Lucretia and the Kroons

12

From the moment Alice’s offer was made Sunny couldn’t stop talking. What was she talking about? Loochie couldn’t really say. It seemed like she was making plans. For what she and Loochie would do once they reached the stadium, once Alice got them to Gate C, once they entered Shea. Sunny guessed at what they would find in that Paradise. What they would do there. Together forever. Forever. At least that’s what Loochie thought Sunny was talking about. She couldn’t be sure because she couldn’t make herself focus, make herself really listen. She had this ringing sound playing right behind both ears and with each moment the ringing got louder.

You can come with me.

Alice crept over to the edge of Europe with her back to Sunny and Loochie, who followed behind. When they reached the end Alice looked over her shoulder and grunted at Sunny. Sunny came closer and climbed up on Alice’s back, wrapped her arms around Alice’s neck, then looked back at Loochie.

“Climb on.”

Loochie heard that, at least. She walked over and did exactly as Sunny had done. The two of them fit on Alice’s back perfectly. They both wrapped their arms around Alice’s throat. At this point Loochie didn’t even pay attention to the missing jaw, the moist skin of Alice’s neck. She was used to them by now. Compared to going through Gate C, it didn’t even seem that scary. And there was the truth of it — the thing Loochie couldn’t hide from herself — she didn’t want to go to Shea, at least not yet. Loochie didn’t want to die.

Now Alice turned around so that her back faced the open air. Alice grabbed on to a pair of steel beams, two latitude lines, and braced her feet between the same bars lower down. Then she climbed down the outside of the Unisphere, with both girls on her back. Loochie and Sunny were basically dangling in midair, twelve stories up. A fall that wouldn’t just kill them; it would spread their insides across the concrete like strawberry jam.

And yet Sunny continued to chatter happily. She’d seemed pretty practiced when she walked across the latitude line earlier, so maybe this wasn’t the first time Alice had climbed down the side of the Unisphere with Sunny on her back. But it sure as hell was a first for Loochie! The ringing in her ears, the thumping of her heart, the sweat moistening her locked fingers, they were all aspects of her terror. She had to shut her eyes. Every second seemed like a century. And when she opened them again she whimpered because the descent was far from finished yet. They were still ten stories up. Still so much farther to go.

“I bet I’ll get my hair back again too,” Sunny continued. “Don’t you think so? I mean I can’t be bald there, right? It’ll grow back and you’ll brush it for me. And I’ll comb yours and put it in braids. I want to let mine grow down to …”

Still seven stories up. Much higher than Loochie’s apartment. Loochie looked out across the park just to keep from looking down.

“They’re …!” Loochie suddenly shouted, cutting Sunny off.

But Sunny wouldn’t be stopped. “… let mine grow down to like my ass.”

“Alice,” Loochie said. “They’re coming back!”

The males.

Having made the circuit of the park, having gone as far as the stadium gates and finding no one, they had finally given up. They were backtracking, looking for the girls but also distractedly scanning the ground. The Kroons walked slowly, and close together this time. If the Twins found something on the ground this time they wouldn’t have a chance to smoke it alone. The Kroons weren’t barking or squealing but silent. They almost looked tired, worn-out. Maybe they were returning home to take their naps. They hadn’t seen the girls yet.

Alice tried to move more quickly. This meant the ride down was even bumpier for Loochie and Sunny. The girls did their best to keep from hollering when their grips loosened but the situation felt impossible. It was doubtful all three of them could just dangle there and let the males pass. Alice looked toward Sunny and huffed out one long groan. A communication that meant nothing to Loochie but Sunny said, “Hold on tight.”

They were still twenty feet up.

A moment later all three of them fell through the sky. Loochie and Sunny cried out.

The males heard them but were so shocked that they were caught stiff, standing frozen, on the other side of the sphere. All five gawked at their sister, Alice, through the grillwork of the globe.

The only one who didn’t hesitate was Alice. She landed and the girls fell off but she didn’t even look back to check on them. There wasn’t any time. She sped forward, stepping onto the concrete barrier and leaping across the pond of muck. She landed on the base of the Unisphere and braced herself against its bottom. She slammed her right shoulder forward and strained against the steel sculpture. A long, high cry played from Alice’s throat. Loochie clutched at her own neck when she heard the sound. Then there was a terrific cracking, an echoing snap, and the Unisphere rose, just slightly, into the air. It came off its cocked axis. On the other side the male Kroons looked up in quiet fascination. Alice had hurled the world at them.

The Unisphere plowed through the Kroons. The 700,000-pound steel globe hit the Twins and Chuck directly. It crushed them. Loochie heard their bones crack even from where she still lay. All three bodies were pulverized; what was left was liquid. The earth kept moving. The globe now caught one of Lefty’s legs and his pelvis. The Unisphere rolled over it, turning both to powder. Lefty lay there howling, almost blind with pain. His right leg was gone. He flailed on the ground. He spat. He bled out. Loochie had raised herself to a seated position and watched it all, horrified and dimly elated. Confused. Was it okay to cheer when a devil dies?

The only male left was Pit, who hadn’t been hit directly. He was knocked on his back, dazed, but that was all. Already he sat up. He watched with amazement as the Unisphere kept rolling, clanging loudly as concrete crunched beneath it. That sphere didn’t stop until it reached the closer meadow, where it settled into the dirt and grass. It stopped after a moment.

“Holy shit!” Sunny shouted, pointing at Alice, who was already climbing back over the concrete barrier to get the girls.

“Holy shit,” she repeated.

Sunny couldn’t stop marveling over Alice’s triumph, but Loochie couldn’t stop staring at her friend, possibly the best friend she would ever know. Loochie stared as if she were focusing for a snapshot of Sunny. Something to remember the girl by. Loochie hadn’t realized she’d made a choice, a decision, about what to do next, until right then.

Loochie took off her mother’s wig. She walked to Sunny. Loochie set the wig, delicately, on Sunny’s small head. Sunny looked up at it, surprised.

“My mom will get worried if I don’t come back,” Loochie said.

Sunny nodded and it made the wig slip forward, almost over her eyes. Loochie was about to adjust it when Alice’s big hand pulled it back into place. Loochie looked up and smiled at Alice. Then she felt a throb of regret. She’d given Sunny her mother’s wig, but what had she given Alice? Alice who’d saved her half a dozen times in here. Alice who looked like a monster. Alice, who wasn’t a monster anymore. Loochie had nothing else to offer. So she waved for Alice to crouch. Alice did so a little warily. The last time she’d crouched in front of Loochie like this Loochie had bashed her with a tennis racket. Loochie brought her face right alongside Alice’s. From here she could smell Alice’s burnt plastic body and she couldn’t avoid the gaping emptiness below her upper jaw, but Loochie didn’t hesitate. She brought her lips to Alice’s upper cheek. Loochie gave Alice the only thing she could. She kissed her gently.

“Friends,” Loochie whispered, and Alice cooed in her ear.

In a flash, Alice lifted both girls, as easy as always. She turned to run, toward the stadium, but before Loochie could resist Sunny said, “She’s not going.”

Alice barked out a handful of desperate-sounding notes. She looked across the barrier, at Pit, who was doing worse than he first seemed. He struggled to rise, a feeble growl lost in his throat, then he stumbled backward again, flat on his back, still stunned.

“She says you have to find someplace to hide,” Sunny told her. “We’ll get Pit to chase us. We’ll draw him away.”

Alice set Loochie down. Loochie looked up at Sunny. Already, even from this close, it seemed harder to focus on her friend. To really see Sunny’s face. As if it were already being erased, little by little, from her memory if not her heart.

“Hide.” Sunny pointed to the barrier. “Lie flat.”

Loochie followed the order. On her back like that she was hidden. Alice howled at the top of her voice. It was like a taunt, a challenge.

Pit sat up again. Looking more like himself. Menacing and manically focused. He found his sister’s face. She stared at him and he glared at her. He scrambled to his feet. Just before Alice ran, Sunny kicked her feet wildly and her rain boots flopped off. They smacked the ground. Loochie had given her the wig. Sunny gave the boots in return.

Sunny shouted, “I love you, Loochie!”

Loochie couldn’t respond for fear of letting Pit know she was still there. But inside her head she could hear her own voice, loud as a siren: I love you, too, Sunny! I loved you!

Loochie lay flat and watched them go. Alice took off, carrying Sunny, horse and rider exploding down a track. And Pit chased after. Soon enough they were all just figures in the distance. Now there was no denying it. Loochie’s best friend, Zhao Hun Soong, was gone.