Adventures of Matt Parkman, Chapter 7: Slavery
Matt spent the evening buying a futon, a clock and a few things he'd forgotten to pack. He spent a restless night dreaming that Mazy was guarding Matty and wouldn't let Matt get to his son, who was in some vague, undefined danger. The animal acted like Matt himself was the enemy. He woke stiff and sore and with a resounding feeling of guilt. He staggered over to his chair and wrote down what he remembered in his journal, but he couldn't be sure if it was a standard bad dream or a prophecy. He seemed to be having a lot of bad dreams lately.
He felt aimless. He tried to avoid thinking about what had happened with Janice and Matty. He needed something else to think about. He wanted to paint, but at some level he knew it wasn't the painting he wanted. He just wanted to take the drugs and lose himself so he wouldn't think about his family.
He looked at his cocaine. There seemed to be an awful lot of it gone. He had less than a quarter of what he'd started with. He checked his journal to see how much he'd taken last time. There wasn't an entry, which seemed weird. He remembered measuring it out. Maybe I just forgot to write it down. I was awfully stoned for a really long time last time. Well, it should be the same as all the other entries.
He took a dose and leaned back, waiting for it to kick in and take all his worries away. This is really nice. No wonder it's illegal. If I could get this stuff all the time, I'd just lie around and be stoned continuously. Don't need to take care of Matty anymore, don't need to worry about Janice… don't need to worry about money. I could just tell people to give me money. That's what I ought to do. Go around to all the drug dealers in town and make them give me their money and quit selling drugs. Mm. You know, that's a kind of good idea… It would be kind of… proactive about crime, about things.
He came to some time later, feeling very tired as the drugs wore off. The single biggest clear wall space had been painted in a large, unhelpful mural. It showed himself (he assumed, as it was from the rear), painting a wall that showed himself painting a wall in an infinite regression. Great. Just great. That's no help at all. Why the hell did I paint the wall again? He looked around, noticing he was out of canvas. Oh. Should have checked that first.
He flipped through his paintings, wondering what he should do next. Nothing was particularly inspiring. He worried over the one of Mohinder bleeding on the floor, but continued to feel it wasn't urgent. Maybe if I just took some more and painted again… He turned to his stash and caught himself. No! I don't even have any canvas. Or, he looked at what little he had left of cocaine, much dope. Okay, first thing's first. Get canvas, then dope. But wait… I could get money while I was getting dope and use that to buy canvas. Yeah, that sounds better.
He set off with a mission.
He drove back to the neighborhood where he'd met Ryan. Even if he'd told Ryan to get straight, the customers would still be there and where there were customers, there was going to be a supplier. Besides, Ryan was too small time, carrying too little, to be a big dealer. He did deliveries because someone was supplying him and sending him places. That supplier would have hired someone else to take his place. Matt cruised the area slowly, on the lookout for the new dealer.
He pulled up to the same intersection, perplexed to see Ryan sitting across the street on the opposite side on a slightly higher fieldstone retaining wall, his bicycle lying on the sidewalk a few feet away, blocking it. He had two other people sitting with him, younger men, or old kids. They looked around 15 or 16. One was Hispanic, the other Arabic. All three eyed him coolly as he put the car in park, as if he probably wasn't worth their time. He got out and crossed the street to them. That got their attention, shifting them into wariness.
Ryan stood up, wiping his palms nervously on his cargo pants, then higher on his sweat shirt. His eyes darted back and forth, settling on his bike, then back to Matt. His intent to flee was so clear on his face that Matt thought to him, Stay here. With a pained, frightened look on his face somewhat like Matt had slapped him, Ryan backed up a step against the wall and tottered, off balance for a moment. He looked down and blinked, shaking his head.
Parkman could read his confusion. The boy clearly knew he should run, but he wasn't doing it. It made no sense to Ryan's conscious mind. He wondered if he was crazy. The last time he'd talked to Matt, he'd smarted off to his handlers (he thought of them as friends) afterwards about how he wasn't going to sell anymore and they'd beaten the crap out of him. Two of the fingers on his right hand were still broken, as proper medical care wasn't within his experience or financial reach.
Matt sized them up. Ryan's two companions were looking between the older boy's deferential behavior and the odd man who was confronting him with his head cocked slightly. The Hispanic boy said, "Who the fuck are you? What do you want?" He looked at Ryan. "Hey, what do he want?" Ryan kept shaking his head, saying nothing in response.
The Arab added, laughing, "Hey Ryan, you gay for him? He gonna ask you to do him, or what? He's lookin at you awful funny."
Matt looked at both of them and thought, Shut up. They did, immediately. To Ryan, he said, "Why are you still selling?" Tell me the truth.
"I'm… I'm not. Not. Not selling. I just deliver. That's all I do. Michael sells. He… he does." He made a vague gesture with his hand. Matt could see in his mind he meant the Arab boy next to him, although his hand movement was too undefined to indicate him clearly. Ryan did not want to implicate anyone else. He was afraid they'd be beaten for talking to Matt, or Matt talking to them, or whatever the reason was that he was beat up last time. He didn't really understand it. He didn't know why he'd decided to stop selling.
Parkman scowled at the Arab, who looked at him blankly, still trying to work out why he didn't want to add anything to the conversation. He had a number of colorful jibes in mind, but he couldn't say them.
Ryan interrupted, saying, "I got a job. I go house to house and ask for work. I do work. It's honest. I do work. Sometimes. Until I get… get like fifty bucks, then that's good and I stop. That's honest, right?" He had no idea why he was blurting this out to Matt and felt emasculated by his own words. He felt like he was begging, almost, for approval. It stung his pride to be saying this in front of his friends.
Matt sighed. "Okay, listen… yes, that's honest. But it's not what I meant. I meant a regular job. Like one with hours and a boss and things to…" He shook his head, pushing away the various confused objections he could feel starting to flow through Ryan's mind. The young man truly had no idea how to get a job like that. "Never mind. You're right. Whatever. It's good enough, yeah. Keep doing that. But you two," he looked at the other youths. "Why aren't you in school? It's 1 pm on a Wednesday, for Christ's sake."
They stared at him mutely. Answer me, he thought, making it broad enough to affect all of them.
All three spoke at the same time and he couldn't make it out. He held up his hands. "One at a time!"
He pointed at Michael, who said, "I was expelled." Matt started to say something to that, then moved on to Ryan, who was in the middle and apparently had something to say.
Ryan said, "They're… they're with me. I needed them here, told them they'd get paid. Worst Michael will get for carrying is juvie… Ort's here because we need him." He couldn't really verbalize what he was trying to say, but essentially Ortega, the Hispanic, was there as backup in case their customers tried to hold them up. Ryan had some idea that Ortega was tough because he had a knife and had stabbed three people before, including an adult. For Michael, he was referring to his age. As a minor, he wouldn't go to jail or permanently mar his record if he was convicted.
Matt nodded and rolled his eyes at Ryan's answer. Obviously the oldest boy had been affected when he'd commanded them all to answer him. He'd be more precise in issuing commands next time. He turned to the Hispanic boy. "What's your story?"
"I just here to be bad, mutha-fucka."
Matt laughed. The boy did think he was a bad-ass. Quite the set of balls on that one. Matt reached up and scratched under his nose with his thumbnail. "Okay, yeah. Got that."
Matt started to consider what to do about this when Ort decided he'd seen enough and stood up, circling behind Matt casually. What was in his mind wasn't casual at all. Parkman turned to him, which put Ryan and Michael at his back. He was going to say something to stop the boy, but things started happening very quickly at that point. Ryan hit him in the kidney as hard as he could. Ortega pulled his knife. Michael jumped up and away, having been in few fights and unsure of what he needed to do.
Stop! Matt commanded, looking at the Hispanic boy but intending to affect them all. It might have worked if Ryan hadn't punched him in the kidney again at that moment. Fortunately Matt was heavy and big and Ryan was not terribly strong or a trained fighter. Plus the young man's hand still hurt him terribly, so the blows weren't incapacitating to Matt, but they were very disruptive.
Still, it delayed Ortega, who waved his knife around vaguely as if trying to decide when best to use it. Parkman hoped it would hold. He turned to Ryan, who backpedaled with surprising speed when faced by the man, then tripped over his own bicycle. He fell on his ass. Matt told him, Stay there. He turned back to the Hispanic, who decided he'd stopped long enough and he'd better act before Matt got turned around to him again.
Parkman caught the blade in his right shoulder instead of his back, but it was still surprising, a cold flash of pain and a feeling of something in his body that wasn't supposed to be there. Then it was gone and a hot stinging sensation followed it. Matt jumped back, getting his hands up in front of himself defensively.
Ortega stabbed at him again, this time with the point in a thrusting motion. He caught Matt in the left hand, but that was better than letting him carry the motion through to his chest. Matt realized there was no way he could use telepathy under the circumstances and swung at the boy with his right fist. Things were seriously getting out of hand. Ortega was trying to kill him. Matt had underestimated them due to their youth and been stabbed twice because of it.
Quicker than Parkman by a long shot, Matt missed as the Hispanic danced away, but now the boy was wary. He gave Matt some distance, beginning to slur him verbally and exhorting his companions to jump him. Parkman drew himself up and thought to him, Throw down the knife!
The boy did so, then stared stupidly between his hand and the weapon, trying to fathom why he'd done that. He looked at Parkman and blinked, unsure of whether to rush the man or run away. Matt was again impressed by the boy's bravery, as he was willing to attack a man more than twice his weight and age, bare-handed, because he thought he had a duty to do it.
Ryan decided it for him by yelling, "Run! Get away! Go tell Pedro!"
With a last second of hesitation, Ortega glanced at his beloved knife and then beat feet down the sidewalk. Matt considered calling him back, but he'd already had problems trying to deal with all three of them at once. He turned back to find Michael had run off as well at some point, now nowhere to be seen. Ryan was exactly where he'd left him on the sidewalk, his feet still tangled in his bike.
Matt frowned and looked at his left hand. He'd been stabbed clean through it, but he could still move his fingers even if the last two were numb. He walked over and picked up the knife with his right, wiping it on his pant leg. His shoulder hurt. He tried to look at the cut, but it was too far back. He could feel he was bleeding down his side and back. The fingers of his left hand found a spot that didn't feel like his shoulder should. It felt like cut meat, about two inches wide. His motion had caused the stab to slice. He exhaled through clenched teeth. I need stitches.
He looked back at Ryan, annoyed. This didn't go like I intended.
Get up. "Do you know how to drive a car?"
Ryan stood and nodded.
"Okay. Listen up." You do whatever I tell you to do. You don't run away from me or try to get away. You stay with me unless I tell you to stay somewhere else. You tell me the truth and don't try to lie or hide the truth from me. You're going to help me. You want to help me. "That's your honest job now."
Ryan nodded dumbly, trying to assimilate that his whole purpose in life had just been changed.