They had painted the signs with red paint. War paint, they called it. That is what it felt like to the boys on the Selma High School wrestling team. They had suffered many wounds in battle. Broken noses, and broken fingers. There were too many nights spent running around in circles, and sitting in cars with the heater cranked up. One night before a match, Fox had to put on five pounds. He ate so many powdered donuts that he looked like Marie Antoinette.

That year, the athletic director of the university in the city had made a special announcement in an afternoon press conference. The university would cut its wrestling program. Wrestling teams from all over the valley had planned to hold a protest at the athletic director's house. Fox had just received a wrestling scholarship to go to school there that fall. If the program was cut then he would lose the scholarship. Coach Benny gave Fox directions to the house over the telephone, and he scrawled them on a paper towel with a red ball point pen.

Fox's best friend Tommy borrowed his mother's old brown sedan so that they could go to the protest. The car had no air conditioning, so all its windows were rolled down. Fox looked at himself in the side view mirror, and smiled back at his reflection. His smile was crooked, and the warm wind whipped through his long black hair, scratching his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

With Fox's help it did not take long for Tommy to find the athletic director's house. It was just a few miles from the fifth exit off the freeway into town. The neighborhood consisted of massive old houses; each one looked different from the other. Fox thought that he might like to live there someday, if he ever had a good job and 2.5 children.

"We're here. We're at the old guy's house. Look at all the people who showed up. We have the best signs here!" Fox said as he unbuckled his seat belt. He leaped out of the car, and tripped over a gash in the old sidewalk. He fell face first onto the sidewalk, scraping his knees. Tommy roared in laughter, holding his hand out to help him up. Fox jumped up, said, "Fuck you!", and grabbed a sign from the back seat of the car.

The boys ran over to the crowd in front of the athletic director's house and joined their disorganized chanting. Some stocky white boy had risen up to be the official leader of the protest. He had red cotton candy hair and so many freckles that he looked like one of those Howdy Doody dolls that you see on Antique Road show.

"This dude looks like a square, but he's got alotta charisma" Fox said as he nudged Tommy's elbow. "He kind of reminds me of Hitler."

The protest went on for a good hour before everyone realized that the athletic director was not home. Someone had called Howdy Doody on his cell phone and told him that he had gone with his wife and two kids to the Bahamas. The boys shuffled their way back to the sedan, and rode the twenty five minutes back home in silence.

Tommy and Fox sat in the sedan in front of Fox's house, listening to the radio and smoking some weed from a mushroom shaped pipe.

"Hey, are you sure your mom can't see us from the kitchen window? I don't want her telling my mom anything," Tommy said as he reached over, opened the glove compartment and grabbed a bottle of cheap cologne.

"I don't think she can see us. But who cares. I wish she would come out here and take a hit. She's always on the edge. The other day she wrote a fuck you message on a post-it and left it on my bedroom door."

Fox rolled down the window and began to gag as Tommy sprayed the cologne all over the front and back seat of the car.

"Look, damn! Here comes your mom! And your sister too!" Fox's mother and sister Kylie came walking towards the car, both waving their arms like windshield wipers. They both had the same heart shaped face, and dark eyes. Fox ran his hand through his hair, and slumped down in the seat, lowering his eyelids as if he were going to take a nap.

Whenever one of Fox's friends came around it always seemed like his mother's voice went up a few octaves.

"Heeey, what are you two clowns doing sitting in the car! Tommy! Your dog got out of your backyard again. I saw her when I was driving to the store. I had to pull over and put her back in the yard. Your mom should have someone fix that fence. That little doggie could have gotten hit by a car. She's so tiny!"

Tommy leaned over, and began to cough. "Uhh, well thanks for doing that. That little dog is a bad ass. That's really my sister's dog. She's the one that's supposed to be taking care of it."

Kylie ran over to the car and stuck her head through the passenger window. Her dyed blonde hair flew in Fox's face, and he gave her shoulder a nudge to push her away.

"Damn it Fox! I'm trying to talk about stuff! Hey, you guys! Did you know that Benny's wife has been gone for like a whole week already? Yeah, I overheard my teacher talking about it at school. Maybe she got tired of putting up with Benny's crap."

Fox's mother shot her a hot look, and pulled her away from the car.

"Come on, you can't talk about that out here. You're so loud. The whole neighborhood will hear you!"

"Well, I guess I get my loudness from my mother!" Kylie wailed as they walked back into the house.

Fox looked over and saw that Tommy was staring down the street at their coach Benny's house. It was an old house, but it was quite nice. It had a small wraparound porch, and was painted blue like a robin's egg. Benny's wife Marcy had just planted yellow rose plants along the pathway to the house. Fox had seen her do it a few weeks earlier, while he was washing his mother's car.

"Yep, I don't see Marcy's red minivan in the driveway," Tommy said as he started the car, "Shit! I'm glad that wrestling season is over. Benny was on my ass the whole time. I bet you Marcy did get tired of him. I know I did. She probably got tired of hearing all the stories about him running around in Fresno."

"Yeah, those really get around," Fox said, slamming the door of the car.

"Hey be careful! Don't slam the door like that. You know how old this car is?" Tommy cranked the radio as he drove away.
 

Benny Meyers was the wrestling coach at Selma High School. He was Irish Catholic, thirty nine years old, with light brown hair and blue eyes the same color of his house. Fox's mother once said he looked like a young John Kennedy, without all the money and an Ivy League education. He had told her he moved to California from some town in the Midwest. He met his wife Marcy while doing construction work in the city. That was how he earned most of his living.

"So how did you end up here," Fox asked Benny one afternoon that fall while they rolled up mats after practice. Everyone had already left except Tommy's younger sister Lindsey. She had just volunteered to be the team's official gopher. She had always been sort of a tomboy, and claimed that she liked to hang around boys in tight uniforms. Fox suspected that she was just lonely, and needed something to do.

"Yeah, Benny! How did you end up in this god forsaken town? That's what I want to know!" Lindsey chimed in while slugging Fox with a sweaty towel that had been thrown on the floor.

Benny laughed, and flicked off the lights.

"Well, Lindsey, you know, they make California look real good in the movies. Sunny beaches and famous people all over the place."

Lindsey still stood in the dark room, peering out the door at Benny and Fox. Her hands were placed on her tiny hips, and her long brown hair was falling out of the pencil that held it up. She looked at Benny, squinting her large almond shaped eyes, making them look like tiny half moons.

"Well, you thought that California was cool because they only show L.A. in the movies. They never show anyplace around here. They don't show the fog, or the cows, or the earthquakes. Just all the pretty stuff."

After all the California talk, Benny gave Fox and Lindsey a ride home in a old pickup truck that he had just bought, hoping to restore. Fox hopped into the front seat of the truck, and became sandwiched between his coach and Lindsey. He rolled down to the bottom of the seat and threw his hooded sweatshirt over his head.

"Ahhh, coach! I don't want anyone to see me in here! Tell me when we get out of the school parking lot!"

Benny laughed, and Lindsey told him he was being stuck up. As they drove out of the parking lot, they passed the homecoming queen Jenny Fernandez, who was waiting for her mother to pick her up. Someone had taken her last name, cut it in half, so everyone at school called her Ferrnie. Her family owned the only two laundry mats in town.

"Hey what's up girl!" Lindsey said as she waved at her. "Hey, Fox is hiding down here because he's embarrassed to be seen in this beat up old bucket. Isn't he so stuck up?"

When Fox heard Ferrnie laugh, he popped up as if he were a Jack-in-the-box. He leaned over Lindsey, covered her mouth with his hand, and stuck his head out the window.

"Hey Feeernie!" he called out as they drove off into the road. "Did you see my picture in the paper? The one with me and all my medals. I bet you like that, huh?!"

When they got to his house, Fox couldn't wait for Lindsey to open the door for him to get out. He had needed to go to the bathroom for the last twenty minutes. He climbed over her, and leaped out onto the driveway.

"Uhhh, thanks for the ride!" he yelled as struggled to unlock his front door, and ran into his house. As he was zipping up his jeans, he heard his mother's car coming up the driveway. He heard his sister call for help bringing in the groceries. As he walked out towards his mother's car, he looked down towards Benny's house, and wondered why he had dropped him off first, when Lindsey and Tommy lived on the other side of town.
 

The police found Marcy's red minivan about three weeks after she left home. It was in the parking lot of some dingy strip mall in the city. After that Fox saw five or six local news reporters knock on Benny's door, shoving cameras and microphones in his face. He always had the same cool look, the same cool response. He would politely ask them to call his lawyer, and close the door in their faces.

He went around town as he usually did, as if his wife had never left. He even came to Fox's house to borrow an extension ladder. Fox's father loaned it to him, did not say much about it, because he had always liked Benny. Thought he was a decent guy.

Fox's mother watched out the kitchen window, as Benny walked back towards his house with the ladder.

"His wife is missing and he's painting the trim on his house. You don't think that seems a little odd?" She was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink, and Fox worried that her finger might slip against the paring knife because she would not take her eyes away from the window. He had come to the kitchen to get his soda, and found his mother and sister there. His sister was sitting on the table cutting perfume samples out of a stack of old magazines.

"Mom, I told you. Stop saying things like that!" he said as the tiny bubbles from the soda sizzled in his throat. "Marcy just went coo-coo and took off. Everyone knows that coach messes around on the side. She probably just got fed up."

"Yeah, Benny's hot!" Squealed Kylie with a devilish laugh. She was rubbing a perfume sample on her neck. Her dirty blond hair was a tangled mess, and her eye shadow matched her rainbow colored shirt. All the freshmen girls at school had been wearing rainbow colored shirts. Their mother finally looked away from the window and rolled her eyes. Kylie laughed again, "Mom, you know it's true!"

Fox's mother walked out of the kitchen when the drier in the laundry room let out a loud buzz. A large pot on the stove began to boil over with water. Fox lowered its burner, and looked into the pot. The hot steam felt good on his face. Kylie ran over to the sink and quickly gathered the peeled potatoes in both of her hands.

"Move out of the way," she said. "I'm gonna drop these in that pot right there." As the potatoes fell in the pot, water splashed on Fox's t-shirt.

"Oh no, I hope that didn't burn you," Kylie said as she went back to her magazines. But Fox did not even feel the water because he was too busy thinking about other things.

That night Fox called Tommy and Queen Ferrnie using three way on his cordless telephone. Fox ate chips and salsa through much of the conversation, which Fernie said was rude and disgusting. Tommy complained about his sister Lindsey being spoiled and lazy.

"My mom lets that damn girl do anything she wants. My dad doesn't care. Ever since he got remarried he hardly ever calls us. His wife is pregnant again. Can you believe that? He's too old to be having kids. It's embarrassing. I have a skank sister, and my dad is the village idiot! And nobody seems to care."

"Ahhh, Tommygun!" laughed Fox. "We care! Me and Ferrnie! We care! We understand your plight."

After about a half hour of talking Tommy had fallen asleep with the phone on his hear. Fox and Fernie yelled at him to hang up.

"Well, I think I'm gonna go to bed too," Fernie said through a muffled yawn.

"Ahh, no! I don't wanna hang up yet. What time is it? It's not that late."

"Uhhh, yeah it is. It's almost twelve thirty. I think my parents are already asleep. Hey Fox, why did your parents start calling you Fox?" Fernie was whispering now that she realized how late it was.

"They started calling me Fox because when I was a little baby I was really sneaky. I used to climb out of my crib when I was supposed to be sleeping and creep around the hallway, watching out for my mom and dad."

Fernie began to laugh softly. "Okay, I'm really going to sleep now. I'll see you tomorrow. Wait, tomorrow's Saturday. I'll see you at school on Monday, ok?"

"Wait, Fern dog! Are you gonna go to the prom with me? Maybe you'll win Queen again."

"Ok, I'll go with you. Just let me go to sleep!"

"Ok, bye-bye!"

"Bye, Fox!"

Fox switched his bedroom light off, and jumped into his full sized bed, hugging his pillow, wishing it was Fernie. Outside he heard a car driving along the street, and then the slamming of car doors. He heard the high pitched laughter of a girl he knew well. She always laughed at him like that when he said something stupid or funny at practice. He pulled back his sheets, and crept over to his window. Sly little Fox, he thought to himself. The dust on his window blinds made him sneeze. Down the street he saw Benny walking across his front lawn towards the side door of his house.

"What the fuuck?" Fox wailed, as he felt his knee caps tingle and his face grow hot. He fumbled in the dark for his cordless phone. When he tried to turn it on it beeped and turned off. It had had gone dead from being used all night. Coach reached the door, Lindsey was already there, turning a key in the lock. He nuzzled his head against the nape of her neck. Her hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail, exposing the fullness of her cheeks. They seemed to fall into the house.
 

Marcy had been missing for a month when Fox's mother announced that she wanted to go to the beach. The entire family thought that it was a strange request, since she had never enjoyed going before. Whenever they went out of town she would asked to be dropped off at some upscale shopping mall that she had never been to. She never took very much cash with her because she called this "fantasy shopping." She thought it was ridiculous to buy anything at these stores. Still, she liked to see all the pretty things.

Her husband told her that he could not go with them on this beach trip. Not if she wanted to go that Saturday. She would have to take the two kids without him, but she shouldn't be worried to make the drive. The beach was less than three hours away.

On Saturday morning Fox waited for his mother and sister in the car. He could not understand why it was taking them so long to get ready for a simple day trip to the beach.

He heard the front door slam close with a loud bang, and Kylie ran to the car, holding a pillow and a bright pink backpack. Their mother climbed into the car, rolling her eyes and tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"We were taking so damn long because this kid was looking for the earphones to her iPod. She just remembered that she loaned them to Lindsey. We're gonna go pick them up right now. If we don't we won't hear the end of it. I'm not going to the store to buy her new ones."

When they arrived at Tommy and Lindsey's house, Kylie asked Fox to go in and get the earphones.

"Why should I get them? They're your headphones!"

"Umm, because. I lost my lunch money the other day and Lindsey loaned me five bucks. She's gonna want me to pay her back right now, and I wanna save my money for the beach!"

Their mother took a crisp five dollar bill out of her wallet, and handed it to Fox.

"You go, and give this to Lindsey! She'll just take too long if she goes," she looked over at Kylie and rolled her eyes once again.

Fox went around the house and knocked on the back door. Tommy opened it; he must have been asleep because he was wearing a white t-shirt and boxers. He yawned as he scratched the black stubs on his head. His hair was freshly buzzed.

"Man, what are you doing here so early? I thought you always slept in on Saturdays."

"I'm going to the beach with my mom and Kylie. Fucking Kylie won't leave town without her earphones. She says that your sister has them."

"Oh yeah? Well, she should be up. She's probably in the den. Go ask her for them. I've gotta piss."

Lindsey was in the den watching music videos, sprawled across an old loveseat, her head hanging down, her hair fanned out like a spider's web. "Foox! What the hell are you doing here?" She sprang up, and straightened out her loose fitting tank top and pajama shorts. The shorts had little gapped toothed bunnies, and the words Little Miss Chatterbox all over them.

"Kylie wants her earphones."

"Ok, tell her I want my five dollars. What the hell! Did she send you over her to play commando? The earphones are right over there." Lindsey pointed to a coffee table that had been pushed over to the side of the room. Fox grabbed them and tossed the five dollar bill onto the table. Lindsey laughed as she reached over and pinched one of his buttocks. She fell back into the loveseat. She twirled a lock of her hair around her pinky.

"Tommy says that you've been getting a little too brave lately. Since you're his little sister, I told him I would help him watch you. He said he would fuck you up if he finds out you're messing around," Fox said as he turned around to leave.

"Please, I can do whatever I want. He's not my keeper, and you're not either."

Fox whipped around and grabbed Lindsey by the arm. He felt warmth rush to his cheeks as words tripped out of his mouth like heavy stones.

"I-I saw you! I saw you, little girl! How could you be that fucking stupid, when you know I live right down the street? Just wait; just wait till Tommy finds out!"

Lindsey yanked her arm out of Fox's grip, her eyes welling with tears, her mouth quivering in silence. They both looked up and saw Tommy standing in the doorway. Tommy's eyes were wild and locked on Fox.

Fox's mother began to honk the horn outside.

"Shit! I have to go. They're calling me." Fox said. He would not look at Tommy's face. His main objective was to get out, out of Tommy and Lindsey's house. He fell into the backseat of his mother's car, and tossed the earphones to Kylie.
 

It had been several years since Fox's mother had been to the beach, so she brought a road map, and ended up taking the scenic route to the beach. The scenic route was wrapped around a dark mountain with twisted old trees, and a bumpy road. She drove around and around, down the mountain, screaming her usual obscenities, saying that she was lost, and what if they ran into some maniacs on this godforsaken mountain? Fox and Kylie begged her to calm down, and when they came to the bottom of the mountain, the sun was shining brightly.

The people walking around at the boardwalk looked nothing like the people back home. Fox tried to imagine Benny living there, and wondered if he would fit in there. Maybe he would like that kind of California. Maybe he would run away there with Lindsey. All the people were lanky, and beautiful, their clothes draped over them, flying in the breeze. Fox and Kylie began to shiver when the wind hit their faces, and tried to stop when they realized that being cold made them look like tourists.

The first thing that their mother wanted to do was eat. They ate corndogs as they walked along the old wooden planks of the boardwalk, with clown music filling the sweet scented air.

Fox wanted to ride the big 1920's style roller coaster, but his mother and sister were afraid to ride with him. He was embarrassed to ride it alone, so he spent most of the day with them, walking through all the arcades and gift shops. They had their fortunes read by a mechanical gypsy, and Kylie won a stuffed Boston terrier from popping balloons with darts. Fox bought Fernie a giant pencil that said Hot Stuff and had a beach scene. Kylie said that it was stupid.

Fox and Kylie walked out to the beach and sat on the sand. The sky had begun to grow dark, and the wind grew colder. Fox tried to imagine how cold the water was as he saw it crash against the sand. They sat there with the hoods to their sweaters over their heads, with the wind whipping through Kylie's blonde hair as if it were a kite. Their mother had gone off to buy a funnel cake.

"So, do you really like Fernie?" Kylie seemed to ask this question out of nowhere, but then Fox remembered the giant pencil that he had shoved in her backpack.

"Well, yeah. I like her", Fox said, looking back towards the boardwalk to see if his mother was coming. "Why? Has she said anything to you? Isn't she still in your art class?"

Kylie had pulled off her pink sweatshirt, and let the wind carry it away as if it were a magic carpet. A little boy caught it, and when he ran it back to her she gave him some saltwater taffy.

"See, I don't know why guys like Fernie so much, besides the fact that she's popular. She's really not that pretty in the face. Have you seen her without make up? I have. She does have really big boobs. Is that why guys like her?"

Fox tried to choose his words carefully, since it was his little sister that he was talking to.

"Well, her boobs are one reason why guys like her." If he were talking to Tommy he would not have used the word boobs.

"Fernie is cute. She has a good personality, and she's not stuck up at all. That's what makes guys like her."

Kylie rolled her eyes when he said this. "You know what? Girls don't like to be called cute. What is that? Girls want to be told that they're pretty or beautiful. Cute makes us feel like a stuffed animal or something." She pointed to the Boston terrier that sat beside her.

Fox had eaten the rest of the salt water taffy, and he was picking it out of his teeth. "Guys don't usually say the word pretty. It's not very manly."

"So, what do you think about Lindsey?" Kylie asked as she picked up the terrier, holding it to her chest. "Do you think Lindsey is cute?"

Fox looked at her. Her dark eyes looked just like their mothers. He looked at her like he was a priest who had just heard swearing in church.

"Uggh, that's Tommy's sister, and I don't think about her like that. I've known her since she was like five years old." He wondered how old Benny was when Lindsey was five.

"Yeah, I know, you've known her a long time. But do you think she's cute?"

"No, I don't think she's cute. She's ok, I guess. She's not ugly or anything."

Fox shook some sand out of his shoe.

"I know someone who thinks she's cute," he whispered to the sand beneath him.

He began to watch the little boy who had rescued Kylie's sweater. He was playing with two toy trucks in the sand. The little boy's mother was telling him that they would be going home soon. One truck was blue like Benny's old truck, and the other was red like Marcy's minivan.

Fox's mother came back to the beach with two funnel cakes. Kylie complained that they had too much whipped cream, and tasted too sweet. She said that from now on she liked her stuff simple. They walked back to the boardwalk, and found a dirty wooden table to sit on. It gave Fox a splinter on his hand. They sat there for about a half hour. The sky grew darker and darker. Kylie told them that one of her teachers had made a mistake on a grade. She was going to see him first thing Monday morning. Their mother had bought a t-shirt at one of the gift shops before the funnel cakes. It had the same picture as the giant pencil.

The ride home from the beach was quiet. It reminded Fox of the ride home from the athletic director's house. Kylie was wearing the earphones, bobbing her head from left to right, still clinging to the Boston terrier. Fox had wanted to stay out of town longer, and he secretly wished for a flat tire. He thought that maybe they could spend the night in some motel off the freeway. Maybe they would run into Marcy and convince her to come back home.

As they turned into their street, they saw red lights flashing around in the darkness. There were four police cars parked at Coach Benny's house. A cluster of men stood on Benny's porch, blocking the opened doorway. Fox had already undone his seatbelt when they came off the freeway. He leaped out of the car as soon as it was parked. Fox, Kylie, and their mother flew into their house.

"Mom, they must have found Marcy!" Fox yelled, as he was the first one in the front door. He saw his father sitting on the living room couch, hunched over. He had ordered out for pizza. It lay untouched on the coffee table in front of him. He was sobbing with his face in his hands.

Tommy had taken a 357 and blown Benny away. His mother kept it on her nightstand when she slept. Someone had told her that single mothers needed extra protection. Benny died right in his doorway. When he heard the doorbell ring he probably thought that it was another reporter coming to shove a camera in his face. Now he was gone like another John Kennedy. Tommy was taken away to jail in the city. They might never see him again. He was still seventeen, and they don't show kids' faces on T.V.

Fox went outside and sat on the trunk of his mother's car in the driveway. All of the neighbors had come outside to watch from their front lawns. It reminded Fox of the Fourth of July when everyone watched fireworks go off in the street. He remembered last year when Tommy brought over a firework that last five whole minutes. It sprayed like a bright blue water fountain. It was the best firework that year. An ambulance was now parked near one of the police cars, and the front door of Benny's porch was cleared away. He slid off the trunk, and felt his limbs go numb. He felt like a child learning to walk. He came out into the middle of the street. Tears came with a quiet ferocity. Now he could see the blood on the windows and frame of the door. It looked like war paint.

He watched the paramedics carry Benny away, his body wrapped up like a mummy in Egypt. The ambulance did not need to sound its siren. It turned silently out and away from the street.