silent, primal scream at the ceiling, then tried to think. I knew I would get nowhere unless I figured out Justinâs point of view. Which wasnât easy. Why was he still living with the man who had abducted him?
Justin came back with a coffee mug with the Gators logo on it, and before giving me the water, he cautioned, âJust sip a little. If you wet the bed, Uncle Steve will beat . . . well, thatâs what he did to me if I couldnât hold itâhe beat me. And sometimes he made me stand against the wall while he threw the knife at me like in the circus. But I donât know what he might do to you.â
Justinâs tone was so matter-of-fact that it rendered me speechless. He sat on the bed, lifted my head with one hand, and held the cup to my lips with the other. Heeding his advice, I drank only a little, then nodded, and he laid my head back on the mattress again.
Trying to keep my tone as no-drama as his had been, like, hey, I just want information, I asked, âDid he ever get you with the knife?â
âNo. He has a real good aim. I know he meant to miss me, to scare me.â
âAnd how did he beat you, with a belt?â
âNo. He just beat me up, slammed me around, broke my ribs, knocked me out sometimes. I thought he would kill me.â
Again, I enforced a no-fuss, conversational tone. âWhy didnât he?â
âHe planned to. He almost did.â Justin set the cup on the bedside table, his face turned away from me, and for a moment I thought he was going to leave. But he didnât. I donât flatter myself for any cleverness; I think he just really needed to tell his story. Two years, and who had he been able to tell? Nobody.
Still without looking at me, he said, âHe kept me and messed with me until his boss got tired of him and his sick dog. No more taking off in the middle of the day, his boss said, or heâd lose his job. Kill the damn dog. So that night he got out the gun and told me to get in the truck. He took me way out in the swamps someplace andâand maybe I should have just let him kill me.â
âItâs not that simple, is it?â I said, remembering how it had felt after the divorce, the suicidal thoughts, some petty vengeful part of me wanting to die but no match for Schopenhauerâs âirrational will to live,â aka Darwinâs âsurvival instinct.â Whatever you call it, that invisible and unmeasurable phenomenon is amazingly strong.
âYou got that right. Even though I knew all the things heâd keep on doing to me, I still begged him to let me live. I promised Iâd never call the cops or contact my parents or run away. I promised I would take his name and be his family, and I told him he couldâhe could do whatever and Iâd never tell. He took a big risk, believing me and letting me live. Iâm grateful for that.â
But the words sounded flat, and Justin still didnât face me.
âI can understand,â I said, and at the moment it was true. I knew how grateful I was going to be if I got out of this mess alive. âBut what about your parents?â
He shifted his gaze downward, plucking invisible bits of lint from the edge of the mattress. âThey donât want me.â
âYou could have fooled me.â I kept my voice as neutral as I possibly could; I mustnât argue with him. âIt costs big money to advertise on TVââ
He interrupted with some force. âThey want their sweet little boy back. They donât want
me
.â
âI think youâre sweet,â I responded impulsively and quite truthfully. This was the boy who had risked a beating to come feed me Frosted Flakes in the middle of the night.
âYouâre crazy!â Deep and sudden anger blasted him up off the bed and out of the room, leaving me blinking.
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Part of the reason I make stupid blunders in my
Learning to Kill: Stories