The most incredible thing in the world I saw that night? It wasn’t Abraham Lincoln, who I saw on video feed from a camera looking down on a Midway game. Looking down, not on something that happened in the past. No sir. I was looking at something that most was happening here and now…just a wee bit to the left in another part of electron space. Simple, easy does it, quite straightforward to hear Ellen tell it. And it was, truly, the most fascinating thing I had ever seen in my life to that point.
But, like I said, it came in second to what Ellis did.
It was well after midnight, after the fireworks, even, when we popped out of the tunnels near the Haunted Factory. The park was emptying out. It had been a long day for me, and I thought we’d end it on a distraction. So into the Factory we went. The Locker Room of the Lost played its usual desperate wails from doomed workers. The Sepulchral Supervisor handed out our Last Time Cards. We punched the cards and were admitted to our mine car-inspired trams. We wound our way past the Fournier of Fear, where workers on a conveyor belt were dismembered and reassembled. Up and down a steep drop into the dreaded basement Machine Shop. Screaming and hollering as if we’d never been here before.
“I love going without the live action,” Ellen said. Carnaval Midway had cut back on that after a stunt that didn’t work out so well. “Just the old stuff, the childhood memories.”
“If I haven’t said it before, you have had the most bizarre childhood in history,” I said.
“To us, it was very boring. Until you came along,” Ellis said, smiling sweetly. We groaned and gagged. Ellis deserved it. I mean, sometimes he was a bit sugary…but it all rolled off his back as usual.
It was really time to go. I’d pushed my time limit quite a bit; no question I’d be sleeping on the way home. So isn’t it always the case when you’re trying to hustle…we ran right into a line of maintenance cones, ushering us the long way behind the main row of bathrooms.
Behind? We pinned between the concrete wall and the ivy-covered fence.
“Look,” Ellis said, gesturing to our right.
Oh, I saw them. In the lead was Fat Guy, the kids’ Carnaval Midway nemesis. There was one with no sense of humor, for sure. He was flanked by…this made no sense…two much younger late-twenties tough chicks next to him. They weren’t his dates, though. He was leading them.
“I am so sick of you kids,” Fat Guy said. “And tonight is the night.”
Ellis stepped in front of us, as everyone must’ve known he would do. But he pushed us to the bathroom building wall. Something was behind us.
“I know you’re there,” Ellis said quietly.
His voice was like a bag of ice cubes poured down the back of your shirt. It got him some giggles from the girls, a gloating sound from Fat Guy, and absolutely no noise at all from the two guys you knew had to be there.
They emerged from one of the bathrooms. They stepped right into our path of escape.
At first I was puzzled. I mean, was this for real? Fat Guy was a grown man with a serious job, if you didn’t laugh at his pinstriped shirt. Really, had he recruited these morons to teach us a lesson?
Ellen looked unconcerned. I looked right at Fat Guy. Ellis’s presence gave me a bit of courage I wouldn’t normally have.
“This can’t possibly be worth it to you,” I said. “I mean, really?”
“They are all quite serious,” Ellis said.
Oh, wow, I got it. I just hadn’t been watching. Fat Guy not only was serious, he’d been thinking about this for a long time. I took another look at the Thugs and Thugettes he’d brought with him. Okay, I fully expected Ellis could beat any one guy, maybe two, but there were four of them and the guys…they looked like they’d been hand-picked to be a really bad match for Ellis.
They were no marginal creeps, not like the Future Inmate types the twins hustled. Their regular job had to be moving furniture. And they were the size of refrigerators, almost as tall as Ellis. Their thickness, leather jackets on top of a layer of blubber on top of heavy muscling. Immovable. Ellis’s quickness and finesse wasn’t going to be useful here.
Thug One and Thug Two. Sweaty and heavily tattooed. Fat Guy had actually paid them, let them come into Carnaval Midway, to…beat us up, I guess.
Or maybe just scare us, I hoped. Maybe he just wanted to see us get scared and cry, or something. Fat Guy spoke up, giving me some hope
“You-you two…you’ve been pulling your shit for years. Don’t think I don’t know. Do you know how much you’ve cost me?”
“Uh, no,” I said. “How much?”
“Management says the Midway games have lost one hundred ninety-two dollars in prizes this year alone.” His sense of outrage was something we were clearly supposed to appreciate.
“Wait,” Thug One said. “This is about a few hundred bucks?”
“It’s a lot more than that,” Fat Guy said a bit shrilly.
“Listen,” Ellen said. “Have you even stopped to think how much more revenue comes in because we encouragepeople to pay? Think about it. These prizes are really just worthless – ”
“Shut up,” Thugette One said. “She’s mine. I hate brainy kids.”
“I’ll take the pretty little Chicana,” the other one said. She snorted, well, kinda like a pig.
“I’m not so sure about this,” Thug One said. “You didn’t say they were little kids.”
“You’ve been paid,” Fat Guy said quietly. “And you’ll get more. Fat Guy had said the magic word. “No marks on them.” The Thugs nodded.
“And, listen, he’s a freak,” Fat Guy added. “Do not underestimate him.”
That made all four of them laugh. I could see why. We were just kids. Ellis was hardly small, but they couldn’t see him as anything but a pretty rich kid they could snap in half.
Fat Guy started to leave. “Don’t hurt the girls,” he said, then laughed. “Too much.”
“Hey.” Ellis said sharply to Fat Guy. It was a command. Ellis’s His voice had a weird, kinda alarming tone. Fat Guy smiles.
“Yeah, kid?”
“I don’t ever want to see you again after tonight,” Ellis said. “Never.”
“Fuck you, kid,” the man said. “I work here.”
“That’s fine,” Ellis said. “Just don’t let me see you.”
“Jesus,” Fat Guy muttered. “You see? A freak. And not too bright.”
“Yeah, and too much for you,” Thug Two said. “You just take off. We’ll deal with it.”
The Thugs didn’t like the job, but the Thugettes were grinning. Guys often don’t really understand it, but girls can really hate other girls.
“No,” Ellis said. “You stay. Don’t go.”
That got the Thugs looking pissed off for the first time. Now I was getting a bit scared. They didn’t need to be quick. There were two of them. All that bulk on top of big bones.
“Ellis,” Ellen said. She sounded concerned, but not like I was. “Don’t.” Another round of giggles. It was a bad look on Thugs One and Two. Then they got very serious, very quickly.
Ellis was advancing on them. Not fast, not slow, but definitely like he had not a care in the world.
Well, the Thugs were not slow. Not at all. They had very mean, unpleasant knives out before I could blink. They were as quick as Ellis, I thought. But Ellis wasn’t being quick. He was deliberate.
Ellis moved. He closed the distance and had his long fingers on their forearms, just below the elbow. He gripped them, through the leather jackets and everything.
Their knife hands went rigid. Their grips were raw and white-knuckled. Ellis was moving his thumbs and forefingers like a guitarist looking for a chord.
“Ah,” Ellis said. “There.”
The two men made a horrifying noise. It was like a shriek of pain…but it ended abruptly. The Thugs’ eyes were wild. It was like they hurt so much they couldn’t make a sound. Like when I was trapped under the Fosters’ garage door.
The look in their eyes…they were trapped. Helpless. The Thugettes froze, too.
It got much worse. Ellis found a different chord, and the Thugs’ mouths dropped open. No sound came out at all. Tears streamed out of Thug One’s eyes.
Thug Two was a bit tougher. He struggled a little and even managed to take a swing with his free arm. Ellis dodged easily and Thug One took the punch instead. The crack brought up a terrible memory of two boys’ schoolyard fight that went wrong.
“Ellis,” Ellen warned again. “You be careful. I order you!”
Ellis wasn’t listening. Fat Guy and the girls were, though. They stared at us. As in, What is going to happen here? Like I was supposed to know?
Thug Two gave up on a second swing. Ellis casually turned his head away from the men.
“You two,” he said to the Thugettes. “Stand over there. With my sister. Now.”
The were in a panic. They remained frozen. Ellis stared at them.
“Now, I said. Move.”
The Thugettes looked at him in sheer horror. I couldn’t see his eyes. What were they seeing that bothered them so much? Jesus, they were just staring at him, like the whole world had come to an end.
Ellis sighed and shook his head. He turned back to the Thugs.
“So, we like knives!” Ellis spoke in a normal conversation voice. “Well, so do I. I guess it’s a boy thing. Like sword fights.” Ellis laughed. “Remember sword fights?” Ellen laughed.
“Well, then, let’s fight,” Ellis said. He yanked Thug Two’s arm in the direction of Thug One. He pulled Thug One to safety just in time. Then it was Thug Two’s turn to see the business end of his friend’s knife. Ellis performed the little dance twice more.
“Ellis!” I snapped. “Stop that.” I thought I was wasting my breath, but Ellis stopped.
“Okay, no more playing with knives,” he said. Fat Guy was trying to move away. “Do not leave. You have something to clean up, here.”
Ellis released the men, and the knives clattered to the asphalt.
“Okay, Mr. I Work Here. Sending you some trash to throw away.”
Ellis kicked the knives without even looking. They skittered across the blacktop and stopped right in front of Fat Guy.
“Put them in that steel trash can,” Ellis said. “No, that one.” He turned back to the Thugs, whose arms were dangling. “Do not try to get them back. I will know if you do.” Ellis sighed. “And sit down!”
They collapsed in place onto the still-hot pavement.
“There,” Ellis said to Fat Guy. “Almost no marks.”
Blood was dripping down the Thugs’ arms. Somehow, Ellis had broken the skin. He turned to the Thugettes again. And, again, that horror returned to their eyes. What were they seeing? Did they think he was going to throw them in the trunk?
“Ellis!” I snapped. “Just stop.”
After another couple seconds, Ellis looked away.
“You two, just go sit with your friends,” he said. They rushed over to the still-stunned Thugs and sat right down. All four of them looked…relieved? Was that it? What babies. Ellen tapped my elbow.
“Look,” she said, pointing and laughing.
Fat Guy, I guess, thought the sit order applied to him, too. He’d planted his fat ass on the pavement.
I had no interest in laughing. Okay, it was great that there was no fight. It was very cool that Ellis knew how to disarm people without hitting them. I mean, I was certain now that he could have beat them any which way he chose. But there was something terrible about how he’d frightened these grown people. Like right now, if he told them to write something on the blackboard, they would have. All they wanted to do was get away from him.
They weren’t just beaten. They were terrified. And Ellis wasn’t done.
“Now,” Ellis said in his normal tone. “We are going home. You will all stay here. After we’re gone, you go home, too. Don’t do anything bad in any way.”
“We won’t,” one of the girls said quietly. “Just-just go away.”
“Gladly,” he said. He paused, then went on. “You made a very bad choice tonight. It could have been much worse – ”
“Enough,” Ellen said. “Really, enough.” The goons looked from one twin to the other. Ellis nodded and sighed.
“Just try to make good choices, okay? Go home and don’t make a bad choice.”
All of them, even Fat Guy, babbled reassurances. We won’t. Please just leave us alone.
And off we went, leaving the five of them alone, as requested. I was exhausted. Shell shocked, I guess you’d say. I mean, just a few hours ago I’d seen Abraham Lincoln showing off at a 19thcentury carnival.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d just witnessed. It had been more a conquest than a fight.