5.
Penitent
"Loose me from my sin as from a bond that binds me. May my life swell the stream of your river of Right." ~ Rig Veda Samhita 2.28.5
The boy's legs were too short to touch ground from his seat on the wood and iron bench, and so his feet swung back and forth with the idle grace of those still too young to embrace self-consciousness. His shoes made faint flopping noises, a size too large, clearly sounding out their history as a hand me down. A hot Vegas breeze ruffled his dark blonde hair, already messy and unkempt. He tapped his fingers on a beaten plastic Mickey Mouse lunchbox, the tune without any rhythm. After a little while of this, he brought his head up to look at the short man seated next to him. "I'm not gonna go to school today!" he blurted.
The man examined the blonde little boy for a long time, blue eyes half lidded in speculation. They had sat together a half hour in silence, the boy waiting for a bus that refused to appear and the man simply there. "Why not?"
"I don't wanna. 'Sides, nobody cares." The boy stuck his tongue out at the grownup. "Jess doesn't care, Mom doesn't care, the other kids don't care." He dropped his head again, staring at Micky Mouse. Mickey stared back with an idiot's smile. "I wish I were with Dad."
Long, long pause. Down the street, the overdue bus began to churn noisily towards the duo. "Where is your father?"
The boy didn't answer until the bus pulled up in front of the bench. He whirled on the man and said, "He's dead." Then he fled up the three steps and disappeared into a mass of near-rioting children.
The man sat and watched the bus depart. When it was gone from sight, he rose to go about his other business.
* * * *
The next morning, the man was already seated on the rusty bench when the boy arrived. The man looked tired, and there was a fresh cut below his ear. It glistened slightly, coated with Neosporin or some similar generic. He nodded amiably at the boy, who sat down on the bench next to him without any sign of fear. "Good morning."
The boy looked curiously at the injury. "My dad would come home looking worse than that."
"I'm sure."
"You an adbuctor?"
"Am I a what?" He cocked his head at the boy, who fiddled absently with bruised red plastic hinges.
"You know. The bad men. They steal kids and do stuff to them. They tell us about 'em in school. Stranger danger." The boy rolled his eyes. The man arched an eyebrow, his slightly off-center mouth twisted into amused bewilderment.
"I almost don't know how to answer that," he said at last. "But I would prefer to think of myself as one of the good guys." He shrugged. "In any case, no. I am not going to 'adbuct' you."
"Darn." He grinned at the man's outright look of disbelief. "My dad taught me a couple things to do to protect myself. I wanted to see if they worked."
"You should not ever try to get yourself into a fight. Physical violence is a last resort. Think your way out, first."
"That's boring. My dad was, like, a ninja! I bet he coulda beaten up your dad."
"On your average weeknight, a hydrocephalic midget could have taken my father in a fight." The man sounded contemplative, if a little sad. "I'm informed that certain actors are a better comparative assessment for this sort of thing."
The boy sounded out the larger words, eventually puzzling something relevant out. "My dad liked John Wayne."
"Well, there you go. The Quiet Man, perhaps."
"Did he die in that one?"
The man laughed. "No. It's about a man that decides he's never going to fight again and goes home to Ireland."
"Boooo-ring!"
"Actually, it has a very good fight scene towards the end. It's rather philosophical, really. Sometimes you must fight, if there's something you want very badly. It's also about sometimes being stronger if you don't fight. Well, as I thought. I haven't watched it in a while." The boy made a rude face at him. The man ignored it.
"Anyway! My dad could probably have beaten up John Wayne!"
"What did your father do?" The query was polite.
"He was a hero! He'd get hired by people and go beat up bad guys!"
The man nodded tiredly. "He'd tell you about his job?"
"He told me some stories." The boy bent his head again and resumed fiddling with his box. Loose-shod feet swung, thudding against the bottom of the bench. "Mostly he said he'd tell me when I was older. Jess got told more of them, but he had to promise not to tell. Guess we're never gonna hear anymore." He sniffled abruptly. "He didn't come back. Something went wrong. The old man said the job wasn't honnad or something and that he wasn't gonna pay. I hated him. He was mean and he sounded funny on the phone."
The man sighed. "I see."
"Jess is still mad. He wanted to kill the old guy." He thought about it. His big brother was smart, really really smart, and he had been so angry.
"I very much doubt he is alone in that." Dry humor. It was lost on the boy.
"Dad was gonna use the money for us. For Jess and his school and stuff."
"They say no one is purely evil in the world." The man looked off, his gaze unfocused. "I'm not sure I believe that, but it's not up to me."
"You talk weird."
"Mm."
"Why are you sitting here?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
The boy stared up at the man. Down the street, the bus began its slow approach. "Why? I'm nobody." Silence as a reply. "What's your name?"
"Benjamin."
"Okay." The boy hopped off the bench. "See you tomorrow, Benjamin!"
"Yes."
"I'm Martin!" And he fled into the cacophonic bus.
"Yes," Ben said to no one in particular. "I know."
* * * *
Martin hesitated before taking his place next to Ben. The cut below the ear had already started a clean heal, but there were rough marks along the man's throat and his fingers were bruised and torn in spots. "Now you look a little like my dad."
"That's... nice." Ben flexed his hands experimentally. "I should probably have gotten the brace," he muttered absently.
"I thought you said fighting was bad."
"Yes, and sometimes it happens anyway." Ben shrugged, then winced. "You can learn a lot in a fight, too."
"Did something to your back, huh?"
"It's business."
Martin thought for a long time. "Did you work with my dad?" Long silence. "Sometimes his friends would come. Nobody looked like you, though. They were all big. They'd swear a lot. But they were nice to us."
Finally: "I met him."
The boy wiggled, excited. "Was it one of his jobs? Was it cool? Did he-"
"It wasn't like that." Ben's tone went sharp and the boy stiffened. Ben sighed and tried again. "It didn't go very well, I'm afraid. I'm sorry."
The boy's lips knotted up. "You mean his last job."
"...Yes. I'm sorry."
"I don't wanna talk to you anymore!" And with that, the boy leaped from the bench and ran off crying. He never looked back.
"I'm very sorry," sighed Ben. "Just not for what I did." He shifted his weight, then winced again. "Damn." Something bleated in his pocket and he fished the Nokia out. "Yes?" He listened for a long time. "Good. Yes. I'm done here. There will be no problems with those arrangements?"
Another pause.
"Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Norton."
* * * *
Three weeks later, Martin sat alone on the old bench. His shoes thudded together, a new pair of Converse. Mickey was the same, and his fingers slid across the box's battered surface. Sometimes he'd pick a fingernail at the corner of the paper image. There was a note inside the box. Martin didn't understand it all, but he was supposed to deliver it to his teacher. Next week, Martin would be going to a new school. A very nice one, his mother had told him, crying. Jess had also been crying. Martin didn't understand that, either. His big brother never cried, and that had scared the boy. Jess had given him a big hug, too. That was just weird. Jess was also going to be going to a new school, Martin had gathered. Didn't know why that was such a big deal, school sucked and nobody liked you. But Jess had been real happy. It had to do with a school-ship, and a big old place with lots of ivy on it or something.
Martin didn't get the ivy thing. He saw the pictures of the place, all brick and stone and it was really really far away. And there wasn't a bit of real ivy on the place! But their mom was happy. "I told your daddy there'd be a Keamy that didn't have to beat his way in life!" she'd yelled after getting a big special letter. Martin had gotten used to being confused. He was a kid, nobody owed him explanations.
Martin kinda wished he could see Benjamin again. The weird man had been really smart. Maybe he could have explained all this to Martin, and Martin could have said he was sorry for being mean. "Sorry, Benjamin," the boy muttered to empty air. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
The bus was coming, and Martin felt a little spark of hope. Maybe things really were going to get better. He didn't know why, but that was all right. Sometimes you just had to go forward and find out.
~fin
(ABC's LOST and its characters are not my creation, nor do I claim any ownership or rights to the above content beyond that of the average godforsaken fanfiction writer. All errors are my own.)
