The Box

by Robert Swetz

  “You’re back!” Giovanni said. “Your mother came in last night and brought me the change. Do me a favor, thank her again for me.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  “What can I do for you?” Giovanni asked, not seeing anything in the boy’s hands.

  “If I give you something, can you promise not to tell anyone that you got it, and especially don’t tell anyone that I gave it to you?”

  “Tell anybody what?”

  From his pocket, he pulled out the wad of bills that he had taken from the Scorpions the night before. “This,” he said as he held the money in his hand. “It’s the money that Little Paul took from you yesterday. Most of it. They spent some. This is just what’s left.”

  Giovanni was speechless. “You got the money back?”

  “But you can’t have it unless you promise not to tell anyone I gave it to you. Nobody!”

  “Yeah, if you took it back from that kid, then I can see why.”

  He handed the wad of bills to Giovanni. “Just don’t let anyone know I was here,” he said as he handed the money over.

  Giovanni counted it. A hundred and fifty-four dollars. Almost all of what had been taken from him last night. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Here,” he said. “You deserve a lot more than this, but thanks. Thanks…a lot!”

  He shook his head. “No. I can’t take it. If I did, my mother would find it and she’d want to know where it came from. Nobody can know.”

  Giovanni shook his head. “It isn’t right.” He thought of something. “Suppose I paid you for doing a little work around here instead.”

  “Work? Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know. Just tell your mother I asked you to sweep the floor or something.”

  But the more he thought about it, the worse that idea sounded. “No. Forget it. Forget I was here. You never saw me.” He hurried to the door and back out to the street. By taking that money, he had struck a tiny blow against the Scorpions. He felt good about that. He just couldn’t let it show.

  He often walked the streets. Especially when school was out and there was nothing else to do. He certainly couldn’t buy anything, not without a single dime in his pocket. He could window shop though, so he often went into a lot of stores just to look around. He knew every store in the neighborhood and all the neighborhoods beyond. In fact, he walked enough that he knew most of the city around him, probably better than the Scorpions who spent most of their time in the few blocks they controlled.

  From Giovanni’s Market, he headed straight home, but he no sooner crossed the street into his own block when he saw Little Paul come flying out the door to the Scorpion’s headquarters. Frank came through the door after him.

  “But I wasn’t even here last night!” Little Paul argued.

  “Who cares? It doesn’t matter,” Frank told him. “You’re in charge of keeping money in the petty cash box, so get some more.” With that, Frank turned and walked back into the building, leaving Little Paul to stare angrily after him.

  Instead of continuing back to the apartment, he turned the corner away from Little Paul. He doubted he had been seen, and turning the corner and staying out of sight kept things that way. With nothing better to do, he spent the day wandering the city streets, skipping lunch again like he often did since he wasn’t home and he didn’t have money to buy anything.

  It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that he got back to their little third story apartment. When he opened the door, the heat inside felt like he had walked into a furnace. There was no such thing as air conditioning in the type of places where they lived. As usual he headed straight for the open window and the small bit of relief the breeze might bring…if there was a breeze. He glanced at the clock. Another hour until his mother got home and fixed him dinner. Another hour until he wasn’t alone anymore.

  An hour later, his eyes were completely focused on watching for his mother to come up the street. He ignored the goings and comings of the Scorpions. He ignored the goings and comings of all the other people. He only wanted to see his mother. Six o’clock came, then six-fifteen. Worry began to fill his stomach. Was she okay? Had something happened? Or was she working a double shift again? Why couldn’t they afford cellphones so he would know that she was okay.

  And then he saw her. Finally! Except…she didn’t look right. She was limping, and on her face he noticed a bit of red where there shouldn’t be any. He ran out of the apartment and nearly fell down the stairs as he hurried to her as fast as he could. He was out the door before she even reached it. Just the sight of her nearly brought tears to his eyes. Her face and arms were bruised and there was blood on her bottom lip. “Mom!” he yelled as he ran to her. He stopped right in front of her, tears coming to his eyes as he tentatively reached out to hug her. But before he could, she grabbed him and pulled him into a tight embrace, where she cried into his shoulder.

  “What happened?” he whispered as he held her.

  “I got mugged right after I got off the bus,” she cried. “I was stupid enough to resist when they tried to grab my purse, and they hurt me.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just a couple of those damn kids!”

  The Scorpions. As if he hadn’t suspected it already. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

  “Oh Brian,” she said. “All our money. My bus pass. My license. Everything was in there. And I just got paid!”

  “Okay Mom. We’ll figure it out,” he said as he continued to hold her. Together, they went through the door and climbed the stairs.

  “Did you eat anything for lunch today?” she asked as they were halfway up the steps.

  “No. Not today, Mom. I didn’t need it.”

  “You need to eat. I’ll fix you something nice for dinner,” she told him.

  “Sure Mom. That would be great.” It was just like her. The worst thing in the world could happen, and all she thought about was taking care of him.

  That night, he again waited until his mother was sound asleep. He went up into the attic and crossed over into the other building. He went to his favorite spot to watch from and waited. Below him, everything seemed normal, except there were more Scorpions than he’d seen in the last few days. But as the evening wore on, the number of people below him dwindled, until someone finally turned the main lights out.

  Once again, he went back down the ladder and squeezed through the small hole in the wall. He started with the little office he was in, searching everywhere. He found his mother’s purse in a pile of trash on the floor along with a number of other purses and wallets and things that had been dumped out of the purses. He opened the purse, but it was empty. He was guessing that the money she had was now in their money box in the other room. But what about her driver’s license and bus pass? He quickly looked through the rest of the trash in the pile, but he didn’t see anything that looked like a license or a bus pass, not his mother’s or anything like it from anyone else. He figured the Scorpions must have done something else with those things.

  He had never done it before, but now he started going through every box and container he could find in that little office. It took him nearly twenty minutes to hit pay-dirt. He found an entire shoe-sized box full of licenses, credit cards, bus passes, and other cards he didn’t even recognize. His mother’s driver’s license and bus pass were right on top. He pulled them out and put them into her purse. He was about to head back through the hole to go home, when he had another idea. He went back and managed to just stuff the entire box of stolen goods into the purse. He slung it over his head and shoulder so he wouldn’t drop it, then he squeezed back through the hole and climbed the ladder.

  Once back in his bedroom, as he always did, he opened his bedroom door to look out. All was quiet. All was dark. Through the thin wall, he heard his mother softly snoring. Safe!

  He removed the box from his mother’s purse and left it on his bed. It would do no good to just leave her purse
in the apartment where she could easily find it. She would know that he had somehow left the apartment. He went out to the apartment door and opened it. He hung her purse on the outside of the doorhandle. Only then did he go back to his bedroom. But now he was faced with a box that didn’t belong to him. One that contained a lot of things that he figured were probably important to other people.

  He briefly searched through what was in the box. A lot of credit cards and things. The licenses all had pictures of people. Most he didn’t recognize, but some of them were people he had seen in the area, but he didn’t know their names. Of course, he was sure they didn’t know his name either. Should he find those people and give those things back to them? Was there a better way to deal with what was in the box? He simply didn’t know.

  He pulled the little stepstool out again and went back into the attic where he hid the box so nobody would find it. Finally, he made sure everything was back the way it belonged, and he went to bed. For once, he didn’t dream about a life he no longer really remembered. He was more concerned about what had happened to his mother…and the box.

  What should he do with it? Was it wrong that he had taken it, or was that a good thing? No, it couldn’t be good because he didn’t know if he should do anything with it or not. Not to mention, he couldn’t think of a single thing he could do with it. He had found the box because the Scorpions had attacked his mother and hurt her. Stealing her purse was bad. Beyond bad, especially for his mother. But the worst part of it all was what they had done to her. They had hurt her. They had physically attacked and hurt his mother. And his bet was that they had laughed about it afterwards.

  Everything bad that happened, always seemed to happen because of the Scorpions. The place they now lived was the worst place in the world – because of the Scorpions. Would the neighborhood be any better if they didn’t exist? He was sure it would be. It had to be. But now the Scorpions had attacked and hurt his mother, something they had never done before…at least not to him and his mother. He certainly knew that a lot of other people in the area had been attacked and hurt by them. But this time it was his mother.

  He didn’t know how he could possibly do it, but he wanted to put an end to the Scorpions. All of them. He just had no clue in the world how to do it.

  Chapter 3

  “But Mom, how are you gonna get to work? You lost your bus pass.” The last thing in the world that he needed was for his mother to have any clue what he had done last night, or the other things he had done before that.

  His mother reached into her pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “I always keep a little bit of money put back in case of emergencies. This will get me to work,” she told him. “It just won’t get me much more.”

  “And how long till you get paid again?”

  “Too long,” she replied. “But that’s not your problem, it’s mine. Your job is to stay here and stay safe! Got that? And I’m afraid I’m going to worry about you now more than ever.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he told her.

  “And I thought the same thing about me,” she replied. “I don’t like leaving you here all alone. Unfortunately, things are what they are.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I’m fine. I’m used to it.”

  “Unfortunately,” she replied. She hugged him. “I’ve got to go now. You stay in and stay safe.”

  “Yeah Mom. Okay.”

  “Good. See you tonight. Love you,” she told him.

  “Love you too Mom.”

  He said nothing as she headed for the door and opened it.

  “What?” she exclaimed as she opened the door. “My purse!”

  “Your purse?” he said as he headed to the door to see.

  He watched as she quickly grabbed it and opened it. “My license! My bus pass,” she said excitedly. “But nothing else,” she added with a touch of disappointment. She closed the purse and shook her head disappointedly. “No money of course.”

  He suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t grabbed some of the Scorpion’s money again.

  “Still,” she said, “it’s a big relief to get these few things back, especially my license. I can always get more makeup and I’ll eventually replace my other things too. I’ll just have to wait a little.”

  Makeup? He hadn’t even thought to look for any stuff like that. Not that he’d know what was hers and what wasn’t. He had only spent a few seconds looking through that pile of trash where he had found her purse. Was there anything else that had been important that she had lost? He knew her purse was usually pretty full. But he had no way of knowing what belonged to her and what didn’t.

  “Okay,” she said as she slung her nearly empty purse over her shoulder. “You have a good day. And like I said, stay in the apartment. Stay safe!”

  “Yeah Mom. Sure,” he replied.

  Another hug and a kiss later, and he watched as she walked down the stairs. He knew without a doubt that getting back her purse had been a good thing. But beyond finding her license and bus pass, he hadn’t even thought about anything else. But how could he have known what to look for?

  He went back into the apartment and closed the door. He sat by the window and watched as his mother walked down the street toward the bus stop. But his mind was only partially on his mother. The big question that occupied him now was, what should he do with the box…if he should do anything at all.

  Why had he even bothered to take it? But he knew the answer to that. His mother had seemed very worried about her license and bus pass. They had been important to her. Because of that, he was guessing that the things in that box were important to the people who owned them. But if they were, then how was he supposed to get them back to the people they belonged to? He certainly couldn’t be seen giving anything back. People would know then that he had been the one to find those things. If word of that ever got back to the Scorpions, they’d kill him – literally. And then there was also the chance that the people who got their things back might think that he had been the one to take them instead of the Scorpions. No, there was no way he could give any of that stuff back. Taking the box had been the wrong thing to do.

  But…what if the other people who had lost that stuff needed it back? His mother had certainly been glad to get her things again. He just didn’t know what to do.

  As his mother had wanted, he spent the entire day in the heat of the apartment. With nothing to do, he spent most of his time either napping or looking out the window. Other people had TVs and things to occupy themselves with. He had nothing. At least, nothing he felt like doing. All day long, that box seemed to be the only thing he could think about.

  His mother was right on time when she got home that night. Dinner was a bit less than usual, but not so much that he cared. Then, as she often did, his mother grabbed the clothes he had worn the day before and washed them in the kitchen sink along with the clothes she needed. As always, she went through all his pockets to make sure nothing he might have in them would get ruined. He knew she needn’t have bothered. He never had anything in his pockets. Still, it was a ritual he watched most nights of the week. It wasn’t long before the small clothesline that stretched across one corner of the kitchen was full. Only then did his mother sit back in a chair to relax.

  “What did you do today?” she asked him.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope. You said to stay here, so I did.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “After getting attacked last night, I just worried about you more than ever.”

  “I know,” he replied. “But I’m fine Mom. Really, I am.”

  “Like I told you yesterday, I thought I was fine too. But last night, those kids just came out of nowhere!”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Don’t worry about me. They just bruised me a little. And almost everything they took can be replaced.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “I should have never resisted,” she said.
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  “Why?”

  “Because I could have been seriously hurt. Brian, all that stuff they took, was just stuff. Things. Things that are replaceable. But my life… If they had killed me, that can’t be replaced. And then what would happen to you? That’s why I worry so much about you. Your life can’t be replaced, and if anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “I’m fine,” he told her again. “Nobody even looks at me.”

  “You never know, Brian,” she told him. “Yesterday, I thought the same thing about me.”

  “Yeah Mom. I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  When she went to work the next morning, he watched as he always did as she walked down the street toward the bus stop. He stared out the window for another hour before he left the apartment. He had no destination. He just needed to get out of the hot apartment for a while and get some freedom. He walked aimlessly through the streets. Going down one street, turning corners, going up other streets. He certainly couldn’t get lost. He knew the entire area too well.

  It was late in the morning when he walked past one of the churches. He had never been in any of those big elaborate buildings. In truth, he found the way most of them looked on the outside to be somewhat forbidding. But today, as he passed one of them, he saw a line of what looked like homeless people standing near the side door of the church. As he stopped to wonder what they were doing there, he saw a nun come out through the side door and greet them all. To him, it looked like she was saying something to each of them as they went past her into the side door of the church. Curious, he crossed the street to see what was going on. He followed behind the last man in line, but he didn’t go inside. He stopped and looked up at the nun instead. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Are they all going to church?”

  The nun smiled at him. “No, of course not. They’re the ones who are hungry. We have a soup kitchen back here to feed them.”

  “Soup?”