Their first day of work, the boys arrived at Mallory Hall and Erik froze. He had not walked into the building since the day of the shooting—six weeks ago—let alone into the theater. Nauseous and anxious, he dug in his heels at the auditorium doors and David did an inspired job of getting him inside.
“We’re going in,” he said, like a platoon leader. He had Erik by the shoulders, half-hugging, half-shaking him. “We’re going in. This is our theater, we own this place. Say it with me.”
“We own this place,” Erik said, his voice sticking in his throat.
“All my enemies whisper together against me. They imagine the worst for me, saying… What do they say, Fish?”
“He will never get up from the place where he lies.”
“My enemy does not triumph over me. Fuck the fucking fuckers. Come on, Fish, we’re going in there. You’re lying down right in the aisle where it happened, and then you’re getting up again.”
“Raise me up,” Erik said, a little stronger now, caught up in the call to arms. “Raise me up, that I may repay them…”
“We’re going in.” David yanked the theater doors with both hands, threw them open wide, and they went in.
Erik sat in the aisle by row M, his back against the seat sides.
“Here?” David asked.
“Here.”
“And he was where? Like this?” David stood a little in front of Erik but Erik waved him off.
“Don’t. Don’t be him. Just…let me do this.”
David moved out of sight. Erik closed his eyes. Opened them again.
His hand went into his pocket.
He was still carrying the penny around. And every time he tried to analyze why, it was as if a garage door came down in his mind. It was easier not to think about it.
“You all right?” David crouched by him.
“I have dreams,” Erik said. “I’m sitting right here and he shoots me. Then he goes back onstage and shoots Will and Daisy. Shoots to kill. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You tried, Fish,” David said, a comforting hand on Erik’s shoulder. “It was a crazy thing to do but if anyone could have done it…”
Erik put his head down. Tears wet the knees of his jeans. David pulled him close. “It’s all right. You got him to stop. You did.”
“I didn’t mean for him to…”
“Nobody did. Nobody knew this would happen. Nobody imagined it.”
Wiping his face on the back of his hand, Erik looked around. He looked good and hard at the bloodstains. It was them or him now. He’d either get up and face it, or sit here forever.
He got up and went down the aisle, hopped on the apron of the stage. David followed and stood center, hands on hips, looking stage left.
Erik walked past him, through the black curtains of the wings. He looked down at the floor. Bloodstains here, too, but something else. A block of graffiti, roughly forming the outline of a human body. He crouched down, peering at the multi-colored words. Signatures. Messages.
RIP Trevor.
Love you, my brother. Be with God.
Trevor, angel, I miss you so much.
Trevor King, forever in our hearts.
“Trev died here,” Erik said.
The scuff of David’s work boots as he came over. “Right there, yeah. The police outlined him in tape, just like you see in the movies. People came back and filled it in.”
Erik stood up and walked further backstage. He found four more graffiti-filled outlines. Aisha. Manuel. Taylor. And Allison Pierce.
He patted his pockets. “I need a pen,” he said. “A Sharpie or something.”
“I’ll get one.”
Erik sat cross-legged by Allison’s outline, his fingers resting lightly on what would have been her shoulder. David brought him a marker. Erik laid on his stomach and found a few inches of space. “Okey-dokey, girl,” he wrote. And couldn’t think of anything else. He felt lame and useless. He signed beneath the words, then went around signing the four others.
David was back in the middle of the stage. Erik joined him. They got down low, practically put their faces on the floor, mapping the bloodstains. Here, from Will’s wounds. And over here, from Daisy’s.