THE PROTAGONIST — ENFJ

DREAM JOURNAL

I’m bringing the ball up-court, letting my offense set. On my team is The Violator, the man who took sexual advantage of my sisters, and me, back in the days of our youth(s). Nordic in demeanor and genealogy, The Violator is our sharp-shooting Captain. He is, in some gym circles, also known as The Assassin.

We are in a tournament hosted at the Old Heart Gym, Ricks College (defunct). My Mormon alma mater. I wear the campus-approved gym clothes: Ricks shorts of knee length, Ricks t-shirt with sleeves to the elbow, both a faded royal blue. Two pairs of socks, court shoes. My shirt is heavy with sweat; my shorts and undergarments, too. My handle is gone. I am winded, uncoordinated, pathetic. My defender pushes me right, and the ball bounces off my shin, out of bounds. We lose the game, my fault.

The championship is double-elimination; we have a rematch in three hours.

In this same gym fifteen years ago, The Violator and I used to sandbag pickup games for shits and giggles. But today I could not bring the ball far enough to set up baseline, or run a seamless Stockton-Malone pick-and-roll.

I sit down and announce that I’ll return to my apartment and get my gear before the championship. I have a lot of lucky stuff that might help.

Without looking up, The Violator says,

—I never want to see your face again.

I take his words less as threat, more as challenge. I leave the gym. In the foyer, I stop at the window by the big wooden Viking statue (Thor, the college’s anachronistic mascot) and look out over the snow-covered football field. In a previous life, I used to sprint those stadium stairs. I was never fast, but I had staying power. Strangers called me Billy Goat.

I lean on the Viking and say in his dumb oak ear,

—If you’re here when I get back, you’re sawdust. We are not your people. Go home.

Outside, the trek is uphill through snow that covers a lacquer of black ice. It doesn’t take long for my clothes to freeze, and the ice on me whispers and crackles. Icicles outline my nostrils and dangle from my lip. By the time I duck into the Horticulture building to thaw, my fingernails have turned purple and the snow has packed inside my tennies.

I wander through the building, blowing into my hands. At the greenhouse’s entrance is a throng of people, all waiting in line, being admitted one at a time through the transparent, but steamed, door. Some of these skunks were my opponents in the game, so I put on my mean mug and furrow my brow. But then I see Larval near the end of the line, cabled arms folded below his pecs, and he spots me, and blows my cover.

—Fish! Hey, Fish!

Larval nicknamed me this in 1993, when I was the new on the 6th grade transfer bus. He meant it in the prison sense. He sat behind me, every day, and terrorized my earlobes. Flipping. Snapping. Yanking. I endured this for two years. In 8th grade, however, Larval decided to fight Chief, Jay County’s only American Sign Language student, in front of my locker. Before the tussle started, I told Larval to give me his glasses. I was worried for his safety, as the frames were wide and cheap and held a lot of glass. He took them off and asked that I be careful with his only pair. Chief stood hackled, ready. Larval, squinting, hit him long, a right-hook that landed above his ear-hole. Chief didn’t go down, but he stopped, his head kinked to one side, and we realized that Larval had either knocked out Chief’s hearing aide, or had concussed him, or maybe both. The shrill feedback rendered us canine-like, a dozen kids froze and pointed to the piece of nude plastic screeching on the floor. I rescued it before it wound up crushed underhoof, and returned it to Chief, then did the same with Larval and his glasses. We’ve all been pretty decent buds since then.

—Larval, you’re No Mo. What, did your old lady convince you to join?

—Ever since rehab, I’m a twelve-step spiritualist.

—If that’s the case, you owe me an apology. What about rectifying wrongs, and all that? You gave me cauliflower ear, you rat-fink.

—I sent a letter to your parent’s last year. You finally get a place of your own?

—I’m in One-Way City now. The Gulf South, where it is so moist and fecund that you could stake a yardstick in the mud and it’d sprout branches. All around town are pools of standing water and dilapidated fountains and pools. Blood-suckers proliferate. Roaches, fleas, rats, all unabated. It is constant battle against the elements. It reminds me of home.

I feel suspect movement inside my jockstrap. I turn my back to Larval and hold open my shorts only to spot a female tiger mosquito, a sow that’s plump on my blood, high-stepping among my pubic hair. Before I can snatch her, she shakes the ice from her wings and buzzes out.

I close my shorts and readdress Larval.

—Sorry. So what brings you around?

—A professor here’s really working wonders on folks with wheat poisoning and lyme disease. Drinking so much barley over the years, now I got a gluten intolerance. Rehab taught me that. Carbs are a trigger. Pretzels in particular.

While Larval drones on, I take in the scene: A woman stands at the door. The door opens, and a hand sticks out, palm up. The woman places a stack of cash in the hand, and she is permitted inside. The door closes and locks. A few moments later, she returns, looking relieved, a shoebox in her hands. She walks down the line and places it inside a cubby hole cell, one of a thousand identicals that cover the back wall.

My shoes are full of water and sweat, tropical as it is, so I slosh over and find her box and check it. Inside, at the bottom, is a fresh, oily, well-formed turd. This, and only this. I snap it shut and stash it. I behold the wall of cells; it reaches the cone of the dome. I hurry back to Larval and say too loudly,

—Hey dude, I think this nut is having people shit in boxes.

Larval says,

—I ain’t scared. I've come prepared.

I say,

—You used to wear glasses. At least then you pretended to be smart.

—Zip it, Fish. This is an unpredictable, distended, zealous mob. They are bloated and noxious. I am one of them now.

The crowd is no longer quiet. They're unsettled. They shush me. They glare and shift on their feet. A few pull out jackknifes, then whittle and whistle hymns.

Larval pops knuckles. I'm not sure who he's ready to hit.

I address them all,

—People, do not be deceived! Take it from me, a boy who has been ear-candled, a boy who has dieted on horse-meat and raw cabbage, a boy diagnosed by quacks operating out of hotel rooms and garage units! Once, a blind chiropractor forced open my mouth with his hairy thumbs in order to correct my lisp! And is it corrected? No, he made it worse! Can't you hear it? Shun this swindler and pocket your money! You’ll thank me when rent comes due!

They take up gardening shovels, three-pronged hand rakes, vacuums wielded like flame-throwers. A few even have barbeque lighters. As the people weaponize, they dub me Apostate and Heretic. I flee, and hear my enemies in close pursuit, murmuring.

Outside, the frigid world revitalizes me. Sure that I haven’t been followed, I start again en route to my apartment. A rote, encouraging primary hymn entrenches. Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked... I pace my plodding in time.

Two hours later, I arrive at my place. My shoes are tattered; my feet and shins ooze cold blood, not that I can feel them. I lie in front of the open oven to defrost.

Once I’m warm, I go to my shared bedroom and fill a suitcase with everything that makes me competitive. My knee brace, two ankle braces, back brace; orthopedic insoles; a first-baseman’s mitt; ski poles; a Mexican National soccer jersey; a du-rag; an insulated snowmachine suit; headbands; my snowboard deck; disc golf discs ... and a prescription bottle full of sixty Vicodin.

The window opens, and all the hot air rushes out.

X crawls in, just like she used to do freshman year, when we were eighteen. Her hair is barley; her eyes, reservoir. I try to close my suitcase but it’s too full. The pills fall out and roll under the bed. I go hands-and-knees after them. She says,

—I see nothing has changed.

—I can’t argue today. I'm late for the big game. I've got something to lose.

But I can’t find the bottle, which deflates me, and I turn and sink, defeated, on my side. I have tried long and hard enough. I will never make it. There is nothing to do but wallow and moan.

X says,

—Always good at jumping jacks, but you hated sitting still.

—I am sorry for my nihilism and negativity. I hope, now that I’ve apologized, we never discuss it again.

—I regret saying this many words about it. But I feel obliged. Are you so quick to forget what stopped you the other times?

—I know you're going to say the pills, but it's not the pills ...

—They make you sleep too much. You lost your musculature and gumption. You got lazy, discombobulated, and fat. You stopped being you.

I cover my face with my hands and weep. I am surprised that, when I finish, X is still with me.

—This is what you meant when you said you know longer recognized me?

She nods her head.

—But remember that time we sluffed devotional and drove around the farm? We kissed on top the cellar? You were the first person to whom I admitted the truth: sooner or later I’d need a quest. I warned you.

—Please don’t remind me of my problematic attraction to narcissistic egomaniacs.

We almost kiss, but no, not ever again. I see a clock. Five minutes until tip-off! The open suitcase is too heavy to lift. X stretches a leg out the window.

She says,

—I’ll never understand your compulsions; you never could guess my desires. But I used to call you Sweet Pea, so the least I can do is drop you at the gym.

—Great, just let me get my things ...

—There's only room for you.

X shoots me that look that means ... something. I never could read her; she always beat me at cards, I dominated charades. I follow her out the window, sans-things.

Her sedan fishtails the hills, up and down. At the gymnasium, X jumps the curb, plows through a drift, and slides to a stop at the glass doors. I offer payment, and she refuses; I thank her, and she says not a word. I get out, but before I leave I tell her through the window that I love her. She shakes her head, power-locks the doors.

Inside, I go to the wooden Viking and say,

—I am in awe that this inspired and venerable and staunch institution continues to turn a blind eye to your deviant criminal history. Any other day, I’d cowhide you.

Barefoot and tender, I pad into the gym. The bleachers are full to the steel girders. Townies and students stomp and roar. My team mills around the front of our bench. Larval is dressed down and in the huddle. He waves me over, thanking me for the advice. He had had an epiphany while chasing me. What was his grown-ass doing? He asks my forgiveness, which is easy to give. We wait on The Violator, who is in discussion with the refs. He skulks over and kneels down to untie his shoes. We all take a knee so we can hear him better.

—I never want to see your faces again.

—What about the championship?

—The other team got Zika. They forfeited. We won.

Larval says,

—That was Fish! He freed a skeeter in the greenhouse and got everybody sick!

The team realizes that I am the carrier, the courier. I am the vermin, the plague. The Violator clenches his jaw, flexing it, but doesn’t say another word.

Black clouds of mosquitoes swarm down among the spectators. They are not cheering; they gnash their teeth and writhe. The scorekeeper sprints off, trips, face-plants, gets up, and keeps running. Larval eats a Pop-Tart and chokes. The Violator hucks his jersey into the garbage can. Rashes run down his bare back. He’s itching his neck when his knees give out. He belly-crawls to the bench, catches pneumonia, and dies.

Everyone is afflicted but me. As the last standing, I feel inspired to make a speech, so I stand on the bench. It seems presumptuous, and I, at first, look for anyone to whom I can defer.

Most everyone is busy vomiting.

This encourages me; the people need me now more than ever. I erupt with a thousand unbroken words, straight from my heart and guts, on the subject of success and the indomitable human will. I preach tenacity, elbow-grease, muscle memory, and choice excerpts from the Carnegie/Gladwell cannon.

By the end, most everyone is unconcious.

That is empty, though, compared to the real moment of satisfaction. This, before I start stepping over bodies constricted in pain and suffering, before I bypass pregnant women weeping for their unborn children and their malformed heads ... this, before I fall to my knees and bemoan the destruction I’ve wrought upon my country, my kin, all while more mosquitoes fill the gym?

This, then, the one dizzying spoil of my victory:

I finish removing The Violator's shoes and socks. I put them on my feet and lace up. Then, alone, I run wind-sprints, baseline to baseline. I get a basketball and do tip and layup drills. I make ninety-nine foul shots but miss the hundredth on purpose. Along the Seven Stations of the Arc, I splash threes. When I grow exhausted, I lie down on my back at center-court and stare at the bright halogen lights and catch my breath and realize, finally, I am The Champion. I am The Annihilator. I have won.