The Twelve-Fingered Boy

by John Hornor Jacobs

  “Not so silly.”

  “But it’s just…” I stop and think a bit. I need to say this right. “My cousin is double-jointed. A kid I knew in school could add any two numbers in her head like lightning. You could just call ’em out, and she’d answer. You’d have to get a calculator to check, but she was always right. Another kid could play any instrument he could touch, like he’d been playing it all his life.” This last one I saw on television, but I don’t tell Jack that. “So I don’t think having extra fingers makes you—”

  “A mutant?” Jack shakes his head and sighs again. “It does make me different.” He’s not looking at me. He’s got that far-off, thousand-mile stare. I worry that sometime the little dude won’t be able to get back from wherever it is he goes when he gets that way.

  “Hey, man. We’re all different.” That’s what your momma believes. That we can all grow up to be president or millionaires and everyone is a little Van Gogh and there’s never been another like us. But most kids in the general pop could be clones, all pressed out from the same mold, they’re so damned homogeneous. Maybe I just think so because I don’t know them well enough. But, I swear, all I have to get to know is one. But maybe Jack really is different.

  “Let me buy you some ice cream, Jack, me boy. I’m flush this week and got a sweet tooth.”

  He laughs. “Awesome. I don’t have any money.”

  “Heck, I’ll even throw in a burger, son.”

  We hit the commissary and eat the breakfast of champions: cheeseburgers, cheesy fries con jalapeños, and icy sodas, followed by orange Push-Ups. The Commons is a madhouse—the D-Wing cadre howling and throwing paper at the TV showing ESPN, and the C-Wing brutes glowering and gloating on the opposite side. Whoever holds the remote is king.

  We head out to the yard, stomachs burbling.

  Casimir Pulaski Detention Center is in the shape of a large X. A, B, C, and D wings form the arms of the cross, with Admin and classrooms and offices in the center, where the arms meet. The yard, a wide expanse of grass and basketball courts and bleachers lining a half-size football field, is one of the biggest differences between juvie and a penitentiary yard. The yard is lush, well-kept, and filled with balls and laughter and boys running about, acting like idiots, which is exactly the way boys are supposed to act.

  Even I know that.

  The illusion of a playground is broken only by the bulls. No Booth today. But Red Wolf, Wilkins, Peters, Blanchard, and Diegal lurk about, hands on billy clubs and pepper spray. We call the guards the League of Jerkwads. It’s pretty obvious they want a general pop fight, but fights just don’t happen that often ever since Big Paulie got shipped to the Farm.

  All except Red Wolf. He doesn’t want fights. He wants followers.

  Red Wolf has a group of titty-babies on the smaller court, trying to teach them tribal dances. He ain’t a real Indian, despite the fact he’s holding court in full tribal garb, feathers and leathers and tomahawk and everything. He’s a self-proclaimed phony Indian, which shouldn’t make sense, but it does. He’s bald, rail-thin, and polite to ward and guard alike. It’s hard to tell how old he is.

  I like him. He ain’t Booth. He rolled up on me once, early in my career, when he was just dressed as a guard and not in some Indian costume. He’s faster than he looks. He nabbed the sack with the sweets I was handing off, popped it open, then handed it over to the mark. He sniffed. “Ephemeral, boys. But your body is your body. You can pump all the junk in it you want.”

  In the yard, he moves through some prancing, horselike steps. The wards with him follow slowly, clumsily. They look at us, terrified, as we pass. Red Wolf waves at us and beckons, but I say to Jack, “Ignore him. He’s trying to get them to transcend or find their totem animal or nonsense like that. He wants them to fly or something.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  Jack marches off toward the court and Red Wolf.

  “It not just your spirit, boys,” Red Wolf says when we get close. “It’s how your spirit is connected to your body and not connected to your body. We’re all chained to our bodies, chained to the earth, incarcerado.”

  He turns to face the boys. He’s in full Indian regalia: eagle feathers, leather with tassels, turquoise stuff I can’t even recognize. But his baldness throws off the effect. He looks like a white man in a costume.

  “I hear you boys say that, talking to each other. Incarcerado. Being locked up. But it doesn’t mean that at all. You know what it means?”

  The titty-babies look around sheepishly—at Red Wolf, at Jack, at me, then at themselves.

  Jack says, “Meat? Like carne asada? Like … um … your body.”

  “No. But it’s interesting you’d say that. You’re locked into your own personal meat prison, when your spirit wants to fly. What’s your name, son?”

  “Jack. Jack Graves.”

  Part of me feels relieved not to be the object of a bull’s attention. I’m glad Booth is gone and it’s a Saturday and I’m not holding and there’s nothing to worry about. Part of me is maybe just a bit jealous of the attention Red Wolf is giving Jack. But then I think of Quincrux and … well … then I’m cool with not getting all the attention.

  Red Wolf turns to the other wards gathered on the basketball court. The sounds of basketballs dribbling, grunts, and catcalls from the other court fall away, and Red Wolf is there, in the center of it all, talking.

  “They can lock up your body, but they can never lock up your spirit.” He walks over to Raphael Santos, a meek little dude from two doors down on B Wing, and puts a finger on Raphael’s chest. Red Wolf taps once, to make his point. “They can control your body.” He raises his finger to Raphael’s head and lightly, gently, puts his fingertip right in the center of Raphael’s forehead. “They can’t touch what’s in here. Nothing can. What’s in there can soar. Can rise up and shuck off this body, shuck off this detention center, and join with other spirits. It can ascend.”

  Red Wolf stops and bows his head. I want to laugh, it’s such an obvious bit of theatrics. Red Wolf snaps back to us, turns around, doing the whole group eye-contact bit they must teach in church or college or wherever he learned it, and then claps his hands.

  “This is the Ghost Dance. It’s the dance that at one time all American Indian nations practiced, and it was inspired by an eclipse of the sun. It’s the harbinger of the cleansing of the world.” Red Wolf takes a prancing step, like a horse stomping, repeats it with the same foot, and then repeats the cycle with his other foot. He dances in a circle.

  “Come on, boys. It’s not hard. And when you do it, it separates your ghost, your spirit, from your body. Your body is incarcerado. But your spirit is free to roam. Roam now.”

  I look at Jack. He takes a step, then another with the same foot. And then we’re all doing it, stomping around in circles on a basketball court in a kids’ jailhouse named after a Pollock. If that isn’t spirit-lifting, I don’t know what is.

  Jack’s laughing now, an unreserved laugh that rises up toward the heavens, and I realize just how much he’d like to be freed from his body.

  When we come down, when we’re back incarcerado, deep in our bodies, we walk out to where the grass rises to meet the chain-link fence topped with razor wire. We sit on the slope by the bleachers—the bleachers where I do a goodly portion of my deals. On a workday I take a seat, a mark walks below underneath the benches among the struts and trusses, tugs on my pants leg, and if I don’t see the correct change appear on my bleacher, then no drop for the ravenous candymonger.

  But today’s my day off, so Jack and I sit in the sun to digest and watch the kids playing hoops—Ox, Reasoner, Fishkill, and a few goons from D Wing.

  “So, you read that comic?” I’m leaning back on my elbows, watching the high, wispy clouds scuttle across the sky. “Any good?”

  “Yeah. Storm gets some mutant kids that’re being bullied and brings them to the school.”

  “Sweet. She’s so hot. When did they start drawing her like that? Someti
mes I wish they wouldn’t.”

  Jack laughs, a real laugh, not an imitation of a real-boy laugh. He throws back his head, like when we did the Ghost Dance, and lets his body go unguarded and at ease. I grin, resting on my elbows. I remember Vig and miss him horribly. Am I less tough to say that? Most likely I wasn’t that tough to begin with. Just a talker with a way with the vocab. A salesman.

  I feel good like I’d forgotten I could feel good, here with someone who needs me, not someone who wants something from me.

  But Jack’s laugh dies, quicker than I would have thought, and he’s silent again, looking at the yard.

  “You think he’ll come today?”

  He doesn’t have to say who he is.

  “Nah. It’s Saturday. Even pervs like him need the afternoon off.”

  “Why do you keep calling him a perv?”

  I have to remind myself that Jack’s what? Twelve? Maybe thirteen? And been on the inside for just a week.

  “Didn’t you hear it? In his voice, when he asked about the … the diphallia.” Someone with two penises.

  At first I think Jack is embarrassed. It’s hard talking to another guy about this stuff.

  He’s not embarrassed. He’s furious.

  The air in front of me dimples, wavers, like a boiling moat of water stands between him and me, sending up steam. I feel pressure on my shoulder, and then I’m toppling over and sliding away, down the hill, away from Jack.

  “Jack! Stop!”

  He slumps, coughs, and then begins to turn on the waterworks. It only takes a moment. I rise up on my hands and knees and climb back up to him.

  Over and over again he’s saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  I put my arm around him. He turns his face into his hands, just like Vig used to do when he was mad or ashamed.

  “Jack, it’s okay.” I don’t know what else to say. With Vig I could just make a goofy face or turn on the TV.

  I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m starting to understand why Quincrux is so interested in Jack.

  “Hey, Shreve!” Reasoner yells. The basketball game is over. Ox, Reasoner, and the rest of them stand at the bottom of the slope, looking up at us. “You getting sweet on the fish?”

  I shoot him the bird, just to let him see what I think of him.

  One of the D goons says, “Let’s see him do that, so we can get a load of the fingers.”

  I look at Ox, and he’s patently not looking at me. He’s doing whatever he can to not look at me. The rest of the guys walk up the slope. Fishkill looks like he wants to kill me for shooting him the bird. Reasoner’s grinning his goofy, yellow-toothed grin, happy there’s game afoot.

  “You told.” Jack’s old voice is back, dead and hollow. And grim as the reaper.

  “I … I didn’t mean…”

  What can I say? I told. Whatever my intentions, I told.

  “I had to get Ox to let me in his room. He promised…”

  The boys stand in front of us now. Jack stands too, slowly, his hands in fists at his side.

  “Back up,” Jack says. There’s iron there.

  Ox snorts and Reasoner laughs, making a phlegmy, grotesque sound. The D-Wing goons start moving around to Jack’s sides.

  On the inside, pack mentality rules the yard. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Everyone thinks he’s different. But when you truly are different, the difference gets beat out of you on the yard. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know things are about to get bloody.

  “Step away, Shreve. We just want to see the freak show.”

  “No.” I’ve fought before. I’ve lost. Why do you think I love words? “Listen, boys. You do this, you’re off the client list. No more of the sweet stuff for any of you.”

  The largest D goon says, “You don’t sell it to us anyways, you stuck-up little dick.” If this were a cartoon, he’d be cracking his knuckles right now. But he doesn’t. He just stands there.

  “We just want to see the hands.” Reasoner’s looking at Jack. Jack stares back, stone-faced and defiant.

  “No,” he says. And the air around him begins to waver.

  Something’s about to happen.

  The tension I felt building when I listened through Ox’s vent is in the air again. The air is ripe with storm, with electricity or ozone or smoke or something, something destructive, and I can’t know what it will be until it happens. But it will happen, and soon.

  Reasoner steps in close, and the D-Wing goon follows. His feet are spaced wide and his elbows pulled in tight with his fists balled, like he’s a kung-fu master or an action figure.

  “What’s going on here, boys?” Booth. And I didn’t even hear the jangle of keys. He’s standing right behind Ox.

  All of the sudden the circle of brutes evaporates. Reasoner runs toward the bleachers, yelling over his shoulder, “Nothing!”

  The Kung-Fu Master says, “Catch you later, Shreve, Fingers.”

  Ox shambles off, head down. He’s an overfed ox that’s just been shocked. Or maybe neutered. The big lug feels bad about spilling the beans. Still. No more candy for him. Though, without his protection, I just might be out of the candy-dealing business.

  Like it or not, Jack Graves has changed my life.

  When they’re gone, I can see Quincrux standing at the bottom of the slope, just to the left of the bleachers. So that’s why Booth was looking for us—for Jack. Quincrux is holding his briefcase and wearing a black suit and fedora, like he’s a G-man from a black-and-white movie. Beside him stands a woman. She’s short and shaped like a dumpling, with gigantic matronly breasts straining the seams on a business suit as severe as Quincrux’s. Her hair is hideous. She has bangs like a Romulan, with chunky side curls that make her look like a doll some child has taken lawn shears to.

  Booth glowers at us. “Answer me, Shreve. What in the world is going on? Is this your attempt at gang war or something?”

  I’m really not in the mood for Booth’s nonsense. “Yeah, it’s me and Jack against all of general pop, Booth. They don’t stand a chance.”

  Booth throws up his hands. “I’d like you better, Shreve, if you could just answer a question straight for once.”

  “How’s this? Those jerks were getting ready to pounce on us.”

  “Why?”

  Quincrux, from behind Booth, says, “Why, indeed, Mr. Cannon?”

  I can’t explain it, but for a moment I’m afraid when I realize he knows my name.

  “Reindeer games.”

  “Ah. A comedian.” Quincrux sounds bored. Like everything is tiresome, deathly tiresome, and he’d be as happy to see me dead as deal with me.

  Booth, turning, says to Quincrux, “You won’t get anywhere with this one, Mister—”

  Booth shudders like he’s been punched. He goes slack but doesn’t fall. He turns back to us slowly, too slowly. Booth loves his clothes, his neatly combed hair, his pencil-thin mustache. He holds himself like a rooster, chest out, hands on his hips, resting on his cuffs, his mace, his zip ties, ready to subdue any unruly ward of the state he happens to encounter. He’s an idiot, but he’s a predictable idiot. But now his body has changed. His shoulders slump. His face, normally angry or gleeful or annoyed when he sees me, is blank. His arms hang loose by his side. Without the bluster, he seems small, fragile. I might not like the everyday Booth, but the empty one—the vacant Booth—I like even less.

  “Now that we’re alone,” Quincrux says, slow and deliberate, “Ilsa, if you would take care of Mr. Graves, I will address Mr. Cannon.”

  “Wait!” I don’t know what else to do. “What do you want with Jack?”

  The woman approaches with little mincing steps, as though she were on the dance floor. She’s nearly popping out of her skirt, so maybe her clothes are too tight to let her walk. Or maybe she’s full of herself.

  She makes a sound like mmmmm, as though she’s just found a turkey leg where she least expected it.

  “The arrogant one.” She’s looking in my di
rection. “He looks much more appetizing. I like the gristle.” She’s got an accent. German or something.

  Quincrux frowns. “Unfortunately, Ilsa, I think you’re mistaking obstinacy for arrogance. However, there will be no … no dining. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Quin,” she says. She smiles, showing more teeth than I think is humanly possible. She’s got a mouthful of chompers. None look too sharp. None look too dull, either.

  “We’re not going with you,” I say.

  Quincrux looks around at the fences and walls and holds his hand upward, as though feeling for rain. “Where might you go, Mr. Cannon? It seems your defiance might be a bit misguided.” He steps closer, and now a grim look is on his face. He’s through playing around.

  “Ilsa, please secure Mr. Graves, and I’ll see to young master Cannon.”

  The air becomes tense, and then my head splits open like I’ve been axe-struck. Something… no, someone is trying to get in. The sun dims. The sounds of boys playing on sun-warmed dirt and concrete, the smell of grass, the feel of wind on my skin, the dust from the yard—they all diminish and fade. They’re gone and replaced with the pain and the insistent pressure on my mind, like a snake trying to hatch from an egg, but backward, in reverse—a snake trying to re-enter the egg. To be unborn.

  I don’t know what to do. I can’t think, and there’s only panic left. My head screams with pain, and then I realize it’s not my head screaming. I’ve dropped to my knees, and I’m screaming like a child stung by a wasp.

  I remember in the cafeteria, when Quincrux took my thoughts. He lured them out and away. I’ve been trying to forget that, I think, this whole time. But now he’s doing more than that. He’s the wolf at the door, blowing down the house, sniffing to get in.

  I fight. I try and make the surface of my thoughts as hard as diamond and as slick as greased steel.

  I picture a sphere. Hard and strong and unbreakable.

  A jawbreaker.

  Through the pain, I feel Quincrux’s rage. He’s not bored now. He wants in, the wolf, and all that’s in his way is the jawbreaker. He can crunch the jawbreaker, he can gnash, but his teeth will break before it does. He’s huffing and puffing at the door, and soon he’ll want to blow the house down.