V. H. King's Ink

Two weeks later, Caegan was ready to punch Marshall in the face.  One more Mr. Riley, another be responsible lecture, and he just might get himself expelled.  At least today’s lecture would be the last.  Shaping up for a month or two would be worth it, if it meant Marshall would lay off.  Principal Givens had still made him sit out three days, but Caegan hadn’t wasted them.  A chat with Regis.  A talk with Bet.  A check-in with Gerald.  A little bit of trouble worked in his favor.

The layer of grime in the last stall of the locker room was the only thing standing between him and a long weekend.  Scrubbing johns was supposed to teach him respect or humility or whatever the fuck else Marshall thought he should learn.  He didn’t mind the work, considering the chemical benefits.  The draw was Scott having to look after the Kid, or find something else to do for two and a half hours after school each day. 

Caegan could think of a few ways to spend that sort of time with Skylar.  Especially when it was the off season and she didn’t have cheer practice or dance rehearsals.  Scott was different though.  Michelle knew that—which was probably why she let him call her Mimi.  Caegan didn’t have to be around to know the two of them talked about everything under the sun.  If Scott wanted to be friends, he’d gotten his wish.  The two of them would be more than friends, eventually. When Scott was ready. 

Pushing the cart back to the janitor’s closet by the cafeteria, Caegan rolled his head back and tried to work the tightness from between his shoulders.  He could walk for hours and didn’t have a problem being on his feet, but squatting over a shit throne left him feeling as old as Moses.  The jumpsuit he wore smelled worse than the stalls. 

“Good to see you’ve worked hard, Mr. Riley.”

Caegan ignored Marshall’s remark, disposing his used rags and putting away the rest of the cleaning supplies.  No one would notice if the container of bleach was lighter than it should be—and if they did, no one could argue that anything in this building would be worse off for some extra scrubbing.

He peeled off the jumpsuit and shivered, his t-shirt clammy with sweat.  He folded the arms and legs, put it in a cubby that smelled like decomposing armpits, and grabbed his hoodie.  Dark green, the color of deep forests that he could imagine but had never seen.  He pushed his arms through the sleeves and in a blink he was back. 

“Mr. Riley.”

He shouldered past Marshall, who was hogging the doorway, and fingered through his pockets.  His usual roll was there, still mostly full since he’d been skipping an afternoon take.  His lighter.  He was out of smokes, but he needed to stop by Gerald’s later anyway.  But before he could do anything, he had to pretend to be interested in Marshall’s latest spiel. 

“You barely show up to class.  You turn in your work late, if you even do it at all.  You’ve gotten suspended two, three times a year since seventh grade—”

“Shit, I would’ve made myself all pretty if I knew you was gonna propose.”

“You’ve almost got a two-eight GPA and a year and a half left here, assuming you don’t get expelled.”

“Givens got a crush on me too?  You been talking me up to him?”

“You could get that to a 3.5 by the time you graduated.”

“Oh, you just want me to finish school before we can be together—is that it?”

Marshall forced himself to take a breath.  He didn’t cross his arms or put his fists on his hips, but his face wrinkled all the same.  Why do you do this?  Wouldn’t Marshall like to know.  But ghosts didn’t speak, and he had better shit to do than stand around and listen to this. Caegan rolled his shoulders, taking a step back.  He raised an eyebrow, half turning.

Are we done here? 

Even getting under Marshall’s skin got old, after two weeks.  As much as he wanted to leave, he knew Marshall liked to save his longest lectures for last.  Trying to make sure he had plenty reminders so he’d think twice before the next time.  There always was one, and they all knew it. 

“You can not only make it into college, Caegan.  You can get decent scholarships to a good choice of schools.”  Marshall pressed his lips together and took another breath; too easy for his voice to sound louder than it was, echoing off the lockers and linoleum.  “Your test scores are promising.  Mr. Fuentes says you should be in AP calculus or trig, not scraping a C- in pre-calculus like you don’t know what you’re doing.  Ms. Hilgarten swears you have sharp critical analysis skills—”

“Promises ain’t shit.”  Caegan’s fingers twitched at the end of his sleeve, and he curled them until his nails bit into his palm.  “The fuck would I do at college, anyway?  Ain’t nothing for me to go for.”

Marshall had it all wrong.  Caegan knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn’t need Marshall or Fuentes or anyone else trying to give him advice. 

“I’m not saying you have to have a major figured out, but you have a chance that a lot of other students here don’t.”  Marshall’s brow wrinkled.  “And I know you know that too, even if I hadn’t told you a hundred times.  Why would you throw that away?”

“I’m not throwing it away.”

Looking Marshall in the eye, Caegan could tell the man knew he wasn’t lying.  Wes Marshall didn’t understand him, but that wasn’t Caegan’s problem. He rolled his eyes, dragging up some half-assed excuse if it meant he could go. 

“Working for some business in a suit and tie isn’t my thing.”

“And what is your thing?” Marshall leaned against the door frame, getting comfortable now that he thought he was getting somewhere.  “What are you good at?”

“Figuring it out on my own.”

Caegan balled his fists, not caring if Marshall could see the outline of his knuckles or the hike in his shoulders.  Wes looked like he wanted to pry more out of him, but he sighed.  The least he could do was let him have the fucking weekend before pushing for another therapy session.

Marshall was worse than the old ladies who chewed you out for asking them for cigarette money.  At least they had the decency to be disgusted when they pointed out wasted potential.  Marshall gave pep talks like college could save lives.  As if some fancy letters on a piece of paper would keep people from treating you like trash.  Caegan knew better.   

“Don’t take too long,” Marshall told him.  “Or you might not have a life left to figure out.”

Caegan cocked his head and grinned.  He was being an arrogant bastard, but so what?  It wasn’t like Marshall expected him to shape up all of a sudden.  Maybe with the Kid off the streets, things would be different.  Marshall might say it was too late by then, because he only saw one good way of getting off the blocks.  Caegan had been figuring out his own way since he’d first walked these streets alone. No one was going to change his mind about what his life should look like or how he should live it. 

“Good advice.  Thanks, Mr. Marshall.”

“Make yourself useful over the break, Mr. Riley.”

Marshall held his eyes, more serious than usual when Caegan mocked him.  Caegan stared back, wondering why the man was so dead set on making something out of him.  He let the door slam on Marshall’s advice on his way out.  It’d be even better if he could flush it down the toilets he’d just cleaned.

---

Caegan zipped up his hoodie halfway as he started toward the Bucket.  Mesner didn’t catch snow, but it stayed frosty after October and he could already taste the chill in the air.  Instead of blowing on his fingers, he breathed in when he raised his hands to his lips.  The scent of bleach tickled his tongue.  He felt better already. 

The promise of a four-day weekend boosted his spirits even higher.  Nothing like getting off detention and sliding right into Fall break.  Fifteen minutes later, he met up with Scott and Gabriel under a cluster of trees that looked as poor and scrawny as most of the kids on the block.  

“Look who’s here.” Scott offered him a smoke.  “The man finally made it.”

Caegan shook his head, glad for another hit to hush Marshall’s nagging. 

“I’m a fucking king.”

“Yeah, king of a couple of losers,” Gabriel swiped Scott’s cigarette, inhaling it like he’d been practicing.  “Nobody gives a damn about us.”

 The streets weren’t sunshine and roses, but that didn’t mean the only other choice was moping all over the place.  Caegan was usually the one to remind them of that, but between detention with Marshall and working the list from Rico, he hadn’t been around much lately.  Scott’s shoulders inched up when Caegan caught his eye over Gabriel’s head. 

  “Life’s a race you either win or finish last.” Caegan jabbed the Kid’s shoulder.  “Don’t know about you, but I always win.”

“Prove it.”

“That’s something you settle on the asphalt.”

Scott ground his spent stick into the dirt and hurried to light another.  Caegan said nothing, watching as Scott’s eyes skipped from one thing to the next.   Traffic, toddlers on the rusted playground, the occasional bird.  The idea of street-racing had him itching.  Hell, Scott hadn’t been easy since the fight with Jonathan. 

Gabriel’s narrow-eyed scowl switched to the kind of grin Mrs. Leverson couldn’t stand.  The one that still made him a kid, impossible to say no to even if you knew whatever he was asking for would come to no good.  

“Let’s do it, then.”

Caegan shrugged, blowing smoke through his nose and scanning the patchy park.

“Give me a ’69 Challenger and I’m unstoppable.”

  “Unless I’ve got a ’73 ‘Stang,” Scott said.  “Then you’re choking.”

  “Both of you would be eating gravel if I had a top-of-the-line F-type.”

“That’s ‘cause you’d be spinning your wheels, Kid.” Caegan shoved Gabriel toward Scott with a smirk.  “We’re talking American-made muscle—not some soft-snob European sport coupe.”

“I could take you!” 

  Gabriel straightened, trying to push himself past his five-and-a-half feet.  Scott coughed out a bullshit, knocking the Kid back toward Caegan and tipping him off balance.  Caegan caught him in a headlock when he stumbled. 

“You joyride once and think you’re hardcore?”  Scott ran his knuckles over the kid’s hair, frizzing it up worse than normal.  “Cae and I are the pros around here.”

“More like a couple of grandpas.”  The Kid squirmed, talking shit even though Scott ducked his weak attempt at shoving him off.  “You’re old, you’re slow, and you stink.”

Caegan tucked the Kid’s head under his armpit, twisting him in his hold.

“How’s that smell, huh?”

 Scott raced his fingers along Gabriel’s sides, getting a shriek and a cough and a kick in the face.  Scott ducked, batting Gabriel’s leg aside.  Caegan released his grip—dropping Gabriel in the dirt and getting a scowl in return. 

“Want to try and show us how it’s done?” Caegan asked.

Scott squatted, sticking his tongue out in the Kid’s face.  He was lucky Scott wasn’t facing the other direction and letting one rip. 

“I wouldn’t have to try.  I could school you two.”

“School?  Is that what these yunguns are callin’ it these days?” 

Scott tugged another cigarette from his pocket, since the other had landed somewhere near the curb.  He blew smoke in Gabriel’s face, laughing.  Caegan wondered how much Scott had been smoking the past two weeks.  More than usual, obviously.  Scott had gone back to his parents’ some days.  Sleeping through half the day and skipping school.  Saying he was alright when Caegan texted him, but not saying much else because he didn’t want to make a big deal about it.    

Gabriel shoved Scott out of his face and looked up at Caegan.  Scott tilted his head too, settling back and letting the cigarette burn itself down.  Caegan motioned for it, taking his time while he pretended to think it over.  The smoke floating away between bare branches reminded him of the frosty nights—coming soon, to a city block near you.  Already halfway through October.  A month from now would be too late.  One good thrill, and then back to the grind. 

“You know Singer’s Scrapyard?”

“Aww, fuck yeah!”

Gabriel’s eyebrows wrinkled.  A junkyard didn’t make sense, but Scott’s response sounded promising.  Gabriel nodded, looking back to Caegan.

“Meet by the dumpsters, around ten.”

“You can’t race junk cars.”

“I thought you were the shit, Gabe.  What do you mean?  You can’t beat us?”

“Those things don’t even work—that’s why they’re in a fucking junkyard!”

Caegan raised an eyebrow and Gabriel looked away, drawing his knees up and resting his elbows on them.  Whatever had gotten under his skin had started to burrow down.  The traffic absorbed his attention for a moment, as if he were looking out for a certain rusted Civic.  Caegan didn’t put it past him.  Mrs. L. might swear she wouldn’t cross south of Jarvis, but she was just as likely to haul ass down this way if it meant the Kid ended up off the streets for good. 

“Chill out, Gabe.”  Scott punched his shoulder.  “Me and Cae are pros, remember?”

“Shit that gets broke beyond fixing is still good for fixing something else.” 

Caegan’s gaze slid down West Hodgens, then up Keppler.  No sign of Old Man Moses.  No cruisers in sight.  Just afternoon and after-school bustle.  Most people never saw Bet moving bodies or making deals, but everyone knew when he went quiet.  Most of the time, they were glad they weren’t the ones who had to pay up, but they knew they could be next.  Caegan took a last draw on the cigarette and then stubbed it out in the dirt. 

“We wire a few old beauties tonight and see who the real men are here.”

“Most of those things are gutted or on bricks.”

“There are secrets you don’t know, Kid.”  Caegan gave him a look.  “You make it out tonight, you might learn something worth showing off later.”

Another summer or two, and Gabriel might learn to play the tricks in his hand.  Or he’d be doing something decent, working in an ice cream shop or a grocery store instead of burning rubber on the flatlands west of the city. 

“My mom’s going to ask too many questions.”

“If you’re home for dinner and do some homework, she might go easy on you when she catches you coming back in.”  Caegan leaned back against the fence, metal digging in the small of his back as he caught Gabriel’s eye.  “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t get caught.”

The Kid took his point. Nodding as his eyes searched the streets again.  Maybe not looking for a Honda this time, but looking for hunters or anyone from the Brigade.  At least he knew to watch out. 

“Be smart, Gabe,” Scott said, grinning.  “It’s the only way to have fun.”

“You never make any sense.” 

“Make sure he gets home before Mama Leverson freaks.” Caegan pushed himself off the fence and flicked Scott’s shoulder.  “And chill the fuck out.  I don’t want her suspicious.”

Things are alright.  Scott shrugged him off.  Not quite looking at him, but hearing him just the same. 

“She’s always suspicious.”  Gabriel rolled his eyes at the ground.  “Like if there’s ever any trouble, I had something to do with it.”

“Trouble is good for you.”  Scott’s cheeks bunched up with his own shit-eating grin.  “It builds character.”

“You sound like Ms. Hampton.”

“She’s still there?”  Scott shook his head.  “I swear she’s never going to die.”

“When she does, she’ll probably still haunt the whole school, spooking everyone before they can have any fun.”

“We’ll make sure you have some real fun.”  This time when Scott punched the Kid’s shoulder, it was a promise.  “I’ll get some meat for Singer’s mutts.  Everyone says they’re mean, but you just have to have the right treats.”

“Should I bring a gas can or something?”  Gabriel glanced at Caegan.  “I think we have some in our garage.”

“Fill them with premium.” 

Gabriel looked from Caegan to Scott.  Not understanding, even though the gas cans had been a smart idea. 

“We can prime the engines if we need to.”  Scott winked.  “It makes them easier to wire.”

The Kid still looked doubtful, but the plan had more appeal than sitting at home the whole weekend.  Not that Mama Lev would let Gabriel sit around.  He’d have chores a mile long and be an inch away from mouthing off.

“You screw this up and you’re on your own, Kid.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I ain’t carrying your ass home from the 50.”  Caegan cracked a smirk.  “Patty Hampton finds your ass and drags you home after tearing you in two, that’s worth being embarrassed about.”

“Don’t even say that—it’s like summoning the devil.”

Caegan and Scott laughed as Gabriel shivered.  They’d served their time under the middle school guidance counselor’s hawkish eyes.  Marshall was better, but his lectures were still a bitch. 

Mrs. L would be in such a rage if she caught Gabriel sneaking in at half past midnight.  Her heart would give out completely before she got through saying Gabriel Michael Noah Leverson, punctuated by who knew how many expletives.  The Kid was catching on though.  A few months, and Caegan wouldn’t have to be such a hard-ass. 

---

He knows all the blocks and the streets by name.  He knows the people too.  They know he’s Theresa’s, because this is where they live now.  Just west of Harmon and 23^rd.  Halfway down the block.  An almost-orange duplex with dirty shutters that don’t really have a color anymore.  It could have looked better with some new paint, but Theresa would never spend the money and it wouldn’t change how bad things were on the inside. 

The neighbors don’t like Risa.  No one does.  Caegan can tell that people aren’t sure if they like him.  But he doesn’t bother anyone, and mostly they leave him alone.  Even if it’s the middle of the day and he should be in school.  School was boring. Sitting all day with nothing to do.  He doesn’t like to just sit.

Caegan liked the blocks instead.  He showed up in the mornings for school like he was supposed to, but he usually found a way out after lunch.  Sometimes before, if he felt itchy.  Like bugs crawling all over his skin.  When he was walking the blocks, he didn’t have that feeling.  The world was busy around him and he had a quiet he could carry inside of him. Knowing everything would be okay, and he had nothing to worry about.

“Hey—yo cuz!  What you doin out here, huh?  This ain’t no recess.”

Caegan looked up.  The face looking at him immediately rearranges itself.  Something rippled over it and then the face tried to smooth itself back into place.  It was the same thing that happened when most grown-ups saw his face for the first time. The person shifted aside, not blocking his way so much. 

Instead of walking again, Caegan blinks.  This person—who maybe wasn’t as tall as they seemed—was familiar, but Caegan couldn’t come up with a name.  He didn’t look like a grown-up.  Maybe in high school, like the older boys who nodded at him when he walked Leonard or Jessup. 

Caegan thinks this boy should be in school too.  He could say this, but the older boy would get mean.  Caegan wasn’t afraid of anyone bigger or meaner than him, even if they had a gun or a knife.  He wasn’t stupid.  He could see the outline in Rico’s pants. 

“You think you can walk round here, payin no respect?” 

The edge in the voice isn’t as sharp.  The person was saying this because they had to.  Caegan let his gaze drift, waiting for them to say the rest so he could keep going. He would see them around later.  People had a way of coming and going, on the blocks.

“Better be careful, cuz.”  The bigger boy bent over, almost getting in his face.  “You ain’t look like no regular.  Might find yourself snatched up, a snack for somebody else.”

“Shut your mouth, Rico.”

This voice is strained thin, like an old dishrag.  Caegan hears something else in it.  The way a rag can get stuffed into your mouth and leave that brown-water taste on your tongue and make your throat itch.  A creak and a slam and a hiss. 

Caegan has seen this broad-shouldered man before.  His cigar looks as fat as a rolled-up newspaper.  Rico scowls at Caegan because he couldn’t look at the old man like that.  Caegan sees secrets in the older boy’s scowl. Rico is angry, sure, but he’s got a lot of other feelings he can’t talk about.

“Stupid piece of shit,” the old man says, flicking ash from the end of his cigar after Rico leaves.  “You smart, not being scared of him.  But you stupid, to get in his way.  You hear me?”

“I don’t say nothing.”

“But you see plenty, don’t you?”  The man slowly eases himself onto the concrete steps, resting his elbow on his knee.  “You tell me what you see?”

The sharp creases of the man’s pants cut through the corner of Caegan’s eye, even though he’s mostly watching the street.  The man’s shoes match the deep green of his pants.  The shoes are shiny and scaly, like alligators, but they’re not muddy.  There’s not a single speck of dirt on them, or on the hem of his pants, or anywhere else. 

The man’s shirt is green too, but it has wide tan stripes running down it.  A dark brown fedora slanted across his forehead.  The man’s eyes glitter from the shadow the hat makes, as sharp as the rest of him.  He is old, but not as old as Moses.  Caegan thinks of the stories Father Rocci tells about kidnapping.  Adults always said not to talk to strangers, but around here everybody pretty much knew everybody else.  You had to, if you were going to stay. 

At first, he didn’t think they were going to stay here.  Theresa hadn’t bought any furniture, but the neighbors had given them a table and a few chairs.  That had been a year ago.  They had a couch now.  Theresa had ordered some of the older boys from the block to drag the couch in from the curb, just like the set of drawers that was in his room too.  It was better than having his clothes all thrown together in a suitcase or cardboard box. 

The duplex was an okay place to put his things and maybe sleep sometimes, but Caegan didn’t think of it like home.  Not like when he had the open air and the sound of traffic and sirens. Shouts and slammed doors and the whole world around him and the quiet inside. 

“Then you’d have to keep me.” Caegan turns to the old man who keeps kids from the streets who don’t have anywhere else to stay.  “I’d be in the way.”

For a long time, the old man smokes and says nothing.  The smell is thick, like bacon that got burnt at breakfast and still made the kitchen stink when it was time to start dinner.  But it was better somehow.  Spicy instead of greasy.  Like a far-away place, a rainforest that was dark and thick.  Caegan cocked his head, wondering if the Bounty and the Brigade were the same thing, like the same way dark green could look black. 

He waits for the man to tell him the same things that Theresa does.  Nothing comes for free.  You better make yourself good for something.  If he wanted to eat and a place to sleep, he’d better not be any trouble.  There’s enough to worry about without having to look after you every second of the day.  Instead of saying any of those things, the man blows out a long stream of smoke.

“I’m going to show you something.”

The man gets up and goes back through the door.  Maybe it had been blue once, but it was covered in tags.  The white paint around the doorframe had peeled in the heat.  Caegan walked inside and found couches, a table with magazines, and a counter on the opposite side of the room. 

They went through a beaded curtain, ignoring the hallway with three or four doors, and went up the narrow stairs.  A short hall and then a dark wooden door opened on a wide room.  Thick red carpet, heavy furniture, expensive-looking fabrics across the couch and chairs and by the windows.  Caegan saw all of this in a glance, and tilted his head at the old man.

Well?  What do you want from me? 

He doesn’t think he says it out loud.  The man laughs as if he had.  Greenish-blue puffs of smoke settle around his head and his shoulders and his stomach shakes. 

“They call me Bet,” the man said.  “I’m guessing they don’t call you anything, do they?  No one notices a ghost.”

Caegan shrugs.  It’s not the first time he’s been called that.  The kids at school don’t say it to him, but they say it about him when they think the teachers won’t hear. 

“Don’t nobody look like you,” Bet said, sinking onto a sofa.  “Not round here.  Not for a long time.  But I seen about you before.”

Bet eyes him.  Caegan waits, but doesn’t say anything.  He doesn’t think Bet expects him to.  Bet looks like he knows plenty of things about people—all the bad secrets, instead of the good kind of secrets that Old Moses knows. 

“Rico’s half-right, mm?  Kids who wander around find places they maybe didn’t want to go, doing things they don’t want to do.”  Bet looks him over, and Caegan knows Bet won’t do anything to him.  “He’s stupid, thinking I would make any money off you.  I think you know why, too.”

Caegan slipped his hands into his pockets.  Bet talked to him like he was older, even though he’s only eight and a half.  Most grown-ups always talked to him like that—and they were also scared of him, even though they thought Caegan couldn’t tell.  People didn’t like getting close to what they were afraid of, and no one got close to him.  Even Bet, leaning against the sofa so much that it tilted, kept at least three feet away at all times. 

These things don’t bother him.  He just knows it means people left him alone, which he liked.  He also knows it can get him things he wanted, because people would do almost anything to be rid of him.  To get away from whatever it was in him that scared them.  Bet tilts his head again and blows more smoke.

“You know what an omen is?”

“Like a curse?”

Bet reached for a glittering circle on the side table.  The couch made a sound almost like someone crying.  Bet tapped out ash from his cigar.  Tiny specks drifted down into the carpet. 

“Almost.  Curses be bad, you know.”  Bet carried the ash tray to the giant desk, which could take his leaning better than the couch.  “But an omen can be good or bad.  Mostly it just means a sign of something coming.  The something that comes can be good for one person or bad for another.  You hear?”

“Like sirens.”

“You said what?”

The look that crosses Bet’s face is almost like the one that rippled through Rico’s, except there’s more to it.  Rico’s was the surprise that everyone tried to hide, the first time they got a good look at him.  Bet looked like he’d seen not just Caegan but something or someone else too.  Like a ghost.  Caegan tilted his head, thinking it over again. 

“If an ambulance comes with sirens, good news for the person who got hit—but bad news they got hit.”

Bet hummed, smoking and taking his own turn thinking it over.  Caegan knew how this went.  Anyone like Bet said they would show you something, it was usually a beating so you didn’t tell anything you might have seen.  Bet wasn’t going to do that.  He would have let Rico beat him up, because that’s what Rico was good for. 

This was more like making a promise, but not because you liked someone.  Bet could do bad things.  He could make things happen to you or to the people who cared about you, or the people you cared about.  Caegan wondered what Bet would try to do, since there wasn’t anyone Caegan cared about and no one who cared about him.  Bet didn’t seem to want to hurt him, because it would be like catching bad luck. 

“You stay even on me.”

Caegan stared, waiting for the rest of it.  The rules to make sure there was no trouble between them.  Caegan had watched and walked enough to know Bet had eyes and ears all around.  Bet could do a lot of things, but Caegan wondered if he could undo some of those things.  If Bet could make rules, then so could he.  

Bet went around to the other side of the desk and rummaged around in a drawer.  He brought Caegan a small tin case, the kind breath mints came in.  Caegan kept his hands in his pockets.

“What you on ain’t strong—”  The cigar swayed in Bet’s mouth, pointing up the same way his eyebrow did when he asked, “But you don’t need it to be, do you?”

“Easy.”

“You stay easy, you stay even.”  Bet nodded.  “You go hard, you start to slide.  And then we have problems.  I take care of problems around here, you follow?  You not a problem I want to take care of.”

“I won’t be.”

“No. No, I don’t think you will.”

Seeing that Caegan kept his hands in his pockets, refusing to reach for the tin, Bet took a capsule and held it out.  Caegan almost narrowed his eyes, but he remembered the way Rico hadn’t looked at Bet crossways.  Bet looked friendly enough, but Rico wouldn’t have warned him if Bet wasn’t dangerous.  The quiet was still inside Caegan though, and he wasn’t afraid. 

Sometimes, when he couldn’t feel quiet on his own and he couldn’t go out and walk, he took some of Theresa’s migraine medicine.  Not enough for her to notice.  Not even a whole pill at a time.  Just enough for the burning itch to ease away.  Then he could think crystal clear and the world was his.  The whole world was his. 

The blocks were their home now.  His home.  If he ever left this place, it wasn’t going to be for a very long time.  That was part of why Bet was trying to make him promise.  Make him a deal.  Because they would both be here, and they would both see everything. 

“You want something from me.”

“I want you to walk right on by.” 

Bet looked him in the face for a long time, waiting for him to take the pill.  Caegan finally nodded, picking the orange capsule from that man’s wide pink palm with two fingers.  He tucked it under his tongue, thinking of the offering plate that got passed around Father Rocci’s at the end of the service. 

It wasn’t exactly the same, because Caegan wouldn’t be back in a week.  He would walk the blocks and watch everything like he usually did, but he wouldn’t be back for a long while.  Not until there was something coming.  But taking the pill was close to the offering.  Close enough, just like Bet wanted him to be.  Bet looked like there was something else that needed taking care of before he was happy with their arrangement.  Caegan had a feeling Rico had just become a problem.