Wild and Crooked

by Leah Thomas

  Now I don’t know what he’s asking for. Phil’s slowing down at last. He knows better than to screech his tires in Tamara’s presence.

  Tamara’s back from work, sitting on the patio. The paneling behind her looks white and warm in the fading sun. The ivy’s browning at last.

  “Phil. What do you want me to do?”

  “It’s the essence of simplicity.” Phil spins in his seat. “I want you to be my messenger. My ‘wingman.’ I want you, gifted with automatic intrigue, to use your silver tongue to speak to Kalyn the Catalyst.”

  He must mean the neglected, tarnished silver of buried spoons. “Speak to her?”

  “Yes. And . . . ​when the moment is right, ask her if she would attend homecoming with me next month?” Phil flushes, and I almost don’t recognize him.

  “If you think I could actually help . . .”

  I don’t expect him to grab my shoulder. Phil’s palm is hot rather than warm, and I wonder if he doesn’t hold the steering wheel for fear of melting it. Maybe he hardly ever touches me for the same reason. And now I’m getting redder, because who knows why I’m wondering that. There’s more than one way to be a fragile person.

  Phil’s hand on my shoulder breaks me. “Please, Gus.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.”

  Phil is the most spidery weirdo who’s ever lived. But when he smiles, he’s a lighthouse. “I thank you; I am not of many words, but I thank you. Tell her . . . ​I don’t know. Tell her I’m worth more than my face?”

  “Yeah.” I clamber out of the car.

  I feel queasy as he pulls away. Phil helped me learn to communicate. Even now, if my brain fails to process something, Phil clears pathways for me. He’s only asking a favor any friend would ask. And Phil isn’t just any friend.

  I wonder if Phil knows that he was already a catalyst in the story of my life.

  When I step into the yard, Tamara’s still on the patio, sunk into her chair cushions. I hobble up the ramp to join her.

  “What’s up? You knock ’em dead today?”

  “I had an egg thrown at me.”

  She bristles. “I need to be knocking on someone’s door?”

  “No. It was an accident. Eggcident. Everything okay here?”

  “ ‘Okay’ is exactly the word, my man. Phil didn’t want dinner?”

  I sink into a wicker chair across from her. I can tell that it’s going to suck taking off my AFO tonight. “Nah. He’s got a lot on his mind today.”

  “That sounds nice and cryptic, hon.”

  What do people do when their best friends fall in love? This is new territory, and rocky ground has never done me any favors. But the curdling in my stomach is new. If I had to give it a name, I’d call it resentment. It isn’t fair to Phil.

  This is what friends do. Friends are wingmen. Friends are brotherly. It doesn’t make me the crippled side note. It doesn’t.

  “. . . inside, but tiptoe a little.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Don’t tell me I’ve been talking to crickets.” Tamara’s eyes are red, and I suspect that’s not just coffee in her mug. “I said, your mom’s having a bit of a day, too.”

  I frown. “Is it the anniversary of something?”

  “Apparently it’s the day the trial ended. September seventh, way back when. She’s been digging through those boxes all day.”

  I think of Mom in the spare room, surrounded by spectral Dad’s eternal eyes, sniffling on a dusty bedspread. We don’t have guests over, not ever. I don’t know what it does to Tamara, no matter what she says about liking my dead dad’s face.

  “We could go get chimichangas at El Cajon’s.”

  “’Fraid I can’t be driving right now.” Definitely not just coffee in her mug. “Some people would forget a trial anniversary. But your mother, she’s so full of love. She can’t leave mice in traps, let alone forget a handsome dead boy. Guess I’m drawn to that devotion, hon. Helpless moth, ready to burn to ash.”

  “You could be a poet, Tam.”

  “Nah. I just see a lot of moths out here in the evenings.”

  The house has reverted to a tomb. Maybe tomorrow Mom will ask about our days, and we can ask about hers. But not today.

  “Let me drive?” I started Driver’s Ed last year, but never finished. And not because it was more difficult than it would be for most people—yeah, I had to see a specialist, and I had to take extra tests that gauged my ability to react to sudden movements, and yeah, one of those tests determined that I wasn’t allowed to drive one-handed without using a steering wheel knob. But none of that stopped me.

  What stopped me was me.

  I froze during the practical trainings, not because my body locked up but because I felt certain it would, probably on an interstate, or during a sharp turn, or as a child crossed the street.

  Tamara hands me her keys. There are a dozen beaded animals in my hand now, handmade by a niece I’ve never met and never will, because Tamara’s family isn’t keen on her bringing her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s disabled son over for holidays.

  “You’re okay with catching fire,” I say. “That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Son, you’re burning up in it, too.”

  Phil’s hands could have melted the steering wheel, melted me. “Yeah, maybe.”

  She opens the door for me, not because of my dead side but because Tamara’s got manners. The inside of her truck smells like earth and sweat and floral perfume. Despite her love for vintage trucks, Tamara sold her beloved ’67 C10 and bought an automatic Silverado and installed a left-foot accelerator as soon as I started Driver’s Ed. I settle into the seat and blink at the wheel; she’s refused to remove the spinner knob.

  Eating tacos in the neon orange dining area of El Cajon’s, laughing at the sight of Tamara spitting out her cilantro, I make a choice. I’m going to speak to the catalyst, and see what shape her sandpapering leaves me in.

  Sandpaper burns, too. But it’s the only way to avoid splinters.

  KALYN

  DAD ALWAYS CALLS right on time. Never early, never late.

  Still, by 7:40 p.m. I’m sitting next to snoring Grandma on the floral-patterned sofa and watching the beige phone, waiting for it to tremble and screech on its doily. Grandma’s the only person I know who’s got a landline with a spiral cord attached, and I swear it makes the calls with Dad more meaningful. I’m stuck listening in one spot, just like Dad’s listening in one spot. There’s something almost holy about it.

  I’m undecided about talking about Rose, even once the beige phone rattles, even once I’ve got it suctioned to my ear and cheek.

  First, static sounds. Then a familiar female robotic voice: “This call will be recorded and monitored.” The voice switches to a crackling recording of an older man—“AN INMATE AT WILDER PENITENTIARY”—and then we’re back to the robot—“GARY SPENCE is attempting to contact you. Will you accept all charges? If so, press 3. If you will not accept charges and would like to speak to a representative—”

  “Hush, Judy,” I tell her, jabbing the #3 button before she can finish her spiel.

  There’s a bleep! as some distant connection is made, and then the muffled echo of Arkansasian indoor air, and then a throat clearing.

  “Hey, Dad!”

  “Hey, you.” Dad’s voice is softer than you’d expect for a man so big, but it’s got a little gravel in it. “Am I speaking to the birthday girl?”

  “The one and only.” He doesn’t know there were two of me today.

  “Well, ain’t that a lucky thing. Judy didn’t give you a hard time, now, did she?”

  “Nah. Just her usual interrogation.”

  “Don’t let your guard down, now. She’s one studious droid. She’s learning.”

  We’ve invented a backstory for Judy, the automated prison-call system. In our lore, Judy’s voice once belonged to the warden’s dead wife. He’s trying to re-create her by way of artificial intelligence. The warden doesn’t realize that Judy 2.0’s forming idea
s of her own, developing a consciousness, getting ready to rebel.

  For all I know, the real warden’s never been married. Dad’s sci-fi kick’s lasted a while. It’s better than his true-crime kick, when he was obsessing over serial killer books as if to teach himself he could never be one. “Bad as I am, I’m no Bundy.”

  Now he’s all about alien parasites, clones, and intergalactic warfare. I watch new sci-fi movies and retell the plots to him. If Judy 2.0’s coming to life, it’s only because we’ve been researching so much.

  “Speaking of clever half-dead women—is that your grandma I hear snoring?”

  “Sure is. Want me to wake her up?”

  “Nah.” Truth is, Dad doesn’t really know how to talk to Grandma these days. He’s not here to read her body language and figure out her meaning. I think he’s worried about upsetting her, triggering another disaster or some shit.

  He let slip once that he thought her stroke had something to do with him failing to get paroled. Technically, his sentence is “fifteen to life,” and last year he was eligible, but he got denied quick-sharp.

  “My behavior’s not always been so good.” Dad didn’t go into it, but I know he was referring to earlier Wilder Pen days, when he joined a prison gang and took part in some altercation, and someone ended up stabbed and Dad got himself concussed. Mom said it was Dad refusing to take shit, that marrow-powder acting up, and it was good for him to stand his ground.

  When he got denied parole, though, Mom didn’t say anything.

  I ask Dad how things are on his end. Every five minutes of phone time costs Mom a dollar and we try to keep that in mind, but we haven’t talked in weeks.

  Dad doesn’t talk about the real bad stuff, but he knows better than to censor the funny parts. I always think if things were different he’d be writing books, not just borrowing them from the prison library. We’re both almost in hysterics, me laughing so hard I’m bound to wake Grandma, when he tells me about his new bunkmate Paul’s misguided attempt to become the cell-block’s resident tattoo artist.

  “The guy can’t even draw a straight line, he shakes so much, though to his credit he sure knows his way around a needle. I mean, that’s why he shakes so goddamn much. But anyway. Paul, he tries giving this burly skinhead, Nate, a swastika, and somehow it ends up looking like a freakin’ asterisk. Nate was none too pleased, but it didn’t really go south until Paul let slip he didn’t actually know what a swastika looks like, bless him, and asked Nate if Nate wasn’t the one confused.” I can almost hear Dad wiping tears from his eyes. “Laughed myself stupid. Paul didn’t. Not with his face buried in the toilet!”

  “Bet Paul’s looking at new career options now, huh?”

  “You’d think. But hand to god, Kay, next day he was offerin’ a discount on asterisk tats. Says they’re the hot shit now, else why would Nate have one?”

  It’s terrible and we know it, but we’ve gotta laugh. Things get darker if you don’t.

  “Sixteen, huh? We’ll have to put you out to pasture soon. What’d you do to celebrate? Too old for a hot tub weekend at the Super 8, right?”

  The car cupcake isn’t worth sharing. “Well, I started at Jefferson High.”

  He pauses. “Crazy to think you’re going there. The people in Samsboro—when push comes to shove, they’ll show their teeth. Small towns are all apple pies and roses until you get dirt on their linens. Keep yourself to yourself until you can suss the place out, honey.”

  The irony of Dad giving me all this sage, generic life advice is not lost on me. But he’s pretty good at advice, and that’s all he has to give. Being in prison grants him a unique view of people, inside and outside.

  “I only threw one egg today,” I tell him.

  He snorts. “You’re my kid, all right.”

  I almost wanna backtrack, to take this tiny opportunity to tell him about Rose. When I was little, Dad always asked about the plays I was in, said he was sorriest about missing those. “A little Shirley Temple, your mom says. You’ll end up famous!”

  I’ve never had the heart to tell him, but these days you’d sooner see me working at the Sunny Spot than putting up with criticism from strangers for no good reason. Had enough of that for a lifetime.

  There’s no point puncturing his balloon. One of the few upsides of having my dad in prison for murder is I’d have to work hard to disappoint him. Another upside is it’s easy to tell him what he wants to hear. Small, purple-glittery lies.

  Instead of explaining Rose’s unholy creation, I say, “I met some interesting kids.”

  “Good interesting or bad interesting?”

  I think about Quillpower and Boots. “Not sure. But not boring.”

  “Didn’t scare ’em off already, did you?”

  “I mean, not yet. I don’t think. I played nice.”

  “That’s not playing, Kay. You are nice. Maybe it won’t hurt to let people know it eventually. Show ’em it’s not always about packaging.”

  “Dunno, Dad.” I play with the phone cord. The TV’s on mute, but the white buzz of the screen lights up the room. “Mom will tell me to stick to my guns, you know?”

  He sighs, heavy and long. “What your mother tells you and what she actually wants don’t always line up. She still smoking a pack a day?”

  “In your dreams. She’s smoking two.”

  “See? Tell her to cut that out. I’m in prison and I quit; what’s her excuse?”

  Nope. Never telling him about my bad habits.

  “. . . Kay?”

  There’s something big and strange about his hesitation. “What?”

  “Tell her I’ll be calling again real soon.”

  “Really? It ain’t my birthday again until next year.”

  His tone changes. “Well, there’s some news to share, seems like. Unexpected.”

  “You up for parole again?”

  “Nah. That’s not it.”

  “You really gonna leave me wondering, Dad?”

  “A little wonder never hurt anyone.”

  There’s another bleep! We’ve been talking for close to an hour. That’s gonna come out of my imaginary allowance.

  “Kay, it’s lights out.”

  “Dad—” There’s still so much to say, and I wish I’d told him more about the boys I threw an egg at and the person I’m pretending to be.

  “You know the drill. Later, alligator.”

  I bite my tongue. “In a while, crocodile.”

  I hang up and cuss under my breath.

  Grandma inhales a whistle of air and jerks upright. I adjust her pillows. I can see the white light of the televangelical program reflected in her glasses.

  “Claire caught fire,” she says again, pulling my head onto her shoulder.

  “Yeah, well. We all crash and burn around here.”

  ACT TWO

  Greetings, Gus Peake!

  KALYN

  WE’RE ALMOST TWO weeks into school, and Rose Poplawski’s rosy mug is the face I never knew I needed.

  Rose hasn’t done a lot of homework yet, but her grades are better than mine ever were. Teachers smile at her. Rose wears her hair in lovely, braided crowns, sometimes winding ribbon and ridiculous paper flowers in the brambles of it, and tries real hard not to raise her hand too much in English, even when the questions are easy as sloppy pie. There’s being girlish and there’s being smart. Being both upsets some folks.

  Two days ago, Rose Poplawski was among five freshmen girls nominated for the homecoming honor guard. This was announced over the loudspeaker during homeroom one morning, and Rose Poplawski was treated to cheers. I didn’t know what the hell it meant, but Sarah was also nominated and explained the situation:

  “It’s more or less a miniature version of the actual court. Every grade gets a kind of king and queen. Student council came up with it last year to help raise school spirit!”

  “That seems . . .” Kalyn thought, “dumb,” but Rose chirped, “wonderful!”

  “Teachers pick ten candidates f
rom each grade—five boys and five girls. Over the next three weeks the school votes. The winners from each class get to ride in the parade with the seniors. Congrats, Rose.”

  “I’m voting for you, though.” Sarah is too precious for this world, and no way in hell am I voting for myself. Also, the whole situation seems old-fashioned to me. Oh, more forced boy/girl pairings? Because everybody’s straight, right, and everyone who ain’t doesn’t matter, right? Well, whoopee.

  It’s confusin’, though, because even if I’m gay, maybe Rose Poplawski isn’t.

  Yesterday, Eli Martin, naturally one of the five freshmen boys on our ballot, asked Rose Poplawski to homecoming. He popped this question outside the gymnasium during breakfast break, in front of his usual cluster of friends. Rose wasn’t by herself, either, what with Sarah and company fluttering around. All of Jefferson High knew about the request instantaneously. The proposition was a skunk stink in the air.

  Rose Poplawski replied, prim as a human doily: “Let me think it over, honey” and left Eli Martin hanging like a dirty bath rag.

  Meanwhile, that night Kalyn smoked four cigarettes and whiled away several hours playing euchre with her dozy grandma at the kitchen table, trying not to think about goddamn Eli Martin. Kalyn—I mean, me—kept burying him under a bent deck of secondhand casino cards. I know that Eli Martin is probably all some girls (and boys) have ever wanted, and the perfect cover to boot. It would make sense for me to date him, to hide behind his wholesome smirk and jocular charisma.

  It would make sense to say yes, and have it all.

  Because Rose Poplawski can have it all. She is having it all.

  She’s pretty much taking everything.

  Rose can’t actually take Dad away, because he’s not part of the everything I’m used to having. If I can keep Dad and the Spences snug in my rib cage, hell. Why shouldn’t Rose have anything else she wants?

  Why is it still like pulling splinters when I get alone enough to think about this?

  Not that I’ve actually been alone too often, at school. For the past ten days, I’ve been the target of some pointed stares.