Familiar faces, grown up now. Stealing cars. Breaking into candy stores. Public drunkenness and acts of public indecency.
Setting fire to the school. Setting fire to their homes. Setting fire to random objects that somehow earned their wrath.
The Little Terrorists, the media ended up calling them. The city had to build another juvenile detention facility to house them all. To the everlasting shame of their well heeled parents.
And Hilario’s shame.
He didn’t know for sure that his tinkering with their impressional mental states turned them into Heckions. It may have been genetics. Or maybe they didn’t get enough fiber in diets.
He suspected, though, that his suggestions got turned around by a deeper set attitude in the children’s brains:
Do the opposite of what adults tell you.
In the end, all he could do was sigh and add it to the long, long, long list of his other misdeeds.
Atonement was going to take a very long time.
But at least the party had fostered a long friendship with Larry Sparrow. They had sat at a red and white checkered cloth covered table after the disastrous party and talked. Larry had made Hilario one of his fantastic pizzas, loaded with real Italian pepperoni, salami and prosciutto. Hilario made himself eat slowly for once, savoring the flavors of crispy, chewy crust; bright, tangy sauce; and rich, fresh mozzarella. For a little while he understood why people who truly loved food were so thin. Eating something truly wonderful required appreciation and concentration.
Unfortunately, volume was what eased the pain where the tattered remnants of his soul lay.
Larry had sat back, sipping a glass of red wine, regaling Hilario with stories of his cooking apprenticeship in Italy. Larry never outright lied about being Italian. But he strongly implied it.
And his horrid accent had a tendency to slip in and out of his conversation.
Hilario never called him on his glancing deception. Though he often pointed it out to Larry when his fake accent was slipping.
But otherwise he never tried to pry the truth out of Larry. After all, he was in no position to be passing judgement on other people.
Mrs Larry…Rachel…he had only met twice.
The former Mrs. Sparrow seldom came into the restaurant, according to Larry. Hilario had sensed the strained relations between them. Observed the cold way Rachel looked at Larry. And the puppy dog cringing body language Larry slipped into in her presence.
Somewhere along the way, something had gone very wrong in their marriage.
Which was strange, because both of them were the nicest, most generous people he’d ever met.
The two times he had spoken with Rachel, he had been in full uniform. Once was at a birthday party for one of her nephews Larry had hired him for. She warmly thanked him for coming and told him how kindly Larry had spoken of him.
Hilario had been a little taken aback.
People were seldom nice to him. At best they ignored him. At worst…well, a hugely fat man in a clown costume should never expect to be treated with dignity, in his experience.
He looked at it as part of his penance.
But Mrs. Larry was nice. Sincerely so. With his powers it was simple for him to read emotions coming off people. As easy as reading body language for normal people. Rachel’s sincerity was…sincere.
The second time he met her was a late evening at the Stung Sparrow. He’d come in after a particularly trying week. He was feeling lower than the smeared goblins on the bottom of Mavhorm’s cloven hooves. He was sporting a complex set of bruises under his civilian clothes. His whole body ached. And the empty spot where his soul used to be hurt more than anything.
Normally that would have been the starting gun for a three day fast food bingefest.
For some reason he ended up at the Stung Sparrow.
He sat at a table–Larry’s restaurant had very sturdy chairs, thankfully–and one of the regular waiters took his order.
Movement caught his eye. Larry and Rachel stood in the shadows by the arched kitchen entrance. They were talking low. Both waved their hands in hard, abrupt motions.
An argument. He averted his eyes. Conflict was the last thing he wanted that night.
A few minutes later someone stepped up to his table. Was the pizza here already?
He looked up. Rachel stood there.
She pulled out a chair and sat.
Hello Hilario, she said, I didn’t recognize you without your costume.
His face went hot. Rachel was a beautiful woman. Long, dark, wavy hair that cascaded past her shoulders. A softly rounded face and dark, sparkling eyes. She spoke with a soft, not fake accent. Unlike Larry, Rachel could claim a genuine Italian heritage.
I seldom leave my abode without it, Hilario said. It was a rare day he went out of the house without his armor. Which just happened to look like a clown costume.
He was wearing his standard civilian outfit: loose black slacks and long sleeved pullover shirt. The exposed skin on his head, face and hands, twitched. It was a risk having them bare. But being as large as he was, few people would even look at him. Much less approach him and actually touch him.
Rachel’s dark eyes appraised him for a few moments. Her full lips were turned up slightly. A gentle smile that held no mocking in it at all.
You wear it like armor, she said, like it protects you.
His heart skipped a beat. He stuttered, words tripping over themselves as the fell out of his mouth.
I-I-I, wouldn’t
