Beyond Recognition

70

“I never had me a little brother,” Garman said to Ben, as the boy came awake from unconsciousness. “I’m Jonny.”

Ben found himself on the storage unit’s cement floor, sitting in a corner away from the large garage door. His wrists were stuck together, as were his sneakers, sole to sole. He tried to speak, but his lips wouldn’t open.

“Super Glue,” Jonny explained. “I only had a little tape left, and I needed it. Now don’t go fighting it,” he said, as Ben struggled with his wrists. “At best you’ll only tear your skin open, and I’ll have to reglue you. You’ll make a mess and it’ll hurt. Just sit still.”

The sweatshirt hood was off his head and hanging down his back. The skin on his face looked strange, like smooth white clay, but his ear looked like a big scab, yellow and rust colored, like pus and dried blood. It took Ben a few minutes to adjust to not breathing out of his mouth. Every time he became too scared, he got dizzy. Things would go soft and fuzzy, but when he awakened everything was clear again. He realized it all had to with his breathing. If he kept himself from getting scared, he’d stay awake.

Jonny was soldering something, using what to Ben looked like an oversized butane lighter. There was a Coleman lantern going, making a loud hissing sound and throwing off a tremendous amount of bright light.

“I ain’t going to hurt you,” Jonny said, reading Ben’s thoughts accurately. “You shouldn’ta followed me here, you know that.”

Ben nodded, as terrified as he’d ever been. It looked like the guy was making some kind of bomb, all those wires coming out of a piece of plastic tubing.

“But what’s done is done.” He raised a finger to Ben. “You fucked with my head back there at the tree. I thought you was dead.”

He didn’t sound like other grown-ups to Ben. Besides having a voice that was like a cat’s hiss, he seemed more like a kid than an adult-someone who hadn’t aged, like a movie where the kid is trapped in an older guy’s body.

“Why the hell did you follow me?” he asked the boy who couldn’t answer. “My face?”

Ben shook his head violently no. He dared to look into those eyes and felt light-headed again. He was going to pass out. He heard the words “You can admit it” but only faintly. “And now, ’cause of you, I gotta pack up and leave. Leave you here. Never killed no kid.” Ben’s world went woozy-he hyperventilated-and he lost several minutes to the blue darkness.

When Ben came to again, Jonny was through soldering. Ben endeavored to keep his eyes off the man, because every time he looked at him he felt queasy. The area was occupied nearly entirely by a large pickup truck, with just enough room left over for a pair of oil drums marked USAF, lots of black plastic pipe, and a green metal trunk unlocked but not open. Jonny sat on the trunk, working off the truck’s tailgate. There was a car jack and a pair of beach chairs stacked along the wall and a couple of cardboard boxes that were taped shut. There were boxes from Radio Shack that had once contained radio-controlled four-wheel-drive cars.

There were only two pictures in the place, a postcard of Jesus and a slightly larger image of a woman being burned at the stake.

Ben thought about God. He believed in him. He prayed to him. He made all sorts of promises about how he would live his life, how he would obey Emily or whoever ended up taking care of him; he would even spend the night at the detention center, if that were asked of him. He promised not to run away. To listen. To learn respect. The prayers gushed out of him.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Daphne’s red car driving past. He wanted so badly to believe it had been her car. Although he didn’t know exactly how long he had been held captive, he guessed at least ten minutes, maybe more. His hope of being rescued waned, and he returned to his prayers.

The man who called himself Jonny spoke to the wall but intended it for Ben. “You and I aren’t so different.” A half minute later he added, “I ain’t never had no little brother.”

Ben hung his head to the floor. He didn’t want the man to see he was crying.