Nine Years before the Accident
JULY 1974
In the year since the pictures began Jude recruited a dozen rabbits, more than any other resident in King Bash’s house. Her fluffle included Melisa, whose parents spent most of their time in Europe; Jimmy, a refugee from the Taney gang; Marcus, a refugee from the 12th and Oxford gang; and Lola, who, when Jude found her, was passed out on a bench in Fitler Square Park, her parted lips leaking a trail of sugary vomit. All of them had parents who had somehow lost track of their children and eventually didn’t care to look. The new rabbits were enthralled by the idea that their minds were somehow magic, that mere thoughts had the capacity to spin themselves into truth. They all loved her and she them, but Genesis, her first rabbit, remained her favorite. Jude became to Gen what King Bash was to Jude, someone to emulate and idolize, a conduit for greatness. Gen became to Jude a reminder of her younger self, the self who was just coming to a stark realization: it is better to focus on what you might become than to think too deeply about who you are.
Every night Jude lay Gen across her lap, twirled the girl’s hair around her fingers, and told her fanciful stories of history and legends, of the sea and sky and space—making their world, for those short moments, bigger than it would ever be.
Sometimes she wished Gen were Violet, content beneath the weight of her touch.
No one discussed the pictures.
To celebrate The Plan’s third anniversary, King Bash announced a special seminar, one that would benefit both older and younger members, the newcomers and the veterans, the famous and the anonymous. The Think Is Games, which everyone pronounced as one swallowed syllable, Thinkis, would be held in a secret, exotic location called the Island. Only King Bash and the RonDon knew all of the rules and protocol, which were to be introduced and implemented with spectacular and mysterious ceremony. People whispered about water and fire, a clashing and canceling of the elements, a spectacle where false truths were inverted and exposed. It was all unfathomably exciting. To prepare, the residents of all three row homes endured a week of deprivation, a drastic reduction in food and sleep and a vow of silence. Playing the Think Is Games without such preparation could result in poor performance and loss of prestige.
It could even be dangerous.
For the occasion, a girl named Cindy visited King Bash’s row house and told them to form a line. Today was a special day, she said, a day they all became works of art—more than that, a collective work of art. She was seventeen and impossibly glamorous, with choppy black hair that looked deliberately uncombed and flared jeans embroidered with flowers. Cindy had come from the Big House, and when Jude’s turn came she seized the chance to ask questions.
“What’s it like in the Big House?”
“It’s a jam,” she said, and grasped Jude’s arm. A needle dug into the skin along Jude’s wrist, feeling like the dig of a heated fork. “Everyone has mastered the tenets. Nothing in the world can bother us. We’re all complete. It’s like we’re all committed and connected, but at the same time we’re free. Free from the tyranny of our own humanity. Free with nothing left to lose, like Janis said. Free as a bird.” She held out her own arm for Jude to inspect. A string of seven rainbow-hued birds soared along her skin from armpit to wrist.
“Cool,” Jude said. “Me and my sister and my friend can’t wait to get there.”
Cindy resumed her work on Jude’s arm. “How old are you?”
Jude was about to say she just turned fourteen but stopped herself in time. “Fourteen.”
“You’ll be there soon enough,” Cindy said. “All the work you’re doing right now will prepare you.”
“I’m working so hard,” Jude said. The needle clawed at her, but she held herself still. “I think I’m really good at Rejecting and Releasing and Performing or Perishing. I still have to master the others.”
“You’re right where you should be,” Cindy said. She kept her head down, and Jude noticed another tattoo snaking up the length of her neck, reading, in eloquent cursive, What I think, is.
A few moments passed in silence. Jude gathered the nerve to ask, “Do you know my mother? Verona Sheridan?”
“Of course! Everyone knows Lady V. She is a goddess. She told me to tell you and Kat that she is very proud of you both. I want to be her when I grow up. Her energy is feminine but ferocious. She always wins.”
Jude did not know what to say to that. She felt a spark of pride extinguished by confusion. Did Verona win when she made Jude—or Kat—lock their father out? Does she win by not seeing her daughters? Maybe not, maybe so. Reject and release, Jude thought. Reject and release puts my mind at peace.
“Yes,” Jude said. “Winning is one way to put it.”
“Finished!” Cindy said. “Tough, right? And now we match.”
She pressed her forearm against Jude’s. A tattoo reading THE PLAN started at the base of both of their wrists and spanned four inches.
“Tough,” Jude said. She loved the way it looked carved into her arm, like her own personal monument.
“Whatever happens,” Cindy said, “no one can take that away from you.”
Gen was next in line, already offering her arm.
On the last Friday of the month King Bash tied a blindfold around Jude’s eyes and led her to a van filled with other blindfolded people. Jude estimated that the ride took two hours; no one spoke along the way. At their destination, wherever it was, someone took her hand and led her across an expanse of gravel to a field of tall grass. The darkness amplified her other senses: the butterscotch whiff of bark; the squeak of her sneakers against dewy blades; the callouses on her escort’s palm. At last her hand was placed on a door that pushed inward. “Here you go,” the faceless voice said, and she recognized it as belonging to the Ronald half of the RonDon. She supposed that King Bash was off somewhere welcoming The Plan’s most important members and tried to subdue the rush of bitter panic that rose up inside her heart. What if she’d been demoted in King Bash’s esteem? What if she weren’t important anymore? What if there were nothing she could do to become important again?
“Thank you, Mr. Ronald,” she said, and felt her way to a cot. Once his footsteps retreated she removed her blindfold and still saw nothing but black.
In the morning a siren wailed, yanking her from a jittery half sleep. A slim wand of light through the wooden slats revealed that she was in a small shed. She wondered what purpose it had served before the purpose of containing her. In the corner she spotted a large lavender cardboard box with a fitted red lid. It looked fancy, the kind of box that might hold a bouquet of orchids or a puppy, but instead it contained a full-body monkey costume, a monkey head, a map, a compass, a banana, a small bag of nuts, a ball of string, a pair of scissors with very sharp blades, and a note. She recognized King Bash’s handwriting, which pleased her:
Good morning, Jude.
Welcome to the Think Is Games.
Are you feeling powerful today?
What is the color and shape of your power?
You are a monkey: intelligent, in search of dominance, and nearly human.
Find your way to the Power Tower.
What you think, is.
She forced herself to take tiny bites of her banana, eating a third, and to pick just three almonds from the bag. Her stomach pulsed with hunger but she had to conserve her food. She opened the shed door and peeked out. The pale sun still hung low in the sky, and she guessed it was about seven in the morning. She had not seen Kat since the last rabbit-hunting expedition two weeks earlier, the longest they’d ever spent apart. The absence of her sister felt like a disturbing presence, like a cluster of spiders had embedded beneath her skin.
A gong boomed three times. Jude checked the compass and saw it came from the eastern part of the Island.
She stepped into her monkey costume, which zippered up the front, and shoved all of the items into its deep pockets. She held her scissors by her ear, in striking position, as she again left the shed. The tiny sight holes in the monkey’s face reduced the world to slits.
She tried to identify and categorize her surroundings, but they didn’t make much sense. Funny, she thought—the Island only sporadically looked like an island. Small mounds of sand were interrupted by maple trees and scorched patches of grass. White fences, some twice the height of King Bash’s row home, loomed everywhere, creating a haphazard maze. Silos topped by metal spiderwebs scratched at the sky. A miniature orange car was parked behind a tangle of thorny brush. A giant umbrella-shaped contraption gave cover to a square of concrete. The rotten remains of a wooden track meandered across the ground. Here and there lay scattered bright vestiges of unknown things: a ladder leading to nowhere, wheels attached to nothing, a steel saucer studded with bulbs, the upturned legs of a gilded throne. She did not hear any ocean or smell any salt, or maybe she did? Her exhaustion poked holes into her thinking. She did not know what was real and what was not. What you think, is, she told herself, and at once everything seemed proper and correct, her mind sharp enough to separate truth from illusion.
The map marked none of these objects and seemed deliberately simple, just a few lines showcasing various intersections and paths. She started walking east toward the lingering chimes of the gong, taking note of landmarks along the way: a group of inflatable palm trees; an enormous wheel tilting to one side; a steel clown figurine, his nose faded to pink, weeds sprouting through a crack in his shoulder.
At last she came to a round building topped by a golden dome. Violet’s mother, Jackie, stood at the entrance, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that read: “The Think Is Games, 1974.”
“Welcome, Jude,” she said. Her words came out slow and thick. “I’m so happy you’re here. I think you’re really going to enjoy this retreat.”
“Where is Kat?” Jude asked. “And Violet?”
“They both just arrived, don’t worry. I know it’s been so difficult for you and Kat to be apart.”
The interior of the building was arranged like a theater, with tiered rows of upholstered seats and a stage partially concealed by heavy velvet drapes. Diamond-shaped windows ran along the walls but the panes were covered in aluminum foil, allowing no sun. The place was crawling with children dressed as monkeys, chameleons, parrots, rabbits, scorpions, wolves.
“Kat!” she screamed.
The room fell silent, every head turning to look at her.
“Jude!”
She could only see the outline of her sister’s monkey shape, the shadow of her waving arm. Jude maneuvered around the seats, weaving a path, and ran into Kat’s arms. They removed their monkey heads and sat down, holding hands.
“Ew rea yako,” Jude said. We are okay. A command more than a question.
Kat squeezed her hand in response.
A cluster of candelabras arranged across the stage provided the only light. Two slim fingers walked like legs onto Jude’s lap and did the Charleston on her knee. Violet’s hand, peeking out from the red sleeve of a scorpion costume, a plastic pincher affixed to her wrist.
“You made it,” Jude said, and immediately cursed herself: Of course she made it, you turkey, she is sitting right there.
“Yes, Jude,” Violet said, and laughed. “I am sitting right here.”
Jude felt a surge of joy: Violet could tell them apart. She saw Jude as her own separate person; she knew Jude as her own separate person.
“Testing, testing,” Jackie said. A squeal of feedback pierced the auditorium. “Welcome, everyone. You should all be tremendously proud of yourselves for making it here this morning. Your ability to meet any challenge is unquestionable. Your brain is the only thing that molds your reality. What you think, is.”
She paced across the stage, the candlelight making shadows dance behind her.
“On this, our very first Think Is Games, we’re going to focus on a tenet that we haven’t mastered yet: Defeat Begets Domination. Can anyone tell me what they think that means? Violet, did I see you waving your hand?”
“Um, no?” Violet said. “I was fixing my hair.” Under her breath she commented to Jude: “Ugh, she’s drunk again.”
“Fair enough,” Jackie said. “Do you want to take a guess?”
Violet paused, her hand still suspended. Jude was pained by her discomfort. She winced inwardly for this girl, her friend, somehow more than her friend; Violet existed on some exotic plane neither here nor there—untouchable, although Jude wanted nothing more than to touch her. She pursed her lips in Violet’s direction and whispered, “Say something about how losing makes you want to win.”
“When we lose, it just makes us determined to win the next time,” Violet said.
Violet squeezed Jude’s hand in silent gratitude, and let Jude squeeze her back. Her fingers began their Charleston again, using Jude’s palm as a stage, the steps now slower and softer.
“So let’s elaborate on Violet’s response,” Jackie said. “Maybe in the past you’ve been taught to help those who are weaker than you are. Don’t punch down. Don’t pick on the little guy. Root for the underdog, stuff like that. Now I want to challenge you to think about this idea in a new way. I want you to consider the possibility that you aren’t helping anyone by coddling them. When you reinforce someone’s weakness, when you send the signal that it’s okay to be weak, you are forcing them to depend on that weakness. They’ll never realize the power of their minds to change their own reality. They won’t use that big brain power to make themselves stronger.”
“But what if they are really weak?” a rabbit asked. “What if they’re weak and it’s not their fault and they can’t do anything about it?”
Jude knew that voice: Genesis.
“Good question, Gen,” Jackie said. But the premise of the question is false. No one is born weak. Everyone has the potential within themselves to take whatever kernel of strength they have—even if it’s smaller than the next person’s—and multiply it until they’re truly powerful. So the best thing we can do for those we perceive to be weak is to show them their weaknesses. Draw the weakness out of them. Hunt for it. Find it. Hang it out for all the world to see.”
Jude considered this, sifting through all the elements of her personality, wondering which ones made her susceptible to attack. She did not want anyone hunting all the private corners of her mind, determining what was weak, stripping her power and might.
“You might think you’re destroying this person, but in reality you’re saving them. You’re preparing them for the task of accessing their own power. And when you save someone in this manner—when you so thoroughly demolish them that they need to become someone new—they are forever in your debt. We call this kill-saving, and it’s the core principle behind Defeat Begets Domination.”
She opened her hands and spread her fingers wide, mimicking fireworks.
“So with all of that in mind, let’s get to the fun part! You all received a pair of scissors. The goal is to kill-save as many of your fellow animals as possible by cutting a piece of their costume—a claw, a tail, an ear. At the end of the Think Is Games you will report back here, at the Power Tower. Your kill-saves will be counted and the most prolific animals will receive their deserved rewards. One more thing: you must hunt alone.”
Jude began to hunt, scissors at the ready. A chameleon napping on a rock didn’t even stir when she hacked off its leathery tongue. She wondered if she knew the kid behind the mask and then reminded herself it didn’t matter; her viciousness made her a savior. Having killed once, she felt the desire stirring again, a savage instinct awaiting her attention and care. In a strange patch of the Island, where the temperature seemed to rise by thirty degrees, she disposed of another chameleon and stole its bug-shaped candy. Near a small stream she pulled the mask from a parrot and trimmed its crest. She yanked a monkey that was not Kat from a tree and hacked off the tip of its tail. She collected a bouquet of rabbit ears. Hours passed. Her stomach growled. She ate the rest of her banana and nuts and the chameleon’s candy. She was so thirsty, she collected her own spit in her palm and drank it. With her scissors, she sliced a hole in her costume so she could piss without having to remove it. The sun changed its own costume of bold yellow for a misty mauve cape. She felt her brain somehow mimicking the sun, descending inside her skull, dimming its lights.
“Kat!” she screamed through her mask. “Violet! Kat!”
She had to keep going. She had to kill-save until the sky was fully black.
Her body temperature dropped but her skin remained sweaty, making her shiver. The path brought her to another rabbit and a scorpion that was not Violet. She preyed upon them all with a dark, secret glee she didn’t know she possessed, a glee that both frightened and excited her, a glee even Kat should never know.
“Kat!” she called again. “Violet!”
“Jude,” came a soft voice.
Jude spun. She didn’t know that voice and didn’t trust it. Or perhaps she did know it, once, before coming to the Island, but being on the Island changed the way her ears processed sound—or maybe the Island itself changed the voice? There was no way to tell what had changed or stayed the same, or what had changed by staying the same. With her scissors she slashed at the voice’s lingering echo.
“Jude,” the voice said again. “If I come out, will you put the scissors down? It’s me, Violet.” The scorpion shimmied out, removed its mask, and executed a slow turn. “See?” Violet said. “Let’s not kill-save each other. Actually let’s not talk about The Plan at all. Deal?”
Jude dropped the scissors and ran to her. She took Violet’s pinchers in her own hands and gave them a soft shake.
“Deal,” she said.
They walked, side by side, through brush and weeds, and spoke about other things: Verona and Jackie and fathers who were long gone; how to make Bloody Mary appear in the mirror; whether or not Meathead was cute (Jude did not confess that she much preferred Gloria); favorite books and song lyrics and poems; what it will be like when they finally make it to the Big House, all of the tenets mastered, everyone envious of their spark and shine.
A stone path opened in the middle of a vast field where daisies—they seemed real, they truly did—bloomed on either side. The crickets ceded their racket to the soft, inquisitive song of the owls. Violet lay down and curled inward and gave Jude a shy command: “Be my roof? Cover me?” Jude arranged her body just so, her paws atop Violet’s claws, her chest pressed against the vertebrae of her scorpion back. She awakened during the night to find that an identical monkey had joined them, her slightly older sister at her back, doing the job of the big spoon.
At the end of the Think Is Games, King Bash and the RonDon tallied the kill-saves and determined that Jude had won. For her reward they told her to pick a friend, and invited her once again into the room behind King Bash’s office, with the crisply made bed and the white umbrella-like contraption and the relentless focus of the camera. While they did their Very Sherry poses, Violet was so close and so bare that, years later, Jude would remember her not as a whole but in tiny parts: the crust of sleep in her left eye; the earlobes like dropped pearls; the fine black hair rising from the goose bumps on her arms; those long, pale fingers, regal as the points of a crown; and, finally, the most private part of her, which Jude longed to touch but did not dare. She hoped Violet’s mastery of the tenets was as strong as her own—that she, like Jude, could interpret the pictures not as a sacrifice but as a gift, a record of the happiest time in their lives.