Guardian (11 page)

“Behind that picture of the wrestler.”

Rolan Thunder. I felt like he'd been trying to tell me something
. “And you parked that van on my street and listened.”

“Yes.”

“And you were”—I almost choke with anger—“answering my prayers, putting stuff in my locker at school, following me everywhere … e-mailing me.”

“I decided to cut that short. I wasn't sure if you could trace me that way. Hunter, you have to understand why—”

“No! I don't. You've kidnapped me. You've been taking advantage of me ever since my father died and you showed up at his funeral.”

“He wasn't your father.” He offers me the bowl. “Why don't you try some of this?”

The door is open. I wonder if I just surprise him and run for it, how far could I get? No. Better wait for a really good opportunity. He can't guard me forever.

“I did everything to protect you, don't you see? I didn't like what those people were doing to you.”

“But you made me think I was going crazy. Pretending to be my guardian angel—”

“But I am, Hunter. In a way I am.” He can see I'm not going to accept the muck, which appears to be canned beef stew. He sets it on the floor, and, immediately, a big fluffy cat pushes her way in and starts eating. “My name really is Gabriel,” he is telling me. “Gabriel Salvatore. You can look at my driver's license.”

Now when I get to a phone I can tell the cops his name. Excellent.

“Good kitty,” he says absently, petting the cat. His gesture is so gentle it totally confuses me.

“Did you come into my bedroom when I was four?” I ask.

His dark eyes sparkle. “You remember that?”

I start shaking again. “You said you were my guardian angel even then.”

“I said something like that. You misunderstood me.”

“Why?” My voice rises to a wail. “Why would you track me all my life?”

“What I told you that night was that I was trying to become your legal guardian. So your mother couldn't ditch you into foster care like she wanted to.”

The cat finishes the stew and jumps into the tub to play with the drip. The music pounds my brain. I already know everything he is about to tell me. My bones know.

“I let you down, Hunter. I couldn't get custody because of all the mistakes I'd made. And then, I really was going to follow you all your life and watch out for you, but something else happened and I couldn't get to you until now.”

I want to ask him all kinds of questions to keep him from telling me the central fact that is slowly invading my brain like a spreading stain. “You've been in jail, haven't you?”

He lowers his head.

“What for?”

“Your mother. How could she give up a great little boy like you? You were a terrific little boy, Hunter. I got mad at her. I got so mad when I found out she'd signed you away to the state.”

“Mad like just now when you got mad at Stephanie.” That explains the long prison sentence. I wonder why on earth they didn't make it longer. I feel like crying for someone, but I don't know if it's me or Stephanie or maybe my real mother, who I can't even remember. And now I'll never see her.

“The song is from Beethoven,” he says. “It was adapted with these lyrics by some Italian guy. I don't know anything about music, but when I was … in prison, my roommate was a genius. He knew a lot about music. He gave me this song like a gift. I listened to it again and again, so I would never forget my mission. To find you when I got out.”

I'm too tired to fight it, the fact that's coming at me like a giant meteor.

“It's called ‘Lost Son.' It's about a father whose son is captured by the elf king. The father is too late and can't save his son. ‘Figlio Perduto.'”

I'm silent. My head is down. The music swirls around me like a drowning pool.

“We have to get out of Fort Lauderdale, Hunter. They'll be coming for me. They'll be looking for you.”

I begin to cry. It starts slowly and then it heaves and flows, like when you're really sick and puking your guts out. I don't know if I'm crying because I think they will never come looking for me and my father. Or because I think they will.

Chapter 11

“Figlio Perduto” plays on an endless loop. It appears to be Gabriel Salvatore's own custom-burned CD—eleven tracks of “Figlio Perduto.” The last track always cuts off at “Papa, oh, Papa!” before cycling back to the beginning.
Papa, oh, Papa, please turn that thing off!

We left Fort Lauderdale around six this morning. I was sleepy and it seemed unreal, being marched out to the van in total silence, like some guy in a prison movie. When I get into the van I see he's bought coffee and a dozen doughnuts, and, even more disorienting, he's brought along the cat, who is stretched out on the floor in the back. But just when I think I'm really in an episode of
The Brady Bunch
entitled “Goes on the Road,” I notice he's removed the door handle on my side.

It's noon now and we're going north on I-95. No sign of those Amber Alert notices that are supposed to save the day for kids like me. I wonder if anyone's even found Stephanie yet. If she's dead. If she's not dead, she'd report me missing, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she?

We're passing through the exit signs for Daytona Beach now.

“Come on, Hunter,” he says. “You must have to go to the bathroom now.”

True. In fact, I'm about to explode. I look over at him. I notice he didn't shave this morning. I wonder if he's growing a beard to hide his identity. “Will you let me go by myself?”

He looks at me. His eyes look a lot like mine. “Eventually, of course, but right now I don't trust you. We just don't know each other.”

“All the more reason to not go to the bathroom together!” I blurt. Okay, I'm a shy guy. Sue me.

He chuckles. “You'd never make it in prison.”

“Well, up till now that wasn't in my career plans anyway.”
Jeez, I'm talking and I can't shut up
.

But again, he just laughs. “It's never in anybody's plans, Hunter.”

He cuts off the engine, stopping the hideous song. “Okay, tell you what. You can start earning my trust right now.” He takes out his wallet. “Go to the bathroom and buy us some lunch. I can see everything from here. If you do all that nicely, maybe we can loosen up the rules. Is that fair?”

“That's totally fair,” I say, trying to think fast. “Thank you.”

“But I'm watching. If I see you saying something to the lady in there or acting weird or anything, then we're gonna have to do this whole thing differently. Okay?”

Differently. Hog-tied and drugged? Beaten senseless
? I really don't want to know. “Thanks.” I take his money and wait for him to open my door.

Shaking, I push open the heavy glass door. Bathroom door, visible from van, straight back, lady at the counter, paying no attention to me, to my right. I'm looking, as I walk the preciously short distance, for something to write with. Lots of food here, but no office supplies. I don't even see lipstick or anything. I go on into the restroom, defeated.

But while I'm in there, I think, the counter lady has to have a pen because people are using charge cards. Can I write a note on my money right in front of her? How long could I take before he'd see what I was doing?

I look at the walls around me, all the information about who loves whom and who sux, and think if just one of those guys had left his pen or marker behind, I'd have some hope.

On the way out of the bathroom, I see the pens. They were at the end of the rack, where I couldn't see them on my way in. I snag one without even thinking. Guess Dad is right, how easy it is to become a criminal. I walk around the back of a rack, pretending to look at potato chips, my heart working like a jackhammer, rip the pen out of its paper backing (harder than it should be), and scribble on my money,
Help FL#006HVN
. Even though my body is in a total panic, I have a strange sense of calm and precision as I pick up fruit, wrapped sandwiches, and chips. I glance outside and see my father watching me attentively and not looking at all disturbed.

The woman behind the counter smiles at me. She has the vague expression of a complete idiot, but I refuse to be discouraged. I slide my bill to her and say, “Here's my money!” Surely that will sound weird to her but not look weird through glass.

She picks it up and it slides into the cash register drawer. She starts counting out change.
Oh, come on!
“Hey,” I say, “did I give you a ten or a twenty?”

“Huh?” The drawer is open, my cry for help staring up at her.

“The
bill
I gave you. Was that a ten or a twenty?”

She doesn't look. “It was a twenty.” She counts out the change. I walk back to my jailer with my sack of groceries. Still, my note is out there somewhere. Maybe somebody will see it eventually.

I can open the door from the outside.

“What'd you get?” he asks. “I'm starved.”

“I don't know.” I really can't hide my disappointment.

He paws through it, picks some meat out of a sandwich, and feeds it to the cat. “Thanks, Hunter. I'm really proud of you.”

“What?”

“I watched you. You didn't say anything to her. It was a test. I … Hunter, I know I'm taking you against your will and everything, but I know once we've been together awhile, it won't be like that. Once you give me a chance. You weren't happy in that other home. I'm your father. Isn't this really the best place for you to be?”

“I don't know,” I say honestly as he starts up the car.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, that's a start. I don't expect you to feel comfortable with me right away. But I … I picture … eventually we'll be like a real father and son. Shouldn't we have a chance to do that?”

Part of me wants to agree with him. “I don't know.”

“If there's something I can do, like just now, showing some trust in you. If there's something I can do to make this easier for you, tell me.”

Now I feel sort of bad about the note. No, I don't. Yes, I do. This whole thing is making me mad. “Well, for one thing, you could turn off that CD! It's driving me out of my mind!”

I think to myself, now I'm going to get it. But he just looks sort of hurt for a minute and then kind of smiles. “Okay,” he says. “I don't need it anyway. You're not lost anymore.” He pulls it out of the slot and rolls down his window. “Fresh start.” He pushes the radio button and Pitbull comes on with “Secret Admirer.” Much better.

He smiles at me. I find myself smiling back. “Anything else?” he asks.

I unwrap my sandwich. “What's your cat's name?”

He's looking at the highway now and his smile gets bigger. “Cowboy. And he's our cat.”

“And where are we going?”

“I don't know yet. We're looking for a place to make a home.”

I keep quiet for a long time after that. Partly because I want to cry and partly because I'm having this huge argument with myself. If someone wants to finally give me a home after thirteen years, why would I want to get away from them?

We turn west on Route 10 and get as far as Winfield, Florida, before we're both worn out and tired of having the sun in our eyes. We find a Holiday Inn and have burgers and fries and take the leftovers back to our room, where I feed some of them to Cowboy, while my new father fiddles with the TV.

“You have a favorite show?” he asks.

I keep catching myself staring at him. He's really tall and I wonder if I have a shot at turning out that way—some guys have a big growth spurt in high school, I've heard. He moves like me, in some kind of way I can't even put into words. I know before he does it what he'll do with his hands, where his eyes will look next.

“It's Monday night,” I say, climbing up onto the bed. “
RAW
is on.”

He turns around, confused, like he thinks it's a porn show, and then says, “Oh! Wrestling! That's right, you like that stuff, don't you?”

You should know. You used Rolan Thunder's poster to hide your microphone
. “Yeah. I used to watch it with my foster father.”

“Mike,” he says. He's always eager to show me he knows stuff about me. At this moment it's more flattering than creepy.

“Yeah. We had all these females in the house and Mike and I, you know, when we needed to just have guy time, we learned that if you turn on wrestling, the women tend to clear the room.”

He laughs, looking at the screen where Johnny Come Lately is walking up and down the ring with a microphone. The crowd is booing so loud you can hardly hear what he's saying. My father settles on the bed next to me. He peers at the screen like there's going to be a quiz on this material. “That's Rolan Thunder there, right?” he says hopefully.

“No,” I say. “This is a jerk.”

Cowboy jumps on the bed and curls up between us. I try not to hear
The Brady Bunch
song in my head.

“What do you like about Rolan Thunder?” Dad asks.

I wish he'd stop this kind of stuff because it's touching. And I think it's hypnotizing me, keeping me from realizing this situation can't work and I should be making a run for it as we speak. “Well, he's got this sort of I-don't-care persona. Like everyone else is so intense and yelling and growling and he's all mellow … but then he gets in the ring and he's all action and speed and kicking guys in the jaw.…”

He stuffs some cold fries into his mouth. “That sounds like me,” he says, almost to himself.

I decide not to answer that. We watch for a while and it's clear he likes it. He laughs in all the right places. He definitely likes when the divas come out. I notice something weird, looking at his hands. They look exactly like mine. The shape of the fingers, the shape of the nails, even the way his hand is positioned, resting on his knee, it's the image of my hand. I've never known this. In all my life, never known anyone who was related to me. I think this is something regular kids take for granted because it's just there in front of them, but it's like … until you know there's someone on Earth who's like you … you're never sure you're okay as a person.