Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups

by Michael C Bailey

  “Hey!” Mal barks. He stoops to help Steve up but the kid tells Mal to leave him alone. The palms of his hands are red and raw, and there’s a nasty scrape on the side of his face, but he’s okay.

  The kid, Gene something, points and laughs at Steve, and that’s when I lose it. “Get your ass inside! NOW!” I bellow, and all the color drains out of Gene’s face. He runs inside, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure I’m not chasing after him. The other kids lock up, too scared to move or say anything.

  “All right, everyone, show’s over, get inside,” Mal says, motioning for the other kids to keep it moving. “Steve, are you —?”

  “Fine,” Steve whimpers, shouldering Mal out of the way. He shuffles into the clubhouse, head bowed. Dead man walking.

  “Stuart. You okay, man? What the heck was that all about?” Mal says. I try to respond, but I can’t speak. I can’t move because I’m trembling so badly I feel like my body’s going to shake itself apart. “Why don’t you go inside? I can handle bus duty.”

  Instead of going inside, I head to the back of the property, a thin strip of lawn between the building and some woods. Mrs. Dean comes here to sneak a cigarette when she forgets her nicotine gum. It’s also a good place to blow off some steam in private.

  I’m not alone for long. Peggy pokes her head around the corner. “Hey. You okay?”

  “No,” I say, hoping she’ll take the hint and leave me alone. She doesn’t. Should’ve hinted harder.

  “What happened? Mal said Gene pushed Steve off the bus...”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “I meant, what happened with you? Mal also said you went ballistic on Gene and scared him half to death.”

  “Yeah. Because Gene pushed Steve off the bus.” Peggy folds her arms and waits for the rest of the story. She’s in full-on supervisor mode. She takes her job way seriously. “It was a whatchacallit...I don’t know what the word is. A trigger thing? I don’t know.”

  “Something to do with your little brother?”

  “How did you know about that?” I say, stomping up to her. It’s an impulse thing, and I immediately regret it.

  “My little sister Ophelia was there when it happened. She was standing right next to Jeff when that other kid pushed him. Ron something?”

  “...Ronny Vick.”

  “Right. Ronny Vick. So yeah, I heard all about it after it happened.” She pauses in thought “Oh, jeez. It happened around this time of year, didn’t it?”

  I nod. “Four years tomorrow.”

  Peggy bows her head and mumbles something, like she’s praying, then says to me, “Come on. You’re going to help me with the afternoon coffee run.”

  “I don’t want to —”

  “No arguments. I need your big, manly hands to carry heavy trays of overpriced coffee, so move it,” Peggy says with a gentle smile. “Don’t make me pull rank on you.”

  Being friends with Carrie has taught me that sometimes I need to just shut my mouth and do what I’m told. This is one of those times.

  I follow Peggy to her car, a crappy little POS held together by Bondo, duct tape, and good luck. The newest, shiniest part of the car is the Kingsport High student parking pass stuck to the windshield.

  “Hey. Who’s Mona?” I ask, pressing my face to the sticker to make sure I didn’t misread the name on it.

  Peggy winces. “That would be me,” she says as we climb in. “My real name is Desdemona.”

  “Get out.”

  “For real. My little sister is Ophelia and my older brother is Titus. My parents are Shakespeare nuts. And I think they might hate us.”

  “Ah. So how’d you get Peggy out of Desdemona?”

  “Because of this,” she says, hiking her skirt up enough to reveal a prosthetic left leg.

  “Whaaaaat? I didn’t know you had that,” I say, in doing so securing my place as front-runner for the Stupidest Comment of the Year Award. I didn’t know you had that. Idiot.

  “Yep. I was attacked by a neighbor’s dog when I was four. Damage was so bad the doctors had to amputate my leg below the knee,” she says, pointing to the spot where her real leg ends and the fake leg begins. “After I was fitted for my first prosthetic, I came home hobbling around because I wasn’t used to it yet, and Titus thought it was sooooo hysterical he started hopping on one foot and calling me ‘Peg-Leg Peggy the Pirate.’”

  “Dude. That is cold.”

  “And stupid, because he did that in front of Mom. She went absolutely apehouse on him. After Mom finished chewing him out and he was done bawling like a baby, Titus said, ‘I’m sorry, Mona,’” Peggy says, mimicking her sobbing brother, “and I declared, ‘I’m not Mona anymore. I’m Peggy the Pirate.’ And I refused to respond to anyone if they didn’t call me Peggy. It made Titus miserable.”

  “Good. Jerk-ass deserved it.”

  “No, he didn’t. He was seven. Little kids say stupid things all the time. Eventually I forgave him, but by that time the name had stuck. Funny thing is? Titus is the only person in my family who still calls me Peggy.”

  “Huh. Nice plot twist.”

  “Who saw that coming, right?” she laughs. “We should go get that coffee. Ready to roll out?”

  I smirk. “Lead the way, Mona.”

  Gene spends the day in the study room, sitting in the corner and pouting. Steve spends the day sitting in the corner of the common room, resisting any and all efforts to get him up and active. I sympathize, kid. All it takes to ruin a whole day is one craptacular moment.

  The club officially closes at six, but Mrs. Dean asks the staff to stay behind to discuss “the Gene problem.” This isn’t the first time Gene’s been caught harassing other kids, but this is the first time he’s gotten physical with someone. Well, the first time he’s been caught, anyway. Under the club’s bylaws, we should be kicking his butt out.

  “It isn’t that simple. I know Gene’s mother,” Mrs. Dean says. “She’s a working single parent. Without the club, Gene goes home to an empty house, or worse, he hangs out in town and gets into trouble. He’s exactly the kind of child who needs this club.”

  “But he’s a bully,” says John, one of the other student volunteers, “and Steve isn’t the only kid he’s hassled. We’ve all caught him at one time or another, but he doesn’t stop. Other members shouldn’t be scared of coming to the club.”

  “No, they shouldn’t, but kicking Gene out would only make him someone else’s problem. That’s why I’m presenting this to all of you,” Mrs. Dean says, spreading her hands. “I’m hoping one of you might propose a third option. I will revoke Gene’s membership, if push comes to shove...”

  Whoa. Bad word choice there, Mrs. D.

  She waits for one of us to throw out a brilliant idea. She waits, and waits...

  “Has anyone tried talking to Gene? Or his mother?” Mal says. “Maybe if someone explains the situation to them, makes it clear he’s about to get booted, it might wake the kid up.”

  Mrs. Dean nods and Hmms.

  “Or it might just give Gene a reason to go after Steve even harder at school,” John says, growing agitated. “I got picked on a lot when I was younger. I know how a bully’s mind works. They pick a favorite target, and they’ll go out of their way to rationalize their behavior. If someone talks to Gene about what he did, he’s going to turn around and blame Steve for getting him into trouble, and things will escalate. We wouldn’t be doing Steve any favors.”

  I squirm in my seat, John’s words hitting a little too close to home. Ronny Vick was the same way with Jeff. The way Jeff told it, he never did anything to earn Ronny’s attention except make eye contact with him once in a hallway — the classic “What are you looking at?” scenario, straight out of the school bully handbook. Once Ronny picked his target, that was it; Jeff couldn’t win. No matter how he responded or reacted, Ronny twisted it to make himself out as the victim, and all the crap he gave Jeff was some bizarre form of self-defense. Nothing made it stop. Nothing until...
r />   Gene and Steve are Ronny and Jeff all over again, and if it doesn’t stop, it’ll end the same way.

  Unless...

  “Stuart?” Mrs. Dean says.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you all right?” she says. Everyone is looking at me with worried expressions.

  “I’m fine,” I say automatically, even though I’m dangerously close to snapping the armrests off my chair. “No, I’m not fine. I’m pissed. I’m pissed that kids like Gene exist. I’m pissed that they torture other kids for fun and keep getting away with it and don’t stop until someone gets hurt.”

  “Then you think we should eject Gene?” Mrs. Dean asks.

  “...No. John’s right. You kick Gene out or talk to his mom, he’s going to blame Steve and go after him ten times worse. Almost anything we do is going wind up biting Steve on the ass.”

  Mrs. Dean raises an eyebrow. “Almost? Do you have an idea?”

  No.

  Yes.

  God, it makes me sick to my stomach, but it might work.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I might.”

  The staff heads out, buzzing about my idea. They like it. Mrs. Dean loves it and thinks it could work. She told me to go for it. I kind of wish she hadn’t.

  I step outside and the first thing I see is Steve, sitting on the bench right outside the main entrance, hugging his backpack and staring at the ground.

  “Ride running late?” I say.

  He glances in my general direction. “Yeah.”

  “Who’s picking you up?”

  “My sister.”

  “When is she getting here?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Is she on her way?”

  “I guess.”

  It’s six thirty-ish. It isn’t that dark out yet, but I can’t leave the kid sitting alone in front of a locked building. I sit on the bench and say I’ll hang out with him until his sister gets here.

  “Whatever.”

  Mrs. Dean is the last person out. She notices us as she starts to lock up for the night. “Oh, Steve,” she says, “is Amber late again?”

  “Uh-huh,” Steve says into his backpack.

  “I’ll wait with him until she shows up, Mrs. D,” I say. She smiles gratefully, locks the door, and shakes her head in pity before walking to her car.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Amber? Not Amber Sullivan?”

  “Are you friends with her?” he asks in a way that suggests my answer better damn well be no.

  “Ha! We’re a lot of things, dude, but friends ain’t on the list,” I say. Steve relaxes a little. “She does this a lot, huh? Leaves you sitting here?”

  “Every day she’s supposed to pick me up.”

  I don’t know why, but I try to give Amber the benefit of the doubt. “Does she get stuck at work, or...?”

  “No, she’s just hanging out with her boyfriend.”

  That would be Gerry Yannick. Uh-huh. Hanging out. I’m going to let the little guy hang on to that delusion.

  “Amber’s a bitch,” he says.

  “Whoa, hey now, don’t call her that,” I say, even though I totally agree with him.

  “She is. She’s always mean to me.”

  “I don’t think that’s an Amber thing. My big brother’s always kind of a di— uh, a jerk to me. Maybe she’s not nice to you all the time, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”

  He gives me a sideways glare. I guess I deserve it. I mean, I know I’m right; I don’t think Amber sucks so bad she actually hates her little brother, but she’s not helping things any by giving Steve crap after he’s spent the whole day dealing with a tool like Gene.

  Jeez. Gene at school and his sister at home, both of them making the kid feel like garbage. No wonder he’s a mess.

  “Hey. That kid Gene?” Steve shrinks when I say Gene’s name, like if I say it two more times Gene’s going to appear out of nowhere and punch him. “We’re going to try and do something about him.”

  “Like what? Is he getting thrown out?” Steve says hopefully.

  “Maybe. It depends. Mrs. Dean wants to try something else first, but if that doesn’t work, then yeah, I think he’ll get kicked out.”

  Steve’s only reaction is a weird little twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  Oh, hey, look who finally showed up.

  “What are you doing here?” Amber says to me in her usual disgusted drawl.

  “Hanging out with my boy Steve,” I say, giving Steve a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Making sure he stays safe until his irresponsible twit of a big sister decides to do her job and — oh, wait, that’s you.”

  “Bite me.”

  “Nice one. Consider me burned. Club closed forty-five minutes ago,” I say, putting on my serious staff member face. “Forty-five minutes. Where’ve you been?”

  Amber snorts. “None of your business where I’ve been. And I’m here now, so what’s the big whoop?”

  “The big whoop is, he’s your little brother,” I say, standing up. Amber takes a nervous step back. “You’re supposed to take care of him. Leaving the kid sitting outside a closed building for nearly an hour while you screw around with your boyfriend is not taking care of him. What if something had happened to him?”

  “Nothing happened to him.”

  “This time.”

  Amber’s response is cut off by a blast of car horn. I look past her to Gerry, who leans out the driver’s side window of his car and shouts, “Come on, Amber! Get him and let’s go!”

  “You shut it, Gerry!” I shout back. “This is your fault, too! Amber was supposed to pick Steve up forty-five minutes ago!”

  Gerry rolls his eyes. “So we were a little late.”

  “Yeah, I was a little late once, too!”

  Once, Gerry was a friend. Matt and I grew up with him and he’d known Jeff since he was born. He was still part of our circle when Jeff died, so it hit him as hard as it hit Matt or Sara. Maybe it’s a low blow, but I don’t care. He needs the reminder.

  “Amber,” he says.

  Amber squirms. She was never a friend, but she knows what happened too, and like I said, she doesn’t completely suck as a human being.

  “Steve, let’s go,” she says in a whisper. Steve hops off the bench and, with a quick glance my way, walks to the car. Amber holds her hand out to him. Steve ignores it.

  I hate the idea I pitched to Mrs. Dean. I hate what I have to do to make it happen.

  Suck it up, boy. This isn’t about you. This is about kids like Steve. Do it for him.

  And that’s how day two of the worst week of the year ends.

  3.

  Day three.

  Four years ago today.

  That knowledge only made what I had to do that much harder, but maybe that’s why he said yes so quickly. He didn’t hesitate or resist; he didn’t ask any questions; he just said yes and asked if he could do it today.

  I called Mrs. Dean as soon as the final bell rang, and she jumped at the offer. Let’s make it happen, she said.

  As soon as the kids get off the bus, we usher them into the clubhouse gym. They chatter excitedly, thinking we’re going to treat them to a movie, then let out a soft group groan of disappointment when Mrs. Dean announces “a special guest speaker.” They know that’s code for “someone’s going to come in and lecture you.”

  “We’ve had some issues with bullying here at the club,” she says, which causes more than a few kids to fidget, “and we wanted to find a way to address the problem for the benefit of those affected by such behavior and, I hope, for the benefit of those who engage in such behavior.”

  She speechifies for a while, which she tends to do, and once all the kids are good and bored, she introduces the guest speaker. The kids applaud politely but without any interest.

  It takes Ronny Vick three sentences to hook every single one of them.

  “My name’s Ronald Vick. If I had friends, they’d call me Ronny, but I don’t have friends anymore. I lost all my friends when I killed a te
n-year-old boy,” he says, and that admission sucks all the air out of the room. The kids look away briefly, at me, when he says, “His name was Jeff Lumley,” but otherwise everyone is laser-focused on Ronny.

  Peggy grabs my hand to comfort me. I wish she wouldn’t. I don’t want to crush her fingers accidentally.

  “I pushed Jeff down the front steps of our school. He fell and landed wrong,” Ronny says, his gaze jumping back and forth between his audience and the floor. “I was arrested in front of all my classmates and charged with manslaughter. I was convicted and sent to a juvenile facility. I got out last year. Um.”

  He falls silent. The kids’ attention starts to slip. He catches my eye, grimaces, takes a breath, and charges ahead.

  “I bullied Jeff for months before I killed him. I’d call him names, make fun of how he looked, sometimes I’d threaten to hurt him...sometimes I would hurt him. He was a good kid. He didn’t deserve any of it,” Ronny says, his voice cracking. “He never did anything to me. I had no reason to pick on him. I still can’t tell you why I decided to go after Jeff specifically.”

  “Then why did you?” I blurt out. In the total silence, my voice is like a bomb going off. Everyone jumps and swings their attention my way. “Why did you do it at all?”

  For a moment, I swear Ronny is going to run. Or wet himself. Or both.

  “When I was in juvey, I had to meet with a counselor a couple times a week. He asked me every day we met why I picked on Jeff. For a long time I couldn’t tell him because I didn’t know. I honestly had no idea why I did it,” Ronny says. “Then one day I was talking about my family, telling the doctor about my dad, and I realized he was kind of the reason why I acted like I did. He wasn’t a bad guy, really. He didn’t abuse me or anything like that, but he was always really critical of me. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him, and he never had a problem telling me what a disappointment I was. I think he was trying to motivate me to do better, but all it did was make me feel like I was worthless. I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I took all the anger and frustration I felt toward my father and dumped it on kids at school. I felt weak, and bullying kids like Jeff tricked me into believing I was strong.”