Children of the Knight

by Michael J. Bowler

  Mark’s face looked as lost as Jack felt. “But he likes that teacher—I seen it in his eyes. ’Sides, he’s got too much honor, Jacky. No way he’d ever touch a kid that way, gay or straight. He’s too good.”

  Jack nodded and agreed. He knew Arthur was attracted to the teacher, and he knew Mark was right about the rest. But he still felt Mark should tell the king how he felt. Chicken shit! He cursed at himself. Like you’re telling how you feel?

  “He can’t love you the way you want, Mark,” Jack told him, fighting to keep his voice steady. Tell him you can, fool. Confess it now, before it’s too late! But all he said was, “But he’ll help you through the pain, just like he did with the smack.”

  Mark merely shook his head sadly. “That was different. Hell, Jacky, I don’ wan’ ’im to hate me!”

  Trembling with sorrow, and desire, Jack gently wiped the tears from Mark’s cheeks with his thumb, caressing the soft skin, biting back the almost overwhelming urge to kiss him. “He won’t, man. He couldn’t hate anyone.”

  Mark threw his arms around Jack’s protective shoulders as he’d done so often on the street when a john had beat him up or raped him viciously. “I can’t, Jacky, I just can’t. But it hurts so much to be around him, ya know?”

  Jack nodded, his breathing almost stopped, his arms encircling the most precious person in the world. “Yeah, I do know, Mark.” It was but a whisper of breath. “I know how that feels.”

  And so they stood that way for a long time, together in despair, until the reddish-gold light of sunset settled into the black inkiness of night.

  EUCALYPTUS PARK swarmed with news people and vans, operators setting up the news cameras, lighting techs putting the light stands in place and plugging lights into generators. Residents of the neighborhood, drawn by all the lights and noise, had gathered round to see what was happening. Helen Schaeffer, the Channel 7 News reporter, stood with her cameraman, giving him last minute instructions and going over notes. Jenny had called her and set up the interview with Arthur, as per the king’s request. Other news outlets were on hand to film the proceedings, but Helen had the exclusive interview all to herself.

  When Arthur made the request to Jenny, she at first wondered why he’d want so much publicity since the police were after him. But when he explained his purpose, the purpose of his entire crusade, her jaw had dropped in amazement, and respect. He may be crazy in thinking himself the King Arthur, but his goals were so ambitious, so lofty and positive that she couldn’t help but admire him. Despite her initial reservations, she realized that her first impression of the man she’d met in this very park had been correct. He was a good man who aimed to do good things.

  She stood to one side with Arthur and Lance, eyeing the curious spectators and the entire media circus with uncertainty. Would the public respond positively or negatively to Arthur’s message, she wondered with a sigh? They’d soon find out.

  Arthur shifted nervously, eyeing the huge cameras and electric lights with uneasy anticipation. He looked resplendent in his purple tunic, knee-high boots, and burgundy-red cloak, his circlet crown rounding his brow and restraining his long hair against a gentle breeze. He wore Excalibur in its sheath from a sword belt strapped around his waist.

  Beside him, Lance stood attired in similar fashion: bright green tunic, freshly scrubbed boots, clean drawstring pants, and a princely circlet that framed his luxurious long hair around his face. His own, slightly smaller sword, dangled from its sheath around his small waist. He was nervous because he knew he would be on TV, and he’d never done that before. But, he thought as they waited, I gotta get used to doing interviews for when I win the X Games. The fantasy drew a smile to his face.

  “Ye doth seem very relaxed, Sir Lance,” Arthur told him, readjusting his cloak and fiddling with his crown, again.

  Lance laughed gently. “Don’t be so nervous, Arthur, it’s only TV.”

  Arthur glanced at the boy with an anxious smile. “For someone of my time it doth be tantamount to sorcery.”

  Lance grinned, and Arthur returned it.

  Jenny, standing beside them, observed the exchange with wonder. So like father and son, she thought.

  Arthur noted her gaze. “Now it be thy turn to stare, Lady Jenny.”

  Jenny, who was not to be on camera and had dressed casually in Dockers and a long-sleeved blouse, blushed at being caught. “Sorry. I was just thinking how much you two… oh, never mind. I do wish you’d just call me Jenny, though.”

  Arthur gave a slight bow. “As you wish. Jenny. Doth thou still doubt me and mine intent?”

  “Not your intent, no. I think what you’re trying to do is… well, incredible. But you were right about me. I love what I teach more than who I teach. But it didn’t use’ to be that way. When I started teaching, I really loved those kids and wanted to get to know every single one of them.” She frowned and sighed. “But, I don’t know, the system just wore me down. It’s so one-size-fits-all and so focused on narrow outcomes that I guess I lost the kids along the way.” She shook her head. “When I saw you with those boys, and how much they admired you, cared for you… especially you, Lance, how much you’ve changed. I’m in awe.” She looked into Arthur’s sincere brown eyes. “You’re a better teacher than I’ll ever be.”

  Arthur offered a gentle, understanding smile. “Do not doubt thine own capacity to grow and learn. Nor mine.”

  Uncertain how to respond, she gave Lance’s attire, especially the sword dangling from his belt, another critical appraisal. “I do worry about you, Lance. You’re a special kid. I saw that from the beginning.”

  Lance smiled shyly and fought back the blush. “I’m not important, Lady Jenny. The needs of the whole company be worth more than the needs of the one. Right, Arthur?”

  Lance gazed admiringly upward at Arthur, who nodded, but didn’t respond. Jenny noted the obvious love and devotion Lance felt toward Arthur and fought down a touch of jealousy.

  Arthur turned and gazed at the cameras and struggled to control his emotions before the interview began. He understood from his earlier conversation with Helen that he would be asked questions, and he’d answer them, but he’d really be speaking to all the people of Los Angeles. This interview was his first step in gaining their allegiance. He needed to look and sound good.

  Helen stepped forward, microphone in hand. “We’re ready, Arthur. I’ll introduce you and then ask the questions we discussed.”

  Arthur threw off his anxiety and smiled. “I be ready, Lady Helen.”

  Arthur watched as Helen tested her microphone and did a quick sound check while the cameraman framed her face against the park as a backdrop. The red lights went on, and the cameras began rolling.

  Helen introduced herself and announced, “We have an exclusive interview with the mysterious King Arthur, who has raised many questions with his bizarre episode last month on Santa Monica Boulevard. Here to tell his story is King Arthur.”

  The cameraman turned his camera on Arthur, and the other camera operators followed suit. The lights and faces staring his way almost unnerved the king, but he kept his composure.

  “King Arthur,” Helen asked in a crisp, professional voice, “why don’t we begin with the basics. Are you in fact the King Arthur of legend, and if so, how is it possible that you’re here, in this country, in this time?”

  Arthur smiled shyly, shifting slightly as he looked into Helen’s expectant face. “Yes, Lady Helen, I am indeed the same King Arthur. As to how I arrived here in this place and time, I be not completely certain, though I have my suspicions. I do know that I arrived here with a purpose.”

  “And what is that purpose?” Helen asked professionally.

  Arthur gazed at her soberly. “To rescue the lost children of this land.”

  Helen nodded. “Like the boys with you that night on Santa Monica Boulevard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s talk about that incident we all saw on TV. What happened out there?”

  “The
boys I found that night are but a mere fraction of the lost and abandoned children on your city’s streets, Lady Helen,” Arthur explained. “Your police officers did not arrive to assist those lost ones, but rather to punish them. And me for helping them.”

  “The police insist those boys were male prostitutes and were breaking the law by being there,” Helen replied, doing her devil’s advocate job better than most in local TV news.

  Arthur shook his head sadly. “Those boys are children, Lady Helen, cast into the streets by their parents, forced to degrade themselves in order to survive. Doth ye believe they belong in jail for that?”

  “That’s not for me to say, King Arthur,” Helen responded smoothly. “That’s for the authorities to decide.” Inside, she was giddy. This was dynamite stuff!

  Arthur sighed. “Children are a gift, Lady Helen, and the hope of this or any country. Even in my own time, barbaric though it may seem to thee and thine today, we valued children, methinks, more than this generation. We did not have laws against children, and we punished those who abused or neglected or hurt them. These cast-off youth, whom your authorities seek not to aid, have become my new Round Table, dedicated to the cause of justice and the use of might for right.

  Jenny felt herself drawn further and further in as Arthur spoke so passionately about these discarded children he was recruiting.

  Helen asked her next question. “From our earlier discussion, you explained that many of these children you’ve recruited have been, or currently are in gangs, and have been actively defiant of the law. How do you plan to change their behavior?”

  “By example, Lady Helen,” Arthur replied with confidence. “And by giving them a purpose in life that befits their humanity. Measure my success not on what these youths have done in the past, but on what they do now and in the future.”

  “And what would you say to your critics who’d likely claim that these gang members you’ve recruited, while a sizable number, are not the most violent, hard-core ones out there, nor do they represent the real heads of the most dangerous gangs which plague this city?”

  Arthur merely shook his head in amazement. “Milady, criticism without alternatives and without a commitment to change is the purview of feckless politicians who, rather than make changes for the good, would maintain what be called in this era the status quo. Thus, their claims be without merit. As in all human history it is the few who doth step forward to effect real change, real improvements in the lives of others. That requires a measure of sacrifice the adult leaders of this city seem not willing to give.”

  He paused and guided Lance into the shot with him, arm around the boy’s slender shoulders. Lance blinked a moment under the harsh lights, but kept his eyes on Arthur as the man continued. “Are not the children with me now, like my Lance here, who seek a new and better way of life, sufficient? Are they not the beginning? Perhaps the beginning of the end of this seeming war against children? Must I turn the hearts of all to beeth in thine eyes a success? Thou and thine have not yet beheld what my knights can and shall do.”

  “And what will that be exactly?”

  Arthur looked straight into the camera, knowing he was speaking directly to the people. “Firstly shalt be the restoration of the very neighborhoods which spawned them, neighborhoods savagely neglected by those of your people in power.”

  “And how do you plan to carry out such an ambitious plan?”

  “I doth appeal to the good people of this city,” said Arthur earnestly. “Thy waste be our want. Anything thou canst spare will aid greatly our crusade. We should be grateful to accept any donation of whatever ye may be discarding. All shalt be put to good use.”

  “You do know,” Helen went on in a deliberately cautionary voice, “that if the police find you they’ll arrest you.”

  Arthur smiled and nodded. “Alas, the law and justice doth not always match up, Lady Helen. My knights, methinks, engender justice more than those who are supposed to.”

  As planned ahead of time, Helen now turned to Lance and shoved the microphone under his chin as the cameras all focused squarely on him, cutting Arthur out entirely.

  Watching his face on the TV monitor, Jenny again thought how beautiful the boy looked, how charismatic, how radiant.

  “Any final words, Sir Lance?” Helen asked expectantly.

  Lance looked at her soberly. “Yeah, I do got somethin’ ta say.” He turned his gaze to the camera. “I grew up with no family. When I’s a baby, my mom sold me for drugs. I don’t even got a real last name. DCFS put me in foster homes where I got locked in closets and beat up and abused and… worse stuff too.” He paused to compose himself and then gazed back into the camera, eyes shimmering beneath the lights. “I had nuthin’ growing up ’cept my skating, and I kill on a board. I’m goin’ to the X Games one day, an’ I’m gonna win a gold medal, so mark that all you people watchin’ out there.”

  Helen gave a slight, manufactured laugh of support.

  Lance half-smiled in response and then turned serious again. “But Arthur, he been everything to me. He took me in, he saved me, and he’s savin’ all these other kids too. You grownups out there who say you care about us kids out here, well you’re lying, cuz if you did care we wouldn’t be out here on the streets in the first place. Arthur cares, and he’s doin’ somethin’ about it. We’re doin’ somethin’ about it. You all like to pretend we’re adults when we get in trouble out here, and then you throw us in prison. Well if we’re so adult how come we can’t vote or even drive a car? I’m fourteen years old. I can go to prison, but I can’t drive a car.”

  He paused a moment to let that sink in, pinning those piercing green eyes right to the camera lens. “This Round Table we got going, we’re gonna show you all that we can be somethin’ in this world, that we’re important, that we can be better’n all the adults who been hating on us. Arthur—” He glanced at the king and grinned before turning back to the camera. “—well, he’s the once and future king, and us kids like me—we’re his future.”

  The onlookers watching the interview burst into spontaneous applause, as did the lighting crew and the van drivers. Lance beamed broadly, his face positively radiant under the camera lights.

  “Well, I can’t top that, Sir Lance. This is Helen Schaeffer with King Arthur and Sir Lance for Channel 7 News.”

  The cameras ceased, their red lights going dark. Helen was ecstatic. This was the best interview she’d ever snagged, and it might even win her some awards, hopefully a promotion to anchor. She gushed over Lance, as did all the other adults, praising his poise and his impassioned speech, clapping him on the back, and genuinely making him feel important and uncomfortable all at the same time.

  “Thank you, Arthur,” Helen said excitedly. “You were great. I’ve got to get back to the station so we can get this on air.” She turned to leave, and then hurried back. “On a personal level, I think what you’re doing is awesome and any time you need some coverage, just call me.” She slipped a business card into Arthur’s hand.

  He gazed at it questioningly, and a laughing Lance took it from him. “I’ll handle that, Lady Helen,” he told her with a sly smile. “Arthur don’t got the hang of cell phones yet.”

  Helen smiled and hurried to her van. In what seemed like minutes, all the news vehicles were packed up and pulling away.

  Arthur gazed at Lance, his eyes brimming with pride. “Thou art truly my greatest treasure, Lance.”

  The boy blushed and felt an intense urge to hug Arthur, but held back. He was supposed to be more grown up now, the First Knight who could take charge of an entire army at a moment’s notice, and he couldn’t bear to have Arthur think him weak. “Thanks, sire” was all he could manage without getting too emotional.

  At that moment, the onlookers from the neighborhood swarmed over and surrounded the duo, asking questions, shaking Arthur’s hand, offering encouragement, offering donations of stuff they didn’t need, all of which pleased the king. Some of the kids knew Lance from MTS and marv
eled at his clothes and wanted to hold his sword, asking what seemed like a thousand questions at once.

  Jenny fell back, away from the crowd. Crowds made her nervous and uncomfortable. While happy for Arthur, and especially moved by Lance’s powerful speech, she’d developed a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that, great as Arthur’s crusade was in theory, in practice it could easily spiral out of control. And what would happen to these kids then?

  So mobbed were Arthur and Lance by the neighbors that they didn’t even see Jenny slip away. Later, when the crowd had dispersed, Arthur sought her out hopefully, but she was long gone. He and Lance, feeling triumphant, mounted Llamrei and headed for home.

  Chapter 8

  AN HOUR later, the interview aired after numerous promos piquing viewer interest in the story. Within the Hollenbeck Station, Ryan and Gibson sat before the flat-screen TV to watch, along with every other detective on duty. Ryan scowled with disgust as Arthur’s interview unspooled on the television before him. Gibson stood beside him, absently sipping from his Diet Coke, shaking his head in amazement. And, he had to grudgingly admit, admiration. This guy might be outside the law, but at least he was trying to do something. That’s more than could be said of the mayor and city council.

  When Lance’s interview came on, the murmuring that had accompanied Arthur’s answers ceased, and silence fell over the cops. The officers listened to every word the boy spoke, and many grudgingly nodded because they knew he spoke the truth.

  “Hellfire!” Ryan spat to his partner as soon as the interviews ended. “Get that woman on the phone. I wanna know where this interview was shot!”

  Gibson, stunned by Lance’s harsh indictment of him and all the other adults in power, had to pull himself back into the moment. “Huh? Oh yeah, you got it.” He turned toward his desk, set down his Diet Coke, paused, and then turned to face Ryan, his voice tentative, his thoughts conflicted. “Say, Ry. You ever wonder something?”