Jaden Baker

by Courtney Kirchoff

  “Shouldn’t you be in the North Pole?” Jaden accidentally asked aloud. To cover his blushing face, he wheeled the cart around Ron and in front of a stack of pine planks.

  “Ho ho, never heard that one before,” said Ron, following Jaden to the pine. “Where’re your parents?”

  “At home,” he lied.

  “Yeah, where’s that?” Ron asked.

  “Like I’d tell you. They sent me here to get wood, we’re redoing part of a floor.”

  Ron crossed his arms and fiddled with his beard. “What’s your name?”

  “Heathcliff,” he said, recalling a book of Molly’s, one of the last he’d read. If Ron was familiar with classic literature, Heathcliff was a warning to fuck off. “We need 100 square feet. I’m home-schooled,” he added to stave off suspicion. Half of what he said was partly true.

  Most of the second floor was sound, but yesterday he had noticed a gap that was nearly rotted through, probably from water damage. If he was going to live on the second floor, the wood had to be replaced. He didn’t want to fall through the floor and break a leg.

  Truth or not, Ron was sold. He asked Jaden a number of questions about the remodeling project, which Jaden answered as best he could given his limited knowledge. Thankfully the integral beams, which held the planks, were stable. Ron piled wood into Jaden’s cart, and they sawed it to the correct measurements.

  “Your dad got tools?” Ron asked.

  Thinking quickly, he said: “Yes, but I don’t have my own.”

  So Ron and Jaden got a hammer, nails, measuring tape, and a saw. Jaden always selected the cheapest tools Ron recommended, believing his advice that if Jaden picked the absolute cheapest, he would be back for replacements.

  Jaden gulped when he doled out cash for the purchase, but tried not to appear worried. He needed a secure place to live. It was a necessary expense, for his safety.

  Ron helped him to his truck, despite Jaden insisting he could do it himself. Ron had gotten chatty about his own building projects, and told Jaden he constructed a massive deck for his best friend a few years back. Decks were trickier than they looked, he added.

  “You sure this truck will carry the load?” Ron asked as he strapped the wood inside, which stuck out the back, over the tailgate.

  No he wasn’t, but Jaden would “help” the wood on the way to his building.

  “Yes,” Jaden said. He left without waving or saying goodbye to Ron and drove to his new home.

  Giving Ron the fake name Heathcliff got him thinking. People in classic literature named their estates. As he drove, Jaden tried thinking of clever names to call his new domain. Clever didn’t come. In the end he settled on Em House, thinking of Molly.

  The journey to Em House was a nervous one, but the truck made it. He unloaded the wood then made a second trek to the thrift store, where he picked up a three-legged (originally it had four) coffee table, an old but comfortable couch, ice chest, a sack of warm clothes that fit him, mismatched plates and bowls, and flatware. At the local grocery store, he loaded his cart with ice and as much food as he could fit.

  After returning the truck to its for sale spot, Jaden walked to Em House to set up his new home. He had already torn and ripped the rotted wood from the second floor, so he started nailing in the new wood as soon as he got there. After a while the hammer lay unused on the ground floor, as it was easier and faster to shoot the nails into the wood. Where it may have taken most people days to complete the project, Jaden finished in an afternoon. He used a stack of crates to climb up and down between floors. He had forgot to purchase a ladder.

  All his things found their way up to the second floor as if carried by invisible movers. The new wood gave Em House a fresh smell, and Jaden smiled as he breathed it in. He set up the ice chest and rudimentary kitchen on the far wall, and put his living room on the opposite side. His sleeping bag lay on the couch for now.

  It wasn’t an elite condo, but Jaden saw the makings of his own place coming together before his eyes. It made him proud.

  On his way home from the public bathroom, his mind bounced and blundered over the long list of things still left to do, as it had been since leaving San Francisco. Figuring out how to install a shower into Em House had priority. But there were many projects needing completion, and the biggest, acquiring a job, was urgent.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a tiny, desperate sound coming from an alleyway.

  There was no one there. Yet Jaden was sure he heard a noise. He eased a dumpster from the wall and saw two yellow pinprick eyes looking up at him. The creature gave a soft mew, high-pitched and frightened.

  Kneeling slowly to keep from frightening him, Jaden reached for the kitten. It backed away. After sniffing his fingers, it put its little tail up in the air and walked into Jaden’s hand.

  He used the dim light from a streetlamp to examine the tiny kitten. It was black with one white dot on its chin. It mewed continuously as Jaden held it up so he could determine what it was. A boy.

  The cat shivered in the cold. It couldn’t be more than six weeks old, alone in the alley, no sign of an adult cat around, and no brother or sister kittens either. Jaden tucked him in his coat, where his mews were muffled. He made sure to hold the kitten safely as he walked to Em House. Home.

  Jaden opened the large door, then locked it shut. Once he climbed the crates to his second floor, the crates floated and barricaded themselves in front of the door. He sat on his couch and opened a can of tuna on his three-legged coffee table, stabilized with old books and magazines instead of a leg. As soon as the can’s top popped, the cat scrambled out of Jaden’s coat, jumped on the table, and scarfed the tuna like he hadn’t eaten in days.

  The cat arched his back as Jaden stroked it. He purred so loudly it sounded like a growl, and after he finished the tuna, he hopped onto Jaden’s knee, crawled up to his face, and head-butted him, eyes closed in contentment.

  The kitten’s small affection, licking Jaden’s nose with his rough tongue, plunged his insides into ice water, sucking the air out of his being. Reality caught up with him. For weeks he had been powered by the next thing, his list of tasks that needed completing, one more thing to do.

  He had given little thought to what had happened. Intellectually he knew he had escaped, but only now, weeks later, did it feel real. This kitten, who kneaded his coat collar with its tiny paws, was a version of himself: small and afraid— thoroughly alone.

  The world had gone on without him, not caring that somewhere in the bowels of the earth, a boy was captive to men seeking power for themselves. To mine his power, they dug deep, carving out his sense of humanity, leaving a shell of the person he had once been. Pride, dignity, even his personality had been brutalized, torn from him and dissected under a microscope. Every inch of him had been flayed and destroyed. Scars that would never heal crawled like webs from the back of his neck to his calves.

  Corporeal sadness pierced him like a dull blade, hacking at his insides. Unable to cry, forever fearful of retribution for shed tears, he dry-heaved sobs, sucking in breaths like he was at the bottom of an ocean, with only a paper bag of air to keep him alive. The pressure kept building, but no tears leaked, dripped, or burst from behind his eyes.

  Alarmed by his savior’s sudden affliction of grief, the cat jumped back to the table and licked the can.

  Sessions of torture raced before his mind. His unanswered screams for help echoed back to him. Jaden curled into the couch, his head buried in the cushion as his gnarled hands clawed at the upholstery.

  Making himself a home—how ridiculous it seemed now. Shopping at the lumber store, a home-schooled teenager in his first car, out to run chores for parents who didn’t know him, to build a house alone, separated from the world—that was all his fantasy. It was a pathetic display of his desperation, clinging to a life that was not there.

  People didn’t know. They built decks for their friends, worked in bakeries selling donuts, manufactured illegal drugs to destroy the lives
of others for monetary gain. Wrapped in a cocoon called life, each of them went about their days in a purposeless way, walking mindlessly, waiting to die.

  For years all Jaden thought about was escape, of not being in pain. As he crouched into the cushions, the realization that he would never fully escape suffocated him. How was he supposed to forget the cruelness of the past few years, when physical reminders pulled and marred his skin, and memories haunted him?

  Two years ago, that silver day when glass splashed to the ground and floated like ice on top of his warm blood, he concluded all of life was meaningless torture. What had been the point of all this, the effort to escape from Joseph and his men, the running and the fear? Consumed with the idea of freedom, he had never contemplated what to do with life. He was so hungry for a meaning and purpose, he’d even imagined himself a friend to comfort him.

  No one real had ever truly cared about him. No one had ever put a thought or effort into his happiness.

  “You can’t give up,” Seth whispered, his face wet with tears.

  Jaden sat up and curled himself into a ball.

  “I’m tired,” he said, his raspy and unnatural voice another mark of his slavery. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “You don’t want to end it,” Seth said. “I know you don’t.”

  “It would be easy,” Jaden replied. “Killing is easy.”

  Seth sat next to Jaden, and he marveled at the detail of him, how the couch caved under Seth’s weight, like he was real.

  “They deserved what they got,” Seth said. “This is a war.”

  Jaden swallowed. “Yes. I know. All the same, seven people dead, and I don’t feel a thing. Nothing, Seth.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Is it?” he asked, eyeing him. “Fifteen years old and I’ve killed seven people. Six in an instant. And I don’t care.”

  Seth put his arm around Jaden’s shoulders. “Feeling nothing is better than feeling pleasure from it. They were after you. You shouldn’t feel guilty. It’s a war, you against them. They would not have died if they left you alone. You’re not the aggressor.”

  The rain poured outside.

  Jaden sighed. “I guess you’re right. What about the people in the meth house?”

  Seth made a face. “What about them?”

  Jaden laughed under his breath. “I enjoyed beating them. I wanted to kill them, even the woman.”

  “It’s because of people like them that you’re here, not living with your mom. You know that.”

  “Is that really why?” Jaden asked.

  Seth nodded. “You didn’t kill them.”

  “Why did I like hitting them so much? Why do I want to do it again?”

  Seth held his breath and walked off, leaving Jaden alone on the couch with the kitten.

  “You need to throw out the crank,” Seth said. “Why didn’t you trash it when you found it?”

  Jaden shrugged.

  “Throw it away,” Seth said. “Please.”

  Jaden summoned his backpack, found the small baggie of crank and held it in his left hand.

  “You’ve seen what it does,” Seth said. “They all regret it. Just throw it out.”

  Jaden ripped open the bag, poured the crystal powder on the table. The cat was interested, but Jaden pushed him away.

  “Don’t,” Seth warned. “Don’t do this.”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “No,” Seth answered. “You aren’t either. How will that stuff help you?”

  It wouldn’t. Jaden stared at the drugs for a moment before sweeping them into the baggie. He tied it and threw it outside into the rain. If it didn’t get swept away in the streams, a car would run it over, or someone would pick it up for themselves. But it was gone.

  The kitten mewed from the table, yellow eyes trained on him. He jumped to the couch and climbed up Jaden’s pant leg, perching himself on his knee, cleaning his little face by licking his paw and wiping his nose. He purred so strongly, Jaden felt it through his knee. He pet the kitten and scratched behind his ears.

  “Cat,” Jaden said, as the kitten head-butted him again, then crawled to Jaden’s chest, nuzzling his chin and jaw. “I’ll call him Cat.”

  Jaden lay on the couch, tucking his legs into his sleeping bag. Cat lay on his chest, rising and falling as Jaden breathed, kneading and purring, lulling him into a restless sleep.

  part three

  twenty-three

  Though it was mid-July, the morning was brisk, the sky a gray cotton of clouds, and Puget Sound a steely, cold blue. Most of Seattle grumbled, worn with winterish weather, impatient for the elusive summer sun. With umbrellas tucked away in the trunks of cars, sunglasses lost and separated from their original purchasers, the Pacific Northwest was a bastion of misty air and pale, complaining residents.

  But on Harbor Island, once the largest man-made island in the world, and an industrial giant to this day, laborers were glad for the cool atmosphere and sunless sky. Forklift operators loaded cargo, massive orange cranes lifted containers from the ground and gently deposited them on freighters, and tug boats set out, pulling colossal ships behind them.

  The caws of gulls were drowned by the engines of countless machines operating on the island: the soft-booming clank of containers dropping on ships and tracks, the tightening strains of heavy cables, and the good cheer of work done.

  Gray and orange starfish clung to the pillars of piers, hoping the changing tides would not leave them high and dry, prey to hungry birds.

  Elliot Samuel Fain, manager of Noble International, a cargo shipping company on Harbor Island, watched from his office window as gulls fought over a clam, pecking at each other on a dock. The scene amused him, as the shores were littered with clams. Birds liked to squabble. Though he could not hear the shrieking of the gulls, his imagination replaced the sound with the dialogue of two men standing behind him.

  One spoke Russian, a rough language. Based on his harsh gesticulating, Mr. Fain surmised the Russian (was his name Danislav Nikolaevich?), was not pleased.

  The second was Drew, his usually helpful assistant, who held a Russian/English dictionary in one hand, while the other made various movements through the air in attempts to slow Nikolaevich’s speech so he could translate.

  Mr. Fain turned from the window and sipped his coffee. The gulls had flown away, taking the entertainment with them. The furious argument on the other side of his desk was escalating, and poor Drew, a fresh-out-of-college grad hoping to put something on his resume, was out of his comfort zone. It was ten in the morning, and he had a long day ahead of him. Six cups of coffee, three cigarettes, and a migraine—enough was enough.

  “Okay, okay,” said Mr. Fain, holding up his hands. Nikolaevich crossed his arms and muttered under his breath, his eyes darting around the room as if deciding what to smash first. Drew smiled apologetically to his boss and slid his glasses up his sweaty nose.

  Mr. Fain picked up his phone and called the warehouse. He muttered a few words then hung up. Groaning, he pulled his thinning leather wallet from his back pocket to count his cash. About to part from him forever was today’s lunch, a tank of gas, and flowers for his wife. If only Drew spoke Russian.

  Five minutes after making the call, the office door opened, revealing the humble translator.

  He was a young man, just under six feet tall, with a thin but muscular physique. His black hair was pulled behind him in a short ponytail, his beard brushed the collar of his denim jacket. Upon entering, he politely removed his cap and held it in his gloved hands. He approached the desk cautiously, his footsteps soft on the floor.

  “Oh good,” Mr. Fain said, beckoning the young man closer. “We have a situation here. This guy’s name is Danislav Nikolaevich and I have no idea what he wants. Do you speak Russian?”

  Tucking his cap under his arm, he nodded, his gray eyes focused on the cash on the table.

  “I’ve got one hundred and forty two,” Mr. Fain said, hoping it was enough. “J
ust please translate for me, Joel.”

  Joel nodded again and faced Nikolaevich, saying something in Russian. Nikolaevich responded, his tongue afire with sounds Mr. Fain didn’t know were vocally possible. He continued ranting for a few minutes, waving his hands in the air as Joel listened. Nikolaevich pointed every few words at Mr. Fain, then shook his fists.

  Joel nodded along until Nikolaevich stopped talking, then he took the money and pocketed it.

  “He says,” Joel said, his voice harsh and raspy, but his tone subdued, “that you lost a container that held the belongings of his grandparents, along with their urns and ashes.”

  Mr. Fain frowned. “That’s all he said?”

  “No,” Joel replied, shrugging. “I omitted the colorful commentary and threats. I can tell you if you want to know.”

  Mr. Fain pointed at Drew. “Check the manifests for all the containers coming from...?” he looked at Joel.

  “Magadan,” Joel answered.

  “Maybe it got mixed up with the commercial containers.” Drew left, so Mr. Fain said to Joel, “Tell him we’re looking into it and it’s probably just a mix up.”

  Joel spoke to Nikolaevich in what sounded like perfect Russian. Based on Nikolaevich’s reaction, the message got through. He nodded curtly then sat in a chair, his arms still crossed. From his seated position he started a more casual conversation with Joel. Mr. Fain recognized a few words like “Moscow” and “Seattle,” but nothing else. When Nikolaevich chuckled heartily at something Joel said, Mr. Fain smiled.

  “Why’s he laughing?” he asked.

  “Just a joke,” Joel replied, and before Mr. Fain could ask for the joke, Nikolaevich reengaged the conversation until Drew came bustling in the room, holding a shipping manifest notebook.

  “We found it! You were right, it was cataloged wrong and put with the commercial imports.”

  Joel must have relayed the news, as Nikolaevich jumped out of his chair, suddenly aglow, all hostility forgotten. He shook Mr. Fain’s hand then put his hand out to Joel, who hesitated before giving his gloved hand in return.