The next day, Sunday, Peter was on his own, free to do what he liked. He had to decide whether to let Social Services have their way with him, find him a place, and set him up—but he didn’t need to consider that until the next day. He wasn’t sure he wanted his fate in the hands of adults he didn’t know. He realized if they were in charge of him, his freedom would end.
But that was tomorrow’s decision. Ultimately, he only had to figure out how to spend his time. If he decided to stay on the streets, eventually there’d be the problem of money, of course. He’d need to eat. Trying to steal food or eating out of dumpsters didn’t appeal to him. He had about one hundred and twenty dollars he’d scrounged from his house; there was more, but his father had it locked away in a hidden floor safe. Being smart, remembering his encounter with the kid in the park, Peter decided to only carry with him as much money as he’d need for eating each day. That meant he had to hide the rest where no one would find it and where he could get to it without being seen. It took him some time to find the perfect place, but that’s what he had now: time.
He passed much of the rest of Sunday just moving around, walking, seeing the city, looking for places where he could hide if he had to, looking for escape routes to be used if he was running, looking at people. A few years ago the city had managed to attract a mall. It wasn’t like the huge ones in major cities, but it was a medium-large, indoor shopping place with quite a few stores, and so it attracted a lot of people on weekends. Especially a lot of teens who didn’t have much else to entertain them.
There were benches inside for shoppers who needed to rest, and Peter used one. He had nothing to do, and this was a good way to kill time. He spent it watching the people and trying to guess what each one was like. He watched how they behaved, how they dressed, how their friends dressed, listened to what he could hear of what they talked about and realized he could make pretty good guesses about the teens and kids his age. Of the adults, he had no clue. There was no figuring them out.
His curiosity was piqued when he noticed a boy about his age, perhaps a year older, perhaps not, sitting on a bench much like the one he was on, watching the crowd much as he was. There wasn’t anything terribly noticeable about him, yet Peter found himself paying close attention to him. He’d put a label on a lot of the kids passing by in the main mall corridor; he wanted to figure this kid out, too.
Peter kept glancing at the kid sitting across the corridor and down a ways, and eventually their eyes locked. Peter had looked away before, not wanting to be seen paying attention to the other kid. This time, he kept his eyes away even longer—for several minutes. When he next glanced in that direction, two plump ladies were sitting on the bench, and there was no sign of the boy.
Peter spent the rest of the afternoon in the mall, mostly sitting, sometimes moving around. He did spend some time in the bookstore, but when he noticed the proprietor watching without ever taking his eyes off him, he left. It was getting toward dinnertime, anyway, and he’d decided he was going to visit a Wendy’s nearby for a hamburger that night.
He was halfway to the fast-food place when he saw three boys on bikes ahead of him, not riding but just straddling their rides on the sidewalk, blocking his path. They appeared to be older than he was—thirteen or maybe fourteen, he guessed—maybe even older. They were watching him approach.
Peter drew himself up tall, as tall as his 4’ 8” frame would allow, and kept walking toward them. Peter was small, but he was not an easily intimidated boy.
When Peter got closer to the boys, he stepped out into the street to pass them. One of the boys walked his bike out into the street to block him.
“Where you think you’re going?” asked the oldest one. He had restless eyes and brown hair that didn’t appear to have been washed anytime recently.
“None of your business,” Peter answered.
The oldest boy laughed. “Hey, we’ve got a spunky one. There’re the ones I like best. Making them cry.”
The boy next to him, in a red tee shirt with a rip at one shoulder, laughed as well and stepped off his bike, letting the oldest kid hold it for him. He was considerably taller than Peter. Peter looked at him, then looked to run, but a car was coming down the street, preventing him from running across it, and the boy on foot had moved to block him from going backward. He was hemmed in.
While he was still thinking, one of the boys stepped forward and grabbed him by his arm. “You’re coming with us,” he said and squeezed Peter’s arm painfully.
Peter still had a free arm, and he swung it at the boy, hitting him in the side. The boy didn’t let go, but grunted, then squeezed harder and twisted his arm.
“Ouch,” Peter yelped.
“That’s enough!”
The voice came from behind, and Peter turned his head to see who’d said it. Walking toward them was the boy from the mall, the boy who’d been on the bench. Peter’s hopes fell. This boy wasn’t much older than he was, and he was nowhere close to as big as his captors.
Then the boy squeezing his arm relaxed his grip, and with a yank, Peter freed himself. He didn’t run, though, even though he could have. Something in the mood of the boys surrounding him had changed.
Peter watched as the new boy continued to approach and saw the three boys turn their bikes so they could ride away, his arm-squeezer having remounted.
Before they could ride off, the new boy called to them. “Leave him alone in the future. He’s with me. Understand?”
The unwashed-hair boy grimaced, looked mad, and then, without speaking or making any sign at all, simply started pedaling away. The others rode off with him.
««« »»»
Peter and the other boy were at Wendy’s, sitting at a table. Peter had bought the other boy his meal, over protests.
“I could have handled it myself,” Peter was saying, “but thanks.” Then, his curiosity getting ahead of his swagger, he asked, “How did you do that?”
The kid smiled. “What’s your name, anyway? I shouldn’t let strangers buy me food. They might get ideas.”
“Ideas?” Peter had no idea what the kid was talking about.
“Man, you’ve not been on the streets long, have you? But then, I knew that.”
“Huh?” So far, this kid hadn’t made a bit of sense.
“So what’s your name? That’s a good place to start.”
“Peter. Peter Simpkins. Who are you?”
“Parrish O’Bannon. So I could be English or Irish. I’m both; father was Irish, mother English. She’s the one who named me. Don’t know why she picked that name, but she did.” He smiled, and his eyes sparkled. Peter smiled as well. This kid was instantly likeable.
“How were you able to scare those guys away?”
“I have magic powers. They know about them, and so they do what I tell them.”
Peter was at an age just past believing in superpowers and superheroes but still liked the idea. He looked at the kid and his mouth dropped open a little, thinking about superpowers and all, but then realized he was being teased. But the kid was smiling, and the teasing seemed funny, not hurtful or humiliating.
“Yeah, I got some, too, but I left them home today.” Peter smiled at Parrish to show he could pull the same sort of thing. Then he had another question.
“What’d you mean, you knew I hadn’t been on the streets long? How could you know that? How could you know anything about me?”
Parrish grimaced. “I shouldn’t have said that. I have a problem with my mouth. It gets ahead of my brain. Why don’t you just forget I said that. I get at least one do-over for saving your ass, don’t I?”
Peter sat up straighter. “I already told you: I can handle myself. As soon as the kid let me go a little, I’d have hit him again, in the nuts this time, and run. None of those guys can run as fast as I can.”
Parrish was studying him. Then he shook his head. “Probably not, but they had bikes. And they don’t play fair. Especially Greg, the older one who spoke to you. He’d have done something dirty and then messed you up worse for running. You don’t have to admit it, you can be as feisty as you want, but I saved you. You’re going to have to learn how to act if you’re going to make it living on the streets.”
Peter ate a couple of fries, then asked, “Do you? Live on the streets.”
Parrish shook his head. “I have, but not now.”
“You being fostered, then? That’s what’ll happen to me if I don’t like the streets.”
“Fostered? No. But that’s better than living on the streets. You don’t know how bad that can be. The joke I made that you didn’t understand? About letting strangers buy you food? That’s what I’m talking about: how bad it can get. You’ll run out of money eventually, and you’ll be hungry all the time, and some man will offer you a meal, and you’ll accept, and he’ll take you home and…”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll be expected to do things with him. Sex things. And if you refuse, he’ll do them anyway. You can run fast and hit someone, but it won’t help with a man. You’ll hit him, he’ll hit you back, and that’ll be it. You don’t know what it feels like, being hit by a man.”
“Yes I do.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
Parrish was silent for a moment, then said, “Well, then you know what I mean. Once he hits you and you go down, he can do whatever he wants, and you can’t stop him. And some guys will do stuff that you won’t like. Trust me on that.”
Peter thought about Parrish’s words. At twelve, he was brave, but he could hear the truth in what Parrish was saying. “So you think I should go to the police tomorrow and have them turn me over to the social workers?”
“You have to decide that for yourself.”
“But what if they stick me in a home where I’m forced to do all the work and get hit anyway? What if they want me to do the sex stuff?”
“That happens more in big cities than here. Here, the social workers have easier caseloads and will check up on you more often. They talk to you in private, and if any of that stuff is happening, they remove you. And if it happens, you can always run away again. You’d be on the streets, but that’s where you are now. But again, think about it. Take your time. Do what you want. Everyone’s different. What works for some won’t work for others.”
Peter finished his burger and most of his Coke. He still had some fries left and saved some Coke for them. He thought about what Parrish was saying. Then he had more questions. “Why were you on the streets?”
“If we get to know each other better, maybe I’ll tell you sometime. Not now. I’m about ready to push off.”
“Wait! How come you were following me? How come you showed up just when I was in trouble with those guys?”
Parrish smiled again. “Superpowers. And, I was asked to.”
“Huh?”
“I got to go, Peter. You figure out what you want to do. If I see you around, I’ll wave.”
With that, Parrish got up, thanked Peter for the meal again and walked out.
««« »»»
It was a week later. Peter had spent the nights under the bandstand. He hadn’t seen the boy he figured now would be sporting a pair of crutches. The boy evidently was no longer hanging around the park.
He had seen the boy he now knew as Greg again with his two cronies. They’d been on the other side of the park when he’d come back to it one night. They hadn’t seen him, and he made sure they didn’t, turning back the way he’d come. When he returned a half hour later, he very carefully scouted the place from the periphery. He didn’t approach the bandstand till he was sure he was alone and it was safe.
He’d been at the mall several times. It seemed safe, and as long as he didn’t stay in any one store too long, no one hassled him. He was approached once. He was sitting on a bench in the long corridor of the mall, the same one from which he’d first spotted Parrish, and a man sat down on it with him. The man appeared to be well-dressed and in his late twenties, early thirties. He looked at Peter, and when Peter glanced at him, he smiled and said, “Hey, I’ve seen you here before—a few times.”
Peter frowned but didn’t reply.
The man nodded. “OK. No need to talk. But, if you’re interested, I’ll give you twenty bucks. Meet me outside the south door. I know a place we can go.”
Peter didn’t respond. Instead, he stood up and walked off. He went to the bookstore again. He liked looking through the place, figuring out which books he’d buy if he didn’t need his money for food. When he looked back at the bench after leaving the store, no one was there.
He was still eating fast food and watching his cash shrink. He knew he’d have to make a decision soon.
It was Saturday, and so the mall was much busier. He walked around, seeing how many people he recognized from earlier visits, then sat down on what he considered his bench.
He looked around and saw that the bench across the corridor where Parrish had been was empty, as usual. Every time he came to the mall, he looked for Parrish but hadn’t seen him for a week. Mostly people were milling about, entering stores or looking in the windows. It seemed as thought everyone was with someone else, or in a group. They were shopping or just wandering. Most didn’t bother to sit down.
Then he found something else interesting to look at. As he was watching, a street person, wearing a dirty tee shirt, unshaven, hair a mess, moving in a slightly swaying, slightly cautious way that suggested drunkenness, moved to the next bench down from his on the same side of the corridor and plopped down on it. Peter watched him, thinking security would rout him out of the mall pretty quickly. But the more he looked, the more he had the feeling the man looked familiar.
The man sort of sprawled out, his legs spread, his butt on the edge of the seat, his head sort of hanging back. He appeared to be oblivious to the world. Peter looked, looked again, and then it came to him. This was John Saunders! It was! What was he doing here drunk? Unshaven, poorly dressed. And then it hit him. The man had said he was in narco. He had to be undercover. Some sort of operation. A stakeout, maybe. Or maybe something was going down!
Still, Peter didn’t want the man seeing him. Was the man wired; might he call in that he’d seen Peter? Peter knew he should skedaddle. He was about to and in fact was rising when he saw something else. Down the corridor, past where Saunders was sitting, was Parrish. He was ambling in Saunders’ and Peter’s direction, looking around, and didn’t appear to be casually window shopping. He seemed to be looking for someone because he was checking out faces. He was still a good ways away but coming toward Peter, looking at everyone he passed.
Peter’s curiosity got the better of him, and he stayed where he was. Saunders wasn’t looking at much of anything. His head was lolling a bit, but away from where Peter was sitting. Peter didn’t think the man would look his way, and in any case, even if he recognized Peter—and it seemed possible he wouldn’t—would he break cover to say something? If he was undercover?
Too many ifs for Peter to work out, and in any case, he was too occupied watching Parrish to care at the moment.
Parrish kept walking, kept looking, and appeared, now that he was closer and Peter could see him better, to be frowning. Parrish stopped and looked all around him, looking worried. And then Peter saw an older teen—maybe the guy was even in his twenties—come out of nowhere and approach Parrish. He said something to him, and Parrish nodded, then pointed to an area between two stores that was away from the corridor traffic.
The guy looked at it and looked around, seeming to take in the entire corridor but not looking as far away as Peter. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the two were joined by a third man, slightly older than the first, who spoke quickly to the man who’d first stopped to talk to Parrish. Apparently satisfied with what was said, this new man he took Parrish’s other arm and moved with him in the direction Parrish had indicated.
Saunders was on the edge of Peter’s peripheral vision, and when Peter caught sight of movement there, he shifted his eyes slightly to see what was happening. Saunders was now sitting up straight, and he was looking at Parrish and the guy he was walking with.
But, as he watched, Peter saw something that caused his eyes to open wider. The benches both he and Saunders were sitting on were about five feet away from the wall of the corridor. Moving stealthily between that wall behind the benches toward where Saunders was sitting was a man. The way he was moving caused Peter to look directly at him. The man had jeans on and a leather jacket, even though it was warm in the mall and warmer outside. The man’s right hand was in his jacket pocket, and he was nearing the bench where Saunders was sitting. Saunders had his complete focus on Parrish and the person he was talking to, completely unaware of the man approaching him. Peter saw the man remove his hand from his jacket pocket.
There was a pistol in his hand, and Peter saw it had something attached to the end of the barrel. Peter had seen enough TV to know it was a silencer.
Peter hated guns. His father had had one, and sometimes he’d have friends over to the house who had guns. They always scared Peter. And now, he could see, from the way the man was raising his, that Saunders was about to get shot.
Peter didn’t even take the time to think. Instead, he screamed, “Gun! He’s got a gun!” Saunders turned to where the scream was coming from and saw the man almost on top of him, his arm raised, the gun pointing at him.
What happened next was almost too fast for Peter to make sense of it. Saunders yanked his body back on the bench, twisting away while raising his left arm. The man’s gun fired. Peter could hear the pooft! and see the gun jerk in the man’s hand. Saunders let out a yelp and at the same time brought up his right arm, his hand holding his service piece. The other man aimed his gun again, and just that fast, Saunders fired his. The man fired as he was hit; he twisted backwards and fell. His shot went into the ceiling.
Peter quickly looked past Saunders to Parrish. The man Parrish had first spoken to now had his arm around Parrish’s neck and was dragging him back along the corridor. The other man joined him, still holding one of Parrish’s arms to keep it from flailing.
“Parrish!” Peter screamed and stood up. Saunders did, too, though his arm was dripping blood, and started towards Parrish.
He and Peter both ran toward the men holding Parrish. When the men saw them coming, one of them, the one who’d come late and grabbed Parrish’s arm, let go and took off running down the crowded corridor away from Saunders and Peter. The other man hesitated, still holding Parrish around the neck so that the boy was almost being dragged with his heels on the floor and his body bent backwards.
“Stop that man,” yelled Saunders. “Police business! Stop him!”
The first man was already disappearing down the corridor and then into a store. The man holding Parrish suddenly dropped him and turned to run, too. He was pushing through a group of older teens. One of them moved aside to let the man through, then stuck out his foot. The young man tripped, and as he was trying to scramble to his feet, Parrish was there to kick his legs out from under him.
And then Saunders was there, too, still dripping blood. He knelt on the man’s back, and quickly handcuffed him.
By this time, sirens could be heard, and suddenly the corridor was filled with cops. The first two stopped when they came to the man Saunders had shot, and the next two came to take over the arrest of the handcuffed man. Another came to help Saunders, sitting him down on the floor, leaning him up against a storefront, putting pressure on his wound to stop the blood.
Peter, watching it all, found he was shaking. Parrish saw him, came over and put his arm around him. “Let’s sit down,” he said, and took him through the crowd that had assembled over to an empty bench.
««« »»»
The two boys were sitting in a downtown diner, Levin’s Eats. They’d been pulled aside to be questioned, but when they were asked for their names and addresses, Saunders had stepped in and said, “They’re with me,” and the officer questioning them had put his notebook away and sauntered off.
Parrish had said, “You’re going to Emergency, I suppose. We’ll be at Levin’s.”
Saunders had nodded and then left with the cop, who was still holding a towel to his arm. Parrish, his arm still around Peter, had merely said, “Come on,” and led Peter out of the mall and down the block to where a diner was located. He’d ordered them both Cokes and then sat at a table where no one else was close. Parrish’s cell phone rang and he spoke into it briefly, turning away from Peter when he did; then he closed the phone and turned back to the table.
They drank in silence for a time, then Parrish said, “Thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“Yeah, thanks. For saving John’s life.”
“I saw what was happening,” Peter said. “I hate guns. The scream was almost involuntary.”
“Doesn’t matter. It saved John. They would have got away with it, too. The guy who was with me had already grabbed me around the neck. I yelped and so everyone was looking at us. The gun was pretty quiet. The guy was using a .22 to lessen the noise. The small caliber means the injury was less. If John had been hit in the head, though…” Parrish paused and swallowed. “Whether you meant to save his life or not doesn’t matter. You did. They’d had it all worked out. It was a setup. I was a diversion. You ruined their plan.
“Why’d they want to kill, uh, John?”
Parrish finished the rest of his drink and set the cup on the table. “That’s a long story, and John can tell you. He should be here in a few minutes. That was him on the phone. He got a couple of stitches and some antibiotics and pain meds and they released him.
“But I need to ask you something. When John was shot, you didn’t run to him. You ran toward me, even though the guy holding me was much bigger than either of us. You were trying to save me, weren’t you, even though you could have got hurt? Why did you do that?”
Peter blushed. He hesitated, then said, “Well, you helped me with that Greg kid and those guys. I was just returning the favor.” He quickly looked down at the table, trying to hide his hot face.
Parrish wasn’t fooled. “You’re not a very good liar, you know?”
Peter looked up quickly. “Am too,” he said, then realized what he admitted and laughed.
Parrish did, too, but then said, “That reason you gave wasn’t true, though, was it? Come on, tell me. If you’re brave enough to run at somebody who’s almost an adult, you’re certainly brave enough to tell me why you did it.”
“OK. OK.” Peter looked up, meeting Parrish’s eyes. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I thought it wouldn’t take much for the guy to let you go. All those people were watching, and I thought if I jumped in, they would, too, and the guy would just let you go and run off.”
Parrish didn’t say anything for a moment, thinking about that, then said in a softer tone, “Why didn’t you want me to get hurt? We don’t even know each other.”
“You really want to embarrass me, don’t you?” said Peter, defensively. “OK, I’ll tell you. We probably won’t see each other again, anyway. Ever since I saw you in the mall the first time, when you were sitting on the other bench and we saw each other, even before Greg, well… I don’t know. I just liked how you looked. I can’t explain it better than that. I just found you… well, attractive. Really attractive. I know you’re not supposed to feel that way about other boys; you’re not supposed to notice. But I have been! I’ve been noticing other boys for about a year now, and you, well… I don’t know but I might be…” He stopped and looked down at the table, but somehow kept talking. “I sure feel something I’ve never felt before when I look at you.” After saying that he stopped, but then raised his head and, more defensively, said, “I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”
Peter still had his eyes locked on Parrish’s, and he saw his eyes change. They seemed to get warmer. Then the boy grinned. “You really are brave. I’m not sure I could have said that to a stranger. But since you did, well, I can, too. I know what you mean. The reason I was looking at you in the mall that first time was that I felt something, too. I want you for a friend. I want us to get to know each other.”
Peter smiled, thinking about that. He had no one right now. Having another twelve-year-old boy to hang with would be great. How that would work, he didn’t know, but he liked the idea of it.
“Peter, John should be here in a few minutes. Maybe we can talk to him about all this.”
Peter understood that Parrish wanted to wait for John before continuing, and that was fine with him. Just the mention of John brought back memories of what had happened such a short time ago. He was still somewhat shaken from what he’d witnessed. Sitting quietly and waiting was fine with him.