That’s why I follow him. Because I know that grin. I know it like I know parts of my own soul. I’d made that grin once or twice in my life, when I was a stupider, angrier boy who’d lost his father and had to take it out on the world. I made that grin before I raised the bat on Leo. I made that grin once while escorting a woman because she found rape scenarios terribly, horribly sexy.
I vomited for an hour after that session, and tried to scrub her off, tried to scrub the evil out of me, out of humanity.
It never worked.
I follow the boy, and he leads me to two more boys. Freshmen in high school, probably. Skinny, with tight jeans and earbuds hanging out of their pockets. No muscle. No experience. No courage. That’s why they corner the homeless man between a dumpster and a wall scrawled with candy-colored graffiti gone brown on the edges. Rotten. They laugh and push him. He wears a flannel shirt and filthy pants, shaking hands clutching a half-eaten banana he fished out of the trash. His gray beard is down to his chest and knotted, his face sunburned. The man babbles under his breath, so low and fast it sounds like a chant, or a curse. He doesn’t want to die. He spends every day trying not to die.
“What’s that, you crazy f**ker?” A boy leans in, holding his hand to his ear in an exaggerated motion. “Speak up, we can’t hear shit if you don’t say shit.”
The second boy brings out his phone and held it up.
“I got this. I’m recording, so do it.”
The third boy frowns. “No way, man, someone’s gonna see.”
“No one’s gonna see,” The second boy snaps. “We got his back.” He turned to the first boy. “We got your back. C’mon!”
The first boy hesitates, and that’s when I know. The first boy is not the real threat. Neither is the third boy, who looks uncomfortable, like he’s about to run away at any moment. It’s the second boy, the one with the camera, who is the true coward. Hiding behind a lens, just like Wren did that night. But unlike Wren, he’s smiling. Wren never smiled. Wren looked comatose, brain-dead. Wren looked like he was putting his soul somewhere far, far away to escape from the violence. Camera boy, on the other hand, is instigating it, egging it on, goading it with all the small, sickly power he has in his gangly teenage body.
Before I punch the camera out of hands, I briefly thank whatever god is listening. I’ve lived long enough to learn the differences between just bad people, and truly terrible people. Some people never learn that, and get hurt.
Like Isis.
Like Sophia.
My heart contracts painfully, and I punch again, this time for his face. The camera boy staggers, nose bleeding through his fingers. His friends jump, backing up quickly. The homeless man squawks and huddles in the corner, covering his head with his scrawny arms.
“Who the f**k are you?” The second boy shouts.
“Nobody hits Reggie!” The first boy ducks into a fighting position.
“Get out of here,” I say. “Or you two are next.”
“Fuck you!” The first one lunges, and I duck to the side and pull his arms behind his back in one fluid motion. He struggles, trying to kick and headbutt me away, but my grip is steel.
“You there,” I say to the third one. “Help your friend up, and leave. When you’re around the corner, I’ll let your friend here go.”
The third one is sweating profusely, eyes darting between his bloodied friend and his immobilized one. He finally makes the right decision, and pulls the camera boy up. Camera boy scrabbles for his phone, and limps around the corner with his friend, vibrantly swearing. I wait a hundred seconds, and shove the first boy forward. He backs up, pointing at me with a furious, twisted expression.
“I’ll get you for this, you piece of shit!”
“No,” I say coolly. “You won’t.”
This makes something in him snap – his pride, maybe. He rushes me again, and this time I’m forced to show no mercy. I put him in a sleeper hold, and when he stops flailing, I ease him gently to the ground. I extend my hand to the homeless man.
“We should go. His friends will be back.”
The homeless man uncurls, watery blue eyes connecting with mine. He nods, slowly, and uses my hand to help himself up. I make him walk in front of me, guarding the rear, all the way out of the alley and back to the front of the strip mall, where there are cars and too many witnesses for the boys to try anything else. The homeless man’s gait is strong and true, but a limp hampers him. A veteran, probably, who’s fallen on hard times.
“Thank you,” The man croaks. I shake my head, and open my wallet, fishing out two twenties.
“Go get yourself some real food.”
“Bless you. God bless you,” he says, taking the money and easing down the boulevard.
He did. God blessed me, I think as I watch him go. And then he took it all away.
I shrug that thought off. I’m far better off than most people. But it’s that same privilege that sickens me. I’m eighteen. I’m, by all nationality counts, Caucasian. There’s some Italian in me, on Mom’s side, and Russian on Dad’s. But I’m decidedly white. And male. I am not hideous to look at, nor is my brain crippled by general idiocy. Mom and I never wanted for money. I am lucky. I am privileged.
The homeless man hobbling down the boulevard is the one who needs God’s help more than I do.
Sophia needed help more than anyone.
And I let her down.
I failed her.
The traffic becomes white noise in my ears, washing against me and around me. People pass, their faces blurring indistinctly. Nothing feels real – it’s a world trapped in a snowglobe. The colors of the strip mall are washed-out, instead of bright. The smells are Styrofoam and wood, instead of sun and dirt and greasy fast food. Nothing is right. I’m not right.
But I’d known that for a long time, now. I’m not right. I stand out too much. I’m too cold. I am not like the rest of the faces in the crowd. I don’t feel as deeply as them. I don’t vibrate with as much emotion as they do.
If I was more like them, warmer, would I have been able to tell what Sophia was about to do? Would I have been able to understand her better? Would I have been able to see her despair, and stop it?
If I was more like Isis, would I have been able to save her?
That’s what you do, her voice echoes. You protect people.
My fingers twitch, the knuckles bloodied. I turn and head to the car.
I came to meet my new employer, Gregory Callan of Vortex Enterprises. This little side trip to the strip mall was for an ATM I could get cash from. I got sidetracked by the homeless man.
The September air swelters around me, crickets crying out lonely songs in the tall golden grasses on the side of the highway. The heatwave is the last, dying gasp of the brutal, once-in-a-century summer that hits Ohio. The city of Columbus has never looked drier, or bigger. The sky is a pale white-blue, and goes on forever. My white dress shirt sticks to every sweat-stained crevice of my body, and the dark suit over it is uncomfortably hot.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should be in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I should be at Harvard, settling in to my lackluster dorm room and learning to tolerate the idiot who will be my roommate for a year. I should be taking classes now, taking notes on the laptop Mom bought me. But I returned the laptop, and I returned my dorm room. I returned it all. I redacted my tuition and closed my bank accounts and packed a single black backpack and left a note on the kitchen counter that told Mom not to worry.