
The dwarf raised his sword and silenced the whispered murmuring. “Methinks this reeky miscreant be a spy for Sir Watkyn.”
“No!” I said. “He is my sworn enemy!” I began to wonder if this little guy wasn’t some friend’s younger brother I had tortured in my youth.
“Methinks your quest be honorable,” a young maiden said, cozying up to me. I thought I recognized her from first-period history, only in that class she was a rather plain-looking girl whose breasts were usually hidden behind textbooks and bulky sweatshirts. Now they were on full display, pressed together in her tight corset.
“Thank you, my lady,” I said. It took every ounce of energy I had to maintain my focus on her bright blue eyes, set at a slight diagonal angle on her face. “I beseech thee, escort me to my awaiting carriage and I shall reward you handsomely with McFlurries!”
“What of the demons that roam the streets like bat-fowling ratsbane?” the dwarf asked.
“They are no match for our noble quest!” my blue-eyed maiden proclaimed. I realized it was Audrey Sieminski. I had gone to school with her since the sixth grade but had never once spoken with her. I hoped she didn’t always talk like this.
Audrey, the dwarf, and two other teenage warriors gathered around and promised to accompany me back to the high school. They would provide the perfect camouflage under Stone’s video surveillance. Set among these Renaissance warriors, I was no longer the kid wearing the mascot uniform; I was just another in a long list of reasons why Stone called us the “Dumbest Generation.”
Before we embarked on our journey, an older man, maybe in his forties, approached and handed me a string of garlic and a heavy metal cross. “Hell is empty and all the demons are here,” he said.
I looked at him. “Mr. Franklin?” This guy was my eighth-grade English teacher. The dude was obsessed with Shakespeare and made us reenact scenes from Romeo and Juliet, even though at that age most of the guys would rather poison Juliet than kiss her.
“Tis Sir Rodrick of Gloucester,” he corrected.
“Okay,” I said, accepting his gift. “Thanks, Sir Rodrick.”
He bowed and went back to chatting up the buxom gray-haired lady who’d ushered me into their ranks.
We made our way back to campus, sticking to the side streets to avoid the cries to “Go fucketh yourselves” from passing cars. I thought that once we were away from the park we could drop the act, but my compatriots would not hear of it. Every time I said anything normal like “What the dillo? Why they be dissing?” I was met with uncomprehending stares and complaints that my foreign tongue doth baffle the senses. I did my best to chat up Audrey anyway.
“Doth the young maiden wish to grasp my blade?”
She responded by kicking my shins. “Kind gentleman, do not think I can’t guard my sacred chastity while fighting our mortal enemy.”
“Gotcha,” I said, rubbing my leg. “I just meant, doth thou desire protection against said enemy.” I handed her Spencer’s plastic sword to show her my intentions were honorable, but she just scoffed at my generosity.
“The demons will not fear weapons made of such flimsy material.” She crushed the plastic toy between her two fingers and then handed it back to me.
“Halt,” the dwarf cried. “Methinks I spy a demonic crusade approaching.”
We huddled together on the sidewalk, two in front, two behind, and prepared to do battle with whatever appeared. I was either deep in
to character or all this talk of demons had messed with my psyche, but I swear the night air grew distinctly colder. The streetlights started to flicker and the chirping crickets went silent. An aroma of hairspray and skunk wafted toward us, making our eyes water.
The black crusade emerged from down a gravelly driveway; their crunching steps sounded like those of warriors marching over the dry and brittle bones of their victims. Instinctively, I dropped Spencer’s plastic sword and gripped the iron cross and string of garlic.
“What effrontery is this?” asked the diminutive devil. It wasn’t hard to recognize Zoe Cosmos, even in this dim light. She wore a long-sleeved black vinyl dress, which must have required a few intakes of breath to fit into, and lacy, fingerless gloves. She pointed a long, sharp nail covered in black polish in my direction and murmured to her horde. “This one is mine.”
“We seek safe passage to the sacred place of learning,” I said in a tone a few octaves higher than I wanted. “Please let us pass.”
Zoe removed a short, sharp blade from her knee-high boot and approached. Her vampire brethren encircled us like a black velvet curtain. “We’ll let you pass,” Zoe said. “But we require recompense.”
I didn’t know what that meant but it sounded expensive.
“What payment do you require?” Audrey asked.
“Nothing of consequence,” Zoe purred. “Only your souls!”
The vampire horde surrounding us all hissed in response. One girl, dressed in a long, flowing cape and short shorts, still wore her headgear. You never think about vampires needing orthodontia until you see one whose fangs are encased in metal.
Why weren’t these people stoned? I wondered. Why wasn’t I stoned? This whole experience would make way more sense if we were wasted. But we weren’t wasted, and it was still fun, in a vaguely shameful way.
Audrey snatched the cross and string of garlic out of my hand and took a step toward Zoe. “Retreat, thou spleeny crook-pated dewberry!”
Zoe laughed at the weapons Audrey shook in front of her. “Really?” she said. “Garlic? You think you can . . .”
But Zoe didn’t get a chance to finish because Audrey swung the rope of garlic above her head and clocked Zoe a good one across the face. “Bitch!” Zoe cried.
“Run!” Audrey screamed, and the four of us did just that. We pushed through the vampire blockade, which fell like the anemic waifs they were, and sprinted down the street in full retreat.
“I will have your soul!” Zoe shouted from behind. “Mark my words. You will be mine!”
I can’t say that Zoe’s words did not send a chill down my spine. I may have been a curiosity to her before, but now I was a target. Her hunger would not be quenched until she fed on my blood and organs. I repeated this line to Audrey once we had reached the safety of the school parking lot, because it sounded both sincere and Shakespearian.
“You are valiant,” Audrey replied, her chest heaving from our run. I watched it rise and fall and fell into a sort of trance. The dwarf snapped me out of it by swatting my bottom with his sword.
“You promised us McFlurries, remember?” he said. I draped my arms around him and Audrey and walked toward my car, making sure our esprit du corps was captured by the video cameras above. I gave a quiet shout-out to Spencer for coming up with the plan that might just save my ass.
The McFlurries vanquished our hunger, and we reunited with our brethren at Arroyo Park. (Sorry, after spending time in the Renaissance, it’s difficult to drop the lingo.) I bid them farewell and God speed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. “See you in history,” I whispered to Audrey, pleased with the literal and figurative meanings of the phrase. If Audrey picked up on my witticism, she did not acknowledge it. She simply nodded her head, did a little curtsy, and bounced back to the battlefields.
I called Eddie right away to apologize. “Good friend, I do beseech your forgiveness for my royal fuckup.”
“Are you high?” Eddie asked, and rightly so. I had to explain to him what had happened to me since the debacle on the football field.
“Are you sure you’re not high?” Eddie asked again.
“I swear. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I guess. I realize you didn’t shatter my dreams on purpose.”
“Thank you.”
Eddie explained all that had happened after I ran away. Dawn, with a twisted ankle, hobbled off the field, supported by her cheerleading squad and Brett Bridges, editor in chief of our school paper, The Beacon Signal, or The BS as most students call it. “Who did this to you?” he kept asking her, despite the fact that she was sobbing in pain. Lucky for me, Dawn had no idea who was under the suit. Most of the girls still thought it was Phyllis Larouche, a junior who had been cut from the squad last year when she tweeted about Dawn’s thigh dimples.
“And the game?” I asked.
“We lost.”
“Shit.”
“Coach Harkness saved your ass by keeping our secret from the team. They’re ready to kill the person who cost them their win. I don’t know if he’ll be so generous with Stone, though. I saw them talking after the game.”
“Shit.”
“Harkness came up to me after and said he wanted the suit back first thing Monday.”
“I ditched the head in the bushes by school,” I said. “I’ll go retrieve it now.”
“Good idea.”
“Eddie, once again, I’m really very sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hopefully Dawn’s injury is bad enough to bench her for the season. Then we can commiserate in the stands. If not, I plan on making a speedy recovery.”
I hung up and drove back to the bushes where I ditched the mascot’s head. In the darkness, it was hard to see anything, but I figured a yoga ball–size Viking head would stand out, even in this dim light. After searching for twenty minutes, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I even sneaked back onto the football field and retraced my frantic steps. It wasn’t here. Sometime while I was battling midgets and vampires, someone had snatched the mascot’s head from my hiding place. “Diablerie,” I murmured, dredging up the only French word I remembered from my cultural-exchange experience in Dijon. My French parents used this term repeatedly to address my behavior when I lived with them two summers ago. It’s not a term of endearment, which is why I switched to Spanish when I started high school.
The whole way home, I tried to convince myself that the missing Viking head was no big deal. Most likely, an innocent bystander discovered the costume on an evening stroll and took it home to scare the wife and kids. But what if it was Stone? I pictured him going all CSI on the thing, dusting it for fingerprints or swabbing it for DNA evidence. There was probably a gallon of my sweat and saliva soaked into that polyfoam mask. Why didn’t I bury or burn it when I had the chance? There was nothing I could do now but wait until Monday morning to learn my fate.
I pulled into our garage around eleven o’clock and instantly got pinged by Mom. These alerts sound every time she posts something new to our family website. I logged on to the site and watched the video she posted. Mom looked like a sad clown. My two little cousins had clearly used her face for a game of “let’s have fun with makeup.” Her lips and cheeks were the same shade of bright red. Dark, uneven lines had been drawn on her eyebrows, making them look like black licorice Twizzlers. One of the girls had used the pencil to add a teardrop tattoo near Mom’s right eye. Looking at Mom’s face, it was hard to tell if my cousins lacked fine motor skills or they had moved from worshiping princesses to gangbangers.
“Hey, honey,” Mom said. “Don’t I look pretty?”
Juniper poked her face into the frame and squealed, “We’re not finished!”
“Yes you are, dear,” Mom said, pushing her aside. “Aunt Gloria needs a rest.”
Aunt Lucy’s voice off camera screamed, “Juniper and Violet, get off your aunt right now!”
Mom smiled wanly into the camera, which was a bit unnerving with all her makeup. Like FaceTiming with the Joker.
&nbs
p; “Just wanted to check in and see how you were doing.” Mom brought the camera closer and whispered. “It’s a bit exhausting here. I forget what it’s like to be around so many kids. My sister’s great, but she doesn’t set any kind of boundaries for the little ones. Probably because she’s too busy screaming at Dashiel.” Dashiel was my age and supposedly an amazing baseball player. Dad loved to talk about how colleges started recruiting him as a sophomore. “We have it so easy with just the three of us, right? I can’t remember the last time we had the kind of screaming matches they have here. Anyway, I just wanted to say how much I miss you and hope we can Skype soon. Kiss kiss.”
I clicked the Like button instead of responding with my own video. It had been a long day and I didn’t have the energy to recount the strange events that had led to me nearly getting killed by a mob of angry football fans and a horde of vampires. Thank God I’d had Spencer and Audrey to protect me. I wished I didn’t have to wait through the weekend to thank them. I figured I should keep a low profile for the next couple of days. I didn’t know who had the Viking head now, but I needed to come up with a quick escape plan in case they could trace it back to me.
FOURTEEN
That night I dreamed a one-eyed Viking was chasing me and my merry band of Renaissance warriors through a maze of cannabis plants. We ran through the tall stalks, getting lost and high along the way. Every few seconds, a giant hand would reach down, snatch up one of the LARPers, and eat him. From the ground, I could hear the bones being crushed like pretzel sticks between the giant’s teeth. Eventually, it was just me and Audrey, darting through the leafy plants, trying to find a way out of the labyrinth. “Save me!” Audrey implored. I could feel the hot breath of the Cyclops Viking on the back of my neck. “I can’t!” I screamed. “I’m nobody.” Just then the Viking’s hand grabbed me by the neck and lifted me toward his mouth. As I moved skyward, I tried to grab as many of the oily buds from the plants as I could. Better to face the jaws of death with a nice buzz, was the way I saw it.
