Patchwork

by Karsten Knight

  Mom’s old station wagon sits in the driveway, and I feel instantly guilty about how little she’s crossed my mind in the hours since the attack disrupted my life. She’s the only living person I love who wasn’t aboard that boat, and for that reason, I guess I wrote her off as safe.

  Whenever someone finds out that my mother lives a few miles from campus, they ask why I board at Daedalus when I could live at home for free. I always give the same convoluted response about how I wanted to have the full boarding school experience, and joke about how the tourists who stay in my old room are better at paying rent than I ever was.

  I always watch their expressions to see whether they can hear how scripted and bullshit it all sounds.

  I fish my cell phone out of my duffel bag and dial home. Mom picks up on the third ring. “Lake Inn, this is Marion,” she says cheerily.

  “Jeez, Ma,” I say. “Are you the sole remaining household in the Western Hemisphere that hasn’t upgraded to Caller ID?”

  “And give up this tacky moose antler phone?” On the other end of the line, I hear a spatula clacking against the inside of a glass bowl. “So what’s going on, Renata?” Roughly translated, that means, You never call, so what’s wrong?

  I needed to hear firsthand that you’re still alive. “I’m on the bus.” I press the receiver closer to my mouth and lower my voice so my other teammates won’t overhear my next question. “I was wondering … if you were going to try to come up to Vermont to catch the championship game tonight.” Because maybe if I keep everyone I love near to me, I can keep them safe, too.

  The sound of the spatula stops. “Nata, you know I’d love to see you pitch,” Mom says. “But I’ve got a couple from Hartford checking in at 6, and they’re expecting a turkey feast when they arrive.”

  I tuck my feet up onto the seat. “Maybe you should remind them that you run a bed and breakfast, not a bed and dinner.”

  Mom laughs, but I can tell she’s exhausted, because it comes out sounding more like a cough. “At least for now, it’s a bed and whatever-hospitality-guarantees-us-return-customers.”

  Our conversation doesn’t last much longer. She tells me a story about some “overly amorous” couple that visited last week, and how some visitors “get frisky” without considering how creaky the beds are or how sound travels in the old house. I listen to her gossip about horny tourists, instead of saying the things to her I really should say. Even if I didn’t have a bus full of teammates eavesdropping on my conversation, I doubt I’d have the courage to say those things anyway.

  Although she never went to a single game this season, she really does sound apologetic this time. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve lived this day before, so I already knew that she wasn’t coming.

  As the bus pulls onto I-91 northbound, I stare out the window and wonder: why are some of the most important questions we ask the ones to which we already know the answer?

  Bottom of the sixth. One inning left to go. The Daedalus bleachers are packed with the fifty cheering students we brought with us on the fan bus, while the Beaumont bleachers are overflowing with hundreds of home-team students, a sea of white speckled with navy blue. Their chants are deafening every time I wind up to pitch, but I try to grasp for the familiar voices on the visitors’ bench. Ivy, Slade, Wyatt, Troy.

  The voices of the living.

  My verve to be alive has infected my pitch with a new heat, transforming every throw into an unpredictable monster. I’ve definitely traded some control for my newfound speed, and I let more pitches than usual go wide. But the ones over the plate result in a quick ground-out for the few Beaumont batters lucky enough to get a piece of it. I am focused. I am intrepid. I am untouchable.

  Unfortunately, I’ve walked two batters already, grazing one of them with a fastball. They were the bottom of Beaumont’s lineup, too, and should have been easy strikeouts with the heat I’m throwing tonight. I need to crush this next hitter to get safely out of the inning.

  I step onto the white strip and crick my neck. As nightfall approaches, the events of the prom and its otherworldly aftermath are starting to feel like a distant nightmare.

  Tonya Wallace, the top of their lineup, steps up to the plate. She flips the bat between the grip and the barrel, toying with me like I’m her next meal. But I notice she won’t look me in the eyes until she steps into the box. That’s when I know that she’s mine.

  On the sideline, the Beaumont mascot—two people in a long blue whale costume—flounders around, making a cooing sound that I’m pretty sure no whale has ever made. As I cock my arm back and around in a fierce windmill, I have only two words for that whale and the entire athletic department it stands for:

  Up yours.

  I release a sizzler that bruises every air molecule on its way to the plate. Tonya steps her long gazelle leg forward and bites into her swing with the vicious grace that’s given her one of the top on-base percentages in New England. Her bat catches a corner of the ball and suddenly there’s a white torpedo swimming through the grass on a trajectory for right field. After four long strides, I reach it with my backhand just in time to intercept it. A quick flip to first base and she’s out.

  Cheers rise up from the home team stands as Tonya sulks back to her dugout. But I listen carefully, because I know that the end of the sixth inning signals something else.

  The Amaranthine Society’s debut in the Green Mountain State.

  From the hometown bleachers, twelve students rise to their feet—our men’s water polo team. Across the field, I can see Wyatt cast a mischievous glance in my direction, even though he has no idea that I’m the one who put him up to this. To protect our identities, we anonymously delivered our instructions to them via recorded messages left in their lockers, with the sound modulated to disguise our voices.

  As one, the team strips off their overcoats revealing bare chests and green, sequined pants. Laughter bursts out of both bleachers and dugouts, and the Beaumont defense that’s in the process of taking the field stops in their tracks.

  Wyatt holds up his hands to make sure his teammates are ready. They draw in a collective breath, then launch into a loud, rousing chorus of an old nautical song, only with new lyrics we provided for them:

  “We are mermen, hear us roar,

  the meanest fish in all the seas!

  We swim through oceans far and wide,

  and take all booty that we please!

  Merman-whores though we may be,

  Your ugly coast we hate to sail

  Between your mascot and your girls—

  we’d rather mate with the whale!”

  Then with a deafening war cry that could batter down the gates of hell, the twelve mermen hoist up the tridents they’d stowed away and storm the field, surging toward the whale mascot. As soon as the two boys in the costume see the wave of screaming, muscular, half-naked men hurdling the chain-link fence, they try to run.

  Wyatt and the others quickly surround it and poke at it with their harpoons, from its fins down to its flippers. After it’s been effectively forked from all sides, the whale tips over onto the grass. More cheers erupt from the home-team stands.

  I look to the Beaumont bleachers. At this point during the last April 27, some of their male athletes flooded the field, incensed by the prank, and a brawl ensued that resulted in several broken noses, a concussion, and a wave of suspensions.

  That’s why earlier today, I took it upon myself to make a few phone calls and arrange a second act to this play.

  The twelve men of the rival Beaumont water polo team rise to their feet, suddenly bare-chested and painted gold. And they too begin to sing:

  “It’s true our whale is beautiful,

  In stormy waters and in calm,

  Though when mating season rolls around

  We’d rather do your mom.

  But if you think you’re manly as mighty Zeus,

  You’ve come to the wrong shores—

  Compared to your tiny tridents

&nbs
p; Our bolts are bigger than yours!”

  From beneath their benches, they produce enormous cutouts of lightning bolts, with gold foil pasted onto cardboard. Then they charge the field to the cheers of their own team, and a mock battle between the two teams breaks out, with a little bit of real roughhousing here and there. But overall, everyone both on and off the field has a stupid smile plastered across their faces. I can even hear Ellie Manfredi, the Beaumont pitcher, laughing loudest of all from the other side of the mound.

  The coaches, the Beaumont faculty, and the two umpires finally approach the clash of the titans. As one, the parade of Zeuses and Poseidons scamper off the field and down the fire lane, occasionally prodding each other in the ass with their bolts and tridents, until the entire procession disappears from view.

  Eventually the ruckus dies down and I make my way off the infield with the rest of the Minotaurs. My good mood crumbles when my eyes find an empty spot in our bleachers, where Dad might be sitting if he could be here. I’ve managed to change some little things on this April 27, but the most important thing is still beyond my control.

  Dad never missed a game.

  The Beaumont pitcher quickly fans through the top of our order, and our two lead-offs go down swinging. Alexa miraculously gets beamed with a pitch on the inseam of her leg, earning a spot on first base, but the pitch had so much heat that she collapses to the dirt. I run over from the on-deck circle to help her to her feet. She claims she’s okay, but she limps to first base. Alexa’s in no condition to run if my hit goes shy. Ellie has to cover her grin with her glove, and that’s when I decide that I’m going to murder her first pitch.

  Last time I took this field, not only did I throw that final three-run homer that clenched Beaumont’s win, but I also grounded out during my last at bat—this at bat.

  But that’s the beauty of going to battle when you’re living a day for the second time. You’ve seen some of the swings and some of the pitches, at least the ones that haven’t changed.

  I step into the batter’s box and tighten both my gloves.

  Look at the direct line my lame grounder took directly to the shortstop last time.

  Point my bat toward the scoreboard where I intend to hit this time.

  For the first time since I popped out of the cosmic wormhole this morning, I have hope. Because if I can tweak history enough to bring two rival schools together for a few minutes, then maybe this world really is mine for the changing.

  Ellie lets the pitch go like a slingshot out of hell. My body goes taut, and when my bat arcs around, I am ready this time.

  Victory.

  As usual, I’ve commandeered the entire back seat of the bus so that I can stretch out, one of the perks of being team captain. After my last-inning homer led to our championship win, no one is about to argue with me.

  It’s funny. As much as I love the game, as much as I love hearing the cheers from the hometown bleachers—as much as I love that brief moment of silence when the ball hovers over the plate, right before the “pop” when it hits the catcher’s mitt—this is my favorite part of the game. Lying half-awake on a long ride home, stretched out in the darkness of the bus. I can feel every bump and turn of the steering wheel in this old canary-colored monstrosity.

  It’s hard to complain with this scenery, too. Dusk has fallen over the Green Mountains. There’s just enough rising moonlight to see our winding path through the rolling hills, the steep drop beside the road, and the narrow river below. The bus climbs and descends, coming close to the rocky waters but never quite getting there.

  I press my back against the metal wall of the bus and turn my cell phone back on. Its backlight illuminates the seat around me with a neon glow. Four missed texts.

  Troy: “Can’t wait for our alone time tonight. I don’t even care if you smell like a sweaty duffel bag.”

  Slade: “You can put me through the windup any time.”

  Ivy: “Is that a new shampoo you’re using? Sometimes I sniff your hair when you’re not looking, and that scent is intoxicating ;)”

  Troy: “I REALLY can’t wait for our alone time tonight.”

  I smile and glance over the back of the seat at the fan bus, which follows ours a length back. Both buses are back to climbing now, the grade of the hill beneath us growing steeper. Ahead of me, some of the girls throw their hands up and give mock roller coaster screams. My phone vibrates again.

  Wyatt:“Victory celebration in Chad’s dorm. Adult beverages compliments of men’s water polo. Ball and chain welcome.”

  I can’t stop rereading the last line. The notorious incident with Wyatt took place months ago, but now that I’ve been faxed several weeks earlier, I’m having trouble remembering where we currently are in the timeline of our harrowing, often awkward journey back to friendship.

  The phone vibrates again, and as nice as it is to be loved, I’m ready to sink into a coma for the rest of the two-hour ride home.

  This text is from a number I don’t recognize.

  Anonymous: “It’s a long way down, Renata.”

  I frown at the glowing screen. What the hell kind of message is that? It’s a 413 number like mine, so it must be from someone in Western Massachusetts, but who—?

  The fan bus behind me honks. I snap to attention and peer over the edge of the seat to see what the commotion is.

  A tractor trailer swings around the side of the fan bus, into the oncoming lane. I can’t imagine what sort of moron thinks it’s a good idea to try to pass two long buses, going uphill.

  His engine whines as he accelerates until he’s neck-and-neck with the bus behind us. The rig driver lets the truck drift toward the opposite shoulder, and for a moment I think he plans to pull off the road to straighten himself out.

  Then the truck cuts hard to the left and slams its cab and cargo into the vehicle beside it.

  That’s all it takes—one shot. The bus driver never sees it coming. The jolt sends the fan bus careening onto the shoulder of the road. The twelve-ton vehicle flattens the rusted metal guardrail on impact and just keeps on going. It has enough momentum that it flies right off the top of the cliff, wheels spinning free, into the ravine.

  It’s not until I see the bus land on the stony incisors far below that I release a piercing scream, and now some of the other girls who had turned around to witness the accident are screaming too. The bus explodes, and a fireball rises up from the river, illuminating the darkness in a growing, undulating cloud of flames.

  I hear my team members pleading for the bus driver to stop, and he immediately goes for the brakes. My scream has gone hoarse now, and I can’t tear myself away from the sight of all my friends—dead again—in the ravine.

  But that view is quickly blocked by the looming hood of the semitrailer, which has taken the place of the fan bus behind us. There’s only a few feet between the glass emergency exit of our bus and the windshield of the truck, and the driver leers into view.

  He wears a dark robe and a wooden mask, painted blood orange and designed to look like a howling sun, with twisted rays coiled around his face like snakes. He peers out through the wooden slits and the molten viciousness behind his eyes should be enough to liquefy the glass between us.

  It’s the killer.

  He steps on the gas and rams into the back of the bus. The bump causes my teammates to scream all over again, and I topple into the crevice between the seats. My phone, which I’ve been clutching so tightly that I’ve broken the screen, skitters down the aisle.

  Another solid hit to the bumper. The rear of the bus fishtails out.

  The truck thrusts us forward like a demonic snowplow.

  The bus rumbles onto the shoulder, then the grass.

  The guardrail rips apart.

  The front of the bus tips down. The caboose tips up. One big deadly seesaw.

  And somehow, throughout the bucking, and the turning, and the nausea, and the horrific realization that in letting my guard down, I’ve killed us all, I find the strength t
o stand up. The angle of the bus tilts further and I watch my classmates tumble out of their seats toward the windshield. An aria of sobs, and shrieks, and the horrible silence in between.

  I wrench open the emergency exit. As the red light from the alarm blinds me, I dig my cleats into the rubber floor and propel myself up the slope.

  Then I’m through the door, and outside the bus, and I’m falling, and I’m grasping, and I’m sliding down a jagged nest of soil and loose rocks, until one hand blindly wraps around a pine sapling. My descent comes to an abrupt stop.

  I hear the sound of wrenching metal and shattering glass below, but I can’t bear to look down at the devastation. I try to search out the gentle lapping of the stream instead, but I can’t find it. There is nothing placid here.

  It takes some time, but I pull myself up the steep valley wall until the ground levels out again. By the time I crawl through the gnarled, gaping hole in the guardrail, my face is so wet and my eyes so bleary that I can’t see straight.

  They’re dead. They’re all dead again.

  Down the road, the truck parks at an angle across the road. The driver-side door flaps open in the breeze.

  The masked killer drops onto the asphalt and walks efficiently toward me. His black robe billows around him in the mountain breeze. His gloved hand flexes around the end of a tire iron, and even with the sun mask hiding his face, I can sense the glee of victory behind it. As though the torture I’m experiencing after watching my friends die a second time is some addicting concoction he’s going to savor until he drives the metal tip of the tire iron into my skull.

  The familiar panic seizes my chest and the road and the trees around me blur to the beat of my heart. I experience terror as he saunters my way, but more than anything, I feel a boundless remorse.

  I made so many changes today, so many tweaks for the better, yet I missed the one change that mattered most.

  I couldn’t save my friends.