Excerpt 4

Tucker Foley

and the elephant on the roof

There are approximately zero comfortable places on the Fenton roof. Thick bundles of cables stretched over the entire thing, interrupted by inverted satellites and repurposed household objects; a refrigerator with the door torn off, shoved full of ancient rotaries and dial panels, a ventilation system made out of old filing cabinets emitting anti-ecto fumigation (that Tucker shut off), a desk sticking sideways half-immersed in the roof itself – the result of a ghost fight wherein the desk became suddenly essential to the structural integrity of the building. The metal spokes of the operations center jutted up into the air, holding nothing, as the Fenton parents hadn't yet found time or care about repairing what was on the roof, when what was in the basement mattered so much more. The only innocuous object was the toaster, perched on the edge of the building, seemingly unmodified. This Tucker avoided without question, setting up as far away from it as possible.

He brought a backpack full of unopened self-help books, which were used as supports to steady a plywood board set over cables, topped it off with a blanket, nourishment (featuring a bowl of Tucker Foley's Chocolate Salty Snack Deluxe™), and a telescope. Walla. Star-gazing platform. Or, for his sake, more like a city-gazing platform, because even with the telescope the light pollution from Amity made it impossible to make out anything more than fragments of Canis Major. The actual star-gazing he left to Danny, whose eyes saw far into the vastness of the cosmos without impurities to distract him. "Another one!" His best friend's elbow jammed into his side.

Tucker followed the direction of the finger, and witnessed nothing, as he had for several hours, "looks like you get another wish."

"I'd like to make it through to the twenty-seventh."

Tucker raised an eyebrow, "what's the twenty-seventh?"

Danny stared at him, "dude. Last chapter of Night Twist!"

"Oh yeah," Tucker leaned back on his elbows, inspecting the few cars that dared to cross a ghost town before the witching hour, "the zombie-romance comic. Pass."

"It's not a romance," Danny insisted, "it's a serious drama dealing with the horrors of the undead while adapting to the mundane changes of an apocalyptic world, and it just so happens to have a romance. It's not the plot."

Tucker sighed, "the fandom would disagree with you, bud."

"Well good thing I'm too busy for fandom."

"If only I were so blessed." He tilted his head back and thought that if the hue of the red-rimmed sky would change just a little bit he might enjoy it, "it's kind of morbid when all your wishes are about living through to a day, though."

"It's specific."

"If Desiree heard it she'd just try to kill you on the twenty-eighth."

"If she didn't hear it, she'd just try to kill me tomorrow," Danny muttered, staring at the great unknown, "I'd rather wish for hope."

There wasn't much to be said for helping. Words couldn't do much for Danny these days, but presence was at least something, and Tucker didn't mind staying up all night to provide it. He picked up a thermos – freshly purchased – and sipped at cooled dregs, "well I wish I had more coffee."

"I could drop down to the store real quick," Danny offered, his skin turning translucent; the platform groaned as half its weight disappeared, and Danny hovered over the roof. Tucker grabbed his arm and pulled him back to earth, "it's like two am. They're closed."

"Already?"

"Already."

Danny smiled, but it was the exact kind of smile he would give to Mrs Bordelli when he broke his thirty-second beaker, thereby getting officially banned from any glass handling for the rest of his academic career; that is to say, apologetic for forces out of his control, "sorry we can't use the coffeemaker downstairs..."

Tucker grew physically ill just thinking about the Fenton kitchen. He waved, "I'm fine. You want this last cup?"

Danny held up a hand, "I'm not tired."

"Didn't you not sleep last night?"

His best friend shrugged, "I'll probably nap later. Don't worry about it."

He always worried about it. He swirled the final dregs, then downed them, and – knowing that after this he would inevitably doze off until the chill of dawn woke him – gathered together all of his courage, "so...you gonna talk about it?"

For a while, Danny's chin remained still, pointed skyward, but finally his lips released a sigh, "do I have to?"

"Course not," Tucker yawned, his jacket crinkled, "just thought since, you know, you said you wanted to...and we've been up here for like six hours..."

"Right, right," Danny said distantly. "Jazz said I should."

"Just because Jazz said it doesn't mean you have to."

"She's right, though." Danny sank down onto his back, "it's just hard to put into words."

"Talk is all I know how to do!" Tucker proclaimed, popping a chocolate-pretzel bit in his mouth, "it's easy if you just start!"

"I don't know how."

"I'll help," Tucker also arranged himself so that he was lying flat on his back, side by side, "so... why did you break up with Sam?"

The world spun, the earth turned, and Tucker felt nothing but solidness beneath him, holding him to his mortal coil – for better or for worse. The air around them grew chilly, and he suspected the source was the melancholy voice that rose beside him, "I guess I sort of...couldn't see the difference."

"In what?"

"Remember when I had that fight with Ember, and she put me in a … trance?"

"How could I forget moon-boy, with all of his mooning?"

"It sucked." The platform shifted as Danny's arms folded, "I kept doing things that I knew I didn't want to. I wasn't consenting to my own feelings, I just – made them up. Convinced myself everything was fine, and that I wasn't preforming, I was just trying to be myself in the nicest way possible. And then she kisses me and I'm like, what the fuck? Why isn't this fun? Why do I want to escape? Why am I so scared?"

Tucker frowned, "we're not talking about moon-boy anymore, are we?"

"Forget moon-boy," Danny muttered, "I want to live on an island. Like full Tom Hanks Cast Away status. Grow a beard. Befriend a sports object. That's the life for me."

Tucker nodded, "alright, alright, so who's gonna fight all these ghosts?"

"I gotta make Vlad lose a bet."

"You've clearly thought this through."

"I haven't," Danny placed his hands over his face, "and I made out with Max Fry."

"You what?!" Tucker bolted upright.

"And I didn't like it, either." Danny refused eye contact.

"Rewind – what, where, when?" Maxine Fry was the girl who once famously fought off a ghost with a bottle of hot sauce and an over-marketed Fenton bat. She wore tattered jeans and always had sharpie tattoos on her arms.

"Chill out, okay? It was like eight months ago. I broke into a movie and she was there and we hung out all day and then she kissed me, and at first I thought it might be fun, but then it wasn't and I wasn't okay and I..." Danny frowned at the fingers wrapped around his arm, "uh, can you stop?"

"Sorry. Jealous. Go on." Tucker let go.

Danny turned his face away, "I just don't think I like it."

"...girls?"

"Romance."

Tucker deflated, his heart sinking, "oh."

Danny shrugged, "I just have enough on my plate as it is. School, my parents, ghosts, my fragile humanity...and maybe I'm not really the same person that I used to be. Does that make sense?'

"It makes sense." Tucker replied, sinking so that their shoulders were flush, "the accident changed you in a lot of ways."

"Right?!" He turned and propped himself on an elbow, "like nothing is the same anymore, not food, not sleep, not my attention span – everything is different." he dropped to a whisper, "everything. I mean, like...I don't really experience a whole lot of, uh," his cheeks flushed, "sexual attraction. Since the incident."

Tucker winced, "you mean you don't...?"

"No, no, I do. Sorta. Occasionally." He dropped back onto the platform, red from ear to nose, "it's a touchy subject, okay?"

"Understatement dot com."

"It's dumb."

"No, it's – " Tucker paused at the hint of a sniffle, "it's okay."

"It's not fair," Danny lamented, voice shaking, "stupid. I wouldn't be like this if I wasn't dead!"

Tucker stared at the sky and listened to the low, shallow breathing of his best friend; the boy who did everything he could to not fall apart. "You don't know, this could've happened anyway," Tucker said, gentle, "life takes all kinds of crazy turns for everyone. You can't know what your future would have looked like if this didn't happen."

"I now it would've been better than this shit!"

"But what happened happened." Tucker knocked over the empty thermos in his gesture, "and it fucked with your brain chemistry – actually, all of your chemistry – and now you still gotta find who you are, underneath all of this..."

"Bullshit?"

"I was gonna say trauma, but we can call it that."

"This isn't run-of-the-mill trauma, Jazz."

"This isn't a run-of-the-mill town, dude." Tucker sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, thinking carefully about what he wanted to say, "You're gonna finish school soon, and then you can move out of this crazy house, find time for yourself to get to know what you want. Where you are right now is...rough. But I know that you shouldn't put so much weight on it, because you can grow, and you can change, and it's not going to be this hard forever. And whatever you decide, about romance, I support it. I'm here for you. Ride or die."

Danny sniffed, "you don't think it's just stupid ghost stuff?"

"Do you feel like it is?"

"Maybe. Dunno."

Tucker opened his phone, "so then I'll just text Sam and tell her game's back on – "

"No!"

He slipped it back into his pocket, "then I think this is what you want. You just gotta give it time."

For a while, the only sound was wind whipping through the tree in the backyard. Their shoulders met, Danny leaned on his best friend, solid. Grounded, "do you think Sam's going to be okay?" he asked.

"Dude. She is the toughest girl I have ever met."

Did you think I was done?

I'd apologize for the hiatus, but I'm not sorry. Life's hard. Glad to be back; soon this story will be laid to rest, and I can finally move on.

-Catalyst

Coming up next:

5. Playing Games

initiatives: 7, 14, 17, nat 1

ps chapter art link on profile