“That would be great.”
Gary Rain grinned broadly, went into the hallway, and brought in a wooden frame already assembled. Pushing the crib aside, he set up the frame, returned to the hall and came back with a box spring and mattress. His Mommy put him in the chair and helped his father make the bed. The sheets were deep blue and dotted with stars and planets. Andy jumped into the bed before they spread the bright red blanket on it.
“Thank you. Thank you, Mommy. Thank you, Daddy.”
She kissed his cheek and said, “We love you, Andy. We love you very much. Happy birthday, son.”
“Happy birthday,” said his father.
Andy Rain hugged and kissed his mother, then turned and allowed himself to be picked up by his father. Another hug. Another kiss. He loved them. He loved them both so much and his feelings seemed a terrible threat.
Next month Andy would be enrolled in first grade, but for the next week or two things went along just the way they were supposed to. Gary Rain would take his son out to play catch, swim, go canoeing, even fishing. When winter came, his daddy promised, he would teach Andy how to ski. The whole family would go to see movies on Saturdays, and only once was there a problem with a baby-sitter. It was a girl named Tammy Saulter, and the only problem was that, after Andy was put to bed, she disappeared. Andy, upon questioning, could add nothing to that. He had a bruise on his back and shoulder and his mom asked him about it. Andy had shrugged and said it must have happened when Dad had taken him to the playground in the park where he played some pretty rough games with Larry and Ted.
The police never did find Tammy Saulter. She was listed as a runaway and forgotten. Six weeks later the garbage disposal in the Rain household had to be replaced. It had simply burned out. That was two days after the equally mysterious disappearance of teenage neighborhood bully, Toby Yuker. Toby had been the terror of all the neighborhood kids. Even the parents in the neighborhood were afraid of him. Everyone assumed, and prayed, that Toby had run off the same as Tammy Saulter. Some suspected that they had even run off together.
In a few days he would be at school. Andy had made up his mind that school was going to be different for him than it had been for a distantly remembered Billy Stark. Billy had spent what seemed like hundreds of years in school, unprepared, unable to concentrate, feeling inadequate, and like an unwanted stranger. He had quit school when he was in his second year of high school. Each failing grade had been a judgment on himself that seemed to reflect what the universe had been dishing out, and reflected as well his view of himself. Andy Rain, however, had a different view. He also knew how to read, write, do numbers, and lots of other things. He wanted to experience doing well in school; to be the one who got the gold stars and medals.
Around him there were other things in the news. There was a new president, an entire world in the throes of momentous changes, and occupying the attention of the local law enforcement community, there was the capture, trial, and conviction of gang boss “Bear” Brandt. He had been sentenced to life without parole for complicity in the murder of his lawyer, thus becoming Captain Rain’s most celebrated guest.
They talked a lot about Bear Brandt around the Rain family table. Brandt was a very bad man, possibly responsible for as many as a hundred deaths, although all they could prove was one. His gang was one of the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful in the state. It was no coincidence that the guard staff at the prison had been beefed up by the addition of six more officers.
The first day of school came, and Andy’s mom drove him there and made sure he got to his first class. Andy Rain entered the room feeling apart from everyone, but eager to begin. He really was getting to do it all over again. The failure, fear, and despair were behind him. Here he could succeed.
In his class were the twins, Larry and Ted Parsons, and Lettie Hayes. The twins were very neat in matching yellow and brown jerseys and corduroys while Lettie had on a red and white dress with a tiny matching wrist bag. Andy’s teacher was Miss Douglas, a young woman with long brown hair and, to Andy, the world’s most engaging smile.
His desk was next to Lettie’s. There was penmanship, spelling, arithmetic, then lunch and recess. Andy went out to recess feeling very good about being able to answer the teacher’s questions, at being able to do all the work, to see his first gold star go up on the wall. He excelled, too, at the playground sports organized for recess. To his utter amazement, he found himself popular. It was glorious. Then he saw Lettie Hayes crying. She was by the swings, her dress filthy from the playground soil.
“What happened, Lettie?”
The girl looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. “That boy!” She pointed toward a third grader who was standing in the entrance going back to the classrooms. He was talking to two other boys and they were laughing among themselves. “I was on the swing playing and that boy pushed me so hard I fell out and hurt my knees. I hate him.” She lifted the front of her dress and looked at her scraped knees.
She looked at her wrist, then at the ground, and around beneath the swings. She turned and looked at the boy and the boy was looking back, dangling her wrist bag by a dirty finger.
Andy seemed to drift in and out of the past, images of a little boy being beaten up and robbed, the bully smirking at him, laughing.
“What do you want, kid?”
Andy brought his mind back to the present and saw that he was standing in front of the boy who had Lettie’s wrist bag. He held out his hand and looked up into the boy’s face “Give me the bag.”
The boy raised his eyebrows and laughed. “Get lost.”
Andy didn’t move. “Give me the bag,” he repeated.
Then the boy looked angry and shoved Andy, making him fall on his backside. “Get lost, kid, before you get hurt.”
Andy stood up, ironed all emotion from his voice, and said, “Hand over that bag, you ugly little bastard, or I’ll glide on you in the night and leave six inches of steel through your heart.”
The boy and his two friends looked stunned. Andy took the bag from the boy’s hand, turned, and walked away. Four steps, five, and Andy could hear Ted shouting at him from across the playground, trying to warn him. Lettie was also screaming. Andy, however, was listening to the footsteps, breaths, and grunts coming from behind. At the exact moment, he stooped over, turned, and drove his head into the boy’s groin.
The boy screamed and gasped as he writhed on the ground. Andy bent over the boy and said to him quietly, “This was just a warning. The next time, no warning. I just kill you.”
“What’s going on here?” demanded the teacher with the duty. He was a thin man with even thinner hair. He was peering through thick glasses at the boy on the ground. “Leon? What happened?”
“I think Leon tripped, Mr. Fontana,” said another teacher. It was Miss Douglas. “What about it, Leon?” Her eyes were narrowed and an evil grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. Leon was still clutching his crotch and writhing on the ground. She whispered at him, “C’mon, Leon. Did you trip, or should we take this little first grader in to the principal for beating you up?”
“I tripped,” he muttered. Leon struggled to his feet, dried his eyes with the back of his hand, and limped with tiny steps toward the building, still holding his crotch with both hands. Miss Douglas looked after him, then patted Andy on his shoulder, and headed back inside. Mr. Fontana scowled for a moment, then turned and resumed observing the children playing. Andy handed the bag back to Lettie and went into the academic building to get away from everyone.