Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 08:04:24 -0400
From: Ruthless <ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: Little Boy Lost part 4

	Matthew came upstairs so quietly I only heard the faintest sound as
he came into my doorway. I heard him breathe and a little later a faint
rustle as he sat down. He didn't speak so I didn't turn around. I gave him
a moment. I was hoping he'd speak up and tell me what he wanted without me
prompting. But he didn't say anything, so I rotated my chair and looked at
him. He was sitting on the floor, right in my doorway, back to the
doorframe and feet against the doorframe on the other side.

	"I looked in the mirror," he said.

	I raised an eyebrow waiting for the conclusion.

	"I look like hell," he said. "I look really ugly. I mean, I'm
pretty ugly to begin with, but now I've got green bruises all down the side
of my face. And that's only my face. My body looks like a piebald
horse. Half of me is purple and the other half is turning yellow." He
managed a smile. "I look kinda grotesque, especially where I'm not standing
up straight too much at the moment. Quasimodo." He met my eyes.

	"You'll heal up by New Year," I said.

	"I wonder what they're going to say at school."

	"That depends on what you tell them," I said.

	"I already called Duncan," said Matthew. "I told him I'd got in a
fight."

	"What did he think of that?"

	"I don't know what he thought. I told him I was alright but I was
too banged up to go to school for a few days," Matthew told me. "I'm glad
it wasn't him got attacked. I'm glad he was gone by the time Jason got
there."

	You must like Duncan, I thought.

	"Currier," he said. "Why are you letting me live here with you? I'm
so ugly I can't imagine why you do it."

	"You don't look ugly," I said. "Not ordinarily."

	"Yes, I do," he said contradicting me flatly in his
disbelief. "I've got this really skinny neck, like a knitting needle. I
look like a bobble doll. And I've got a goofy nose. My face is ugly, and my
body is just puny. Don't you know how skinny my arms are? I almost look
like a freak." His voice got rueful. "I suppose that's suitable. I am a
freak."

	"You don't look like a freak," I said. "Not before you got bashed
and not now. You've got a cute nose. And what you're describing as skinny
and puny looks smooth and supple and agile to me."

	"Like a girl?" he said with a grimace

	I shook my head. "You don't look like a girl, Matthew. You look
good. You're a cute kid. You got a nice smile, reserved and friendly all at
once. You've got a lean body, not a puny one. Yeah, your muscles are still
small, but there's nothing girlish about them. And you've got a nice
package of muscles there. You look pretty good normally."

	He met me with his eyes. "But you don't fuck me."

	I said nothing to that.

	"You said you do boys. Isn't that right?" said Matthew. "So what's
wrong with me that you're not putting it up my butt?"

	"You don't want it up your butt," I told him. "I already told
you. You're playing with me. You want to go so far... touch my cock maybe,
get your own cock jerked, look at me, sometimes climb on top of me. But you
don't want my cock in your mouth. You look at it, if I bring your head down
your lips tighten up. We're going at your pace here and you're not ready to
be fucked."

	"I'm ready now," he tried to hold my eyes. "If I'm not too ugly
now."

	"No you're not," I said.

	"Yes, I am."

	"If you were ready now you'd have a hard on and be climbing all
over me. Do you have a hard-on, Matthew?"

	"No, but I can get one."

	I shook my head. "Are you scared I'm going to kick you out now for
some reason?"

	"I do want to have sex with you," he said. "Only... how long do I
got?"

	"How long do you need?"

	He didn't answer.

	I got up and came to him. I beckoned him to rise and then I had to
help him because he got up stiffly. "It's been taking so long for you to be
ready," I said. "It's occurred to me that maybe you're never going to want
to have sex with me, not ever. Maybe for you having me as a jerk off buddy
is enough. Maybe for you, you've got to think about girls for a while
more. You might have a bisexual half of you, or maybe you're pissed off at
father figures inside and I'm enough a father figure there's a part of you
full of anger, too angry to want to give me something valuable like your
cherry." I had my arms around him loosely. "Well, that doesn't matter. I'm
not saying you got the time - I have a life, a job that might fuck me over
pretty soon. I could have to take off in a week or two. I'm not saying that
this little refuge you've found is stable, or permanent. But I'm not
kicking you out."

	"I do like you, Currier." His voice was muffled. "I mean, I really
like you. And I guess I know you've been giving me the time." He looked
up. "I just want to know what's in it for you? Why would you want me here?
I mean, I'm nothing but a little loser, too scared of cock, and I can't
even defend myself, and I'm costing you money, I know I am! All those
groceries you buy for me, and the check you give Mrs. Beall, and..."

	I'd already told him he was cute. I'd told him several times. That
wasn't enough for him, though I could say it again and again, that he was a
good looking kid, and bright and hard working enough to make it
worthwhile. But that wasn't good enough. His scalp was still lumpy and
clumpy with the stitches or I would have rubbed his head as I held him. But
the only part of his head that wasn't tender and lumpy from the kicking
he'd taken was his forehead, so I rubbed that. He needed more reason.

	"In Afghanistan," I said. "I, you know, we killed people. And they
were our enemy and they would have killed us if they could, so there was
nothing wrong with it. I killed some. I didn't kill so many, but you know,
a couple of guys here and a couple of guys there. I put shots into cars and
I put shots into houses, and onto hills where guys were shooting at
us. That was okay." I paused.

	"I kind of liked that part of the job. Because being shot at, that
made me shit-scared, but being shot at when I had a gun in my hand too,
that made me, real awake. Eager, you know what I mean? There's nothing like
it, my lungs expanding, fuller, clearer than you could believe, like I
could take a breath and go on inhaling forever. And if I was running, it
was like I could run forever, fast! The energy! Like it was so free and
alive, and mean and intent... There's nothing like going to try to kill
someone when he's out to kill you. You ever win sports and feel proud of
it? It's way more than that."

	He was listening intently.

	"And sometimes, it was fun I guess, but it was also a fucking
waste. Like, you know, stopping cars at a check point, well they were
civilian cars, but they were still people we needed to kill and they'd come
driving up and boom, someone would put a burst into the car and it would go
on flames and they'd be dead." I shrugged.

	"It wasn't good when one of our own guys got hit. You know how eyes
look when someone's dead? Kind of unhappy. Blank, like they've realised
they're out of it and they don't know how. And it's pretty messy too. A lot
messier than you look right now. You just don't look like nothing to me
after what I've seen. Because I've stood there and gone, well, where's the
rest of his fucking body? I see an arm... There's nothing here but fucking
exploded plaster, I know where the wall went but where's his body? There's
just an arm. It's so weird, the way people can be missing chunks out of
them, the whole jaw gone, or a big black hole in the leg, four inches
deep. Or..." I shook my head again.

	"And it gets worse," I said. "Because once you start seeing so many
dead people, once you get used to thinking I did that, I pulled the
trigger, or I gave the order, I caused that, then you get curious, like how
far can you go. It becomes nothing to put a gun against the back of a guy's
head and inside, the only thing I'm wondering is will the top of his head
come off all in one piece. I wonder what shape the top of his head is going
to be?"

	"That's one side of living, wasting people. And it gets real easy
after awhile. Detached. I suppose it's not good that my heart won't slow
down. That wide-awake feeling, it doesn't go away, only after awhile it's
like caffeine. It's not that I'm staying on alert, it's that I can't sleep
any more. I need something else. Something to take the wide awake feeling
away." I touched his head.

	"I need to stop thinking about killing people. I need to maybe -do
quiet things, safe things. Ordinary things. That's where you come in. Like
I can use you, to get back into being an ordinary person again. I can go
back to being a guy that doesn't, you know, shoot everyone that moves."

	"I'm useful?"

	"In a way," I agreed. "There are times when I couldn't fucking cope
with doing ordinary things, things like just driving down the freeway, if I
didn't have you along."

	He had a puckered puzzled look on his face. "I've never been useful
before."

	"I'm going to kiss you now," I said. I picked him up, off the
ground so that his face was the same height of mine and I kissed him. He
hung onto me. I carried him to the bed. He rolled onto his back and I
climbed over him. He let me pull off his clothing, humping his thigh,
running my lips down his throat and onto the young, tender skin. His face
was mixed with fear and trust, moving to let me pull his shirt off, even
leaning up to my body, but staring and his nostrils flared for fear of the
pain if I went further than he was ready for.

       I didn't cause him pain, or not more than I couldn't help getting
his clothes off and touching some of the bruised places. I climbed over him
and put both his hands on my cock and he jerked me, two handed, one going
down to rub under my taut balls and then coming back to wrap around my
prick again. And after a few moments I got down, lying along side him,
knees up near his head and I took his young cock in my mouth.

       He was hard. Touching him had done that. I sucked it, warm and thick
and salt-tasting in my mouth. I fucked his curled hands and drank and
bobbed on his cock. And I came pretty quickly, grunting and sucking hard as
the spunk surged out of me, spattering onto his chest. He stayed hard in my
mouth. He was rocking just a little bit. So I kept on sucking, sliding my
lips and panting from the cumming. Matthew moaned. And there was nothing in
my universe but that cock, slim and thick at once, rock solid and
sensitive. I flickered my tongue on it, and swirled my tongue around it and
just bobbed hard and tight. He came in my mouth pretty quickly with suction
like that. I felt him grab my legs, clutching frantically. His breath
caught and my gulp was all full of salt, rich nectar, pulsing.

       I swallowed it. Afterwards he looked at me, worn out and I covered
him because I knew he'd get cold.

       "I think you must be the kindest, most gentle man that every lived,"
said Matthew.

       "You really have no clue, Kid," I said. "Do you?" I shook my head
and lay with him awhile, warm bodies together while he rested.

       The day after Matthew had the shit kicked out of him I'd gone out
and gotten him a cellular phone. I gave it to him to take with him, and
ordered him to call me if he went anywhere at any time. "I'd rather you
called me and told me you were going down the hall to the John, than you do
something like step outside and don't tell me. You can't call me too much."

       "You think Jason's going to come after me again?"

       "Probably," I said. "You didn't rat on him, so he got away with
it. And you had all the money I gave you in your pocket and you don't have
it now, so probably he got that."

       The kid's eyes grew wide and shiny. He said nothing at all going
still. He couldn't move. I was serving our breakfast out at the table in
the morning, on Monday before I was going to take him in to school. He just
sat there, too afraid to move.

       "Eat," I ordered. So he ate his bacon and eggs and cornflakes. He
forgot to promise me he wouldn't lose the cell phone. He held it in his two
hands looking at me, scared to go up to the school building when I let him
off. He just stood looking back at the car.

       And then two boys came down, one of them a tall one and the other
one the pug nosed kid that I thought was probably Duncan and he wrenched
himself around with an effort. I stayed looking at him go off with the two
boys. They walked shoulder to shoulder with him, leaning in a bit. If they
didn't turn on him I figured he'd be alright.

       I had work to do now. I wasn't back on the job, but I had a pastime
a lot more gripping than going to the pool and swimming laps in the
fruitless effort of making myself tired. I was doing research. I made it
low key, not actually asking anyone any questions. I probably could have
found out what I wanted just making make two phone calls, one of them to
the Norton High School. But then someone might have remembered I'd made the
phone calls. First I went and laid hands on the High School Year Book from
last year, and that gave me half of what I wanted. The other half was
legwork, driving, and watching and sitting in the car and watching some
more. This was a piece of research I didn't want anyone to know I was
doing, not even Matthew, at first.

       Matthew had enough on his plate already with his schoolwork still so
far behind. He'd haul his school books out and look at them at the kitchen
table in the morning while I was standing over the stove, when he still
looked rocky enough that he could have done with spending an extra twenty
minutes in bed. He was trying so hard to get to the same level with the
other kids. "What's a gerund?" he moaned. "I can't remember what a gerund
is!" He turned the pages of his English book frantically. And I couldn't
tell him.

       But I did say, "Next term if you're still here, you're going out for
sports."

       He looked up at me.

       "You never did so much of that before, did you?"

       "I couldn't get the transportation," he said.

       I gave a nod. Shit-face, the stepfather, and that useless mother of
his couldn't be bothered setting it up for him. "Well, I want you doing
something competitive. I don't care what you take, as long as you're doing
something that gets you running and moving. You need to learn to hit back."

       "That's what Duncan says," said Matthew. "Could I take martial arts?
Duncan takes martial arts."

       Duncan again. I grinned. "What type of martial arts do you want?"

       "I dunno," said Matthew with a shrug. "Whatever's cheapest. Or means
the least driving around for you."

       I left him at home alone in the evenings when I went out. I parked
under the pine trees just up the road from the yellow trailer with the
Moody mailbox out front. It was sixty yards up, and an unlit corner of a
door-and-window-warehouse parking lot. It was far enough I had to use a
pair of binoculars if anything moved there, and pretty boring. But I only
spent two evenings out there and I got a little more information.

       Then it was the weekend, so I didn't go intelligence gathering any
more. I took Matthew out swimming and for a walk down one of the back
roads, where the fields were frozen and our boots crunched in the new
snow. His ears turned bright pink because he was bare-headed, and he smiled
at me but he didn't want to walk far. I didn't think it was an excuse for
being weak still. Stepping wide through the scrunching crusts of frozen
snow, keeping up, he didn't show he was stiff or sore. "But it's exam
week. I really want to get some studying in."

       So I took him home and he spend most of the weekend with a glazed
expression on his face, and his head propped on one hand staring at the
books. Some of the time he spent doing equations and some of the time he
spent on the phone in the hall, talking quietly to another kid.  "Ancient
Greeks against the Persians and then Alexander the Great?" He was one hell
of a grind, that kid.

       Exam week meant I had to drive him in to school for either the
morning or the afternoon, but not always both, and then a couple of times
he stayed so he could use the library at the school, as there were a couple
of papers due. "I forgot to write down my bibliography! Oh God! Oh God! I'm
gonna have to find all those books and write them down before I can hand it
in..."

       It also meant I had time to go out stalking and watching. But this
time I didn't park down by the door-and-window-warehouse -or not for more
than half an hour at a time, and this time I drove a different car.

       I came home at ten one night and found Matthew newly showered, damp
haired and squeaky clean, sitting up cross-legged on my bed. I flung myself
down and he bent and kissed me. I pulled him close. He snuggled in. We lay
like that, fully clothed. He fumbled into the fly of my pants. By the time
he found my cock it was stiff. He jerked it smiling into my face. The lumps
on his scalp had gone down but the hair was uneven, in one line where they
had clipped it to put the stitches in. He had probably forgotten I could
see that.

       "You're a horny little devil tonight," I said lightly.

       "Uh-huh," he agreed and then bit off a yawn. He looked surprised
when I laughed. Horny he might have been but he was also sleepy. I got his
pajamas open and he worked on my shirt.

       "I like it when you suck me," he said shyly.

       "I like it when I suck you too," I said. I jacked up on my elbow and
squirmed down. He smiled. I lapped at his cock looking up to see the
expression on his face.

       "Uhhhhh," he sighed. "Uh, Currier! Oh God! How do you do that? Holy
fuck, but that's... that's... Oh my God!"

       It tasted good, and it was jutting up hard now, just the right
shape. It fit my mouth exactly. So I worked away and it wasn't so long
before I felt his hand at my crotch get clumsy. His pumping got mechanical
because he was so distracted by the sensations from his own cock. I didn't
bring him off into my mouth. I brought him off into my hand so I could
catch it white and dripping in my fingers, a hand full of spunk glistening
and smelling soapy.

       He forgot my cock. He lolled back, a great wide smile on his
face. Stretched out like that it pulled his naked stomach taut, and his
boy-belly was so lean under his ribs he was like a piece of sculpture. I
laid my hand on his stomach and felt the warmth, the living electric
skin. It didn't disturb him. I lay like that not moving my hand just
letting it rest motionless, feeling how alive he was. And his cock very
slowly began to deflate so that it started pointing down. The tip was still
very red from the engorgement and it gleamed with the last seepage of
ejaculate.

       After awhile he murmured, "Currier, what do you want for Christmas?"

       "Peace in the Middle-East," I said flippantly.

       "No, really," his voice woke up a little bit.

       "I dunno, Kid," I said. "I got pretty much everything that I want."

       "I don't have very much money," he said. "I could get you a watch or
something."

       "Don't spend your money on me," I said.

       He rolled over a little bit so he could see me. "Anything I could
get you," he said. "You could afford to get a better one for yourself."

       "I'll like anything you give me," I said.

       He eyed me. "Duncan gave me an idea. He told me something I should
try."

       Duncan again. I nodded. "Then try that. And I bet you he'll be
right." I was lying on my side looking at him closely. He was relaxed and
thoughtful, unselfconscious about his nudity. He'd quite forgotten that he
hadn't made me cum. I didn't remind him.

       "Matt," I said. "Tomorrow night I want you to do something for me."

       His eyes widened a fraction.

       "We're going to go out," I told him, "To a snack bar. It's on
Highway Four. And there's a chance Jason's going to be there..."

       "Jason!" he interrupted me.

       "Yeah, Jason. The kid that beat you up a couple of times."

       He was afraid. I could see it in him. His lips had gone into a flat
little line. He didn't say another word.

       "I'll be there with you," I said. "So nothing bad is going to
happen. I'll tell you what to do."

       "But he'll..." Matthew paused. "You want me to identify him, is that
it?"

       "No," I said. "I know what he looks like. I want you to lead him
into the parking lot where I can get him."

       For long seconds he said nothing. His hands had come up around his
own shoulders so that he was loosely hugging himself. "You're out to get
Jason," said Matthew. "You're not out to arrest him, right?"

       "That's right," I said.

       "Do you think you can take him on?"

       "That's what I'm counting on," I said.

       "Even if he has his friends with him?" Matthew's voice was uneven
from fear.

       "Then we'd just get in the car and go away if there's too many of
them there for me to take him," I said.

       Matthew swallowed. He smiled wanly.

       "You'll do it?"

       "Yes, Currier," he said. "I'd do anything for you."

       Matthew was my weak point. It wasn't that I expected so much from
him, but he was deathly afraid of the guy who had beat him up so bad. I
couldn't be sure he'd have the guts to do what I said, for all he told me
he'd do anything. I could have given him one of my guns. I was pretty sure
that would give him all the courage he needed. If he were armed he'd figure
he could waste Jason as soon as the bigger guy tried anything on him. I'd
seen it with the American kids out in Afghanistan. They liked having a M15
to hold up against their body, security. But that wasn't the reason I was
bringing Matthew to the snack bar. I didn't want him to waste Jason by
shooting him down in the parking lot. Mess was something I meant to
avoid. When I saw how still and dark-eyed he was I wasn't so sure that
Matthew would even have the courage to get out of the car when I we got to
Highway Four.

       The first night wasn't bitter cold. It was a still night and there
had been a snowfall earlier, just half an inch of it, soft and still in the
parking lot. Matthew stared ahead of himself just blank. I parked the car
not in front of the snack bar but in the parking lot of the property beside
it. His eyes were fixed on the windshield, his neck straight. He didn't
look at me.

       "The reason I want you to do this," I said, "Is because you're
afraid. You're too afraid to hit back, Matt. You need to learn how you can
hit back."

       He turned his head to look at me. "I know that," he said. "I can do
it." His voice was just ghostly. We both got out of the car. I stood close
to him, feeling the smooth material of his coat against mine. I
pointed. "We wait here. And then when we see him, if we see him, you go
there. He won't do anything -not more than a punch or so anyway, while
you're up there on the porch ordering your fries. We want him to think he
can rob you. Here's money." I passed Matthew a roll of bills. "I want you
not to worry about losing the money. All it is, is bait. You can use it
even, if you have to, throw it into the snow so he goes after it and you
can make a break from him. But lead him back, right here behind the
dumpsters. Lead him to me."

       "Okay," said Matthew. We waited. We waited two hours that night,
quiet, bored and still. And maybe ten people came to the snack bar in that
time, seven or eight cars. But in the winter the snack bar didn't get too
much trade, not like it would in the summer on a hot night. There were a
lot of young men. I passed the binoculars to Matthew a couple of times. It
was no go at all. None of them was Jason.

       When we were in the car and driving home, Matthew got sleepy. "Why
do you want to get Jason so bad?"

       "Because he got you."

       Nobody had ever cared about Matthew enough to help him defend
himself. I should get the step-father next, I thought.

       We went on with our ordinary lives of course while we waited for the
night Jason would come to the snack bar. I was pretty sure he would
come. He'd greeted people there. They knew him and I'd seen him there twice
before. But I wasn't certain. After all it wasn't like he worked
there. Still, I was pretty sure it was our best bet at the moment. It
wasn't like we need to hurry about what we were doing.

       Matthew didn't have to go to school during exam week. He studied at
my kitchen table, watching noodles boiling in a pot. I still did most of
the cooking but he had already started to pick up some skills. He did the
dishes after each meal and then like as not would curl up on his loveseat
with some more books, pages of his notes, notes he had photocopied from his
classmates.

       "Can I go over to Cullen's house to study?"

       I got up, "You need a lift now?"

       "Yup. Please."

       Who was Cullen? I thought. Another friend. I hoped he'd make more
friends than Duncan. That attachment was too strong. They might fall out
and then he'd be hurt again.

       It was Cullen's mother who brought Matthew home after the study
session and he let himself in with his own key. I heard him at the door
although I had headphones on. He came upstairs looking for me. It was his
light tread on the stairs. "What you doing?" He looked at the cassette
player I was tinkering with.

       "Learning Farsi."

       "What's Farsi?"

       "It's the language they speak in Iraq," I said.

       "Would you like me to vacuum downstairs?" he asked.

       I glanced at my watch, "No, it's about time to go to the snack bar."

       In the car the night outside was dark and windy and the houses
glittered and twinkled red and blue and green and white, icicle lights and
rearing reindeer, Mrs. Santa Claus, cut out of plywood, was a giant on one
flood lit roof, trees in the front yards jeweled with lights, eaves
flickering and twinkling with green and gold.

       "You remember you said that you could get a blow job in Afghanistan
for only fifty cents?" said Matthew.

       "Yeah," I answered.

       "Is that true, just fifty cents?"

       "That's right. There were a few kids. They weren't very old. They
were desperate enough to do that, because they needed the money for
food. They were just so poor."

       "You do that? You fucked with some Afghani kids?"

       "No," I said glancing over at him. "I fucked a couple of men
though."

       "There were guys being hookers -adult guys?" He sounded surprised.

       "They weren't hookers," I said.

       "Gay guys. You fucked some gay guys while you were in Afghanistan."

       "I don't think they were gay, Matt," I said.

       "Then why did they let you fuck them?" he asked.

       I said nothing for a while. Then I glanced at him again. "Why do you
think?"

       He stared at me wrinkling, confused. I pulled up in the empty, unlit
lot that was beside the snack bar. It became too dark to see his
features. He was puzzling over it. He didn't know.

       We got out of the car and stood back, against the trees where we
were invisible watching for cars to come into the snack bar lot. It was
just seven o'clock. There was a lot of traffic.

       "Tell me what you're going to do."

       "When we see Jason I go up to the snack bar. I try to stay several
steps from him and act like I don't know he's there. I order fries if I
don't see him looking at me, but if I see him looking at me I order a
chocolate bar. If he comes near me on the platform I stay in the light. I
don't say anything to him. As soon as I have my fries or my chocolate bar I
come here. I don't run unless he's really chasing me. I head right past the
car and go into the trees. I probably won't see you." Matthew repeated his
orders tonelessly.

       "Very good," I said.

       "And if he doesn't follow me we come back another night and do it
again."

       "Right."

       "What if he just doesn't ever come here? We're wasting our time. It
could be silly, wasting our time."

       "Then we wasted our time." I said. "I'd rather wait here than attack
him somewhere obvious. It's important that we don't get seen."

       Jason didn't come that night.

       "I've got English today," said Matthew to me glumly. I was driving
him to school, late because the exam started at ten o'clock not at the hour
when school usually did.

       "You're not psyched?"

       "I'm psyched," he said, "I just don't do English well. It's going to
be essays. We read some text and then we write about it. I hate essay
questions..."

       "I hate 'em too," I agreed. "I have to do reports too. I have to
write them for work. It's hard making sure I do a good job, do them
complete when I hate doing it."

       "Really?"

       "Yeah. I do a good job on my reports all the same. You can hate
something and do a good job on it."

       He went into the school. I was driving back home with a pair of
trucks coming up behind me when my cell phone buzzed. I picked it up
instantly.

       "Currier?" It was Cleggman.

       "Yeah, Sir?"

       "How are you enjoying your break?" He put on a hearty voice.

       "It's going fine," I spoke tonelessly, switching lanes, easing
behind a white slush spattered car into the slow lane. The truck was almost
on my bumper, heavy, bearing down.

       "You getting more relaxed, unwinding some?"

       "Yes, Sir. I'm spending time with my godson."

       "That's good," said Cleggman. "I called to wish you a Merry
Christmas."

       "Thank you," I said. The truck, big and brown rumbled past like a
juggernaut. It was a container truck, unmarked. It swayed in the lane, the
massive wall of its side shouldering near. "Merry Christmas to you too,
Sir."

       "Merry Christmas, Rob," he corrected.

       "Merry Christmas, Rob," I said.

       "Sounds like you're in traffic," said Cleggman. "I'll let you
go. Bye." He disconnected. The second truck was close on the first, like a
tandem. The car was full of the sound, eighteen wheels thundering, a flood
of brown dirty snow churning up, a wall of slush pattering against my
window, against the windshield, dark, shutting out the light. The truck
felt so close that it was falling under a train. I heaved the cell phone
away from myself across the car.

       "Fuck you!!" I screamed. I put both hands on the wheel and the car
weaved on the shoulder, tires slipping in all that snow, weaving,
staggering like a drunk. The windshield wipers slapped against the snow;
blobs of it cleared. For only fifteen seconds I was blind.

       "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you...!" I fought for my breath. "I should
kill you!" My breathing sounded to me like sobs. "Merry fucking Christmas,
you cocksucking Arab-loving son of a whore!"

       Matthew, finished his exams was punch drunk. He giggled and spun
around in the yard. "Oh God, question three's a write off..." he sighed. "I
know I fucked it. I know." He gave a sigh and a grin all at once.

       "Bad?" I asked.

       "Victorian!" he said. He wrinkled his nose right up. "The guy that
wrote the story was called Lawrence. Great Literature. I didn't know what
was going on. This kid dies and there didn't seem to be no reason. It
looked like it was the Uncle's fault because he got the kid into gambling
but I think maybe it was supposed to be the parent's." He flung his hands
loosely up in the air. "Anyway... the kid's dead, the exam's over and now I
got to get my Christmas vacation." He grinned at me.

       "Would you like to take a skiing trip?" I asked.

       "Mmm..." he started thoughtfully and then nodded
enthusiastically. "Mmm-Hmm!"

       I was getting to read him pretty good. "No, you don't.  Why not?" He
never minded doing anything new. He was always willing to try anything I
threw at him. "You don't want to go away for a trip... let me guess. You
want to see your friends at Christmas."

       "I'd like the trip. What ever you would like. What do you usually do
at Christmas?"

       "I usually work," I said. "When there're enough people out for
Christmas the computers work faster."

       "You don't want to ski...?"

       "I asked you what you wanted. Do you want to stay in town near your
friends over Christmas?"

       He looked at me cautiously. "We could do either." He wouldn't tell
me his preference.

       "How about we take a day, maybe two skiing and spend the rest of the
time here?"

       He nodded, smiling, still nervous.

End of part four of five of "Little Boy Lost" by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca