by Wilson, David Niall; Brown, Tonia; Meikle, William; McCaffery, Simon; Brown, TW; T. A. Wardrope
I wasn’t very popular when I was in the sixth grade. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not popular now. But none of that matters. When I was twelve, I did everything in my power to be a “cool” kid. And I darned near almost made it.
It all started on the playground. I’d stick anything in my mouth and eat it. Insects were usually the main fare. I slowly noticed that I liked the taste of grasshoppers. They were chewy, and usually excreted a taste that reminded me of candy apples. Ants didn’t quite cut it, but I’d scoop them up in my hand, destroying their latest hill, and jam them into my mouth, too. There was really no taste to them. If anything, they usually left me sucking at my teeth to dislodge their squirming carcasses.
Things like eating bugs really made me a crowd-pleaser on the playground, and I enjoyed the status for the few weeks that it lasted. Nobody was calling me mean names, or slapping the back of my head, or threatening to kick my ass. It was nice. But then I went and made a mistake. It’s really nothing out of the ordinary for me.
One spring afternoon, while Miss Sweat’s sixth grade class was out on the playground, everyone was wondering what I’d stick in my mouth next. The expectations were growing enormous. I really needed to pull out all the stops to keep up my “coolness”.
So what did I do?
I hunted around the playground for something to eat. I was hoping for a grasshopper, and had that stuck in my mind, when I came upon what I considered would be my greatest achievement. Lying in the dirt beneath the swing set was a fresh pile of dog shit. Now, I wasn’t crazy enough to stick the shit in my mouth. But as for those green flies buzzing around it? Well, you get the picture.
I managed to catch one of those emerald green flies. I pulled its wings off and watched it buzz around in my hand. It tickled. I turned around to the crowd gathered around me and showed them my latest acquisition. I noticed the looks on their faces, but was feeling such a rush from finding the fly that I didn’t really let it register. I just popped that fly into my mouth and started chewing. For effect, I stuck out my tongue and showed everyone the messy goo that was swimming around in my mouth.
“You just ate a dog shit fly!” said Eddie Fisher. “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you crazy?”
For a moment, I just stood there with my tongue lolled out. And slowly, oh so slowly, I saw the reactions on the crowd’s faces. Suddenly, the realization that I’d just gone from cool to plain ass weird hit me like a sledgehammer. Everyone was laughing and pointing at me. Quickly, I spat the remains of the fly out of my mouth. And then I began to rub what was left of its corpse off my tongue.
“What a dumbass,” said Lee Edwards.
The girls didn’t say anything, but I could tell from their sneers that I’d lost their support, too. Not that there had been much of it to start with. Sixth grade girls are funny squirrels. You never really knew what to expect from them. But I knew what to expect now. And trust me, it wasn’t good.
Eddie Fisher came over to me and punched me in the shoulder. It hurt, but I didn’t cry. I held those tears back as hard as I could. Things were already bad enough.
“I should make you eat that shit,” he told me. “Would you like that, too?”
I shook my head.
“Fucking weirdo,” muttered Eddie. “Come on, guys. Let’s get out of here.”
I watched them all walk away from me. The swings fluttered back and forth on their rusted chains in the cool spring breeze. I was really holding those tears back. I think it hurt a lot more than if Eddie would have punched me.
Thankfully, Miss Sweat called everyone back into the classroom. I had lost everything in mere seconds on the playground. I was devastated. It was now back to a life of being a total loser. That was just fucking great.
But that all changed that afternoon as I walked home.
I could still hear Eddie Fisher laughing in my ears as I turned the corner onto Rogers Street. I lived in the last house on the left. Before you got there, however, you had to pass by the home of my next-door neighbor, Arthur Foreman. Only I didn’t call him Arthur or Mr. Foreman. Instead, I referred to him as Charlie. For some strange reason, when I was a little boy, around three or four, I took to calling him Charlie because that’s what his white mutt of a dog was named. Why that stuck is beyond me, but it did.
As I got to Charlie’s house, I could hear him in his backyard. It was more laughter, but light and fun, unlike that of Eddie Fisher. I stopped for a second, listening to it, before I finally decided to cross Charlie’s yard and peek around his house. I’d seen Charlie skin rabbits in his backyard before, and he often got to laughing whenever he was drinking. It wasn’t going to be a surprise if he was covered in blood and sitting there waving around a buck knife with a bloody rabbit crusting in his lap.
However, what I saw made my jaw drop.
Charlie was standing in his backyard, hoisting a bunch of bananas to a giant gorilla. The gorilla was tittering around on its paws, playfully growling as it snapped the bananas away from Charlie and popped them into its mouth like grapes. Charlie continued laughing as the gorilla did a wild jig about the yard.
“Hey, Charlie,” I called out. “Who’s your new friend?”
Charlie turned and looked at me. Amidst the laughter, there was a large smile on his face. He tilted back his greasy John Deere ball cap and winked at me. He waved a hand in my direction.
“Come here and meet him,” he said.
I crossed the backyard, soon finding myself in the gorilla’s shadow. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of it. It stood maybe twenty feet tall, but it didn’t scare me. I guess after the day I’d had, there wasn’t much emotion left in me. But as I stood there gazing, feeling its eyes appraise me, a jolt of enjoyment coursed through me.
“What’s its name?” I asked.
“Bobo,” replied Charlie. “What do you think of him?”
“I think he’s great!”
Charlie pulled out the makings of a cigarette. He rolled the Bugler together and stuck it between his lips. He lit it with a kitchen match and puffed out a smoke ring.
“I think he’s great, too,” replied Charlie.
“Where’d you get him?”
“Sorry,” said Charlie. He winked at me. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
I knew Charlie was kidding, but still felt a tingle of cold sweat trace its way down my spine. Sometimes I wondered if Charlie was joking or not.
“You can’t keep an gorilla in your backyard,” I told him.
“Sure, I can. Who’s going to complain? Besides, he’s as docile as a lamb. I’ve got him trained.”
“How did you train him?”
“Well,” said Charlie, “it wasn’t really me that trained him. It was the people I got him from that turned him into a zombie, you see.”
“It’s a zombie?” I asked. “You mean it’s really dead and eats people?”
Charlie laughed. “No. You’ve seen too many movies. I mean a zombie like in Haiti. It’s under a spell to do anything I ask.”
“Oh.” I looked into the gorilla’s eyes. It bared its fangs at me and I could see the ends of its mouth turn up into a smile. “Can I pet it?”
“Sure.”
I walked over to Bobo, keeping my eyes on its face. I tentatively reached out a hand and stroked it. Bobo’s fur was coarse and thick.
“And you can’t tell me where you got him?” I asked, again.
“Nope,” replied Charlie. He puffed on the last of his Bugler. Then he dropped it to the brilliantly green grass, which was the color of a billiard table, and smashed it out beneath his heel. “I’d just as soon tell you where I got that piece of Stonehenge.”
I kick myself for not having asked him about that rock from Stonehenge that he supposedly owned. But I guess that’s another story.
As it stood, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Bobo.
“I think he likes you,” Charlie told me.
“I sure do like him.”
“Stay outside and play with him. I�
�ll go and make us some lemonade.” Charlie smiled. “I think you two are going to be good friends.”
And that’s how my too-short relationship with Bobo started. It was there, in Charlie’s backyard on a warm spring afternoon, that I found what would become my best friend ever.
Oh, I didn’t get to do much with Bobo. Heck, there wasn’t that much to do. It wasn’t like we could go to the movies or arcade together. At first, Charlie didn’t like the idea of Bobo leaving his backyard. But he eventually warmed to the idea when he saw how Bobo and I got along so good. We’d take walks down to the Rough River and simply hang out. We’d lie on our backs on the banks and stare up at the sky. And it was then, during simple trips like these, that I learned what Bobo wanted the most out of life.
We’d lie there, basking in that warm, sun and he’d reach his arms up towards the sky. It was like he was reaching for the clouds. Even someone as tall as Bobo was going to fall short there, but I still got a kick out of it. Bobo made me laugh a lot during those days.
We spent a lot of time together. Sometimes, sitting in Charlie’s backyard, I’d climb up onto his back and just hang there. It was something out of this world.
But, as per the usual with me, something went dramatically wrong. Like being cool for a few days before swallowing a handful of green shit-flies, I went and fucked everything up. It was just par for the course, I guess.
One Saturday morning, Bobo and I were hanging around Charlie’s backyard. Next door, I could see my Dad mowing the grass. And I knew my Mom was washing her car. Yeah, yeah, I know. Those are the jobs that the kid is supposed to be doing, but my parents were cool. They let me hang out with a giant gorilla, didn’t they?
Anyways, we were hanging around the yard when Charlie came out the backdoor. He had another one of those Buglers perched inside his mouth with a cloud of smoke forming a halo over his head. He stopped next to me and reached out a hand, patting Bobo’s side. He smiled down at me.
“What do you two guys plan on doing today?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I replied. I reached out and petted one of Bobo’s long toes. His skin was warm and hairy. “There’s not much to do.”
“Well,” said Charlie, “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He dropped the Bugler to the ground where it smoldered. “I’m going to the liquor store. I’m fresh out of spirits. You two behave yourselves. And if you take Bobo off, don’t forget to have him home before dark.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Bobo softly growled.
I watched Charlie walk to the small pick-up truck in his driveway. In just a few short years, he would be killed inside that truck. After running a red light, he’d be crushed beneath a cement truck. And yes, they say he was drunk at the time.
“What do you want to do, Bobo?” I asked.
The gorilla reached out and gently nudged me with a fingertip. I laughed, grabbing onto it. I reached it up to my face and feigned picking my nose with it. Bobo let loose with a grunt and the sides of his mouth curled up.
“Want to see where I go to school? I know it sounds boring, but they have a playground, too. We can climb on top of the monkey bars, or something. What do you say?”
Bobo tilted his head, the edges of his mouth still curled. I took that as a “yes.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Charlie never kept Bobo chained up. Since the gorilla was hypnotized to follow his every order, he never had the need to. And that was just fine with me. It must’ve suited the neighborhood, as well, because nobody ever complained. Yeah, I find that funny, too. But truth is stranger than fiction, or so they say.
It wasn’t a long walk to the Ratliff Elementary School. As usual, I had the sidewalk to myself, as Bobo walked alongside on the road. The streets weren’t busy with traffic on the weekends, so we rarely had to move for a passing car. Sometimes you’d see a soccer mom passing in a minivan, her mouth agape and eyes bugging out of her skull, but that was about it. Nobody ever bothered Bobo and me.
Until that Saturday, that is.
We reached the school and gravitated immediately towards the playground. As I had mentioned to Bobo, I thought the monkey bars might be a fun place for us to hang out. Bobo could climb on top of them and sit. It’d be nice.
Or so I thought.
I walked us over to the monkey bars. Bobo immediately climbed up, reaching his paws towards the sky. He let out a growl that I took as pure happiness. I didn’t follow him up, instead giving him all the room he needed. And he simply stood there, arms outstretched.
And that’s when I heard the voices.
No, no. Not voices inside my head. I heard Eddie Fisher and the rest of those guys coming to the playground.
“What the hell is that?”
My stomach turned as I realized that Eddie had spotted us. He didn’t know about Bobo, and I wanted to keep it that way. I was selfish. And I sure didn’t want to share with a bastard like Eddie Fisher.
“Come on, Bobo,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Bobo dropped his arms and looked at me. There was a puzzled expression on his face.
“It’s time to go. Come on!”
Before he could climb down, though, Eddie Fisher and his gang were atop us. And they weren’t empty-handed. In their grubby mitts they were carrying a cache of rocks, which they immediately began throwing at Bobo. The giant gorilla let out with a roar that made them take a step or two backwards, but it wasn’t enough to get them to stop throwing the rocks.
“Quit it!” I said. “You’re hurting him!”
“Any friend of yours has to be a loser,” said Eddie. “And that’s one ugly friend you’ve got there. Where’d you find him, at the zoo?”
“If you don’t stop…”
“You’ll what? Cry on me?”
Suddenly, Bobo jumped down from the monkey bars. He landed between Eddie and me. For a moment, I was blinded. All I could see was Bobo’s butt. And that’s when I heard the scream. It was Eddie, and he was crying bloody murder. I ran around Bobo and saw that he had picked Eddie up. Eddie’s arm, up to the elbow, was buried inside Bobo’s mouth, his fangs working feverishly to chew through the muscle and bone. I felt hot bile rise in my throat as Bobo spat the gory appendage aside. And Eddie, and all his loser friends, shrieked. Some of them picked up rocks and began to pelt Bobo with them, and he knocked them all aside, letting loose with a guttural roar.
As for what I was doing? I was simply standing there, mouth wide open, watching the entire episode. I didn’t know the first thing to do.
But I did hear the woman’s scream over Eddie and his friends yelling, and Bobo’s growling. There was a subdivision behind the playground, and I turned around to follow the direction of the scream. I saw her standing in her backyard, hands to her face, screaming as she stared at Bobo. For some reason, I screamed myself when I saw her dart inside her house. I don’t know why, but I knew it couldn’t be leading to anything good.
Rooted to the spot, I watched as Bobo tossed Eddie away. He landed like a ragdoll in the dirt and crumpled up into a fetal position, crying his head off. The other boys stopped throwing rocks and turned away to run. They simply left Eddie there to tend to his own wounds. I felt a rush of hot anger at that. The fucking cowards!
I didn’t linger on Eddie long, though. We can’t forget that I practically hated his guts. So I turned my attention to Bobo. The large gorilla roared and beat his chest. Then he walked away and returned to the monkey bars. He climbed to the top, still roaring, and beat his chest, again. Then he raised his arms to the sky. I couldn’t see his eyes very well, but I knew he was crying. The big guy didn’t really mean to hurt anyone. He just wanted to reach the sky. He just wanted to be free of Charlie, Eddie, and probably, if truth be known, even me.
And I couldn’t blame him.
I took a step forward, reaching a hand towards Bobo, when two police cruisers skidded to a stop on the edge of the playground. The policemen threw open their doors qu
ickly, taking position behind them, guns drawn and aimed directly at Bobo.
“No! Don’t hurt him!”
But the police ignored me. I was just some dumb kid to them. And there’s no telling what that distraught housewife had told them. She’d seen Eddie’s arm hanging out of Bobo’s mouth, and she had heard all of our screams. To the police, I was probably just another little kid in a shit heap of trouble.
I started to run towards Bobo, who returned his attention to me. And I could see those glistening tears in his eyes.
He just wanted to reach for the sky.
Bobo threw his arms up again, and that’s when the police let loose with their gunfire. The bullets tore into Bobo’s hide, spitting flesh and blood everywhere as he tumbled from the monkey bars. He slammed down on the ground, just a few feet away from where Eddie was still crying, and I knew he was dead. The thought that he might have survived that barrage never entered my mind.
I walked over to his corpse and knelt down. I ignored the warnings from the cops to stay away from him. Instead, I knelt beside Bobo and took one of his large hands in my own. It was already cold.
TW BROWN
Iced
“…erratic behavior of the Gulf Stream has brought unseasonable weather to most of the UK––
Click
“…scientists continue to insist that this temperature anomaly, seen in parts of China and—”
Click
“…section of ice the size of the state of Georgia has broken free—”
Click
Brett Urban switched off the television and tossed the remote onto the conference table. A dozen well-aged men in near-identical suits stared back, expressionless. He took a deep breath and considered his next words carefully. “The Athens camp is believed to be in that section of ice.” Brett leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the polished mahogany.
Looks were exchanged, but he didn’t think it had quite sunken in. Then, like somebody switching on a bank of lights, eyes began to widen.
“Mister Urban,” one old man said, peering at Brett over his thick glasses, “are you telling us that the expedition team is—”
