by Lee Thompson
The air was cool, and as she walked the sky grew brighter. In another month the leaves would change colors. It was almost a ritual for her to look at pictures of Maine in the fall, thinking that someday, when she was old enough, she would go there and see them for herself. But that was still in what, to her, felt like the distant future. She had a few more autumns stuck here, and she had enjoyed all of those preceding this one. She still couldn’t imagine in any tangible way what the Starks’ felt about their daughter’s abduction, much less what all those who lost loved ones in the falling towers still struggled with.
How many kids her age, she wondered, had lost their mothers and fathers? How did they deal with it? How could you go on believing that the world was a beautiful place when people caused such events to happen? Nina didn’t know and though she had tried to speak to her mother about things like that, which she felt mattered, her mother, like many people, preferred not to look into it, to just silently grieve or lend what support they could to the survivors and their families. She knew it wasn’t the world, or she thought it wasn’t, though the world was full of fires and floods and famine, but people. Extreme people hurting others with the glee only a radical can possess.
And she knew that even everyday people tended to be extreme in something or other—drinking, gambling, pot, sexual fetishes, sleeping too much, eating too much, working too much, or never working at all. She sometimes wondered if it was human nature’s subconscious goal to destroy itself, for those high on the hog to live it up while they could and those who lacked to accept what little they could get and drown their anger and disappointment with dreams that would never come true.
She walked on, thinking that later she had to meet up with the reporter, Caitlain Reno, for an interview. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that either. She didn’t like reporters much: their nosiness, or how she suspected they lied to sell copies, or how they profited from other people’s suffering.
Nina shook her head. She walked for a half hour and didn’t see many people out. She wondered how many parents in her neighborhood were keeping a tighter leash on their children right now. And she wondered if the police had found any sign of Robin at all.
Whoever took her had to be someone that was there all along; somebody would have noticed a truck or van or car pulling up only moments before the ice cream truck parked on the curb. That line of thinking made the most sense to her: someone pretending to be a parent, or someone possibly babysitting someone else’s child, and using that to get Robin to walk away with them the moment Richard and many of the others walked in a large group to the road.
She bit her lip and squinted as she neared the corner.
Clint’s Camaro was parked next to a curb up ahead, near a fire hydrant, him leaning on the front fender, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, wearing that easy smile that made her heart flutter. He was talking to a couple of girls that were in her class, and on their way to school. The girls were spindly as if they spent an hour every night throwing up what they’d eaten during the day. Their faces were vacant, but they leaned toward Clint and nodded as he spoke. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine what he was offering: just a ride to school. The same thing he’d done one day for her when she’d stepped outside and saw him next to the park.
For a second she considered confronting him and she considered telling the girls to take a hike, but she didn’t. She veered onto a side street, heavily shadowed by the limbs and leaves of old oak trees, and it felt good to be alone again.
She thought, I need to quit playing his game…
And she knew it was a game; even at thirteen, it wasn’t a big mystery. The hard part for her was that she liked the attention he gave her and she liked that he was old enough to drive and could take her places her feet couldn’t easily carry her. She nearly dropped the pepper spray when she saw a large man turn at the crossroad between her and Clint and come her way. He was driving a new Lincoln of some sort. It was stealthy and he crept along without touching the gas pedal.
She hadn’t heard the motor at all, but as he drew closer she heard acorns and twigs crunching beneath the tires. His shoulders filled most of the front seat. He hit a button and rolled the window down as he stopped next to her. Nina shook her head before he asked anything. She wanted to run, even to lift her arm and show him that she had the pepper spray, but she couldn’t move a muscle, her heart pounding, and Victor saying, “Have you seen him?”
“Who?” she said, knowing full well who he meant, but it made her feel braver, if slightly stupid, to sass him. She cleared her throat, said, “No.”
“Me neither,” he said, shaking his head. “This place isn’t even that big. It’s like a cup of water in a five gallon bucket, you know what I mean? I thought I’d have run across him by now.”
“Are you really his friend?”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, and he held his fingers up in a peace sign.
“I doubt you were ever a scout.”
“Sure I was,” he said, “in the Army.” He looked in the rearview, then ahead of him. When he glanced at her again, he said, “Get in the car, I’ll buy you some breakfast.”
“No,” she said, “thank you for the offer, though?”
He laughed. “You’re a strange kid. Get in.”
She shook her head, shook her hand in case the pepper spray needed agitation; she didn’t know, she hadn’t read the instructions. She said, “Just leave me and my family alone. Leave Jacob alone, too. I don’t think you’re his friend. He wouldn’t hang around someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” He smiled and then shut the engine off and pulled the keys from the ignition. “What am I exactly?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But you beat up two cops.”
She looked down the street at Clint who was still leaning against his car, so self-absorbed that he hadn’t even noticed her standing a block away. She considered telling Victor that the cop’s son was right there, and that she would send him after his dad and the other policemen, since she knew the make of his car, but it would have only complicated it for her. She studied the vehicle, trying to remember as much about it as she could.
“Those assholes provoked me,” he said. “Somebody pushes you, no matter who they are,” he said, his face hardening, “they got it coming to them. You understand that? I didn’t ask for any trouble and I wasn’t causing any trouble. I’m just some guy looking for a friend.”
He looked at his hands, which were now on the steering wheel. They looked like the ends of two shovels they were so large. He nodded to himself, said, “No, you don’t understand nothing because you’re a little girl, and it’s not really your fault, but don’t judge me, all right?”
“I’m sorry if it pissed you off,” she said. “But I think you’re a mean person. I think you like hurting people, and then blaming them for what you do.”
He chuckled and rubbed a finger over his lips. “I do like hurting people, but only people that deserve it. And you have no idea what I’m capable of if somebody pushes me, all right? Not a clue.”
I don’t want to know what you’re capable of…
He placed his arm on the windowsill and leaned toward her. Nina stepped back, ready to raise the pepper spray and give him a shot in the face, but he just smiled at her. It was an ugly smile and she knew she shouldn’t judge him, like he’d said, but she couldn’t help it. He was ugly, big, scary, violent, and a stranger.
“We’re on the same team, kid.”
“What team is that?”
“The one wanting to look out for Jacob.”
“Who is he to you?”
“I already told you and your dad and I don’t like repeating myself, so let it go, okay?”
“I’m walking away and I don’t want you following me.”
He pulled a pistol, either Friendly’s or the female cops or one of his own, Nina didn’t know, and he set it on the dashboard. He said, “You find him before I do you don’t tell him I’m down here, you und
erstand? I want it to be a surprise. I don’t need him running away from me.”
“I already told you I don’t know him.”
“You’re a horrible liar, kid,” he said, “just remember this… I know where you live.”
If it had come from someone else she told herself it wouldn’t bear much weight.
But she nodded, as suddenly serious as he was.
“Okay,” she said.
“But I’m going to find him first,” he said, “because I know him and you don’t.”
“Okay,” she said. “Good luck.”
He laughed. “Good luck? Jesus, you’re priceless.”
He started the car and pulled the pistol from the dash and drove away. Nina thought she might puke. She edged into someone’s lawn and knelt there for a minute, her whole body trembling. She heard his deep, amused voice, over and over, saying, I know where you live…
She walked slightly slumped as if a great weight rested on her shoulders. In the distance she could hear the ice cream truck and she wondered if it was the same one that had been by the park when Robin was abducted. Her head felt packed with sand, her mouth dry, as she neared the next corner and the houses grew smaller, poorer, and she saw Clint on the passenger side of his car with a young blonde girl of perhaps eight years old. He was kneeling in front of her and she was shaking her head.
Nina paused and watched them, moving off the sidewalk and behind a row of shrubs that came up to her chin. The girl’s face was dirty, her pale yellow dress thin and torn along the hem. Her legs looked as white as chalk. Clint looked around and when he seemed satisfied that no one was looking, he opened the passenger door, grabbed the young girl by the arm and lifted her onto the seat. He smiled to himself as he rounded to the driver’s side and Nina saw the little girl’s face in the window, stricken and afraid, as Clint took a right turn onto Sycamore Avenue. She swallowed hard and felt tears stinging her eyes.
She shook her head once, dramatically, and whispered, “It wasn’t what it looked like.”
3
She didn’t feel like looking for Jacob after her encounter with Victor. Whatever he’d done to deserve someone like Victor coming to hunt him eight hundred miles south of their home, it seemed to her that it had to be pretty bad. So bad that she didn’t even want to speculate.
But as she neared her mom’s house, she couldn’t let go of the feeling that she was letting a shark circle a wounded swimmer. It didn’t set well with her. But possibly worse for her was seeing Clint put a young girl into his car and drive away. She tried to rationalize, it just wasn’t working out the way she wanted. She didn’t like suspecting him of anything other than his overdeveloped libido.
She thought, I have to be wrong. Clint wouldn’t hurt a little girl…
Inside the house she called the reporter, Caitlin Reno, who answered on the second ring. Nina didn’t know what she had to tell her, but she knew that she needed someone to confide in, someone who had seen frightened people, and understood that it wasn’t a weakness. Her two best friends were useless when it came to anything serious, and she loved them because of it, yet sometimes felt sorry for them.
She said over the phone, “Are you free?”
“I will be in an hour. Are you okay? You sound shook up.”
“No,” Nina said. “I’m not okay. I’m scared.”
She did her best not to cry. Her mom was sleeping soundly, she could hear her snoring. Rick was out working and Friendly and the female cop who had taken a quick and savage beating were probably nursing their wounds and looking over their shoulders. But Nina knew that they didn’t have anything to worry about. Victor had only beaten them because they got in his face, and he had forgotten it as quickly as he’d walked out of the park afterwards.
But he hadn’t forgotten Nina and Rick lying to him; he’d made that apparent.
She said, “Will you come by here? I really don’t want to go out right now.”
“Has someone threatened you?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. But I’m tired.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in an hour and fifteen.”
“Thank you,” Nina said.
The reporter hung up. Nina sat on the couch, cradling the pepper spray. It had been stupid to think that something so insubstantial could protect her when she didn’t even have the strength to use it against Victor.
She picked up the phone again and called the police, asked for Officer Friendly and told them he was a friend of the family, but a woman on the other end said that he was taking a couple days off of work due to an injury. Nina thanked the woman and hung up. She toyed with the phone, thought about calling the Friendly household, but decided not to bother them in the end because Clint was out stalking young girls from her class, and she was disgusted with him, and she didn’t want to bother his dad about her meeting Victor on the street since it could only lead to more problems for him and he needed to recover both his body and his pride.
4
A priest shook Jacob’s shoulders to wake him. His whole body was stiff from sleeping on the hard pew. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, thankful he hadn’t dreamed. The priest, who reminded him of Father Mulcahy from MASH, held out a glass of water and smiled brightly, yet he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. Jacob took the glass and drank slowly until it was gone. He thanked him and leaned forward, stretching his back. He said, “Thanks for letting me sleep.”
The priest held the glass in front of him with both hands at waist-level. He said, “It’s our duty.” He appeared as inert as a statue. Jacob had the suspicion the priest wanted him to say something in particular but he had no idea what it might be. Then the man said, “May I sit with you?”
“Sure.”
He sat next to Jacob and stared at the altar for a moment. His voice was barely above a whisper as he said, “I grew up in this church. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to work here, and work for the Lord, when I grew up.”
“It’s a beautiful building.”
“It’s not the building that matters. It’s our hearts,” the priest said. “And we like to offer rest to the road weary. You’re not from around here, are you?”
Jacob shook his head. “New York.”
“Are you running from something or to something?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob said.
“Sometimes it can be both. Maybe in your case it is.” The priest wiped his mouth with a thick finger and stared at the ceiling. “It’s a tough world out there, I’m aware of that, and I can sense that you’ve dealt recently with some great tragedy. If you would like to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen.”
“Just like that, huh?”
The priest nodded. “I’ve little else to do at the moment, and if you share your burden with me and, if you feel like taking it to God together, then maybe you’ll feel a bit better. It’s a wonder what simply having someone to talk to can do for the human spirit. I’ve often thought of Christ on the cross and the loneliness he must have faced, which would have trumped anything I will ever encounter. It helps me to keep things in perspective, somewhat at least, but even a priest can feel as if life is nothing more than turmoil.” He sighed as if he’d given a great confession. “Maybe, once I know what you’re dealing with, I’ll be able to help you see things from a new perspective. What do you have to lose?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just not used to people wanting to listen. Maybe it’s just Manhattan. Maybe it’s everywhere. I don’t know.”
“This is a place where you can let everything out, son.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“It doesn’t matter where you start. It only matters where you finish. Time will teach you that. And we all end up in one of two places anyway. You seem like a nice young man, and if I nod off while you’re talking, just nudge me, and know that it’s not because you’re boring me, it’s because I was up all night.”
“Praying?”
“Something like that,” the pri
est said. “How about you start with your name? I’m Father Ross. My friend’s call me William.”
“Jacob.”
The priest offered his hand and they shook. Then they sat quietly for a few more minutes. Jacob was mildly surprised by the man’s patience, having remembered Christians when he’d been younger who had tried to push him into the church and fix him. But he’d never really been broken until recently and hadn’t needed any greater power. He wasn’t even certain if he believed in a personal God. He cleared his throat, and the words to his and Santana’s story came slowly at first, and then faster a few minutes later. Before he’d known it, a half hour had passed, and then an hour, and Father Ross brought Jacob another glass of water and one for himself. They sipped, Jacob’s throat parched as if sharing his deepest, most recent pains, had scorched his throat as the words fell from his mouth. He told him everything, including the hallucination of Sebastian.
He said, “Thank you for listening.”
Father Ross patted Jacob’s thigh and chuckled under his breath. “I think you’ve met an angel.”
“He wasn’t any angel. He was just a dream, a waking one.”