HOMELESS
W
hen I was a little kid, I saw this demonstration in the park near my house. A lot of people, screaming and yelling. Most of the men had long hair. The man who lived with my mother said they were fags. There was a big sign.
BRING THE WAR HOME!
it said.
I thought if those fags could live with me they would know it already was.
I hated them because they didn’t.
Hate was easy.
When I was a kid, I liked fighting. I was real good at it. I don’t feel pain much. My mother’s boyfriend taught me that.
Crying only made him happy. Hurting me made him happy.
I always made him happy until the day I killed him. I thought that would make me happy, but it didn’t, not really. He died so quick, and then there wasn’t nothing more to do to him.
They put me in a place they called a Juvenile Home. It wasn’t so bad. They let the kids fight a lot. The bosses liked that. On Fridays, they let us fight with gloves on. Sometimes they even had people from the outside come in to watch.
I was pretty good at that, even with bigger kids.
One day, a man came in to watch. He said he would take me out of that place. I could go and live with him. He was going to train me to be a fighter.
I was almost sixteen then, so I said okay. The man fixed it with the bosses, and they let me go.
Where this man lived, it was like a farm. “This is your home now,” he said.
All my life, I was in homes.
He trained me all the time. I wore the mouthpiece all day long, so I would always breathe through my nose. I did sit-ups with a heavy thing around my forehead, so my neck would get strong. He showed me how to use my hips when I punched. How to punch through things, instead of just at them.
That didn’t make sense to me except when I could spar. I liked to punch through people.
He put me in amateur fights. Big pillow gloves and headgear. It was hard to really hurt somebody—if you got them hurt even a little bit, the referee would step in and stop the fight.
I hated it when they did that.
The man wanted me to win medals, fighting amateur. But I would get too excited when I hurt someone. I got disqualified in a lot of fights. After a while, they wouldn’t let me in the tournaments.
The man said that was okay—I could turn pro when I was eighteen.
I did that. I won a lot of fights quick. One time I was fighting this black guy. He was real slick. I couldn’t hurt him no matter what I did. I lost the fight, but that wasn’t what made me mad. I was mad I couldn’t hurt him.
I kept fighting, but I hated it. The rules, that’s what I hated. If I couldn’t hurt them, what good was it?
So I went away. I just got on a bus and went away.
I had some money. Not much. I didn’t need much. I found a room. I got a job in a car wash, but I got fired.
A whore asked me what I did, so I told her I was a fighter. She told me about these fights. In a basement. No gloves, just fighting. The people watching bet on the fights.
I liked that better. Nobody stopped the fights.
I could see the people watching got excited, too. That made me mad. Hurting people was just for me.
I started doing that.
It always made me excited. The more I did it, the more I liked it.
At the first trial, they said I killed a lot of people. I got sentenced to life. The judge made a speech. He said the prison was going to be my home forever. He wouldn’t look me in the face. He was too scared.
They didn’t have the death penalty there, so another state asked for me. They took me out in chains, and I had another trial.
They said the same thing, but this time the judge said I had to die.
Since then, I’ve been here. A long time. In this one room. People write me letters. Women want to marry me. They write disgusting things to me.
It used to make me frustrated, being here. It was hard to hurt anyone. I got one guy, on the way to the showers. They don’t let me out when there’s other people around anymore.
A doctor came to talk to me once. He asked me why I did it. I told him I liked it. He asked me why I never killed women. Like he was disappointed. I tried to get him to come into my cell, but he wouldn’t.
A priest came, too. He told me there was things I could do. Before they killed me. Things that would make it all right later. If I didn’t do the things, I would go to hell.
He wouldn’t come in the cell with me either.
They’re going to do it tomorrow night. Lethal injection, that’s what they use in this state.
The warden came to the bars. He asked me, did I want anything before they did it. He called me “son.” I wanted to hurt him so bad that I felt it deep inside my body.
Some organization sent me a copy of a telegram they sent to the Governor. They’re against the death penalty.
There are people outside—I can see it on the TV they have in the corridor. A demonstration. People carrying signs saying they shouldn’t kill me.
I hate them all.
I just want to go home.
for Gary Lovisi
MISSION
“
I
don’t get it,” the cop said to me. “What’s the point? You come in here, you say you want to confess to the . . .”
“Killing,” I said, finishing his sentence.
“Yeah, okay, the homicide. You understand, we get all kinds of . . . people who confess to things. Especially when it hits the media so big. But where they always slip up is on the details.”
“What details?”
“Details beyond what was in the papers, all right? Something to prove it was really you that . . . did it.”
“I did it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s what you told the desk sergeant, that’s what you told the uniforms. And that’s what you’ve been telling me. Only that’s
all
you’ve been telling me. You did it, prove it,” he challenged.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” I told him, staying calm in my center. “That’s your job.”
Another cop walked into the interview room. A big man with a moon face and small, flesh-pouched brown eyes. The first one was dressed in a midnight-blue Armani one-button suit, longish dark hair carefully gelled and styled, a gold chain loose around his left wrist along with a matching Rolex. His cologne overcame even the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in the room. He hadn’t offered to shake hands. I’d already forgotten his name—Detective Something. The new one’s wardrobe was strictly bargain-basement, right down to the clip-on tie and the wash-and-wear shirt that looked like it had seen more wear than wash.
“My name is Nexor,” he said. “Al Nexor.” He held his hand across the table for me to shake. I took it, measuring his strength, masking mine.
“Adam Stone,” I replied.
“Mr. Stone,” he said, “the reason I’m here is that some things don’t add up . . . and I thought you might help us straighten them out.”
“What things are those?”
“Robbie Malton, he was in your school, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew him?”
“Yes.”
“He was how old? Nine?”
“Yes.”
“But he’d already been studying with you for a couple of years?”
“Yes.”
“What is all this ying-yang?” the slick-haired cop cut in. “We don’t need no yes-and-no from you, pal—we need the details, like I told you before. Now cut the crap!” he snarled, slapping one palm hard against the tabletop.
I looked through him. The wall behind was the color of dirt-laced cream, some of the plaster peeling. It looked like the age-spotted back of an old woman’s hand.
“Robbie’s mother enrolled him in your dojo?” Nexor asked, as though the other guy had never spoken.
“Yes,” I answered him the same way.
“Because he was getting bullied?”
“Yes.”
“And had no father at home to teach him how to defend himself?”
“Yes.”
“And could he?”
“Could he what?”
“Defend himself.”
“Against kids his age,” I said quietly.
“What is this ‘dojo’ stuff?” the slick-haired cop asked Nexor.
The big man turned to face the other cop, talking like I wasn’t in the room. “Mr. Stone is a martial artist. A very high-ranking
karateka.
Fifth-degree black belt in shodokan, sixth in tae kwon do. He fought on the Thai boxing circuit. And he was the first European to study t’ai chi in a Buddhist temple.”
Slick Hair started to say something, but Nexor rolled on, uninterrupted. “Mr. Stone eventually developed his own style: Shen Chuan. He’s one of the youngest Grand Masters ever to be certified for his own school. His dojo has been operating ever since . . .” He turned his large head toward me, asking: “Nineteen eighty-eight?”
“Yes,” I answered him.
“. . . when he returned from Japan,” Nexor continued, as though there had been no interruption. “Mr. Stone remained in Southeast Asia after the war.”
“You was in Vietnam?” the slick-haired one asked me.
“For a while,” I said softly.
“You seen any action?”
I laughed at him. His face flushed.
“Mr. Stone was with SOG,” Nexor said to Slick Hair. “Special Operations Group. He was in Cambodia, too. And Laos, yes?”
I held his eyes. If he had dug all that deep, he would know I wouldn’t answer that question.
“What’s that mean?” Slick Hair asked.
I looked into his eyes, telling him everything he needed to know—if he had the background.
He didn’t. “Mr. Stone worked alone,” Nexor said to Slick Hair. “Behind the lines. Taking out targets. With his hands.”
“You was one of those ninja guys?”
I laughed at him again.
“I met plenty a guys like you,” Slick Hair said, his face darkening. “Black belts, big deal.” He took a heavy slapjack out of his inside pocket, patted it against his palm. “I never seen one yet who could karate his way out of a real fight. You know what I mean, pal? No referee, no gloves, no nothing.”
“Put it away, Johnny,” Nexor told him. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Hey! This isn’t your—”
“It is now,” Nexor told him gently. “That’s what I came in to tell you. The Captain’s taken you off the case.”
“You think so?” Slick Hair challenged. “You know this one’s a goddamn slam dunk, so you’re gonna hog the spotlight? Big man cracks the Malton murder case. Well, forget it, Nexor. You got your rabbi, I got mine. And the Captain ain’t the boss, the Chief is, you catch my drift?”
“Drift on
out,
” Nexor told him calmly. “Do whatever it is you think you can do. I’ll be right here.”
Slick Hair slammed the door to the Interrogation Room behind him as he exited.
Nexor turned so he was facing me squarely. “I’ve done a lot of work on this one,” he said softly. “I never spoke to you before today, but I know you. And I know you didn’t kill that little boy.”
“How could you know that?” I asked him mildly.
“Because I know who did,” he shot back, watching my eyes.
He was looking in the wrong place. I kept my
ki
in check, stayed down in the windless part of my center. “Who?” is all I said.
“Samuel G. Parnell. Age thirty-four. Six foot, one inch. One hundred and seventy-four pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes. Tattoo of a snake on the back of his right shoulder. Parnell tells stories. Sometimes he’s an ex–Green Beret. Sometimes he’s a private investigator. Or an agency official. Or an undercover agent for the feds. Only thing that’s consistent about Parnell is that he always lies.”
I didn’t say anything. Just watched and waited.
“Parnell’s got a black belt. I don’t know what style, or even if it’s true—his stories change a lot, like I told you. But we do know one true thing about him.”
I kept watching.
“We know he’s a child molester. Two prior convictions. He’s a camouflage specialist. Loves those volunteer organizations that work with fatherless kids. Boys. Parnell only does boys. Never does
time,
though. He’s supposed to be in some kind of special psychotherapy. On probation, too.”
I didn’t move, staying true—to my name and to my training.
“And we got a witness. A stand-up, disinterested eyewitness. Someone who saw Parnell with Robbie just before the kid went missing a few weeks ago.”
“What does Parnell say?” I finally asked him.
“Parnell? Well, see, we can’t find Parnell. I figure he’s moved on. Changed his name again. Made up some new stories about himself. Maybe he’s back to working the Internet. No way to tell. Parnell knew he wasn’t gonna get probation on this one. He was headed straight for Remora. You know what that is?”
“No,” I lied.
“It’s a maximum-security prison for baby-rapers. Hard,
hard
time. Yeah, they get all the therapy they want, but no privileges. They have to live like monks. Nobody wants to go there. Nobody gets paroled from there either. They’re all pariahs. Dangerous, degenerate freaks.”
“I did it,” I told him.
“Then tell me about it,” he countered.
“No.”
He stayed silent after that, just sharing the space with me.
Time passed.
“We couldn’t get DNA,” he said suddenly. “Parnell wore a condom, I guess. There’s no forensics at all. But we found something inside . . . the body. Deep inside—it didn’t come out until the autopsy.”
“A Thai coin,” I said softly. “A ten-baht piece. Silver around the edge, copper in the middle.”
Nexor’s face lost all its color. His body seemed to deflate right before my eyes. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t swallow.
I waited for him.
“I don’t . . . I
studied
you,” he said. “From the first time you tried to confess. I was . . . overseas, too. I still got friends in the . . . Company. I know you reupped once. Then you got . . . sick of it, I guess. I know you drifted around, studying. Seeking the Way, yes?”
“Yes,” I told him.
“I heard about you. Even back then. Everyone over there knew you. Or knew your work, anyway. Then it all stopped.”
It never stopped, but I couldn’t explain that to him. How I wanted to atone. How I learned I could not. Ever. I rejected their missions, but I needed one of my own. That’s when I came back. Opened the dojo. Started what I thought was my path to the Way.
“You’re a bushi,” Nexor said. “A warrior. You served your country. You’re a man of honor, that’s what everyone said. Everyone. It’ll be gone now. Your dojo, your life. Your
name.
How could a true warrior . . . ?”
He walked out of the room, his face wet with tears he didn’t even know were there.
They’d never find Parnell.
It had taken a long time for that foul creature to tell me everything. I didn’t want to make him talk. I hated when they did that to captives when I was . . . over there, doing that work. But he wouldn’t tell me until I made him.
I didn’t want to know it all, but I had to listen. He got in that zone where they talk and talk, where they
want
to tell you everything. You have to pick out the pieces you need from the flowing stream. He told me about hunting. He was a hunter, he said. But he wasn’t alone. He had brothers. A whole tribe. Humans just like him.
When he told me about the coin, he died.
That’s when I realized it wasn’t enough. His death wasn’t enough.
I owed Robbie more than that. I knew he was watching.
Nexor was right. But he didn’t understand the truth of his own words. A true warrior’s only ego is his mission. To find the Way, and to follow it. I knew where Parnell’s brothers lived.
And, soon, I would be among them.
Seeking the Way.
for Professor Joe R. Lansdale