Hendo came to the library more after that, which helped me forget about Marxy, who hung out with Sarah-Beth at the Community Center and held her hand and sometimes kissed her.
Every time I saw them I acted like I did not care. He was not my boyfriend anymore. Sarah-Beth ate her hair and her jokes were dumb and she could not figure out how to cash a check at the bank. Hendo was smarter than Marxy, and I thought about kissing him instead.
Hendo liked to read books about war and even Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings. He asked me what my favorite book was and I told him it was Kepple’s.
He knew all the Viking words right away, unlike Marxy, who was always getting things like góðan dag wrong. He even liked my Words of Today, and whenever we talked at the library he would use them. For example, one day we were talking about Bruce Lee, a famous kung fu fighter, and Hendo said, “He was pretty indefatigable in battle,” and indefatigable was my Word of Today and even though I had only mentioned it to Hendo once, he remembered the word and how to use it and also put it in a sentence.
Carol had started calling Hendo “the Swan,” even though I hated when she called him that.
In legends this is the most boring part, where everyone is happy. Sometimes when I forgot about Marxy I was so happy, especially being around Hendo, though alone in my bedroom I would cry and think about Marxy.
When Hendo and I hung out we did not go to his house or my house. We mostly were at the library, or McDonald’s, or the coffee shop across the street from the library. He asked me about Vikings a lot, and about Gert and Mom and AK47. He reminded me of Dr. Laird, who was not very good-looking like Hendo but always asked lots of questions.
Gert and AK47 noticed I wasn’t so sad. Gert said I wasn’t moping around. AK47 asked me if there was someone new in my life. I told them I was just happy that they were together, and that we were a tribe and I had a job and Gert was going to go back to school.
One day Hendo told me that he and Gert did not get along. “We’re both alpha dogs.” That meant that both Hendo and Gert thought they were the most impressive warriors. “But we can still be friends,” he said. “Right?”
I told him we could.
Hendo was my secret who belonged to nobody else, and he made me happy. When you are too happy the villains strike because your guard is down. In the Saga of Beowulf, for example, which is the most famous legend, Hrothgar and his wife, Wealhtheow, and all of the Vikings are happy and singing, which makes Grendel, the villain of the legend, very angry, because he is not happy and is jealous. Hrothgar and the other Vikings forget that even when everything is peaceful, a Viking must be “vigilant” (Word of Today) and constantly on the lookout for villains, who like to attack during peacetime, especially when people are sleeping and cannot defend themselves. The worst part about Grendel is that he actually eats people while they are asleep.
The villains came while I slept, just like when Grendel came for Hrothgar and the other Vikings.
I woke up because they were using loud swearwords and smoking, something that was not allowed in the apartment. The voices did not belong to Gert or AK47, which meant that we were being invaded, just like Grendel invaded the hall where Hrothgar and his wife and Vikings were celebrating. A shameful thing is being a coward. When the voices woke me up, I felt very afraid and pretended to sleep, which is something a coward does.
Then I understood that I had to protect my tribe from whoever was in the apartment.
“You can do this,” I heard the voice of Odin saying in my brain, and then I heard my mother’s voice agreeing with Odin. “Protect the hearth,” her voice said to me. In my brain I told them I would not let them down.
I took my alarm clock from beside my bed and prepared to throw it. Normally a Viking would take out his sword when it came time to protect the home, but my sword was under my bed and I did not want to risk alerting the enemy by getting it out.
I opened my bedroom door carefully and stuck my head around the corner. The voices continued talking. The hallway floor was louder than the floor in my bedroom to step on, so I had to move very slowly, one toe at a time, in order to stay quiet and sneaky. I also pressed my back against the wall in the hallway as I moved to be invisible, combining my Viking skills with the skills of a ninja, since I wanted to have the element of surprise.
I moved closer to the living room until I could see light from the lamp shining on the carpet. My heart thumped and in my brain I counted to ten, closing my eyes only a little bit so that I would not have my eyes closed and could defend myself if someone decided to attack.
One… two… three…
When I got to four, the toilet flushed, and I realized that one of the villains was in the bathroom. This is called a “tactical error” because I did not check to make sure nobody was behind me before moving forward. Hendo taught me the expression and said that Hitler invading Russia during winter was a tactical error too.
I realized that I was stuck between two villains and it was too late for me to get back into my bedroom.
I froze and did not know whether to run forward into the living room to defeat the villains there, or to face the villain in the bathroom.
The bathroom door opened and the villain who came out was doing up the zipper of his pants. It was the Fat Man. He stared at me and froze too. He made the same “tactical error” I had made, and since I had made it first I was more ready.
It was time to act.
I yelled the traditional Viking battle cry, “Tyr!,” which is the name of the god of war, and charged forward, and threw the alarm clock.
He said, “WHAT THE FUCK,” and put up his hands. The alarm clock hit him in the stomach and bounced on the ground, and before I could defeat him with a crushing blow he grabbed my wrist and said, “Calm the hell down.” Then the Fat Man grabbed my other arm.
I tried to squirm free and then he brought me to the living room with one arm around my stomach, picking up the alarm clock on the way with his other arm.
“Fuck-dick!” I shouted.
Gert was standing in the living room. Toucan was also there, and they were standing over a gym bag and lots of papers and baggies. There was also money on the table, and beers.
“I found her in the hallway,” the Fat Man said.
“Come here, Zelda,” Gert said, and at first the Fat Man wouldn’t let me go. Then Gert said, “If you don’t let her go, I’ll break your arm,” and the Fat Man looked at Toucan, who nodded and said, “She’s cool. You’re cool, right?”
So the Fat Man let me go.
“Sorry,” the Fat Man said. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she went apeshit and threw this at me.” He held up the alarm clock.
Everyone laughed, even Gert, who isn’t supposed to laugh at me, no matter what. I gave him THE LOOK and he stopped laughing, then I rubbed my arm where the Fat Man had been holding me.
“Fuck-dick.” I asked Gert what was going on. “Why is there all this stuff? And why is Toucan here? Does AK47 know?”
“Nothing is going on,” Gert said. “Go back to bed, okay?” He told Toucan that everything was fine. “She probably just had bad dreams. Right?”
“What is AK47?” Toucan asked. “Like the gun?”
“They shouldn’t be here,” I said. I pointed at Toucan. “Especially him. You said you weren’t going to be part of his tribe anymore.”
“Is that true?” Toucan said to Gert. “I’m hurt.”
“Zelda,” Gert said. “Bed. Now.”
Toucan sat on the couch and patted it next to him. “You.” He pointed at me. “Come. Sit. We need to have a conversation.”
I didn’t want to sit down next to Toucan. A lot of Gert’s friends were scary, but I never worried that they were scarier than Gert, who could be the scariest person on the planet. Gert acted like he was scared of Toucan.
Gert said I should go to bed, but Toucan said not yet.
Gert nodded at me, so I sat down on the couch. Gert also sat down, and on the other side of me was Toucan. The Fat Man didn’t sit down. He leaned against the counter and lit a cigarette.
“You didn’t see the house rules?” Toucan said to him, pointing at the sign near the door. “Take it out on the balcony if you’re going to smoke.”
The Fat Man tipped his head with the cigarette still in his mouth. “Seriously?”
“Very seriously. You don’t like smoke, do you, Zelda?”
“No,” I said. “Not even Gert is allowed to smoke in the house.”
Toucan pointed at the balcony window. “You heard her.”
The Fat Man took himself and his cigarette out to the balcony and shut the door. Toucan put his arm around me, which I hated, since he was not a member of our tribe.
“So, you know that everything that has to do with me has to do with your brother, which means it has to do with you. I have your brother help me out with some things. In exchange, I pay him. That’s what capitalism is.”
“Capitalism,” I said.
“I give you money, you give me goods and services.” He watched the Fat Man on the balcony with his cigarette. He was leaning over the edge and letting ash fall down. “So this is very important. I need to know I can trust Gert, and part of that is knowing I can trust you. Can I trust you?”
His arm was squeezing my shoulders so hard that it was starting to hurt. It reminded me of Uncle Richard on the couch, except Toucan’s grip was stronger. When I tried to wriggle free, he didn’t let go.
“Gert,” I said. “He’s hurting me.”
“Can I trust you?” Toucan repeated.
“You can trust her,” Gert said. “Can you relax?”
“I want her to say it,” Toucan said.
Now Toucan’s squeezing made me feel tiny. I felt like I was about to pop, like a balloon. “You can trust me,” I said, and Toucan let me go. He stood up and smiled, and Gert stood up too.
“All right,” he said. “It was nice to see you again, Zelda.”
The Fat Man knocked on the glass of the sliding balcony window. Toucan nodded and the Fat Man came back inside, throwing the cigarette on the balcony before stepping on it.
“Time to go,” Toucan said. “Gert, walk us down.”
He turned and walked out with the Fat Man behind him. Gert said, “I’ll be right back, just sit right there,” before following them.
Gert was gone for ten minutes. My shoulders hurt and when I pulled my sleeve up I could see the skin was red, like a bruise that was waiting to happen.
Then I saw that I had peed myself. I didn’t notice at first. But between my legs, and the couch under my butt, was wet and getting cold.
Gert came back with a new Reebok gym bag and shut the door. He saw me sitting on the couch, and my wet pants. And I was crying, which made me feel even worse.
I hadn’t wanted to cry in front of Toucan. Now I could cry, so I did. I had peed myself and was crying. Gert put the bag down. He ran over and lifted me up.
“I’m sorry I peed on the couch,” I said, and Gert put me over his shoulder, the way parents hold their kids.
He brought me to the bathroom and put me down. “Get out of those clothes. I’ll bring you some new stuff, okay? They’ll be outside the bathroom door. Get changed.”
In the shower, I thought about how stupid I was, peeing myself in front of Gert, in front of Toucan, who was a shit-heel that I didn’t want to be afraid of. But I was afraid of him. When I came out, Gert was in the living room, with a spray bottle of soap and a bucket of water. The couch cushions that I’d accidentally peed on were by the door.
That night I couldn’t sleep. The person I wanted to talk to, whose voice I wanted to hear, was Hendo. I had taken his phone number from the library computer and had it in my phone. Going under the covers, I called him.
“Who is this?” Hendo said.
“It’s me.”
“Me who? Oh.” He coughed into the phone. “Man, what time is it?”
I looked at the clock and told him the time, which was 1:32 a.m. He asked me what was going on. I first made him promise he would not tell anyone.
“Yeah, fine. Just let me get back to bed.”
I told him everything that happened—Toucan, the Fat Man, and Gert. The only thing I left out was peeing myself. It was gross and very unsexy. Hendo listened for a while and when I was finished he asked if there was anybody else there.
I said no. “Unless they were hiding.”
“What were they talking about?”
“I don’t know. Toucan just said ‘capitalism.’ ”
Hendo said he had no idea what that meant. “Did Toucan give Gert anything?”
“There was his gym bag and beer and cigarettes, which are not allowed.”
“Did Toucan take the bag or leave it with Gert?”
I rubbed my eyes. I did not know why he was asking. Hendo said to think, that it was important, and then I asked him why it was important and he said nevermind, which I did not like.
“Sorry,” Hendo said. “I know you don’t like it when people say that to you. Accept my apology?”
“Okay,” I said. “I think he left the gym bag.”
Hendo asked if I was working the next day, and I said I was. Hendo told me he would pick me up and we could talk it over in the car. “Okay? Right now I need to get some sleep.”
“Can you talk a little longer? I like hearing your voice.”
“Tomorrow,” Hendo said.
I hung up and threw the phone at the bed. It bounced up and onto the ground.