by Black, Chuck
He left his apartment and walked to the grocery store. It was a little after nine and he knew the neighborhood got rough as the dark of night overtook the day, but he didn’t care. His anger for the invaders seethed within. He passed by an alley and heard a ruckus.
“Please, stop” was all he heard between thumps and groans.
Drew ran toward a group of teenage gangbangers who were kicking and beating a homeless man. The man’s grocery cart was tipped on its side, and its contents spilled all over the alley.
“Hey!” Drew counted four teens. “Leave him alone!”
Two of the teens saw Drew and ran. The other two looked at Drew and scowled.
“Make us, jerk!” said one.
The other teen moved to put Drew between them. The old man was rolling on the ground, moaning.
“What’s wrong with you? He’s got nothing you want.” Drew’s senses peaked.
“Yeah … but it’s fun,” the leader said. “And smashing your face is going to be just as much fun.”
They both attacked at once. Drew did a quick spinning back kick on the closest attacker and landed a heel squarely across the teen’s face. The gangbanger fell to the ground spitting blood and cursing. The other teen backed up, then pulled out a knife. Drew squared off, and the teen came at him. Drew deflected the knife, sidestepped, and made a powerful blow to the back of the attacker’s elbow. The teen screamed and ran off cradling his injured arm. Drew looked back at the other teen, who had gained his feet. He was pointing a pocket .380 auto at Drew’s chest.
The moment paused and Drew saw, heard, and felt everything, including the powerful adrenaline filling his veins. His heart beat twice so hard it felt like it flipped in his chest. Fear gripped his mind, and he told himself to react in spite of it. He saw the skin on the teen’s trigger finger flatten, then heard the firing pin slide forward. Drew aligned the sights of the gun and knew he was a dead man. Still, he acted.
He spun his torso to the left as the concussion of the exploding round blasted past his ears and echoed off the brick walls of the buildings lining the alley. Microseconds later, searing pain ripped through his right shoulder. The sound of a second round trailed the first, and Drew was hoping that the natural kick of the gun up and to the left of the single-handed shooter would buy him just enough space to survive the trajectory of the next bullet. He heard the bullet whiz past his right ear, but his twisting maneuver coupled with the impact of the .380 round into his shoulder caused him to stumble and fall to the ground. He rolled to an attack posture, but it wasn’t necessary. The shooter was running down the alley, away from his victims.
Drew reached for his shoulder and felt warm blood oozing from the wound. More than a graze but less than full penetration, it was going to require attention … something he didn’t want. He went to the old man, who was trying to sit upright. His white beard on his black skin was a dramatic contrast. Red blood stained the right side of this cheek.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“You my gawdian angel, aren’t you?”
The man slurred his words, but Drew couldn’t tell if he was drunk or just hurting badly. “No, I’m just a friend. We need some help.”
The man pointed to his cart. “I need my possessions. Did they steal my possessions?”
He seemed to like the word.
“No, it’s all here.” Drew tried to help the man stand, but the man was hurting too much and Drew’s right arm reverberated with pain each time he tried to use it.
The old man clutched his ribs and groaned. “Take me to Emmanuel.”
“Is that a clinic or something?”
“Reverend Ray Branson … he’ll hep me. Thank you, gawdian … thank you.” The old man wheezed and nearly fell over.
Drew caught him. “Where is Reverend Ray?”
“Two blocks over … Emmanuel Church.”
It finally clicked. Drew had seen the gray block church once before but given it no attention. Now he realized what the man was talking about. Drew grabbed the old man’s cart and tried to use it as a walker for him, but he refused to leave his “possessions” in the alley. Drew repressed his frustration and pain and gathered the man’s things and put them back in the cart. Then he had the man hang onto the cart with one hand and placed the man’s other arm around Drew’s shoulder.
Together they shuffled along while Drew tried to bear as much weight for the man as possible. Blood was trickling down Drew’s arm and dripping from his elbow. The body odor from the man was almost more than Drew could take, especially with his nose in overdrive. It took forever, but they made it. Drew tried the door, but it was locked.
“ ’Round the back,” the old man said. He was almost spent and about to collapse.
Drew found another door that led to an adjoining apartment. He knocked. It took some time, but they were rewarded with a door that cracked open.
A middle-aged man peeked out. When he saw the old man, the door opened wide. “Jeremiah, what have you gotten yourself into?” He was a handsome black man with friendly eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“Oh, Reverend Ray, I was ’bout to die, but the Lord sent me a gawdian angel to save me.”
“Some teens were beating him up in the alley a few blocks over,” Drew piped in.
“That would be the Dragons. That lousy gang is spreading its territory,” the reverend said, shaking his head. “Jeremiah, what are you doing in an alley this time of night? You should be in the shelter!” Reverend Ray clearly cared about the man. “Bring him in—” Reverend Ray’s eyes opened wide as he saw Drew’s blood-soaked shirt for the first time. “You’re hurt too!”
“It’s just a graze.”
“Looks more than that. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No … I can’t do that.” Drew readied to leave.
Reverend Ray scrutinized him. “Let’s take a look at it; then we’ll decide.”
Drew helped get Jeremiah into Reverend Ray’s home. Just past the entry-way, Drew heard footsteps.
“What is it, Dad?” A slender girl of about fourteen came into the room. Her eyes opened wide when she saw Jeremiah and Drew, both blood-stained.
“Go get your mother, Shana,” Reverend Ray said.
“Bullets went right through him, Reverend. You shoulda seen it.”
The reverend looked at Drew. “Yes, that’s what bullets do, Jeremiah.”
“Shoulda killed him, Reverend. Two bullets that close … shoulda killed him.”
Drew shook his head. “The kid was a bad shot. We’re just lucky.”
“Oh, son … luck has nothing to do with it,” the reverend said. “God was watching over you.”
Drew opened his mouth, then decided against saying anything.
Reverend Ray’s wife, Nicole, and daughter helped get Jeremiah cleaned up and bandaged on their couch while Ray helped Drew at their kitchen table. The reverend’s little boy, Micah, ran for supplies any time his mother or father called for it. Once Drew’s wound was cleaned, it didn’t look as bad as it felt, and he convinced Reverend Ray that he would be okay.
“We still need to report this to the police.” Reverend Ray reached for his phone.
“Please don’t, sir.”
Reverend Ray’s eyes narrowed. “Are you in trouble, son?”
Drew took a deep breath, trying to relax from the pain and rush of the night. “I swear to you, Reverend, that I have done nothing wrong or illegal.”
Reverend Ray sat back in his chair, fingering his phone while considering Drew. “But you’re running … or hiding from something.”
Drew felt the weight of his mission fall hard on him again. His shoulders drooped. “You could say that, but it’s not the authorities … not exactly.” He could see by the reverend’s face that he was not very convinced. Drew made a quick scan of the home, at least as much as he could see. “I just need to lie low for a while. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me,” the reverend said with a forced smile. “I’m a good lis
tener.”
“I … I can’t, sir, but please believe me when I say that all I’m trying to do is help people.”
Micah ran from the couch to the kitchen, taken up in all the excitement. He grabbed his daddy’s hand. “Jeremiah’s going to tell the story, Daddy. Come on!”
“Okay, Micah. Let’s go hear the story,” Reverend Ray said with a sideways glance toward Drew.
Jeremiah regaled them with the story—and with a great deal of exaggeration … or maybe not so much—but it sure sounded like it to everyone in the room except Micah. His eyes got bigger and bigger. When it was over, Micah came to Drew and poked him.
“Are you really a guardian angel?”
Drew laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “If angels exist, I don’t think they bleed.” Drew massaged his shoulder. “It wasn’t quite as cool as Jeremiah made it sound.” He gave the boy a wink and stood to leave. “I need to be going.”
“We can’t let you go without feeding you,” Reverend Ray said. “Shana’s made some delicious soup.”
Nicole insisted and so did Shana and Micah. Drew was trapped, at least for a little while. They ate at the table while Reverend Ray sat on the couch and fed Jeremiah a bowl. When the old man dozed off, the reverend joined them at the table.
Drew learned that Reverend Ray not only pastored the Emmanuel Church, but his family ran a soup kitchen each day for the homeless in the neighborhood. The church pews had been replaced with chairs that could be rearranged to accommodate the kitchen during the week and then set back up for church on Sunday. All four of the Bransons helped run the kitchen, with aid from various volunteer groups and outlying churches that had a heart to minister to the inner city.
The Bransons were beautiful people, and Drew wondered why the invaders didn’t seem to have a dark influence on them like they did on so many others. Did their religious and superstitious beliefs make them less vulnerable somehow? Perhaps their devotion to doing good to their fellow man made it harder for the invaders to break them down. It was an interesting line of reasoning that Drew was going to have to explore in greater depth.
When they asked for his name, Drew offered Ryan instead.
Reverend Ray looked straight into his eyes and seemed to read his thoughts. “Whatever you’re running from or looking for, son, there are answers.”
If only he knew how true that was.
By the time Drew was ready to leave, Shana could hardly pull her little brother away from him.
“I think you have a new best friend.” Shana smiled bashfully.
Drew gave Micah a fist bump, which made the boy smile from ear to ear.
Reverend Ray and his wife walked him to the door. “Thanks for helping Jeremiah. You did a brave and good thing tonight.”
“Couldn’t just walk by.”
“Neither could the Samaritan,” Ray said. “And Jesus bragged on him.”
What in the world did that mean? Drew wondered.
“Once you’re healed up, would you be interested in giving us a hand at the soup kitchen from time to time?” Ray asked. “We could always use a man who’s got a heart for the needy.”
How should he respond to that? He’d never find Ben while working in a soup kitchen in a church, but how could he refuse the good work of such good people? Isn’t that what his end goal was, even if this was on a much smaller scale?
“I’ll see what I can do,” Drew replied.
Drew made his way home. The groceries would have to wait until tomorrow. He heard sirens in the distance and shouting from farther down the street. It was so big … so impossible. He walked up the eight concrete steps to the apartment doorway. Something white flashed out of the corner of his eye. He looked to the edge of his apartment building …
But whatever had been there was gone.
18
MR. LEE
Drew’s wound was healing quickly. Two days later, he felt good enough to set out in the morning with renewed determination and a map that he printed from a cheap printer he’d picked up at OfficeMart. Once again he used the Tech Center as his point of reference and worked his way out, visiting computer repair shops with his damaged hard drive. Only someone with Ben’s skill and expertise could recover data from the drive, and every store had “the expert,” so he insisted on talking to the technician who would be working on it at each store. Once in the back room, and after determining that Ben was not working there, Drew would ask for an approximate cost to recover the data and then say he’d changed his mind, that it wasn’t worth it after all.
Each day Drew journeyed from repair shop to repair shop, eliminating the little red dots one by one, and each night he ventured out into the night, looking to help one more person. As his escapades of help became more daring, he edged closer to the limits of his abilities and the risks became greater, especially when guns were involved.
On numerous occasions, Drew received the timely help of one or two light invaders. Though he dared never look them in the face, he was sure they were the same ones each time.
One of them in particular seemed powerful and skilled and carried an air of authority. Drew referred to him as Wallace, after the great Sir William Wallace. He wondered why such an invader would be involved in the petty affairs of the people of this ghetto, but then again, much of what the invaders did, both light and dark, didn’t make much sense to him. He came to believe that the light invaders’ war against the dark invaders was somehow motivated by more than a desire to rule and conquer humanity. But why they would help him help others was still a mystery.
Deep in the recesses of his mind, he wondered if he could contact them. It would be a bold and risky move. He would need time to consider it, but for now he was just glad to have them on his side from time to time.
One day, Drew stopped in to check on Reverend Ray and his family. They were operating their soup kitchen, and Micah and Shana pleaded with him to help, so he decided to pitch in for a couple of hours. When it was over, he realized as he left that helping out there gave him a satisfaction as deep as protecting someone from a crime.
“I’m hearing things,” Reverend Ray said to him when they were alone cleaning up the kitchen.
“Yeah?” What could the reverend be referring to?
“Folks around here been talking … about the Guardian. That’s what they call him anyway.”
Drew swallowed. He didn’t want attention, so he just stayed silent. Of course, it didn’t seem to fool Reverend Ray, who somehow knew things without being told.
“You be careful, Ryan. There’s a limit to what even the best can do. Won’t be long before this Guardian will have the attention of the local gang. They don’t like vigilantes.”
Drew nodded.
“I’ll be praying for you.”
Drew smiled, reminded of Sydney. Oh, how he missed her.
As he walked home, he decided to make working at the soup kitchen a weekly event.
A FEW DAYS LATER, Drew took stock. His money was dwindling, so it was time to find work. He applied for a job delivering takeout food for a small Korean restaurant a few blocks from Chicago’s city center.
“You don’t have car, you can’t deliver!” Mr. Lee, the store owner said. He looked to Drew to be a shrewd businessman.
Drew didn’t leave. It would be the perfect job, because he could stop at computer repair shops near his deliveries and kill two birds with one stone. “What if I can save up to buy a car, can I deliver on foot or bicycle until then?”
Mr. Lee laughed. “Too slow. No car, no job.” His face became stern. “Good-bye.” When he waved Drew out of his office, Drew noticed that Mr. Lee’s forearms were muscular and well defined. He scanned the office and saw a martial arts certificate lying on a pile of papers on the shelf behind him.
Drew got up to leave, but at the door he stopped. “Mr. Lee.”
The man just grunted.
“I’ll spar you for the job.”
At that Mr. Lee looked up from the bills he was working on. �
��You do not want to do that.”
Something told Drew that Mr. Lee might be more than just another black belt. “I need the job, and I might surprise you.”
Mr. Lee stared hard at Drew; then without warning he threw his pencil, like a bullet, toward him. Drew snatched the pencil out of the air just inches before it hit his chest. He walked back to the desk and handed it to Mr. Lee.
“Ahhhh.” Mr. Lee’s eyes sparkled. “Tae kwon do?”
“Yes, and some karate, aikido, and jujitsu.”
“What degree?”
Drew shook his head. “Nothing formal. I don’t have a belt.”
Mr. Lee squinted and pursed his lips. He seemed disappointed, although it was difficult to read him. He stood, and as he did, he transformed from humble restaurant owner to Eastern warrior … the kind to fear. “If you spar with me, you might get hurt.”
“I might get better, and I need that as much as I need a job.”
Mr. Lee opened his desk drawer and handed Drew a card. “Tonight, eight thirty.”
Drew looked at the simple card: Lee’s Tae Kwon Do.
“You spar; then I decide if you get job.”
Drew smiled and bowed, then left.
DREW FINISHED THE DAY by checking off six more computer repair shops. At eight twenty-five he was standing in front of Mr. Lee’s Tae Kwon Do. He entered to see a class working on their patterns. Mr. Lee watched as another instructor walked between the nine students as they worked. Drew had never learned patterns, but evidently it taught consistent and fundamental technique. He waited for the class to end. Within fifteen minutes, only Mr. Lee, Drew, and the other instructor remained. The instructor became busy with preparing the school for the next day. Mr. Lee came to Drew and stood before him. The Roman numeral VII was embroidered at the end of his black belt …
Mr. Lee was a master.
Drew swallowed. Maybe he should withdraw his challenge.
“Where is your gi?” Master Lee asked.
“My what?”