Mosquitoland(30)

“Who are we fighting?”

“No one, Walt. Hold still.”

In the light of a crackling campfire, I cup Walt’s face in my hands and induct him into my über-exclusive club. Though without the lipstick (which must be in that blue tent of his), I’m forced to use mud. Luckily, there’s no shortage.

“There,” I say, topping off his two-sided arrow with a dot in the middle. “Done.”

He smiles, laughs, and does a little jig around the campfire. “You want me to do you now, Mim?”

“No thanks, buddy. I can manage.”

I dip my finger in the soft mud and with the precision of a surgeon, apply the makeshift war paint. It’s my first time without a mirror, but as it turns out, I have superior muscle memory. Once done, I grab another tin of ham and sprawl in front of the fire, feeling more Mim than ever before. The two of us sit with mud-painted faces, eating like the King and Queen of I-don’t-know-what . . . Hamelot, I suppose. Walt belches, then covers his mouth and laughs uncontrollably, and I’m wondering who I need to see about protecting that laugh as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Its echo finally subsides as he pulls out his Rubik’s Cube.

“I like our mosquito makeup,” he says softly.

I imagine the state of Mississippi crumbling, then sinking into the Gulf, just like in my dream, leaving naught but an army of vengeful mosquitos. “What?”

Happily working on his cube, Walt points to his face and says, “It’s a mosquito.”

And he’s right. These lines I’ve spent hours perfecting—vertically from forehead to chin, the two-sided arrows on either cheek, then, a horizontal one just above the eyebrows—could easily be the outline of a mosquito. An anemic stick figure mosquito, but a mosquito nonetheless.

“Do you like the ham?” he asks between clicks.

Still processing the fact that I’ve been drawing a mosquito this whole time, I don’t answer.

“I bought it with my father-money,” he says.

“Your what?” I ask in a fog.

“My father-money. He gave it to me before sending me to Charlotte. It’s in a secret hiding spot, with my shiny things.”

I don’t know which part of his story to WTF.

Wait. Yes I do.

“Walt—your father sent you to Charlotte?”

Head down, he works silently on his Rubik’s Cube. In no time flat, the red cubes are aligned.

“Walt, where’s your dad?”

He looks up at the sky for a moment, lost in thought.

“Walt?”

“Chicago,” he says, turning back to his cube. The green ones are lined up. “Hey, hey, green are good.”

As direct as possible, I try again. “Why aren’t you living with your dad, Walt?”

He’s twisting and clicking and all-out ignoring me. I consider what he said earlier, about his mother being in a casket. If his father was left alone to take care of a kid with Down syndrome—God, surely he didn’t just hand money to his kid and send him packing. Walt can’t be more than fifteen, sixteen tops.

“The Cubs are in Chicago,” he says, white squares intact. “They’re good. They’re my favorite.”

Poor kid. I don’t have the heart to tell him, on top of everything else, his favorite baseball team is the absolute worst. “Yeah, Walt. Those Cubbies are something else.”

“Yeah, man,” he says, shaking his head. “Those Cubbies are something else. We should go to a game sometime. But we have to get tickets first.” He throws his finger in the air. “Tickets.”

“What are you guys talking about?”

The shadow behind Walt could have been there five seconds or an hour. It’s creepy, but creepier still—Walt isn’t fazed. He doesn’t jump, doesn’t look up from his Rubik’s Cube, isn’t startled in the slightest. The owner of this new voice steps from the trees like a cautious predator. He’s tall. Freakishly so. And wearing a red hoodie like mine.

“Cubbies, Caleb,” says Walt. “We’re talking about the Cubs.”

The kid called Caleb grabs a tin of ham and plops down next to Walt. Sticking the edge of the can between his teeth, he pops it open. “Walt, what have I told you about the Cubs?”

Walt frowns, finishing off the blue squares. “The Cubs suck balls.”

Caleb nods and takes a giant bite. “Right on. The Cubs suck balls, dude. Always have, always will, you follow?”

I am suddenly aware of my lack of clothing. For some reason, I hadn’t minded the daisy dukes in front of Walt, but with this new kid . . . well, I’m not about to stand up and walk around in these short cutoffs and a soaking wet T-shirt. I pull the blankets up around my legs, covering as much as I can.

“Whaddaya guys got on your face?” says Caleb, staring at me from across the fire.

Suck a duck. I forgot about the war paint. My circle of trust, it seems, is ever-expanding.

“Nothing,” I say, trying to think up an excuse. “We were just—nothing.”

Caleb nods and smiles, his teeth full of processed ham. There’s something about his voice, smile, smell, clothes, hair, hook nose, and shifty eyes that makes me about as uncomfortable as a nun in a whorehouse, as my mom used to say. He’s sitting right here in front of me, a physical being, but hand-to-God, Caleb feels more like a shadow than a person. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, sticks one in his mouth—along with the canned ham—and lights up.