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History is full of guys who did stupid things for women. Paris started the Trojan War over Helen. Mark Antony abandoned Rome for Cleopatra. John Lennon gave up the Beatles for Yoko Ono. You can say I'm a dreamer, but they're not the only ones. Like my friend Joe Mackenzie: he was about to jump off a five-story building just to impress a girl. "Come
on, you wuss!" Mac's girlfriend Beth yelled. "If you don't
jump off that that tower, you're not getting any more of this!"
She lifted her sweater up over her head, showing her bra and her extraordinary
breasts to Mac, me, Banks, and the five or six other people milling
around Kangaroo Kevin's Bungee Jump-O-Rama in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
They actually inspired a small round of applause. I won't say what they
did to me, but Beth's fun cushions certainly inspired Mac. With a Scottish
war-cry he charged the end of the platform and jumped head first, screaming
all the way down. His kilt opened like a daisy as he fell, and everyone
saw his stamen. |
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"Woooohooooo!" Beth called. "Oh, for the love of Dirk Diggler," I muttered. "Only Mac would go bungee jumping in a kilt without any underwear on." I chose to look at Beth instead. She had covered herself back up, but the image of those perfect breasts was burned into my retinas, like when you look into a light bulb too long and all you see for the next five minutes is the blinding afterglow of the filament. "Get
a good look, Horatio?" Beth asked. "Of Mac, yes. If you could do that sweater thing again though I would very much appreciate it." Bashful
Banks looked away in case Beth took me up on it, which wasn't likely.
Behind us, Mac's screams turned to laughter as he and all his dangling
parts bounded into the air on the bungee cord. Beth proved she could
multi-task, watching Mac bounce and giving me the finger at the same
time. "Not
even if every other boy in the world was covered from head to toe in
zits and back hair," she told me. Beth was
out of my league. She was so far out of my league, in fact, that she
was the New York Yankees and I was the Weehawken 5- and 6-Year-Old Tee-Ball
B Team. She was built like the top half of a lingerie model grafted
onto the bottom half of a ballet dancer. She was also a freshman in
college, and she suffered us high school juniors like a goddess among
the muck-farmers. Beth's dad and Mac's dad were business partners, which
was how they'd met, but beyond his male model good looks I'd never understood
why she dated beneath herself. Mac bungeed
to a stop, and Beth ran to give him his earthly reward. "Man,
would you ever do that?" Banks asked. "Not
even for those marvelous Dolly Partons," I told him. "That
boy is seriously whipped." Banks sighed,
and I wondered if he wasn't thinking right now that he'd be happy to
be whipped if it meant having a girlfriend. Don't get me wrong-Wallace
Banks was a great guy. He was also some distant relative of Mac's, which
automatically let him run around with the king and queen of the Highland
Games. But no amount of being nice or being Mac's second cousin once
removed or whatever could ever really overcome wearing a white button-down
short-sleeve shirt with a pen-filled pocket protector. He was also wearing
a red tartan kilt and matching pompom beret, and just below his pasty
knees he had on white woolen hose held up with ribbons. That we were
in town to attend the Mount Birnam Scottish Highland Games made the
getup somewhat excusable; that Banks wore this outfit on a daily basis
made him a total geek-but a lovable one. Mac came
wobbling up with Beth wrapped around him. She was breathing harder than
he was. "I
can't feel my legs!" he said. "I
think you've lost feeling in your brain too," I told him. "There
is a cushion," Mac said. We'd had this argument twenty minutes
ago. "It was completely safe. They wouldn't let you do it if you
could get hurt!" "Mac,
you signed a waiver that said you wouldn't sue them if you died.
Does that sound completely safe to you? And a four-foot tall inflatable
bag wasn't going to do a whole lot of good if that cord snapped." "You're
just jealous, Horatio. You've got to try it! Woo! What a rush!" Mac's knees
went out from under him and Beth couldn't hold him up. I caught him,
and Banks and I steered him toward a bench while Beth bounced away to
buy him a bottle of water. "The
next time you go bungee jumping in a kilt, wear some underwear, will
you?" I told him. Mac grinned.
"A real Scot wears naught beneath his kilt but a draught, Horatio." "You're
not a real Scot. You were born in Chattanooga." "I'm
Scottish. Besides," Mac said, flicking the end of Banks'
kilt, "Beth likes me freeballing. Better access, you know?" I held
up my hands. "Too much information." Where Banks'
kilt was a fashion disaster, Mac managed to look studly in his skirt.
It was blue and red and he wore it with a t-shirt that had the blue
and white Scottish flag with words "X Marks the Scot" underneath.
And Mac would have eaten haggis before wearing the dorky white socks
and ribbons Banks wore; instead he showed off his tan, muscular legs
in nothing more than a worn pair of hiking boots. But for a short mop
of brown hair instead of long flowing locks he could have doubled for
one of those beefcakes on the cover of a romance novel. "Your
dagger's showing," I told him. Mac frowned
and adjusted himself under his kilt. "Not
your metaphorical dagger, Spartacus. Your literal one." I pointed
at his shoe. The little dagger he wore in his sock had come loose during
the bungee jump. It was a Scottish thing; Banks had one tucked into
his sock too. "Your
Sgian Dubh," Banks told him. "Yeah.
What he said." Mac stuck
the thing back in his sock. "Oh man, was Beth all over me when
they unstrapped me. Just wait 'til tonight at the campground." "Mac,
you're always letting her make you do stupid things," I said. "She's
not making me do anything I don't already want to do." "He's
hooked on Beth Amphetamine," Banks said. "Yeah.
You need to kick the habit." Beth came
prancing up with a bottle of water. "What I need is a little more
Beth," Mac said for her benefit. And his. She sat on his lap with
a twirl of her skirt. Of the
four of us, I was the only one wearing pants. "Gee,"
I said, "maybe someday I'll have a girlfriend who makes me jump
off buildings too." Beth played
with Mac's hair. "One of those people who follows you around is
talking to me again, Mac. Make him go away, will you?" Mac lifted
Beth off his lap and he stood, ignoring our sniping like always. "We've
only got an hour before we need to be up the mountain. What else do
we want to do?" "There's
a Tartan Museum we could go see," said Banks. Beth looked
at him like he had just grown a third eyeball. "We
could maybe set fire to the 'Gooder than Grits' restaurant and hope
it spreads to the rest of this tourist trap hell," I offered. Beth started
hopping up and down. "I want to go back to that fortune-teller's!
The one we passed. What was it called?" "Madame
Hecate's?" I said. "I
want Mac to have his palm read!" Beth sang. "Here,
hold it out and I'll slap it," I told him. He held out his hands
and I tried to smack them and make them red, but he pulled away in time. "I
don't want to go to some stupid psychic," Mac said. "Let's
go get funnel cakes." Beth pressed
her boobs into Mac. "But I want you to have your fortune read,
Mac." "Okay,
okay. We can come down the mountain and hit the Tartan Museum later,"
he told Banks. "And maybe we'll have time for a funnel cake before
we go back. Right now we'll do Madame Hoodoo or whatever." Beth took
Mac by the arm and pulled him away. "Meow,"
Banks said. I made
a sound like a whip cracking and we followed along down the strip. Pigeon
Forge sits like a scar in the earth, a gaping, brightly-colored wound
festering in the Smoky Mountain sun. It's not a town; it's an eight
lane abomination of go-cart tracks, mini-golf courses, and comedy barns,
peopled with Elvis impersonators and neon orange fiberglass gorillas.
The dappled green mountains in the background occasionally threaten
to reclaim Pigeon Forge and engulf it like kudzu, but at the last minute
some new developer will add another outlet mall or country music theater
or pancake house and beat back the horrible darkness. We found
Madam Hecate's Psychic Readings wedged in between a funnel cake stall
and an airbrush t-shirt hut. A sign in the window said, "Palms
Read While You Wait." Mac pushed
his way inside and a bell tinkled, I suppose so Madame Hecate wouldn't
have to waste any of her considerable psychic talents on predicting
our arrival. The little room was decorated in a combination of Late
Victorian and Pier One. The walls were covered with old black and white
portraits in gilded frames, and funky beaded lampshades draped with
red handkerchiefs did what little they could to give the place some
atmosphere. A plug-in fountain spewing clouds of dry ice bubbled in
the corner, and in the center of the room stood a small table where
it looked like someone had been playing Solitaire with tarot cards. "Excellent!"
said Beth. Something
brushed my leg and I nearly jumped. "That
is Graymalkin, my, how you say? Familiar," said a voice. She slid
her hand back down the doorframe then suddenly jerked it away. "Ach!" "What's
wrong?" Beth asked. The woman
sucked a finger. "It is nothing. A splinter. I prick my thumb." "Too
bad she didn't see that coming," I muttered. "Who
comes to see Madame Hecate?" At her
invitation we sat in folding chairs around the table, and Mac gave her
our names. "'Horatio'
your name is?" she said after I'd been introduced. "Seriously,"
I told her, "you of all people do not want to go there." "I
want you to read Mac's palm," Beth told her. "Is
twenty dollars for full reading," said Madame Hecate. I snorted,
but Beth already had a twenty out on the table. I shook my head. P.T.
Barnum was still right. In the
only real magic she was going to perform that day, Madame Hecate palmed
the twenty and made it disappear. Then she took Mac's hand in her own
and began tracing the lines on his palm. "Ah,
yes, your fate line is strong," she said. "Very strong. But
here-the heart and head line are fused. You think and act at same time,
yes?" "That's
true!" said Beth. "He's very impulsive." "Ah,"
she said. "And I see you are here for . . . some kind of festival.
A competition." "Well,
kind of, yeah," Mac said. "The
. . . Highland Games?" she asked. "What
gave it away," I asked, "the kilts or the funny hat?" "Hey,"
Banks said. "A
festival, yes, but you are not competing?" "I
didn't make the clan team," Mac confessed. I had to
admit, the woman's act was good. She certainly had Mac, Beth and Banks
snowed. They watched her work Mac's palm like she was revealing the
hidden secrets of the universe. "But
make the team you will," she told him. "And not only will
you compete, you will win!" "You
mean the Highland Decathlon? I win it?" "You're
not even in it," I reminded him. To Hecate I said, "He missed
the cut." "For
you, fate is sealed. You will compete, and you will win," Hecate
said, ignoring me again. "And you will be king of the mountain!" Beth gasped
in delight and hugged Mac around his shoulders. "What
about me?" asked Banks. He reached into his sporran-a traditional
Scottish waist pouch that was the ancestor of the fanny pack-and pulled
out another twenty. "Oh,
not you too," I said. Banks blushed
and shrugged, but he still handed over an Andy Jackson. Madame
Hecate took his palm and gave it the same treatment. Oh, she
was good all right. That had been a complete guess, but it was spot
on. "The
bagpipes," Banks offered. "I play the bagpipes. There's this
really important tournament, and the winner gets-" "You
are lesser than your friend, but greater," Madame Hecate told him.
"I see you not so happy, yet much happier." Banks frowned.
"I don't-" "While
that one will be king of mountain, it is you who will own mountain." "Me?"
Banks asked. "Own Mount Birnam you mean?" For all
the laughing they'd done about coming here, Mac and Banks were deadly
serious now. Beth crossed her arms and frowned. "Is
all I see." She turned to me. "I read your fortune, Horatio?" I loaded
up a short laugh with derision and disbelief and let her have it. "Right,"
I said. "Let me guess. You see a crease bisecting my life line,
which means I'll soon have some kind of big test or trial. And when
I get to this great, vague, unnamed challenge, I should just listen
to my heart, right?" She took
my palm in her hand and I rolled my eyes. I got a cold shiver though,
like the temperature in the room had just dropped ten degrees. I tried
not to let anybody see me shake. "Heart
line is strong, yes, but head line is stronger. You think, think, think,
which is good," she told me. "But this time you will listen
too much to heart. It is head you must learn to hear again." She was
right about me thinking too much. I almost started to believe she had
some kind of power, then shook it off. Of course she knew I used
my head more than my heart-I'd been the only one playing the skeptic.
As for the cold shiver, she'd probably turned up the air conditioning
when she heard us come in. "I
hope you're not expecting to get paid for that one," I told her. "No.
That one is free," she told me. "But you will be back. Then
you will pay me." "Right,"
I said. "Don't bet on it." We sat
through Beth's fortune-something vague about having gall for milk and
a snake under a flower-and the mystic rose from the table. "Madame
Hecate is tired now. Must, how you say? Recharge batteries." "Wait,
how do you know I'll-" Mac started to ask, but Madame Hecate disappeared
into the next room. "Happy
now?" I asked them. "Sixty bucks for five minutes of flimflam.
The next time you jokers want somebody to blow hot air up your kilts,
let me know. I'll be happy to take your money." Mac gave
Banks a punch in the arm. "Hey cousin, you're going to own the
mountain!" It woke
Banks up and he smiled. "And, you're going to be king of the games!" "And
I'm going to be queen," Beth said. "Right,"
I said. "Which is all just about as likely as me wearing a kilt." They chuckled,
but I could tell they didn't think it was funny. As we climbed into
the car for the trip up the mountain, I saw Beth squeeze Mac's hand
and pull him down to whisper in his ear. Something wicked. ______________________________________________ Excerpted
from Something Wicked by Copyright
© 2008 by |
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