With his tomahawk firmly clenched above his head, Patrick takes a deep breath (failed campaign coup #1 part b.)

 

With his tomahawk firmly clenched above his head, Patrick takes a deep breath. He can now hear Coach M.'s voice reverberate and thud across the gymnasium floor with a wallowing echo. A hundred meters ahead of him Von B and DeJuan are removing the panels behind one of the many trophy cases and slinking down into the cryptobyrinth to plant the ammunition, consisting of mostly cherry bombs and fireworks soaked mostly in gasoline overnight, laced with a thick armor of black cats. Patrick mischievously grins to himself thinking of Coach M.’s expression when the front of the stage suddenly explodes and his stash of NIKE Cirrus X drip like a leaky roof over the gymnasium floor.

 

“Finance this motherfucker!” Pat thinks. The congregation is laughing. Coach M is pointing to the screen, ready to point at the vertical blueprints and show this congregation just what they are getting for their neighbors and non-athlete’s covetous dollar. Pat still doesn’t want to see the look on his mom’s face when he and most of his friends arrive at the Honda dressed like they have just gotten back from trick-or-treating in Saigon Hell before Patrick visualizes telling Mama Bear to step on the gas and not look back. Hopefully Hale, who vehemently insists that he can too haul ass outside of his once a year annual autumnal streak will not lag  far behind.

 

Patrick can hear the electronic screen drop down from the top of the ceiling in little whizzes. Warren claims that one time when his eldest son got in trouble for mentioning the word evolution in class, having to stay after and compose GOD MADE ADAM AND EVE NOT ADAM AND STEVE on the chalk board three-hundred and sixteen times in King James font, Warren went in to give Coach M. both a piece of his mind as well as cliff notes to Origin of Species—Warren claims that Coach M was showing giant close-ups of CLS Mardi Gras madness, seeing what the craziest thing Karen Pinesol would do for a set of beads.

 

Twirling his tomahawk again, Patrick holds his breath. In a blink the lights blackout and even before he enters the gym he can hear Lynnford Collins screaming out loud, at the top of his lungs, trilling for Terrence, Coach M. to stop petting his corn dog in public, bog boy.

 

There is commotion. Marcellus Buck’s father is heard grousing about the mutherfucking power going out. Patrick knows this is his cue, only he feels frozen, paralyzed as he clutches the tomahawk by its wooden neck.

 

“Shit. For the love of God Patrick, move!” The voice is that of Hale’s behind him. Two little intonations of pecker accompanies his mandate. Patrick remembers the advice that Old Crazy Hoof gave him, for a quick scalp; try not to look the victim in the lids of his eyes. A clean, quick swipe to the forehead is all that’s needed.

 

“Pecker, Pecker.”

 

“Shit.” Thinks Patrick, clutching his instrument of vindication as he soars into the gym just as Lynford's screams, telling Coach M to zip that bad boy back up, the real party is just around the corner and down the tunnel of love, sweetheart. Momentarily forgetting that his task is simply to set the screen ablaze Patrick rips into the gymnasium, his bladed-limb wrecking a path of havocking pain. Lynnford continues to scream. Patrick is at the front of the bleachers when Coach M yells out for somebody near the front of the stage to operate the emergency power unit.

 

“Shit!” Patrick thinks as he approaches the podium in looming darkness flicking the switch on his Zippo when rafts of light preponderate into deep swells of darkness.

 

“Fuck!!!” Patrick yells as the bottom of the screen banners north into a screen of smoke. He tosses the Zippo down, watches as Lynnford jets into the emergency side door. He can only hope and surmise that Von B and DeJuan have successfully ignited the ammunition—igniting the stage back to Kingdom come; only hoping, at the formative age of eleven, to change the world.

 

The rose emergency light casts elongated shadows across the congregational foreheads—displaying to Patrick what appears to be a Mountain range of tint splattered across the mural of Jesus twirling the globe on his pointer finger like a basketball.

 

Patrick, looks both ways on the podium and freezes when someone from the crowd yells out that it’s a fuckin’ injun. Patrick quickly tucks his tomahawk behind his belt, looking in the direction of Lynnford’s escape route only to be halted. A tight vein squeezes from his neck. With vision momentarily skewed Patrick makes out Coach M.’s Nike Florsheim’s as he is being dragged now, being removed from the stage in the manner of a vaudeville performer being reeled from the cone light, caught in the wooden hook of a giant horizontal shepherd’s staff.

 

“Ughhh” Patrick groans, waggling side to side trying to catch a hint of it as Coach M addresses him as Squanto that he kneel. Patrick can feel the almost leathery rash of the microphone cord as it loops around his neck. The gloss sheen of Coach M’s Florsheims appears to be headed for the miniature guillotine—the place of termination where each teams visiting mascot is beheaded after each Comet Victory.

 

“Shit!” Coughs Patrick. Coach M is saying something to the ends of when are you people gonna learn that this was our country even before we stepped foot on it. He can feel a wetness pad the side of his head. A shirt he speculates most have at one time belonged to Lillian Wiltz before it was doused with baptismal water by Reverend Morningwood.

 

Patrick can hear Coach M clearing his throat before announcing to the crowd that, unlike his own personal mentor, Pilate, he doesn’t wish to wash his hands of anything at all; he wishes merely to crucify the convicted redskin.

 

Patrick is having trouble seeing and hearing. He gags. Another hand is forcefully shoving his head down, in between the lock of the guillotine. Patrick would close his eyes only Coach M is choking his neck too tight. Every time Patrick waggles his head and coughs, Coach M kicks him in his side with what feels like a spur.

 

Bobbing through various degrees of vertigo Patrick hears the plosive gush of the fire extinguishers brush behind him, extinguishing the flames on the screen. Coach M warbles something which sounds to Patrick like an invitation for him to join the eternal Buffalo hunt in the sky. He hears the crowd chanting and the rickety screech of the blade being hoisted above him.

 

“So this is how death arrives.” Patrick thinks, his eyes still propped open. “Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a fucking guillotine.”

 

Before Patrick blanks out his ears register a blaring rip and sneakers rain down on every side of him. Coach M slowly looses his grip and, after several throaty coughs, Patrick sees Hale coming towards him, through the mists of smoke, brandishing a claw that looks to Patrick like a golden question mark as Hale hoists Patrick up, informing his dear friend that this was boom number one, we need to get the fuck out of here before…

 

The lower level of the stage explodes, vomiting forth-crusty raiment’s that looks like baking powder. Little clouds sifting in proud clusters. Patrick can feel Hale tugging him, telling him to go this way. Patrick is still gulping for breath, still eagerly endeavoring to inhale, still coughing. Pain surges into a burn mark around the contour of his neck. 

Come on!” Orders Hale. “This way!”

 

“Pecker! Pecker!”  Patrick hears, before he thinks about Chet’s nuts roasting over a nice little inferno called Hell. Still more smoke. Patrick feels like he is in a cloud. His vision slants into purple slashes.

 

“Patrick,” Hale’s voice again is heard. Another explosion seems to take place. This one shaking Patrick to his knees. More clouds of exhaust rip through him. He is shaking his head, his first cognitive complete thought being that it looks like he was able to sip his tea and chug it too.

 

Turning around, Patrick sees Hale dragging him with his claw. Yelling at him to hurry up. Telling Patrick that we have to move.

 

As Patrick accosts Hale he sees empty sockets of ashes white with no lips to his smile. The skull seems to be cackling as Patrick runs into it. Hale is trying to explain to Patrick that this is not what it seems before another explosion transpires and Patrick is thrown out of the building completely. He finds himself resting on Hale’s broad shoulder’s coughing, hoping for an exchange of air.

 

“What the…” Patrick moans, his eyelids peeled back into his skull.

 

“Don’t worry, I got you.” Add Hale. “Just next time, don’t take fucking forever to take a shit.”

 

Patrick sees Hale’s feet hauling ass across the dugout in Logan field and the next thing he knows he is being shoved into the backseat of his the Honda, his mom asking what happened at school, hoping none of the boys were hurt in the explosion from the costume party.

 

“Drive,” Patrick orders, barely able to open the roof of his eyelids. His sense of smell is slowly beginning to come back to him. He can smell the citrus twang to Lynnford’s perfume and can hear DeJuan talking like John Wayne, his mom woozing after every sentence. Von Behren sits next to DeJuan in the front seat, explaining to Misses McReynolds that the Varsity Elite truly got a kick out of the boys’ Cowboys and Indian gig, looking around and asking Lynnford isn’t that right.

 

“I believe you mean Cowgirls, sweetheart.” Lynnford says, cracking his wrist slightly at Von Behren.

 

As Mama Helen swerves the chock-full station wagon on to Western Patrick hears the bellowing screech of police sirens. Helen inquires what the hell just happened in there and Hale tries to explain that after the talent show, Coach M decided to blow up the stage to make room for the art of basketball. Helen shrugs, chewing, saying that sure as hell sounds like something the Coach might do.

 

Patrick can still smell Hale’s broad’s shoulders in front of him. The parrot appears to be missing. He blinks several times, adjusts his tomahawk in his back pocket, looking at the skull Hale has seated like a jack-o-lantern between his feet. After swallowing two more times and coughing, he hears DeJuan shut the door, thanking Mrs. McReynolds once again in his John Wayne monotone, for a simple memorable round up.

 

 

“Oh, De-Juan.” Helen blushes.

 

For reasons Patrick has yet to properly understand, every time DeJuan comes over to the house his mother blushes and nods her head in a rushed aura of excitement saying DeJuan’s first name like how Mrs. Cunningham talks about Fonzie on Happy Days.

Several times he has even tried to get DeJuan to wear Amy’s Thriller jacket, the one with all the zippers, jut his thumbs up in the air and go “Aaaaaa-aaaaaaay” whenever he struts into the McReynolds kitchen, just to see what his mom’s reaction would be. When Patrick proposed this idea, DeJuan once again pip-pipped, informing Patrick that this whole thumb bit rubbish means something entirely different altogether in his jolly good England patois.

 

  The skull seems to be winking at Patrick. Mom McReynolds is clotheslining through all of West Peoria, not wondering why fire trucks rush past her, in the direction of the school. Mrs. McReynolds empties the kids out at Haddads, saying that they’re free to either hang out in the Honda while she goes inside to get a pot roast butchered or to Hoof it back home to Downs Circle. Hale gently shoves Patrick out of the Honda, picking up the skull. Patrick looks around, seeing his mother’s back as she slams the car door shut and thumps inside the store.

 

A feeling of relished victory permeates through the troops. Von Behren’s headdress is completely annihilated. He tries giving Lynford a complicated gangster handshake, until Lynford smiles, informs Von B that he forgot to give his third hand in the basement a hug as well. Patrick nods looks around, pads the side of his pocket, inquires if any of his friends have a cigarette before saying go figure.

 

“Patrick,” Von Behren voice perks up. “What the fuck took you so long in there?”

 

“Honey, look at you. You look like you sat down on the wrong end of the totem pole tonight, sugah.” Lynnford comments. Hale remains quiet. Von Behren tosses a half-burnt toed Nike Icarus X from his back pocket. Downs Circle is just two blocks away. Super solvent sounds like a necessity rather than a thirst quencher.

 

“Suck it up.” Hale says, before spitting. “You’ll be alright.

 

Patrick inhales, still speechless. He cannot believe the mission actually worked. Lynnford is adjusting the Asian thing on his head nodding to the Heading Avenue sisters as they strut by, chanting a rosary, free spirited, inquiring if they by chance happen to have any lip balm on them, sister.

 

It feels like autumn. Patrick points at the skull. Hale says that it’s something they can all talk about later, after he goes upstairs and shits, showers and shaves, people.

 

On the corner where the Moore's used to live, Patrick smells smoke and sees Old Crazy Hoof performing some kind of dance, squatting periodically, yelling out at the boys, calling them warriors.

 

“Shit,” Adds Von Behren, looking at Crazy Hoof ululating introits, lulling out ancient drones. Patrick clears his throat, spits in the fashion that DeJuan was doing throughout the day. Adjusting his waist, Patrick removes Crazy Hoof’s tomahawk and hands it back to him.

 

“Sorry chief.” Patrick says. “I failed. I fucking failed. I wasn’t quick enough. The moment I should have initiated an all out bludgeon fest I froze. I fucking froze.” Patrick says, offering the wedged blade to his mentor while bowing on one knee, half-expecting Old Crazy Hoof to snatch the blade out from his palm and say that no man is a failure who tries. He almost expects him to tap his foot up and down and demand to know where the scalp is at.

 

But no, Crazy Hoof continues to stamp his feet up and down, chanting, stoic lipped and completely unfazed.