For the Children

Another car approached. This one stopped at the curb a few feet behind Kirk and someone got out. Odd. It was too early for the kids. But he recognized the car. Pulling on his vest, Kirk watched from the corner of his eye.

Abraham Billings didn’t wait for his mother’s kiss on the cheek. And she drove off before he’d even shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders. Kirk frowned. The woman always waited to watch her son walk into the school.

She always brought him right before the first bell, too. This morning there wasn’t another kid in sight.

Head down, the boy, in his customary freshly laundered jeans and T-shirt, ambled to the corner. Kirk held up his sign, although there was no traffic. Abraham didn’t seem to notice.

“You got something to do before school?” Kirk asked as Abraham stood there.

“No.”

Abraham was looking down the street in the direction his mother had gone, his features drawn into a sullen mask. Still, he made no move to cross the street.

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’.”

Eyes narrowed, Kirk nodded. There was a job for him to do here; he knew it. He just had to figure out what it was.

And he would.

“Practice is at three today.”

Abraham’s head swung toward Kirk. “So?” The word was almost thrown at him.

Was that liquor he smelled on the boy’s breath? Or something else? Abraham could have gotten into his father’s cologne. This was the age for potentially embarrassing experiments.

“I want you there.”

The boy’s chin tightened. “I didn’t try out. I’m not on the team. I can’t play.”

Three sentences, Kirk mused. He was getting somewhere.

“Come, anyway.”

“What for?”

“I left a spot open. Today’s practice can be considered your tryout.”

Abraham didn’t respond. Just stared down the street where he’d last seen his mother.

“You think your mom would mind if you came?”

“No.”

“We could go to the office and call her at lunch, just to be sure.”

“She won’t be there.”

“She at work?”

Abraham’s body signals were telling Kirk to shut up and leave him alone, but he wasn’t going to. Not while the boy was finally talking to him.

“No.”

“I see her drop you off here in the mornings. Is it usually on her way to work?”

“No.”