“Jen Karpency. You remember me, right?”He stared back at her. “Um, yeah, I mean -” He pulled himself to his feet.
“You are Jerry?”
“Yeah.” Her hair was longer and she had bangs now. Her eyes the same, maybe, but what the hell did he know, spending most of elementary school and junior high avoiding her. Jen had boy’s hair back then, and he remembered first grade when Brian Haines said to her, “Why are you wearing that? Boys don’t wear skirts.”
“But I’m a girl,” she replied.
“Then why don’t you look like one?” Jen cried and ran off with the giraffe-shaped girl’s room pass and Miss Milton eventually had to talk her out of a locked stall.
Jerry had no desire to be Jen’s friend, but he picked up her eraser for her if she dropped it and he tried his best not to laugh when Brian stole her packet of school photos and drew Sharpie mustaches under her nose and curly hair on her chest and passed the doctored images around the class.
Jen walked up to Jerry one morning and asked him, “Do you want to play with me today at recess?”
He felt blindsided, so he just said, “Okay.”
Jen said, “Great,” and walked back to her little wooden desk.
At lunchtime, after he dumped the reminder of his school lunch (he’d finished everything but the green beans) into the designated bin, he found Jen waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She held out her hand, and Jerry shook it, and it was probably the first time he’d formally shaken hands with anyone.
“I was thinking we’d play on the slide to start with, then swing on the swings, then maybe pretend we’re marooned Eskimos fishing in the ice in Alaska. That jungle gym there can be our igloo,” she said. He found it odd to have such a strict playing agenda, but he thought it impolite to say so. Jen offered him the slide first and he grabbed the ladder and ascended, and when he reached the top he surveyed the playground, observing most of his class playing freeze-tag by the swings.
“Go already!” Jen grasped the ladder behind him. He sat, eased himself forward, and whooshed, rear on metal, and at the bottom he pressed down on his little Nikes and came to a complete stop and stepped off.
“You slide wrong!” Jen called from above. “Watch this!” She thrust herself forward and flew, leaning back, hugging her knees towards her chest to avoid traction, and spilled straight off, rolling onto the rubber chip-coated ground and exploding into a foray of giggles. Jerry ran to her.
“Can you teach me?”
“Sure!”
So they slid: on their bellies, on their backs, on their feet pretending they were California surfers. One slid halfway and stopped and the other slid and smacked into the one playing roadblock, which hurt just a little, but they laughed and kept sliding, squealing and sprinting back to the ladder after each joyous descent.
Eventually they ran out of breath and rested on a nearby bench and heaved in and out, their hands on their knees and their little legs dangling.
“Hey Jerry, do you like Nirvana?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s music.”
“I like music. I listen to it in the car with my dad.”
“Do you have a mom, too?”
“Of course I do.”
“And she listens to music?”
“Yeah, she dances sometimes when she’s making dinner.”
“Is she pretty?”
“I think so.”
“That’s nice.” Jen slid closer on the bench and rested her head on Jerry’s shoulder. He didn’t like to be touched, but he stayed put because he didn’t want to be rude, letting his weight support her until the bell rang and everyone playing freeze tag ran back towards the school building.
“Let’s go, Jen. The bell.”
“Jerry?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to play again another day?”
He saw all his classmates running ahead and knew that when he and Jen arrived everyone would say they were in love, that they were sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
“Maybe.” He ran. Brian and Lou and the other boys had a long head start. For awhile he could hear Jen huffing, trying to keep pace, but he didn’t slow down.
Now she gave him a weak smile. He watched her compose herself, adjusting her tiny frilled skirt, doing her damnedest to make it look modest, and her tiny cleavage exposed and she must have caught him looking because she pulled her denim jacket around and buttoned it and folded her arms and he instinctively looked away.
“So how are you?” she asked.
“I’m good. You look great.”
“Hmm.” She pulled the jacket tighter.
“So, why’d you knock me over?”
There were yells and groans and punches from the river. Jen looked down at the noises and Jerry walked forward to get a closer look, but she stopped him saying, “Jerry, could we go somewhere?”
“What? No, Lou is down there. I should-”
“Jerry,” she took him by the elbow, “I’m in danger. I need to get out of here.”
“Lou chased some pickpocket! You remember Lou, right? Didn’t you two-”
Yelling from the river.
“Let’s go, Jerry.” She grabbed his hand and it was coarser than he would have expected and she led him, jogging, very composed, back across Front St. onto Second St. where the nightlife crowd was growing, stumbling in heels, talking too loudly.
“Where’s your car?”
“On State St. Wait.” He stopped and she turned. There were bouncers on stools checking ID’s and drink special banners and muffled 80’s music and traffic passing and here was this girl who stepped out of the past, with her little hand around his wrist, dragging him along and he was letting her. Maybe he owed her something. There was buried guilt and drunken young lust. He glanced at her skirt again.
“This can’t wait, Jerry. We need to go NOW!”
“No, what we need to do is clarify what’s going on here first. What’s this danger you’re-”
“I’ll tell you in the car.”
The fierce monster bared its sharp teeth during these times. Manny was tied to the bedposts by his wrists and ankles and gagged with a dirty sock and scarf as Blik pounded violently into his small body with no regard to the other's comfort, tears, or muffled whimpers.
Three hours passed before it was over. Manny emerged from Blik's private basement bedroom into the room he shared with his co-workers. It was early morning now so most of them were there. The expressions on their faces, which none attempted to conceal, made it clear that they had heard Blik's cries of sadistic pleasure, Fel and Marty among them.
Emmanuel climbed into his bunkbed, sore all over, so lost in anguish that he failed to hear Felisha say, “Got what you deserved, motherfucker,” as she passed by. Had he heard, he would have agreed. Four years since his father left him and the man continued to cause him pain. He had had a good life since then, but his father- no, his curiosity -reduced that life to ruins in a matter of hours. Fel and Marty were his best friends and they looked at him now as if he were a villain treading on enemy ground.
Jen.
He had to find her. “If you don't I'll kill you.” Those words or something like them were what Blik whispered in Manny's ear between thrusts and punches and kicks and grunts.
Jennifer. Of all the children she was the one Manny knew the least. He had spoken to the least. He didn't even know her last name. In fact, in the year that she had lived among them, they had only had one real conversation. It was on her first day, after her own especially violent initiation. As Manny whimpered under the covers of his bed, hidden from the judging eyes of the others, it was all he could think of.
It was a busy night. Summer. Manny had returned home to pick up a few more condoms and drop off some cash. He was all alone except for a mousy girl, rocking back and forth, muttering unintelligible words every now and again. This girl, a stranger, he knew to be the new arrival Blik had told him about the day before. He understood what she had been through. Against his better judgment he approached her and said...
“I'm Manny.” She jumped at the sound of his voice. “You're new here, right? Jen?” She gave no response. “He doesn't do that all the time, you know. It's just...something we all have to go through. Only once if you follow the rules.” Silence. “Um...the people here are good. Nice. Marty and Vanessa and... We have food, Internet, video games. Whatever we want. You'll like it after a while, I'm sure.”
“Slaves,” she reached up and grabbed Manny by the shirt so fast he had no time to react or to speak in protest. Her face was red from crying. There was a dark fire in her eyes.
“W-what?” Manny couldn't quite understand what was happening.
“That's all you are.” Her grip on Manny's shirt tightened and then she let go, her head dropping to her chest. “He owns us.” Manny had no response as these ideas of hers had never fully taken form in his sheltered mind. “It wasn't supposed to to be like this for me. I'm not like you, I'm not. My life...I deserve better than this.” Manny was too thick to catch the insult in her statement, too job-oriented to pry any further. He merely shrugged and went on his way, condoms in hand.
In the coming months Jen grew more accustomed to the life that had chosen her, as they tend to do. Felisha, the one out of them all who seemed to be most fit for the job from an outsider's perspective, took her under her wing and the two became friends along with Vanessa who...was no longer with them today. Manny would watch the three whisper and laugh at Marty's perverse sense of humor. He would join them and the other kids from time to time, but friendship with one such as Emmanuel could only go but so deep. He had a set of internal walls and emotional barricades that made him perfect for Mr. Blik's needs, but ill-fit for basic social interaction. It was a trade-off that Manny rarely noticed he was making, and even when he did, avoided and wrote off as a waste of time.
Jen.
Where would he begin? Perhaps Felisha had some insight. Manny was not yet ready to resort to that after the events of the last evening. Then, it hit him. The last evening. He remembered passing a man on his way to retrieve Marty. He remembered that Jen had not joined he and Fel in rescuing their friend. And, perhaps most importantly, he remembered his captor shouting for someone shouting for someone as he dragged him to the police station, deciding to save that search for later. If Jen was caught up with the man by the river, and the guy by the river to his captor, then maybe...
“Here,” Marty, usually so jovial and full of youthful spirit, angrily shoved the stolen wallet against Manny's already aching chest. “Now get the hell away from me.”
Manny opened the wallet and looked at the driver's license within. Louis Allen. That was the man's name. He read the address. It was in Harrisburg, which was good, but the street name was completely unfamiliar to him. Wherever it was the address was the only shred of a clue he had and there was no other option but to find where it would lead.
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