Down With the Shine (9 page)

S
mith reaches behind his back and pulls a tire iron out from underneath his T-shirt.

My first thought is:
Holy shit, how long has he had that there?

My second thought is:
Holy shit, why didn’t he use that sooner?

My third thought is:
Holy shit, why not have a knife or gun or something that is a tiny bit more effective?

The third thought comes as the mob surges forward. Instead of realizing how totally screwed he is, Smith takes a step toward them, brandishing his tire iron like it’s a magic wand and he’s Harry Fucking Potter.

It occurs to me that now would be a good time to run. And that this may be my one shot at escaping.

And yet I don’t move.

The tire iron goes flying from Smith’s hand and as
luck would have it, lands directly at my feet. Smith flings a disgusted glare over his shoulder at me. I can’t tell if he’s upset that I’m just standing instead of helping him fight or if he can’t believe I’m such an idiot that I haven’t made a run for it yet.

Then he mouths the word,
“Run,”
finally settling it: he wants me to get away. This was an actual noble sacrifice.

In my life not many people have had my back. Not consistently. Not voluntarily. In response, I’ve tried to be a rock. I’ve tried to give zero fucks about anyone other than myself. Especially after Dyl. But let’s be honest, if an idiot like Larry could sneak through my supposedly impenetrable hardened exterior, then it’s really no tougher than the candy shell on an M&M. And yeah, I’m even ooey-gooier on the inside.

So, of course, I bend down and pick up that stupid tire iron. I’m dumb like that sometimes.

I had an English teacher sophomore year who liked to say cutting things as she passed papers back. One of her favorite lines was, “The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.”

Here’s to being limitless
, I think, as I lift the tire iron over my head, take one last breath, and throw myself into the fight. But before I can whack anyone, a thundering crash makes the room go still. The gigantic china cabinet falls
forward, slamming against the dining room table and spilling its no-doubt priceless crystal. I spot Larry standing in the spot where the china cabinet had been. He is red with exertion but grinning like an idiot.

“Go,” he yells, pointing to the doorway behind us. “Basement. We come in peace.”

The crowd surges forward again, a bit more slowly and carefully now as they try to avoid the bits of glass scattered everywhere. Larry disappears from view and Smith grabs my upper arm and unapologetically manhandles me out of the dining room.

I struggle to get loose. “We can’t leave him!”

Smith ignores my protests and drags me away, through more rooms and hallways, until we reach a closed door that Smith pounds with his fist.

It opens a crack and an urgent yet low voice demands, “Password?”

“Um . . . we come in peace?” Smith says, and I realized this must be the basement Larry told us to head for.

The door closes again and I’m pretty sure we’re screwed, which is exactly what we deserve for leaving Larry behind. But then there is the rattle of a chain and the door opens once more, this time wide enough to let us slip inside.

The door quickly closes and locks behind us while we blink and take in our new surroundings. We are at the
top of a blue staircase that leads into what is apparently an aquatic-themed basement. As we walk down the stairs, it feels like heading underwater. Everything is blue from the ceiling to the floor to the lighting that swirls around casting flickering wave shapes onto the walls lined with—what else—fish tanks, stacked one upon another.

An old man calls out a crackly, “Namaste.”

I turn toward the voice and see a supersize waterbed at the center of the room with a group of people propped in the center of its gently rolling surface. There is a wizened old man in the middle of them wearing a hat that Smith and I immediately recognize.

Anyone in our school would. A metal bowl with a brim, which Michael Turlington has worn since the end of freshman year when he brought it to school as part of an English project on Don Quixote. He calls it his Mambrino.

Every person in the school knows the story of the Mambrino, just like everyone knows Turlington. He’s a senior notorious for living the high life. The very high life, if you know what I mean. We’ve had a few classes together over the years and he’s always been cool to me, but that’s probably because he has no idea who I am. Oh, I’m sure he’s heard about my father. The thing is that Turlington’s usually too stoned to remember those sorts of little details.
He usually doesn’t even know what day of the week it is.

So the idea of him being the leader of this undersea basement group seems a little strange.

“Whoa!” Old Man Turlington calls as he squints at us. “Who do we have here? Come closer so I can see you.”

Unsure of how welcome I’ll be here once he recognizes me, I desperately try to remember his wish. He was there. I clearly remember his signature “Whoa” as I walked into the party and began pulling the mason jars from my bag.

Smith nudges me forward and now I get the full view of Turlington. Nearly unrecognizably wrinkled and ancient, he’s propped up by pillows all around him, like he’s a baby who might topple over without them. Following the baby theme, he’s wearing some sort of loincloth or diaper—I honestly try not to look too closely—which makes his bony little shoulders, concave chest, and overall shrunken and withered appearance all too obvious. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was at least a hundred years old.

A hundred years old
. Aw, shit, now I remember his wish.

“Lennie, I wanna live to be old, like more than a hundred years kinda old, ya know what I mean? But I wanna still be cool at one hundred, like super cool so that all the chicks still want me and the dudes are like ‘yeeeahhh-aahh, Turlington.’”

I nodded at him throughout this whole speech and
then, as I’d quickly fallen into the habit of doing, swiftly summed up his wish. “To being really super old and also amazingly irresistible. May all your wishes come true, or at least just this one!”

Cheers.

Unable to continue looking at the results of my sloppy wish granting, I scan the room. Oof. It’s as bad as looking at Turlington. All those wishes so thoughtlessly recited while my head spun with the moonshine are coming back to me with a vengeance.

A girl with six—no, eight arms. She’d complained about not having enough time for work and sports and school and friends. I’d cut her off before she could go on any longer. “To having enough hands to do it all!”

Two boys wearing teeny bikinis, and looking good in them too . . . except for the fact that they seem more than a little uncomfortable. They’d wished for girls from the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition, but I’d paraphrased their wish: “To both of you getting some hot bikini bodies!”

A trio of girls literally connected at the hip. “To being inseparable!” I think their wish had been to remain friends forever and not let anything break them apart. Again, I’d given it my own spin and the stormy looks on their faces suggest that their friendship might be worse off because of it.

“Greetings, friends,” Turlington calls, drawing my attention to him and the girls curled up on his right and left sides. One has a mermaid tail but the other looks normal, except the way she’s glaring tells me that I must have granted one of her wishes too.

“Hey, Turlington,” I say weakly. “You’re looking . . .” I pause, searching for the right word. Ancient? Mature? Well aged? I finally settle on, “spry.”

Amazingly, he laughs at this.

“Good to see you, man,” Smith says, leaning forward and exchanging one of those complicated dude-to-dude handshakes with Turlington that ends with both of them bumping a fist over their own hearts.

Settling back onto his pillows, Turlington gives us both a warm smile. “What can I do for you, my friends?”

“Um, we were really just running a—”

Smith kicks my ankle. “Dude, we only want to grab Lennie’s friend Larry and get out of here. No offense, but this scene’s a little crazy.”

“Hmm. Yes.” Turlington nods in this thoughtful way. “I get it. I do. You wanna be gone. Problem is, nobody who was here past dawn can get out without . . .” he trails off, seemingly lost in thought. Then he turns toward a dark corner of the room. “Ginny, come over here.”

Turlington lifts a finger, beckoning, and the crowd in
that dark corner parts to reveal a scantily clad girl slowly slinking her way toward us. It is only when I notice the pointy ears on top of her head, the tail undulating behind her, and the sleek fur disappearing into the deep V of her cleavage that I realize I’ve found the girl who wished to be a sexy cat. Although, now that I think of it, she might have wished to be sexy
like
a cat. In my defense, that still makes no damn sense, so I don’t feel too guilty about messing it up.

“Tell them,” Turlington says as Ginny sinks onto the bed and curls up beside him with a sulky purr. “Tell them about how you tried to get out.”

She ignores us for several long moments, licking her paw/hand in a way that is both gross and mesmerizing. I sneak a glance at Smith and notice that he is even more transfixed than me. I bet if she rolled onto her back and asked him to rub her belly he wouldn’t hesitate to comply.

“C’mon, Ginny,” Turlington coaxes in his creaky old-man voice.

With a hiss of annoyance, Ginny ceases grooming and turns her cat eyes toward me. “Lots of people ran for it this morning and they all came back so scared I didn’t bother attempting my own escape,” Ginny finally says in this low husky voice totally different from her previous high-pitched squeak. “But when I was getting some fresh
air that bat came swooping down and I took off until I hit the edge of the driveway and then—” Her back arches up as in memory of that moment and I can see her fur standing on end. “It was like electricity. I was thrown backward. I think I even blacked out for a few minutes.”

“Has anyone tried to drive through it?” I ask.

She shrugs, clearly disinterested. “All I know is, I’m not going out there again.” With that she uncurls herself from the bed and stalks across the room.

“So you see”—Turlington spreads out his trembling hands—“there’s nothing to be done but sit tight until Lennie here can reverse all the wishes. That is why you came back, right?”

“Well . . .” I start to say, and Smith kicks me again.

“I think you’re right, Turlington,” Smith says.

“Yep,” Turlington agrees. “I’ve been given the wisdom of the ages, dude.”

Smith nods. “I can tell. So look, we need to get some moonshine so Lennie can start making all those wishes unwished, if you know what I mean. Think you could help us get out of here?”

Feet begin to pound against the floor over our heads, almost like a stampede has broken out. As if on cue, everyone in our watery den looks up with fearful expressions. Moments later we hear multiple fists hitting the basement
door and just as many voices raised in supplication, begging to be let in. Screams begin to filter through, and in them we can hear a name. I am relieved to realize it’s not my own, but that quickly fades when I hear the gasps around me. Then that same name spreads around the basement.

Zinkowski
.

I have never in my life seen so many people lose their shit so fast. It’s sheer panic. At least fifteen people try to cram themselves into a cedar closet, until one of them asks, “What if it gets Cheetos’d?” and then they all fight to be the first to wriggle back out.

“Easy with the merchandise!” Turlington cries out in his old man’s warble, as he’s lifted from the bed at the same time that another group of his followers begin to pull the pillows away.

“Turlington!” I call as he’s carried past me. “What’s up with Zinkowski? I thought he’d be here with you!”

Turlington shakes his head sadly. “Zinkowski has gone to the dark side.”

I can’t believe it. Turlington and Zinkowski are best friends in a totally bromantic way. They fling their arms around each other’s shoulders when they laugh. They finish each other’s sentences. They leave graffiti all over school that reads Turl + Zinc. They seemed like the type
who would be together eighty years from now, two old men sitting on the front porch chuckling at some lame joke only they understood.

“Come on.” Smith ends my gloomy reverie on Turl + Zinc’s lost love with a sharp shove. “We gotta get out before they block the door.”

The freaked-out citizens of Turlington’s underwater world have pulled themselves together and are now working toward the common goal of carrying several sheets of plywood up the stairs to blockade the entrance.

Smith gives me another push, but I am already moving. Although I have to wonder if now is the best time to escape. You don’t have to be a survival expert to know that when all the gazelles start running away, you should follow them and not go in the opposite direction to find out what’s hunting them.

And yet, here I am undoing the chain, while Smith holds back the guy who let us in. “You said you came in peace!” he hollers, clearly feeling a bit betrayed.

“Sorry,” Smith replies, just as the door flies open. A sea of people comes flowing in, nearly pushing us down the stairs. Snagging my wrist, Smith fights against the tide and tugs me along beside him, until we pop back out again.

Seconds later, the door snaps shut behind us.

Outside of Turlingtown, the hall is quiet and empty.

“I’m freaked out,” I whisper.

“What did Zinkowski wish for, do you remember?” Smith asks.

I close my eyes trying to remember. Turlington and Zinkowski were always together, so after Turlington made his wish . . .

Zinkowski stepped up and grinned at me with his blank stoner smile.

“Make a wish?” I asked, holding up the jar of shine.

“Wish.” He laughed like he’d never heard of such a crazy thing, although he’d been standing right there while Turlington went through this exact same ritual. “Well, oookay.” Then he squeezed his eyes closed, like a little kid getting ready to blow out his birthday candles. His eyes opened and he startled as if surprised to see me standing there.