Protector of Children - 3. Chapter 3: A Botched Saturday

A Botched Saturday

“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

The boy licked salty blood from the cut on his lip. He was hungry, but the dumpster smelled too bad to look for food, there. Sometimes one of the girls from the bar would bring her trick into the alley. Sometimes, he could beg a dollar from the girl. Sometimes he could get enough money to buy a little food. Not often, and, so far, not tonight. His head spun, and he passed out.

Gary

My phone rang five or six times an hour. When it was during the day, I could handle it. And had to. I was still Gary Walters, and I was still the principal fundraiser for Erewhon. I was still the CEO of several corporations whose profits went to the orphanage. And, I was still something of a local celebrity.

I don’t mean that in an “I’m great” way; but when I needed money or community support, it was nice to be able to put on my army uniform with the medals and speak to a school or a civic club or charity banquet. It got better when Cy started coming along. He was not only a “natural” pitcher, he was a natural speaker. The best thing was taking a couple of the boys with me. Bobby and Benji had become quite a team. They were just shy enough to capture people’s hearts; they were just bold enough to get across their message: kids need a safe place, especially when their parents can’t or won’t provide it. We didn’t push the notion that sometimes the parents were the problem, but we didn’t hide it, either. That started to come across more when Andy and Jeffie joined what I called the “speaking team.”

The upside was that we were making and collecting enough money to keep Erewhon afloat. The downside was that I was on the phone or on the computer from early morning until … sometimes, midnight. I’d worried about burning out being a god-substitute; I should have worried about burning out just being me.

It took a botched Saturday to bring me around.

I’d let a batch of pancakes burn while I talked to someone who wanted to schedule a speech (and a fundraiser), a couple of months away. My little boy, my son, my heart-bound, Nemesis scraped the griddle into the trash. Then, he’d looked at me with sparks in his eyes. He was, after all, the god of retribution. Sparks came easily to him.

“What happened to Saturday is for us?” he asked. “What happened to I won’t burn out?” he said. He set the griddle down, and hugged me. His face was pressed against my chest. I could feel his tears. I powered off the phone, set it on the counter, and then hugged him back.

“I’m sorry, Nemesis. You know I have to—”

“You have to live up to your promises,” he interrupted.

“I know you made promises to all the boys at Erewhon. You did that before you met me. I know you made promises to the people who pay to keep Erewhon running. You did that, too, before you met me. I know you made promises to me. I know that the older promises … they are the most binding.”

“You’ve made too many promises.”

He pressed his head into my chest, again. I felt him shaking. It had taken a lot of courage for him to say that. I resolved, then, to do something about that.

Father Donavon

Whether I was Father Donavon or simply James Donavon was a matter of some dispute. I had written an article for a national magazine pointing out some of the more obvious errors in the Bible. They were the kind of errors that had made me question my faith. My faith didn’t rest on jots and tittles. It rested upon a rational, reasoned examination of nature that could not be reconciled with the church’s current, narrowed interpretation of the Bible, nor with the church’s insistence that the Bible, and not reason, was the sole source of the truth. I had been censured, ordered not to write anything more, and relieved of priestly duties. I had not been excommunicated, nor had I been prohibited from performing my duties as a priest. The difference between “relieved of” and “prohibited from” was a fine line, and one that I was unwilling to flout in the face of the local diocese.

Rather than do that, I packed my possessions, said farewell to the Monsignor, and moved into the house that my parents had left to me.

The house was a rambling … I won’t call it a mansion, because it was entirely too unattractive to be included in the homes of the rich and famous. It was large and had many rooms; it was situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan; and it came with a trust fund that was enough to keep it up and leave a little extra. I decided that with the little extra, I’d open an orphanage.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’d spent hours thinking about this. When I was assigned to the diocesan school, I was supposed to be teaching mathematics, but I spent more of my time as a councilor, and most of that trying to keep abused kids from self-destructing. The abuse I saw ranged from beatings to neglect, which included not getting enough food and not getting hugs from moms and dads.

Every morning at 5:00 AM, I was in my office. I had to get up early to make sure the paperwork was out of the way before the day began. It wasn’t a problem: I was accustomed to being up in time for a 6:00 AM mass. Now, there were too many things to do before our five boys woke. I was startled when I was interrupted.

“Father?” A man’s husky tenor voice came from the doorway. I looked up. A very dark-haired man stood there. I had seen him, before. He was one of the Chicago policemen who had been ubiquitous in the ghetto that surrounded the diocesan school. Today, he was in civilian clothing—clothes that looked like a mismatch of stuff from the sale rack at Goodwill.

I hope he doesn’t think he’s under cover, I thought. He’s not going to fool anyone. And if he’s not careful, his choice of clothes is going to get him killed.

Beside him was a redheaded boy, about 12 years old. The boy wore torn and filthy clothes and a face full of bruises. I looked more closely: some of dirt on his clothes was dried blood.

“Yes, good morning,” I said. “Please, come in.”

I ushered the boy and the policeman to a couple of chairs in the corner of the office. “Would you like juice?” I asked the boy. Before he could respond, I looked at the policeman and added. “Coffee?”

The cop nodded; so did the boy. It took only a few minutes for Bridget to bring things in. Bridget had been a nun; she’d left her vocation about the same time I’d been censured. We were a good match.

“Father,” the policeman began. “Danny, here, well, he needs a place to stay for a while.”

Danny looked scared.

“Hello, Danny,” I said. “I’m Father James. If you’re not Catholic, you may call me Uncle James.”

The boy’s face broke into a smile that lasted about seven milliseconds.

I looked at the cop.

“Um, Father, I’m probably way out of line, here. But Danny’s dad has been hurting him. I took Danny away. DHS isn’t the place for him. Can you, please, just keep him until I can get someone to take care of him? Please? I’ve got a friend, but I just can’t get in touch with him right away. Please?”

“This isn’t an official placement?” I asked.

The cop shook his head. He looked thoroughly miserable. “No, Father, it isn’t. Please?”

There was a lot the cop wasn’t saying. That bothered me. I knew that both of us could get into a lot of trouble. Then I thought about it. The child must come first. Besides, I’ll bet that this cop and I could confuse things so much that no one would ever really get in trouble. Actually, I was kind of looking forward to that kind of challenge.

“Officer, uh?” I said.

“Kelly,” he said. “Timothy Kelly, Father.”

“Officer Kelly. Of course, I’ll keep Danny as long as necessary. You and I, we’ll make sure he’s taken care of. Come to see Danny—and me, as soon as you can get things worked out on your end, okay?

“Danny? You didn’t say if you were Catholic, and it really doesn’t matter. But, with a name like Danny, and your red hair, I’m bettin’ at least you’re Irish.”

“Danny O’Grady,” the boy said. He rolled the “r” in O’Grady. “Mommy said I was Irish on her side. She had red hair. She died.

“O’Grady was Mommy’s name. I’ll never be my father’s name!” The boy’s face was set, hard, when he said that.

What had the man done to him? I wondered.

“Well then, Danny O’Grady, welcome to your new home,” I said. I rolled the “r” in O’Grady. Danny caught that, and I got another seven- millisecond smile.

Officer Tim Kelly

I was nervous as heck when I got to Gary’s apartment building. I told Father I had a friend who could help Danny. I might have been lying, at least a little. I had met Gary at a hoity-toity charity banquet where he was the main speaker. I’d been a uniform, then, and was there for crowd control. There were a lot of really high-rollers and political people, and the mayor wanted things to go smoothly.

Gary had been standing in a back hallway, looking at a handful of papers. He was wearing an army uniform. I figured right away who he was. After all, I was a Cubs fan. He looked up and saw me looking at him, and then smiled.

“Hi, Officer … Kelly,” he said, reading my nametag. “I’m Gary Walters. Am I in the right place? I’m supposed to be … somewhere.”

“Sure, Captain,” I said. “I’m kind of the traffic cop for backstage. You’re on the list, and are supposed to be through that door.

“Um, sir?” I asked. “Can I have your autograph? I’m not supposed to ask, and most of the folks here? I couldn’t care less. But you? Well, my son … he’s only seven, but he’s the world’s biggest Cubs fan … it would really make him feel really good.”

Gary signed the program I gave him, and then handed it to me. Then, he said something that would change my life.

“Officer Kelly, if I can ever do anything for you or your son, get in touch with me. Okay?”

I knew, then, that Gary was for real. I was about to call Gary’s hand. I wasn’t worried, actually. I knew he meant what he had said.

“Mr. Walters? There’s an Officer Kelly of the Chicago Police—” The doorman stopped talking and listened.

“Yes sir,” he said.

“Officer Kelly, please take the elevator to the 45^th floor. Mr. Walters is expecting you.”

Gary

“Tim!” I said. I had opened the door, and was waiting for him.

“Um, it’s been nearly three years, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell the doorman my first name,” I said.

Gary just grinned. “That’s my gift … I’ve got a memory for names and faces, and when Clinton … he’s the doorman … said Officer Kelly, I knew it had to be you.

“Please,” he added. “Come in. This is my … son, Nemesis.”

“How is your son, Stewart, doing?” Gary asked. “You told me he was a big Cubs fan. How’s he taking the current season?”

Tim seemed surprised that I had remembered that. Something, however, seemed to get to him.

“He’s not a happy camper, to say the least. And especially since Cyrus has left the team. Cy was his favorite player, and his favorite person in the world after Jessie Ventura.”

“Cy will be happy to hear that,” I said. “When Stewart learns why Cy left the team, I hope he’ll appreciate why Cy did that.”

Tim’s story was something I’d heard, before. Abused child. Cop’s standard procedure: DHS. However, DHS is almost always the wrong option. There are hundreds of kids like this every day. Only this time, someone had intervened. This one had its own twist.

“I’m new undercover,” Tim said. “Assigned to vice squad. The older guys? They think it’s funny to initiate the new guy … tease him a little … so, they set me up.

“Got a hooker to proposition me. Heck, that’s normally part of the job. But then, they got her pimp to show up. He got the drop on me, and shoved me into an alley.

“I about shit my pants. Sorry. Then, the pimp saw the kid. The kid was lying on the ground by the back steps of a pub. His clothes were bloody. The whore? She ran. The pimp was right behind her. The cops who had put them up to this … I hadn’t seen them until now … came running up, wondering what was going on. By that time, the boy was awake.

“The other cops shrugged it off. Seems like this alley was one of their regular locations for stings, and they’d seen the boy, before. His father parked him by the door of the pub every night, and then drank himself blind until closing time.

“Yeah, the boy was a regular fixture, and he was always bruised, beaten. Sometimes, he’d beg for money to buy food.

“Once, he’d sucked off one of the cops in exchange for money. They told me that. They thought it was funny.”

“Where’s the boy, now?” I asked.

“Um, with Father James Donovan,” Tim said. “He’s started an orphanage.” Tim gave the location.

I nodded. “Sounds like you’ve done all the right things. What do you want me to do?”

“Um, I didn’t notify Family Services,” Tim said. “I was afraid that they’d just run the boy into their system. I was also afraid that if Danny told about sucking off the cop, I’d get in a lot of trouble with the rest of the squad.

“I want to do what’s right, but … sometimes, that isn’t easy.

“I know you got some pull with the system. I was hoping you could get the boy placed with Father Donovan.”

“What about the cop? The one who paid the kid for a blow job?” Gary asked.

“I don’t know, but I do know I’ve got to do something about that—and I will …” I shut my mouth when Nemesis came into the room. He was wearing some kind of costume that didn’t cover him much. There was a sword strapped to his waist. His eyes were … glowing.

Gary saw where I was looking, and gestured to Nemesis. The boy came in, and sat on Gary’s lap. His eyes dimmed, a little, but they were still bright.

Nemesis

Gary had told me not to eavesdrop on him and his guests, and promised that he would tell me everything I was entitled to know. He’d always been good about that. So, I wasn’t eavesdropping. But when Tim told Gary about the boy being beaten and left by the back door of a bar while his father drank his brains out … I heard it and knew it was my job—retribution. Once Tim’s mind opened me to that, I heard the part about the cop paying the boy for sex.

Gary knew I was pissed. Hard to hide, even if he couldn’t read my mind, which he could. He hugged me.

“Let’s find out a little more, okay?” Gary asked. “I think there’s more than one job for you. First, however, we’ve got to take care of Danny.”

Tim

“Um, Gary? What’s going on?” I stared at the boy Gary had called Nemesis. “How come his eyes do that? And how did you know Danny’s name?” I was starting to wonder if I’d done the right thing coming here.

“Tim, I’m guessing that since you took Danny to Father Donovan, and your name is Kelly, that you’re Irish Catholic. That might make it harder for you to believe what I’m about to tell you. Please, at least listen all the way through.”

Gary took a deep breath. “Nemesis is a very special little boy. He has the powers and authorities of the ancient Greek god of retribution. Actually, the original Nemesis was a goddess, but somehow, the powers started going to boys.

“I was recently given some powers, too, and a job to protect children. Nemesis and I, we’re a team. I rescue, he punishes.”

Gary stopped talking, and just looked at me.

“Actually,” I said. “The Bible talks about powers, seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, and a whole lot of different kinds of angels. I never had trouble believing in them, and what you’re saying sort of fits.”

“I’m pretty sure we aren’t angels,” Gary said. “Although a couple of the boys we rescued thought Nemesis was an angel. It fit their understanding. If it helps for you to think of us that way, that’s okay with us.”

Gary looked at the boy. “Right?” Nemesis nodded. His eyes weren’t glowing any more. I guess he’d had time to calm down.

“So, what do we do?” I asked.

Gary answered. “Danny needs to make his own decision. All that we can do is show him the options, and, perhaps, make him aware of some of the consequences.

‘There’s different ways to handle this,” Gary continued. “Since you’ve turned the boy over to Father Donovan, the easiest is probably the legal way. Understand, however, that sometimes, we follow an older law.

“That’s probably what we will do when we deal with Danny’s father and the cop who paid Danny for sex.”

Gary pulled out his cell phone and poked a button. I didn’t hear all he said, but …

… another half-dressed kid appeared … I mean, just appeared … in Gary’s living room.

Nemesis jumped from Gary’s lap, and then he and the new kid hugged each other, and kissed. It was a serious kiss. I shook my head, but Gary was talking, so I paid attention.

“Tim, this is Aiden. He’s our legal guy. He’s not yet a lawyer, ’cause he really is only 12 years old. But, he has contacts and influence.

“Aiden,” Gary continued. “Officer Kelly has taken a boy from an abusive situation, and placed him in an orphanage run by a priest, Father James Donavon. Depending on what we learn, and the boy’s desires, he would be welcome at Erewhon, too. We need to make an official placement pending adoption. His name is Danny, Daniel Gaither Heriot—although he prefers Danny O’Grady.

“Can you help?”

I don’t know what surprised me more: half-naked kids popping into Gary’s living room; half-naked 12-year-old kids kissing each other like boyfriends and Gary not worrying about it; or Gary knowing stuff he shouldn’t have known. I guess I figured it all was part of the same thing—the bit about them not being angels—so I just sat there, waiting for the little boy to speak.

“You’re right, sir,” Aiden said. “We need to begin with Danny. Under the circumstances, I think school clothes and your Land Rover would be appropriate.”

Gary nodded, and asked me what my schedule was like. “We should get started right away,” he said.

I had to get back to the station, but something about what was going on—no matter how weird—made me believe things would be okay. I said I would meet them at Father Donovan’s as soon as I could. Gary and I traded cell numbers and shook hands. Sometime during all this, the boys changed to school clothes … even through they didn’t leave the room. I got off the elevator at the lobby; Gary and the two boys went down to the parking garage.

Nemesis

Gary let me drive to the orphanage. It was about 30 miles north of Erewhon. The gate was open … in fact, it was hanging off one hinge so I guess it wouldn’t close. The house was huge, but I only saw two cars. I parked behind them, and we walked onto the porch.

When no one answered the doorbell, Gary walked in and called, “Hello!” After a few minutes, a kid … maybe eight years old … came down the stairs. He agreed to take us to Father Donovan, and led us to the kitchen.

A man, a woman, and two boys about 13 years old were preparing a meal. They all looked frazzled, and the woman snapped at them. She apologized, and then snapped again. And apologized, again.

“Father? These people came to see you?” our escort said.

“I’m Gary. This is Nemesis and Aiden. This seems to be a bad time,” Gary said.

“Not if I help,” I said. Gary looked at me.

“I’m really good in the kitchen,” I said. “You know I am.”

Gary grinned and then nodded. After a couple of accidents, he wouldn’t let me do anything that involved flour. But he let me do about everything else.

“If Nemesis helps, perhaps Father would have time, later, to talk,” Gary said.

The woman looked at us, and then handed me a knife. She pointed to a pile of carrots. “Washed, scraped a little, and sliced about an inch thick. They’re going into a stew, and we don’t want them to be too small or they’ll overcook.” I nodded, and got to work.

The woman looked at Gary, and raised her eyebrow. “I can help,” he said. She handed him another knife and pointed to a refrigerator. “Beef on the second shelf. About five pounds of it. Needs to be trimmed, cubed, floured, and seared in that kettle. Save the trimmings.”

“How about me?” Aiden asked.

“How are you at peeling potatoes?” the woman asked. Aiden grinned and reached out his hand for another knife.

Gary

Once the stew was on to simmer, Father took the boys and me to meet Danny. A former parishioner of Donovan’s, a doctor, had come in and looked at Danny. He’d documented the boy’s injuries, but agreed to misplace his report to Family Services until he heard from Donovan.

“I guess the place to start is with introductions. My name is Gary Walters. This is my son, Nemesis and our friend Aiden. Both Nemesis and Aiden are very special boys. Please do not be surprised by anything they do or say.

“We were contacted by Officer Tim Kelly, who asked us to help get Danny legally placed. We agreed to help with one stipulation.”

Donovan raised an eyebrow.

“Danny gets the final word on what happens to him. All we can do is tell him what his choices are, and maybe help him understand some of the most obvious consequences of those choices. Once he decides, we will make it happen.”

Donovan’s eyebrow hadn’t gone down. “Gary Walters. Of Erewhon. Of course. You have a good reputation. I hope you can deliver on your promise.” He looked from me to Danny and back to me.

I understood what Father wasn’t saying: you’d better not make promises to this boy unless you can keep them. I nodded. “I guarantee it, Father.”

The way I saw it, Danny had two choices: go back to his father, or go elsewhere. Once he decided that, we’d be able to talk about elsewhere.

It wasn’t hard to get that decision. Nor were any of us surprised. Still, it was a question that had to be asked.

Danny was adamant: “I’m never going back to him. I’m never going to be his son, again. I’m Danny O’Grady, now.”

“That’s fine, Danny,” I said. “Aiden? Can you take care of the name change?”

Aiden nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Now, Danny. If Father agrees, you can join the boys at his orphanage. You can come to Erewhon, which is another orphanage, you can go into government-operated foster care, where you might be assigned to a family home or a group home … that’s like an orphanage, but smaller. You might be adopted, but that usually takes a while. Do you have any questions about these choices?”

Danny’s first question was the most telling: “If I want to be adopted, which is best? One of the orphanages or foster care?”

I was able to answer honestly. “Your best chance of being adopted is one of the orphanages. A lot of people think the kids in foster care are problem children. Some of them are: they’re sick and haven’t received proper medical treatment, they’ve been in foster care for so long their emotions have been worn down and they’re so calloused they can’t love anyone. There are other problems. Not all of them are bad kids, but a lot of people think that. It makes them hard to adopt.

“I don’t know much about Father Donovan’s, but I do know that we have a much higher rate of adoption at Erewhon than any government social program does.”

Father Donovan

I had to jump in. “We’ve been in operation for only 2 months. There are five boys living here. Danny would make six. I don’t have any record to go on, but I believe we can find someone. We certainly would work on it.”

“Then I want to stay here,” Danny said.

About that time, Marky, at eight he’s our youngest, scampered into the room.

“There’s a policeman comin’ to see you. I saw his badge! Are you in trouble?”

Officer Kelly was close behind Marky.

“Nobody is in trouble, little man,” he said.

Danny stood and took a step toward Officer Kelly, and then hesitated. The officer saw, and understood. He held out his arms and the boy rushed to be hugged. Aiden and Nemesis scooted over to make room on the couch for them. Perceptive kids, I thought.

Gary

“Aiden? How long will it take to place Danny with Father Donavan?”

“Daddy’s secretary will type the order this afternoon. He’ll sign it, tonight. I’ll deliver it, tomorrow.

“Oh, the doctor? He needs to find his report and get it to DHS first thing in the morning, if only to protect himself. DHS will get a copy of the order of placement, so they’ll be out of the picture as far as Danny goes.”

Nemesis looked at me. I caught what he was thinking. And I’ll get to Danny’s father before DHS can even get the report out of their inbox.

Nemesis asked if Aiden could drive home. “Nobody’s going to see him, and he knows how to drive.”

Nemesis blushed, and then added, “I kind of taught him …”

I resolved to get to the bottom of that, and then agreed, and a somewhat white-knuckled Aiden took the wheel. I needn’t have worried. He did very well until we got on the Eisenhower Freeway. I’d have been antsy, then, myself.

Father Donovan

“Father? My name is Tom Clancy; I’m chief foreman of Walters Construction. Gary sent me. We’re going to start by installing new fire alarms and hanging extinguishers at strategic locations. That will be done, today. We’ll also begin building some additional fire escapes, especially from the second floor. We’ll be setting forms and pouring concrete for the footers, today. Once that dries, it will take about three days to finish. The big job will be putting in a sprinkler system. I’ll need to talk to you about that. We’ll have to run pipes along the ceilings of the halls and into every room. We’ll do our best to conceal them, especially on the first floor ...”

“Are you okay, Father?”

The electrical crew was in the kitchen. “We’ll be running new power lines to the kitchen. We have the specs on all the new equipment that will be coming in. After the equipment is installed … that should be Friday at the latest … Tom’s crew will install the halon hoods on the stove …”

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

Gary

I knew it was Father Donovan as soon as the phone rang. Actually, I think I knew it was he before the phone rang. That was useful, but also a little scary.

“Hi, Father,” I said.

“Gary? What’s going on?”

I knew exactly what he meant.

“Do you remember the fire at that fundamentalist orphanage not too long ago?” I asked.

“Yes, but …”

“Father, Nemesis was there. He saw children die because there weren’t working alarms or a sprinkler system. I will never let him see that, again. When he saw that you weren’t up to code, he asked me if I could fix it.

“So, we’re fixing it.”

Meat Market

Old eyes set in young faces. The boys had seen too much, done too much.

“Twenty dollars for a blow job, either way. You can fuck me for fifty.” As the night wore on, the prices would drop.

A new face caught the attention of a couple of the boys. They puffed up themselves, ready to tell him to move on—away from their territory. They didn’t have to; the boy kept walking until he passed all the others. Then, he stopped. He leaned against a fence. A telephone pole partly screened him.

Bad spot, one of the older boys thought. Nobody’s going to see him until it’s too late to stop.

Cars drove slowly past the boys. Occasionally, one would pull to the curb. A hand inside would gesture. The closest boy would step to the window. Words would be exchanged. More often than not, the boy would get into the car. The speed of the cars as they drove away was always faster than when they approached.

A low-rider with spinning chrome wheels drove by. The boys looked away. Pimp. Bad news. There were enough stories to keep even the newest kids away from a pimp.

A non-descript car pulled to the curb where the new boy was standing. Cop! Other boys recognized the car and faded away, more afraid of this cop than they were of the pimp. It was too late to warn the new boy. He got into the car. The driver pulled into traffic, cutting off another car. Squeal of brakes and honk of horn. A gesture by the cop. Then, he turned the corner and sped off.

The boy watched the driver turn into the parking lot of an abandoned shopping center, and then drive behind the stores. The car stopped. The boy heard the man’s zipper. “Twenty dollars,” the boy said.

The man slapped the boy, hard. “How about Juvie, punk? Huh? How about Juvie. The boy saw the badge clipped to the man’s belt.

“Please … please … I’ll do anything …” the boy stuttered.

The man grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him from the car, and then pushed him against the wall of the loading dock.

“Turn around and drop your pants,” the man said.

“Please …” the boy whispered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

The man looked at his own belt only long enough to release the buckle. He looked up as his pants dropped around his ankles.

The boy was gone.

“Where the fuck …?”

A hand on his shoulder spun the cop around. The boy leaned against the unmarked police car. He wasn’t wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt any more. He wasn’t wearing anything like the cop had ever seen, and he was holding a huge sword that was pointed at the cop’s crotch. The sword grazed the man’s penis; his erection shriveled.

“Officer Trump,” the boy said. “You were expecting something else, weren’t you? You were expecting a boy you could fuck … and then kill. You’ve done that, before. Instead of serving and protecting, you’ve been fucking and killing.

“There are only two ways to stop you.” The boy with the sword took a deep breath.

“One is to kill you. The other is to castrate you. Your choice, Officer Ryan Trump.”

“Please, please don’t kill me!” the cop begged.

“So be it.”

The sword knew what to do. The boy struck the cop’s genitals with the sword. The man’s gonads shriveled. New hormones flooded his body. All sexual desire disappeared. An evil but essential part of his personality fled. He would never be the same. He would be a drone, sexless, impotent, slack. Until the day he died. Or until the day he took his own life.

Nemesis

It was easier to deal with Danny’s father. He was so drunk, I wasn’t sure he even knew he was dead. I told Aiden there would be fewer problems now to get Danny adopted since he was an orphan. Aiden just nodded.