THE KID
"Now what? Jesus, I didn't need this! Not tonight!" Johner slumped over the steering wheel, shaking his head.
He was very tired. As he drove home, he'd been thinking about his day. Another first as a business owner! he thought. He'd fired a man today, someone who simply couldn't do the job. He'd done what he could to make the blow easier, but his careful courtesy hadn't helped. The man had stormed out, banging into furniture and cursing Johner loudly.
Johner's heart was sore, and his temper was short as a result. And now this! He looked out through the windshield with impatience that was turning quickly into anger.
The headlights showed him a human blockade. In the dark deserted street before him a line of people had appeared from nowhere, obliging him to brake hard to avoid hitting them. The consequent adrenaline rush hadn't helped his temper at all, and now he sat staring out through the glare of the headlights at this new problem.
They were kids! As he stared, he saw that there were five or six boys, none over about twelve or thirteen. Understanding flashed through his mind immediately. He knew what was happening, he'd done it himself, when he was a kid growing up on the street.
It was a heist. They were counting on their numbers to make up for their size while they intimidated a driver into giving them whatever they could scare out of him. Money, of course. Anything salable that he had in the car. His clothes, if they could get them. And the ideal situation was that he'd run, and leave the car to their mercy. In that case, they'd strip it. By morning there'd be nothing removable left.
But this time they'd picked the wrong car. He sat quietly, awaiting their next move---he knew what it would be. They'd move up to the car, one of them staying in front of it to hold him where he was. They'd expect him to lock his doors, so they'd be prepared to break a window.
Well, he had a little surprise for them. He smiled as he removed the handgun from its holster beside the seat. He was, after all, a registered level 10 security operative, duly licensed to carry or conceal a weapon, wherever and whenever he wanted to.
As the biggest of them, the leader, approached the car, Johner opened the door and stepped out. The leader didn't hesitate. He motioned for the others to back him, and kept coming.
Good move! Johner thought. This kid wasn't intimidated by the unusual action on the part of the mark. Now we'll see how he feels about this. He brought up the gun. As the boy stopped in front of him, the gun was leveled at his chest. All right! Well done, kid! was Johner's thought, when the boy looked down the barrel of the gun without turning a hair.
"Go ahead. Shoot me, fucker. I'm twelve years old. You'll have a great time explaining why you shot a twelve year old kid!"
"You're closer to fourteen, big mouth. And you're coming with me!" With practiced speed Johner reached out with his free hand and in two seconds had an immobilizing hold on the boy, while keeping the gun leveled at his associates. The boy fought him with all he had, in spite of the agony of a twisted shoulder, while Johner muscled him into the car.
The door slammed shut and the locks went on while Johner still fought to hold him. In a couple of seconds, cuffs had the boy chained to the opposite door. He stopped fighting then. He became perfectly still, his eyes on Johner with a killing glare, waiting to see what came next.
Johner sat still for a moment, panting a little from the battle just past. The boy looked up at him from under a mop of unkempt light brown hair, wary as a chained wolf, and as ready to kill. He was a big strong kid, just beginning to come into the final shape of his manhood. He was going to be tall, broad-shouldered, heavily built. Like me… Johner thought, with a rush of emotion he couldn't identify, as he stared back, holding the boy's blue eyes with his own. He's going to be like me…
"OK, kid, relax. I'm not gonna turn you in." That would be the boy's first fear, he knew; that he'd call the cops. "We're gonna go for a ride. Nothing terrible is gonna happen to you, just cool it."
He turned to the wheel. When he looked out he saw that the rest of the boys had disappeared. That figured. It's what I would have done. He put the car into gear and drove away, going he knew not where, to do he knew not what. How did I get into this? Ten minutes ago I was on my way home. I can't take this…this wild animal…home with me. What in hell am I going to do with him?
He only knew he couldn't dump him out in the street. Not back to the street. He couldn't do that.
**********
"You did good back there. I can't think of anything I'd tell you to change."
Johner kept his eyes on the road.
Silence from the passenger seat.
"What got you was bad luck. I'm not the best mark you coulda picked. I've been where you are; I knew what was gonna happen."
Silence.
"OK---we won't talk about it."
*********
After a while Johner stopped to get fuel. As he pumped it, he thought about
what he'd have done in a like situation, and decided that he'd have been just
as silent and unresponsive as the kid was. What would have got to him? He knew
the answer immediately. Food. He'd been hungry all the time when he was fourteen.
When he paid for his fuel he bought food. Sandwiches, potato chips, Coke. He smiled to himself. He still liked those things, it must be because he'd never got enough of them. God knows they're not the world's best food, he thought, but I wanted potato chips more than life itself when I was his age.
On his way out he called home. Connor answered. "I'm waiting for you, dopey. Where the hell are you? I'm hungry!"
Johner chuckled. "Can't even open a can! Better go out to eat, I'm gonna be awhile."
"Have you got some bimbo with you? I'll kill you!"
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I have. She's beautiful, and she wants me. But I couldn't get it up when I tried to fuck her. I was too scared of you! She laughed at me. Practically destroyed my manhood on the spot!"
"Ha! I'm here to testify that nothing, absolutely nothing, could do that."
"Right. I need to keep it for you." His voice softened. "Only for you, babe."
"Come home quick. I want you." Sarah's voice had softened also, to a deliberately throaty whisper.
"Jesus! Don't do that, babe!" he protested, laughing. "I can't come home right now. But I'll be there sometime soon. I'll call again. No problems, I've just got myself into something here that's gonna take a little time."
"OK, see ya. I love you."
"Love you. Bye."
**********
"I'm going to put a longer chain on you so you can eat." Johner grinned
at him. "Please don't bother to tell me you're not hungry; I remember."
He quickly changed the cuffs, putting the longer chain on before he removed
the shorter one. "Now, kid. You may be able to reach me with this longer
chain. Just remember before you try it that I'm capable of making you hurt a
lot, and I will if I have to. What's your name?"
"…Des." Even the one word came out reluctantly.
"Des. OK. Eat." Johner started the car and drove away, glancing at
the boy as he drove. Des reached for a sandwich, took ahuge bite, opened the
soda, tore the top off the potato chip bag.All of it was gone in five minutes.
"Want more?" Johner
grinned;
he'd been right about a fourteen-year-old's appetite.
"Later." Des settled back in the seat, satisfied for the moment. When Johner glanced at him again, he was staring steadily at his captor, a long assessing stare. Johner understood that stare. Des was figuring out his motives. He was expert at that sort of appraisal; he had to be to have lived this long. His life could depend on the accuracy of his judgment of what others' intentions were; and no less important, what profit he could make from them. His brain was busily weighing every look, every gesture, everything about Johner that his quick perception had picked up in the last half hour.
After a few more seconds of that cool appraisal he turned his back on Johner, curled up, and was asleep immediately. Johner smiled to himself. Apparently Des had decided that he was in no present danger.
He reached over and operated the control that put the back of the passenger seat down to the horizontal position. The boy moaned a little and stretched himself out into the increased space without waking. Like an animal, Johner hought. He's lived like an animal all his life. I know this kid. He's me. Always hungry, always exhausted. Never enough food, enough sleep, enough of anything. And…God, never any love at all. None. No one, not ever, to care if you live or die. He doesn't know what love is. I didn't. Not until Connor. Not until my miracle happened.
He looked at the sleeping youngster, and his heart was torn as he perceived the lost innocence in the half-grown boy lying there. The childhood forfeited, subverted into a frantic battle for survival, the youth twisted into premature cynicism, the love never lost, because never possessed; he knew it all. All of it was so much a part of who he was, who he had been in the past. The pain of his own wasted years was ever with him, but in this moment it was indivisible from the compassion he felt for this sleeping boy; this damaged boy who was verging upon a misshapen manhood.
He bent over the boy and spoke softly, almost soundlessly. "Maybe I can change it for you. Maybe I can make it come out right…at last. Maybe I can be your miracle, Des."