Munmun

by Jesse Andrews

  But I realized, this time it’s different. Because Chess can help.

  Chess can collect the munmuns before the dreams. We can go into business together. Chess rounds up some munmuns from all his friends, just a small amount to them, but to me, to Prayer, to Usher, changeyourlife munmun.

  A subscription service to beautifull relaxing dreams. Or maybe just daily ticket purchases. Chess gets the munmuns before the dream and gives out a password, tells them where the dreamdoor will be.

  You would see on the news sometimes wild stories about the leaders of other countries, undemocratic countries not at all like the Yewess, dictators and kings and armybosses running the whole thing and guys like that get all kinds of perks. The best palaces, helicopters, chefs, bangpartners, and some of them get their own dreamers too.

  So it’s like the perk of a dictator, except lawstudents get to have it. The nice frummy gay ones, students I know didn’t abuse my sis.

  But the more I thought about it, I could dream for not just friends of Chess, it could be a whole business, pay munmuns each day for the night’s password, enter the dreamdoor and enjoy a heavenly dream that refreshes you, heals you, waters your heart and makes it pink. Who wouldn’t pay five munmuns for a lifechanging dream.

  For the first time in whoknows howlong I had hope.

  In the evening I was in the garbage when the girl Grace came back, not to empty it, instead to whisper, “Hey. Are you back.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “If you’re back, I have water,” she said.

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll just leave it next to the garbage,” she said, and I heard her put it down and walk back inside.

  It was clean, sterile for sure, but sweet too, a little basil, a little lime.

  DREAMWORLD

  Before I found Chess I found the gray firework again and again it was just Prayer waiting for me, not Usher.

  “Bro,” said Prayer. “I’m getting married.”

  “Wait, what,” I said.

  “I’m getting married, this weekend,” said Prayer, smiling, more relieved than overjoyed.

  “Ohmygod,” I said. “Sis, amazing. Who are you marrying.”

  “Paddy,” said Prayer.

  At first it made me happy she was already recovered enough to make this hilarious joke.

  Then it turned out, not a hilarious joke, actually the less hilarious truth.

  “Paddy and I have been talking and talking and I’ve completely opened up to him and told him everything, how I’m not a tramp, but the truth is I am here to meet some men and find a husband, because bottomline I need to improve my situation and I’m going to stop at nothing so if he needs to kick me out, okay, I understand, I’ll leave in the cleaningcar probably with you and Usher and we’ll all find some other neighborhood to live, but I have to scale up somehow and now’s my best chance while I’m young and cute, I know it’s sad but that’s just the truth, so kick us out if you need to.”

  And he listened and said finally, well, hang on, let’s not be hasty, and look, I get it, so let me just think about it, but in the meantime, you can stay here tonight.

  And then the next day he said, I’ve made my decision, and you can stay, but only if you marry me, so, how about it.

  He was old, he had no kids, he liked how Prayer politely listened to everything he said and found nice ways to agree with him. He had spent a whole lifetime building up scale and now he was going to use it to get a young cute wife, because what else was he going to do with it.

  “I know you’re thinking, he’s old, he’s gross, it’s a big sacrifice, but I do actually like talking to him and more important, I know he’ll take care of me,” Prayer said.

  The first thing I made my mouth say was, “How much will you and Mom scale up atleast.” In my head it seemed like the math was, Paddy’s close to middlescale, so he has almost a million munmuns, spread those among three people, everyone ends up around twothirdscale, Prayer and Mom scale up by maybe six or seven.

  But Prayer’s eyes and mouth went a little funny and she said, “Warner, it’s just me scaling up for now.”

  My mouth didn’t say anything to that.

  “Look,” she said. “I know. Bro, I know. But if Paddy splits his munmun among three, he’s too small to even run his store. So that’s just not an option. It’s hard enough scaling down just for me. He’ll need blocks and ladders everywhere. If he loses anymore than that, the merch and food and shipments are all too big and heavy. Brotherbrat, he’s sicktysix. We’ll both work hard, both earn munmuns at the Quickstand, and yearbyyear we can scale Mom up, but not now, not rightaway.”

  “So you’re going to live with tiny Mom just wheeling around your house like a pet,” I said.

  Her face went funny again and she said, “Well atfirst she won’t be living with us.”

  I felt big caves yawn open in my heart and I had to leave.

  “I tried, Warner,” she yelled as I left. “I tried. Paddy just isn’t ready yet. I’ll keep trying. He’ll change his mind. Warner, don’t be mad.”

  I found Usher in a trashpit, raising tiny fireworks from a tiny cityblock in a puddle of garbagejuice.

  “Usher,” I said, “we never should have brought you and I feel sick about it.”

  “This hurts,” he admitted.

  I sat there and he bathed his hands in the glitterblooms.

  “But look,” I said. “I have a plan.”

  “Is it revenge,” he said.

  It wasn’t revenge. My heart hurt but I turned it into dreams.

  If you wanted to show someone you could change their life with your dreams, you could dream that water is a clay, blocks of water sitting in the street, swimthrough wallless waterhouses, bridged with watertunnels, lit with fish.

  You could dream bricks are liquid, also liquid are metals stones woods clay and everything, Sand Dreamough collapses into an oceantop, buildings cars fences billboards are wobbling jellies beneath the ripples.

  Dream the palmtrees twirling, uncorking the ground and foamy oilchampagne fountains out. Dream the middleroads shriveling, shrinking, the houses creep closer and kiss.

  The stadium is a pokebowl,

  the reservewar holds cowsoy and joggers circle it stirring with oars,

  the bank is a hive of angels leaving every door, big, middle, tiny, golden whirring helicopters and hummingbats,

  the Metro is a winking eel,

  windmills catch the air and paddle into space,

  cleaningcars float and pop like bubbles,

  clouds halfdress a sky of faraway screens and fabrics, rippling paisleys and murmuring news.

  It was twenty dreams in one, way too many really, but it did its job. Finally I spotted Chess floating through the whole thing, blissfull, a littlebit crying.

  “Hey, what do you think,” I said. “Too much, or what.”

  “Warner, ohmygod,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “Just, I mean, to think that you’re dreaming this for all of us, despite how we’ve treated you and your sister,” he said, and couldn’t continue.

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “I guess, yeah.”

  He recovered and said, “I literally can’t imagine a more beautifull parting gift. So thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  Then I said, “Wait what.”

  “I’ll never forget you,” he told me.

  “What do you mean, forget me,” I said.

  We looked at each other a little fuzzy.

  “I mean,” said Chess. “The police are looking for you. So, you must be leaving for somewhere else, right? I mean, you’re not planning to stay.”

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you about that,” I said.

  And I told him my whole plan.

  The whole time he was shaking his head.

  It made me tell the plan worse and I knew if he just started listening, if he just for a moment took it seriously, I
could tell it better, but he was shaking his head with closedoff eyes and I didn’t even get through the whole plan to be honest.

  “Warner, you know I can’t do that,” he started, and I said, “Nono, forget it, it’s fine,” and left the dreamstuff to dry up on its own, slowly wither and leave behind its skeleton, the way big dreams do after their dreamers have left them behind.

  I found Usher still fireworking over the tinyblock.

  “My plan didn’t work,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I have another plan, though,” I told him.

  “Is it revenge,” he asked.

  “This time yup,” I said.

  So for the last few hours of night Usher and me made law school a hellscape, mostly with demons, also with big oily peens bashing through doors and windows, squeezing struggling straining to get in and batter you. But more than peens just a crapload of demons, invisible screaming ghosts, shadows, nothings, holes in the world skittering round the room like spiders, flickerings of time and air where the space in front of you hiccups, a window shudders, and you can’t see it but you know you are staring at a demon, and it all goes dark and cold.

  Some lawstudents were terrorized into waking up and disappearing. Others got so upset, they started dreaming worse revenge on themselves, like their friends and parents showing up and wailing, being on fire, banging each other, getting banged by animals, all kinds of crazy crap.

  I looked for Ken, couldn’t find him, found Glen though in a stairway, dropped him in a hole, locked him in a peenforest erupting from all sides, writhing, flexing, vomming pearly gallons.

  He wasn’t happy but he wasn’t too upset either. Because his dreaming was weak and murky. So he didn’t really get the point of what was happening, nomatter how hard I tried to educate.

  “You did this to my sister, now it’s happening to you, jerk,” I told him. “Complain all you want, it’s the exact definition of justice. You’re bad to someone, someone’s bad to you. Not so great now, right.”

  But he just kept squinting squinching scrunching his face and murmuring, “Ugh, what day is it,” and, “When’s the test.”

  “Peens are attacking you,” I said. “Peens the size of your whole body.”

  “Ugh, is the test today,” he said.

  “I guess we have to do this every single night for a while,” I said.

  “Warner,” yelled Chess, finding me. “Stop, please.”

  “Hi, Chess,” I said. “Please, feel free to watch as peens hose a jerk in scum.”

  But sad Chess watched me, not the peens.

  And I was exhausted and the night was dying, the morning was calling, most dreamers were awake, so I let myself relax the hellscape, the screams turning into birdcalls, demons vaporating into wind.

  Only the peenpit remained after a while.

  “I think I’m think I’m think I’m supposed to think I’m supposed to be at my interview,” said Glen, blindly reaching out for anything that wasn’t a peen, but toobad, all peens in there.

  “Chess, can you please find Usher, please give a home to him atleast,” I started asking Chess, said it a few times to his fading face, couldn’t hear me probably though, wouldn’t remember.

  I woke up in no pain and with barely any thoughts, no hurt and no hope either.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  The girl Grace warned me that morning before she dumped the garbage.

  “Hello if you’re in there,” I heard her say. “Please come out, I need to dump the garbage.”

  So I wriggled out through the loose slats in the bottom.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s how you get in there.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She dumped the garbage, glanced back at the foodstand, flicked her eyes over to the alley, and I followed her over there.

  “Hey,” she told me. “I’m really sorry, but you probably can’t keep staying in our garbage.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “What’s your name,” she said.

  “Warner,” I said.

  She froze a little.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What,” I said.

  “You’re the littlepoor they’re talking about on localnews,” she said. “Who stole the gun.”

  “Oh right,” I said. “Hey. I don’t have the gun anymore. I mean that’s not something I do very much.”

  She started backing away, back toward the restaurant.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m powerless. I’m sleeping in garbage with busted ribs. Littlepoors can’t hurt someone as big as you. We can only hurt each other. Please.”

  But she was still backing away, lots of wobbly fear behind the fakegreen lenses.

  So I said, “Well, okay, look. Thank you. Thanks for everything. Call the cops if you want, if there’s a reward, or just if you don’t want to get in trouble. It’s okay. I’ll wait here.”

  But she just shook her head and went inside.

  I mean look. Where was I going to go, what was I going to do. I could try to escape to a different neighborhood, hop into a bus wheelwell maybe, hope the cops aren’t looking for me outside Sand Dreamough, start all over in a strange new place and come up with new plans, alone.

  But the alone part was the impossible part. The alone part just made me feel too empty and terrible to try anything.

  “Come up with a plan,” I told my brain, and my tiredout from dreaming brain said, “Please, no, I’m exhausted.”

  So I cleaned myself up at a fountain and after that walked up to a cop on the street and said, “Hey, I’m Warner, I think you’re looking to arrest me.”

  They don’t have handcuffs for littlepoors, instead they put you in the car all belted up tight inside a box they call the littleseat, but it’s not a seat, just a box full of belts where you flop and crash anytime the copcar takes a turn.

  Most of the other littleseats were empty. I glimpsed one other kid on the way in and his eyes were crazy, also his nose was full of bloodwads.

  “You think you’re looking at me, or what,” he yelled at me on my way in.

  Scumbag littlepoors, they yell at you furiously, but if you yell back the same way, sometimes it turns you into bestfriends.

  “If I’m you, I mind my dang business,” I barked at him, and it turned us into bestfriends for the tenminutes until we got separated.

  “So what did they get you for, dave,” he said once I was strapped in and the cops were way up front.

  You’re about to hear a lot of guys call each other dave in this story because squadwise, Lossy Indica is nonstop dave territory. Obviously you got a few groups of dans from up north, maniac crews of todds creeping in from the desert, but in Lossy Indica proper you can prettymuch call any rando a dave and he won’t bust your teeth.

  “I stole a gun and shot it a couple times,” I said.

  “Oh fantastic,” he said. “You’re the little redrat who tried to shoot a faceboy. All the faceboys have been looking for you, dave.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Beautifull, beautifull, and mightIadd delicious,” he said. “Dave, those faceboys are going to eat you.”

  “For sure,” I said.

  “Would I trade lives with you, answer, definitely not,” he said. “Dave, you know how many faceboys they got on the inside? Picture this: your little redrat self getting butchered, fried, and chomped up in one bite like a sumpchewus meatroll, oh dang, what a sight.”

  “What did they get you for,” I said.

  “Cops think they caught me selling dust,” said little bloodynose.

  “But what were you actually doing,” I said.

  “Selling dust for sure, but they don’t have a case,” he said.

  “We do now,” said a cop over the pee ay.

  “OH DANG,” yelled bloodynose.

  Bloodynose was sickteen so we got separated at the station, him thrown in with the grownups, me with kids and babies.

  Kids and babies was probably worse tobehone
st. I looked into Grownholding as we passed and everyone was sitting around all chill, a few psycho mutterers but no one about to bust anyone’s teeth.

  Kidholding was different, jumpytense, you could feel in the air, no one knew what the rules were, no one was making plans, it was all just living minutetominute like snakes in a tank.

  Plus this Kidholding had a bunch of different scales all mixed together, my scale all the way up to quarterscale, so, kids who outscaled littlepoors by twoandahalf.

  So I got thrown into a tank with some middles and littles, and one of the middlest was tenyearsold and you could see in his eyes, a littlepoor teen is candy to him, older and smaller, perfect for humiliating, showing who’s boss.

  He grabbed me by the neck immediately.

  “What did you just say to me,” he yelled so everyone can hear.

  “Kid, what do you think,” I said.

  Anytime you have a scumbag tenyearold twice as big as a fourteenyearold, you get a pretty ugly fight, and I got my face pulped a little on the walls before I squeezed away from this kid, headbutted his soft stomach, bashed the wind out, straddled the neck and elbowgouged his eye for a little while, I know it sounds terrible but some tenyearolds will kill you if you let them.

  Four hours went by, more fights, kids bragging about terrible things, everyone trying to win the prize of Most Scummy Behavior, a pretty dark time was beginning in the life of Warner.

  The city gave me a lawyer, an exhausted middlescale bumping his head on the ceiling of Kidvisiting, rightaway he told me I’m guilty.

  “You have no case and we’re pleading guilty, for sure,” he said.

  “Maybe it makes a difference if we say a pimp beat me up and told me he was kidnapping my sis,” I suggested.

  “Zero difference, don’t bring it up,” he said, shuffling papers.

  “What if I say I went to a cop first and he wouldn’t help,” I said.

  “Oooh boy,” he said. “Ruleofthumb, littlebro, anytime you feel like saying something bad about cops, don’t, because it will make your life a bunch of times worse.”