Page 76 of Magic for Nothing

“It’s going to be a great night,” said Sam, and opened the truck door, waving me inside. I got in, beaming at him, and didn’t say a word, because I was pretty sure he was right. Everything was going to be perfect.

Twenty

“When someone judges you for something you can’t help, try to forgive them. They don’t understand. And if they keep doing it, knock their fucking teeth in.”

—Jane Harrington-Price

A warehouse in downtown St. Cloud, Minnesota, heading for the collapsible bleacher seats, ready for the game to begin

TICKETS WERE TWENTY DOLLARS at the door, thirty for the remaining VIP seats—which meant, among other things, having seats, since there were only enough spaces in the bleachers for about half the crowd. The rest would be standing at a barely safe distance as the derby girls blazed by. I’d willingly forked over the extra cash for a pair of black wristbands and a place in the front. If I couldn’t skate, I was going to sit.

“Is our entire dating life going to be defined by wristbands?” asked Sam, fastening his around his wrist.

“They make great cheap souvenirs,” I said amiably. “I’d roll with it if I were you.”

“Is that a derby pun, or are you telling me to relax?”

“A bit of both.” I took a deep breath, inhaling the mix of sweat, stale beer, and competitive fury that filled the air. It was almost intoxicating. If I closed my eyes, letting the clack of wheels on the track and the buzz of the crowd fill my ears, I could pretend I was home. This was an away game, something where I didn’t need to skate, and I was attending with my new boyfriend, who had somehow gotten serious enough that I was willing to take the risk and show him to the league.

“Ow!” Sam let go of my hand. I opened my eyes to find him blowing on his fingers, looking bemused. “Did you feel that? It was like everything got super-hot all of a sudden.”

“Um.” I shook my own hand, not to soothe a burn, but to chase the heat out of my fingertips. If I was going to start setting fires when I was content, too, I was about to have a serious problem. “Probably one of the lights throwing down sparks. Come on, let’s get a drink before we find our seats.”

“I don’t do beer when I’m in public,” said Sam, almost sheepishly. “It makes me relax.”

And when he relaxed, he wound up with a tail. “Good decision,” I said. “I don’t do beer, period. I’m not happy with the idea of losing control. But the nice thing about apple cider is the way it looks like beer, thus dodging the judgment of the masses, without actually being beer. You, too, can drink the fruits of the orchard and not worry about intoxication.”

“Teach me more of the strange ways of your people,” said Sam.

“Sort of inevitable.” I passed a five to the girl at the window, who had purple-streaked hair and an almost feral grin, and received two cups of hot apple cider in return. Sam took one of them with a nod of thanks. I toasted the girl, stuffed a dollar into the tip jar, and began the familiar process of wending my way through a warehouse, looking for a seat.

Unlike the home games, where we owned the warehouse and could control the way it was set up, every away game was an adventure in figuring out exactly where we were supposed to be, and what we were supposed to be doing while we were there. But the elements were always the same, lending an air of comforting reliability to the layout, even though I’d never seen it before. The ticket window was at the front, at the start of a narrow corridor that herded us past the concession stand and one final opportunity to upgrade our tickets. Then it widened, with the skate mall—a little room packed with vendor tables and booths, half flea market, half dealer’s hall—to our left, and the louder, more raucous arena to our right. We bore right, and the loudness opened up, becoming a ringing bell of noise. The track was in the center, being circled by derby girls in the process of warming up, surrounded by bleachers and standing-room space, with the announcer’s table on a raised platform to one side, and I had never been happier to be somewhere, and I had never felt half so far from home.

Sam and I made our way to the roped-off VIP seats, flashing our wristbands at the man guarding the rope. He nodded brusquely as he let us through, and I felt a pang at his lack of recognition, even though he’d never seen me before. This was my world, same as the carnival was Sam’s. Somehow, I’d become a stranger in my own world. All the logic I possessed—this wasn’t my home territory, I’d never skated against these people, anonymity was key to my survival right now—couldn’t take the sting out of realizing how easily I could fade away.

Normally, if I’d been at a game in a territory that wasn’t my own, I would have been wearing my team shirt, the words FINAL GIRL blazoned across the shoulders, marking me as part of the clan. This situation was anything but normal.

“These names are nuts,” said Sam, snapping me back into the present. I turned to him. He was reading from the program for the evening, looking faintly awed. “It’s the St. Cloud Storm Chasers vs. the Rockville Rollers. The captains are Tornado-si-do and Sedimentary My Dear. It’s like . . . I don’t know, race horses gone weird.”

“Not a bad description,” I said, watching the circling roller girls with a practiced eye. One group was in white tank tops and red hot pants, with twisters painted on their helmets. The other wore khaki shirts tied over yellow tank tops and khaki shorts, and had rock hammers on their helmets. “Okay, so the ones sort of themed like weathergirls who’ve survived a hurricane, those are the Storm Chasers. The ones in khaki are the Rollers.” I’d never seen a geology-themed team before. Truly the world of roller derby is vast and complicated.

“Okay,” said Sam. He lowered his program and looked at me expectantly.

I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“How does this work?”

“Oh. Uh . . . rules of roller derby are simple. You have two primary positions on the track: the jammer, whose job it is to skate fast and score points, and the blockers, whose job it is to keep her from doing her job. Each team will field four blockers and one jammer per jam—which is roller derby for ‘inning.’ You can tell the jammer by the star on her helmet. When the whistle blows, she’ll start trying to break through the pack of blockers. Whichever jammer breaks out first is the lead jammer, she controls the play. If she calls it off, it ends. So your team’s jammer has two goals—to score a lot of points, and to stop the jam before the other team’s jammer scores any points at all. Make sense?”

“Nope,” said Sam. “Whoever invented this game was really into breakfast foods.”

“Just jam,” I said. The lights flickered. The girls skated off the track. The game was about to get underway. I scooted closer to Sam, leaning my head against his shoulder and forcing myself to relax. This was my world. This was my favorite sport. Sam didn’t know how big a deal it was for me to take a guy to a derby game, and he was never going to, because my time with the carnival was drawing to an end: soon I was going to disappear, and become just another person who’d let him down.

Until then, we had this. The announcer began naming the girls as they poured back out onto the track. The Storm Chasers were wearing their team shirts now, which were white and tight and more TV news than the norm, keeping with the “weathergirl” theme. The Rollers looked about the same as they had during practice, although several had added smears of glittery “dirt” to their makeup, like they’d just come from the world’s sparkliest quarry.

The whistle blew. Play began. I kept my head against Sam’s shoulder, except when something happened that was exciting enough to make me cheer—which meant I was almost constantly in motion, popping out of my seat and thrusting my arms into the air, shouting at a bad call from the refs, cheering for a good jam. I had fallen easily into cheering for the Rollers, who seemed to be the underdogs in this particular pairing. It’s always good to scream for people who need it.

The bell sounded halftime with the Storm Chasers leading 115 to 75. I sat down and took a long pull from my lukewarm cider, only to find Sam looking at me with admiration.