Jack takes it slow, soft: “You are not exploded. You’re Albert. Same as always.” He takes the kid’s hand, dangles it in front of his face. “What’s this?”
The kid snivels: “Hand.”
“Whose hand?”
“My hand.”
Jack pets the hand. “Exactly. See? You still have your hands, your feet. Your two ears.” He waggles the kid’s ears to prove it. Little kids laugh, grab their own ears. Albert laughs—and suddenly the clamshells shut and he’s screaming again: “I’m exploded!”
Jack hauls himself and the kid up. “OK, that does it.” He stomps off. This is something he probably should have done a long time ago. The mob parts. He addresses them all: “Where is he?”
Half of them pipe: “Over there!”
He follows the pointing fingers to the other side of Tantrums. There he is, the rogue runt who calls himself Destroyer, bullying some Snotsipper off his trike. When Albert spots him, he cries out and buries his face in Jack’s neck. Jack walks up to the runt, who hasn’t seen him yet. The Snotsipper is sobbing. Holding Albert with one hand, Jack reaches down with the other, grabs the back of the runt’s shirt and plucks him off the trike. The runt shrieks in outrage, twists around, sees who’s holding him and goes limp as a kitten in its mother’s mouth. “Go,” Jack tells the Snotsipper, who mounts his trike and churns away.
Jack sneers, “Destroyer, huh?” and dumps the runt on his butt. “Stay,” he commands. He forces Albert to look down. “Doesn’t seem so scary now, does he?”
Albert looks away.
Jack turns Albert’s face toward the runt. Albert’s eyes clamp shut.
“Open your eyes, Albert. Look at him. He’s just a little kid like you. He’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Albert wails, “I can’t!”
“You can.”
“He’ll explode me!”
Jack holds Albert at arm’s length, shakes him. “He can’t explode you if you don’t let him. Watch this.” He lowers Albert to the ground. He addresses the runt. “What’s your real name?”
“Harold,” the runt replies in a quivering peep.
“Harold,” says Jack, “say hi to my friend Albert. Say Hi, Albert.” Albert is cowering behind Jack’s leg. “Say it.”
“Hi, Albert.”
“See, Albert,” says Jack. “He talks, just like you. His nose is running, just like yours. He’s just a kid, not a monster. Stand up, Harold.” Harold stands. “Where’s that thing you explode people with?” Harold pulls the yellow clicker from his pocket. Jack moves away from Albert. “OK—explode me.” The runt wags his head. “Don’t tell me no. Explode me—now!”
The kid holds out the clicker. His arm is twitching.
“Do it.”
Albert wails, “Don’t let him, Jack!”
A crowd is gathering. Several call out: “No, Jack!”
Jack levels a finger. “Do it.” Sneers: “Destroyer.”
The kid squeezes the clicker.
“Three times. I know that’s how you do it.”
Click
Click
Click
Yelps from the crowd. Albert flinches, steps back, holds his ears, shuts his eyes. When he dares take a peek, amazement floods his face—Jack is still there!
“See?” says Jack. He holds out his arms for the world to see. He shakes his legs. He spins around. He does a tap dance. “Ta-da! I’m still here. Not exploded.” He advances on Harold. “Gimme that.” He snatches the clicker. He clicks it furiously into his own face: Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click “See? Are my teeth falling out?” He shows his teeth, clacks them.
Nervous giggles from the gallery, from Albert. “No.”
Without warning Jack whirls and fires a fast three at Albert: Click Click Click The gallery gasps. Albert freezes, wide-eyed, stony as The Kid.
“How do you feel, Albert? Is your head still on? You still alive?”
Albert feels his head, checks himself all over. Grateful wonderment dawns. “I think so.”
Jack triple-clicks Harold. Nothing happens.
Jack takes Albert by the hand, plants him in front of Harold. “Touch him, Albert. Reach out your hand and touch him.”
Albert freezes.
“Touch him.”
Albert reaches out, touches Harold’s shoulder with a fingertip. Jack grabs Albert’s hand, musses Harold’s hair with it. In spite of himself, Albert giggles.
“See?” says Jack. “He’s no monster. He’s just another runt like you.” He waves to the crowd. “Like you!”
The crowd applauds, whistles, cheers.
Jack drops the clicker to the ground. “Stomp it,” he says.
“Now?” says Albert.
“Now. Stomp it.”
Someone calls, “I’ll stomp it!”
Albert stomps it. Five, six stomps. Mashes it into the dust.
“Kick it away.”
He kicks the pieces away.
More cheers from the crowd.
“OK,” says Jack. “Now come here, both of you.” He pulls the two boys till they’re face to face. “Albert, do you know why Harold here didn’t get destroyed when I exploded him?”
Albert shakes his head. One hand is gripping Jack’s pant leg.
“He didn’t get destroyed because he doesn’t believe it. See—he doesn’t even believe himself. But”—he pokes Albert—“you did. If you believe it, it happens. If you don’t, it doesn’t. When you believe him, you put your own power in his hands. Got it, Albert?”
Albert nods.
“Got what?” Jubilee has tromped onto the scene.
“Jubee!” Albert runs, hugs her. “I’m not destroyed! Jack saved me!”
Jubilee picks up her brother, inspects him, puts him down. “That so?” Scowls at Jack. “If my brother needs to be saved, I’ll save him. You mind your own business.” She marches off, brother in one hand, bike in the other. Calls back: “And don’t say his name!”
JACK
KIKI.
Lopez.
Albert.
He is swept along. Tumbleweed. No time to think. Just move. Go. Go. To where?
Hippodrome tootles.
A scuffed white soccer ball comes rolling. He does what he’s done a thousand times, boots it, a long line drive. Twenty Snotsippers race after it, shrieking, laughing.
The world was once so simple. Gorilla Hill was Gorilla Hill. The Wall was The Wall. Stuff was Stuff. Tantrums. Snuggle Stop. Jailhouse. Hippodrome. Cartoons. Sure, there were questions, but even they were a familiar part of the landscape, comforting if only because answers were always out of reach. How does The Story end? Do monsters exist? Where is The Kid pointing? What about the Hut?
Questions. Answers. Don’t dump your marbles over a spit gob in the dust. What else was there to know?
Now. Then. New. Old.
He knows everything. He knows nothing. His shadow. His self. Shadowjack. Jackshadow. Leads. Follows. Spills. Bleeds. Shadowbleeds across the flats. Shadow stay. Jack go.
Where?
it’s … time
Pinecones bounce off him. War rages. Trikes are tanks, pinecones grenades. M16s: pow! pow! pow! Machine guns nesting: ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack! Paper Spitfire air cover. Bodies shot, reeling, falling, dead, rising, shooting, shot, reeling … death becomes life becomes death becomes … pinecones bounce.…
“Gotcha, Jack!”
“Yer blowed up, Jack!”
“Yer dead!”
“C’mon, Jack! Yer dead! Do it!”
He does it. One final time. His famous dead. Give them a going-away present. He reels, falls, sprawls on his back. Dead.
The sun purrs beyond his eyelids. He hears them running, shrieking, forgetting they’re enemies.
“Look! It’s Jack!”
“He’s dead!”
“Go, Jack!”
He feels them gather round, feels their marveling stares, hears their breathings.
“He’s dead all right.”
&nbs
p; “He’s pretending.”
“He is not! He’s dead! Look—”
He feels a toetap to his foot. Someone barks: “Jack—wake up!”
“He ain’t waking up. He’s dead. Can’tcha see?”
“Look—he’s not even breathing.”
“Yes he is! I just saw his chest move!”
“No you didn’t. Jack’s the best deader there ever was.”
Speculation and controversy swirl in the sunpurr. He has to force himself not to smile. Soon he senses nothing but awestruck reverence.
“Wow.”
“How long can he do it?”
“Long as he wants.”
“All day, if he wants.”
“Man, that’s dead.”
“Better than dead.”
And, as always happens, sooner or later somebody gets a little edgy, a little scared. “C’mon, Jack. You can wake up now. C’mon. Let’s play.”
He feels a finger poke to his upper arm, a toe poke to his thigh.
“C’mon, Jack. That’s enough now.”
Someone dares come close enough to gingerly lift his hand. It flops back to the dust. Someone moves his whole arm. It flops onto his stomach. Lifeless.
Till now it’s been child’s play. This is where he separates himself from even the great ones. They nudge him, flop his limbs this way and that, get down on their stomachs and inspect his chest for telltale motion.
“Tickle him!”
Someone always says it.
They do. First, tentative fingers brushing his ribs. And now, like always, they’re on him like vultures on a carcass, tickling every patch of him. They would be astounded to know how easy this is for him to withstand. He was born without a tickle bone. It may be his greatest gift.
“Jack!”
As the ticklers back off, he recognizes the cry of Albert, the little brother.
“Jack! Wake up!” He feels himself shaken. He hopes the kid isn’t too close, or he might catch one from that runny nose. “Wake up!”
Now—surprise—the girl’s voice: “You heard him. Get up.”
This is different. A new challenge. He sips in the last of his life signs till they are no more than a waterdrop deep inside the dustflats of Jack.
“Wake him, Jubilee. I’m scared!” Albert.
A rude kick to his shoe. Another. “Now, meatball! Get up!”
Hiding in his waterdrop.
Silence now. What’s happening? He feels something lightly on his chest. Little kids calling: “Kiss him! Kiss him!” He smells her, hears her breathing. She’s close. Very close. And now she’s gone, punching him in the shoulder. “Hah! I know you’re in there. I could hear your heart beating. Game’s over, nipplenose.”
Hiding …
Now something heavy. She’s sitting on him! Straddling his chest, squeezing his sipdrop of breath. She’s tickling under his arms, his ribs. Now he feels her hair in his face, her ponytail faintly brushing like mosquitoes. He pictures the yellow ribbon. The crowd is going wild. “Go, Jubilee! Go, girl!” And now nothing but the weight on his chest. She’s doing something. Desperately he wants to open his eyes, wants to see. “Kissee! Kissee!” His waterdrop freezes: No! But it’s not a kiss he feels on his cheek (not that he knows what a girlkiss would feel like). It’s a slap. And not just a light tap. A full roundhouse smack that rattles his skull and jolts his eyes open to the full face of the girl looming in place of the sky above him. Looming and smugly grinning: “Got-cha!”
He hears Albert cheer: “He’s alive!”
The girl starts to climb off, pauses to smack him again. “Don’t do it anymore, barfbrain. Not when my brother is around.”
Jack jumps up, sends her tumbling. “Don’t tell me what to do. And what do you care anyway?”
The girl picks herself up from the ground, seething. “I don’t. But he does. He likes you. He’s too young to know better. You ever make him cry again, you’ll regret it.”
“Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do? Beat me up?”
She jaws up to him. “You think I can’t? Huh? ’Cause I’m a girl? Huh?” She pokes him in the chest, sends him backward.
He counterpokes, countersneers. “I don’t beat up girls. It’s too easy.”
She laughs. In the background the sidekick Ana Mae brays: “Waste him, Ace!”
She pokes him again. She scuffs dust onto his sneaks. She jabs him in the stomach. “Let’s go, mucho macho. A-meeee-go. Let’s see how eeeeasy it is.” She bops him on the nose.
It’s the craziest thing, but instead of whacking her one, he feels like laughing. He feels like standing here for a while and letting her bop away. Suddenly he reaches out, his arm acting on its own. He sees the jolt in her eyes, fright even. He wants to say Don’t worry, but it’s all happening so fast. His hand is reaching behind her head and snatching the yellow ribbon and he’s running off, the girl screaming after him, the mob going bonkers.
AMIGOS
THEY’RE COMING OUT OF THE SUN, so he hears them before he sees them.
“Yo! Jack!”
He sees now that the heatshimmering clot between them is a third bike. He stops, waits.
Dusty’s eyes are bright with excitement. “Saddle up, Jack!” He wheels up an ancient nag.
“Where’d you get this?”
“It was by itself. Nobody was watching. We’ll take it back. C’mon, hop on.” The bike tilts as Dusty releases it. Jack grabs it.
“What’s this about?”
“One last roundup. We just thought it would be fun.”
“What do you mean one last?”
“Since you’re going away.”
Jack feels a chill. Somehow it’s OK for him to know—but them? “Who says I’m going away?”
Dusty appears startled. He glances at LaJo, back to Jack. “Ain’tcha?”
Jack looks at LaJo. LaJo shrugs. Jack doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t even know what he thinks. He echoes LaJo’s shrug. “Whatever.” He saddles up. “No rope,” he says.
“LaJo, give him yours,” says Dusty. LaJo unties his own from the crossbar, tosses it. Jack is touched. His Amigos. They never forget him. They’re the best pals a kid could have. They ride off to Great Plains.
They find the herd milling in the shadow of the Plains’ only tree, a black jagged monstrosity clawing at the sky like upchucked evil.
“We’ll circle around this way,” says Dusty. “You go that way. Pick one out and go after him.”
Jack is impressed with Dusty, who’s suddenly become a take-charge guy. He circles around the herd at a distance so as not to spook them. Though he didn’t have to capture Scramjet, he and the Amigos have spent many happy hours chasing down mustangs, roping them, then letting them go free and wild for another day. He’s glad his pals thought of this. Just like old times.
Usually they would go after a slow-wheeling nag or unsavvy youngster, easier to catch them. But this time—will it really be the last roundup?—he figures he’ll do it right, show the herd the respect it deserves. And right away he spots the prize. A proud stallion—not another Scramjet, of course, but a red-and-gray beauty, that mix of arrogance and can-do that defines the true thoroughbred, tall, wary, protecting its harem of three or four mares. Dusty and LaJo are saddlesitting, watching, letting him have the fun. He approaches at an angle, slowly coasting, not even looking at the stallion, trying to send the message: Hey, I’m just another easy loper on the open range. But of course that doesn’t work for long. The beauty’s got his head up now; he’s turning, pawing at the turf. A nicker, a nip at a mare’s flank, a flash of chrome—and they’re off, the whole herd reeling sideways as if smacked by a wind. The chase is on!
The dust is choking him. He’s an expert nostril-tapping snot-shooter, so he has no booger-need for a hankie. The one in his back pocket is for times like this. He pulls it out. He triangulates it, ties it around his face like a bandito mask and breathes again. His pulse is singing with the chorus of a hundred spinning wheels, the seat untouched beneath his
flying butt. “Heeeeee-yah!” he rejoices, and beyond the dust hears his cry rebound: Heeeeee-yah! The Amigos ride again!
He shouts: “The red and gray!”
Hears Dusty’s callback: “I see ’im!”
Kids. Bikes. Dust. The eternal whirlwind scores the Plains.
Jack longs for Scramjet. What a cinch this would be then. At least this rattletrap loaner isn’t falling to pieces beneath him.
The red and gray, as if knowing he’s the prize, holds to the middle of the pack. Jack churns on, pulls up beside a straggler, an old mare clattering and spitting rubber and in its panic losing its saddle, which now looks like a cockeyed beret. Jack tilts to the right, slaps his own flank—“Hee-yah!”—forces the mare to veer another way.
One by one he picks up others, peels them off the beeline. To his left Dusty and LaJo are doing likewise, all three slapping thighs, yelling “Hee-yah!” Within minutes the target is running solo, boring ahead as if to drill a hole in the Mountains. His Amigos pull back. Jack knows Dusty is readying his rope, but it’s just for backup—this is Jack’s party. Guiding the wheels with no more than a fingertip, he lets out a few coils of rope, shakes and widens the loop, pulls up on the left flank of the galloping stallion. He drags the loop behind, feels the windwhipped tremble in the rope, draws a bead on the flashing handlebars, is about to heave when … when … he’s … roped? A looped rope falls over his own shoulders, tightens, pins his arms to his sides. Suddenly he’s riding with no hands, something he’s done countless times but always by choice. That stupid moron Dusty has gone and overexcited himself and tried to lasso the bronc and wound up roping Jack instead. As the red and gray pulls away, Jack tries to work his arms free but finds he cannot, the rope is holding tight. “You nitwit!” He screams so forcefully his hankie falls from his nose. “Let me go! He’s getting away!”
He feels a stronger tug, pulling him to a stop. Dusty and LaJo are beside now, each taking a handlebar so he won’t fall. “You idiots! I was just—” He’s spouting words that even he doesn’t understand, because instead of loosening the rope and letting him get on with the chase, they’re riding circles around him, coiling the rope from shoulders to belt until he’s feeling like some kind of open-range mummy. “What the—” OK, now he gets it. It wasn’t a mistake at all, it’s a joke. And if he’s honest, a pretty good one. “OK, you morons, congratulations on your big funny. Ha-ha. I’m laughing. OK? Now let me go.”