Do-Gooder

by J. Leigh Bailey

  I didn’t think I could face the fifth thing.

  “The last is a drawing. It’s a picture of two stick people, one bigger than the other. Someone, I’m assuming you, had drawn it and wrote I love you Daddy on it. He keeps it in a frame, right above his computer monitor.”

  Pressure built behind my eyes, but no tears formed. I was too dehydrated for that, but God I wished I could cry. I blinked, trying to ease the sting. No amount of blinking, though, could lessen the pain in my heart. I forced a single word through my constricted throat. “Why?”

  Henry knew what I meant. Why did Chuck keep me around him but not talk to me? How could he have maintained the distance he had if he still cared?

  “I don’t know. But I think you need to talk with him.”

  I cleared my throat, then shrugged. “Whatever. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s ignored me for ten years.” It didn’t change the past, but did it change my opinion of him? Did it matter? Should it matter?

  Henry jumped to his feet when the door swung open. Two of the guards stepped in, guns pointing forward. I stood as well when the first two were followed by another guy carrying a jug of water and bowlful of rice. He dumped both on the floor, and all three of them left. I hadn’t recognized any of them, so they must be rotating guards.

  The mild scent of the rice, almost nonexistent surrounded by the smells of the jungle, drew me to the jug and the bowl. I grabbed the rice and the water and sat next to Henry. My hands twitched to grab fistfuls of rice and sate the hunger that had built over the last twenty-four hours.

  “Should we ration it?” I asked. “Will they feed us again, do you think?”

  “If we wait too long, the rice will dry out, right? Maybe it’s better to eat it while we can without breaking our teeth?”

  We stared at each other. “Compromise?” I said.

  “What kind?”

  I licked my lips. “Eat some now, enough to dull the hunger, and then eat the rest before we go to sleep. That way, if they don’t feed us again until tomorrow night”—I refused to consider the possibility they wouldn’t feed us again at all—“it won’t have been quite as long. And the rice won’t have had the chance to completely dry out.” I was talking out my ass, but Henry looked so unsure, so uncertain, I had to sound like I knew what to do. One of us had to, and I guessed it was my turn. He agreed with me at any rate.

  We each grabbed a handful of rice and ate it as best we could without losing any of the starchy grains. Our captors hadn’t given us any kind of silverware. Maybe they were afraid we’d use them as weapons or maybe they didn’t have any. Either way, I was glad the rice was the sticky kind.

  Like the water the night before, the rice tasted better than plain rice had a right to. After the second bite I thought my stomach might rebel, but a couple of deep breaths later, the cramping of a too-empty stomach eased.

  We certainly weren’t going to get fat from the food. The rice they gave us equaled maybe three cups, all told. Split into quarters—half for each of us, split into two “meals”—it was barely enough to make my stomach quit growling.

  “NO ONE ever wanted me, you know?” Henry lay sprawled across the middle of the room. We stretched out, feet facing opposite directions, with our heads nearly touching. It wasn’t very late, but with the limited windows, the closed doors, and the tall trees outside, the dusk was as good as midnight for visibility.

  “When my mom found out she was pregnant, my father told her to get an abortion. He didn’t want anything to do with a baby and some chick he’d had the bad luck to fall into bed with.”

  “She told you that?” Once again I had the random urge to hug my mom.

  “Oh, yeah. Whenever things got to be too much for her, she’d go off about it.”

  We waited in silence for a few more minutes before he spoke again. “My first… boyfriend’s the wrong word, but it’ll do… my first boyfriend liked fooling around with me, but when I came out and got kicked out, he was appalled. Not that my mom kicked me out, but that I’d come out. You see, I was good enough to fool around with, but he couldn’t be seen with a gay guy. People might assume he was gay too.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “He totally was, but he didn’t want anyone to know. It would have ruined his reputation or some shit.”

  “Damn.” My experiences were so different from his. I couldn’t even fathom what he’d gone through, what he’d done to survive.

  “Your father was the first person to ever choose me. And not just that first day. From that point on, I was like his personal assistant. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a degree or that I’d been homeless on the streets. With him, I don’t know, I could be proud of myself.”

  Chuck had been more of a father to Henry than he’d been to me, but maybe Henry needed it more. I had Mom. He’d had no one. I didn’t like the crazy jumble of emotions my mind and body could barely contain. Anger, protectiveness, jealousy, pride, love, disgust. It was too much for any one person to hold in. But there was no outlet, no way to get rid of it. The harder I tried to make sense of it, the tighter the mass of feeling wound, the worse my headache.

  Not that I needed it to feel worse. I’d been hit in the shoulder with a rifle, hit on the head with something, punched twice, and dragged around by the elbow, not to mention spending most of the day sitting or lying on the hard ground. My head hurt, my body ached, and I was pretty sure the mercenaries holding us hostage weren’t going to give me an aspirin.

  And, to add to the hyperawareness to my body, I panicked at every twinge, every twitch, wondering if it was a sign that ketoacidosis crept closer or if I was just tired and sore.

  Chapter 14

  DAY TWO of captivity went almost exactly the same as day one, minus the interrogation in the morning. Henry and I dozed in the hut all day. One of the guards stomped in and replaced the piss bucket, which was pretty considerate of them, actually. In the evening, someone came by and dropped off a new jug of water and a bowlful of rice.

  They changed things up on day three. We got beans for supper.

  Every time they delivered the food and water, Henry asked for my backpack and my insulin. Every time they ignored him. He kept trying, though, no matter how much they snarled.

  We didn’t even talk much. I don’t know if it was because there was too much to say or nothing left to say, or if we were both so caught up in our own thoughts that it didn’t occur to us to make random conversation.

  On day four, I peed six times before midafternoon. This was a problem for a couple of reasons. First, locker rooms and public restrooms aside, pissing in public wasn’t my thing. Second, peeing in front of Henry so often was just awkward, though we’d gotten pretty good about not acknowledging the lack of privacy. And third, the most important reason, really, frequent urination (textbook terminology made it less personal, right?) meant the DKA badness barreled closer to me by the minute. The water I drank didn’t offset the dehydration at all; it became the vehicle by which my body sloughed off fat and protein cells. In one end and out the other, without a stop in between to hydrate anything.

  I breathed into my palm trying to catch a whiff of my breath. Lack of toothbrushes and the like made bad breath a certainty, but that’s not what I looked for. I tried to determine if my breath could be described as fruity—another sign of ketoacidosis. I couldn’t tell.

  The jug of water we were given the night before held barely two inches of liquid. Henry kept pushing it toward me, ordering me to drink, but he refused to take more than a tiny mouthful every hour. Enough to wet his mouth, not enough to do his body any good.

  No matter how much I argued, he stubbornly refused to listen to reason. I swore he tried to make my body cooperate through willpower alone. Like he could just will my pancreas to do its job.

  God, I hoped they’d bring us more water soon. They didn’t intend for us to die, right? They couldn’t ransom dead hostages.

  Damn it, where was Chuck?

  I dozed here a
nd there, caught up in some twisted dreams about red school buses and Wendy and that damn gun. The damn gun that was the reason I was stuck in the middle of a rain forest in Cameroon.

  I didn’t want to fall asleep again, but it was all I could do to force my eyes open. Maybe conversation would help. “During your time on the street—” I pushed myself into a sitting position against the wall and looked at Henry. “—were you ever arrested?”

  His back straightened, and I could practically see the defensive wall being built up around him. “No, I lucked out there.”

  “It’s not fun.” Not exactly what I had meant to say. I swallowed; the arid tightness in my throat made talking tough. “Being handcuffed in front of the world is a whole different kind of humiliating. I wanted to object, to tell them I was a good kid, and handcuffs and guns and flashing lights were overkill.” Overkill. What an appropriate word choice.

  Jesus, Isaiah, pull it together.

  “But good kids don’t have guns, especially that close to a school. Two hundred feet,” I told Henry. “That’s how close I was. Two hundred feet closer and no matter how good a negotiator my mom was, I’d have been expelled, arrested, whatever. They take things like guns in schools pretty seriously nowadays.” Nowadays. Such a quaint word. Quaint was a quaint word too. Yeah, me. Way to rock the old-fashioned vocab.

  I blinked up at Henry when he pressed the water jug back into my hand. It took me a second to realize I’d been lost in crazy, wheezy laughter.

  I pushed the jug back at him. “I’m fine.”

  He scowled at me but didn’t argue.

  I admired Henry’s Zen calm. Sometimes he stood, sometimes he sat, but always he was still. He didn’t fidget or pace or rock in place (all the things I did). He didn’t stare at the water jug, but I’d bet big bucks that he knew exactly how much liquid remained. I looked away from the jug. One glance and my parched mouth and throat tingled with thirst.

  “MacGyver.” The name popped out.

  Henry looked up, asking his question with the motion of his eyebrows.

  “You know, that old eighties TV show?”

  “Sorry.” Henry shrugged. “I didn’t watch much television, especially shows that aired more than a decade before I was born.”

  I waved that aside. “The show’s about this guy—”

  “Let me guess. A guy named MacGyver?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ha-ha. Yes, a guy named MacGyver. He always seemed to be in these crazy situations—I have no idea why—and always managed to get out of them by some clever invention he made out of random stuff on hand. Like, you know, a watch, a fart, and a paper bag, and he creates this explosive device that takes out an entire military bunker, giving him barely enough time to save the girl or the hostages and derail the evil plot or whatever.”

  “So you think MacGyver will come and save the day?”

  “Don’t be an ass. But we should totally MacGyver this situation.”

  “How? We have, literally, the clothes on our backs and a jug of water. I’m not sure even MacGyver could rescue himself or anyone else with so little.”

  “That’s not the point. He… he was smart. We may not be able to use our wits”—my wits were well on their way to being scrambled eggs—“to rescue ourselves, but maybe we can figure out what’s going on. What’s in the canisters? Who are these guys? What side are they on? Does it matter what side they’re on? You know, information that might come in handy down the line.”

  After a minute’s pause, he said, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to gather as much information as possible. Who knows if it will come in handy?”

  The door banged open. For some reason the guards always entered the hut with a certain level of force. Henry and I had long since stopped jumping at the abrupt entrances.

  “You,” The Slav said, pointing at me. “Come.”

  I stood and brushed my hands off on my dirty jeans to hide their trembling. A deep breath later and I stepped forward.

  “What’s going on?” Henry leaned forward.

  The Slav ignored him.

  He led me along the same path I’d been on a couple of days ago, but this time I tried to pay more attention to our surroundings. One of the small buildings lined up along with Henry’s and my little prison seemed full of activity. Two guards stood by the door, and crates were stacked up along the outside wall.

  The two guards stepped back, letting a small man in a white lab coat bustle out. He reminded me of a rat, scurrying the way he did. The guards stayed where they were. Obviously, he wasn’t a hostage like me, but why the guards?

  Hands pushed me from behind, and I almost tripped. “Move,” The Slav growled.

  It was impossible to keep an eye out for the odd ratlike man as The Slav prodded me forward. Shorty sat at the same computer-laden desk as he had before, punching buttons and scowling at monitors.

  “Sit.” He jabbed a finger at a rusty folding chair against the wall, never taking his eyes off the screens in front of him. As soon as the order was out, The Slav shoved me into the chair.

  I waited in silence. The only sound in the little room was the click and clack of computer keys and Shorty’s heavy breathing. They hadn’t moved me to the other room, the one I considered their interrogation room, which I took as a good sign. I pressed at the slowly healing bruise on my cheek. I really hoped they weren’t going to add any more color to my face. The color wouldn’t be so bad, but the pain… yeah, I could really do with no more aches and pains.

  “It can’t be done!” The odd ratlike man burst into the room. “I need those supplies, Sarge. Without the other components, there’s no way the sarin will be ready by the deadline.”

  “Hvatit!” Shorty stood up so fast his chair shot out behind him, crashing into the wall. He pointed at Rat Man. “Stop. You will shut up.”

  Rat Man stood there, quivering, hands working restlessly. “You told me you’d have it by now. It takes time; it can’t be rushed.”

  Shorty snarled. He actually, honest to God, snarled like a rabid dog or something. “You will be quiet. I will have your supplies soon, and you will complete your task. That is it. That is all. Now shut up and get back to your lab.” He nodded at The Slav.

  “Come, Doctor.” The Slav crowded into Rat Man until he whirled with a huff and left the building.

  I held my breath, hoping that the frigid rage pouring off Shorty wouldn’t be directed at me next.

  Shorty pushed his chair into place and stood behind it. He focused on me fully for the first time. “Your father is being difficult.”

  “My father?” I licked my lips.

  He ignored me. “So you will send him a message.”

  My whole body throbbed in time with my pulse, and numbness flashed and flickered along my skin. “I don’t know how to reach him.”

  “After much research,” he said with a cold sneer that made me wonder exactly what kind of research he’d done, “I have the contact information for the Lobéké refugee camp. However, when I reach out, I am denied.”

  Oh my God. Chuck refused to talk with him? I tried three times to speak before the words actually came out. “He… he’s not willing to work something out?” Did I really matter that little to him? Now, instead of flashes of numbness, my whole body was numb. No feeling, nothing.

  “I am told he is unavailable.”

  Unavailable? What the hell?

  “So we will send them a message, and he will become available.” He pulled his arm back and hit me with a full-palmed slap across my left cheek. The swelling that had finally gone down bloomed and the scabby abrasions broke open, but I managed to stay in my seat. Points for me.

  He answered my unspoken question. “We want him to know how… tenuous… your situation is.”

  He turned one of the monitors to show me rows of text. My script.

  “Now,” Shorty said, adjusting the angle of the webcam, “explain to your father why he should return our canisters.”

  My head jerked up from the words on th
e screen. What? These guys thought Chuck, king of the do-gooders, had the canisters? Shorty had to be kidding, right?

  His emotionless, stony face proved he was dead serious.

  He stabbed a key at his work station and then pointed to me. “Read.”

  “Chu—Dad?” My voice croaked, and I swallowed, then tried again. “Um… it’s me. Isaiah. Your son?” At the cold look from Shorty I got to the text. “You have something they want. You will return it to them or—” I was breathing too fast. Light-headed and shaky, I read the words aloud through force of will alone. “Or I will be disposed of. And so will the other boy. Henry,” I added, in case Chuck didn’t know that Henry was with me.

  “They are going to send this video with instructions on contacting them. If they don’t… if they don’t… if they don’t hear from you, you and nobody else… within forty-eight hours, the other boy, Henry,” I added again, “will be killed. Then, if you have still not contacted them, they will… they will. Oh God, they’ll kill me too.” I whispered, more than spoke, the last line on the screen. “Isn’t your son more important than your work?”

  My stomach cramped, and I curled in on myself. This was a nightmare. It had to be. The worst part was the two voices yelling in the back of my head. One blubbered and pleaded for my father to do what they wanted, to just come and get me. The other, fueled by ten years of bitterness, cackled hysterically. Chuck had been given that choice before, the job or his family, and he’d chosen his job. What were the odds he’d make the same choice again?

  Chapter 15

  THE SECOND the door closed behind me, I roared. A straight-from-the-gut bellow to release all the impotent rage, terror, and frustration seething inside me. Funny thing, once I started, I couldn’t stop. “Bastard. God damned son-of-a-bitching bastard! How could he do this to me? To us?” I stalked across the room, but it wasn’t far enough to do any good. I kicked the wall, relishing the sharp pain in my foot. I spun and took a few more steps, kicking out at the water jug. It sailed across the room, missing Henry’s head by inches before it crashed into the wall.