Styrofoam Throne (21 page)

First, a burly, football player–type came in, laughed at my bit, and slowly farted in my face. The smell just hung in the room since there wasn’t any ventilation. Then a storm rolled in outside and got bigger and bigger with every hour. The wind and rain were so strong that the Castle started rocking back and forth. It wasn’t like you couldn’t walk across the room but it was enough to make you not want to be strapped into an Electric Chair. I knew the Castle wasn’t made of stone but the storm exposed its cheapness more than ever. I kept yelling for the clown to save me. No response. The rain reduced the customers down to a trickle, but a few were still coming through. I pleaded with two teenage girls to untie me. They thought it was part of the act and giggled away. Eventually, three drunk dudes my age entered my room and I tried again.

“Dudes, I need you to untie me, I’m serious. I need to get out of here. I’m not joking.”

“Whoa, he is tied down.”

“Dude, I dare you to pour soda on his head,” another told him.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it,” the third said and went right up and threw the Coke in my face. It was humiliating but also refreshing.

“You assholes, get me out of here!” I yelled.

The other two started throwing pennies at my face while they laughed.

I yelled for the clown as the boys got bored and left. The clown’s revenge was painfully genius. I later found out that his room next door was empty all day. He just went home after he tied me down and let the Castle do the rest. I couldn’t help but wonder if Jack had set this all up or if it was just a terrible coincidence. It was well past my break, but thankfully I didn’t have to use the bathroom. I was sweating it all out in the prisoner’s jumpsuit. The Castle kept rocking back and forth as the lights flickered.

And then I started to smell smoke. Not stage fog. Not pot. But smoke. It was faint at first but started getting stronger and more toxic smelling. Then I could actually see plumes of it creep into the room. Suddenly, a bunch of plebes and cast members ran past my room, all yelling “FIRE!”

I freaked and screamed at them to let me out. There was too much terror in their eyes for them to see me. They were gone as soon as they arrived. The electric chair sounds were going off and the strobe lights amplified the real horror of the situation. Flames began crawling up the walls of my room and spread quickly over the crappy decorations all around me.

Finally, a dad came through with his son in his arms.

“Untie me, I’m going to die for real!” I screamed. He unhooked a buckle on my wrist and ran out with his kid. I undid the rest and took off through the rooms, holding the neck of my jumpsuit over my face to avoid inhaling the smoke. It wasn’t just wood burning, it was all the plastic and Styrofoam props that had lit up too. They melted into shapeless, toxic blobs. It looked like dripping blood on fire. The fumes burned my eyes and made me gag. All the audio tracks for the rooms and lights were still going, creating a surreal overlap of accidental and engineered terror. Stage fog mixed with smoke in some of the rooms, making it nearly impossible to see through. I was lucky that I could walk the Castle blindfolded by this point of the summer.

When I went through the Maze of Torment, I heard two kids coughing in a dead end. The place was going up fast but I couldn’t leave someone behind like I almost had been. I found them by feeling around with my feet. I grabbed their shirts and started dragging them out of there. Now I couldn’t hold my prison jumpsuit over my face, and had to inhale deep breaths of smoke while carrying their weight. I choked on it and gagged out a small bit of puke. I knew I had two more rooms to go and started to realize I might not make it with these kids. The Castle flames were making every inch feel like a mile but I finally made it to the long exit corridor. I was fighting for my life and coming to terms with my death. I could hear people yelling and the sound of the “Toccata” outside being melted into a slow, doomy drawl. Fire engine sounds swirled in the discord while people screamed for their lives. What were fake screams just an hour ago were now real ones coming from both plebes and cast members. I barely made it through the tunnel of smoke, and passed out as I heard Jack yell, “Dono!”

13

I woke up on a gurney in a burst of bright, fluorescent light. A hospital. The oxygen mask on my face let me know it wasn’t a dream. My eyes burned and my lungs were scorched. Trying to take a deep breath felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I checked myself out and didn’t see any major damage. No giant burns or missing limbs. The room held five other gurneys, all Castle people. They were a different story. Satan, my bro, was out cold next to me and hooked up to all kinds of tubes. He was wrapped almost entirely in gauze.

Suddenly, he started spasming and the machines made alarm noises. A doctor and nurse ran into the room, huddled around him, and started working with vital urgency. Then they slowly backed away. One of them said, “Eleven fifty-eight.” He was gone. A dead devil.

Death wasn’t rubber masks, greasepaint, and Styrofoam sets. It was here. White, antiseptic, and cold. The sound of death’s presence wasn’t the “Toccata” or taped thunder. Death was identified by a sustained flatline tone until someone turned the machine off. It was squeaky footsteps and the rolling wheels of a gurney. A clipboard being laid to rest. Death was no father figure.

A doctor came over. “You’re gonna be okay,” he told me. “You basically smoked a few cartons of cigarettes in a very short window. You’re a lucky one,” he said and went off tending to others.

The oxygen mask was freaking me out a little as the shock of everything started to creep in. I took it off and walked to the bathroom. I still had Castle face paint on and the stupid outfit. A few hours ago, I thought this was still my dream but now it was just horrifyingly sad. What’s a member of the undead doing in a hospital? This was real life beyond the airbrushed grave.

I stared in the bathroom’s Mirror of (Nearly Missed) Death. I washed my face with that pink soap that smells terrible. It took a couple rounds. At first it just smeared the greasepaint all around. I looked like the ghost of myself, the kind that would appear to you in a dream and warn you of Christmas Future. I pumped more soap into my hand and scrubbed hard with the brown paper towels. It wouldn’t all come off without the Castle makeup remover. I looked old and tired, like I wouldn’t need to fake-complain about work to buy beer at a liquor store. No one would card this face. Life without illusion was so much more sad and confrontational. At the beginning of the summer, I thought I knew who I was because I knew what I liked. Now I know the two have nothing to do with each other.

I wandered down the bright white hallway to the next room of gurneys. It was full of more Castle people. We had overtaken the place.

“Donovan!”

It was a familiar voice in an unfamiliar tone, full of sympathetic, grateful joy. I turned and saw Janice running down the hallway.

“Oh!” she said, sobbing and hugging me.

I had just seen someone die and I didn’t cry. I let it all out now. Bawling. My chest shook with the weight of it all and we couldn’t stop crying together.

“I’m sorry,” I said and couldn’t stop repeating it.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry too,” she said. We felt a connection beyond any other we had in my life. Far beyond the one time we couldn’t stop laughing at the same joke on TV. I followed death for a summer and it was the real threat of it that brought us back together.

“I’m sorry for not, you know . . .” she said. “And I’m sorry the pier burned down. I know how important the Castle was to you and your friends. I should have . . .”

I cut her off by hugging her again.

“Let’s go,” she said, putting her arm around me.

We started walking down the corridor—away from the blipping and beeping rooms and toward the exit. I could tell Janice was trying to think of more things to say.

“I know you don’t like doing dishes. But if you want another job, I heard Ye Olde Times is looking for a busboy. You could probably climb the ladder and be king one day, the way you are.”

“Yeah, I dunno.”

We both knew it meant no.

On the way home, Janice told me about her parents and why they weren't a part of our life. It just all spilled out of her. She talked to me like a lifelong friend. I understood why she never spoke to me about it before. It made me feel grateful for my place on our shady family tree. We got home and I slept for two days straight.

14

When I finally awoke, I walked to the Castle to see its remains for myself. I needed the fresh air outside to help me cough stuff up and pick my black boogers. While passing City Hall, I saw Jack walking out, wearing a suit, with three other guys in suits patting him on the back. They all told Jack, “Congratulations!” with aggressive handshakes. Wearing a huge smile, Jack walked to his hearse parked on the street.

“What’s with the suit?” I said.

“Dono! Thank God.” Jack was beaming.

“Why are you so happy?” I knew it wasn’t because I had survived, and it hurt.

“The city just agreed to rezone the Castle land for residential use!”

“Huh?”

“Condos! You’re looking at the owner of Breezy Dunes Condoplex.”

“Dude, condos? Why wouldn’t you just rebuild the Castle?”

“Hey, I’m a businessman. And any smart one knows that sex sells. These condos are gonna be the hottest thing on the coastline. The city just bent over for me. Finally paid off, Dono.”

“What about the people in the hospital?”

Jack paused.

“There’s no answer for that question. That’s my burden, not yours.”

“How did the Castle burn?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

He got in the hearse that was still dusted in Castle soot and rolled the window down.

“Summer’s over, Dono,” he said and drove away. I watched the hearse cruise down the street, until the dripping blood message of “Follow me to Castle Dunes!” turned into a blur.

The Castle was completely leveled, a giant black heap sitting on the sand. An oasis of ash. The only feature that remained was the iron gate, now tilted off-center by the fire. They had actually padlocked it with a chain as if there was still something to protect behind it.

Looking through the gates now, it was a clear view to ocean. All that was left of the pier were its salt-stained columns. A few people stared at the rubble and took pictures. All of them told memories of being there and ended their story with “I can’t believe it.” It was like a real funeral for a fake place.

One woman said, “I was there when it happened.”

I eavesdropped for any insights but was quickly spotted by her.

“Hey, you’re the electric chair guy! I saw you that night.” She was impressed.

“No, it’s not me,” I said. She was confused, but I wasn’t.

I walked away toward the beach. A car sped past and screeched to a halt. The passenger door opened and Melody got out.

“Donovan! You’re okay!”

She ran up and gave me a big hug.

“Yeah, I guess. Where are you going?”

“Getting a ride home. Time to pretend to my parents that summer camp just got out.”

“Oh, okay.”

“So yeah, okay. Bye?”

Melody walked back toward the idling car as I watched her leave. Before she got in, Melody turned around and ran back to me. She pulled my shirt down to her level and laid a kiss on me like it was the first one, but it didn’t feel the same.

The driver got out of the car. It was some dude I’d never seen—older and looked like a coke dealer.

“What the fuck!” he said, throwing up his arms.

“Hold on a minute!” she yelled.

Melody kissed me again and said, “Don’t forget me.” She went to leave but before she could make it to her ride, the car burned out and sped away.

“Fuck you, Ronnie!” she yelled down the road.

She came back to me with a “shit happens” grin on her face and asked, “So . . . you wanna hang out?”

“Nah.” I never thought I’d say it. It just came out so easily.

“Oh,” she said and got weird. I turned and walked away before it changed into something else. Whatever it was, I didn’t need it anymore.

I walked out on the beach and saw Renaldo waist deep in the ocean with his vest and headphones on. The ocean was unusually calm as blackened pieces of the pier bobbed around him.

I yelled to him from the wet sand but his headphones were cranked up as usual. I took my shoes off and waded out to him.

“Hey, man.”

“Donovan, fuck!”

“Yeah . . .”

“You’re not a ghost, right?”

“Almost, man.”

“Sucks, huh?”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“I mean the Castle.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I’m just kidding, bro. But yeah, the Castle too.”

“What are you listening to?” I asked.

“The ocean.”

“Dude, you’re in the ocean.”

“This is way louder, bro,” he said, motioning to the cassette player in his vest pocket.

“Let me check it out.”

“Yeah, I made this tape.”

Renaldo passed me the Walkman. The ocean sound was deafening and distorted through Renaldo’s blown-out headphones. The tape of big waves breaking on the pier was strange to listen to while looking out at the perfectly calm sea. You could faintly hear the Castle’s “Toccata” playing in the background. The now-extinct combination of sounds was frequently interrupted by Renaldo yelling at chicks, “Hey, ladies! What’s up?” Waves and the “Toccata” were the only response. “Whatever, fuck you then.” Waves continued to crash until Renaldo began speaking quietly to himself. “That’s a sweet bird.”

I took the headphones off. Renaldo had captured the soundtrack to my summer inferno.

“The other side is me going through the Castle,” he said.

“Can you make me a copy of this?”

“It’s yours, man.”

“Thanks.”

We stared at the ocean in different directions. Renaldo fixated on the debris floating by and I gazed at the horizon. Renaldo broke the silence.

“The Castle burning was probably the most metal thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“Almost dying is the most metal thing I’ve ever done.”