Boys in Black - Chapter 3

I pulled up in front of Mary Lou's. LJ had a skateboard and he was using one of the sidewalk cracks as a jump, trying to get air under the skateboard. Frankie was sitting on the steps, surrounded by little army men figures, making them march around. ML's frantic phone call had made it sounded like the boys were pretty traumatized from our outing the other day, but they looked normal and kid-like to me.

I made the porch and ML came out, hissing. "Do you see it?"

"I see ... kids being kids," I said, clueless.

"The clothes! They are both wearing black! They've worn nothing but black since Ranger took them for ice cream last week! And all we've heard from the kids is "Mr. Manoso this" and "Captain Manoso says...".

"Oh." They were wearing black. Black shoes, black jeans and black shirts. "I guess I'm just used to it."

"Well, you need to make them stop." ML's hands were on her hips in a classic mom pose.

"Me?!" Wasn't that the kind of thing you hire expensive child psychologists for?

"You started this. You and Ranger. Talk to them. Talk some sense into them."

If ML hadn't been so serious I would have howled with laughter. Me. Talk sense into two young boys. I could see how serious she was and sighed.

ML herded the boys into the living room and motioned us all to sit down, which we all did, on command. The boys sat on either end of the big sofa and I sat in the arm chair to the side. ML nodded once, satisfied, and went into the kitchen.

The boys and I looked at each other. I was wondering what I had done to deserve being the one to speak to them and I was pretty sure they were wondering what they had done to deserve having me speak to them.

LJ broke the ice, for which I was thankful. "Ms. Plum," LJ said. I miraculously avoided rolling my eyes. "Where's Mr. Manoso?"

It definitely made him sound like my high school English teacher. I couldn't hold back any more and I did roll my eyes. "He's like the wind," I said, in a hushed tone. "No one knows where he is."

They both nodded, serious. I was just adding to the legend here and I really was going to have to watch what I said around them.

I still had no idea how to start this conversation. "So what did you talk about when you went with Ra… Mr. Manoso for ice cream?"

"Oh," Frankie said, waving his hand around. "He told us all about the Army Rangers."

"He did?!" I knew I shouldn't sound so incredulous. "What did he say?" I moved over to sit between them.

"He told us what they taught him - how to jump out of airplanes and parachute, how to navigate in deserts and jungles, how to run obstacle courses, how to dive, how to fly a helicopter."

Good that he left out the parts about automatic weapons, live fire, taking over small countries, getting rid of dictators, breaking up terrorist cells, and hunting down bad guys. Or that he'd spent three days being tortured in Columbia.

"It's really cool, they have this Ranger school, where they teach them to do all this stuff and there is this big wall they have to go up and then back down..."

Frankie held his hands over his head and grabbed for a make-believe object. "And a rope thingy they clip to and whoosh down."

"Not like our Dad. He's just a plumber," LJ said dismissively.

Ahhh. The real problem became clear.

"No," I said, "your dad is pretty cool, too. He can ..." I hunted for something Lenny could do that Ranger couldn't, "fix a clog like nobody else."

Not my finest save, there, and the boys rolled their eyes.

"That fight was awesome," LJ said and Frankie nodded in agreement.

"But, you know, he could have been hurt. Those were serious bad guys and they had a gun." And these boys had developed a serious case of hero worship. I wanted to smile, but I was pretty sure that Ranger wouldn't appreciate it.

"I bet that Captain Manoso..."

I rolled my eyes at LJ. "He asked you to call him Mr. Manoso."

LJ continued as though I hadn't interrupted., "... could have taken on 10 bad guys!'

"Eleventy-hundred bad guys," Frankie upped the bad guy count.

"No, now look," I said sternly. "Ranger – Mr. Manoso -..." Please, God, I thought, don't let me slip and call him Batman in front of the boys, "is just a regular man. It's true, he's done a lot of things and has some impressive skills, but he's just a man like any other man." I wasn't sure I believed that, and I probably didn't sound very convincing. "He... he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like your dad does." There. A normal thing.

The boys looked at me, completely baffled by what that last statement had to do with anything. I sighed. My little talk hadn't gotten the desired results.

Mary Lou came back in the room, an expectant smile on her face. I shook my head and she sighed. She sent the boys back out to play and sat down next to me on the sofa.

"You see the problem," she said, her voice tired.

"Yes. What does Lenny say?"

"He hasn't said anything. At all. At first I think he thought it was kind of funny, like they were talking about some action figure. But I think Lenny's getting tired of being compared to another man, especially a real-life man he can't compete with."

"Well, they do see him as sort of an action hero. Maybe," I said, "maybe what we need to do is show them that Lenny can do things Ranger can't. Hmmm. I have an idea."

ML rolled her eyes at me. "It better be a good idea, Steph."

"Of course it's a good idea. What the boys' schedule for the week?"

She rattled off a list of events from after-school tutoring for LJ to t-ball to soccer to dentist appointments. I nodded. This was going to work, I was sure of it.

I got out to the car and punched in Ranger's cell number.

He answered on the second ring. "Yo."

"Listen, we need to talk."

There was a long pause on the other end. "Think we've said it all, Stephanie."

"This isn't about us. It's about the kids." Even over the phone I could hear his eyebrow raise. "ML's kids."

"Babe…"

"Look, Ranger, just let me explain in person, okay? Meet me at the youth soccer fields on Calhoun."

"When?"

"Saturday at 1:00."

"I'll be there," he said and hung up.

.

– Goal! – Goal! – Goal! – Soccer Saturday! – Goal! – Goal! – Goal!

.

The fields were absolutely full of kids and families. The bleachers were full, the sidelines were full, crammed with little canopies and lawn chairs and coolers as mothers, fathers, grandparents and aunts and uncles all looked on and older and younger siblings ran screaming up and down the sidelines. Coaches blew their whistles, kids on the fields screamed and shouted, parents shouted advice and encouragement, and, because this was Jersey, the occasional insult and made rude gestures from the sidelines.

I noticed there were a lot of little girls playing soccer. When Valerie and I were young, my mother had signed us both up for ballet lessons, but sports were never even considered. It wasn't lady-like and it wasn't Burg. The ballet lessons had lasted two years for Val and a year for me. Our ballet mistress had called Val a hippo and me just hopeless. Madame Pletska had danced at the Paris opera house and had apparently viewed herself as a contender who had been reduced to teaching untalented Burg girls. She always had a faintly medicinal smell about her which, in hindsight, was probably gin.

When I was in high school, I tried out as a baton-twirler, mostly because I liked the spangly costume with shiny fringe, but that hadn't gone well, either. I'd wanted to be a majorette and lead parades and march in front of the band at football games, but it had required actual coordination and athletic ability, something I didn't have, then or now.

Lately I'd been working on my fitness, so maybe I'd gotten better. I probably had the majorette costume somewhere at my parents...

"What are you thinking about?"

I jumped, startled. Ranger had come up behind me. He was dressed in black, as always, but not in work clothes. Casual black again: long sleeve t-shirt pulled up to just below his elbows, denim jeans, black running shoes. If he was armed - and he had to be, he always was - I couldn't spot it.

"Just watching the kids play. There are a lot of kids out here today."

"You a fan?"

I considered. Hockey and basketball were my favorite sports, baseball and football further down the list. I'd watched some World Cup, but it had never caught my imagination. But watching the kids running around, having fun, was changing my mind. "I've never followed it much before. Have you?"

He shrugged. "Know the basic rules."

"Don't even tell me you played soccer as a kid."

"Wasn't called soccer. Fútbol. We played in a vacant lot in an industrial zone. A little more brutal than this."

Why was I not surprised? I knew that Ranger had lived in Newark when he was young, in a poorer neighborhood filled with Latino families. I couldn't picture him playing in an organized kid's league, with a uniform and a coach and rules, but a bunch of semi-feral kids with no adult supervision in a dirt lot? Yeah. I could see that.

On the field to our right, the older kids were just finishing a game – they'd be clearing off and then Mary Lou's son LJ's team would take the field for a match. I couldn't see her yet, but I could hear Mary Lou's raised voice, yelling at the kids not to run through the parking lot. I knew that ML was one of the team moms, frequently responsible for not only LJ but three or four other kids whose parents couldn't make it to the match.

It seemed kind of pointless to try to get a bunch of kids who were wound up for a meet to walk, but I guess ML thought the good fight was worth fighting. We waited for ML and Lenny, who were dragging a big wagon with a cooler, chairs and a bunch of equipment bags to the site.

In the field on our left, a tall, handsome man ran a group of older boys through a drill. He wore a red jersey and shorts, just like the kids did, and it showed off very nice legs. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't quite place it. The man was running backward as the boys ran toward him, his legs muscular and strong.

When he finished the warm-up drill, he saw Ranger and hurried over to the sidelines where we were standing. "Sir?" he said to Ranger.

Ranger nodded. "Ramon."

"Did you need me for something, sir?" Ramon looked back at the bench where a group of older boys, also in red jerseys, were sitting. "I'm here with my kids and their team, but the other coach can..."

"No," Ranger said shortly. "As you were." Ranger gestured him back out to the field, but Ramon detoured by the benches the kids were on.

I blinked. I didn't know Ramon well and I hadn't recognized him out of the office and dressed in clothes other than all-black, but he was one of Ranger's guys - and a soccer dad. I'd heard before that a couple of the Rangeman guys were married, and kids often followed from that, but I'd never seen pics at desks or heard chatter around the office or at the semi-regular pizza and beer sessions at Shorty's. Of course, not all the guys made the nights at Shorty's – maybe the married guys just went home after work instead of hanging around.

"These are my kids," Ramon said. "Marco and Matteo," he said, bringing twin teenagers forward, a hand on each shoulder. "We're hoping to take our team to state this year in the 13-and-under league." At Ramon's gesture, a younger boy and girl came forward from the bench. "My daughter Anna and my youngest child Luis," he said as the two younger children smiled shyly. "This is Mr. Manoso, my boss, and this is Ms. Plum, who works with us sometimes."

I have no idea what Ramon must have said to the kids about Ranger and Rangeman, but all the kids froze, wide-eyed, at the introduction. I wondered if Ranger ever got tired of being the leader, the boss, the one that everyone looked up to, the one who had to make all the decisions, the one who carried everything on his shoulders. At one point in his life, he had been like every other kid out here, playing soccer. When and where had that changed? The army? The Rangers? Whatever he had done when he'd gotten out, before he came to Trenton?

Ranger stepped forward and shook the boys' hands and they introduced themselves. Ranger looked carefully at each boy as they introduced themselves. As far as I could see, they were completely identical, but maybe Ranger could see something different.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," one of them said and Ranger nodded.

"Ms. Plum, ma'am," they said to me in almost perfect unison.

The younger two were too shy to say anything and hid behind their father. Ramon laughed, nodded to Ranger. "Sir," he said, and turned back to team.

Mary Lou called my name and we turned. She was setting up all her soccer mom paraphernalia – chairs, blankets, coolers, tables, sandwiches, towels, sunblock, insect repellent, sweatshirts and first aid kit. I knew she had this all written down on a checklist that she went through before every game. Lenny was busy setting up the pre-match practice equipment – balls, cones and other things.

The boys rushed up to Ranger, who smiled at them, and they started telling him about the plan for the game.

From the field on the other side, an errant practice soccer ball came flying over toward the middle of where everyone stood. Ranger stopped the ball with one foot and then did one of those hop kind of things where he rolled his foot under the ball and lifted it in the air, kicking it with one foot and then the other. I'd seen guys on television do it and it sort of mystified me how people could do it without falling flat on their faces or sending the ball off, wildly out of control. Ranger popped the ball up high enough to hit it with his knee to Ramon, who lofted it back to Ranger. Ranger kicked it up in the air to Marco – or was that Matteo? - who took the ball as a header and popped it into the goal. Didn't it hurt to hit the ball with your head?

"Goal!" whichever twin it was shouted. "And the crowd goes wild!" He raced around, slapping high-five hands, as though it had been an actual goal in a game and not goofing around on the sidelines.

LJ watched the casual, athletic grace with which Ranger handled the ball and I saw his hero-worship expand to the size of something that could eat small galaxies. LJ turned to Lenny and urgently whispered "Did you see that?"

Lenny turned away and emptied out the equipment cart without a word.

This had not been the brilliant idea I had hoped. Ranger had managed to pull off soccer moves in front of the kids with typical Ranger skill and now they were even more impressed. It wasn't that Ranger was showing off, it was just … Ranger was good at most physical tasks. Including, apparently, soccer.

As we walked over to the bleachers to watch the kids play, I was running through a mental list of possibilities. What could Lenny do to outshine Ranger? Maybe it was time to set up a plumbing emergency? "Ranger, can you fix a clog?"

"What?"

"What do you do when a toilet clogs up?"

"Rangeman toilets don't clog."

I rolled my eyes. "What would you do if a kitchen sink clogged up?"

"Call Luis."

Hmmm, a scenario in which Lenny saved Rangeman from clogs wasn't a happening thing. I'd have to come up with something else.

The bleachers were full and we sat down, very close to each other. Close enough to whisper. Close enough that our bodies were pressed together from hips to knees. There was something about actually touching Ranger that made it hard for me to think.

We watched about 15 minutes of the first half and then Ranger, his voice pitched for my ears only, said: "Why did you want to meet me here?"

I winced. "I had another brilliant idea that turned out to be less than brilliant."

"Which was?"

"Well, the boys were very …. impressed with you, and they were wearing black for days and talking about you non-stop and it was making Lenny feel bad and Mary Lou wanted me to make them stop, and I thought..."

He put a hand on my back. "Breathe," he said. "Slow down." More touching from Ranger made me want to speed up, not slow down.

"I just though that if the boys saw you somewhere out of place, where Lenny was more comfortable, they'd realize that their father was just as impressive as they thought you were."

"Babe," he said, warm amusement in his voice. "He's their father and a good man. No one can compete with him, not on any real level."

He was probably right.

On the field, there was nearly a score from the opposing team and then some sort of foul which led to a face-off in the middle of the field. Or what would be called a face-off in hockey, I wasn't so sure about soccer.

LJ got the ball and he and another boy on his team kept passing the ball back and forth as they ran down the field to the goal area. It was LJ, another boy from his team and three defenders, racing toward the goal when disaster struck – right at the goal one of the boys tripped.

All the boys went down in a tangle of arms and legs at the edge of the goalpost. LJ smacked the hard edge with his shoulder. One of the other boys helped him up and his shoulder hung down and to the side at a funny angle.

"Hmm," Ranger murmured in my ear. "Dislocated. That hurts."

LJ took a step, dazed. His face went white, his hand went to his shoulder and he collapsed.

Mary Lou screamed and dashed out on to the field, the two team coaches right at her heels.

I felt Ranger start to rise and then stop as Lenny stepped forward. A smile tugged at the corner of Ranger's lips as he watched Lenny go out and deal with Mary Lou, calming her down and gently taking over.

"I'm here, son," he said as he put an arm under LJ, helping him sit up.

"Dad, it hurts..." LJ was trying not to cry as he clung to his father.

"I know, son. I've got you." He kept talking to him softly and LJ stared up at him, his eyes fixed on his father, his rock, his lifeline. The man who cared for him more than any other living man.

Ranger settled back down and watched as Lenny put his hands on LJ's shoulders and felt around the bad shoulder. "He's going to put it back in. You are not going to want to watch that," he said softly.

Ranger was right. But I watched anyway as Lenny sharply manipulated the shoulder and I could hear the "pop" from where we stood. I wasn't sure if I was going to faint or throw up. I felt Ranger's hand grip the back of my neck. "Steady, Steph." But LJ's shoulder wasn't hanging at the strange angle any more.

His hand was warm and firm and I leaned back into him. "That's it? The shoulder's better?"

"They should go have some imaging done, there could be other damage. It'll hurt for several days before he gets full use back."

"Is that the voice of experience I hear?"

"Yes."

Lenny helped LJ stand and they slowly walked off the field together, toward the family minivan. LJ was leaning heavily on his father, nodding his head as his father spoke to him. Frankie was right in there, walking next to them, his hand fisted in his father's shirt, talking to both of them.

Ranger gave me a gentle push up off the bleacher seat in the direction of Mary Lou and I snapped back into focus, hurrying over to help her load up all the family's items into the minivan so they could leave and take LJ to the ER. I can't remember what Mary Lou and I mumbled at each other, but I shut her door for her and they drove off.

I walked back to where Ranger stood, and he nodded toward the aluminum bleachers. The crowd had thinned out a bit, and we were able to sit down and stretch out on the bleachers.

He was alert but relaxed. He was leaning back, his elbows were on the bleacher row behind him, his legs straight in front of him, his feet crossed at the ankles, as we watched Ramon's boys play. The game was tense – the teams were well-matched and time was running out and there hadn't been any score in the game.

And then one of the boys – was it Marco or Matteo? - dodged around the other players, heading straight for the goal. I stood up and jumped up and down.

"Go, go, go!" I screamed, as he deftly avoided more opponents and kicked the ball into the net, the goalie's dive just missing the ball.

Ranger put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, sharp and loud. "Matteo!" he shouted and clapped. He knew which twin it was.

I turned to Ranger and threw my arms around his neck. "Goal!" I yelled.

He laughed, a full-throated laugh, the kind I rarely heard from him, and looped an arm around my shoulder. I put my head on his shoulder, laughing, and then I remembered where we stood with each other. I started to pull away and his arm tightened.

"Stay," he said. His words were soft. It wasn't an order, it was a request.

I stayed where I was, my head on his shoulder, watching as the kids played out the rest of the half in front of us.

"Ramon's done a great job with his kids," he said softly. "His wife died three years ago and he's been a single parent since."

"With four kids? That must be tough."

"The other guys look out for him. Trade shifts with him if he needs it. I make sure he's not working nights or weekends and I don't tap him for the rough jobs."

"His Rangeman family looks out for him."

Ranger nodded. "Family is important."

"You have a daughter, you already have a family."

"I have a daughter who is part of someone else's family. I see her once or twice a year, at her mother's invitation. I had my shot at a family and failed, Babe." I closed my eyes. His voice was level, even, but underneath it I could hear everything he left unsaid. This was something that hurt him.

"Ramon is part of Rangeman and he has a family."

"No. Ramon works at Rangeman. I am Rangeman. I need to be available 24/7. I need to be able to work all the jobs, no matter the threat level and no matter where they are. Family? How would that be fair to them?"

"We're not really talking about some family, Ranger. This is not a hypothetical discussion. We're talking about me. You and me."

"I'm not a good choice for you. I don't lead a stable life. I don't lead a safe life. There are things from my past that put people close to me in potential danger. I'm here at a family event and I am still carrying two guns and a knife."

This was a surreal place to be having the discussion. It was late in the day and only a few fields still had games going – the crowds of mothers and fathers and kids had thinned out, but we were still surrounded by families.

"But you are here. At a family event."

"I shouldn't be." He looked around the scene, at the remaining families and kids. "You know how to find people. How it's done. Look at their lives, their schedule, their work, their family. Do they have kids? Do the kids participate in activities?" He sat up, pulling his arm from around my shoulders. "If one of these kids was mine, and I came out here every week, it's how someone would track me down. Here, where all these families could be potential collateral."

"So we have security."

He looked over at me and one eyebrow twitched up. "You. Live with active security. You won't go to a safe house when it's in the interests of keeping you alive. You complain about tracking devices and actively evade surveillance that is designed to keep you safe. You leave your gun in your cookie jar and it's not even loaded."

"What if I decided that I could live with all the security?"

He shook his head. "It's not a decision you can casually make. It would be a fundamental change for you."

"We had a casual relationship before."

"A real relationship between us isn't going to be casual, Babe. A real relationship between us is going to mean everything."

"Everything? A family? Kids?"

"Down the road. We'd have to work out how. Change up a lot of things. Both of us."

"But it's possible?" I liked the sound of the changes as something we'd both have to do, that we'd both have to work on, rather than something one-sided. I didn't want to be the one with all the responsibility and I didn't want Ranger to have to shoulder the world, either. We'd have to learn to share. Delegate. I wasn't sure which of us that would be harder for.

He took in a long breath. His forearms were resting on his knees, his hands clasped. Slowly, he nodded. "Yes. It's possible."

"You want this?"

He locked eyes with me. "Yes, but only if you are sure."

"Ranger, I..."

"No," he interrupted and stood up. "Take the time to really think this through, Stephanie. Give it time – a week at least. It has to be your considered decision. And when you decide, you come to me." I understood that. So far our relationship had been based on things Ranger had done – deals he'd laid out, pressure he'd applied, kisses he'd stolen – but this had to be my decision and I had to be the one who made the move.

I nodded at him and smiled. "See you at Haywood in seven days, Ranger."

"I hope so."

I was sure of it and as he walked away from me, I smiled.

~ finis

A/N – I know zip about soccer, which is why Steph knows nothing, so I can make mistakes (I am pretty sure there is not a thing called a face-off in soccer) and blame them on her.