Repossession

I’m no loser, so I’m fixing to have Vivian use her most powerful water move in hopes of turning the tide of this losing Pokémon battle. Laying her down, I imagine her fish tail swish and ear fins tense as she summons a wall of water to blast at Duck’s fiery and unwitting fool of a Magby. Duck won’t know what wave washed her. 

On the wooden table sorely stamped with too many hand-etched penises, she lays down a Grass-type that I’ve never seen her pull. And I’ve seen plenty-a-youth pull plenty-a-card. Her fresh Bulbasaur is resistant to anything my lovely Vivian could use.

“Bulbasaur uses Grass Knot. It’s super effective. You lose, Robby,” Duck tells me as if I didn’t just witness the carnage first-hand.

My comrade Desi admiringly inspects Duck’s Vivian-killing Bulbasaur. I shoot my chair back, about ready to explode.

Counselor Magnolia is on her phone in the corner, probably losing Candy Crush or reading rude compliments on Tinder that she does not secretly appreciate because she’s a-god-damn-feminist-! or doing something or other along those lines considering the wide sneer tearing her face. As she is busy doing it-doesn’t-matter-what, Magnolia will be of neither help nor hinderance. I snatch Duck’s Bulbasaur from Desi’s pink-painted fingers and she snaps to attention.

“You’re a cheater, Duck,” I tell Duck.

“How do you mean?” she says, voice and bushy caterpillar eyebrows flat, not even extending me the courtesy of her gaze. 

“I don’t think your cards are that good.”

“They are.”

“When did you get this Bulbasaur?” I ask as I wave it wildly in her face. The furry fiends above her eyes remain inexplicably motionless.

“In a fresh pack a couple of days ago.”

She is thoroughly under my skin. I’m pretty sure Marco Martinez lost a Bulbasaur a few days back, but Duck wouldn’t own up to any theft without some proof. I look to sweet Desi for help in extracting anything out of the cheat, and she skillfully reads my silent plea. 

“Well that’s awfully lucky, Duckie dearest” Desi croons at Duckie dearest. 

“Excuse you?” Caterpillar movement sighted. Duck’s gaze raises. Where I failed to provoke the swindler, Desi excelled, being the tactical genius that she is.

Confidence rekindled, I throw a hurtful verbal jab. “I bet you didn’t even give him a name.” 

Shock ripples across Desi’s face at the accusation, betrayed eyes wide and begging for the truth of Duck’s alleged unseemly behavior. 

“I don’t name my Pokémon.”

Desi’s face contorts in dangerous anger. 

Bang! The heels of her hands slam the table “Answer the question, Duck!”

Duck seems confused, as am I. Desi is not as she impatiently awaits her answer. After a pause, the con responds. “I assume you meant to ask a question first?”

This is it. My chance for annihilating the unmoving, impenetrable Duck. I stand tall, commanding attention before making my profession. “Well, Duck, A-S-S, U-M-E makes an ass out of you and me.” I pause between the letters, annunciating each one, carefully mimicking my mom who said that to me when I was ten-years-old and we both left my lunch bag on the kitchen counter in the rush for school. I had gotten “uppity” and confronted her “with a touch more haught than acceptable under this particular roof” when I realized I’d be having mystery meat and a carton of 2% white milk that day. I stored my mom’s phrase away because I thought it sounded clever. I’ve been on my toes just waiting for someone to say assume, but nine times out of ten they just say ass.

“What on God’s green earth did I just hear you say, Robin King?” I hear in a chilling, faux deep voice above me.

So this is what I get for embracing my mother’s wisdom. For a man so freakishly tall and so disturbingly bursting with righteous judgement, Counselor Soren sneaks up quietly. And to think that I don’t even say ass on the regular! Ass is bland!

“Well, Counselor Soren, you see, A-S-T, U-T-E makes…”

The hasty wastrel cut me off before I could finish scrambling for an answer. There could’ve been some wisdom at the end of that thought, but I guess I’ll never know now.

“I know for a fact that you spelled a different word, and I’m sure Duck would confirm if I tracked her down."

I spin around, and sure enough that sly Duck slipped Soren. I don’t think I’ve seen her scolded once, but at least she’s not here to be a rat. Lovely Desi has deserted me, too.

“I assume you won’t try lying to me again, Robin King,” putting a certain emphasis on the ass. An emph-ass-is, if you will. 

I can only assume that his eyes are boring into me. Wormy eyebrows are raised above his inordinately thick, shrouding glasses. They tell me that the jig is up. Someday, I’ll rescue them from their miserable position on his face. Maybe Desi has a razor and some kind of sleep drug. I bet a little of the stuff that kills the rats in this Rec wouldn’t kill this tower of a mockery of a man. I’m angry at his pretension and the mouth on my face doesn’t slow down for the brain in my head. 

“To my knowledge, Counselor Soren, the word ass has never been in this mouth in all of my life.”

My mom got a call that day.

---

I’ve noticed that Duck is a regular initiator of tomfoolery. She doesn’t look the type, with her short hair tucked neatly behind her big ears and her utensil collection in an organized row, always in nubby pencil, glitter pen, and red pen order. One day, I bumped a hip into her table in my race to an ice-cream sandwich supplied by Magnolia, re-ordering that utensil row. Those fat caterpillars on her face got close and crinkly. Those snakey nostrils flared. Those small lips pursed, but didn’t open to say something about my carelessness. As I bit into that sweet goodness on my walk back to Desi, I flashed Duck an apologetic, sandwich-filled smile.

The next day I lost my BIC Xtra precision .5 mm lead pencil, and Duck had her utensil collection in nubby pencil, glitter pen, BIC Xtra precision .5mm lead pencil, and red pen order. I spied Soren leading a yoga activity in the middle of the gym, languid limbs flopping like an unnatural clown, and knew to tread carefully in my confrontation.

“Where’d you get that fresh BIC, Duck?”

She met my banal query with slick disregard.

Instead of putting her face in caterpillar-nostril and fat lip order, I held my tongue and my fists with such restraint that it would put stick-up-his-butt Soren himself to shame. My mom tells me that I’ve always been too awfully sensitive to injustices against my person anyways, but I stand by my opinions on the hierarchy of wrongdoings.

For example, I’d more quickly respect a rat than a thief. The rat will let you into its little rat brain and let you feel its little rat anger. It’ll tell you how it feels with its little rat chest. Wayne Rec youths playing spot-a-rat gain an easy familiarity with rat communication tactics, and can know what to expect when a rat tells you how it’s feeling.

Corner-a-rat, on the other hand, is a much more dangerous game and one not played long before Wayne Rec counselors frantically insert themselves with a riddle or a jump rope encased in dozens of scratchy plastic cylinders in red-white order or entertaining something or other that won’t cost Wayne County its Rec Center in a lawsuit. They save the unlucky little rat with its back to the wall, surrounded by youthful camper chaos all around, but that little rat brain will know fear again soon enough. The counselors’ bosses will soon call Wayne County’s Pest Doctor who I think does a lousy job catching pests because they’ve been to the Rec half a dozen times by my count and Counselor Soren is still here, alive and kicking. Also, the actual rats never stay gone for long.

This is all well and good and follows function as form should — unless you have lousy luck — unlike Duck — and land Counselor Soren as your jury and judge. If you’re the poor fool caught cornering a rat or committing any other unallowed shenanigan by former-Mormon Counselor Soren, you’ve got a big storm coming.

Duck has a knack for initiating the type of tomfoolery that catches the bespectacled eyes of that S.O.B. Soren. With all the authority of a mic’d up, new age preacher encased in a center-stage pulpit, Soren’s sermons boggle and shame the poor soul unfortunate enough to misbehave in his eyesight. He’ll speak down at you from atop his podium legs and from behind his perpetually foggy glasses. I don’t think I’ve looked him once in the eye given that they’re so high up and obscured. It’s like trying to spot a puny-dull star on a light-polluted night. 

One time Soren caught me involved in some ruckus that Duck started and it ended in a card confiscation, a sermon, some tears, and my broken nose. That’s a lie because he didn’t punch me, but I did cry and felt that swirling turmoil roiling in my chest. That isn’t what I told my mom hoping she would justly end that tall, young, poor-sighted fool with the righteous fury and sound she could summon when some injustice to her and hers has taken place. Unfortunately my being part of hers must’ve ended in her mind some time ago because she took one look at my decidedly not busted up face and grounded me for a week for trying to “involve her in some make believe tomfoolery.”

Still, Soren would benefit from watching his tongue around me because I figure now that the fatal flaw in my last fib has been revealed to me, Desi has two good fists and if I ask kindly or unkindly, she would most likely punch me the next time the opportunity arises, like the dependable, no-nonsense friend she is.

“You know you said the ass thing wrong” informs Desi the next day, one hand absentmindedly twirling her curls, the other gripping the fire pole as her long limbs swirl around and around and around. She’s popping pink bubbles and I suspect she’s going to choke.

I kick some wood chips into a pile, surly. 

“The situational context was off, my dude,” she continues as if I’d asked her if she would please elaborate on this insight. “Duck didn’t assume anything of you. It was an exchange between her and me.”

Another bubble smacks open. She smells like Awesome Original as she spins away. 

I create a bigger pile, surlier.

“It would only make sense if she had thought you were going to do or say or think something, but she didn’t.”

I scatter my pile with a kick, surliest. I’ve been catching a lot of sermons lately.

“Don’t let Soren catch you with that gum,” Magnolia advises as she walks by. Desi swallows her gum and gives her a double thumbs up. We pause our conversation to admire her as she walks away.

I imagine the pink lump of Hubba Bubba journeying down Desi’s long neck to her long intestines. I’m sure there are more stops along the way but I’m no endocrinologist or gastroenterologist or whatever you call the insides doctors on that Grey’s Anatomy show my mom has gulped down since before I was born. One day I asked her how she manages to swallow all that soap-opera-drama nonsense given that she’s so averse to swallowing mine, and she praised me for my self-awareness and told me I’d understand the dull pull of routine escapism when I got older. 

“Someday, I’ll be Magnolia” Desi says, wide eyes earnestly on the Wayne Rec counselor and gum residing in her insides.

I ask the gum swallower if she means she’ll be as cool as Magnolia.

Desi solemnly tells me that no, she does not. I leave that be because I don’t care to hear another explanation from her today.

---

I’ve been watching Duck’s card collection steadily expand for some time now and I’m about ready to figure out what schemes she’s playing behind the scenes. She’s always causing trouble, but never suffers the aftermath. Sometimes she just waits, does some quiet kid magic, and chaos ensues around her stoic little form. Her knack for getting Soren to come running is unparalleled. She’s the type to have completed her Pokedex. Me and Desi and Marco and Ruth and every other youth in Wayne County know she’s the type because she told Sol Washington with some haught in her voice that rubbed Sol Washington the wrong way. Generally avoiding close contact with Duck to miss that chaotic, haughty nonsense unfortunately seems to have opened up a lane for her to orchestrate even more shenanigans with others. As I’m mulling over the powers that be that placed Duck in such a fortunate situation regarding possession of Pokémon cards, I hear some faux deepness echoing to my left.

“Hey! You can’t ride that in here” admonishes Soren the pest.

This time, he’s caught Sol trying to sneak his bike inside for a joyride.

“Sorry, Soren” sniffles a distraught Sol.

“That’s Counselor Soren to you, young man.”

I watch Soren berate Sol for a good five minutes. His sermon ends in Sol’s cards and bike being confiscated.

“I’ll be keeping these in the office. You can explain to your mother what you’ve done if you want your possessions back any time soon.”

“But, Counselor Soren, my Luxio” weakly stammers Sol, great loss shining in teary eyes.

I watch Soren march the bike and cards out of the gym. He catches my stare. “What are you looking at, Robin King?”

“Not much, Counselor Soren.”

He nods approvingly and disappears through the doors. 

I glance over at Duck to see what role she played in the destruction of Sol Washington’s happiness, but I can’t find her. I keep an eye out, but don’t catch her until it’s almost pick-up time. She’s taking stock of her cards, organizing them in the particular order that suits her.

As I watch, I catch a flash of a yellow star that looks like it rests on the tail end of a Luxio. I can’t be sure, and I don’t have proof, but I know I have to play this game with my wits about me if I want to unravel the shroud of trouble I know in my soul that Duck has spun around herself. I spy Magnolia at the front desk. 

“What’s up, Robby!” she smiles. 

“Could I snatch a Sharpie, Magnolia?”

She tosses one my way.

Given that my BIC Xtra precision .5 mm lead pencil is no longer in my possession, I use the Sharpie to write a little M/REK, short for Maxine belonging to Robby Eleanor King, at the bottom left corner of an old Pidgey of mine. For any not-youths’ enlightenment, a Pidgey is a pretty run-of-the-mill “Pocket Monster,” or Pokémon, if you will, and I’m relying on Duck’s quiet-but-conniving mind to play this kind of card quickly and without much consideration.

For once in my life, I seek out Soren. I find him speaking to Mrs. Washington, whose ashamed son stands at her side. He disappears into the office and emerges with a bike and a small stack of Pokémon cards. Sol looks relieved, but that relief dissolves to panic as he rifles through the cards. Mrs. Washington quickly leaves the Rec, bike and son in tow.

I walk up to Soren and smile. The word “Ass” comes out of my mouth.

His worms rise so high I think they’ll leave his face. “I know I misheard you, Robin King.”

I tell him he most definitely did not mishear me, as I conspicuously stroke my sweet Maxine. I will remember her sacrifice.

“Hand me that card, Robin King.”

I do.

“You can have this back when I receive an adequate apology letter from you. I expect neat handwriting. I want it signed by your mother, too.”

“Of course, Counselor Soren.”

---

In the following few days, I find myself having many Pokémon battles with Duck. I pay close attention to the bottom left corner of each Pidgey she throws. Finally, I spot a little M/REK, my sweet Maxine, in Duck’s thieving fingers.

“What the heck, Duck,” I say. Her eyes narrow and her caterpillars are quick to follow suit, but her mouth stays shut. “I’ve caught you. That’s my Maxine.”

“What in all hell is a Maxine?"

“The Pidgey, Duck. Maxine is my Pidgey.”

“There are more Pidgeys in a pack than rat packs at this Rec,” she scoffs.

I point to the M/REK. I explain my plot that has caught her red-sticky-handed. I suggest that Soren would like to know that a certain sneaky someone has been breaking into the Rec office. 

I watch Duck’s face harden as she mulls my threat over.

“I’m no thief,” she says to my soul in the back of my skull. 

“What would you call yourself?” I try to say to her soul but it’s locked up too tight in those sharp black eyes

“A repossessor.”

“Why do you do it?”

"I got tired of losing.” Her gaze falters.

I was asking about her card repossession habits, but something in her softening eyes tells me she’s getting at troubles deeper than lost Pokémon games. Duck usually resides in solitude, showing feeling only when taking stock of her cards or pens or it-doesn't-matter-what-else, ordering them carefully in her own particular order. 

“Whatcha gonna do about it?” Her voice flat again.

I don’t immediately know how to answer her question. Behind the bleachers is what is either a rat tail from a forgotten Pest Doctor trap or a loose shoelace. There might be more depth to Duck than I had thought to consider. My mom tells me that I get so tangled up in my own perspective that I forget others have brains in their heads, too. Just like Duck, I’m just about tired of losing to every injustice in this Wayne County Recreation Center and adult world. Heck Soren and the patriarchy and adulthood and all nonsense rules and systems that have ever been contrived as a whole. The shoelace-tail wiggles and I shift my gaze back to Duck.

I look as deeply as I can manage into her uncertain black eyes. “I’ve been looking to expand my resume.” 

She grabs my wrist and pulls me behind the bleachers, leaving our card game behind. If I had a coward’s soul, I’d be afraid of a behind-the-bleachers-beating. Instead, I clench my free fist, because Duck is going to get a behind-the-bleachers-brawl if she’s not careful. It’s definitely a shoelace.

Before I’m ready to swing, she takes my other wrist and penetrates my soul with her no-fair gaze. “I’ve not been looking to hire.”

Now I really want in, and I tell her so. She’s a young woman with a plan and I think we youths could do with some agency in this Rec. Maybe a repossessor isn’t a thief and maybe rats are the trickier beast after all. With a little modification to her system, we might even be god-damn-feminists-! given that we would be two self-employed young businesswomen rebelling against an unjust world or something or other that’s prone to come out of Magnolia’s red-painted mouth. I spin up an informal resume for the mysterious, vice-gripped youth.

“I’m most definitely qualified for the position of assistant repossessor. I have only 72 uncaught Pokémon and even that’s a lie. I have 143 still to be caught. I’m a candid candidate and will own up to falsehoods, as previously demonstrated. I despise authority if authority is Soren, so you can be sure that I’m no double agent. Furthermore, I can care or not care, whichever one you prefer. I’m an incredibly flexible employee in terms of agreeability unless you propose something dumb, and my hours will match yours precisely given that the Rec’s drop-off and pick-up hours are consistent across all camper groups. God has also granted me the responsibility of being an exceptional liar and smooth talker — references can come from my mother, Angela King, if so desired — which could prove useful in an illicit repossession business such as yours.”

I rub my newly freed wrists. She’s really strong for being so unassuming. I wonder if Soren would still overlook Duck’s actions as innocent if he knew she could probably give him a behind-the-bleachers-beating.

Duck extends a hand. “Ours.”

“What?”

“Ours, Robby.”

We shake on the deal, and I feel Maxine return home to my hand. 

---

“I might have some ideas for reworking our organization’s mission,” I tell Duck after a few successful repossessions. She, Desi, and I are taking stock of our illicitly garnered goods back behind the bleachers. “I wonder if we could make a habit of winning a different way.” 

“How do you mean?”

I remember Sol’s sorrow when he realized he was short a Luxio. And Marco’s grief when his Bulbasaur couldn’t be found. Duck houses a similar sadness behind her now-soft eyes, a sadness that fades when me or Desi come her way, and when we pull one over on Soren.

“What if instead of a ‘get-kids’-Pokémon-cards-taken-away-to-repossess-them’ business model, we had a ‘take-away-Soren’s-stolen-goods-to-redistribute-them-back-to-the-people’ business model,” I say, sensing hesitation in her gaze. “Think on it, ok? It would make kids happy. Their friends would be coming home. And we would still be screwing over Soren on the regular. Heck Soren, right?”

She nods, slowly. “We could try that.”

Since I’m already on a roll, I ask Duck if she thinks we could shave Soren’s eyebrows, too, as part of the business.

“I’d bet a couple legendaries that Desi could acquire a razor and some kind of sleep drug,” she answers.

Desi nods solemnly and offers us a strip of gum.

As Duck begins to scrawl out a plan for distracting Soren and getting the office keys, I tell her she has big, ugly handwriting.

“And?” one fat caterpillar raised.

I tell her that type of handwriting doesn’t align with my expectations of a user of the BIC Xtra precision .5 mm lead pencil. 

Those dark eyes sharpen and narrow, daggers in my skull. “You’re no rat, Robby.” A corner of her mouth twitches upwards.

“I know what I’m not, Duck.”

She pauses.

“You are kind of an ass.”