by L. Brown
“Just fell by themselves, that’s the best you got?”
“Well, it’s true, Zack, I just—”
“What’s true is you’re not here to dump, you’re here to load! But since you can’t even do that, then forget it, get off my line.”
“It’s okay, I’ll just pick them up and—”
“And then they’ll just all fall again, because the real reason they fell is your eyes, Ryan, you just can’t see! I mean, look at those coke bottles, you’re blind as a bat!”
“Zack!”
The shout startled, and so did the sight, Garth descending into the basement and wincing every step. “Take it back.”
Not a request, the words just hung there, and so did Garth. He never did this, never stood against anyone, much less Zack, yet now he faced the house Joker like a Batman of steel. And though he mixed his imagined metaphors, his motive was pure, for it riled to see the strong mock the weak, always had. Maybe just the fallout of countless comics, or maybe something else fired this stand, for aware or not, he rode the wave of Ashley, of See you soon!
“Take what back,” rumbled Zack. “That your boy wears fishbowls, bullet-proof glass?”
“He wears glasses,” Garth replied. “And sees just fine.”
“Well, so do I,” said Zack. “And between you and him, all I see are a slug and a bat.”
“Okay, enough,” groaned Niqua, now stowing her saw. “It was an accident, Zack, we’re done.”
“We’re done when I say, and not before!” Zack retorted. “Now, anyone got a problem with that, then file a grievance, take it to Kang. But until then—” He advanced. “Since we still got some time, I’ll end it right here.”
Stopping just inches away, Zack stared down at Garth.
“So, do it, alright?” Tired of waiting, Lana picked up her hammer and prepped her thumb. “Just finish already, just fight.”
“But that’s just it, Lana,” said Marco. “Garth never fights, he just kind of waits.” Then, to Garth, “Or maybe I’m wrong? Maybe tonight you got some game?”
“I got a couple games,” Garth mumbled, now sidling past Zack. “But they’re on my computer, so hey, how about a virtual fight.”
Zack considered, tried to comprehend. “Meaning?”
“It’s a joke, Zack,” Garth sighed, now gathering the fallen signs. “But picking on Ryan isn’t funny, so just leave him alone, alright? Don’t call him names.”
Not a request, Garth’s tone stilled Lana’s hammer and dropped her nail. High Noon in the basement, Niqua and Marco now inching back, Zack inhaled, puffed up large.
“Well, now,” Zack began. “You got a problem with names? Aardgarth?”
Garth knew it was coming, that default tag, yet still it squeezed, constricted his throat.
“Hah!” Zack jiggled from an expulsion of breath. “Freaks, both of ’em, one’s an Aardgarth and the other’s a bat, we’re living with—”
“You really think bats are blind?” challenged Ryan, now pushing between Garth and Zack. “Don’t you study, don’t you read, haven’t you ever been to the zoo? Bats have eyes, of course they can see! And not only that—”
“Ryan,” cautioned Garth, but to no avail.
“They use echoes, Zack, sounds that bounce off bugs or trees by Doppler! And no, I don’t know what that means, not yet, but—”
“Ryan,” Garth repeated.
“But I’d rather be a bat than a jerk, why are you always so mean!”
Zack quivered. Humiliated by a fourth grader, the buck challenged by a fawn, he unleashed his inner Che and threw a dirty punch.
“No!” Garth shouted, and pushing Ryan back, he absorbed the blow, a gut-level slam into a heavy iron door. Perpetually closed, secured by a bullet-proof lock and some undiscovered key, it hid, by Group Home legend, a trove of secrets, every resident’s grail.
But now the outside intervened, two quick honks from the van.
“Move!” Zack yelled. Order restored and authority reclaimed, he hauled a wagon of signs upstairs. “Move it out, people, grab your wagon and let’s head for the Hills!”
Marco cheered, the girls joined in, and as they all paired up and pulled the sign-laden wagons upstairs, Ryan didn’t move, just sat with Garth.
“You okay?” Ryan asked, now checking Garth’s pulse.
Internal organs jellied and rolled, Garth responded with a deflated grunt.
“Sorry,” said Ryan. “I should have quit at zoos and bats.”
Garth stayed quiet, just tried to restore regular breath.
“Anyway,” Ryan sighed, “you’re the best, man, my only bro’.” He clapped Garth’s shoulder, then hauled his wagon up the stairs. But swapping between push and pull, he first lost one sign, then a pair, and as the struggle up the steps continued, Garth shut his eyes, just leaned against the heavy iron door.
His insides migrating, sagging back into place, he recalled Nkomo’s odd question, if he’d ‘found his file.’ And what file was that, his counseling record, his grades? Or had he meant something else, did the priest know my past, who my parents were or went? That needed to be pondered, panned for nuggets of truth, but when Ryan lost his grip and the load of signs avalanched down, Garth knew further reflection had to wait.
But the day’s resolution, how it would all work out? That also had to wait, for though night had come, Garth had a feeling, a gnaw deep down, that far from over, it had all just begun.
An hour later and twenty-two miles north, a Maginot leap across the 8 Mile line, rusty wagon wheels squeaked on new asphalt, a velvety roadside swath.
“Whoa,” Ryan muttered, his third in a row. A prairie dog emerging, his eyes unused to the view, he beheld a world entirely new. “What — do the Pistons live here?”
No answer came, nothing but squeaks. Ignoring it all, the acres of mansions and manicured lawns, Garth pulled the wagon heaped with signs.
“Wow, that one!” Ryan enthused. “See that?” Jumping and pointing, he eyed a quarter acre of home, a suburban palace leaning on antiquity, regal columns of stone. “It looks like the Parthenon, that place in Greece! Do people really live there, is that a home?”
Still no answer, Garth just pulled.
“And that one, look over there!” exclaimed Ryan, pointing to the next mansion up. “If you filled it with water and froze it, the Red Wings could play there, you could make it a rink! Ever seen a house so big?”
He waited on a comment and hoped for a laugh, but Ryan heard only wagon, the same rusty squeak. “Yeah, well,” he concluded, “whoever lives there, I wish it was us.”
“I don’t.” Finding his voice, Garth took in the view, the green sea lawns lapping islands of brick, the redoubts with French doors and roofs without leak. “If we lived up here, we’d turn into them,” he declared, now stopping the wagon and grabbing a sign. “Wait here.” Then entering a driveway, he approached its wrought-iron gate.
“But—?” Ryan looked for a door. “Where’s the doorbell, how do we ask?”
“We don’t,” answered Garth, and launching the election sign like a Spartan with a spear, he hurled it into a decorative pond.
“Garth, what—?” Gasping at it, the real-time splash of a criminal act, Ryan watched a koi fish nibble Back the Jack! “You can’t do that, it’s a crime!”
“It’s a protest, happens all the time,” Garth replied. “And relax, it’s only Them.”
Garth pulled the wagon ahead.
“But you just can’t — I mean, who’s ‘Them’?”
“Up here, they’re everywhere, just look around,” answered Garth. Then rounding a curve, he eyed the next humble abode, a home lifted from Camelot. “You live in a castle? You’re Them. Five-car garage? You’re Them. Can a marching band do halftime in your yard?”
“Them?”
“You’re Them, and if you want to know who I go to school with, where they all live?”
“Here?”
“They’re here, this is Them — and welcome to the Land of th
e Man.”
Ryan thought a moment. “You mean, ‘Men’?”
“I mean ‘the Man,’ Ryan. See, it’s not just one guy, ‘the Man’ is anyone with means. People with power, privilege, suits that fit—”
“Tailored?”
“Whatever.”
“So, guys with ties,” Ryan continued, “they’re the Man?”
“If not, they’re on their way. Same for women.”
“What? Women can be ‘the Man’?”
“The Man’s mainly men, but yeah, there’s Man-Women too, just depends how much they earn. And also, what they drive, because the more you have—”
“The more you’re the Man?”
“And the more they steal from people like us, they’re crooks.”
Ryan’s eyes popped once more. “They are?”
“All of ’em, kid, everyone. And for proof — there, up there, see that?” Lit by floodlight and topping a hill, the next lot seemed zoned for a cloud. “Now, you think someone didn’t lie or cheat to get a place like that? I mean, how else could you get so rich?”
“I don’t know. A job?”
“Right, in Detroit?”
Ryan considered. “Good point,” he agreed, and following Garth to a gate strung with spiders and witches, he watched him unload another sign. “But still, don’t we first need their permission, don’t we at least have to ask?”
“Nah, we’d just interrupt, they’re probably refreezing their rink.” Garth sailed another yard sign over a witch’s head, then pulled the wagon up the next rise of road.
“You know,” Ryan began, falling in behind, “these houses are pretty nice, but if I had a choice? I still wouldn’t move, I like our old home.”
“It’s not a home, Ryan, it’s a ‘Group Home.’”
“So?”
“So there’s a difference, a real family isn’t just some group, they’re—”
“A family?” asked Ryan.
“Exactly, and we’re just headcount, names on a page, all we do is get Jack his yearly tax break.”
“What?”
“It’s the truth, and what’s also true? If you’re not the Man — for guys like us, the ninety-nine percent? We’re pawns, Ryan, just grit in the gears. And we have no chance.”
Ryan had no reply for that, just followed the squeak.
“Then again,” Garth added, “compared to some, we got it pretty good. You know that priest, the one who keeps cutting my cord? Well, when he was a kid — now, this is secret, just between us — but not only did some guys kill his family, they made him a slave!”
His attention elsewhere, Ryan looked at a yard, at a tree with a swing.
“And Miss Kang, have you ever heard her stories, what she says after her tea? I mean, it’s not ordinary tea, it’s that Long Island stuff that smells pretty strong, but anyway, after a glass or two late at night, she not only talks about her crash, but other stuff, too.”
Ryan sniffed a bit, then grabbed the back of the wagon and helped push. “Like?”
“Like, well, and this is secret, too, but when she was little, you know she almost starved? Three times? And her father; late one night, they just knocked on her door and took him away.”
“They?”
“Soldiers, I guess, some kind of police. Though whoever they were, she never saw her father again. But the worst?” Garth lowered his voice. “Now, never say a thing, but long ago, she was going to have a kid, but there’s this law in China and—”
“Wait, Miss Kang’s a mom?”
“No. Not anymore.”
Retreating into silence, both trudged uphill.
“Oh, and this is strange, too,” Garth resumed, now approaching a pumpkin-lined lane. “Because today, that priest? Well, he found this picture I drew, and then for no reason, he asked if—”
“Garth?”
“Huh?”
“Would you be my brother?”
Garth stopped.
“I mean,” Ryan fumbled, “not just a bro’, but — okay, so I know we don’t live in a real home, but since I’ve known you as long as anyone else, well, couldn’t we just — pretend?”
Ryan waited for an answer, for the yes sure to come, but Garth stayed quiet, just stared at the pumpkins lining the lane.
“Nah,” said Ryan. Feigning indifference, he turned to the wagon and dug through the signs. “Just playin’, just jokin’, just forget what I said and we’ll throw another—”
“Sure,” said Garth.
Ryan hesitated, didn’t trust his ears. “Sure?”
“Okay, well, I’ll be your brother,” Garth began, “but only if you never, not ever, offer the same deal to Zack.”
Ryan puzzled on this, but when he saw Garth smirk, the fourth-grader attacked with a bear-hug embrace. “Whoo!” he shouted. “Alright, brother bro’!”
“Garth.”
“Brother Garth!”
“Garth’s good, Ryan, just call me—?”
Derailed by a glint, Garth watched Ryan’s glasses reflect a brightening glow.
“Police!” shouted Ryan, now squinting from oncoming headlights. “Someone saw us, we’re going to be cuffed!”
“Doubtful,” said Garth, now squinting as well. “Your hands are too small.”
“Then they’ll throw me in juvy and I’ll be kicked out of school, I’m only nine!”
Wanting to calm him, settle his nerves, Garth wondered if Ryan was right, if juvenile hall was the usual Bloomfield Hills welcome for boys from Detroit. Another few seconds and they’d know, but as the vehicle arrived, Garth felt an odd intuition; and wished, suddenly, he’d never left his room.
“Looking for cans?” the driver chirped.
Not police. Perky with platinum hair, a fortyish woman with a smile for sales and the scent of pepperoni lowered the window on her black SUV. “You know, for recycling,” she further explained, nodding to the boys’ wagon. “You’re collecting bottles and cans?”
“Uh—?” Garth started to answer, but the halogen gleam off her teeth pinged his memory, roused a vague recognition of dental perfection previously seen.
“Actually—” His fear of juvy suddenly gone, Ryan lifted a sign. “We’re looking for yards, spots to plant these. Have you heard of Ken Fitzgerald—”
“Jack?” the woman cried. “The ‘You Don’t Know Jack’ Jack, the Jack who never wins?”
“That’s him!” Ryan replied in kind. “He’s our leader, our boss, you know Mr. Jack?”
“Sorry, we’ve never met, but I do know his signs, my friends get them as gags and I’ve wanted one for years. You’re in his campaign?”
“Hah, better than that,” Ryan boasted, “we live in his house!”
“His house? Well, just — wow! That’s great, I guess, how sweet, but can I get a sign? Two or three? Wait, can I get ’em all, could you totally plant my yard?”
Following her nod, Garth and Ryan looked down the lane of pumpkins to a stately brick house with a Halloween cemetery, a lawn of foam headstones and manikin undead.
“Whoa!” gasped Ryan, now seizing a mallet and an armload of signs. “Come on, bro’, we’ll plant ’em all, let’s go!”
But as the gate motored open, as the Porsche SUV entered and Ryan chased, Garth hesitated, kept trying to place her face. Probably just a look-alike, no one he knew would live up here. But then he noted another Porsche near the house, then one more, then — feeling a prickly heat, he now eyed the garage, the gold family crest crowned, in exotic font, with ‘Allezahr.’
His prickly heat starting to boil, Garth tried to guess how many families named Allezahr lived three-deep in Porsche. And when the likely answer seemed one, no more or less, he next wondered — if Ashley did live here, how she’d react to his little red wagon piled high with Jack.
“Wait!” shouted Garth, now racing after Ryan. “Wait up, come back!”
Maybe it was the shout or maybe the Porsche, but regardless of the triggering cause, every plastic pumpkin now flashed. Which could have been pr
etty, a trick on visitors and a treat for the eyes, but to Garth, the sequenced flashing just reignited the pain, the agony in his back.
“Mom!” shouted a girl, a call from the house.
Staggering, the pain, but Garth knew the voice, no doubt remained. Yet all he could do was quiver in the lane and quake in the light, the leering flashes of jack-o-lantern strobes.
“Hey, Mom!” the girl repeated. “Guess who got ‘Best Costume,’ I won!”
The front door swung and the girl leapt out, but whatever Garth expected, it certainly wasn’t Princess Leia in a bikini. Yet there she gleamed, Ashley Allezahr in skimpy metallic gold.
“Shocked, Ash,” replied the SUV driver, Ashley’s mother now stepping out. “I’m shocked you even got noticed, now throw on a coat and give me a hand. You hungry?”
But as Garth helplessly watched, as the tailgate motored open on pizzas and sandwiches boxed and stacked, a new sound commenced, the furious drive of mallet to wood.
Startled by it, Ashley turned toward the noise. “Wait, what — is someone in our graveyard? Who the heck is that!”
“Some kid,” her mother replied. “Two of them, they were just passing by. But you know those signs, the ones about Jack?”
“Who?”
“Buddys!” shrieked two girls. Peers of Ashley in all but allure — stuffed in Wookie suits, they showed only mouths — they lumbered outside and clawed at a box.
“Easy, hey, watch the grease!” warned Ashley’s mother. “I close in this car!”
The timer timed-out, every driveway pumpkin now went dark. And simultaneously, so did the pain deep in Garth’s back. But the repeated spasms had taken their toll, and limp and exhausted, he dropped to all fours. A degrading position in a dangerous spot, yet Garth knew he still had a chance, could escape detection if he quickly snuck off.
“Wait, that Jack?” Ashley asked, now donning her mother’s long coat. “The sign guy, that loser who never wins?”
“He’ll win this time!” countered Ryan, now pounding another sign. “At least I hope so, we need a new couch!”
Ashley furrowed at that, then, her brow deepening in crease, she discerned a bump in the driveway, a boy on all fours. “And him?” she continued. “Who’s that? He diving our trash?”
