Al.'
'What happened?'
'He ran out of money. One day he had money, and the next day he didn't. They were going to throw us out of the room. So one night Al brought home two men and told me they had paid to fuck me, and I was going to fuck them, or he was going to kick me out. I thought about going, but I had seen the money. I fucked them.'
'I'm sorry,' Rafferty says.
The boy shrugs the sentiment away. 'That night, after the two men left, I waited until Al was asleep. Then I got dressed and opened the dresser and took the money. And then I crawled across the bed and bit Al's ear off.'
His eyes are locked on Rafferty's. 'He bled a lot,' he says, still watching. When Rafferty doesn't avert his gaze, the boy looks away. 'I ran. All the way back to Bangkok.'
First Chouk's story, now this. Rafferty shuffles through a dozen replies and finally says, 'You didn't deserve any of that.'
'Then why did it happen?' The boy's voice scales so high it almost breaks on the last word. His eyes are enormous, and Rafferty sees them for the first time as what they are: the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. 'Why did it happen to me? Why not somebody else?'
'Wait,' Rafferty says. 'This is a big question. Give me a second here.' He leans back against the couch and rolls his head slowly around to get the stiffness out of his neck. 'Okay. Listen to me, even if I make some mistakes, right?'
'Fine,' the boy says.
'Nobody can really answer that question. Why am I lucky? I don't know. I've never gone hungry, I've got both arms and legs. You've had a shitty life, and I don't understand that either. Rose would say it's karma, but I don't understand much about karma. So do I know why you had to be the one that man treated that way? No. I can't explain how the guy handcuffed to my bed could have gone through what he went through either, so I'm a complete bust. By the way, you were wrong about him. He wasn't one of the ones who did all that. He was one of the ones it was done to.'
Superman ducks his head awkwardly, and Rafferty knows that it is all the apology the boy will make.
'Anyway,' Rafferty says, backtracking, 'you're here now. Al's not. Who knows? Maybe he died of blood poisoning. Maybe the tsunami got him. But you're here. And you're wrong about why you're here. We didn't just give it all to you. If you hadn't been a good kid, I'd have bathed you and debugged you and thrown you back on the sidewalk, no matter what Miaow said.'
The boy mumbles something to the carpet.
'Say what?'
'Not good. Me.'
'Oh, shut up,' Rafferty says. 'I know enough about you to know you're a great kid. So you bit a guy's ear off.' He can hardly believe he's saying the words. 'He had it coming. It wasn't your fault. You're smart, you're tough, you're self-sufficient, you're brave, you can fix anything…' He runs out of steam, hearing the hollowness of his words.
The silence stretches between them, and the boy offers him a way out of it. 'I fixed the lock on Miaow's closet door.'
This is real news. 'Really? It's not permanently locked anymore? She can close it?'
'No problem.' The boy glances up at him. He is on safer ground. 'What did you do when she closed it before?'
'Took it off the hinges,' Rafferty says, happy to have a question he can answer.
The boy lowers his face and makes a sound that could be a snicker. 'The hinges,' he says.
'See? You can do things I can't. I can do things you can't. That means we can do things for each other, doesn't it?'
A dismissive shake of the head. 'Yeah, yeah.' The boy puts a hand down in preparation to get up.
'Hey. You started this. I'm not exactly an expert on life, but you asked me a question and I think you ought to sit here until I finish making a fool out of myself.'
The boy doesn't respond, but he remains seated.
'Look, the world is softer for some people than others. That's the way it is. Some people don't have enough to eat, some weigh three hundred pounds. And you, you got a really shitty deal. Okay, that's too bad. We all agree, it's just terrible. It absolutely keeps me awake nights.' His tone brings the boy's head up sharply. 'So what can you do? You can't change the world, you know. It's too damn big. So what does that leave?'
The boy says nothing, just sits cross-legged with both palms pressed to the carpet, his fingers splayed like those of a runner about to start a sprint.
'I hate to give advice, so I'll tell you a story instead. It's a Tibetan Buddhist story. A young monk goes to the wisest man he knows, the abbot of his temple, and asks the same question you've just asked: Why is the world so hard and sharp? Why does it have to hurt my feet? And instead of answering, the abbot asks the kid whether it would be better if the world were covered with leather-have you heard this?'
The boy shakes his head.
'Okay, so the young monk says sure it would. It'd be a lot better. And the abbot asks the kid whether he knows how to cover the world with leather, and the kid says no, of course he doesn't, because he's a smart kid, a realistic kid. There's no way he can cover the world with leather. 'Fine,' says the abbot. 'Can you cover your feet with leather?''
Superman's eyes lift slowly to study the wall above Rafferty's head. After a long moment, he nods once. 'Then what?' he asks.
'Then we're going to get you into a school,' Rafferty says. 'And you're going to hate it sometimes, because you're just going to be a kid, not someone who runs things, but you're going to stay there because you belong there. Nobody's giving you anything. You'll earn it by being a good, smart kid and by showing up every day and by staying away from yaa baa and glue and whatever the hell else you were stuffing into your system. And if you screw up, you know what? There's not going to be a net. You're just going to fall. We can help you, but only if you want it. If you don't want it badly enough to pay for it, there's nothing anybody can do.'
'You can do this? You can get me into a school?'
'No problem.' Rafferty replays his conversation with Morrison in his mind. 'I think.'
'You'll try?'
This is not something to take lightly, and he pauses long enough to feel the boy's eyes on him. 'I promise.'
'Why?' He still has his hands braced on the floor, as though he is ready to bolt from the room.
'Because Miaow loves you. Because you helped her.'
The boy looks away, out through the sliding glass door at the lights of Bangkok. His body is very still.
'And because I think you're a terrific kid,' Rafferty adds awkwardly.
The boy says, without turning, 'And you don't want anything?'
'I want you to work. I want you to do whatever you have to do to put leather on your feet so you can step on the sharp stuff without hurting yourself.'
The boy gets up, all in one motion. Rafferty can remember being that limber, but not for quite a while. Superman puts both hands in his pockets and stares at the floor. Then he takes a slow step and then another, toward the hallway. At the last moment, he detours toward the couch. Without looking at Rafferty, he pulls one hand from his pocket and reaches out and touches him on the shoulder lightly, just brushes him with the backs of his fingers.
As he goes down the hall, Rafferty hears him say, 'The hinges.'
PART IV
