True Heroes (54 page)

Chapter 13

             
Benny sat in his chair amongst the usual configuration from David to Alice and back again. His highly-strung boots tapped rapidly on the ground as the green pant legs tucked atop the socks wrinkled and waved with each furled motion. The olive outfit continued up, into, and beneath the cargo vest, dog tags dangling gently with every alternating kick while the smooth helmet on his head shone dull green against the fluorescent halogens. He held a stick of thin white between his lips that gave off no ember or smoke as he removed it and blew out for effect. “The trenches were hell. Murderous, frightening, frozen hell. Rats gnawed out toes while Geris pasted our heads with walls of bullets, mortars, knives, anything they could find. My gun was jammed like clockwork, and the sirens told us when it was time to eat, shit, breathe, or charge to die. It was a full-on mutiny against God; the man upstairs was getting a lot of refunds that day, week, or month, or year, however long we were there. Anybody that kept time was dead before they could mark it, and anybody that cared an inkling about ticks on a damn wall after that, well, maybe God didn’t accept all the refunds after all.”

              Caleb looked around the circle with an amused look on his face. Benny caught him smirking and threw down the fake cigarette, stomping down and sending the candy chunks flying. “War’s hilarious to you boy? You think the world was born free?”

              Alice gave Caleb a smile while the rest of the circle glared at him. “Not funny, no sir.”

              “You ever served, boy?”

              ‘He’s getting uppity.’ “Not enlisted, sir.”

              ‘He’s just in character.’ “Do you find the blood of brave men funny?”

              ‘He’s a condescending narcissist.’ “I never said that.”

              “Well obviously you do.”

              Caleb lost his smile. “Bella, horrida bella: know what it means? Wars, horrid wars. That’s what I live by. War is a horrid thing that shouldn’t be made a play thing to those that haven’t experienced it through lofty scenes and pretty words.” Alice pulled Benny down to his chair while he was visibly tensing for a strike. “You don’t have the experience, Private, don’t sing the song.”

              David cleared his throat. “Thank you for the story, Benny, and Caleb for your input. Let’s move on to one-on-one time.” He walked over immediately to Caleb. “It was just a story. Threaten anybody else and you’re gone.”

              He walked away as swiftly as he’d come, the couple suddenly standing in front, their hands still clasped while the others held up folded chairs. Caleb was calm again in their presence. ‘I’m still not in the mood to talk.’

              ‘I know. The amount of times you whine and mentally coax Alice to look at you would put a hummingbird to shame.’

              ‘Screw you. I’m sorry I crave a familiar face among a city of strangers.’

              ‘Don’t even try to hide feelings from me. There’s no more grey area between us. I know what you know.’

              ‘I like her. It doesn’t take a condo in my cerebellum to know that.’

              ‘Apparently, I know what you don’t know too.’

              ‘What don’t I know?’

              “Everybody, we’re going to pass around a sign-up sheet to go trick-or-treating with Alice tonight. It’ll only be for half an hour, but it’ll be nice to get some fresh air outside of the gym and dress-up a bit. Have fun with it.”

              A clipboard appeared on Christopher’s shoulder, his open hand carefully threading the board across his body and onto his leg. Caleb stared at their clasped hands as Christopher signed his name, passed it, and Angela signed her name. She tried to hand Caleb the board, but his focus was off the simple paper. “You two are never apart. You don’t even let go of one another’s hands. Why?”

              Christopher upturned his chin without adjusting his eyes. “What’s wrong with it?”

              Caleb took a deep breath. “Nothing, honestly, I think it’s sweet but strange. I was just curious as to why you two can never be apart.”

              Angela kept her head down as Christopher’s eyes flicked up. “I’ve never stopped to ask that. It’s just always felt good.”

              “It feels right.” Angela suddenly had her cheeks up and her hair flipped out of her eyes as they stared directly at Caleb. “I like how it feels.”

              “Well, do you like it because it’s right?”

              Her sea-green eyes pierced through his leftover angst as he took the clipboard from her tiring hand. “What do you mean?”

              “I mean do you like his hand because it’s warm, or because you simply can’t be without it?”

              “I don’t know what you’re asking, really.”

              Caleb glanced up to see Alice’s eyes and smile quietly illuminating the conversation. “Hold her hand with your free one.”

              Alice smiled at Angela and took her hand. They clasped the same way Angela and Christopher—‘He’s interested now,’—had their hands clamped. Caleb smiled and witnessed Angela’s reaction. “Is it the same feeling?”

              She studied the two connections intently; her right hand adjusting against Alice’s slowly and deliberately, feeling for the proper fit as her left sat ideally synced. Her eyes met with Caleb’s again. “No, it’s different. She’s warm.” She looked over to Christopher. “He’s warmer. I like his warmth it’s different.”

              Alice faked a frown and quickly smiled again. “Glad to see you’re getting along with them.”

              Caleb smirked. “Would you like to join us? I feel outnumbered here.”

              Christopher and Angela cracked a smile—‘Opposite corners of their mouths raised,’—as Alice cocked her hips in her hands. “Who says I’d be on your team?”

              ‘She’s given that look to everyone in this group a hundred times don’t fill your pocket with too much excitement.’

              Caleb smiled widely for a second. ‘She’s given me this look once, and her eyes are emanating. I thought you of all entities could see that.’ “You wouldn’t leave me by myself against three people would you?”

              “I’m sure you could handle it, and they’re basically one person anyways, so we’d outnumber them.”

              “Well, hold my hand. One-on-one.”

              Caleb felt a chair behind him and, while creating the optical illusion of grabbing the leg to Christopher and Angela, gently pulled it forward with his power. He held his hand out in the air between the two seats, looking back up at her with a sideways smile. Alice unlocked her hips and mumbled lowly, never losing her smile. ‘There’s the green again. You were right.’

              She moved slowly while giving him an innocent, inquisitive smear across her smiling lips as she rounded his shoulder and heavily sat into the chair. The screech of the chair turned heads across the room to her as she sighed playfully, looked him in the eye, and gently slid her hand between Caleb’s fingers. They smiled to one another again, even while Christopher and Angela did the same. “All right, now we’re even.”

              David’s eyes passed over the scene once, and began speaking halfway through his current thought. “All right, let’s reconvene people. It’s Tuesday so bring out your number problems.” Everyone rearranged their bodies, reaching into pockets for small slips of paper and giving them to David.

              “Number problems?”

              Alice dropped his hand, one finger dragging across his palm as the warmth escaped, and answered, “Andrew is a number guy. Just watch and listen.”

              She burrowed into her chair across from him as David’s glare finally averted to a small bowl that held the slips of paper. “Andrew. Pick away.”

              The teenage boy stood and wandered to the middle of the circle. His hands dug into the group of notes and pulled out one, all the while the other group members pulled out separate pieces of paper and pens. Caleb slinked over Christopher’s shoulder, noticing a lone number in the middle of the paper written in light ink. “This one is from Stew.” He studied the paper intently for a few seconds before closing his eyes. “Four-hundred-seventy-five.”

              Stewart nodded and smiled up at him. Andrew quickly picked another problem and continued. “This is Alice’s.”

              “I tried to pick a hard one for you.”

              A few smiles sprang from the group, but Andrew seemed to block it all out completely in favor of the problem in his hand. “Seven?”

              “Ugh, he got it.”

              “Caleb, do you have one?”

              Caleb snapped away from his observation and towards David. “A question? No, I don’t have any favorite math problems this time.”

              “Give it a try.”

              Caleb looked heavily with his head diagonal towards David. “Um, sixth number in the Fibonacci Sequence?”

              “Five.”

              “Oh, I’m sure you can do better than that.” David held his chin up as he spoke down to Caleb. “Give Andrew a good one.”

              Power began to rise a little under Caleb’s control. ‘How many punches does it take to make David beg for mercy? You think he knows the answer for that one?’

              Caleb rubbed at his temple, and noticed everyone looking at him for the first time. ‘Why does that make me more comfortable?’

              ‘I’m not you; how should I know?’

              ‘Knowing everything is a bit harder than you thought, eh?’

              “There are five houses in five different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage. The Brit lives in the red house. The Swede keeps dogs as pets. The Dane drinks tea. The green house is on the left of the white house. The green homeowner drinks coffee. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill. The man living in the center house drinks milk. The Norwegian lives in the first house. The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats. The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill. The owner who smokes Bluemaster drinks beer. The German smokes Prince. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water. Who owns the fish?”

              David shook his head. “That’s not a math problem.”

              “It’s logic, which is kind of the basis of math.”

              “He’s only good with numbers.”

              Andrew had his eyes closed as he spoke, “The German?”

              Caleb averted back to the boy in the middle of the circle with a look of astonishment on his face. “See? He can do all kinds of problems.”

              Andrew swirled around to look at him. “You’re right, though, I just put numbers to the names, and I got the answer.”

              “Good logic.”

              “Okay, we’re done for the day. Joy and Caleb stay after, but everyone else, have a good day.”

              Caleb chuckled defiantly in David’s direction amongst all the noise and movement. He stood slowly and approached David next to Joy, who looked exhausted. ‘Strung-out seems more appropriate. She must have track marks all over her backside.’

              David handed her a small slip of paper before handing Caleb a visual duplicate. ‘Job placement?’ “Job placement?”

              “Yes. It’s a service of the group. You’ll both be working at the same place, actually. Enjoy.”

              They both turned away, Caleb scanning words between sentences instead of their entirety. ‘Third shift at a warehouse. How did he get me confused with a warehouse worker?’

              ‘Your personality probably didn’t help things, not to mention his deep-seeding loathe of your every move.’

              “Did you get supervisor?”