My Doorbell Rang

by

Cole Parker

colepark@gmail.com

Mark

My doorbell rang. I hit a key on my computer and uttered a word unacceptable in polite company. As I had no company, no one was offended.

I’m a writer; the words had been flowing and my fingers flying. Ideas were erupting like lava, hot and angry, and my computer, had it not been so inanimate, would probably have been smiling at the beauty of what I was creating. Ideas had been spewing, the ideas like volcanic ash, filling the room and house. I’d just figured out how my hero could escape from the clutches of the torture-meister who was advancing on him with a delighted and despicably cruel look in his eyes and a blowtorch in his hands when the goddam doorbell rang!

Why hadn’t I turned the damn thing off?

My bad.

Grinding my teeth, I got up and answered the bell. I yanked the front door open and said, “Yeah?” in my growly voice. Then I had to look down, because the person ringing my bell was much shorter than I was.

He looked to be about 12 or 13 to me, maybe even a bit older. I can’t tell with kids. I don’t have anything to do with kids. I’m a thirty-five year old man with no interest at all in children, so why should I be able to tell their ages? They go their way, I go mine, and hopefully our paths never cross. Which is fine as the best of them, if there is such a thing, are nuisances. What I was facing now was small and young, and I wanted nothing to do with him. My hero needed me to return to my computer to effect his dramatic rescue.

Kids! This was just what I didn’t like about them, among many other things. They got in your way at the most inappropriate times, probably to sell raffle tickets to a fair at their school where I could win a quilt made by their Home Ec kids. Wonderful! I didn’t need no fuckin’ quilt!

Anyway, this kid was standing there, and I’d spoken to him sharply, my mood not being pleasant at the moment and my mind being mostly far away and concerned with blowtorches, flinching, as someone dear to me was about to be tortured. When the kid didn’t speak, I looked down at him and saw trepidation on his face. Maybe it had already been there, or maybe my looming presence and sour voice had caused it. Okay, I’m not a monster. He looked small and scared and uncertain and I’d swear I could see tear tracks on his cheeks.

There wasn’t all that much of him. Very slender, skeletal, actually. Wearing shorts as it was August and still warm as a sweat lodge. Shorts and a plain tee shirt; the shorts had seen lots of years of service, and I saw the shirt was wrinkled up near the neck, just the sort of wrinkle that would be caused by someone grabbing it there, maybe lifting the boy off his feet with a tight grasp on that shirt.

I’m a writer. Imagining things like this is where the bucks come from.

He looked like he wasn’t going to speak. Then almost like he was going to cry. He took a quick glance over his shoulder, which was odd because he should have been afraid of me, not whatever was behind him. But he looked, then swallowed before seeming to stand a bit taller. His eyes almost meeting mine, he said, “I . . .” and then, courage failing, he dropped his head.

He was short enough that I could easily see over the top of his head. Out in the street, past my walk, past the sidewalk, I saw three boys looking my way. They looked older than the one at my door, and they were all staring at me. Or us. In any case, they were staring.

I dropped my eyes back to my interloper and eased back on the intimidation. “Sorry. Bad mood. Can I help you?” Sounding almost civil, especially for someone who’d been interrupted and hated to be disturbed. Coupled with the fact that I didn’t like children, it was difficult not to be surly.

He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and in the pause when he should have been answering me, his shoulders trembled, and I was pretty sure if he didn’t cry, it was because he was fighting it as hard as he could.

Okay, if he wasn’t able to speak, I certainly could. In an even softer voice than before, I asked, “Those guys, they messing with you?”

He didn’t look up, but he nodded.

“You want to come in?”

He hesitated, then nodded again.

I stepped aside and he entered. I closed the door. I looked out the window next to the door and saw the three boys; they stood silently, watching the house for a moment, then turned and walked away.  I saw the biggest one slap one of the other ones on his back, and all three laughed.

Okay, so now the boy was in my house. What now? The other three were gone, so I could just shoo this one out and go back to my computer. That’s what I should do, I knew. But the boy looked so defeated. Miserable. Yeah, I could just shove him out the door, but I had to live with myself, too, and prove to my own satisfaction that I was human. I was reminded of John Donne and his piecemeal island. I was looking at one of the pieces he wrote about.

The boy was still looking down, shoulders slumped, with not a clue what to do.

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” I said, speaking civilly. “I’ll get you something to drink, and if you want, you can tell me what’s going on. Don’t have to. Don’t have to talk at all.”

He followed me to the kitchen. I lived alone and so had no need for a large house, and mine wasn’t. It was a single story, had two bedrooms, a large living room where I’d fixed one corner up with a desk and some bookcases and quite a bit of computer stuff; that was where I wrote. Then there was the kitchen and a bathroom. That was about it other than the basement.

There weren’t many rooms, but the rooms that were there were larger than in many modern tract houses. This house was older, made back when workmen appeared to have had more pride in what they did. Maybe large rooms were the way of the era when it was built. That would explain mine.

The house was in an older residential section of town. Quiet and peaceful. Not far from the town’s middle school. Maybe that was why the boy had made it to my door, probably running from the other three.

Bullies, I guessed. I didn’t like bullies. Hadn’t when I was young, back when I still expected the world to be a fair place. Yeah, that long ago. When I was still innocent.

I pointed to a chair at the table where I ate in the kitchen, then got a can of Coke from the refrigerator and set it in front of him. Doing that, I sat down and looked him over.

He didn’t look like much. Like many other boys his age, I guess. Not bad looking, but no teen magazine-cover-picture looks, either. I guess at his age one really couldn’t tell what he’d look like ten years from now. He had scattered, light-brown hair uncombed, unbrushed, just a mess of tonsorial inelegance. Was that the current style? I had no idea. He had regular features, no acne, thin shoulders that seemed perpetually slumped, no noticeable muscles anywhere.

He opened the can and drank half of it down. Must have been dry.

I watched him. His movements weren’t precise, were a bit awkward, suggesting to me that he was no athlete. He was sitting on the very front edge of his chair, looking like he was ready to run at a moment’s notice.

He wasn’t going to speak. That was clear. I waited a bit longer, then asked, “These guys bother you a lot?”

He didn’t look up but did answer. Soft voice, unbroken, whispery. “Yes, sir.” When I didn’t respond, he probably felt he should say more because he did. “Almost every day. When I’m leaving school, walking home.”

“What do they do to you?”

“Shove me around. Knock me down. Sometimes hit me. Dump my backpack. Mess up what’s in it. Laugh at me when I’m on the ground. Threaten to kick me. Sometimes . . . it’s not always just a threat.”

I digested that. He didn’t feel the need to continue. So I asked, “Do you know why? Have you done something that’s caused them to do this?”

“I don’t know.” He actually looked at me to say this. Maybe anger was emboldening him. Then he shook his head and looked down again. He appeared to be defeated.

It was mid-afternoon, just after school let out, I assumed. I should have been writing. Instead, I was sitting in my kitchen, practically babysitting. But for some reason, I didn’t feel like kicking him out and going back to work. If you see a lost and miserable small dog in the park, your better nature tells you to pick it up and take it home, to be kind to it. That was how I was feeling here.

“Have you told anyone? Your parents, the school?”

He took a drink, then another. The can was empty when he set it down. He raised his eyes this time, and I could see more of the defeat I’d felt from him before.

No life in his voice at all when he said, “I don’t have any parents. I live in a group home for boys.”

I gritted my teeth. Group home. I hated the sound of that. I hated that boys like him existed. One reason I didn’t like boys was that with them, there was always drama. All sorts of problems. All sorts of needs. Just like now.

“How do they treat you at the home?”

Why was I asking that? None of my business, and it wouldn’t be no matter what he said. It dawned on me that I liked the fact I’d gotten him talking, though. Strange. Very out of character for me. Easier to get rid of him if he remained silent.

“Okay, I guess.” He grimaced. “They’re pretty strict about how we act with each other. No fighting; they don’t even like us to argue. The couple that’s in charge, they’re okay. But they’re old. They do the best they can.”

“Have you told them about these three boys?”

He took a moment to answer that, like he was wondering if I’d like the answer he was going to give. Wondering if he’d be better off not telling the truth. But he answered truthfully. I could tell. I’m pretty good at that.

“No. I don’t think they could do anything about it, and it would make them feel bad. They have ten boys to look after. I don’t want to give them a problem if I don’t have to. I don’t want to be sent away. Anyhow, I doubt they’d be able to do anything about those three. Maybe they’d call the school. Maybe those kids would get called in and spoken to. If so, after that, it would be worse for me. Better not to tell.”

“And you haven’t told anyone at school for the same reason?”

He nodded.

“What’s your name?”

A pause. He wasn’t sure he should answer. But then he did. “Brody. Brody Simons.”

“How old are you, Brody?”

“I’m 13.”

“Eighth grade,” I said, and he didn’t bother to respond.

I had to think. I could help him, but I was a writer. Not someone who rescued ineffectual boys. Yet I hated bullies. Always had. I could make Brody’s life easier, and why shouldn’t I? It wasn’t like I was on any sort of deadline. My endangered hero could bide his time.

I had several reasons to just shoo the kid out, among them the fact that I didn’t like kids. That was a poor reason not to help someone who needed help, though, and if I’d ever met anyone who needed help—which I had—Brody’s inability to save himself would put him near the top of the list. He did look miserable.

Should I take the bull by the horns, step in, fix this, and then get back to my story? I seemed to be working my way into considering that. It was 180° out of character for me, though.

Just to keep the conversation alive, I said, “Well, Brody, you shouldn’t have to be afraid to walk home after school. I’m very into minding my own business, but you sound like someone who has a problem you can’t solve by yourself. Would you like me to get those boys to leave you alone? Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Mark Saunders. I’m a writer, and so I’m home most of the time. I have superpowers: I can stop them from bullying you.”

He didn’t answer. He only raised his eyes briefly to see if I looked as insane as I’d sounded, then dropped them again. I knew why, and I felt for him. How awful it must be when the world seems such a hard place, and even harder when one has no way to control anything. He didn’t know what would happen if things changed. My meddling could change things for the worse as likely as for the better. What if I spoke to someone, anyone, but the result was just three boys who now had a larger chip on their shoulders? Would that be possible? How was he supposed to know what was possible?

I waited him out. He’d played with his empty can, looked around the kitchen, breathed. He seemed to be waiting me out, too. I won. It seemed easy to have more patience than a just-teen boy.

“How could you do that? What would you do?” He actually met my eyes to ask that. He didn’t sound hopeful, though. More like he only wanted information.

“Well, Brody, I can do a lot of things. What I’m doing right now, as I said, is being a writer. Action stories. I haven’t always been a writer, though. I became one when I retired. But I’d have no problem meeting these boys of yours and reasoning with them, setting them straight. I could make them understand that from now on you were off limits to them. I can be persuasive. They would believe me and leave you alone. This wouldn’t come back to bite you in the ass.”

He had no reason to believe me, and I could see he didn’t. I could even see him react to the word ‘ass’. Boys thought adults didn’t understand their worlds, and they were probably right about that most often. Boys, especially at his age, lived in a world much different from the one adults inhabited. Boys like Brody lived in a world of trepidation, and their main goal each day was to survive unhurt.

“What if it just makes them madder? What if they beat me up every day after that?”

I heard the passion, the growing worry, even fear in his voice. I responded to that. “I’d make sure they wouldn’t. You’d be free of them. I know you have no way of knowing I can do that, of knowing this won’t make things worse for you. But would you like it if I could? Like it that they left you alone afterwards?”

“Well, sure, but I don’t know how you can. They’re in a grade higher than mine so I don’t really know them at all. But I’ve heard the biggest one, the leader—his name is Zach Hollister—his dad is a bigwig. Important in town. That the school authorities won’t do anything to Zach because of who his father is.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Okay. We’ll plan this out and then take care of it. You probably need to get home. Come here tomorrow instead of walking straight home. We’ll figure out what we’re going to do then. Look, I’m going to walk home with you today. Can you come here safely after school tomorrow? Or do they meet you right outside school?”

“They’re usually waiting for me about a block away from school. They grabbed me today. Zach grabbed my shirt and pulled me up off the ground, told the other two to hit me. I jerked away and my shirt was yanked out of his hand; he couldn’t hold onto it. I hit the ground on my feet and took off running. They chased me. They were getting closer; they’re bigger and can run faster. They were about to catch me, and I ran up to your door, hoping somehow they wouldn’t get me. They hesitated when they saw me run to your door. You opened the door and saved me.”

Whew! I didn’t know he could say that much. But I could hear the fear he was remembering as he related the incident. Me, I was surprised. I’d done so little to save him. All I’d done was open the door.

“They didn’t follow you to the door because they’re cowards like most bullies,” I told him. “They realized a man might come to that door; that made them back off. You know, I’m thinking we don’t need to wait till tomorrow to make a plan.”

I got him another Coke. He drank half of it without lowering the can. Then he set it down, and I told him what he should do tomorrow. He wanted to argue, but I was persuasive. He finally agreed.

Now all we had to do was wait for tomorrow.

I walked him home. We didn’t see the three boys on the way.

Brody

Whoa! My head is fuzzy! It’s hard for me to believe what’s happening. What I’m feeling. I need some time to think about it. I live by trying to survive the moment. Not thinking ahead, not remembering, just staying in the present. I try to concentrate on being in one piece and still fully functional when tomorrow comes. I’ve had lots of practice at this.

I can’t say what I’m feeling right now because I haven’t had these kinds of thoughts, these kinds of emotions before, and I have to think about it. Maybe once I did feel something like this before, but not as long as I can remember.

I’m wondering something, though. Not sure why as it’s a brand new thing, but maybe, just maybe, what I’m feeling is hope.

That’s a brand new feeling for me. It takes some getting used to. Is it real?

Mark

The plan Brody and I had come up with was pretty basic. My part, playing the tough guy who lived somewhere on the sociopathic spectrum, was easy. The hard part of the plan was the part that Brody had to do on his own. That could have been avoided, but I thought it would be good for him to be involved. Afterwards, he could think back on it, remember how scared he was but that he’d done it anyway. My hope was that this might be a first step toward developing some personal pride. The way I read him, Brody was a boy who needed to be prouder of himself than he was at the moment. The boy had zero self-confidence and even less self-respect.

His part was a little tricky. It depended on the three boys being consistent. Brody was pretty sure they’d be after him the next day as they’d missed out on getting their jollies when he’d escaped them. He’d made them look feckless. They’d be wanting to make up for that. We’d leverage that desire against them.

My house wasn’t far from Brody’s school, and that area of town had a lot of older houses, the sort that were built before the more modern trend of having garages attached, a contiguous part of the house. I had a detached garage, like many of my neighbors.

When Brody got out of school, the plan was for him to walk in the direction he usually did. He wasn’t to go all the way to where the three boys always waited, probably in concealment; they would grab him as he walked past. But for our plan, he wasn’t going to do that. Instead, following the plan, he would stop a ways short of where the boys waited, then stand still, knowing it wouldn’t be long before one of the boys would impatiently stick his head out from where he was hiding. Boys that age don’t have much patience or staying power; peeping out was almost a given.

Brody told me later that that was exactly what happened: one of the boys sneaked a look, Brody peeked, saw it and took off running toward my house. He had a healthy head start on his three pursuers, far enough that he could make his next move credible. He ran to my door, knocked on it, only waited a second or two, then looked back, waited till he saw the boys coming and could see him, and he jumped off my stoop and ran to my garage, opened the side door and slid inside, closing the door after him. That was the tricky part, first, not getting caught, and second, making sure they were able to get just a glimpse of him running into the garage. It had to look like he was hiding.

The boys didn’t hesitate. They took the bait like a trout to a well-cast fly. They ran to the garage, burst through the door, and when they were all inside where Brody was waiting for them, I stepped out from behind the boxes that were concealing my presence and slammed the door loud enough to make them jump.

They all stopped and turned to look at me. They’d been grinning triumphantly when they ran in. They lost those grins faster than a cheetah on the African veldt.

“Well now,” I said in my roughest voice. “Look what we have here! Just like the three blind mice, caught in Brody‘s trap, about to get their tails clipped.”

Two of the boys looked scared. The other one, a little taller, a little stronger looking, said, “Fuck you. You can’t touch us.”

I stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. He doubled over, and I said, “Fair’s fair; why should you have all the fun,” and slapped each of the other two. Not terribly hard, but hard enough to capture their attention and ratchet up their awareness that I wasn’t someone to think nonchalant thoughts about. I was a real, actual person to be afraid of.

After the slaps, I smiled as ugly a smile as I could and said, “That’s what Brody has felt like, getting hit by someone when there was nothing he could do about it because you guys were bigger and he was outnumbered. How’d you like that, huh? Not much fun when you just have to take it, is it? Not much fun when you realized it can happen again and again and you’ll still not be able to stop it. When you know I can do anything I want and you just have to accept it. How does that make you feel? Huh?”

The one who’d spoken before was regathering his breath, and he finally stood up almost straight again. He tried to look tough. Tried to sound that way, too. “You have no idea the trouble you’re in now. You hit a minor, and I have two witnesses to it. My dad has a lot of pull in this town. He’s tight with the police, too.”

“Damn, you’re right!” I said. “I forgot about the witnesses who could testify. I was just going to work you over a bit, convince you to leave Brody here alone, let you feel some of the pain you’d given him, feel some of the helplessness he felt. But I didn’t think it through. I don’t want the police coming calling on me. I’ve had past problems, um, with them. Poor behavior on my part. Well, they called it something much worse. Court wasn’t much fun, and prison . . . You’d better believe, I’m not going down again. So, I can’t have any witnesses. Only one way to be sure no one’ll know what I just did. No one saw you come in here. I can do what I need to do.”

Saying that, I reached behind me to where I had my Bowie knife in a scabbard strapped to my belt. It was an evil looking thing, and the light dancing off the blade as I moved it around, tossing it from one hand to the other, didn’t help their courage at all. All three boys paled and backed away as far as they could when they saw it.

“You better leave, Brody.” I advised. “This’ll be messy. Better you don’t witness this. Then you can swear on the stand—we might go to court; you never know. But if we do, which most likely won’t happen, you didn’t see nothin’. You’ll get off scot-free. So’ll I. No one knows they came here so I doubt there’ll ever be a trial. These guys will just be runaways who disappeared. Never seen again. Happens all the time. Runaways often just disappear. Who’ll ever know otherwise?

“Now, you just skedaddle. I’ll just have to figure out what to do with the bodies. Maybe burn the bodies. Or the pieces of them. Easy enough to do that.”

I took a step forward, closer to the three boys. Brody moved toward the door but didn’t leave. His remaining was part of the script.

“Stop!” Zach yelled at me. He was shaking like the other two, but still able to speak. “My old man’s rich. He’ll pay you a fortune; let me go.”

“So I kill these other two and let you live? You want me to trust that you won’t squeal? Really?”

He hardly hesitated. “Whatever. If that’s how you want it. I’ll call him now; he’ll tell you to let me go.”

“You touch your phone, you get the knife first!” I spoke with true menace in my voice. Then I turned to the other boys. “You see how much you mean to him? He doesn’t give a fuck what happens to you. Only worried about himself. I haven’t decided if killing you is the best thing to do. Maybe there’s a way to be sure you won’t talk about any of this. In any case, whether you live or die, you’ll know that old Zach here doesn’t give a shit about either of you.”

I took another step closer. They were all shaking. I let them feel the fear for another moment, then said, “You know, this shouldn’t be up to me. This is Brody’s problem. He should decide what happens to you. If he wants you dead because of all the pain and worry you’ve caused, we’ll go that route. Or maybe he’d be satisfied if I just work you over, black eyes, broken noses, missing teeth, the whole deal. I’ll leave it up to him. Thinking about it, this witness shit Zach spoke of? You can go fuck yourself too, Zach. Why? Because I also have a witness: Brody.”

I turned to Brody. “What do you want me to do?”

Brody hadn’t liked this part of the plan, either. He’d wanted me to do all the talking. I told him this was his deal, and he had to be part of it. That if he spoke up, showed no fear, looked all three in the eyes one by one, that would be major. Major improvement of his stature. It would seal the deal. They’d see they were being confronted by a force to be reckoned with, not the sniveling weakling nobody that they’d thought he was. He had to do this, and not show any weakness while doing so. We’d worked out a script for him, and I could see he was ready. He saw them all cowering; as they appeared now, they were far from the menace they liked to present.

He stepped forward and faced Zach. “If I let him hurt you like you did me, I’d be just like you. You like to bully weaker kids. I’m not like that. You’re sadistic and I’m not. What I’m going to do is, I’m not going to allow him to do anything to you. Nothing at all. But before you go, you are going to do something for me. You’re going to admit what you’ve been doing to me, apologize for it, and agree that from now on you’ll stay far away from me. I’m going to make a video of you saying this. Then you’ll stay here while I go inside, print out what you say in the video as a document, print it and have each of you sign it. Then I’ll have both a video and signed confession.

“If you ever bother me again, I’ll post your confession on the internet. Everyone will see it. I’ll also give a copy of the video and the signed confession to the police and the school principal.”

He took his phone out and told them to go ahead.

He was smart. He started with the two followers and ended with Zach. The two followers were so scared they’d have done anything they were asked to do. The leader heard them confess, looked at me, and then he did the same. All three of them sounded scared. They looked it, too. Posting that video on the internet would do nothing to support their macho image. They’d lose all the cred they had at school.

“Now just wait here. I’ll be back when I’m back.” Brody turned to me. “Don’t touch them while I’m gone. We will NOT sink to their level; we’re bigger people than they are, and we don’t solve our problems with violence.” There was a lot of strength in his voice, more than there’d been before. Evidently, hearing them confess, hearing them do what he’d told them to do, seeing them cower, seeing them shaking in their shoes—it had all made an impact.

When he left, I closed the door and turned back to them. They shrank away.

“I heard what Brody said,” I sneered, “but he’s a nice guy. I’m not. You guys haven’t suffered enough. All the times you picked on him—that doesn’t even out with you only having been punched or slapped once. You need a reminder of what pain is if you fuck this up. And the humiliation of not being able to defend yourselves against someone bigger than you. That’s what Brody felt.

“And hear this. If you think once you’re out of here, you can ignore what you said, the video, the papers you’ll sign, then you’re missing something important. I was ready to ace you a few moments ago. I still am. I’ve killed several people in my life, people who deserved it. Did some time inside, too. Three more’s no problem at all; I know how to hide the evidence. I hate bullies. Really hate them. Dealt with them as a kid; dealt with them when I was inside. Getting rid of three more would be something to make the world a better place. I’d be happy to do it.

“Anyway, that’s for the future. For right now, I think you earned a little more pain than you’ve already had, a reminder that I’ll be watching.”

I said that and then punched Zach again in the stomach, then followed up with the other two. I hit them pretty hard. Get hit in the stomach like that, you can’t breathe; you can’t get any air in and think you’re going to die. You don’t. You might pass out, though. If you do, that allows you to breathe again. But before that, it’s scary as hell, not being able to catch a breath.

They were effective punches. All three went down. I don’t know if they passed out or not. They lay perfectly still, but if I were them, I’d have faked being out of it, too. They well might have done that.

By the time Brody was back, though, they’d had enough time to recover. They were all sitting up. Probably thinking it would be harder for me to hit them again if they weren’t on their feet. Brody had papers for them to sign, and they did.

“You can go now,” Brody told them. “But you come near me again, you know what I’ll do. I’ll also tell my friend here, and he’ll come looking for you. Be interesting to see if the police get you for assault before he finds you with vengeance in mind. Myself, I’d hope for the police.”

They headed out of the garage as quickly as they could, the two followers out in front this time. I grabbed Zach’s arm as he passed by me. I squeezed his bicep till he squealed.

“Tell your big old scary, very important dad that if he wants to discuss this with me, he’d better bring a bodyguard with him. Someone strong enough to carry him home.” Then I gave him a push out the door. “Bring a policeman, even. Just make sure it’s not one of the ones I’m paying off. Those three like the monthly income they’re getting and wouldn’t want to see it stop.”

Brody and I went back to the house. Brody had a nervous grin on his face, and his eyes were brighter than I’d seen them before. His words, though, still sounded worried. “Do you think that’s the end of it. They won’t come back at me?”

“What do you think will happen if they do?” I asked.

“Well . . . I don’t know. Would you really have killed them?”

“Of course not. I had to make them think so, though. I’d guess they’ve learned that messing with you will bring more trouble than the joy they’d get out of revenge. They also saw you stand up for yourself, meaning you won’t go down so easily next time, and then they’d have to watch their backs. Too, I’m hoping Zach won’t have those two buddies hanging with him any longer.”

“But if . . .”

“Brody, you got out of this problem. Yeah, I helped, but you were a big part of it. That should mean something to you. What you need, what you’re short on, is self-confidence. Some personal pride. You don’t seem to have much at all.”

I stopped because he wasn’t liking what I was saying, but I thought it important that he hear it. Still, I took some of the intensity from my voice as I continued.

“Look, you can’t ever know what’s going to happen next, but you need confidence that you’ll be able to face it and deal with it, whatever it is. That’s what today should have given you: some of that necessary confidence. If you don’t have that, you’ll worry yourself to death about things that might never happen.”

He shook his head. “Telling me this doesn’t do any good! You’re right; I don’t have any confidence! How am I suppose to get some? Telling me what I need isn’t any help at all.”

“You won’t like my answer, but it’s true: you have to find your own.”

“How?”

What a big question. He had to find it within himself. He had to stop fearing everything. But I couldn’t tell him how people did that. Everyone did it on their own, and their personality had a lot to do with it. I could only make a suggestion.

“Little by little, Brody, you’ll gain confidence by doing things. Maybe they’ll be some things you’re afraid to try. Do them, and succeed or fail, you’ll build your confidence just because you stepped up to the plate. You tried.”

He had another Coke. I didn’t get it for him. I pointed to the refrigerator, and he got it himself. He drank from it like usual, gulping it down. He looked up at me, burped, blushed, and said, “We never have Coke at home.”

I guessed he was trying to change the subject. But he needed to hear this, to think about it. It seemed to me that at the moment, thinking about the future was a step too far for him.

I liked him. I didn’t know why, but I did. And the way he spoke to those boys in the garage told me he had the stuff in him to change himself. I knew he’d be happier if he were able to do that.

But was this my fight? No. Absolutely not. Still . . .

I knew I was making a mistake even before I said it, but this kid had gotten under my skin. He seemed so defenseless. Guileless, too. So innocent. That a boy like this had been so ill-treated got to me. I wanted him to find a better version of himself. Maybe not find it but instead, build it. I thought he could do it. Maybe with an ounce of help.

“Brody, if you want, you can come here after school. To do homework or talk or whatever you want.”

“Really?”

I frowned. “The thing is, I don’t like kids. And I tend to be grouchy and ill-tempered. But there’s something about you. I kinda like you, which for me is very odd. Maybe the feelings I’m having won’t last. Probably won’t. But I think you need someone in your life, someone you can talk to, answer your questions, teach you things like how to survive better than you are now; someone you can rely on. Maybe I can be that guy for a short time, just until you don’t need me. But it’s up to you if you want that.”

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” he said, his voice much more alive, much more positive than I’d ever heard it before, and he chugged the rest of the Coke. Then he looked right at me and said, “Zach’s going to tell his father what happened today. What’ll you do then?”

Mark

I didn’t have long to wait. It was later that evening when, at my computer I heard the doorbell ring again, followed immediately by banging on the door. Damn. I’d rescued my hero from the blowtorch, but now he was in his bedroom and there was a naked lady walking seductively up to him, the smile on her face was . . . Well, my mind was anywhere but in opening the door.

I hit the key on my keyboard that activated the camera showing who was at the door and saw two men. They looked like the type who weren’t there selling women’s undergarments or asking for donations for homeless shelters. They were the type who had something more strenuous on their minds.

I walked to the door and opened it. “Yes? Can I help you with something?”

They were both large men. Not taller than I was but much broader, heavier, ferocious-er. Uglier, too, but that was a value judgment. If I was to describe them in one word, that word would be ‘brawlers’.

“Yeah,” one of them said. “Step outside, we need to explain something to you.”

“Who sent you?” I asked.

“Fuck a barrel of ‘who sent yous.’ Come out here. You really don’t want us inside.”

“Well, okay, but let’s get something straight. You want something, I want something. You’re not going to get what you want, which is to teach me a lesson the hard way. I will get what I want, which is to confirm who sent you. I know already, but confirmation makes for a less guilty conscience later on when I take care of this.”

“Oh, we’ll get what we want—uh, do what we want.” The one who’d not spoken before said this, sounding a bit like that for him, making the language work properly was testing his capability.

“Step back a few paces and I’ll come out,” I said, and they did.

“Middle of the lawn,” I suggested. “Be softer on you when you go down.”

They looked at each other, smiled, and moved to the middle of the lawn.

“Now look,” I said moving with them but staying a few paces away. They turned to face me, and I held up my hand in a traffic-cop-stopping-cars gesture. “Only fair if I tell you. I do like fairness. It’s just this: I’m better at this than you are. One of you is going to be badly hurt. The other will tell me who sent you so he won’t share the hurt. Okay, let’s do this. Bring it.”

They looked at each other again. No smiles this time. Then one said, “There are two of us, asshole.” I guessed they were used to their victims being scared; it unnerved them that I wasn’t.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You need three, but you didn’t know that, and maybe the guy paying you couldn’t afford more than two. I’ll ask again: who sent you?”

“Fuck you,” the one who liked saying that said, and then they both came for me.

Two together presents a problem of coordination. I wondered if they’d done this before as a duet, and if so, if their opponent had been scared and so it was easy for them. Now they came at me together, but one was slightly in front. He lowered his shoulder at the last moment. Going for a tackle or just a knockdown. He’d probably played football at some point. Maybe even been good at it. He was big enough.

But lowering his shoulder also lowered his head at the last moment and so he didn’t see what I was doing. I simply stepped to the side and stuck out my leg. He tripped, and as he started falling, I pushed him into the path of his partner.

With both on the ground, one on top of the other, it was pretty easy. I slammed my heel into the kidney of the one on top, putting some weight behind it. He started to scream, and with his mouth open, I kicked like I was executing a 50-yard field goal and his jaw was the ball. I made solid contact. As expected, when his teeth jammed together with the blow, he was knocked unconscious.

He was still on top of the other one. I put my foot on the unconscious one’s back, holding him in place and keeping the other from rising. I spoke to the conscious one. “Okay, see, it’s like this. You tell me who sent you. Then I let you drag your buddy out of here. Don’t tell me and I’ll break your leg. You have till I count to five. One, two, thr—”

“It was Mr. Hollister.”

“Smart move. You can go now. You’re dismissed.” I went back into the house.

Dressed in my all-black outfit—trousers and a long, loose-fitting tunic—and with eye black on my exposed skin to make myself as invisible as possible in the dark, I visited the Hollister abode. It was 2:15, the deadest dead part of morning, and I’d seen nothing: no cars, no late dog walkers, no cop patrols, no teenagers learning how different it was with a partner than with a hand wandering home in euphoria as I’d made my way to the Hollister house. I’d located it on my computer, checked out the neighborhood. Ritziest part of town. Large houses. Quiet in the wee hours.

I walked around the house after verifying there was no outside area detection. No lights flooding the yard as I walked past it. I guessed that in this neighborhood, no one felt any need for that.

Moving cautiously up to the house and looking in windows, I did see they had a burgler alarm, and that it was armed.

I knew about alarm systems, and this type and model was common. How did I know? I hadn’t always been a writer. I’d retired early from that former pursuit, though early may not have been accurate; most people doing what I had done left the job in their early thirties not by choice but in a coffin. I was a little older than usual before I left, and so maybe I didn’t retire early; perhaps it was late. Semantics. Maybe those other people were smarter than I was, the ones not dead, but I liked the adrenaline flush of the job, and I was very good at it, which was why I lasted as long as I did. I liked many aspects of the job, even the extensive training early on. Moving into my thirties, I had the impression I was slowing down a bit both mentally and physically and decided to leave while still good enough not to get dead.

I looked for signs of a dog and didn’t find any. I knew that once I was inside the Hollister house, I’d have 20 seconds to disable the alarm. I picked the lock on the back door—usually a much less substantial lock than on the front—and was working on the alarm five seconds later. It was disarmed five more seconds after that.

I was going to confront Mr. Hollister and explain to him why messing with me would be much less effective and considerably harder than correcting his son’s behavior, and that sending thugs to visit me was a decided no-no. But before that, I had another chore, one aimed at precluding any follow-up from Hollister after my visit. I wandered through the house till I found the den. It took only a moment to have the back off his PC and the hard drive removed and in my pocket. He had a laptop, too, and I set that by the backdoor to be taken when I left.

Then I went upstairs. Zach was dead to the world, snoring softly, more a flutter than a snore, sleeping the wakeless sleep common to teens. Mr. Hollister was in bed with his wife, both sawing logs. I moved to her side of the bed, took a jar from my pocket, opened it, and removed a chloroformed rag. Holding it to her nose, she was out before she’d wakened enough to make a fuss.

Next came Mr. Hollister. I wanted him awake. I pulled down the sheet that was covering him on this mild August night. He was sleeping naked, making my job easier. I unsheathed my bowie knife, placed the edge of the side opposite the sharp side down on the root end of his penis, the part closest to his body, then popped him on the nose, not hard enough to break it, but enough that sleep was no longer an option. I tilted the knife so the edge of the back side of the knife was against his skin and it felt like the sharp edge. He’d believe he was about to be in a world of hurt. That would be enough to make my point.

He woke and I put my finger to my lips, the universal ‘shhh’ sign, and pressed enough with the knife so he was aware of where it was. I wanted him to understand the seriousness of the problem he was facing.

I spoke softly. “It’s a very bad idea to send men to beat me up. Gets me upset. Man, you do not want to see me upset. I do bad things when I’m upset. Don’t test me.”

I paused to be sure I had his full attention. I did. That knife tended to keep his thoughts focused. He didn’t know the sharp side wasn’t what was touching him.

“Your son probably learned from you that it was fun to take advantage of weaker people. He’s now learned it isn’t as much fun as he thought; not everyone is as helpless as you might think they are. Then you made a mistake by trying to show him what you could do to get vengeance for what he’d suffered. Make him see how powerful you are. Hah! You don’t know what powerful is. I want you to know, if I have any problem at all with you again, sending more men, any more messing with me, I’ll come in here and emasculate you. Not just your nuts, either.”

I pressed on the knife and he yelped. Sweat formed on his brow. It’s always wise to get their attention with more than just talk; they know you mean what you’re saying if there’s a physical demonstration along with the verbiage. “Don’t fuck with me!” I said with a much less friendly voice. “You do, and it’ll be war. You do not want war with me. I don’t lose wars.”

I put my knife back in the scabbard, then before turning and walking out, said, “If you have a gun, which I’m sure you do, if you get it and try to shoot me, you’ll be dead before you can pull the trigger.” I patted my hip, covered by my tunic, where my gun would be had I been wearing one. “Stay in bed. Call the cops if you want. Nothing’ll come from it and it’d just make you look paranoid and scared, but as you’re the type who hires people to do your nasty business for you, calling for help is probably your style and they probably already know how weak you really are.”

I listened very carefully as I left. He stayed in bed, or at least in his room. I’d have heard him if he’d gotten up and left the room as I’d thumb tacked a small bell, the type cats wear around their necks, to his bedroom door. I collected his laptop and left through the rear. Then I went home and did a few chores before hitting the sack. If the police came, which I was pretty sure they wouldn’t, they’d find me asleep in bed and there’d be no sign at all of a hard drive or laptop that didn’t belong to me. Or even black clothing.

I wrote Mr. Hollister a letter the next day, figuring that without either of his computers, it might be difficult for him to receive an email, and I didn’t know his cellphone number. My letter was succinct.

This is to inform you of why you should forget about revenge for my visit last night. It occurs to me that assholes like you always think, due to their past experiences and wealth, that they can have their way in a battle; they hate it when they have been bested and want to even the score. You’ve lost this round and it probably doesn’t sit well.

Everyone, including me, is vulnerable to a sniper or a bomb, and that has probably occurred to you. Or soon will. So I’ve taken precautions. Your hard drive and laptop are where you’ll never get them. I’ve sent them to associates of mine to be checked if something happens to me. I didn’t bother to open them myself. I’m not interested in your affairs. But where I sent them, those associates of mine will be very interested in looking into them should I meet with a sudden catastrophe or simply disappear.

I didn’t bother to sign it. Sometimes less is more.

Brody showed up just when I expected him the next day. No interference this time. Old Zach and friends, if they were still his friends, hadn’t made an appearance.

We went to the kitchen where I’d resupplied my Coke stash. Figured I’d need it. “Any problem with Zach at school?”

He shook his head, his throat being lubricated with Coke at the moment and so unavailable for talk. When he could, he said, “I just saw him in the hall once, and he turned around and walked the other way.”

“How’d that make you feel?”

“Nervous. I can’t really believe he’ll leave me alone now.”

“He will. Anyway, let’s talk about something else. Let’s get philosophical. I’m glad you came today. You’re very welcome here. But I think we should have an objective when you come of more than just building a simple friendship. Why waste time when we could be doing something more constructive? So we’ll start with this: what do you want, Brody? I don’t mean as a life’s goal. I mean right now. And I mean personally. What is there that would make you happier, maybe something about yourself you’d like to change?”

He opened his mouth, and I interrupted whatever he was about to say. “No, give it some thought. Don’t say you don’t know. That’s quibbling. You might have to think about it, but there are certainly things you’d like to fix. All boys your age are well aware of their shortcomings, many of them imagined, some of them real. You probably have some things, but let’s start with one. One thing that most bothers you about you.”

This time he didn’t immediately open his mouth. He looked at me, then down. He picked up his Coke but then set it down. I saw several expressions cross his face. Eventually, he raised his eyes to mine again and said, “I wish I were strong and brave like you.”

“That’s great, Brody!” I said, smiling at him with enthusiasm. “That’s so good! Let’s look at that. First, the brave part has to come from you, and will take some time and experience. But I can help with the strong part right away, and the stronger you are, the easier it’ll be to be brave. But, tell me, you already have to know this: you want to be stronger, but that means you have to work to get stronger. Are you willing to put in that work?”

He didn’t sit up straighter and yell, “Hell, yes!” with bright and eager eyes. He thought about it, which made me think he might really have a chance at this.

“I think so,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

I had to keep being positive with him to combat his constant negativity. I didn’t yet know how deeply that was rooted in his psyche; maybe with a few accomplishments he could start feeling better about himself. “I do know. Come with me.”

I got up and opened the door that led to the basement. I turned on the lights, and we walked down the stairs. There was a lot of equipment of various kinds I stored down there, but I walked past it and led him to where I had some workout weights.

“Getting stronger means exercising. You’d probably rather not put in the work, but doing it is part of being who you want to be. You don’t get stronger and braver just wishing it. Be great if it worked that way, but it doesn’t. It demands effort and commitment. I won’t even ask if you have that because you don’t know at this point. You will in a week. If I ask you then, you’ll be able to answer. I lift weights every day. Not a lot, not for long, but enough that I stay fit. More reps than heavy weight. You’ll see. That’s what you’ll be doing, too.”

He was blank faced. I could see that he had no thoughts about anything involving physical exercise. I needed to go step by step with him, always being encouraging. “We won’t just lift weights, but that’ll be part of it. There’s an entire regimen to follow, getting you strong, and I won’t only show you what to do, but do it with you. We’ll lift weights, and we’ll do calisthenics, and we’ll run. You’ll hate it.”

He made a face. I chuckled, then explained. “Everyone hates it at the beginning. But only at first. You’ll feel better physically and then mentally, too, as your fitness and strength improve. Most people get to love the work after they’re into it and start to feel the changes. Once they get past the initial grief.”

“How long will it take?” He sounded very skeptical, very unsure. That seemed his benchmark for most everything.

“It’ll depend on you. Let me tell you something that’s important, something that’s about more than simply getting fit. It’s about everything you do. Believe this: it’s important to put your entire energy and spirit into what you’re trying to do. Half-assed attempts give half-assed results, and half-assed results make you think there’s something wrong with you, that you don’t have what it takes. If you really truly try hard at something, anything, really, you’ll get what you’re capable of getting from it. And often that’s more than you thought.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question!”

I laughed. “No, it doesn’t. Okay, I’d say you’ll start to feel gains in, say, two to three weeks. It’ll seem too much and you’ll hate it at first. Want to quit. Then, in a little over a month, you’ll definitely see progress, and in two months, you’ll like what progress you’ve made but even more importantly, you’ll like what we’re doing and want to continue doing it, because you’ll feel better and, probably surprisingly to you, your head will seem clearer, your thoughts more centered. You’ll not only see a lot of improvement in everything we’re doing, but by then you’ll be feeling much better about yourself.”

“Two months.”

“You want to be stronger and braver. That just doesn’t happen overnight. Can’t. Takes a lot of effort and determination. Like most anything worthwhile, strong and brave have to be earned.”

Brody

This is crap! I don’t like it at all. Lifting weights? My god. I’m a wimp; it’s all I’d ever been. I did mean it when I said I wanted to be like Mark. But I looked at him and then looked at me, and there was no way. No way at all, and all this work just makes me sad about how bad I am.

There’s another side to it, though. He shows me how to do everything he asks me to do. First he demonstrates it. Then he tells me why he’s doing it the way he is, the purpose of it, and why following his instructions exactly would benefit me more than if I tried to do it a different way, an easier one.

No one, no one ever, has spent that much time with just me, me alone—not as part of class or a group, not focusing only on me. Just me. I’m totally not used to this! But it gives me the strangest feeling. He’s paying attention to me, and it makes me feel like I matter. At least to him, and I’ve never mattered to anyone before. I’m having an awful time trying to understand that.

He’s right about what he said, just like he is about most everything. But what he said about hating lifting weights—he said I would loathe it, but that was part of what I needed, and it would get better. We started with very light ones. I got tired really fast. He let me stop then. Had me drink a bottle of water. I asked for a Coke. He gave me water. But he had a reason for that, and he told me why.

That other side of it includes something else that to me is even more important than all the instructions and encouraging support. It’s that he shows me clearly that he likes me and enjoys being with me. No one ever has ever acted that way. I suppose my parents had, once, but I don’t even remember them. All I know is my personal world of foster parents and boys’ homes and no one in any of those cares about me as a person. They only care that I don’t give them trouble, that I do what they tell me to do. I never have had what I want most: someone to treat me as if I was someone. Not someone to love me—I know that’s asking too much. But just someone who treats me as someone who’s an individual would be so great.

I don’t think Mark loves me. But he does like me, does want to help me, does, of all the crazy things, like spending time with me. That is the absolute best thing about going to his house every day. He gives me something no one else ever has. He gives me the feeling that I am worth the time he spends with me, not just another kid who needs being taken care of. He makes me feel I’m important. Me, of all people!

Mark

Brody began coming to my house every day after school. We spent most of our time in the basement. Brody thought this lifting business was way beyond his capabilities. I started him just lifting the bar with no additional weights on it. I introduced him to biceps curls using just the bar. The first time, Brody did only a few, resting between lifts, barely getting the last curl up, and was exhausted. He hung his head.

“This is good, Brody. You’ve started. You’ve seen what you’re capable of now. In a very short time, you’ll be way beyond that, and it’ll prove to you there’s a point in doing this. Three is fine for a boy your age. The bar weighs 35 pounds. You just curled 105 pounds in total. That’s your baseline. Only way from here is up.”

We did calisthenics next, and Brody was soon exhausted again. While we rested, I asked, “You probably have gym gear at school. You need something you can jog in. We’ll begin that tomorrow. But bring your gear from school. You don’t want to be working out in your school clothes.”

He shook his head and spoke more to the floor than to me. “I only have one set of gym clothes, and it isn’t mine. Some of us don’t have our own gear and the school has to provide it for us. Only the shoes are mine. The rest is school stuff and they wash it and then we use it the next day. Most of us are the same size so it’s easy for those of us who don’t have our own stuff to share. Most of the kids have their own. But the stuff I use, I can’t bring it here.”

“I’ll get you some then. You’re a normal sized 13-year-old boy, right? Pretty much the same size as the other boys in your classes? So I just have to ask at the store for things in the size a boy your age would need?”

“I’m a little smaller than most of them and skinnier, but not much. Maybe the same height, but yeah, skinnier. That’s one of the things I hate bout myself. But if you buy me stuff, I’m hoping for a growth spurt. Any day now. Maybe. And new clothes would be a waste of money.”

I shook my head and frowned. “You know, Brody, you have to change your attitude. You’re worth having new stuff. So you outgrow it. So what? All boys do that, and then they get more new stuff. Besides which, being skinny? We’re fixing that. Working out will build muscle, and soon you won’t be skinny any longer.”

We were standing in the basement, and I put my arm around his shoulders and had him sit on the weight bench. I sat with him. “I’ll have a snack for you, too, after we work out every day. You might not be getting enough nutrition at home and school. I know what your diet should be, and we’ll see to that. Anyway, back to basics: what size shoes do you wear?”

“I’m not sure. Where I live, they have a whole mess of shoes, many of them pretty worn out, and I just take whatever fits. I never checked the size.”

“Take off the ones you have on now. They should have a size in them. Are they just right for you, or a little big or small?”

I eventually knew what I had to buy and I got him some things. They cost more than I thought they would, but I had more money than I needed to support my rather frugal lifestyle, and I actually got a kick out of buying stuff I knew he needed. Got a kick out of seeing his expression when I gave it to him, too. Damn, you think this kid had never received a present before!

We continued with the calisthenics and weights. I didn’t mind paying for his clothes, but I was going broke buying Coke; I thought I should buy stock in that company! I kept having to restock my supply because Brody drank three of them each day when the workout was finished, and that was after the one he drank as soon as he arrived each day. I kept insisting he drink water, but he knew where the Coke was, and I liked seeing him smile. I did get him to drink water during the workouts, though.

We were several days into Brody’s training when I received a cryptic message on my email account. It didn’t appear cryptic. Innocuous would be a better descriptive. It read: Bergman’s is having a sale on silk ties this week. Don’t miss it. $$$ off!

It was those dollar signs that did it. Three dollar signs meant very urgent. I sighed. I was retired, for god’s sake! But I responded anyway as I knew was expected. I used my special laptop and went through the annoying procedure to reach a high-security address in Washington, D.C. Then there was the usual wait while the signal was checked and the right person to answer the code I sent was located. While waiting, I couldn’t help but remember the history I’d had with these people.

I’d been an English major in college. I’d started writing while still in middle school and loved it. I continued through high school. I knew way back then that I wanted to be a writer; that’s how I’d earn my living. After every story I finished, I was infused with a great feeling of accomplishment such as I’d never felt doing anything else.

I began working on my craft. I took all the creative writing classes I could, attended writing workshops and heard lectures from visiting writers. I got a job on the college newspaper and then working with the yearbook staff.

But not everything I did was limited to writing. I’d played soccer in high school and loved both the running and the competition. In college, I wasn’t good enough to play on the school’s varsity team, but there were other opportunities. Each dorm and fraternity had a volunteer soccer squad, and intramural games were a regular part of college life.

I quickly decided that frat life wasn’t for me. I was much more a loner than a party-hearty guy. I liked solitude when writing and thought I’d be unlikely to find that in a frat house.

The frats tended to be filled with very sociable boys, and athletic ones, too, more so than the dorms. The dorms had an eclectic mix of kids, but there was a decided lack of athletic ones. As a result, the teams the dorms fielded were a helter-skelter mélange of characters, and they rarely beat any of the frat teams. We dorm kids played for fun; frat boys enjoyed the winning aspect of the games, and there were some frats that liked to flex their muscles and intimidate the less rugged dorm boys.

This didn’t sit well with me. I liked hard competition, and I liked to win, too, and it took a great deal to intimidate me. It was frustrating to be on teams that didn’t share either my competitive spirit or skill or determination. Still, I played and played hard. I didn’t quit and enjoyed myself as much as possible.

Then, in my sophomore year, my life changed. That started right at the beginning of the year; I got a new roommate.

The dorms were set up so each room had two occupants. The one who’d shared with me the first year had not returned to school, something that wasn’t uncommon. However, that meant I got a new roommate. The school didn’t allow the dorm residents to choose their own roommates. They determined that themselves.

The boy I met at the beginning of the sophomore year was remarkable. He was slightly taller and heavier than me and exceptionally good looking. His hair was auburn with natural lighter streaks, and he wore it in the current fashion, longer than had been possible in the long-ago times when schools had rules about that sort of thing. He had an effervescent, extroverted personality, and had what I quickly learned to appreciate—he was as competitive as I was.

I found our initial meeting astounding. Disconcerting, actually.

“Hi, I’m Mark Saunders,” I said, extending my hand when he came into the room.

“I’m Donavan Pleasant,” the young man replied, shaking my extended hand. “I’m gay. It would be great if you were, too. You’re gorgeous.”

How does one respond to that?! I was at a complete loss of words. Stunned, I just gaped at him. Nothing in my background had prepared me for this. I’d come from a small, Midwestern town where conservative values were the norm; they were what I’d grown up with, what I was familiar with. Too, I was one of the more than 50% of boys my age who had yet to experience sex with a partner. I had no experience and didn’t have strong urges to change that. Sex wasn’t something I thought about much, which I’d heard was unusual.

Donavan saw the startled look on my face and laughed. It was an infectious laugh, and I couldn’t help but grin. I managed to say, “Uh, no, I’m not gay. I don’t think. I’ve never had sex with anyone other than my hand.”

“Well, you should certainly give it a try. With both girls and boys. How are you supposed to know what you like if you don’t try what’s available? I’m certainly willing to be the one to show you what boys get up to. Not to sound conceited, but I’m quite good at it.”

His grin gave me a quick flash of goosebumps. I wasn’t shy. Simply flabbergasted at what was happening. Muddled and uncertain. Then, Donavan said, “Well, give it a thought or two. Other than sex, tell me about yourself.”

We sat on our beds, which were only about eight feet apart, narrow single beds that were common in dorm rooms, and got to know each other. I was naive about the ways of the outside world. I’d grown up in a small town. My parents were both professionals who had little time for me or interest when it came to that. I’d done well in school, but it hadn’t been because of any encouragement at home. Or love. We were a family in name only. I had sometimes wondered if that had influenced my love of reading and then writing; they were lonely pursuits, but I never felt lonely doing them. I recreated my own worlds that way, and they were much more interesting than my temporal one.

As with many Midwestern towns at that time, the various churches held sway with the majority of the community. My parents were not religious, and so I didn’t have any religious training and didn’t attend church. This was just another thing that separated me from many of my peers; most of the kids in town attended Sunday school. I did have friends, but no close ones. Most of the time, I spent by myself. I was very comfortable that way.

Don’s—he told me he preferred Don to Donavan, and never Donny—background was much different. What we had in common was that he was fairly athletic and competitive. But other than that, well, he’d grown up in different circumstances than I had. His personality was different. He was from the state capital, a large city, and because of his looks and extroverted personality, was very popular. He came out to his middle-school friends at a time when many gay kids were doing so and when Sex Ed classes were stressing that being gay was a normal thing and had always been part of human life.

He got sounding a bit pedagogical when he continued in that vein. “We were told that even if some churches were still calling it a choice and a sin, mainstream thinking now was that homosexuality was simply one of the many normal variances that occurred in the entirety of the human species. Some people were ticklish; some were not. Some people were gay; some were not.”

Those Sex Ed classes stressed that calling gays sinful was a faith-based, Old Testament, old-fashioned opinion that had no basis in fact.

Donavan had never felt the sting of discrimination for his orientation. His parents and brother accepted him without reservations.

It was easy to like Don, and, rooming with him, it was natural that we became close. Roommates see each other when happy and sad, excited and moody, clothed and naked. We got to know each other better than I’d ever known anyone, even my parents. We bonded as two guys just starting college often can do. Our personalities, senses of humor, wants and dislikes tended to overlap. Well, maybe not our personalities. He was way more outgoing than I was.

Don and I became like a two-man wrecking crew on our soccer team. He liked rough and tumble as much as I did, and he hated losing as much, too. Our games became great fun, and we won a lot of them.

Then there was a game against a frat full of athletes. They never lost. And they played rough. There were a few football players on that team, and some other college athletes, too. The two of us were expecting that the game wouldn’t be a tea party; they weren’t expecting us. We quickly went up two to nil, each of us having scored, and they were pissed that we were handing the rough stuff right back to them with equal vigor.

They didn’t like how the game was going, and I saw their teammates on the sideline talking, pointing at us, and I figured out what was coming before it happened. They’d decided that taking out one or both of us would be their route to victory.

They made a substitution, bringing a behemoth off the bench. It was easy to tell what his job was going to be. He was going to disable one or both of us, and even when he got a red card and they had to finish the game playing a man short, it would be worth it if we weren’t in the game any longer either.

The mastodon got with it right away. He grabbed Don and held him, both arms around him, and a teammate came up, drawing his leg back, eyes eager. He was planning to kick Don’s ankle or knee hard enough to get him out of the game.

He didn’t do it. I saw him coming and made a sliding tackle and took his legs out from under him. Meanwhile, Don was slamming his head back into the heavyweight’s face, and he got him good in the nose. The guy let out a scream and Don broke free from him.

The ref stopped the game at that point. He said he’d seen enough and the game was over. That meant we’d won, two zip. Their first loss in two years. They were pissed and yelled at the ref, who simply turned around and walked away. A couple of them wanted to fight Don and me. We turned our backs on them, high fived each other and walked away, too. That game brought the two of us even closer together. We both knew we were there for each other.

Don and I had been close, but after that, the bonding was stronger. We became closer than most roommates. The gay thing had never been a problem for me, and with the bonding we accomplished, I developed a crush on Don. I’d had mild, short-lived ones before. This was much different.

I told him about my crush. Hell, we told each other everything. Nothing was embarrassing when you had the relationship we did. I told him I was crushing on him bad, and asked if he’d show me how gay sex works. Show me by us doing things together. “You did suggest I try it out with you when we first met. Remember?”

He laughed. “I like to tweak guys’ rudders. But Mark, I don’t think you’re gay. However, who knows? The thing is, you’ve never had sex, straight or gay. If you have gay sex first and have nothing to compare it with, you might decide it is great and want to do more, and then, later on, have straight sex and realize you’d made a mistake, that it was good too, and in fact better, more satisfying, and you’d wasted a lot of good time screwing the wrong people. I’m not going to take the chance of you finding that out after I’ve had sex with you and I’ve developed an inconvenient attachment.”

“You’re saying you won’t have sex with me?” I was surprised, and a bit pissed, and my ego a bit bruised, which he could easily recognize.

He shook his head. “I need to explain this to you. Sex is important to me. I’ve been with boys and girls. I know what each is like. I know I’m gay and know I’ll make a life someday with a gay man. Now, answer this: how many guys have I had sex with here in college?”

That might seem like an odd question, his thinking I’d know that, but our situation was unusual in that we spent almost all our time together and talked about everything. He’d told me about some of the coeds he’d slept with. When I’d questioned him about that, referring to the original statement he’d made when we’d first met, he didn’t explain anything. He just brushed the question aside, saying, “Hey, any port in a storm, huh, and she was horny and I was, too.” So I knew, or at least was very sure, he hadn’t had sex with any males since being my roommate.

“None,” I answered him.

“Exactly. And there’s a reason for that. I have a healthy sex drive, maybe too strong a one. Sex is important to me. I already said that, but it is. I know I’ll end up with a man. In the meantime, though, I don’t want to flirt with guys, have sex with the ones who are interested but just to have fun. Just to get their rocks off. Unlike at high school, when I have sex with a boy here, I want it to mean something, and with most of these guys, it won’t. They’re too young and don’t know what they want out of life.

“But I am horny. All the time. So I help the girls who are fantasizing about me to satisfy their lusts. They’ll do me fine till the right guy comes along, and that won‘t be for a time yet. I’m concentrating on getting my degree, then joining my brother’s government agency. I can’t let anything interfere with that. The girls will do fine for me till then. I won’t get attached to any of them.”

I had a good answer to that. “Bullshit! What a conceited, egotistic approach. Yeah, it covers your ass, but what about me? You think I might be straight. I think I might be gay. There’s an obvious answer to this problem. You find me a girl to have sex with, then you have sex with me, and I can compare. What’s wrong with that? It does one thing for sure. It tells me if I like gay sex. It might tell me I like it with girls better, and then you don’t have to worry about my crush.”

He didn’t answer, he just looked at me, concentrated on me like a photographer studying a model to find the perfect pose. I took the opportunity to look back, though I had no need to. His image was burned into my mind.

He was beautiful: six feet two, one hundred and ninety pounds, ruggedly handsome face with beguiling hazel eyes, long lashes and a great personality. White teeth and an addictive smile that made you smile back and maybe get butterflies in your guts. I, in contrast, was much less. An inch shorter, fifteen pounds less heavy, and an unremarkable face. Very black hair. Not nearly as extroverted. A bit more serious, more thoughtful. Still something of a loner with everyone in the world except him.

That was my opinion of myself. The three girls I ended up bedding, all hand-me-downs from him, all told me I was handsome and clever and funny. They were into me much more than I was into them. I had sex with them that was uncomfortable and clumsy with the first one and fairly okay by the time I told number three goodbye. Never having had sex with someone before, I now knew what it was and how it felt, but didn’t have anything to compare it to.

So I talked Don into it against his wishes. I think he tried to make it less than it could have been, but I found he’d been speaking the truth: he was into sex in a big way, and when we were going at it the first time, he’d gotten more and more involved and then totally unable to hold anything back.

The difference was monumental! Yeah, I was gay. I wondered if part of the difference in the sexual experiences I’d had with him and the girls was attributable to the fact I had feelings for him and not for the women. That seemed probable to me. I knew he liked what we’d done together, too. In fact, he’d enjoyed it so much that we spent our last years in college pretty much in the same bed most nights.

When we were about to graduate, I told him I loved him. What had been a crush had grown, and I was in love with him now. I didn’t like his response.

“I was afraid you might get hurt, Mark. I didn’t want to start with you, thinking this might happen. I was weak. Often am when it comes to sex. You know how I feel about sex. I love it and need it; it’s important to me. You also know how close we are. You’re so special that once I began with you, there was no stopping. But my life is planned. I’m going to work for my brother’s agency. It’s going to hurt me, and I know it’ll hurt you, but we’ll be separated, and I can’t spend these next few years hoping you’re waiting. You’re a passionate man, you have the world at your feet with your degree. I’m sure you’re going to get a job offer from the same place I’ll be. You’ll have that job, then you’ll move on to your writing career after that.

“I’ll be with the agency, too, and probably longer than you as its sort of a family thing for us, but we can’t be together when we’re with them. They absolutely forbid that. The job is dangerous and difficult without that sort of attachment between agents, and they want no distractions.”

I heard him. It didn’t surprise me. I knew, had known, how important that job was for him. I did have a question for him, though. “Do you love me?”

For once, he didn’t answer. He just got up and left the room.

Don was tight with his brother, a college grad who was a few years his elder named Nolan. Don had told me Nolan worked for a very hush-hush federal agency. He didn’t give me many details, told me he wasn’t allowed to. “I’m going to go to work for them when I graduate. That’s the only reason I’m here; I need a college degree to work for the Agency. You know, it would be perfect for you, too, Mark. They want smart guys who can handle themselves.”

I eventually met Nolan. I liked him right off. He liked me, too. After we’d been chatting a bit and I’d told him some about myself, he said he could see in me the fire Don had told him about. He said Don had gone on and on about me, about my athleticism and competitiveness and my lack of fear when taking risks.

I was sitting in his office. This was a job interview, but he made it seem like old friends chatting. After I’d spoken first, he went into his sales spiel. “This agency needs people who can think fast, who don’t panic and can handle themselves. Don told me you’re exactly what we want. He also told me you wanted to write. What that means to me is you’d benefit from some real life experience. It’ll add verisimilitude to your stories. You’ll get that experience here in spades! After a couple of years here you can leave and your writing will have much more appeal. You’ll have first-hand experience to write about. But you’ll also serve your country. I’d hope that would be a major factor in your decision whether to come in with us or not. And then, there’s the fact you’ll be paid very well for your assignments.”

We both were hired and went into training. We learned not to discuss it with anyone. We were to only call it ‘the Agency’. It did have a formal name, and it was often referred to by those in the know by the acronym its initials spelled, but to me and other agents, it was simply the Agency.

The training was very, very challenging, both mentally and physically. I learned to shoot various guns and hit what I was aiming at, to spend a good two minutes underwater without panicking, to fight dirty and to win. I loved it, all of it. It took every ounce of stamina and willpower to pass the final test, but Don and I both did. Then we had classwork that was nothing like what we learned in college. It covered various scams and hostage situations and how to act in bomb threats and mass shootings. It covered what to do when we learned events were about to occur. We went through exercises with all sorts of potentially dreadful consequences if we made mistakes.

I acted as an agent for two years. I did a lot of good, but two years is a long time when your life is on the line on more occasions than you’d care to remember. We lost quite a few agents in that time. Saved a lot of lives, too.

I retired after too many close calls and because I still felt the call to write. Don was still an active agent. He loved it. I had too while doing the job, but I knew when to quit.

I was still in love and had finally figured it out. Don didn’t love me. He loved his brother and his job, and that was it. Well, he did like me a lot. There was that. We were still best friends and would do anything and everything for each other. Hard to do much about that, however, when we were almost never together.

He wouldn’t talk about love with me. I knew he liked me. He never once said he loved me, though, and I came to accept that. You can’t force someone to love you.

But after retiring, I quickly stepped into a new life. I sold my first book and it did well. It was proof that I could make a living writing. Maybe even a very good one.

Brody

I am getting used to Zach ignoring me at school. He doesn’t seem to be hanging with the two guys any longer who’d been with him in the garage, either. In fact, one of them came up to me at my locker a few days after I first met Mark. I was immediately scared. Hey, that’s who I am!

“Brody?” He didn’t act intimidating at all, which helped. I managed to look at him in his eyes. Not easy for me. Mark had been working on that with me.

“Yeah?”

“I want to apologize. I don’t know why I was hanging with Zach. Well, I do, but now I know how wrong it was. There was status involved, being his wingman. I liked that. But being in your garage, listening to that guy, I was scared, and I’ve thought a lot about it since. Being with someone who’s a bully isn’t who I am, and I learned that the hard way. I just wanted to tell you, I’m sorry. I’m staying away from Zach, and I wanted to apologize to you.”

He was serious. Looking in someone’s eyes, you can sorta tell. I smiled at him, something I rarely did. “Thanks, Scott. I’m sorry you got involved. That guy I’m with, he’s scary as shit. I guess you noticed.”

“Oh yeah. Big time.” He didn’t smile when he said that.

I spent much of that day at school thinking about that. Then I went to Mark’s house and the torture began again.

Mark

I needed to respond to that urgent message to call the agency. You could retire from them, but if they needed something from you, you complied. Didn’t have to, but there was honor involved. I didn’t leave them angry or disgusted. I left them alive, and that seemed prudent at the time. I hadn’t written anything yet then, and did I ever have ideas I wanted to see on paper. Being dead seemed to preclude that, and I had the itch some writers get.

But as I said, we’d had pretty intense training, the sort that doesn’t leave you when you retire. I knew people at the Agency, both admin people and agents, and I never lost the understanding that what the Agency did was in support of our country. Important work. Work that saved lives. You don’t turn your back on all that when called.

The Agency didn’t address common crime, not even murder. We tried to stop things that affected the entire nation and people’s attitudes. Like mass shootings. Like school shootings. Like the Oklahoma City bombing. We tried to infiltrate, to disable, to thwart. What we did, how we accomplished our successes wasn’t always legal, but was always justified and necessary. We weren’t always successful. The list I just presented proves that. But we did prevent a lot of similar things. Never any press or acknowledgement other than from a very few high-up Washington officials. We didn’t do what we did for personal glory. Why we put ourselves on the line was for a kind of outdated and even disparaged fundamental: patriotism, a love of country.

So, happily retired, I still called Nolan back. He’d been my handler, but not his brother’s. The Agency didn’t allow that. People in Nolan’s position sometimes had to make hard decisions, risky ones leading their agents into high-risk situations, and a family connection would make that too emotional and maybe alter a decision.

Getting through to Nolan always took a bit of time. They had to be sure who was calling, that there was no unexpected tension in my voice, there were no indications that were worrisome, that the line was totally secure.

“Mark! Thanks for returning the call so promptly.”

“Nolan. What do you want?. I’m retired.” I tried to sound gruff, but he knew it was faked. Nolan and I were good friends, not really like a handler and his agent or a superior and his subordinate. I didn’t know him as well as I knew Don, but almost. I’d even spent a couple of Christmases with their family at their family mansion. I was very comfortable with Nolan.

He chuckled. “Now now, you know I wouldn’t call if it weren’t serious. Anyway, this should be a lark for you. Won’t stretch your skill-set at all.”

“Why me?” I asked. Nolan had three other agents he ran, and the Agency had several Nolans, all of whom had agents. I was sure they had no need to call on me.

“Because you’re involved and know the location that needs to be covered and are at ground zero. And because it’s low-risk. The background is . . .” He stopped, then said, “Let me double-check the security of this line and add scrambling.” There was a fifteen-second pause, and then he continued, the sound slightly altered. “The background is that we finally were able to open the laptop you sent. We’re still working on the hard drive. That Hollister guy is dirty. Way dirty. He may have stuff going on now that we may or may not be interested in. We can see he’s into financing a number of things. He’s involved with the chief of police where you are, too; that guy’s dirty as well. None of that involves us if it’s all local stuff, but if some of that financial stuff involves foreign interests, or even internal U.S. terrorists, then we need to know about it. But to start, we want to know more about what he’s doing, and the first step is placing listening devices in his house and office. We’ll have someone else do the office; it’s much higher risk, and you’re retired.” He made that sound a little sarcastic, but only a little.

“But the house should be a piece of cake for you—you’ve already been inside—and will be invaluable for us.”

“Piece of cake, huh? Easy for you to say, sitting at a desk in Washington.”

“Actually I’m on a yacht on the Potomac. But yeah, easier for me than you, but you like this stuff, and your chance of getting dead doing this job is miniscule. We’d like it done yesterday rather than tomorrow.”

“No way, Jose. I don’t have the devices and other stuff I’d need.”

“You will. Fed Ex should be there any minute now. I dispatched them as soon as I got your call. Do it today. Call me again when it’s done. Before five. That’s when cocktails are served and I don’t like to be disturbed.” He laughed and hung up.

The doorbell rang. I checked through the window before opening the door. Fed Ex.

Nolan had been busy. The box contained seven devices I needed to plant. It always amazed me how electronics had become so functionally intricate yet tiny. Six of these were about the size of tiny blood pressure pills and in the shape of a triangle. But the box also contained a set of credentials and a colorful vest with the words ‘Verizon Service Tech’ emblazoned on it and a tool kit to be worn around the waste. A note in a sealed envelope was included. I opened it and read the note: The Hollister’s TVs and land line phone will go out at 2 PM today. Zach will still be in school, and Mr. Hollister still at his downtown office. A call will be made to their house on Mrs. Hollister’s cellphone. She’ll be told Verizon’s system monitoring service for their clients has detected a fault with the connection at their house, and a technician has been dispatched to fix the problem. He’ll be credentialed and needs to be inside for maybe fifteen minutes. He’ll locate and correct the problem there; TV and phone service will be restored. You need to arrive at 2:10 at the Hollister house.

That was it. No instructions on how or where to put the devices. Of course, there wouldn’t be. He left the nitty-gritty details up to his agents. As I said, we’d been trained well. I guess he’d assigned this to me because I’d been in the house before so knew the lay of the land there.

I wasn’t a bit surprised when, at 2 PM that day, I stepped outside my house wearing a Verizon vest, pictured ID badge and toolkit and found a Verizon service truck sitting at the curb. I’d been expecting that. Nolan never missed a trick in setting things up for his agents. He’d probably had people watching both male Hollisters to make sure both were where they were supposed to be and wouldn’t show up unannounced while I was in the house. He’d probably even made sure Zach hadn’t stayed home sick that day.

I got to the house on time and rang the bell. Mrs. Hollister opened the door. I recognized her; she looked the same as when I’d chloroformed her. She asked to see my credentials before letting me in, but after that I was able to step inside.

I told her I needed only a few minutes but had to locate the problem first, meaning I’d be moving through the house. I told her she could stay with me if she preferred. I’d found that almost always resulted in a somewhat embarrassed demur, as if they didn’t want me to think they didn’t trust me and would be offended. That was the case this time, too. She said she was busy in the kitchen and to do what I had to do.

I almost smiled at that. But I was a professional and didn’t.

I had to work fast to meet that 15-minute time frame Nolan had given me. Seven bugs in 15 minutes was only about two minutes per bug. I knew where to put them, though, and that decision having to be made on the spot and not beforehand would have doubled the time needed.

I put them all on the tops of doorframes. Simple enough. Use a screwdriver with a blade just the right size; place it on the top of the frame, angle the blade to make a triangular dent and tap it with a hammer. It’d make a dent just the right shape for a device to fit into it. Then the delicate part: the tool kit included four small packages of spackle. I had to pick the one that matched the color of the frame.

Most doorframes were white, even if the room itself had different colored walls. But the white could be in any of several tints. Also, most of the tops of doorframes were dirty. Few people cleaned them. So I had to match the frame color with the spackle, and then lightly brush the dirt on the frame over the new spackle. If the frame wasn’t white, I’d use the brush and hope that was good enough. I did all this knowing I had to be done in less than two minutes per bug.

Good thing I was a professional, and an experienced one at that. And this wasn’t my first rodeo.

I put bugs in doorframes in the den, the dining room, the master bedroom and its en suite bathroom, the family room and the basement rec room. The seventh was a problem. It was larger than the ones I’d installed that were meant not to be discovered, and it was designed to be easy enough to be found if searched for. Mr. Hollister, hearing some stranger had been in the house and his movements not observed, would immediately be suspicious; ten to one, he’d look for bugs. He needed to find one so he’d stop looking, or at least make his further checks more cursory. So I put that detectable one in his den, but hidden in the back of a bookcase. He might not find it. It depended on how thorough his search was. But if he was really exhaustive, he would find it, and after that, he might or might not be more thorough looking for more. Our experience was, he’d be satisfied that one was all there were.

There was a 60% chance he’d find the meant-to-be-found one, and a 98% chance he wouldn’t find any of the other six. Those were real life numbers gained from bug-planting in the past. Those were good enough odds for me.

Brody

I’m still getting used to being ignored by Zach. When you’re being bullied, you spend just about forever worrying about it, trying to avoid the guy, figuring how best to handle him, all sorts of things that keep you tense and upset. Zach was the only bully I’d met, but he still figured loudly in my life.

Now, I’m spending lots of time at Mark’s house and loving it. I am starting not to think about Zach much. I’m beginning to see the results of the work I’m putting in down in Mark’s basement. That takes up a lot of my time with him, but I kinda like it as well as hate it because we do get to talk a lot down there, too.

We run in the afternoons. “It’s best to run in the morning,” he told me a couple of times. He is able to run and speak at the same time. I find just the running hard enough; talking while doing it is crazy. But like with the weights, I’m getting better. I still use all my air just to stay alive when running. He talks and never gets out of breath.

He sometimes seems able to read my mind. Maybe I have one of those faces I’ve read about that reveal your thoughts. I hope not! Some of my thoughts . . . well, I hope not. He looks over at me when I’m thinking about what good shape he’s in and how I’m not at all and says, “You’ll get like me, too, now that you’re doing this. Won’t take all that long, either.” He pisses me off and inspires me all at the same time.

I’d like him to be more cuddly, to be aware of how hard I’m working to keep up with him, to slow down when I need it. Mostly, I’d like him to express feelings for the effort I’m putting in. He does compliment me, I guess, but not the way I’d like him to. He does it all the time, but, like with a smile or a nod. That’s it; that’s all. It just seems, uh, what’s the word? I’ve read it. I read a lot. Ah. Got it. Perfunctory. His compliments are perfunctory. They don’t show much emotion. I’d like to think he likes me for trying as hard as I am, not just because I’m improving.

But I do think he likes me.

Mark

Brody had been coming over after school every day for over a month now. I enjoyed his company, which I’d never thought possible with a teenager before I met him.

He came over on the weekends, too. He came over for breakfast! I’d usually just had a piece of toast and a cup of coffee—well, three cups of coffee—but with a young teen, he needed more fuel than that, and I began preparing far better breakfast food than what I had had pre-Brody. On different occasions now I’d fed him waffles, French toast, eggs and bacon or sausage, hash, omelets, fresh fruits, potatoes cooked in several ways—just a whole slew of things. He was not a picky eater. I barely had to wash the plates he used, clean as they were when he was done.

Soon I was going to introduce him to cooking. He needed to know how to make the things he liked. Every boy should be that self-sufficient. He didn’t know shit about most everything.

I loved the smiles I got when picking up his cleaned plate. He always thanked me, too. What teenager does that? He wasn’t normal.

And then the next Saturday, I waited and waited and he didn’t show up. This was something new for me: worrying about a kid. What was wrong with me? Anyway, tired of waiting, not liking the feeling in the pit of my stomach, I finally said the hell with this and walked to the group home he was living in.

There were several cars in front. When I went to the door, a cop was standing there.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Who’re you?” he answered. Don’t you just love talking with cops who have an attitude? I’ve dealt with them too many times.

“I asked you first,” I said, knowing that wouldn’t get me anywhere but playing the weak-assed milksop was never my style.

“Buzz off,” he said, and took a step closer to me.

I didn’t back off, just held where I was, and said, “Serve and protect? Which one of those are you doing right now? You know, I know who you are; you’re wearing a name tag. I can file a complaint about you. What can you do? Nothing, that’s what. You have no idea who I am. I’d suggest you step back to where you were and try to be polite. You’d get on better with people without the belligerence.”

He was flustered. He was used to people being intimidated by his attitude. I stood there staring into his eyes.

He stepped back. “One of the caretakers here died. Heart attack, probably. He was old. Anyway, Social Services is having to place a bunch of boys in new temporary homes till they decide where they all should go. They don’t need the distraction of strangers showing up selling vacuum cleaners.”

Hmmm. Okay, not good to lie to a law enforcement official, but I doubted I’d get in trouble if I did. It was an innocent sort of lie, and I’d made a career out of lying not that long ago; like a bunch of other things, I was pretty good at it. “I’m the uncle of one of the boys. I can take him temporarily. Better than sticking him with who knows what sort of person. I’ll go give my contact info to whoever’s in charge in there and take the kid.”

With that, I stepped forward. He had to either step aside to let me enter, or block my way. Hard decision for him; he liked to be in charge. But I kept moving and my next step would be to bump him, and the paperwork that would have elicited would take up most of the rest of his day. What excuse would he have for denying my entry when what I’d said was going to be very helpful for Social Services when they’d have one less boy to find a temporary placement for?

He stepped aside. I could have left it like that. I had what I wanted. But I’m also me, and I do have an attitude. “Good choice,” I said, smiled at him, and went in. Sometimes I just had to push the envelope a little.

There was a lot of commotion inside. It was easy to tell who the social workers were; they were all wearing jackets and ties or formal-looking business suits if they were women. A cop was inside trying to herd the boys, but wasn’t being very successful. The boys were trying to explain their preferences to the social workers, telling them where they’d want to stay, in many cases saying they needed to be with one of their friends and not separated. It wasn’t bedlam, but it sort of seemed like it’s next door neighbor.

I saw Brody. He was sitting on the stairs by himself looking worried. One more piece of drama in his world he didn’t need and had no facility to control. Easy to imagine what he was thinking: he could be moved to a different school far away where he’d know no one, and his trips to visit me would be over.

He hadn’t seen me. I made my way to him. His eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and all the presents under the tree had his name on them.

“Mark!” he said, and the hope in his voice almost brought tears to my eyes. It didn’t, of course. I’m way too dispassionate and macho to entertain that sort of emotion. “They wouldn’t let me go to your house. Told me to stay put. Wouldn’t even let me call you!”

I shook my head. His eyes showed his frustration but now also his hope. “Let’s get this straightened out. Just go along with me.” I walked over to a social worker who’d just made an entry on a clipboard he was holding and was looking for his next customer. Brody was right behind me.

“Hello,” I said, smiling. “I’m Mark Saunders. The boy is Brody Simons. I’m his uncle and came to see him and just found out what’s happening here. I understand you’re looking at temporary placements for these boys. I sure as hell don’t want him permanently, my God!, but in a pinch I can help you out by putting him up a few days. It would help him, too, because I live close to the school he attends. He could just keep going there without missing any classes. But if you’ve got a better idea . . .”

The worker looked at me, then Brody, then back to me. “That would certainly help us out. There’s paperwork to fill out, of course, and you’d have to be vetted. All that takes time. We need to send Brody to an already-registered foster home. The problem is we have more boys to place than homes for them.”

“So I’d be doing you a favor. I can get whatever clearance you want, probably by tomorrow. But I want to take Brody today. Right now in fact. You can ask him if he wants that. And I can talk to your superior if you feel you need help making this decision and don’t want to risk it on your own.”

Brody spoke up then. “I stay with Uncle Mark a lot. Most weekends, actually. I didn’t last night because he was out of town. That’s why he showed up now, to take me home with him. You could just list me as having been away last night at his house and save everyone a lot of trouble.”

I showed the guy my driver’s license and agreed that Brody’s solution would save everyone a lot of paperwork. I repeated that I’d call in my qualifications to his office later in the day.

The guy was still thinking about it when Brody and I walked out. I nodded to the cop at the door who watched with a very blank face but made no move to stop us.

Brody looked at me as we were walking on the sidewalk and away from the house. It wasn’t the happy look I expected. “Did you mean that?” he asked. His voice had a quiver in it.

“What?”

“That you sure as hell don’t want me.”

“Brody! No, no no. I only said that to make it clear to him that this was temporary and so they could go ahead with permanent placement plans. If I’d said anything else, most likely he’d have stuck strictly to their rules and you’d not be with me now.”

He digested that, but the look on his face remained stolid. Unsatisfied, he asked, “But did you mean it?”

How could I answer that? Saying yes would break his heart. But I was a loner; I liked my life as it had been. However, I liked Brody a lot, and had grown fond of him coming to my house as often as he did.

I needed to grow up, I decided. I was in my thirties, but still liked to act like I was a college kid with no responsibilities. Now this had come up. What should I do?

I realized, had been realizing for a few weeks, really, that I was experiencing something, aware of something I’d never thought I’d have. I was feeling love, a different sort of love than what I’d felt for Don. I had to admit to myself, I loved Brody. It wasn’t a sexual love, but the love I’d never had from my parents. A familial love. Brody had grown on me. I looked forward to his arrival every day. I’d worried when he hadn’t shown up today.

I hadn’t been kidding about not liking kids! Generally, I didn’t. But Brody was different. Funny how the world works, isn’t it?

I guess I did know what to say to Brody. I stopped, and he did too, facing me. Right there on the sidewalk, outside for the world to see.

There was a short wall separating the yard of the house we were passing from the sidewalk. I stopped walking, pulled Brody with me, and we both sat on the wall. I turned to face him. “The fact is, Brody, that I’d love to have you stay with me permanently. I love you like any father would his son. You’ve made my life fuller . . . better. That’s what I feel. I think I can get permission for you to stay with me. I can call in some favors. Would you like that?”

He didn’t answer. He was too busy hugging me, and I felt his body shaking. Well, with that over-the-top display of emotions on his part, it’s possible my cheeks were a bit wet, too.

I called Nolan. Told him it was time for some of my efforts for him to be repaid. Told him to do what was necessary for me to be granted full custody of Brody Simons. Told him I wanted it tomorrow. He didn’t even protest. Said that would be fine.

Then he told me something else. “Hollister was furious with his wife. He’s been looking for bugs ever since. Hasn’t even found the expected one, though. Hasn’t said much to help us, either. Has made a couple calls to the police chief there. Quite obvious those two are in cahoots.”

“Cahoots? You been reading those 1950 PI novels again?”

“Hey, it’s a fine old word! Everyone is calling everything a conspiracy these days. I like to choose my own vocabulary. Anyway, he keeps asking the chief to get a warrant to search your house. He thinks you have his laptop and hard drive there. Says to make something up for the judge. Says he has to get that hard drive back. That if it’s ever opened, they’ll both be doing time.”

“So open the hard drive.”

“We’re working on it. Some of these are harder than others, and this doesn’t have that high a priority.”

“Well, whatever is on there, it doesn’t involve me. Thanks for getting me what I need with Brody.”

Brody

It’s incredible! I’m living with Mark. I finally know what it’s like to have a parent who loves me. He cares about me and worries about me and it’s like I’m in heaven. All the pressures and stress I used to carry on my shoulders every day are gone. I don’t have to be embarrassed about my clothes any longer, I have enough food, and even better, I have someone to talk to every day who listens and cares. Sometimes boys my age worry about things. I know that there are things or situations I don’t know how to handle, and Mark listens and we talk and I always feel better after that. I’m not all alone any more.

I didn’t have any of this before. I do now. We’re still training, too. By now, I can lift weights better, and I run better, too. I’ve gained weight. Instead of the skinny runt I was, I have some muscle and my ribs don’t show when I’m changing in gym. Changing into and out of my own good clothes. Boys tend not to look at me funny any longer.

What Mark keeps going on about is my self-confidence. He says that’s one of the most important things if I want to be happy. I tell him I’m happier than I ever was, happier than I ever thought I could be, and it’s all because of him. And he comes right back at me and says it should be because of me! That all the things that are better for me now are because of the work I’m putting in and the progress I’m making. I try to tell him that’s because of him, not me, and he tells me I’m crazy.

I am crazy about him. He’s wonderful.

I don’t argue with him, but he’s wrong. It is all because of him. But why argue? If he wants to think it’s me and not him, I just let him think that. But I know the truth.

I’ve made a couple of friends at school. I was always too shy before, and didn’t have the courage to talk to other boys. We had nothing in common, living the way I did, and that made having friends hard, too. Now, I have what they have. Mark spent a ton of money seeing that I had a computer and a game system and all that stuff I didn’t really need. But I have it now, and I could invite a boy over to play games with me. I will someday. I am getting better in gym, too. I am joining in little by little. My personality still tells me to be shy. I have to fight it.

But I am trying. I try everything Mark asks me too. He’s the smartest guy in the world. If he says to do something, I know I should, and I do it. I trust him with all my heart and soul.

Mark

Life with Brody was something. A good something. But it made me remember why I disliked kids at times. They were demanding, a nuisance, cost a lot of money and smelled bad and didn’t think like adults. Having him fulltime, being entirely accountable for him, wasn’t the same as having him a couple of hours a day during the week and a few hours extra on the weekends.

This was a huge adjustment for me. I was basically a loner. I didn’t share my life with anyone. I was totally free to do what I wanted when I wanted. That was pre-Brody. Post-Brody? Not so much. Now something as routine as going to the store for a carton of Coke—or a case; I was still thinking of buying stock in that company—meant finding him, telling him I’d be gone for five minutes, then waiting while he found his shoes—the places he left them were multitudinous and never easy—because of course he was coming with me. I could put the two items in the cart I’d come for, but there were 16 there by the time we came to checkout.

Yeah, I could complain a lot, but the truth was undeniable. I loved having him around. I loved the interruptions he caused, the problems we had to solve, the fact he was there in the house and I wasn’t alone any longer. I’d thought I loved being alone. I did, but I loved having Brody at the house with me. Talk about a kid getting under your skin! This kid did it better than an invasive tick.

All the work we’d been doing was showing results. When he’d first rung my doorbell, he looked like he weighed 70 pounds; certainly under 100. Now, he was up around 125. He was growing taller, too. He was lifting twice the weight we’d started with. I was keeping him with the repetitions rather than heavy weights. He bitched and moaned to the extent I’d be arrested for child abuse if anyone ever heard him. But he never stopped till I told him that was enough for the day. I think the complaints were because he’d learned he could and there’d be no repercussions, not even a dark glance from me. He’d never had the freedom to complain before. Now he did and wow, was he ever practicing and getting good at it. I had to be careful not to smile at his bitching!

We were running in the mornings. Has anyone ever tried to rouse a sleeping teen from bed at six in the morning? Has anyone done that without using earplugs? Damn. But I had a method now. Didn’t take all that long to figure it out, either. I told him it was time to get up, made sure he was awake, and told him he had six minutes.

When I first did that, he didn’t show up at the door till the six minutes had doubled, and he looked sour and sullen. I didn’t want to yell at him. He’d had enough of being yelled at, belittled, teased, bullied. So I found another way. Worked like magic.

“Six minutes. From now,” I said the morning after I’d figured it out. I left his bedroom. Six minutes later, before going out the front door and while he was still in bed, I shouted out, “See ya later. I’ll be back in a half hour or so. Without your sorry ass slowing me down, I might run an extra loop today.” And then I left.

Okay, I just made a comment about not teasing or bullying, but this wasn’t either. I didn’t use that disparaging tone of voice when saying ‘sorry ass’. Instead, I laughed after saying it, showing I didn’t mean it and wasn’t mad.

From then on, he was at the door in six minutes. I won’t comment on the unfriendly looks I got, but he was there and he ran with me. Every morning. He got so he could keep up without gasping. Eventually.

Brody had always been a good-looking boy. He’d also seemed frail, skeletal and scared, and he never smiled when I first knew him. The change was remarkable. He was well fed and happy now. He got a haircut when needed and was wearing the current style of almost shaved up the sides above his ears and full on top. He was spending more time outside now, running and actually having made a friend who lived in the neighborhood, and he had a slight tan to replace the pasty white he’d been before.

I do think the smile and happy face was what made the most difference in his looks, though. He was still shy, but working on that. I figured it wouldn’t be long before girls would be all over him, and I wanted him prepared for that.

I was thinking about this when I got a phone call from Nolan. “Hollister found the poorly hidden bug. He immediately called the chief of police. Hollister’s sure you’re the one who planted it. He had his son meet with a police artist who made a drawing of you, and when they showed it to Hollister’s wife, she identified it as the guy who came into their house .

“Look, Mark, they sounded desperate. That hard drive now has our interest, and we’ve put two experts on it. But for now, you should take precautions. They didn’t give away what they’re planning, but they certainly are worked up. So, watch yourself.”

“I always do. But I told Hollister his things I’d taken were placed with someone, and if something happened to me, they’d turn them over to the authorities. He should know that killing me won’t get them the drive.”

“What can I say? Just take care, Mark. All I can tell you is, they’re upset and planning something.”

He hung up, and I had some thinking to do. Right off, I realized I couldn’t be as nonchalant about this as I ordinarily would have been. I couldn’t see the chief of police bringing a number of cops to take me in. His collusion would be revealed, and he had to be aware of that possibility. I’d already seen the abilities of the thugs Hollister had hired to deal with me. So I wasn’t worried on that account either.

But then I suddenly realized where my vulnerability lay, and my smugness turned to fear. Brody! If they found and took Brody, they’d have a lever like the one Archimedes said would let him move the world.

Brody! It was Saturday, and he was at the park with his friend. I didn’t hesitate. I rushed out the door and ran to the park. I was accustomed to running, but my fear had me gasping before I got there. The park was a several-acre area with trees, bushes, playground equipment, a couple of gazebos and a pond. It took me over ten minutes to look everywhere. Neither boy was in sight. I turned around and raced back, headed for his friend’s house. The boy’s name was Stewart, and he came to the door when I rang the bell.

“Hey, Stewart, is Brody here?” I heard the panic in my voice. I didn’t know if Stewart did.

“No. He came to get me but I got a D on a test at school and my mom, well, I couldn’t go out. He said he’d go and see who was at the park by himself. He’s probably there.”

“Uh, thanks, Stewart.”

My heart was racing, and it wasn’t due to the running I’d been doing. I knew what I had to do. I ran home, checked that Brody hadn’t come back and went to the safe where I kept my Agency things, opened it and took out my S&W .45 handgun. I was at the door, headed for Hollister’s house, when my phone rang.

I looked at the display. Hollister.

I paused for a moment, then answered. “Yeah?”

“You got something of mine. Now I’ve got something of yours. Something more perishable than what you got. I suggest a trade before yours gets spoiled.”

“Anything happens to that boy, anything at all, and you’re dead.”

“Good luck with that! Anyway, the quicker the better. Today, six o’clock, Abramson Warehouse north of town. It’ll be deserted. Just us and our things to swap. Both the hard drive and the laptop or your boy dies.” Then he disconnected.

I didn’t have either of the things he wanted. They were in D.C. and it was already afternoon here.

This was going to be tricky. I could see all sorts of problems, the principal one being how to keep Brody from getting hurt. Quite obviously, just going there with the things Hollister wanted would mean all he had to do was shoot me and he could recover his things. Then he had no reason to keep the witness, Brody, alive. But if I went without those things, why would he release Brody?

Working for the Agency, this was the sort of dilemma I’d had to deal with all the time. Solving problems, critical ones, without enough information was what I’d done over and over. I only had a very few hours to work out what to do. Instead of leaving the house right then, I closed the door and went back in. Sat down to think.

Brody. He was uppermost in my thoughts. It all began and ended with him. Maybe Hollister and I would be trading more than just a few items. Lives were at stake. For me, it was a case of been there, done that. But this was much harder. It was only my own life I’d been risking then; that was what I’d signed up for and I knew the score. Now I had Brody’s to worry about, and I was terrified.

I didn’t go to the warehouse at six. I went at three-thirty. The place was busy with forklifts running around carrying pallets loaded with crates and fifty-pound sacks of things like fertilizer and seeds and chemicals. Men were busy loading pallets and taking care of shipping notices. I drove by several times, seeing what I could see from the road. I noted what the employees were wearing, jeans and T-shirts mostly, and I had similar clothes in the car I could change into.

I avoided the warehouse parking lot and left my car a ways away where it wouldn’t attract attention, changed clothes so I’d blend in with the men inside and walked to the warehouse. When no one inside was looking my way, I strolled into the place and slipped into one of the long rows of pallets holding merchandise. I peeked out. Everyone was busy doing something, and when no was looking, I left my row and walked down the center aisle deeper into the warehouse. A man working in the aisle turned and looked at me; I crouched down and fussed with a bag on one of the pallets. It was labeled ‘water-softening salt’, and using duct tape I’d brought with me, I taped up an imaginary rip in the bag. The man lost interest and turned away.

I couldn’t see much other than the central aisle I was in because the rows of pallets on both sides of the room, many of them over ten feet high, shielded my view. I needed to know the layout of the place, so I moved out of the center aisle where all the activity was and back into one of the many rows. I climbed to the top of the pallets in the row, hoping no one would look down that row while I was doing so, and slid onto the bags the top pallet was holding.

As I’d seen from the floor, there was a large central aisle where forklifts were moving around, bringing pallets from the rows and setting them on the floor so warehouse employees could unload material from them and assemble it onto other outgoing pallets. Those pallets, now containing the goods listed on shipping invoices, would then be loaded onto semi flatbeds or into vans which backed up to the loading docks.

I could see from my high perch how vast the warehouse was; large and high-ceilinged. There were many rows of loaded pallets on each side of the main aisle. The rows varied in height, and it appeared to me that each row contained one specific type of merchandise.

The rows of pallets took up most of the warehouse space. There were loading docks in front where I’d entered and a huge sliding door that would be closed to seal the warehouse during off hours. There was a smaller man-sized door, a judas gate, set into the large sliding door that would permit persons to enter when the large door was closed. From where I lay, it looked like the back of the warehouse had facilities for the workers: a rest room, locker room, maybe showers, and I could see a time clock with racks of timecards.

Above the rows on the far side from me, I could see a number of windowed offices that had been built near the building’s ceiling. There was a set of stairs on each end of the catwalk fronting the offices. I assumed clerical workers and bosses used those offices and anyone there could look down on the activity below.

So there I was, on top of one of the rows of merchandise. Later, when everyone was gone, I’d need a place to hide while waiting for Hollister to show up; I had to be inside the warehouse when he arrived. It seemed to me the best place would be in one of the offices. From there I could see the entire facility and wouldn’t be seen myself.

I figured out what I wanted to do. The warehouse closed at 4:30, six days a week. I knew that because its working hours were posted on a sign. Just before 4:30, the workers began preparing to leave. The lights then went off except for just a few, probably a safety or crime-prevention requirement. One by one the office lights went out and people came out of them and down the stairs. The large sliding door in front was closed. People began punching out at the time clock and leaving. One man walked down the middle of the floor from the back of the building all the way to the front, looking down each aisle of pallets on both sides as he did. He walked up the stairs and checked in each office, then made sure each door was locked. I was happy not to have chosen an office to hide in.

He looked over the tops of the rows below him, too. As I wasn’t hiding up there now, I just grinned. Lucky, but then, I usually was.

I was watching the man making sure the building was empty. The last thing the man did was go out through the small door in the sliding one, and I heard him lock it from the outside. A few moments later I heard a car start and drive away. I was alone in the dimly lit warehouse. Goosebumps time. Suddenly all alone in a huge space, full of anticipation. Imagination taking over. Yeah, goosebumps—or would have been had this been my first time in this sort of situation. It wasn’t.

I was in the restroom. Just before closing, I’d climbed down and made my way to the back of the warehouse behind all the others going to punch out. I’d been the only one going into the restroom. Made sense to me; it seemed unlikely anyone would stop to take a dump at closing time, and if anyone needed to take a leak, I’d just pretend I was doing the same. As it was, I was the only one who went in there.

The restroom had seemed a better place to hide than on the top of a row. If I saw someone coming to check the restroom, I’d duck into one of the stalls and crouch on the toilet so my feet wouldn’t show. The chances of anyone actually coming into the room and then opening each of the not-fully-shut stall doors to peek inside at closing time seemed incredibly small. I hadn’t been wrong. A man was doing a final check, and he had simply opened the door to the restroom, glanced inside, seen an empty room, and walked away. Then I’d watched him do his rounds and before locking up up the warehouse; I’d been peeking through an opening in the restroom door.

I still needed to hide, but not in the back where I was. At some point, I had to be where I would be able to meet with Hollister, but that was for later. Right then, I needed something else. The easiest answer to that was again on top of a stack of pallets. It wasn’t hard to climb back up on top. The stack I chose was near the middle of the rows and about 8-feet high. Lying flat there, I couldn’t be seen from the floor. From the offices, yes, but I was hoping no one would be up there. Almost any choice one made in this business involved some risk. Went with the territory.

Now came the waiting. A little over an hour before I expected Hollister to show up. With Brody. If there was no Brody, the game would be played much differently.

I’d shopped before coming and had a plastic bag with a laptop and a hard drive in it. The laptop was the same brand and model I’d taken from Hollister’s house. I wasn’t so particular with the hard drive. I doubted very much he was intimate with what that looked like.

I waited, kept still, the anticipation building. I’d spent hours doing this in the past and had found the best way to stay calm was to imagine what might happen, going over all the possibilities in detail. I thought of what was most likely and what was less. Planned for both. My main thought was the certainty that I’d have company sometime before six.

I was right. At twenty till, I heard a noise from the front of the building. It was the faint sound of a car stopping outside, a door opening and shutting, the car moving on, and then some almost unheard, maybe imagined scratchings at the small door that the lock-up man had left through.

The door opened and a man came in. He was dressed much like I was. Jeans and an untucked shirt. Both dark. Dark sneakers, too. I guessed he was about my age, mid 30s, but he could have been ten years older or younger. I was lying still, quite a distance away and up above him, and the low light made him difficult to see.

He was carrying a package, and it’s shape left little to the imagination. It contained a rifle. He looked around, looked all over, especially at the offices, and I hoped he didn’t go up there. Where I lay on the pallets, I would be clearly visible. But that was where he headed. If he intended to use that rifle, an elevated shooting position would be ideal.

Agency work generally wasn’t easy. It often took quick, creative thinking and problem solving to survive. So, that being the case, this situation was nothing new for me.

As he walked, he took his phone out of a pocket. In the silent warehouse, I could hear what he said, even at a distance. “I’ll be in the first office up the stairs closest to the main door. I’ll have the window opened a crack, just wide enough for the rifle and scope.”

He listened to a reply, then said, “Fine. No calls either way till we’re done,” and shut off his phone.

I was lucky the stairs to the offices were located such that he had to turn his back to the rest of the warehouse to climb to the office block. With his back to me, I dropped down, landing silently on my soft-soled running shoes. Then. noiselessly, I scurried as quickly as I could to the stairs he was on. He’d just reached the top when I was halfway up. If he’d turned to look back, he’d have me. He didn’t. He moved forward on the catwalk to the first office and tried the door. He found it was locked. He reached in his pocket, no doubt planning to use the lock pick he’d used on the judas gate.

His concentration was focused on getting the pick from his pocket. That made it easy for me to come up behind him unnoticed. He was crouched down, his back to me, and he started working on the lock. One of the things I’d learned in training with the Agency was an effective rabbit punch, a karate chop, if you will. With the side of my hand, I hit him hard on the back of his neck, and he went down cattywampus.

I knew how to pick locks, too. I used his pick to get into the office. Now I had to think; I had to incapacitate him and killing him would be the quickest, surest way. Yet I’d vowed to stop doing that unless it was absolutely necessary when I’d retired. So, what to do now?

The rabbit punch would not keep him unconscious for long. He’d be muddled and confused when he recovered, but aware enough to make some noise. I couldn’t have that. I’d brought some things from my Agency-supplies safe. Rope and duct tape were often essential for any job. I made good use of them now. I taped his mouth shut after inserting my handkerchief—unused, lucky him—then wound tape around his head, under his chin and back over the top again. He wouldn’t be opening his mouth, and with the rag inside, wouldn’t be able to make much noise at all, nothing that would be heard from his distance away from the action. But, to make sure, I dragged him to the last office in the row. There I used the rope. I ran it under his arms, around his torso, then lifted him off the ground and suspended him from the ceiling. A couple of extra ropes kept him unable to swing around. So, up in the air and voiceless, he was as noiseless as I could make him in the brief time I had. It would be enough.

I ran back to the first office, opened the window a crack, and then returned to the ground floor. There were still some pallets and piles of boxed merchandise in the aisle in middle of the floor where goods for shipment were being assembled. A forklift was there holding a pallet with boxed merchandise on its fork. I stashed the rifle under some of the boxes on the floor, then crouched behind the forklift.

Whew. The time factor had been a worry; I’d had much to do and not much time to do it. I checked my watch. It was 6:05. Had Hollister been on time, things would have been dicey. But I’d doubted he would be. He didn’t seem the on-time sort, and being late to meetings was a power move.

I still had another five minutes to wait before the small door opened and Hollister walked through. He wasn’t alone. He had Brody in front of him, being held tight against his chest by one arm.

I was crouching behind the forklift when Hollister walked into the warehouse. I rose so I could see him and he could see me—well, the top of me. The rest was still concealed behind the forklift.

He was dressed way too fancy for this sort of occasion. He had on a sharp Italian suit of a medium-tan color, a dark, navy shirt with a blue-and-white tie. The jacket had narrow lapels, the slacks a sharp crease. He was wearing highly polished Italian shoes; the soles and thin leather looked very expensive. I wondered if he had a modeling session scheduled for after doing away with me. But I figured that perhaps he dressed this way so the jacket would appear simply part of the ensemble, and it wouldn’t occur to me it was a place where a gun and holster could be hidden.

Brody was pressed up against his chest such that he was facing me. I could see the terror in his eyes.

Hollister kept coming toward me till he was about 12 feet away, where he stopped. “You got the laptop and drive?” he asked. He didn’t sound nervous at all. He sounded like a man in control.

“I’ve got ’em. How do you want to do this? Once I show you everything, you’ll be happy to shoot me. You not knowing where they are is the only thing keeping me alive. Once I have Brody, of course, I’ll be happy to shoot you, too. So how do we make the swap with no one getting dead?”

“I don’t have a gun,” he said. He must have thought me an idiot to have believed that.

“I do. You do, too. No way you’d come here unarmed. Okay, look, we can make this work. We both want what we want; that’s what’s important; someone getting dead isn’t necessary. It’s secondary and not very important. So, what we do is this. I come out from behind this forklift and stand here. You aren’t going to shoot me till you know if I’ve brought your things. I’ll have a bag with me, but you don’t know what’s in it.

“I’m not going to shoot you when I might hit Brody. So, we have to have a little standoff for the moment.

“When I’m out standing in front of you, we both take our guns and lay them on the floor by our feet. Then I show you what’s in the bag—your things. I take them out so you can see there’re no tricks. I don’t think that you’ll then try to get to your gun before I can get to mine, not with you holding Brody that way. The easy thing to do then is, you release Brody, and we both step back. As I say, no one has to get dead.”

I rose from behind the crate and stepped out. As soon as he saw the bag in my hand, he yelled, “Now! Shoot him!”

Nothing happened. I grinned at him. “Uh, your man is temporarily waylaid. He won’t be shooting anyone today. But we can still make our trade. I’ll show you what’s in my bag.” Then I suddenly grimaced. “Damn, I’ve been crouched behind that lift too long, waiting for you. You were late! Hell of a cramp in my leg. Ouch!” I started shaking my leg, and I dropped my eyes from Hollister’s to Brody’s.

Brody

Oh my God! He wants me to stomp on the man’s foot! The guy’s pistol is stuck in my belt, pressed up against my back and his stomach. If I stomp on his foot, he’ll grab it and shoot me and then Mark!

I did practice this and other moves with Mark. But it was in fun! I never thought I’d have to do it for real.

Mark’s eyes are boring into mine. He believes I can do this.

Closing my eyes, taking a breath—not a deep one because the man is squeezing me too tight—I open them again, lift my leg and stomp as viciously as I can on the man’s foot.

He screams and, just as Mark said would happen, his grip on me loosens for a second. I twist away before he can grab the gun. I face him and knee him in the nuts. He screams again.

I’m loose! The man is groaning as I run to Mark. His attention is focused on the man who’s leaning over now. “He has a gun!” I say. “It’s under his jacket!”

“Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you?” He’s speaking to me, but his eyes are focused on Hollister. “If he did, I’ll kill him. But I want him alive.”

“I’m okay,” I say. “Don’t kill him on my account.”

“Okay,” he says and walks over to the man and slugs him on the chin, hard. The man falls down. Mark takes a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and cuffs the guy’s hands behind his back, then searches him and finds the other gun in a holster under his suit jacket.

Mark looks down at him, and I’m suddenly in his arms, not even aware of how I get there. I’ve been so scared!

“You saved us both, Brody,” Mark whispers in my ear. “I never want to hear you saying you can’t do something again. Never.”

I’m shaking now, remembering. I tell Mark, “I was too scared to do anything, but I realized if I didn’t, as soon as you showed him the stuff in the bag, he’d grab the pistol out of my belt and shoot us both. I knew he had two guns. The one in my belt, and one in a shoulder holster.

“I remembered all the times you told me that courage wasn’t the absence of fear; it was doing what had to be done in spite of being afraid. I didn’t think I had enough courage. No, I was sure I didn’t. But I knew you thought I did. That really helped me.

“You told me that I had proved my courage by speaking to those boys in the garage when I didn’t know what would happen at school afterwards. I remembered that. I’m still surprised, though, I could do it, stomp on his foot. I was sure when I did he’d grab the gun out of my belt and shoot us both.”

Mark

I couldn’t call the cops. I didn’t know how many of them were dirty. I called Nolan instead. He told me to call the state police, that he’d already gotten them involved. They’d arrested the local chief, and they were waiting for my call; he gave me their number. So I called them, they came and took Hollister and his minion away. Had to cut him down. Brody watched all this without saying a word.

That was the end of our problems with the Hollister family. The district attorney was contacted by Nolan and he took over responsibility for the investigations. Turned out that Hollister and the police chief were running a money-laundering scheme, along with some other stuff.

But eventually Nolan did get involved. When they got the hard drive decrypted, they found this document:

Hollister and the chief were taken to a federal prison and interrogated. I’d witnessed one of those before. They were never pleasant. It was determined that this was going to be an attempt to fraudulently extort money from the government. There was no evidence that these two had any bombs or the ability or wherewithal to make or get them. It was all a ruse. They were setting things up, and the threat message hadn’t been sent yet, merely written.

Those two were looking at some serious time behind bars.

Brody didn’t take long to get over the trauma he’d experienced. But he did suffer at first. I used the time to praise him for saving us, telling him again he wasn’t the coward he thought he was.

“I knew you were brave. I wasn’t sure you understood that, though. Now you do. Now you know you can act when necessary. You just proved that. You told me way back when that you wanted to be strong and brave like me. Well, you are! You simply never believed it. You have to rethink who you are and what you can do.”

“I don’t want to! I’m no hero, and I’m not brave.”

“Keep telling yourself that and you’re denying who you are and what you’re capable of. You don’t have to agree that you’re an intrepid superhero or white knight, always at the ready to save the princess. But you don’t need to label yourself as the opposite, either. The fact is, you acted when you had to. Just accept that and do away with the negative thoughts you’ve had about yourself. Accept they don’t apply any longer.”

He did get better. He got over the shock of nearly being killed. I think the exercising he was doing, the running and all those weights made a difference.

He and his friend Stewart started joining the soccer games kids got up in the park. He started looking fitter and fitter, and I saw more and more smiles. He was a genuinely happy kid now. I couldn’t be prouder of him.

It was while I was at the park enjoying watching them out on the field with the other boys that I got a phone call.

“Hey, Mark. Guess who this is.”

“You fool! No guess needed, Don. What’s up?”

“What’s up is I’m retiring. I figured out you were the smart one to leave the Agency when you did, and I the dumb one to stay with it as long as I have.”

“Well, I’ve known that all along, but didn’t want to deflate your ego by mentioning it. So, what are you going to do now?”

“Well, I’ve been doing some soul-searching. Looking back on my life. Looking at what made me happy. Looking at what I miss the most.”

‘Yeah? And what is it?”

“It’s you. I miss you. You told me once you loved me. That was so unexpected, I didn’t know how to react. You always did have your feet on the ground more than I did. So when you told me that, I did what I was good at. I ran away. I’m sure you’ve moved on, but I’d feel really foolish if I didn’t take the chance for happiness and then found you’d been available and I’d been too stupid to ask. You’re the only one I ever loved.”

I felt my heart do a little jerk. Could this be true? He’d been my only love. Now I had another, but my love for Brody wasn’t the romantic kind. My feelings for Don had never disappeared.

I’d always thought I was happiest as a loner. Brody had blown that idea out of the water. Was I now getting a chance at what I thought I hadn’t minded losing?

Who I was, however, coupled with my sense of humor, wouldn’t just let this go so easily. I had to play it in tune with my sense of self. “Uh, Don, I have to tell you something. You might not like it but, oh hell, I’ll just tell you. I have a son now. The light of my life. I certainly couldn’t get back with you without his approval. I guess maybe you should come here and meet him. That would give us a chance to see if we still feel the same way about each other now that we’re old men. I’m pretty sure I still love you. Well, more than sure. I’ve never forgotten. So whether we both feel the same, what I really mean is, do you feel the same about me? That shoe is on your foot. But Brody would have the final say.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “We’re not old. And how the hell do you have a son? I find it hard to believe you fell for some woman’s guiles. Not you!”

“Who said anything about a woman. A son; that’s what we’re all about here.”

“Where there’s a son, there’s always a woman. They go together like bread and butter, or in your case, horses and manure.”

“So smooth and sophisticated. I’m not sure I want my son growing up around the likes of you. He has some class. But as to the woman, I guess you’ll just have to show up to get the lay of the land. When can we expect you? I have to prepare Brody for this. He may be hard to convince that three in the house is better than two. He and I are tight.”

“Uh, is tomorrow too soon?”

“Nope, that’s fine. Give me a call when you’re in town and I’ll pick you up.”

Now I had to talk to Brody. He didn’t know I was gay.

A few minutes after I’d spoken to Don, Brody came in from the park, hot and sweating and glowing. But he had something on his mind. I could read him like a book now. He took a shower, came out joined me in the kitchen. He liked a snack after soccer. Well, he liked a snack after most everything he did all day long. I made sure we had plenty on hand for it but didn’t fix the snacks myself. I wanted his independence to grow, to bloom, and doing things for him he could do himself wasn’t the way to encourage that. I wanted him to see firsthand that he was capable of more than he thought he was. He was learning. He was adept at that. Expanding horizons were what he was all about. Nothing was holding him back now.

After his shower, we were both in the kitchen, him making a sandwich and me doing dinner prep, making the marinade for the lamb chops we’d have later. Olive oil, rosemary and garlic. Lots of garlic. He brought his sandwich to the table, then started fidgeting. He did that when he wanted to ask me something but wasn’t sure how I’d react.

I watched him for a minute or two, then said, “What?”

He looked down, not meeting my eyes, something he almost never did anymore. “Brody,” I said, extending the name and adding annoyance to my voice. He knew where that was coming from. He knew I didn’t like him acting shy.

“I need to ask you something,” he said, “but you might not like it. I know you want me to be upfront and brave, but you don’t realize how much I want your approval. How much I need it.”

“Well, I can’t help with that till I know what you want to ask, but how many times have I been disapproving of anything you’ve asked?”

He didn’t answer, just fidgeted some more. Then, when the silence was getting heavy, he looked up at me. “How do I find out if someone at school likes me?”

His anxiety was over the top. I didn’t know why. It was totally normal for a boy his age to wonder about someone liking him romantically and being afraid to simply ask the person for fear of rejection or being teased.

So why was this so upsetting to him? It didn’t take long before the sun came up for me. I got it. What it probably was, at least.

“And this person. Is it a boy?”

The fear in his eyes was almost too much for me to handle. I wanted to rush to him and hug him. Instead, I just kept talking very matter-of-factly.

“Well, it’s different if it’s a boy or a girl. If it’s a boy, then I’m guessing it’s not someone you really know or speak to. If you did know him, if you are already friends, it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out if he likes you the way you’re thinking about here; lots of ways to go if you know him. You’re a smart kid, and you’d find a way, and you wouldn’t be so nervous you had to ask how. So, I’ll assume you don’t know him. That would suggest what’s probably been happening. I’d guess you’ve spent some time looking at him. That it’s hard to keep your eyes off him when he’s around. And he’s probably spent some time looking at you, too, and you’ve caught each other at it.

“You’re nowhere near as shy now as you were a few months ago, but with someone you like? It’s easy to be shy then. So you’re both shy, and you want to know how to go farther than just looking.”

Brody was looking at me and had stopped fidgeting. Apparently, the fact I was taking this all in stride made him aware I wouldn’t blow up when discovering he might like a boy. That had calmed him down. Like I’d thought it would. He’d been terrified I’d reject him if he might be gay. Now he wasn’t.

“You want to know if he likes you the same way you like him. So, why not do it like this: go up to him, tell him you’re shy and that this is very hard for you, but you’ve seen him looking at you, just the same way he’s seen you looking at him. Tell him that when you look at him, you get funny feelings you’ve never had before. You’ve been trying hard to get up the courage to speak to him, but it’s hard when you’re shy. But it’s now become too hard for you not to talk to him. So, you’re being very brave and taking a chance. You came over to find out if maybe he likes you a little, and to tell him that you kinda like him a lot.

“How could he not like hearing that? Even if he doesn’t have the same feelings you do, it has to make him feel good that he’s that attractive to someone else. But I’ll bet what’ll happen is he’ll blush and say he kinda might like you, too. Of course he does! Otherwise, why’s he been looking at you?”

Brody sort of half smiled, then frowned and said, “You don’t care?” Just a smidgeon of trepidation in his voice.

“I care a great deal that you’re happy. If this boy would make you happy, then I’d be very grateful you’d found someone like that. Brody, if you’re gay, then you are. I love you, and what your sexuality is makes no difference at all.”

He jumped up and gave me a huge hug. I hugged him back and said, “Now it’s my turn to talk.”

Okay, so now we’re a family of three. Brody loved Don, maybe more than he loved me. Thick as thieves, those two. They plot together, and guess who’s the focus of their plots? Not fair!

Brody led me ‘round Robin Hood’s barn about his approval of my taking Don as a partner. I was pretty sure all his deliberations were a front, but come on! I never teased him, never did anything to test his ego. Why wasn’t he just as thoughtful of mine?

Okay, I admit, I don’t really need my ego supported or sustained. That was an area in which I was quite self-sufficient. But still, a man has feelings, doesn’t he? It’s not showing any weakness to admit to that.

But Brody had finally relented and said Don could come live with us. He didn’t put any restrictions or covenants on it, either. He just smiled a lot.

I was happy those two got along so well. Don had always had a playful side to him, and Brody needed to see that, see that being a man didn’t mean being glum or taciturn or over-serious.

Don found a job I wasn’t expecting at all, but one that he fit right into. The town needed a new chief of police, and Don had expertise in many aspects of law enforcement. He’d been drilled in legalities better than me. I’d been more seat-of-the-pants action-oriented. He’d been good at figuring out legal ways to get his results. I think the Agency, meaning Nolan in this instance, had called our mayor, the one who selected and, with the city council’s approval, hired the police chief. Nolan gave him a little nudge, and Don was now in a position to arrest me if I stepped out of line.

I’ll tell you, there were times I looked back on those loner days as halcyon times. But then Don would get Brody laughing, and nothing made me happier than seeing that. That’s what life’s all about, isn’t it? Seeing kids, little and big, filled with laughter?

THE END