Encounters:
Don and the Remarkable Teen
The lending library sat in a quiet neighborhood of old brownstones and small established businesses. It was farther from the lair than Don was used to traveling but the books that he'd wanted April to check out for him couldn't be found closer to home.
He'd spent more than a week poring over them and scanning some of the pages into his computer for future reference. Making the run to return the books had felt good after so much time parked in his chair and slumped over a keyboard.
Don squatted atop the library and surveyed the area around it, looking for anyone who might be up and around. It was after eleven at night, but that was early by New York City standards. Fortunately, it didn't look as though the sleepy block the library occupied was interested in late night carousing.
Using the fire escape, Don dropped to the ground and crept around to the front of the library, all of his senses alert. The book return box was right next to the front door and though there were no security cameras, Don still felt very exposed under the lamp that illuminated the area.
As quickly as he could, he took the books from his duffel bag and dropped them one by one into the book return. When the last one plummeted through the chute Don breathed a sigh of relief and sped back around to the fire escape, ascending to the roof top with record speed.
All he wanted to do now was go home to his bed. Don was tired; as usual when something had piqued his interest he'd gotten too little sleep and it had caught up with him.
His fastest and most direct route home was across the roofs and calling up his reserve energy, Don began running. A half-moon cast its light across the tops of the buildings Don used as his personal highway and though it was probably fairly dark by human standards it was still pretty bright by Don's.
He was still in the mostly unfamiliar area when he heard the sound of a loud argument coming from the street below him. The tones of those voices stopped him; these were not adults but adolescents and some of the words had a jeering, taunting quality to them that awakened a protective instinct in the turtle.
Creeping to the edge of the building he was on, Don peered down to the sidewalk. There he saw six teenaged boys; five of them gathered in a semi-circle around the sixth. This last boy was holding two cloth bags filled with groceries, having apparently just been to the corner store that was a half block away.
Though they weren't directly beneath any street lamps, it was still light enough for Don to see the pattern of marks on the sixth boy's face. The discoloration and scars were all the evidence Don needed to know that this boy had suffered a horrendous burn at some point in his life. His hands were likewise discolored and though his arms were covered by sleeves, Don guessed that the boy's body had been damaged as well.
"Pay attention to us you freak!" one of the surrounding teens barked at the burned boy.
"Dude, I don't want any trouble with you," the burned boy responded in an even tone of voice, as though he was determined to keep the encounter from escalating. "I just want to take my groceries home."
The first teen, apparently the instigator of the group, reached out and slammed his hands down on one of the burned boy's bags, knocking it out of his grip. The bag hit the sidewalk and tipped over, spilling the contents in all directions.
"You got trouble," the instigator said, pointing a finger in the burned boy's face. "Coach might not have a problem with you tripping on your own feet, but we're tired of losing games because of you."
"I have as much right to play as anyone else," the burned boy shot back, his temper clearly starting to flair. "Now you pick up my groceries and put them back in the bag."
"Or what? You gonna cry?" the instigator asked, stomping on an orange that had come to rest near his feet.
The other boys laughed and with a cocky grin, the instigator lifted his foot to repeat the maneuver with another piece of spilled fruit.
Before he could, the burned boy growled and dropped his other bag, rushing forward to shove the instigator. That teen shoved back and in a millisecond both boys were fighting, their fists flying as the remaining teens shouted their encouragement.
Don did not like what he was seeing. He knew that the pair of boys was too worked up to stop before someone got hurt. Reaching for his shell cell, Don decided to call the police who he hoped would arrive before the fight escalated.
He didn't manage to punch in a single number. The burned boy was a rough scrapper, surprising the instigator with an uppercut that sent the bully sprawling on the sidewalk. When the instigator went down the burned boy backed up, breathing heavily but giving the other boy space to get up and leave with some of his dignity intact.
Thinking that would be the end of it, Don put his phone away. Unfortunately, he didn't reckon with mob mentality. Rather than leaving well enough alone, the other boys in the group began yelling and jeering at their leader, urging him back to his feet and into the fight.
Responding to their calls, the instigator quickly scrambled up. With as ugly a look on his face as Don had ever seen, he pulled a switchblade knife from his back pocket, flicked it open, and went after the burned boy.
"Run away," Don exhorted under his breath.
Rather than taking what would have been a prudent course of action and getting away from the gang of bullies, the burned boy's expression changed to one of furious stubbornness. With a curse that Don could hear clear up to his perch, the boy charged towards the instigator.
The instigator swung the knife blade at the burned boy's face but the boy pulled his head aside, slamming a fist into the other's midriff. As he drew his arm back, the other teen swept across at it with his switchblade, slicing a long, deep trough across the burned boy's forearm. Instead of reacting to the cut, the burned boy continued to whale on his opponent.
Up until that point the other bullies had stayed out of the fight. The sight of blood ratcheted the brawl up to a full blown feeding frenzy and the other four teens jumped on the burned boy.
Even if Don had gotten through to the police a few minutes earlier there was no way they'd be on time. Dropping his duffel on the roof top, Don leaped off the building he was on, landing atop a lamppost near the scene of the action. Just before jumping to the sidewalk below, he tossed two smoke bombs into the center of the fight.
His bo staff was in his hands even before Don's feet touched pavement. Despite the blinding smoke and erratic movements of the six boys, Don unerringly found each combatant, sweeping their feet from under them and giving them what he liked to fondly refer to as a 'love tap' against the sides of their skulls.
It didn't render any of them unconscious, but it hurt enough to keep them where Don wanted them, flat on the ground. The boy with the switchblade began flicking it left and right, swinging it around blindly in the hopes of striking whoever was attacking them. Don used the end of his bo to rap the boy on the wrist, hitting a spot that made the instigator's hand go numb.
The switch blade clattered to the sidewalk and a second later, the instigator was down there too. Don kicked the blade into the sewer grate so that it couldn't be recovered and then slid his bo back into place before scooping the burned boy up and tossing him over one shoulder.
Even before the smoke began to dissipate, Don was gone. The burned boy struggled against his hold, pounding Don's shell with his fists, as Don leaped onto a nearby fire escape and bounded up to the roof.
"Put me down!" the burned boy shouted as Don made the jump from the first building onto the one where he'd left his duffel.
"If you don't hush those other boys are going to follow us," Don told him as he slid to a stop and lowered the boy onto his feet.
"Let them," the burned boy said belligerently before looking up at his rescuer's face. His eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth dropped open, but at least he was too shocked to make any more noise.
"Yes, I'm a turtle," Don said in a matter-of-fact tone. "My name is Donatello. I'm sorry I interrupted your evening fight, but I didn't care for the odds."
The boy's mouth twitched, his anger returning enough to burn away the shock of facing a giant mutated turtle. "I could have taken them all."
"I'm sure that's true," Don said, stepping over to where his bag sat, "but I didn't want to take a chance that the cut on your arm nicked an artery."
"What cut?" the boy asked, holding out both arms to look at them. When he saw the blood he said, "Oh."
"Didn't you feel that?" Don asked as he pulled first aid supplies from his bag.
The boy shrugged, suddenly looking embarrassed. "No."
"Sit down," Don said, waving at a spot in front of him. "I've had medical training and can take care of that cut."
Taking a step back, the boy crossed one arm over his chest, grabbing onto to the opposite shoulder and dropped his gaze. "I'll be fine. I can go home and clean it up."
"It might require more than a cleaning," Don said firmly. "You're still bleeding. I promise I'll be careful if you're afraid I'll hurt you."
The boy's head snapped up, his blue eyes blazing. "I'm not afraid! Of you or anyone."
"I'm glad we've established that," Don said patiently. "How about you humor me? That's usually the fastest way to get rid of me."
After staring at the turtle for another couple of minutes and seeing that Don wasn't going to move, the boy sidled over and sat down.
"I'm only doing this 'cause I'm curious," he said, as though conveying a great favor upon Don.
"You'll have to take your shirt off," Don said, squatting in front of the boy.
The boy's expression immediately shifted from belligerent to ashamed. "I . . . I don't want to."
"Because of your burns," Don said. When the boy nodded, Don told him, "Look at me. Do I seem the type to care about appearances? I need to see how bad that wound is and I can't do that through your shirt."
Hands shaking slightly, the boy began to unbutton the shirt. He kept his eyes down and after a second of heavy silence, started to talk. "When I was seven our water heater kind of blew up," he said. "I was nearby when it happened. Lucky me; not only was I drenched in scalding water but a fire broke out and that got me too. I almost died. Sometimes I wish I had."
"Careful," Don said, reaching to help the boy peel the material of his shirt gently away from his wound. "I'm not going to pretend I understand how that must have felt, or what you still have to go through. What I do understand is how hard it is to look different than everyone else."
"Yeah, I guess you do," the boy said, watching as Don examined the wound on his arm. "My name is Colby."
"Well Colby, you'll be glad to know this cut isn't deep," Don said with relief.
"That's cool I guess," Colby said. "If I need stitches it's no big deal. I can't feel stuff anyway. Not everywhere, just mostly my arms, the front of my legs, and tops of my feet."
"Hypoactive nerve damage," Don said as he carefully cleaned the area around the cut skin. He saw how badly scarred Colby's arms were and knew the burns had been third degree.
"You know about that stuff?" Colby asked in surprise.
"I read a lot," Don told him. Looking up with a smile, he added, "Haven't been to a movie theatre in ages."
Colby started to chuckle and then laugh. "I suppose not. Hey, where do you live? Do you have any family? You must be great at hiding or I'd have seen something in the news."
"I didn't know teenagers watched the news," Don said, using strips of medical tape to pull the skin together in a 'butterfly' stitch.
"I do," Colby said, his tone serious. "I want to know what's happening in the world. I'm gonna inherit the future and if the guys who are running the show now mess things up, it's gonna be up to me to fix it."
"I like the sound of that," Don said, glancing at Colby. "My brothers and I, we can't live up here where the humans do, but this is still our city. We learned very early how to defend ourselves and then kept learning so that we'd have the ability to defend others. It's one of the tenets that we live by in following the warrior's way."
"You're like one of those guys in the martial arts movies aren't you?" Colby asked excitedly. "A real life ninja?"
Don put the finishing touches on the patch job he'd done on Colby's arm and started to put his things away. "I am a ninja," he answered with a touch of pride. "Do you know what our greatest strength is?"
Colby thought about that as he put his shirt back on. "Anonymity?" he asked.
"Exactly," Don said giving Colby a meaningful look. "People should not know we exist."
"They won't learn it from me," Colby promised earnestly. "I won't be much of a lawyer if I can't keep things in confidence."
"Is that your life goal?" Don asked.
"That's where I plan to start," Colby said. "Someday I'll be president, you mark my words."
"Only if you learn when to pick your battles," Don told him.
Colby grinned sheepishly. "I tend to have a little bit of an attitude sometimes. My mom gets overprotective and those guys pick on me at school because I look the way I do. I'm not great in sports but I'm not that bad either, it's just that I'm an easy target for them. Between my mother telling me not to do stuff 'cause I'll get hurt and bullies sniping at me it gets to be too much."
"You feel like you have to prove something," Don said wisely.
"Yeah," Colby agreed with a nod. "Knowing that I won't feel it when someone hits me sort of helps. Makes me feel invincible."
"That's something you should probably rethink," Don said. "I have a feeling you're smart enough to see the possible ramifications of going through life that way."
"Other than the fact that next time the cut might be more serious?" Colby said, lifting his injured arm for emphasis. "I don't have a death wish. What do I do when something like this happens again? It will you know; those guys and others like them won't stop being jerks just because they get their butts handed to them sometimes."
"There is nothing wrong with a tactical retreat," Don said as he stood up. "Martial arts training wouldn't hurt either; there are many different ways to overcome any physical limitations you have. Unlike organized school sports, bullying is not tolerated in the dojo."
"I like that idea," Colby said, rising to his feet. "I'll bet my mom would too. Saying I have a black belt would look pretty sweet on my resume."
Don laughed. "Your mother has nothing to worry about," he said.
"Speaking of my mom, I need to replace those groceries I lost," Colby said. "It's going to be bad enough telling her about the fight without walking in empty handed."
"Let's see if those boys are gone and I'll help you retrieve whatever is salvageable," Don said. "I can watch your back while you replace the rest of the things."
"From the shadows, right?" Colby asked impishly.
"Forever from the shadows," Don said. "Hiding is what I do. Your place is in the light."
Colby thought about that and said, "You know what? You're right. Can you cut these sleeves off? I don't want to walk around in a bloodied shirt."
Using his belt knife, Don sliced the sleeve off Colby's shirt just above his elbow and repeated the process on the other sleeve to even them up.
"There," Colby said, proudly displaying his scarred arms. "This is who I am. I'm not hiding it any longer."
"I think you'll find that the good people in the world are very accepting of other's differences," Don said knowingly.
"Maybe someday they'll be able to accept yours," Colby said, his expression hopeful.
"I'll bet you can make that happen, Mr. President," Don replied, smiling as he led the way off of the roof top.