First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [38]
AFTERWARDS, JACK lies on the blood-smeared sheets. His room is invaded by the howls at the edge of the city. The traffic light at the intersection of Eastern and New Hampshire blinks from red to green and back again. Once again, it has predicted his fate. But now the light is ignored. Jack's mind is busy continuing the punishment his father has meted out. He straddles a widening fault line. This fault line is his; he has manufactured it out of his dim brain, he has spun it from all the things he can't do, all the things he tried to do and failed. His father is right. His fault, his fault line, growing bigger and wider every day.
INSTEAD OF lying in a pool of sweat, waiting for the constellation of dreaded sounds, Jack takes to wandering the flyblown streets. Night shreds like smoke, manhandled by streetlights, neon signs blinking and buzzing like wasps, aggressive arc lights setting filling stations afire in blinding auroras. Shiny faces move in and out of his vision, crossing streets at a cocaine-induced angle, shuffling past him in a bog of alcohol fumes. Hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against wind or rain, he leans against a lamppost on Eastern Avenue, watches the world spin by without him.
It seems as if he has lost himself in the haze of the city. In shop-windows, he looks blurred, as if he is out of focus with the rest of the world. He realizes just how badly out of focus when he is taken behind the local discount electronics store by members of the local gang and beaten senseless for no particular reason save that he's white.
"Yo disrespected us, coming onto our turf." The gang leader spits into Jack's face as Jack sprawls in the filth of the back alley. He is tall—at least a head taller than Jack—and rangy. His eyes are buggy. "We find you here again, we pin yo pale mutherfuckin' ass to the rear end of a garbage truck." He kicks Jack insolently in the groin. "You listenin' t'me, whitey?"
Jack tries to nod, instead groans with the pain.
He must have passed out after that because when he opens his crusted eyes, dawn has crept into the alley. The gang leader and his cabal are nowhere to be seen, but Jack isn't alone.
A man of middle years with an angular face the color of freshly brewed coffee is crouched on his hams, regarding Jack with sympathetic eyes.
"Can you move, son?" He has a voice like liquid velvet, as if he is a singer of love songs.
Fully awake now, racked with pain, Jack pulls himself up against the slimy brick wall at the rear of the electronics shop. He sits with his legs drawn up, wrists resting loosely on his knees. Sucking in deep breaths, he tries to deal with the pain, but it covers so many parts of his body, he feels dizzy and sick in the pit of his stomach. All of a sudden, he rolls over and vomits.
The man with the velvet voice watches this without surprise. When he's certain Jack is finished, he rises, holds out his hand. "You need to get cleaned up. I'll walk you home."
"Don't have a home," Jack says dully.
"Well, I doubt that, son. Honest, I do." The man with the velvet voice pushes his lips out. "Mebbe it's a home you don't feature going back to at this point in time. Is that it?"
Jack nods.
"But you'll want to, I guarantee that." He bends a little, taking Jack's hand in his. "In the meantime, why don't you come with me. We'll mend what needs to be mended, then call your folks. They must be frantic with worry about you."
"They probably don't know I'm gone," Jack says, which probably isn't true, but it's what he feels.
"Still and all, I do believe they have a right to know you're okay."
Jack isn't sure about that at all. Nevertheless, he looks up into the man's face.
"My name's Myron. Myron Taske." Taske smiles with big white teeth. "Will you tell me yours?"
"Jack."
When Myron Taske realizes that's all Jack