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rainbowfic2015-09-19 02:52 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-09-19 02:52 am
Milk Bottle 17, Skyblue Pink With Striped Polka Dots 15, Folly 18
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival, Milk Bottle, “story featuring a carnival)), Canvas, Glitter (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/august-0)
Characters: Satchel (POV), Frankie, some bit parts
Colors: Milk Bottle 17 (Funhouse), Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 15 (And the turtles, of course… All the turtles are free- as turtles, and, maybe, all creatures should be), Folly 18 (Don’t worry, it’s a shortcut)
Word Count: 4,500ish
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Nothing good ever happens at a school carnival.
Note: I have completed Milk Bottle and Skyblue Pink! (Er, I actually technically did this a month ago, but I've been sitting on this forever due to time constraints.) But will probably not finish Folly before the end of the Carnival. Rats.
Heavy Pockets
I never quite understood why people even bother with school carnivals.
It sounds like a good idea, yeah, but, in practice, it’s always disappointing. All it turns out to be is everyone’s parents overseeing a bunch of dippy games that aren’t even fun. Every prize is a booby prize. The local Catholic church has been carrying the same vat of stinky oil around for years, dragging it out every time they have to erect their fried food stand. Which somehow pulls in enough money to keep coming back, even though everything tastes like burnt crumbs and dust.
Someone always rents a real ride or two, and those always look like fun, so I would usually give them a shot. Conveniently forgetting every other shot I’d given them. Nothing good ever happens on a ride at a school carnival. The bouncy house is usually pretty great, but even that has its problems. It smells like feet, and you might get stuck in it with a bunch of the world’s clumsiest kids, then spend the whole time getting kicked in the stomach. One year, there was this big thing that looked like a UFO, and I got really excited. But, turns out, all it did was spin around and suck you to the walls. And turn your little brother into the Jackson Pollock of kettle corn vomit. I don’t know why Frankie insisted on going in with me, but whatever the reason, I ended up wearing lost-and-found clothes for the rest of the day. My mom threw out my baseball cap with knights and swords on it because she didn’t feel like washing it, and I never saw a hat like that again.
My own parents didn’t usually get in on the action, but this year, my mom told whoever they put in charge of these things that she was going to run the fishing booth. Which was a dirty lie. She ended up wandering around mingling, while we ran the fishing booth. Well, while Baxter/Preston ran the fishing booth. Frankie did whatever the hell he felt like doing. And I, within the first half hour, was banned from any fishing-booth-related activities. I thought it was kind of a dumb game, and running it was even more boring than playing it, so I had to make it interesting. Somehow, I’d gotten the idea that it would be funny to stick things like chewed bubblegum, soda cans, and tree pods on the line. And it was, but no one else thought so.
Though, really, the fishing booth was absurd enough without my help. A scene of crudely-painted palm trees and sand, blue plastic water, foam seashells glued all over it, big yellow sun wearing star-sized mirror shades. The real world was turning leaves and an overcast sky. Frankie squatting in front of the slapdash beach scene in jeans and a flannel shirt. Even then, I wondered who the heck we were kidding. I crawled under the colorful canvas.
“Are you bored?”
Frankie shrugged.
“I dunno.”
He was fiddling with something.
“What are you doing?”
He squinted.
“Tryin’ to get this to work.”
I looked closer at what he was holding. It was a shitty plastic slide puzzle, also known as the reason I figured I might as well give people literal trash. Those stupid tiles would never quite slide right. Really, this was just like him. I’d appropriated some of the dippy fishing prizes for myself, but at least I had enough sense to go for the good shit, nothing with any moving parts. As we spoke, I had a glow-in-the-dark alien keychain and a microscopic bag of candy jammed in my pocket.
“It ain’t gonna work. Those things… Don’t.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Why are you even messing with it, then?
“So… You wanna find something better to do?”
Frankie looked around, scanning the lot for our mom. Since she was perpetually convinced that his heart could explode at any time, he wasn’t actually allowed on rides. But, if I was there, and she wouldn’t see, he went on them anyway. Thus, last year’s vomit disaster.
“Yeah. Okay.”
At first, we just wandered around for a while, like neither of us wanted to admit that there wasn’t anything better to do. We’d already been in the bouncy house. We didn’t have enough money to justify wasting it on food.
“Wanna check out the funhouse?”
Frankie looked uneasy.
“I dunno…”
I knew what his problem was: he didn’t like the hideous jester airbrushed on the front. Which was understandable. No one liked that jester. Some, like Frankie, thought he was terrifying. Others, like me, just hated his stupid grin and his stupid hat and wished they could give him a wedgie.
“C’mon, inside the funhouse is the only place where you can’t see the jester.”
He thought about this for a second.
“…Hey, you’re right!”
Funhouses always make me think of what you’d get if you crossed a car wash with a playground, and added a dash of washing machine. They never seemed like the up-front of a place, or somewhere you were actually allowed to be. And I guess that’s what made them fun: for once, you got to play in the factory.
But, since Frankie is confused enough in the outside world, he didn’t find them as fun as I did. He spent the whole meandering walk through the place looking like the ground was playing mean tricks on him. Smacking in to mirrors, falling down and needing to be rescued. I think he would have rather looked at the jester the whole rest of the night. Or met him in the flesh. Anything to avoid this journey through his horrible metal insides.
Then, just when it couldn’t have gotten any worse for him, he made a horrible discovery in some neglected corner.
I was bobbing around on something that reminded me of a manhole cover with a spring under it, when I heard him call me.
“…Satch?”
Wobbling a bit, I stepped off the rickety disc and went to see what he was looking at.
“Yeah?”
Now he just looked depressed.
“It’s dead.”
He was holding a bird, and dead it indeed was. Normally, I’d tell him to put it down and wash his hands, but he just looked so sad.
“I… Guess it hit one of the mirrors. Look, don’t cry, we…”
There’s no better way to get someone to start crying than to tell them not to cry.
“I hate this stupid place.”
Now, I didn’t know this then, but I was setting up a pattern that would permeate our whole lives: Frankie would start sniffling, and I’d have to do and say all kinds of stupid things, until I found the one that made him stop.
“Yeah, it’s… Dangerous in here for birds… Listen, I know it’s sad, but we’ll give him a real funeral, okay!?”
Frankie sniffled again, then stopped.
“We will?”
I brightened up, tried to look confident.
“Sure! We’ll go to that hill… You know, the one where we don’t know if it’s really part of the park, and… It’ll be great, okay!”
I shoved the bird in my pocket, and lead us out of the funhouse.
*****
Now, just taking off without telling anyone was probably a dumb idea, but I thought we’d be back in a few minutes. I knew the hill wasn’t that far away, and was pretty sure about its position in relation to the school, having stopped there on the way home before.
I figured I could save us time by going through the woods behind the school, not around them on the sidewalks. The only thing I didn’t account for is that, when you walk on a sidewalk, there generally aren’t any obstacles to clear. Going through the woods, you’re trying to get over logs, falling into ditches, and tripping on rocks. Landing awkwardly, because you remembered the stiff bird in your pocket and didn’t want to squish it and make your brother cry again. Going through suburban woods means broken glass and corroded beer and soda cans to watch out for. Faded t-shirts hanging from branches like cobwebs. Knowing that the creeps who left these things might be back at any time to hassle you. Or axe-murder you, like in the late-night movie that scared me at the beginning of summer, when I couldn’t sleep and tried to watch TV.
Now, all that made this enough of a slog for me on my own, but I was dragging Frankie along with me. And, no offense, but he was the whiniest, clumsiest kid I ever met. He’s still whiny and clumsy to this day, and, as much as I love him, being in the woods with the guy is kind of a drag. He kept stepping on bottles, and falling flat on his butt when they rolled out from under his sneakers. His glasses fell off his face twice, and I’d be the one who had to find them.
The second time, I found them with my boot, and we panicked a little, but they didn’t seem broken so much as… Well, bent-up and in three pieces. I put them back in their former shape as best I could, and popped in the lenses.
“…Don’t tell mom.”
Frankie put them back on, shook his head a few times.
“I won’t… You know, these fit a lot better now!”
And they really must have, because it stopped being an issue after that.
Though, I’m not sure if they really helped him see, because the next thing I knew, he’d walked right in to a thorny bush that he needed to be disentangled from. I was careful not to completely shred his overshirt, because nothing says “I just got back from somewhere I’m not supposed to be” like ripped-up clothing, but the process still mostly involved a lot of yanking. And, eventually, I managed to yank him free, but I’d accidentally yanked both of us off balance, and we went skidding down to the bottom of a little ravine I hadn’t noticed before.
At the bottom, was one of those gross little ditch-water streams. Mostly mud and stagnant water and trash.
Now we were in trouble. We were going to return to the carnival cold and wet and stinky.
Then, sitting on my ass in the mud, I noticed something shining in the murky water.
It was a beer cap with a picture of a shark on it. Somebody just threw this away.
“Hey Franks, look at this!”
*****
By the time we found our way out of the woods, Frankie had stumbled across his own treasure: one of those fake bees the farms on the outskirts of town use. They’re basically just a circuitboard the size of a fingernail, suspended on clear plastic wings. Sometimes, they malfunction, or get blown away on the wind, and end up all the way out here. A lot of kids collected them, us included. Different brands are different colors, and some are made to look more like bees than others. We already had a whole pile of them at home, and Frankie was actually wearing one on a string around his neck, but they’re the kind of thing you can’t leave alone when you find one.
I kept my eye out for more, but I didn’t find any. What I did find, thank god, was the edge of the woods.
The trees spat us out in someone’s backyard. I tried to work out what neighborhood we were in, and if I’d been there before, but without seeing the houses from the front, I was stumped.
“Huh. I guess the hill isn’t, like, right on the other side.”
Frankie fiddled with the bee in his pocket.
“Well, where is it?”
I shrugged.
“Probably down the street a little.”
I knew damn well I was talking out my ass, but this seemed to satisfy him. Then he darted up in to the back garden.
“Satchel, look!”
I followed after him.
“…Look at what?”
The garden was walled-in with smooth rocks, and he lifted one as high as his string-bean limbs would let him.
“Bird headstones!”
Wow, that is pretty perfect.
“Hey, good idea!”
I lead us along the edge of the woods, figuring we’d find what we were looking for that way. Frankie staggered under the weight of his stolen rock.
*****
Two backyards later, and I was starting to feel like that damn rock was a really bad idea. It wasn’t that big, but it was still too heavy for him, and he wasn’t exactly shy about showing it. He only stopped complaining to whine or grunt wordlessly. For a while, he tried kicking it along the ground, but that didn’t work so well. Frankie lagged behind even more than he did trying to carry it, and eventually tripped over it and fell flat on his face.
“…How about I carry the rock?”
He wiped the dirt and grass clippings off his glasses.
“If you want to, you can.”
Of course I don’t want to.
“Okay!”
I picked it up, thinking about how it really wasn’t that heavy, and my brother was just whining over nothing again. But, that’s what he does. What could I do about it? Absolutely nothing. So I, literally and metaphorically, carry his friggin’ rocks.
“Thanks a lot, Satchel!”
Frankie shook out his arms, cracked his shoulders a few times. I couldn’t tell if he was being melodramatic, or if lugging that rock around really did stretch his joints like putty.
“Yeah, it’s no problem.”
I moved the rock from one hand to another. Okay, maybe it is a little heavy. Frankie, now freed from his burden, could focus on other things.
“Satchel, look, turtles!”
I wanted to see turtles, but I didn’t know where they were, so I just kind of swiveled my head around, eyes rolling busily in their sockets.
“…What? Where?”
He pointed up the grassy hill, at what looked like a garden fence.
“There!”
He dashed up to get a better look. I stumbled after him, awkwardly lugging his rock. I wondered if this was how Frankie felt all the time.
Indeed, there were turtles. Tortoises, actually. That huge kind, the ones that are almost immortal.
“Those are tortoises, Franks.”
He shrugged.
“Okay. Then there’s tortoises.”
We looked down at the pen, where the three little behemoths milled around, eating grass.
The pen was small. I started to get sad.
“…I don’t think they’re happy here.”
Frankie looked up at me.
“How come?”
“Because it’s too small! They… They wanna be in the woods, maybe!”
He shrugged.
“Oh. Okay.”
I found the end of the wire fence, worked it away from the post, and bent it back. That should do ya! I smiled.
“You can go anywhere you want now, guys!”
Then I took off running, as fast as I could while hauling a rock in one hand and dragging a stumbling Frankie in another.
The tortoises were headed for the gate, taking their good old time.
After all, they’d live until after I was dead. I guess freedom could wait.
*****
I don’t know how long to took the tortoises to reach the woods, but it didn’t take us long to find another kid.
“…Hi!”
Okay, so this kid might have been just a little forward. But, I liked his monster truck shirt. He seemed like an okay guy.
“Hey.”
Frankie didn’t say anything. Our journey had just taken us through a shrub, and he was still focused on picking sticks out of his hair.
“What’re you guys doin’?”
I thought it was kind of personal, but I guess Frankie had gotten the last stick out of his hair, because he answered before I had the chance.
“I found a dead bird. We’re gonna bury it.”
The kid tilted his head.
“Oh yeah? Where is it?”
Frankie scratched at his hair. A few tiny leaves shook loose. He pointed at me.
“In my brother’s pocket.”
Big mouth. The kid looked a little too interested.
“…Can I see?”
Okay, now I was getting a bad feeling about this guy. I’d played with kids like him before, and it never ended well. Then again, neither did letting on that you didn’t want to play with them. I steeled myself for the rocky middle path.
“Um… Maybe later?”
Oh great, now Psychopath Junior is going to hit me with a stick.
“Okay… Wanna check out my tree fort?”
Lucky for us, he didn’t seem bothered. And even if this kid was starting to throw off creep vibes, I could probably stand to look at a fort.
“Sure! You wanna see the fort, Frankie?”
Frankie looked scared, but when I followed the weirdo into the woods, he followed me. (This exact thing would happen about ten more times in our lives.)
The fort wasn’t much of a “fort.” it was just a piece of particleboard that happened to be the right size to jam between the trunk and branches of a middle-sized tree, with some uneven, broken-looking boards nailed to the trunk. The kid climbed the boards. I sat my rock on the ground and climbed up after him. At first, it seemed like Frankie was staying on the ground, and I was a little relieved, because I wasn’t sure if that crappy board could support all three of us. But, I guess, being down there without me, he kind of lost his sense of purpose in life. So he joined us.
Honestly, it was lame. The only moment of excitement was when Frankie sat down beside me, and the board started to tip. Our host just sat around dangling his legs, brandishing a BB gun that he apparently kept up there. God knows why. I started to feel like we’d wandered into some sort of hostage situation. Finally, I heard a voice call out to us from beyond the trees.
“Kyle, dinner!”
Kyle, as that was apparently his name, climbed down the first few boards, then jumped the rest of the way.
“’Cmon, you guys can eat with us!”
I was about sick of this little shit, but I was pretty hungry. The only thing I’d had since lunch was some cotton candy that my second-grade teacher spun, and poorly at that. Frankie and I descended the tree, I grabbed my rock, and we followed Kyle to his house, which was actually across the street from the houses we’d been walking behind.
In the backyard, A woman, who I guessed was his mom, was hovering over a grill. A preteen boy and a girl a little younger than Frankie were having a really intense fake swordfight. They kept yelling about someone being avenged, and a lot of stuff about blood-spilling. While I stood there watching them, Kyle debriefed his mom.
“I was just playing with these guys. Can they have some food?”
She looked us up and down, and she didn’t look happy. Then again, she didn’t look unhappy, either.
“Okay.”
Her voice was emotionless. I felt a bit unwelcome, but mostly hungry. We sat down at the table to wait.
The food was normal grilling-out stuff, the sort of meal that can’t decide what it wants to be, or even what the main dish is. There were chicken drumsticks, and hotdogs, and burnt burgers with unmelted American cheese slices on them. Sitting off to the side, there was some watermelon and beans. I ate some of everything, and Kyle’s mom glared at me when I ate a third chicken leg. Frankie ate half a hotdog and an abnormal amount of beans. I watched him feed the half-eaten hotdog to the huge German Shepherd that was wandering around the yard. He was a neat dog, and I kind of wanted to stay and play with him. Then I remembered the bird in my pocket, and that we had to get back to the carnival, and oh god, how long have we been gone?
I bolted up from my seat.
“…Um, me and my brother gotta go. Thanks for the food!”
We were gone before she had time to say “you’re welcome.”
But, what the heck. Maybe we weren’t.
*****
From there on, we walked on the sidewalk like good little citizens, and didn’t steal a single garden fixture or release a single pet. A few people gave me dirty looks, but I think that’s just because they thought I was going to throw the rock through a window or something.
Eventually, we got to a place where it looked like the neighborhood was still being built. Shiny silver houses with no siding, and then bare dirt; pounded flat, or piled in heaps. I scrambled up to the top of the tallest heap, and from there, I saw it, only a block away: the hill, and the park.
“Oh, there it is!”
I realized I wasn’t talking to anyone. Frankie hadn’t followed me up the dirt-heap. I climbed down, sliding on my butt part of the way, and filled him in.
“The hill is just across the street!”
Frankie looked at the street. It wasn’t a highway, but it was the kind of road that was important enough to have a yellow stripe down the middle. I was never sure how that gets decided.
“There aren’t any cars.”
I looked both ways. He was right.
“Well, I guess we can go, then.”
Honestly, I was just looking forward to getting rid of the rock. And the bird. I forgot about it easily enough, but then I’d remember, and remembering you have a dead thing in your pocket is creepy.
We crossed the road, crashed through the tall grass, and trudged up the hill.
Well, I guess we’re here.
I started digging a hole with my hands. Some birds were circling in the distance, and I hoped they weren’t buzzards. Buzzards might smell the bird in my pocket, then fly over and peck me to death.
The hole looked deep enough, and I pulled the bird out of my pocket. It didn’t look much worse for all its adventures, but then again, it didn’t actually have to do anything. This bird’s problems were over.
It was only when I laid him in the ground that I realized I had no idea what you’re supposed to say at a bird funeral. Frankie and I kneeled over the hole, staring down at the bird, completely silent. Then Frankie put on the grimmest face he could manage.
“…Would anyone like to say a few words?”
I cleared my throat.
“Um, I’m sorry you had to die in a crappy funhouse. What a way to go.”
Frankie waited for me to finish, then said his piece.
“Sorry we were stupid with mirrors. You were probably just trying to fight another bird or something.”
We stared at the bird some more, until we were sure we had nothing else to say. Frankie dropped the fake bee in the hole. I rifled through my pockets until I found the candy. I figured it was a bird-sized portion anyway, so I opened the bag and dumped it in. Then we took turns putting dirt in the grave, until the bird was covered and the hole was filled. I gave Frankie the honors of placing the rock.
He sat it down on top of the grave, took a marker out of his pocket, and scrawled on the stone, “BIRD.”
Then we sat in silence for a while longer.
I guess this was pretty much what we’d set out to accomplish.
*****
I lead us through the woods again, figuring the school was back there somewhere, just the way I figured the hill was “back there somewhere.” And yeah, that worked out real great, but I don’t think I realized I might be repeating a mistake. Or even that a mistake had been made. I mean, we got where we were going, and did what we’d planned. It just took a while is all.
By the time we finally turned around, I noticed it starting to get dark, so the woods were probably a bad idea. But, we managed to avoid the ditch, so, all things considered, it was a lot easier. Even if Frankie got stuck in another goddamn thorn bush.
When we got back, the carnival was still going, but the lights were on, so it looked a little less dismal than it had when we left. All of a sudden, I felt like I could go for a round of ring toss, or maybe another go in the bouncy house. But, first things first:
Find the fishing booth; figure out how much trouble we’re in.
I wasn’t sure if we were in trouble yet, but it was obvious that someone was. Mom was looming over Baxter, yelling at him about how irresponsible he is, and how she can’t leave him alone for five goddamn minutes. Baxter was staring impassively into the middle distance, waiting for her to stop, and probably not actually hearing a single thing she was trying to say.
I cleared my throat.
“…Um. Hi.”
Mom stopped yelling at Baxter, then whipped around to yell at me.
“…Where the hell were you two!?”
Frankie and I looked at each other. I decided that half-truths, at least, take half as long to explain.
“We were in the funhouse.”
She nodded, clenched her jaw, and started yelling at Baxter again.
“…Did you even think to check the funhouse!? It‘s right there!”
Baxter kept staring into space. Mom kept shouting. And yeah, this would probably come back to bite us in the ass, but for now, Frankie and I were free. The night was young, the lights were on, and the carnival was still roaring.
I suggested a good go-round on the scrambler. Frankie promised not to throw up, and, for once, kept his word.
Later that evening, riding home in the dark car, I took the shark bottlecap out of my pocket. A perfect tiny portrait, sparkling under the streetlights.
Sometimes, the best things are the things you find for yourself.
Sometimes, you find them when you weren’t even looking.
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival, Milk Bottle, “story featuring a carnival)), Canvas, Glitter (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/august-0)
Characters: Satchel (POV), Frankie, some bit parts
Colors: Milk Bottle 17 (Funhouse), Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 15 (And the turtles, of course… All the turtles are free- as turtles, and, maybe, all creatures should be), Folly 18 (Don’t worry, it’s a shortcut)
Word Count: 4,500ish
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Nothing good ever happens at a school carnival.
Note: I have completed Milk Bottle and Skyblue Pink! (Er, I actually technically did this a month ago, but I've been sitting on this forever due to time constraints.) But will probably not finish Folly before the end of the Carnival. Rats.
I never quite understood why people even bother with school carnivals.
It sounds like a good idea, yeah, but, in practice, it’s always disappointing. All it turns out to be is everyone’s parents overseeing a bunch of dippy games that aren’t even fun. Every prize is a booby prize. The local Catholic church has been carrying the same vat of stinky oil around for years, dragging it out every time they have to erect their fried food stand. Which somehow pulls in enough money to keep coming back, even though everything tastes like burnt crumbs and dust.
Someone always rents a real ride or two, and those always look like fun, so I would usually give them a shot. Conveniently forgetting every other shot I’d given them. Nothing good ever happens on a ride at a school carnival. The bouncy house is usually pretty great, but even that has its problems. It smells like feet, and you might get stuck in it with a bunch of the world’s clumsiest kids, then spend the whole time getting kicked in the stomach. One year, there was this big thing that looked like a UFO, and I got really excited. But, turns out, all it did was spin around and suck you to the walls. And turn your little brother into the Jackson Pollock of kettle corn vomit. I don’t know why Frankie insisted on going in with me, but whatever the reason, I ended up wearing lost-and-found clothes for the rest of the day. My mom threw out my baseball cap with knights and swords on it because she didn’t feel like washing it, and I never saw a hat like that again.
My own parents didn’t usually get in on the action, but this year, my mom told whoever they put in charge of these things that she was going to run the fishing booth. Which was a dirty lie. She ended up wandering around mingling, while we ran the fishing booth. Well, while Baxter/Preston ran the fishing booth. Frankie did whatever the hell he felt like doing. And I, within the first half hour, was banned from any fishing-booth-related activities. I thought it was kind of a dumb game, and running it was even more boring than playing it, so I had to make it interesting. Somehow, I’d gotten the idea that it would be funny to stick things like chewed bubblegum, soda cans, and tree pods on the line. And it was, but no one else thought so.
Though, really, the fishing booth was absurd enough without my help. A scene of crudely-painted palm trees and sand, blue plastic water, foam seashells glued all over it, big yellow sun wearing star-sized mirror shades. The real world was turning leaves and an overcast sky. Frankie squatting in front of the slapdash beach scene in jeans and a flannel shirt. Even then, I wondered who the heck we were kidding. I crawled under the colorful canvas.
“Are you bored?”
Frankie shrugged.
“I dunno.”
He was fiddling with something.
“What are you doing?”
He squinted.
“Tryin’ to get this to work.”
I looked closer at what he was holding. It was a shitty plastic slide puzzle, also known as the reason I figured I might as well give people literal trash. Those stupid tiles would never quite slide right. Really, this was just like him. I’d appropriated some of the dippy fishing prizes for myself, but at least I had enough sense to go for the good shit, nothing with any moving parts. As we spoke, I had a glow-in-the-dark alien keychain and a microscopic bag of candy jammed in my pocket.
“It ain’t gonna work. Those things… Don’t.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Why are you even messing with it, then?
“So… You wanna find something better to do?”
Frankie looked around, scanning the lot for our mom. Since she was perpetually convinced that his heart could explode at any time, he wasn’t actually allowed on rides. But, if I was there, and she wouldn’t see, he went on them anyway. Thus, last year’s vomit disaster.
“Yeah. Okay.”
At first, we just wandered around for a while, like neither of us wanted to admit that there wasn’t anything better to do. We’d already been in the bouncy house. We didn’t have enough money to justify wasting it on food.
“Wanna check out the funhouse?”
Frankie looked uneasy.
“I dunno…”
I knew what his problem was: he didn’t like the hideous jester airbrushed on the front. Which was understandable. No one liked that jester. Some, like Frankie, thought he was terrifying. Others, like me, just hated his stupid grin and his stupid hat and wished they could give him a wedgie.
“C’mon, inside the funhouse is the only place where you can’t see the jester.”
He thought about this for a second.
“…Hey, you’re right!”
Funhouses always make me think of what you’d get if you crossed a car wash with a playground, and added a dash of washing machine. They never seemed like the up-front of a place, or somewhere you were actually allowed to be. And I guess that’s what made them fun: for once, you got to play in the factory.
But, since Frankie is confused enough in the outside world, he didn’t find them as fun as I did. He spent the whole meandering walk through the place looking like the ground was playing mean tricks on him. Smacking in to mirrors, falling down and needing to be rescued. I think he would have rather looked at the jester the whole rest of the night. Or met him in the flesh. Anything to avoid this journey through his horrible metal insides.
Then, just when it couldn’t have gotten any worse for him, he made a horrible discovery in some neglected corner.
I was bobbing around on something that reminded me of a manhole cover with a spring under it, when I heard him call me.
“…Satch?”
Wobbling a bit, I stepped off the rickety disc and went to see what he was looking at.
“Yeah?”
Now he just looked depressed.
“It’s dead.”
He was holding a bird, and dead it indeed was. Normally, I’d tell him to put it down and wash his hands, but he just looked so sad.
“I… Guess it hit one of the mirrors. Look, don’t cry, we…”
There’s no better way to get someone to start crying than to tell them not to cry.
“I hate this stupid place.”
Now, I didn’t know this then, but I was setting up a pattern that would permeate our whole lives: Frankie would start sniffling, and I’d have to do and say all kinds of stupid things, until I found the one that made him stop.
“Yeah, it’s… Dangerous in here for birds… Listen, I know it’s sad, but we’ll give him a real funeral, okay!?”
Frankie sniffled again, then stopped.
“We will?”
I brightened up, tried to look confident.
“Sure! We’ll go to that hill… You know, the one where we don’t know if it’s really part of the park, and… It’ll be great, okay!”
I shoved the bird in my pocket, and lead us out of the funhouse.
Now, just taking off without telling anyone was probably a dumb idea, but I thought we’d be back in a few minutes. I knew the hill wasn’t that far away, and was pretty sure about its position in relation to the school, having stopped there on the way home before.
I figured I could save us time by going through the woods behind the school, not around them on the sidewalks. The only thing I didn’t account for is that, when you walk on a sidewalk, there generally aren’t any obstacles to clear. Going through the woods, you’re trying to get over logs, falling into ditches, and tripping on rocks. Landing awkwardly, because you remembered the stiff bird in your pocket and didn’t want to squish it and make your brother cry again. Going through suburban woods means broken glass and corroded beer and soda cans to watch out for. Faded t-shirts hanging from branches like cobwebs. Knowing that the creeps who left these things might be back at any time to hassle you. Or axe-murder you, like in the late-night movie that scared me at the beginning of summer, when I couldn’t sleep and tried to watch TV.
Now, all that made this enough of a slog for me on my own, but I was dragging Frankie along with me. And, no offense, but he was the whiniest, clumsiest kid I ever met. He’s still whiny and clumsy to this day, and, as much as I love him, being in the woods with the guy is kind of a drag. He kept stepping on bottles, and falling flat on his butt when they rolled out from under his sneakers. His glasses fell off his face twice, and I’d be the one who had to find them.
The second time, I found them with my boot, and we panicked a little, but they didn’t seem broken so much as… Well, bent-up and in three pieces. I put them back in their former shape as best I could, and popped in the lenses.
“…Don’t tell mom.”
Frankie put them back on, shook his head a few times.
“I won’t… You know, these fit a lot better now!”
And they really must have, because it stopped being an issue after that.
Though, I’m not sure if they really helped him see, because the next thing I knew, he’d walked right in to a thorny bush that he needed to be disentangled from. I was careful not to completely shred his overshirt, because nothing says “I just got back from somewhere I’m not supposed to be” like ripped-up clothing, but the process still mostly involved a lot of yanking. And, eventually, I managed to yank him free, but I’d accidentally yanked both of us off balance, and we went skidding down to the bottom of a little ravine I hadn’t noticed before.
At the bottom, was one of those gross little ditch-water streams. Mostly mud and stagnant water and trash.
Now we were in trouble. We were going to return to the carnival cold and wet and stinky.
Then, sitting on my ass in the mud, I noticed something shining in the murky water.
It was a beer cap with a picture of a shark on it. Somebody just threw this away.
“Hey Franks, look at this!”
By the time we found our way out of the woods, Frankie had stumbled across his own treasure: one of those fake bees the farms on the outskirts of town use. They’re basically just a circuitboard the size of a fingernail, suspended on clear plastic wings. Sometimes, they malfunction, or get blown away on the wind, and end up all the way out here. A lot of kids collected them, us included. Different brands are different colors, and some are made to look more like bees than others. We already had a whole pile of them at home, and Frankie was actually wearing one on a string around his neck, but they’re the kind of thing you can’t leave alone when you find one.
I kept my eye out for more, but I didn’t find any. What I did find, thank god, was the edge of the woods.
The trees spat us out in someone’s backyard. I tried to work out what neighborhood we were in, and if I’d been there before, but without seeing the houses from the front, I was stumped.
“Huh. I guess the hill isn’t, like, right on the other side.”
Frankie fiddled with the bee in his pocket.
“Well, where is it?”
I shrugged.
“Probably down the street a little.”
I knew damn well I was talking out my ass, but this seemed to satisfy him. Then he darted up in to the back garden.
“Satchel, look!”
I followed after him.
“…Look at what?”
The garden was walled-in with smooth rocks, and he lifted one as high as his string-bean limbs would let him.
“Bird headstones!”
Wow, that is pretty perfect.
“Hey, good idea!”
I lead us along the edge of the woods, figuring we’d find what we were looking for that way. Frankie staggered under the weight of his stolen rock.
Two backyards later, and I was starting to feel like that damn rock was a really bad idea. It wasn’t that big, but it was still too heavy for him, and he wasn’t exactly shy about showing it. He only stopped complaining to whine or grunt wordlessly. For a while, he tried kicking it along the ground, but that didn’t work so well. Frankie lagged behind even more than he did trying to carry it, and eventually tripped over it and fell flat on his face.
“…How about I carry the rock?”
He wiped the dirt and grass clippings off his glasses.
“If you want to, you can.”
Of course I don’t want to.
“Okay!”
I picked it up, thinking about how it really wasn’t that heavy, and my brother was just whining over nothing again. But, that’s what he does. What could I do about it? Absolutely nothing. So I, literally and metaphorically, carry his friggin’ rocks.
“Thanks a lot, Satchel!”
Frankie shook out his arms, cracked his shoulders a few times. I couldn’t tell if he was being melodramatic, or if lugging that rock around really did stretch his joints like putty.
“Yeah, it’s no problem.”
I moved the rock from one hand to another. Okay, maybe it is a little heavy. Frankie, now freed from his burden, could focus on other things.
“Satchel, look, turtles!”
I wanted to see turtles, but I didn’t know where they were, so I just kind of swiveled my head around, eyes rolling busily in their sockets.
“…What? Where?”
He pointed up the grassy hill, at what looked like a garden fence.
“There!”
He dashed up to get a better look. I stumbled after him, awkwardly lugging his rock. I wondered if this was how Frankie felt all the time.
Indeed, there were turtles. Tortoises, actually. That huge kind, the ones that are almost immortal.
“Those are tortoises, Franks.”
He shrugged.
“Okay. Then there’s tortoises.”
We looked down at the pen, where the three little behemoths milled around, eating grass.
The pen was small. I started to get sad.
“…I don’t think they’re happy here.”
Frankie looked up at me.
“How come?”
“Because it’s too small! They… They wanna be in the woods, maybe!”
He shrugged.
“Oh. Okay.”
I found the end of the wire fence, worked it away from the post, and bent it back. That should do ya! I smiled.
“You can go anywhere you want now, guys!”
Then I took off running, as fast as I could while hauling a rock in one hand and dragging a stumbling Frankie in another.
The tortoises were headed for the gate, taking their good old time.
After all, they’d live until after I was dead. I guess freedom could wait.
I don’t know how long to took the tortoises to reach the woods, but it didn’t take us long to find another kid.
“…Hi!”
Okay, so this kid might have been just a little forward. But, I liked his monster truck shirt. He seemed like an okay guy.
“Hey.”
Frankie didn’t say anything. Our journey had just taken us through a shrub, and he was still focused on picking sticks out of his hair.
“What’re you guys doin’?”
I thought it was kind of personal, but I guess Frankie had gotten the last stick out of his hair, because he answered before I had the chance.
“I found a dead bird. We’re gonna bury it.”
The kid tilted his head.
“Oh yeah? Where is it?”
Frankie scratched at his hair. A few tiny leaves shook loose. He pointed at me.
“In my brother’s pocket.”
Big mouth. The kid looked a little too interested.
“…Can I see?”
Okay, now I was getting a bad feeling about this guy. I’d played with kids like him before, and it never ended well. Then again, neither did letting on that you didn’t want to play with them. I steeled myself for the rocky middle path.
“Um… Maybe later?”
Oh great, now Psychopath Junior is going to hit me with a stick.
“Okay… Wanna check out my tree fort?”
Lucky for us, he didn’t seem bothered. And even if this kid was starting to throw off creep vibes, I could probably stand to look at a fort.
“Sure! You wanna see the fort, Frankie?”
Frankie looked scared, but when I followed the weirdo into the woods, he followed me. (This exact thing would happen about ten more times in our lives.)
The fort wasn’t much of a “fort.” it was just a piece of particleboard that happened to be the right size to jam between the trunk and branches of a middle-sized tree, with some uneven, broken-looking boards nailed to the trunk. The kid climbed the boards. I sat my rock on the ground and climbed up after him. At first, it seemed like Frankie was staying on the ground, and I was a little relieved, because I wasn’t sure if that crappy board could support all three of us. But, I guess, being down there without me, he kind of lost his sense of purpose in life. So he joined us.
Honestly, it was lame. The only moment of excitement was when Frankie sat down beside me, and the board started to tip. Our host just sat around dangling his legs, brandishing a BB gun that he apparently kept up there. God knows why. I started to feel like we’d wandered into some sort of hostage situation. Finally, I heard a voice call out to us from beyond the trees.
“Kyle, dinner!”
Kyle, as that was apparently his name, climbed down the first few boards, then jumped the rest of the way.
“’Cmon, you guys can eat with us!”
I was about sick of this little shit, but I was pretty hungry. The only thing I’d had since lunch was some cotton candy that my second-grade teacher spun, and poorly at that. Frankie and I descended the tree, I grabbed my rock, and we followed Kyle to his house, which was actually across the street from the houses we’d been walking behind.
In the backyard, A woman, who I guessed was his mom, was hovering over a grill. A preteen boy and a girl a little younger than Frankie were having a really intense fake swordfight. They kept yelling about someone being avenged, and a lot of stuff about blood-spilling. While I stood there watching them, Kyle debriefed his mom.
“I was just playing with these guys. Can they have some food?”
She looked us up and down, and she didn’t look happy. Then again, she didn’t look unhappy, either.
“Okay.”
Her voice was emotionless. I felt a bit unwelcome, but mostly hungry. We sat down at the table to wait.
The food was normal grilling-out stuff, the sort of meal that can’t decide what it wants to be, or even what the main dish is. There were chicken drumsticks, and hotdogs, and burnt burgers with unmelted American cheese slices on them. Sitting off to the side, there was some watermelon and beans. I ate some of everything, and Kyle’s mom glared at me when I ate a third chicken leg. Frankie ate half a hotdog and an abnormal amount of beans. I watched him feed the half-eaten hotdog to the huge German Shepherd that was wandering around the yard. He was a neat dog, and I kind of wanted to stay and play with him. Then I remembered the bird in my pocket, and that we had to get back to the carnival, and oh god, how long have we been gone?
I bolted up from my seat.
“…Um, me and my brother gotta go. Thanks for the food!”
We were gone before she had time to say “you’re welcome.”
But, what the heck. Maybe we weren’t.
From there on, we walked on the sidewalk like good little citizens, and didn’t steal a single garden fixture or release a single pet. A few people gave me dirty looks, but I think that’s just because they thought I was going to throw the rock through a window or something.
Eventually, we got to a place where it looked like the neighborhood was still being built. Shiny silver houses with no siding, and then bare dirt; pounded flat, or piled in heaps. I scrambled up to the top of the tallest heap, and from there, I saw it, only a block away: the hill, and the park.
“Oh, there it is!”
I realized I wasn’t talking to anyone. Frankie hadn’t followed me up the dirt-heap. I climbed down, sliding on my butt part of the way, and filled him in.
“The hill is just across the street!”
Frankie looked at the street. It wasn’t a highway, but it was the kind of road that was important enough to have a yellow stripe down the middle. I was never sure how that gets decided.
“There aren’t any cars.”
I looked both ways. He was right.
“Well, I guess we can go, then.”
Honestly, I was just looking forward to getting rid of the rock. And the bird. I forgot about it easily enough, but then I’d remember, and remembering you have a dead thing in your pocket is creepy.
We crossed the road, crashed through the tall grass, and trudged up the hill.
Well, I guess we’re here.
I started digging a hole with my hands. Some birds were circling in the distance, and I hoped they weren’t buzzards. Buzzards might smell the bird in my pocket, then fly over and peck me to death.
The hole looked deep enough, and I pulled the bird out of my pocket. It didn’t look much worse for all its adventures, but then again, it didn’t actually have to do anything. This bird’s problems were over.
It was only when I laid him in the ground that I realized I had no idea what you’re supposed to say at a bird funeral. Frankie and I kneeled over the hole, staring down at the bird, completely silent. Then Frankie put on the grimmest face he could manage.
“…Would anyone like to say a few words?”
I cleared my throat.
“Um, I’m sorry you had to die in a crappy funhouse. What a way to go.”
Frankie waited for me to finish, then said his piece.
“Sorry we were stupid with mirrors. You were probably just trying to fight another bird or something.”
We stared at the bird some more, until we were sure we had nothing else to say. Frankie dropped the fake bee in the hole. I rifled through my pockets until I found the candy. I figured it was a bird-sized portion anyway, so I opened the bag and dumped it in. Then we took turns putting dirt in the grave, until the bird was covered and the hole was filled. I gave Frankie the honors of placing the rock.
He sat it down on top of the grave, took a marker out of his pocket, and scrawled on the stone, “BIRD.”
Then we sat in silence for a while longer.
I guess this was pretty much what we’d set out to accomplish.
I lead us through the woods again, figuring the school was back there somewhere, just the way I figured the hill was “back there somewhere.” And yeah, that worked out real great, but I don’t think I realized I might be repeating a mistake. Or even that a mistake had been made. I mean, we got where we were going, and did what we’d planned. It just took a while is all.
By the time we finally turned around, I noticed it starting to get dark, so the woods were probably a bad idea. But, we managed to avoid the ditch, so, all things considered, it was a lot easier. Even if Frankie got stuck in another goddamn thorn bush.
When we got back, the carnival was still going, but the lights were on, so it looked a little less dismal than it had when we left. All of a sudden, I felt like I could go for a round of ring toss, or maybe another go in the bouncy house. But, first things first:
Find the fishing booth; figure out how much trouble we’re in.
I wasn’t sure if we were in trouble yet, but it was obvious that someone was. Mom was looming over Baxter, yelling at him about how irresponsible he is, and how she can’t leave him alone for five goddamn minutes. Baxter was staring impassively into the middle distance, waiting for her to stop, and probably not actually hearing a single thing she was trying to say.
I cleared my throat.
“…Um. Hi.”
Mom stopped yelling at Baxter, then whipped around to yell at me.
“…Where the hell were you two!?”
Frankie and I looked at each other. I decided that half-truths, at least, take half as long to explain.
“We were in the funhouse.”
She nodded, clenched her jaw, and started yelling at Baxter again.
“…Did you even think to check the funhouse!? It‘s right there!”
Baxter kept staring into space. Mom kept shouting. And yeah, this would probably come back to bite us in the ass, but for now, Frankie and I were free. The night was young, the lights were on, and the carnival was still roaring.
I suggested a good go-round on the scrambler. Frankie promised not to throw up, and, for once, kept his word.
Later that evening, riding home in the dark car, I took the shark bottlecap out of my pocket. A perfect tiny portrait, sparkling under the streetlights.
Sometimes, the best things are the things you find for yourself.
Sometimes, you find them when you weren’t even looking.
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