The Accidental Siren (34 page)

Worst of all, my kinship with the great beast
was beginning to seem like a ruse; I had the feeling of being
watched, as if the tents, rides, and kiosks had eyes.

Again, we came across the row of goofy
mirrors. The girls weren’t with us the first time around so we
stopped again to play. Kimmy looked like a troll with a frizzy
orange mane. Haley held up her arms and I recalled a picture from
my encyclopedia of a medieval device that pulled people apart at
the seams. Livy didn’t move, but scrutinized her warped reflection
until Kimmy yanked her away.

As we said goodbye to our shape-shifting
alter-egos, I discovered the source of my paranoia on the top step
of the Super Slide. Four boys were leaning against the rails;
coke-bottle glasses and rampant acne marked them as outcasts, yet
their faces seemed vaguely familiar as if they were enemies from a
previous life.

I ignored them the first time; boys oogling
Mara was nothing new. But twenty minutes later I saw them again,
six of them now crammed two at a time at the top of the
ferris-wheel.

Later, they appeared behind us in line for
the swings. They were distracted this time, chattering amongst
themselves, splitting their attention between the girl beside me
and an elderly woman across the way.

It was them.
It came to me in a flash;
the face in the leaves, the body that fell at the sound of my
father’s gun;
it was
them
, the ferrets, the boys on
bikes and the boys in the trees; and not just the boys, but the
women too! Four of them at least, perched throughout the park,
inconspicuous without their purple hats, but un-missable with their
beady eyes trained on Mara.

“It’s time to go,” I said. “We need to get
outta here. Now.”

* * *

“Hey weener-wrinkle,” said Whit. “I wanna
ride the swings!”

“Not now,” I said.

“James?” Kimmy said. “Haley and I are gonna
meet some friends–”

“
Not now,”
I said again and pushed
Whit faster through the crowded midway. “We need to find my
parents.”

“I swear,” Livy added, ”my brother is so
flippin’ weird.”

The giant mallard bounced on Mara’s back as
she jogged to keep up. “Can’t we stay a little longer?”

“Somethin’s not right. I’m takin’ you
home.”

“But we’re having a good time!”

“Listen to the lady,” Whit said. “The night’s
still young!”

We emerged from the midway, passed the
Gravitron and the mini roller coaster and found ourselves caught
between the carousel and funhouse. “Crap!” I said.

“Uhh,” Kimmy said, “isn’t this the end of the
carnival?”

I scanned the horizon to find my bearings. We
were at the tip of the carnival’s longest arm. The Salt and Pepper
Shaker was behind us and to the left. The Community Center was at
the opposite end of the park.

“I think we had to turn
that
way.”
Whit pointed behind us.

“I’m not going through the midway again,” I
said, then nodded to the far sidewalk. “We’ll follow the
storefronts to the Community Center. Mom and Dad’ll be looking for
us there.”

“Whatever.”

I scoured the perimeter for hostiles, then
led the group past the blazing carousel with its joyful children
and angry horses. The funhouse was on our left. Cartoon animals
advertised a rotating hallway, silly slide, and house of mirrors.
“Looks like fun...” Haley said, making her disappointment
clear.

“Can you at least tell me the time?” Mara
asked.

I checked my watch without slowing my stride.
“Eight-fifty-five,” I said.

When I looked up, I saw the first jock. It
was Jon the lock-picker–friend of Ryan Brosh–watching us from the
tin roof of a cotton candy concession stand. He was wearing a
basketball jersey and his hair was parted as if he was attending a
cotillion instead of a night at the fair.

Mara grabbed my shoulder.

Kimmy and Haley locked arms to form a shield
between my sister and the towering jock, then shot me a look that
said,
“Told you so.”

When Jon was certain we noticed him, he
raised his arms and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he
announced to the rollicking mass, “may I have your attention!” His
words were stilted as one might expect from a basketball
player.

The crowd slowed and turned their attention
to the delinquent on the roof.

“What the heck is this...” asked Whit.

Jon pointed right at us. “There’s a special
lady in the audience tonight,” he said. “She was hurt by a good
friend of mine, and there’s something he’d like to say.”

Scattered “awws” arose from the onlookers. I
felt the horde shift around me as every eye fell to Mara.

Two more jocks materialized from the crowd.
The skinny one stepped between me and Mara and knocked the duck off
her shoulders. He placed a silver tiara on her head.

The second boy skipped in, bowed over Whit’s
chair, and dropped a bouquet of yellow roses in her arms, prompting
another round of “awws” from the onlookers. The boys pranced
away.

In slow motion, Mara twisted and found my
eyes. Her look was a grab-bag of possible emotions and I struggled
to sort the real from the ruse.
This is it,
said her final
glance.
See ya later, alligator.

Jon was pointing to the row of shops. “Please
turn your attention to the third balcony and join me in welcoming a
great friend, a true humanitarian, and the raddest kid in the ninth
grade...
Ryan Brosh!
”

The carnival cheered.

I released Whit’s chair. I wanted to grab
Mara’s wrist, tear the flowers from her arms, and get the hell out
of the fair
(the street, the city, the world)!
Instead, I
ran three steps into another pair of greasy jocks in jerseys. I
looked up at their pimpled faces and twisted grins. They didn’t
speak, only sneered, but the message was clear:
“Stay.”

Ryan appeared on a wooden porch above a
novelty t-shirt shop. Either he was friends with the owners or he
paid them off, either way, his entrance was grand. He wore a
ruffled tunic with bulging, pleated pants and a feathered cap. A
work light was clamped to the railing beside him and created a
harsh but attention-nabbing spotlight; an idea he stole from my
movie.

“But soft!” he began. “What light through
yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Mara Lynn is the sun!”
(Somehow, the carnival beast calmed its clinking and shrieking to
give Ryan Brosh his moment.) “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious
moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art
far more fair than she!”

The multitude was growing around Romeo’s
balcony, buzzing with the novelty of a spontaneous public
performance.

Whit bobbed his head to see between the legs
of the pimpled jocks. I stood on tiptoes to see over their fortress
of chests. I saw Mara, tiara still adorning her head, facing away;
facing the balcony and Ryan’s desperate play.

He thrust his arms toward my girl and
continued his monologue. “Two of the fairest stars in all the
heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in
their spheres till they return!” He kicked a latch and a metal
ladder dropped to the ground with a series of clanks and a final
whack on the concrete below. He relished his words as he descended
the rungs. “What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The
brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a
lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so
bright, that birds would sing and think it were not night!” Ryan’s
feet hit the sidewalk and he turned to face Mara. The audience
parted between them, creating an open runway for his gallant
approach.

He sauntered as he spoke, and as he spoke, he
unbuttoned his faux-velvet tunic to reveal a number-seventeen
jersey and a trim pair of biceps. “See how she leans her cheek upon
her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand...” He stopped and
raised his hand to Mara’s face.
“...that I might touch that
cheek.”

The pimpled boys raised their shoulders to
block my view. I discovered later that they were unpopular seniors,
coaxed by Ryan Brosh to participate in his disgusting scheme.

The crowd cheered again, now a thick wall of
bodies foaming to see the high-school sweethearts.

“Mara,” Ryan’s voice was normal, but still
loud enough to overcome the sound of the distant rides. “There’s
something I’d like to say to you, but words alone cannot express
how I feel.”

“You’re gonna love this,” grunted one of the
pimpled towers. He nodded to the ride behind me.

As I turned, the world turned with me.
The
carousel.
A thousand jocks held formation–some on foot, some on
horses–around the entire merry-go-round like the closing shot from
The Birds
. I recognized several boys from my sleepover.

With perfect timing, the carousel operator
hit a big green button and the ride lurched forward.

The frontmost jock raised a square piece of
poster board above his head revealing the word “MARA” scrawled in
giant yellow letters. The ride continued its meandering rotation as
the jocks raised their assigned cards to complete the spinning
message: “MARA LYNN, WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW SORRY I AM. PLEASE
FORGIVE ME. PLEASE LET ME BACK INTO YOUR LIFE.”

The audience erupted into delighted applause.
I rammed my shoulder blade into the torsos of the pimpled henchmen
while Whit punched at their knee caps. They didn’t flinch.

On the carousel’s second rotation, the boy
with the “MARA” card flipped it upside down to display a hand-drawn
daisy with petals that filled the page. The next card turned to
reveal the word “I.” Another daisy card, then the word, “LOVE.”
Another daisy. “YOU.” Another daisy. “MARA.” Another daisy.
“LYNN.”

Another daisy.

The ride twirled faster and faster until the
words and flowers pulsated into a visual poem:
“I LOVE YOU MARA
LYNN, I LOVE YOU MARA LYNN, I LOVE YOU MARA LYNN.”
The pupils
of the jocks pulsated too; swelling and contracting like inkblots
in the flickering light of the carousel’s bulbs.

“Kiss him!” somebody shouted.

“Kiss the poor boy!”

Whit pulled back his fist and slammed it into
the ball sack of the closest guard. As the boy keeled forward, I
could see my girlfriend, still wearing that delicate crown,
grinning from East to West, transplendent in her joy, and I too
felt pain in my groin.

Was her smile another charade? Or had Ryan
Brosh actually impressed her with his spectacle, discovering some
hidden nerve that made Mara–after weeks of dating me–reconsider our
love?

Mara cradled the roses in her right arm and
formed her left into a sideways V, inviting Ryan to link his arm
through hers. He did. Together, they walked side-by-side, appearing
as boyfriend and girlfriend to the spectators when
I
was her
boyfriend and
he–that heartless Ryan Brosh–
was a liar,
racist, and whore.

A gargled shriek swept my attention back to
my sister, thrashing against the grip of her friends, ready to
charge the happy couple. “I’m going to kill you Mara Lynn! I’m
gonna find what makes you special and I’m gonna cut it off!”

Without breaking her smile, Mara abandoned
her friends and her stuffed duck, leading Ryan arm-in-arm toward
the funhouse entrance. They bypassed the line without dispute, and
the carnie in charge gladly waved them through the gate.

Livy released a tirade of unintelligible
curses. With a final heave of her limbs, she broke free of her
friends, but dashed in the opposite direction, sobbing and
stumbling down the sidewalk with Kimmy, Haley and a band of
concerned parents trailing behind.

The show was over. Livy’s outburst stifled
the excitement and the crowd began to disperse. To my horror, Ryan
and Mara had disappeared into the mouth of the carnival funhouse,
and I was still held captive by the towering henchmen (though one
was still massaging his crotch after Whit’s cheap blow).

It was in this moment of panic that we heard
the first howl. Behind us... a child? Then, peppered throughout the
horde it came, a thunderous reply like an army of invisible
apes.

And then they attacked.

* * *

Forgive me, reader, if the following event
seems erratic and unexpected. It took me years to sort out the
intricacies of this budding war; their origins, doctrines, and
conflicts are a story, perhaps, for another book. As long as your
confusion parallels mine as I lived it, I’ve done my job as a
writer. Besides, is there a better way to illustrate the boggling
scope of Mara’s influence than with a seemingly random battle for
her affection?

“Whit!” I yelled, “What the hell is going
on?”

He shook his head and watched the mayhem
unfold.

The pimpled jocks looked at each other and
shrugged. Then without warning, the left boy jerked forward and
dropped hard to the pavement.

At his feet was the culprit, a boy my age
with curly black hair, glasses, and a t-shirt with horizontal
yellow stripes. He deftly mounted his fallen prey while
unholstering a spray bottle from his belt.

“Get it off of me!” cried the jock, but it
was too late. The boy aimed the bottle at the kid’s pimpled face
and squeezed the plunger three times. Clear mist blew from the tip
and the jock screamed. I watched as specks of white formed on his
jersey. It was bleach.

The new boy looked up, hissed at Whit, and
scuttled away.

The second jock looked at his friend who was
blinking and writhing from the toxic spray. Together, we surveyed
the surrounding madness.

The boys, I now knew, were the ferrets from
our trees; the same boys I spotted on the Ferris Wheel, then again
in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl. There were two dozen at least,
pounding their chests and weaseling between the legs of the
carnival guests. Four of them rallied at the cotton candy stand and
clamored for Jon’s feet. Some were moving toward the carousel,
others were heading for the funhouse.