by Paul Rudnick
I screamed like a banshee even though I wasn’t sure exactly what a banshee was or what a banshee’s scream might sound like and I ran right at Ava Lily Larrimore and I used my Lucifoil to smack the knife right out of her hand. I dragged her off Heller, put my foot on Ava’s chest and held my Lucifoil to her throat. I grabbed Ava’s microphone and proclaimed to the arena, “MALESTRA IS DEFEATED! AND THE MOVIE IS GOING TO BE TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!”
The crowd managed to scream even louder than all of their previous screaming put together. The security guards swarmed onto the mandala and surrounded Ava and led her away while she sputtered, “But I’m Avianda! I was going to post it on the website!”
I raised my head to watch the cheering, ecstatic fans and I am ashamed to say this but I felt fantastic; I felt the way people describe being on drugs or having sex or naked bungee jumping. I’d just championed the forces of goodness and saved Lynnea and maybe the universe. Maybe this would be the solution, to my panic attacks and my anxiety and the fact that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my life. Instead of going to college I would travel the world, battling evil in all sorts of arenas as part of an Angel Wars ice show or an Angel Wars monster truck rally. I really was a hero because I’d won the day and I should call my parents and try not to brag about what a great job I was doing and about how their painfully anxious, socially backward daughter had just rescued Heller from an assault by a crazed stalker in front of thousands of cheering Angel Warriors.
Heller was going to weep for the terrible things she’d said and done to me, and she was going to bow her head as she asked for my help, and I was going to smile modestly and say, “Of course I’ll help you, because I’m a servant of the Lord. Let’s start with you writing an essay on the true meaning of friendship.”
When I turned to help Heller stand up, she was gone.
Wyatt was on his phone. “She left,” I heard him tell whoever he was talking to. “She ran out and she didn’t tell anyone where she was going. Do you know something? I don’t blame her.”
Of course Heller hadn’t bothered to thank me or hug me or see if I was okay. Instead she’d done what she always did: She ran away. Just the way four years ago after she’d almost gotten me killed, I’d never heard from her. Just the way she’d left New Jersey and headed to California to become a star, leaving everyone else—and especially me—behind to clean up her mess.
I’d saved Heller in the arena and I was going to track her down and not just make her behave, oh no. My job, and my confidence level, were way beyond that. I was going to find Heller and I was going to force her to finish promoting the movie, and then I was going to dump her, the way she’d dumped me. She was hopeless. She was beyond true salvation. I was going to do my job, as a righteous Christian, and then I would send her to Hades, where Satan would say, “Welcome home.”
Only first I had to find her.
I ran, pushing my way through the mobs of Angel Warriors and up an escalator—yes! Even though escalators still scared me I didn’t just grab the rubber railings and hope for the best—I took the escalator two steps at a time, while they were moving! I saw daylight and I moved toward it and then I was outside in the cool early evening air in the middle of New York City. On my trip so far I’d always been inside limos or vans or buildings, so for the first time I was facing the city itself.
People were hurtling in every direction and cars and trucks and buses seemed to be aiming right at one another as all of the drivers leaned out their windows to shake their fists and curse. Other people were riding bicycles and skateboards and weaving in and out of traffic on both the streets and the sidewalks, just to cause even more cursing.
New York City was everything that terrified me and it instantly triggered my shortness of breath and my brain frenzy. When I shut my eyes for a few seconds to eliminate at least one of my senses, I felt someone brush past me and reach inside my Dastroid tunic to either grope me or to see if I was carrying anything worth stealing. My eyes shot open and I ran, immediately crashing into three more people; the first one asked, “Are you okay?” while the second one said, “Excuse me” and the third one muttered, “Fucking tourists.”
As my eyes darted everywhere and I could feel the panic rising in my chest and cutting off my supply of oxygen, I began to wonder if I was too young to be having a heart attack and I remembered why my parents had forbidden me to research extreme medical conditions online, because as my mom had said, “You’ll either think you have them or you’ll want to.” I caught a glimpse of Heller’s now grimy linen tunic from at least two blocks away. Heller was moving in what I was pretty sure was an uptown direction but when I yelled, “Heller!” she was either too far away and couldn’t hear me or she’d heard me but I was the last person on earth she wanted to see. Which was too bad for her because I was going to catch her and I was going to make her see me. I was going to shove her against a wall and make her say, “Caitlin, I’ve been wrong about everything and you’ve been right. Blazers can be a powerful fashion statement.”
I took off after Heller and the first thing I did was to get slammed by someone opening the rear door of a taxi. I fell backward toward the pavement but I managed to grab the taxi door and pull myself up.
I thought, Okay—I was just hit by a car and I survived. I’m still functioning. A terrible thing has happened and I haven’t died. I stood up and said, “I’m really sorry!” to the guy getting out of the cab and I ran across the intersection, telling the pedestrians things like “I’m sorry! Excuse me! Coming through! I’m from New Jersey!”
Once I reached the opposite side of the street I stood on tiptoes and I saw a tiny bit of white linen in the distance amid a mob of people surging uptown. I kept going, trying to slide in between people or dance around them and I started thinking, This is what it’s like to be a New Yorker. Maybe the reason why some New Yorkers get so angry is because they spend all their time trying to get the older people with canes and the younger couples who are holding hands to move out of the way. A wicked part of my brain wanted to yell at one couple, “I don’t care if he’s your boyfriend! You can tongue-kiss him all you want once you get home!”
I traveled a few more blocks, always trying to keep Heller or some identifiable part of her in view. I was closing in on her, I was only a few yards away, when someone grabbed my elbow and asked, “Can we get a picture?”
What was going on? Why would anyone want a picture of me? The woman who’d asked was dressed like my mom, in seersucker culottes, a fanny pack and a yellow cotton sweater with ducks on it. She was standing next to a man who reminded me of my dad except he had two cameras around his neck and was holding a folding map of the city. The man and the woman were surrounded by five kids from around four years old to their early teens and some of them were wearing green foam rubber crowns with spikes like the Statue of Liberty. The littlest girl had on a pair of oversized sunglasses. This family of tourists was staring at me as if I was the Empire State Building or a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park.
“Are you really a Dastroid?” asked one of the daughters, in awe.
“Kelli loves the Angel Wars books,” said the mom—I knew that Kelli spelled her name with an i because that was how it appeared in sequins on her hot-pink sweatshirt.
“Can we get a picture of you with Kelli?” asked the dad. “Can you put your arm around her and look mean?”
I was still wearing the Dastroid costume that I’d bought from that girl at Madison Square Garden, including the tunic, the hat and the Lucifoil. I saw that I was standing in a section of Times Square. Within a few feet were people dressed up as Batman, Iron Man, Wolverine, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Cinderella, Princess Jasmine, Mulan and at least three Spider-Men of very different heights and weights, as if there was a Spider-Man family like the Three Bears. Tourists were having their pictures taken with all of these costumed characters, who were smiling and posing.
“Oh, gee, I’m really sorry,” I told the tourist family, “but
I’m not really a Dastroid and I’m in a super-big hurry.”
“Mommy, she is too a Dastroid!” said another daughter. “She has a Lucifoil!”
“Dastroids suck,” said one of the girl’s brothers. “Is there a Darkling Creeper around? I think I just saw Lynnea.”
“You saw Lynnea?” I said. “Which way did she go?”
“I wish you were Elsa,” said one of the really little girls. “She’s pretty and she lives in an ice palace with a snowman.”
“Please?” asked the dad, so I put my arm around Kelli and as the dad took the picture, the brother pointed and said, “Lynnea went that way.”
“Are you going to kill Lynnea?” asked the littlest girl.
“No!” I said. “I’m really one of the Stelterfokken only I’m working undercover!”
“Here you go, thanks so much,” said the mom, handing me a ten-dollar bill.
“Oh, no thank you and I have to go,” I said because I couldn’t accept money for just standing there and waving my Lucifoil around.
“I’ll take it,” said someone who was dressed as the Little Mermaid and she grabbed the money and shoved it down her seashell bra.
I looked where the brother had been pointing and I saw Lynnea’s tunic turning a corner half a block away.
“Stay golden!” I said to the tourist family, using one of the Golden Lord’s favorite expressions as I squirmed past Captain America, who said, “Whoa, Dastroid. Nice kneesocks.”
I raced across an open plaza, shouting “Heller!” and as I grabbed Heller’s arm she turned around and said, “What? I’m off duty, asshole” and I realized that she was someone else wearing a Lynnea costume.
“I’m so sorry!” I said. “But Lynnea would never use the a-word!”
“Stupid Dastroid,” the wrong Lynnea muttered as she took a bite of her bagel. I saw another Lynnea who looked more like Heller going down into the subway and I ran.
I’d never been anywhere near a subway so once I’d gone down the steps I was lost. I saw the other Lynnea using some sort of passcard to go through a turnstile so I tried to shove the credit card that my dad had given me for emergency use into a slot but it didn’t work and I saw that up ahead Lynnea was waiting for a subway that was just pulling into the station. I did the worst thing I have ever done in my life. I boosted myself up over the turnstile and onto the other side.
I WAS A CRIMINAL! I couldn’t believe it: Caitlin Mary Prudence Rectitude Singleberry had just jumped over a New York City turnstile without paying the fare! Like a thief or a murderer! Yes, I was chasing after Heller, so I had a good reason for my crime, but isn’t that just what all criminals say once they’ve been apprehended? What was happening to me? What would I do next? Pick someone’s pocket? Blow up a cash machine? And why, instead of having a pounding anxiety attack, was I feeling almost—exhilarated?
Then a uniformed transit officer said, “Hey, you! With the witch’s hat! Fare jumper!” and came after me.
I told him, “I’m really, really sorry and I’m not a witch, I’m a Dastroid and I have to go! I’ll mail you the money!” I ran over to the train just as Heller, or possibly some other Lynnea, boarded the same train two cars farther up. Since all the doors were about to close I leaped onto the car in front of me. The doors slammed shut and as the train began to move I saw the transit officer through the window shaking his fist and yelling something I was grateful I couldn’t hear.
The car was jam-packed with every kind of person, including men in suits and uniformed waitresses and teenagers with headphones and moms with strollers that held babies and groceries. While I was smushed up against many other people, no one was looking at me or at anyone else. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts, their music or the video games they were playing on their phones. I knew that I should be passing out from anxiety especially because of all the germs I was being exposed to, but I wasn’t. Then I remembered something from my online searches about social phobias. Unless you’re claustrophobic, being hemmed in can sometimes make anxious people feel more secure and almost comforted. In fact, the most modern slaughterhouses are designed to keep cattle immobilized in padded spaces so they’ll feel safer just before they’re turned into Big Macs and pot roasts.
I didn’t have time to wonder if I was about to become an entrée because I needed to squeeze through the car and locate Heller. What was she about to do? Rip off her Lynnea outfit and take a naked selfie? Dance in one of those places where girls swing around brass poles? Get so drunk that she’d vomit on a nun and laugh?
Goddamn her! Goddamn Heller Harrigan!
Heller had done it. Heller had made me take the Lord’s name in vain. She’d turned me into a fare jumper and a nightclub goer and a blasphemer. This wasn’t just personal, not anymore. This was a holy crusade.
We reached the next stop and the doors opened and half the people in the car basically fell out onto the platform. I saw that Lynnea had left her car as well so I got out and let the crowd carry me, still following what I prayed was Heller’s tunic and hair, up a stairway, through a tiled tunnel and up a final set of stairs and out onto the street. I tried to yell “Heller!” but I didn’t have much of a voice left so I stumbled after her as she went through a set of revolving doors and into an older and not very clean building.
By the time I got through the revolving doors I saw Heller at the end of a hallway pushing open a wooden door. I ran down the hall just as the door was closing and I slipped inside, where I expected to find—what? A storeroom crawling with cockroaches where Heller would be buying drugs from a gang member? A sleazy motel room where Heller was meeting Oliver to have sex atop a bedspread bubbling with other people’s sex bacteria? Or was it something even worse, something so immoral and putrid and revolting that I couldn’t even imagine it, because I wasn’t Heller Harrigan!
I was in a small wood-paneled room with a few rows of folding chairs facing a raised platform. There was a table off to one side with a stack of leaflets, a pitcher of water, paper cups and an open box of doughnuts, most of which were gone. There were about fifteen people in the room, men and women, facing the platform. Just like on the subway, these people were all different: There was a woman in a designer-y looking camel-colored skirt and jacket with a leather briefcase on her lap and she was sitting next to a young guy who looked like a bicycle messenger in spandex shorts and a little cap with a battered canvas bag slung over the back of his chair.
Heller was standing at the front of the room in the tattered remains of her Lynnea outfit. Her hair was a mess but she looked more like her real self. She downed an entire cup of water and wiped her mouth. Everyone else in the room was quiet and no one was checking their phones or anything else.
“Hi, I’m Heller and I’m an alcoholic,” said Heller.
“Hi, Heller,” said everyone else in the room.
Oh my gosh. Oh my Lord. I wasn’t positive because I’d never been to one before but I was pretty sure I was in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. While I was incredibly relieved that Heller was here, I also felt embarrassed and ashamed because I knew these meetings were only for alcoholics and the anonymous part meant the meetings were supposed to be private. I had no business being here; I was a spy and an interloper and I should leave immediately, only I didn’t want to call attention to myself by sneaking out. I decided to be honest and respectful.
“I am so very sorry!” I announced. “But I am not an alcoholic!”
Everyone was looking at me.
“I do not even enjoy grape-flavored soda!”
Everyone was looking at me as if I was insane.
“But I admire alcoholics! I mean, I admire alcoholics who have stopped drinking! I mean, I admire alcoholics who have stopped drinking alcohol! I’m sure there are many acceptable and delicious beverages that will not destroy your families and leave you rolling in the gutter!”
It was time for me to die.
“Catey, it’s okay,” said Heller, and then to everyone else, “That’s Catey and
she’s my cousin and she’s homeschooled.”
Everyone said “Ah” and “Of course” and nodded at one another, as Heller continued: “If it’s all right with everybody, I’d like her to stay for just a few minutes. I’d like her to hear this.”
Heller was an actress and a star, so she was used to being watched by a lot of people, but I could tell this was different. While Heller couldn’t stop being beautiful and magnetic and funny even if she tried, right now she was making an effort to be clear instead of performing.
“Um, okay,” she said. “I’m an actress and for a while now I’ve been working on staying sober and not letting my job drive me crazy and not letting the whole scene make me want to drink just so I can—stop all the noise. I’ve been doing okay because I’ve been focusing on exercise and good habits and, oh my God, on being as boring as I possibly can.
“Today and this whole weekend have been kind of a test. I have a movie coming out so I’ve been doing lots of promotion, which is part of my job, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. About half an hour ago I was in the middle of Madison Square Garden surrounded by twenty thousand screaming Angel Warriors and this other, fairly disturbed girl, and I’m putting that nicely; she had me pinned to the ground with a knife to my throat.”
Heller grinned and said, “We’ve all been there, right?” and everyone laughed because Heller knew just how loony her life had become.
“Then something else happened. Something I didn’t see coming, not by a mile, and I wasn’t ready for it and I’m kind of a tough cookie. This other girl, the one with the grudge and the knife, she was operating pretty far into her own fantasyland and God only knows what else she was dealing with in her own life but she’s smart in a satanic hall monitor sort of way and, well … do you know how we all have these triggers? These situations that we can get ourselves into and these things that other people can say to us that can really … well, they can really make a mojito or a cold bottle of beer seem like the best idea of all time, you know?”
