Deathskull Bombshell (14 page)

“Who are you here with?” he asked.

“Evangeline,” she said, taking a dainty bite
of her cheese.

Parker stared at her. “You’re with a
chick?”

She laughed. “I’m not with her, dude. It’s
just for prom. I was bored, and she asked me.” She paused, keeping
her voice low. “Is Nick here?”

“Nope,” Parker said. He scratched the back of
his neck.

“What, did you guys get in a fight?”

“No, nothing like that,” Parker assured her.
“He just wanted to stay home.”

She nodded. “Yeah, the crowd’s really
something.”

Parker looked at the dance floor. A few guys
were throwing balloons around, trying to pop them with their pointy
dress shoes.

Elizabeth followed his gaze, zoning out, sort
of smiling with her eyes. He knew that look. She missed Brooke and
Deathskull Bombshell.

“Yeah.”

Emmalee Thunder was dancing with some other
guy by then, Sanjit from Trig class. Sanjit was a small guy with
spiky hair. He wore a tweed suit that made him look like a used-car
salesman, and as usual he’d forgotten to shave off his peach fuzz.
Emmalee looked into Sanjit’s eyes, locking him in her arms like an
octopus with its next meal. Well, he was no Dave, that was for
sure, but she didn’t seem to mind much.

“Well, I gotta run,” Parker said.

Elizabeth nodded. “Okay. Call me later,
though, will you?”

“Sure.”

Parker walked over to the cafeteria, trying
to blend in with all the other students so Emmalee wouldn’t figure
out he left in the middle of prom.

Suddenly, he found himself violently backed
up against a wall. A thick, meaty hand hit the wall right next to
his head. He looked up to see Marcus Thompson, about to head-butt
him like an angry ram.

Marcus Thompson used to be a nice guy. They
were friends, once upon a time, even played on the same soccer team
and done a few group speeches together for Public Speaking freshman
year. But then Marcus got mean. He was always getting in fights
after school. Parker never knew why. He figured it was better just
to stay out of his way.

An unavoidable thing at present.

Marcus hit the wall again, and it rang in
Parker’s ears. “Hey, why don’t you listen,” he spat. “I said,
where’d you leave my sister?”

“Sister?” Parker asked. He thought of
Emmalee, out there on the dance floor. She looked nothing like
Marcus. No way in hell.

“Yeah, you know, Lexie?” Marcus leaned into
Parker’s face, fire in his eyes.

“Uh, no, I have no idea who that is,” Parker
said. He felt the bile in his stomach threaten to rise, and he
prayed it would calm down for just a minute. Vomit would not help
his cause.

“She says you pushed her into one of the
cafeteria tables and stole her purse,” Marcus said. He shoved
Parker, who didn’t move. Maybe if he played dead. “Where’d you put
her purse, huh? You want my sister’s money?” He shoved Parker
again.

“Hey, hey,” a female voice said from behind
them. “Back off, Marcus.”

A pair of manicured hands pulled Marcus off
Parker. A girl in an old hand-me-down dress looked into Parker’s
eyes, then shoved Marcus. “What the hell? You dummy, I said Bart
Crabaugha, not Parker Beloit. Are you deaf? This guy wouldn’t know
a purse if it bit him on the ass.” She eyed Parker. “No
offense.”

“Yeah, whatever, it’s cool,” Parker said. He
just wanted to get out of there.

“Sorry, man,” Marcus said. He pulled Parker
from the wall, patting him on the shoulder a few times like he was
trying to get the scuff marks off his suit. “Didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Parker said.

“You seen Bart?” Marcus asked.

Parker pointed someplace far away. “Yeah, I
think he’s over there somewhere.”

Marcus and Lexie ran off.

“Thank you!” Lexie yelled over her
shoulder.

Parker figured it was leaving time. He left
school, walking by himself in his stupid pinstriped suit. His
parents were probably still awake, watching the evening news while
his sisters slept. His homework was done already.

He wandered over to Nick’s. The door was
unlocked. It was a good thing he wasn’t a thief or an axe
murderer.

Nick’s parents were getting ready for one of
their study-abroad trips. Their house exploded in a state of
creative disarray, with duffel bags and suitcases all over the
place, clothing on the kitchen table and chairs.

No wonder Nick had OCD.

Nick sat on the living room couch in
sweatpants and a green Alkaline Trio t-shirt, watching an old
zombie movie. Parker sat down next to him, and he looked up.

“You’re back,” Nick said.

Parker tried to sound cool. “Yeah, prom was
nuts. These evil robots showed up so I had to kill them. Then I got
expelled for disturbing the peace.”

Nick laughed. “Nice.” He swung a hand over
Parker’s knee, feeling the fabric of his dress pants. “Where’d you
get this?”

“Bargain Bin,” Parker said. He grinned,
remembering the lame radio jingle. “We sell everything cheap…”

“…but the quality’s neat,” Nick sang along
with him.

“God, I hate that place,” Parker said.

“You look good, anyway,” Nick said. “For
real, though, how was prom?”

“Boring.”

“You should have stayed here with me. They
had a whole zombie movie marathon going. It was pretty sweet.” Nick
brushed his burnt-orange hair from his eyes. He’d been growing it
out lately. It was almost down to his chin. He smelled like
soap.

They watched as a George Romero movie played
on the television. The words were different than Parker remembered.
“What’s this one?” he asked.

“
Night of the Day of the Dead of the
Bride
…” Nick started, then stopped. “Um.
Night of the Dawn
of the Day of the Bride
, um…
Day of the Night of the Dawn of
the Day
of… um… god damn it,” he said, finally. “This movie is
fucking impossible.”

Parker grabbed a bag of popcorn from the
kitchen pantry. Mine, he thought, and kissed Nick’s shoulder.
“Sounds great.”

April 2009

Austin shaved his face in the bathroom
upstairs. His mother was at church. They were going to the Easter
party at 1:00 PM after she came back. Hard to believe it was
Easter, considering the blizzard.

The party, as usual, was at Uncle Jim’s. He
and Aunt Gretchen had this big-ass house in the middle of the woods
with a swimming pool. They’d buy all sorts of vegetables and show
off their tempura machine. The cousins would swim and play soccer
and roast marshmallow Peeps in the microwave and watch old movies
on the big-screen TV. Aunt Gretchen would make cilantro salad.

Without fail, every year was the same.

But this year, he had a girlfriend to show
off. This would make him a man in their eyes.

Austin didn’t like it, the idea of love being
a measure of manhood. It seemed like a real test of masculinity
required solitude. A man should be able to stand on his own.

But this was impossible. Life was great. He
had a girlfriend, beautifully fat with his baby, stomach like a
smallish soccer ball.

He wondered what it would look like – his
sloppy mess of hair or Corey’s sweet smile.

He inspected his chin, noted a zit growing
underneath the shaving cream foam. He liked the smell of shaving
cream. It was a strong smell, masculine, like deodorant. The zit
could wait. He wasn’t worried.

Again he lifted the razor to his chin.

A scream from downstairs.

He dropped the razor, ran as fast as he could
down the staircase. But it was already too late. In the basement
Corey lie in bed, clutching her stomach. She screamed at the top of
her lungs.

“Hey,” he said quietly. He tried to touch her
hair or her shoulder, something.

She slapped away his hand and screamed
harder. Her face was bright red. With a shock, he realized the
mattress was covered in blood.

He looked around the room, useless dumb arms
like a gorilla, unfocused eyes. He felt blind. He found the phone
through the noise and called the ambulance.

The red and blue police lights were too much.
They didn’t need to be there. The police just wanted to make sure
it wasn’t a domestic. You never could tell in this neighborhood,
the policeman said. He gave them a smile that didn’t quite reach
his eyes.

“My fucking baby is dead and you’re asking me
if my lover hits me? Fuck you, asshole.”

Corey spat on the ground. She had bad aim,
and it was windy out. The spit dribbled down her chin. She put her
hands in fists, she would have punched the shit out of the first
cop for talking like that, but the dispatcher led her by the arm
into the ambulance.

“Stay here,” Corey commanded when Austin
tried to follow them.

He stood outside the ambulance, looking at
her, helpless.

“Don’t look at me.”

The world continued to move, as worlds do,
but his head felt stuck. His feet were made of glue. He paged
through the Bible in his head, trying to remember old words, some
prayer to comfort him. Like God, the words were gone.

Nothing remains in this life, he told
himself.

It would have been a beautiful baby.

The ambulance drove away, taking with it the
excitement of sirens and lights, taking his girlfriend, the mother
of his child, the only woman he’d ever love.

He waited outside in the cold air, watching
the snow fall. It felt like permanent winter, a frozen numb feeling
that settled in his bones. It started that night and never really
quit. He lit a cigarette and waited for his mother to get back from
church. He wanted to get to the Easter party. Aunt Gretchen always
kept good German beer in the fridge, and he planned to get good and
drunk.

He couldn’t handle the cold basement by
himself, the blood-soaked mattress, the toys and baby shoes.
Everything so hopeful. It made him want to die.

August 2003

Brooke got off the train in a lonely Amtrak
station in New Jersey. It smelled sour, like piss. The brick walls
were painted grey, with graffiti scratched in. So-and-so is a dick.
What’s-her-name likes it up the ass. God hates fags. God hates
homophobes. God thinks you’re ugly.

It kind of looked like a jail cell.

She found solace in the fact that other
people had been to this Amtrak station. Presumably, they hadn’t all
been shot or mugged, since a few of them had enough time on their
hands to write graffiti.

What a trip.

She’d bought tickets, ridiculously expensive
ones. She could have hopped trains, but she didn’t know how, and
the risk of falling was too great. One train in Wisconsin, another
in Illinois. A ratty baseball cap and men’s button-down flannel
shirt for disguise. On the train, a greasy old man with a frizzy
beard and snaggle-teeth eyed her, looking hungry and wild. He
reminded her of a cartoon wolf, licking its chops. You could almost
see the drool. He started reading to her from his book, a dog-eared
copy of
Paradise Lost
. Every few pages he’d pause to recite
the Our Father, then sing a few verses from “Bad Moon Rising”.

Brooke wasn’t superstitious, but she knew an
omen when she was being harassed by one. She got off the train
somewhere in the boonies of Ohio.

That was a month ago.

Ohio was dusty, a tired place. She stayed at
a women’s shelter filled with screaming, smelly babies and whiny
women, abuse victims, eager to blame another person for their
mistakes. It sucked. Some of the girls seemed nice, but there was
too much drama. People tied their arms and shot dope right there in
bed. She learned to ignore it.

Mostly, she kept to herself.

After a few days Brooke got bored with
sitting in bed reading Stephen King and searching the classifieds
for work. She took a walk, no destination in mind, and ended up on
the rougher side of downtown.

There was a gentleman’s establishment called
The Pink Pearl. Brooke imagined it was a reference to female
anatomy, but perhaps they sold jewelry.

You never know.

In the spirit of adventure, she wandered
inside. The Pink Pearl was pretty much as expected, shelves of
DVD’s and magazines, posters of thin tan women with large breasts
licking on bananas, cotton candy, cucumbers, penises.

They were looking for girls, the guy behind
the counter said.

“For what?” she asked.

He looked over at her, adjusting his
eyeglasses. “Well, you know, girls. Dancers.”

She studied her Vans, not really sure about
it. She did need the money, or soon she’d only be able to see the
tips of her Vans, if even that. She couldn’t afford the procedure
on her own. And it wasn’t like anyone else was in a hurry to hire
her.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

He exhaled onion-and-tuna scented breath
through his mouth. “Ever done it before?”

She glared at him, jutting her chin out. “I’m
a fast learner,” she said.

He laughed. “Right. Well, come in tomorrow.
I’ll need an ID before we can legally send you out on the floor.
How old are you?”

Old enough, she thought. “Nineteen.”

She reached into her fake crocodile-skin
plastic wallet and handed him her ID card.

He squinted at it.

She wondered if her ID photo looked like a
stripper’s ID photo. She could feel her stomach twisting. Maybe she
was making a bad choice.

“Can you come in tomorrow?”

Her mouth felt dry. “Sure.”

“Okay,” he said. “Pick a name, not your real
one, we don’t want any trouble. Bring some clothes in. We don’t
supply shoes or makeup.” He tapped his fingertips on the glass
counter. It displayed an extensive collection of glass dildos and
ben wah balls. “You start at eleven-thirty.”

“What sort of clothes?” she asked.