Passing Strange (32 page)

“Sure. I’m…sorry…I wasn’t…there…to help you.”

“No…worries. Feels better…every…day. I think…my leg…is healing.”

“Really?” Popeye said, turning toward him.

Tayshawn’s skin almost looked healthy in the amber light of their single bulb. He nodded.

“I really…think so.”

Popeye turned back to his painting. Karen had healed; why not Tayshawn? All he knew was that his many wounds—the holes in his wrists, his gills, the patches where he’d removed his own skin—none of those were getting any better.

But this, he thought, adding more color to the foreground of his work, this does the trick. This does the trick just fine.

* * *

At school, everyone seemed to know about the battle royale that was scheduled to happen soon after the final bell; everyone, that is, but the teachers. Excitement hovered over the hallways like a warm mist, and all throughout his day, people were whispering and pointing at him like he was the most interesting creature in the zoo. Not all of them were smiling at him as they did so, either. Popeye knew that he hadn’t made many—any—friends at school, but even he was surprised at the amount of hatred and ill-will that seemed be directed at him.

But that was okay, he thought, because my purpose here was never about making friends.

Unfortunately, that attitude did nothing to prevent the interference of people he tried very hard not to be friends with. People like Phoebe Kendall, Saint Tommy Williams himself, and Adam Layman, the three of whom were all waiting for him at his locker after his first class of the day. The super-hypocrites, all pretending that they cared what happened to him. At least Layman had the decency to look as though his girlfriend was forcing him to be there.

“The beautiful people,” he said. “Have you come to…inform me…that I’m…Undead Prom King?”

Saint Williams spoke first, because that, in Popeye’s experience, was what Saint Williams did.

“We just want you…to know…we…support you. We’re…here for you.” Popeye wasn’t certain, but he thought that Williams’ speech was more studded with pauses since he’d returned to Oakvale.

He was still talking.

“We…will have…twenty…zombies waiting…at the field.”

“What? No. No, no, no…no.”

“You don’t have to face him alone,” Phoebe said. “Or at all. We could tell…”

“No, wait. Just…stop. First, there is no…we. There is…
me
. And second…do not…tell…anyone…anything.”

“You don’t have…to fight him,” Williams said. He might be speaking with more pauses since his return, but Popeye thought he also seemed to walk down the hallways bathed in a corona of white light. Or maybe that was just the fluorescent lighting playing tricks on him again—sometimes wearing his sunglasses for most of the day caused Popeye to experience strange optical effects.

“He’s a bully, Popeye, but…”

Popeye turned his anger on Phoebe.

“Who asked you, you blood…bag?” he said, noting Adam’s big hands immediately bunch into fists. “Don’t pretend…to know…anything about it!”

Tommy stepped between him and Adam—protectiveness really was a reflex for him, just like Adam’s angry reaction. Their movements delighted Popeye immensely; it was like having a real life puppet show where he could pull all the strings. With just a little more pressure in the right places, he could really get them all dancing.

“Just because you…hang around…dead guys…all the time,” he said, keeping his focus on Phoebe, “it doesn’t…mean…you know…us. I…”

Adam was actually baring his teeth, he was so angry. Just a little more encouragement and the lunkhead would be tossing Williams aside to get at him. And then maybe Saint Williams will charge ahead, hoping to restrain him, and…

“Popeye,” Tommy said. “We’re only…trying…to help.”

Popeye realized that Phoebe had placed her hand on Adam’s disturbingly large bicep. Watching the effect of her touch was like watching an elephant get hit with a tranquilizer dart; Adam visibly relaxed, and his lips closed back down over that winning smile. Fun time was over; Popeye realized he’d have to talk his way out of this one.

“If you really…want to help you’ll…stay away,” Popeye said. “It doesn’t…matter…how many you…bring. There will…always…be more…humans.”

Tommy had the nicest blue eyes, Popeye thought. They always appeared as though they were looking right into your soul.

“The bullying…will end today. I…promise you that,” he said. “I need…to do this.”

He leaned forward, hoping that Tommy could see right through the dark lenses and into his soul—if he had one—like he’d imagined.

“I would think…if anyone…you…would understand.”

Check and mate. “Your way, then,” Tommy said. “Good…luck.”

They left, and he thought that their type of nuisance would be over. But of course, he was wrong again.

* * *

“Just so you know, I’m going today,” Margi told him, having once again dropped beside him in study hall. “You can’t stop me.”

“Go…away, pink-haired…flea. Take your…jangling chains…with you.”

“I heard what you said to Phoebe and the boys,” she said. “Not nice. Not at all nice. Shame, shame.”

“Will you please…stop…chattering?” he said.

“But I know why you did it. You are really just trying to protect the other zombies. I think that’s really noble of you, Popeye.”

He slapped his desk so hard one of his copper fingernails broke off and went skipping across the room like a discarded pull tab.

“Your ability…to completely misread…
all
of my motivations…is truly…astounding you…idiot!”

“Is there a problem, Popeye?” Miss Quin asked from the front of the class.

“Yes!” he said, aware that the entire class, TC included, was staring at him. “Yes! May I…change my seat…please?”

Miss Quin nodded her assent, and Popeye took an open desk next to the quiet kid who had warned him about the beating the day before. Derek. His groupie, his greatest and only fan. As he approached, he saw that the boy was working on a sketch of his own, one that he was covering with his soft-looking hands.

“Let me…see,” Popeye said.

With obvious reluctance, Derek removed his hands. Popeye was looking down at a small drawing—a portrait, not a caricature or a cartoon—of himself, done with careful marks of black ink on lined white paper. Derek had sketched his horns back in.

“Not…bad,” Popeye said.

He looked at the kid for a moment, as Derek stared up at him with scared but curious eyes. How many classes did they have together? Three, at least—art, math, and this study hall. Derek opened his mouth, but Popeye shook his head.

“Don’t speak. I…know. I know what…you are…going to say. You are going…to ask…why…did I…provoke him. Or why…am I…going through with it or…why don’t I…tell a teacher. I’m going to tell you…and only you…the answer. Although you won’t…realize…it is the answer…unless you…really think.”

Derek looked at him in a way he’d never been looked at by a living being before; he looked at him like he really thought that Popeye might have the answers to hidden questions.

“The answer is…that art…changes lives. That’s…all. Art is not…about empowering…anyone…or making someone feel better…or beauty…or revealing…great truths. It may do…all of those things or…it may do their…exact…opposite. But at its…hot core…its only aim…is…to change lives.”

Derek stared up at him and Popeye couldn’t tell if the confusion clouding his eyes was breaking or gathering, but he knew it didn’t really matter.

“Remember that,” he said.

* * *

There were about thirty people at the field already when Popeye made his way toward the concession stands; they were clustered in little groups of twos and threes and there was an ebullient, carnival atmosphere surrounding them. Many people seemed surprised to see him, others were curious, but the emotion he could most readily identify on most of their faces was hatred.

TC was there, the center of the largest group of people, the ringleaders of the school’s main bioist faction. Holly Pelletier, Steve Winter, this newer kid they all called Dorman. TC, already jacketless, his large muscles bulging under a thin Oakvale Badgers T-shirt, saw him and cracked his knuckles. The sound they made was like thick twigs breaking.

“I can’t believe you actually came, wormburger,” he said. “I am so going to enjoy this.” He rolled his shoulders and turned his neck from side to side, loosening up as he hopped from leg to leg.

“Yes…you will,” Popeye said. He walked within ten feet of Stavis, and the gathered throng, driven by some primal instinct, formed a wide ring around him.

“He’s going to kill you.” This from Holly Pelletier, the look on her sometimes pretty face hungry and feral.

“Dead meat,” one of their companions added.

“Twice dead,” Stavis said, shadowboxing a few rapid jabs, any one of which looked to have the force to launch Popeye’s head from his body.

“Sure,” Popeye agreed, taking off his leather jacket. He couldn’t honestly say that he was nervous, because even if TC ground his bones for his breakfast he wouldn’t feel anything. He was beyond any physical pain. He supposed that the afternoon could end with Stavis opening his head like an Easter egg and scattering its contents on the field—that would be the true and final end for him—but even the prospect of final death didn’t frighten him. All he felt now was the vague sense of excitement and unease, the sensation that anything could happen. This was the very same sense of excitement he had looking at a new canvas, a blank piece of paper, or an unmarked patch of skin.

“Get ready for a crushing defeat,” Stavis said.

“I’m ready,” he replied.

“Yeah, he’s ready,” he heard a voice from the crowd, a shrill, warped echo of his own voice. He turned and saw Margi, her pink hair the lone daub of color in the otherwise Brueghelian landscape. She stood behind him, alone, her bunched hands on her hips, glaring at TC and his friends. Popeye didn’t know whether to laugh or to chase her back down the hill.

“Who is this, Freak?” Stavis said. “Your girlfriend?” This earned him a round of laughter—chortling, really, the sort of haw-haw-haw type of empty-headed laughter emitted only by the dullest of the dull at the most base attempts of humor. As much as Popeye wanted to chase her away, he had to admire her courage. She may have been there for different reasons than he was, but he supposed that they were no less valid.

There were no other friendly faces in the crowd. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed that Saint Williams and his followers had honored his request. Part of him, he was surprised to realize, was actually glad that Margi had come, after all. He was glad that there would be a witness—one to whom the beating hearts and his undead brothers and sisters would actually listen—to what he was about to do.

“Yes, she’s my…girlfriend,” he said, walking over to her.

“Am not!” she whispered when he was near.

“I know,” he replied, not bothering to remind her that he’d never had a girlfriend, and never would, because he wasn’t in the least bit interested in girls. “Would you…hold this…please?”

She regarded the garment like it was a tissue he’d just sneezed in.

“Only because you said please,” she said.

“And these.” He took of his glasses and set them on the jacket as it lay in her outstretched arms. “Also this,” he said, removing his shirt.

“Oh, ick,” Margi said as he lay the shirt atop his jacket and coat. A collective “eww!” rippled through the crowd as they beheld his various “bodifications”—the gills, the lidless eyes, the three places on his abdomen where he’d pared back his skin to reveal the muscles beneath. “You’ll pay for this.”

“Oh, definitely,” he told her, and stepped back to the center of the ring, raising his arms shoulder-height and turned so that the crowd could get a good look at him. He was thin to the point of emaciation, having not eaten for many days leading up to his death. He drank in the sounds and expressions of their revulsion, lifting his head as though their hatred felt like cool water on his skin.

He now saw that Margi wasn’t his only supporter among the massed groundlings. Derek was sitting in the bleachers above the field, watching from a safe distance. Popeye hoped that he had his sketchbook with him, or that he had the sort of memory that would allow him to remember and record what he was about to see.

“You are one hideous freak, Freak,” TC said. Popeye looked at him then; he looked both nauseated and outraged, like Popeye was an unknown insect that had just walked out of the sandwich he was about to bite.

“I’m going to mess you up even more than you already are,” TC said.

Popeye, his arms still upraised, showed his pointy teeth.

“Bring it,” he said.

TC brought it. He came in faster than Popeye had expected he could move; he was such a lumbering ox he hadn’t considered him capable of such a quick burst of speed. His first punch, a left, caught Popeye right under the temple, and TC followed with a right that struck him square in his grinning mouth. The delighted crowd hooted and crowed. Popeye felt a splash of blood roll down his chin, and when he touched it, his fingertips came away red, which meant it wasTC’s blood, not his, because his wouldn’t have been red anymore even if he had enough to make a splash. His attacker had cut his hand on Popeye’s filed teeth, one of which was still embedded in the flesh between TC’s knuckles.

“Ouch,” TC said, plucking the tooth out and tossing it on the ground. He shook his hand and when he made a fist a bright red bubble rose up between his knuckles. Mad before, he was furious now as he stepped toward Popeye. His fists thumped solidly into Popeye’s abdomen with a swift, flat rhythm. Popeye couldn’t feel them, and he thought of the scene in
Rocky
where the Rock was tenderizing the hanging beef carcasses as part of his training. The tempo of TC’s blows slowed, but only so he could get more force into the individual punches. Popeye thought he heard one of his lower ribs crack.

“Cover up!” someone yelled. “Cover up!” He didn’t know if the advice was directed at him, or at TC, whose all-out assault left him wide open for retaliation.

Popeye leaned forward, as though doubled up by the shots to his stomach, and TC drove his bloody fist up into Popeye’s nose, mashing it flat with an audible pop that made the crowd gasp. His nose was undoubtedly broken. Popeye didn’t mind; he’d been considering removing it anyway in a show of solidarity with George.