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  But then a chair squeaks, and next thing I know, Quig’s on his feet. And the look on his face-well, there’s anger and then there’s blank, white-lipped rage. He walks to Donna, through broken glass and mango salsa, and offers his hand.

  Oh, yeah… I have no idea how he got it down from the wall again, but that brass bowl-thing? It’s on his head.

  “Milady,” he says.

  “His what?” murmurs Rick. Gabby kicks him under the table.

  Donna looks up at Quig. There’s a smear of coleslaw on her cheek. She’s got rice in her hair and tears in her eyes. She takes his hand, and he helps her up. The whole restaurant applauds. I’ve never been so proud of anyone. He should’ve looked like a fool with that thing on his head, but he didn’t. He looked… well, noble.

  But the slow motion doesn’t stop there. Quig offers Donna a napkin to clean herself up, then turns to the bikers. If looks could blow things up, there would have been a smoking crater there in the middle of the restaurant. But looks can only… well, look. So he reaches out, grabs a beer mug off the table, and dumps it over Neck-beard’s head.

  That’s when things started moving normal speed again. Maybe even a little faster.

  The bikers all got up at once, yelling stuff that sent moms diving to cover their kids’ ears. Neck-beard was dripping-with the beer on him, he smelled like a college dorm stairwell-and he took a swing. Quig ducked, and Neck-beard slipped in the goo on the floor and went down. Our table got up next, and we grabbed hold of Quig before he could hit back. I saw his eyes-he was going to. Donna helped us drag him away, while two truckers, three college kids, and a guy who looked like a retired accountant surrounded the bikers, trying to break up the fight.

  The bikers looked ready to grab chairs, flip tables, just trash the place-but Stan the manager came barreling out of the back, his face a really spectacular shade of purple. I remember there was this vein throbbing on his right temple. I thought it was going to pop, and boom, down he’d go with an aneurysm, but it didn’t.

  “What in the flying hell is going on here?” he roared. “Anyone touches a stick of furniture, and I’ll have the cops here. Any of you have any outstanding warrants?”

  The bikers quieted down.

  “Asshole dumped beer on my head!” yelled Neck-beard, getting up off the floor. He pointed at Quig.

  “And you tripped me!” said Donna.

  Stan looked at her, at the mustard-and-ketchup Jackson Pollock all over the floor. His lips moved, and I could see he was counting to ten. When he was on seven, Quig stepped forward.

  “Sir,” he said, “it’s true, I did what that man said. But I was avenging the honor of the lady-”

  Stan glared at him, his eyes flicking up to the basin as if wondering how it got on Quig’s head. “Shut it,” he snapped, and turned back to the bikers. “All right, you lot-out. If I ever see you back, spilled beer’s the least of your worries.”

  The bikers muttered, suddenly sheepish. Stan had this effect on people-they could have crushed him into the ground, but the guy was built like a fire hydrant. He intimidated people.

  “Now,” he said, and they skulked out.

  There was some scattered applause, but Stan gave the room the stink-eye and it stopped. Next he turned to Quig. “You, too.”

  “Him?” Ravi asked.

  Gabby pointed at Donna. “He was defending her!” Rick and I joined in, and so did a bunch of other people, with variations on “yeah!” and “that’s right!”

  “Stan,” Donna said. “Those jerks are waiting for him in the parking lot. You know that.”

  But he just shook his head. Stan could be a bit of a dick, sometimes. “Company policy. Anyone fights or disturbs the other diners, I have to throw them out.”

  And there’s the part that the legal department of P.F. Whistlefart’s Grease-a-torium didn’t like me telling: how their corporate policy was to send a fifty-year-old software engineer out to get the snot knocked out of him by six guys who could crush beer kegs against their foreheads. It’s the sort of bad press that could make America want to buy its two-thousand-calorie meals elsewhere.

  Gabby began to explain, in precise anatomical detail, what Stan could do with company policy. She was just getting into the part about twisting it sideways when Quig held up a hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t fear those riffraff. If it’s a fight they want, then a fight they shall have. Stand aside.”

  And he made for the door.

  I watched him go. We all did, a bit too stunned to react. Quig looked different-maybe it was because he was balancing that bowl on his head, but he was standing straight, his programmer’s hunch gone. And he was thin, which was weird. He’d always had a bit of a gut.

  Donna broke the silence. She stepped forward, ripped the nametag off her uniform, and threw at Stan. The pin stuck in his tie and it hung there, upside-down, proclaiming him to be

  “Prick,” she said, and went after Quig.

  We followed him, too. Looking back, I was asking for what happened to me out in the parking lot, but I’d do it again. Quig was my boss, but he was also my friend. I wasn’t going to let him go out there alone.

  Anyway, we all gathered around Quig near the coat rack. He was rummaging through the umbrella stand and came up with his-a sturdy old thing, not one of those collapsibles that blow inside-out if you breathe on them wrong.

  “Trouble yourselves not for me,” he said, holding up the umbrella. “I can fend for myself, even against such a horde.”

  “Uh, Quig?” I asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “And why are you talking like that?” Rick added.

  I heard a sound, and there was Stan again, coming up behind us. “Not so fast,” he said. “Give that back.”

  He reached for the basin, then yelped when Quig hit him with the umbrella. It was a quick blow, and precise. Quig hadn’t forgotten his stage-fight training, I guess. Stan pulled back, clutching his wrist.

  “Uncouth rogue!” Quig said. No, not said-proclaimed. “Do not despoil the Helm of Mambrino with your innkeeper’s hands. Now begone!”

  Stan looked at him, pop-eyed. He could have had Quig arrested for assault, even for that little smack, but he just stepped back, blinking.

  “No, seriously,” Rick said, “why do you sound like someone from a Monty Python movie?”

  “Shhh,” said Gabby. She started grabbing more umbrellas and handing them out. “We’re coming with you, Quig. We’re your men at arms.”

  “What?” asked Ravi. He stared at the umbrella in his hand.

  Quig smiled. “Very well,” he said, and his eyes fell on Donna. “But not you, milady. You must wait until the battle is done-but if you would give me a token to wear as I sally forth…”

  She looked like she was going to argue, but she didn’t. There was something irresistible about Quig just then, the same thing that made me not question going out to face six thugs armed only with a bumber-shoot. I didn’t know the word for how he looked at the time, but I learned it later. He looked gallant.

  “All right,” Donna said. She looked at herself, frowned, and pulled a button off her uniform. Carefully, she pinned it onto Quig’s shirt. It read:

  ASK ME ABOUT OUR DOUBLE-FUDGTASTIC BROWNIE SPLITZ™!

  Then, leaning forward, she kissed his cheek.

  “All right,” Rick said. “Everyone ready to get their asses kicked?”

  “Wait,” said someone behind me.

  I turned, and there was the retired accountant. And the truckers. And the college kids. And even one of the idiot teens, a pimply, quiet kid who’d been sitting off to the side.

  “How many more umbrellas you have?” the accountant asked.

  We armed ourselves. No one tried to stop us. Then out we went. It was still raining in the parking lot. And there, waiting by the mini-golf course, were Neck-beard and company. They were armed, too- three had pipes, a couple had knives, and one big bald dude had a freaking bicycle chain. They grinned when Quig step
ped out, the bowl glinting under the street-lights-but they faltered when the rest of us followed him. We had them outnumbered, two to one. Behind us, Donna and half the restaurant watched through the window.

  “What the hell?” blurted Neck-beard. “You put together a posse, freak? And what’s that thing on your head?”

  Quig looked at him. Slowly, he raised his umbrella. “Yield, varlet,” he said. “Beg forgiveness and quit this field, or taste my steel!”

  The bikers laughed, and can you blame them? This was insane. Except it didn’t feel insane, not at the time. It was exciting. I felt every raindrop as it hit me. I raised my umbrella too, and stepped forward. So did Rick, and Ravi, and Gabby. And the rest.

  I’m amazed none of the passing cars drove off the road at the sight of us.

  The bikers must have felt a little of what I was feeling, because they quit laughing and spread out. The guy with the chain started to whirl it slowly. They looked different than they had inside-bigger, cruder, more savage. Like ogres. It could have been a trick of the light… but you know, I doubt it.

  “As you will,” Quig said. He kissed the Double-Fudgtastic button, then raised his head again. I wondered how I’d ever thought the thing he was wearing was a bowl. Couldn’t everyone see it was a helmet?

  The bikers charged.

  We ran to meet them, our weapons held high.

  So here’s the problem: Quig had his army, but he’d overlooked one thing. None of us knew how to fight. Plus we had umbrellas, for the love of God. What I’m saying is, it was sort of a lopsided battle. The truckers managed to break one guy’s teeth, but the rest of us didn’t accomplish much except for a lot of shouting and falling down and yelling in pain. Bicycle Chain took out all three college kids by himself. The accountant got stabbed through the hand. The high school kid ended up with a cut that took thirty-three stitches, I found out later.

  After that, things get a bit blurry, because I met up with Neck-beard. He had a pipe. He swung and I tried to parry, except I had no idea what I was doing, and I ended up getting hit full-force on my right elbow.

  So I hear a snap, and suddenly the umbrella’s on the ground and my arm’s hanging limp at the shoulder and it feels really weird, like anything it touches is moving around all over the place. And there’s no pain yet, not really, because I’m in shock. I fall to my knees and throw up margaritas and Alamo Massacre Wings all over the biker’s boots. You wouldn’t believe the colors.

  Neck-beard stood over me, and he raised the pipe. I couldn’t even get my arm up to protect myself. I just felt bits of bone grinding together where my humerus ought to be. I knew the next thing I was going to feel break was my skull.

  Only the pipe never came down. Just then, Quig came out of nowhere, yelling… well, I guess it was a battle-cry. I didn’t catch the words-they sounded Spanish-but it caught Neck-beard’s attention. He took a swing at Quig, but Quig twisted out of the way, then snapped his umbrella around and hit Neck-beard in the face. There was another crack, and Neck-beard dropped his pipe and clutched his nose, which was starting to pour blood. Quig didn’t miss a beat; he spun around, rammed the butt of his umbrella into the back of Neck-beard’s head, and the big ox fell on his face and stayed down.

  I just knelt there, grunting and grinding my teeth, while Quig stood above Neck-beard silhouetted against the lights of the mini-golf course. “You all right, J.?” he asked.

  “Not… really,” I said, and managed a weak, crazy kind of laugh. I shook my arm, which flopped in a way I still don’t like thinking about. “But I’ll live.”

  Quig smiled at me. Then, with another battle-cry, he was gone. A moment later, the pain finally hit, and I don’t remember anything more.

  It was a wonder nobody on either side was killed. I was one of the worst hurt-it took the surgeons five hours, a steel plate, and seven screws to put my arm back together, and the elbow still doesn’t straighten all the way-but there were a few other broken bones, a whole lot of concussions, and plenty of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. By the time the cops showed up, it was over. One of the bikers ran away; they found him hiding behind the restaurant’s dumpsters. The rest were unconscious. Gabby and Ravi were still standing; Rick was one of the concussed. And then there was Quig, still wearing that damn bowl on his head, and not a scratch on him.

  The media loved it. Quig’s picture ended up on the front of the Providence and Boston papers and even made it into the New York Times: “ Rhode Island ‘Knight’ Wins Parking Lot Brawl.” He got calls to appear on talk shows, but he never did. There were various charges of assault and mischief, but we got off-there were plenty of witnesses who confirmed that anything we did was self-defense. The bikers weren’t as lucky-as Stan figured, most of them had warrants.

  Things at work weren’t the same after that. Rick never came back; he cashed in his stock options and moved out west. I hear he’s working in games now. Gabby and Ravi and I stayed a while longer, but we each left the company before too long. After that night in the parking lot, any attraction to baby product websites was pretty much gone. Me, I’m still programming. But I’m writing and taking acting classes too, because hey, why not? Plus aikido. Next time I’m in a fight, I want to be ready.

  And Quig…

  Ah, Quig.

  He fought for us. He went to the CEO Monday morning and told him we wouldn’t be working late to make up for their mismanagement. Said if they didn’t like it, they could fire him. So they fired him, of course. No, he wasn’t wearing the helmet when it happened.

  Two weeks later, he showed up in the street outside the office. He was riding a motorcycle-a big, beautiful hog that would have made Neck-beard insane with jealousy. Written on the side was its name: Rocinante. Sitting on the back, behind him, was Donna, and tucked into one of the saddle-bags was the Golden Helmet.

  “Where you headed, Quig?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just driving around the country a while. We’ll probably end up out west. Maybe I can find work in Hollywood, teaching stage fighting.”

  He’d changed. He was happy. I never asked him if it was the helmet that did it. That seemed too obvious.

  Donna slid her arms around his waist, gave him a squeeze. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of him.”

  And like that, with a noise that rattled the windows, he was gone.

  I watched the bike head down the street, then turn left and disappear.

  I went home early that day.

  Oh, and if you’re looking for The All-American Alimentary Adventure, don’t bother. After all the bad press, the company closed the location. The mini-golf people bought it, and they opened a restaurant of their own.

  It’s called Windmills.

  TECHNICOLOR by Louise Marley

  The screen door slammed, making the breakfast dishes jump. Dorothy winced, and Lin rolled her eyes in a manner only possible for a twelve-year-old. “Mother,” she complained. “Do you two have to fight every morning?”

  Dorothy sighed and looked away from her daughter’s pouting face. She watched Phil stamp across the sunburned grass of the backyard. His back was stiff, and he slapped at his leg with his ancient baseball cap as he stalked toward the barn. Today, it was because Dorothy had forgotten to buy tractor oil on her weekly trip to the mercantile. Yesterday, it had been something else.

  Dorothy wanted to defend herself, but the words wouldn’t come. In fact, it was hardly fair of Lin to accuse her of arguing, since Phil had done all the talking. Dorothy hadn’t said a single word yet this morning. She couldn’t remember if she had said anything yesterday morning, either. Silence was easier. And less provoking.

  She looked across the jumble of cereal bowls and dirty glasses at her pigtailed daughter and forced words to her lips. All she could think of was, “Did you make your bed, Glinda?”

  A mistake. “Mother! Don’t call me that! I’ve told you!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Breakfast was late because you two were fi
ghting, and now I don’t have time,” Lin said triumphantly, pointing out past the porch to the plume of dust winding toward the farmhouse. “The bus is coming!”

  Dorothy stood, crumpling her napkin. She carried the cereal bowls to the sink and stood gazing out over the pile of dirty dishes. The school bus, covered in dust, was all but indistinguishable from the dry wheat fields, the dirt lane, the browning leaves on the oaks and alders that drooped around the house. “Monochrome,” she murmured to herself.

  “What?” Lin asked.

  Dorothy just shrugged.

  Lin was shouldering her backpack. “Where’s my lunch?”

  “On the counter,” Dorothy said absently.

  Lin snatched it up, and opened the bag. “Oh, Mother! Peanut butter?” Another roll of the eyes, with the bonus of an exasperated snort. Twelve-year-olds, Dorothy thought. Surely, I never snorted at Aunt Emily. Not even when I was twelve.

  She crossed the kitchen to help stuff the lunch sack into Lin’s backpack. “Wait,” she said. “Your shoes are untied.” She bent to reach for the laces of Lin’s hightops, but Lin pulled her feet away, saying, “Never mind, Mother.”

  Dorothy tried to brush her lips across her daughter’s forehead, but Lin spun away before she quite reached her. A moment later, she was on her way out the door. “Have a good-” Dorothy began, but the screen door slammed once more, and Lin was off, dashing across the yard to meet the bus. Her hightops, laces flying loose, disappeared up the steps, and the door folded closed behind her. Dorothy raised one hand in farewell, but her daughter never looked back.

  Dorothy stood by the screen door to watch the bus rumble away in its cloud of beige dust. Did nothing, in all this landscape, have any color? Even the last of the hollyhocks had died. All of Kansas, it seemed to Dorothy, was painted in shades of brown.

  She pulled the kitchen blinds against the rising heat and turned to face the piled dishes and the waiting laundry. It was as oppressive a sight as the dry fields stretching to the horizon. Dorothy knew a woman who started on a bottle of Dewar’s at just this moment every day, right after the school bus left. Today Dorothy could understand. She sighed again and started up the stairs, her house slippers scuffing on the bare wood.