Wolf Gang by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch [Lynch, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-0465-6
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2013-02-19T17:31:00+00:00

7

Get with the Program

“STOP IT, YOU’RE MESSING up my hair,” said Jerome, still a-kickin’ and a-whinin’ when we brought him in.

When the door to Lars’s garage was shut and bolted behind us, we finally let him go.

“Welcome home, Jerome,” I said.

“Welcome to jail, you criminal moron,” he responded.

“Ling,” I commanded, “sit on him.”

Good soldier that he is, Ling grabbed Jerome, apologized, then squashed him on the cold concrete floor.

“Now, criminal moron?” Ling asked, as if they were carrying on a casual, friendly conversation. “Does that mean he’s so dumb it’s a crime, or does it mean he’s unintelligent and just also happens to be a person who commits crimes?”

“I have not committed any crimes,” I insisted.

“Kidnapping is a crime,” Jerome wheezed from under the bulk of Ling.

“You are not kidnapped,” I said. “You’re rescued.”

“Oh god,” said Cecil. “What we done? Are we goin’ ta jail? I heard about jail from my uncle Jack, and I don’t think I’m gon’ like it much.”

“Too bad,” Jerome said, trying bravely to fix his hair with his one free hand, without a mirror. “Because you are going to prison once I get out of here.”

I was not nervous. “We are not going to jail.”

“Because you are not getting out,” Ling added.

“No, that’s not it,” I assured them all. “It’s because, once we deprogram you, you are not only not going to put us in jail, you are going to thank us for saving you.” I motioned to Ling to let the prisoner up. He did, and Jerome creakily got to his feet and dusted off.

Just then Lars came running down from his office. “What is he doing back here? I thought we lost this bad penny. And what happened to him? Boy, Jerome, you was a sorry enough sight before, but now you look like a little Ken doll, only wimpier.”

“I missed you too, Lars,” Jerome said.

“No time for this, guys,” Ling cut in. “We’ve got deprogramming to do.” Ling was really warming up to this now.

“Lemme in. Lemme in.” It was Vanessa. She must have thought by then that that was the password, because that’s what she did instead of knocking.

“How’d it go back there?” I asked as she strolled in.

“Cool. I told Wolfgang that Jerome ran off, and he said, ‘Good. That’s how you can tell Jerome’s a member of a club, ’cause he keeps on quitting it.’”

I laughed, from experience. Wolf was right on that one.

“Wolf said that about me?” Jerome was wounded.

“Hey there, Jerome,” Nessy said proudly. “Nice to see you again.”

“Is it, like, your life’s mission to haunt my every conscious moment?” he asked her.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” she answered with a smile.

He’s lucky, I thought. At least she limits it to his conscious moments. My most recent Monica haunt had come just the night before, when I dreamed an entire scene from King Kong in which Monica was climbing the outside of the Empire State Building with me in her fist. When she got to the top, she celebrated by kissing me with big blue blubber lips the size of water beds.

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