Page 25

Malcolm

Nineteen Years Ago

My body felt heavy, and like the last few times I tried, I couldn’t open my eyes more than halfway. I thought maybe someone had strapped bricks to them. Maybe one of the people who took me from the park. Did my mom know I was missing yet? Had she found my bike? They’d left it flipped on its side in the dirt. I remembered the back wheel spinning as they carried me away. Everything went black after that.

We were moving. I could hear the engine roaring, and my back hurt with every bump in the road we drove over. I groaned, trying again to open my eyes. My mouth tasted funny, and my neck still burned in the spot where the big man had stuck me with a needle.

Through the fog in my head, I tried to remember what happened. Tried to make sense of it.

I’d been talking to a nice lady who’d complimented the nameplate hanging from my bike seat. It read: Piano Man. I’d saved up my allowance for it. She said her son played and would love to know where she could buy him one. She kept smiling as my answer to her simple request turned into a history lesson on Martha Argerich—child prodigy and my favorite pianist.

My mother always said it’d be a waste of time trying to lure me away with candy or cash. Classical music was the way to my heart.

Somewhere between my comparison of Martha and a few of the other historical greats, the lady’s smile turned mean, and she told the man who’d then grabbed me from behind to hurry and get me into the truck. I could still smell his cigarette smoke on me, could still feel his meaty hand over my mouth.

“Shhh,” a small voice whispered. I froze, noticing I couldn’t move my arms. “They’ll give you more medicine if they know you’re awake.” The voice belonged to a little kid. A boy, I guessed. I tried to scream, but my tongue felt heavy too.

The truck stopped. “They’re coming,” he whispered. He sounded afraid.

I blinked awake, my vision blurry and eyes stinging. I tried to rub them but my hands were tied behind my back. I pulled at the rope binding me, but it wouldn’t budge. Fear filled my empty stomach, and then every other part of me once my vision cleared. I wasn’t alone.

Up against the wall across from me, six girls—bound and gagged as well—trembled and cried. Their tears spilled over the silver tape covering their mouths.

I remembered the little boy who’d spoken to me. Where was he? Had they heard him speak to me? I scanned the damp space for him, finding him a few feet away from me. His terrified eyes were already on me. They were dark, watery and too big for his small face. Something about his helplessness bothered me, it made me want to get us out of here.

I leaned into the water pipes at my back, using them to push myself to my feet. I ended up slipping on the uneven floor and falling sideways onto my left shoulder.

My muffled scream of pain made the others stare at me with panicked eyes, like they were begging me to be quiet. It made me more afraid than I already was, because what happened if we weren’t quiet?

“They’ll give you more medicine if they know you’re awake.”

I managed to sit up again, glancing over at the little boy. His cheeks were soaked with his tears, his breathing too loud. I scooted closer. It was the only thing I could do for him.

We’d been separated from the girls. Maybe because we were the youngest, or because we were the only boys. Maybe both. They huddled close together like they knew each other, and they all wore the same Columbia University t-shirts.

I focused on our surroundings next. We were in a basement. The overhead lights buzzed and flickered, and a bug floated in the dirty puddle of water near a drain. One of the pipes above my head leaked, dripping water onto my good shoulder.

Our eyes snapped to the ceiling at the sound of footsteps, none of our breaths were quiet now.

The metal door up ahead screeched open, two large men dressed in dark clothes and boots stepped through. I looked at the little boy again. A wet stain was spreading over the front of his khaki pants.

The woman from the park entered the basement next. I had to tense up hard to keep from peeing on myself too.

She’d worn a flowery dress earlier while reading a book on a bench, and her long blonde hair had been pinned back by yellow clips. She looked nothing like that now. She wore all black.

The men looked us over. The girls drew in closer to each other, and without realizing it, I’d moved closer to the little boy too. The lady watched it all.

I didn’t know what was going on, didn’t understand why I’d been kidnapped.

They stopped near the girls first, one man crouching to brush strands of hair away from one of the girls faces. She shrank away, her friends doing the same.

They turned to me and the whimpering little boy next, their faces contorting at the sight of pee on him. The boy cried so hard I worried he’d suffocate if the tape didn’t get removed. I wished I could distract them from him, even though I was crying too.

I couldn’t scream for help, I couldn’t fight, I could hardly breathe. I wondered if my mother was looking for me. I prayed to God, begging him to help us.

“Children are difficult,” the dark-haired man said in a thick accent I’d never heard before. The lady looked between me and the boy, taking in how close to each other we were sitting. Her cruel smile returned.

“Not when they have an incentive to behave.”

“There’s a market for young Americans abroad.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “But there’s an even bigger market for young American boys.”

The men took another look at us.

“Trust me. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

The men seemed to have a silent conversation with each other, because the taller one sighed before going to the far side of the basement to make a call. I couldn’t hear what he said into the phone, but he kept staring over at me and the boy as he talked. The girls were quiet as mice, probably hoping they’d been forgotten about.

“We’ll take him,” he said when he strolled back over, flicking his wrist toward me. I shook my head frantically, tugging at my restraints. My trapped shout made my throat burn. “And him,” he said next, gesturing to the little boy who began shaking in terror.

“And them,” he added, pointing to the two youngest looking girls. The space erupted with our muted screams and thrashing.

“Get them ready while we arrange payment and transport,” the other man said to the lady. She nodded, escorting them through the door while I went back to my prayers.

The four of us were on the move again, and I wondered what would happen to the girls the men didn’t want.

We were in the back of a smaller truck now, speeding down a quiet road. They’d removed the tape from our mouths, so I assumed we were passing through a deserted area where our screams wouldn’t be heard.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been missing for. What if I’d been unconscious for days before waking inside that basement? I was thirsty enough for that to be true. The bottled waters they’d tossed into the truck with us hadn’t done much to quench my thirst. One of the girls whispered something about the drugs they’d injected us with dehydrating us. Her mom was a doctor, she’d said.

I hadn’t touched my bread roll. The queasy feeling in my stomach made it hard to eat.

It was dark out now, the air too cool for a Brooklyn summer night, and somewhere in the distance an animal howled.

They’d swapped the ropes on our wrists for cuffs. A second set at the end of a chain locked our ankles together. The girls were shaking against each other in one corner, and the little boy sat with his knees to his chest close to me. He smelled like pee, but that was the least of our problems.

I struggled to my feet. The loud metallic sound of my chains caused everyone to look at me with wide eyes. Pushing to the tips of my toes—nearly falling when the truck turned a corner—I strained to get a look through the metal grille letting air in. I wasn’t tall enough to see anything below the mountain peak under the moonlit sky.

Mountains. No wonder the temperature felt cooler.

They were all looking at me when I sat back down. I shook my head. “I don’t know where we are,” I whispered. I could’ve mentioned the mountains, but I felt too sad to speak. What would it have mattered anyway?

I picked up my bread for something to do other than cry. I spun it around in my hands, noticing the boy scoot even closer. His watery eyes moved from me to the roll of bread in my hands. I held it out to him.

He snatched it from me, his hunger making him impatient. He took a couple of bites before he slowed down, hardly chewing before swallowing. Turning red, he looked down at the half eaten roll then back to me.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, closing my eyes and dropping my chin to my chest. Something bumped against my chained hands, and I opened my eyes to see a corner of the bread resting in my lap.

“If you don’t eat your blood sugar will drop,” he whispered.

“Is your mom a doctor too?”

“No, my mom played the violin.” The mention of an instrument made the back of eyes sting, but I forced down a piece of the bread.

“What’s your name?” I asked a short while later, tired of referring to him in my head as “the little boy.”

“Asher Gray,” he breathed, his eyelids drooping. They popped open again when we hit another bump. “What’s your name?”

“Malcolm.” I thought about my grandpa, who called me Mally for short. I wondered how he’d handled the news of my disappearance. He and my mother would’ve been at the police precinct raising hell by now.

“Malcolm?” Asher called in a tiny voice. Leaving thoughts of my family behind, I stared into his puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Are we gonna die?” He watched me like I had all the answers, like he’d believe whatever I believed. He needed hope, but I didn’t feel all that hopeful. Maybe I could pretend to be for him, though.

“No,” I said. “We’re not going to die.”

Asher yawned, resting his head against the wall of the truck, falling asleep. The girls were sleeping too, their arms and legs twitching.

I brought Asher’s head to my good shoulder, and he stretched out his legs, settling into my side. I woke sometime later to the sound of the ocean, and sunlight pouring into the truck.

Two men I’d never seen before forced us onto a cargo ship, shoving us past rows of stacked containers before dragging us—kicking and screaming—down a set of stairs.

“Let us go!” I yelled while Asher cried hysterically. I heard the girls shouting for help, but I could no longer see them.

The two men dumped us into a room, ignoring our pleas to go home, then a third man stepped in. He was smaller than the other two, but seemed more important. The two men who’d hauled us in flanked him.

The suit he wore hid his muscles, but I could see the shape of them through his black jacket. I panted from where I’d been tossed to the floor. Asher scurried over to me, gripping my shirt, trembling.

“We’ll take the chains off if you promise to behave,” the third man said from behind dark sunglasses. The tattooed wing of a bird peeked out from the collar of his shirt. “Make me regret it, and I’ll punish you both.”

Asher whimpered, burying his face in my shoulder. One of the men stepped forward with a small key, removing the cuffs from Asher first before moving on to me with a warning glare.

“W-where are you taking us?” I stammered, rubbing my sore wrists. “Why won’t you let us go?” I hated that Asher had to see me that way. I got to my knees. “M-my mom will give you money. We have a lot of it,” I lied.

The man in the suit turned for the door, signaling for the other men to follow him out. The sound of a bolt sliding into place made me flinch. I sank to the floor, a hand to my stomach as I tried not to puke.

“I have to use the bathroom,” Asher panted, still wearing his stained khakis.

A few minutes later the door opened again. The two men returned, one carrying two pails of water and washcloths, the other a bucket and a roll of toilet paper. They set everything down before locking us in again.

Asher was too busy crying into his hands to notice me doing the same. I let my tears flow quietly, letting my fear get the best of me.

Drying my eyes with my filthy shirt, I scanned the tiny room. Two sleeping bags, a lantern, and a small stack of clothes rested in a corner. For now, sunlight filtered in from a small porthole too high for me to see through, but the lantern would come in handy at night.

My body grew heavy as I became more afraid. Where were they taking us? I turned back to Asher to find him sniffling, staring at me through swollen eyes.

“W-what do we do now?” he asked.

“Let’s, uh,” I glanced at the bucket and pails of water, “get cleaned up. My mom says feeling refreshed helps sometimes.” It never worked for me, but he didn’t need to know that.

Taking a deep breath, Asher pushed his hair from his sweaty face and wobbled to his feet. He stared at the bucket and pails, and I thought he might cry again.

“We’re going to get out of this.” I rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll make it back home.”

Asher’s bottom lip quivered. “I don’t have a home.” He took cautious steps over to the bucket, and I moved to the opposite side of the room, facing away from him. What did he mean he didn’t have a home? Did he mean he lived in an apartment? I did too, but I still called it home. It was where I felt safest, where the two people I loved most loved me back. It didn’t need to be an actual house to be called a home.

“They left clothes next to the sleeping bags,” I said over my shoulder.

Asher’s sniffling continued as he peed into the bucket. “Don’t turn around.”

“I won’t.” The sound of him removing his clothes and shoes reached my ears.

“Finished,” he said a while later. The long sleeve shirt brushed his knees, and he’d rolled up the legs of the sweatpants several times. I guessed they weren’t used to having little kids on board.

I washed up and changed while he sat on one of the sleeping bags and stared at the wall.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said, shoving the sleeves of the shirt to my elbows. “I can’t see outside, but maybe I can lift you high enough for you to see.”

Asher didn’t move, didn’t give any signs he’d heard me. I knelt in front of him, waving my hand in front of his face. “Hey,” I whispered, and he blinked up at me. He looked paler than he did earlier, making the small mole on his cheek stand out more.

“I don’t feel so good,” he said. We hadn’t set off yet, but the ship did sway a bit.

“Do you have motion sickness?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when you get sick in cars or boats, or rides, or anything that moves, I guess.”

Asher shrugged.

“Do you feel okay enough to look outside? Maybe you can tell where we’re at.” It was a dumb idea. We were just out there not too long ago, and other than being on a deserted pier, I hadn’t known where the heck we were. But maybe there was something I missed. A landmark or something.

Asher nodded, and I grabbed his shoulders when he swayed to his feet. I was taller and bigger than him, but I still only had kid strength. I crouched to wrap my arms around his knees and lifted him, almost sending us both falling to the floor.

“Can you see anything?” I gritted out, trying to keep him still.

“Just water. Lots of water.” Which meant we didn’t have a land view. Asher yelped when we jerked a bit. The ship was pulling away from the pier.

We sank onto our sleeping bags, staring up at the porthole in silence until the sun set and the room went dark. I turned on the lantern, watching Asher with concern. He was gazing at the wall again. I think I preferred it when he cried.

“How old are you?” I whispered. He didn’t answer. “Asher?”

“Huh?” His eyes were sad when he looked at me. They shimmered in the lantern light.

“How old are you?”

“Six—but I’ll be seven the day before Christmas,” he said quickly, like he didn’t want me to think he was a baby.

“I’m twelve, but I’ll be thirteen on Valentine’s Day.” My birthday was months away. Would I still be around by then? “Around,” sounded less scary than “alive.” I breathed through the sick feeling in my stomach.

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked when he faced the wall again.

“Gray.”

“Like your name.”

“No, like the color of storm clouds on a rainy day.” His words sounded dull and recited, like he was repeating something he’d heard tons of times before.

I picked at a loose string on my sleeping bag, watching him watch the wall. “How did they get you?”

“I was walking down the street when the nice lady said hello to me. I was lost. I’d been walking for a while.”

“By yourself? Where was your mom?”

“I’m tired,” he said after a moment of hesitation. Asher slipped between the flaps of his sleeping bag, rolling away from me. He tried to cry quietly but I heard him. The sickness in my belly climbed higher until my throat burned from it. Seeing him sad made my own sadness ten-times worse. I’d always been that way.

“I’m sure your mom is looking for you,” I said after some time had passed. “Between your mom, my mom and my grandpa, and those other girls’ parents, we’ll be found in no time.” I bit my lip to keep it from trembling, and slid inside my sleeping bag too. There wasn’t any noise outside our door. The silence on the ship didn’t match the chaos happening inside of me. I tried to tell myself the bad guys were gone, and that we’d wake up tomorrow, open the door and be free.

“I live in a home for boys,” Asher said, his voice scratchy from all the crying. “My family died in a fire when I was five. I’ve had a few foster moms since then, but no one ever keeps me.” Asher rolled over to face me, then tucked his hands under his cheek. He looked so fragile beneath his big curls and wide eyes. I moved the lantern over an inch so I could see him better, then tucked my hands under my cheek too.

“They’ll think I ran away, because all the boys run away sometimes. But I just wanted to go home. To see if maybe it was fixed. Maybe my mom hadn’t died and she was waiting there for me to come back because she didn’t know where to find me. I would’ve gone back to St. Joseph’s if she wasn’t there. I would’ve had nowhere else to go.” His eyes flooded with tears again. That strange heaviness I sometimes felt when hearing a sad story made it hard to breathe. Asher reached his tiny hand out to me, and I untucked one of mine to take it. His nails were chipped, and he hadn’t gotten all the dirt out from underneath them.

“Are you scared, Malcolm?”

“No.” The need to make him feel safe was bigger than my need to be honest.

“I’m scared too,” he said, seeing right through me. His eyes lids gradually lowered, and his breathing slowed down.

“Hey, Asher,” I whispered in case he’d fully fallen asleep.

“Yeah?” he opened his eyes halfway, his hold on my hand tightening again.

“When we make it out of this, you can come home with me. I’ll keep you.”