The rivals of casper roa.., p.5
The Rivals of Casper Road, page 5
“I am so damn glad you moved here,” Rye said sincerely.
Chapter Six
Zachary
Zachary was behind. It was September 1st. Usually by this time, he’d have his armatures created, his lighting scheme signed off on by Wes, his best friend, and be spending a satisfying Saturday night in his studio, movies playing, ideas firing, as he painted, papier-mâchéd, et cetera. He had a concept, but not the time to bring it to life.
Instead, he was hunched over his drafting table long after he should’ve been done with work for the day, scrubbing out lines with an already overworked eraser. This project was a disaster, and it was his fault. Darcy, his closest collaborator/competition at work, had told him from the beginning that the partners weren’t going to respond well to something this innovative. That they were looking for clean, obvious design. And Zachary knew she was right.
But there was something in him that had pushed. Had whispered that this time was the time. The time to show them that he was so much more than box stores and condominiums. More than simple and functional. That he, Zachary Glass, was visionary.
The design he pitched had been lovely and interesting and, as the partners had immediately told him, expensive. And that was what it all boiled down to: innovation was worth less than the money they’d have to spend to make it a reality. It was so damned depressing Zachary could scream.
There had been a time when architecture was art. When the shapes of the spaces people moved through spoke of vision, of the future. Pushed boundaries. Asked questions. Made people pay attention to the world around them.
Even Zachary wasn’t so egotistical as to imagine himself creating the next Notre Dame, the next Mosque of Samarra. But even Mrs. Lundy’s house had vision. McTeague had sparked controversy in the fifties and sixties. It was ugly, to Zachary and to many others, but who cared?! It was visionary! It changed the way people thought about their own living spaces—insisted they confront the concept of home as much as his designs themselves. And it laid the groundwork for what would become industrialism later on.
Zachary sighed and allowed himself ten minutes to feel sorry for himself. He texted Wes: My bosses are visionless hacks. I am deeply misunderstood. Cry for me, Argentina.
Your bosses ARE visionless hacks, Wes replied. They weren’t into the gator?
Seeing it in text, it had perhaps been a mistake to call the development Gator. But the Florida mall had four anchor points, a curving tail of a movie theater, and second stories on one half that made its head and chest rear up from the water of the parking lots that surrounded it. Not that you could tell that with a casual glance, but concepts mattered!
Well, not now, since the design would never see the light of day.
You need to be somewhere that lets you have more freedom, Wes wrote.
This made complete sense coming from Wes, who worked on his own, for himself, and only cared about the results. But Zachary liked structure. He liked order, and predictability, and having other people tell him he was doing a good job. He liked the competition of vying for the next project with his coworkers. Besides, unlike Wes, Zachary didn’t have a large savings account to fall back on.
Nope, Zachary would just take the next three minutes, now, and finish feeling sorry for himself, and then he’d redo the design the way the partners wanted. The Gator would stay in the swamp and he’d produce a safe, boring, cheap building full of ninety-degree angles, ceilings the height of premanufactured beams, and no windows so that shoppers couldn’t be reminded that there was a world outside the mall.
With a self-indulgent sigh and head full of numbers, Zachary slid a fresh sheet of paper onto the table and began to design Florida’s most boring mall. And if something inside him died a little every time he abandoned one of his own designs like this, well. That was life, wasn’t it.
* * *
Bram Larkspur had to be stopped.
Zachary had woken up Sunday morning, exhausted from his redesign the night before, but excited to spend the day on his Halloween decorations. Even though he was behind by his own standards, he was still light-years ahead of everyone but Mrs. Lundy (fortunately though regrettably not a threat).
But when he looked out the window, his heart skipped a beat and his stomach clenched. Sprawling across Bram Larkspur’s front yard was a-a-a beast. A terrifying and glorious dragon creature with a tail that curled to a wicked point and a body that rose eight or nine feet tall. The head then dipped down, like it could peer at anyone who passed. It seemed to be carved out of five different tree stumps of varying heights and sizes that fit artfully together.
It was magnificent.
It was stunning.
And Zachary could feel his victory slipping away. He closed the shade quickly, unable to look at it—or the man who’d created it—for one more second. He didn’t get Saturday’s mail on Sundays, so he’d have something to get on Monday mornings as part of his routine, so there was no need to leave the house.
He needed to rethink his Halloween plans, find places where he could turn up the volume, because this? This was a shot fired across the bow and Zachary was sure as hell going to return fire.
Three hours later and Zachary’s stomach was in knots. He loved his design of a ghost ship cutting through dark, monster-infested waters! He’d been working on it since late November, and it was perfect. He didn’t want to change it. But he couldn’t trust the committee to make the right choice.
Zachary paced around the house manically. He had already compromised his last three designs for the firm, and he’d be damned if he was going to do it for his own Halloween decorations. Why did Bram have to come here?
He was ruining everything.
Zachary didn’t precisely mean to do it. But before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed a tin of yellow paint left over from the previous year’s design in his hand, and was stalking across the street.
Up close, the dragon was even more amazing. Zachary snarled at it and it snarled back. But since it was just wood, it couldn’t stop him when he tossed the can of sunshine yellow paint all over it.
As paint hit wood, Zachary felt a moment of spiteful elation. But in the second after, when the beautiful sculpture dripped paint onto the grass, Zachary felt light-headed.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh god, shit!”
That’s when he saw something move behind the window of Bram’s house—something tall and Bram-shaped. He’d been seen. He stood frozen for a moment, wondering what he could do, but there was nothing to do. So he turned and ran back to his house, shut the door behind him like he’d been running from an ax murderer, and closed his eyes.
This was low. This was so low. He couldn’t believe he’d done something so mean, so destructive, so incredibly petty. And to someone who’d just moved to town and didn’t know anyone.
Zachary barely made it to the bathroom before puking.
Chapter Seven
Bram
“Did you just...” Bram goggled as he watched through the window as Zachary Glass splashed paint on his dragon creature. At first, Bram had thought it was silly string, something he and his siblings used to spray on each other’s belongings as a prank. But one look at Zachary’s face in the moment after he doused the dragon disabused him of that notion.
And he’d kind of thought they were becoming friendly. Unless...maybe Zachary meant it in a friendly way? No! God, stop giving everyone the benefit of the doubt when they’re obviously being an asshole, he heard his sister Moon say.
But the truth was that Bram had begun to enjoy Zachary. He wasn’t quite sure why yet. The man was snarky, uptight, and borderline rude, didn’t seem to have a sense of humor, and dressed like he was on Mad Men. But there was just something about him that drew Bram in. He was intense and passionate, unapologetic and very straightforward.
Well, if you didn’t count the fact that he was currently scurrying from the scene of the crime.
Bram had a choice. You always had a choice. He could choose anger and confront or resent Zachary for what he did. Or he could decide that Zachary’s act was a prank. A mean prank, but a prank nonetheless. And Bram could respond in kind.
He chose the latter, and he called in his family for backup.
Chapter Eight
Zachary
Monday morning it was all Zachary could do to open his front door, but he couldn’t start his workday without going through his routine. He kept his eyes on the ground, as if maybe that meant he wouldn’t see Bram sitting on his stoop behind the paint-splattered dragon.
He would just apologize. Right. He took a deep breath.
“Morning, neighbor,” Bram called. His voice was cheery and open.
What the hell? Why would Bram be nice to him when he’d been so awful? Was it possible that it wasn’t Bram he’d seen through the window? That Bram didn’t know it was him? No, surely not. He’d seen Bram see him.
“Um. Morning,” Zachary got out, trying to figure out what was wrong with this sunny man. He opened the mailbox absently and reached inside. There should be an issue of Global Architecture. But the moment the mailbox opened, something hit him in the face. Shocked, he reeled backward. Had a bomb gone off? Had the world finally ended?
He sputtered and opened his eyes. His mailbox, the ground around it, and presumably he himself, were covered in...glitter?
“What the...?”
“Game on,” said a voice over his shoulder, and Zachary turned to see Bram standing there, grinning.
“You—I—Did you—?”
“You started it,” Bram said, nodding toward the dragon. “But now it’s on.”
Zachary goggled. Bram had seen him. He’d seen him do something mean-spirited and awful, and had seen it in the context of a prank...he was either very generous or very deluded. And for some reason, Zachary found himself hoping it was the former.
“I’m very, very sorry about the paint. I honestly don’t know what possessed me. That is, I wasn’t actually possessed; I take responsibility for my actions. Just, I didn’t actually think I was going to do it until I did, and then, uh, it was too late. Because I’d done it.”
“Yeah, that’s usually how that works,” Bram agreed. But he still didn’t seem angry. He seemed...impish.
“Are you...enjoying this?”
Bram just raised his eyebrows and winked. “Consider us even. For now.” Then he took a magazine from his back pocket and handed it to Zachary. Global Architecture.
“Thanks.”
Bram smiled mysteriously and said, “You never know what I might do next.” Then he sauntered back across the street, leaving Zachary a mess of uncertainty and glitter.
When he got a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, he gaped. The glitter coated his skin, his hair, his eyebrows, everything. He looked like some kind of science fiction extra from Planet Sparkle. His mind whirled with ideas, the sick feeling of guilt replaced by something buoyant.
It was eight minutes until he was supposed to start work and now he had to shower again. He was definitely going to get a late start, which usually filled him with irritation and anxiety.
So why was his reflection grinning back at him?
In the shower as he scrubbed the stubborn glitter from his skin, he realized what it was.
He was having fun. And he couldn’t remember the last time he had.
Sure, he enjoyed a lot of what he did. He loved designing his buildings, horror movies, corresponding with his pen pals, creating his Halloween decorationscape. But enjoyment wasn’t the same thing as the fizzy joy of pure, shared fun.
* * *
Operation Prank War was now Zachary’s prime objective and he texted Wes an SOS: I need ideas for pranks. Now that you have a human child, make her say some silly, childish things that I can implement.
Roger that.
While he waited for Wes’ boyfriend’s daughter Gus’ nine-year-old input, Zachary googled “prank.” A practical joke or mischievous act. That wasn’t very illuminating.
Nor were the pranks listed very useful. They seemed mainly to involve the replacement of one object with another and to require proximity—a shared bathroom that would allow you to replace toothpaste with frosting or shampoo with mayonnaise (disgusting; he would never).
The other kind of pranks were elaborate and seemed to have as their goal the complete destruction of the recipient’s sanity. He read about a prank where a suite of college roommates drywalled over the doorway to one of their roommates’ bedrooms while he was away for the weekend, and when he returned they all pretended not to know who he was.
That was very impressive, and Zachary filed it away for future use on Wes, if the situation ever arose, but it wasn’t right for Bram. Bram was...sunnier. Lighter. For Bram he wanted something, well, fun.
* * *
Timing was the soul of comedy, and so Zachary waited for the perfect moment to unleash his find. It came four days later, when a thunderstorm prevented Bram and Hemlock from their daily outdoor whittling (Bram) and lying like a pile of jelly (Hemlock).
When the next morning dawned, Zachary had set it all up. He left his house early and by the back door, and crept around the cul-de-sac, to the side of Bram’s house where the inflatable was plugged into the exterior socket. He flipped the switch and watched as the inflatable ghost engorged. It was ten feet tall, and Zachary had situated it directly in front of Bram’s front door. When it was fully inflated, Zachary waited.
Bram should be coming outside any minute.
Zachary’s fingers were restless, and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, psychically urging Bram to emerge. Irritatingly, Bram didn’t come out at the exact same time every day—didn’t, in fact, seem to have any dependable schedule at all. Zachary didn’t know how he did it.
After what felt like an age but was only ten minutes, the door began to open. Unfortunately, Zachary couldn’t see Bram’s face because Bram was inside the house, but he heard his gasp, and he certainly heard Hemlock’s low, urgent growl.
Then Bram pushed his way outside past the inflated ghost, a smile on his face. Hemlock sniffed at it in all directions, finally seeming to decide it was no threat, even if it was on her preferred snoozing stoop.
Bram’s eyes met Zachary’s and they both grinned.
“Nice ghost.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s the law about claiming objects on your property in this state? Is the ghost mine now?”
Uncharacteristically, Zachary had not considered that.
“Do you want it?”
“Yeah! I’ll make it part of my Halloween display. Or did you forget about that part?” he mused exaggeratedly.
“Ha-ha.”
They stood staring at each other, huge inflatable ghost waving ghostily in the background. Zachary didn’t know what to say now. He had loved being the one to put that impish grin on Bram’s face. He knew that much.
“So, do you get the ideas for your award-winning decorations from horror movies?” Bram asked.
“Not directly. But certainly their aesthetics have influenced my own. A lot of people think horror is all dark alleys and red blood and, like, black leather torture implements. But there is a huge amount of variation within the genre—and subgenres—everything from super-saturated psychedelic color, to muted and desolate landscapes, to the sunny, bucolic scenes of folk horror.”
Bram was listening closely, blue eyes locked on Zachary.
“Which do you like the best?”
“I like all of them in their own ways, really. But do like the subtle and muted palettes. There’s something so beautiful and mournful about them. Like...like a field of wild grasses at the start of autumn. All different tones of green and brown and gray and gold.”
“Sounds beautiful,” Bram murmured. “But not very scary.”
“Well, that’s the thing about horror. Every scary thing is scary either because it’s alien to what we know or because it’s the same as what we know. So something could be scary because a field of lovely wild grass looks calm and bucolic and then BAM, a monster slinks out of it. But it could also be scary because the grass looks calm and bucolic and then slowly you realize that it’s razor sharp and can cut you to ribbons. Or it’s stealthily twining around your ankles to keep you in the field forever.”
Bram shuddered.
“Those are all terrifying. I honestly don’t understand how you can watch that stuff.”
“Well, those aren’t real examples. Although, Children of the Corn does take place in a corn field.”
“Yeah, I just can’t really understand choosing to be scared or anxious. No judgment, honestly, I’m just curious. Why do you like being scared?”
It was something everyone who didn’t like horror asked, and Zachary never had a satisfactory answer for them. Taste was just different. But Bram seemed to genuinely want to understand.
“Why do you watch a movie or read a book?”
“Er, I don’t that much, honestly. I know that’s not cool to admit, but...” He shrugged.
“It’s not really about wanting to be scared for me. Sure there are some people who watch horror movies like eating ghost peppers, to prove that they can take it, and the scarier the better. But that’s not me. I just... I accept that negative emotions are a part of life, I guess. And horror is a genre that also accepts that. So you get movies where the characters face extreme challenges or threats and are transformed by them, if they survive. People try to push away the bad things. That’s what we’re taught to do. Bury the dead far away from where we live, say you’re fine even if you’re having a horrible day, don’t think bad thoughts. It’s practically superstition. But I think the people who avoid seeing or thinking about scary stuff the most are actually the most affected by it. They believe that even thinking about it has the power to bring it into being. It’s almost worshipful.”
