Quaranteen: The Loners

by Lex Thomas

  Five people stepped forward to stick with David, and the rest scattered like mice let out of a cage. A band playing on a tiny homemade stage kicked into a song. A small crowd gathered around. The band used traditional instruments together with handmade ones. Tubas and violins harmonized with desktop wood blocks and nails being scraped down chalkboards. There

  was a stand-up bass made out of stripped electrical wires and a desk drawer. The clash of sounds made a harmonious racket.

  Lucy was dancing by herself right up front. There were a hundred different things you could do at the Geek show, but all David wanted to do was watch Lucy dance. “You should dance with her,” Ritchie said. “Before I do.”

  “You’re not dancing with her.”

  “I am if you keep hesitating. Seriously,” Ritchie said, moving his head in unison with Lucy’s butt, “I want that thing to live on my face.”

  David laughed. He felt like a goon, standing with five other goons, ogling her.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Yeah.” Ritchie nodded slowly.

  “And look at something else, will ya?”

  “Just trying to keep you safe, Dave.”

  David navigated past dancing kids. He felt acutely aware of how hard he was trying to act casual. He sidled up to Lucy and stared at the band, as if that was the real reason he was there.

  He bopped his head. He tried to shuffle his feet to the beat, but he felt like an idiot. He wasn’t a dancer. He glanced over at her as she rotated her hips.

  “Have you ever been to a Geek show?” David projected loudly.

  The band stopped playing, and the second half of his question echoed out over the lull. They put down their instruments

  and took a break.

  “Hmm?” Lucy said.

  “I said, have you—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t expect to feel awkward around Lucy. But he did.

  “Will you show me around?” David said.

  “Are you dating Hilary?” Lucy said.

  “Whoa,” David said, and reeled. “Where did that come from?

  I mean, I used to date her.”

  “I saw you with her at the market,” she said.

  “Oh, uh . . . okay, well, I did talk to Hilary, but we are most definitely not dating.”

  Lucy bit her lip and considered David as if he was lying.

  Maybe he’d left some stuff out, but he wasn’t really lying. He gave her a reassuring smile. Lucy had really done her home-work. He didn’t know she was keeping tabs on him.

  “Come on,” she said, then hooked her hand around his arm and pulled him off into the rest of the crowd. Her hand was light but firmly nestled into the crook of his elbow. As she pulled him past a cluster of Freaks, David felt a surge of anxiety. He looked back at the Loners fading from view. They were struggling to catch up, but Lucy was moving quickly. He suddenly felt out of control. Who was watching him now? Did he just bring Lucy into the line of fire?

  “Actually,” David said, “we should stick by the guys in case—”

  “They’ll catch us eventually,” she said.

  Lucy placed her other hand on his arm too and pulled David away from Ritchie and the security detail. They came to a comedian who paced on a rectangle of six milk crates. A small crowd was gathered around him. The kid was painfully short and had a face like a bulldog. Given how he looked, being funny was his only option.

  The comedian’s eyes lit up when he saw David.

  “Uh-oh, look who it is,” he said. “Does anyone have any zit creme? I got some whiteheads I need to get rid of.” The crowd chuckled. David didn’t. He moved to leave, but Lucy tugged him back. She was giggling.

  “Hey, what do you call it when two Loners stand together?” David looked up at the guy.

  “I call it my future wife and . . . some loser.” More laughs. The comedian mouthed the words I love you to Lucy, and he got a cheap laugh out of the crowd.

  “I’m just joking, David. No hard feelings, right? I’m glad you’re here. I got a stain on my boxer shorts. Got a second?” The crowd laughed hard at that one. David pushed out a strained smile. Lucy’s hand was shaking on his arm. David looked over to see that her face was red from trying to hold in her giggling. She couldn’t stop.

  “Oh, come on,” Lucy said, tugging him away from the comedian. “It was a joke. You can’t take a joke?”

  “Hey, if it’s funny, I’m the first one to laugh.”

  “Ooh, I think he touched a nerve.”

  “Pssh, are you kidding me? I love thinking about all the mornings I spent trying to scrub blood off of some kid I hate’s sleeve with a toothbrush.”

  Lucy looked unsure as to how to respond. David meant it to be sarcastic, but it came out angry.

  “That’s just not what I am anymore,” David said.

  “David, do you ever relax?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You never take a break. You’ve already done more for all of us than anyone could have expected you to. Take the night off, for crying out loud. Let Ritchie do the worrying, because he already is anyway.”

  Lucy motioned behind David, and he turned to see Ritchie less than ten feet away. He was shadowing them, and he knew he was busted. Ritchie strode up to them.

  “So . . . hey, what are you guys up to?” Lucy arched her eyebrow at Ritchie.

  “You know what? Never mind. Pretend I’m not here,” Ritchie said, backing away.

  When Ritchie was finally gone, Lucy squeezed David’s hand.

  “So, do we have a deal or what?”

  “A deal?”

  “Are you going to just enjoy yourself tonight? The world’s not going to end if you have a little fun.” David took in the auditorium. He didn’t see one person who was having a bad time. If kids could mingle across gang lines here, why didn’t they all the time? He wondered if the school could ever be like this every day.

  “All right,” he said. He turned to her. “Deal.” Lucy jumped and clapped her hands. She pulled him over to a concession stand that served juice. To compensate for their smaller claims on the quad, Varsity had started selling what was once reserved only for their own drop parties: their homemade apple juice hooch.

  “Two cups, please.”

  Lucy slid two tickets across the table, and the Geek at the stand served up two tin cans full.

  Lucy raised her can up to David’s.

  “To a great night,” she said.

  “You drink?” David said.

  “Not really, but if I’m asking you to cut loose, well, I guess I can’t be a hypocrite.”

  David liked that. He raised his tin can.

  “To a great night,” he said, and they each took a swig. It burned going down.

  “WHOOF!” Lucy yelped. She had to cover her mouth to force herself to swallow. She fluttered her fingers and did a little dance to help it go down. She finally managed and crumbled

  into David. “What is in that stuff?”

  “Good old-fashioned moonshine, mixed with apple juice.”

  “Moonshine? Is Huckleberry Finn in Varsity?” David laughed.

  “Yeah, moonshine. Anthony Smith used to bring it on the bus to celebrate after we won away games. It’s just sugar and yeast, and you distill it, I think. If Varsity can do it, it must be easy.”

  “You mean, it’s sugar, yeast, and fire. I can’t feel my throat.”

  “Me neither. That means it’s working,” David said, and took another swig.

  The juice made him buoyant. Anxiety slipped away. David reached out to take Lucy’s arm, but somehow they ended up hugging. She felt so good in his arms. He didn’t want to let go.

  The night became a dazzling blur. The colors, the sparklers, the flames. David held close to Lucy. Her laugh was fast and childlike. She had one pointy tooth that only showed when she smiled all the way. Her fingers would graze the inside of his wrist. They shared more juice. Wandering performers interacted with the crow
d in spontaneous dramatic scenes.

  At a game booth run by art Geeks, kids could pay one ticket to take whacks at papier-mâché sculptures of soldiers in haz-mat suits. David demolished one as Lucy cheered. They stumbled from spontaneous sing-alongs to dance perfor-mances to poetry slams. One Geek took his clothes off and streaked through the auditorium. The music thumped.

  The houselights flashed, signaling everyone to their seats.

  David and Lucy were ushered to the best seats in the place, a gift from Zachary. As they settled in and the lights went down, Lucy slid her fingers between his. The curtain parted, and the stage lit up. Zachary took the stage to begin the school’s most popular ongoing play, Sunday Morning.

  David was surprised to discover that Zachary was a fine actor. His grandiose personal flourishes didn’t exist onstage.

  He was completely in character. He was Paul, a normal kid from the suburbs, on a lazy Sunday morning. Paul went to the grocery store; he read a book; he walked his dog. David understood why McKinley students never tired of dipping into Paul’s world. It was a world with no threats, no danger, nothing but real-world leisure and everyday chores, the things that they ached to be bored by again.

  He let himself be carried away by the delicate world onstage.

  Paul was David. David was Paul. And nothing mattered anymore. He wasn’t in McKinley. He was in Paul’s living room, then in Paul’s backyard, under the open sky.

  “Lucy,” David whispered.

  “Yes, David,” Lucy said, her head on his shoulder.

  “Is there anything between you and Will?” Her head lifted up.

  “I . . . Will is just a friend,” she said.

  While David could still feel the breeze of Paul’s world on his face, he leaned over and gave Lucy a soft, slow kiss.

  26

  Will wanted to vomit. He watched David

  kiss Lucy. His lips against her lips. His tongue digging into her mouth. Her hand was on her chest, covering the necklace Will gave her. He hated the look on Lucy’s face; she was in heaven.

  Her eyes were closed, and she coiled her arms around David’s body. David held her face in his hands.

  “Hey, man,” someone rapped their knuckles on the back of his head. Will spun around. It was Ritchie. He looked at Will, totally astonished. “What the hell are you doing, Will?” he said, then lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “You’re supposed to be on guard duty.”

  Will didn’t have an answer. He looked down where David and Lucy were seated. Lucy was resting her head on David’s shoulder.

  Will found it hard to breathe. The auditorium was immense, but it felt like it was pressing down on him. He broke away from Ritchie and pushed past a Geek guard. Will bolted out a fire door into the raked hall that ran the length of the auditorium.

  The guard took off after him and shouted to a cluster of costumed drama Geeks at the end of the hall to stop him. Before they could react, Will blasted through them like bowling pins.

  He ran past dressing rooms, catching a fleeting glimpse of a make-out session in one, a pile of ragged costumes in another, and in the third,he saw a momentary reflection of himself in a full-length mirror, the biggest mirror he’d ever seen intact.

  It would have been worth a fortune in the market.

  Will careened into art studios. A shirtless guy poured black paint over his face, then rubbed his head against a bedsheet that was stretched across the wall. Will slipped on some paint and slammed his body against the sharp corner of a metal table, cutting open his lower back. He shouted in pain and kept running. He blazed past wire sculptures, reconstituted furniture, graffitied canvases, and finally a series of charcoal drawings. They were head and shoulders portraits of the old faculty members, but in all of the drawings, they were vomiting blood.

  “Get that guy!” A mob of Geeks burst into the workshop.

  “You get him, I’m trying to work!” the shirtless guy snapped back.

  Will was already out of the room. As he sprinted down the

  hall and rounded the corner, the Geeks’ shouts faded. A minute later he skidded into the foyer of the school. It was empty.

  He couldn’t run anymore; he wasn’t out of breath, he was heartbroken. He dragged himself to an out of the way corner and sat underneath a shattered window. Will gritted his teeth so hard he thought they would crumble.

  David knew how Will felt, and he’d stabbed him in the heart anyway. It was revenge, pure and simple, cold and calculated.

  Will’s eyes overflowed. He tried to wipe the tears away, but more kept dripping out.

  Will could finally see how much his brother hated him.

  David had held it in for so long, but now it was all out in the open. And the worst was that Lucy meant nothing to David either. He’d just led her on with his quarterback bullshit act, so she could never, ever really consider Will. That’s what happened at the pool, when Lucy pulled away from him. She just saw David’s little brother in front of her, the virgin from the trail. David just had to have it all. He always got it all. He was the star. Will kicked the window frame.

  He wished Smudge had never told him to go.

  An hour before, Will had been stationed at the third-floor door to the Stairs. Everyone had gone to the show, mostly everyone anyway, just Will and a skeleton crew of kids remained in the Stairs, guarding the exits. He was in the middle of telling himself how unfair it all was when he heard a whisper echo in from the other side of the door.

  “It’s Smudge.”

  Will stayed quiet. He trotted over to the stairs and leaned over the railing to make sure the guards below didn’t hear. He didn’t see anyone. He hurried back to the door.

  “It’s about Lucy. Lemme in,” Smudge said.

  Will narrowed his eyes. He was curious. He pushed the barricade back just enough so that he could pull the door open a crack. Smudge was right outside, staring back at him.

  Smudge’s nose was plagued with blackheads. Smudge looked grave. It didn’t suit him. It only made him look uglier.

  “I saw something tonight. Something I thought you should know about.”

  Smudge told him that he had seen David with Lucy at the Geek show. He said they were all over each other, for everyone to see. Will didn’t believe him, but the longer Smudge talked and the more details he supplied, the more afraid Will got.

  “Trust me, Will. I’ve watched a lot of people make out. I know what it looks like when two people are about to mash lips.

  This was, like, a half step away. Who knows what they’re doing now?”

  The thought of David and Lucy kissing made Will even more ill than realizing that Smudge probably spent hours watching the Pretty Ones from that air vent in the pool room. Probably jerking off.

  “He ain’t your friend,” Smudge continued, “I’m your friend, man. What pisses me off is that you’ve been so loyal to that

  asshole. I mean, you could’ve come with me the day of that food drop, but you didn’t. You stuck with him because you guys are brothers.”

  Will punched the door.

  “I’m sorry, man, I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “No,” Will said. “You did the right thing.” That’s when Smudge offered to cover for him on guard duty for ten minutes. And Will ran all the way to the auditorium.

  And then he saw them. All over each other. Licking inside each other’s mouths. He wanted to die.

  Will stood up. His tears were dry now. He knew what he needed to do.

  He was going to kick David’s ass.

  Lucy knew she wasn’t in love yet. This was just the beginning, but it felt tremendous. She felt so full with joy that it lifted her off her feet. She’d seen the same joy bubbling up in David too. He’d unleashed his inner goofball. She spent half the night with her mouth hanging open. She couldn’t believe David’s silly voices or the imitation of a drunk giraffe he did to make her laugh. She wished she could peek into his ear and see everything inside his head.

  Lucy ran around a corne
r and crouched down next to the stripped skeleton of a water fountain. David was chasing her.

  Her cheeks hurt from smiling, but she couldn’t stop. She was breathing hard, her whole body tingled. She poked her head 2

  past the water fountain and peered down the hall. There was no sign of David. He could’ve been anywhere.

  She popped up and ran. She’d get to the Stairs eventually, but she was having fun. She looked around every corner. Still, no David. Her heart drumrolled from the anticipation.

  She couldn’t wait for David to catch her.

  She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. She was with David, and David would never let anything happen to her.

  She raced around another dark corner. Something collided with her. Unseen arms lifted her off her feet. She tried to scream, but pure fright kicked the air out of Lucy’s chest.

  Her attacker took her down to the floor quickly, but a hand slipped behind her head to soften the impact. It was David’s hand. His lips were on hers. The first kiss was soft and gentle, like they were sharing a whispered conversation. But then his body pressed heavy into hers. His lips were firm and hungry, and he made a deep humming noise that made Lucy sweat.

  She lost track of time. She felt small and delicate. David pulled away and stared into her eyes. He said nothing. She didn’t look away. She didn’t dare risk losing the power of the moment. She felt connected to him, bonded to him, vulnerable to him. It overwhelmed her. She was completely lost in him.

  David stood and pulled her gently to her feet. They walked back to the Stairs without saying anything. Some of the time he had his arm around her, and the rest of the time he held 2

  her hand. She thought he was pretty good at both. Everything was so right.

  When they passed through the guards and the barricades of the Stairs, they paused by the armory. They were jolted from their dream state by the racket of three floors’ worth of conversations, arguments, and gossip. The Stairs sucked the life right out of her.