09.05.08
Orphan fighter, pt. 14
Well, chasing down a kid by foot is always a pain. It’s worse when you had a big breakfast beforehand, but who’s complaining? Despite his head start, there was no way that he was going to out run me. His legs were just too short. I caught up to him after a few minutes of running willy-nilly through the hallways.He was cornered, but he still wouldn’t chill out and be reasonable. I don’t know what his problem was. It was like he was being a pain in the ass for no reason other than to annoy people. I won’t make any excuses though; it wasn’t right for me to hit the kid. What I will say is that I didn’t mean to hit him so hard that he flew over the second story balcony. Kid was lighter than I expected, ya know?
Anyway, when he came to, I was sitting there beside his little cot feeling kinda sheepish for what I’d done. Not bad, mind you, just sheepish. When he woke up, I saw him open his beady little eyes, and it damn near broke my heart. OK, maybe not. Actually, when he woke up and saw me sitting there twiddling my thumbs, he tried to jump up and run away again. Luckily, I had prepared for just such a scenario and tied him down beforehand. It was funny seeing him squirm. When he finally gave up trying to break free, I was hoping his will would be broken. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“You’re even weaker than my mom.”
“Yeah? How strong is your mom?”
“She broke my arm with a punch once.”
“Damn kid, sounds scary.”
“I bet she could beat you up, too.”
“Fair enough. What about your dad? Did he ever hit ya?”
He didn’t say anything, but I knew there was something on his mind.
“Well?”
“I was bad, OK?!”
Typical. He was blaming himself for his pops’ temper.
“It’s okay, kid. I heard your old man hit you and your mom all the time.”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything!”
“Hey man, chill. I’m just saying what I heard.”
“Pff. They lied to you like everyone else.”
“Oh? Well why don’t you set the record straight.”
“Dad only hit me one time. It was ’cause I hit mama.”
“What, was he the only one allowed to do that?”
“You don’t get it!”
“What’s to get? He was a wife beater, and that’s why your mom snapped.”
“No! Mama was the one who hit me so much. That was the only way he could stop her. I was too weak to do anything.”
I was starting to get a picture of what was going on. I wanted to hear more, but the kid started crying all of a sudden. Eh, I had heard enough anyway. I felt kinda bad for the kid after hearing him talk about his family, so I untied him from the cot. I was half expecting him to run, but he ended up grabbing hold of me. Not knowing what the hell I was supposed to do, I tentatively patted him on the back.
“It’s OK, kid. You’re not a weakling anymore.”