MONSTERS & VIRGINS by Chris Kammerud

      Bobby felt sure if Cindy caught him staring again that there’d be no going back, that she’d forever see him as a kind of mutant.  A giant, mucus-covered eyeball stuffed into a jacket and jeans, absurdly trying to pass himself off as a thirteen year-old boy.

      It was hard for Bobby to avoid her though, and therefore hard to avoid what he considered a shameful amount of staring.  They lived on the same street, rode the same bus, and shared three of the same classes: science, history, and gym.  Cindy was in the habit of wearing small, bright pieces of clothing – peach camisoles on top of sparkling cut-off khakis - and at school year’s start Bobby had made the mistake of watching her too closely, becoming mesmerized by some glitter on her thigh or shadow between her breasts.  Inevitably there were times she caught him, days in science when he stared too long at her bouncing foot and bared calf, days when she would roll her eyes and turn away with a frustrated, almost musical, sigh that brought Bobby a terrible delight all its own.  He suffered through a month of Cindy’s bittersweet reactions before adopting the art of teenage espionage, reducing himself to sideways glances over his shoulder or quick peeks from behind his locker door. 

            On the morning of his field trip to the Revello Planetarium, Bobby emerged from his house on Baxter Street a relatively tall boy who looked deceptively small.  His lanky form was bowed underneath a loaded backpack, and his still-growing body was lost amid baggy denim jeans and a loose, charcoal windbreaker that ballooned around his waist.  As he climbed into the bus, he was still trying to fix his hair which, despite his best attempts, always came out looking scattered and obtuse; it was a malady, his mother once said, that he inherited from his reckless daredevil of a father. 

            The bus interior was noisy and dim, full of swirling chatter and slanted light.  Bobby sulked down the aisle hunched over and coiled into himself, staring at the floor and hoping to pass Cindy without either of them noticing the other.  She’d caught him staring again just yesterday, and he didn’t want to take any chances.  He was concentrating on the tiny squeak of his new shoes when a short, quick laugh, a sort of giggle and scream, pierced the buzz around him and sent shivers along his arms.  He looked up to see Cindy with her hand covering her mouth, eyes closed tight in disbelief over some scandalous story a friend had told her.  Cindy had changed her hair again, this time to a muddy brown color like wet-sand.  Her long curls were braided into pigtails, and Bobby followed the twisted strands down to her chest where she’d tied the ends with pink string.  He wondered, as he sometimes did in these situations, if maybe Cindy wanted boys to stare.        

            Where other girls hid underneath oversized, flowery sweaters, Cindy proudly showed off her body’s recent renovations.  Despite the word ‘slut’ often being whispered in tones loud enough for her to hear, she persisted in wearing colorful shirts and shorts that rose as high, or as low, as was legal.  The way she attracted boys seemed intentional to Bobby.  After gym, the way she leaned against the bleachers, waiting to brush boys’ advances aside and crush their spirits with a wave of her hand, he was reminded of the neon glow of a bug zapper, and the noisy deaths he sometimes listened to on the nights he had trouble sleeping.

            But looks like she gave him now, her blue eyes crossed and her nose crunched in disgust, were all the evidence he needed that he must seem a depraved, little boy in her eyes.  She’d shown him a similarly disgusted look the day before in history.  He had noticed her book turned to a different page than everyone else, and turning silently to the same page, he saw an image of a Mayan virgin sacrifice.  The men and women pictured were all naked, a forked trail of blood flowed from the knife plunged into the woman’s chest.  Cindy had glanced back at Bobby as he peered discreetly over his book, and with a startled and then furious flushing of her cheeks, she flipped loudly to the correct chapter on the beginnings of the Renaissance in France.  When Mr. Williams called on him a second later, Bobby wasn’t sure what to say.  The class turned and stared, but he remained quiet, his mind filled with the image of Cindy’s reddened cheeks and the inscription he’d read under the image, Mayan virgins considered it an honor to be sacrificed in tribute to the gods.

            Bobby shoved his backpack into his locker, attempting as best he could to squeeze the over-stuffed bag into the small, rectangular space.  He jammed his left shoulder once against the door so that it stayed shut.  Outside, the rest of Mr. Ullner’s science class had already gathered on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus to take them to the planetarium.  Bobby slipped through the various groups up to the front.  He was first on the bus, planting himself in a window seat near the back where he could curl against the glass and watch the clouds and cars pass in and out of frame. 

            There had been a brief period after his parents’ divorce six months ago and his subsequent move to the suburbs outside L.A., when Bobby had spent most of his time lying on his back, staring at the sky.  He did this even at night, especially at night, where new stars had appeared after leaving the smoggy city behind.  He bought a book that named all the constellations and told of their connections to Greek myth.  At night as his mother slept, he mapped the stars with only a dim flashlight to read by, straining to match the illustrated outlines with the faint glows above him.  His mom came looking for him one night, appearing next to him in the backyard wearing a faded pink robe and a wild, lost look in her eyes.   

            “What are you doing out here?” she said.

            “Nothing,” Bobby said.  “Just looking.”

            “Oh.”  She ran a hand through her hair, trying to settle the loose strands that had come free as she slept.  “Don’t stay out all night, okay?”  When he didn’t answer, she put her hands in her robe’s pockets and sighed once before going back inside.

            Bobby kept going out the next few nights, partly to annoy his mom and partly to satisfy his own curiosity.  Eventually though, reading so much about wars and battles – the whale Cetus who nearly devoured Andromeda but was turned to stone by Perseus – made Bobby think of his father, a stunt-man still living somewhere in Hollywood.  After that, looking up at the night sky only made Bobby feel angry and too small to do anything about it.

            The whole day leading up to the field trip, and before Cindy caught him staring again, Bobby had been afraid of having to relive these feelings at the planetarium, but to his relief no one inside was talking about stars or constellations.  Instead, they had a display of rocks recently collected from Mars.  The sharp, black shapes were encased in glass for the students’ protection. “Just in case any radiation might still be present,” the tour guide warned. 

            Gloves were attached to the side to allow safe handling, and Bobby lingered behind the others, tracing the black edges while thinking about the deadly powers that might lie buried inside.  A girl next to Cindy whispered about what a waste of time it was to stare at boring rocks.  He listened but couldn’t hear Cindy’s reply.  As the line moved, Bobby regarded Cindy slowly walking away, looking back at the rocks with interest he thought.  He let others pass so he could examine the rocks longer, stopping alone at the end where a box of complementary ‘space rocks’ were available for kids to take.  The nameless girl that whispered seemed crazy to Bobby.  He didn’t see how anything that could kill you could ever be boring.  The sign said only one rock should be taken per child, but he filled his jacket pockets with as many as he could carry.

            He entered the auditorium late.  The class was being shown a movie about the planet Mars and its history as Earth’s most misunderstood but exciting neighbor.  Cindy was in the back row, talking quietly with another girl Bobby didn’t know.  He leaned against the wall a few feet behind them and listened half-heartedly to the film’s discussion of canals on Mars.  People in the 1950’s had mistaken them for signs of alien life and, in the general paranoia of the times, had believed a Martian invasion imminent. Bobby’s thoughts drifted to a world where the Martians invaded, and only he figured out the meteors from their planets could kill them.  A detailed scenario was developed involving the President and Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with a rescue attempt of Cindy Jacobs that ended up with both her and Bobby locked alone in a boiler room.  As she whispered into his ear her appreciation for his bravery , Bobby began to hear voices, sounds outside of his imagination.  He snapped out of his fantasy and saw the girls around Cindy laughing under their breath, a huge red planet looming on the screen behind them.

            “You’re glowing,” Cindy said, staring at Bobby as if he were a bug-eyed Martian.  He forced himself to look down.  His pockets emitted a green light so strong that the purple carpet around him was transformed into a sickly brown.  He froze, his body stuck inside the alien glow by the force of everyone’s stares.  The planetarium screen zoomed down to the swirling red dust storms of Mars.  A thick hand squeezed Bobby’s shoulder, and he heard Mr. Ullner behind him saying, “Mr. Grainger, if you’ll come with me please.”  Bobby exhaled a breath he didn’t know he held and left with Mr. Ullner, thankful for whatever punishment his actions might deserve.

            He spent the rest of the field trip alone in the planetarium office, eating his bologna sandwich and a bag of chips for lunch.  The nameplate on the desk read, “George Summers.”  There was a picture of his happy family on the desk.  Bobby studied the wood paneling along the walls, counting how many knots he could find.  He was visited once by Mr. Ullner who gave him a letter to take home, as well as some advice about stealing and the bad end to which such acts eventually led.  Bobby held his tongue and didn’t argue that the rocks had been free for the taking.

            Bobby thought he caught Cindy glancing at him on the trip back, probably waiting, he decided, to see if he would start glowing again.  At school, everyone scattered to their remaining two periods. Bobby opened his locker and grabbed his backpack as it tumbled free.  He went on to Algebra and English, learning about fractions and Beowulf, a story he already knew from the movie adaptation his father had worked on.  On the bus home, Bobby sat in the back next to the emergency exit so people couldn’t stare at him without his seeing.  He felt Cindy’s presence following him all the way, and he tried not to turn around.  He didn’t want to give her any more reasons to think poorly of him than he already had.  She sat across the aisle, and after the bus started moving, she ducked into the seat beside him.  Bobby fixed his eyes on the brown seat in front.

            “You didn’t miss much,” she whispered in a manner so close to his earlier fantasy that it scared him a little.  “I only made it another five minutes into the movie before I fell asleep.”  There was the sticky sound of her legs shifting on the seat’s rubber, and Bobby glanced at the movement.  A small sliver of seat separated his jeans from her half-bared thigh.  “Did you get in much trouble for stealing the rocks?”

            There was a spot of glitter on Cindy’s nose. “I didn’t s-,” Bobby began, dazzled by the closeness of her eyes before looking away again, seized by a momentary regret at how he won her attention.  He let it pass.  “No,” he said, “just a warning.”

            “Cool,” she said and relaxed, putting her knees against the seat in front and ignoring the protests of whoever sat there.  Her shorts’ frayed edges slipped further down her legs, approaching the point where straight lines began to curve.  “How come I never saw you until this year?”

            “I moved here after my parents got divorced,” Bobby said, realizing too late that he said it too fast.

            “Oh.”  Cindy remained silent for a moment, studying the seat in front of them as Bobby had before.  “My dad split a couple of years ago,” she finally said.  “He sends me a check every once in a while, which is cool.”

            “I guess,” Bobby said.  His dad occasionally sent gifts as well, giant boxes full of movie props and costumes.  At least half a dozen by now, Bobby figured.  He peeked in one of the boxes once, finding latex masks and a plastic smell, but he never could bring himself to play with any of his father’s things.  He mentioned the boxes to Cindy and she got excited, whispering into his ear again.

            “Stuff from real movies?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Maybe I could come over some time and we could play with them?”

            “Maybe,” Bobby said, imagining Cindy Jacobs at his house, feeling euphoric and light-headed before falling under the paralyzing weight of fear.  “My mom doesn’t usually get home until seven or so.  We’d be alone all afternoon.”

            “Even better,” Cindy said to Bobby’s terror and delight, her pink lips curving slowly into a smile.

            The rest of the way home, Bobby tried to avoid letting his eyes fall on any trouble areas: her legs, breasts, or waist.  He settled on Cindy’s nose and ears.  Her nose was slightly crooked, pushed a little to the left, and her ears looked small relative to the large, golden hoop earrings she wore. 

            “You stare a lot,” Cindy said.

            “I know,” Bobby said.

            As they arrived at their street, the bus slowed and Cindy slid into the aisle, holding onto the top of the seat.  Her house was at one end, Bobby’s at the opposite, about five blocks away. 

            “I’ll see you later, glow boy,” Cindy said, her lips curled into a half-smile. 

            “Yeah,” Bobby managed before she turned away down the aisle.  The bus rumbled on. Bobby watched through the rear window as Cindy walked to her house. When she stopped among her mother’s tulips and waved, he was so startled that he only got his hand halfway up before she’d turned back around and moved on.

            Bobby rode the remaining blocks home wrapped in a bright, blurry haze that made it difficult to navigate the bus’ steps back down to earth.  Upon reaching land, he smelled the exhaust drift by and saw his new home’s mailbox with the strange name, “Peters,” spelled out in black and white stickers.  His mom had gone back to her maiden name after the divorce and the mailbox often gave Bobby pause, making him feel for a moment that he’d arrived by mistake at the wrong house.  The sensation passed, and he collected the mail.  There was a light on in the kitchen.  He wondered if his mom was home early, and what costume, if any, she might have borrowed today.

            Bobby’s mom had been trying for years to make it as an actress.  At eighteen, she had moved from Shiloh, Tennessee to Hollywood on a modeling contract.  The early years of her acting career were spent playing lineless parts with numbers in the name: attractive teenager #3, dark alley girl #1, or brunette waitress #5.  She met Bobby’s father when, as a young stunt man, he crashed a Camaro into the imaginary café where she pretended to work.  After their divorce, and faced with supporting Bobby on her own, she’d mostly given up on the dream of being a famous movie star and instead got what work she could in commercials and B-movies.  

            Occasionally she wore her costumes around the house to practice her lines.  Bobby wasn’t sure if this “borrowing”of the costumes was really allowed, but he never brought it up.  The past week had seen a series of commercials produced by a used-car dealer associating old movie stars with certain car models.  These had resulted in his mother’s wavy brown hair being transformed into the deep red of Rita Hayworth, and his mother’s normal, if overly elegant, style vanishing into the brash corsets of Bettie Page. 

            Bobby found her in the colorful mess of their living room.  There had been a fire a week before Bobby’s mom filed for divorce that had burned down the Grainger’s home, and left dad, as well as mom and son, with nothing but some ashy comics and the contents of their refrigerator.  Bobby’s mom had gone on a spree with her eventual half of the insurance money, populating her and Bobby’s new home with an array of decadent 70’s style furniture along with several electric blue curtains for the windows.  She stood now between a pink sofa and an orange recliner, dressed in a sleeveless white dress with a wig of platinum curls on her head.  A slit ran all the way up one of her legs, exposing more of his mom’s thigh than Bobby felt comfortable with. 

            She turned as she heard Bobby enter, and with a hand on her hip and one arm straight down her side, she spoke in a breathy and naïve, seemingly innocent, tone of voice. 

            “Hello, handsome,” she said.

            Bobby ducked his head and waved a hand in her general direction.  “Who are you supposed to be?”

            “You can’t tell?” she said dropping back into her normal voice, an approximation of a Midwest accent with only small traces of Shiloh left.   Bobby didn’t respond, and his mother tried again.  “DiMaggio, The Seven Year Itch?  Jello on springs?”  She pointed to a small mole on her cheek. 

            “Yeah, I get it,” Bobby said, and then turned to go to his bedroom, his shoulders hurting from the weight of his backpack.  Mr. Ullner’s letter was folded neatly in half and pressed within the pages of his science book. 

            “Bobby, wait a second.”  He heard her start pushing the coffee table out from in front of the sofa, and he paused.  “Don’t leave so soon.”  When he turned back around, she batted an eyelash and raised her arm, holding out her hand while speaking again in Marilyn’s voice. “Dance with your mother once around the living room, won’t you?”

            Bobby’s mother had always been, and still was, a graceful woman.  One of the few happy memories involving his parents was the sight of their reckless dancing around the house’s furniture, dodging chairs and climbing sofas.  His father often danced with his mom to cheer her up.  It was his love of dancing, as well as having affairs with actresses and caterers, that eventually split him and Bobby’s mom.  Bobby put the bag containing his books and the letter from Mr. Ullner down on the floor.  He wiped his palms across his jeans before taking hold of his mother’s hand. 

            When he was a young boy, Bobby had danced well enough; his mom had called him a most charming little man.  But at thirteen, he was newly tall and no longer in complete control of his legs.  His mother pressed her hand to the small of his back.  “Stand up straight,” she said, “like a gentleman.  There now, look me in the eye.”  She guided his hand to the bottom of her spine, and once there, he held onto to the costume’s slick fabric as tight as he could.  He tried to keep up with her steps and swirls but his feet failed him.  Several times he stepped on her toes or kicked her shins; she had to shut her mouth more than once to keep from crying out.  He started to grow angry at her for making him ever dance in the first place and frustrated at himself for not being able to make his body do as he asked.  As they finished, she spun him once, twice, and the third time around Bobby grew slightly nauseous, and when he saw the woman wearing a platinum wig and false mole on her cheek, there was a moment he didn’t recognize his own mother.

            Bobby let go and pulled away.  His mom opened her mouth but found nothing to say.  He picked up his backpack and glanced back once as he walked to his bedroom, hopeless and angry at the sight of his mom sliding off her wig and bending down to drag the coffee table back in place.  He threw his backpack in the corner of his room and tried to get comfortable on his new mattress.  It was too short and the springs were too stiff.  After he outgrew the bed within a month of his mom’s buying it, she’d made an off-hand remark about him growing as tall as his father one day.  He shifted onto his stomach where the metal tickled more than it hurt.

            All of Bobby’s pictures of his father had burned with everything else in the fire.  Bobby found it hard to hold in his mind any images of his father other than the ones he most wanted to forget.  One from a movie set of his father wearing a gorilla suit and carrying a giggling woman off to safety.  Another of an angry and confused man who came home one night to find his home burned and his wife finally ready for a divorce.  Bobby wondered what image of him was left with his father, and if maybe it wasn’t a bad one, a nosey kid peeking into his father’s trailer and seeing things he wasn’t supposed to.

            Bobby listened for a while to the zaps of dying insects and hated himself for hating his parents as much as he did.

            Two days later in science class, Cindy dropped a note on the floor and kicked it behind her to Bobby’s desk.  He bent down and opened it, seeing written there in beautiful curls a request to come over to his house that afternoon.  He whispered yes to the back of Cindy’s neck.  They rode the bus home next to each other.  Cindy got off at her house to drop off her books.  An hour later, she arrived at Bobby’s garage wearing different clothes, a white blouse that she’d slid off one shoulder and a short purple skirt she’d hiked far above her knees.  He had rehearsed over the previous nights what he might say.  He had hoped they would be able to bond over shared emotions about divorce and equally grotesque parents, but it turned out Cindy was happy with her arrangement, accepting her father’s checks and changing them into a new hairstyle every month or so.  When she asked why most of the boxes from his father were unopened, Bobby lied and said, “I just feel sorry for him is all.”  That he blamed his father for the genes which caused excessive fixations on attractive girls, Bobby kept to himself.

            Inside the gift boxes, Cindy and he found break-easy beer bottles and collapsible chairs, bags of fake blood that she tasted and found lime-flavored, and several stunt men type costumes and masks, ranging from hockey goalie killers to blood-sucking vampires.  They were both surprised to find an oddly large number of Richard Nixon masks. 

            “I can’t believe you never went through this stuff,” she said.  “I don’t care how you feel about your dad.”

            Bobby shrugged and opened a box filled with fake weapons, collapsible knives and rubber guns.

            “Wow,” Cindy said, looking over his shoulder.  Her shirt hung low, and he thought he smelled strawberries.  Cindy pushed past him and picked up one of the knives.  “We could have some fun with this stuff.”

            “I guess,” Bobby said, unsure if he liked how quickly Cindy’s body seemed to adjust to the knife, welcoming it as if it were a lost appendage.

            “You know what we could do,” she waved the knife around and picked up a Jason-style hockey mask.  “We could play ‘Monsters and Virgins’.”

            “What?”

            “You know, you could dress up as a monster, and chase me, the virgin.”  She giggled loudly.  “And since I’m the virgin, I always get to kill you.”

            “That doesn’t seem fair,” Bobby said.

            “Those are the rules,” she said.

            “I’ve never heard of this game.”

            “You’ll learn as we go.”

            Cindy gave the hockey mask to Bobby.  It was made for a larger man and the eyeholes didn’t fit him exactly.  Cindy stood before him, an appraising look on her face, her body outlined by the mask’s triangular eyes.  “Take off your jacket,” she said, and then with a wicked look of inspiration, she gave Bobby one of the blood balloons so he could tape it under his shirt.  His breath slammed into the plastic mask and echoed around him.  He started to sweat.  Cindy pointed the knife at him, “Now you chase me, and then I get to kill you.”

            “Don’t I get a weapon?” Bobby said, his voice unrecognizable, deep and muffled by the mask.  Cindy turned, the late afternoon sun reflecting off glitter and hair and knife.  Bobby stood in the shaded garage watching her squint back into the darkness where he stood.

            “You’re a monster,” she said. “You don’t need one.”  She ran off, yelling back to him to give her a head start and then come running.  She laughed and screamed in equal measure as a tall, thin Jason monster gave chase around the backyard.  After a few runs around the house and between trees, Bobby leaned against a rough elm, hot and exhausted, not sure if he wanted to play anymore.  Cindy peeked from around the brick edge of his house and waved him on.

            Bobby pushed himself from the tree and hurried up to the house and around the corner, not noticing Cindy until he ran directly into her waiting knife.  A sharp popping filled the air, and something wet tickled Bobby’s stomach where the knife pressed.

            “Ow,” he said.

            She took the knife away.  “Did it hurt?”

            “No.”  He shrugged his monstrous shoulders.  “I’ve never been killed before.  I thought I should say something.”

            “Maybe next time scream and fall down.  That’s what I’d expect a monster to do.”  Cindy smiled wide, her pink lips parting to show white teeth.

            “Can I take the mask off now?”

            “Yeah, sure,” Cindy said, shrugging her shoulders and raising her hands as if it didn’t matter either way. She checked her watch and sighed.  “I gotta go anyway, my mom’ll be home soon, and I don’t want her wondering where I’ve been.”  She looked past Bobby into the backyard.  She rubbed her arms as if she was cold.  “You think we could play again sometime?”

            Bobby held his bloody stomach with his left hand and the oversized hockey mask with his right.  “Yeah, anytime,” he said. 

            He watched Cindy walk away until she disappeared around the corner of her driveway.  In the garage, Bobby was faced with the general mess he and Cindy had made, purple capes and hairy masks scattered on the floor, the half-empty bag of fake blood that she had opened and tasted.  Bobby had never said much to his mom about the boxes.  They were delivered and stacked in the garage, a silent reminder of Bobby’s father that she allowed to pile up in their new home.  He wasn’t sure how she’d react, seeing the way he’d enjoyed his father’s gifts.  A breeze through the open garage chilled Bobby’s stomach, and he looked down at his shirt, the fabric now blood-stained and lime-scented.  It had never seemed important to know how to wash clothes before.

            He reached for the blood balloon and began pulling at the tape on his stomach, slowly at first, and then ripping it off with a wince.  He collected the props and costumes and stuffed them back in the boxes, trying to arrange everything as it had been before.  He scrubbed at the shirt in the kitchen.  When only a light pink color remained he stopped and went to the bathroom, checking the mirror for any evidence of the mask, creases on his cheek or forehead, triangles around his eyes.  There was nothing on his face, only the faint red mark still on his stomach.  He took a shower to remove what was left of the blood and lime smell.  When he came out he stood in front of the mirror holding the towel one-handed around his waist like his father might have.  He curled his lips back and growled once before getting dressed.  He checked the garage a last time to make sure everything was put up and the boxes were closed before his mom got home from work.  He was unaware of how much time had already passed, and so was surprised to see her car already approaching from down the street.

            Bobby went to his room, not exactly hiding.  He grabbed for the first time a random comic book from the stack his mom had bought to replace the ones he’d lost in the fire.  He heard her keys hit the kitchen table and thought it odd when she didn’t call out to check if he was home.  There was a rustling in her bedroom, a slammed dresser drawer followed by a small cry of pain.  The comic book was of some hero Bobby had never heard of—a man raised by moths who often crashed into lighthouses—and he barely glanced at the panels while flipping through the pages. A kitchen chair was scraped along the floor, and then he heard his mom speaking to him in flat, even tones.

            “Come in here please, Bobby.”

            He wondered what sign he had left, if maybe he hadn’t washed the sink well enough, or if one of the masks had been left out somewhere for her to see.

            She sat at the kitchen table, wearing a large grey sweatshirt and the bottom half of a genie costume, shimmering red pants with bells sown along the seams.  Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and her face was lit by the tiny spotlights of an unfolded mirror.  He had seen her removing make-up before, but there was something now in the cloth’s slow sweep along her nose that made it seem she regretted having to show her face to him.  He looked down at the linoleum floor.  

            “Mr. Ullner called me at work this afternoon.  He said something about a note.  I don’t suppose you still have it?”

            A brief, shameful relief came over Bobby, and then vanished when he glanced up at his mom’s face.  He had never gotten in much trouble before, and he wasn’t sure yet how to lie to his mom.  The thought of throwing the note away hadn’t occurred to him.  Instead he had hid it under his bed– where the hand-washed, pink stained shirt was also hid– thinking of the note as a souvenir of the day Cindy first spoke to him.  He went to his room and brought the note back to his mom.  She moved the mirror aside to read it.  Her cheeks had swirls of foundation that made Bobby dizzy to look at her, similar to the effect of the living room furniture or of Cindy’s glitter.  She smoothed the note out on the table. 

            “It says you stole some kind of glowing rocks from a museum.”

            “I didn’t steal them.  I just took too many,” Bobby said, only a little too fast he thought.  “And it was a planetarium, not a museum.”

            “That makes all the difference I’m sure.”  There was a jingling of bells as she crossed her legs and then pulled on her pony tail.  She moved the mirror back between them and began rubbing her cheeks.  Her face was flushed, from anger or the tiny spotlights, Bobby couldn’t say.  “I swear sometimes Bobby; I don’t know who you are anymore.”

            His mom’s pale skin emerged like magic from under the cloth.  Her face dimmed as she closed the mirror.  Bobby thought she looked unbearably sad.  It was a look he had seen her have some mornings while she exercised, twisting herself into impossible shapes for the casting directors and whatever dream of Hollywood stardom remained in her.  There were times as Bobby ate breakfast that the light hit her just right, and he could remember what it was like to watch his house burn and think that it was her fault.  She was afraid of the dark, a fear Bobby thought childish, and when the power went out the night of the fire, she had gone around the house lighting candles to make all the rooms bright.  Even though the firemen said it was electrical, Bobby had blamed her.  He had stood next to his mother in the dancing light of the fire and regarded her in her shiny robe and green moisture mask, bits of aluminum foil still stuck in her hair, and he’d hated her.  He’d imagined what it would’ve been like if she’d stayed in the bathroom while the house burned down around her.

            “I don’t feel like punishing you Bobby,” his mom said, shaking her hair out of the ponytail.  “You’re a good kid.”  Something in the way she said it, or maybe in the way her unlit face looked, made Bobby doubt she was so sure.  She reached for his hand across the table.  “You know I love you right?”

            “Yeah, I know,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if the Bobby she loved even existed anymore, or if instead he had been left behind in L.A, some former version of himself still trapped and smoldering under the remains of their previous home.

            Over the next week Bobby and Cindy continued to play, and he continued using the same shirt, scrubbing longer and longer each time in the kitchen sink.  Following horror movies, they started adding an extra blood-balloon on Bobby’s chest so that he’d have to be killed twice.  First a flesh wound to the stomach, then a killing blow to the heart.  Bobby took it upon himself to growl louder and prolong his death scenes, staggering around the yard, leaving bloody handprints on the trees and house.  In the course of their playing he died four times: twice as Jason and once both as the Wolf-Man and as Richard Nixon.  Each time after they finished, Bobby spent the next half-hour trying to wipe off the prints he’d left outside.

            In school, where he walked without the visage of a hairy ghoul or impeached President, Cindy still ignored him; at home Bobby avoided his mom more than usual, afraid she would see or smell something different about him as she had done with his father during the affairs.  During dinner one night when he stared at his plate of microwaved chicken and peas too long, his mom asked him what was wrong.  Bobby mumbled something noncommittal and asked to be excused.

            He went out to the garage and looked through the boxes, wondering if there was enough fake blood for him and Cindy to play much longer.  The next afternoon that Cindy came over, he refused to wear a mask, insisting she kill him as he was. 

            “I can be scary,” he said.

            “It’s not the same,” she said, handing him the undead face of a zombie.  “It’s better when you wear this.”

            Bobby refused to play, and Cindy left him alone with the open boxes.  The next day it bothered him more than usual to see her talking with other boys in the hall, and he found himself wishing for the unnatural strength of Jason or the mindless rage of a zombie.  He imagined hacking the boys to pieces with a machete and then trapping Cindy, keeping her tied up in his closet.  This only made Bobby feel worse though, as he actually knew one of the boys and didn’t really think he was so bad.  Certainly not bad enough to be hacked to death.

            The next week there were no notes slid under his desk or left inside his locker.  He grew lonely and afraid, ashamed again to look at Cindy.  In science class they dissected fetal pigs, and Mr. Ullner pointed out the similarities to human biology, the single heart wrapped up in the colorful mess of veins and arteries and organs.  The animal’s open chest disgusted Bobby, but Cindy had no trouble locating and removing the small creature’s heart.  Seeing her hold the tiny red bead between her fingers made him angry and jealous.  She smiled at him, and the next day when a letter appeared in his locker, Bobby was sure of his saying no.  The note had a stick figure vampire and woman.  The woman drawn with more detail, an elaborate hairstyle and dress, the vampire’s body only made of sticks and a round face like that of a regular man.  Two triangles at the circle’s bottom, red tipped and sharp, indicated the stick man’s demonic nature.  ‘Cindy’, was signed at the end with a flourish; the last ‘y’ looped back and underlined the name several times.  In history class, Cindy’s bright hair framed her face, and she smiled crookedly, almost hopefully, at him. 

            On the bus ride home, Bobby sat with Cindy near the front of the bus.  She’d patted the window seat beside her and so he’d slid past her knees and sat, leaning against the side-wall.  He kept his hands in his lap and only nodded or shrugged at Cindy’s questions about how he and his mom were doing.  It occurred to him, looking out the window, that the houses and streets that had once appeared strange were now starting to look distressingly familiar.  Cindy poked him in the shoulder and asked why so broody.

            Bobby shrugged.  Cindy sighed dramatically and slapped him on the shoulder.

            The bus slowed at Cindy’s end of Baxter, but she didn’t stand up. 

            “Don’t you want to drop off your books?” Bobby said.

            “Nah,” said Cindy.  She scratched her cheek and smiled. “I’m good.”

            “Cool,” said Bobby. 

            The other students who normally got off filed by.  Most of the boys were oblivious, but a pair of girls whispered behind their hands.  Cindy stared back at them. 

            At his house, Bobby followed Cindy off the bus and into his garage, trailing a few steps behind.  Cindy was already going through the boxes as Bobby paused at the entrance, looking at his mom’s Camry parked just a little to the right of Cindy.  Before he could say anything, his mom came rushing out of the door in full genie dress, a bell on her forehead ringing as she looked around the garage, back and forth from Cindy rummaging in the boxes to Bobby, who was himself looking back and forth from Cindy to his mom.  A knowing and nostalgic smile crept onto his mom’s face, and she offered her hand to Cindy.

            “Hello, I’m Ms. Peters.  Who might you be?”

            “Cindy Jacobs.”  Cindy held a vampire’s mask behind her back while shaking Ms. Peters’ hand.  Bobby’s mom glanced over Cindy’s shoulder and smiled wider. Her smile made Bobby feel absurdly angry, as if she and Cindy were in conspiracy together. 

            “A pleasure to meet you, Cindy.  I have to go out for a little while, but I trust I can leave you alone with my son for an hour or so.” She winked at Bobby before pulling out of the garage and leaving him to fend for himself. 

As Cindy gathered the rest of the costume, Bobby went inside the house to get his shirt, which was now covered in so many faint pink explosions that it resembled the kind of tie-dyed shirt he imagined his mother might have worn in her younger, more carefree days.  He changed clothes and looked briefly around his room, out the window to the dull glow of the bug zapper and then across the wall to the stack of unread comics in the corner. 

In the garage he asked Cindy why he couldn’t be a hero this time, instead of a monster.  It seemed to him they could play a different game, where he could dress up as Superman and save her from an evil army consisting of killer robots or maybe even, possibly, some invaders from Mars.

            “Because,” she said while handing him the vampire costume made from a latex mask, black cape, and plastic fangs, “You and me are the only people here.  Who are you going to rescue me from?”  She put the Dracula mask over his face and smiled approvingly.  The latex clung tighter than the hockey or zombie masks, as though made for someone close to but not exactly Bobby’s size.  He couldn’t breathe through his nose and thought the mask fit too well.  “I’m the helpless damsel and you’re the blood-sucker.  That’s the way the game is played.  I didn’t make the rules.”  A memory pulsed dimly in Bobby’s mind that this game had been her idea, but he let her push the fangs into his mouth. Her fingers brushed his lips, and he shivered slightly.  She asked if he was okay.  The fangs had a sour taste, and having them stuck to his teeth, Bobby found it difficult to form words.  He was forced to just stare, unable to communicate except through nodding or grunting.  Cindy still had glitter on her face and purple eyeliner around her eyes.  She picked up the plastic knife and handed Bobby the two blood balloons, waiting for him to tape them in place, one near his navel and the other over his heart.  When she asked if he was ready, Bobby grunted and nodded.

            “Good,” she said.  “Now let me get a head start and then come try and kill me.” 

            She hid behind the leafless elms and oaks, screaming happily in terror as Bobby chased after, doing his own part, growling half-heartedly while trying desperately to breathe.  Her look of faux fear, along with the way her pigtails swished girlishly around her pixie face, caused Bobby to feel as if she were mocking what she’d made of him.  Cindy’s laughter hit him as punches.  He felt light-headed; the world was tinged in red, the trees and sky, the grass and the girl, all a shade darker than they had been.  Bobby mistook the signs of suffocation for the blood-lust of a vampire.

            He ran after her harder, not slowing to catch his breath, holding nothing back.  His arms and legs, used to tripping over coffee tables and knocking over glasses, unfurled and covered great swaths of dirt and grass, making him feel not awkward, but powerful and free.  He growled and yelled so loud that the fangs fell from his mouth, and Cindy turned in surprise at the volume of his voice. 

            He caught up to her against the house.  She fell to the ground in front of him, playing the part of the frightened girl, a new addition to the game in which she acted scared and naive and then killed him at the last second.  He pinned her to the ground.  Grass poked up around her shoulders. Tendons in her neck rose and pulsed with effort as she struggled to free her knife hand.  Bobby felt an ancient evil filling his veins, giving his muscles extra strength, transforming him into a true creature of the night.  His heart stopped.  The euphoric release of guilt that came with being soulless caressed him.  He was glad to be a vampire.  It meant he wouldn’t have to see himself reflected back in her eyes. 

            Half-way down to his victim though, Bobby paused, his breath close enough to stir the small hairs on Cindy’s neck.  Her legs kicked against his weight.  Her screams came to him loud and distorted, a whirlwind of innocent curses crashing into his ear.  He thought of her whispers on the bus, of her lips pulled into a sneer, and of the small, crooked nose that was probably right now crunched firmly in disgust.  A new fantasy came to him.  He dramatically lurched at her neck and then arched his back, letting go of Cindy’s arms and cursing his own name as he imagined an unmasked Bobby Grainger appearing miraculously just in time, heroically staking the monster from behind. 

            Cindy’s legs stopped thrashing.  Bobby pushed the mask up over his head.  She punched him once in the thigh with her fist still holding the knife.  Her face sparkled under the sweat and glitter; her purple-lined eyes squinted in what appeared to be actual anger, or maybe it was delight.  Bobby wasn’t sure.  He bent down, but instead of sucking her blood, he closed his eyes and kissed her as he imagined she had been kissed several times before.

            Cindy gasped in surprise; her body retreated, but slowly her muscles relaxed.  She pressed back, a slight opening of her mouth leaving Bobby confused as to what he was supposed to do next.  He took a breath through his nose and sent his tongue in awkward search for hers, briefly exploring her lips before running up against teeth and gums.  At the moment he found her, when their tongues touched, her lips pulled away.  Bobby kept his eyes closed, savoring the sweet taste until something exploded against his chest.  He opened his eyes to see Cindy’s flushed cheeks and the plastic knife pressed against his heart.  The blood-filled balloon broken.  Bobby touched the wound and then his cheek, terrified that somehow the vampire’s face had slipped over his while he kissed her.  But there was no Dracula.  Just him, Bobby Grainger, staring down at Cindy Jacobs whose eyes stared back, large and confused, like lost moons.  Her lips were still parted, and her breath came in shallow gasps, as if in anticipation of another kiss. 

            She dropped the knife from her shaking hand and shoved and kicked her way free of Bobby.  She ran down the street and out of sight.  Bobby brushed his lips with red fingers, curious about the flavor of his wound.  He took his father’s mask from the top of his head and laid it over the now cherry-colored knife.  His mom would be home in a little while, but he didn’t bother getting up.  He sat alone in his backyard watching the sunset and the leafless branches turn pleasing shades of orange and pink.  He calmly swirled the mixture around his mouth, discovering all he could about the lingering taste of strawberry and lime.