Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (27 page)

Sometimes Isaac finds
himself wishing that his court date, when it finally comes, goes poorly. In
jail he’d get to see people other than his mother and his tutor.

...who, he now realizes,
hasn’t turned off the screaming tea kettle. Isaac takes his time returning to
the kitchen, curious more than concerned. After all, Mrs. Marx isn’t
that
old — fifty, tops — so he certainly doesn’t expect to find her in distress or
passed out on the floor.

Nor does he expect to find
her squirming in the grip of a girl that towers over everyone in the kitchen.
Isaac has to crane his head slightly to meet her eyes, two dark, cold things
shaded by a thick brow. An arm as thick as a telephone pole wraps around Mrs.
Marx’s ribcage like an anaconda. The girl’s other hand covers the entire lower
half of his tutor’s face, muffling her screams. The giant’s companion rivals
her muscular bulk, if not her height. He nudges the third member of the group,
the smallest of the intruders, yet she somehow strikes the greatest fear in Isaac’s
heart.

Buzzkill Joy flips off the
burner. The kettle’s wail dwindles to a quavering whistle, then to a burbling
hiss. “Hey, Isaac. How’re you doing?”

“Let her go,” Isaac says.

“Uh, yeah, not happening.”

“I swear, if you hurt her —”

The tall girl utters a grunt
that, for her, serves as a laugh. “If,” she says.

“Be cool, Ivy, be cool,” Joy
says. “This your mom?”

“My tutor,” Isaac says.
“Please don’t hurt her.”

“Jeez, this kid’s a wuss,”
Kurt complains. “Forget him and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Nuh-uh. I think Isaac
here’s a team player,” Joy says, “he just doesn’t know it yet. Ivy, give us
some privacy here.”

Ivy presses her hand tight
against Mrs. Marx’s face. Her wiggling becomes mad thrashing. Isaac screams a challenge
and lunges, but his heroic charge is cut short; Kurt drives his fist into
Isaac’s sternum, a brutally efficient move that dropped many a challenger at
Sutherland. Isaac crumples, fire filling his lungs instead of air. The world
fades to gray.

When the fog lifts, Isaac is
back in the living room, curled into a fetal position in his father’s easy
chair. How he got there, he cannot recall. The intruders sit across from him on
the couch, their feet on the coffee table. The image has the air of a warped
family portrait of Fagan’s favorite ruffians.

“Your teacher’s fine,” Joy
says. “Ivy put her out for a little while so we could talk private-like.” She
squints thoughtfully. “Isaac, huh? Never met an Isaac before. What do your
friends call you? Izzy?”

Isaac uncurls, carefully,
his eyes on Kurt. “I don’t have friends anymore.”

“No? Let me guess: They
dropped you like a bad habit after you got your dumb ass expelled for hitting a
teacher.”

“How...how did you know
about that?”

“Same way I know about your
cool party trick,” Joy says, reveling in Isaac’s increasingly flabbergasted
expression. “See, Izzy, I’m a member of this real exclusive club. So’re Kurt
and Ivy here. So’re you. Let me tell you about it.”

Isaac listens, at first
under duress, but as Joy dives deeper into her fantastic tale, his resistance
morphs into grudging fascination, then turns into a simmering rage. He has no
reason to believe the girl, no reason to trust her, yet too much of her claim
makes sense. Too many pieces fit the incomplete puzzle of his life to deny the
truth lurking within.

Joy leans back, folds her
hands behind her head and waits, giving Isaac the time he needs to digest all
he’s heard.

“All right, so we’re mutants
someone cooked up in a lab,” he says, shrugging. “It’s not like we can do
anything about it now.”

“You’re missing the point,
Izzy,” Joy says. “The point is, you’ve never been in control of your own life.
None of us have. For most people, being born is a big crapshoot. Boy or girl,
straight or gay, retard or normal, black or white or red or yellow...you got no
say over how you’re born, so it’s a whatchacallit — a level playing field,
right?

“Not for us. We were made
this way. We were made crazy. We never had a chance to be something other than
what some scientist wanted us to be: a bunch of freaks. And you know what the
worst part is?” Joy gives Isaac a thin, sad smile. “They knew damn well what we
were and didn’t care. I read the files. They knew we were broken and they
didn’t do a single friggin’ thing to fix us. They just sat back and watched and
took notes. Tell me that doesn’t piss you off.”

To this day, that
life-changing moment at school remains a black hole in Isaac’s memory. The last
clear image he can summon is of the cafeteria, teeming with students sitting
down for lunch. He passed Joey, his lifelong tormentor, who threw out some
childish comment about his mother — the kind of lazy, uninspired verbal slap
that would normally slide by without effect. Joey’s repertoire of insults began
stagnating around eighth grade and never quite regained their power to incite,
but for whatever reason, on this fateful day, Joey’s dagger hit a bull’s-eye.

Isaac has no recollection of
attacking Joey, or of turning his wrath on Mr. Fulbright, a substitute who had
the misfortune of being on cafeteria monitor duty, or of getting tackled and
pinned to the dingy tile floor by Mr. Dent and another teacher. His conscious
mind did not kick back in until he was actually in the back of a police
cruiser, shackled hand and foot, en route to the station for booking on
multiple assault and battery charges.

And yet, inexplicably, he
recalls with perfect clarity a single bizarre sensation: a separation of mind
and body. He’d heard of people who lost control and later described an
out-of-body experience in which they played witness to their own mayhem, and
he’d always written off such claims as desperate ploys to prevent the full
weight of the justice system from crashing down upon them.

It sounded no less desperate
and unbelievable when he made such a claim to his public defender, who advised
working out a plea deal that might —
might
, he stressed — keep Isaac’s
jail time to a minimum.

“Yeah,” Isaac says, “that
pisses me off.”

“Good. Hold onto that,” Joy
says. “You wanted to know what we can do about it? I have an idea, if you want
in.”

“One condition: You leave
Mrs. Marx alone.”

“Sorry, Izzy, no can do.”

“Then count me out.”

“I could make you come with
us.”

Isaac swallows. “No. You
can’t.”

“Kid’s not such a wuss after
all,” Kurt says.

A voice in Joy’s head
berates her for entertaining Isaac’s demand, chastises her for leaving people
alive unnecessarily.

For no reason she can put
her finger on, that patronizing voice annoys the crap out of her.

“Ivy, throw his teacher in
the basement,” Joy says, adding firmly, “alive.”

Ivy grunts disapprovingly,
but does as told — as does Isaac, who, as per Joy’s instructions, throws some
clothing into a backpack and leaves his cell phone on his bureau.

“Ready,” Isaac says. “Uh, where
are we going?”

“I was hoping you had some
ideas,” Joy says. “We need somewhere local to hang out for a little while. Know
anyplace that’d make a good hideout?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says after a
moment of thought, “I think I do.”

“Sweet.”

Joy leads her charges out
into the back yard, a secluded patch of lawn surrounded by a low picket fence
and, beyond that, sparse woodland. A cheap swing set, rusted beyond the point
of reclamation, lurks in the corner. A jagged fault line splits the plastic
slide from top to bottom.

“Hey, Izzy,” Joy says,
pausing. “I’ve never seen anyone who can do what you can do. How about a quick
demo?”

“Joy, come on,” Kurt
grouses. “We need to go.”

“Hey, I want to see what I’m
getting for my money.”

“I, uh, I haven’t really
used my, um...I’ve only done it a couple of times,” Isaac says. “I got scared
being up that high, so I haven’t —”

“I’m not bringing you along
for your good looks,” Joy says, “so you best get over it. Now go on: Give me a
show.”

Isaac takes a few steps
back, gesturing for the others to stand clear. He squats, takes a few rapid
breaths to steel himself, then leaps. Seconds later, Isaac is nothing more than
a dot against a backdrop of blue.

“Now
that
,” Joy
grins, “is going to be wicked useful.”

The final bell of the day sounds
a lot like a dinner bell to me.

Knowing what awaited me, I
skipped out on a full cafeteria lunch and settled for a small salad. It was an
easy decision, in large part because today was Salisbury steak day. Here’s a
fun fact: Pre-packaged Salisbury steak is, by US Department of Agriculture
standards, a steak-shaped pressed meat patty which must contain no less than
sixty-five percent meat (which may include beef heart) and no more than thirty
percent fat. The rest may be anything from breadcrumbs to soy protein to plain
old flour (the USDA calls these yummy-sounding additives “extenders”); eggs,
brine, and vinegar (which the USDA calls “binders”); and seasonings.

Matt regaled me with this
nauseating trivia a few months ago, while I was eating Salisbury steak in
blissful ignorance, and I haven’t been able to look at the stuff since without
feeling queasy.

Anyway, the salad served its
purpose and sustained me through the day, and I am now ready to gorge.

“What do you say, Malcolm?”
I say as we saunter to my locker. “Ready to watch your girlfriend make a pig of
herself twice in one week?”

“Tempting, but I have to
pass,” Malcolm says. “I have to pick Sam up at school and take him to a
doctor’s appointment. He’s had a bad cough for a few days, and Mom is getting
paranoid he’s contracted pneumonia or whooping cough or something else equally
dire.”

“You’re a good big brother.
I understand.”

“Besides, you already had me
all to yourself Friday night. I don’t want to be a Carrie hog.”

“I wouldn’t object if you
did. And hey, maybe I want to be a Malcolm hog. You ever think of that?”

“No, but I should have. I am
great, after all.”

“Listen to you.” I give him
a quick goodbye kiss and rush off to meet the others at my locker.

“We have to catch bus
thirty-five to east Kingsport,” I say as I stuff all my books in my locker.
Sorry, homework, you’re getting blown off tonight, because hockey. “There’s a
Brazilian barbecue place there that is positively amazing.”

“Brazilian barbecue? I am
officially intrigued,” Stuart says.

“You’ll love it. You grab a
plate, load up on the sides at the buffet, then sit at the table while waiters
bring you all kinds of different barbecued meats on these big skewers that look
like swords. And? It’s all-you-can-eat.”

Stuart lights up like a kid realizing
he’s getting a new bicycle for Christmas, and then discovers a puppy sitting in
the basket on the handlebars. “Unlimited barbecued meat served on swords?” he
marvels. “How have I not known about this place?”

The prospect of hot
sword-meat — oh,
wow
does that sound dirty. Let me rephrase: The
prospect of barbecued meat served on giant skewers (much better) has Stuart
practically drooling all the way to the restaurant, a modest little place
called Latin Heat, Latin Meat. We walk in, and as soon as the hostess shows us
to our table and tells us to grab a plate, Stuart is off like a shot to the
side-dish buffet.

“I don’t know where to
begin,” he says, ogling the impressive variety of available sides, then
something catches his eye and he zeroes in on a particular steamer tray. “Why
is there bacon in the French fries?”

“They fry the bacon with the
fries,” I say.

Stuart’s mouth falls open.
“Bacon fries?
How have I not known about this place?!
”

My prediction: Stuart will
cause the management to reverse the all-you-can-eat policy, oh, after his
fourth plate.

His delight continues as the
waiters start presenting him with his meat options: beef sirloin, pork loin,
kielbasa, lamb, chicken — he samples it all, but balks when they bring out a
skewer of chicken hearts.

“I’ll eat almost anything
you put in front of me,” he says, winning the award for the Biggest “No Duh”
Statement of the Year, “but I draw the line at organs. And Miracle Whip.”

He keeps eating during the
ritual gift-giving, which scores me books from everyone (except, of course,
Matt, who swears to God “I have a present for you! It’s at home!”), along with
the traditional mix CDs. Stuart’s contribution is a history of heavy metal,
from some group called Blue Cheer (“Arguably the first metal band,” he says) up
through Godsmack. Sara gifts me with a collection of her favorite songs from
her favorite musicals, and Missy gives me a CD that is half Foo Fighters,
one-quarter AC/DC, and one-quarter assorted songs heavy on crunching electric
guitars (and, according to the handwritten note tucked in the jewel case, none
of the songs are by the original artists. “I played all of these,” it reads.
Wow!).