And The Children Shall Lead

by Michael J. Bowler

  “Unfortunately, all around the country kids are still treated as adults without having any protections like real adults have. So we thought what kids need is their own Bill of Rights in the Constitution that will protect them not only from government, but from grown-ups who just want to act like we’re property.”

  He paused for another round of clapping. The kids, he was happy to see, were stoked by this new venture. The trick, as he knew from the prop campaign, was to win over their parents.

  “It’s funny how people forget that other piece of famous American paper, what was it called?”

  He snapped his fingers as though trying to remember. Ricky grinned and leaned into the microphone. “You mean the Declaration of Independence, fool?”

  Lance pretended to frown and gave him a playful shove. “I was just about to say that, fool. Stop interrupting.”

  Everyone laughed and Soto shook his head in amazement. These two were slick.

  Lance turned back to the crowd after a mock mad-dog look at Ricky, who grinned and shrugged. “Anyway, as I was saying before this fool interrupted me, yeah the Declaration of Independence. I know it’s not the law, but it does say ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are all endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. Now I know when it was written, men were everything and women not so much. But, it does have that magic word ‘all’ in it. Aren’t us kids part of the ‘all’ too? It doesn’t say ‘all adults’. Shouldn’t we have constitutional protection against bad people and bad government like you grown-ups do?”

  The kids in the crowd shouted en masse, “Damn straight!”

  That drew a huge laugh, even the assembled adults.

  Lance grinned, slightly taken aback by their use of his now-famous phrase. “So, we won’t start shopping around the CBOR, as I call it for short, to Congress people and senators till early next year. We want as much feedback as possible, from kids and grown-ups all over the country. The current CBOR is a draft, waiting for you all to weigh in. We know what goes down here in Cali, but not in all the other states. We’ve gotten lots of responses so far, and ideas for revising, and we’re gonna put in any we feel are needed. But there won’t be any more than ten amendments, since we based ours on the originals.”

  He turned to Ricky with a dramatic flair. He knew he was on camera and had learned to play to it. “Did I forget anything?”

  Ricky paused as though thinking deep thoughts. “Dunno. Think they might have any questions?”

  Lance laughed. “Hell, no, fool.” He turned back to the microphone. “None ’a you have any questions, do you?”

  There was more boisterous laughter and every media hand flew into the air. Lance turned to Ricky. “Guess you were right.” They grinned, high-fived, and then turned back to the excited crowd.

  As always, Lance pointed to Helen. “I know you think I’m playing favorites by always picking Lady Helen to go first… and you’re right.” More laughs drifted up from below. “Lady Helen?”

  As usual, Helen looked professional and sexy at the same time. She grinned up at the boys, clearly happy to be there and first out of the block.

  “Sir Lance, the biggest concern adults seem to have raised about your CBOR, as you called it, is that it undermines, and might even destroy, parental rights over children in this country. How do you respond to that assertion?”

  Lance and Ricky exchanged a look, as though deciding who should respond first. Ricky held up his hand to indicate Lance as the one to answer. This was all part of their ‘act.’

  Lance smiled warmly down at Helen. “Good question, Lady Helen. And I’ll answer it with a question – are children property of their parents? Or, like in my case, if parents dump kids like yesterday’s trash, are we the government’s property?”

  “Hell, no!” shouted the hundreds of kids and teens crowding in towards the restraining barriers, causing the LAPD officers to apprehensively move in closer to each other.

  Lance grinned. “I guess we know where the kids stand on that question.”

  The crowd laughed and the teens cheered.

  “But,” Lance went on, suddenly serious and sober, “where do adults stand on that question? If they think we’re property, then they’ll be against our CBOR, though I thought the whole ‘people are property’ thing went out with, you know, the thirteenth amendment? But maybe I didn’t understand that part too well in school.”

  The kids in the crowd looked mystified by Lance’s reference, but many in the media gasped. Helen grinned, and Mayor Soto chuckled to himself.

  “So, if adults agree in principle that children are not property,” Lance continued solemnly, “then we can have a serious talk about our CBOR and how to make it work for everyone.”

  More reporters thrust their hands into the air. Lance pointed to man wearing a ‘Fox News’ polo shirt.

  “Sir Lance, do you believe it’s the parental role to make decisions for their children?”

  Lance shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  That answer created something of a minor uproar from the adults, and another cheer from the kids.

  “Let me explain,” Lance continued and everyone settled down. “I think, and this is from my experience and Ricky’s and all the knights in our Round Table who’ve told us their stories, that it’s a parent’s job to take care of kids, to make sure we have the things we need, like food, shelter, love, and protection from harm. It’s a parent’s job to set a good example, and teach us how to behave, how to know the difference between right and wrong.” Then he smiled in a knowing way. “I bet most of you didn’t do your homework and read Frankenstein yet, did you?”

  That drew a laugh from many in the crowd.

  “Didn’t think so.” Another laugh ensued, and Lance turned serious again. “Having said all that, it’s not the job of parents to tell us kids what to think or feel cuz we’re our own selves, not little clones of them. That’s why some of our amendments deal with that. Maybe I been spoiled this past year and a half since my dad took me in, but he doesn’t do those things. Neither does my mom. They show us how to be good people, and teach us how to think, but don’t tell us what to think.”

  Lance glanced at Ricky for that reassuring look, and got it. Grinning, he pointed to a guy wearing a ‘CNN’ shirt.

  “Sir Lance, could your CBOR, if passed by the congress and the states, make it easier for good parents to get caught up in some legal nightmare?”

  Lance looked straight at the man. “You mean like good kids getting arrested for attempted murder and put through hell by the system and the media before finally being released? That kind of ‘caught up’?”

  The man looked momentarily stunned by Lance’s response. “Well, sort of, yes. I mean, most parents probably do a good job. What if their kids get mad about some little thing or other and try to sue under your bill of rights?”

  Lance sighed dramatically, again playing to the cameras. “Look, I don’t think there’s anything in our CBOR that will let a kid sue their parents, but in this country, like Michael taught me, there’s always the law of unintended consequences. Good parents who listen to their kids and don’t try to make the kids into little clones have nothing to worry about. But our society doesn’t value children as human beings, and we kids have no standing under the law to fight back. Just this year Children’s Services tried to take me and Ricky and Chris away from our dad because he kept swords on the premises and they ‘might fall into the wrong hands’.” He snorted derisively. “They didn’t even care about what we thought or wanted, and younger kids like Chris aren’t even allowed to talk in court unless the judge is super cool like Judge Baker was with us. So yeah, we need the Constitution to guarantee us those unalienable rights.”

  He pointed to another reporter, a lady from CBS.

  “Sir Lance, why do you feel parents should not be in control of their children’s money?”


  Lance and Ricky exchanged a look and Lance waved a hand toward the other boy. Ricky leaned in to the mic. “How about because the parents didn’t earn the money, the kids did?”

  That answer got a huge swell of support from the teens in the crowd. He grinned at Lance, who shrugged and waved at him to continue.

  “Look, when I was little everybody thought I was ‘such a cute little boy’,” Ricky said, using the air quotation marks to mimic overly hyperbolic adults, “and they kept telling my dad and mom that I should be a model cuz they could make all kinds of money off ’a me.”

  Lance chuckled. “Modeling what, fool, diapers? You could still do that now.”

  Ricky scowled and shoved Lance away from the microphone. “See what I gotta put up with? Anyway, my birth father thought modeling was for girls and sissies and said no. But most parents don’t say no. They put their kids into acting or modeling or whatever so they can make money. If a kid wants to do it, fine, but the money earned is his and the parents shouldn’t get a dime of it.”

  Now Lance leaned in. “It’s like bribing people to pimp their kids out for money,” he asserted, and then frowned. “That’s like foster care too. Kids in foster care should be the only ones in charge of their money, not the grown-ups. I never saw a dime of the money those people got for me, so I know what I’m talking about.”

  He pointed to another raised hand, this lady wearing an NBC hat.

  “Sir Lance, we all know of your experience within the adult court system and that’s probably one of the reasons Californians voted to repeal such laws. However, more than half the other states have laws putting children sometimes younger than fourteen into adult court. Your amendment number thirty-three forbids this practice. Are you attempting to trample on states’ rights here?”

  Lance and Ricky had expected such a challenge, and were prepared with an answer.

  “That’s a great question,” Lance said with a nod to the journalist. “If these amendments become law, they apply to the country as a whole, just like the first Bill of Rights did. So just like that one forbids cruel and unusual punishment for adults, our amendment thirty-three says that putting kids into adult court is cruel and unusual punishment. I guess at that point each state will have to figure out how to deal with it. So no, we’re not telling any particular state what they can or can’t do.”

  Ricky leaned in now. “Does that answer your question?”

  The lady thanked him, and there were nods of approval throughout the crowd.

  The questions continued in a similar vein, some addressing specific amendments while others were more general regarding the role of parents if the Children’s Bill of Rights became the law of the land. Lance and Ricky answered each deftly, having practiced with Jenny over the past few days. The boys joked around some more and played for the cameras, especially when they’d give each other a shove and call the other “Fool.” Even the adults, while wary or hostile at first, warmed to the boys’ playfulness, and that seemed to relax the overall atmosphere

  By the time the press conference drew to a close, Lance and Ricky had charmed everyone, even those likely to oppose their amendments.

  As they followed Arthur down the short steps to ground level, with Lance waving to the people behind the stage, Ricky heard a strange creaking sound and looked up. One of the enormous speakers, set atop a thick, metal tripod, began toppling – right toward Lance. Instinctively, Ricky grabbed Lance by the shirt and yanked him back, sending both boys tumbling back up the steps with Lance landing in Ricky’s lap. The speaker, easily large enough to have killed or seriously injured Lance, toppled hard to the lower steps, smashing and splintering them with an explosive bang!

  Arthur whirled, leaping back away from the crashing sound, eyeing the speaker, the splintered wooden steps, and his stunned sons huddled together just above the damaged area.

  “Are you all right?” he exclaimed fearfully, even as Jenny and the mayor and everyone else turned in shock at the commotion.

  Lance nodded, his heart thudding wildly in his chest, Ricky’s arms were around him, holding on like he never wanted to let go.

  “You sure?” Ricky whispered into his ear breathlessly, his own heart skipping a few beats.

  Lance turned his head and their eyes met. He felt the chill of death calling for him again. That had been close. Too close.

  Ricky tried for a smirk. “You have that Final Destination look again, Lance. Still think death wants you back?”

  But Lance was too rattled to respond to the joke. Ever since he came back from death the first time, he’d had this unsettling feeling it wasn’t over yet, that death wasn’t finished with him.

  “Maybe,” he whispered, afraid his voice would betray the fear within.

  Ricky gave him a playful shove. “If death wants you, pretty boy, it’ll be over my dead body.”

  That made Lance grin. He couldn’t help it. “Dumbass.”

  Then Arthur was there, stretching out a hand to help Lance up and over the fallen speaker. Ricky quickly followed. Most of the crowd in front of the staging area obviously knew the speaker had fallen, but couldn’t see the aftermath and milled around uncertainly. Reporters and camera people scrambled to get around the stage for a better view.

  The mayor was beside himself, red faced and flustered. “I’m so sorry, Lance, I don’t know how that happened. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Lance felt his heart slowing, his breathing returning to normal after the adrenalin spike. “Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I’m fine. Dumbass here saved me.” He gave Ricky a loving shove.

  The mayor looked relieved and waved over some of the sound people to clean up the mess just as the media and their cameras arrived to film the scene.

  Lance met Arthur’s gaze and saw the fear in his father’s eyes. “Really, I’m good, Dad. Let’s go home.”

  Arthur smiled and placed one arm around Lance’s shoulders and one around Ricky’s while Jenny led an agitated Chris by the hand and they all followed Ryan and Gibson back through City Hall to their cars, ignoring shouted questions from the media pool.

  †††

  Lance brooded about the close call as he and Ricky sat in the back of Ryan’s four-door sedan. The others had gone with Gibson in his beamer. Ricky again tried to lighten Lance’s pensive mood.

  “Going all emo on me again, Lance?”

  Lance looked over and offered a tiny smile. The phone in his pocket vibrated with an incoming text message. Lance slipped out the smartphone and thumbed in his password to unlock it. He gasped loudly.

  Ricky leaned in at once. “What?”

  Lance held up the phone. The text was from number “000-000-0000.”

  “Oh, shit,” Ricky whispered breathlessly.

  Ryan swiveled his head around halfway. “Everything okay back there, boys?”

  “Just a sec, nino,” Lance replied breathlessly while he and Ricky read over the series of messages. Lance’s blood ran cold in his veins.

  ‘Hello, Lance, it’s your old pal Jacky again. Forgot me already? You must have since you’re all hot and heavy with your faggot brother. That’s the problem with you fag boys, you just go from one guy to the next. Sick! So, did you like my little surprise with the speaker?’

  Lance sucked in a breath, and Ricky grabbed his arm with dread.

  ‘It’s only the beginning. I’m going to kill you, Lance, but like any self-respecting cat with a mouse, I’m going to play with you first. You gave up drinking so vodka won’t work anymore. LOL The coaster and the train were fun, but just warm-ups. I had another opportunity to take you out since then, but chose not to, because I want to watch you suffer when I kill your disgusting little boyfriend first. Ha! You’ll never know if something is an accident or on purpose. It could be as simple as a trash truck plowing through a red light and smashing into your asshole godfather’s car on the way home.’

  Lance glanced up and frantically looked out his side window at the oncoming traffic, while Ricky searched desperatel
y out his. No trash trucks were in sight. Both boys hurriedly returned their wide-eyed gazes to the phone.

  ‘Or it could be a piece of falling construction equipment. But don’t worry. Before you die you’ll know who I am and why I’m killing you. Oh, and don’t think I forgot your old man. San Francisco was just the beginning. So play your politics, little boy. Go ahead and push your childish bill of rights on the American people. They’re just stupid enough to pass it. But know that I’ll always be there, just like before, toying with you, watching you squirm. And when the time is right, I will have my revenge and crush you like the worthless faggot you are. Later, Lancey boy.’

  Lance’s breath had practically ceased, his heart constricted with terror as he met Ricky’s fearful brown eyes. Revenge? For what? He hadn’t hurt anyone!

  The car suddenly stopped, and both boys jumped with alarm. Ryan whipped his head around and Lance realized they had merely come to a stoplight.

  “What is it?” the detective asked, knowing something was wrong just by the ashen looks on their faces. Hand trembling, Lance handed him the phone, and Ryan scanned it quickly. “Holy shit!”

  But then the light turned green and the older man handed back the phone so he could return his eyes to the road.

  Lance dropped back against the cloth seatback and expelled a deep breath, lowering the phone heavily into his lap. Ricky grabbed his other hand, intertwined their fingers and squeezed gently.

  “Michael was innocent, nino,” Lance muttered, almost without breath. “Just like I said.”

  In the rearview, he saw Ryan nod his head solemnly.

  Lance met Ricky’s wide, frightened eyes and gratefully squeezed the other boy’s hand. “He was innocent.”

  Ricky looked abashed and afraid at the same time. Michael might have been innocent, but somebody else wanted them dead, in the worst way.

  “I told you guys, I don’t know,” Lance repeated for probably the tenth time, his voice exasperated, his nerves frayed. They were all gathered in the expansive hotel library discussing the latest threat Lance received on his phone.