Do-Gooder

by J. Leigh Bailey

  I stormed after the jug, grabbing it up and throwing it against the other wall. Why? Why was this happening to us? We didn’t deserve it. There was nothing we could do to stop it, and it looked like my father was involved in it in some way.

  I spun to face Henry. “This is what doing a good deed gets you. It gets you sent to fucking Africa, to be kidnapped by fucking mercenaries. That’s it. I’ve had it. If we get out of this—and that’s a big if, let me tell you—I’m focusing on me and me alone. I should have let Wendy do whatever with that gun. Her father’s a bastard too. She played it off like it was no big deal, made excuses, but the guy treated her like crap. It may not have been physical abuse, but he broke her. If she’d have shot him, no one would blame her.”

  I rushed the water jug and punted it with all my strength. This time when it hit the wall, it cracked along a seam and spilled the last inch of water on the ground. Henry watched me like he would watch a crazed bear loose at the zoo.

  “But no, I just had to take the gun. I was saving her, you understand. Saving her. Better I get in trouble than she does. No telling how he’d react if her father, the honorable Detective Sorenson, charged to serve and protect”—mockery thickened my tone—“had even suspected her involvement. No telling what he’d do. So I took the gun and lied about where I got it, and now I am in this godforsaken country, waiting for my deadbeat father to take a minute out of his busy fucking schedule to save my fucking life.”

  “Isaiah—”

  “Don’t! I’m going to die here, you know. If not by the gun-happy militia out there, then by the damned diabetes. And Chuck can’t be bothered to come to the fucking phone to trade the damn canisters for my life.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, they say he’s got them. Somehow he’s involved in this whole mess.”

  “He couldn’t be—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted. “I know you think he walks on water or some bullshit, but he’s involved in this thing somehow.”

  My knees suddenly lost all of their strength, and I collapsed to the packed-dirt floor, weak and trembling. And sobbing. Great gulping sobs were wrenched from my body, from my soul, and I sat on the ground like a blubbering toddler. I couldn’t stop.

  Henry scooted up behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest. Eventually my breathing slowed, and I gained back some of my lost control. It was like his arms, so tight around me, put a lock on my out-of-control emotions. My head throbbed and stabbing pain pierced the backs of my eyeballs as dry tear ducts worked fruitlessly.

  “Question,” I said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you scared?”

  Henry’s arms tightened still more. “Sometimes.”

  “I’m really scared,” I admitted.

  “I know.”

  We rocked there in silence for a while. When my breathing had slowed to normal levels, Henry loosened his grip. I was glad he didn’t release me. I needed the contact, the comfort, even if I no longer needed him to hold all my broken pieces together.

  “What happened in there?” He traced a finger down my newly swollen cheek. “What did they want?”

  I told him about the video and the script, about how Chuck wasn’t responding to their requests for communication. When I mentioned we had two days before Shorty would have Henry killed, he clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together, but otherwise showed no reaction. His superhuman control firmly in place.

  Sadly, I couldn’t be so calm. My voice cracked when I asked, “Why won’t he take their calls?”

  “You said they were told he’s unavailable, right? Maybe he’s not at the camp.”

  “Where would he be?”

  Henry looked at me like I’d asked something stupid. “We were supposed to arrive at the camp four days ago. He’s probably out looking for us.”

  Oh. The simplest of explanations, and it hadn’t occurred to me. “I guess.”

  Several minutes passed, neither of us moving or saying anything. I almost fell asleep, but something occurred to me.

  “Do you know what sarin is?”

  Henry went rigid. “Sarin? Like sarin gas?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “There’s a guy here, some kind of scientist.” I told Henry about Rat Man barging in the office and Shorty’s reaction.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?” When he didn’t answer, I moved out of his arms so I could turn to face him. “Damn it, Hank, what is it?”

  “I think… I think I might know what they were looking for.” Wide-eyed and pale-skinned, Henry looked horrified. “Sarin gas.”

  It rang a bell, but a distant one. “What’s that?”

  “Do you remember a while back, there were those attacks in Syria? Sarin gas was used to kill more than a thousand people in Damascus.”

  Images flashed through my head of lines and lines of white shrouded bodies. “Chemical weapons? Is that what you’re saying? You think we were transporting chemical weapons through Cameroon?” I knew why Henry’s face had gone ashen. I was pretty sure mine was just as bloodless. Chemical weapons. Hidden in boxes of bandages.

  “Probably not the sarin gas itself, but maybe the components? Maybe the canisters held whatever chemicals or other stuff is needed to make sarin gas.”

  “So Rat Man is brewing up chemical weapons three huts down from us.” I leaned back, resting my weight on my hands. “That’s… reassuring.”

  Uncomfortable pressure in my bladder told me it was time to take a leak again. I pushed myself up. I halted on my way to the piss bucket, catching sight of the water jug. I cringed. “Shit. The water.” I could hear Mom’s voice in my head, chiding. “Temper, temper.” I rubbed my face, trying to wipe away the shame and regret. “Damn, Henry, I’m so sorry.” All that water, lost. It hadn’t taken long for the spilled liquid to soak into the packed-dirt floor. Of course, now the water was gone, my body practically screamed for hydration.

  “They’ll be here in a little bit for the food and water delivery,” Henry said. He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Try not to do it again, though, yeah? I don’t think they’ll appreciate having to replace too many water jugs.”

  We were quiet after that. After my little temper tantrum, my body jittered and trembled itself into fatigue. Muscles twitched here and there as I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  It’s a square room, framed with beige-painted cinder blocks. A plain, narrow table sits in the middle. I sit in one chair. Sometimes Wendy sits in the chair opposite me, sometimes it’s her father. Right now, Wendy faces me, her expression as cold and emotionless as her father’s. “Why’d you do it, Ice? Why’d you leave?”

  I had to leave! The words form in my brain but don’t come out of my mouth. I try again. I didn’t have a choice! Still no sound.

  Suddenly Detective Sorenson sits there, smirking, leaning forward in a good-old-boy manner that makes me want to punch him. Who does he think he’s kidding?

  Wendy’s father is a stocky man with thick, graying hair. A stone-faced and cold man, menace colors his voice. “Where’d you get the gun, boy?”

  “None of your business.” At least my voice works now.

  He drops the good-old-boy façade. “I’ll find out. And when I do, when I know for sure, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  He knows. He must know I got the gun from Wendy, otherwise he wouldn’t be so adamant.

  Wendy spins in her chair, snapping strawberry-scented gum, a fun cheerful version of herself, one that is at odds with how I saw her last. “They searched your room, you know.”

  I know.

  “They took your computer in and searched it too.”

  I know that too. I hope they enjoyed the sites I have favorited. There are a couple of hot web pages that are very inspirational to a young gay guy with more hormones than sense. It is the only thing they’d find anyway. I really hope Detective Sorenson got a real eyeful. The righteous prick.

  In the way of dreams, Wendy disappear
s but the scent of strawberry gum lingers. I’m alone in the interrogation room, my arms secured in front of me. Not by handcuffs, though. Heavy bands of metal circle my wrists, and the table is magnetized. Not only can’t I move my hands, but I can’t even lift my arms from the table.

  I look up from the table and stare at the two-way mirror across from me. Instead of seeing my reflection, I see two men in the other room facing each other. Both tall. Both harsh featured. They appear to be glaring at each other. I can’t hear what they say, but their gestures, their posture, it all screams of demand and fury. Through the hazy glass they are indistinct. No real details show through. These men could be anyone.

  Yellow light floods the room, a spotlight focusing on the man on the left. In the stark glow, Detective Sorenson’s stony face stands out, grim, harsh. The other man, though fully illuminated, is less clear. His face looks like it’s made of clay and the sculptor has only started carving the features. The hair glows a fiery red. It’s not me, despite some very basic similarities. No, it’s Chuck.

  Chuck and Detective Sorenson face off.

  I blink. The light is gone, and the men are silhouettes, mirror images, nearly identical in form and stance. One is my dad, the other is the asshole Sorenson. One I know is evil. The other… I don’t know.

  Wendy leans over my shoulder, so close I can taste the fruity gum she chews.

  “Strange, isn’t it, seeing them like that. The funny thing about mirror images,” she says, breathing into my ear with her whisper, “they are exactly the same while at the same time, completely opposite. Our fathers. Mirror images?”

  I WOKE up when the guards barged in with a new jug of water and a bowl of rice. I barely noticed, my mind caught up in the odd dream. I’d been told my whole life that my father was a good man who did good deeds. But good men didn’t get involved with weapons of mass destruction. Shorty and the other guards might be wrong in their belief that Chuck had the mysterious canisters. But, even so, good men were not involved with mercenaries, and these guys recognized his name right away. And they knew how to contact him. What did that say about Chuck’s involvement in scary African politics?

  Snake Eyes came in with the guards delivering food. One of the other guards, one of the many buff and bald clones walking around I couldn’t differentiate from any of the others, glared when he retrieved the cracked blue jug.

  He pointed at the now-useless plastic. “You will get no other jugs of water if you destroy this one. Even if it means you die of thirst.”

  When they turned to leave, I caught a flash of red.

  “My backpack!” I lunged forward, arm outstretched. Snake Eyes, the creepy bastard, wore my backpack. The bulges and heft of it showed that everything might still be in it. My fingertips tingled with the thought of my insulin and my blood monitor. The guns swung in my direction, and I rocked back to my hands and knees.

  Snake Eyes showed no reaction to my movement. His eyes were glued on Henry who sat up, legs crossed and fists clenched in his lap, next to me. Snake Eyes cocked an eyebrow in question, but now it was Henry’s turn not to react.

  When the door closed behind the guards, I crawled to the jug of water, my body weak and lethargic. My instinctive jump toward Snake Eyes must have used up the last remaining strength I had left. I unscrewed the cap, but when I tried to lift the two-gallon jug, my arms shook too much, sloshing water over the rim. I sensed more than saw Henry move closer and reach down to help me with the weight.

  I jerked back, dripping more water from the jug. “Damn it, I don’t need your help. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  His lips thinned and his hands clenched, but he didn’t say anything. He returned to his place by the wall and watched me.

  I gave up trying to lift the jug to me. Instead I leaned down and tipped it enough that I could slurp up mouthfuls of the warm, stale liquid.

  I lay where I was, too exhausted to move.

  “You need to eat something.” Henry shoved the bowl of rice at me.

  I shoved it back. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Bullshit. You may not feel it, but your body needs food.” He pushed the bowl at me again.

  “Stop treating me like a little kid!” I almost flung the bowl away from me, but remembered the water jug scenario at the last instant. See? Mature.

  “I’ll stop treating you like a little kid when you stop acting like a little kid. Starving yourself will not help anything. You need to eat.”

  “Screw you.” I rolled away from him, facing the opposite wall.

  He grabbed my shoulder and wrenched me back. “I will force this fucking food into your mouth if I have to.”

  Our eyes met. His jaw set, his mouth pursed. He would absolutely follow through on his threat. The question was, did I want to push it? Yes, yes I did. Recklessness bubbled up inside me. But Henry’s eyes… they didn’t shine with stubbornness or threat. No, they shone with fear. The same terror that had been yo-yoing through me for the last four days.

  “Fine.” I sat up. The effort the move required almost had me flopping back, but I gritted my teeth and stayed upright out of sheer stubbornness. I reached for the bowl and scooped up some of the loose granules. Getting them into my mouth without scattering them all over the floor was no easy feat, but I was mostly successful.

  “Well, it’s not chicken cordon bleu, but it fills the hole. I’m willing to bet those guys”—I gestured to the door—“aren’t living off of rice and beans. You don’t get that big without something a bit more substantial.”

  Henry watched me take two more bites before scooping some up for himself. I had to keep my eye on him. If I let him, he’d starve himself to make sure I got enough to eat. Damn do-gooder.

  My stomach clenched and burned. Rather than welcoming the food, it objected. Strongly. I gritted my teeth and swallowed against the pain.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I blinked open eyes I didn’t remember closing. Henry leaned close.

  I swallowed again, forcing back the gorge that rose in my throat. “I’m not going to be able to eat anything more right now.”

  “What’s the matter?” Henry repeated.

  I wrapped my arms around my aching belly without answering his question. I turned away and lay back down.

  I didn’t fall asleep, not quite. Instead, I was stuck in that hazy world somewhere between waking and dreaming. Part of me wanted to sleep—I didn’t have to think about where I was or what was happening while I slept. Unfortunately, the weird dreams I’d been having were as disturbing as reality, sometimes more so.

  “Isaiah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How bad is it?”

  My head lolled to face Henry. “How bad is what?”

  “The diabetes.”

  Something hovered at the outskirts of my consciousness. Something that told me that the question meant more than it seemed. “Oh, in this day and age, diabetes doesn’t have to be so bad. It’s manageable with the medication, eating right, exercise.”

  “No, how bad are you now? How long before you have complications without your insulin?”

  I didn’t want to think about that. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Seriously, Isaiah, how bad are you?”

  I rolled over and opened my eyes. Henry sat there, arms resting across his folded knees. I closed my eyes and rolled back to my stomach so I could pillow my head on my arms. Over the dirt smell, I caught the slightest scent of my breath. Fruity. Kind of like the strawberry bubble gum Wendy chewed in the dream.

  “Does fruity breath mean something?” Henry asked.

  I must have said that bit about the breath out loud. I didn’t remember it, but how else would Henry have known?

  I forced some clarity into my brain. I couldn’t afford to be too free with information to Henry. No telling what the damn do-gooder would do. I had to watch my mouth. I couldn’t let anything and everything slip out when my brain was floating. “How fresh is your breath? I don’t know about you, but
going this long without brushing my teeth makes my breath a little funky, that’s all.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. You don’t survive on the streets without learning how to read people. What does fruity breath mean?”

  I blinked up my eyes. Henry had scooted closer. Not close enough to touch, but close enough I could see him clearly.

  “Damn it, Isaiah, tell me!”

  Angry Hank was kind of sexy.

  His eyes goggled for a moment. Crap. Had I said it out loud?

  I sighed. “What difference does it make? It doesn’t matter what it means because there is nothing we can do about it.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “It’s a sign, a symptom, of ketoacidosis. Now you know. Do you feel better?”

  “How long before the damage is irreversible?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Depends on what gets hit first. I mean, kidney failure is pretty bad, right? Or maybe coma. Sometimes death. Death would be pretty irreversible.”

  “That’s not very funny.”

  “You know what is funny? They took my insulin, which means I can’t control my glucose levels, and as a result of uncontrolled glucose levels, I’m at risk for ketoacidosis. By practically starving us, they’re doing me a favor. The less I eat, the less glucose I bring in, the less I need the insulin. Except starvation also leads to a concentration of ketones—you know, as in ketoacidosis—so eventually, the little buggers are going to poison me anyway.”

  “How soon?”

  “Maybe another week before things go critical. Then it’s like a roulette wheel of medical consequences. Liver or kidney failure? Dehydration or coma? Vomiting or brain damage? Of course, even if I get the insulin back—unlikely, since Snake Eyes seems to have confiscated my bag—it probably won’t be enough. Even if I could counter the glucose, no amount of insulin will fix the dehydration and potassium deficiency, or the threat of brain damage. Oh, and stress—the adrenaline, you know—hurries it all along. So, yeah, unless I get to a hospital tout de suite”—I grinned at the fun French phrase and snapped my fingers to illustrate—“I’m screwed.”