I Am Marcus Fox, page 23
“Seriously, what the hell?” Charlie insisted.
“They’re just all happy to see you, Charlie,” I said, wading in his perplexity.
We pushed our way past grown men in swim trunks as they patted me on the back, grown women in bikinis fawning over my physique, and children (the only wise lifeforms among them) who questioned, “Why are those men wearing clothes?”
Charlie was still shirtless, which at least made some sense. But, having just emerged from the water like the goddamned lady of the lake, there was no passing off his ragged and torn jeans as some hip, new summer fashion statement. My aquamarine, asylum-issued sleepwear was apparently also deemed entirely inappropriate beach apparel. In retrospect, it was a veiled marvel that the flimsy material had stayed on at all, given everything that just went down.
“How did you do that, guy?!” a broad-shouldered meathead asked of me. “Dude, you rode a fucking shark!”
“Wolfenshark,” I corrected him.
“What’s that now?” Charlie’s head swiveled round.
“Where’s Terence?” I said, choosing to ignore both Charlie and my new admirer. I jumped straight up, ten feet in the air, to gain a better vantage point. Above the fray, I spotted our captive-no-longer shuffling toward the boardwalk, as if he had a fresh load of poo in his own aquamarine, asylum-issued clothes. In his saturated lie of a wardrobe, Terence was proving to be a much less adept sprinter than swimmer.
“C’mon!” I yelled to Charlie as I pushed through the hordes of beachgoers, in hot pursuit of my mark.
I caught up to him on the planks, just outside Funtime Arcade. He was bent down, hands on his knees, panting for breath. I circled him. Charlie arrived. There were dozens of people here too. Some were not shy about their stares. It was difficult to get a good read on what would happen next.
I edged closer. I put out my hand.
“Don’t!” His tone was that of a man who wanted to yell but only had the breath to speak at normal volume.
“Marcus, forget him, we should split.” Charlie turned every which way at the same time, looking for cops, looking for trouble, looking for ways out in case either (or both) came to play.
Terence, with considerable effort, stood up straight and stepped to me.
“You,” he said. “You.”
“Marcus! We don’t have time for this, man.”
“You,” a third time. “What you did out there. I saw you do it. It’s not possible.”
“Look,” I began, not knowing how to explain it. “It was nothing.”
“I was on the beach. You were in the water. And the sharks … you … you …”
“Wait, there really were sharks?” Charlie asked, leaning in.
“Wolfensharks,” I bothered to clarify a final time.
Suddenly, I became hypersensitive to an oncoming presence. Our fiddling little chat was drawing attention from some nearby fuzz. Charlie saw them too. There were two of them, low-paid security guards to be accurate, making their way out of the arcade. They strutted with a purpose, laser-focused on our overwhelming vibe: Does not belong was written all over our faces and clothes and manner. One of these pimply boys tilted his lips to his shoulder. He spoke unknown words into a toy, a walkie-talkie. His eyes were hard-lined on mine.
“OK, Charlie. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Terence said. I didn’t have the luxury. And yet, for some reason, my feet stayed put. In truth, I know the reason now as well as I knew it then. Even though he called himself by a different name and carried himself in an entirely different manner, the boy, goddamn him, was a perfect replica of Kuwajii. And I just couldn’t leave Kuwajii. Not again. Not ever again.
The faux cops saw the intent to run in my eyes and their pace quickened.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like …”
“What is it, son?”
“I should come with you.”
My emotions betrayed me. I smiled and took his hand. That was weird. He shook it away. And then, together, we ran.
Charlie was the fastest, but only because I had to hang back and allow Terence to run in my draft — a feat that is never easy, but even more difficult when weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic.
The guards were gaining, and with every step they were all the more intent on catching us.
“Go with Charlie, I’ll catch up,” I pushed Terence forward to keep his momentum going. I saw Charlie slow down for him and then together, they exited the boardwalk, two streets up.
“You must have a real guilty conscience running from us,” one of the security guards was saying as he approached. The other one was huffing and puffing right behind him.
“Frisk him,” the huffer and puffer said.
“All right, buddy. Where you hiding the drugs?” He put his hands on my shoulders. He patted my chest and searched my pockets, making his way down to my waist. I was very aware of yet another crowd being drawn to the safe perimeter of our scene, watching me, judging me, not knowing a thing.
“Hey!” The guard still catching his breath pointed a finger at me. “Make one fucking move and I’ll pepper spray you.”
I obeyed. I didn’t make one fucking move.
I made seven.
1. My right knee came up hard and clocked the guard fluffing out my pant legs. I knocked him square in the chin. He went down.
2. At the same time, with my right hand, I snatched the latecomer’s stubby index finger and bent it backward. His other hand went instinctively to his broken bones, entirely forgetting the pepper spray attached to his belt.
3. I stepped on the downed guard’s back and used him as a launching pad to tackle the howler with the owie.
4. I punched the already-defective guard with the deformed digit right in the eye, successfully knocking him out.
5. I grabbed hold of his pepper spray.
6. I sprayed them both.
7. I ran.
A number of random do-gooder civilians took up the chase, but I was too fast for every last one of them. When I reached the bottom of the boardwalk ramp, two streets up, Charlie quite nearly flattened me with the bright orange Dodge Viper he’d expertly filched.
“Not exactly incognito, is it?” I said, hopping in through the sun roof. Before my ass even hit the passenger seat, he peeled out again.
“He’s right,” Terence said from the back. The fact that he chose to sit back there, leaving the front for me, spoke volumes of his budding respect. “This thing screams stolen. It doesn’t help that you’re doing seventy-five in a thirty!” His head whipped to the side as Charlie took the next turn at breakneck speed.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Charlie said. “I’m only doing seventy. We’ll ditch this cherry ride for something more sensible as soon as we’re outta sight. How’d you escape the cops, man?”
“I rendered them ineffectual,” I answered, not much in the mood to deliver details. However, a quick look at Terence’s concerned face in the rearview guilted me into offering more. “They’re fine.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“Fantastic. I can die a happy man.”
“No, I mean … I believe you. I believe everything you told Sopras. Your entire life story. You’re the real deal, Marcus Fox. That’s why I’m gonna stay. That’s why I’m not gonna run unless I’m running with you. I ain’t ashamed to admit I got nothing going on back in New York.”
“Sheesh, kid,” Charlie said, slowing down to a reasonable ten miles over the speed limit. “I think it usually takes a couple weeks for Stockholm syndrome to kick in.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Terence said. He wasn’t the only one. “But I know what I saw, and I want to see more. Hell, maybe I can use it to further my acting career when it’s all over.”
A silence fell over the three of us. I think we were all thinking the same thing: When would it end? And how would we know it’s over? Charlie died. Then he was back. Would he croak again, for the first and last time? Would Terence? Would I? Anything was possible.
“Here,” Charlie said, slow-rolling into a supermarket parking lot. He parked next to a slick, black van with a bit of rust around the tailpipe and hubcaps. It took him half a minute to unlock the door. In the back, there was a suitcase full of men’s clothes.
“Jackpot,” Charlie said. “She’ll do.”
* * *
Charlie estimated it would take about twelve-and-a-half hours to drive to Bay City, Texas. Of course, that would only be feasible if we were (a) traveling dangerously over the speed limit, and (b) not driving a stolen vehicle. Because neither was true, we had to account for many stops where we would ditch one vehicle (a van, nine times out of ten) for another. All these interruptions made the journey exhausting, and I had to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to hitchhike. But Charlie wouldn’t have it. He said the only way to see the countryside was to do it of your own free will. And that, I guess, meant procuring someone else’s wheels. We stole a lot of them. I lost track after fifteen.
There wasn’t much conversation to be had as we went from hotwire to hotwire. Tensions were high with every jumpstart. As soon as we got a few dozen miles under our belt, Charlie would insist I pull over and filch another ride. Yes, I was back behind the wheel, but not enjoying it. Something was missing from our old dynamic. It probably had something to do with the fact that this time, the only lives we were saving were our worthless own.
When we were maybe two hours away from Houston (which is maybe two hours west of Bay City), the engine under the hood of our newly acquired van puttered and coughed. With every jerky jerk of the dying beast, Charlie’s grimy sailor vocabulary became more and more ribald.
“She’s fucken dyin’, man!” And indeed she was. Billows of black smoke rolled out from under the hood, followed closely by timid fire.
“Abandon ship!” Charlie announced, opening his door and flinging his body out of the creeping crawler. Terence and I chose to sit calmly for the remaining seven seconds until the van came to a natural stop on the side of the road.
It was night, and the glow of the engine fire lit a double signpost up ahead. The larger one, indicating a further straight course on Interstate 10, read “Texas State Line: 8.” The other sign, smaller and more discreet, told us that Sabine Island Wildlife Management was 1.4 miles to our right, off Steward Rd.
“Smells like a bayou,” Terence answered the question no one asked. My face must have given away my ignorance of the word.
“Really?” Terence continued. “Wow, I would’ve thought if anyone was born in a bayou, it’d be you, Marcus.”
“No doubt you have heard the story of my birth.”
“That’s true,” he capitulated.
Being the late hour that it was, there were no cars passing us by. Not yet, anyway. It was in our best interests to get off the main road.
“We can’t hike the interstate into Texas,” said Charlie. “We’ll have to take our chances on the bayou.”
“How do we even …”
“Have faith in your Uncle Charlie,” Charlie told him. “And, more importantly, in Marcus.”
A pair of headlights crested the hill. Without further discussion, we sprinted right, directly into the cover of the woods on the side of Steward Rd.
The ground quickly turned to muck, and soon we were sloshing very slowly through knee-deep waters. Sensing a familiar danger in this strange environment, the hunter in me took control. There were predators here, I could feel it.
“Should we be worried about crocs?” Terence asked.
“No,” I answered. “Crocodiles tend to hang out by salt water. We’d more likely be killed by alligators in these parts.”
“OK, good to know, thanks.”
A low rumble, naked to the untrained ear, swept down from the bank on the left. The moon, being near-full and bright, peeked out behind swarms of loose, whirling fog to reveal a massive, uprooted tree trunk at the water’s edge. Twisted branches stuck out in every direction, clawing hopelessly, dead over the swamp. Upon one of those thick roots lounged an unmoving horror. It was indeed a solitary, sleeping crocodile, snoring in relative peace atop the wreckage of an ancient cypress, now the lizard’s cradle.
Without flinching, I nodded toward the creature on the mound and my companions, each in their own way, analyzed the threat.
There were only two reasons a croc would be this close to freshwater, and neither were good. Either he made this bog his home because of the big fish/small pond rationale, or he was deranged. If he considered himself king of this jungle, he would fight tooth and nail to defend his territory. If he was bonkers, he would be unpredictable in his movements and near impossible to defeat. In order to outwit a crazed halfwit, you have to throw the Predictive Species rule book out the window.
“That sure looks like a croc to me,” Terence whispered. But of course, his feeble attempt at communicating in relative silence was a bald failure. The sleeping dinosaur awoke. His eyes snapped open and his nostrils flared. Smelling us from his perch high up in the air, he gave us a slim opportunity to get the fuck outta Dodge. But that was just what he wanted. Daring us to run, to swim, to fly if we could, he grinned and showed off his mangled rows of never-flossed teeth.
“Why isn’t he attacking?” Charlie asked, still frozen in place, holding his breath for the inevitable death match that would ensue.
“He wants us to know him before he springs,” I said. “He wants us to quake at his feet. He’s waiting for the praise that only comes from fear. We will give him no such bounty.”
The Swamp King recognized the sober tone of my voice. He may not have understood my words, but he knew the authority and bravery behind them. My very existence insulted his station and soiled his dominion. The grin escaped his lips and, in a flash of sheer reptilian speed, he vaulted from the remains of the deceased cypress and flew to meet his maker.
The battle was over before it began. Tied up in all his rage, the croc (insane or no?) possessed a fatal flaw: Though he was mightily built, he was but mere vermin trespassing in the world of Marcus Fox.
He’d judged his leap well and would have done significant damage to my skull if I hadn’t anticipated his landing trajectory to perfection. All it took was one small push forward in the water. The croc observed my movement from above, but, already being airborne, had no reverse thruster to modify his descent. When he came down, clamping the air with huge, wasteful snaps, he discovered his folly too late. I reached up (rather nonchalantly, I might add) and snagged his bony, leather tail. With an easy flick of my wrist, I whipped the dummy around and around in lasso fashion and then chucked him back at the cradle of dead wood he loved so dearly. The last thing that croc knew was six sharp root impalers piercing his crusty skin and one thick, thorny branch in his brain.
“Fuck yeah, motherfucker! YEAH!” Terence exclaimed. “Are you kidding me? I mean!? Did you see that shit? Did you fucking see that fucking shit, Charlie? Shut up!”
The fog fell low and gummy upon us then, as if to mourn the passing of the Swamp King. Its viscous nature obscured the look of disapproval my face would show the boy.
“You shouldn’t cheer for death,” I spoke respectfully. “Or death may heed your call and come calling.”
“You’re damn skippy,” Charlie agreed. He’d made his way over to the harmless carcass bleeding from the branches. “Who else is hungry?”
* * *
Raw crocodile tastes exactly like what you would think — like shit. For fairly obvious reasons (or so I thought), we couldn’t chance a fire. If law enforcement or rescue teams weren’t already trudging through the bayou, they certainly would be if they spotted plumes of smoke rising from the treetops. Even so, Terence’s grunts and moans about the croc’s gooey texture (surprisingly more persistent than his bitching about its acrid, dry-heave-inducing flavor) alluded to the fact that he just didn’t get it.
“Hey, dumbass,” Charlie said. “Even if we wanted to build a fire (which we don’t), even if we could get one going in this soggy wasteland (which we never could), it would likely burn down the entire swamp. Is that what you want, kid? You wanna go out in a vicious firestorm? Is that your idea of adventure?”
“You don’t have to be so mean about it,” Terence said, then reluctantly swallowed another half handful of flesh. “I wasn’t expecting a Michelin four-star dining experience, but ugh. And another thing, you don’t have to keep calling me ‘kid’ or ‘boy.’ I get it. I’m young and noticeably way under-experienced compared to the two of you. But it’s insulting. And I know that’s the rude point you’re trying to make, but if we’re gonna be outlaws together …”
“You hearing this happy crappy, Marcus? The boykid wonder over here thinks we’re outlaws! Heh-ha!” He slapped his knee and swayed backward in faux laughter. It was such an intentional overreaction that he nearly fell out of the cradle.
“If we’re not outlaws, then what would you call us, Charlie?” I asked.
“Well, I guess I still like vigilante best. Don’t you? And besides, the kid ain’t one of us and never will be.”
I picked some gristle from my teeth and kept my thoughts to myself. Yes, in many ways, Charlie and I were cut from similar cloth. But in infinite other ways, he and I had more dissimilarities than a fire ant and a sugar ant. Can you guess which one I am? Fire ant, you say? Nope. It was a trick analogy, you feeble featherbrain! I’m no fucking ant.
“So, Marcus,” Terence started up again after we’d had our fill of sour innards. “What makes you think your mother is in Bay City?”
Had I mentioned this was my intention? I must have. It was an honest question and one that I had to mull over for a moment and a half. As it turned out, I didn’t have an answer. All I knew was that Bay City was the last place (on land) I’d seen her.
Over the soft trickling of the marsh water, an owl made his presence known to anyone who would listen. Terence was keen to it. Charlie, whether he heard or not, was relaxing as best he could in the thorny wood.
