For the next two hours Crow took Mike through the steps of checking the shelves against what was stored in the tiny stockroom and then filling out order sheets. Crow let Mike make the next ten calls while Crow tried not to backseat drive; by the fifth call it was easier to block the urge. They worked together to stock the shelves—a job Crow had left half finished when Terry Wolfe had talked him into going out to shut down the Haunted Hayride a few days ago, though it seemed like months to Crow. As they worked, Crow saw the boy try to disguise his many winces as he bent and stretched to fill the bins of costumes, baskets of rubber severed hands and other body parts, trays of goggly eyeballs, racks of Gummi centipedes and faux Cockroach Clusters, and tables filled with everything from smoking cauldrons to marked-down Freddy Krueger gloves (because, as Crow explained it Mike, Nightmare on Elm Street was soooo five minutes ago). At one point Mike was stretching his arm up to hang a half dozen Aslan the Lion costumes on a high peg when he gave a small sudden cry and dropped them. He pressed a hand to his ribs for a moment and stood there, wincing and making hissing-pipe noises.
“How’s that rib treatin’ you?” Crow asked with fake disaffection.
“Hurts,” Mike said tightly, then added, “like a sumbitch.”
“All of this happened when you fell off your bike, right? That your story?”
The pain gradually left his face, and Mike took in a breath and slowly exhaled. He did not face Crow but instead appeared to be looking for an answer in the foamy packing materials of a box of plastic cockroaches. “Yeah. Bike.”
“If I keep asking, am I always going to get the same story?”
“Probably,” Mike said, fiddling with the label on the carton, peeling it with a thumbnail.
“Mike?” The boy did not look up.
“Mike,” Crow said more firmly, “look at me for a sec.” After a moment’s hesitation, Mike did. His eyes rose to meet Crow’s, fell away self-consciously, and then rose again. “Mike,” Crow said softly, “I won’t ask again. It’s up to you to decide if you want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I fell off my bike.”
“Uh huh. Well, do me this favor, will you? Instead of feeding me a line of bullshit, just tell me to mind my own business. I’d rather you trusted me enough to just tell me to shut up than feel you have to lie to me.” It took Mike quite a while to think that through, but eventually he nodded. Crow smiled. “Good,” he said, then decided to step a little further out onto the limb. “Besides…you’re not the only one who’s ever been knocked around by an asshole of a parent. Not even the only one in this room.”
This time Mike did look at him, and though his eyes glistened wetly and his face burned a furious red, he kept that eye contact for a long thirty seconds in which volumes were spoken. Crow broke the silence by saying, “Let’s finish up this stuff and then I’m heading back to the farm. For the rest of the day you’ll be on your own. Think you can handle it without pieces of rib puncturing your lung? ’Cause you’re not on the health plan yet and the paperwork would be a bitch.”
“I guess.”
Crow started to turn away, stopped. “Listen, kiddo, whether you want to talk about it or not, I pretty much know the score. I know about Vic and how he treats you. Maybe not the specifics, but in general because it’s probably pretty damn close to what I went through when I was a kid. My dad was a hitter and I was always getting my ass kicked and spent half my life making excuses for why I limped or why I had a black eye. Vic’s not all that different from my dad—both of them are world-class assholes.” He paused. “Am I right?” The kid shrugged. “So, starting today we’re going to have a set of rules that we’re both going to work with. Call ’em Crow’s Rules for a Better Life, and Rule Number One is we don’t let the assholes win.”
Mike said nothing, but he was clearly listening.
“The assholes might score some hard points, but the rule is that we don’t let the assholes win. You want to repeat that?”
Nothing.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”
Mike mumbled something.
“Kid, you’re pissing me off. What is the number-one rule?”
“We don’t let the assholes win, okay?” Mike snapped angrily, his fists balled at his sides.
Crow grinned at him. “Spoken like a champ. Which reminds me—aside from the low pay and nonexistent benefits package, there’s another incentive to work here. I’m going to teach you to fight.”
“You already showed me some stuff last spring. Me and Tyler Carby.”
“That was just horsing-around stuff, I wasn’t being serious and neither were you. You guys ever practice the stuff?”
“We goofed around in the schoolyard. Tyler wasn’t interested, and it’s no fun practicing alone.” What he didn’t tell Crow was that everyone in school thought Mike was still practicing martial arts, a lie he encouraged because it always gave him a reason to explain away the bruises. “What’s it matter anyway? A few jujutsu moves ain’t going to change things.”
“That depends on the moves, and how you use them.” He folded his arms. “When I offered you this job it was more than just because I needed an Igor to do the heavy lifting. I wasn’t going to tell you this because I was going to be real subtle like and kind of sneak it on you from left field—but here’s the bottom line, Mike. I respect you too much to blindside you, even if it’s something that’s for your own good.”
“What are you talking about?”
Crow pulled a stool over and sat down so that Mike, still standing, was taller. He wanted to give the kid at least the subjective advantage of the dominant physical position. “I’m talking about getting tough.”
“Tough enough to do what?”
“Tough enough so that you don’t spend your whole life as somebody’s punching bag.”
“Look…I appreciate what you’re trying to do, man, but I—”
Crow cut him off. “Don’t, okay? I’m not trying to get all Mr. Miyagi on you, but I want to make a difference here.”
“Who asked you to?” Mike shoved away the box he’d been playing with and it slid to the edge of a display case, tottered and fell, spilling white foam popcorn and six dozen plastic cockroaches all across the floor. “Ahhh…shit!” He made to bend down, but Crow touched his shoulder. Just a touch and then withdrew his hand.
“Leave it. Look, kid, I’m trying to say something here and you’re not making it easy.”
“I’m not trying to make it easy,” Mike snapped.
“Will you listen?” Crow snapped back. “Okay? Just for a second?” Mike flinched back from that, but then held his ground. Crow took that as a good sign and plowed ahead, his voice softer. “Okay, I offered you this job partly because, as I said, I needed an Igor while I was healing from the ass-kicking I took, but the main reason is that I see a lot of myself in you. No, don’t give me that look. You’re smart, you’re a comic book geek, you’re mostly a loner, and you’re getting your ass handed to you every time you come home. I know that territory too well to stand back and do nothing.”
“This is not your business, Crow.”
“No? Well tough, I’m making it my business. I gave you a job so I could keep an eye on you, and so I could teach you some back-alley moves, just like I learned when I was about your age. And, no, it’s not going to be like a movie where we do a training montage while the soundtrack plays some motivational power chords. It’ll take you months to get adequate and years to get really good, but if you don’t start now you’ll never get tough enough to finally stand on your own.”
“Against Vic?” The kid’s face was a study in disbelief.
“Eventually.”
Mike snorted. “Eventually? That’s just great. Does me a lot of good right now. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. You don’t know Vic. You don’t know what it’s like living with him.”
“I’ve known Vic a lot longer than you have, Mike, and though I don’t know what goes on inside your house I know enough and can guess the rest. Am I saying this is going to be easy? No. Am I saying that you won’t get your ass kicked some more? No—you will until the point where you’re tough enough and then you won’t. That could be months, it could be years, but it will happen, and all along the way, even while he’s still the big dog around the house, you’ll know that you’re getting stronger, bigger, and tougher every day. Every day, Mike. You’ll outlast the son of a bitch and eventually you really will be tough enough to kick his ass.”
“Bullshit,” Mike said under his breath, but there was a look in his eye and Crow knew that something in what he had just said had scored a point. Or touched on something Mike was already thinking.
Crow said, “I used to think that my dad would just beat me to death one day. I used to piss blood, I used to have double vision from getting stomped, and I had a thousand and one excuses I used on people to explain why my eye was black or why there were punch bruises on my back. At the time, when it was at its worst, I guess I never thought that it would end, that it would just go on and on and then I’d die. But I didn’t. I outlasted my dad, and jujutsu helped. Understand, I wasn’t one of those kids who took to martial arts like it was a religion or something. It was an out, you know? A way to outlast my dad. That’s all it was, but, Mike…it was enough, you dig?”
Mike said nothing but there were gears turning in his head, Crow could see that much from the way his pale blue eyes were not fixed on him but locked on something unseeable in the middle distance. Very quietly he pressed his point. “I’m telling you that I’m going to teach you some self-defense, whether you like it or not.” Crow put his hand on Mike’s shoulder and this time left it there.