Freak the Mighty (6 page)

The address on the ID card is this place on the other side of the millpond. They used
to call it the New Tenements, but now everybody mostly calls it the New Testaments,
which Gram told me has nothing to do with the Bible.

“People will make their jokes,” she says. “Call that place whatever you want, but
you are not to set foot over there. Is that clear, Maxwell dear?”

It’s not like I
wanted
to go into the Testaments, so it was real easy to keep that promise, and then the
day after we pull that soggy purse out of the sewer Freak explains how it’s okay to
break a promise if you’re on a quest.

“There may even be a reward involved,” he says.

“The lady won’t have much money if she lives in the Testaments,” I say. “Poor people
live there, and dope fiends.”

What we do is go down to the playground and cut over behind that little patch of trees,
just in case anybody is looking, and then we can circle around behind the pond. Freak
is riding up top, which he almost always does now. That way he doesn’t have to wear
his leg brace or carry his crutches, and besides, I like how it feels to have a really
smart brain on my shoulders, helping me think.

Freak is talking a mile a minute, more stuff about the Round Table and how important
quests are, and why knights are bound up with oaths, which is not the same thing as
swearing, and I’m trying to listen and not ask questions because if I ask questions,
he’ll pull out his dictionary.

When we get to the Testaments, though, Freak shuts right up. It’s this big, falling-apart
place with a bunch of apartments, and it looks sad and smells like fish and sour milk.
There’re a lot of bikes and toys lying around, mostly bashed up and broken, and the
little kids who live there look almost as busted up as the toys. When they see us
coming they make these screaming noises and run away, but you can tell they’re not
really scared, they just want to pretend like we’re a monster or something, eek eek.

“Maybe we should reconsider this particular quest,” Freak says. He’s up there on my
shoulders and he’s getting fidgety, squirming around.

But we’re already outside the apartment door, and I go, “Maybe she really needs that
ID card,” so it’s my fault what happens next.

The door opens before we even ring the bell, and this hand comes snaking out and reaches
for the mailbox and finds this rolled-up newspaper and pulls it back inside. And there’s
something about the blind way that hand moves that’s creepy. Get out of here, I’m
thinking.

Then, before I can get my feet moving fast enough to leave, this woman’s voice is
cussing us out.

“Iggy!” she says. “Iggy, come here and see this!”

Now she’s standing in the doorway, this scrawny, yellow-haired woman with small, hard
eyes and blurry red lips. She’s wearing this ratty old bathrobe and she’s smoking
this cigarette and squinting at us and making a face.

“Iggy,” she says out of the side of her mouth, “come here and tell me is the circus
in town or what?”

Next thing there’s this big hairy dude in the doorway, he’s got a huge beer gut and
these giant arms all covered with blue tattoos and he’s got a beard that looks like
it’s made out of red barbed wire.

“Ain’t the circus,” he says, spitting a big gob on the step. “This here is the carnival.”

Freak isn’t saying anything, and I want to get out of here, so I go, “Sorry, wrong
number,” and I’m trying to back away and not fall over a tricycle when the hairy dude
comes out the door real quick and gets in my way.

“Not so fast,” he says. “Who sent you?”

“I know the big one,” the woman is saying. She’s waving her cigarette around and squinting
her eyes up and you can tell she’s thinking on something, worrying it like a dog with
a bone. “I seen him around somewhere. Don’t he look familiar, Iggy? Don’t he?”

Freak finally says, “Please excuse us, we have the wrong address. We were, uhm, trying
to locate a Miss Loretta Lee.”

The tattoo dude hears that and he starts to laugh, this fat sound way down in his
big belly, and he goes, “You hear that, Loretta? This an old flame of yours or what?”
Then he reaches up and pokes me in the chest hard enough to make me catch my breath,
and he says, “Cat got your tongue, kid? What is this, a Siamese-twin act?”

All I can think to say is, “Oops,” because we have the right address after all. The
squinty woman in the robe is Loretta Lee, and even more important, Iggy is Iggy Lee,
and I feel like a total butthead because I’ve heard of Iggy Lee, he’s the boss of
The Panheads, this bad-news motorcycle gang.

“We found your purse!” Freak blurts out, and he tosses down the purse and Iggy Lee
catches it with one hand and he gives Loretta this secret look, like he’s going to
have some fun here.

“You better come inside,” he says, looking up at Freak. “You and Frankenstein.”

“Sorry,” Freak says, and his voice is chattery high. “We’ll have to decline your kind
invitation because we, uhm, we have to leave now.”

Loretta flicks her cigarette butt at my feet and she says, “Iggy says come inside,
you better do it.”

So we go inside. I have to take Freak off my shoulders so we can get in the door and
that’s when Loretta looks at me real hard and she says, “I know that one. It’s like
a flash from the past, Iggy. You know him?”

Iggy isn’t paying any attention to her, he’s pointing at this ratty chair and he says,
“Sit down, it makes me nervous looking up.”

Loretta comes around and she says, “Don’t be making Iggy nervous. Not this early in
the day. Last dude made him nervous, they had to —”

“Shut up, Loretta,” Iggy says in this real quiet voice. “I’m thinking. You’re right,
he
does
look familiar.”

I’m sitting in this chair, which feels like it might bust apart, and Freak is right
next to me and I can see he’s trying to stand straight but it’s not easy because he’s
all bent up inside.

“Names,” Iggy says.

Freak clears his throat and tries to make his voice sound deep and more grown up.
“We’re sorry to disturb you, but we have to go home now. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

Iggy reaches out and he flicks his fingers at Freak’s nose,
whack
. I can tell it hurts, but Freak doesn’t say anything, he just tenses up.

Iggy goes, “I ask a question, you better answer, get it? Names. I want your names.”

Freak tells his name and then mine and Iggy
reaches down and pats him on the head. “Very good,” he says. “Now that wasn’t hard,
was it? Next question, where’d you get Loretta’s purse?”

Freak tells him we found it in the storm drain. He doesn’t mention us dressing up
all in black, or the Darth Vader costume, or anything about knights or quests.

“Next question,” Iggy says. “Where’s the money?”

Loretta coughs on her new cigarette and says, “But Iggy, there wasn’t any money,”
and he goes, “Shut up, Loretta,” and she coughs again and shuts up, you can tell she’s
afraid of Iggy, the way she holds herself tight whenever he says anything.

Freak goes, “I’ve got two dollars in change, you can have it but we have to go home
now.”

Iggy gives him this look like he’s thinking seriously about throwing up and he says,
“What is it with you, you’ve gotta go home? We’re having a nice little talk here,
don’t spoil it.”

All of a sudden Loretta jumps up and she goes, “Iggy! Iggy! I’ve got it! Kenny Kane!
Remember Kenny Kane?”

For a second I think he’s going to hit her, and then he relaxes and really looks at
me and his eyes go wide and he nods and says, “Sure. That’s it. Kenny Kane. You’re
right, he’s a ringer for old Killer Kane. Must be his kid, huh? Sure it is.”

Loretta looks real happy that she finally figured it out and she runs into the kitchen
and
kicks some stuff out of the way and pulls open the refrigerator and we can hear her
laughing and saying, “I
knew
it, I just
knew
it.”

When she comes back in she’s got two cans of Bud and she pops them both and gives
one to Iggy. “Breakfast of champions,” she says. “What a flash, huh? You remember
that time old Kenny —”

“Shut up, Loretta!” Iggy says, then he chugs the Bud and squashes the can in his fist
and he drops it right on the floor. Which is the first time I notice all the other
crushed cans, they’re everywhere, the whole place is like a trash can or a big ashtray
or something.

Meanwhile Freak is giving me this look like he has no idea what’s going on, and that
look scares me more than Iggy Lee and all his tattoos.

“I’ve got him, too,” Loretta says, snapping her fingers. “The midget or dwarf or whatever
he is. He must be Gwen’s kid, you remember Gwen? Stuck-up Gwen?”

“No,” Iggy says, and his eyes are burning into me. “Never heard of Gwen.”

Loretta goes, “Doesn’t matter. What a flash this is. Kenny Kane. Time flies, huh,
Ig? I can remember when these two were
born
. And then, what was it, a couple of years later Kenny does his thing and he’s in
the yard, right? Doing time.”

Iggy says, “That he is. I know a guy knows him inside.” He gives me this creepy look
and he says, “You go up there to visit the old man, you tell him Iggy says hello,
okay?”

“I doubt he even
knows
his father, Ig. He was only a little kid when it happened. Right?”

I don’t say anything and Freak is looking at me like he’s never seen me before and
then Iggy says, “Killer Kane. What a tough hombre
he
was.”

Loretta says, “I heard he seen the light in there. He’s got religion, is that true?”

“I don’t know.”

Iggy snorts and he says, “He don’t know. You don’t know much, do you?”

I shake my head.

Loretta says, “He’s some kinda retard, Ig. He don’t even know how big and strong he
is, I’ll bet.” She pokes Iggy or tickles him and in this strange giggly voice she
says, “Whyn’t you find out? Find out if he’s as strong as he looks?”

Iggy scowls and he goes, “Give me a break, Loretta.” He gives me this long look and
then he hooks his thumb at the door and says, “Show time is over, boys. Get out of
here, the both of you.”

Loretta says, “But, Iggy, we could have some fun.”

“You’re the retard, Loretta,” Iggy says. “What if Killer Kane hears I was messing
with his kid? No thank you.”

“He’s in for life,” she says. “What’s the harm?”

“Life ain’t life, how many times I tell you that?”

Loretta is squinting at him and she goes, “Are you serious? He’s getting out someday?”
and Iggy looks at me and tells her to shut up again.

Finally we get to the door and that’s when Loretta wants to rub Freak on the head.
Real hard, with her knuckles.

“This is for luck,” she says to Iggy. “It’s good luck, rubbing a dwarf on the head.”

Freak is trying to duck away and he says, “I’m not a dwarf and I’m not good luck.”

So Loretta gives up on rubbing his head and she stands up straight and folds her arms
and says, “Hey, midget man? I know all about you. Your old man was a magician, did
you know that?”

Freak is scuttling around behind me, keeping out of her way, but when she says that,
I can tell he wants to know about his father, if maybe he really
was
a magician.

“Yeah,” Loretta says. “Right after you was born. He
must
be a magician, because as soon as he heard the magic words ‘birth defect,’ he disappeared.”

A second later Iggy shoves us out the door.

I feel real bad for Freak, because he hates it when people try to rub his head for
luck, but I don’t say a word, I just run us home, thumping the short way back around
the pond, and my big feet never even trip me up because I’m on automatic, I’m this
running machine.

“Whoa!” Freak says when we get to his house. “Now
that
was an adventure, huh?”

“An evil dude like Iggy Lee, we were lucky to get out of there alive.”

Freak goes, “No way, that was all talk.”

Yeah, right. The real deal is that I was scared the whole time I was there, and so
was Freak, even if he won’t admit it now.

“That stuff about my father was true,” Freak says, studying his fingernails and acting
real
cool again. “The Fair Gwen won’t talk about it. All she says is, ‘He made his decision
and I made mine.’ But I know he ran away because of me. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

For some reason that really gets me laughing. Something about the way he says it,
or maybe it’s all that nervous stuff left over from the New Testaments. Whatever,
I’m rolling on the ground like a moron and Freak is strutting around and saying stuff
like, “Loretta my Queen, wouldst thou accept my hand in marriage?” and, “Sir Iggy,
wouldst thou do us all a big favor and fall upon thy sword?” And I’m laughing so hard
I can hardly breathe.

Everything is pretty much okay after that. One thing we don’t do, though, we don’t
talk about my father, good old Killer Kane. Which is fine by me.

School.

For the last week or so it’s like getting jabbed with a little needle every time I
hear that word. Gram is trying to pretend how excited she is I’m finally in the eighth
grade, like this is a really big deal. Which is a joke, because the only reason I
got passed from seventh grade is because they figured this way the big butthead can
be — quote — someone
else’s
problem, thank God, we’ve had quite enough of Maxwell Kane — unquote.

Gram takes me out to the mall to get new clothes, which is about as much fun as going
to the dentist, except maybe worse because at least at the dentist you’re mostly just
in the chair with the door closed, where at the mall with Gram it’s like hello, world,
here I am, take a good look.

This girl at the shoe store, she’s got a little smirk and she goes, “Thirteen triple
E? Do they make shoes that big?” and Gram goes, “I’m quite sure they do, dear, you
go ask the manager.” And then she looks at me and she goes, “Maxwell, this is
not
major surgery, so you will please, as a special favor to me, wipe that wounded look
off your face and try to be polite.”

Yeah, right. The manager, when he comes out with these Brand-X running shoes, he wants
to help me take off my old shoes, like he’s pretty sure I can’t do it by myself, but
I give him this look and he backs off and lets me do it myself.

“I wish you’d tie those laces, dear,” Gram says when I’m squishing around in the new
shoes.

“That’s the fashion,” the manager says with this heh-heh-heh laugh. “Actually, they’re
designed that way. You don’t
need
to lace up.”

Just to prove what a jerk he is, I tie up the laces and that makes Gram happy. Which
is funny sometimes, how little it takes to make her happy, except you can’t really
figure what until you’ve already done it. Does that make any sense?

Finally we escape from the mall and I’ve got enough new clothes to last me, as Grim
points out, a week or so.

“You could just keep letting down his cuffs,” Grim says. “Except they don’t have cuffs
now, what am I thinking?”

“I think he looks quite handsome,” Gram says. “Maxwell, please turn around. And keep
your shirttail tucked in.”

“Ah, leave him alone,” Grim says. “He’s not a fashion model.”

“I just can’t get over it,” Gram says. “Our little Maxwell is growing up.”

“Growing is right,” Grim says. “The boy is certainly growing.”

The deal is, Freak and I get to be in the same classes. He made the Fair Gwen go in
and see all these people at the school, because I wasn’t supposed to be in the smart
classes, no way, and finally they all agreed it would be good for Freak, having someone
to help him get around.

Gram acts kind of worried about it and she doesn’t want to sign the papers, like she
thinks the L.D. class has done me a lot of good or something, and being in the genius
class is just going to make me slower and dumber than ever. But one night I come up
the cellar stairs real quiet and Grim is saying, “Let’s give it a try, nothing else
has worked, maybe what he needs is a friend, that’s the one thing he’s never had with
all those special teachers.” And the next morning she signs the papers, and when we
get to school the first day, Freak helps me find my name on the list and it’s true,
we’re in all the same classes.

At first all the other kids are so into looking cool and acting cool and showing off
their new outfits, they hardly notice us in the hall, Freak riding high on my shoulders,
or the deal where his desk is always right next to mine. That wears off, though, and
by the time we leave math, which is just passing out the textbooks and a bunch of
numbers chalked on the blackboard, you can hear the whispers in the hall.

Like, hey, who’s the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf;
and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh, my
gawd
that’s
disgusting
.

“Maxwell Kane?”

This is from Mrs. Donelli, the English teacher, she’s new to the school, and when
I nod and raise my pencil, she goes, “Maxwell, will you please stand up and tell the
class something about your summer?”

Which, if she wasn’t new to the school, she’d know better, because getting up in the
class and saying stuff is not something I do.

“Maxwell,” she goes, “is there a problem?”

By now there’s a lot of noise and kids are shouting stuff like, “Forget it, Mrs. Donelli,
his brain is in his tail!”

“Ask him to count, he can paw the ground!”

“Maxi Pad! Maxi Pad! Ask him quick about his dad!”

“Killer Kane! Killer Kane! Had a kid who got no brain!”

Mrs. Donelli has this look like she stepped in something and she can’t get it off
her shoe. The shouting and singing goes on and on, and pretty soon some of the kids
are throwing stuff at us, pencils and erasers and wadded-up paper, and it’s like Mrs.
Donelli has no idea what to do about it, the room is out of control.

Then Freak climbs up on his desk, which makes him about as big as a normal person
standing up, and he starts shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Order!” he shouts. “Order in the court! Let justice be heard!”

For some reason, maybe because he looks so fierce with his jaw sticking out and his
little fists all balled up and the way he’s stamping his crooked little feet, everybody
shuts up and there’s this spooky silence.

Finally Mrs. Donelli says, “You must be Kevin, is that right?”

Freak has this look, he’s still acting really fierce, and he goes, “Sometimes, I am.”

“Sometimes? What does that mean?”

“It means sometimes I’m
more
than Kevin.”

“Oh,” says Mrs. Donelli, and you can tell she has no idea what he’s talking about,
but she thinks it’s important to let him talk. “So, Kevin,” she says, “can you give
us all an example?”

Next thing I know, Freak has his hands on my head and he’s getting himself on my shoulders
and he’s tugging at me in a way that I know
means “stand up,” and so I do it, I stand right up in class and I can see Mrs. Donelli’s
eyes getting bigger and bigger.

I’m standing there with Freak high above me and it feels right, it makes me feel strong
and smart.

“How’s
this
for an example?” Freak is saying. “Sometimes we’re nine feet tall, and strong enough
to walk through walls. Sometimes we fight gangs. Sometimes we find treasure. Sometimes
we slay dragons and drink from the Holy Grail!”

Mrs. Donelli is backing up to her desk and she says, “Oh, my, that’s very interesting,
I’m sure, but could you both just sit down?”

But Freak is riding me like he’s the jockey and I’m the horse, he’s steering me around
the class room, showing off. He’s raising his fist and punching it in the air and
going, “Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!” and pretty soon he’s got all the other
kids chanting, “Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!” even though
they don’t know what he’s talking about, or what it means.

I’m standing up straight, as tall as I can, and I’m marching exactly like he wants
me to, right and left, backwards and forwards, and it’s like music or something, like
I don’t even have to think about it, I just do it, and all those kids chanting our
name, and Mrs. Donelli has no idea what’s going on, she’s definitely flipped out and
more or less hiding behind her desk.

The whole class is raising their fists in the air and chanting: “Freak the Mighty!
Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!”

I can’t explain why, but it was really pretty cool.

Anyhow, that’s how Freak and I get sent to the principal’s office the first time together.

Mrs. Addison, she’s the principal, she takes one look at us waiting outside her office,
and she goes, “What have we here?”

“I’m afraid there has been a slight misunderstanding,” Freak says. “If you’d be so
good as to allow me to explain.”

Mrs. Addison is this really serious-acting black woman with tight gray hair in a bun
and these suits that make her look like she works in a bank or something. She has
this funny little smile like she’s sucking on a lemon and it quick turns sweet, and
then she goes, “By all means. Let’s hear what you have to say. Convince me.”

I can’t really remember what Freak said, except that he used so many big words, she
had to keep looking stuff up in his dictionary, which she seemed to get a real kick
out of, but the important thing is, whatever Freak told her, she fell for it.