Kung Fu High School (31 page)

"Freddy, please go to the dressing room right now." It was Ridley's firm voice and Fred scooted off stage right, leaving a mushrooming of swept velvet curtain behind him.

Then the other actors emerged, forming a barrier between Ridley and us. It was pretty clear that we had to go through them to get to him. So be it. They must've been doing a costume fitting or something, because they were all dressed up. I don't know, maybe it was a full dress rehearsal. They did only have a week until the opening. King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Heller Hamlet, Laertes with his sword, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were all going to get it about four acts too early, all for real on a big, empty, black stage.

Quick and messy: I saw legs in alternating colors of tights fly up into the air of my peripheral vision before I even threw a punch. There went Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I kicked Gertrude in the belly and then swept her legs out from under her. Her hooped dress billowed as she fell. I stomped her in the mouth and felt her jaw give underneath my heel. Strangely satisfying. Her crown rolled off as she jerked, gurgling for air. It got crushed underfoot by Laertes backing up from one of Jimmy's furious combinations. Also trying to avoid Jimmy, Claudius got my nasty boot in his ear and then a chop to the throat for his trouble. He raised his face to me from where he fell so I smashed him in the eye with my elbow. He brought his head up again so I kneed him in the ribs and kicked him in the solar plexus, then the neck. After that, he didn't move. The nails sunk in all the way to the rubber of my sole both times, taking bits of flesh out with them like little shish kebabs. Laertes's dull metal sword snapped in two and the other half was sticking out of his leg when he fell to the floor with a hollow thud. The stage wasn't solid.

Heller Hamlet was no better a fighter than an actor. Jimmy beat him with the flat of his own blade before knocking him out with the hilt in the back of the neck. Next to Heller Hamlet was the face of a sixteen-year-old made up to look like he was sixty with a dark gray painted-on mustache and greasepaint wrinkles staring up at me without drama, not closing his eyes because he couldn't anymore. Stupid Polonius. I had no idea where he came from. Jimmy must've really got him good. I wished I'd seen it.

And then it was just me and Ridley, with Jimmy standing directly between, warning me off trying to be the hero and protect me. Everything was lit up in the blue light. That hue that was supposed to tell the audience it was nighttime, that something dramatic was about to happen, and the only recognizable sounds in the whole theater were the wheezes of half a dozen injured people cursing and struggling to breathe.

With Jimmy in front of me, I never saw Ridley pull the gun. But then Jimmy disappeared, just gone. Like he did against The Bulgarian, must've, there was no other explanation, but there was an explosion and I was the absolute center of it. It was so much louder than I thought it'd be, not bang. BOOM. Like an old cannon, and then again, BOOM. Then there was a flash and everything went white, then black. I didn't know it was a bullet at first.

The wrenching shock wave hit me in the right arm just as the sound fully reached my ears. Then I could feel air there, an actual hole. It felt like my whole body got kicked down with a giant boot, leaving its imprint from head to toe with its ridges and valleys of hard rubber sole. Supposedly I was already falling backward when the second bullet hit me but I didn't feel it, didn't feel pain, just another full body earthquake, an aftershock. The epicenter was underneath the side of my rib cage, with the fault line torn lengthwise somewhere inside my chest.

I thought I was dead. I wondered who would give Dad his meds with me gone. I heard my mom's voice. It was very clear.

She said, "Don't climb there."

It was the exact thing she'd told me when I was five. I climbed the stacked-up railroad ties at the back of our old house anyway. I fell hard on my back and knocked my wind out, then lied to my mother about how it happened. I told her I'd been stung by a bee. I didn't want her to know I'd disobeyed.

When I got hot, I knew I was still alive. I swear I could smell my skin burning as I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling of the theater, the alternating lines of visible girders painted black. I clawed at my side, at my arm, at the bullets that had burrowed inside me. They were lighting me on fire. I scratched harder and harder but I couldn't even come close to it with my fingers still taped to my palms.

"Look, my lord, it comes!"

Still in character, Fred must've yelled it from his hiding position behind the curtain. Guess he hadn't gone to the dressing room as Ridley had commanded. The show must go on.

Enter the ghost. I pushed my head back, to look behind me, upside down. A trapdoor in the walkway had opened and this glowing white thing came out, raised itself up. Great special effects, I thought before I looked at the empty light and sound booth behind the ghost. It looked so much like Cue. I couldn't believe it. I probably smiled when I said, "Hey, Mister Cue."

It had to be him. It had his nose. He was looking at me and it was real quiet. I thought maybe the explosions had damaged my ears, broke my eardrums out because they weren't ringing. I'd heard Freddy though, his projected voice. I'd heard Freddy. The words banged around in my brain: I'd heard Freddy.

But then Ridley responded to Fred, maybe he'd studied Fred's lines with him so much, always being Hamlet to his Horatio, that it just came out of him: "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" And I heard fast footsteps as he took off running through the backstage area for the exit doors. Beyond them was a strip of sidewalk and then the parking lot. He must've thrown them both open with outstretched hands because the stage got flooded with lights. White, red, and blue threw themselves all over the theater, through Cue's body. Cop cars, had to be, because I could hear a siren too. Then nothing as the doors sprang back and closed heavily. Everything was back to blue.

I knew I was bleeding, but I couldn't feel it going out of me, just my back getting wet. My chest got heavy. Like someone sitting on me. Cue was next to me then, putting his hand on my forehead and my headache went away. The fist unclenched. The tumor shriveled. Like he took it with him, pulled it out of me when he stood up and walked forward. I could move my neck so I raised it a little and saw Jimmy standing there. He had his head down. He was facing away from me.

I wanted to tell Jimmy that I was okay, but I couldn't. I could barely breathe. Maybe he thought I was dead and it was his fault for dodging, for disappearing. But, I wanted to say, Jimmy, it isn't your fault I'm so slow. I didn't feel as hot anymore, but it felt like I had two basketballs implanted underneath my skin and they were stretching too much from being pumped up. That I was going to pop soon. It isn't your fault, Jimmy. Never was your fault that I'm so slow.

Cue's ghost walked forward, disappeared into Jimmy's back. Like he stepped into him. That was when Jimmy's head came up. He ran toward the doors and jump kicked them open so hard that they groaned and I only saw the darkness of Jimmy's outline connect with Ridley's hands-up silhouette, like a cut-out shadow with his arms held high against the lights, and then Ridley fell forward, pretty much busted in two. He didn't put his palms down to keep himself from going headfirst into the sidewalk. And he didn't move after that.

"Jesus!" screamed somebody outside. It was a male voice.

"He's fucking killed him!"

One of the doors stayed open. Jimmy must've broken the hinges. The other one shut but didn't latch.

"Get on the fucking ground, now! Right now!" The closest cop was yelling at Jimmy. He had his gun out, real straight. I think he was scared and surprised. He hadn't expected someone to come flying out the doors maybe.

Another cop came up beside the first one, and he hit Jimmy with his gun. They made Jimmy get on his knees and put his hands on his head. Then they put the cuffs on him, bent his arms back, and locked his wrists together with steel, nice and tight. Cuffed his ankles together too. Then they dragged him to his feet, out of all those lights. Out of the alternating blue and red, and the harsh, continuous, headlight white.

I heard a car door close and I knew it was locked. Probably twenty cops spiraled in through the exit after that, with their guns and roving flashlights, but they waited for an ambulance before they moved me. I must not've looked so good. Two guys had to turn away and one looked like he was going to be sick. My tongue felt swelled against the roof of my mouth, and I had to work to get air in around it. But the worst part was that the taste had disappeared, the salt-blood, every last ounce of Cue, gone. The little girl was finally alone.

The last sound I remember was Fred's uncontrollable shrieking. The high moan that didn't sound all that different from the sirens but came in thick bursts of lung-emptying exhales. I recognized it. I felt it reverberating in my ear canals and shaking down inside me and matching something. It was the exact same sound I would've made for Cue, if only I'd given in that night I lost him. It was a noise, a pitch, that played in me too. Like both Fred and me were instruments with a single string encased deep in our flesh, deeper than bullets could go, tuned to play a long monotonous note from one plucking. I tried to move my left arm. It was stuck to the floor. I closed my eyes, tried to keep my breathing going around my abandoned tongue, my sinking chest, as I waited for the gurney. I didn't need to see anything else. I knew he'd found Ridley. I knew he was crying. Good night to that sweet prince.

They blamed almost every death that day on Jimmy. Well, except for Dermoody and Cap'n Joe. Those two got blamed on Dermoody, but that got kept real quiet. Every other death got pinned on Jimmy though, all thirty-six. It didn't matter that they had very little hard evidence. He was an easy target. So they found witnesses, and lined them all up against him. The kid with the reputation, that big old outsider. That slant-eyed kid with a different last name who would kill you as soon as look at you. See, the blond girl on the news didn't say it but her eyes did. And then she flipped her hair.

So even though he was seventeen years old, Jimmy was tried as an adult and got handed seventeen consecutive life sentences, one for each year he'd lived. He got incarcerated at a maximum-security prison and had to be isolated from the other prisoners because of his skills. He isn't allowed any visitors. He didn't appeal. During the trial and sentencing, Auntie Marin moved into our house. After all the drama ended, she was unable to move out. Guess she couldn't face the prospect of an empty home on top of everything. I wasn't able to convert Cue's room for her right away even though I had plans: new bed, new everything. She mostly slept in Dad's room with him. They got real close through the whole ordeal. She'll never be my mom though.

As for our cozy little family funeral, I don't feel like talking about it. I told Dad to sell all of Cue's old comics to pay for his burial and the body went right into Dad's plot next to Mom. Out of Cue's stash, I had Dad keep #337 and #394 of
The Mighty Thor
for me. I just liked the covers.

Things are real different. Dr. Vanez and a team of other doctors fixed me up and the victims' relief fund that got collected paid for everything, which was great, because otherwise I'd've been paying them off for the rest of my life. That really surprised me, so many people reaching out and donating money for us just because they heard what happened. I'm still grateful.

On a good day, a day that isn't cold, I have only 60% mobility in my hands. That pretty much means I can't really bend them at the third knuckle because of all the scar tissue across the middle. Had to have a graft on each palm. They look like smoothed-out funnel webs from those spiders. Flesh was harvested from my ass for that. They also gave me the option of lower back, but decided against it when they saw my tattoo. That whole thing was fun. They'd said it was going to be relatively painless. But I couldn't sit down for a week afterward, and when I could sit, it was on a big foam donut like the kind people with bad hemorrhoids get, and now I have huge scars where my legs connect to my butt. Like missing patches. All I know is that I'm real lucky. At one point, the doctors were considering amputating both hands supposedly. A nurse told me that more than three ounces of glass shards got removed from my head, neck, and shoulders. She said they actually weighed it before throwing it in the medical waste bag. She also said it was kind of weird because she'd never seen any doctors actually weighing stuff that came out of someone before so I guess they were just curious. Serious though. I was such a mess when I got to the hospital that it's possible they didn't get all of the chunks out when paying attention to my more immediate injuries and some of those wounds healed over and I still got some in me. I don't know. I do have some weird bumps on my head. And all those stitches? They aren't even worth counting anymore. For real. Turned
out Donnie broke my shoulder blade with that kick. I had to have surgery for it. Pins got put in to encourage (doctors like to say that word a lot) the scapula to fuse back to itself. But there were complications, so I had to have another surgery and have the pins taken out and screws put in instead. Seemed like I was in a sling forever. I got real depressed. My arm motion still isn't back to normal thanks to me losing a little chunk of triceps in surgery and I've still got radial nerve damage pretty bad. I can't give a hitchhiker thumbs-up sign because I can't move my thumb so much or extend my wrist. A few muscles in my forearm don't really work anymore either. They took the bullet out though. It sits in a jar of marbles by my bed now, right on top of the one they took out of my ribs. The one from my arm looks like a bullet, you can tell, but the one from my ribs just looks like a melted-down bolt. They would've thrown them both away if I hadn't half screamed for them in the ambulance. I still can't believe they were inside me. The paramedics had to reinf late my lung and the doctors had to reconstruct my other two ribs that the bullet broke with a bone graft from my hip and some metal to keep them together. Like I got welded on the inside. Like my rib cage is part birdcage. I don't even know how many transfusions I got, at least two that I know of. So I have plenty of someone else's blood in me now. Got a bone graft from my other hip on two knuckles because the doctors said I punched them into dust and ruined the joints. No fluid in there. Nothing. Just desert. So I can't really use the index finger and middle finger of my left hand. I guess it's fuckin' ironic that it looks like I'm making a gun sign with that hand all the time. Do you have any idea how hard it is to eat and drink when you can't hold a glass or bowl properly without using both hands? Even a spoon or fork is tricky. I got to balance it between two fingers like chopsticks because my index and middle fingers won't reach my thumbs. A knife? Forget about it. Auntie Marin has to cut everything on my plate before I can eat it. I appreciate it more now. Putting a tampon
in was fun too. I once had my time down to three minutes for that because I was too proud for a diaper-y maxi-pad. Fuck it, though. I use 'em now. I use my palm and a flat surface like my dresser to press them hard and flat into the little bridge of my chonies, a little defeat. They make crinkle sounds when I sit funny. I still get "lag" on my vision when I get up too quickly or get too tired and my brain can't process what my eyes show it. Like vertigo, but worse. I puke if it gets to be too much, that's happened a few times. Every night there's a big kitchen bowl next to my bed. Sometimes I forget it's there and tip it over. That's only happened once when it was full. Every so often my head feels like right after I've been hit: I get all loopy, with motion trails across my vision like comet tails attached to anything moving and sometimes stuff that isn't. It happens randomly. The doctors say this condition could go away at any time. They just don't know. I'm still doing physical therapy. Probably I'll be doing it for another year and a half I've basically come to grips with the fact that I'll never be normal again. At least, I think I have. I had to leave school for six months to heal. Before you go thinking that that's just two words, "six" and "months," put together and it's supposed to be a long time but doesn't mean anything, I'll just tell you that's about one hundred and sixty-eight days, give or take an afternoon or two, and roughly four thousand and thirty-two hours. That means one hundred and twenty days of daytime television, five hundred and four meals that came from a cafeteria that smelled like disinfectant, and only thirty-three visitation days when I was "taken out for a walk" but really, for the majority of 'em, I was just pushed around in a wheelchair that lapped the sidewalk skirting the manmade pond in the back of the hospital. The average number of laps Auntie Marin and me could do was sixteen in twenty minutes. Once, when she was mad about something, we did twenty-four. For the rest of that time, I was in a stupid bed, pretending to read but mostly just writing about things I could remember or drawing things I didn't want to forget. There was nothing else to do. Had to beg the nurse to help me tape the pen to my fingers with the same tape they use for IVs. She got used to doing it. Sometimes it was like I had a fingernail that I could write with. I asked for red pens only so I could pretend it was written in blood. I know, morbid. Slept all the time in between. The intensive care ward, long-term section, was where I turned sweet sixteen. I blew out all my candles from a reclining position. The nurse wouldn't let me eat any cake though, I wasn't allowed due to dietary restrictions. Doctor's orders. Had to watch Auntie Marin and Dad eat little bites in front of me and look sad and embarrassed at the same time. I lost a lot of weight, a lot of muscle. Had loads of vitamins and drugs pushed through my IV. Your veins can get tired of taking an intravenous line for too long. I got deep bruises and lots of swelling. Like a big, man-o'-war jellyfish died under my skin. The nurses had to switch mine a bunch of times, from arm to arm, up and down. By the very end, I had an IV in my leg and my whole body looked like a patch of sea for a school of spawning jellies.