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“Mr. Hawe?”
It was the next morning and Heebie looked up from his hedge trimming, the clippers stopping in mid-snip. He hadn’t heard anyone call him by his Christian name in twenty years.
His visitor was about seventeen. Medium height, skinny, greasy black hair. He wore blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt. Heebie knew the type: a nine dollar an hour grease monkey with a soon to be wife working at the Sleazo lounge, a kid with a runny nose at the day care, and a long, slippery skid down Divorce road facing him. You didn’t have to be Kreskin to know that. There was something else about him that sparked a not so old memory. Then it came to him. It was the little juvenile delinquent, all grown up.
“You’re Timmy Loflin’s brother, ain’t you?” A trail of sweat ran uncomfortably down Heebie’s neck and he wiped it away with a grass stained hand.
“You don’t want to mess with me, boy,” Heebie said, interrupting Charlie before he could answer. His hand tightened around the handle of the hedge clippers. “No, you don’t wanna mess with me. They told me you were comin’. Your brother got what he had comin’. He shoulda knowed better than to play on the trains. You got no reason to mess with me, boy. I’ll take you to jail. You hear? You just stay right back.”
“Mr. Hawe, I just….”
“No, you just want to get on,” Heebie continued, talking it seemed to Charlie, to an unseen audience. “You don’t want to mess with me, boy. You’ll only make trouble for yourself. I don’t want to hurt you, but they might.”
Charlie saw that it was useless. His stunted attempt to grow a conscience had been stifled at birth. He wasn’t even sure if he had really come to say thanks, or just to gawk at the subhuman ape man and try to figure out if he really was crazy, or if he had any genuine concern for his brother. He started to turn away, awkward and confused.
Heebie looked at the hands stuffed in Charlie’s pockets, convinced that there was a gun or knife in there. The muscles in his forearm felt like a knot of brine-soaked rope where he gripped the shears. He blinked his eyes and licked his lips, tasting salty, old man sweat, and nicotine.
“What’s it gonna be, boy? You come to make trouble or not?”
“No trouble,” Charlie finally said. “I don’t like my brother gettin’ beat up, but it’s better than dead.”
He turned to walk away, feeling lonely and stupid and not a can to kick anywhere in sight. Heebie called to him.
“You take care, boy,” Heebie said. The taut, defensive lines had left his face and he looked like any other kid’s kindly uncle. “Take care of your brother. Don’t let him play on the trains no more. You hear?”
Charlie gave a grim nod of acknowledgment and walked away. Heebie said something else, but Charlie didn’t turn to look. He would recall what Heebie said later, when it was too late.
“It’s alright, boy. They won’t hurt you.”