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The last piece of the tape narrowed into blue
shading. Benny rose in a stretch. Shaking his head in sorrow at the waste of
a good man, Benny stared with longing at the screen.
“You really miss him, don't you, kid?”
Benny allowed his head to nod. Miss wasn't the
word. Anything Carl ever did, even when he involved Benny with first Leda,
then 'Spider' Ryan, couldn't detract from the near worship Benny held the
man in.
“Like to see it again?”
The kid's face brightened. The agent muttered a
chuckle. The films didn't exactly bore him, either.
When the next shift reported in, the Corpsman
gawked at the screen, whispered in awe, “Sarge?” and fell into the chair
next to the man he was to relieve.
“Hey, kid. How did you ever meet up with that
soulless bastard?”
Benny's eyes flashed in abrupt hatred, his fists
raised, and the agent leaned away from his image on the screen.
“Whoa now, Grey. Ivanovitch used to say that
about himself. He had no father and no religion. Ok?”
Outwardly, Benny relaxed. He shrugged. These men
were friends of Carl's, and that's what counted, ist.
Staring at the floor, he took a deep breath and
began, the words biting and hard.
“Like, when I was six, my grandfather, old man
Greylov, tried to kill me. My mom nailed him first.” He flashed a hard,
brilliant grin. “She still misses that old butcher knife.” There were
murmurs of admiration for the young woman they had seen in the films. Benny
colored slightly, only now realizing he had quite an audience.
Man, but how many watched him dump a load? Geezis,
it was worse than the Walnut Street Philly zoo.
“The child slavers, Children's Services, they
nabbed me. Mom went to jail for a long time.” Growls of distaste for the
overweening CS arose and fell. Since the Plague the State had demanded only
it had the right to raise children, and took any they so desired, based on
an old law that brought on long before the Twentieth Century had passed
away. A law designed to force refugees back to Cuba.
“The dudes stuck me in a home. Old lady
Dubcheck's place. Carl was there. Sixteen, and already more of a man then
any three of you jerks,” he bragged.
He listened, and by their silence knew they
agreed, like it or not. Carl had been tough, rough and rowdy. And he liked
very few people, but when he liked someone, they were blood-bros.
“Did Ivanovitch teach you . . . everything?”
“Chrisake,” Benny yelped, “You got women out
there?” He blushed a furious red, and two shrill giggles rent the air
around his fire stained ears.
She ask it again.
Benny rolled his eyes in mock outrage. Nodding, he
managed a sly grin. “Told me, anyway. If you knew Carl, you know what I
mean.” He rumbled a laugh, echoed by the people in the office. While Carl
hadn't been adverse to an audience when polluted, he liked his privacy. Even
if it was only a dim alley down a back street in Rio D.
“Him and me,” Benny said, his voice filled
with mirth, “we went from there to the Children's Home. We escaped from
there.” His face darkened. Leda had been the one who took them from CS. He
gave a smile that only touched his face. “You should a seen him the first
time he ate snake. Barfed his guts out,” Benny said cheerfully.
“You? Get real, Grey. Ivanovitch was the best
jungle rat we had in Brazil. Hell, he taught people survival.”
Amid general murmurs of agreement, Benny stuck his
thumb in his chest and crowed in a modest brag, “Taught Papa Bear
everything he knew, and me, I had some really great teachers.”
Jeers met this comment.
“Yo, but didn't Carl ever tell you guys about a
kid named A:Wa:ki? or Agina Wya?” Benny colored a little.
“Sometimes he called me a little Piss-Pot.”
“Yeah. He bragged on some kid he called Piss-Pot
all the time.”
So much for ever living down what the Owl had made
him do in bed his first night at Dubcheck’s. With a broad grin that set
the women's hearts pounding, Benny made a fist and raised it. “Yo.”
“You're the little Piss-Pot?”
To their amusement, Benny snarled. “Keep it
down, would you?”
“What's Agina Wya mean?” another
snapped. “He told me once.”
“Wolf's Cub Person. My mom's name means Little
Wolf Bitch Person, an’ dudes, she dammed proud of it.” His head went
back and he howled. Outside his door a Doberman pinscher whined and backed
away. Its ears flattened at the sound of an answering howl from beyond the
Veil of the Sun. Urine trickled on the floor from the cringing dog.
“I taught him. He was worse than a baby up
there. Dude left a trail like a pregnant Holstein, my man, and that ain't no
bull. He was a regular city dog, not a true wolf. Not then. Me and Mom and
Uncle Charlie showed him how to read the Forest, how to ask the spirits for
help, how to hide. We got real good at hiding from you guys up there.”
Benny hunched his shoulder and stared at the floor. The silence stretched on
for minute after minute.
He said then, his words slurred with the memory,
“Somebody squealed. Leda Melancowski, maybe. Carl was boffing her all the
time. The bitch loved gelt more than she loved anything. We got picked up.
Went to the Reformatory. More of crazy Gracy's shit. A creep there, he tried
to pop my cherry. Carl broke his back. Carl left then, went to a tough place
and then was drafted into the Corp. He taught me a lot.” A dark fire
flared in Benny's eye.
“I'd rather die than be anybody's friggin slave.
Carl taught me that. After he came back from his hitch, he was all messed
up. The war, y'know? Dude went back to that bim, Leda, and she snared me
into some bad shit with a chicken hawk called The-Spider Ryan. Carl knew,
but was so tangled up he couldn't help himself, let alone me. He tried . . .
.
“Leda sold us to you guys, and the Project- They
made us whore up at the Manse on Fern Ridge, PA. Me making out with old bims,
him with the lezzies playing slug-”
Cries of outrage and denial met him. A woman
hushed them.
“Go on, kid. Sarge was a lot of things, but no
back-door whore. Not for nobody.”
Benny looked at the one camera he had detected,
his spine stiff and unforgiving. “He was there. I know, because they used
to make me watch what happened when I didn't behave. And warn me if I didn't
give 'donations',” the word was bitter with scorn, “They would unman him
even worse than that. There was this go-between dude, we called him the
Arab-”
“Heard of him.”
“And what he used to do?”
The woman nodded and gulped back a mouthful of raw
vomit.
“Almost a living fact for me and Papa Bear,
lady,” Benny said in a mocking, cheerful voice. To their unbelief, he
said, “Want to see the scars?” He showed his teeth at the camera.
From Benny's file they knew he was shy and
backwards. So she yelled, “Sure, Grey, why not.”
Benny grinned.
Several of the men rushed for the nearest
lavatory.
“Ok . . . we believe you.” she collapsed in a
chair and stared at the kid. No, the man, in the next room. He calmly
rebuttoned his jeans.
“Everyone, Grey, wants to know-”
Benny's head jerked up at the slow, agonizing
tones in the woman's voice.
“Who offed Bellisario. The Arab, kid. Who
murdered him.”
“It wasn't murder,” Benny said. Cool hate made
his voice silken, soft like eider down. “It was justice. This is what the
Project does. This is what you get paid for.”
They stared at him, seething with shame and anger.
“Anyway,” he said, his words slow, his face
burning at the memory of betrayal and the silent heat of their anger,
“Carl was working with this lady, Tina Johanson. You know her? Her and
bunch of other agents didn't know you folks were interested in the JP. And
they, ah, infiltrated, y'know?” A self-conscious grin dimpled his cheeks.
Man, but was Tina fiiine, and way totally into her work. Like he had
been with her as his 'guest.' “They raided the place, a bunch of places
like, some belonged to the JP, some were just free lance whore houses.
“When the story broke, we wound up in PC.
Protection, it was not.” Benny’s shoulders hunched in an angry gesture.
“But custody it def'netly was, up in the Walnut Street Inn, otherwise
known as Hell Street Jail.” Eye flashing Benny snapped,” Why not do us
like they would a some rich dude, and keep us in a hotel?”
The men and women watching flinched back.
“Carl killed a C/O there, a one of Hylnn’s
crowd who was paying his snitches with new fish just coming in to prison.
Young fish. Kids like I was then. Me. We got out of that one by the skin of
our teeth.” He smiled, his eye sad. “Tina, again. A lot of C/O's lost
their jobs over that one. Him and Mom,” Benny said, almost wistful,
“they got hitched. And did she make him toe the line? Yo,” and he
snorted a laugh.
“Sarge Ivanovitch toe the line for a woman? Get
out of here, kid. He hated bossy women.”
With a look as cold as the grave, Benny told them,
“He loved Mom like nobody's business.” He thrust his hands into his back
pockets. “And Mom wanted to die after he got burned up in that wreck. Dude
died in place of me. It wasn't no accident.” His voice broke, grew harsh.
“I should o’ died, not Papa Bear. He-”
His voice cracked and Benny turned from them, head
bowed, knees unable to support him.
“It was greedy Leda Melancowski, man. She's a shon:gili,
a witch, and she used Carl in the worse way. She'd get knocked up by him on
purpose and abort the kid. I guess she always told him it was spontaneous,
y'know? Then she'd use the baby on her alter as a sacrifice for the Mohawk-Buu,
and he wanted me, too. He got sick of her, and tried to nail me himself, but
Carl got in the way. Murdered Carl.”
“Who is this jerk who murdered Carl?”
Benny looked up. A smile ticked at the corners of
his mouth.
“The devil, lady. The Mohawk-Buu is our
word for the devil.”
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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