by Corina Vacco
FREAK TOUR
WE spend all of the next night working on our Freak Tour. We want it to be legendary and perfect. We want to get this right. At ten-thirty, Mom falls asleep on the couch, hugging a jar of peanut butter like it’s a kitten. I take the spoon out of her hand and put a blanket on her. “There’s an earthquake in the freezer,” she murmurs.
We sneak out of a window in the den, Cornpup cutting his hand somehow, and Charlie nearly kicking the TV off its stand with his huge feet. It’s like he’s just too big for this world, too noisy. I glance over my shoulder at the door of the den. If Mom wakes up and finds a window propped open with a cinder block from the garage; Charlie’s legs flailing, his body halfway outside the window; and our coffee table all covered in mud from Cornpup’s boots, then I’ll be in deep trouble.
Cornpup is wearing rubber boots that come to his knees. Charlie has a long, heavy black flashlight he found at the army surplus store. I sketch ideas in a notebook as we walk. I draw a snake with rusty metal scales and two long screws for fangs. I draw an exhaust creature with a muffler head and rusty tailpipe limbs.
“I wish I could draw like that,” Charlie says as we cut across the mudflats.
I feel suddenly proud, even a little arrogant. He’ll never know what it’s like to create monsters. This talent is all mine.
Viper likes to be out at night. His ears move at every sound: screeching owls, buzzing streetlights, chirping frogs. I can hear his wet nose sniff-sniffing. It’s crazy, how happy dogs are sometimes, how content.
Tonight we’re walking the tour route, a practice run before the real deal. We’re on high alert, our eyes ready to pick out hazards and delays. There’s a short argument about where to start the tour, even though we all know it should probably start at Cornpup’s house. I’ve got the nosy neighbors who report things to my mom. It’s hard enough hiding Viper from them.
“My house, then,” says Charlie. He lights matches as we walk. It’s like he’s been craving fires lately. I close my eyes and think of silver mercury demons, slithering out of the ground, latching on to our ankles like vines. Charlie would fight them all with a matchbook and some gasoline. He has to be the center of attention always.
“Your house? Are you kidding?” Cornpup snorts.
We can’t risk having his drunk dad around.
And so we’re back at Cornpup’s house, which is where we should’ve started. His backyard dead-ends at a torn chain-link fence, the obvious portal to our world of buried sludge and dark machines. It’s just that Cornpup also has the worst of all possible things—a stay-at-home mom. She will not be cool with a bunch of noisy kids in her yard, and if she sees us slip through that fence, she’ll call the cops for sure. She’s that dramatic.
“We’d have to start the tour at exactly ten Saturday morning and get back no later than twelve,” Cornpup says. “She’ll be at the salon getting a manicure, even though I need new shoes and Abbi needs glasses. She’s so freaking selfish.”
Mom once said, “Courtney Schumacher would let her sump pump go out before she’d cancel the weekly pedicure. How am I supposed to keep up with all that beauty, all that irresponsibility?” I wanted to tell her she was no better, that sometimes it felt like she’d sell me into slavery for a pan of meatloaf, but I kept my mouth shut.
“If I calculated this right, we’ve got five minutes at each stop.” Cornpup is messing with the stopwatch he dropped into the toilet a few nights ago. He was trying to set a record for longest piss. He said it was one of those awkward moments when you have to decide what’s worse, sticking your hand in your own pee or flushing the toilet and clogging a pipe with an object that can be traced back to you. He put his hand in the pee. The stopwatch still works.
“Five minutes is doable,” I say.
“Cornpup, you’re stressing me out,” says Charlie. “We’ll be back on time. I promise you. Even if I have to rescue a bunch of kids from the quicksand pit, we will be back on time.”
He’s not talking about real quicksand. He’s talking about a gurgling pit of leaves and mud that never seems to dry. He’s talking about how we once put a metal yardstick into the pit, only to discover that the pit was much deeper than we thought. The yardstick never did touch bottom, and when we pulled it out, it looked like it had been partially digested.
“Lucky we didn’t stick our fingers in there,” Cornpup said.
“I’m not scared. I’ll stick my hand in there,” Charlie said. But he didn’t do it.
I think about the fire we started later that night, how wrong it all went. The trees were dead in the first place—we didn’t kill them—but to see all those branches burning was real creepy. There were sparks flying everywhere, and some of those sparks turned into miniature fires that had to be dealt with. Cornpup worked on extinguishing the original bonfire that was raging like crazy. Charlie chased the flying sparks and stomped out the small fires, even though his throwing hand was bleeding and he was in pain. I was in charge of the trees, but without a hose, what was I really supposed to do? I poured creek water and sand at the base of the trees, and then I just allowed them to burn out. I was scared that night, and Cornpup was annoyed, but Charlie was thrilled. I think there was a part of him that wanted to have burn marks on his skin. He probably would jump into the quicksand and save some kid. I can picture him screaming and melting, his muscles visible where his skin gets eaten away, his peacock-blue eyes bulging from his face. I really don’t think he’d hesitate. I think he’d want to be a hero, eaten alive in a pit of acid.
I keep thinking about last night, what I did to Dan Benecke’s face. I got my revenge. It should be over. But it’s not over. He will strike back.
The industrial park is creepy tonight. Most of the lights are either dim or flickering, they’re so poorly maintained. There are dead trees with gnarled bare branches that look like cracks in the glassy sky. There are steel containers that leak clear, steamy liquid into the soil. We hear bats in the tall brick silos. Dump trucks sleep like animals near high piles of mysterious sludge. An ammonia tanker without wheels is lying on its side in a patch of tall grasses that hiss when the wind blows. I get the feeling anything could happen here.
We walk along a trail of deep, glossy puddles, bright green water during the day and deep forest-green water at night. Cornpup doesn’t step in these puddles, because to him they’re dangerous chemical landmines. I don’t step in the puddles because I have to keep my shoes looking clean and new for as long as possible; Mom won’t take me shopping till my toes pop out, and even then it’s a battle. Charlie, though, he steps in the puddles. He tries to splash us.
I ask Cornpup about the detox teas and the special skin creams. “Are you sure you really need to buy all that stuff?”
“Dr. Gupta can remove my cysts, but I’ll still have scars and rashes. Plus, my body can’t filter out toxins in a normal way. Herbal supplements should help. If you’re asking me ‘Am I sure it will work?’ the answer is, ‘I have no idea.’ But I feel like this is my last chance. I have to at least try.”
I nod like I understand, but I don’t. I’ve been in the creek more than he has, and Charlie pretty much lives in that water. My skin is smooth and perfect. Charlie’s body is healthy and strong.
Cornpup is a guy like us, but he’s saying he’s made of something different. Skin cells that aren’t working? Weak organs? Poor blood? And it’s all just a product of bad genes? Bad luck?
We don’t learn about these things in school. We don’t learn about these things anywhere.
Charlie grabs Viper’s leash from my hand and walks ahead of us, out of earshot. I don’t want him out there in the darkness with my dog. I think of all the things he won’t notice—snakes and broken glass and skunks and syringes. I want to tell him to come back, but he’d take that as a dare to walk farther out of sight.
“And you trust this doctor? You really trust him? You’re sure he’s not scamming you?”
Cornpup looks at me. “He’s legit. I called the hos
pital and checked him out. The surgery is free.”
“But you always say nothing is free,” I argue. “You’re the one who always says to watch for ulterior motives.”
Cornpup’s not mad at me, but I can see he’s frustrated—at himself, maybe, for not explaining this right. He is exhausted all the time. “Jason, you’re just gonna have to back off. I asked the right questions. Dr. Gupta was open with me. He does get something out of this deal. He needs more data on chemical sensitivities in people under eighteen. I’ll be part of his research. One day he’ll probably use my ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures to generate new business. I’m okay with that.”
“So you’re an experiment?”
“You can’t tell me that’s worse than being a cyst-covered freak. You don’t know how it feels. You and Charlie can’t even imagine how it feels. I will always back you, no matter what. Right now, I need you to do the same for me.”
I get the message loud and clear. Earlier today, Cornpup surprised me by offering way more help with the Freak Tour than I was expecting. He gave me a box of expensive calligraphy pens he’d found in Gramps’s desk. He spoke to a librarian friend of his, and she told him there’s a way to print double-sided pages, and of course I can use the library’s copy machines for free. Then, at the pawnshop, he found a bookbinding machine that uses hot glue to make the bindings. I don’t know what he traded to get it, but the contraption is sitting on my bedroom floor, and it’s mine forever, he says. Forever.
Cornpup wants a shot at having normal skin forever. Even if it makes me uncomfortable knowing he’s gonna be part of some plastic surgeon’s research, I have to let it go. I have to let him do his thing.
When we catch up to Charlie, he’s scheming up ways to sell Freak Tour tickets. “First I spread the word, get all the kids buzzing. Then I create the illusion of limited ticket supply. After that, we lock them into a bidding war.”
I have no idea what Charlie’s talking about. We’re selling the tickets for a set price, and no eight-year-old is going to start a bidding war.
“He scalped three Bills tickets in front of the Big Tree Inn last season, and now he thinks he’s some kind of marketing genius,” says Cornpup.
On the day of the tour, Charlie will be my bouncer. He says he’ll confiscate cameras and hit kids with a stick if they complain about being thirsty or needing to use the bathroom. If it comes down to it, he’ll handcuff disruptive kids with zip ties to “set an example.”
I tell him I can see this spiraling out of control. Then we all bust out laughing.
We talk about what Cornpup’s role will be on the day of the tour. He wants to be a secretary or something. He’ll collect tickets, sell my books, and keep track of the money. He’ll grill each of the children and make sure none of their leaky mouths ratted us out to any parents—or worse, to the cops. My only job is to tell horrible stories, to make children feel fear, to breathe life into dead chemical sites. It seems easy, but the thought of talking for two solid hours freaks me out. Maybe they will hate my stories. Maybe I won’t be able to keep their attention. Maybe this whole thing is a mistake.
“See that?” Cornpup points to a massive cement drainage pipe behind a dimly lit building within the Mareno Chem complex. The pipe is barfing up dark, chunky sludge. The smell is a mix of burnt plastic and nail polish remover. “They’re still dumping. They never stopped.”
We sit on the banks of Two Mile Creek for a long time, coughing till our lungs burn. Charlie plays a drumbeat on the ground with two sticks. Cornpup watches the drainage pipes, his eyes willing the sludge to stop, except there seems to be no end to it. Viper sniffs for lizards and mice. I lie back in the dirt and look up at the stars. I wonder if Dad can see me—an unoriginal thought, I know. I’ll bet every kid with a dead parent wonders what I wonder. We all talk in our heads to someone who won’t ever answer.
Later, me and my friends will walk home. We’ll fall asleep before the first rays of morning sun, before our parents start brewing instant coffee and spitting phlegm into the sink and frying eggs in corn oil. Before Randy rides his motorcycle to Molly’s house. Before Abbi pounds her little hands on the kitchen table and chants, Pancakes! Pancakes! Before the drainage pipes go silent and the creek moves, all dark and dirty, over golf balls, beer cans, and shiny rocks.
Tomorrow we won’t see each other. I’ll write out my stories, and Charlie will sell tickets, and I don’t know what Cornpup will do. Maybe he’ll be meeting with the doctor, prepping his skin for the big surgery.
Earlier this morning, I saw Kevin Thompson at the junkyard. I was looking for an antenna for Mom, and he was carrying a steering wheel. I saw him eyeing me, and there were all these weapons he could’ve grabbed—rusty sheets of metal, jagged exhaust pipes, long shards of broken glass—but he didn’t say or do anything. I hope that’s a sign of what’s to come, that if I see him in the hallway freshman year, he’ll just walk on by, like a total stranger. It’s funny how I used to be so scared of him.
What I’m scared of now is harder to pinpoint. I’m scared I could lose my friend to an experimental surgery. I’m scared of telling my landfill stories to a bunch of little kids. I’m scared Dan Benecke will do something terrible to me and Mom. But most of all, I’m scared of this feeling I have deep down in my bones. It’s the same restless feeling I had the night Dad didn’t come home. I feel like something in my life is about to shift in a horrible way.
CHAPTER 22
LANDFILL MYTHOLOGY
I should’ve known something would go wrong. On Thursday morning, Mareno Chem put a notice in the paper, something about how parents need to keep their teenagers from trespassing in the industrial yards. It could mean they’re gonna be patrolling our tour route. Then, on Friday night, Gramps had chest pains. He drove himself to the hospital with maple syrup on his gas pedal. It was a heart attack. No one bothers to tell Cornpup till Saturday, about thirty minutes before the Freak Tour is set to begin.
“What do you mean, you’re not coming?” Charlie is sitting at my kitchen table, shoveling spoonfuls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch into his mouth, spilling milk all over Mom’s new place mats, and shouting into the phone.
“He’s not coming?” I say.
Charlie slams the phone down so hard I expect to see an explosion of wires and little electrical components. “Unbelievable.”
I should care about Gramps. I should care that Cornpup is worried about his only living grandfather. I should care. I should care. I should care. But I don’t. All this work for nothing, my hand aching from hours of calligraphy pens, the time it took for me to finally feel proud of my book.
“Maybe no one was gonna show up anyway.” I put my glass in the sink.
Charlie looks at me. “We’re not canceling anything. We can meet him at the hospital later.”
It’s supposed to be all three of us doing this thing. How many times have I gone with Cornpup to the library or the pawnshop, always running errands with him, when what I really wanted to do was race my dirt bike on an open road? Me and Charlie sat through a long, stupid town meeting about Two Mile Creek, even though we had better places to be. We back each other up. That’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been.
Charlie doesn’t care about glitches in our master plan. He says, “We’re doing this thing. We’re gonna rock the tour and make a lot of money.”
At quarter to ten the Schumachers’ yard is swarming with neighborhood kids and their friends. I was worried a few parents would show up, but that hasn’t happened. I was waiting for a squad car to drive by, but that hasn’t happened either. There are thirty-two little nerds in all, and so far no one has tried to pay in pennies.
Charlie has been weird today. He gave me his lockbox and told me not to open it till he’s famous. “Just put it under your bed,” he said. “And then forget it’s there.” Then he made me leave Viper at home with a gigantic rawhide bone, and even though Mom won’t be home from work till around dinnertime, I still feel anxious. Now he has the k
ids standing shoulder to shoulder behind the Schumachers’ garage while he picks a large scab off his knee too early, his eyes studying the bright new blood.
“Are you nervous or something?” I ask him.
“No.” He answers slowly, like he is confused by the question. “I don’t get nervous.”
Then I ask Charlie how much money we have, and he pats the bulge in the front pocket of his jeans as if to say, Plenty. I’ll keep it safe. Don’t worry. We might have a lot of money, because all but two of my books have sold, and it bothers me that Charlie won’t say a number out loud. I think of him skimming off the top, or worse, losing it all, the way he “lost” my margarine tub full of cash so many years ago.
Charlie is wearing plastic gloves and tall rubber boots. He paces back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. He barks rules at the kids, “No talking, or you’re off the tour. We don’t give second chances. We don’t give refunds.”
The kids are quiet around us, cautious. We’ve never really even spoken to them before. I think Charlie’s gloves are scaring them. When the nurse is doing a lice check at school, I don’t care about the black plastic combs. It’s the gloved hands I worry about. I know how dirty my house can get when Mom is working lots of doubles, and I think, Please not me. Please don’t let me be the lice kid. And it never is me. I’ve never had bugs in my hair. But I know what it feels like to see gloves on the hands of a person who is not your friend, to feel like you’re gonna puke when you smell latex.
“Follow Charlie,” I say. My voice comes out shaky. I’m not used to an audience, even if it is a mob of local children. I should know each of their names—Poxton is a small town, after all—but I’ve always kept my attention on the older crowd, Randy and his friends. I’m interested in people who have motorcycles and garage bands and who actually do stuff with their lives.
To save time, we skip the introductions. I make up my own names for the kids. There is Squinty Boy, and Girl in Turtle Sweatshirt, and Cat Eyes, and Stupid Shoes. There is Snot Nose, and Knee Pads, and Stick Arms, and Long-Hair Girl. There is Gap Tooth, and Apricot Ears, and Horse T-shirt, and Band-Aid Knee. I name all thirty-two kids in this way, my eyes snagging on one feature. I wonder what me and my friends would be called if we were judged so quickly. Cyst Boy? Fat Lady’s Son? Fire Starter?
