Chicken (16 page)

Brant moves closer, stretching one hand toward Shetan’s trembling nose, whispering sweet nothings—all the things you’re supposed to do. But Shetan is incorrigible. He throws his head back to avoid the touch, and Brant scrambles backward. I laugh.

He scowls. “You think it’s funny your horse don’t like me?”

I run my hand down the ridge of Shetan’s neck. “It’s not about you. He’s just that grumpy old man shouting, ‘Get out of my yard!’”

“Well, tell him this is my yard.” He cocks his head. “And then tell me what you’re doing in it.”

I look down at the empty Ditch. “I thought all the guys were coming over again.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, I canceled that.” 

“What for?”

He shuffles his feet in the pine needles. “Didn’t feel like company.”

“Oh. Well.” I bite my lip. “Awkward.”

His head snaps up, eyes fierce and bloodshot. “You’re not company.”

I open my mouth to ask what I am, but nothing comes out. He strides forward, grabs the reins right under Shetan’s chin, and pulls the horse’s head down so his face is perfectly framed between the curved black ears. 

“You’re my best friend, stupid.”

I tilt my head. “Yeah? You gonna give me one of those half-a-heart necklaces?”

He grins. “You spoiled the surprise.”

Shetan snorts, splattering Brant’s wrist with grassy saliva and brown snot. He drops the reins and jumps back, leaning over to wipe his arm on his jeans. 

“You reckon this monster will let me ride up to the house with you?”

I daydreamed about a moment like this all the way over here, but now that it’s happening, there’s no way I can let it. I shake my head. “I doubt it.”

He looks at me, chews on his lip, looks at Shetan. “Well, I’m gonna try.”

And then he’s beside us, slipping his left arm under my own to grab the saddle horn between my legs, reaching his right hand behind me to grab the cantle, wedging his left foot into the stirrup beside mine, hopping and swinging his right leg over Shetan’s back, perching on the cantle, squeezing my waist with his thighs, grabbing my shoulders, and finally, whooping when Shetan does a little buck-and-spin that rips the reins right out of my hands. 

I scramble and catch them, pull back as hard as I can, but with Brant behind me there’s only so far I can lean. The devil has no respect for a light touch. He takes us through the trees at a brisk, bouncy trot, hopping over rotting logs and crashing through the thick, green briers coiled across the forest floor.

“Duck!” 

I hunch over the saddle horn, my forehead brushing Shetan’s mane as he plunges through a grove of cedar trees. Brant throws himself onto my back, laughing like a demoniac.

“That was the dumbest thing you’ve ever done!” I shout over my shoulder.

He snakes his arms around my chest, and when he speaks, I feel his jaw in the cradle of my shoulder blades. “I reckon it turned out okay.”

“We ain’t out of the woods yet!”

This makes Brant giggle. A high-pitched, little boy’s giggle. He starts rubbing his face into my spine and giggling. That’s when I realize he’s been totally baked this whole time. 

His left foot pops out of the stirrup—his right foot never made it in to begin with—and he starts sliding off. He clamps his hands onto my shoulders, presses his crotch against my bruised tailbone. I feel things. Things I don’t need to feel. I scoot closer to the saddle horn, but this only make things worse because Brant sinks into the widened space behind me and now the thing which I don’t need to feel is being felt even more intimately. A bouncy trot can have some awkward side effects. 

 I haul back on the reins, digging both elbows into Brant’s ribs.

Shetan stops.

We lurch forward. The saddle horn jabs me in the stomach, and Brant’s teeth rake my right shoulder blade. He starts slipping and swears, clings to me desperately, but he’s like a heavy backpack pulling me down with him, our combined weight twisting the whole saddle to the left. I catch hold of Shetan’s mane and somehow we stay on.

We’re at the edge of the cow pasture, clear of the trees. Way up on the ridge above the old red barn, twin sun-flares gleam on Brant’s bedroom windows. Shetan’s old, dull teeth clack as he tears up huge tufts of tall grass. With some awkward maneuvering, Brant and I shift the saddle back into place.

Brant holds his hand out in front of us. Blood fills the fault lines in his palm. “Bit my damn lip.”

“And my damn shoulder.”

“What? Where?” He quickly wipes his blood off on his knee.

I roll my right shoulder, and he tugs the neck of my shirt down, his rough fingers oh-so-gentle as they caress the tender remains of my 4th of July sunburn. I whimper, and he mumbles an apology as he cranes his head to look at my collarbone.  

He settles back in the saddle and breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. I don’t think it broke the skin. That’s good.”

I twist my neck around. “Why? You got rabies?”

He licks the blood off his lip. “I got things that make rabies look like babies.”

He makes a pfftttt sound and falls forward giggling, resting his cheek on the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. That sounded cryptically sexy in my head.”

“And this, kids, is your brain on drugs.”

“Herbs!” He sits up fast, accidentally kicking Shetan in the ribs.

The horse bolts, mane billowing like black flames, stinging my face and hands. I pick up the reins but don’t even try to reel him in. Instead, I squeeze him hard with my thighs and my butt, tell him to go ahead fast as he can. 

Brant hollers and throws his arms around my waist, pressing his chest up against my back. The red barn looms large, doors thrown open, inviting us in to cool down, but in a heartbeat it’s behind us, getting smaller and smaller as we race along the honeysuckled fence row, scattering the Mitchells’ red-and-white Hereford cattle.

The magic of the gallop isn’t the speed, it’s the moment when all four of your horse’s hooves leave the ground, setting you loose from this world, from all its expectations and rules. I’ve chased that feeling in circles around arenas on the fastest things my father could buy me while hundreds of strangers screamed my last name, but it’s never felt true like it does right now with nobody else around, flying over this hayfield on this rickety old gelding while this goofball behind me scream-sings, “Jesus take the reins!”

The sign announcing the future home of the Harvest Mission Youth Complex has been covered with a black sheet, at the top of which, orange letters have been painted proclaiming the “1st Annual Hunger for God Games.” Along the bottom, smaller white letters read, “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us. Psalms 90:17.” And in the middle, there’s a white dove with outstretched wings and tail feathers made of flames.  

Hannah stands before it, mouth ajar, pointing with one hand, asking why why why with the other. I gently rub her back. Lauren stands several feet away, her eyes and mouth frozen circles on her round face, like the horrified emoji. 

Brant chews on his straw. “Well. He did say he was going to make Friday Fun Night very special this year.”

“I can’t,” Hannah says.

Lauren frowns. “I expected free pizza, not a fight to the death.”

“I just can’t,” Hannah says.

“Did he run this by anybody?” Lauren asks.

Brant snorts. “He’s the preacher. He ran it by himself.”

“I literally can’t even,” Hannah says.

Lauren rubs her lips together. “Maybe he misunderstands—has he read it? Seen the movie? Do you think we should tell him?”

“Reckon it’s a bit late for that.” Brant sweeps his hand toward the obstacle course taking up the vacant lot. Piles of giant tractor tires and climbing nets and refrigerator boxes with hiding holes cut in them. Tub after tub of green water balloon grenades and cans of shaving cream and silly string. Water guns locked and loaded on a long white folding table. 

“I am can’t.” Hannah whispers.

And then she starts spinning in a circle, chanting that phrase over and over until finally she flings her arms wide and screams, “I AM BECOME CAN’T.”

We all take a step back, but she comes spinning into my arms, collapsing against my chest, and banging her head against my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her and pat the back of her head. 

“I am can’t, Casper.”

Brother Mackey comes bopping up, shaking his ample hips to one of his favorite nineties’ Newsboys hits. “Welcome, tributes!”

Hannah whimpers and hides her face in my neck.

“Oh, no, none of that, young lady. Don’t make me put you in the District of Lust!”

Brother Mackey takes Hannah by the shoulder and gently pries her off of me. He waves his hand in the space between my chest and Hannah’s small breasts. He gives us the A-OK hand signal. Then he takes a step back and looks between Lauren and Brant. He frowns, takes them by the shoulders, and pulls them closer together. He holds his hands up like he’s framing us for a picture. “Okay, that’s better. The Holy Spirit doesn’t mind a snug fit.”

Lauren turns pink, and Brant looks down at his boots. Brother Mackey just stands there, grinning and shifting his oversized head from side to side, slightly off beat. “Well? What do you think? Pretty slammin’, right?”

I have no idea what that means, but since I seem to be the only member of my posse who can speak, I clear my throat and say, “It’s really something. Where did you, uh, where’d you come up with it?”

“Well, Casper, I just got to thinking I could make the Word of God more relatable to y’all’s generation if I could find a way to mash it up with the things you’re already reading. This just seemed like a natural fit without any of the ugly spiritual baggage that comes with books about blood-sucking werewolves or witchcraft.”

Brant huffs. “Werewolves don’t suck—”

Mackey holds up a hand. “We’ve said all we’re gonna say about that, Brant. The only thing that’s more of an abomination to the Lord than a man turning himself into an animal is a man turning himself into a woman.” He laughs and thumps Brant on the shoulder. “I mean, the Jews don’t wake up every morning and thank God for not making them a wolf, do they?” When no one laughs, he clears his throat and shrugs. “As I was saying, this just seemed like a natural fit. The symbolism of fire and birds and all that.”

Hannah erupts. “You know it’s about children being forced to kill each other, right?”

 “Of course I do, Hannah. That’s why it works.” He cocks his head and blinks. “What do you think we’d be doing to each other right now if we didn’t have God in our lives?”

We blink back at him.

“Well, I better go make sure everything’s ready. Brant, Lauren, we’ll just do a song or two. Keep it upbeat and hopeful. I’ll say a few words and then we’ll be done. So don’t worry about having to get back up on stage covered in shaving cream and silly string.”

“Upbeat and hopeful. Got it.”

Brother Mackey leaves, but just as we breathe a collective sigh of relief, he turns around and calls out in a high-pitched, pompous, vaguely British accent. “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon you!”

As soon as he’s gone for real, Hannah grabs two tufts of her new Emma Watson hair and opens her mouth. Brant clamps a hand over it. “We know. You. Just. Can’t.”

She pries his hand off. “I need feminism because my pastor literally just said that being a woman is worse than being an animal.”

Lauren squeezes her hand. “I need feminism because my pastor literally just called my cousin Darla an abomination.”

“Well, I need feminism because my pastor is a werewolf bigot,” Brant huffs.

Hannah glares at him. “Neither you nor werewolves need feminism.”

Brant folds his arms and pouts. I want to take back what I told him in his room yesterday when he asked about werewolves and demoniacs. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to him.

“Actually,” Lauren says, “One could make the argument that werewolves do need feminism because they’re taken much more seriously in stories aimed at men than they are in stories aimed at women.”

Hannah grabs Lauren’s other hand. “Oh my God. You’re right. And Brant needs feminism because he’s grown up in a toxic environment that stifles his sensitivity and compels him to behave like a cocky jerk so no one ever knows what he’s really feeling.”

Lauren’s eyes light up. “And Casper needs feminism because—”

“Whoa, whoa! No way.” I shake my head. “Casper does not need feminism.”

They both tilt their heads and just look at me. 

I feel my cheeks blooming red, but with anger, not embarrassment, for a change. “I don’t! What I need is for everyone to stop telling me I need girl things!”

The girls look at each other. Lauren touches my hand. “Oh, honey.”

Brant claps and steps in between me and the girls. “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Lauren and I gotta go sing. Something hopeful and upbeat. But after that we’re technically free. So what say we refuse to be pawns in this game?”

I have long understood that I was conceived in a seedy motel in Casper, Wyoming with a bunch of drunk rodeo clowns cat-calling through the walls as my mother lost her virginity, but I always had high hopes for the site of my parents’ first date. I pictured a marquee wrapped in multi-colored lights, red velvet seats with wooden arm rests, and classic black-and-white movie posters on the lobby walls. In my mind, it was a Majestic or Rialto, a place the pure-hearted townsfolk would fight to keep should some big bad corporation announce its plans to bulldoze the lot and build a cookie-cutter cineplex. In reality…

Well.

I guess I should have known something was up when my parents never brought me here during our summer visits. We drove by, of course—it’s right on the highway, impossible to avoid—but kids are pretty good at seeing only what we want to see, and I did not want to see the true Hickory Ditch Cinema 2. I managed to convince myself for an entire decade that the pale blue, sheet metal siding was merely a facade and that elegance and romance still waited beyond the butter-smudged glass doors. 

But, to paraphrase the Apostle Paul, I have since become a man and put away those childish things; I saw through butter-smudged glass darkly, but now face to face; I knew in part, but now I know fully that my story began in trash. The first time my parents held hands, their feet were fastened firmly to thirty years’ worth of spilled sodas, popcorn kernels, and crunched-up candy bits coating the uneven concrete floor.