Compromised

by Heidi Ayarbe

  I take a deep breath, snatch the lighter, and ignite a handful of newspaper. I run at Rattler, putting the burning newspaper underneath his shirt. He stands abruptly and shrieks, fanning the flames. “Stupid bitch. Stupid, stupid bitch!”

  Nicole knees Mamba in the groin and scurries away. He rolls around groaning.

  The fire burns Rattler’s shirt and spreads all over his back. The flames dance and work their way up toward his head. Everything smells like burning flesh. I gag.

  He panics and starts to run, his screams deafening.

  “Stop, drop, and roll, asshole. Stop, drop, and roll!” Cobra hollers, running after him. “Son of a bitch! Stop! Drop! Roll!” Cobra grabs Rattler and the two roll on the ground together, dowsing the flames.

  “Get off me, you flame dick.” Rattler tries to push Cobra off. “Jesus, are you trying to hump me or something, you sick queer?”

  “Fuck, man, I’m just trying to put out the fire.” Cobra looks hurt. He and Rattler are tangled together a few yards from us. Everything has a burned smell.

  Mamba keeps saying, “My balls. My balls.”

  Klondike won’t move past the fire—some papers and trash have begun to burn. “Not fire. I can’t do, tallywhacker, asswipe. Not fire.”

  Nicole finally drags him away, somehow carrying him in her thin arms. “Grab that.” Nicole points to a wallet that has fallen on the street. I grab for it, then just kick it into a puddle, leaving it behind.

  “We’ll find you, you Goddamn whores!” One of them calls after us. I look back to see the three of them standing together—Rattler in the middle, holding out a now-melted synthetic-fiber jacket. “You’ll pay for this!” they scream.

  We run up Main Street, slipping into a casino called Cactus Pete’s.

  “Find the bathroom,” Nicole barks. I lose my sense of direction with the casino’s mirrors and dizzying lights. Klondike moans and whimpers. “Hurry!” Nicole says.

  She and Klondike follow me past the hotel reception and we slip into the women’s bathroom. We cramp into the handicapped stall. Nicole blocks the door.

  “Tallywhacker,” Klondike croaks and hugs himself—his body an eruption of spasms. “I hate fire. I just can’t, asswipe, tallywhacker. GODDAMMIT.” Klondike taps his face and blows on his fingers.

  “Shut up, Klondike,” I snap. “Just shut up for a second. I can’t think.”

  With that, Klondike’s tics worsen. I lean my head against the bathroom door and swallow back the knot that blocks my throat. “I’m sorry, Klondike. I didn’t mean—it’s—never mind.”

  “Are you”—I turn to Nicole—“are you okay?”

  Her lip trembles. “Yeah. I’m okay.” She rubs her arms. “No big deal.”

  “I’m, crap, Nic—”

  “Capone,” she says.

  “Capone.” I try to steady my breathing. What am I supposed to say?

  “I said I’m fine. Okay? Just drop it,” Nicole squats on the floor and rests her head on her knees. “Where’s the wallet, Jeops?” Nicole finally says.

  “I, um. I didn’t take it.”

  “What? It could’ve had cash. We could’ve used it.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “I burned him, okay? He might be”—I lower my voice—“he might be scarred. Forever and ever. It’s not like I needed to steal his wallet on top of everything.”

  Nicole clenches her jaw and says, “It’s good you’re considerate about a rapist’s things. God knows we wouldn’t want him to have a couple of visible scars so he can’t hide the monster inside so easily.” Nicole slumps to the floor.

  “I didn’t—” I stop talking. “Capone, it’s not that. It’s just…”

  She turns to me. “It’s just what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to do things the right way here.”

  “What’s the right way?” Nicole asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Christ.” Nicole chews on a hangnail until it bleeds, her hands chapped from the cold. “Nice time to get all high-road on us. He was a Goddamn prick.”

  “I’m hungry,” Klondike mutters between croaks.

  Suddenly I feel like we’re just stuck in a box with no way out. My fingers still smell burned. I push open the door and rush to the sink—heaving colon cleaner jerky. It burns twice as bad coming back up and my stomach spasms. I rinse out my mouth, then slump in the corner. The bathroom door sways open and three ladies with mile-high bangs and camel-toe jeans come in blathering on about some cute cowboy. Two pass an aerosol can of spray back and forth, and we’re stuck in a sickening fog. The third comes out of the stall and they leave the bathroom, clomping away in wedged heels.

  They don’t even see us.

  “She is so yellow-listed,” Nicole says.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “She didn’t wash her hands—totally antihygienic. I mean, gross.” Nicole turns to me. “You know what kinds of germs there are on hands?” she says. “I mean you probably know.”

  Viruses, bacteria, parasites—the correlation between disease prevention and hand washing is irrefutable. I start to go through the numbers in my head, trying to remember what last I had read about it. Nicole looks at me and smiles.

  Things are okay.

  Then she turns to Klon. “Klon, you’ve got to keep a lid on it when we’re around psychos who want to kill us.”

  “I can’t.” Klondike shivers, coughs, blows on his fingers, and taps Nicole’s shoulder. “I can’t help it.” He tries to cough again but grabs his side when he does. So he replaces the cough with a strange croaking sound that comes deep from the back of his throat. “That’s why I have to live alone. That’s why”—he puts his hand to his face—“I hate fire,” he says, touching his scars and jerking his hand back. “Tallywhacker.”

  We wait for what seems like forever for Klondike to settle down. His breathing evens out.

  “Do you think you’re badly hurt?” I ask Klondike. “I mean your side.”

  Klondike nods his head, jerking it up and down. “I’m fine, though. Just the fire. Asswipes. The fire.” His voice drifts off. Then he croaks.

  “Think.” I press the palms of my hands to my eyes. “Just think.” God, I wish I had Pepto-Bismol. I look from Klondike to Nicole to the mirror. We’re a mess. We look and smell like street kids. That guy probably has second-degree burns all over his back—at least. I hate getting spattered by grease when I grill cheese sandwiches.

  It feels wrong that I’m worried about a guy who would’ve raped Nicole.

  I go to Nicole and put my hand out, pulling her up. “You okay? Really?”

  She nods. “Just a little shaky. Thanks,” she says, “for helping me out.” Her lip is swollen where the guy punched her.

  I do a superhero stance and salute her. “Well, ma’am, there you have it—just a run-of-the-mill morning in the life of Super Jeopardy. I’ll kill ’em with boredom every time.” I exhale. “If the fire didn’t work, I was ready to start to recite the periodic table and balance equations. That would’ve done it.”

  Nicole laughs. “I owe you one.”

  I shrug. “I hope I never have to collect.”

  “Me, too,” Nicole says. She turns to Klondike. “You okay?”

  He coughs, then midcough changes it to a low, thundering croak. “There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.” Again he touches his burned face.

  Nicole and I both look at Klondike. “Where do you get that stuff?” I ask.

  “Pa’s sermons. Pa says that…” He strains his neck and lets out a long, steady croak. “Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty, and he that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Always showing me the business end of a stick. Then”—again he touches his face—“it was the demons.”

  My head pounds. Klon talks in Bible-Appalachian-who-knows-what speak. Nicole’s stuck in some black-and-white make-believe Mafia world. And t
hey both look to me for answers. “Okay,” I finally say, and turn to Nicole. “Nic—”

  “Capone,” she interrupts.

  “Oh yeah. Capone, can you get one of those DO NOT ENTER, RESTROOM BEING CLEANED signs?”

  “Sure, Jeops. Your lesson last night was stellar, but we’re just getting through the vowel sounds.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Okay. Crap.” I rub my eyes. “Just get one of those yellow triangles that you see cleaning people have.”

  Nicole nods. “Give me ten minutes.”

  “We’ll wait here.”

  About five minutes later she comes back with five different signs—WET FLOOR, DO NOT ENTER, KEEP LEFT, WATCH YOUR STEP, RESTROOMS BEING CLEANED. I put the last one outside the door and try to jam the lock. “Well, you’re thorough. And fast.”

  Nicole shrugs. “Ha. Ha.”

  “We probably have about ten minutes, okay? We need to clean up,” I say. “Strip down.”

  Klondike points to the stall. “You wait there. When I wash, you wait there,” he says. “I’m not gonna be without a stitch in front of a couple of girls.” He points to the stalls.

  “We don’t have time.” I motion to the door. “Somebody could come in at any second. So let’s just get cleaned up.”

  None of us moves.

  “I have one ball,” Klondike finally says.

  “Huh?” The light in Nicole’s eyes comes back a little.

  He blushes and scowls. “One ball, nut, gonad, tater, nugget, testicle. One.”

  Nicole and I burst into laughter.

  “It’s not funny. Tallywhacker. It’s not,” he says, lip quavering. Then he croaks four times and taps his groin.

  “I’m sorry, but”—I hold my stomach—“it’s just that…” Then I cry. I let the hot tears spill out. I blow my nose on the scratchy toilet paper. “Let’s get cleaned up,” I finally manage to say, and put my head under a stream of lukewarm water.

  “First memory,” Nicole says.

  “What?”

  “Theme of the day. First memory.”

  I scrub my hair with the liquid soap, pulling at the tangles, wishing for the bazillionth time I had straight hair. “Do you really think now’s the time?”

  “What’s the diff whether it’s now or later in the day?”

  I clench my teeth when I pull my fingers through the knots. Chunks of hair come out. I think back to when I was little, trying to piece memories together. It seems like the memories I have of my mom are a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. I never get the complete picture and only remember random things about her.

  “Playing sleep,” I finally say. “My mom liked to play sleep. She’d wrap herself in blankets and say, ‘Let’s play sleep.’ And to play, I had to be very, very still and close my eyes. Then she’d let me lie next to her. Sometimes she’d even hug me. That was nice. When she’d hug me.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yep,” I say, and peel off my shirt. “Yours?”

  Nicole pauses, then takes her shirt off, too. Her belly is covered with cigarette-tip–size scars. She points to one right above her belly button. “This one. One of Mom’s boyfriends.” She starts to soap up her stomach. “I think I wet the bed or something,” she says.

  “How old were you?” I ask.

  “Three. I dunno.”

  “Wow,” I say.

  Nicole shrugs.

  “Did it hurt?” I look at the countless circles all over her stomach. “I mean did it hurt the same every time?”

  Nicole turns to me. “Every fuckin’ time. You know what, though? Every time one of her fuckhead boyfriends got on me or something, after she sobered up, she’d tell me about my dad. How he’s on the run, you know. He’s big in the organization. And Yerington. Fucking Yerington is too small for somebody that big.” She scrubs her body and says over the sound of water, “Those stories, the postcards—they’re the only real things I’ve ever had, you know?”

  My stomach flip-flops. “What about your sister?”

  Nicole shoots me a sharp look. “She’s gone now. What does it matter?”

  “In Heaven?” Klon asks.

  “I don’t know about that Heaven and Hell and stuff,” Nicole says. “Are there rules?” She looks at Klon like she’s waiting for a definitive answer.

  “All children go to Heaven when they die.” Klondike strips off his shirt. The scar continues down his left shoulder all the way to his waist. When he takes off his pants, we see how it covers the entire left side of his body. He blows on his fingers and croaks. “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Klondike jerks his head. “Heaven—no matter what—because children’s souls are immortal.”

  “You think?” she asks. “And when, um, do the doors to the Pearly Gates close? Like, um, when we turn eighteen? Sixteen? Do God and Peter and Gabriel and all those other guys have a legal adult age?”

  I can see her doing the math in her head. Klon stares at her for a while. “I don’t get it.”

  “Never mind,” Nicole says. “But you think she’s really in Heaven? Is that possible?”

  “I know,” he says. “You’ll see her again when it’s time.”

  She turns away from us. “Maybe,” she mutters.

  We’re quiet, listening to the whine of the bathroom pipes. I swallow. “And your memory, Klon?”

  “Water. My baptism in the icy waters,” he whispers. “Everything except for that and the fire is gone. Except the hate. How she looks at me with hate,” he says. He taps his head and shrugs, making that low croaking sound again. “Fire and water. That’s why I had to go. Ma’s eyes and the demons.”

  The three of us stand in the bathroom—everything exposed. The only sound is the rhythmic drip of water from a leaky faucet.

  “Hey. You okay?” I ask. Klondike’s side has started to swell—a light bluish color is spreading around his ribs where one of the snakes kicked him.

  He nods and tries to pull his too-small shirt over his head. I fish a semiclean one out of my backpack and throw it at him. “Wear this.”

  “Thanks,” he says, shivering.

  “Colder than a well digger’s ass in the Klondike?” I ask.

  He grins.

  I hand him my coat. “Keep it. We’ll find another one.”

  “Find?” Nicole asks.

  I shrug. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  We finish cleaning and try to comb through each other’s hair. No lice or nits yet, as far as I can tell.

  “So what’s the plan?” Nicole breaks the silence.

  The plan? It’s totally ad hoc. Every time I try to create a hypothesis and procedure, anomalies come up and I’m scrambling to make sense of everything. Maybe a good scientist would be able to come up with methods to work with the change in elements. Maybe I’m a really bad scientist.

  Finally I say, “I think we need to get out of here. That kid, you know. He could be pretty hurt. I think, um, that I could probably get in big trouble for that.”

  Klondike taps my shoulder. “It’s okay.” He croaks four times.

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to ignore that sick feeling I have in my stomach.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  We walk through the casino unnoticed. That’s a good thing about a border town. People come and go and nobody pays any attention at all. We find the diner. I pull out all the cash we have left. “Five dollars and sixty-seven cents,” I say. I’m trying to remember where we’ve spent the money: coffees mostly, I guess.

  “We can dine and ditch,” Nicole says.

  “Yeah. But then a waitress gets stuck with the bill. That’s not cool.”

  Nicole rolls her eyes.

  “Just because people have been bad to us doesn’t mean we have to do the same,” I say.

  “Oh. The scientist is into karma?”

  I shake my head.

  “Okay, Girl Scout. How do three people eat with five dollars and sixty-seven cents?” she asks.

&
nbsp; I look around the casino floor for nickels, quarters, anything. The swirly red design makes me dizzy. Some old lady spends the last of her change and slips off the plastic stool. I watch her black silhouette against the morning light. All alone. She has no one else but a stupid nickel slot machine.

  “The feeding of the five thousand. Luke nine, verses ten to seventeen,” Klondike says, and then lowers his voice in that creepy Darth Vader way, “Asswipe.”

  People look up from their slot machines and then go back into their gambling daze.

  “Nice, Klon,” I mutter.

  Nicole scowls. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “You know, when Jesus multiplies the bread and fish,” I say.

  Klondike clenches his fists. I look where he’s looking.

  His hand lifts up to touch the nickel slot and I slap it away. “We’ll get in major trouble if you touch anything here.” I turn to Nicole. “You know that story—when Jesus has one loaf of bread and five fish or something and five thousand people eat. But it’s just a dumb story. Miracles don’t really happen in real life,” I say. Unless you pay for them, I think.

  Klondike recites the Bible verses, tic free. He balls his fists. It’s as if an electric current runs from his toes up to his head. We watch as he twitches, coughs, croaks, and taps both of us when he finishes. Every time he coughs, he grabs his side. His coughs are more wheezes now than croaks.

  “Miracles,” Klondike says after a fit of tics, “aren’t really miracles at all. Tallywhacker, asswipe. They’re just people doing what they should. At one time or another, we all get to have one. I can’t wait. ASSWIPES!” he says in that freaky deep voice. Loud. Again people look our way.

  “Geez, Klon,” I say. Nicole drops her head.

  He jerks his head and blows on his fingers. “I can’t help the demons. I don’t mean to.” He clenches his jaw. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  Nicole sighs. “No big deal. We all have our weird shit to deal with. Jeopardy here, she’s a walking Discovery Channel, you know. She spurts out science facts about anything from the reproductive cycle of tsetse flies to belly-button lint.”