Chapter 3 & 4

The Third and Fourth Chapter of my Novel for your reading enjoyment.


3

Though he didn’t like how the city changed when the sun went down, Eric knew the lycanthropic shift would bring him someone in need. Cold pins and needles rushed past the back of his neck like fluttering bat’s wings as he felt mistrust surrounding him. That mistrust became antipathy and grew within those around him as the sun came to rest and as he walked.

Stepping from an alley, a long Broadway of looming neon, asphalt and glass stretched before him. From beneath a mixture yellow and pink fluorescence, Eric met the eyes of a young woman who didn’t seem to belong where she stood. She wore form-fitting clothes that could not have provided her with any warmth. She glittered with jewelry and makeup, contrasting her dreary surroundings. Her demeanor was strangely confident. She proudly looked about, making eye contact with the passersby, where most kept their eyes to themselves.

When he passed her she gave him an odd smile, as though she knew him and felt familiar with him. Her smile captivated him until her interest faded and she found new eyes to grasp. Eric had seen many prostitutes before on his walks, but this girl just didn’t seem to fit. He reached the corner, and crossing at the light, turned back to see a man approaching the young woman. The man had the same familiar look smiling into her face, only friendlier. His look captivated Eric in a different way. From down and across the street Eric’s eyes intensified as he watched the man grab the friendly young woman. The girl twitched and struggled like a child with his hands locked around her arms near the shoulder, but she didn’t scream. The man’s smile blazed in Eric’s eyes. Neither of them noticed his approach.

The man’s salivating grin was broken as he noticed the strange hand wrap around his right forearm. Before he could protest, Eric sent him flying into the storefront window behind him. The impact violently wobbled the massive plate glass pane. The force he used to break the lecherous man’s hold had thrown the young lady back to the ground. Eric didn’t notice her fall as his attention remained on the figure within his grasp.

Following the man to the window, he saw that the force of his impact had dazed the man momentarily. Leading him into the nearest alley by the collar of his jacket, Eric mentally prepared himself for his intimidating encounter. Just as the man at his mercy began to whimper and twitch, Eric heard the girl’s voice behind him.
“Wait!” she screamed. The anxious tone confused Eric. His confusion grew as he turned to see her following them, her hand outstretched. “What d’ya think you’re doing?!”

Capitalizing on the moment of diverted attention, the man slipped from Eric’s grip and bolted into the shadows of the alley. Eric’s attention remained captured in the women’s chastising scowl. He then noticed over her shoulder, two men wearing suits emerge from a car parked down the street. They spoke into radios and rushed past Eric into the alley.

“You idiot!” The young damsel as she rose to her feet; refusing Eric’s hand, and regaining her composure. “Do you know who that was?” He had no idea, but kept a puzzled expression focused directly on her fierce mouth. “That bastard’s butchered five hookers in two months. Do you realize how close we were?” Again the answer escaped the bewildered young man. “I should arrest you for obstruction… Fuck!” She shook her head a couple of times before giving Eric a last look of disgust and stomping off toward the car.

Eric’s furrowed expression followed her and remained on her as she spoke into another radio, started the car and sped off to the corner. Whirling tires whistled on the damp, smooth pavement. Eric watched a puddle that glistened under a streetlight wrinkle, as a tire ripped through it, unable to shake the wrench of confusion from his face. Next to the puddle he could see the young lady’s lipstick. It fell from her purse when she tumbled to the ground. The shade of red reminded him of the smile she gave him earlier and the way her lips cut across her face when she screamed at him. He refastened the lid and stared at the shiny black casing as he walked.

It was three more hours before his walk finally brought him home. All the while his eyes watched his feet and he replayed the evening repeatedly in his mind. As his worn out sneakers took turns moving forward over the sidewalk like opposing pendulums, Eric grappled at a reason for the young woman’s anger. Though he understood that she worked with the police, he still couldn’t fathom how attacking that man could have been wrong. He kept wishing to himself that he hadn’t knocked her down. He considered that maybe if he hadn’t hurt her or dirtied her outfit that she wouldn’t have lashed out. Eric’s eyes hid behind his wrinkled brow. Resentment or distress didn’t occur to him while confusion curled his demeanor.

It was as though the sky had been proven purple or the morning sun didn’t rise. He tried to help her and he hindered her. He stood between the bad guy and his victim, and still the pins and needles shivered over his skin.

* * *

No good deed goes unpunished. Dr. Harmon would warn Eric that helping people, intervening into their lives, was always a precarious gamble. People aren’t always ready to be helped. The warm feeling of accomplishment that Eric felt when he helped somebody was rarely a symbiotic byproduct for the person he helped. If they weren’t panicked or racked with stress, they were resentful of the inadequacy or helplessness throbbing in them. Very few people are ready for a hero; nobody was ever ready for Eric.

More than one woman that he’d tried to help up from a fall or pull from the grasp of an intended purse-snatcher had mistaken his intention for some kind of assault. Superman doesn’t look like the kind of guy who needs to attack his woman, so no one assumes he does so.

One of his favorite deeds earlier in his career was helping the elderly across the street. If days went by and he couldn’t find anyone to help he would stop at one of the major intersections on the way home from school. Standing off to the side of the crosswalk he would wait for an elderly person to approach and set upon them like some well-intentioned salesperson. Many of them were far more willful and far less feeble than he expected.

“What do you think you’re doing, sonny?”

“I’m trying to help you across the street.”

“That’s very nice of you, but I don’t need any help. Aren’t you a little old to be a boy scout? How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Like I said, this is nice of you, but let me go.”

“But I’m supposed to help you.”

“No thank you.”

“But…”

“Unhand me!”

Returning home from school, through the pathway behind the mall, Eric came upon a young man and woman engaged in an encounter that immediately sent him to the rescue. His arms pinned her to the wall on either side of her. Her arms pushed and probed about his torso. A moan emanated from her that sounded to him somewhere between pain and fear. Clenching the young man’s coat by the collar, he threw backward into the fence on the far side of the path. Both teens groaned in wonderment as their embrace was torn apart. They were both stunned momentarily, expecting to encounter an intervening parent, but both lashed out at the well-intentioned Eric as they realized who had interrupted their after-school make-out session.

On Eric’s eighteenth birthday he set out for a walk on his own after the rather unceremonious and forgettable birthday dinner. He walked up and down the streets of his suburban neighborhood wondering how the age of eighteen would be different, when across the road he saw a man with a gun robbing the gas station.

Eric dashed into the store, wrapped his arm around the man’s throat and fastened a headlock as the desperate man fired shots wildly into the ceiling tiles. The cashier and customer screamed as their peril boiled over. He squeezed the man’s wrist until the gun fell. The man writhed and wheezed as he tried to escape, until Eric lost his balance and fell into a bank of display shelves. The large rack of shelves tipped under their combined weight, crashing through a large plate glass front window. As he rose to his feet with the man’s neck still clenched in his arm, a police car plowed to a halt in the parking lot in front of him. Though the congratulations were ample from the police and the bystanders, praise wasn’t the first thing on the gas station’s owner’s mind.

“What were you thinking?”

“I… I just wanted to help.”

“Oh, I see. The money in the cash register is insured by the franchise. It doesn’t cost me anything if all they get away with is money. We’d all be better if you just minded your own business. Do you have any idea what it’s going to cost me to fix this store?”

“No.”

“Do me a favor, next time you want to be a hero, be one somewhere else.”

Eric was certain that he didn’t do what he did for the praise, but he was more certain that he didn’t do it to be yelled at. As he walked home that night he couldn’t shake the notion that the owner yelled at him, not because of the damage to his store, but for the same reason everyone else did. He knew that something in his demeanor would always make him appear inferior.

Inferiority filled his mind as he paced slowly back to his apartment, the bellowing scolding of the undercover policewoman still ringing in his ears, while the store owner from his adolescence bellowed in his memory. Eric’s apathy towards the superficial was apparent to anybody that crossed his path. When you don’t care about the name brands you brandish, the shape of your body, or the untrendy way your hair is placed, you tend to wear a banner over your head for all to see, stating something to the affect of: I don’t respect myself so I haven’t earned your respect.

Eric didn’t need the respect of others; it never existed as a part of his motivation to help others. As he learned about respect, he learned that deeds are like intentions, intangible and subject to fallible perception. Actions may speak louder than words, but people still have to be ready to listen.

He returned home under a cloud of failure. He spent the evening staring at anything around his home that would catch his attention. The night dragged by as the ceiling over his bed offered little counsel.

* * *

“So, why do you think she was angry with you, this policewoman you tried to help?” Dr. Maynard was enthralled by the outlay of emotion he was witnessing from Eric, though it was still rigid by normal standards. In their three previous visits he had made every ethical attempt to access his patient emotionally. Though Eric’s demeanor remained calm and subdued as he explained the events of the previous evening, Maynard recognized the first visible chink in his emotional shield. He looked forward to achieving success with the enigmatic young man. “Do you feel that you did something to incur her anger?”

“I did push her down… accidentally.”

“You pushed her?”

“She fell when I grabbed the guy who grabbed her.”

“Was she hurt?”

“No, but I may have ruined her outfit.” Maynard smiled then retracted it quickly.

“So this man that you grabbed, he was the man from the news who had been murdering prostitutes?” Almost under his breath, he spoke in revelation. “Eric, you could have been hurt.”

“I wasn’t worried.” Eric’s eyes met the doctor’s with an intimidating certainty.

“I just wanted to help.”

Patient Log Entry. April 4

I believe I have identified an integral part of Eric’s motivation. He has told me on several occasions about his interactions with others, and how he tries to help them. Most, if not all of the interactions he discusses involve his ‘good deeds’. I intend to probe this issue further; it should offer a great deal of insight into this young man’s true character.

Does he seek out these situations? What does he derive or gain from these situations? If his intention is vigilantism, where lays the root of this motivation?

With every sentence Maynard found himself more intrigued. Not only did Eric present him with the most challenging of puzzles, but also he genuinely intrigued him as a person. As a patient, Eric had barriers without locks. He provided no answers but offered no resistance. He had no evidence of any disorder in his conscious mind. In place of wit, charm, and educated sociability, he presented a complete lack of presumption.

A part of Eric’s brain was somewhat dysfunctional. Sigmund Freud would have called it his ‘Superego’; the fine-tuning that civilized society expects of him without wanting to tell him. He spent his life imitating and reacting, free of an ego of his own. The absence of that part’s effectiveness left him unable to grasp higher concepts, it kept him from excelling scholastically, or earning success in a conventional sense. Life without superego-etiquette also robbed him of the opportunity to mature into cynicism, mistrust, ambition and malice. He had never sampled the taste of jealousy, the pride of victory, wrath or greed. These facts were apparent to anyone engaged with him in the briefest of conversations.

Log Entry. April 7.

To my surprise, Eric is quite willing to discuss his good deeds, his missions, or ‘his walks’, as he calls them. He speaks of them like most would discuss a vocation, almost with an air of pride. He tells me that he walks a lot. When I ask him why he walks so much, he tells me that it makes him feel good.
What still puzzles me is the nature of this association. What spurs him to take these walks and seek out people to help, to put himself in danger? I feel that a great deal of the answers surrounding this young man revolve around this motivation.

“Does it distress you that the woman was angry with you?”

“No.”

“But you would have preferred if her reaction was more pleasant?”

“I guess. I didn’t really think about her reaction when I did it.”

“Then Eric, why did you do it? Why did you try to help?”

“I’m just… I’m supposed to help.”


4

Home is sanctuary. Home is the haven that provides warmth and love to those lucky enough to dwell within. Eric had never felt the security and warmth of his roots spreading deeply through a foundation of a house always happy to welcome him with open arms. He never had a place to run to. He didn’t know how to answer people when they asked where he was from, aside from providing his address. He had never belonged.

Eric’s dwelling would best be characterized as modest. He kept a standard one-bedroom apartment in a quiet building. He had the necessary furniture and house wares, an acceptable wardrobe and a television. A handful of pictures that were hung for him decorated the pale, uncolored walls. The fire escape doubled as a balcony, where Eric kept a comfortable chair. He watched people on the street with far greater interest than those on his television. In the place of open arms, a soft purr welcomed Eric when he returned. A cat that had shown up one day that he had never named shared his home. When he kept returning to be fed, Eric decided that they could benefit each other; the cat did not dispute.

Both Eric and the cat were creatures of routine. Their world was smaller than others. Contentment was the accepted substitute of aspirations and elation. The cat’s routine consisted of nightly prowls, a bowl and a water dish filled once a day; and the window to the balcony left open a crack. Eric’s routine was found in nightly prowls, a select few television shows, a strict cycle of his limited wardrobe, and some weekly errands. Thursday was grocery day. Thursday was his favorite.

Two blocks down and five blocks over was McKees Grocery, one of those general stores that exist as the beating heart of the neighborhood, a source of more than food and supplies, hospitality and gossip. It was the neighborhood’s Sunday dinner table. Frank McKee, the store’s founder and proprietor knew the name of everyone that came around, and had a private running joke that he would build with each customer and every visit. It had been almost five years since Frank had passed away, leaving the family business in the hands of his eldest daughter, Margaret, known to her patrons as Molly.

Just shy of her twenty-fourth birthday, life and responsibility had managed to steal from Molly most of the youthful glow that emanates from most young women. Her mother had died a short time before her father, leaving a household and three younger sisters on shoulders that could only precariously handle the weight. Her duty left her unable to consider her sacrifice; she still had a smile for every customer, especially for Eric.

Molly the reason Thursday was his favorite. Girls hadn’t taken control of his youth the way it tends to with young men. Hormonal lust had thus far not broken into Eric’s motivation. As with many of Molly’s regular customers, the motherly, unconditional quality of her smile filled that little emptiness that festers in loneliness. Eric had been coming on Thursdays for almost two years; they had long ago developed a rapport that included his ‘usual’. Eric had a shopping list that never varied. Occasionally, Molly would suggest a new flavor of cat food that had come in, but she was careful not to intrude on Eric’s routine. If she had time, she would gather his groceries for him and have them ready at the counter for him at precisely 9:30 AM.

She would ask how the cat was doing; Eric would return the question concerning Molly’s sisters. They would thank each other and look forward to next Thursday. Eric would never have noticed, but Molly’s ‘goodbye’ and delicate wave had an extra ring when he came by. Thursdays were Molly’s favorite too.

The two spots on his carpet where his feet dropped from his bed in the morning, the path from those two spots to the closet, then from the closet across the once plush carpet to the bathroom had been worn into an unmistakable trail. He followed each almost the same way he always did, the only noticeable difference was that it was Thursday morning. He stopped to pet the cat as it ate and rushed out the door. The cat looked up from his bowl, almost as if to recognize that Eric never rushes.
Without the intentional use of a clock, Eric had arrived precisely at 9:30 for almost two years. Molly’s look of slight shock was almost unwelcoming as he stepped through her door at 9:15.

“Eric… You’re early.” He nodded thoughtfully and started down the first leg of his normal route through the aisles. Just after he grabbed his favorite cereal and just before reaching his bread, Eric stopped at the cat food section. He hadn’t planned on buying cat food that week, as his roommate was in adequate supply, but for some reason one of the labels caught his eye. Eric was a creature of routine; very seldom did he stop to consider things. When the cat first came to take up residency, Molly showed Eric her best deal in cat food. Henceforth his hand chose the same brand without consideration. He now found himself wondering how a cat could interpret tuna or chicken from the contents of the tiny can, and if so, did they like it? Just as he had begun deciding whether the cat would prefer an imitation of poultry or fish, heavy boots stomping their entrance throughout the store halted his train of thought.

He returned to his cat food comparison as Molly engaged in conversation with an unfamiliar voice that matched the boisterous entrance. He ignored their conversation at first, concentrating instead on the shift from his shopping routine. The man’s voice suddenly intruded into the back his thoughts. It wasn’t the content of his conversation with Molly, he heard her discuss and argue prices and money with many customers in the past. It was the forceful quality of his words and the tone in which he delivered them, like his heavy boots that stomped against the floor. Eric shook his head as the words from the front of the store wafted down the aisle, causing goose bumps to rise on the back of his neck. He walked slowly around the back of the shelving aisle.

Molly came into view first. Her eyes stared forward with a stubborn mixture of strength and mortal fear; her strength was waning in the form of small tears dropping down the side of her face. Her lips pursed and twitched trying to stay sneered and defiant. Eric’s eyes grew to match hers as he eased around the corner, and the source of her expression came into his view. He held the gun inches from her face; while at the other end the imposing thug looked into Molly with an inverse combination of strength and fear. His weight nervously shifted from one foot to the other; the skin around his fierce expression was moistened with adrenaline. His thumb reached over the back of the gun and slowly pulled back its hammer. Molly’s eyes closed and her body forced out a short squeal.

“C’mon bitch… the money… ‘fore I pull the fuckin’ trigger.”

“I told you, it’s 9:30, we don’t have any money. There’s barely twenty dollars from the float.” Her voice was shaky and shrill.

“Ah bullshit! What’choo got in the safe?”

“There’s nothing in the safe, we deposited last night… I swear!”

“You’re gonna die this minute if you don’t cough up some green.”
Eric’s eyes tightened.

A box of cereal, a carton of milk, and a can of chicken flavored cat food fell to his feet. He had forgotten he was holding them. The milk erupted over his shoes. The mess failed to interest him as he started up the aisle. Cold chills ran to the tips of his fingers and heat burned in his stomach, up to his throat. His knuckles turned white as he advanced on the gunman.




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