by Rick Jones
Closing the door softly behind him, Kimball stood in the hallway and leaned forward until his forehead rested against the door. He meant what he said to his father. He meant every word with every word becoming his promise. He would protect his father.
“I couldn’t protect mom,” he whispered. “But I will protect you.”
So you don’t have to be that scared little man anymore.
He pulled away from the door and headed to his room. On the wall was the poster of Bruce Lee, a small man with unstoppable power that came from the mind and fed the body. In the closet hung his hoodie. He grabbed it. Felt the fabric in his hands. Then he brought it to his face and gently rubbed his cheek as if the material was something to be revered.
They’ll be coming, he told himself. But not until I pass on a message of my own.
He held the hoodie out in front of him and appraised it.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
He thought of Beef-Neck and his parting grin.
And he thought about how he was going to erase that smile from Beef-Neck’s face the moment he erases his life from the face of the Earth. He had no qualms as to what he wanted to do. Nor would he hesitate or be slow to action.
He would walk the fine line between the Dark and the Light, finding refuge within the Gray Area. He would kill and feel nothing. This he knew. If he was unable to shed a tear for his mother at a graveside service for whatever reason, then he certainly wouldn’t shed a tear for those who deserved his wrath.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
He put on the hoodie.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
And life just got worse.
After Kimball donned his hoodie he left the house to check up on Johnnie Deveraux. When Deveraux didn’t attend his mother’s service this struck Kimball oddly. Even though Kimball realized that Johnnie was mourning his own severe losses, such as the passing of his son and the leaving of his wife, Johnnie was the type of guy whose kindness outweighed certain complexities of life. If a dear friend of his passed away, he was the type of person who would fight through personal difficulties to pay his respects, even if his appearance was one of giving a quick handshake of condolence and then walking away. But Johnnie was a no show, which was cause for concern.
When he mounted the stairs to the porch, he immediately saw the mail overflowing from the mailbox, obviously a red flag unless Johnnie Deveraux had decided to pursue his wife. But when Kimball tried the door and found it unlocked, then saw that the first level was flooded from water cascading down the stairway, he took the steps two at a time until he reached the second level.
“Mr. Deveraux?”
He could hear the water running in the tub.
“Mr. Deveraux?”
But Kimball knew what the outcome would be as soon as he made his way down the corridor. The kindly Mr. Deveraux who had a big heart and an even bigger addiction, had joined his son Connor.
When he rounded the doorway to the bathroom, he immediately noticed that the walls were covered with markings in arterial red. Johnnie Deveraux had taken his life by cutting his own throat.
Kimball slowly crossed the floor, his footfalls splashing down, and took a seat along the edge of the tub. Then with a movement that was mechanical, he turned off the water.
For a long time he sat there staring at Johnnie Deveraux and at the horrible lips of his wound along his neck, a clean gash. His body was bloated. His skin was mottled. But he also held a smile as if his passing was one of gentle transition.
Kimball remembered what his father had said to him about the real world, about how ugly it was. You’re right, Pops. The world isn’t as pretty as mom made it out to be.
And it was about to get uglier.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Vicki Pastore had never felt so vulnerable in her entire life. As much as she tried to live with what Travys did to her, she found it impossibly difficult to cope with.
Her confidence was gone. Her constant smile had vanished, replaced by a grim line. And her attitude shifted, the girl sometimes prone to bouts of tearful crying. She held the awful truth as to what really happened on top of Waite’s Mountain to herself. Not because of what Travys said to her by way of veiled threats, but because of a certain shame that came along with such a violation via the vulgarity of his actions.
She avoided Travys at all costs, taking different hallways from one class to the next in order to circumvent any possibility of confronting him. She had avoided her friends, became detached from all conversation with her family, and remained reclusive behind the closed door of her bedroom. She had taken several showers a day to wash away a lewdness that seemed so deeply ingrained in the pores of her skin. But the filth never seemed to go away, no matter how long she allowed the water to cascade against her flesh. She even tried to mask the scent of vulgarity with a dousing of perfume. But Travys’ defilement of her continued to cling like a second skin. It never went away no matter how hard she tried to cleanse herself of the event.
She would often think about Kimball and the hard inflection in his voice when he told her that he would stand beside her. But his seat remained empty these past few days, the recipient of a two-week suspension.
When she witnessed Kimball strike the lineman down with a single blow, she was appalled by and enamored with Kimball at the same time. Then she recalled the way he swaggered toward her in a gait that carried strength and purpose. She could hear the power and determination in his voice as he leaned over to speak in her ear: I will stand with you. No matter the cost, I will be there.
And then he was gone.
She looked at Kimball’s vacant chair and could almost see him sitting in it, a vague image that appeared transparent and ghostly. Then the image faded away.
In two weeks, she considered, when Kimball returned, he would be confronted by Travys and his group of linemen to test his mettle. But that was Travys, a man who needed an entourage to back him up when venturing into combat.
But Kimball would be alone, one against many.
She closed her eyes and remembered his words as if freshly spoken.
I will stand with you. No matter the cost, I will be there.
She opened her eyes. But will I be there for you?
When the bell rang ending the period, she gathered the books and exited the room. She took the eastside corridor to her Lit class. And when she reached her room she was met by Travys, who had his arm around the waist of an African-American beauty. When it was obvious to her that Travys had waited until she was watching, he kissed the beauty and sent her off.
When she tried to slip into the room Travys set his arm across the doorway. “Where you been, girl? Haven’t seen you all week. You haven’t been avoiding me now, have you?”
“Get out of my way, Travys.”
His cocky smiled faded into a straight and humorless line. His arm remained across the doorway, barring her way. “We can still be an item, you and me.”
“Move your arm or I will call a teacher.”
“Do whatever you want if it moves you,” he said. Travys didn’t budge.
“Move . . . your . . . arm.”
“Or what? You’re going to get your new boyfriend after me? Kimball Hayden?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she told him. He’s hardly an acquaintance, albeit one who’s been the focal point of my thoughts recently.
“Then tell your friend,” he told her, emphasizing the word friend, “that he’s going to have a nice little welcoming party when he gets back.”
“Can’t fight your own battles, Travys? Got to have a gang behind you because you don’t have the balls---”
Travys lashed out, grabbed her hard by the forearm, and pulled her close. His eyebrows dipped sharply over the bridge of his nose, a clear indication that he was angry. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Don’t ever rub me wrong, missy. Don’t you ever. Now you can come b
ack to me if you want. I’ll let you.”
Are you kidding me? She tried to wrench her arm free from his grasp. “Let me go,” she cried.
“Or what?”
“Something the matter here?” asked Mr. Riggins. He was a diminutive man with a hatchet face and a skinny range of emotions. He never seemed to smile or raise or lower the measure of his voice. He was always even in manner with a flat-line personality.
Travys released her and proffered another edgy smile. “Nah. Everything’s all right, Mr. Riggins.”
“Then maybe you should go to your next class so that I can start mine.”
“Sure, Mr. Riggins. Whatever you say.” Then to Vicki. “I’ll be seeing you later?”
She stepped past him without saying a word, leaving Travys to look blankly at the space she was just standing at.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Three Days Later
Kimball had all the time in the world now that he’d been suspended for two weeks. The call came from a member of the school district who informed Kimball’s father that the idea of expulsion had been discussed due to the severity of the other boy’s injuries. But information from witnesses stated that Kimball was merely defending himself. Still, such actions could not be tolerated in the school atmosphere; therefore, a two-week suspension for both boys appeared appropriate.
His father listened with deflated emotion, only to harrumph every once in a while to let someone know on the other end that he was still on the line. When he hung up he told Kimball that he had two weeks off from school---didn’t say why or seemed to care much. But Kimball knew why, so he didn’t ask.
There were no punishments on the part of his father, just a sad quiet from a man who was suddenly detached from his wife and dwelt on it.
But Kimball did not remain idle during those three days.
At nights he wandered the streets, meeting degenerates and low-lives and picked them for information regarding Cooch’s operations. He took everything in with absorption, piecing the jigsaw pieces of data until the puzzle was picture clear.
But he still didn’t know the whereabouts of Becki.
On the third day, he had learned about a small ceremony for Johnnie Deveraux taking place in a church specifically assigned to handle cases for those of pauper-like status. His former place of employment was covering the minimal cost. Sadly, however, only three people showed up for the service, including Kimball.
The ceremony was hard to sit through and thankfully not too long. The urn for which Deveraux’s remains were in was nicely polished, the brass finish shining like gold. There was no mention of where his ashes would be scattered, or if they were to be placed in a vault inside a mausoleum. Then Kimball nixed the idea of the vault since that would have been far too expensive.
When he got home the house had a sepulchral feel to it. The air was stagnate, the atmosphere was dim and deathly quiet. And Kimball knew how it annoyed his father when his mother used to bang the pots and pans around in the kitchen when making a meal. Now he wondered how much his father would pay to hear the symphony once again.
A lot, he surmised.
He went upstairs and waited for dusk. Kimball would sit along the edge of the bed staring out the window until the sky was covered with pinpricks of sparkling light. As soon as darkness reigned, he put on his hoodie and headed for the streets to communicate with the denizens of the night.
He spoke with the morally corrupt and the spiritually diseased. He danced with the devil’s advocates. And he went to places where God had no stake.
He spoke to bar patrons and bartenders, depending on the loose lips of the inebriated to give him what he needed to know.
And then he got a hit by serendipity.
She was a woman with prematurely wrinkled skin that made her look in the sixtyish range when, in fact, she was in her late forties, maybe younger. And when she spoke she did so with a voice that was too rough from cigarettes. “Used to work for Cooch when I had something to show,” she told Kimball, her words slurred. She continued to swirl and watch the scotch inside a small glass move about in play. Then she held up the glass to Kimball, who sat on the stool beside her. “Buy me another? You’ll be a gentleman and do so, won’t you?”
Kimball was sitting inside a small tavern called Nikki Lee’s, a hole-in-the-wall bar that seemed to attract barflies and the despondent. There was no music or TV, only the occasional phlegmy cough from someone in the smoke-filled room. So when she asked him to do the gentlemanly thing and buy her another scotch on ice, he caught the attention of the barkeep and ordered another for the ‘young lady,’ the term bringing a smile to her lips.
Though Kimball was seventeen he appeared much older due to his size, so carding wasn’t necessary. Payment, however, was. So Kimball indicated to the bartender to put the drink on his tab.
“He saved me, actually,” she said in the same husky voice. “I was homeless, a raging drunk, had no purpose other than to live for the next bottle. I used to be a nurse, you know that?”
Kimball nodded his head. No.
“Yup.” She took a hefty swig to finish off her drink, just as the bartender laid another before her. “Used to be a nurse. But, of course, I had to be let go. So, in time, people started to call me Nomah the Bombah.” In most cases, and to those who don’t have a Boston accent, the term would be Norma the Bomber. But with the accent and not pronouncing the ‘R,’ with the ‘R’ taking on an ‘ah’ sound, the wording became unique. Norma the Bomber became Nomah the Bombah, a poetic rhyme where it wasn’t before. “Yup,” she added again. “Turned me into a whore is what he’d done. But if it wasn’t for him, I’d been dead long ago.” After taking a deep swallow from her glass, she then held the glass away from her and studied it with examination. “But in the end I went right back to it. Goes to show that you can never really escape your past, dearie.”
Kimball led her. “He gave you shelter?”
“Sure he did. Cleaned me up real good, he did. Said if I took another drink then he’d whup me good. Slipped once and he did. He done whupped me good. Never went back to it until he let me go. Said I was past my prime. Said sales weren’t so good anymore so he gave me my walking papers. Want to know what them papers were?”
Kimball shrugged. Whatever.
“A few hundred bucks to get me going, a nice bottle of Jack, and a swift kick in the ass with his final remark being: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” She turned to Kimball with a glazed look in her eyes. “Real nice, huh?”
Kimball pointed to the glass, which was getting low. Another.
She winked at him. “You trying to seduce me, young man?”
Hardly. Then Kimball asked: “You must have been in bad shape if he had to clean you up, yeah?”
She nodded. “Bad enough. But he did what he had to do. Got me looking good again. But when you sell your soul to the devil, a payment plan is forced upon you.”
Then the homerun lead-in. “Becoming dry must have been the hardest thing for you.”
She bit. “Oh, it was,” she slurred. “I was chucked into this nasty hole on a mattress no thicker than this.” She held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Tied me down and waited for me to dry out. Saw the craziest things, too. Things I couldn’t begin to describe.”
“He dried you out here? In Malden?”
As drunk as she was, she was also astute. “Suppose you tell me what it is you’re looking for, young man. I know it ain’t me. Not when a guy as good looking as you can get a fine woman your age.” She turned and leaned into him. The stench of liquor coming off her breath was overwhelmingly powerful, but Kimball didn’t pull away. “What is it about Cooch that intrigues you so much?” she asked him. “What do you really want from me?”
Kimball hesitated, debating whether or not to ask her for the truth. Apparently the method of beating-around-the-bush wasn’t working so great.
Then: “My cousin was taken by Cooch’s crew. Word is he wants her to turn tricks on
the streets to make money. He wants to do to her what he did to you. But she had a problem.”
She held the glass up to him. Alcohol?
He nodded. “Heroin.”
She fell back into her chair and continued to take periodic swigs in silence.
After a while Kimball got to his feet and apologized to her for wasting her time. He also admitted that he didn’t have any money to pay the tab, which he also apologized for. As he was about to turn and leave, her hand grabbed the sleeve of his hoodie and gave him a small tug to retake his seat.
“Sit down,” she said.
He did.
“I lied to you, young man. Just like you lied to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I told you that Cooch saved my life, that I had one foot in the grave when he did. That part was true. But he turned me into a whore who had to give herself to strangers on a daily basis to pad his pockets.” She paused for a moment, her eyes never leaving Kimball’s as she allowed the words to sink in. “But a day never went by that I wished I had let the drink kill me instead of becoming what I became. I’ve always regretted having to be a part of his stable. And honestly, when I worked the streets, all that time I was thinking about how much I’d be better off dead . . . I’ve done wasted my life, young man. Sad, ain’t it?” Kimball could hear his father’s voice in that last statement, could see the results of what a wasted life does to a person, such as the wreck of a woman sitting beside him.
She reached over and placed a hand on top of his. “Now you want to act like a cowboy and go in with guns blazing against Cooch and his people.”
“No,” he said. “I want to save my cousin. She needs my help and there’s no one else. I need to protect her because she can’t protect herself.”
The woman’s chin started to quiver and tears began to well at the rims of her eyes. She patted his hand. “I wished someone like you was around when I needed help. Not only from people like Cooch, but for myself. You care for your cousin deeply, don’t you?”