Brought To You By AnonymousPublished in issue #4 of Kindred Magazine - Harvest
"Rusty had taken great pride in his lawn. It had been immaculate, so pristine he could’ve placed a putting green out there. Now, though, it resembled a forest, uninhabited by civilization. It was wild. It was native. It drove him nuts." |
Just after dawn, Rusty awoke to the buzz of a chainsaw. Outside, he found his next-door neighbor, Gil, hacking at the overgrown Pastuchov’s ivy he’d planted a few years back. Gil waved the chainsaw about, sweeping it horizontally back and forth like a dizzy child trying to demolish a piñata. Soon, all of their neighbors had awoken. They had come out in their robes, sipping coffee, wading through waist-high grass to see Gil going crazy. No one attempted to stop him, and with good cause—he looked deranged, like if you tried to reason with him, he’d slice you down as well.
Not that Rusty blamed him. The neighborhood looked wild. The entire city did. Left to its own devices, nature will overtake manmade structures. It will crumble concrete. It will shatter glass and warp shingles and weaken steel. It will rot wood and crumble asphalt. It will oxidize copper and turn iron into rust. It doesn’t even take that long. Without regular maintenance, it’s only a matter of weeks. Take grass for example; during a Midwestern spring, grass will grow approximately two feet each month.
It sounded impossible, but that was what had happened. Potholes on I-40 and the Broadway Extension formed quickly, filled in with weeds that punctured through the asphalt. Children’s playgrounds around Hefner Lake turned unusable, pockmarked by moss and dandelions and hornets’ nests. That was the worst—the insects. They swarmed everywhere: locusts and cicadas and beetles and cockroaches and spiders and flies and moths and mosquitos. It was like being attacked by the plague.
The quickness of the city’s transformation, however, was misleading. Rusty couldn’t see the grass grow. He couldn’t see rust spreading. That happened a little at a time, so that if you continuously peered at it, you’d swear there weren’t any changes at all.
Not long after Gil took the chainsaw to his Post Oak, sirens sounded in the distance. Three police cruisers soon arrived, and out popped six cops, guns drawn, their badges gleaming. Gil didn’t put up any fight, though. As soon as he noticed them, he killed the engine to the chainsaw and dropped it to the ground. The police drew carefully towards him, handcuffed him, and then holstered their weapons.
When Gil was placed in the back of the police cruiser, the onlookers retreated back into their houses to quietly start their day.
Deborah and Rusty were at the mall shopping for Riley’s birthday. It was packed for a Thursday evening; teenagers milled around the food court, young parents pushed strollers filled with wild-eyed babies, middle-aged men tried on fleece vests, their wives puckering their lips in disapproval, and then there was them, completely lost as to what an 11-year-old girl would want.
When they’d asked her in previous weeks, she said, “I don’t know. I have everything I need.”
No use to a clueless parent.
They checked out new video games. Most of them seemed too violent for her age, shooting dinosaur-like aliens or beheading bloodthirsty zombies. She was too old for Build-A-Bear and Legos, not yet ready for jewelry or makeup. A clerk at a bookstore recommended the latest YA fiction, stories about teenage wizards and dystopian futures where children fought to the death, but Riley was already bookish and withdrawn—they didn’t feel the need to exacerbate that part of her personality.
As they shopped, Rusty slurped on a fruit smoothie, and Deborah appeared to touch every item they passed. She groped jeans and skirts and watches and hats. Some pigeons had flown in from a broken skylight, and they circled overhead. Every few feet or so, some bird poop would be glued to a handrail, and Deborah would have to raise her hand for a few moments so as to avoid it.
“I just don’t know what to make of it,” Deborah said. “What kind of kid doesn’t want anything for her birthday?”
“I know,” Rusty said. “It’s just so weird. When I was a kid, I had a list of things I wanted. New basketball shoes and a Ken Griffey Jr. jersey or the new Mario Kart game or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures.”
“I collected fossils. Shark teeth and iguana bones. Anything creepy and crawly.”
“You were a weird kid.”
“Do you think something might be wrong with her? Some sort of anti-social behavior?”
“No,” Rusty said. “No way. She’s just shy.”
“I don’t know. She rarely goes over to friends’ houses. That Rachel girl invites her over and Cheryl. I’ve talked to their parents over the phone, but she has never invited any one over to the house. Have you ever met any of her friends?”
He admitted that he had not.
“That’s strange, isn’t it? It has to be.”
Rusty had noticed, and it did seem odd, though, he figured, it was way too premature to diagnose Riley as having some emotional problem. She could be going through puberty, her hormones creating irrational insecurities that would eventually ebb away. Perhaps she considered herself too mature for her peers at school. A little presumptuous, but nothing a little humility couldn’t restrain. She just needed something, a spark, to ignite her interest in becoming sociable.
The tech store seemed promising. It bustled with kids, kids Riley’s age. They surfed social networking sites and played Bejeweled and Fruit Ninja. There they found a helpful salesman, Tim. A young guy himself, he wore thick plastic glasses and tight jeans and the store’s signature t-shirt that simply said “Genius” on the front.
“Can’t miss,” he said. He held up a tablet computer.
“Really?” Deborah asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “She can keep track of friends, socialize, study, read, play games, watch movies, listen to music. She will always be connected.”
“I don’t know,” Deborah said. “She’s still not really interacting with anyone. Not in the flesh anyway.” She had been spearheading the get-Riley-more-social initiative, planning the birthday party, inviting all her classmates, hiring a band, and signing Riley up for extracurricular activities, dance and softball and acting classes. Each one Riley would go to without a fuss, but after the second or third time she would inform them she didn’t want to return. Deborah would try to persuade Riley to stick with it, but Rusty would be the one who eventually relented, allowing her to withdraw back into her room. He knew it wasn’t good parental practice to let his child quit everything, but he was working on it.
“We’ll take it,” he said.
The day of the birthday party, they found Riley sitting in the bay window, reading a book. There wasn’t much of a view any more. Tall grass and vines blocked the street, casting a shadow where once had glowed with natural light. This didn’t seem to bother Riley, though. She didn’t even look up when her parents entered the room.
“Hey there, sweetie,” Deborah said. “What are you reading?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Don’t you want to join your friends?” Rusty asked. “They’re waiting on you.”
She shrugged. “Sure.” She lowered the book and stood to follow, but then stopped. “What happened with Mr. Lindsey?” she asked, meaning Gil. “I haven’t seen him in a couple days.”
Rusty had been expecting this. “Well,” Rusty said. “He did something against the rules, so the police came and arrested him.”
“He broke the law?”
“Yes. He broke the law.”
“But that seems silly,” she said. “It’s his tree. Why can’t he cut it down?”
“Well, honey,” he said. “It’s against the law.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes you just have to do what you’re told whether it’s silly or not.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, sweetie. Sometimes life doesn’t make sense. You’ll learn that once you get older,” he said even though he had a hard time understanding it himself. Everyone had applauded the new legislation when it was passed, heralding it as a beautification milestone. It was thought that outlawing private citizen’s ability to maintain their own private property upkeep and outsourcing it to a single provider would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, create a minimum standard of property maintenance, and allow consumers to keep more of their income, which, the theory went, would boost GDP growth through consumption. It passed through the legislature with bipartisan support with only a few naysayers. Everything had gone well at first. Dilapidated parts of the city experienced a rebirth. Older buildings were painted and repaired. Lawns were kept immaculate, green and trimmed. There was no trash floating along the streets, no graffiti defacing bridges. Developers, taking advantage of the beautification, expanded into areas that had once appeared risky. The economy surged. People seemed happier, jubilant even. But then three workers had been killed. They had been standing on the back of a trash truck when it malfunctioned, crunching them to death. The union went on strike, demanded higher wages, better benefits, and better equipment. The city couldn’t meet their demands. Council members, in a legislative oversight, couldn’t repeal the law without union consent, and the police, under direct threat from internal investigators, had to enforce the law and keep normal citizens from even mowing their grass. The result turned catastrophic as the city transformed into a wasteland. Buildings crumbled, streets were in disrepair, nature overwrought, wildlife clamored in, white tails and bobcats and rattlesnakes. It seemed every day they would hear the crack of a rifle, echoing throughout the cityscape.
But how do you explain that to an 11-year-old?
“But!” she protested. “But, but, but!”
“No buts. Go.”
He pointed where the other children were waiting in the den. The children milled around for a while. They chitchatted about things important to them—what new shoes Kevin Durant was wearing, a new album by some teenaged pop star Rusty’d never heard of, their new uber-evil history teacher. They played games, balloon bulls eye and who am I and flour cake, all of which Deborah had discovered online. When it came time to open presents, Riley took center stage, wrapped boxes surrounding her like a fortress.
Riley opened the presents quickly, ripping the paper off and tossing it to the side. She tore at the cardboard boxes. She burst bubble wrap and dug through Styrofoam. But each time she came to the present, she looked disappointed. Inside would be a doll with braided blonde hair or an Easy Bake Oven or intricate Lego sets that depicted spaceships on the box. There was a bell to place on a bicycle’s handlebars and movies about princesses and trapper keepers covered in glitter and pink. She held the item in her hand, her posture deflated, her mouth puckered, and she would lay it carefully to the side in a neat, uniform pile.
“Thank you,” she mumbled to whomever gave her the gift.
Parents cast glances to one another, eyebrows arched in judgment. Ungrateful little shit, they seemed to say.
Soon, she got to the final gift, the gift from her parents. There was no way she would rebuff something so cool, so state of the art. By this time, Riley had lost most of her excitement, unwrapping the paper timidly, careful not to tear, instead taking the time to dig her fingernails underneath the scotch tape and pull it up slowly so as not to rip off part of the design. The tablet’s box was white and modern and pristine. It pictured the tablet on the front, with its silver casing and sleek, black touchscreen. Rusty held his breath. He waited for it: a smile, a gasp, a jaw dropped. But they never came.
Riley blinked at it, then laid it with the rest.
The first lawn had been mowed haphazardly. Rusty first noticed it when leaving for work. It didn’t look like it had been cut with a lawnmower or brush hog. Instead, someone had taken gardening shears to them, like someone had given the grass a haircut. Though it was a small lawn, it must have taken hours; the grass had been nearly three feet high. Most odd was the fact that there were no clippings laying in the street or in the yard. They had all been cleaned up, bagged, and taken elsewhere.
Rusty didn’t think much of it and headed off to work. The next morning, though, another lawn had been sheared. The next day, another one. The next, two more. Whoever was cutting the lawns was getting more efficient, getting better. The grass no longer appeared uneven, hastily sliced up, blades resembling a haircut gone awry. Now the cuts seemed even and straight. Care had been taken. Meticulous precision. Pride.
The police responded soon thereafter. They canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing all of Rusty’s neighbors to glean anything suspicious. A policewoman interviewed Rusty and Deborah. She had an odd appearance to her. Her face seemed inordinately asymmetrical. Rusty knew asymmetries to be present in all human bodies. His left arm, for instance, drooped about a half-inch longer than his right. But the policewoman’s asymmetries were more pronounced—one eye was much larger than the other, and rounder, like it was a perfect circle; her right bicep was mannish, her left dainty; and she had an exquisite left butt cheek, plump and curvaceous, the other basically non-existent. Truth be told, she nearly looked deformed.
Deborah offered her tea, but she declined. “Caffeine makes me a little jumpy,” she said. They convened in the living room. Rusty and Deborah sat on the sofa, their knees touching. Riley camped out in Rusty’s recliner. It was too large for her, and her feet couldn’t quite touch the ground.
“Tell me about Mr. Lindsey,” the policewoman said. Her name was Rebecca, the only cop Rusty knew who introduced herself using her first name. “Has he seemed imbalanced lately? Troubled? Stressed?”
“You mean besides what happened the other morning?” Rusty asked.
She nodded.
“No.” He looked to Deborah for assistance. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“Has he been complaining about the city? About the law?”
“Everyone complains about it.”
She nodded again, this time puckering her lips in frustration. Apparently she had received this same answer at his neighbors’ houses.
“Have you seen anything suspicious lately? Heard anything the past three nights that sounded unusual?”
Rusty shook his head. “All quiet on the western front.”
“I’m sorry?’
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“A weed-eater or lawnmower or anything?”
“Nothing.”
The policewoman sighed. The investigation was going nowhere; that much was obvious. Not that Rusty had expected it to go well. He and the neighbors had been talking. None of them had a clue as to who was cutting the lawns, for what purpose, and whose lawn would be next. It seemed isolated to their neighborhood—coworkers and friends living in other parts of the city reported no such mysterious cuttings. It was as if their small, middle-class neighborhood had a vigilante in its midst.
Rusty had to admit it was pretty exciting.
“Please,” the policewoman said. “Give us a call if something arises. Anything at all. No matter how small.”
First, it was a pair of rain boots. Then it was a jacket. Next was a wool beanie. Lost, Riley explained. She didn’t have a clue as to where they ended up. Initially, Rusty didn’t give it a second thought. She was a child after all, and weren’t children prone to losing things? After that, Rusty found mud caked in her room, right underneath her window, dried into the fibers of the carpet. He found a tear in a sweater she hadn’t worn in months, it being much too warm for such a garment. He found a ski mask tucked underneath her bed, a blade of grass sticking out of one of its eyeholes. Her fingers he noticed had calloused. She appeared tired. Purple bags floated underneath her eyes like half-moons. She slept in later on the weekends. Dirt lined her fingernails. Her skin had been stained red from clay.
“You don’t think it’s her, do you?” he asked Deborah as they sat in their Bungalow's breakfast nook one Sunday morning, sipping coffee and eating day-old donut holes.
“No,” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But the sweater. The mud!”
“She’s probably sneaking out to go see friends. I used to do that. They’re probably TP-ing someone. Or going to see a boy she has a crush on. She’s not a criminal.”
“Riley? Sneaking out to go see friends? A boy? Our daughter?”
Deborah sipped her coffee, popped her lips after she swallowed. “Our daughter is not a criminal.”
“Okay. Okay. Then how do you explain what’s going on?”
Deborah wiped her fingers onto a dishtowel and then onto her jeans. Her fingertips appeared to still be sticky, however, the donut glaze reflecting the sunlight shining through the bay window. Outside, Indian grass waved in the breeze like spectators at a football game. Before, Rusty had taken great pride in his lawn. It had been immaculate, so pristine he could’ve placed a putting green out there. Now, though, it resembled a forest, uninhabited by civilization. It was wild. It was native. It drove him nuts.
“Like I said,” Deborah continued, “It’s probably harmless. All kids sneak out of the house at some point. It’s nothing to worry about.”
He had half a mind to assist the vigilante; however, stiffer and stiffer penalties had been legislated for offences, going so far as a 3 year prison sentence for mowing your own lawn. It would’ve made Rusty laugh if it wasn’t so serious. Instead of fixing their initial debacle, the city council had made matters worse. The proof of it was living right next door to him. Gil, having made bail, was back at home after his incident, but he faced a trial in a few weeks determining his fate. Caught with a chainsaw, it seemed likely he would face jail time.
A minor had never been charged before. If his daughter was the vigilante, she could be taken away by the DHS, sent to a juvenile detention center. He wouldn’t be able to see her for months, years even. It was unthinkable.
“We should talk to her.”
“You are blowing this way out of proportion,” Deborah said.
“Am I?” he asked. “Does she not maybe show anti-social behavior? You said so yourself!”
Deborah slammed her open palm against the glass table. “Stop it!”
Startled, Rusty spilled some coffee in his lap. He yelped and jumped out of his seat and tried to wipe away the scalding liquid, but he could still feel it burning. The pain was intense, and he had the urge to take off his pants. If only he could do that, he thought, the blistering pain would go away. He unbuckled his belt and his pants and shimmied his way out. The flesh was pink and turning red, the skin somehow seeming thinner there than the surrounding areas. Just as his pants fell around his knee, Riley walked in. Without saying a word, she closed her eyes, then walked blindly out of the room.
She snuck out at about 1:30 am. It was dark out, the moon covered by clouds, making it difficult to see. A ski mask covered her face, her hands gloved, a backpack flung over her shoulders. She seemed more like a spy than his daughter, which surprised Rusty. So careful, so inconspicuous. She’d always seemed more dazed to him, lost in her own little world. Not now, though. She had practiced this. She had done this before.
After a quick pause, she headed west down their street. She kept a slow and steady pace, stopping every dozen or so feet to take in her surroundings. Due to the overgrown lawns, he followed at a safe distance, careful not to let the crumple of the underbrush to give away his position. At the end of the street, she turned north. She stayed low to the ground, darting quickly next to a privacy fence. She continued on in this way for another block, then turned into an empty lot. Rusty hid about forty yards down the street behind some garbage cans. He could barely make her out; only her head popped up above the weeds, a dark bulbous shadow absent of features. Waiting for her looked to be several more bulbous shadows, six by Rusty’s count. The shadows appeared to be looking at Riley’s new tablet, a luminous glow emanated from the center, and in a heated discussion, their heads bobbing, ponytails shaking feverishly.
He waited for a while. He counted to 20, then 70, then 100. Getting impatient, he almost blew his cover, walked over to the empty lot to tell his daughter to get her crap together and go on home. But then grass clippings sprayed into the air and then fell back to the ground like confetti during a ticker-tape parade.
He was right! It was Riley cutting all those lawns. And she had accomplices.
They worked quickly and quietly. Using shears and an antique lawnmower, they mowed the empty lot in less than three hours. It was remarkable, really. They coordinated without much communication, working silently, each responsible for a particular piece of the lot. When they were finished, they planted a sign that simply read: “Brought to U by Anonymous.”
Rusty didn’t know what to do. He contemplated confronting her before they got back home, demanding some sort of explanation. He would do it sternly, like a father should, feigning anger, although, if he was honest with himself, he was more afraid of the consequences if she got caught. He also considered telling Deborah, asking for her input, before confronting Riley, but she would just deny the whole thing.
No. Best to confront her now.
He stayed behind the trashcans, not wanting to approach her in front of her accomplices. After they were finished, they convened out in front of their handiwork, and one reached into a backpack. He had tried to keep Riley in his sights during the night, but he had lost her soon after they began working, but he was pretty sure this little girl was Riley as she pulled out what appeared to be the tablet computer he’d given to her for her birthday. She turned around, faced her work, and snapped a photograph. After some congratulatory hugs, the group dispersed, with Riley heading towards Rusty alone.
As soon as she reached him, he placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, dropping her backpack. When she looked up at Rusty, she looked afraid. Her eyes were big and shiny, like polished marble. She turned to run, but before she could get away, Rusty grabbed her arm. Lying on the ground was the tablet computer. When it hit the pavement, the screen illuminated to her Facebook profile page. Or that’s what Rusty thought anyway; instead glowed the group page of Anonymous.
The picture she had just taken already had more than 100 likes.
At home, he parked Riley down in the living room. She had a defiant look on her face. Her feet dangled just above the carpet, mud caked around the soles of her shoes. She looked like she had when she was much younger, four or five maybe, when he had forced her to share with her cousins or made her stop standing so close to the television. Basically, it was a look that said, “as soon as you turn your back, I am going to do it again.”
“What were you thinking?” Rusty asked. He knew he should be more delicate, understanding, but he was pissed. “And don’t give me any of this ‘I don’t know’ bull crap.”
“I don’t know.”
“What did I just say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You broke the law, Riley. Do you understand that?”
“Are you going to tell Mom?”
Riley wasn’t worried what her father thought. He did not act as the disciplinarian in the house. Deborah did. He’d been relegated to a figurehead role, authoritarian in name only. This hurt more than he cared to admit.
“Mom is the least of your worries.”
She crossed her arms and sunk back into the chair.
“Seriously, Riley. You could’ve gone to jail. They would lock you up, and you would never be able to see us.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Riley, please listen to me.”
She hopped of her chair, her mud soaked shoes squishing into the carpet. “I am, Daddy,” she said as she kissed him on the forehead.
The mowing didn’t stop. If anything else, it became more frequent. They had even spilled out of Rusty’s immediate neighborhood. Some were a few miles away. Three or four or five would be cut per night, in different parts of the city, all of them signed “Anonymous.” A movement had begun. Not all of these could have been committed by these six pre-teen girls. That would’ve been impossible. They had sparked something, a movement, and it was not going away.
The nightly newscasts began to take notice. Investigative journalists searched for clues. The police asked for anyone who might have any tips to contact them immediately. Graffiti popped up, some in support of Anonymous, others opposed. The striking workers called them anti-union vigilantes. Frustrated citizens called them harbingers of commonsense justice. People fought in the streets over it. The entire city seemed about to explode. Riots appeared to be imminent.
It didn’t take the police long to locate the Facebook page. It took even less time to trace it back to Riley. They came when she was at school. It was the same policewoman as before, the one whose eye was three times the size of the other, constantly peering at him. Looking at her gave him vertigo.
“We thought we should let you know,” she said, “police are on their way to pick up your daughter.”
Rusty attempted to play dumb, but she wasn’t buying it.
“As a parent, we wanted to give you the opportunity to be there when we did.”
They drove to the school a few miles away. As they did, Rusty couldn’t help but notice that the neighborhood looked as it did years ago, pristine and immaculate. Dew glistened off freshly mowed grass. Bushes trimmed into perfect, straight lines. He had to admit; those kids did one hell of a fine job.
At the school, six police cars idled out in the bus loop. A crowd had already gathered, wondering what the commotion was. Concerned parents pointed at the school, their heads bobbing frantically as they chastised the administration for not letting them know what was going on; it was, after all, their kids in there.
Rebecca and Rusty made their way through the crowd to get into the school; however, they were stopped by a uniformed police offer before they could get inside.
“We have the school shut down, sir,” the policeman said as he placed a hand on Rusty’s chest. The policeman tried to glare at him, but the look was almost comical as the policeman was severely cross-eyed.
“This is the father,” Rebecca said, jabbing her thumb into Rusty’s chest. It hurt, the nail digging into the flesh just above his nipple, and he had to rub it to dull the ache.
“The kid’s missing.”
“What?” Rusty asked. “Missing?”
“We got the whole area on lockdown searching for her.”
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?”
“She shouldn’t get far,” he continued. “With all the lawns mowed, she has fewer places to hide.”
Not knowing what to do, Rusty started to run. He had no idea where to run to, though. Her favorite place in the world was home, in her bedroom, curled up with a book. But she wouldn’t go there; she was too smart for that. As far as Rusty was aware, she had no other place of refuge, no sanctuary to be alone, to reflect, or hide in. All of a sudden, Rusty felt sorry for his daughter. No one, especially a child, should be deprived of that.
Rebecca chased behind him, calling for him to stop. Because he had no idea where he was going, he obliged. Winded, he bent over, gasping to catch his breath.
“We’ll find her,” she said. “Don’t worry. We will find her.”
The search party was large. There were dozens of police, neighbors, kids from the school, firefighters, paramedics, gym teachers, even bureaucrats from the DMV. They all started at the school, building a perimeter, and then proceeded outward, calling out “Riiiiileeeeeeey!” every few steps. Deborah stood with Rusty, hand in hand, on the north side of the building and headed away from their home.
Deborah still wouldn’t believe her little girl could be responsible for all of this. Fields were mowed. Houses free of trash and dirt. Gutters reattached to roofs. The city began to look like a city again, a place of civilization, and Deborah couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Her daughter, a criminal. Rusty had to admit that he, too, felt ashamed. He’d thought he taught his little girl better than that.
“Riley!” he called out.
Nothing—just the bale of a tired and old dog off in the distance.
Then came a buzz in his pocket, his cell phone. He ignored it at first, but then it came again. His phone would continue to buzz until he acknowledged the message. He pulled out his phone. It was a Facebook message from Riley.
It said: “I can hear your voice.”
He typed back, “Where are you?”
“What are you doing?” Deborah asked.
He shook his head.
“Seriously,” Deborah said. “Our daughter is in trouble and,” she looked over his shoulder, “and you’re checking your Facebook page? What the hell is wrong with you?”
A message returned from Riley: “I’m under the Rocket Ship Bridge.”
The Rocket Ship Bridge was in Stephenson Park just around the corner. Rusty whispered into his wife’s ear, “I know where she is. Cover for me.” She had a reticent look on her face, but she nodded. When he turned to slip away, her fingertips pressed against his with just a little more pressure than usual. Go get our daughter, it said. She’s the most important thing right now.
Rusty slipped away and headed over to Stephenson Park. Calls for his daughter echoed over the treetops. They were close and getting closer. It wouldn’t take long for at least one of the search parties to find her. It was just a matter of time.
The Rocket Ship Bridge sits between two large play rocket ships. They have stairs and slides for children to play and have fun. Riley was curled up underneath the bridge, sitting with her tablet in her lap. She was perusing pictures of all that she had done and inspired across the city. Lawns were mowed. People were posing and smiling in front of their homes once again. Someone had tagged “Anonymous” on an overpass bridge. There was a video for that one. Each time a car passed underneath, the driver would honk his horn in support. It was difficult not to feel pride, even if Riley was a criminal. She had done what he and Deborah had asked—she had reached out and connected with the world. She had affected change in others, and Riley would never be the same. She would, after now, no longer be anonymous.
“Everyone’s looking for you, sweetie,” Rusty said.
“I know,” Riley said.
“Is that why you ran?”
She nodded.
“Are you scared?”
She nodded.
Rusty scooted in next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, comforting her. Despite the circumstances, he enjoyed this little moment. To be needed is every father’s wish.
Riley placed her head on his shoulder. “I just wanted to help Mr. Gil out,” she said. “That was all. He just seemed so upset about everything, that I thought if I could help him out, he’d be happier.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.”
“I guess I just took it a little too far.”
“It happens. I understand.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
She peered up at her father. Her eyes were buoyant and moist, like a wet trampoline. Her fear broke Rusty’s heart. He just wanted to hold her and protect her forever.
He helped her up to her feet. “Follow me,” he said. “Everything is going to be okay.”
They came out from underneath the bridge. There, standing in the street, was the search party Rusty had just left.
“You will have to go with that lady there,” he said, pointing to Rebecca.
“But why, Daddy?” she asked. “Why?”
“You broke the rules, Riley. When you break the rules, you have to be punished.”
Riley began to sob. It wasn’t a loud wail, but a slow and steady cry. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Deborah tried to go to Riley, but the asymmetrical policewoman held her back, then headed toward Rusty and Riley. Before she could take Riley away, however, Rusty leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“The city looks good, sweetie,” he said. “You did good.”
Riley smiled and nodded, sniffling up the last of her tears. “See you soon, Dad.”
“Real soon,” he said.
Rusty took Riley’s hand and then passed her over to Rebecca, who smiled softly and pulled out her handcuffs. Without a word, she placed them on Riley’s wrists, locked them into place, and radioed in that the fugitive was in custody, officially ending the search.
Rebecca placed Riley in the backseat of a nearby police cruiser and then shut the door. Riley looked out the window, her face long and confused. The search party looked on. All of them were silent. It reminded Rusty of a vigil, as if they had congregated for a collective mourning, to heal and to move forward, and to make peace with what they had done.
As the car began to pull away, Riley raised her handcuffed hands to the window and managed a slight wave.
Not that Rusty blamed him. The neighborhood looked wild. The entire city did. Left to its own devices, nature will overtake manmade structures. It will crumble concrete. It will shatter glass and warp shingles and weaken steel. It will rot wood and crumble asphalt. It will oxidize copper and turn iron into rust. It doesn’t even take that long. Without regular maintenance, it’s only a matter of weeks. Take grass for example; during a Midwestern spring, grass will grow approximately two feet each month.
It sounded impossible, but that was what had happened. Potholes on I-40 and the Broadway Extension formed quickly, filled in with weeds that punctured through the asphalt. Children’s playgrounds around Hefner Lake turned unusable, pockmarked by moss and dandelions and hornets’ nests. That was the worst—the insects. They swarmed everywhere: locusts and cicadas and beetles and cockroaches and spiders and flies and moths and mosquitos. It was like being attacked by the plague.
The quickness of the city’s transformation, however, was misleading. Rusty couldn’t see the grass grow. He couldn’t see rust spreading. That happened a little at a time, so that if you continuously peered at it, you’d swear there weren’t any changes at all.
Not long after Gil took the chainsaw to his Post Oak, sirens sounded in the distance. Three police cruisers soon arrived, and out popped six cops, guns drawn, their badges gleaming. Gil didn’t put up any fight, though. As soon as he noticed them, he killed the engine to the chainsaw and dropped it to the ground. The police drew carefully towards him, handcuffed him, and then holstered their weapons.
When Gil was placed in the back of the police cruiser, the onlookers retreated back into their houses to quietly start their day.
Deborah and Rusty were at the mall shopping for Riley’s birthday. It was packed for a Thursday evening; teenagers milled around the food court, young parents pushed strollers filled with wild-eyed babies, middle-aged men tried on fleece vests, their wives puckering their lips in disapproval, and then there was them, completely lost as to what an 11-year-old girl would want.
When they’d asked her in previous weeks, she said, “I don’t know. I have everything I need.”
No use to a clueless parent.
They checked out new video games. Most of them seemed too violent for her age, shooting dinosaur-like aliens or beheading bloodthirsty zombies. She was too old for Build-A-Bear and Legos, not yet ready for jewelry or makeup. A clerk at a bookstore recommended the latest YA fiction, stories about teenage wizards and dystopian futures where children fought to the death, but Riley was already bookish and withdrawn—they didn’t feel the need to exacerbate that part of her personality.
As they shopped, Rusty slurped on a fruit smoothie, and Deborah appeared to touch every item they passed. She groped jeans and skirts and watches and hats. Some pigeons had flown in from a broken skylight, and they circled overhead. Every few feet or so, some bird poop would be glued to a handrail, and Deborah would have to raise her hand for a few moments so as to avoid it.
“I just don’t know what to make of it,” Deborah said. “What kind of kid doesn’t want anything for her birthday?”
“I know,” Rusty said. “It’s just so weird. When I was a kid, I had a list of things I wanted. New basketball shoes and a Ken Griffey Jr. jersey or the new Mario Kart game or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures.”
“I collected fossils. Shark teeth and iguana bones. Anything creepy and crawly.”
“You were a weird kid.”
“Do you think something might be wrong with her? Some sort of anti-social behavior?”
“No,” Rusty said. “No way. She’s just shy.”
“I don’t know. She rarely goes over to friends’ houses. That Rachel girl invites her over and Cheryl. I’ve talked to their parents over the phone, but she has never invited any one over to the house. Have you ever met any of her friends?”
He admitted that he had not.
“That’s strange, isn’t it? It has to be.”
Rusty had noticed, and it did seem odd, though, he figured, it was way too premature to diagnose Riley as having some emotional problem. She could be going through puberty, her hormones creating irrational insecurities that would eventually ebb away. Perhaps she considered herself too mature for her peers at school. A little presumptuous, but nothing a little humility couldn’t restrain. She just needed something, a spark, to ignite her interest in becoming sociable.
The tech store seemed promising. It bustled with kids, kids Riley’s age. They surfed social networking sites and played Bejeweled and Fruit Ninja. There they found a helpful salesman, Tim. A young guy himself, he wore thick plastic glasses and tight jeans and the store’s signature t-shirt that simply said “Genius” on the front.
“Can’t miss,” he said. He held up a tablet computer.
“Really?” Deborah asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “She can keep track of friends, socialize, study, read, play games, watch movies, listen to music. She will always be connected.”
“I don’t know,” Deborah said. “She’s still not really interacting with anyone. Not in the flesh anyway.” She had been spearheading the get-Riley-more-social initiative, planning the birthday party, inviting all her classmates, hiring a band, and signing Riley up for extracurricular activities, dance and softball and acting classes. Each one Riley would go to without a fuss, but after the second or third time she would inform them she didn’t want to return. Deborah would try to persuade Riley to stick with it, but Rusty would be the one who eventually relented, allowing her to withdraw back into her room. He knew it wasn’t good parental practice to let his child quit everything, but he was working on it.
“We’ll take it,” he said.
The day of the birthday party, they found Riley sitting in the bay window, reading a book. There wasn’t much of a view any more. Tall grass and vines blocked the street, casting a shadow where once had glowed with natural light. This didn’t seem to bother Riley, though. She didn’t even look up when her parents entered the room.
“Hey there, sweetie,” Deborah said. “What are you reading?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Don’t you want to join your friends?” Rusty asked. “They’re waiting on you.”
She shrugged. “Sure.” She lowered the book and stood to follow, but then stopped. “What happened with Mr. Lindsey?” she asked, meaning Gil. “I haven’t seen him in a couple days.”
Rusty had been expecting this. “Well,” Rusty said. “He did something against the rules, so the police came and arrested him.”
“He broke the law?”
“Yes. He broke the law.”
“But that seems silly,” she said. “It’s his tree. Why can’t he cut it down?”
“Well, honey,” he said. “It’s against the law.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes you just have to do what you’re told whether it’s silly or not.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, sweetie. Sometimes life doesn’t make sense. You’ll learn that once you get older,” he said even though he had a hard time understanding it himself. Everyone had applauded the new legislation when it was passed, heralding it as a beautification milestone. It was thought that outlawing private citizen’s ability to maintain their own private property upkeep and outsourcing it to a single provider would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, create a minimum standard of property maintenance, and allow consumers to keep more of their income, which, the theory went, would boost GDP growth through consumption. It passed through the legislature with bipartisan support with only a few naysayers. Everything had gone well at first. Dilapidated parts of the city experienced a rebirth. Older buildings were painted and repaired. Lawns were kept immaculate, green and trimmed. There was no trash floating along the streets, no graffiti defacing bridges. Developers, taking advantage of the beautification, expanded into areas that had once appeared risky. The economy surged. People seemed happier, jubilant even. But then three workers had been killed. They had been standing on the back of a trash truck when it malfunctioned, crunching them to death. The union went on strike, demanded higher wages, better benefits, and better equipment. The city couldn’t meet their demands. Council members, in a legislative oversight, couldn’t repeal the law without union consent, and the police, under direct threat from internal investigators, had to enforce the law and keep normal citizens from even mowing their grass. The result turned catastrophic as the city transformed into a wasteland. Buildings crumbled, streets were in disrepair, nature overwrought, wildlife clamored in, white tails and bobcats and rattlesnakes. It seemed every day they would hear the crack of a rifle, echoing throughout the cityscape.
But how do you explain that to an 11-year-old?
“But!” she protested. “But, but, but!”
“No buts. Go.”
He pointed where the other children were waiting in the den. The children milled around for a while. They chitchatted about things important to them—what new shoes Kevin Durant was wearing, a new album by some teenaged pop star Rusty’d never heard of, their new uber-evil history teacher. They played games, balloon bulls eye and who am I and flour cake, all of which Deborah had discovered online. When it came time to open presents, Riley took center stage, wrapped boxes surrounding her like a fortress.
Riley opened the presents quickly, ripping the paper off and tossing it to the side. She tore at the cardboard boxes. She burst bubble wrap and dug through Styrofoam. But each time she came to the present, she looked disappointed. Inside would be a doll with braided blonde hair or an Easy Bake Oven or intricate Lego sets that depicted spaceships on the box. There was a bell to place on a bicycle’s handlebars and movies about princesses and trapper keepers covered in glitter and pink. She held the item in her hand, her posture deflated, her mouth puckered, and she would lay it carefully to the side in a neat, uniform pile.
“Thank you,” she mumbled to whomever gave her the gift.
Parents cast glances to one another, eyebrows arched in judgment. Ungrateful little shit, they seemed to say.
Soon, she got to the final gift, the gift from her parents. There was no way she would rebuff something so cool, so state of the art. By this time, Riley had lost most of her excitement, unwrapping the paper timidly, careful not to tear, instead taking the time to dig her fingernails underneath the scotch tape and pull it up slowly so as not to rip off part of the design. The tablet’s box was white and modern and pristine. It pictured the tablet on the front, with its silver casing and sleek, black touchscreen. Rusty held his breath. He waited for it: a smile, a gasp, a jaw dropped. But they never came.
Riley blinked at it, then laid it with the rest.
The first lawn had been mowed haphazardly. Rusty first noticed it when leaving for work. It didn’t look like it had been cut with a lawnmower or brush hog. Instead, someone had taken gardening shears to them, like someone had given the grass a haircut. Though it was a small lawn, it must have taken hours; the grass had been nearly three feet high. Most odd was the fact that there were no clippings laying in the street or in the yard. They had all been cleaned up, bagged, and taken elsewhere.
Rusty didn’t think much of it and headed off to work. The next morning, though, another lawn had been sheared. The next day, another one. The next, two more. Whoever was cutting the lawns was getting more efficient, getting better. The grass no longer appeared uneven, hastily sliced up, blades resembling a haircut gone awry. Now the cuts seemed even and straight. Care had been taken. Meticulous precision. Pride.
The police responded soon thereafter. They canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing all of Rusty’s neighbors to glean anything suspicious. A policewoman interviewed Rusty and Deborah. She had an odd appearance to her. Her face seemed inordinately asymmetrical. Rusty knew asymmetries to be present in all human bodies. His left arm, for instance, drooped about a half-inch longer than his right. But the policewoman’s asymmetries were more pronounced—one eye was much larger than the other, and rounder, like it was a perfect circle; her right bicep was mannish, her left dainty; and she had an exquisite left butt cheek, plump and curvaceous, the other basically non-existent. Truth be told, she nearly looked deformed.
Deborah offered her tea, but she declined. “Caffeine makes me a little jumpy,” she said. They convened in the living room. Rusty and Deborah sat on the sofa, their knees touching. Riley camped out in Rusty’s recliner. It was too large for her, and her feet couldn’t quite touch the ground.
“Tell me about Mr. Lindsey,” the policewoman said. Her name was Rebecca, the only cop Rusty knew who introduced herself using her first name. “Has he seemed imbalanced lately? Troubled? Stressed?”
“You mean besides what happened the other morning?” Rusty asked.
She nodded.
“No.” He looked to Deborah for assistance. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“Has he been complaining about the city? About the law?”
“Everyone complains about it.”
She nodded again, this time puckering her lips in frustration. Apparently she had received this same answer at his neighbors’ houses.
“Have you seen anything suspicious lately? Heard anything the past three nights that sounded unusual?”
Rusty shook his head. “All quiet on the western front.”
“I’m sorry?’
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“A weed-eater or lawnmower or anything?”
“Nothing.”
The policewoman sighed. The investigation was going nowhere; that much was obvious. Not that Rusty had expected it to go well. He and the neighbors had been talking. None of them had a clue as to who was cutting the lawns, for what purpose, and whose lawn would be next. It seemed isolated to their neighborhood—coworkers and friends living in other parts of the city reported no such mysterious cuttings. It was as if their small, middle-class neighborhood had a vigilante in its midst.
Rusty had to admit it was pretty exciting.
“Please,” the policewoman said. “Give us a call if something arises. Anything at all. No matter how small.”
First, it was a pair of rain boots. Then it was a jacket. Next was a wool beanie. Lost, Riley explained. She didn’t have a clue as to where they ended up. Initially, Rusty didn’t give it a second thought. She was a child after all, and weren’t children prone to losing things? After that, Rusty found mud caked in her room, right underneath her window, dried into the fibers of the carpet. He found a tear in a sweater she hadn’t worn in months, it being much too warm for such a garment. He found a ski mask tucked underneath her bed, a blade of grass sticking out of one of its eyeholes. Her fingers he noticed had calloused. She appeared tired. Purple bags floated underneath her eyes like half-moons. She slept in later on the weekends. Dirt lined her fingernails. Her skin had been stained red from clay.
“You don’t think it’s her, do you?” he asked Deborah as they sat in their Bungalow's breakfast nook one Sunday morning, sipping coffee and eating day-old donut holes.
“No,” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But the sweater. The mud!”
“She’s probably sneaking out to go see friends. I used to do that. They’re probably TP-ing someone. Or going to see a boy she has a crush on. She’s not a criminal.”
“Riley? Sneaking out to go see friends? A boy? Our daughter?”
Deborah sipped her coffee, popped her lips after she swallowed. “Our daughter is not a criminal.”
“Okay. Okay. Then how do you explain what’s going on?”
Deborah wiped her fingers onto a dishtowel and then onto her jeans. Her fingertips appeared to still be sticky, however, the donut glaze reflecting the sunlight shining through the bay window. Outside, Indian grass waved in the breeze like spectators at a football game. Before, Rusty had taken great pride in his lawn. It had been immaculate, so pristine he could’ve placed a putting green out there. Now, though, it resembled a forest, uninhabited by civilization. It was wild. It was native. It drove him nuts.
“Like I said,” Deborah continued, “It’s probably harmless. All kids sneak out of the house at some point. It’s nothing to worry about.”
He had half a mind to assist the vigilante; however, stiffer and stiffer penalties had been legislated for offences, going so far as a 3 year prison sentence for mowing your own lawn. It would’ve made Rusty laugh if it wasn’t so serious. Instead of fixing their initial debacle, the city council had made matters worse. The proof of it was living right next door to him. Gil, having made bail, was back at home after his incident, but he faced a trial in a few weeks determining his fate. Caught with a chainsaw, it seemed likely he would face jail time.
A minor had never been charged before. If his daughter was the vigilante, she could be taken away by the DHS, sent to a juvenile detention center. He wouldn’t be able to see her for months, years even. It was unthinkable.
“We should talk to her.”
“You are blowing this way out of proportion,” Deborah said.
“Am I?” he asked. “Does she not maybe show anti-social behavior? You said so yourself!”
Deborah slammed her open palm against the glass table. “Stop it!”
Startled, Rusty spilled some coffee in his lap. He yelped and jumped out of his seat and tried to wipe away the scalding liquid, but he could still feel it burning. The pain was intense, and he had the urge to take off his pants. If only he could do that, he thought, the blistering pain would go away. He unbuckled his belt and his pants and shimmied his way out. The flesh was pink and turning red, the skin somehow seeming thinner there than the surrounding areas. Just as his pants fell around his knee, Riley walked in. Without saying a word, she closed her eyes, then walked blindly out of the room.
She snuck out at about 1:30 am. It was dark out, the moon covered by clouds, making it difficult to see. A ski mask covered her face, her hands gloved, a backpack flung over her shoulders. She seemed more like a spy than his daughter, which surprised Rusty. So careful, so inconspicuous. She’d always seemed more dazed to him, lost in her own little world. Not now, though. She had practiced this. She had done this before.
After a quick pause, she headed west down their street. She kept a slow and steady pace, stopping every dozen or so feet to take in her surroundings. Due to the overgrown lawns, he followed at a safe distance, careful not to let the crumple of the underbrush to give away his position. At the end of the street, she turned north. She stayed low to the ground, darting quickly next to a privacy fence. She continued on in this way for another block, then turned into an empty lot. Rusty hid about forty yards down the street behind some garbage cans. He could barely make her out; only her head popped up above the weeds, a dark bulbous shadow absent of features. Waiting for her looked to be several more bulbous shadows, six by Rusty’s count. The shadows appeared to be looking at Riley’s new tablet, a luminous glow emanated from the center, and in a heated discussion, their heads bobbing, ponytails shaking feverishly.
He waited for a while. He counted to 20, then 70, then 100. Getting impatient, he almost blew his cover, walked over to the empty lot to tell his daughter to get her crap together and go on home. But then grass clippings sprayed into the air and then fell back to the ground like confetti during a ticker-tape parade.
He was right! It was Riley cutting all those lawns. And she had accomplices.
They worked quickly and quietly. Using shears and an antique lawnmower, they mowed the empty lot in less than three hours. It was remarkable, really. They coordinated without much communication, working silently, each responsible for a particular piece of the lot. When they were finished, they planted a sign that simply read: “Brought to U by Anonymous.”
Rusty didn’t know what to do. He contemplated confronting her before they got back home, demanding some sort of explanation. He would do it sternly, like a father should, feigning anger, although, if he was honest with himself, he was more afraid of the consequences if she got caught. He also considered telling Deborah, asking for her input, before confronting Riley, but she would just deny the whole thing.
No. Best to confront her now.
He stayed behind the trashcans, not wanting to approach her in front of her accomplices. After they were finished, they convened out in front of their handiwork, and one reached into a backpack. He had tried to keep Riley in his sights during the night, but he had lost her soon after they began working, but he was pretty sure this little girl was Riley as she pulled out what appeared to be the tablet computer he’d given to her for her birthday. She turned around, faced her work, and snapped a photograph. After some congratulatory hugs, the group dispersed, with Riley heading towards Rusty alone.
As soon as she reached him, he placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, dropping her backpack. When she looked up at Rusty, she looked afraid. Her eyes were big and shiny, like polished marble. She turned to run, but before she could get away, Rusty grabbed her arm. Lying on the ground was the tablet computer. When it hit the pavement, the screen illuminated to her Facebook profile page. Or that’s what Rusty thought anyway; instead glowed the group page of Anonymous.
The picture she had just taken already had more than 100 likes.
At home, he parked Riley down in the living room. She had a defiant look on her face. Her feet dangled just above the carpet, mud caked around the soles of her shoes. She looked like she had when she was much younger, four or five maybe, when he had forced her to share with her cousins or made her stop standing so close to the television. Basically, it was a look that said, “as soon as you turn your back, I am going to do it again.”
“What were you thinking?” Rusty asked. He knew he should be more delicate, understanding, but he was pissed. “And don’t give me any of this ‘I don’t know’ bull crap.”
“I don’t know.”
“What did I just say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You broke the law, Riley. Do you understand that?”
“Are you going to tell Mom?”
Riley wasn’t worried what her father thought. He did not act as the disciplinarian in the house. Deborah did. He’d been relegated to a figurehead role, authoritarian in name only. This hurt more than he cared to admit.
“Mom is the least of your worries.”
She crossed her arms and sunk back into the chair.
“Seriously, Riley. You could’ve gone to jail. They would lock you up, and you would never be able to see us.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Riley, please listen to me.”
She hopped of her chair, her mud soaked shoes squishing into the carpet. “I am, Daddy,” she said as she kissed him on the forehead.
The mowing didn’t stop. If anything else, it became more frequent. They had even spilled out of Rusty’s immediate neighborhood. Some were a few miles away. Three or four or five would be cut per night, in different parts of the city, all of them signed “Anonymous.” A movement had begun. Not all of these could have been committed by these six pre-teen girls. That would’ve been impossible. They had sparked something, a movement, and it was not going away.
The nightly newscasts began to take notice. Investigative journalists searched for clues. The police asked for anyone who might have any tips to contact them immediately. Graffiti popped up, some in support of Anonymous, others opposed. The striking workers called them anti-union vigilantes. Frustrated citizens called them harbingers of commonsense justice. People fought in the streets over it. The entire city seemed about to explode. Riots appeared to be imminent.
It didn’t take the police long to locate the Facebook page. It took even less time to trace it back to Riley. They came when she was at school. It was the same policewoman as before, the one whose eye was three times the size of the other, constantly peering at him. Looking at her gave him vertigo.
“We thought we should let you know,” she said, “police are on their way to pick up your daughter.”
Rusty attempted to play dumb, but she wasn’t buying it.
“As a parent, we wanted to give you the opportunity to be there when we did.”
They drove to the school a few miles away. As they did, Rusty couldn’t help but notice that the neighborhood looked as it did years ago, pristine and immaculate. Dew glistened off freshly mowed grass. Bushes trimmed into perfect, straight lines. He had to admit; those kids did one hell of a fine job.
At the school, six police cars idled out in the bus loop. A crowd had already gathered, wondering what the commotion was. Concerned parents pointed at the school, their heads bobbing frantically as they chastised the administration for not letting them know what was going on; it was, after all, their kids in there.
Rebecca and Rusty made their way through the crowd to get into the school; however, they were stopped by a uniformed police offer before they could get inside.
“We have the school shut down, sir,” the policeman said as he placed a hand on Rusty’s chest. The policeman tried to glare at him, but the look was almost comical as the policeman was severely cross-eyed.
“This is the father,” Rebecca said, jabbing her thumb into Rusty’s chest. It hurt, the nail digging into the flesh just above his nipple, and he had to rub it to dull the ache.
“The kid’s missing.”
“What?” Rusty asked. “Missing?”
“We got the whole area on lockdown searching for her.”
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?”
“She shouldn’t get far,” he continued. “With all the lawns mowed, she has fewer places to hide.”
Not knowing what to do, Rusty started to run. He had no idea where to run to, though. Her favorite place in the world was home, in her bedroom, curled up with a book. But she wouldn’t go there; she was too smart for that. As far as Rusty was aware, she had no other place of refuge, no sanctuary to be alone, to reflect, or hide in. All of a sudden, Rusty felt sorry for his daughter. No one, especially a child, should be deprived of that.
Rebecca chased behind him, calling for him to stop. Because he had no idea where he was going, he obliged. Winded, he bent over, gasping to catch his breath.
“We’ll find her,” she said. “Don’t worry. We will find her.”
The search party was large. There were dozens of police, neighbors, kids from the school, firefighters, paramedics, gym teachers, even bureaucrats from the DMV. They all started at the school, building a perimeter, and then proceeded outward, calling out “Riiiiileeeeeeey!” every few steps. Deborah stood with Rusty, hand in hand, on the north side of the building and headed away from their home.
Deborah still wouldn’t believe her little girl could be responsible for all of this. Fields were mowed. Houses free of trash and dirt. Gutters reattached to roofs. The city began to look like a city again, a place of civilization, and Deborah couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Her daughter, a criminal. Rusty had to admit that he, too, felt ashamed. He’d thought he taught his little girl better than that.
“Riley!” he called out.
Nothing—just the bale of a tired and old dog off in the distance.
Then came a buzz in his pocket, his cell phone. He ignored it at first, but then it came again. His phone would continue to buzz until he acknowledged the message. He pulled out his phone. It was a Facebook message from Riley.
It said: “I can hear your voice.”
He typed back, “Where are you?”
“What are you doing?” Deborah asked.
He shook his head.
“Seriously,” Deborah said. “Our daughter is in trouble and,” she looked over his shoulder, “and you’re checking your Facebook page? What the hell is wrong with you?”
A message returned from Riley: “I’m under the Rocket Ship Bridge.”
The Rocket Ship Bridge was in Stephenson Park just around the corner. Rusty whispered into his wife’s ear, “I know where she is. Cover for me.” She had a reticent look on her face, but she nodded. When he turned to slip away, her fingertips pressed against his with just a little more pressure than usual. Go get our daughter, it said. She’s the most important thing right now.
Rusty slipped away and headed over to Stephenson Park. Calls for his daughter echoed over the treetops. They were close and getting closer. It wouldn’t take long for at least one of the search parties to find her. It was just a matter of time.
The Rocket Ship Bridge sits between two large play rocket ships. They have stairs and slides for children to play and have fun. Riley was curled up underneath the bridge, sitting with her tablet in her lap. She was perusing pictures of all that she had done and inspired across the city. Lawns were mowed. People were posing and smiling in front of their homes once again. Someone had tagged “Anonymous” on an overpass bridge. There was a video for that one. Each time a car passed underneath, the driver would honk his horn in support. It was difficult not to feel pride, even if Riley was a criminal. She had done what he and Deborah had asked—she had reached out and connected with the world. She had affected change in others, and Riley would never be the same. She would, after now, no longer be anonymous.
“Everyone’s looking for you, sweetie,” Rusty said.
“I know,” Riley said.
“Is that why you ran?”
She nodded.
“Are you scared?”
She nodded.
Rusty scooted in next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, comforting her. Despite the circumstances, he enjoyed this little moment. To be needed is every father’s wish.
Riley placed her head on his shoulder. “I just wanted to help Mr. Gil out,” she said. “That was all. He just seemed so upset about everything, that I thought if I could help him out, he’d be happier.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.”
“I guess I just took it a little too far.”
“It happens. I understand.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
She peered up at her father. Her eyes were buoyant and moist, like a wet trampoline. Her fear broke Rusty’s heart. He just wanted to hold her and protect her forever.
He helped her up to her feet. “Follow me,” he said. “Everything is going to be okay.”
They came out from underneath the bridge. There, standing in the street, was the search party Rusty had just left.
“You will have to go with that lady there,” he said, pointing to Rebecca.
“But why, Daddy?” she asked. “Why?”
“You broke the rules, Riley. When you break the rules, you have to be punished.”
Riley began to sob. It wasn’t a loud wail, but a slow and steady cry. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Deborah tried to go to Riley, but the asymmetrical policewoman held her back, then headed toward Rusty and Riley. Before she could take Riley away, however, Rusty leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“The city looks good, sweetie,” he said. “You did good.”
Riley smiled and nodded, sniffling up the last of her tears. “See you soon, Dad.”
“Real soon,” he said.
Rusty took Riley’s hand and then passed her over to Rebecca, who smiled softly and pulled out her handcuffs. Without a word, she placed them on Riley’s wrists, locked them into place, and radioed in that the fugitive was in custody, officially ending the search.
Rebecca placed Riley in the backseat of a nearby police cruiser and then shut the door. Riley looked out the window, her face long and confused. The search party looked on. All of them were silent. It reminded Rusty of a vigil, as if they had congregated for a collective mourning, to heal and to move forward, and to make peace with what they had done.
As the car began to pull away, Riley raised her handcuffed hands to the window and managed a slight wave.