Children of the Knight

by Michael J. Bowler

  They kept to the shadows and mostly just observed life for these disenfranchised peoples. Arthur shook his head in dismay at the sight of homeless people dumpster-diving for food or other needed items, at the run-down, graffiti-covered, dilapidated homes and apartment complexes, at the prison-like housing projects. Small children running unattended in the streets at night disturbed him.

  Tonight, several children, dressed shabbily, most without even shoes, approached Llamrei with caution, but mostly with delight painted across their dirty faces. Arthur smiled down at the children and encouraged them to pet the mare.

  “It’s okay,” Lance assured them. “She don’t bite.”

  The children gathered round and happily petted the silky white coat. Llamrei whinnied with approval.

  “What’s his name, mister?” one little girl asked, giggling with delight at the horse’s reaction to her touch.

  “It doth be a ‘she’,” Arthur replied, “and her name doth be Llamrei.”

  “You talk funny,” a small boy, probably no more than ten years old, stated flatly, causing the others to laugh and Arthur to smile.

  “That I do, lad,” Arthur agreed. Then he glanced back at Lance and nodded. Lance told the children about Arthur’s crusade, outlining in basic terms what they hoped to accomplish. They listened in wide-eyed wonder, in the end agreeing to spread the word. It sounded like great fun, they all agreed.

  “It doth be about more than fun, young ones,” Arthur assured them. “It doth be about thy future and that of all the children in this city.”

  The children nodded solemnly, then skittered off into the darkness to spread the news. Arthur looked at Lance.

  “Well done, my boy,” he said reassuringly. “Thou hast a gift with children.”

  Lance blushed and looked down. “Oh, uh, thanks.”

  In silence, always alert for potential trouble, Arthur spurred Llamrei on into a different neighborhood that looked similar to the last, but peopled with African-Americans, rather than Latinos or Caucasians. Lance attempted to explain about the races and how some of them liked to be called.

  “Art not all of these people we encounter ‘Americans’?” he asked as they trotted slowly down a dark and gloomy street.

  “Yeah, I guess,” replied Lance. “They just—” He paused, uncertain how to continue. “They just want to separate themselves out, I guess, so, you know, every group gets to feel special. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  Arthur glanced at the boy and smiled. “I doth believe thou just did explain it, Lance,” he said. “Alas, ’twould seem humanity hath not changed in all these centuries. When I didst first achieve the High Kingship of Britain by pulling Excalibur from the stone, the initial dilemma I faced was to unite the various warring groups. The Gaels didst hate the Galls who didst hate the Normans, and warfare ruled the land.”

  “What did you do, Arthur?” Lance asked, finding himself really interested in the answer.

  Arthur stopped Llamrei and turned to look at the boy. Lance’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “I didst do then what we shalt attempt to do now—I gave them all a purpose in life other than hating one another.” He smiled and turned around, spurring Llamrei on down the street.

  Lance considered this response, having been given a vague blueprint of Arthur’s overall intent. He suddenly realized that the man had not yet told him how that intent was to be realized.

  As though reading his mind, Arthur said, “All in good time, lad.”

  Arthur paused his mount at a shadowy intersection, keeping her within the darkness of a nonfunctioning street light. They watched as women, obviously prostitutes, strutted seductively up and down the street in their short skirts and stiletto heels, signaling to passing cars their intentions.

  Young men and teen boys lurked in the shadows here and there, waiting. Cars would pull up, and one of the young men would approach. Money was handed out the window in exchange for some kind of package. The cars quickly vanished into the night. After a couple of these exchanges, Arthur glanced at Lance quizzically.

  “I’ll explain later,” Lance whispered. “Don’t want ’em to see us.”

  Arthur nodded and then noticed a woman and a boy of about twelve meeting in front of a shabby, run-down single-story house with a dead front lawn and a battered shopping cart in the driveway. The boy handed his mother some change from his dirty pants pocket. The mother counted the money, frowned, and then slapped the boy hard across the face, almost knocking him to the ground.

  “This is all you got, you little shit!” she hollered, loud enough for the drug dealers and prostitutes to take notice. “Get yer ass back out there and get me some real money or else no supper!” The young boy, hand to the cheek that was slapped, backed away from his mother and turned to run down the street. The prostitutes laughed and returned their attention to lighting each other’s cigarettes.

  Before Arthur could react, the young boy had run straight in their direction. Lance touched Arthur’s shoulder nervously. “Let’s go,” he whispered, “before he sees us.”

  But it was too late. The boy rushed into their shadowed hollow and stopped short upon seeing the horse and her riders. Afraid he would call out, Lance hurriedly said, “It’s okay, kid. We won’t hurt you.”

  The boy looked anxiously up at man and boy, both with long hair, both dressed strangely, and then fixed his eyes on the horse. Gazing up at Arthur, the boy saw him smile kindly, and broke into a wide grin. “Wow,” he murmured, eyes huge with wonder, “I ain’t never seen a horse before.”

  “Me, neither,” assured Lance, to calm the boy. “Not before this one. Her name’s Llamrei. I’m Lance, and this is Arthur. What’s yer name, kid?”

  “Lavern,” the boy answered immediately, adding shyly, “Can I pet her?”

  “Of course,” replied Arthur. “Ye canst do more than pet her. Ye canst join our crusade.”

  Lavern turned his wide eyes from Arthur to Lance. “It’s cool,” Lance assured him. “Want to hear about it?”

  Lavern ceased petting Llamrei’s soft coat and nodded. So Lance told him. The boy soaked up every word and smiled broadly when Lance had finished.

  After leaving Lavern, Arthur and Lance rode on in this same fashion for several more hours before returning to Arthur’s “castle,” as Lance had dubbed it, to sleep.

  Lance chose not to go to school the next day so he could practice his swordplay and archery skills with Arthur. He enjoyed these times more than anything in his whole life. It wasn’t just the strength and power he was gaining with his growing expertise; it was Arthur, himself. Lance had never met anyone like him.

  Of course, if Arthur’s story about being from another time was true, there really hadn’t ever been anyone like him before. But it was more than that. He felt relaxed around Arthur, more than he’d ever felt around any grownup. Arthur was just… well… real.

  After resting that afternoon, he decided to show Arthur the pantheon of glitz, glamour, and sleaze in Los Angeles—Hollywood Boulevard. They set out that night in similar tunics and leather pants, and both sported a leather strap tied around the head to keep their hair in place. To the casual passerby, they likely appeared as father and son, despite Lance’s skin being of a browner shade than Arthur’s.

  Hollywood Boulevard, as always, teemed with nightlife, and it wasn’t even a weekend. Arthur walked alongside Lance, who rode his skateboard, and they navigated their way along the sidewalk against the press of bodies streaming in both directions, while the king’s eyes shifted rapidly from the endless sidewalk stars celebrating some celebrity, to the seething faces bobbing in and out of his field of vision from all sides.

  Whenever they came to a fire hydrant or other obstacle, Lance deftly ollied over it, much to Arthur’s enjoyment. He found much less enjoyment in the odd mix of people they passed on the street, from punkers and heavy metal rockers, to a large number of tattooed and facially pierced teens and younger kids hustling and bustling, likely homeless or runaways. But de
spite all these people slithering about, no one even glanced at their odd attire.

  “See,” Lance said, rolling up to Arthur and deftly flipping his board up and into his hand with ease, “I knew no one’d pay any attention to us here.”

  Arthur, nodded, appalled and fascinated at the same time. He gazed open-mouthed at the steady stream of honking cars, the eclectic variety of people, the flashing traffic lights, and blasting music from passing cars or open storefronts. He could never in his wildest nightmares have conjured such a world!

  The astounding progress of man on the one hand, and the astonishing degradation of human life on the other confounded him. How, he wondered, could humanity have come so far in its inventiveness, and yet place so little value on the human soul, on the human being in general? “Things” seemed in this world to be of much greater value than people.

  Suddenly, he stopped and pointed across the street. “What doth they be doing? It be similar to last night, and ye promised to explain.”

  Lance turned in the indicated direction. He saw a drug dealer selling a bag of something to a skinny blond boy with long, shaggy hair, who looked to be around fifteen, wearing dirty jeans and a wifebeater.

  “He’s a pusher, man, same as those guys we saw last night.”

  “A ‘pusher’?” Arthur repeated questioningly.

  “Yeah, ya know, dope?” When Arthur gazed blankly at him, Lance tried again. “Drugs, man. Ya know, they mess up yer head, make ya act crazy and shit. Meth is hot these days. Always weed. So’s smack. It ain’t fer me. Gotta keep my head clear for skating.”

  Arthur stared at Lance in horror. “Why hath no one stopped this?”

  Lance merely shrugged. “How? It’s everywhere, man.”

  Arthur turned and observed the dealer melt into the shadows of an alley as the shaggy-haired blond pocketed his purchase and sauntered off down the street, disappearing into the crowd. He shook his head in dismay, realizing anew the enormity of the task before him. How had humanity come to such a state?

  They continued walking until Arthur stopped at an electronics shop with several flat-screen TVs on display in the window. The TVs were running different movies and stations. Arthur’s lower jaw dropped open at the images. What manner of sorcery is this? he thought. Merlin, my old friend, if thou couldst only see the marvels of this world! Thine own magic shouldst seem quaint by comparison!

  Unable to pull his gaze away, he noted that one screen displayed a young couple preparing to have sex, while another showed a violent program with fighting and shooting, and the third presented some teens having fun smoking pot.

  Finally finding his voice, Arthur asked, “What be these images, Lance?”

  Lance finished a flip on his board and stepped to the window beside Arthur.

  “Oh, that’s just TV,” Lance said matter-of-factly. “It’s mostly for kids, to keep us busy. It’s cool, I guess. Me, I’d rather skate, you know?”

  Arthur looked askance at Lance and indicated the TV sets, his brow furrowed with dismay. “These images doth be for thine entertainment? For the entertainment of youth?”

  Lance shrugged. “Yeah, so?” He looked at Arthur in confusion.

  Arthur frowned and spoke his thoughts. “And if thou or other children do these things the images doth be doing, art thou punished by thine elders or the authorities?”

  Lance considered a moment, and then realized what Arthur was saying. His mouth dropped open in surprise. “Yeah, we are,” he said, shaking his head. “I never thought about it like that before. They either punish us or put us in jail.”

  Now it was his turn to look thoughtful as they moved away from the window and continued up the boulevard toward the Chinese Theatre. But now, as they walked, Lance began to see the world around him, his world, through Arthur’s very-foreign eyes, and suddenly it didn’t look so great anymore, all that street life and freedom he’d embraced for so long. Now, suddenly, it all looked pretty sad and sorry and… empty.

  THEY ended up at Eucalyptus Park in Hawthorne later that night because Lance wanted to show Arthur some of his skating moves. Even though the skate park was closed, Lance knew how to sneak in, as did all the neighborhood kids. It was well after midnight, and the area was deserted. It was a small skate park, no really big or daring ramps, but it was good enough to hone his skills on, and Lance had used it often.

  He regaled the delighted Arthur with a series of flips and spins and ollies, ups and downs on the various ramps, high-flying stunts, heel flips, calf wraps, space walks—Lance’s repertoire seemed endless. He always landed clean, always completed his moves with ease. Arthur found himself clapping with joy, much as he had as a child when Merlin used to do magic for him.

  Finally tired and sweaty, Lance skated over to Arthur and plopped down beside him. “What’d ya think?” he asked, breathless, pushing matted hair off his face.

  Arthur grinned at him. “I think ye be a marvel, young Lance. In my day we had jousts and swordplay and feats of strength, but nothing to equal the grandeur of thy movements. Ye soared like a majestic hawk.”

  Lance beamed with pride and flushed with embarrassment. “Thanks, Arthur. Nobody believes me, but I’m gonna be in the X Games one day. And I’m gonna win.”

  Arthur grinned again. “I’ve no doubt, my boy.”

  Lance smiled again, his eyes wide with gratitude.

  Arthur cleared his throat. “Lance, what doth be ‘The X Games’?”

  Lance threw back his head and laughed. He hadn’t laughed in so long it almost hurt his stomach. “I forgot you come from back in the day. Way back! Dude, the X Games is only the biggest skate competition in the world. They got ramps ninety-six feet straight down! And I’m gonna get me a gold medal.”

  Arthur nodded with a smile, thanking God, and no doubt Merlin, for leading him to such an amazing boy. Lance is the perfect First Knight, he thought to himself as he reached out and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

  Lance’s smile suddenly vanished, and he leapt to his feet. “What you doing, man?”

  Caught off guard, Arthur looked up at him in bewilderment. “I didst merely intend to congratulate thee on thine achievements.”

  Lance backed away and gripped his board in a defensive posture, as though he might use it as a weapon. His breaths came in short gasps, almost hyperventilating.

  “Lance, what doth be troubling thee?”

  Lance forced calm into his voice, forced air into his lungs.

  Breathe, Lance, breathe… it’s okay… it’s okay….

  “Sorry, Arthur,” he weakly muttered, his stomach churning, his nerves fraying. “I just… I just don’t like no one touching me. Okay?”

  Arthur nodded, not moving nor doing anything to further rattle the boy. “Okay,” he said.

  Lance looked at Arthur, uncertainty dancing across those poignant green eyes. “Are you mad at me?”

  Arthur shook his head but remained unmoving. “Of course not. Thou hast been a blessing to me. I doth be eternally grateful for thy help and thy presence.”

  Lance smiled again, his racing heart drawing down, his breathing returning to normal. “I’m sorry. It’s just….”

  Arthur held up a hand to silence the boy. “There doth be no explanation required, my boy.”

  Lance blushed, glad of the darkness to obscure it, and glanced down at his prized skating shoes. “Thanks, Arthur.”

  He dropped the board to his side as Arthur stood, and they walked quietly for a time further into the park proper. They approached a well-worn swing set and rusted-out jungle gym, Arthur sadly noting the graffiti scrawled all over the benches and play area.

  Lance halted near the rusty swings. “This be one of my favorite places, Arthur, not just cuz of the skate park, neither.”

  Arthur stopped beside him, cautiously eyeing the boy for fear of frightening him again. “Why is that?”

  “You won’t think me no girly-boy if I tell ya, will you?”

  “I doth not know what a ‘girly-boy’ is
.” He smiled to reassure Lance that no derision would be forthcoming.

  Lance glanced at the man shyly. “Sometimes, late at night like now, when there ain’t nobody around, I like to do the swings, ya know?”

  Arthur nodded. “Show me.”

  Lance glanced furtively around again, then eagerly, almost like a small child, leapt onto the nearest swing and started it moving. Kicking off with his legs, he soon had the swing soaring like a bird, almost at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, his long hair flying back like a cape. The chains creaked and groaned ever more loudly with pain the higher Lance flew.

  Arthur gaped at him in wide-eyed amazement, his own sense of childlike wonder coming to the fore.

  “C’mon,” Lance called from way up high. “Try it. It’s awesome!”

  Arthur hesitantly stepped to the swing next to Lance’s and sat down gingerly within the soft, curved seat. He attempted to move the swing, but scrunched his face in confusion when nothing much happened.

  Wildly swinging, Lance laughed with delight at Arthur’s puzzlement. “Kick out wit’ yer feet, Arthur!” he called. “Push against the ground and kick up when you start moving.”

  Arthur followed the boy’s instructions, and the swing began to move haltingly. After a few moments he got the hang of this simple, yet delightful, invention. Soon, a big smile breached his bearded face as they swung side by side, Arthur soaring nearly as high as his protégé.

  Lance could not help but laugh with joy. “Great, huh?”

  Arthur joined him in laughter. “It doth make me feel so free.”

  Lance laughed even harder. Next to skating, this was his favorite thing to do. “I know!”

  Filled with joy, the two friends swung back and forth for neither knew how long. Freedom had no time limit. They simply were, together, just being. And that was enough.

  Chapter 2

  WITHIN the Hollenbeck station, Ryan and Gibson stood before a large map of Los Angeles. Placed at varying points within the map were pushpins of differing colors. Both men noted the locations of the pins, attempting to triangulate from where the mysterious tagger might be coming.