45
TO DIFFUSE THE TENSION, DANIEL suggested we take a break before the lecture. We were tired and cranky and confused, and we’d been trapped in the house for too long. Daniel wanted to keep reading, though, so he stayed home, leaving Stella, Jamie, and me to our own devices. Which to Jamie meant buying food.
Without a car, and with our agreement not to order out, we ended up having to take the train to a Whole Foods (Jamie insisted), which meant lugging bags of groceries with us on the way back. The platform was weirdly empty, except for a couple of preppily dressed guys urinating on a heap of what looked like rags. Stella and I were debating the artistic merits of graffiti (my opinion, art; hers, vandalism), but I digressed for a moment to loudly inform the guys of their disgustingness. They didn’t say anything back. Not even when Jamie called out to them. It was only then that I noticed that the heap was actually a person.
Jamie spoke first. “What in the ever-loving fuck do you think you’re doing?” He was already marching toward them.
I was close at his heels, and Stella brought up the rear. We could see the person, the woman, huddled against the wall, her small, pathetic collection of things strewn around her like trash. She was older and her face was dirty, and she was awake. Part of me hoped she’d be unconscious so she wouldn’t ever have to know what was being done to her, but one look at her face told me she did know. And she was ashamed.
I vibrated with rage, just as one of the assholes flashed a shit-eating grin at Jamie and said, “When you gotta go, you gotta—”
He never finished his sentence, because I punched him in his freckled face. The other one, Blondie, raised his arm to swing back at me, but Jamie yelled “Stop!” in that voice of his. Both of them froze, completely, but they could still hear. They could definitely hear.
My hands were balled into fists so tight that my nails dug into my skin. “She’s a person,” I said. “How could you do this to a person?”
“Answer her,” Jamie said flatly. “And tell the fucking truth.”
“The homeless are a plague,” Freckles said, then swallowed hard, as if by doing so he could take the words back. Blondie just smirked. He wasn’t ashamed at all.
Stella had knelt down near the woman, and I heard her ask if she was hungry. I took a step toward the assholes, who were farther from the woman, and closer to the platform.
“She’s more of a person than you are,” I said. I could hear the woman sobbing softly. “Stella, help her?”
I didn’t look to see if she nodded, but I assumed she did, because I heard plastic crunch as the woman stood.
“Give her something to eat?” Jamie said to her.
Stella glanced at our groceries and nodded. She offered the woman her arm. “What’s your name?”
“Maria,” the woman said.
Stella helped her up and said, “Guys, let’s go?”
“No,” I said slowly, looking back at the boys. “I’m going to stay, I think.”
“Mara.” Stella said my name through gritted teeth. “Come on.”
Jamie edged closer to me. “I’m going to stay too, actually.”
Freckles burst out laughing. “You’re not seriously suggesting that you’re going to punish us?”
Little did they know. I flicked a glance at Stella. “Do you need something?”
“No,” she dragged out the word.
I looked at Freckles and Blondie as I said to her, “Then go. Now.”
But she didn’t. Instead, she unlooped her arm from Maria’s.
“What are you going to do to them?”
“I kind of want to see Mara Crucio their asses,” Jamie said.
The boys snickered.
“Avada kedavra, more like,” I said.
Stella looked back and forth between the two of us. “You’re not serious.”
“They deserve it,” I said quietly.
Blondie chuckled. “Two girls and a child?” He looked Jamie up and down. “How old are you?
“Old enough to kick your ass.”
Freckles doubled over.
“I would cut out your eye just to see what it looks like in my hand,” I said to him to absolutely no effect.
Which was fine. He didn’t have to believe me yet.
“You’re not really . . . You’re not going to . . . ,” Stella said, but from the tone of her voice, I knew she wasn’t sure.
I shrugged. “It would be fair.”
Stella turned to Jamie. “Jamie.”
He didn’t answer her.
“Make them sit still and then piss on them,” Stella said. “That would be fair.”
Jamie shook his head. “Look, if you peed on me—”
“I would never piss on you, Jamie.” Stella had relaxed a bit. She thought Jamie was playing with her. Maybe he was.
“I appreciate that, but let’s say you did. Then according to Kant, I could pee on you. That’s retributive justice right there.”
Jamie turned back to the boys, who were frozen in place, presumably because Jamie had told them to stop. They watched us warily. “Peeing on a homeless person, that’s different. It’s worse. There are levels of awful, and that’s near the top.”
It was. I hadn’t felt this angry in so long, and there was so much pleasure in it. My nerves were electrified. New synapses were firing. I felt different, and wondered if I looked it. I craned my neck to see my reflection in a mirrored tile and waited for it to say something, to tell me what to do the way she used to. But she was silent. Hmm.
Meanwhile, Jamie continued to explain to Stella why the assholes deserved more than what she thought they did. “There’s a power differential,” he said. “They’re taking advantage of someone weak, and it’s horrible and disgusting and amoral, and anyone who does something like that needs to be taught a lesson. Peeing on them back isn’t enough.”
No. It wasn’t. A hot breeze made its way through the tunnel, giving me an idea. “There’s a train coming,” I said to Jamie.
He met my eyes. He understood. “Listen carefully,” he said to the boys, and they did, because they had no choice. “Climb down off the subway platform. Don’t step on the third rail, but stand on the tracks.”
Stella’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, staring at Jamie. “No.”
But he ignored her, and the boys walked over to the yellow line, which warned them in huge block letters to stay away. They jumped down off the platform and onto the tracks, avoiding the third rail like Jamie said. Two rats scurried over a discarded chip bag and a stray purple ribbon before disappearing into the tunnel.
“Follow them,” Jamie said to the boys, as he pointed at the rats. “Walk into the tunnel.”
“You can’t do this,” Stella said. “Jamie. Jamie.”
I answered for him. “What they did was wrong.”
“But they don’t deserve this.”
“How do you know?” I said. “What are they thinking?”
Stella went very still. I watched her focus, watched her face change, darken as she listened to the words in their minds.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re thinking,” Stella said quietly and from the tone of her voice, I knew she hadn’t liked what she’d heard. “Thoughts are just thoughts.”
But now that I had asked, I very much wanted to know. “Jamie, can you make them say what they’re thinking out loud?”
“I can try,” he said, and walked to the edge of the platform. “Let’s hear it, assholes. Tell me every thought running through your tiny minds.”
Another hot breeze ruffled their hair, and Freckles glanced over his shoulder before shouting at Jamie, “Fuck you!” Blondie added an unspeakable word.
I watched Jamie’s expression harden. “Oh, don’t stop,” he said, softly. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“You people are parasites,” Blondie went on. “Lazy and useless and worthless. You should be my slaves.”
Stella’s face was wiped blank. Her voice shook when she spoke again. “They’re just ignorant, Jamie. Ignorant and stupid.” Jamie was quiet. “Killing them is going to hurt you more than it hurts them,” Stella continued. “And what about their families?”
I felt the telltale subway rumble beneath my feet. Stella said something to Jamie, but I didn’t pay attention. I was looking at the woman, Maria.
“Stop,” she said quietly, so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard it. Then she said it again. “Let them up,” Maria told Jamie.
That was when Jamie’s facade cracked. He was still angry, but it was a different kind of anger. Cold. Resigned. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Get out of here. Climb up.” He looked sick when he said it. “She’s a better person than either of you.”
She was, and so was Jamie. But I wasn’t.
Jamie was never going to let them die, I knew. He just wanted to scare them. I wanted to kill them. Their brand of cruelty wasn’t illegal but it was poisonous. They would do worse, someday, and hurt other people, people who didn’t deserve it. I wanted to stop them before they had the chance. I wondered if I was really capable of it.
And as I wondered, Freckles offered his hand to Blondie to help him up. The train was approaching—I could see the light in the distance. But Blondie would be off the tracks by the time it got there. I wasn’t sure what to wish for, what to think, and that made me even more angry. They couldn’t just walk out of here. I wouldn’t let them.
I heard Freckles swear. He was looking at Blondie, whose face was contorted in pain. His nose was bleeding.
“What the fuck!” Freckles shouted, as blood streamed over his lips. He looked up with wild, unfocused eyes as he pinched his nostrils to cut off the flow.
Stella looked at me in horror. “Mara.” Jamie looked at me too. They knew.
When Freckles finally heaved Blondie up the rest of the way, he collapsed. Then he began to bleed, too.
Stella tugged on Jamie’s arm. “Jamie, tell her to—make her stop. Make her stop!”
Maria covered her mouth and looked like she might be sick.
The train rushed into the station, bringing a horde of people with it. A cluster formed around Freckles and Blondie, and I felt a twinge of surprise to see Maria in it. She’d broken away from Stella, from us, and she was gesturing to someone authoritative, trying to help the same people who had made her their victim. I was moved by it. I decided to let the boys live.
For today.