Inside Out (6 page)

Alan listens for a few seconds, then says, “Thank you, sir, thank you so much. One more thing, will you call our mom, Louise Mender, before the cops find out who we are? They'll scare her. We don't want her to see this on the news.”

Alan listens some more, then tells Dr. Curt his mom's phone number, then says, “Okay, Dr. Curt … thanks.”

Alan hangs up the phone and turns to me. “Okay, he's coming here and he's bringing your medicine. Are you really willing to wait here with us until he gets here?”

“Sure,” I say.

Alan looks at me kind of funny and asks, “Aren't you scared, man? Aren't you at least a little bit afraid of dying?”

I tell him the truth, “No,” but I don't tell him the whole truth, that dying, for a long time now, has been the least of my worries.

Alan takes a deep breath and pauses, looking around at everyone.

Even though Alan's seen
Pulp Fiction
, I don't think he's looking at us like he wants to shoot us.... Then again, how would I know for sure?

Alan picks up the phone and dials the number the cops gave him and says, “We're going to send everyone out but Zach, the kid whose mom called before. He's gonna stay with us until we see the deal in writing from you and his shrink gets here and tells us that it looks all right.”

Alan pauses and listens, then says, “No, he is
not
being kept against his will. He agreed to stay, free and clear.” Alan listens some more and turns to me. He covers the mouthpiece of the phone and says, “Damn it, the cop wants to talk to you.”

I say, “Okay.”

I take the phone from Alan. His hand shakes as he hands it to me.

I say, “Hello.”

The voice says, “You need to come out of there, son.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, otherwise you're in real danger. Not to mention, by not leaving, you could be aiding and abetting in the commission of a felony.”

“I don't know what abetting means.”

“You know right from wrong, don't you?” the cop asks, sounding kind of mad.

The truth is the whole right-from-wrong thing
is
a little confusing to me at times. “Maybe not,” I answer.

“Don't get smart with me, son.”

“
Wing-wong, wing-wong, wing-wong smart smarty—dumb dong
.”

The cop says, “If you stay in there of your own free will, we can't promise that you won't get hurt.”

“Do you like maple bars?” I ask.

“Jesus!” the cop snaps.

Suddenly I hear my mom's voice in the background. I can't hear all she says, but some parts of it come over the line, including, “… talk to
my
son that way … Yell at my boy …” and now Mom says some swear words, too.

I hear the cop speaking back to Mom like he's sorry, which I bet he is—it's not a good idea to get my mom pissed at you for being mean to me. Dr. Curt once said, “Your mom's a butt kicker and a name taker when it comes to protecting you, Zach. You're lucky to have her!”

The cop says to me, “Listen, Zachary, I'm sorry I yelled at you and—”

I interrupt him, “That's okay, but I'm tired of talking.” My skin is starting to feel like ants are crawling all over me again, and zombie girl and the skinny suit are both staring at me. I say, “Thanks for calling. Have a nice day. 'Bye.” I hang up.

Alan says, “That was easy.”

I ask, “It was? If you say so. Hey, do you see ants crawling on me?”

Alan shakes his head and looks down. I think I make him uncomfortable. I do that to people.

Suddenly the zombie girl says to me, “There aren't any ants on you.”

I'm afraid to look at her again, but finally I do. She looks normal now—maybe she's okay. But zombies can be tricky. I'm still going to keep my eye on her.

“
Go ahead, Wasteoid, show them how stupid you are
.”

I put my hands up over my ears and the voice stops for now. But I need my meds. I need them bad!

Alan looks around the room at everybody and says, “We're gonna let you go in a minute or two, so don't try anything stupid, okay? It'd be kind of a shame to have to shoot all of you now.”

Alan pauses a second; he turns to me. “You too, Zach.”

Except for Alan and Joey and me, all the other people here in the back of the coffee shop are ready to leave. As soon as the two old ladies stand up, they straighten their clothes, like they planned it out together ahead of time. The fat suit's shirt has stretched really wide across his big belly, and the button just below his tie has come undone. I say to him, pointing at it, “Your button's undone there.”

“Oh,” he says, and quickly buttons up. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

He hasn't looked at me hardly at all. I look around at everyone else as they stand up. Maybe this sounds bad, but I don't care about any of them. They're strangers, and they're just like everyone else I ever meet, as much like zombies as humans. I glance again at the store girl and skinny suit real fast when I think this; I wonder if they can read my mind. Most people remind me of characters in a cartoon—zombie characters. I know that most other people aren't like me. I think it's why they don't like me much.

The lady with the little girl steps over to where I'm standing and looks at me. “Thank you so much,” she says softly, “for helping us.”

I say, “You're welcome,” even though I don't really know what she means.

“If it weren't for you staying here, I'm not sure they would let us go.... I'm not sure what might have happened if it weren't for you....” She starts to cry.

I don't know what to do, so I say, “I'm sorry,” the fixer-upper words.

“Pardon me?” she asks softly.

“I'm sorry you're sad.” But as I'm saying this, I blurt out, “You're pretty.” The second I say it, I know I'm being “inappropriate.” But she
is
very pretty; her eyes look friendly, like a dog's eyes. I say to the lady, again, “You're pretty.” I also say, just to try and explain what I mean, “You have nice dog eyes.” This sounds goofy even to me.

“
Wong-dong, ha-ha, long dong long dong long dong
.”

The voice is making fun of me for liking this grown-up lady and for calling her a pretty dog-eyed person. It's also talking about my dong and I feel my face get red.

So I say, “I don't mean that in a bad way.”

She smiles at me and touches my arm and says “thank you” again.

“Okay,” I say, but when she touches me, I think about her hugging her daughter after the little girl peed, and I can't help but wonder if the lady's hand has pee on it.

While I'm thinking this, the lady hugs her little girl close to her again. I know this pretty mom wouldn't rub her little girl's nose in the sheets if the little girl wet the bed. I'll bet this mom would just give her little daughter a maple bar or something. Life is so weird. One kid gets a nose full of pee, another kid gets loved to bits. Heck, I don't even care if this lady has pee on her hand or not. Life is too weird to worry about a little pee here and there.

Alan picks up the phone and says, “Everyone but Zach is coming out now.” He hangs up.

Alan turns to everyone and says, “Okay, you guys, get outa here!”

Alan and Joey and I peek out the door of the back room as everyone walks away from us. I can't believe that it's dark out now—when we came into this room, it was daytime, but now it's night already. Sometimes it's hard for me to keep track of time—to be honest, time doesn't make sense to me anymore.

“
Time … grime … pantomime … long-gone wong-gong is a wong-gone long gong …
”

The itching on my skin is getting worse—I feel hot now, too.

The others move slowly toward the door. The police shine bright lights through the windows—they're kind of blue. All the people look blue, which makes them
all
look like zombies. I know they're not really zombies, even the store girl or skinny suit, at least I don't think so—but I'm not sure anymore.

Why is everybody moving so slowly? Why don't they just walk out? Then maybe the blue zombie light will shut off. I'd like that.

“WHEN YOU GET TO THE DOOR, STEP OUT VERY SLOWLY, ONE AT A TIME. PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS AND WALK DIRECTLY TO THE POLICEMAN WAITING FOR YOU.”

The skinny suit goes out first. He puts his hands up behind his head, just like he's supposed to, and disappears into the blue light. Next the fat suit leaves, now the old ladies, now the store guy and girl. As everyone goes through the door and walks out, it's pretty quiet. Nobody says anything, and the only sounds are the sounds of the police moving around. Finally the mom and her daughter go out together; the mom holds the little girl close to her side until they reach the door. Now the little girl puts her hands up behind her head just like her pretty mom. Weird. Do the cops think the little girl with the wet spot on her dress is some kind of kidnaping midget terrorist or something? I laugh out loud at this thought. Joey gives me a dirty look.

The bright lights glaring through the windows make it hard to see what happens to everybody once they're out of the coffee shop. For all I know they could be out there shaking hands with the president of the United States—except he's not here, he's probably in Washington, D.C., keeping the world safe for democracy and stuff. One thing's for sure, though—all this action, all this fuss, and still no maple bars. I think the least that should happen is that I get a maple bar.

Why did I stay here?

To be honest, I'm glad everybody except Alan and Joey and I are gone. Most of the time, like I've said, I'm not that thrilled to be around people, 'cause they usually just confuse me. I always feel more relaxed when I'm alone, except for the times when I'm alone for too long and Dirtbag and Rat come after me.

Now that it's just Alan and Joey and me, and since I'm sitting up in a chair instead of on the floor, I feel a lot better. It also feels like there's a ton of room back here now, with all the others gone. I feel pretty happy, actually, even without a maple bar.

It's nice to feel happy and to know I'm feeling it. Does that make any sense? I just mean it's so unusual that I “feel” anything. This is pretty much the way it goes for people with my kind of brain. We just don't feel things.... It's hard to explain.

Alan interrupts my thoughts. “So, Zach, this Curtis guy's your doctor? Why is your brain so messed up?” He hesitates a second, then says, “Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I didn't mean it like … never mind.”

I ask him, “Why'd you guys do this robbery? Why'd you need money so bad?”

Alan looks at me a second before he answers. “Our mom has cancer. We don't have any medical insurance because Mom had to quit her job. She's really sick from the chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and her medicine costs a fortune. We're down to nothing. We had to get some money, so I came up with this idiotic idea.”

“Where's your dad?” I ask. “Dads sometimes help with money.”

Joey says, “We don't even know if Dad's alive.”

Alan interrupts, yelling, “Fuck you, Joey! He's alive!” But then Alan says, “We just don't know where he is.”

I say, “My dad left too, a long time ago.” But the truth is I don't even remember him and I don't ever think about him.

“
Long gone … like you … boo-hoo … long gone
.”

Alan pauses a few seconds and stares at me. “I'm sorry you got caught up in this, and I'm sorry if we scared you and kept you here. But the truth is we'd do
anything
to help our mom.”

I try to understand, and I say, “I know what you mean. My mom makes meals for me and cleans all my clothes and picks me up after school and gives me my medicine.” I try to think of some other reasons to care about my mom. All I can come up with is, “She used to hide Easter eggs for me when I was little. I like eggs.” I try to think of
anything
else,
anything
more that I can figure for why I'm glad my mom is around, but finally I give up.