“Didn’t know cars had fists,” I commented.
She pursed her lips and set down the chart she’d been holding, looking me in the eye for the first time since I’d arrived. She sighed and looked around to make sure no one was listening. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The boy you’re looking for was brought in a few days ago with a minor concussion and a sprained wrist. He’d been banged up pretty badly and from what I could tell, pretty often. It’s not the first time he’s been in here either. Between you and me I called child services, but when I brought the social worker to his room he was already gone.”
“You let him go?” I asked through my teeth, stretching my fingers to ease the tension building in my hands.
“Let him go?” She looked stunned at my question, hugging her clipboard to her chest. “We didn’t lose him, he escaped.”
“Do you have a home address for him?” I asked leaning over to look at the chart in her hand. “Please, I have to find him.”
“You know damn well I can’t tell you that,” she whispered.
I was about to ask her nicely, beg her until she gave in, but the fluorescent lights overhead caught the yellowing edges of her bruises I thought of something else. “The same thing is happening to him that’s happening to you. I recognize a good ass kicking when I see one. Shit, I’ve started thousands in my life, but I’ve got this crazy idea that I only start fights with someone who deserves it, someone who can fight back.”
“I can’t...”
“No, just listen. You see, that little boy? That was me. Years ago in another life I was the one with the concussion and the broken wrist. The one who’d been beaten and starved regularly.”
“We’ve...we’ve all had problems,” she said, backing up when I stepped into her space. I put my hand beside her head onto the wall and leaned in close.
“Yes, we all do. And right now my first problem is finding Bo so I can keep him safe. Do you want to know what my second problem is?” I asked.
She nodded.
“My second problem is that I’m going to find the person responsible for hurting him.”
“What are you going to do when you find them?” she asked, sounding both scared and intrigued.
“That leads me to my third problem. Body disposal.”
She gasped but didn’t move away.
“What if I could promise you the same thing?” I whispered.
“What?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
I grabbed a post-it tacked to the bulletin board above her head and grabbed her pen out of her hands. “Write down Bo’s address. Underneath it, write the name and address of the cocksucker who did this to you.” I shrugged. “And I’ll dig an extra hole.”
She grabbed the paper and pen from my hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no one hurting me. I told you. I got in a car accident.” She smiled at another nurse walking by and dropped it the second she was gone. “But I’ll give you the address of the boy so you can get the fuck out of here and leave me alone.” She scribbled on the paper and handed it to me. “It’s not so much of an address as it is a location. We don’t have any official address on file for him but one of the other nurse’s said they see him around there from time to time.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning to leave.
“Go save that boy,” she called out.
I waited until I got to the parking lot to check the post-it in my hand. She’d written Bo’s location down all right.
And more.
Check the Rainbow Ends Trailer Park for your boy
Trip Reid
1720 Alabaster Road Apt 4
Black hair. Snake tattoo on his forearm. Mean right hook..
He’s always home...Thank you.
****
King, Bear and I scoured the trailer park for any sign of Bo, but he couldn’t be found. Some of the neighbors pointed us in the direction of a mound of garbage. We wouldn’t have even known a trailer was underneath if we hadn’t been told. I pushed over a stack of empty cans with my foot and was about to kick in the door when a tall man with bloodshot eyes and a beer in his hand approached us.
“Word is you’re looking for the kid?” he asked, adjusting the brim of his trucker hat depicting the silhouette of a stripper sliding down a pole.
“Yeah, we’re looking for him. You Bo’s dad?” King asked, stepping in front of me, and for good reason. I was wound so tight I would have fired first and asked questions later. The funny thing about dead men was that they didn’t talk and we needed this shit bag to tell us where Bo was.
“Names Buck. I’m the boys step-dad,” he corrected, crossing his arms over his bare chest that was covered in paper clip style prison tats.
“Fucking figures,” I muttered.
“What the fuck do you want with him?” Buck asked. “He steal something from you?” He leaned to the side, spitting black tobacco onto the asphalt. He wiped the spittle off his chin with the back of his hand. “I told that boy to quit stealing shit. I guess that woopin’ I gave him last time didn’t teach him any kind of lesson. Looks like he’s got another one comin’.”
My rage had reached the point of no return and King felt it too because he stepped aside and let me come forward. “The only thing he stole was food. And while I’m sure your cigarette and beer money comes first you could have bothered to feed your fucking kid.”
“Who the fuck are you to tell me how to discipline my kid? Withholding supper builds character. It’s how my daddy and his daddy before him did it and it’s how I do it.”
“So the bruises and beatings are all part of it too?” I asked.
“If the boy won’t answer my questions, he gets punished.”
“Wait, he can’t speak...so you gave him a concussion? Starved him?”
“What the fuck?” Bear asked.
“Can’t speak or won’t?” Buck asked, crushing the empty beer can in his hand and tossing it onto the pile beside the door. “Should have never bothered with the boy or his whore of a mama. Hope wherever he is he don’t come the fuck back or he’s gonna get the tail end of a switch and learn what real punishments all about.” He shook his head. “If you want the little retard so much you can fucking have him.”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I asked, blocking his way back into the trailer.
Buck looked over my shoulder to the crowd of neighbors that had gathered around to watch the commotion. Buck sneered, tobacco covered his yellow teeth.
“What are you gonna do? Call the fucking pigs? IF they even bother to arrest me I’ll do thirty days at most and be out fucking his mama again before football season starts.” Buck laughed.
“He must be new in town,” King said from somewhere behind me.