Second Interlude Gwen, Under Arrest #4
Even as he said it, he was moving, skating out of the rink and onto the varnished wooden floor of the seating area. Gwen went
after him, but he had a head start. He reached the crowd around the door and went right through them, as effortlessly as a
slip of paper pushed under a door. Whereas somehow she got caught behind the mass of people and had to fight her way through.
She was shorter than most of them, of course—no one saw her until she was shoving past them. It was one indignity after another,
to be a hobbit underfoot in a world of men.
Colin’s cherry ’49 Caddy was parked under a towering lamppost, in the middle of the parking lot. The lacrosse kids were scattered
around it, and a few of them had brought their sticks. Someone had ripped open the canvas roof so it hung in flaps and knocked
off the passenger-side mirror. One of the lacrosse boys had jammed his stick down between the trunk and the rear bumper and
was using it as a lever to try and pop the bumper right off. He was a gangly, freckled boy, sweating and flushed, his upper
lip curled in a sneer of rage.
“Come off. Mother. Fucker.” He grunted.
Another lacrosse kid—a broad-shouldered dude, with a jutting, caveman forehead that threw his eyes into shadow—stood next
to him, pointing his stick at the crowd, warning people back. Some of the other lacrosse boys were standing around with their
sticks, looking anxious and defiant.
Colin and Gregg had their arms around Donna, who was snarling, spitting, trying to get free and throw herself at the lacrosse squad. Colin watched them work on his car with an air of weary acceptance.
“I’ll take that stick,” Donna screamed at the blockhead, who was pointing said stick into her face. “And jam it up your ass! You fucking wannabe rapists! I’ll put your wannabe rapist faces on the news and fucking destroy you!
Poking your sticks in his car cause you can’t poke a woman! I’ll ruin you!”
“Leave it, Donna,” Colin said. “It’s just a car.”
Gregg looked drunk, scared, and confused. He had an arm around his fiancée’s waist and watched the lacrosse boys demolish
the Caddy in a state of dumb shock.
“Jeezum, boys,” Gregg said. “That’s a classic. What are you doing?” They didn’t listen, probably didn’t hear him.
Maybe twenty people had emerged from inside the rink to watch. They lingered a few yards back, laughing and shouting. Arthur,
Van, and Allie stood at one edge of the audience, unsure what to do. Gwen skated past them, thinking she would get over to
Donna, lead her back to the limo, calm her down. Donna always listened to her.
Only Gwen wasn’t steady on her skates. She missed Donna, Gregg, and Colin completely, rolled right by them without meaning
to, and sailed straight at the blockhead with the Cro-Magnon forehead.
His eyes widened in surprise as she elbowed his stick aside and kept going right into him. He startled, thought he was being
tackled by some crazy bitch—she saw it in his face, right before he came around with his left hand closed into a fist. She
didn’t feel him hit her. She was just suddenly on the ground, both hands on the cold blacktop, her mouth full of blood.
“GWEN!” Allie screamed.
She still had her unicorn mask on, and it came out in a muffled whinny. Suddenly Allie was tearing at her costume and pounding
one rubber hoof into her breastbone.
“You’re going to die!” Allie began to scream at the boys in the lacrosse uniforms. “You’re all going to die!”
Gwen had been struck so hard, it was difficult to think thoughts. She could still feel, though, and the sight of Allie trying to touch something on her chest filled her with a cold whoosh of dread.
Only Allie couldn’t get to it. She needed hands to touch and had hooves instead. Her costume zipped up in the back and she
couldn’t get to her bare chest. And Van scooped her up—her roller skates came right off the ground—pinning her arms to her
sides.
“No, Allie,” Van said. “They’re just kids. They’re just stupid kids.”
King Sorrow, Gwen thought. Allie wanted to pull King Sorrow out of the Long Dark to fry a few stupid children for vandalizing a car.
Neigh, Gwen thought, and almost laughed. Neigh.
The Cro-Magnon was staring dumbly at her, stick at his side.
“You made me do that,” he said. “You shouldn’t a jumped in my face, bitch.”
He was looking down at her, so he didn’t see Arthur coming. Arthur was already up to full speed when he sailed into him, driving
his shoulder into the Cro-Magnon’s breadbasket. The kid woofed, doubling over, and Arthur snatched the stick out of his hands. He continued past on his skates and used the lacrosse stick
to clothesline the freckly boy trying to pry off Colin’s bumper.
“Uck!” Freckles flailed at the night and went down.
Arthur came around in an arc, wheels scraping and grinding on the blacktop. Freckles and the caveman had both dropped to the
ground. Freckles clutched his throat. Caveman had his arms wrapped around his stomach and was groaning.
The other lacrosse kids tried to approach. One of them was shouting, “Hey! Hey, not cool, man!” Another kid yelled, “Beat
his ass!” Another said, “Guys—hey—hey, guys, stop!”
Arthur was almost on top of Gwen when he began to spin. He kicked with one foot and began to revolve, like a figure in a music
box. He came around with the lacrosse stick, whoop, whoop, whoop, in great whistling arcs, and the lacrosse squad fell back.
One of them retreated so quickly he fell on his rear end.
Another backpedaled into Donna, who lashed out with one foot and kicked him in the ass.
A third boy fell back a few feet, ducked, came up with a stone, and threw it.
Arthur came around and smashed it right back at him with the stick, a batter connecting with a hard slider.
It struck the boy in the upper thigh, close to his groin, and the kid squealed.
Gwen felt faint, dizzy. The night pulsed strangely around her, spasming with lights. Arthur spun around and around, lashing
his lacrosse stick over his head, looking for all the world like a druid with his staff, laying about him with his war club
on the battlefield. The sight of him was thrilling—inspiring, almost. She had never seen him look so happy.
One of the teenage turds was trying to sneak in from behind, around one corner of the Caddy, to get Arthur when he was facing
the other way. Only as he emerged Van soared in, squatting low, gliding the way he had on the rink, rumbling like a bowling
ball, and he came up with his plastic shield and punched it into the kid’s face. The kid went straight back over his heels
and then Van was circling too, the rings around Arthur’s Saturn, brandishing the shield with one arm and waving his free hand,
C’mon, fuckers, come and get it. He was laughing hysterically. Gwen looked around and saw Allie had stopped trying to touch the tattoo hidden under her costume
and was instead pawing at the air with her hooves, chanting Van’s name.
“Van, Van, Van the Man,” she cried, “if he can’t do it, no one can!”
Arthur rotated slowly at the center of the universe, whiplashing his stolen lacrosse stick, Friar Tuck teaching Robin Hood
a lesson in humility. Van swooped and dived about him, hummingbird near the flower, shield held up to the night in triumph.
Someone found her elbow: Colin. He had left Donna with Gregg and moved in to help Gwen up.
Her legs were weak and her skates went this way and that beneath her, but he stabilized her, kept her from falling again.
Colin was smiling. She had not realized until then how much Colin loved Arthur and Van—maybe even hero-worshipped them.
Colin stroked his webcam amulet and Gwen had a sudden thought, that somehow he was filming all of it, although that was impossible, webcams only worked when they were plugged into a computer.
He saw her looking and said, “Oh, yeah. Getting every beautiful minute. This right here? This moment is forever.”
Arthur spun and spun, slowing steadily, winding down . . . until finally he was facing her and Colin. His eyes were bright
with merriment, the night strobing around him. She didn’t realize those flashing lights weren’t just in her head until the
police cruiser let out a little squawk with the alarm, telling the crowd to break up, let ’em through. The fun was done.
7.
Tana Nighswander was there to collect them when they were sprung loose at seven in the morning.
Tana had been working as a bus driver the last couple of years—third graders were better company than pizzas and pot, she said—and when they shuffled out of the Cumberland County Detention Center into the gray, overcast cool of the morning, the bus was idling at an angle in one corner of the parking lot.
The Pinets had parked right behind it and were standing next to their rented white Chevy Lumina.
Raymond, the old soldier who had stormed Omaha Beach, had his head down, chewing on a toothpick, and didn’t look at them as they approached.
Sasha, his wife, in a gray crepey blouse and silver scarves, shifted from foot to foot and squeezed her fingers.
The sisters—who had not been arrested—were sitting in the back of the car.
Gigi had the soft, puffy, too-white look of a drowned corpse.
Lulu was ramrod straight, watching them approach with the slightest hint of a smile at the corners of her lips—a nasty smile.
One look at her face, and Gwen thought it was highly unlikely that Gregg Pinet would be walking to the altar with Donna McBride come Sunday morning. Or ever.
They were a sorry party of adventurers, creeping along in their socks, shamefaced, sweaty, and hungover. The manager at Merlin’s
Cave had demanded his roller skates back before they were loaded into the police cars, and no one had returned their shoes.
At least there would be no charges. Gwen had answered calls with every cop in Gogan, and uniforms looked after each other.