The Anti-Heroes

Chapter Twelve LIV

Chapter Twelve

L IV

The walls are closing in on me. My heart is racing and my palms are drenched in sweat. My chest is so tight that I have to take little sips of air or else I feel like I’m choking. My skin feels electric, and I just want to slap at it to make the zapping stop. I’m trying my hardest not to panic, but the walls are definitely closing in, and I am starting to have a full-on panic attack.

What if I die here? Who’s going to help Deandra with her kids? Who’s going to bring my mom to all her doctor’s appointments? Who’s going to take over my listing on that Craftsman? Not Trevor. Please don’t let it be Trevor. It can’t be Trevor. He’ll sell it to someone who’ll raze it and fill every square foot of the lot with a McMansion.

“Should we try the door again? We should try it again,” I suggest. I need air. I need air. I need air .

Emily grabs my arms and stares into my eyes. “Livvy, do your Pilates breathing, okay? In through the nose, hold for four counts, then out using your diaphragm.” She helped me through my first panic attack during our third week as roommates. She’d taken the top bunk and I was on the bottom. Her comforter had fallen over in the night and turned my bunk into a cave, and I completely lost it. I thought I’d been buried alive. She sat with me and made me concentrate on my breaths until my pulse stopped racing, and then we swapped bunks for the rest of the year so it couldn’t happen again. “You’re okay. You’ve got this.”

Our captors have taken us to a dank, dark, foul-smelling basement. There’s a thick wooden door and a single, small window, far too high to reach. Condensation leaches from the brick walls. There’s a lumpy mattress and one dirty sheet. It’s all so small. Like a coffin. Like a Volkswagen, slowly submerging in a lake, its pocket of oxygen ever shrinking. Like a closet filled with my sister’s dirty gym clothes. My breath turns shallow and gasping again.

“Breathe, Liv. Breathe,” she tells me. She throws an arm around me, knowing not to hold me too close. Her scent is familiar—Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap, and neroli oil—and it comforts me.

I get the feeling we’re not the first to have been taken here. What does this mean? Why are we here? What the hell is this place? And who are these people? The scariest part of all is the plastic bucket in the corner. I shudder to imagine its purpose.

This place is every one of my fears come to life.

B-Money throws himself against the door, bouncing off and onto the floor. He clutches his arm and tries to shake it off. “Way too solid.” He picks himself up and gives his twists a shake. “Are there silverfish down here? Ugh, all those lil legs give me the squigs. What if something laid its eggs in my ear just now when I was on the floor?” He bats at his face.

Vishnu is huddled in the corner opposite the bucket, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking slightly. “‘Become fearless,’ they said. ‘It will be fun,’ they said. ‘You will create material for your book,’ they said.”

“I don’t recall saying any of that,” Michael says, furiously running a miniature lint brush over himself. “This suit is summer weight and exceptionally special. My dry cleaner will never get all the limestone dust off it. This is my fault for daring to wear linen to class. But it’s just been so hot lately!”

“Yeah, it’s called climate change,” Emily says. “I can tell you all about it.” Then she mutters something under her breath about not dressing like Idris Elba on the red carpet when he comes to class, but Michael doesn’t hear her.

“Eh, I feel like climate change is something Al Gore made up,” Michael replies.

“Yo, Mikey, why are you worried about your fit when we’re in some straight-up Silence of the Lambs shit? Those guys are gonna make suits outta our skin. Tell me you don’t see a bottle of lotion in that bucket, please, God,” says B-Money.

I will die before I voluntarily look in that bucket.

Emily gets up from where she’s been sitting beside me. She paces, and I can see her wheels turning. I’m glad someone’s trying to come up with a plan because all my brain is saying is, Get me out get me out get me out.

“Everyone take a breath and let’s talk about this. Let’s be logical and rational. How do you think we got here?” Emily says. Her voice is confident and commanding, and I want to cling to it like a life preserver. A sandbar of calm in an ocean of panic. She was frozen up in the van, but being thrown in here must have broken something loose; she is settling into Action Emily mode now and I’m here for it. I haven’t seen her this animated since that homecoming weekend senior year when she promised to flash her boobs for every hundred empty beer cans the frat boys picked up for recycling. She collected more than two hundred pounds of aluminum that day. (And a whole bunch of phone numbers.)

“I am pretty sure it was those people in the van,” Vishnu offers.

“I mean, metaphorically. Why us? Why here? Now? Is this related to the coffee shop robbery? Did the guy find out who we are and capture us in some weird form of revenge? But what did we do wrong? We literally did nothing.” She asks questions too quickly for us to answer. Action Emily is a sight to behold, and it’s making me feel slightly less claustrophobic. Four (very tight) walls cannot contain Action Emily. I need this. I need her to be strong.

She muses, more to herself than to us, “But how would he have known who we were and that we’d be together? Wouldn’t he go after the lady who hit him? We were bystanders. We literally stood by. We weren’t even on the news. Or is that the key? It doesn’t make sense. The pieces don’t fit.”

Emily paces back and forth across the dirt floor as she tries to find something to connect the two seemingly unconnected crimes. “Or, and I hate this option, are the ultraconservative news sites actually right, and Chicago has become so lawless that senseless acts of violence are the norm and this is now just business as usual? I can’t believe that. Not in my town. Chicago is full of Chicagoans , and we will always emerge victorious, I’m sure of it. Think about it. Gino’s. Giordano’s. Lou Malnati’s. The Bears’ ’85 season. Bulls, back to back to back. Cubs winning the World Series. Okay, it took a hundred and eight years, but we did it.”

“Yeah, shut the fuck up about Chicago,” B-Money says.

“It’s not like we’re in St. Louis,” Michael adds with a snort.

Emily points to him. “I like your energy. But put a pin in the part about Al Gore. We’re not done there. Right now, we’re going to worry about the closest alligator to the boat.” Action Emily claps her hands. The color in her cheeks is high and her eyes are shining. “Okay, years ago, I was rock climbing with a bunch of newbies. We were looking up a cliff face that was so high and flat, just so straight. My team said, ‘No way, we can’t,’ and I did not accept that answer. I told them, ‘You are strong, you are brave, and I believe in you. And if you fall, I’ll catch you.’”

“What’s your point?” Michael asks. He pulls a tube of lip balm out of his breast pocket and smooths it on, then he pulls out an even smaller vial and dots some liquid under his eyes. He notices we’re gawping at him. “If my face gets dehydrated, it’s game over.”

B-Money slaps it out of his hand. “If we don’t come up with a plan, it’s game over! Now’s not the time for self-care! At least not the cosmetic kind.” Anxiously optimistic, he adds, “But also, Emily, do you have a plan?”

“Yes. I can get us out of here,” she replies. She is decisive. She is relentless. She is the Emily of old, organizing the big U of M Earth Day serve-a-thon. It’s about time she showed up. Regular Emily who complains about Miles and her disconnected students and dresses like a septuagenarian librarian has vanished. We’re getting the superhero version, and if I weren’t about to pee my pants—nope, not considering the bucket—I’d be cheering her on.

“What does that look like?” B-Money asks. “We’re just gonna take on these people with guns? After a few boxing classes? Cool story, bro. We’re gonna die.”

Emily power poses with one hand on her hip and the other pointing skyward. “No. We’re going out that window.”

“It’s like thirteen feet up,” B-Money says.

“Absolutely inaccessible,” Vishnu adds. “We cannot get on shoulders and then on shoulders. We are not circus performers.”

“Maybe you aren’t.” With the dexterity of a mountain goat, Emily fits her foot and her fingers into the tiny cracks between the bricks and scales the wall, and I just want to applaud; it’s like the Cans for Cans drive all over again. I feel like the vise grip around my heart loosens just a tad.

“What if it’s locked?” Vishnu asks.

“No one locks a window from the outside,” B-Money says.

“Captors do,” Vishnu says and starts hugging his knees again.

“Climbing a wall is great for her, but no one else here is Spider-Man. How are we supposed to get up there?” Michael asks. “I am old and slow and weak.”

“It’s stuck, but I think I can get it.” Emily works on the pane, rocking it back with one hand while she grips the sill with the other. All that biking and running must be working, because from here, her calf muscles are like twisted steel. (Am I allowed to be secretly happy she finally shaves, or is that the patriarchy making me think that?) She works the frame back and forth, and ... it opens! “Liv, start ripping the sheet into a few wide strips. We need to reinforce it with a bunch of knots we can use as footholds. Who can tie a good knot?”

She climbs back down the wall and lands on the floor in a plume of dust.

B-Money raises his hand. “I sail a thirty-six-foot masthead sloop, so I can tie anything.” We all gape at him—it’s not what any of us expected—but hey, I’ll take it. “What, I can’t be a skipper and an MC?”

I try to follow Emily’s lead, channeling my fear into action. I rip while B-Money ties, and quicker than I would have imagined, we’ve fashioned ourselves a crude, cursory rope. We yank on it and the braids and ties seem to be working.

Emily then tries to maneuver up the wall again, this time with the rope looped around her shoulders. Some of the brickwork crumbled on her first climb, so it appears to be tougher going this time. Halfway up, she begins to slip, but B-Money and Michael catch her before she hits the ground.

“Oof, you’re heavier than you look,” Michael says.

“Never say that to a woman!” Vishnu says. “Even I know that!”

Emily squirms around in their grip, positioning herself to climb again. “This is quite a view,” Michael says.

She whips around. “If I’d known we were being abducted, I’d have worn looser pants.” She continues her ascent, slower this time, each footfall causing more of the limestone brick to crumble. When she reaches the window, she says, “I’m going to pop outside and make sure the coast is clear. Then I’ll brace my feet against the wall as a counterbalance, and you guys climb up.”

After a few heart-pounding seconds, Emily pops her head back in. “We’re clear.” She tosses down the rope but it only reaches two-thirds of the way.

Vishnu cries, “It’s too short! We need more length!”

Without hesitating, I pull off my Lululemon Define zip-front because the fabric is both strong and stretchy. I know I’ve been anti-Lulu because of the grocery store, but after watching Darby move so freely that day, I figured she was onto something. And their leggings are like butter! Vishnu begins to hyperventilate. I understand; I’m feeling the same way.

“My man, have you never seen a sports bra before?” B-Money asks as Emily leans in the window, giving us a few extra feet. B-Money reaches up on his toes to tie the jacket to the end of the rope. “Wait, are you one of those forty-year-old virgins?”

“I am thirty-six.”

“That means yes,” Michael says, sotto voce, but we all hear him. Vishnu looks like he wants to die.

I tell him, “Vishnu, your personal business is none of our business, but if that’s the case, I think it’s very sweet, because it must mean you’re saving yourself for your great love.”

“Yep. That’s why,” he confirms.

B-Money holds up the end of the rope. “Not long enough. We need more fabric. Gimme your jacket, Michael.”

“Hard pass. It’s Thom Browne.”

I begin hyperventilating. We can’t have come so close to give up now.

“Do you want to give up your jacket and get out, or do you want to be buried in it?” B-Money asks. Michael weighs his options, conflicted, so B-Money swats him on the back of the head. “Rhetorical statement, motherfucker!” Michael swats back at him, and a good old-fashioned Three Stooges–style slap fight breaks out. This is surreal. Clearly, neither one of them absorbed anything from the boxing lesson.

I look to Vishnu for help and he reluctantly interjects. “Stop it, both of you. They will hear us!” Michael finally pitches the jacket at B-Money after removing his grooming products. B-Money gleefully shreds it, then ties on the extra pieces. It’s finally long enough, thank goodness!

“Okay, ladies first,” B-Money says. Michael goes to grab the end, then notices all of our expressions. Holding our ad hoc rope, I position my legs on the bottom knot, supporting myself with my arms.

“Use your leg strength, not your arms. Propel yourself up with your quads,” Emily instructs. “And please hurry. I hear voices!”

Every time I bump the wall, the brick crumbles, creating little poofs of dust. But I would so much rather breathe basement dust than remain in this tiny room for another second. I try to tap into what Alex, one of my favorite Peloton instructors, always says: “Breathe in confidence. Exhale doubt.” I take a deep breath and I dig in. I breathe in confidence and exhale dust. After a coughing fit, I get into a groove. Pull. Breathe. Pull. Breathe. Muscles I didn’t know I had burn, and my hands ache from my grip.

“You’ve got this, Liv,” Emily promises, and I believe her.

When I get to the window, Emily grips my calf and helps pull me out. I take giant gulps of air, finally able to fill my lungs. Once I feel like I’m no longer drowning, we throw down the rope and I try to get my bearings.

“Where do you think we are?” Emily asks.

I try to piece together the clues. “Well, given the drive to get here, the depth of the basement, and the style of the brickwork, we’ve got to be somewhere on the South Side. In the 1850s, the streets in places like Bridgeport were raised to accommodate sewer pipes and drains, and roads were built on top of them. Prior to that, wastewater would just flow into the street and people died from waterborne illnesses. That’s why there are houses down here with these weird moats around them.”

Emily gives me a quick grin. “You never cease to surprise me, kiddo. Now, help me get a grip on this.”

There’s a great deal of cursing from inside the building, but shortly after, Michael’s head pops up and we pull him out. It’s a tight squeeze, and the window appears to be giving birth to the world’s most dapper baby. “Those bricks scraped up the bottom of my loafers. I’m going to have to get them rewelted,” he tells us. We toss the rope back while Michael rubs at his shoes with his pocket square.

From the basement, we hear B-Money say, “Hey, small problem.”

I pop my head in and see Vishnu struggling to climb the rope. His feet are slipping off the knots and he keeps losing his grip. “You guys, hurry, please,” I say.

Emily adds, “It’s clear up here, but I don’t know for how long.”

“I cannot do it,” he says, defeat etched all over his face.

“You can do it!” I tell him. “Your mind is your strongest muscle.” (It’s another Peloton instructor quote, and I’m trying to inspire so I go with the experts.)

“You are you, and that’s your superpower,” B-Money adds, which is a quote from a different instructor. He must spin too. B-Money grabs Vishnu squarely by the shoulders and says, “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You are gonna need to picture yourself as the hero in a spy novel, okay? I need you to be James Bond right now.”

“Ian Fleming is one of my favorite authors outside of the romance genre,” Vishnu admits.

“All right, then you know this story. If you’re James Bond, as soon as you climb this rope your hot new girlfriend is gonna be waiting for you and you’ll be James Bone . You got it, my man? Do this! You gotta do this!” B-Money tells him while clapping him on the back. That must have been the shot in the arm Vishnu needed because he begins to propel himself up.

“You’re doing it!” B-Money cheers.

“Yes, I am! I am doing it!” Vishnu replies. Slowly, surely, with his feet slipping all over, but never lessening his grip, he inches up the rope. The poor guy is sweating and shaking by the time he reaches the window, so Emily and I wrap our arms around him and get him the rest of the way out. “Thank you to everyone for your kind assistance. B-Money, I will definitely attend your rap battle now,” Vishnu promises.

We toss the rope down for one last pass. B-Money is light and lithe, so he makes short work of the rope and ... he’s out! We’re all out! The five of us—even Michael—group hug, clinging to each other in our victory and relief. We made it!

Then Vishnu asks, “Wait, so what do we do next?”