He’s facedown in a tub of Peppy Ripple before I even know what I’ve done. Every girl in Bastardville takes a semester of self-defense in second grade. I hadn’t realized the neck-pinch skill was still part of my physical vocabulary.
“What do you mean, Beast collector?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer. His face is covered in melt. His pith helmet—yes, he’s wearing a pith helmet—has sprinkles stuck to the top. He grins, licks the ice cream from around his lips, and walks out of the Dreamy Creamy like he’s done nothing wrong.
“There’s only one Beast here,” I yell after him. “And that Beast isn’t collectible. Just so you know.”
It’s not my fault. I’m doing a good deed. I’m trying to save him. People are stupid sometimes.
“I’ll see you later, Angela,” the collector tosses over his shoulder. I’m apprehended by my supervisor, Phil, who drags me into the supply closet and says, “No swearing, Andrea. Bastardville is a family town.”
Phil can’t remember my name, even though he’s my age, and has known me since kindergarten.
“All towns are family towns, Phil,” I say.
“You’re not a nice person,” says Phil. “You shouldn’t be around the ice cream.” He backs out of the supply closet. “Stay in here and think about the error of your ways.”
“I don’t have to be a nice person,” I tell Phil. “This isn’t a nice place.”
My town started about a hundred years ago as a Utopian community in a beautiful forest. The forest got littler, and we got bigger, and the whole Utopia thing began to melt down. By the time people realized that the woods were shrinking, we’d become a town surrounding a one-block by one-block mini-forest. But obviously, by that point, we’d figured some things out, and it was necessary to stay.
The Chamber of Commerce sent out a survey nine years ago in an attempt at attracting tourists, and that was when we renamed ourselves Bastardville. Second runner up was Awfulton, and third, the under-twenty-one favorite, was simply Suck. We weren’t allowed to name ourselves any real swear words, because maps are G-rated. Now, we’re visited by adventure backpackers, and the occasional Japanese vacationer. Some of them decide to stay. Some of them stay forever. The Beast stayed too.
Bastardville, USA: population 465, plus one Beast.
The mini-forest is the only place in town you can find any trees. Plant one elsewhere, it uproots and runs down Main Street and into the mini-forest. The Beast can be heard to roar from its confines every night. The whole thing is surrounded by houses on all sides.
We manage things.
At home, my Mother is, for the second time this week, baking cream pies and smashing them into her own face. The streets belong to the Mothers at night, and they like it that way. In the mornings they make eggs, and you want to think you’ll never be poisoned, but you never really know for sure. My own Mother is no different. In Bastardville, you marry whomever the Mothers think you ought to marry. They get together, and draw names out of a hat. It’s about that time for me. I’m sixteen, but my Mother hasn’t done anything about it. I’m supposed to move forward into my role, but in truth? I want a different role.
I don’t want to get married at all. If I thought I’d really have to, I’d walk into the mini-forest. I think the Beast might be preferable to Phil. Or anyone else I know. My Mother tried this too, but the Beast didn’t take her, and so she married my Father. Now we’re the only Family in Bastardville whose Father hunts the Beast full-time. My Father moved into the mini-forest about three years ago, with his pup tent and a few cans of tomatoes. He passed me a book called Survivalism: A Primer, shook my hand, and walked into the trees without once looking back. The Beast needs to be hunted. It doesn’t feel satisfied unless it engages in conflict. Sometimes someone fully commits. Not women. Men only.
I don’t see Billy Beecham again until Saturday night. My friends and I 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.