PHIL

WHEN I EXPRESSED interest in becoming a vital character in the story unfolding in Samsboro, I did not account for the bruises I might sustain upon entering the spotlight.

Certainly, nameless characters die regularly in Hollywood films. The red shirts of Star Trek, the Jane and John Does of crime series.

Yet the maiming of main characters is generally managed with more care. A grave disfigurement often precludes the progression of plot or a character arc. Oedipus limps for a reason, a reason that contributes to solving an unsavory mystery. The loss of Frodo’s finger is symbolic of a loss much greater.

Gus would deem this line of thinking sickening. He has cause to be critical. But like so many storytelling tropes, the idea that injury should serve a purpose comforts me.

I have nursed an invisible injury all my life, longing to find purpose within it.

Garth shoves me into the sidewalk. I see no poetry in it.

I cannot fathom how Garth’s vengeance improves my character.

“ ‘It will have blood they say,’ ” I mutter. “ ‘Blood will have blood.’ ”

I could defer now. Retreat to the family basement, let the lens slip from me.

What says it of my burgeoning humanity that this thought is a brief one? Perhaps it is not humanity but anger that my tongue will tell. It propels me to my feet and through the crowd Garth has torn asunder.

I discover Garth leaning against the railing of Maverick’s patio alongside the remnants of his Gaggle. They pluck fries from abandoned tables.

There’s neither whisper nor whiff of our hero.

“Need something, Phil?” Garth licks salt from his fingers. His disaffection rivals my own on my coldest days, but his is so self-conscious. I think that Garth wishes he lacked a conscience, but cannot quite manage it.

Perhaps my maiming is not a sign of development, but evidence that I remain inconsequential. With Gus and Kalyn in absentia, what director would waste precious moments turning a camera upon Phil Wheeler?

“Guess not.” Garth straightens.

I refuse to revert to empty space. I will not be the body in a basement, the unpleasant reminder that people are not guaranteed good souls when they are born, any more than they are guaranteed eyes or legs or hearts or brains.

If Gus is not here to make meaning of my existence, I must create it myself.

“ ‘Be great in act, as you have been in thought.’ ”

I see in Garth’s eyes a reflection of myself. Except I have aligned myself with underdogs, not monsters. If I hurt him, will it be righteous?

“Where’s Gus?”

Garth looks to his Gaggle. They are more than decorative; they bolster him. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“I’d prefer a rational negotiation.” When we used select video games on rainy days, I chose those with intricate plots. Garth chose those with the most decapitations. He was always captivated by the idea of violence, the shock of it.

“Because you’re frightened?”

The crowd has dispersed, but this patio is an arena. I set my mask on a tabletop. A glass overturns. Ice skitters across its surface. No one moves.

Tell me we aren’t gunslingers. Tell me we aren’t worth watching.

“Garth. Negotiation is preferable to the alternative.”

I know myself. I am well acquainted with my desires and limitations, have spent a lifetime defying and denying them. I can dismantle Garth and feel not the slightest remorse. Any Phil that might regret beating Garth over the head with my helmet died the day he fell off a bicycle.

I wonder if the crowd can smell the tension, as hounds smell an earthquake.

“Okay, Phil. What do you plan to negotiate with? Got knives in your pockets?”

“I’ve never seen you wear those clothes.” Those stripes are wide and ugly.

“Just getting into character.”

“Is it a character, or is it a disguise?”

“Same difference, Wheeler.”

I take one step closer and reach beneath my robes. Garth’s eyes track me. I retrieve my PSP and scrape my finger down the screen for effect. “Have you cleared your internet history of late? Do you believe your disguises there might be mistaken for characters? Wouldn’t that be fortunate for you.”

Garth blinks twice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But I have him. “I think, Garth, that you value yourself more than you value this newfound attention. If the truth is made known, no number of rugby shirts will make you seem decent.”

Garth watches me. On either side of him, Gagglers bear witness. “You don’t have anything on me. You’re full of shit.”

“If you’re certain, and you’ve nothing to hide, I suppose this negotiation is over. You win.” I begin my retreat, willing dramatic timing to indulge me this once—­

“Wait.” Garth is ruffled now. “Fucking wait. He’s with his grandpa. Not exactly news, and there’s jack all you can do about it.”

I put my PSP away. I tuck my helmet beneath my arm. “I see. Thank you.”

Even as I turn away from him, I feel him bubbling over. I prepare for another blow, curling my bruised fist. En garde.

But I do not expect him to swing a patio chair at the back of my head. And when the leg of the chair grazes my skull, my first thought is nonsensical—­

If Garth happened to hit the place I hit all those years ago, could I go back to being a normal, caring creature?

The answer seems to be no, because along with the stinging pain that knocks me into a table while Gagglers cry out, within me rises a rage that spreads from that spot to obscure all of me. It’s as though I’ve sprung a leak in that place, and the container holding the cold reality of what I really am has broken asunder.

Perhaps I am only a red shirt, but that is not the only red part of me. All I see is red, all I feel is red when I whip my helmet against the side of his face.

Garth goes down with a yelp, but the red isn’t finished yet. Perhaps I was never qualified to be an underdog. I have been trying very hard to miscast myself.

Garth gasps; I hit him again, with all my might. Somebody screams, and somebody else grabs the back of my shirt. I hit him again, with the flat of my left palm, but when I raise the helmet again, someone takes hold of my arm.

“Let him go, Phil!” It’s not until she knocks me upside the head that I realize the person hollering at me is Kalyn, the catalyst.

I hit him again, and the pain in my hand mirrors the pounding in the back of my head. Kalyn yells and throws her arm around my neck, pulling me back.

But she’s not the one who ultimately pins my arms—that’s Officer Newton, who separates us in one sweeping motion. All humor is gone from his voice when he hollers profanities at us, kneels on my back, cuffs my hands behind me, and yanks me to standing. Garth groans on the ground, bruised and bloody.

The cuffs are cold, but they don’t shock me. After all these years of trying to be other than what I am, they seem fated. Gus hates the idea of our lives being fictional. He felt certain of the role he would be stuck playing. Why did I never tell him that I felt it was the opposite—in a fiction, we could escape the futures prescribed for us.

“I can’t believe you made me hit you,” Kalyn gasps, glaring at me with tears in her eyes. She has abandoned her robes. Now she wears torn jeans and one of John’s old Gwar T-shirts. “I’ve never had to hit a friend!”

Perhaps it’s the pounding in the back of my skull, or perhaps her fist has loosened my jaw, because I laugh at this.

“What the hell is funny about this, Phil?” she demands.

“You think I’m your friend.”

“I’ll hit you again,” she says, but her gaze wavers.

“You won’t,” Officer Newton growls. He glares at me. “I’m giving you a choice—you go straight to the hospital with this kid, or you go straight to the station.”

I shrug.

“Fuck’s sake, Phil.” Kalyn shakes her head. “You think this is what Gus wants?”

I shrug. With a herculean effort, Kalyn hoists Garth to his feet. It’s clear who the hero is here, and who the victim is, and I know where that leaves me. One of the main players has returned. And I welcome the eclipse.