“Whatever.” He had an apple with him and started eating it.
“I want to see Toucan,” I said.
He kept chewing on the apple. Once he swallowed a big bite he told me to get in line. I looked around and there was no line.
He asked if I was really that retarded. “It’s a metaphor, stupid,” he said, throwing the rest of the apple away.
“You are fat and fucking ugly,” I said, which I had been thinking and not saying, since making fun of someone for being overweight and for things they can’t control, like the way their face looks, is as bad as making fun of someone for being retarded. But I could not help myself.
He did not move. “Go fuck yourself,” he said, and started looking at his phone again.
“I don’t want to fuck myself. I want Toucan. I know where to find Hendo.”
He stopped playing with his phone. “What did you just say?”
“I know where to find Hendo and the gym bag that Toucan is seeking in his quest,” I said.
He told me to tell him, and he would pass on the information to Toucan. I shook my head and said it was my legend. “I am the one who will tell him, and I want you to take me to him.”
“No,” the Fat Man said, “I don’t think you do.”
“Either take me to him or I will find him myself, without your help.”
The Fat Man sighed and said, “Okay, have it your way.” He told me to wait. He turned away from me and made a call on his cell phone.
“Zelda, right?” he asked me. I nodded.
He said that into the phone. I crossed my arms. He put his phone in his pocket and told me to come with him.
“Why can’t he come to me?”
There was one thing I knew about battle, and that was it’s better to fight in neutral territory. Neutral means that nobody has the advantage. Going to Toucan would mean he had the advantage. In sports the home team has the advantage. Going to play in another team’s gym is going into enemy territory.
The Fat Man pointed to a car parked on the street.
“You either come or you stay. I got better things to do than this bullshit.”
I had my Viking sword and knew that in legends the heroes don’t always win, but that more than winning the Viking hero must stand up when the time comes.
I took a deep breath and walked to the car.
* * *
The Fat Man did not talk to me while he drove me there. Gert had said never to get into cars with people I don’t know. The Fat Man turned on his rap music on the stereo and smoked. As he drove I started to wonder what I was doing, if I was actually going to be getting myself into more trouble that Gert would have to save me from.
This was the wrong thing to think. You cannot be afraid. A Viking who goes into battle thinking he will be defeated will be defeated. I put my hand into my backpack and made sure to hold my Viking sword inside the bag, in case I had to pull it out to defend myself. The Fat Man asked if I needed to turn on the air-conditioning.
“No,” I said.
“Do you mind if I do?” he asked.
“No, go ahead.”
“Cool,” the Fat Man said, turning on the air-conditioning. He drove for a while then turned down the music.
“So what’s going on with Gert?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
The Fat Man moved his head from side to side. “I don’t know. He’s talking to police.”
He slowed the car down at a stop sign but did not come to a full stop, which is called a rolling stop. I remembered when the police car pulled over Gert for going through stop signs and he threw up.
“If you do not like police, you should actually stop at stop signs. Gert got pulled over once by a policeman for not stopping all the way.”
The Fat Man laughed a small laugh. “Yeah. Not in this neighborhood.” He stepped on the gas pedal hard and the car went so fast it threw me against my seat. He turned the music back on.
He did not have to drive that far until I recognized where we were going, and then he pulled next to a house. It was Toucan’s house, the one that Gert had taken me to before, with the hedges and the lawn and Toucan’s nice red car in the front.
“Here we go,” the Fat Man said, turning off the gas. I took off my seat belt and opened the door. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, which was stupid, and got out too.
The Fat Man spun his keys in his fingers. They jangled as they went round and round and then he dropped the keys on the steps leading to the front door. He stopped to pick them up.
When we got to the door he opened the door for me. I wanted to thank him, except you do not thank villains, so I just nodded and went inside. I made sure if I needed to I could take out my Viking sword to attack.
* * *
The house was dark. There was one light on in the corner of the house. All the other light was yellow from coming through the curtains. Music played quietly from somewhere. The Fat Man said to wait and he pointed to the couch.
“He says to sit down right there,” the Fat Man said.
“Okay,” I said.
The Fat Man went back out the door. Before he closed the door behind him he asked if I could tell Gert that Big Mike says hi.
“I’ll tell him,” I said.
“Cool,” the Fat Man said, and then he walked out the door, moving slowly because he was so big that he almost hit the sides on his way out.
When he left I decided that the battle was almost at hand. I hadn’t thought about what to tell Toucan. I just knew I had to defeat him. I wondered if he would come and try to attack, like in the legends from Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings, or if we would have a conversation, like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, before pulling out our weapons and doing battle. I took out the Viking sword and put it on my belt, so that if I needed to I could wield it to defeat evil.
* * *
“Zelda,” Toucan said, walking into the room. He was smoking and scratched his chin when he saw me. “Glad to see you. Mi casa es su casa, remember?”
“I am here to stop you,” I said. “That is what I am here to tell you.”
The cigarette Toucan was smoking got bright orange at the end. Smoke came out of his nose, just like smoke comes out of the noses of monsters. He laughed and then more smoke came out of his mouth.
When Beowulf defeated Grendel, he had to not be scared, even though Grendel was the biggest villain he had seen. Toucan was scary. I felt like there was a bird inside me, hitting against the insides of my body and trying to get out. To calm myself down I looked down at my shoes and began counting to ten.
“Are you having a stroke or something?” Toucan said.
“You declared war when you hurt Marxy. You stole his basketball and hurt him, just like you hurt Gert.” I stood up straighter than I had ever stood up before. “I am going to stop you.”
I expected Toucan to get into his battle stance. Instead he did not move, or even change his expression.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He pointed back to the couch. “Why don’t we sit down and talk about this like grown-ups?”
I told him I did not want to sit down. I wanted him to leave Gert alone, to leave Marxy alone, and also to stop selling drugs.
Toucan did not act like he wanted to fight. While he listened his head nodded, and he said, “Okay,” over and over again.