Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 06:38:53 -0400
From: Ruthless <ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: Little Boy Lost Part 3

	Next week Matthew asked me was it okay if he went to another kid's
house after school. "I'm not seeing Mrs. Beall that day," he said.

	"How are you going to get there?" I interrogated.

	"I can get there on his bus."

	"They'll let you do that?"

	"He says yes," Matthew said earnestly. "And he's going to show me
what kind of attack you have to use on the boss that clones your
characters. I just want to be there to see," he pleaded. "I can be back in
time to do lots of studying."

	I kind of figured he was studying some every day. He'd be on the
loveseat with some books beside him if I came down in the evening and quite
often in the afternoon as well. But I'd never put him on a studying
schedule. I'd just been taking him to the tutor.

	"You trying to earn that PS2?" I said.

	He followed the way my mind jumped all wrong. "I don't have to go,"
he said quickly. "I'm sorry. I really have been keeping up with the
books. But I understand."

	"I didn't say you couldn't go," I said.

	He looked bewildered.

	"You wanna go to the kid's house you can go," I said. "I just need
to know when to pick you up."

	"I don't want to make you mad," he looked down. "I'm really trying
with the studying. I know you don't believe it. I can't help it where I'm
stupid, but things are going okay. I've caught up on a lot of assignments."

	I spread my hands, looking down at his subdued head. "I said it was
okay."

	He looked up, worried. "Please don't get mad at me. You scare me to
death when you get mad. I'm not trying to weasel out of doing the
work. Really I'm not."

	"Do you think you've done enough work?" I said. I was just
bewildered by his alarm. I'd got him close to cringing with fear.

	"I'll... I'll study some more," he said. "Yeah. I can look at my
English book when I get up in the morning."

	"I didn't ask that," I said.

	"I'm not lying!" cried Matthew. He started to back away from me. I
followed grabbing him.

	I squeezed him up against my chest, rubbing my hands on his arms
and his head. I held and patted his arms roughly, but not as roughly as
would have been natural. I made it gentler. "Hey. You're not lying. You've
been studying. I've seen it. I'm not mad. You're not pissing me off. You're
going to see this kid."

	He gave a muffled sound, almost into my shirt and turned his eyes
up. He squeezed against me tightly. "You're really not mad? Really?"

	I nodded and smiled, still hugging him. A weak smile answered me
and grew stronger while I kept squeezing him.

	"You just tell me if you need a lift, or if you can walk it, or if
his parents are going to bring you home," I told him. "I gave you
permission. Didn't you hear? I gave you permission."

	"Don't get angry at me like you sometimes get," said Matthew. He
hugged me back. "I get scared. How bad are you going to hurt me when you
get angry at me like that?" he asked.

	I rubbed his back while I held him and after when he was walking
away from me running to get his book bag ready so he wouldn't be late, I
shook my head.

	Once I took him swimming in the evening, but mostly we swam on the
weekend. And of course I picked up the sweats for him so he had the clothes
to come with me into the gym. He stood by the machine I was on, getting
ready to adjust the weights for me. He was perfectly content to do that,
just stand in attendance with me. But I had him try out a few of the
machines at the low settings.

	"You don't try working for bulk," I told him. "Your skeleton's
still too young. You'll damage it."

	So he nodded and the working out he did was light stuff, about what
I figured was right for a guy his age. He liked the aerobic exercise,
running on the stair machine.

	I looked at him and thought, well; it wasn't like having a kid of
my own, because a kid of my own wouldn't be so anxious to please. And it
wasn't much like having another guy in my life, not in the ordinary way of
things, because if a guy were badly in love with me he might be that eager
and watchful, trying to please me, but I didn't fool myself that Matthew
was in love with me. He was in love with my house and the bellyfuls of food
that I was feeding him. For him keeping me happy was a matter of
survival. He knew he had no legal claim on me.

	We did the Indian food again. "How do you do that, talk through
your nose when you order?" he asked.

	One evening he lay naked on top of me squirming, almost writhing to
get more skin contact. His breath was warm on my chin and throat. He
wriggled his belly. Our cocks were trapped between us pressed flat to our
stomachs. "Some day," he said dreamily. "I wish I was gonna be as big as
you."

	"What are you gonna do when you're big as me?"

	He looked startled. "Punch my step dad out."

	He wasn't the only one startled. Up until that moment he'd never
referred to the man as a step dad. He'd always called him a dad and
admitted to being ashamed for what the man thought of him.

	"He punched me out," said Matthew, still looking startled.

	"Better keep growing then," I said lightly.

	A little later he lay on his belly, legs wide while I lay on him,
not all my weight, slowly thrusting, dick sliding against the cheeks of his
ass. The ball head of it waggled above his crack as I slid up and down. His
cheeks were still tight, not as tight. He was pressing his belly flat to my
bed, scrubbing a bit up and down and side to side getting sensation for his
cock.

	I wanted more. I wanted him to want more. He rolled over, looking
up at me. "Wanna kiss me?" I sank down again, only half on him now and
kissed him. That was as much more as he wanted. I kissed him and jerked
him. He arched up into my hand.

	"Uh, yeah. Currier, hard like that!"

	His cum spurted. The smell of it came to me, soapy, savoury, and
bitter. Matthew lolled back with a sleepy smile.

	"Off to your own bed now," I patted his ass and sent him on his
way.

	At night I sometimes roamed the house, not turning any lights
on. If I had woken him at first, he slept through my wandering now. I felt
better after stepping into my trousers, the key to my gun cabinet in my
pocket. I should put it somewhere behind a padlock, I thought. Make it
impossible to reach it without a couple more minutes' thought. I felt
better when I could jingle the key in my fingers. I walked about,
barefooted and bare-chested, watching the silent stillness of the frozen
grass and ridges of ice outside of my house. If it weren't for Matthew
being there, I would have kept the cabinet unlocked so that I could have
had the reassurance of a hard smooth gun butt in my hand.

	"Can I go to the bowling alley after school?"

	"Sure," I said. "Who are you meeting?"

	"Just some the guys are letting me tag along," he said.

	"What time are you going to be done?"

	"Six. They have to go home for supper."

	"I'll pick you up in the parking lot at six?" I asked. Matthew
smiled. I thrust a twenty-dollar bill into his pocket. That would cover his
shoes and leave him enough over to pick up junk food and ruin his appetite.

       Only it never did ruin his appetite. The kid could eat everything I
gave him. He was indiscriminate. He liked it all, vegetables, liver, any
kind of meat he just inhaled, any kind of fruit, if the food turned out
badly cooked, there was still no complaint. If I took him out for Indian or
Thai food, or if there was a Szechwan dish when I got Chinese. And it
wasn't just that he was too cowed to complain. There was never any
hesitation, or silent poking at the food.

       "Do I give you enough spending money?" I asked.

       "You give me tons of money," Matthew said, flabbergasted. "You
wouldn't let me give it back when there's change. There's always
change. You give me too much."

       "So, save it up then," I said.

       He mopped the floor in the kitchen and the bathroom and he left it
too wet. In time it showed, a thin line of mildew in the cracks. I had him
mop the floor with a bleach solution. My dishes were unbreakable. Sometimes
they skidded. A plate spun out of the sink trailing a comet tail of
soapsuds. "Ooops. Fuck!" said Matthew. He looked up quick to see if I'd be
angry and used a dishtowel to dry the floor.

       December was cold and dry. The snow had sunk into the earth,
disappearing in the bleak afternoon sun. When the wind blew the grass was
brittle and hissed. Puddles crunched outside.

       "Do you need anything? School supplies? Your socks holding out?" I
asked.

       "Could I have a hat?"

       "A hat?" I hadn't expected that.

       "The really cool kids all wear hats," he said.

       "They do?" I looked at him in disbelief. "I thought only weirdoes
wore hats."

       "No," he gestured at his head. "They wear, like, poncho hats, with
ear flaps. Or the ones with the points, and tassels on the points. Cool
hats."

       I took him out to buy him a hat. They were absurdly cute; the kind
of hats that I thought doting grandmothers would put on pre-school
kids. Matthew chose a red and blue hat, round and close on top with
earflaps, and with long tassels on the tie strings. He studied the mirror
in the store anxiously. "That looks cool," he pronounced. I didn't tell him
that he looked like he was about six-years-old in the hat. When I dropped
him off in front of the school I looked around. I saw dozens of cute, doll
like hats, almost as many on the boys as on the girls. Two girls came down
the steps to meet Matthew and they had easy open smiles on their
faces. They must have liked the hat too.

       The house was quiet and still when Matthew wasn't there. But then it
was quiet when he was there. I liked the stillness. I should get a boom
box. I thought. Whatever they call them now. A kid his age probably wants
the loud music all the time.

       "Can you pick me up at the bowling alley again tomorrow?" He slid
into the car outside of the school. He waited until I was out of sight of
the building, on the highway before he dropped a quick kiss on my cheek.

       It was dark by six the next evening. It was the third of
December. There was bright neon showing a rack of pins above the alley. I
didn't go inside. I idled the engine in the parking lot. I was going to
ask. Did you hang out with Duncan? Was it a mixed crowd? Any girls? How
many guys? It was six ten. Matthew didn't come out.

       He's always on time. I thought. But there was a first time for
everything and a fourteen-year-old kid who never dares to keep you waiting
is a fourteen-year-old kid who is too cowed. I waited another five minutes
and then turned the engine off and went in.

       The alley boomed with the rolling balls. A middle aged bowling
league in matched shirts was setting up. Two girls about Matthew's size sat
in the snack bar. There were no other kids his age.

       Did he get a lift with one of the guys? I thought. Did I get the
wrong night? The wrong place to pick him up? That seemed more likely than
that he would have taken off on me, and dared to miss his meeting. But I
knew it was supposed to be a pick up at six p.m. at the bowling alley.

       Matthew, where are you? I went out, got in the car and sat some
more, thinking. He could be in the washroom inside. I hunted for more
plausible suggestions. I felt my chest expand a sensation like wideness, a
breath coming in that filled it with emptiness. Maybe he met his mother and
she took him home! I breathed slowly. Maybe he remembered his street days
and shoplifted a bag of chips from the snack bar and the cops have got him
now. I sat in the car in the parking lot. Where do I go? How do I find out
where Matthew is?

       It was six thirty when I drove around the bowling alley. There was
nothing out back, of course. A dark green dumpster and a narrow bit of
paving meant for the bowling alley's employees to park their cars were
fringed by frozen scrub, alders standing up on the lot behind. There was
one light burning down on the empty tarmac.

       I've got my cell phone with me. Matthew knows the number, in case
the cops call, or give him a chance to call. In case he goes home. In front
of the alley a raft of kids, maybe late high school, maybe first year
university, were piling in, rushing through the lot. I heard them
exclaiming even through the glass windows. I drove around the building
again.

       I saw a shape. Humped, like a big dog, like someone crawling under a
rug, it lurched up then subsided. It was in the alders. It moved onto the
pavement. It got up. By then I had turned the car towards it. I jumped
out. Matthew couldn't stand. He was trying to get one knee under him, but
falling. Red streaks of blood glistened in his bare hair. He was making an
animal mewling sound, panting. My heart had exploded.

       I didn't get him up on his feet. The way he was moving I knew he
might have something broken. But I got my arms around him and my hands on
him, and felt in all that slippery stinking wetness. I smelt puke. It smelt
like puke but it looked like blood. It was on his head. His nose and face
were smeared blood red. There was a breastplate of it down his chest. His
fingers clawed, scrabbling trying to get beyond me, blind. He couldn't
breath. A slimy string hung from his lower lip. The squeaky, breathless
sound he made went on and on. It was the sound of hysteria, of panic. His
eyes turned up not seeming to register me. He would have rolled on his side
and crawled on his belly on the lot if I had let him.

       But I felt enough then to know there were no obvious holes in
him. Whatever had happened to him, it was unlikely he had been shot. I got
him into the front seat of the car. I got in with him. His bare bloody
knuckles were icy. He was in shock. Matthew scrabbled moaning, keening up
and down. He was afraid. "Muh... muh...muh... blood!" His chest heaved, not
catching the breath. "I... ah... I..." And then there were those squealing
animal moans.

       I took his head. "You are not seriously hurt," I told him voice
taut. "You are going to be alright. Understand? You are not hurt. It's just
blood."

       My message got through. That was what he needed to hear. The
whimpering moan died away. He panted. The breath caught. His eyes fixed on
mine. He nodded. He tried to grip my arm and he couldn't. His hands were
just paws. He stared at me. I broke the grip of his hand from my sleeve and
got around to the driver's seat.

       While I drove Matthew swayed, holding his head. There were more
whimpers but the hysteria passed.

       "What happened?" I said.

       "Uh.... Uh.... My head. It's my head bleeding," Matthew
groaned. "Ohhh."

       "You fall? Or you were attacked?" I already knew he'd been attacked.

       Another animal squeak came out. He was fighting them
down. "S-s-sorry. Didn't, didn't know,' he stuttered. "Sorry. Don't be
mad. Currier, please?"

       "Was it your dad?" I asked, voice mild.

       He turned his head sideways and stared at me amazed. Even with the
ribbon of blood down the side of his face I could see the idea surprised
him. It hadn't been his step dad. It was funny how finding him didn't tip
me into the irrational violence. I asked him the questions calmly. Simple
things like a guy crowding me in traffic pushed me into the homicidical
rage. But when Matthew got attacked the anger was deep, throbbing and in
control. Maybe that was because the parking lot didn't make me feel trapped
or exposed. Maybe it was because there was no one in sight to attack. There
was part of it having a casualty to attend to, work to focus on. I had to
get him to the hospital instead of going back to my house for a gun. So I
just drove and he stopped moaning although I went on hearing the pain in
his breath.

       When I got him to the hospital, of course they wouldn't let me in
with him. First of all he didn't have an ID. But he gave his name; he was
able to talk enough to give them that. He gave his address, the old address
on Back Road in Norton, not mine. And I told them I was his temporary
guardian, and that he lived with me, but that wasn't any kind of legal
proof that I owned him. They took him away and left me sitting in the
waiting room.

       "What happens to him?" I said.

       "You'll find out after his parents get here," said the woman in
white at the counter. "They'll tell you what his condition is."

       There was a TV in the waiting room of course, and I remember a lot
of car ads, sleek shiny cars plunging along country roads. There was a fat
woman with the sniffles, an old man with a grey exhausted face, a woman
with a squinted up face and a tiny silent baby on her lap and about thirty
other people. Sometimes I paced staying out of the way in the corridor.

       After the first half hour the woman called me back to the counter
and made me sign papers. They didn't know what kind of insurance the kid
had, so they told me if I really wanted to, like I had already offered, I
could sign that I'd pay for it. I waved plastic, they typed in numbers and
she filled in a form for me to sign saying how high I'd go. "So you'll
start treating him now?" I said.

       Her voice was quiet and firm and practiced. She must have spoken to
fury and fear and pleading a million times before. "Not until we get the
consent signed by his parents."

       I watched the door, waiting for his parents to get there: a couple,
hurrying, startled by the sudden summons. Or maybe it would just be his
mother who came. They'd go in behind the swinging doors to Matthew. I
pictured the man having a sullen face, being a little older than me. And
they'd be dressed a bit shabbily, cheaply, the way Matthew had been
dressed, in the kind of clothes he wore.

       What would I say to them? First, of course, don't punch the step dad
out. That was based on practicality. If I hit him the police would be
called and my involvement would be over, even if I just brought white round
terror into his eyes, and made him fall off his feet, not injured enough to
need medical treatment. I couldn't drive my fists into the man at all. No,
I had to get his cooperation. He was like one of the dark-haired men with
beards and bad teeth, slyly smiling telling us where the other men were, so
that we could go and kill some long time rivals. I'd have to act supportive
to gain the objective, to get the intelligence I needed.

       An older couple came in. Almost too old? They went to the desk to
the admissions clerk, and the woman sank into the chair crying. She
hunched. The man held her arm to comfort her. She looked in pain. They took
them into triage right away, looking at the woman carefully. No, that woman
was the patient; it wasn't them.

       The world requires a lot of waiting, so I waited. Soon not very many
people were coming in. The crowd in the waiting room began to thin out much
more slowly. The woman with the silent infant moved in somnambulistically
holding the child up carefully but not steering well, walking towards the
side of the door. An orderly turned her in the right direction. Now I had
room to stretch my legs in front of me. I kept my eyes on the two doors;
the door where Matthew's parents should come in and the door that was
between the boy and me.

       I sat in the waiting room until three a.m. By then there weren't so
many people waiting, just me, two women who looked about dead with fatigue
and a four year old with a puffy face. The woman who had replaced the woman
in white came down and told me, "You can go in and talk to the doctor if
you want to."

       So I went in and talked to the doctor. He was a medical student
really. "You want to see Matthew?" the doctor kid said. He reminded me of
the corpsmen I had worked with, young serious, and already detached. "He's
asking for you, so it's all right."

       "Yeah," I said.

       The guy was peering at me, asking a question. "We spoke to his
parents over the phone, a couple of times. But they're just not involved. I
understand he doesn't live with them anymore."

       "That's right," I said. "Does this mean you haven't even treated him
yet?"

       "We didn't get a consent signed," he said.

       "And I can't sign," I filled in. "I don't have a legal right."

       "Well I understand you did sign," the doctor said. "There were
papers where you consented to pay for treatment, and you signed those. We
did treat him. Dr. Mills said, this isn't the same as a denial of
consent. They didn't want to block his treatment. It was more they just
couldn't get down to the hospital. Didn't want to, but it was the same he
felt. The presumed consent. Because they weren't trying to block it, if you
understand."

       I wasn't interested in legalities. "So what kind of shape is he in?"

       "He's got what we call a grade two concussion, and some minor scalp
injuries -nothing we're worried about, although it needed stitching. And
he's quite bruised, but there's no reason that shouldn't heal up fine after
a week or two."

       "What about internal injuries?"

       The doctor shook his head. "His blood pressure's nice and
stable. That means he's good. The only thing we need to watch is the
concussion."

       "Are you admitting him?"

       "No." The doctor tilted his head to look at me. "I understand he's
been living with you."

       "That's right. I'm sort of a family friend."

       The man just nodded. "He'll need to have the concussion watched but
if you can do that, he can go home with you."

       I had thought it had been over, that I was out of his life. "I have
to wake him up every three hours -isn't that how it goes?" I said.

       "Right. The other thing is, did you know he was assaulted?"

       I squinted, not saying anything.

       "He was beaten up," the doctor kid told me.

       "I knew that. It looks to me like he had the shit kicked out of
him. Did the guy do anything else?"

       The doctor shook his head. "He was kicked -most of it was
kicking. There wasn't even a weapon used we don't think. He has a lot of
bruising on his behind. There may have been two guys. He didn't seem very
sure of that. Once he was down he got kicked in the head and the belly and
the behind. He's going to be really sore for quite a few days. Did you see
anything or did he come to you already like that?"

       "I found him like that," I said, "Crawling in the parking lot."

       "Okay. If you'd seen anything you'd need to make a statement for the
police. They'll probably still need to talk to Matthew but you won't need
to talk to them at all," he said.

       Then he let me in at last to see Matthew. The boy was white, red
around the eyes, and puffy on one side of the mouth. His pallor was the
only thing that looked serious. Otherwise he might just have been
crying. He was on gurney, lolling back. He looked at me with set eyes.

       "I suppose you feel like shit," I said.

       He gave a nod.

       "You want to come home with me?"

       He gave another nod. I helped him up. He got a death grip on my arm
and moved like he wasn't sure he could make it to his feet off the
gurney. But once he was up and we started down the hall he was using his
biting fingers to hang on, not to make me take his weight. He could have
walked okay without holding anything. He breathed like it hurt.

       It was just a few hours to daylight when I got him home. "My bed or
the loveseat?" I said.

       "Loveseat."

       I put him on the loveseat, piled the blankets over him and then
undressed him. "I have to wake you up every three hours," I told
him. "Doctor's orders. When I come and disturb you, just talk to me. As
soon as you do that you can go back to sleep."

       "I don't mean to be a bother," said Matthew woodenly.

       I lay down and I slept. I can usually grab some sleep, if only for a
few minutes when I need it. But I was up at dawn when it was time to wake
him. He was pretty deeply asleep and that was a good thing. It made him
comfortable. I talked him awake. He opened his eyes and said clearly. "My
name is Matthew Brown. I know where I am. I'm at your house and you're
Currier Ellis."

       So I said, "You can go back to sleep," and he closed his eyes again.

       I had to wake him one more time, when it had been broad daylight for
a while. But he was still ready to go straight back to sleep again, so I
left him. I judged he'd be able to get to either the kitchen or the
bathroom on his own if he needed to. I got back to the house around
ten. I'd left him sleeping to run an errand. He could still sleep another
half hour when I got back, but I must have woken him going into the
kitchen. In another minute he appeared, hanging onto the kitchen
doorframe. Now his head was lumpy, not round, the scalp swollen.

       "I got to get to school!" he said.

       "You're not going to school," I said. "You're on the sick list for
at least the rest of this week."

       He puckered, fear and fury all at once. "But I can't miss school!
I've missed so much!!"

       'Don't worry," I said. "You'll get help from Mrs. Beall. I called
the school. Your teachers are going to accept late assignments."

       And then he collapsed and went limp. I hung onto him or he would
have dropped. He just leaned on me, huddled. He was man enough that he
wasn't crying, but damaged enough that he let me take all his weight, and
put his cheek against my shoulder. I ended up sitting at the kitchen table
and him mostly on my lap clinging to me. He crooked his arm around my neck
and hung on. I stroked him. I laid my hands on him very lightly. There
wasn't any place on his body it was safe to touch. He had bruises every
place.

       Later I got food into him, and helped him into his gym sweats. He
was so stiff that any kind of moving made him gasp with pain. He wanted
help moving from room to room although he didn't say it. I guess I could
have left him if I had to go to work, but I didn't, so I could give him my
arm to move around.

       "You told the doctor it was two guys?" I said. "Young guys?"

       Matthew gave a nod.

       "Did you think they were kids from Saint David's?"

       "They weren't from Saint David's."

       "How do you know?" I asked.

       He said nothing.

       "You said you didn't know who they were, right?"

       He looked down. "I didn't know who one of them was." He looked up
again, "The other guy... He says he'll come after me again."

       Stillness, as strong as light, filled me. "You do have some idea who
he was then?"

       "He said he'll go after me again if I tell the police."

       I nodded. "And you didn't tell the police."

       "He hit me before! And nobody cared! He punched me in the face...and
now he really, really hurt me. They still don't care. My Dad said I was
just a fucking faggot if I didn't hit him back. I can't hit him back. He's
too big. He kicked... He kept kicking me. Kicking me. I hurt. I can't face
him again."

       "I care," I said. "This time I care. I'll do something about it."

       "But he'll go after me again if you press charges. Even if he has to
pay a fine or something. He's not scared of the police. He's going to hurt
me again."

       "How do you know he's not scared of the police?"

       "He told me."

       "Who told you not to describe him?"

       "He did."

       "Then he probably is afraid of the police."

       "I don't care! I can't tell. He'll hurt me. He just starts hitting,
punching and then kicking. He spits on me! He spit in my hair..." Matthew's
voice had grown wobbly.

       "How old is he?" I said.

       "I don't know."

       "Is he bigger than you?"

       "Yes. I think he might be eighteen." The boy paused. "He used to be
in my school. He's a prick. I don't know if he graduated now or not. But
he's much bigger than me. And he's really tough. He's used to hitting. He
went after me at Norton, when I was a Norton, my first week there. He told
me he remembered me..."

       "Did he hit you this bad the first time?"

       "No."

       "Did he rob you? Was that it? Was there a reason?"

       "He knows," said Matthew faintly.

       "Knows what?" I asked.

       "He knows I'm a fag."

       "You were fag bashed," I said.

       "I can't fight him," Matthew said. "I can't. He had the other guy
with him. And he just hits -you saw how bad he hit me. I tried to cover my
face. All I could do was cover my face."

       "Did they both hit you?"

       "Only at first. Then the other guy stopped. He was telling him, he
grabbed his arm, telling him not to kick me any more. But he didn't stop. I
don't know who that guy was, but he told him to stop after I fell down."

       "So one of them did most of the hurting."

       Matthew nodded.

       "Do you know the guy's name?"

       "Are you going to tell the police?" he asked.

       "No," I said.

       "It's Jason Moody," said Matthew. "You promise you won't tell the
police?"

       "I promise," I said.


       End of part 3 of 5 "Little Boy Lost" by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca