Chain Gang All Stars

After Staxxx’s first year on the Circuit the night terrors had not stopped, but they had calmed. They’d shifted to a droning anxiety that she learned to acknowledge and accept as a fact of her life. Tonight, lying in a small cot, Randy Mac’s heavy snoring and piney musk were the only things to ground her as she felt herself unspooling. Disassociating from herself. She tried to remember that she, Staxxx, was the one holding the man. It was her chest that his back was pressed into as he slept. She thought of LoveGuile so calmly resting just beneath her. What if she killed him? What if she just did it today? She had days where it seemed like all she could think of was killing the people around her. Those intrusive thoughts had been a part of her life since before she’d killed Sunset, but when he’d asked her to kill him, it was as if one of those thoughts had finally come to pass. It had hurt to lose a friend, and it had hurt to have to help him do it. But in some hard way, she was proud she had been there for Sunset at his end.

He’d said, “I will not force anyone else to have to consider forgiving me either. I’m not sure what I deserve.” Those words spun around her nightmares. She had done the exact opposite. Forced so many to forgive. Forced it to show them they had it in them.

She had killed, so she was a killer. She was that before all else. That’s what her darkest thoughts said to her. Even the first time, when a teacher at her high school had tried to force himself on her and she’d gotten hold of a knife and split apart his jugular and somehow, also, her life. How many times since had she been in that same space? Been asked to accept some other’s violence. So many like her had lived that same nightmare.^[*] This was another part of her purpose. To live loud and be epic despite what had happened to her. Despite the world that had asked her to be hurt and be silent about it. The world knew her story, how she’d earned her first murder. How her family had abandoned her, like they were afraid of her. They hated visiting her in prison, then they stopped, moved away. They left her behind. It was the perfect storm, swept her into a breakdown. Her life, a hurricane.

But where did the Hurricane end and Hamara begin? It scared her that she understood the Hurricane more than the person she had been before she was in the games. The Hurricane fought, the Hurricane could rise to any challenge. The Hurricane could shoulder the burdens of others thrown on top of her own. The Hurricane held people it loved. Hamara, though. Hamara was something of a stranger.

What if she could just sleep forever?

She was one intrusive thought after another. Her mind scared her most in the quiet moments. When she was asked to kill, or lead, she could be present. She could thrive. In the times when there was nothing, when all she had to do was exist—

You are a murderer.

She let the thought float by. She did not resist it. She was a vessel of love. She was not defined by the men who had violated her or the family that had abandoned her or the millions who locked her in chains and watched her from the comfort of their own homes. She closed her eyes but still could see the bluish glow of the HMCs like a ghost behind her eyelids.

What if all she was good for was killing and everything that she said was just decoration? What if the exact opposite of what she hoped was true, that rather than everyone being a diamond at their core, what if they were shit in a pretty container? What if they were shit in a diamond coat? What if she disappeared Randy from the earth? She loved who he was. But what if her life was all about killing people she loved? Who loved her. That was what it sometimes seemed like.

She let out a laugh that shook the cot they slept on. It squeaked and gave. They’d almost broken it many times already. It was a shitty cot. Especially compared to what Thurwar slept on, or compared to what was in her own tent.

Randy rolled over. Staxxx could feel his breath against her neck.

Half-asleep, he asked, “What’s so funny?” His deep voice, deeper in the thrall of sleep, made her feel more tethered to herself.

“I was thinking, like, if I killed you, I’d have to explain it was an accident, and it’d be like, So it happened again, guys, don’t be mad at me. My bad for killing the homies.”

Randy pulled in closer as if her skin held a richer oxygen, as if in her he found fresh air.

“Funny.” And with that he was back asleep.

Staxxx kissed the top of his forehead, a gentle gratitude washing over her as she felt the binds of her anxiety easing.

“You hate me for killing Sun?” she asked Randy, but knew she was really asking the world as he slept. “Do you think I’m broken? Do you think I’m a person that can be in the world? Like, actually? Would I be okay out there?”

She watched his body rise and fall, his muscles limp but still defined in his skin.

“I think they’re gonna put you on a muthafucking cereal box.”

She said nothing. Even against the chorus of cicadas and grasshoppers, the depth of her quiet made Randy scrunch himself up just enough that his eyes were even with hers. His eyelids pulled themselves open. He looked at her and she met his gaze. She wanted to be in her body, felt herself floating away.

“You are broken. But you’ve handled everything that’s been put in front of you. So you’re perfect too, and a badass bitch on top of that. In a sick world, healthy is strange. So yeah, you’re broken some. But there’s none of us on the Circuit that will do better on the other side. And I say that as a selfish Link who views you as a messiah, but also as a person who knows bullshit from the real deal.”

“I’m floating a little bit.” Her eyes were wet.

“I know you are. I’m here. What do you want to talk about? You want to talk about a before thing or now?”

Staxxx considered this, thought about what she felt up for. What her mind would be receptive to. “Before,” she said.

“Well, that’s a problem,” Randy said. “My life really wasn’t worth talking about before I met you.” He closed his eyes, nestled back into her, and fell asleep with his lips on her collarbone.

She laughed and the cot chuckled in squeaks too. She laughed more. “Stupid.”

She found Mac lovely.

Staxxx didn’t know if it was some lingering desire from civilian life, to have a man trying too hard always, but she enjoyed it in the brutal context of her life now.

She enjoyed this time, this once or twice a week she’d spend with Randy. Months ago it seemed as though it would bring an intense instability to want more than one thing. To be with Thurwar and also have the freedom to share time and body with Randy Mac. The reporters certainly tried to instigate a war. They’d expected it to end with at least one person’s dying. But it had not, thanks to Thurwar’s maturity and decency and Randy’s begrudging loyalty to Thurwar. It was an agreement that, at least in this way, allowed her to do what she wanted. Each one of them gave her different things, satisfied distinct needs. Thurwar was home. Randy Mac was a vacation. Another place. A variety that kept her even, in her body, stable.

She felt a pride at being able to be herself in this way, in front of the whole world. She was born for this. Despite all the intrusive thoughts, despite how hard it was, she wasn’t afraid with love. She knew how to wield it, how to grow it, and how to receive it.

What if all she was good for was death?

She let the thought pass.

What if all the love she tried to be was a lie?

She saw the thought. Let it ride her breath. Yes, in some ways, she’d discovered herself on the Circuit, but that was inevitable. What she’d learned was that life, any life, was death and rebirth, death and rebirth. Everything always changed.

—

Hours before dawn she was up and staring at the tent. She could see the sky leaking dark through the netting that let air in and kept mosquitoes out. Randy rubbed her side and squeezed as if trying to keep her there a little bit longer. He was still asleep but coming out of it. She tried to start the day with Thurwar, even if she’d spent the night with Randy; he knew she’d be gone soon. In the past, she and the whole country had seen him cry, begging for more time in the morning. And she’d been strict but kind as she’d held firm, kissed him on the forehead, and disappeared to Thurwar. Now he often kept his eyes closed until she left. But today she waited with him.

She watched the morning settle over the Camp. Soon Thurwar would be Freed. Soon Staxxx would be a Colossal. Life was death and rebirth, death and rebirth. Staxxx was not the same person she’d been before the night she had killed Sunset. She was still learning this new self.

Thurwar would be Freed soon. They’d made so much love and so much death together. There was obviously no one on the planet who could be her match the way Loretta Thurwar was. She thought this as she traced her finger around Randy Mac’s brow. His jaw was clenched, and he seemed to be dreaming through a harshness. She pressed softly on his thick eyebrows, which grew smoother after they passed under her thumb. She wondered where he was. She’d wait with him till he woke up. This man who was not Thurwar but was still a part of her. She decided she’d ask him what he’d been dreaming. She closed her eyes for a little longer and waited.

—

Staxxx was watching him when he floated up from sleep. He looked around with confusion, as if he’d woken up in a place he’d never been before. This was, of course, true every single day on the Circuit.

“What were you dreaming about?” Staxxx asked softly. She could smell his morning breath as he reached up beyond the cot and stretched his muscles.

He rolled up in bed, moving quickly. Watching any man move suddenly made Staxxx want to rush for LoveGuile. She let it lie and waited. He picked something up from the ground bedside the bed.

Randy swung back down, holding a notebook. He quickly jotted something down.

“What did you dream about?” Staxxx asked again. She climbed on top of him, locking his abdomen between her thighs, resting his notebook on her middle.

“A goat,” Mac said. “I was dreaming about a goat.”

“I’m flattered. I didn’t know you dreamed about me still.”

“All I ever do.”

She pulled forward and kissed him. He received it gladly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “We make it to the Hub today. Tomorrow latest.”

Links never knew when Marches would end. They’d go for days and then suddenly they’d reach a pickup point where their van was waiting for them. The not knowing, the hoping for the Hub City, caused many Links to crack, but so did the fear of reaching that destination. Hub Cities meant BattleGrounds, and BattleGrounds meant death.

“You mean the great Hurricane is also clairvoyant. Or are you guessing?”

“I don’t guess. I know these things. I can feel it in the air. You can’t?”

“I could be feeling it more,” Randy said. He put his notebook down and brought his hands to her waist. She grabbed his wrists and pinned them back down beside his ears. She held him there for a while. Then she got off him. The HMC popped out of the way of her head as she put on her clothes.

“How come you’re still here?” Randy asked.

“I’m everywhere,” Staxxx said.

“You never stay this late.”

“I’m not in a rush to start today.” She pulled on her sweatpants. “And like I said, we get to the Hub City soon. What if…?” She didn’t speak the question she was always thinking aloud: What if this next one is the one that breaks me?

“Are you worried about the fight you two have?” he asked.

Thurwar and Staxxx would have a doubles match in the coming days. A match against two men billed as being stronger and more unpredictable than any they’d faced before.

She frowned.

“I didn’t think that was it. I know you two have nothing to worry about in doubles. I just don’t know what’s so special to have you feeling a way today.”

“Sometimes it’s simple, Mac.”

“So?”

“It’s simple,” she said, and then she left from his space for home.

* Cyntoia Brown was forced into prostitution and was initially given a life sentence at age sixteen for killing a man aged forty-three while defending herself. Cyntoia, Cyntoia, Cyntoia.

All across the world, women regularly serve prison time for killing their rapists.