Goody One Shoe (6 page)

BILLIE SHIFTED HER BUTT
on
the hard plastic subway seat. She scratched her red pen across the newspaper
article, fixed poor grammar, corrected spelling. And altered the ending to
ensure the bad guys got away with nothing and the legal system was on the ball
for a change.

This had become her new routine, her latest obsession. With
each article she edited, each wrong she righted, each scumbag who got their
not-so-happy ending, her mind wandered to Bruce. He didn’t only share Batman’s
real name, he’d also swooped in when she needed him, then disappeared into the
bustle of the city like the Dark Knight himself. She hadn’t seen him on the
subway since their first encounter a few days before. Not because he didn’t
ride the subway, she concluded. But because she hadn’t needed him.

She didn’t need him to rescue her. Not in the
damsel-in-distress kind of way. But she did long for rescue from her daily
life. For some sanity and order in her world. Would his presence bring that?
Could anyone bring her that?

Every day she scanned the faces in the crowded cars, hoping
to catch a glimpse of Bruce’s imperfect face and swarthy bulk. Even if he never
spoke to her again, it didn’t matter. She could edit that part in. If only she
could see him, verify his existence and prove he had spoken to her. Touched
her. Prove he wasn’t a figment of her mental red pen.

She flipped the newspaper page. Some underage petty thieves
got away almost scot-free. First offense. Rich parents. Good lawyers. Only six
weeks in juvenile detention.

She tapped her pen against her lips. Sounded familiar. Like
a certain band of high school thugs who rode the subway. Thugs who were nowhere
to be seen the past couple of days.

She scratched her pen across the page, sent the future crime
bosses to adult prison, and made their parents pay fines. Hefty bloody fines.

“Yeah, get ‘em before they go rogue for good.”

She froze at the sound of the throaty bass, shifted her eyes
until they focused on the black pants and shiny, fancy shoes. She drew her
brows together. Those shoes didn’t match the rest of him. She raised her eyes.
It was Bruce, all right.

He sat beside her, nudged her with his shoulder. “You missed
one.”

“I — I’m sorry?”

He pointed at the page. “Shouldn’t that be ‘further?’”

She smiled. He was so cute, in a rough-and-tumble,
don’t-mess-with-me kind of way. And so clueless. “It’s distance, so it’s
‘farther.’ If it was about time, or doing something to a greater degree, then
it would be ‘further.’”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I have an assistant. She can
fix all that stuff.” He bit his top lip with his bottom teeth. “Are you an
editor? Like, for a living I mean?”

She opened her mouth to say no, just a proofreader, but
stopped. She had one client. A real one. She was an editor now, damn it. “Yes.
Yes, I am. How about you? Assistants and fancy shoes? I figured you for more an
outdoorsy type. Fireman maybe.”

“Fireman was the dream. Or policeman. But then, you know, I
hit puberty and all.” His laugh filled the subway car. “I worked construction
for years, started as a labourer when I was just a kid in high school. Worked
my way up the ladder, so to speak. Now I’m construction management. Traded in
my steel toes for wing tips, my safety vest for a suit jacket. Not bad for a guy
who barely scraped his way through high school and doesn’t know when farther is
further. Or further is farther.”

His smile was enormous. And the ease with which he threw it
around enviable. She normally hid her smile behind her hand, behind a book. Or
behind her mouth, more often smiling on the inside, unwilling to share her
happiness, what little of it there was, with the big, ugly world. But his smile
wasn’t a shield. It wasn’t a salve to be thinly spread or meted out in measured
doses. It was just him. No pretense. No shame. No fear.

What did that feel like?

“So who do you edit? Any famous authors? Stephen King maybe?
You do have a flair for gruesome justice.”

Her cheeks burned. “I freelance. Only one client so far. An
independent author.”

“Freelance? You just ride the train for fun? Feed your
desperate need for other people’s B.O. and the less-than-gentle nudging of
asshole high school bullies?”

“I work as a proofreader for a publishing house. I hope to
be an editor there one day, but until that happens, the freelance thing seems
like a good idea.” Katherine’s flesh would have to be dripping from her bones
in the fires of hell before Billie ever got a shot at promotion. She drew the
outline of horns on Katherine’s floating image and filled them in with red ink.
And grinned on the inside.

“You always sit in the same seat, in the same car, at the
same time. Creature of habit?”

“I’m not always in the same seat.” Her weak protest faded as
she spoke it. The only time she sat elsewhere was when someone beat her to it.

“Sorry, that wasn’t an insult.”

Then why did it feel like he’d slapped her?

He touched the skirt at her knee. “I find it comfortable. I
like predictability. If I need you, I’ll always know where to find you.”

The subway did its usual jerk and spasm. Bruce stood. “This
is me. Meeting on the construction site.” He tipped his imaginary hat. “Catch
ya on the flip side, Billie the editor.”

Billie scribbled a red fedora on his head before he turned
and the living zombies on the platform swallowed him whole. She rubbed her knee
where his hand had been. He’d always know where to find her. Why would he want
to do that?

“WHEN ARE YOU HAPPIEST?”
Doc
Kroft did that thing where she bored into Billie’s brain with her laser eyes
and tried to extract truths that even Billie didn’t know existed.

Billie grabbed a throw cushion and squeezed it into her
belly. “When I’m running. Or editing. Or with Peg Leg.”

“What about when you’re with other people?”

“Not so much.” Bruce popped, uninvited, into Billie’s head.

Doc pursed her lips. If she had a selfie stick, it would
have been a perfect narcissistic pic for Facebook or Instagram. But, like
Billie, Doc probably didn’t waste her time on so-called social media. What was
the point of virtual friendships? Sounded more lonely and pitiful than no
friends at all.

“We need to fix that. You have to make some connections.
Someone outside of your head doctor and the trainers at the gym.”

“Oh, no worries there. I don’t talk to any of them.”

Doc sighed.

Billie stared at the purple paisley pillow, ran her fingers
over the nap of the velvet, short and soft like little boxes that gold crosses
come in. “There is someone. Sort of.”

“Oh?” The doc leaned forward. “Tell me.”

“A man I met on the subway.”

Doc leaned back again, a satisfied grin on her face like
she’d just finished a turkey dinner. “A man. Interesting.”

Billie’s cheeks warmed. “Not that interesting. We’ve only
spoken twice. I doubt he wants anything more than that.”

“His name?”

“Bruce.”

Doc scrunched her face. “That’s unfortunate.”

Billie smiled. “It’s all right. He’s no Batman. For one
thing, he’s real. And I bet his parents weren’t murdered when he was a kid. And
he doesn’t live over a cave or dress in tights in his off hours.” At least, she
didn’t think he did.

Doc let an uncharacteristic laugh escape. “So, you only have
his name?”

“And what he does for a living. Construction management. He
didn’t write his number on my palm or anything.”

Doc nodded. “And what if he had?”

Billie stared at the pillow. What if, indeed?

Billie sauntered through the lobby of Doc Kroft’s office
building, her mind affixed on Bruce’s face and sturdy frame. She imagined her
hand against his cheek. His skin, like the finest tanned leather, soft yet
thick, supple, and virile.

She slowed as she neared the door. Her thoughts toyed with
an erotic scenario that she’d never be able to complete. Lack of context. Zero
experience. And two men on the sidewalk, standing beside a white minivan,
distracted her.

One of them wore polka dot pants and massive red shoes. The
other was fitting a wig of spun neon-orange fibres over his balding head.

Her vision blurred and then focused on the face of the tall
one who was donning a rainbow wig. The pedophile clowns who, thanks to
overzealous cops with no search warrant, got away with raping a young boy. The
ones she punished with an edited sentence of penile dismemberment.

She wanted to scream, call the cops. Do something, anything
to put them away. To prevent them from ruining another child’s life. But she
was riveted to the floor. All she could do was stab them in the crotch with an
imaginary red pen, powerless to complete the act in real life.

The rainbow-wigged one slapped the other on the back and
laughed. They climbed into the van and pulled into traffic.

Billie ran to the bathroom, pushed open a stall door, fell
to her knees, and vomited her chicken Caesar wrap into the toilet. She called
silently to God and apologized for her murderous intentions. She was going way
over their unspoken agreed-to allotment of dark thoughts.

As usual, God ignored her.

Maybe it was time to update that agreement. After all, she
wasn’t a frightened little girl anymore. She was a chicken-shit woman.

“I AM SO SICK
of fucking
toddlers. Man, I need a beer.” Roger yanked his rainbow wig from his head and
scratched his bald scalp.

“Maybe birthday clown wasn’t your best career choice, you
stupid fuck.”

Roger kicked Colin in the butt of his oversized polka dot
pants. “Shut yer trap.” Roger lit a cigarette and watched a group of four boys
ride by on their bikes. “The work sucks, but you can’t beat the side benefits.”
He tapped Colin with the back of his hand and pointed half a block up the
street. “Ready?”

“Always ready.”

Roger dropped his cigarette to the pavement and ground it
out with the toe of his giant, red shoe. He set his wig back on and tugged it
over his ears, his eyes trained on a fifth boy, a straggler who kept falling
farther back from his friends.

“Come on, Alan, pedal faster.” The volume of the boys’ calls
dropped with each block of distance they put between them and the slowpoke.

Roger grinned. There was always one left behind. The weakest
member of the pack. Easy pickings. No marines, these kids.

Semper fucking fi.

Roger scanned the street. It was long past suppertime, the
sunlight waning. Families were inside prepping for lights out. The
neighbourhood was quiet, almost in stasis. The perfect hunting time. No one to
hear the muffled screams of the sole weak link.

He stepped into the road and tossed a glance over his
shoulder. Where the hell did Colin disappear to? And why wasn’t the van door
open and ready? “Colin,” he hissed. “Haul ass.” He ran his hands down the apple
pattern that dotted his pants and strutted his wide-legged clown walk diagonally
down the street toward the boy.

The kid had dismounted his bike and was walking it up the
inclined sidewalk. Ten yards away, he stopped and smiled at Roger. Then he
smirked. “Nice wig.”

Little shit. Mocking the clown. He’d soon learn.

Never. Mock. The clown.

A guttural moan cut through the silence, then a dull thud.
Roger eyed the boy, his groin throbbed and ached. He looked back at the van.
Through the passenger window, Colin’s rubber baldhead and polyester spun hair
hit the windshield. A scream split the night.

“Colin!” Roger turned back to the boy and mentally groped
his untouched, soft, naïve flesh. “Damn it.”

The kid’s smile had melted into a look of wide-eyed horror,
his eyes pinned on the van. He put his feet on his pedals and found the
adrenaline-fueled strength to speed his bike up the sidewalk.

Roger grabbed his wig with both hands and ripped it from his
head, watched his victim put too much distance between them to catch up. He
couldn’t race after him. Not in clown shoes. “Shit!” Kid was right there, a
sitting duck. So close he could taste him. Fucking Colin, probably just a clap
scream. Another painful piss.

Roger spun around. “Damn it, Colin.” Roger lifted his knees
high and managed a comical jog. He stopped short at the front of the van. Colin’s
wig was on the ground, red stains marred the pavement. Man, that was a bad case
of gonorrhea. He needed to get to a doctor.

The van jostled and rocked. Roger slid the door open. Colin
was inside the darkness of the windowless van, face down. His checkered pants
looked like they were soaking wet. The idiot had pissed himself.

Roger kneeled on the van floor, rolled his partner over and
slapped his cheek. “Colin, what the hell, man? We had the kid. He was right
there.”

Colin’s head lolled to the other side.

Roger sat back sharply and gasped. He returned his eyes to
his partner’s pants. It wasn’t piss, it was blood. His pants were cut and —

Roger opened his mouth to scream. Nothing came out but a
gurgle.

Pain shot through his back. His body convulsed and flopped
like a fish on the boat deck before it gets nailed in the head with a hammer.
He fell on top of Colin’s legs, his face in Colin’s crotch. The coppery blood
that soaked his clown pants filled Roger’s nostrils with the smell of welds he
spent his working days burning onto pipes under strangers sinks and behind
their piss-stained toilets.

A hand grasped his shoulder and rolled him over. An imposing
figure loomed above him. Heavy set, broad shouldered, hunched like the guy had
seen his share of time in the boxing ring. He pulled a knife from his coat and
brandished it in the dusk. He held it above his head. The sunset glinted off
the edge as he swung it at Roger’s pants.

Roger screamed like a little girl afraid of clowns and tried
to cover his dick.

The knife cut through his hands and stuck in his crotch. He
screeched and cursed and kicked at the guy’s leg.

The man didn’t flinch.

Roger rolled over and tried to drag himself further into the
van. It was like some lame-ass movie, a crappy slow-motion scene. All he could
hear was his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. All he could smell was sweat and
blood. Pain ripped through his ass. He screamed, his voice gaining volume. Why
didn’t anyone hear him? Why wasn’t anyone trying to save him?

He dug his fingers into the van’s smooth, metal floor. His
pants were hot and wet but his legs like ice. His eyes lost focus and his head
felt like a balloon floating above him. Blackness descended.

Roger blinked against the glaring fluorescent light. The
stink of antiseptic and anaesthetic with the underlying sulphur of stale urine
seeped into his consciousness. He tried to sit up. Metal clanked against metal.
He tugged on his right arm, opened his eyes wide. The room was stark white. He
lay in a bed with little-kid bars. What, were they afraid he’d fall out like a
fucking baby? He scanned his body. Bandages covered his hands, his wrists
handcuffed to the bars. Blinding pain seared between his temples and ached
between his legs.

At the end of the bed stood a uniformed cop, one hand on his
sidearm, the holster unclipped. The cop smirked, turned to the door. “Hey. He’s
up.” He turned back and sneered at Roger, one side of his upper lip lifted and
quivered. Elvis would have been proud. “Or should I say awake. You’ll never be
up
again.”

The blood drained from Roger’s head. “What the hell does
that mean?”

The cop jerked his head at Roger’s crotch. “It means your
days of sodomizing little boys are over, you sick fuck. He castrated you. Hell,
he did one better. He lopped your entire package off.”

“What?” Roger craned his neck and stared at his groin. All
he saw were bed sheets. “You’re full of shit.” He dropped his head to the
pillow.

A tall reed of a man swept into the room, a white polyester
coat open and flapping behind him. He lifted a chart from a hook on the end of
the bed and came to a stop near Roger’s cuffed wrist. “Mr. Roger Graves?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“You lost a lot of blood. We cleaned up the wound and
closed.” He flipped a page up. “We couldn’t. Couldn’t —” The doctor kept his
eyes on the chart.

“Couldn’t what, for fuck’s sake?”

The doctor shifted his gaze and looked directly into Roger’s
eyes. “Couldn’t reattach your penis or testicles.”

The room spun. The bed opened up and swallowed Roger’s body
whole. “No, that’s crap. You’re just fucking with me.”

The doctor smirked too. “Well, fucking isn’t something you
need to be concerned with anymore.” He snapped the paper back down and tossed
the chart onto a side table. It landed with a crack. “Whoever did the honours
of castrating you and excising your, shall we call it ‘manhood,’ didn’t leave
the offending pieces behind.”

“Must have kept ‘em as a souvenir,” the cop said.
“Personally, I’d have chosen a postcard.”

The doctor huffed a short laugh out his nose.

Roger shot his eyes between the smug, bastard cop and the
holier-than-thou doctor. “You think this is fucking funny? I’m mutilated.
Maimed. Did they catch the guy?” He jangled the metal bracelet against the bar.
“And why the fuck am I cuffed?”

“A, nobody is looking for the guy.” The cop shifted his feet
and fingered his trigger. “And B, your partner is dead. Bled out in your van of
horrors. We searched it. You know, for evidence in the attack of two clowns.
And guess what we found, you moron?”

Roger swallowed. He knew what they’d found.

“Yeah, your little Polaroid collection. Not the one we
already have, the one that got thrown out of court. No search warrant, what a
joke.” The cop’s face got redder as he spoke. “No, this is a new batch.
Fourteen shots. Two boys. You dumb fuck.” He came around the other side of the
bed. Bent down until his face was just inches from Roger’s. “We canvassed the
neighbourhood. Another little kid identified you as the clown who was
approaching him while he rode his bike. Whoever attacked you, well I’d say he
got there just in the nick of time.” He stood at attention. “Right, Doc?”

“Not my area. But I must agree.” He strode toward the door.
“He’s yours anytime you want to lock him up, officer.”

Roger glared at the cop. “Don’t you want my statement? A description
of the prick that, that …”

“Cut off your prick?” The cop threw his head back and
laughed. “Yeah, sure. Tell me all about it.”

Roger swallowed. “He wasn’t that tall, but he was big. Or at
least, his clothes were big. Had a hoodie, like he was wearing his dad’s
clothes. He was all in black. With giant pants. Like he was a clown too, but a
mafia clown or something.”

The cop nodded. “Is that it?”

“Aren’t you gonna write any of it down?”

“Got it all up here.” The cop tapped his temple.

“Sure. Sure you do.” Roger turned his head and looked out
the window. Like hell would he let this ass-wipe see him cry. “He hid behind
the hood, I never got a clear look at his face. He didn’t say anything. Not one
fucking word.” He squinted. “One other thing. And it’s weird.”

“What?”

Roger turned and looked at the cop. “He smelled nice.”