Part Three

The bus was rerouted a block away from the mall, and the auxiliary parking lot on the south side of the building was filled with the flashing lights of patrol cars. Many of the tents and trailers were surrounded by ribbons of yellow tape, and a tangible sense of shock hung heavy in the air.

Jessie tried to sort out what was happening by listening to people talking to the police, but most of the witnesses mumbled or whispered. Jessie didn’t want to draw attention to himself by asking what happened, or by leaning in close enough to eavesdrop. From what few words he heard, many more animals than the gorilla escaped. But no one spoke about seeing a little boy.

While Jessie and Alice searched for Eddie, they didn’t find any trails of mangled bodies either. Certainly, people were shaken up, but no one appeared to be injured. Jessie clung to the thought as a beacon of hope that there was still time to stop his brother from hurting anyone else.

Jessie was checking behind the game booths when he found the carney who’d worked the gorilla trailer during the evening. The carney sat on the open tailgate of a truck, sipping from a flask while he stared at the ground. He swallowed and shook his head before his lips started moving.

But even standing next to the man, Jessie heard nothing except incoherent mumbling. “Uh, sir?”

The carney’s drunk eyes stared at Jessie before they unglazed and a light of recognition filled them. “Hey kid, you should find your brother and get out of here. Didn’t you hear? All the animals ec-scaped.”

“No, we were shopping at the mall and missed everything,” Alice said. “What do you mean all of the animals escaped?”

“Well…not all of ‘em. Just the big ones,” the carney said. “Something opened their cages. Maybe it was the chimps, because they’re missing too. But somehow the lions, tigers, and bears all got loose.”

Jessie closed his eyes and grimaced. No, don’t say it.

“Oh my,” Alice said.

Jessie sighed. “Alice.”

“Hmm?” Alice dropped her head to avoid his stony look and nodded. “Right, sorry.”

“But you know what’s messed up?” the carney asked, not waiting for anyone to talk before he answered himself. “The bears carried off Brian.”

“Who?” Alice asked.

“The gorilla, I mean. I call him Brian,” the carney said. He took another long drink from the flask and scrunched his face in a look of confusion. “I can’t figure it out. Brian…he’s loud, but he’s never attacked any of us like that. Something about that one kid just set him off.”

“I–is  the gorilla going to be put down over the attack?” Jessie asked.

“What? No!” The carney’s face filled with disgust. “That kid was provoking Brian, and we just dosed him with a tranquilizer to calm him down.”

Jessie dropped his head and sighed. Great, so this is my fault.

“Did you see which way the animal parade went?” Alice asked.

The carney shook his head and gestured back behind himself. “No, I’m afraid I was hiding in a port-a-pisser to keep away from the bears.”

“Do you know if the animals killed anyone?” Jessie asked.

 “No, I don’t think so.” The carney shrugged. “But…it’s strange how all of the animals worked together like that. They were pushing people over, forcing them to lay down.”

“Yeah, that is pretty strange.” Alice grabbed Jessie’s arm and started to pull him back. “Come on, we still have to find your brother.”

She waited until they’d walked to the bus stop before she spoke in a low voice. “I figured out where Eddie will go. He’s playing out a superhero fantasy, so where do all superheroes patrol?”

Jessie was about to say he had no clue when he realized he did know. “Downtown.”

They took the last bus headed for Travis Park and moved all the way to the back seats so the sound of the engine muffled their voices.

But there was little point. Alice asked “What are we going to do?” before they both fell silent.

Jessie’s thoughts were so confused by then he couldn’t speak. Eddie had stolen a small army of circus animals, and even if he hadn’t hurt anyone else, he was already risking serious jail time if he got caught.

The quiet got to Jessie first. “I know you think Eddie is acting messed up. But this really isn’t his fault. About three years ago, my mother hooked up with this one guy who didn’t like how Eddie looked. So he started treating my brother like a punching bag.”

“Oh God.” Alice leaned over to take Jessie’s hand.

“At first he just made body shots. But I noticed the bruises, and Eddie wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I didn’t get him to talk until after he had bruises on his face.”

“You called the police?”

Jessie frowned at Alice, blinking back his tears before he shook his head. “I can’t remember what happened after Eddie told me about…Luke. Yeah, it was Luke who told my brother that he was just trying to make a man out of him by showing him how to take punches. Eddie got hit harder if he cried or looked afraid.” Jessie sniffled and glanced out the window to see the bus still had several more blocks to go. “So…that’s what’s wrong with my brother.”

The bus arrived at the park, and Jessie shuffled to the exit with his head bowed from both grief and confusion. Once he’d acknowledged the cause of Eddie’s problems, Jessie discovered he had a hole in his memory after learning what Luke had done.

He was so focused on trying to remember what happened that he didn’t notice the white van idling  back at the intersection until the bus pulled away.

He raised his head to follow the bus, then winced when he spotted the van. “No! I don’t believe it!”

An arm clad in a brown suede jacket emerged from the window. The pudgy driver’s head rose out of the window while he flipped his middle finger at Jessie and laughed.

Alice glanced back at the van, then grabbed Jessie’s hand to pull him up the two steep concrete steps which surrounded the outer boundaries of the park. She swerved to the right across the grass and away from the street.

“See the hotel?” she asked before pointing out the building on the intersection.

“Yeah,” Jessie agreed as soon as he spotted the carpeted stairs and revolving glass door. “Count of three?”

“Forget counting. Just start running,” Alice said before she took off.

Jessie could have outpaced her, but he didn’t bother trying for two reasons. The first was that the van would have to make a wide three block turn to reach the street in front of the Saint Anthony hotel. But the second was that he was enjoying watching Alice run in tight jeans.

Focus! he scolded himself and glanced over his shoulder to check for the van.

Sure enough, it was pulling around the street in an attempt to cut he and Alice off from their chosen escape path. Then Jessie started to speed up, and he took hold of Alice’s wrist to pull her along behind him. He stopped just inside the revolving doors, but Alice couldn’t slow down for some reason.

She uttered a half a warning, “Look–” before she crashed into Jessie’s back and slammed him face first into the metal frame of the door. Jessie briefly saw stars, and then his vision went black.

Jessie opened his eyes, and he was back in his old bedroom in Dallas. Eddie sat in front of Jessie while he tried to make apologies for Luke. “It’s okay, Jessie. He’s just trying to toughen me up.”

Jessie walked out of the bedroom and into the living room without a word, his eyes locking on the couch where Luke laid back to watch TV.

Luke saw Jessie and knew from his glare what was coming. But he was only able to sit up before Jessie covered the distance to the couch. Jessie slung a wide right punch that caught Luke on the side of his jaw, and the man’s eyes glazed over. He threw a left punch, and Luke’s nose exploded.

Jessie felt a dull thump on the back of his head before he heard a sound like glass breaking. White ceramic shards flew over his shoulder, and Jessie watched the debris fall onto the couch before he turned around, his gaze moving between his mother’s frightened expression and the broken lamp in her hand.

Then his vision blurred without warning, and next thing Jessie was aware of was water being splashed over his face. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up quickly, but vertigo caused him to slow down a moment later.

He pressed a hand to the side of his head. “O-oh, what happened?”

The hotel concierge who stood over Jessie held out a wrinkled hand to help him stand up. “Well as near as I can figure, you and your girlfriend were in such a hurry to rent a room, you ran face first into the frame.” The old man smiled and patted Jessie’s shoulder. “I thought there was a gunshot going off until I saw you sliding down the glass. Are you all right?”

“No. I’ve got a nasty headache, and I think my vision is blurring in my right eye.” Jessie held his hand over his left eye and looked around. He saw Alice walking back through the lobby with something in her hand, but his vision was too blurred to see what it was. Dropping his hand, Jessie winked his right eye to see more clearly.

By then Alice was close enough to pass him the package of ibuprofen. “I’m sorry about your eye.”

Jessie tore open the package and dry swallowed the pills. “Have I got a shiner, or a full black eye?”

“It’s not black yet, but it will be,” the concierge said. “Your girlfriend told me about the van, so I went outside and had a peek. But I didn’t see them anywhere.”

“Yeah, there’s a shocker,” Jessie said. “I’d love to wait here and make sure, but we don’t have time. Thanks for the water in the face, by the way.”

“Eh, sorry about that,” the concierge said. “It was the only thing I could–”

“No, it’s okay, you woke me up from a lousy nightmare. I don’t have time to lay around right now, and...” Jessie backed away toward the exit and offered the old man a wave. “And I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t call the police. Thanks again.”

Jessie walked two full blocks before he noticed Alice staring at him with a perplexed expression. He wondered how bad the bruising around his eye was, and he stopped by an office window to check his reflection under the lights.

The final bruise was going to be huge. Already swirls of red and purple covered the skin under his eye, and part of his cheek was swollen. But in addition to the black eye, there was a rising knot on his forehead as well.

“Oh, that’s just swell,” Jessie said, then tried to brush his bangs over his eye.

Alice tapped his shoulder. “I couldn’t ask around that old man, but how the hell did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Jessie, you ran so fast you pulled me off my feet. I tried to get my legs back under me when you stopped, but I couldn’t.” Jessie started walking again, his mouth twitching in a thin line of worry. “Hey, talk to me, please,” Alice said. “How did you run that fast?”

“I don’t know, Alice. I don’t understand it any more than I know why my little brother can talk to animals.”

“But still…you had to have noticed there was something different about yourself.”

“No I didn’t.” Jessie stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s not like I spend a lot of time running to test how fast I am.”

“Maybe something happened before, and you’re just blocking it out?”

“No, there’s…” Jessie’s frown tightened. “When I hit my head, I’m not sure if I jogged loose an old memory, or if I had a dream.”

Alice listened to him describing the fight, and to his relief, she didn’t ask questions once he’d finished. Lapsing back into his thoughts, Jessie found himself thinking about the days following Luke’s sudden absence from the apartment. His mother told Jessie that he’d suffered from a sudden fever, which was why he’d been bed ridden for several days.

Then all of his problems during the following months made sense. He’d had trouble concentrating or being able to read, and people agitated him by talking too quickly or too loudly. Keeping track of numbers or working math became a mystery overnight, though he’d slowly recovered his faculties after a few months.

Jessie still wanted to think he’d had a dream, because he preferred believing his brains had been scrambled by a fever instead of a concussion. But the evidence of the memory carried more weight the longer he thought about the lamp. Because after his “fever,” it was gone from the end table in the living room.

While Jessie wandered through his memories, Alice continued coming up with places to search for Eddie. They cut a zigzagging path through downtown, checking around alleys and parking garages. They’d ruled out all of the locked office buildings, as well as any open buildings staffed with security guards.

They spent almost an hour searching before Alice spotted the van at an intersection two blocks away. She grabbed Jessie’s sleeve to pull him into a recessed door. The lights at the intersection changed, and the driver turned the van the opposite way.

Alice gasped in relief. “I don’t think they saw us.” Stepping out from the door, she frowned at  Jessie. “Are you sure you didn’t rip these guys off before? They seem to be fixated on you.”

Jessie shrugged his shoulders. “I might have made the driver angry when I flipped him off.”

“I guess he took it personally.” Alice was glancing back to check the van’s progress when she noticed something moving across the street. “Jessie.”

His gaze followed her finger to the third floor of the parking garage across the street, and then he saw the bear. “Oh thank goodness,” he said and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey Eddie! Are you in there?”

Eddie stood up from behind the barrier on the first floor. He climbed up onto the concrete wall and waved at Jessie. “Get in here, quick!”

Alice sighed while she stepped off the curb. “There’s no trail of bodies yet, so we’ve lucked out so far.” She glanced at Jessie’s scowl and cringed. “What? What did I say?”

“Alice, that’s like inviting something bad to happen. You might as well say, ‘so far so good.’” Jessie dipped under the swing-arm garage barricade while he talked. “Do you even read comic books to know how this works?”

“I’ve read a few,” Alice said. “I’ve read enough to know you’re the hero, and I’m the sidekick.”

“Did you sniff glue or something? We’re not superheroes.”

Alice smirked at him and shook her head. “I didn’t say I was. I’m just the sidekick. You’re the superhero.”
“That’s just ridiculous.” Jessie watched Alice’s lips part in a grin, and he shook his head. “Besides, if I was the hero, that would make–”

“That would make me the villain,” Eddie said.

Jessie’s head spun to where his brother sat on the pavement. Eddie rested back against a tiger, but none of the other animals were in sight.

The cold smile didn’t fit Eddie’s face at all, and the gleam of malice coming from his eyes felt wrong. But perhaps it was just harder to take Eddie seriously when he had the letters A.S.S. spray painted on the front of his jacket. The letters were drawn crudely, as though Eddie had written them while he still wore the jacket

Jessie pointed to the logo. “What does that stand for?”

“Animal Soothe-Sayer,” Eddie replied.

Jessie smiled and nodded. “Did it take you long to think of that?”

Eddie giggled. “Yeah, like two whole hours.”

“Bro, whatever ideas you’ve got in mind, please drop them.” Jessie waved toward the tiger. “That’s not your pet, and you can’t take him home with you. And you know Henry is going to be pissed over you ruining your jacket.”

“I’m not going home,” Eddie said. He sat up and turned his head to growl at the tiger, who slunk away into the shadows. “We’ve got no reason to go home.”

“Uh, yes we do, Eddie. You’re ten, I’m thirteen, and this is the real world. We’re property, and we don’t get to decide what happens to us until we’re eighteen.”

“Says who?” Eddie challenged.

“Everyone, okay? Ask any adult where you should go, and they’ll tell you to go back home.”

“I’m not asking an adult, Jessie. I’m asking you.” Eddie got to his feet and pouted as he walked to stand in front of his bother. “You can make all kinds of money with your scams, and we can–”

“Whoa, I make chump change on my scams. Even if I made a lot more, I wouldn’t make enough to pay for all of your new pets to eat. Besides that, where are we going to live? You think anyone is going to let us rent an apartment?” Jessie made a derisive snort. “Forget that, just imagine how much they’d ask for the pet deposit.”

“Well…maybe they might let us rent a loft downtown,” Eddie whined.

“No, they won’t. Bro, listen. If you get caught with these animals, you’re not going to be called a villain. You’re just a thief. You know that, right?”

Eddie shuffled his feet and nodded. “I guess.”

“I talked to someone at the circus, and it turns out I was wrong. The gorilla wasn’t going to be put down, so there’s no need to hide him. You can’t hide him here anyway. As soon as the sun rises, people will start filling in here to park their cars. They’ll find you here with the animals and call the cops. Then somebody will get hurt, or the cops might panic and start shooting the animals. Do you want that, Eddie?”

“No.” Eddie sighed and nodded again. “All right, I’ll send them back home.”

Jessie smiled at his brother. “You’re doing the right thing, really.”

His smile melted when he heard the hum of an approaching engine. Turning to look back over his shoulder, he saw the van pull up to the swing-arm barricade.

“Who is that?” Eddie asked.

“Bad guys.” Jessie grabbed Eddie’s arm and started to run. “Those are the real bad guys.”

Eddie yanked his arm away and smiled. “Hey, why didn’t you say so?”

He tilted his head back and made a loud ear piercing shriek that forced Jessie and Alice to clamp their hands over their ears.

The van drove into the garage and pulled to a stop. Then the side doors opened, and the driver’s accomplice got out of the back while the driver walked around to the front of the van.

The man who emerged out of the cargo doors was bulky, and he was hairy everywhere except for his face and head. Black hair jutted out from under the collar of his sleeveless white t-shirt and the coarse hair on his arms almost hid his pasty white skin.

The man’s head was not protected by hair, and it showed in his deep red complexion. His sunburn would have made him look comical if not for the leering smile he wore. But he was also tall and almost as bulky as a gorilla.

Just like the driver, he was sweating, and his jaw bulged while he ground his teeth.

The chubby driver leaned on the hood, sneering at all three kids. “Screaming won’t do any good at this time of night. Joe?”

The other man dug into his back pocket and took out a knife, flicking the thick blade open before he started advancing on Eddie.

The snarl of a tiger caused everyone to freeze. The men turned around, both of them noticing the three hundred pound cat for the first time.

“Larry?” Joe squeaked.

“Get in the van,” Larry said before he started backing up.

Joe did, then turned around and froze when he noticed the bear behind the van. “Uh, Larry?” He pointed to the bear, but Larry noticed the gorilla loping toward the van first.

Both men moved closer to each other near the passenger door of the van while more and more animals arrive. All told, the ring was comprised of two lions, six tigers, and four bears.

Surrounded by the animals, Larry decided to pull a gun. Jessie saw him lower the revolver to aim it at the gorilla.

No.

The thought pushed Jessie to rush Larry and grip the man’s wrist. He shoved Larry’s arm up before the gun fired, and the shot clanged as it struck a pipe mounted in the ceiling. The bullet ricocheted twice before it struck the roof of the van.

Then the animals panicked, and the air was filled with frightened growls and snarls while the animals darted in random directions.

Though Jessie had an advantage of speed, Larry was still stronger. Recovering from his initial shock, Larry brought his arm up across his shoulder, then swung out to hurl Jessie to the ground.

Jessie rolled onto his back and started into the barrel of the revolver. But the shot never came because Larry’s attention wandered to Eddie’s growls instead. Seconds later, Joe seemed to notice who was controlling the animals as well. The men exchanged a glance before Larry nodded, and they both rushed Eddie at the same time.

Jessie lashed a leg out to trip Larry, then crawled over Larry’s back to pin the man and attempt to twist the gun out of his hand.

Eddie started to screech, his voice louder and higher in pitch than it had been when he’d first summoned the animals. Jessie fought the urge to give up the fight for the gun and cover his ears.

Larry’s arms strained to aim the revolver at Eddie, and even using both hands, Jessie couldn’t stop the man’s slow progress. Growing desperate, Jessie kicked off of the ground, and then let himself drop to drive his knee into Larry’s lower back.

Larry grunted, and his arm loosened. But once Jessie folded Larry’s arm back, the man’s fat finger closed over the trigger, and the gun went off.

Under the loud ringing sounds in his ears, Jessie heard another ricochet followed by a growl and a thump. He started to look back to see what got hit when he noticed Alice running toward him. He wanted to shout at her to run away, but before he could, she slung a short kick aimed at Larry’s wrist.

The revolver flew from Larry’s hand before he tried to roll back over Jessie. Jessie got to his feet and staggered away from Larry, then turned to check on Eddie when his shrieking stopped abruptly. Jessie’s heart almost froze at the same time, and he expected to find Joe standing over Eddie’s body.

But Joe was still kneeling on the ground while he tried to recover from the shriek. Eddie stopped screaming because he’d been distracted by something which made him pout. Jessie spun his head to follow Eddie’s gaze, and in the shadows, he saw a thick body crumpled on the ground. The gorilla had been hit by the stray bullet.

When Jessie turned to check on Eddie again, Joe was standing right behind the boy with his knife poised for a strike. Jessie leapt at his brother and shoved Eddie aside as the blade swung down, and then he stepped over to avoid getting stabbed in the shoulder.

Joe spun on his heel to face Jessie, but his expression was full of confusion rather than anger. Jessie watched him for perhaps half a second before deciding to take advantage of a free shot. He kicked and caught the middle of Joe’s crotch with the point of his hiking boot.

Joe whimpered, dropping the knife while his eyes bulged. He made three backward steps in an attempt at recovering, then he toppled over and slammed the back of his head on the pavement.

Jessie looked back and forth between the men, and then at Alice and Eddie. While she gaped at him with a wide open mouth, Eddie was beaming with a look of pride.

“What are you?” Larry asked, his feet shuffling as he took another step away from Jessie.

Jessie turned to smile at the man and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m late for bed, and I’m cranky. What else do you need to know?”

The chimpanzees showed up to fling poop at Larry, who ran away sputtering and choking on fecal fumes.

The gorilla was wounded, but breathing. Although Eddie wanted to visit a vet first, Jessie convinced him to let the bears carry the gorilla back to the circus. The gorilla getting wounded also convinced Eddie that he wasn’t really a superhero. The look of remorse on his dirty face was matched by equal measures of anguish and guilt in his eyes. And for once, the expression fit.

But the real miracle came when Eddie started to cry for Brian. Jessie didn’t try to comfort his brother or ask him to stop crying. To him, it was a sign that Eddie was returning to his senses and reconnecting with reality.

Eddie held a powwow with the animals to send them on their way. Then Jessie led the way to find a payphone and call for a cab.

And then he spent the entire trip back to the apartment lecturing Eddie on being more responsible. To Jessie, the speech felt hollow. After all, he was a low level con artist, and telling his brother to behave felt very hypocritical to him. But Jessie didn’t see that he had much choice. There was a big difference between begging for change and stealing other people’s animals.

Henry paid for the cab, just like he promised. He grilled Jessie about the bruise on his eye, but he quickly let the subject go after Jessie told an edited version of the truth: while running from a pair of stranger in a van, he smacked himself into a door. Henry went to check on Eddie in the bedroom, and then he noticed the condition of Eddie’s jacket.

At the first signs of the lecture coming, Jessie chose to walk Alice back to her apartment. He almost wanted to ask if he could hang out longer to avoid hearing Henry gripe, but a check of the wall clock on his way out of the living room told him it was way past everyone’s normal bedtime. He could also admit that Eddie had a very long lecture coming, and for a lot more than just messing up his jacket.

But even so, the lecture wasn’t meant for him. So Jessie walked slowly down the hall to avoid as much of it as possible. Alice stayed in step with him.

“Thanks for coming with tonight,” Jessie said.

Alice laughed. “Aside from almost getting snatched by  perverts, it wasn’t too bad.”

Jessie sighed. “It wasn’t fun, Alice. One kid ended up in the hospital over it, and the gorilla got shot.”

“Yeah, but it could have been much worse,” Alice said. “We got lucky and found your brother before the cops did.”

“Yeah, true,” Jessie conceded.

“You did a good job with how you talked your brother into going back home without arguing.” Alice made a weak smile. “It must kill you to ask him to come back home to those people.”

Jessie shrugged. “Yeah, but what else have we got? Besides, if I let Eddie talk me into running away, I wouldn’t…” Jessie coughed to clear his throat, but his voice still came out lower as he said, “I wouldn’t get to see you again.”

Alice’s smile warmed as she opened the door to her apartment. She stopped and turned around to peck a kiss on Jessie’s cheek. “Good night, Jessie.”

“G’night, Alice,” he mumbled, still staring at the door after she’d closed and locked it. He uttered a soft laugh and turned to walk back to his apartment. Okay, so it wasn’t a bad night after all.

The End