Spoonbenders

At the front door he aims the Super Soaker at the tile and starts squeezing the trigger. Empties the whole tank onto the tile until it’s gleaming. The water doesn’t run off. He’d laid the tile slightly concave, just enough to hold a shallow pool.

He tiptoes over the water and goes into the living room. Clifford Turner is crouched over Destin Smalls, pressing his wadded-up jacket against the man’s shoulder. Smalls is moaning in pain. Buddy feels terrible about Smalls. But he could see no way around that—it was a fact of the day that was impossible to change.

He goes back to the kitchen wall phone and dials. Before anyone picks up, Joshua Lee runs into the room. He’s sprinted all the way around the house, come in through the front door. “The kids!” he says, nearly out of breath. “Where are the kids?”

“Safe,” Buddy says, then holds up a finger for silence. The operator, a woman, says, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

He wants to say, The future is dying. He wants to tell her, I’m about to be erased.

Instead, he repeats what he remembers saying: “There’s been a shooting. The gunman’s still here. Please send the police.”

Joshua says, “Where’s Jun? Where are the children?”

“Downstairs,” Buddy says. In fact, he can hear one of them banging on the basement door. He hands the phone to him. “Tell the operator whatever she needs to know.”

He walks out to the backyard, circling around the clump of angry people without looking at them. Nick Pusateri says, “Hey! Where the hell is the bag?”

Buddy marches toward the tree, ignoring him. His heart thuds in his chest. Finally he reaches the spot he remembers, beside the air compressor. He’s part of a special triangle. On one vertex stands a septuagenarian mobster holding a .45 automatic. On the other, a retired stage magician aiming a psi-based beam weapon. And at the third point of the triangle, the World’s Most Powerful Psychic, and a tank of air.

In the middle of this triangle stand Irene, Frankie, and Loretta. Loretta is threatening to cut off the balls of the mob boss of the western suburbs.

Buddy flips open the metal guard to the pressure switch, exposing the button, and checks his watch. It’s 11:57, and the second hand is swooping down the right side of the dial.

MATTY

“It won’t open,” Julian said. “What’s the matter with this place?”

“Shut up, Julian,” Malice said. She was at the window, her ear pressed to the metal shades. They’d all heard the bang from upstairs. Matty had told the older kids that it was Archibald’s equipment blowing up again, but now he wasn’t sure. Malice said, “There’s a bunch of people yelling, and I can’t tell what it’s about.”

“Don’t scare the kids,” Matty said. But he didn’t have to worry about them. All five of the younger kids were fascinated by Mr. Banks—and the puppy was fascinated right back. It stood on Luke’s chest, aggressively licking his face, which made Adrian and the girls fall out with laughter. Cassie and Polly seemed especially giddy, bordering on the manic. A Beanie Baby come to life! It was a Labor Day miracle.

Matty twisted the door handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. “That’s weird,” he said.

“Told you,” Julian said. He pushed Matty aside and tried again.

Malice said, “We’ve got to get out there.” She looked worried. He’d never seen Malice like this. Her default mode, except when she was with her friends, was Profound Disinterest.

“I’m sure somebody will hear us eventually,” he said.

“Fuck that.” She pushed him into the laundry room and closed the door behind them. “You need to go look. Out there.”

Then he realized what she meant. “I can’t just go,” he said. “It takes…preparation.”

“They’re hurting my dad!”

“Okay, okay. Do you have some pot?”

“We don’t have time for that,” she said. “Give me your hand.” She took his palm and jammed it against her left boob.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed.

“How’s that?” she asked. Pretty great, he thought. But that wasn’t what she was asking.

She studied his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold you up.”

“Okay, but I still can’t just—”

She grabbed his crotch.

He jumped in surprise. His body, however, hadn’t moved. Suddenly he was floating three feet away from it, his psyche intermingled with a shelf full of cleaning products. Malice still had her hand on his crotch. His body’s jaw went slack, and then it began to slump. Malice grabbed it around its chubby waist and lowered it to the floor so that its back was propped against the washing machine.

“Get out there,” Malice said to it. His eyes had rolled back in his head, but his face retained an expression of amazement.