Penance

by Rick R. Reed

“Shut up,” Dwight said and pulled the truck away from the curb, giving it too much gas.

  Now the passenger seat was empty. Dwight turned north on Broadway, toward Devon.

  He knew the location of Super Powers well. He promised himself he would spend only seconds inside, just enough time to ascertain whether Miranda was there or not. He wasn’t at all certain this wasn’t some sort of trick on the fat boy’s part. Dwight didn’t want to give the boy enough time to bang on the window of the truck’s topper and attract the attention of someone passing by.

  He almost didn’t see her. Dashing out from between two parked cars just a few feet shy of the red light, the young girl in the big black coat made Dwight slam his brakes on hard, throwing the truck into a spin.

  Fortunately, Dwight missed the parked El Dorado at his side and managed to straighten out the truck. Just what I need, an accident.

  With a kid in the back of my truck.

  He saw the girl standing on the west side of the street, actually grinning at him. When their eyes met, she mouthed, “Sorry.”

  “Pardon me,” he shouted across the street, “I was wondering if you could help me.”

  Chapter 20

  “Hey, you little shit, I heard you were worried about me.”

  Jimmy sat up, rubbing his eyes. It didn’t seem possible but here was Little T, standing right next to him, a big grin on his face. He was wearing his favorite T-shirt from Banana Republic; it had a pineapple on it. With the shirt he wore a pair of cutoff blue jean shorts. His curly red hair was tousled, but he looked clean. His smile seemed to light up the priest’s study.

  “Man, I thought you was in trouble,” Jimmy said, trying to sort out how Little T found him here, wondering if he was wrong all along about his whereabouts. He sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the couch. He rubbed his bare toes into the rug. He still couldn’t believe it.

  “Nah, you know me, Jimmy. I met this one guy last week, a wrestling coach, up here on vacation from Peoria, of all places. Where the fuck is Peoria? Anyway, he wanted me to stay with him while he was here, go to the beach, shit like that.”

  “The beach?” Jimmy wondered, looking out the window.

  Brilliant sunlight streamed in through the slats of the miniblinds and Jimmy got up and crossed to the window. He raised the blinds and looked outside.

  The day sparkled. The leaves of two maple trees in front of Richard’s house swayed in the wind, verdant and bursting with energy. Farther up the street, kids played in the spray of water from an uncapped fire hydrant. A rainbow glimmered in the spray.

  “Hey!” Jimmy shouted. “I can’t believe it! There’s Randy!” Jimmy watched for a moment as Randy walked up the street and rounded a corner.

  “Did you hear me?” he said, turning to Little T. “I said I saw Randy…” Jimmy’s voice trailed off as he turned and scanned the room.

  Little T was gone.

  Jimmy rushed from the room and stood in the foyer of the old house, looking left, right, and up the stairs. As he ran for the door, a hand grabbed the collar of his shirt.

  Tensing, he shouted, “No!” He turned to face the person who’d grabbed him.

  War Zone. “Shit, man! You need to get a look at yourself! What you so scared about? It’s only me.”

  Jimmy laughed. “Yeah, well you’re a pretty scary sight, you know?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Where you been, man? I been worried.”

  War Zone shook his head. “Worryin’s for my ma to do.” War Zone reached down into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a foil-wrapped joint. He unwrapped it, brought it to his mouth, and lit it. Holding the smoke in, he grunted his words: “I was with Saul, man. Thought you’d figure that out for yourself. Nothin’ new.”

  “Saul, sure,” Jimmy said, taking the joint from War Zone and hitting it. Jimmy held the smoke in his lungs until he was desperate for a breath and exhaled. He passed it back to War Zone. “I guess I shoulda known. Saul likes to keep you around for a while, don’t he?”

  “Right.” War Zone hit the joint again, dramatically, collapsing his cheeks and making his eyes big. Jimmy laughed.

  “You seen Little T? He was just here a minute ago. Woke me up.”

  War Zone blew a thin stream of smoke into the air. Jimmy watched and wondered what Richard would say when he smelled the pot in his house. “Didn’t see him, man.”

  “That’s weird. He was just here.”

  Jimmy went to the door and looked outside. Three little girls, all with long dark hair, skipped rope outside. “Down in the valley where the green grass grows, there sits Maria, sweet as a rose. She sang, she sang, she sang so sweet. Along came Jose, kissed her on the cheek…” the little girls sang out and Jimmy could remember a time when he was that little.

  He probably would have tried to trip the girl jumping rope. He snickered to himself, wishing he had seen Little T out there, instead of the girls, practicing a new move with his Frisbee.

  He turned to tell War Zone how weird it was that their friend had disappeared so suddenly.

  But War Zone was gone, too.

  Jimmy sighed. What was going on? He slumped to the floor and closed his eyes, rubbing his throbbing temples.

  When he opened his eyes, he was in a white room. There were no windows or doors in this room. The ceiling and floor, the same shade of pristine white, blended in with the four walls, making it hard to tell where anything ended or began. Jimmy looked down at himself and found he was naked.

  All he wore was a pair of handcuffs. Their bright silver finish glinted in the bright light of the room.

  “Jimmy.”

  He jerked his head up, knew all at once, even from a whisper, whom the voice belonged to.

  He curled into a small ball, his single word drawn into a long wail: “No.”

  “Jimmy.”

  The voice boomed this time, deafening. He got up on his knees and managed to crawl around the room, close to the wall, his bound hands sliding along its smooth surface, looking for a chink or a crack in the white monotony: anything that would lead him out of here.

  “It’s no use, son.”

  The guy, what did they decide his name was? Dwight? Dwight stood before him. He was wearing that same long bathrobe he had on the night Jimmy set the room on fire. He held a can of Crisco in his hands and he was smiling.

  “There’s no escape. I thought you knew that.”

  He squatted down in front of Jimmy, who now found himself whimpering and pressing into the wall so hard he felt he wanted to melt into it. Dwight brought his face so close to Jimmy’s that Jimmy’s vision began to blur. He could smell the rancid breath: onions, old cabbage, rotten meat. He turned his head, but the smell just seemed to intensify as Dwight began to laugh.

  “Lie yourself down, boy. I’ve got something for you.”

  All will seemed to leave him and he lay prone on the floor, his knees up and bent. He shut his eyes and turned his face close to the floor. It smelled like plastic.

  There was a thin metallic sound as Dwight put the can of Crisco on the floor.

  “Now, son, now.”

  Jimmy turned his head back up and looked. What he saw made him scream and scream, scream until his throat was raw and there was no more sound.

  Dwight was nothing more than a pillar of flame rising above him, about to enter him.

  Jimmy awakened from the nightmare violently. The calm darkness of the room was a bizarre contrast to the white and the flames of his dream. It was hard for him to catch his breath. He tried to slow his breathing and his pounding heart by listening to the rhythmic swing of the pendulum clock on the priest’s mantel.

  His sheets were drenched with perspiration. They felt so wet that Jimmy found it hard to believe he had caused it. Had Miranda or the priest slipped in while he was asleep and dumped a bucket of water on him? Absurd.

  He sat up, trying to will the dream away from him. It was like the touch of so
mething slimy: he could still feel it and feel the terror even though he now knew it was just a dream. It was hard to convince himself that Dwight wasn’t lurking somewhere in the darkness right now, waiting for him to wake up so that he could take him. It was difficult to believe that all the hulking shapes in the shadows were just furniture.

  His breathing had slowed and his heart was rapidly returning to its usual beat. Jimmy sat up, kicking the clammy sheets and bedding away from him.

  He knew that there would be no return to sleep for him this night. Maybe not any night if he had to face Dwight again. He glanced up at the clock on the mantel and saw that it was a quarter after five. He decided he’d slept long enough.

  Rising, he slipped into his jeans and pulled his T-shirt over his head. What am I doing down here alone, anyway? Miranda is upstairs. At least I can lie down with her.

  He pictured Miranda’s smooth back and the way her shoulder blades poked out, like remnants of wings. She always slept nude, even at the Chicken Arms, saying that clothes obstructed her body heat. Many nights, Jimmy wrapped his arms around her and pressed close.

  Many nights, she had turned to him, taking his cock in her hand and guiding it to her wet opening and the two of them had locked together, quickly, trying to restrain movement so the others wouldn’t awaken.

  He would go to her now.

  He couldn’t stand being alone.

  Climbing the stairs, he tried to force the dream images out of his mind. They lingered, vibrant and strong as memory. Jimmy forced himself to think of Miranda, imagining her mumbled surprise when he slid into the little twin bed with her, imagining the warmth of her smooth body pressed against his.

  It was all he needed right now.

  He paused outside her door, listening. Even the sound of her breathing or snoring coming through the door would be a comfort.

  But the wood of the door was thick enough to prevent sound from coming through and Jimmy chided himself: he should have know that. He reached down and turned the doorknob slowly. When he heard it click open, he swung the door open quickly and shut it behind him with the same speed, to minimize the squeak.

  Moonlight glinted off the mound in the bed: silver light shone in the room. Jimmy tiptoed across the hardwood floor, wincing with every squeak, and finally reached the bed.

  When he lifted the covers, reality slipped away from him with the smoothness of a cotton sheet, and the dream images returned full force.

  There was only a mound of pillows there, arranged to resemble a person sleeping.

  Jimmy closed his eyes as his knees turned to water. He collapsed on the bed, breathing in the scent of Patchouli and cheap alcohol: Miranda. He balled up a corner of a pillow tight in his hand and pounded his fist into the mattress again and again.

  Chapter 21

  It felt strange. Liberating, almost. Richard hurried along with Jimmy Fels at his side. When was the last time, he wondered, I was out like this on a Sunday morning? Years…years and years, decades if he included just attending Mass.

  “We gotta hurry, man.” Jimmy tried to pull the priest along.

  Jimmy had said Miranda had most likely returned to the place they all shared, an abandoned apartment building called the Chicken Arms. He’d said he wouldn’t be surprised if they found her there, looking out the window and daydreaming about putting some weird outfit together to wear that night.

  But Richard had seen the look of defeat in the boy’s eyes at the time. He’d seen the boy’s fear. Richard had recognized the expression from his experiences with boys of about Jimmy’s age. Boys who had trusted him. Boys who had come home with him under the pretense of religious instruction.

  He mustn’t think that way…not now, when Jimmy had finally turned to him for help.

  They reached the corner of Lawrence and Kenmore. Richard looked around for a second, wondering if any of his parishioners had seen him this Sunday morning, out for a stroll with a boy prostitute.

  “This is it,” Jimmy said, indicating the sagging three flat apartment building. It was made of brick and looked, like so many of the buildings in this area, like a fine place to live…ten or twenty years ago. Now the building rose out of the grey pavement like a monument to decay and collapse. The white brick was spray-painted on every reachable surface with gang graffiti and logos. The bay windows, which at one time must have afforded residents sunshine and a view to a clean, modest neighborhood, were now smashed in or wearing plywood patches. The front door hung crookedly on a hinge. Signs posted on several lower floor windows warned that the building was slated for demolition and trespassers would be prosecuted.

  “This is where you live?” Richard asked.

  “Yeah, ain’t it grand?”

  Jimmy hurried ahead of him, and Richard followed along a courtyard sidewalk, cracked and choked with weeds, to a door at the side of the building. Jimmy stopped and looked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone to observe them, then ducked through the door. Richard hoped Jimmy found Miranda inside, but a certainty nagged at him: the apartment would be empty.

  He followed through the door, whispering, “And lead us not into temptation,” over and over, hoping that somewhere, his petition was heard.

  *

  When he entered the room, Jimmy was sitting in a corner, smoking a cigarette and staring down at the floor.

  “She ain’t here,” Jimmy said, not looking up. “It don’t look like she’s been here, neither.”

  Richard stood, helpless, his hands at his sides, wondering what he should say. He knew what he should have done: he should have been down at the police station, reporting all that had been going on, putting together the puzzle pieces so that maybe something could be done.

  But Jimmy didn’t want it. And another voice from inside told him. You’re the adult here. You’re the one who’s supposed to know the right thing to do.

  He went to Jimmy and squatted down in front of him. The boy seemed like a ball made of rubber bands: closed and full of tension. He wondered if Jimmy even noticed him, so close. Lifting Jimmy’s chin, Richard said, “We’ll find her. We’ll find her and all the rest.” He tried to smile at the boy, but the hopelessness Jimmy radiated had begun to affect him, too. He’d been a priest in this neighborhood long enough to know that when things looked really bad, they usually were. Hope and good fortune were for those who lived north of the city, in expensive suburbs bordering Lake Michigan. Jimmy was only thirteen, but he’d already learned the lessons of the streets, lessons of loss and betrayal.

  Richard wanted so much to show him he was wrong. For once, he would have liked to lift him out of the misery and despair of the streets.

  Show him there was a God.

  “Jimmy, we have to have faith.”

  Jimmy squinted at the priest through his cigarette smoke. “Faith in what?” he mumbled, sounding every bit like the little boy he was. “Faith in God to do the right thing? Where was God when I was gettin’ raped by that creep? Where was God when I had to listen to my ma gettin’ beat up and fucked by every piece of trash that brought her a bottle of vodka?”

  Richard put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and squeezed. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much reason to believe, does it?” He took his hand away, looked outside at the bright blue sky and thought how deceptive that sky was. If I were to lie down and look at that sky, I’d think it was warm out there. But the sky, like so many other things, seemed a bitter lie.

  Richard sat next to Jimmy. “I have trouble myself sometimes. Me, a priest. You believe that?”

  “No.” Jimmy ground his cigarette out on the floor, shoved it away with his foot.

  “Well, I do. When I see what these streets make of good kids like you…”

  “Cut it, Richard. I’ve had the social worker lectures before.”

  Richard laughed, but the laugh was soundless and without humor. What would it take to get through to this boy? This boy who was smarter than he knew. Richard leaned back against t
he wall, feeling a headache begin in his temples. Guiltily, he wished he were on the altar now at St. Cecilia’s, lifting the consecrated wafer high before breaking it, saying words that spilled out of his mouth without thought, “Take this all of you and eat it, for this is my body.” He would break the wafer in half then.

  So much easier to go through the motions. To lift the chalice: “Take this all of you and drink it. For this is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.”

  When had the words lost their meaning? When had being a priest become a job, no different from a computer programmer or a bricklayer, rather than a calling? How many years had it been since he had said Mass and meant it?

  He looked over at Jimmy Fels, who had put his head between his upraised knees. He was trembling.

  Richard put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Hey, hey…are you okay?”

  It took a few moments, but the boy finally raised his head and looked at the priest. His face was wet with tears, his eyes red. Angrily, he wiped away the tears. He started to reach in his pocket to bring out a cigarette, but Richard caught his hand before he had a chance to do it. Richard put his arm around the boy and drew his face to his chest, stroking the blond hair.

  Jimmy struggled, pushing away from the priest. “Dammit! I’m okay,” he said, but there was no conviction behind the boy’s words. Finally, they were silent, except for Jimmy’s occasional catch of breath.

  *

  Jimmy felt the priest’s hand in his hair and was grateful for the big, hard chest to cry into. His shirt felt starched and clean and Jimmy wrapped his arms around the man. It was nice, if only for a minute, to be this close to a man and not have him reaching down farther, trying to grab his dick and balls.

  “It’s all my fuckin’ fault, y’know,” he whispered.

  “What?” The priest sounded surprised.

  “That they’re gone, y’know? None of this shit started happenin’ ‘til I got caught up with that slimy trick, that Dwight guy.”

  The priest held Jimmy tighter and Jimmy found himself wanting to crawl into his lap. He said, “Jimmy, self-pity doesn’t look good on you. That guy was doing bad things and hurting people long before you came along. And maybe the fact that you fought back and got him angry will eventually cause his downfall.”