Like every human being to ever live, Lincoln Loud had his good qualities and his bad qualities. He was thoughtful and detail oriented but he also had a habit of giving into anxiety. One time he knocked over some vials on Lisa's desk and went into a virtual psychotic episode where he imagined a series of terrible results leading to the dissolution and eventual death of his family. He had a very vivid imagination and sometimes it ran away with him. That, in his opinion, was a bad trait, but it could also be seen as positive in a way. Having an active imagination is great, you just have to keep a tight hold on it. You know that saying about everything in moderation? Lincoln beleved in it whole-heartedly. Water in moderation is life-giving. Water in excess will drown you and wash your cold, quivering remains out to sea. Food in moderation was necessary. Food in excess would turn you into a fatboi like Poppa Wheelie. Imagination, then, was something best in small doses, but harmful in large quantities.
Another one of Lincoln's bad traits, one that he shared with all of his sisters, was stubbornness. It really started with the onset of puberty, but he could trace its origins back much further. He was never one to give up on things - if he started something, he would see it through to the end, even if it left him battered and bloodied. He would carry on with one of his plans even in the face of impossible odds and he would not admit defeat, even if he had to keep going back to the drawing board and coming up with new plans.
When his hormones kicked in and he began the slow, inevitable evolution into a moody teenager, his stubbornness expanded. Now he didn't like being bossed around or told what to do anymore. With ten pushy sisters, he had put up with that sort of crap his entire life. Lori, Leni, and all the rest treated him, at best, as a living doll or plaything and, at worst, as a servant. Lola ordered him around, bring me this bring me that, and Lynn dragged him into playing football with her in the backyard without a single care for whether he wanted to play or not. Lori forced him to work his butt off just for a five minute ride in the van, and Leni forced him to model gay-ass outfits to her friends, who took pictues and posted them online, where he was mercilessly mocked. Random people on 4chan were using images as him to make threads. One picture of him in a dress was used for a thread called HOT FEMBOY GENERAL. Grown twentysomething men were looking at his pics and getting excited. It was the creepiest thing that had ever happened to him. Did Leni care? Nope, as long as she had her model, she was happy, fuck everything else.
Maybe it was Lincoln's fault for never standing up for himself. He had always tried to avoid confrontation and went out of his way to please other people and make them happy. When you do that, people get it into their heads that they can use you any way they want. They'll walk all over you and expect you to always do what they want, when they want. You become a tool to them, you live for them, you are what they want you to be and nothing else. Lincoln's sisters were greedy, selfish people so of course they took advantage of him. At first, he'd just do what they wanted, because if he didn't. They would get mad and make life difficult for him. In a move that surprised only him, because he was a dumb kid, they ran him ragged. Lisa injected him with strange and unstable serums, Lucy forced him to read her scary bedtime stories that gave him nightmares, Lana made him help her fix things, standing there and being totally silent until she needed him to hand her something.
On and on this went, and Lincoln bore it with rapidly deteriorating patience. Why didn't they do this to each other? Why did they always single him out? It was unfair.
Despite the haze of adolescent petulence, however, he knew the answer. It was because he let them. They would scam, swindle, and order each other around if they could. Sometimes, they even did so: Luna would strong arm Lucy into listening to her new song, Leni would snatch Lily and enslave her for the day modeling hats and mittens. And Lori…
Lori was a sore subject for Lincoln and there were times that simply thinking about her filled him with blinding fury. Lori was the worst of all his sisters. She impressed everyone around her into servitude, demanding insane concessions for even the smallest favor. If you wanted a ride, you would have to do all of her laundry. If you needed to borrow some money, she would require you to do all of her chores for a month. Nothing was ever free with her and she overcharged on everything. Lincoln was not the only one she did this way, but because he never said no, he bore the brunt of it. One time, Mom and Dad didn't have enough money to pay the cell phone bill and Lori was cut off from communicating with her precious Bobby. Instead of doing something else, like not being a bitch, she made Lincoln run him notes. She would jot something on a piece of paper, fold it, and send Lincoln racing across town on his bike. Bobby would read the note, write one of his own, and send Lincoln back. This went on for hours until Lincoln faked having a cramp to get out of having to do it anymore.
With his sisters, Lori only made them do things for her when they asked for something. With him, however, she was always tracking him down for random things. Do this, go here, blah blah blah. The few times he declined, she gave him the evil eye and put her hands on her hips. If that didn't work, she would coldly threaten to turn him into a human pretzel.
After that, he did what she wanted.
Lincoln had had a lot of time to think about Lori and why she was the way she was. At seventeen, she was the oldest of all the Loud kids. From her earliest years, Mom and Dad had entrusted her with the responsibility of caring for and marshalling her younger siblings. She had long been a figure of authority who acted as a glorified middle manager. You could call her a den mother or a field boss. You could say she was the foreman to Mom and Dad's CEO. Any way you sliced it, she held power over her younger brother and sisters.
And abused it.
She ruled the house with an iron fist and ground Lincoln and his sisters beneath a jackboot of tyranny. He and the others called her Hitler behind her back. Sometimes, Lynn or Luna would get brave while she was ordering them around and throw up a stiff-arm salute. "Heil," they'd say.
Oh, that made Lori so mad. If you think I'm Hitler, I will literally show you Hitler, don't even try me. Lola drew pictures of her with a little square mustache and sharp teeth, Leni made her a Nazi style armband (only instead of a swastika, it had an L for Lori), and Lisa called every time our Lori sent her into "Auschwitz." One time Lana got mad at Lori and screamed You're not Hitler, you're even worse than Hitler! At least Hitler didn't force people to take a bath!
No, but he did force them to take showers.
Anyway, Lori was basically a dictator and everyone suffered under her rule, but Lincoln was singled out for special tasks because he made a door mat of himself. It was his own fault, really, and he eventually became disgusted with himself. His problem, he decided, was that he was weak. His sisters stood up for themselves, he did not. He laid down like a freaking bridge and let everyone walk on him.
One day, he decided not to do that anymore.
His plan was simple. When one of his sisters came at him for something, he would run and hide. He first tried it out on Luna. She grabbed him from the hallway one Saturday morning like a pedo kidnapping a little boy from the mall and pulled him into hers and Luan's shared bedroom. Luan was curled up on her side, mouth open, dead asleep, but Luna insisted on playing a chord for him that allegedly came to her in a dream. She started to shred but Lincoln held up both index fingers like a fisherman lying about his biggest catch. "Wait just one second, I really gotta pee."
"No problemo, bro." Luna said.
Lincoln ducked out of the room and never looked back. Two hours later, at breakfast, he crossed paths with Luna and she gave him these sad puppy dog eyes. He resisted the best he could, but when she stuck out her bottom lip, he crumbled and felt bad despite himself. "Where'd you go?" she asked.
"I, uh, I had to, uh...I forgot."
That was the lamest, weakest excuse he had ever had the utter horror of hearing himself utter, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Luna raised her eyebrow and cocked her head in an expression that she usually reserved only for Leni. "You..forgot?"
He nodded, hoping against hope that she would buy it. "I was still half asleep, so I was really with it. Sorry."
Luna drew a sad sigh. "It's fine. Maybe you can listen to it later."
"Maybe," Lincoln said even though he had no intention of listening to it later.
He avoided Luna for the rest of the day and she either forgot about playing her new song for him or gave up. Lincoln was stunned by how easy it was to get out of it. All he had to do was hide in his room and turn in the opposite direction every time he saw her coming. That got kind of old, but it was better than sitting around for an hour while she stumbled her way through a basic chord progression. All of his sisters thought they were experts in their respective fields of interest, but they weren't. Lynn wasn't the strongest or fastest girl in Royal Woods the way she claimed, Lana couldn't fix anything, Luna hit a ton of sour notes, and Luan's comedy website was a ghost town that no one wanted to visit because it was filled with the most trite and boring squeaky clean kid humor, the kind that was old and stale twenty years ago. Lola did win a lot of beauty pageants, but she placed too much emphasis on looks and simple tricks that wow judges when they come from six year olds. Lincoln had seen a million girls like her before and he would likely see a million more before it was all said and done. She would become a cheerleader, peak in high school, and then coast on her looks for a while. Some time during or right after high school, she would get pregnant and either become a single mother or someone's low-wage earning wife.
Really, the only truly gifted one in the whole family was Lisa. She was born with the vast intelligence of a world-weary scientist and her brainpower had only grown with time. At four, she was able to build nuclear reactors and code complicated computer programs. Most of her time and effort went toward basic studying and observation. Despite her massive genius, she was first and foremost a toddler, and she explored the world as one, only instead of lumbering around and putting things into her mouth, she studied DNA samples and grew colonies of bacteria to learn things that had already been learned by others.
Anyway, his point was this: His sisters thought they were the best of the best but they weren't, and he'd rather do almost anything than listen to their dumb comedy routines and limmerick pomes. There once was a zombie who ate his mommy/he pooped her out with a mighty shout/then he joined the army. That was literally something Lucy wrote. She recited it to him with the glowing pride of a poet laureate unveiling her latest masterpiece. Lincoln smiled and nodded his head in faux approval but inside, his very soul was withering away. She said she was trying to be funny, but if that was her idea of funny…
Once he proved to himself that he could ditch his sisters, Lincoln started doing it all the time, Lana would ask him for help and he would disappear, Luan would come to him for his opinion on her act, and he would vanish into thin air like his name was Jimmy Hoffa. Sometimes they were super insistant and would run him down, slave-catcher style. On those occasions, he would either leave the house or find a spot to hide that no one would ever think of searching. One time, he squeezed himself into the overhead duct work on the second floor, where it was hot, tight, and so dusty that you couldn't draw a breath without coughing. He crawled along a corridor running over the hallway on his hands and knees and got stuck a couple of times. He rounded a corner and came face to face with a pale, terrible monster. He screamed in holy terror and the thing hissed at him.
It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't a monster at all.
It was only Lucy.
"What are you doing here?" he asked and clutched his heart.
"This is one of my special dark places," Lucy said, "what are you doing here?"
Lincoln flushed with embarrassment and heaved a deep sigh. "Leni wants me to try on some man-thong she made."
"Say no more," Lucy said. She picked up a paperback and buried her face in it. "Just be quiet and you can stay."
Okay, fair enough.
Only Lucy's idea of being quiet was as extreme as Stalin's idea of obedience. Every time he inhaled, she shot him a withering glare over the top of her book, and when he started to sneeze, she bared her teeth in warning. Finally, after he had spent almost ten minutes sitting motionless and barely breathing, she sighed and looked at him. "The sound of your heart beating is distracting me from my book. Can you go hide somewhere else?"
"Seriously. Luce?" he asked. "My heartbeat?"
Normally, he didn't talk back to his sisters, because even if it didn't make them mad, it was about as useless as talking back to the rain, but this was ridiculous. There was no way on earth Lucy could hear his heartbeat. He couldn't even hear it, and it was in his freaking chest. She was making shit up in order to have a reason to bitch and he was getting really tired of his sisters doing that. What sort of miserable human malcontent has to invent reasons to be angry or upset? What kind of asshole makes up an excuse to flex their assholishness on someone?
Lincoln didn't know, and he wasn't exactly 100 percent sure that that was what Lucy was doing now or nor, but it pissed him off. His anger was swift and total, and he was ready for a fight. "Yes, your heartbeat," Lucy said.
"You're full of it," Lincoln barked. "You're just being dramatic, which you always do."
"I'm not dramatic," she said in that annoyingly dead monotone of hers. Her voice was, and had always been, that of a soulless corpse that felt nothing but the numb iciness of death. "Yes you are," Lincoln said. "You're doing it right now. This mopey woe is me tone. You act like your life is so hard and everything's so terrible but you're privileged. You're just another suburban white girl who wants attention, so you get it with your fake goth aesthetic. Oh, look at me, I have black hair and I like vampires, sigh. No one understands me, sigh. You're all mortals, sigh. You know what you are, Lucy? You're a liar and a fraud. You're not a goth. You're not an emo. You're a poser. A little fake ass, frontin' ass poser and everyone knows it. The only person you're fooling is yourself."
He was panting for air now, his body crackling with a hitherto unknown reserve of energy. All of the anger and frustration that he had been storing against his sisters for years surged against the dam he had subconsciously built to hold it back and the masonry was in danger of cracking and giving out. He was shaky and flushed from his head to his feet and his fingernails dug so deeply into the padding of his palm that they left bloody half moons in his flesh. It felt good to finally get this off of his chest, liberating; it was like finally letting out a gassy fart you've been holding in all day. It was like taking your shoes off after an eight hour shift at work, it was amazing and fulfilling and it made him lightheaded with satisfaction.
Lucy stared at him from behind her bangs, her mouth in a stoic frown that did little to betray whatever she was thinking or feeling. He wanted her to get angry and to yell, to fight back and give him a reason to let out more of his pent up aggression, but she simply sat there with that dumb expression - or lack thereof. Finally, she closed her book with a flourish and tucked it underneath her arm. "Fine," she said, "I'll move."
With that, she rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled away with a series of thumps and scrapes. She disappeared into the gloom and Lincoln sat there, mouth agape. It worked, it actually worked. For the first time in his life he really, honestly, truly stood up to one of his sisters rather than assenting or slinking off with his tail between his legs, and she backed down. Up to then, he was always the one to cave. He was the one driven back like a beaten army. Now it was someone else on the threat.
He felt good.
He felt strong.
"That's right," he called after her. "This is my special dark place now."
Lucy didn't reply, and you know what they say about silence.
It gives consent.
For the rest of the afternoon, Lincoln sat in his new dark place and did a whole lot of self reflection. His victory over Lucy at the Battle of the Vents had opened his eyes to the fact that the only way to really get what he wanted was to stand up for himself, no more running away. All of his sisters got what they wanted and didn't have to deal with any of the bullshit he did because they wouldn't stand for it. Why should he? Looking back on how he had reacted to his sisters' domination, he was thoroughly sickened by his own weakness. He had heard the word "cuck" thrown around a lot on the internet and didn't know exactly what it meant, but as he recalled all the times he had cowered before his sisters, it bobbed to the surface of his mind like a rotten carcass from the deep. He was a cuck: A weak, limp-wristed bitch boy who was too much of a coward to say no. Het let other people - girls at that - boss him around.
No more.
From this point on, he decided he wouldn't act like a spineless sissy. He was almost twelve years old, basically a man; it was time he started acting like one.
The first test of his newfound resolve - aside from running Lucy out of her dark place and claiming it for his own - came the following week at school. Ronnie Anne Santiago, his on again, off again crush (who had moved to Great Lakes City with her family but moved back when her extended family got on her and her mom's nerves) came up to him at lunch and tried to steal his dinner roll.
School food, at least in Royal County, Michigan, was the drizzling shits. The meat was always tough and undercooked, the veggies were so pale and anemic that you couldn't tell if you were supposed to eat them or give them the last rites, and the mashed potatoes were always frozen in the middle, like they'd been thrown into a microwave and nuked until they were semi-edible. The only good thing on the menu were the warm, buttery, soft-baked yeast rolls, and boy, were they good. Fights had broken out over those rolls. A lot of kids were turned out behind them - that means they were extorted. Gimme your roll or I'll beat you up. That kind of thing. Lincoln loved those rolls more than he loved his grandma's Thanksgiving meat stuffing and he would do almost anything to get his hands on one or two or ten.
Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who liked eating his rolls. Ronnie Anne did too. As in...every day she stole his roll off his tray and crammed it into her mouth. "Thanks, lame-o," she would say through a mouthful. "Good lookin' out,"
He retaliated by whining like a bitch. Noooo, you can't just take my roll.
And Ronnie Anne was all, Delicious roll goes yuuuuuuum.
That day, when a tiny brown hand snaked over his shoulder and went for his bread, he lost it. Later on he would feel back for overreacting, but in the moment, he was like a man possessed. He grabbed Ronnie Anne's hand and twisted it hard to one side. She let out a pained screech and sank to her knees. "LEAVE MY ROLL ALONE!" Lincoln screamed. The entire lunch room looked up at what was happening. They may have laughed at the way his voice cracked and pitched, but the look on his face stopped them cold.
Ronnie Anne got to her feet and Lincoln steeled himself for the epic confrontation that was sure to come.
Only instead of fighting back, she ran off in tears.
"Whoa," Clyde said from beside him, "that was messed up."
Lincoln hung his head.
Now he had shame.
But still, the bitch tried to walk all over him like his sisters did. Maybe Lincoln was feeling his oats, as Pop-Pop would say, but he was tired of basically being a real life fan fiction shotaboi, all shy and weak and shit. He wanted respect and he wasn't going to let people constantly diss him anymore, no matter who they were.
Well, unless they were Mom or Dad...or his teacher...or Flip...or really any grown up. He'd get in mad trouble. But if he and the hater were on a level playing field, he wasn't going to hold back.
"...pretty awful, to be honest," Clyde was saying.
Lincoln snapped. He turned around and Clyde shrank back in fear. "Shut the fuck up. She had it coming." The look of terror on Clyde's face pissed Lincoln off. Looking at him, you'd think Lincoln routinely beat and abused him. And for what? Twisting Ronnie Anne's hand? Oh, so it was fine for her to beat up on me for two years but I'm a monster for twisting her hand one time?
Rage swept Lincoln and he cocked his fist threateningly, just to show Clyde he meant business. Clyde threw up his hands and trembled like a leaf. "Give me your roll," Lincoln said and snatched Clyde's roll from his try.
Clyde offered no resistance.
That heady feeling of power rushed over Lincoln again, and it made him high.
He could get used to this.
And he did. Asserting himself got easier and easier every time he did it. Leni asked him to model a sequin body suit for her and he turned her down. "I'm not dressing up like a disco ball," he said.
"But, Lincy -"
"No."
He crossed his arms firmly over his chest and stood his ground like his name was George Zimmerman. Leni slumped her shoulders in defeat and mumbled, "Fine." She turned around and dragged herself away, and a big grin spread across Lincoln's face.
This was great. He was asserting himself and people were actually bending to his will. The sense of power and control were delicious; he felt like he could do and accomplish anything. No wonder his sisters were like this.
His next challenge was Lisa. He was sitting in his bed and reading a comic, clad in nothing but underwear and a pair of socks. His phone sat on the nightstand beside him, tinny music filtering from the speaker. He had recently created a playlist of inspiring songs to serve as the soundtrack of his awakening and right now it was on Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. It was in that boxing movie way back. Lincoln didn't like boxing but he planned to one day make himself get into it. Boxing and football were manly sports and he was a man now.
The doorknob rattled and the hinges creaked as the door swung open.
Whoever it was...they didn't even knock.
Lincoln's eyes narrowed. That was pure high octane disrespect. You don't just walk into someone's space unannounced. Even knocking and then immediately going in without waiting for permission is less disrespectful (but still pretty bad). He was like Adam eating the forbidden fruit and realizing he had been naked all along; his sisters have never respected his boundaries but before, he took it as sad but simple fact of life.
Not anymore.
He looked up from his comic book and Lisa stood in the doorway with a stryinge in her hand. She depressed the plunger a little and a tiny spurt of liquid arched out of the needle. "Lincoln, I need your help."
Lincoln's eyes zeroed in on the sharp pinprick point. She meant to jab it into his arm and fill his veins with God only knew what. The last time she did it, he had fluorescent colored poop for nearly a month, and another time his wee-wee got so hard it hurt and stayed that way for nearly six hours. Oh, and we can't forget about the time she accidentally injected him with an air bubble and he had a stroke. His face went numb, the right side of his body drooped, and he passed out, hitting his head on the edge of a table on his way down. When he woke up, he was numb and tingly all over and he could barely remember his own name. Thankfully, Lisa was able to give him another shot that counteracted the effects of the first so there was no permanent damage, but she warned him, "If you live to see seventy, I'll consider you lucky."
Though he couldn't prove it, Lincoln was certain that she knew there was a chance he could have a stroke from whatever that crap was. In fact, she probably meant for him to have a stroke.
Psycho!
Lisa came into the room and Lincoln grabbed his pillow to defend himself. "Get that shit away from me, Lise."
"Come now, Lincoln," she said, "it's perfectly harmless."
"I said buzz off, big brain."
Instead, Lisa advanced.
Calling upon all the strength his willowy body possessed, he swung the pillow. It smashed into the side of Lisa's head and knocked her aside. The needle flew from her hand and landed on the floor, spinning like a bottle at a sixth grade sleepover. Lisa fell to the floor and, purely on instinct, Lincoln sprang on her, caging her between his knees. He reached fort the vial and before he could stop himself, he plunged it into her arm and depressed the plunger. The liquid inside spread through her body and he grinned in savage satisfaction. "How do you like it, Lise? How do you like being the guinea pig?"
She slapped at him and he got off. She sat up, rubbed her head, and glared at him. "It was a flu shot, Lincoln," she said.
"Too bad," he said, "I don't want it."
"You must accept the vaccine," Lisa said. "You haven't a choice."
Lincoln put his hands on his hips. In his mind, a giant American flag appeared behind him and an eagle screamed as the Star Spangled Banner began to play. "This is America and if I don't want your shot, I'm not taking it. Why should I trust you? You almost killed with your last shot."
Getting to her feet, Lisa dusted herself off. "Fine, if you wish to be a walking petri dish, wear a mask and social distance."
"I got your mask hanging," he said and clutched his crotch.
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Indeed," she said. She picked up her needle and left the room, closing the door behind her. Throwing his head back, Lincoln pounded his chest with his fists like an ape and let out a Tarzan yell that echoed through the neighborhood for a week.
After his encounter with Lisa, he actively sought out confrontations with each one of his sisters. Lynn tried to make him play football, and when he said no, she grabbed his arm and tried to drag him to the backyard. Lincoln tried to pull away but she was stronger. Flashing, he kicked her in the shin and her grip released. She held her leg and jumped around on one foot like a pony-tailed pogo stick. "You little shit," she hissed through her teeth. She lunged at him and he bolted. What followed was an epic game of cat and mouse that led to Lincoln hiding in his special dark place while Lynn stalked through the house looking for him.
It took a while for things to calm down and he was forced to reevaluate his approach, at least in regards to Lynn. There are some people you just don't buck up against and Lynn was one of them.
But what's the alternative? Roll over and take it up the butt? No, screw that. Sometimes, you just have to take the consequences. Look at the Colonists during the Revolution. They knew they were going up against a much bigger, much better force but they made their stand anyway. Lincoln knew what he was in for the next time he defied Lynn, but he'd do it anyway. Eventually, she'd get tired of kicking his ass and leave him alone. He just had to be strong for a bit.
The next go around with Lynn came sooner rather than later. Two days later, she tried to make him give up the TV because she wanted to watch football. It ended with her dragging him off the couch and him slapboxing her. "LEAVE ME ALONE, FUCKIN' BITCH!" he grunted.
Mom heard and came in from the kitchen. She yelled at the both of them and forbade either one of them from watching TV. Lincoln didn't get what he wanted that time, but neither did Lynn. "You're a dead man, Lincoln," Lynn said.
"Screw you."
In order to stand up for yourself and to keep people from wiping their feet all over you, you have to be tough, something that Lincoln came to realize when his sisters continued pestering him despite his new policy of just saying no. He tried to be nice about it at first, then vaguely polite, then, at last, downright dickish. If he walked by the couch and Luan tried to bother him, he'd snap at her to piss up a rope. If Leni asked him to model something, he'd call her a mean name. He did this in the hopes that they would eventually learn their lesson and leave him alone, but just like him, they were stubborn and hardheaded. Instead of learning, they only got salty.
None more so than Lori.
Lori wasn't used to being challenged and she did not take it well at all. The first time he told her no, she shot him daggers. "Excuse me?"
Her hard glare forestalled a snappy comeback, but he didn't budge. He ran away and hid instead.
This same basic process repeated itself a half dozen times over the next couple weeks. Every time it happened and she failed to make good on her threat to turn him into a human pretzel, Lincoln got bolder. Finally, the day she ordered him to vacuum her room, he snipped, "Do it yourself, porky."
Lori was not "porky" but that comment hit her like a fist anyway and she chased him around the house. He escaped and retreated to his room, where he read comics and smiled proudly to himself. A little while later, the door burst open and his sisters came in. They all looked like they wanted to rip him apart, and Lincoln's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. "Your attitude is out of hand, Lincoln," Lori said. "You need to cut it out."
Lincoln narrowed his eyes. "You guys need to stop ordering me around. I'm not your slave."
"You need to quit being a crybaby," Lynn said, stepping forward, "we all order each other around. You just take it personally because you're a sensitive little bitch."
That pissed Lincoln off. He got up but Lori got in-between them. "Lincoln, I'm seriously getting sick of this."
"Do something about it then," Lincoln said.
Lori glared.
"I have an idea," Lynn said and flashed a vicious grin. She and the others left to have a sisters meeting and Lincoln sat down on the edge of his bed. He trembled lightly and worried about Lynn's idea but he wouldn't back down.
In Lori's room, the sisters met and Lynn told everyone what she had in mind. Lori, standing in the middle of the room while everyone sat on hers and Leni's beds, crossed her arms. "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard/"
"I don't know," Lana said, "I think it'll work."
"Yeah," Lynn said, "you gotta humiliate him, break his spirit."
Lori rolled her eyes. "I'm all for making him cry uncle, but this idea is retarded."
Everyone started talking over each other, some agreeing with Lynn and others agreeing with Lori.. Lori held up her hand and called for silence. "We'll take a vote," she said. "All in favor of Lynn's idea, raise your hand."
Five hands went up.
Well, that was it. Lynn's idea won the day. Even so, Lori continued the vote for formality's sake. Her side only had four votes, including her own. "Fine," she said, "I'll do it."
That didn't mean she was going to like it.
At all.
The following Saturday, Lincoln woke to the buzz of saws and the pounding of hammers. His lids peeled over his grainy orbs and an ember of pain smoldered in his forehead. He rolled out of bed, shuffled to the window, and opened it. Below, his sisters swarmed the backyard like a colony of worker ants. A half built platform sat between the porch and the fence and Lana and Luan knelt beside it, hammering nails while Lisa used a power saw to cut long planks of wood. Lori stood close by in a hard hat and went over blueprints. "Hey," Lincoln called and she looked up. "Why are you making so much noise?"
"Don't worry about it," Lori called.
"It's a special surprise," Lynn said.
She and the others laughed.
That wasn't a good sign, was it?
Lincoln anxiously bit his bottom lip and considered his options. He could go and hide in his dark place until they weren't mad at him anymore. It shouldn't take very long; the Loud life was active and didn't give you time to hold grudges. That was a pretty cowardly thing to do, though. You don't run and hide like that, you man up and take your lumps.
Closing the window, Lincoln bregan to pace worriedly back and forth. After a while, he got dressed and went downstairs, deciding to not worry about it. What were they going to do anyway? Probably nothing. They were just full of hot air.
In the kitchen, Lincoln poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate it alone in the dining room. The silence inside was total and eerie, broken only by muffled thumps from outside. Done, he went upstairs and flung himself onto the bed. He reached for the walkie talkie on his nightstand, picked it up, and depressed the TALK button. "Honky1 to Blacko69."
Static.
"Come in, Blacko."
A second later, Clyde's voice broke through the white noise. "Blacko69 to Honky1. What's up?"
"I think my sisters are going to revolt against me."
Clyde missed a beat. "Uh...revolt?"
Lincoln told him all about his exploits over the past few weeks and ended with, "I think they're building a gallows in the backyard."
For a long time, Clyde was silent as he presumably wracked his brain for advice or a solution. "You should probably get out of there."
Good idea.
"I'll be there in ten minutes," Lincoln said. "Over and out."
He sat the radio on the desk, sat up, and swung his legs over the edge of he bed. He pulled his oskcs on, tied his shoes, and got up. He threw a few personal effects into a backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He eased the door open, poked his head out, and looked around the hall. When he was sure that the coast was clear, he slipped out and crept down the stairs. The living room stood empty and even the construction sounds from the backyard had stopped; everything was quiet now .
Lincoln opened the door and jumped back with a cry. His sisters stood there in a big group. Lincoln tried to run but they grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him to the backyard. It was then that he saw that their project was finished. A hastily erected wrestling ring with shovel handles and broomsticks for ringposts and string and garden hoses for ropes waited, wooden bleachers surrounding it on three sides. The stands were packed with kids from school, plus with all his sisters' friends.
What was going on?
Luna and Luan rolled Lincoln into the ring and he got to his knees. The mat was made of overlapping sheets of plywood covered with layers of tarp that crinkled beneath his feet. The wood was springy and bouncy and when he tied to walk, he wobbled and nearly fell. Lori climbed through the ropes on the opposite side and rolled her neck; the crowd went wild and Lincoln darted his eyes around, still not sure what was happening but beginning to understand. Lynn slid into the ring and got between them. "Alright, you two, I want a good, clean fight," she said, "if Lori wins, you have to do all our chores for a month. If you win, we'll be your servants for a month."
Okay, hold up. They wanted him to fight...Lori? And if he lost, he had to do the chores of nine people for a month? Oh, to hell with that. Lori was bigger and stronger than him, he had no hope. He turned and and started to leave, but the rest of his sisters clustered around the ring apron, some of them holding weapons.
Gulp.
He turned back to Lori. For her part, she looked like she would rather be anywhere else. She took a deep breath and nodded when Lynn whispered into her ear. Lynn withdrew, and Lincoln was alone with his oldest sister. They stared at each other for a moment, neither sure how to proceed, then began to circle one another when the crowd began to chant. Lincoln knew diddily squat about wrestling or boxing, but he did know this: Virtually every kid in town was here and if he let Lori beat him, he would never hear the end of it. Was this about his "bad attitude"? Like reality? He decides to assert himself after years of letting them walk all over him and they were so upset by it that they did this?
That made him mad. They did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted but every time he tried to stand up to them, they made it out like he was some terrible human being, like that time he wanted to get a nice family picture for Mom and Dad's anniversary or the time he took advantage of them all for fighting over where they went on vacation. That last one was maybe kind of dickish but they did that kind of stuff all the time. But if he tried it, he was literally Hitler.
Well, he'd show them Hitler. He'd show them all Hitler.
Letting out a scream, he ran at Lori, head down and shoulders squared. She let out a strangled cry and threw a slap that hit him on the back of the skull. At the same time, she danced aside and he hit the ropes, ears ringing. Lincoln turned around and she stood in the middle of the ring, looking stricken. The audience was cheering and pumping their fists, calling for blood and violence. Lincoln's head ached and he rubbed the spot she had hit.
Okay, maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
Lori seemed to be having the exact same thought. She backed up, and when she touched the ropes, she turned around to climb out, but Lana, Luna, and Leni blocked her path. Lincoln had the perfect opportunity to attack but he choked. For all his talk about showing them Hitler, he couldn't just...beat up his sister.
Could he?
Realizing she was a sitting duck, Lori whipped around and their eyes locked. Lincoln could sense her trepidation and he almost felt bad for her, but not as bad as he felt for himself. How many times had Lori bossed him around? How many countless hours had he spent slaving for her in exchange for hurried trips to the comic book store, where she did nothing but complain and call him names for liking comics? More than enough.
Anger rose inside of Lincoln and he threw himself at her again. She stepped to the side but Lincoln anticipated this and crashed into her. She fell back against the ropes and the look of surprise on her face stopped Lincoln in his tracks. Her features quickly darkened and before he knew it, she was on top of him, battering his head with a flurry of slaps. He did his best to protect himself but she was like a shark locked in a blood frenzy. He kicked her shin, and when she doubled over, he shoved her back into the ropes. He followed up with a punch to the arm that made her yell.
The sound of her voice both disturbed and excited him. The awkwardness melted away and with it his inhibitions. She could slap him, so let's see how she liked being slapped. He backhanded her across the face and her head whipped to one side, spittle flying from her lips. The blow shocked him but he immediately followed it with another slap, rocking her dome and sending her hair flying this way and that. He tried to get behind her and put his arms around her, but he was too slow and clumsy and she broke away. She shot out her foot and caught him in the stomach. There wasn't much power behind it, but there was enough to knock the wind out of him.
Now the crowd was insane, the roar of their approval deafening. He and Lori both took a minute to catch their breaths, then she came at him. He dodged and tripped over his own feet, hitting the ropes. They pulled tight across his chest and his eyes bulged from their sockets.
Not wasting any time, Lori got behind him and wrenched him back by the cowlick. Tears filled his eyes and the air left his lungs in a pained hiss. Lori bared her teeth and pulled harder, with both hands now. Lincoln tried to pull away but her grip was too strong. Pressing his first to the palm of his hand, he drove his elbow into her stomach, lifting her off her feet. Her face turned bright red and she staggered back. Operating on pure instinct, he grabbed a handful of her shirt and pushed her back. She wheeled her arms to keep her balance, but crashed to the mat when Lincoln speared her. The entire ring bounced and he was sure that he heard a sharp crack as the plywood broke. Lori lay on her back, arms out and chest heaving, and Lincoln rolled back and forth like a turtle, his shoulder screaming in agony. Lori was a thin girl...so thin that he hit her hip bone by mistake. Jeez, would it kill you to put on a little weight? Or is Bobby a necrophile who gets off on skeletons?
Lori was the first one to her feet. She swayed from side to side like she was going to topple over, and when she bent to grab Lincoln, she fell face first to the mat. Lincoln could only assume that she had hit her head and dazed herself when she went down the last time.
This was his chance.
Struggling to his feet, Lincoln got his footing and went over to his fallen sibling. The ring was canted slightly to one side like the deck of a sinking ship, lending credence to Lincoln's theory that the wood underneath the mat had broken. Lincoln didn't know what real rings were made out of, but he doubted it was wood. Falling on this sucker hurt.
Getting down to the mat, Lincoln wrapped his legs around Lori's upper torso and grabbed her arm. He pulled it as hard as he could and she came to life, screaming and kicking. "Say uncle!" Lincoln screamed and stretched her arm as far as it would go.
Lori wailed like a dying cat and started to cry. She begged and pleaded because there was nothing else she could do. She was as helpless as a little baby kitten, just like Lincoln had been for so many years. How does it feel, Lori? HOW DOES IT FEEL?
"SAY UNCLE!"
"AHHHHHHSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOOOOOOOOOP!"
Delighting in her misery, Lincoln gave one final tug. Suddenly, Lincoln felt slack and her arm went limp. She screeched in pain and that finally got through to him. Heart in chest, he jumped up. Lori's arm was bent at an impossible angle and Lincoln realized with a rush of cold dread that it was broken.
The crowd got really quiet.
Lincoln's sisters all swarmed into the ring and surrounded Lori, Lisa administering first aid and Lola weeping. "Don't you die on me, Lori," Lana said. "Don't you die."
"SHUT UP!" Lori screamed.
Lincoln just stood there, gaping in horror.
Breaking from the pack, Lynn came over and shoved him into the ropes. "You lose, faggot," she said through her teeth.
Lincoln was so stunned by his own actions that he couldn't even argue.
Pretty soon, Lola wasn't the only one crying. "I'm so sorry, Lori," he sobbed as he knelt next to her. "I didn't mean to, I swear."
An ambulance backed up to the ring and a couple paramedics got out. They put Lori on a stretcher and wheeled her away.
Lincoln watched the ambulance go, head down.
That night, he lay awake in bed for a long, long time.
Lori came home from the hospital the next day with her arm in a sling. It wasn't broken, thank God, but her shoulder was dislocated and she would be unable to use her arm for at least the next month. All of her siblings met her at the door, Leni first, then Luna, then Luan. The very last one in line was Lincoln, looking contrite. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at his feet. "I'm really sorry, Lori," he said genuinely. "I got carried away. I didn't mean to do it, honest."
Taking a deep breath, Lori laid her good hand on Lincoln's shoulder. "It's not your fault. It was Lynn's retarded idea to have us wrestle like that. It was also her idea to have me be the one to do it."
Lynn shrugged. "I figured we could at least get a show out of it."
"I did a lot of thinking in that hospital last night," Lori said. "Maybe we can be a little hard on you. But you gotta stop taking it personal. We do it to each other too."
"If you're not down with something, just say so," Luna said.
"We might not listen," Luan added, "but we'll eventually get the message."
Lincoln sighed. "I guess I was kind of a jerk. Sorry, guys."
The Loud kids shared a big group hug and all was right in the world again.
Except the part where Lincoln had to pick up all of Lori's slack until her arm healed. But really, that was a small price to pay.
Plus, he got bragging rights for life.
And that made it all worth it.
THE END