Girl in the Arena - Lise Haines [17]
Thad pulls on my jacket. TOMMY G. is stitched in gold letters across the back. He pulls so hard I feel the seams rip. Even though he’s on elevator drugs he doesn’t have any real control. It’s hard to know if he’s even registered Tommy’s death.
—I have to tell you something, he says.
When he gets going, Thad can have something to tell me every five minutes.
He cups his hands around my ears. —Mom’s going to lose the house, he says.
That’s the randomness of Thad. And you can’t say: That’s nuts, Thad. You have to play along like you’re going to lose the house. Otherwise, he goes into a worse state. And then I feel upset seeing him get upset. And the truth is, now that Tommy’s dead, we can live in our house forever, well, at least until Allison dies, because Tommy always fought a clean fight. And that’s in the rules. Fight clean and a gladiator’s family enjoys ongoing and generous subsidies.
—Things will be okay. There are other houses, I say to comfort him.
I straighten his hair so it’s out of his eyes. Then I sit down next to Allison and put an arm around her shoulders.
Suddenly I realize that Uber might think my bracelet is actually Tommy’s because it’s a wide, flat band made in the man’s style. I feel sick knowing he could reach down and pluck it off the arena floor. It just sits there by his feet, like an eight ball ready to drop into a pocket and end my game. Because the thing is: No man is allowed to hold your dowry bracelet, except your father. If a man holds your dowry bracelet he’s required, according to GSA law, to marry you, Bylaw 87.
I watch Allison pull her small yellow coat around herself, as if this will wrap her tight enough to get through the worst day of her life. She says, —He shouldn’t even be in the league. They’re going to nail this guy, she says, looking at the penalty flag again. —You watch. They’ll boot him right out.
Uber unclips his mic from his black and gold breastplate.
—Wait!! he shouts, slamming his voice into the sound system.
It’s eerie the way people go quiet in waves.
Here is this giant who will be able to sell anything to anyone, and he’s standing in the middle of the arena, Tommy cut to pieces in front of him, the penalty flag up, and then—and this is something I can only record and not explain—Uber hangs his head. He touches his chest. I swear I see him mouth the word: tommy. Even if no one else does, I see it. My skull freezes. This is like being in some kind of sick fairy tale. He has no right to look like he cares or that he’s pledging allegiance or something.
In the still, I hear the soft drink machines recharging, the sprinkler tanks filling, the cotton candy spinning in the dead quiet, in the rising heat as Uber looks dumbly at the ground. Everyone in the stadium stands up now, if they haven’t already, and they touch their hearts and they hang their heads to honor Tommy. And then, after what seems like minutes, though it must be seconds, Uber breaks his stance. He looks up at the crowds and he reaches down. His long black braid swings forward.
And he picks up the bracelet.
CHAPTER
6
Uber angles my silver band this way and that, catching and bending stadium light. When the close-up comes on the screens Allison gasps and a winnowing sound erupts from her throat.
—That’s your bracelet, she says.
A gladiator has the right to handle, pick up, and generally plunder any object his opponent abandons to the arena floor, Rule 44.
I can’t feel my spine anymore. My knees are air.
—Why was Tommy wearing your bracelet? she asks.
I can barely get the words out, but I tell her the truth, that I lent it to him for good luck. If this were about a matter we didn’t agree on, she might say something with a sharp edge to it, something unfortunate about luck. But at this moment in time, about this issue, we are allies.
—We have to get it back, she says.
Now the lucid images arrive on the jumbo screens. I’m aware that you can see Tommy’s corpse