are doing our usual pack wander. Normally, we do a few laps around the mini-forest, and then crouch on the play equipment outside the grade school, and wait for something more to happen.
The Beast roars, but we pay it no attention. It’s just talking to itself.
We’re just at the point of looking for something to destroy, when Billy Beecham comes out of the mini-forest, wearing a suit. Glasses, tie, briefcase in his hand, and a huge smile on his face.
Nobody smiles in Bastardville. Our Beast, I will say it again, is nothing collectible. Why is the collector smiling? And why did the Beast roar? Maybe it was talking to Billy Beecham. But if it was, I don’t know why the collector is smiling.
I can feel the blood boiling in my body, and so I take off running, leaving the rest of my group behind.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I worry about myself. What if I belong here?
The next day, I catch a glimpse of my Father. I haven’t seen him in months. Every other Father in Bastardville can be found next to their refrigerator at 11 P.M., staring forlornly into the condiments, sometimes dipping a finger in the mustard, or lapping at a jar of jam. Disgusting as that is, it’d be nice to know where my Father could be found at night. All the other Fathers attend their children’s weddings. They get raving drunk at the reception. They’re supposed to have at least one dance with their designated Mother, who is, in turn, supposed to trip in her high heels, and, as evening falls, go viciously at the Father with her handbag and her martini glass.
All Fathers except mine.
When I see my Father, he’s standing on the edge of the mini-forest, at the same place where Billy Beecham emerged. He’s staring into space. He has a red helium balloon in one hand, and in the other, a bag of fertilizer.
“Hey!” I say, but he takes off running.
It isn’t fair that in this town of wrong, my family is wronger than everyone else’s.
I run after him as fast as I can in my uniform’s stupid little pink heels, but by the time my eyes adjust to the dark of the mini-forest, he’s out of sight. I have, however much I don’t want to think about this, a feeling. It’s creepily possible my Father is in love with the Beast. Isn’t that why people move out and leave their Families?
I can see the balloon bobbing, and I chase that, until there’s a bellow, and a loud pop. Then there’s nothing but dark. I’ve never been this far into the mini-forest before. The bellows of the Beast are nothing you really want to hear. Particularly when you aren’t wearing anything resembling stalking gear, you’ve never managed to read any of Survivalism: A Primer, and you are completely, idiotically alone.
The bellow happens again, all around me. I get ready to leave my Father to his Beast, but Billy Beecham appears, wearing a trench coat, and scraping a moss sample from one of the trees. There’s another bellow, this one startled.
“Angela,” he says, and winks, like it’s a pleasant surprise to see me in the middle of a mini-forest.
“Leaving,” I say. “You should too. The Beast is about to be on the move.”
“Did you see it?” he asks.
“All the time,” I say.
From somewhere nearby I hear my Father’s voice, beginning to sing “Happy Birthday.” I assume it’s to himself. The Beast’s birthday is anyone’s guess. I guess you could figure it out, but you’d need a chain saw.
Could things be more pathetic? I straighten my uniform and walk out. In the direction I think is out, anyway. Which it isn’t. That is, of course, implausible, because of the one-block-by-one-block factor. Nevertheless. I’ve gotten turned around. I feel like things are spinning. I feel like the trees are taller than they were. I note the fertilizer at their feet.
Billy Beecham is smiling at me when I return.
“Lost?” he says.
“What is it you do, anyway? You can’t just be hunting this one Beast,” I ask, making the best of a bad situation.
“Collector,” he says. “Began with butterflies, now assigned to beasts.”
He pulls something out of his pocket. It keeps pulling and pulling like a magician’s scarf. A net, but large enough to catch a whale in. Not big enough. Poor idiot.
“It’s not like you’ll catch the Beast,” I tell him. “No one can. You’ll end up living here on the edge, and you don’t