Authors: David Bone
“Yeah, totally,” I said.
“You’re tall enough to be Executioner, maybe you’ll get to slay me!”
“I would totally slay you,” I said while trying to process what she meant by “slay” and that she even used the word “slay.”
Melody laughed at my vow.
Jack came out through the back door and banged his clipboard on the front table to get everyone’s attention.
“Anyways, good luck!” she said and joined her group of friends while I was still lost in over-excited thought. Every day before this one sucked . . .
Jack coughed and addressed the group.
“Alright, it’s gonna be the first real big one of the summer so I hope you’re all ready for the kingdom of madness. And I don’t mean in a cool way. Don’t take shit from anybody tonight.”
This sounded both awesome and profoundly inspirational.
“We’ve got RJ on Rat Room. Beth in Nightmare Tavern. Bobby in the Graveyard. Blake, you’re a roaming zombie. TJ, you are . . . Executioner . . . with Melody.”
Whoever TJ is, he sucks and is slaying the queen of my dreams.
One by one, everyone’s name was called as they went inside to apply their assigned makeup and costumes.
Jack looked up from his clipboard and saw only me left.
“Ah, yeah, new kid! Ready?”
“Yeah!”
“Come with me.”
We walked down the pier, away from the Castle. I had so many questions I wanted to ask.
“So is, like, that hearse yours?” was the best I could think of in the moment.
“Yeah, don’t hold it against me,” Jack said.
“What? No. It’s awesome.”
“Ha! Yeah, strip clubs make me park it a block away.”
I was confused. Was he taking such a sweet car for granted? But it wasn’t important. The real question was Why are we walking away from the Castle?
“Isn’t the Castle back there?” I said.
“Sure is!”
Jack didn’t really pay attention to me. He was busy saying “hey” to people who knew him on the pier. He called the girls “doll” and the guys he liked “mack.” I wanted to be a “mack” and not “the kid.” Jack pretended to be a tough asshole and maybe he was, but I sensed there was another side to him.
We came upon the food vendor section that I already knew so well. Behind the counter sat Tony, a devoted and miserable man, feeding the Castle Pizza carousel with pepperoni slices.
“Tony, this is . . .”
“We know each other from food runs,” I said as Tony nodded.
“Great. So he’s gonna work with you from now on.”
Now on?
“I could use it,” Tony said.
“He’d be perfect for the pizza guitar,” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Tony nodded.
Pizza guitar? My dream took a nosedive.
“Let’s move some ’za, boys!” Jack slapped me on the back and left.
Fuck. I wanted a job on the front of the Castle Dunes brochure, not on the back of it.
“No more running back and forth, huh? Welcome aboard,” Tony said.
I watched Jack disappear down the pier as I stood frozen, paralyzed from shock.
“Here ya go,” Tony said, handing me a heavy metal–styled cardboard guitar with promotional pizza graphics on it that read “Hot ’n Ready!”
I grabbed the cardboard guitar and looked at it as I took my first breath in a while. Was Renaldo right?
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.
“Your job is to play this thing in front of here, and try to wrangle people over to buy a slice.”
I thought I said something to acknowledge the instructions but nothing came out.
“What’s that?” Tony asked.
“Okay, yeah. Yes.”
“Think you can handle it?” Tony raised an eyebrow.
“Totally.”
“At lunch I’ll give you a coke and two slices if you’re doing good.”
“Cool.”
“Alright then, get at it,” Tony said.
There wasn’t anyone even on the pier yet. Just me, the pizza guitar, and the rising temperature. I wanted to terrify people in the darkness, not get laughed at in the sun.
I began trying out a variety of grips on the guitar, looking for one that felt right. There were none. I stood there with my knees locked, mock strumming as I stared at my shoes. A couple walked by, not paying attention to me. I was horrified anyways and turned my back to them and stared at Tony.
“Kid, don’t sell me the fucking pizza. Sell them!”
“Okay.”
“And you also need to be yelling ‘Hot ’n Ready!’ in a heavy metal voice,” Tony said.
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Ya know, if you’re too shy for this, we can get someone else.”
“No, no. I got it.”
I walked out to the middle of the pier, strumming the guitar high up on my chest, and worked up the courage to say, “Hot ’n Ready,” at a decent volume.
No one paid attention to me. Thankfully, my pizza song fell on deaf ears.
I turned my performance toward the Castle. So close, yet so . . . disappointing. But I guess as long as I was within a stone’s throw, it beat anything else. As I gazed at the Castle, I got caught up in my thoughts and stopped pizza rocking.
“Kid! Hot ’n Ready! Hot ’n Ready! Hot ’n fucking Ready!”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“I’ve got enough shit to worry about, alright?”
The pier had started to fill up and I let one rip, “Hoooot ‘nnnnnn Reaaaa-daaaay!” My voice cracked halfway through “ready” and made everyone within fifty feet laugh out loud. Families with their kids, bored teenagers, couples looking for something to do. Now my awkwardness was the attraction.
My cheeks filled with icy blood. I looked to Tony for help.
“Don’t look to me for a sign, kid. You’re holding it.”
I resumed wandering a small perimeter around Castle Pizza, trying my best to yell “Hot ’n Ready!” every thirty seconds with just a passable amount of panache. All while constantly strumming guitar like a man with two broken hands.
“D!”
It was Renaldo.
“Ha ha, shredding some cheese! You’re the new Hot ’n Ready guy, huh? That’s cool . . . I guess.”
“Kinda,” I said, trying to maintain my silent song.
Renaldo took a step back.
“Dude, don’t you watch music videos? That’s not how you play that shit!” he said.
Tony yelled from behind the counter, “Renaldo, show ‘em how it’s done and I’ll give you a slice.”
“I’ll show him but your pizza sucks, dude. Give me free refills all day and I’ll turn Donovan into a shredder.”
“Deal. And fuck you.”
“You play guitar?” I asked.
“Nah, but it’s not about that. Okay, first off, you’re playing that shit way too high. Only assholes do that. You gotta hold it down low. You want to be strumming your dick. That’s where the action is. Playing guitar is pure cocksmanship.”
I tried it out.
“Alright. But don’t hold your picking hand like that, take your thumb and index finger and put them together while you fan out the rest of the fingers.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Like you’re making an “OK” sign but pinch your fingers together.”
I did what he said.
“Yeah, man. Alright, now the other hand. You can’t just stay in one spot like that on the neck. That would be the most boring fucking song you’d ever hear. You gotta go all over, man, that’s the shred.”
I went up and down the neck like I was wiping it off.
“No. Arch your fingers more. Like spider legs. Yeah, bro, now do it all together.”
I began to pick it up.
“Hey, Tony,” Renaldo yelled. “I want a half Coke, quarter 7up, half Dr Pepper, and the rest Cactus Cooler soda,” Renaldo yelled.
“You skipped too many math classes. I’m not pouring that shit all day.”
“Check it out, though. Donovan, shred, dude.”
I pointed a ripping solo and heavy metal frown at Tony.
“Ha! Not bad! You’re a natural, Dono.”
I didn’t want to be a natural at cardboard pizza guitar.
“Keep yelling, though,” Tony said, nodding to the pizza. “This shit’s been on the rack for, like, two days.”
It didn’t matter to me how old the pizza was or that I properly played the cardboard guitar. It couldn’t have been any less Castle-y.
Wait, no. The Roost was less Castle-y. When based on distance away from Janice and proximity to the Castle, pizza was the clear winner. And I kept reminding myself.
Renaldo leaned up against the railing opposite the pizza and watched me relaunch into advertising.
“Hot ’n Ready!” I yelled.
I found a groove with Tony and Renaldo’s approval and widened my perimeter a little as the pier started to fill up that afternoon. Some girls walked past me a few times, giggling, and I could never figure out if it was the good or bad kind.
Jack walked past me in the thick of the afternoon and gave me an approving nod. I still felt suckered.
Renaldo stepped in.
“Dude, you’ve got some hot licks down now but you’re boring me to death. You need some moves, man!”
“Like what?”
“Like shake it up, bro. Do a sprinkler head.”
“What’s that?”
“Dude!”
Renaldo air guitared as he swept the tip of the guitar across a 180-degree angle, then reset from the beginning to start the 180 over at the same spot.
“It’s like the tip of your guitar is spraying the arena with fucking metal power.”
“I’ll try it.”
“Dude, you don’t ‘try’ this shit—you fuckin’ fuck it. Get out there and spray them down!”
I attempted my first sprinkler head move. But went from left to right and right to left in a smooth direction.
“No, no, no.”
“What?”
“Dude, that looks weak.”
“But this is what you said.”
“You gotta do it like a sprinkler. Reset back to the beginning when you get to the end. No back and forth.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is rad versus fucking lame.”
“Dude, are you fucking with me?”
“Hey, you wanted it, suit yourself,” Renaldo shrugged. “If you need me, I’ll be under the pier smoking weed with my boss.”
“Who?”
“Exactly.”
He disappeared in the crowd and I returned to my pizza guitar.
“Hot ’n Ready!” I cried out.
I played that cardboard guitar into the night, ’til my fingers bled, like they say in rock songs. Only these were paper cuts. Finally, Tony called the day and told me to eat. I sat down behind the Castle Pizza counter and had a slice. Tony squinted at me.
“Whoa, buddy. Did you put any sunscreen on today? You look like a lobster.”
I went to check my reflection in the mirror. My pale skin had turned bright red and I suddenly began to feel my face throb. I was supposed to be inside the Castle and hadn’t thought of sunscreen the whole day. I’d gotten too occupied with embarrassment and pizza guitar techniques.
“I’ve never been this sunburned in my life! What am I gonna do tomorrow?”
“Wear sunscreen I hope, ha!”
“Seriously, Tony.”
“I don’t know, but this pizza sure as shit doesn’t sell itself.”
The next morning, I passed the screams coming from the Castle and shuffled in sunburned pain down the pier to Castle Pizza.
Tony erupted in laughter when he saw me.
“Holy shit, kid! You look like a cartoon character that got angry.”
“Yeah, maybe I should do something else today?”
“Nah. I’ll set up the picnic parasol and you’ll be good.”
“I don’t know if I can move a lot.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s attention we want and that face is gonna get it.”
I stood in place, hardly opening my mouth as people repeatedly came by to make comments.
I spotted Todd, one of the jock assholes from high school, and then he saw me. I clutched my cardboard guitar and looked away.
“Hot ’n Ready,” I muttered.
Just then, Todd clipped me with his shoulder.
“What the fuck!” he said, acting like it was my fault. “Hey, guys, check it out. The Prince of Dorkness.”
“Yeah! Look at that fucking dork!” said another jock as Todd pushed me into the sun.
“Ow!”
“Holy shit, you are fucking burned,” Todd said, grabbing my arm. “That feel good?”
I collapsed under the grip.
“You guys, come on. I’m working.”
“A fucking pizza guitar?” Todd said while giving it a punch.
“Come on, guys. Please.”
Tony interrupted the scene.
“Donovan, stop socializing and sell some fucking pizza.” Tony’s attention went back to filling orders.
“Just leave me alone, seriously.”
“Or what?”
“Yeah! Or what?” the other jock said.
“Hot ’n Ready! Hot ’n Ready!!” It seemed like a good defense in the moment. This time, I hoped drawing attention to myself would keep me out of trouble.
“This fuckin’ guy. You gave my girlfriend nightmares for weeks with that shit you pulled at the talent show.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“You think that’s funny?”
“Uh . . .”
Tony butted in. “Donovan, if I have to tell you one more time!”
“Hotnreadyhotnreadyhotnready!” Why didn’t Tony know this was code for “Help!”?
I scurried out from the shade, away from the jocks and into the sun. It burned and made me think of Dracula’s famous sensitivity to daylight.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Dude, seriously. I’m fucking working.” Maybe a little bark back would get me out of this. It didn’t.
“Oh, that’s it. Boys, let’s show him how to surf.”
I might have been taller, but these guys’ low gravity was dangerous for my stilt-like legs.
The jocks all grabbed me and tossed me off the pier while passersby just laughed. Whose side should they have been on? The letterman jackets, or the sunburned freak, playing a cardboard pizza guitar? Tony was too busy to cast a vote.
The jocks looked down on me as I plummeted. They high-fived and yelled, “Shoot the pier, bro! Hahahaha!”
I hit the water with the pizza guitar still in hand. I thought my skin was going to melt off from the pain of the water contact. If it had been low tide, I would have broken my neck. Instead, I was swept among the barnacle-covered pillars holding up the pier. Above me, clusters of sleeping bats covered the bottom of the pier.