Deathskull Bombshell

by Bethny Ebert

  Brooke fastened her helmet below her chin. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Brooke cleared her throat, then looked at the sky where the clouds were gathering, threatening rain. “I’m fine. Just drunk. Don’t worry.”

  Elizabeth looked up at her. “I can’t help it. You’re, like… really angry lately.”

  Brooke kicked at her bike’s kickstand. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll be just fine.”

  “Okay.” She looked disappointed, hurt, but she put on a bright smile and walked back to the garage, to Parker and Trevor and the box of beer.

  Brooke understood then how different they were. Elizabeth knew there was something going on, and she wanted to ask questions, but she didn’t want to be too pushy or opinionated. She didn’t want to risk losing her best friend.

  Well, that was her problem, not Brooke’s.

  Tasting the alcohol on her own breath, she slowly rode her bike away, into the wet and muggy air, the beginnings of the sunset.

  It would be a long time before she came back.

  Chapter twenty-eight

  July 2003

  Brooke rode her bike to the O’Doole house. Every day it felt more and more empty, less like the decorated cage in which her parents resided, cherry-picking art pieces and foreign souvenirs like favorite arguments, a monument to their neglect and abandonment, and more like a cube, a plain box you sleep and eat and shit in while you wait for time to pass. Then you redirect yourself to a different cube, one containing money and arbitrary smiles and good customer service skills.

  She wondered if that was all life was, box after box. A childhood home box, a job box, a college box, a marriage box, and then babies, diapered screaming anchors necessitating a full-stop, near-death, settling for whatever man impregnated you, never to search or fuck or love again. A quiet coffin, motherhood and marriage.

  Boring.

  Nick wasn’t home. He left a note on the kitchen table in his neat handwriting that said, “I’m at the library. I’ll eat when I feel like it. Don’t worry.” Nick expected her to worry about him, and she did sometimes, but for the most part he had his shit together. He was smart. He’d be okay without her.

  She had to get out of Wisconsin.

  Her life wasn’t over yet.

  In the bathroom mirror, her reflection glared at her, a skinny girl with baggy circles under her eyes and too many freckles. Her hair was the exact color of a penny. Not the sexy edgy black hair of Joan Jett or the glamorous platinum blonde of Dolly Parton. Just a penny.

  Worthless.

  She grabbed her pocketknife and hacked at her long hair, watching her reflection as if from outside her own self. Her hair fell to the floor. She found her stash of bleach and green hair dye underneath the sink. About an hour later, if anyone had been watching (they hadn’t), they would have seen a skinny girl with a botched dark-green shaggy bob haircut, gripping the handlebars of her bicycle, riding fast and drunk with a backpack over her flannel shirt. They would have noticed she never really stopped her bike until two towns away. Maybe they would have seen her protective hand, guarding her abdomen, or taken note of her excessive order at the diner. But they probably wouldn’t have said hi or asked too many questions. That was too much to ask for.

  Chapter twenty-nine

  April 2004

  Parker sighed. Prom night, no date.

  Squinting at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he flexed his muscles. They weren’t really muscles but pudge. When he was little he hoped maybe his baby fat would melt off and he’d look like one of those guys from television, maybe Wolverine, or a Native Brad Pitt. He was sixteen, though, and it was time to face facts. He was just a fat guy with no prom date.

  He took his glasses off, and his reflection blurred in the mirror. Well, that was an improvement. He wondered what Nick saw looking at him, that he wanted to be his secret boyfriend, but not his actual boyfriend.

  He felt like Batman, in the story arcs where he had that creepy thing with Catwoman, where she’d bat him around, right, like so much yarn and then finally steal everything out from under him.

  Batman would just grit his teeth and deal, despite the mindfuck of everything. It was worth it. Catwoman was worth it. And anyway, Batman was tough. He never let shit bother him.

  So it was with Parker. He contented himself with whatever paltry affection Nick threw his way, and he didn’t push things to mean more than they meant.

  Homecoming weekend, he tried to hold hands with Nick when they were walking to the gas station. Pretty much everyone was at the big game except for them. So they walked to the gas station for greasy cheese nachos and candy bars and Combos. Parker stretched out his hand, sort of, in a way that nobody would have guessed at. Nick let him, and they held hands for a minute or two. In the shadow of evening it was okay.

  Nick had calloused hands. All that work at Lardé’s Bistro did a number on him.

  But then a Jeep truck full of guys from school drove by, blasting rap music and hollering. “Go Spartans! Go football! Yeah!” They honked the car horn a few times and then drove away.

  Nick dropped his hand like it was a crumpled paper napkin. Napkin hands.

  Parker put his glasses back on, then, and lifted his chin up, adjusting his tie. Technically prom wasn’t a black-tie affair, but his mom told him to look nice.

  “You know, honey, even if you go alone, you can always try and look decent,” she said when they were out shopping for suits. She had a good sense of fashion about her, one of those mom talents probably. She vetoed the dreamy plaid tie he had his eye on. He wanted to stick it with safety pins. It was perfect.

  “You can buy that for one of your concerts, but not prom,” she advised.

  “Bassists don’t wear ties,” Parker muttered.

  And yet here he stood, straightening a black tie for prom, where he was going stag, no boyfriend, not even a fake girlfriend. He looked like old pictures. Like his grandfather, back at the Catholic schools they made everyone go to all those years ago.

  It wasn’t like anyone was forcing him to wear this stupid crap. He could just stay home and save his dignity. But Elizabeth already knew he was going to prom, and she needed him to be there (she said) since she didn’t really know anybody anymore.

  God, he felt like a Jane Austen novel.

  Maybe he could borrow Stevie’s blow-up doll, the one he got from the Dumpster last summer, take a blow-up doll to prom and slow-dance with it. Or maybe he could borrow Stevie. Stevie was nice, and he didn’t mind dressing up. Obviously military school allowed vacations for important things like prom. Maybe he should call the military up and ask them about it.

  Yeah, right.

  He grimaced at the mirror. Well, no turning back now. He opened the bathroom door, where Margot and Kylie waited to assess him.

  “Dang,” Margot said. “Where’d you put my brother?”

  “Shut up,” Parker said.

  Kylie tugged on the sleeve of his blazer.

  “I was joking, you bulb,” Margot said. “You look okay. If it wasn’t for your face I’d almost say you resembled a non-ugly person.”

  Kylie tugged on his sleeve again. “Parker,” she whined.

  “Gee, thanks, sis,” Parker said. He shook Kylie off. “You look just like me, though, you know. So if I’m ugly, you’re ugly too. And so’s Mom.” He narrowed his eyes, trying to look menacing despite the pinstripes that threatened to eat his entire body. “I might just go over and tell her you think she’s an ugly dog. Then you won’t get any supper tonight.”

  “I’m going to medical school,” Margot said. “Medical students don’t need to eat. We feed on science and… discovery.”

  “You’re eleven,” Parker said.

  Tard.

  “Parker!” Kylie stomped her foot, trying to get his attention. “There’s a girl at the door!”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Parker said. God damn it. Probably Elizabeth.

  He dashed
over to the kitchen, where his mom stood talking with Emmalee Thunder from study hall.

  Oh, crap.

  She looked the same as always, mousy and annoyed, but instead of her standard baggy hoodie and jeans combo, she’d switched to something floor-length and taffeta, with long white gloves. Her hair was pulled back, making her glasses and pointy nose stand out more than usual. She kind of looked like a rabbit wearing a tablecloth.

  Still, he was glad to see her.

  Until she saw him, anyway.

  Her face lit up, and she ran over to him, tripping over her strappy one-inch heels. One of them fell off, and she crashed into his stomach. “Hi!” she said into his dress shirt.

  He looked down at her. “Hello,” he said, never feeling more homosexual in his life.

  She looked up at him, flushed. “I need a prom date.”

  “I figured.”

  She coughed, and backed up a few paces. She tucked a strand of curly brown hair behind her ear, and itched at her nose, forgetting about her gloves. “Well, are you going with anybody? Dave got sick at the last minute.”

  Sick of being away from his Transformers kit, Parker thought to himself. Everyone who knew Dave knew his feelings for Optimus Prime eclipsed any notions of romance.

  He looked at Emmalee, all hopeful in her taffeta dress thing, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  She beamed at him and grabbed his hand. “Cool.”

  It was so easy with girls, Parker thought. That hand thing again.

  His mom snapped a few pictures. Parker wasn’t very good with posing for pictures, but Emmalee seemed happy enough, so whatever. She didn’t have a car, and neither did he, so they ended up walking to Spartan High.

  He didn’t have a bouquet.

  They passed by someone’s garden on the way to school, and he pulled at a few of the plants until they broke, flinging thick dark soil everywhere.

  She blinked at him, and he thrust the bouquet at her. It was mostly tulips and a few plain stems with no flowers attached, but it was a bouquet.

  “Oh, um, thanks,” she said. She looked at the flowers. “You know, these don’t really match my dress.”

  “Well, then, throw ‘em back,” Parker said.

  Emmalee looked at the house. The lights were on in the kitchen, a bad sign. She clutched the flowers with her gloved hands, and cleared her throat. “It’s okay.”

  They walked on.

  The prom planning committee, a group of football players’ girlfriends, picked the theme. “Under The Sea.” A giant papier-mâché mermaid greeted them when they walked in. The paint job was uneven, and her hair was made of papier-mâché. It didn’t even resemble real hair. Someone glued glitter on the mermaid’s papier-mâché bikini. A bold move. There’d been a few vandalism incidents recently. Someone had drawn nipples on all of the motivational D.A.R.E. posters, so the prom planning committee was warned to be careful with anything slightly woman-shaped.

  In the cafeteria, the lunch tables were set up with tablecloths and glitter and seashells. Someone had put placemats at a few of the lunch table spots, but it they’d run out of placemats before tables. Some of the tables had no placemats whatsoever. A big punch bowl with dark red punch announced itself in the middle of the cafeteria, and one of the cheerleaders carried around a big platter with appetizers, smiling at everybody. Parker was able to steal a glance at it before she carried it over to her group of friends. Ritz crackers, salami, cheese, and pickles.

  “Well, I think this is nice,” Emmalee said. Parker didn’t say anything, and she elbowed him in the side. “Don’t you think this is nice?”

  He looked over at the dance floor, where the deejay played an Evanescence song. A few of the stoners were giggling and head-banging, and a few couples attempted to slow-dance to Amy Lee’s chart-topping alternative-goth-pop vocalisms. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “We should dance,” Emmalee said.

  “I need a drink,” Parker said, and before Emmalee could say anything, he made a beeline for the cafeteria. The cheerleader with the platter chatted with her cheerleader friends on the side of one the tables. Parker walked up to them.

  He gestured with his thumb to the center of the room. “What’s in the punch bowl?”

  The cheerleaders exchanged glances.

  One of the seniors spoke up first. “Punch,” she said. She adjusted her updo. “Why, what’d you think it was?”

  “Punch,” Parker said.

  He walked away from them, then, over to the punch bowl. He ladled some drink into his cup, and tipped it back. A hint of vodka glittered at him, and he smiled. Nice.

  A few cups later, he met up with Emmalee again. “Let’s do this,” he said.

  “I’m not dancing to ‘Magic Stick’,” Emmalee said. She crossed her arms.

  “Why, you afraid everyone will think you’re a whore? Half these girls are wearing strapless dresses,” Parker said. He grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  “I don’t like this song,” Emmalee said.

  Parker sighed. They waited a few more songs, not speaking.

  Parker shoved his hands into the pockets of his pinstripe slacks. Well, so far prom was definitely stupid. No wonder Nick skipped it.

  Parker wondered what his ruthless boyfriend was up to tonight. Probably reading Siddhartha again. Nick had a real boner for philosophy lately. Probably had something to do with the end of his senior year. It figured Nick would time his existential crisis so perfectly. He was more predictable than a Ramones song.

  A Nelly song roared from the dance floor, and Emmalee grabbed Parker’s hand again. “Okay, let’s dance,” she said, dragging him with her.

  By then, he could feel the vodka-spiked punch in his feet. Everything was funny. All these girls trying to be sexy to a Nelly song. And Stevie gone to military school. He would have died laughing.

  The dance floor swam with zitty guys in rented tuxedos and girls in dresses. There were so many types of dresses in the world. It seemed sad that most of the ones on the dance floor were the same strapless coral as all the other dresses. A few girls opted for trucker caps and neckties, trying to be Avril Lavigne.

  “Man, you can’t dance for crap,” Emmalee complained.

  “I happen to be a great dancer,” Parker said.

  Emmalee itched her nose again. She really had no business wearing gloves like that.

  They danced more, not saying anything. She wasn’t the type to play nice; he liked that about her. Her crush on him was a bit overwhelming, to say the least, but Emmalee was the sort of girl who hated everybody she found attractive. There was probably some diagnosis for it.

  A few of Emmalee’s friends from Science Club came up to them after some time, and Parker decided to duck out for some fresh air. He was getting sick of the Black Eyed Peas, anyway.

  In a long blue dress, Elizabeth nibbled on cheese slices on the side of the dance floor. She’d assembled all her accessories by hand, stuff she’d bought at antique stores, buttons, pearls, beads, chains. Her earrings were made from safety pins and pearls welded together. It bugged him sometimes how everyone treated her, like a stupid girl. Girl things weren’t as appreciated in this life.

  Catwoman would have understood.

  Parker wandered over to Elizabeth and tapped her on the shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be working, Grandma?” he asked. She had a job at the gas station.

  “Oh, excuse you,” she said, and grinned at him. “Just because I’m old.” She was a Spartan High alumni, practically a dinosaur.

  “Who are you here with?” he asked.

  “Evangeline,” she said, taking a dainty bite of her cheese.

  Parker stared at her. “You’re with a chick?”

  She laughed. “I’m not with her, dude. It’s just for prom. I was bored, and she asked me.” She paused, keeping her voice low. “Is Nick here?”

  “Nope,” Parker said. He scratched the back of his neck.

  “What, did y
ou guys get in a fight?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Parker assured her. “He just wanted to stay home.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, the crowd’s really something.”

  Parker looked at the dance floor. A few guys were throwing balloons around, trying to pop them with their pointy dress shoes.

  Elizabeth followed his gaze, zoning out, sort of smiling with her eyes. He knew that look. She missed Brooke and Deathskull Bombshell.

  “Yeah.”

  Emmalee Thunder was dancing with some other guy by then, Sanjit from Trig class. Sanjit was a small guy with spiky hair. He wore a tweed suit that made him look like a used-car salesman, and as usual he’d forgotten to shave off his peach fuzz. Emmalee looked into Sanjit’s eyes, locking him in her arms like an octopus with its next meal. Well, he was no Dave, that was for sure, but she didn’t seem to mind much.

  “Well, I gotta run,” Parker said.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Okay. Call me later, though, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  Parker walked over to the cafeteria, trying to blend in with all the other students so Emmalee wouldn’t figure out he left in the middle of prom.

  Suddenly, he found himself violently backed up against a wall. A thick, meaty hand hit the wall right next to his head. He looked up to see Marcus Thompson, about to head-butt him like an angry ram.

  Marcus Thompson used to be a nice guy. They were friends, once upon a time, even played on the same soccer team and done a few group speeches together for Public Speaking freshman year. But then Marcus got mean. He was always getting in fights after school. Parker never knew why. He figured it was better just to stay out of his way.

  An unavoidable thing at present.

  Marcus hit the wall again, and it rang in Parker’s ears. “Hey, why don’t you listen,” he spat. “I said, where’d you leave my sister?”

  “Sister?” Parker asked. He thought of Emmalee, out there on the dance floor. She looked nothing like Marcus. No way in hell.

  “Yeah, you know, Lexie?” Marcus leaned into Parker’s face, fire in his eyes.