Everybody wants snow at Christmas, thought Ryan. But nobody wants it at Halloween. If it does snow, somebody on TV is going to blame it on climate change. Are Bizzy and I going out trick-or-treating? Is she going to wear glamor-face and pretend that it’s a mask? Or ugly-face?
And what face am I going to wear? Ryan wondered. The one Defenseur says I have—the I’m-so-in-love-with-Bizzy-I-can-hardly-walk-face?
Does Defense think I’m trick-or-treating with him? Is he going to think I’m still punishing him if I don’t? Or will he know that when you have a girlfriend, you have to trick-or-treat with her? Or is fifteen too old to trick-or-treat?
Too old. That’s my excuse. No trick-or-treating, because I have to do the thing that we’re asking everybody else to do. I have to see if I can go into super-protector mode for somebody I don’t know or like. Which means I can’t be with either Defenseur or Bojana, because I know them both too well and care too much about them, even if Defenseur is a git.
19
In the end, it was Defense after all. Bizzy didn’t want to go trick-or-treating, Defense did, and it seemed like the best way to reaffirm his friendship with Defense under circumstances where Defense could show whether or not he was trustworthy. Halloween was always when Defense thought of his most creative—and therefore offensive—pranks. It would be the ultimate test of his pledges.
Defense swore he had no pranks planned. But since he always swore that, this was nothing unusual. What changed it was Ryan saying, “Is that the same swearing you did when you promised never to try to manipulate me again?”
Defense paused for a moment and then said, “No. That was, like, serious. But this is, you know, Halloween.”
“So go right ahead, have your Halloween, prank away, but I won’t be there.”
Defense looked utterly crestfallen.
“Your pranks are going to make somebody come after you, Defense, and then I would have to come to your rescue, and I told you, I’m not going to be there again when you provoke somebody.”
“I don’t mean to provoke—”
“Yes you do,” said Ryan. “I have enjoyed being your friend, Defense, and I really don’t want to stop, but I’m not going to be with you when you goad somebody else into mayhem.”
Defense stood there thinking. He looked especially stupid, considering that he was wearing a full-on Daffy Duck costume.
“Where did you even get that?” asked Ryan.
“There’s a costume rental place in Manhattan.”
“Let’s see, two hours to DC, but you go all the way to Manhattan?”
“Mail order,” said Defense. “I mean, you know, online and then mail.”
“Craigslist?” asked Ryan.
“No, I Googled ‘Goofy costume’ and I got sent to a bunch of sites with cartoon characters and superheroes and I didn’t like their Goofy after all, plus it was Disney so I was afraid I couldn’t post any selfies because, you know, copyright, so I went for Daffy Duck.”
“Because you have the fantasy that Warner Brothers doesn’t care about copyright?”
“Because my skinny legs were going to look a lot better in a Daffy Duck costume,” said Defense.
“So what am I supposed to be, Elmer Fudd? Because you know we don’t own a shotgun. Or a gun of any kind.”
“Your dad’s in construction and he’s not into guns?”
“You’re only now noticing that my family is strange?” asked Ryan.
So that’s how, after a quick call to Bizzy to make sure she didn’t want to come with them, Ryan ended up trick-or-treating with Defense. Ryan quickly realized that his makeshift account-executive costume, assembled by finding one of his dad’s oldest and skinniest suits in the storage space just inside the attic, where there was actually a bit of floor, and then knotting a tie—this costume did not look like enough of an effort to most people who came to the doors. If Defense hadn’t been with him in a full-out cartoon costume, Ryan had no doubt that most people would have turned him away with some comment like “Trick-or-treating at your age is just begging.”
In fact, once that thought played out in his mind, Ryan began using it as his door mantra. While Defense was struggling to get anybody to understand a word of his very bad Daffy Duck voice, Ryan would simply say, “I’m way too old for trick-or-treating, so I’m just flat-out begging.” That got him chuckles and handfuls of candy. One old lady even said, “For a growing boy with oversized chutzpah.”
It took Ryan and Defense a couple of minutes to remember the difference between “putz” and “chutzpah.”
“Either way,” said Defense, “it was kind of a compliment.”
“This is the last year,” said Ryan. “Next year, go by yourself.”
“Or I’ll go with somebody who cares enough to have a costume.”
“I have a costume,” said Ryan. “It’s not store-bought, but it’s sincere. I never dress this way. It’s a costume.”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” said Defense. “You already knew how to tie a double Windsor, so it’s not really a costume at all.”
“Well I’m not going to tie a single Windsor, because you have to manually untie them instead of just pulling out the skinny end.”
“What I’m saying, Ryan,” said Defense, “is that you’ve stopped being fun.”
Ryan nodded. “Because I don’t want to have to kill the people you target with pranks and goading?”
“Because you fell in love,” said Defense.
“You’re going to blame everything on Bizzy?”
“Yeah,” said Defense. “It’s not gallant of me, but it’s true. She made you get all serious and responsible.”
“I was already serious and responsible. My dad told me I had to be serious and responsible in order to get a job with his company so I could earn enough to buy a car and the insurance and gas and maintenance.”
Defense shook his head. “So to get a cool car so we can ride around and have fun, you have to turn yourself into the kind of responsible adultish person who it isn’t worth riding around with because you’re no fun.”
“Not Bizzy’s fault,” said Ryan. “My father’s.”
“Whatever you say, boss. Do I get your Kit Kat bars?”
“Do I get your Twix?” asked Ryan.
“My Twix are not making it home alive,” said Defense. “If I have any left in my pillowcase, sure, I’ll give you a few of them.”
“So I’ll see if I have any Kit Kat bars at the end of the night.”
“Do I have to beat you up every Halloween, Ryan, or will you just wise up and fork over?”
“You have never, not even in your dreams, beaten me up.”
“Okay, beat you down, which is more accurate.”
“What was your big prank going to be this year?”
“No prank,” said Defense. “I made my best friend a promise, didn’t I?”
“Which means you not only did have a prank, but it’s a doozy, and you’re still going to do it, and it’s against me.”
“I gave you my solemn oath.”
“But you’ve already done it, so you can keep the oath because you won’t do a new prank, you’ll just wait for me to discover the pre-oath prank.”
“You’ll never discover it,” said Defense.
“I always do.”
“Because I’ve always wanted you to. But not this time.”
“Tell what it is,” said Ryan.
“There’s no prank at all. You’re way too suspicious, Ryan.”
“Tell,” said Ryan, “or we’re not friends.”
“You’re going to play that not-your-friend card once too often,” said Defense.
At that point, they were walking along a commercial street with a couple of establishments that sold alcohol. They were restaurants, but they had bars inside, and not everybody came out fe
eling completely ambulatory.
Defense startled Ryan by grabbing his arm and setting off in pursuit of a guy who was reeling and careening along the sidewalk, alternately bumping into parked cars and building walls.
“Why are we following this guy?” asked Ryan. “We do not mug drunk guys.”
“Only high school football heroes,” said Defense.
The drunk guy stopped at a car parked at the curb. He carefully made his way to the driver’s side.
Defense pulled out his phone. “I’m watching an obviously drunk guy get into his car.” He named the street and described both the car and the guy. He recited the license number. Then he exploded. “Twenty minutes? Do you think he’s still going to be sitting at the curb? He’ll already be out there trying to kill himself and everybody else on the road!”
Ryan was looking around. “Couple of cops over here,” he said.
Defense looked where Ryan was pointing, then hung up on the 911 operator. Defense bounded over, doing his best Daffy Duck walk, and started telling his spiel to the policemen.
Ryan came up, trying to increase the urgency. “He’s falling-down drunk and he’s going to drive away. You’ve got to stop him now.”
One of the cops shook his head. He held out his badge and ID. They looked like dime-store props. “Halloween,” said the cop. “Costume.”
They were pretty good police costumes. For a moment, Ryan wondered if they were just trying to avoid working by pretending they were wearing costumes.
Then a police car pulled up, partly blocking the drunk guy’s car from pulling out. Apparently the 911 operator’s estimate had been on the high side.
The cop car whooped the siren and blinked the lights for about two seconds, to get the drunk’s attention.
The pedestrian cop pointed. “Those are cops,” he said.
Ryan looked carefully at the uniforms of the cops getting out of the car and realized that on several key points, the guys there on the sidewalk were wearing uniforms that didn’t pass muster. They were just cops for Halloween. “Plus,” said the cop who hadn’t said anything yet. “Puh-luss, we are more drunken than that poor stupefied dude.”
Ryan sniffed at their breath and laughed. “Yeah, you probably are.”
“But we will not drive,” said the fake cop.
“Good thing,” said Defense.
“We won’t drive either,” said Ryan. “Neither of us is sixteen yet.”
“We’re also not drunk,” said Defense.
“You are good citizens,” said the talkier cop.
“Trying to warn us,” said the other cop.
“Good night now,” said the first cop, and then they were in motion again, staggering down the street.
“Ain’t friendship a grand thing to see?” asked Defense.
“The friendship of drunks who need somebody to lean on must be one of the great blessings of alcoholic life,” said Ryan.
“It’s getting dark, and we don’t have half enough candy.”
“You don’t believe in the concept of ‘enough candy,’” said Ryan.
“Yes I do,” said Defense. “And besides, you’re begging for three now.”
“Three!”
“Isn’t she pregnant?” asked Defenseur.
“Not by me, anyway,” said Ryan, getting angry.
“Stand down, sailor,” said Defenseur. “I’m not insinuating anything. Just making a bad guess, okay?”
“Those were pretty good cop costumes,” said Ryan.
“I saw costumes just like that in the shop in DC where I got my—”
“Ah, DC. Not Manhattan.”
“Yeah, well, I thought Manhattan sounded cooler. The prices weren’t even bad. But I couldn’t bring you to see it, because then you’d guess the game.”
“What’s the game?” asked Ryan.
“To see how many ridiculous stories you’d believe.”
Ryan thought back to all the stories he’d been told so far today. “You’ve been running everything all day.”
“I have not,” said Defense. “It has been fate alone that chose your path through Charlottesville.”
They quit, as they always had before, in the Burke kitchen, where Dianne tossed in her night’s catch and the three of them divvied up the spoils. Only Ryan didn’t really want any of the candy. He just wanted to finish up and get over to see Bizzy.
“Ryan’s getting impatient,” said Dianne. “He wants to finish up so he can see Bizzy.”
In the old days, Ryan would have flown into a rage and shouted Dianne out of the kitchen.
Instead he just laughed and said, “Smart girl.”
“Do you get what Bizzy sees in him?” asked Defense.
“A bodyguard,” said Dianne.
“Because he’s so big and strong,” said Defense.
“Because he’s a puppy dog,” said Dianne.
Ryan didn’t mind the teasing, because it wasn’t in front of anyone else.
“Maybe the loveks will show themselves tonight,” said Ryan.
“What’s a lovek?” asked Defense.
“Bogeymen,” said Ryan.
“Slovenian hit men?” asked Defense.
“Olympic-level flatulentes,” said Ryan.
“What’s that?”
“Farters,” said Ryan. “At an international competition level.”
“So all the time I’ve know you,” said Defense, “you’ve been practicing for an Olympic team and you didn’t even tell me.”
Ryan smiled. “If you couldn’t interpret the evidence . . .”
Dianne pushed herself between Ryan and Defense, looking Ryan in the face. “So what was the prank this year?”
“None so far,” said Ryan. “That I’ve detected, at any rate.”
“So the prank wasn’t to get you out trick-or-treating with Daffy Duck?” asked Dianne.
“That’s not a prank,” said Defense. “That’s a blessing. I blessed him with that.”
“True,” Ryan agreed. “We only came back with candy because of Defense Duck.”
Dianne turned to Defenseur. “Was that the prank? To get Ryan to say ‘Defense Duck’?”
“He called me that the instant he saw the costume,” said Defense.
“Or was it to pry Ryan away from Bizzy long enough for her to have a tête-à-tête with her real boyfriend from Slovenia?” asked Dianne.
Ryan laid a firm hand on the nape of Dianne’s neck. “I bet you were hoping that the link between your head and your shoulders would remain in place.”
“That was your prank,” said Defense to Dianne. “I’m not dumb enough to try to make him doubt Bizzy’s adoration of his adorable self.”
Ryan steeled himself not to strangle Dianne or punch Defense. It would only be his normal weak moves, because he knew nobody was being threatened, so no micropower.
“I was just kidding,” Dianne told Ryan.
Ryan shrugged, because he didn’t trust himself to speak without betraying emotion.
Dianne turned back to Defense. “I know your prank couldn’t be destructive, like that time you cut out the crotch of all Ryan’s underwear.”
“Worth it,” said Defense.
“You had to buy all new underwear for him,” said Dianne.
“Twice,” said Ryan.
Dianne looked at him quizzically.
“Defense’s mother agreed with our mother that a dozen pairs of pink panties would not make up for the destroyed tighty-whities,” said Ryan.
Dianne laughed. “Expensive, Defense.”
“To quote myself, ‘worth it.’”
“You still have those panties, don’t you,” Ryan said to Defense.
“I put them in Dianne’s drawer.”
“You did not,” said Dianne. “I never got a deposit of unf
amiliar pinkies.”
“Made you think, though, didn’t I,” said Defense.
“Defense thinks that when I get a little older, I’m going to go out with him,” said Dianne.
“Duh,” said Defense. “Who else?”
“Anyone,” said Dianne. “Everyone.”
“She’s playing hard to get, but she’s secretly intrigued, wondering just how creative and adventurous being my girlfriend would turn out to be.”
“You’ve jumped from fantasy dating to girlfriend?” asked Dianne.
“She thinks,” said Defense, “that she’s going to be able to date the boy next door, Bizzy’s godlike brother.”
“She does not,” said Dianne. “She has no idea of dating anybody, least of all somebody she’s seen picking his nose.”
“I didn’t pick this nose,” said Defense.
“She means Bizzy’s brother. He’s a frequent nose picker,” said Ryan. “And when he isn’t picking his nose, he needs to, because there’s always a booger just inside one nostril, ranging from a dangling goop like a nasal uvula to a full load of green mucous that forms bubbles whenever he breathes out through the other nostril.”
“Disgusting and untrue,” said Dianne. “He is always fastidiously clean.”
“Because he lives with his face in the mirror,” said Defense.
“Because he can face the mirror without a mask,” said Dianne.
Defense lifted off the Daffy Duck head. “No boogers. You can check.”
“Why would I do that?” asked Dianne. “If I don’t find boogers, then I lose. And if I do find boogers, I really lose.”
“I’ve already lost,” said Ryan, “because I’m with two people who like to talk about boogers.”
“He used to wipe them on the wall by his bed,” Dianne confided. “Then Dad moved the bed out from the wall and saw, like, four years of accumulated dried-on boogers. He made Ryan sand down the wall so it could be repainted.”
Ryan had to do something, go somewhere, to keep himself from going insane with anger that Dianne would tell that to anyone.
“You went too far, Dianne,” Defense said.
“But I know you’ll protect me,” said Dianne.
Duplex Page 24
