All The Glory (29 page)

“You sure we need to do this?” he asked.

“Yep, I’m sure.” My heart was beating way too fast. “Come on, let’s go before I lose my nerve.”

Bobby linked his arm in mine and marched up the stairs, fearless in pink and purple.

When we got to the top, I stopped him before he could open the door. “I love you, you know.”

He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I know you do. Come on, Gucky-Duck. Let’s go find that kid.”

Chapter Forty-Six

I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM AT first. He’d shaved all his hair off, leaving just a light fuzz behind.

“There he is,” I said, gesturing with my chin at the kid sitting in a pew just a few rows up from us on the other side of the aisle.

“I don’t see any ‘fros over there,” Bobby said, scanning the crowd.

The preacher was saying something about loving your neighbor, his voice booming out over the small congregation. I ignored him, totally focusing all my attention on the kid.

“He cut his hair,” I whispered.

Everyone stood up all of a sudden and started hugging each other. Bobby and I slowly got to our feet and just looked confused. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around.

“God loves you, child,” said a lady in bright purple behind me. And then she leaned in and enveloped me in a heavily-perfumed embrace, her bosom nearly suffocating me.

“Thanks,” I said, “… uh, God loves you too.”

She let me go and beamed at me. “That he does, that he does.” She held her arms open for Bobby. “God loves you too, sweet pea.”

Bobby grinned. “He does?” He tried to just shake her hand, but she grabbed it and pulled him in for a bosom-suffocation instead. “Indeed he does. He loves every last one of us sinners.”

“Oh, I’m not a sinner,” Bobby said, “I’m just gay.”

She let him go and put her hands on either side of his face, pushing his cheeks in so hard it made his mouth pucker up. “We’re all sinners and it doesn’t have anything to do with who we’re sleeping with, child. Every day you wake up, you probably sin again and again, but God loves you anyway. Have a blessed day.” And then she was off to hug her neighbors behind her and give them a little boobie suffocation action too while she was at it.

Bobby looked at me, barely containing his laughter. “God loves you, Katy.”

I wanted to laugh along with him, but for some reason the sentiment was messing me up. I wanted Jason to be here, to feel this, to experience this. I decided then and there that I would make that happen, even if he fought me on it. Before he went away to prison for life, he would come to this church and get a hug from the big-boobied purple dress lady.

The preacher said something about services next week and then everyone started filing out of the pews.

Panic set in. “We have to get over to him!” I said in a whisper-shout. “He’s leaving!”

Bobby stood up super straight and side-stepped over to the end of our row. I held onto his shirt as he made his way past everyone.

“Excuse me, pardon me, coming through,” he said. “Thank you, oh, I’m sorry, was that your toe? Oh my god, I love your hat! So cute! Excuse me, need some fresh air, pardon me…” And so it went until we were outside the doors in a crowd of people chatting in small groups.

“Where’d he go?” I asked, standing on my tiptoes, scanning the front lawn of the church.

“There!” Bobby said, pointing off to our right.

The boy was walking with an older lady, leaving the church, headed down the sidewalk.

We followed without any further discussion.

“Operation stalking a child has now officially commenced,” Bobby said under his breath as we walked down the cracked and uneven sidewalk.

“Shut up, I’m not stalking anyone. I just want to talk to him.”

“So go up to him and talk. He’s right there.” Bobby made a sweeping gesture with his hand like he was bowling.

“Shhhhh, not so loud. I don’t want him to hear us.”

Bobby put his hand on my arm to stop me. “I don’t get it. Why aren’t you going up there to talk to him now? Why are we just following him?”

I brushed him off and started walking again. “I need to wait until he’s alone.”

Bobby caught up to me, talking in a sing-song voice. “Aaaand the creepy just keeps getting creeeeepier.”

I ignored him and everything else around us, totally focused on getting this kid’s address. We were rewarded a couple minutes later when he turned up a small driveway and went through a chain link fence that ringed the house before disappearing inside with the woman.

I stopped and held my arm out so Bobby would stop too. “Memorize this address,” I said, staring at the number on the outside of the house. “Fifty-three Shady Oak Drive.”

“Got it. Now what?” Bobby was looking up and down the street. “This isn’t the nicest neighborhood in the world, you know.”

I chewed my lip as I considered our next move. “I don’t know what to do next. Wait?”

“Wait? For what?”

“I don’t know … for something to happen.”

“Seriously?” Bobby moved to cut off my line of vision. “That’s your plan? Stand out here on the sidewalk and wait?”

The door to the house opened, and I had to shift to the side to see who was coming out over Bobby’s shoulder.

“That’s him!” I said in a loud whisper. “He’s outside!”

Bobby twisted his head to look for himself. “Wow. Your non-plan actually worked. Color me impressed.”

I slapped him on the arm with the back of my hand. “Come on. Let’s follow him.”

The kid turned left, heading away from us. Thank goodness, because I didn’t think my next idea — to act casual by staring up at the sky and whistling — would have worked. He looked pretty street-smart.

“Are we going to catch up to him?” Bobby asked. We had to hustle; the kid was moving fast.

“No, not yet.” I really had no idea what I was going to do, figuring the universe or God would somehow point me in the right direction at exactly the right time. So far, so good.

There was a basketball court up ahead, and the boy started to slow.

“Maybe he’s going to play basketball,” Bobby said. He slowed down too, breathing kind of heavily. “Good thing, because I was almost out of gas.”

“Man, you’re out of shape.” It felt good to be able to say that. I wasn’t even winded or sweating yet. Score!

“Not everyone has a personal trainer making him work out every single day, excuse you very much.”

I grinned, thinking of Jason as my personal trainer. He was that and more.

When the boy got to the basketball court, his head dropped and he sped up.

“What’s he doing?” Bobby whined. “Why is he going faster?”

“Shhh, just keep following.”

When it got to the point that I had to jog to keep up, the kid turned around and saw me. A look of panic crossed his face and he ran faster.

“I can’t … I can’t …” Bobby dropped back, panting like a dog.

“Go back to the car!” I said without looking behind me. “I’ll meet you back there!” As the kid picked up speed, so did I.

Adrenaline fueled my legs and kept me going, even when normally I probably would have been gasping for air. Even with all my workouts, I wasn’t exactly prepared to beat a twelve-year-old in an all-out sprint through a neighborhood I didn’t know.

When he got so far ahead I was afraid I’d lose him, I shouted, “Wait! I just want to talk to you!”

The kid looked over his shoulder at me but kept on running. If anything, he went faster.

“I’m not going to hurt you! I just want to talk!”

He kept going.

“Jesus Christ, you’re too fast! I want to talk to you about Jason!”

The kid tripped on a bump in the sidewalk and fell forward, catching himself with his hands and then falling to the side as he cried out and rolled over. He was in the process of trying to get up and escape, but his hands and feet didn’t look like they wanted to cooperate. He kept falling until I got there and stopped just behind him.

“I swear,” I said between gasps for air, “I’m not going to touch you. I just …”
Gasp, gasp, gasp,
“…want to talk.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you!”

He said it with anger, but I heard a tremor to his voice and his eyes filled with tears too.

I ignored those tears. It’s not that I was happy he’d fallen, but it energized me, sending a surge of excitement through my chest; at least now I felt like I would have some answers.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me? I thought Jason was your friend.”

The kid slowly got to his feet, his nostrils flaring and his lips pressed together. His chin trembled. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just stared at me mutinously.

I took off my hat and my sunglasses and rolled them up together. The boy’s facial expression relaxed just the tiniest bit, but when I removed the elastic from my hair and put it in my pocket, he started to talk.

“It’s you.”

I blinked a few times, waiting for him to finish. But that’s all he was going to say apparently, because he just stood there staring at me.

“My name is Katy.”

“Yeah, you’re that girl with the crazy last name. Like Gookeyburgers or something.”

“Guckenberger, actually. Yeah, that’s me. I’m Jason’s friend.”

The boy looked down at the ground, his face contorting several times. It finally stopped on the expression of someone supremely sad.

“You’re Jason’s friend too,” I said. “He told me.” I figured a little white lie wouldn’t hurt, but boy, was I wrong.

The kid lifted his head immediately and glared at me, angry tears falling out of the outside corners of his mouth. “He told you?!”

I backed up a step or two, surprised by the fury I saw there. The boy’s arms were rigid at his sides and his hands clenched in fists.

I held up my hands in surrender. “Hey, ease up, little man, he didn’t tell me anything. I just saw some pictures of you two together, before … well, before all that stuff happened with the coach, and I figured...”

“What stuff?” The kid was still angry.

“Uhhh …,” I looked at him like he wasn’t all there, because of course that’s what he was acting like, “… the stuff where Jason accidentally killed him?”

“Oh.” The boy looked down at the ground again. “Oh.”

“Oh.” I was mimicking him, hoping it would prompt him to say more, but once again, my shit wasn’t working.

“So, are you friends with him or was I wrong about that?”

The boy started to walk away, but I walked with him, working hard to stay shoulder-to-shoulder. He stared at the ground the entire time, his chin almost to his chest.

“Hello? Is anybody in there?” I leaned down to try and catch his eye, but he wasn’t going for it.

“I thought you were friends because he spent a lot of time with you at the Boys’ Center and there were all those pictures of you together and he seemed to really think you were someone special.”

The boy said nothing, but his speed relaxed just the tiniest bit.

“I know you’ve heard a lot of bad things about Jason in the news, but I just wanted you to know that he’s not a bad person. He’s just a guy who made a big mistake.”

“I know he’s not a bad person,” the kid said. He spoke so softly, I barely heard it, but the words were clear.

“When I was little, Jason once saved my friend from some bullies.”

The kid looked at me for a split second and then went back to staring at the ground. I took that as a sign to continue.

“See, my friend is gay, so these other kids were being mean to him, and Jason made them back off.”

“I’m not gay!” the kid yelled at me. His fury was back.

I frowned at him. “Dude, chillax, no one said you were gay.”

The boy shook his head and sped up once more. “I have to go,” he said. “See ya later.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, no way that easily dissuaded. I’d trained for this moment for months, running a thousand miles on that damn elliptical machine. No way was I going to let this kid just disappear now.

“Don’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

He sighed. “It’s Leonard.”

I laughed.

The boy slowed down and looked at me, confused. “You laughing at my name?”
 
He stopped and I followed suit.

I shrugged. “You have a lot of nerve mocking Guckenburger when your name is Leonard.”

He was about to get all mad at me for a second, I could see the fury crossing his features, but then it all fell away and he smiled just a tiny bit. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Gookeyburger. I got named after my grandad and he’s real old.”

I knocked him in the shoulder. “That’s Guckenberger,
Leonard
.”

“My friends call me Leo.”

“Leo the lion. Fearless.” I nodded. “Cool.”

He dropped his gaze to the ground. “I ain’t fearless.”

“Meh, who is?” I shrugged. “Everyone’s scared shitless every once in a while.”

He looked up and frowned. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you shouldn’t swear around kids?”

“Nope. I consider swear words like salt and pepper. They spice things up a bit, make ‘em tastier.” I glanced around the neighborhood, wondering if I was being watched. “Just don’t tell anyone I said that. I’ll lose my babysitting license.” Not that I babysat kids, but it did strike me that the way I was running after this boy and interrogating him with my spicy words didn’t speak well for my maturity level. Maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying
shitless
.

“Jason’s never scared,” the boy said. “He’s fearless, just like a lion.”

I nodded. “I know what you mean. He’s like … completely tough.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t violent.”

The defense of Jason I heard coming through in his tone made me want to dance and sing, but I kept it cool. My eyebrows came together in a thoughtful pose and I nodded slowly. “Yeah, he’s actually pretty gentle. He’s been helping me work out.” I gestured to my body. “I used to weigh like thirty pounds more and be all fat and he’s slowly helped me get stronger and faster.”

He nodded. “You’re pretty fast for a girl, that’s for sure.”

I grinned. “Thanks. You’re pretty fast yourself, though.”

He glanced up the street. “I gotta go.”

I stood there watching him walk off, kind of stunned that he just ended the conversation without any of the normal segues, but then I followed. I’d come all this way, there was just no way I could let it end without
getting to the bottom of things.