Chapter Three: The Testing of Ezekiel Fleet Part 1

           “Hands up!” the man barked.

           Ezekiel’s hands rose. He stared at the muzzle of the gun. His eyes ran along its gleaming silver barrel. The man’s hands were large. The tips of his fingernails were black. His hands were encrusted with dirt, maybe from years of hard labor. The man’s forearms rippled with muscles, and patches of scar tissue stood out on his hands. Burns. Ezekiel knew they were burns, and he knew from where as well. He had worked a summer at a smelter’s, and all the men who worked with the molten metal had the scars.

           The man wore a light coat. It was green, but it had been darkened by long years of use. A plaid collar that poked up around his neck was wilted from sweat. The most notable feature of the man was his ugliness. His face was asymmetric, fat, and he had a long, thin nose that was too small for that fat face. If Ezekiel had seen the man on the street, he would not have given him a second glance, but now the man and his gun seemed the entire world to Ezekiel.

           “Good. Good.” The man had satisfaction in his voice, but Ezekiel could see none in his face. The man cleared his throat. “Fleet, I’ve come to collect,” he croaked out.

           His father sighed. Ezekiel was confused. He wondered who this man was. Nothing was significant about him except his significant ugliness, but the man knew their last name. He had a gun. He seemed to know his father. And he came to collect? Collect? Collect what? Why?

           Ezekiel knew his father did not make much money with the store, not these days. He had never made much money when they were children, but he knew his father made even less now. His father said it was due to competition springing up down the street. Ezekiel knew this was a lie and was sure the sudden downturn in profits was due to the bands of teenagers that now roamed the neighborhood. He was sure when they came into the store, they left with their pockets full, and he thought his father had lied because he was ashamed of not being able to control the gang of young people who would have given him no trouble twenty years before.

           “I need to open the cash register,” his father said. “I need to put my hands down to get the money.”

           “No,” the man barked. “No, not the register. Life has been getting expensive. The economy’s flagging. Go to the safe. It’ll be double.”

           Ezekiel heard his father grunt, but the ugly man with the gun gave no signal he had heard.

           “Double,” his father answered. His voice was filled with confusion. “Double?”

           “Double,” the man reaffirmed.

           “”But I—” His father sighed. “I can’t run a business with those prices,” his father answered. “I’ll be out of business in a month. The original agreement was—”

           “Old man,” the ugly man barked. “The agreement has changed. Double. Double, and you know what can happen if you don’t hold up your half. You don’t want the agreement to change even more than it has, do you?”

           Ebenezer Fleet snorted. “Hold up my half,” he said. “I’m the only one who holds up anything here.”

           After his father had said the words, the man sniffed. The man’s eyes sharpened in anger. He took a step forward and brought up his gun. Pain broke through Ezekiel’s face as the gun met his cheekbone. His vision went red, then black, then red again. His legs buckled. He fell onto his back. For a moment, time and space folded into disorder. He felt pain. He felt black. He felt spinning. He heard the man’s voice but did not understand. He heard his father reply, just noise, A clunk on the counter. The man talking again.

           Ezekiel opened his eyes. The man was above him. The weapon was pointed at Ezekiel’s head. The thug’s voice droned on.

           “The agreement was only ever held up by me.” Ezekiel heard anger in his father’s voice. He was not sure he had ever heard anger in his father’s voice.

           The man with the gun kicked him, and he chuckled as Ezekiel groaned and brought his legs up to his stomach. “We don’t give you anything?” the thug asked. It seemed inflicting pain had put the man in good humor. “Aren’t we the ones who allow you to exist in this city? And if you could not be here, how would your business exist at all?”

           Ezekiel shook the pain out of his head. He put his hands on either side of his body and pushed up. He only pushed himself a few inches up before the barrel of the gun met his face.

           Ezekiel stared at the black hole of the barrel.

           “Stay down there, son,” the man said as if he were barely paying attention to Ezekiel.

           “Fleet,” the man barked at his father again. “Are you going to get my money or are you going to sit there like an idiot and wait until I shoot your kid in the leg and then get my money?”

           His father sighed again. “Okay,” his father said. Ezekiel heard his father’s footsteps disappear into the office and continued to stare at the barrel of the gun.

           “You have no idea what is going on, do you?” the man asked Ezekiel.

           Ezekiel looked up at the man. The man did not look down. He continued to look over the counter, watching, waiting for Ebenezer to return. “When I was a kid”—the man did not look down as he continued to speak; it was almost as if he talked to himself—“I thought my father was capable of anything. The perfect man.” The man laughed, a small laugh through his nose. “But as you get older, you realize that isn’t true, right? Your father is just a man. I grew up. My father was my hero. My every aspiration was to be just like him. Then, one day when I was sixteen, I came home from work to my father beating my mother until she blacked out.”

           Ezekiel heard shuffling from the office. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

           The man looked down at him. His eyebrows rose. “I’m bored,” he said.

           Ezekiel thought he looked bored. He watched as the man looked at the candy bars displayed on the counter. He brought his other hand up and ran his fingers across them. After a moment, he pulled one off the counter. “Big John’s,” Ezekiel thought he heard the man mutter. The man tore the wrapper with his teeth, pushed the wrapper back with his lips, and took a big bite of the candy bar. After a few loud smacks of his mouth, he looked back down at Ezekiel.

           He grunted in satisfaction before he spoke. “Slow, isn’t he?” He motioned with the gun toward the office.

           Ezekiel did not respond.

           The man stopped chewing. He held the candy bar out to Ezekiel as if to offer him some.

           Ezekiel gave the man no hint that he saw the candy bar. He continued to stare at the barrel of the gun.

           The man shrugged. He brought the candy bar back to his mouth and took another large bite. He glanced up at the office door. Then he looked back down at Ezekiel.

           He nodded toward Ezekiel as if greeting.

           “When I was sixteen, I found out my father was a monster. You’re what, twenty, and you’ve finally found out who your father is as well. But I’ll tell you, kid”—he took another large bite of the candy bar,—“getting to know your father is probably one of the most important parts of your life.” He ate the final bite of the candy bar and dropped the wrapper on the floor next to Ezekiel. Ezekiel glanced down at it, at the stupid, smiling face on the wrapper.

           The man chewed the rest and swallowed. He stretched one arm over his head. He sighed.

           Ezekiel heard more shuffling from the office. He heard the inarticulate voice of his father, and then he heard the man’s footsteps as he entered back into the main part of the store.

           “Dad,” Ezekiel said. His father did not respond, and Ezekiel felt a wave of nausea move through him. He was stuck on the ground. His father was behind the counter. He saw the barrel and the man’s knees and the bottom of the shelves of merchandise but no more. He thought maybe if he could stand up and see his father, that maybe he could help. He knew it was stupid, but his stupid mind kept telling him it was the answer. He just needed to stand up. He just needed to see. And if he could see, he could assess the situation. And if he could assess the situation, he could control it.

           He knew it was not true, but the thought circled in his mind like his anxiety usually did. Anxiety, on the other hand, was not present. He was afraid, but it was not the same fear. Each day, he was filled with the stupid, ambiguous buzzing fear. He went to work; it was there. He talked to Claire; it was there. He talked to his parents and brothers; the same, a fear, often unnoticeable, that pushed him one way and then another, with little conscious realization.

           This fear was different. It did not cover everything. It was not a film of slick annoyance. His daily worries were collective, collective frets that numbed his mind, Legion, like a host of demons. This new fear was singular. It was clearly defined. It was this ugly man, his dirty fingernails. It was his thin, crooked nose, his stain-darkened coat and collar. This fear was the weapon in his grimy hands. It was the gleaming silver. It was the white handle. This fear was the barrel, the firing pin, the black maw that made a man confront his eternity.

           It was the bullet itself.

           Ezekiel knew his fate hung on a thin thread of this man’s whim, but this new singular fear seemed so small in comparison to his daily worry that he mistook it for excitement, like riding a roller-coaster or smoking a reefer and running away from the cops.

           “I’ve got your money,” his father said.

           The man took a step back, away from the counter, away from Ezekiel. “Smart,” he said. “Smart. You may be a worm, Fleet, but you’re not stupid.”

           Ezekiel’s stomach churned. So far, the man had only been trying to extort money from his father. He had been demeaning, but Ezekiel thought this was part of what it meant to wave a gun in someone’s face and demand money. He assumed being an ass was part of the job. He had not expected this attack on his father’s character, and this attack made anger lick his insides like tongues of fire, and he felt the slow simmer of ire boil in him. His father was a man of detail and order. He had always been a harsh mentor of him and his four brothers, but Ezekiel knew the man had raised them all the best he knew how. The man had lived a hard life. He had suffered through a changing world. Even if he had done it wrong and erred in many ways, Ebenezer Fleet always sought to teach his boys to stand up under the odds and sacrifice. His father was a good man, not perfect, but a man doing the best with what he was given. To have him compared to a worm sent flushes of anger through Ezekiel because his father was a not worm. It was a lie, a damned lie, and to hell with this man or anyone who thought the same.

           “Dad,” he almost shouted, but he clipped his own volume before he did.

           His father did not answer. “Dad,” he called more loudly.

           “Ezekiel,” his father answered. His voice was surprisingly calm.

           “Dad, don’t give him the money,” Ezekiel answered.

           The man snorted.

           His father sighed.

           “Don’t give him the money.” Ezekiel looked up toward the thug. He braced his hands on either side of his legs. He prepared to push himself off the ground.

           “Ezekiel,” his father answered. He sounded tired. “Ezekiel, Ezekiel,” he said again, though under his breath this time. “I’ve been running this business since before you were born. I’ve been through bad times; I’ve been through good times. Sometimes you can fight. And sometimes you can’t.” His father sighed again. “This agreement has put food on the table all these years. I was once like you, but I learned. I learned quickly how the world works. You take what good you can take. You work as hard as you can to build what you can. You realize you are constrained. Perfect freedom does not exist. You work within your limits, and when you run into power, true power, you submit, because power can take that little patch of earth you’ve built into something. And power can destroy everything. And that destruction is unimaginable.”

           The man laughed. “My father was never good at giving advice, never had any life wisdom.” The man’s voice was filled with derision. He turned to Ebenezer. “So, you’re done then?” he asked.

           “Yes,” Ebenezer said.

           The man took a step toward Ezekiel’s father and held out a free hand. As his father handed the man the wad of cash, Ezekiel shifted his weight. As the man took the money, the muzzle of the gun drifted from Ezekiel’s face toward the ground.

           It was at this moment that Ezekiel pushed himself off the floor and lunged forward. He grabbed the man’s legs, he drove forward, and he hoped. He hoped he was fast enough. He hoped the gun was pointed away from him, away from his father. He hoped the man was weak, disarmed, and disoriented.

           The man took one step backward, and Ezekiel ran into a stiff leg. He felt panic well up inside as he thought of how this man was standing over him. Both his hands were free. One of those hands held a gun. And all he needed to do was point the weapon down and pull the trigger.

           With this reason propelling him forward, Ezekiel did the only thing he could think of. He sprang up. He grabbed the man’s arm that held the weapon. He braced his head against the man’s elbow so the man could not bend his arm. Then Ezekiel opened his mouth, moved it toward the man’s upper arm, and he clenched his jaw down on the man’s bicep until he felt his teeth sink into the man’s flesh, deeper and deeper until Ezekiel tasted blood.

           The man shrieked. Hatred and anger flooded into Ezekiel’s body. He clenched his jaw tighter. His teeth sank farther. The man cried out again, and Ezekiel felt him try to pull his arm back down to aim the gun toward him. If Ezekiel had not been bracing his head against the man’s arm, the man would have succeeded. Though he looked slim, he was strong, stronger than Ezekiel, and Ezekiel knew he would not simply be able to overpower him as he expected. Ezekiel knew he needed to act before the man had time to even think. Unfortunately, the man must have had the same thought cross his mind because he dropped his center of gravity and brought his fist down on Ezekiel’s temple.

           Ezekiel winced but held tight. He still tasted blood in his mouth from the man’s arm. He just needed to hold on. Sure, the thug could continue to punch him in the head, but Ezekiel knew the pain from having half a bicep bitten off would be greater. The man was strong, stronger than himself, but Ezekiel did not need to hold on for hours. He only needed to hold on until his father found something heavy and broke it over the man’s head.

           Ezekiel felt another fist smash into his temple. A third hit him squarely in the jaw and almost jerked his teeth free of the bicep. The man swore and stomped on Ezekiel’s foot. Ezekiel reeled forward in pain, and he would have kept himself upright if not for another fist, perfectly timed, meeting his temple. As he tumbled forward, he kept his grip on the man. The gun boomed. Ezekiel’s jaws were pushed together as they hit the ground. The thin piece of flesh between his teeth severed. The man screamed. Ezekiel tasted blood. Another fist to his temple. A curse. A final fist. Then disorientation. His arms fell to his side. His back hit the ground. The shop spun around him. His ears rang.

           The ugly man was standing when the store stopped spinning. Blood dripped from his arm and he shifted his weapon to the unwounded one. Ezekiel heard the man spit and felt something wet and viscous hit his eye. As he wiped the saliva from his eye, the man swore again. He looked at his bloody arm. He laughed.

           “Almost got me.” He took a step back from Ezekiel and his father. “Almost.” He laughed again.

           “I can get you more money,” Ezekiel’s father said to the man quickly. “To pay for your trouble.”

           The thug looked at the old man. The thug nodded. “Fetch some more money,” the thug said, and Ebenezer Fleet ran back into the office.

           When Ebenezer disappeared, the man turned to look down at Ezekiel. The thug shook his head like a disappointed parent. “You should not have done that,” he said. The boredom in the man’s voice sent fear through Ezekiel, but he forced himself not to show it.

           “Why?” Ezekiel asked in as defiant a voice as he could muster.

           The thug motioned to the gun. “There’s a certain amount of latitude I have when dealing with partners. I think you would appreciate a demonstration.”

           “I’ve got twice what I already gave you,” his father said as he entered back into the shop.

           “Good. Good.” The thug’s voice was gentle as if some of his anger had subsided. He held out his hand. The old man walked over, and the thug took the money one roll at a time, careful to keep his eyes and gun trained on Ezekiel’s head. He motioned the old man back behind the counter. The old man complied, and the thug inspected the final wad of cash before stuffing it into his pocket.

           “For my troubles,” he muttered to himself and turned to Ezekiel’s father. “It is generally good.” His voice had even less anger in it. “Generally,” he continued. “But you are the only one who has paid me. How will your son rectify this wrong?” He gestured to his arm.

           “He has no money,” Ezekiel’s father said quickly.

           The man laughed. He looked down at Ezekiel who was still splayed on his back and did not dare move. “The redemption of a person isn’t always bought with gold,” the thug said, and as he said the words, he did not sound like a petty thug or even a toady of some greater man. He sounded like someone comfortable wielding power.

           “What do you mean?” Ezekiel asked. The man smiled, and Ezekiel watched the weapon gleam as it moved through the air until it pointed at his father’s head instead of his own.

           “Other ways than gold,” his father said coldly as he realized what that meant.

           The man nodded to Ebenezer Fleet. He then looked at Ezekiel. Fear and anger still burned inside Ezekiel as he met the man’s eyes. He was glad he had sunk his teeth into this man’s arm. He was glad he had caused him pain, and he wished he had caused him a hundred times the pain. He wished that he had not just gone for the arm; he wished he had sunk his teeth into this man’s throat.

           “Stand,” the man said to him.

           Ezekiel stared into the thug’s eyes. He hoped the man would see his anger, and he did not stand.

           “Stand,” the man said again. His voice was soft.

           Ezekiel shook his head.

           “Stand!” the man shouted. He gestured with the gun toward Ezekiel’s father.

           Ezekiel stood. The man nodded. He gave Ezekiel a small smile.

           “Your father is a”—he glanced at the old man—“compliant man.”

           “Ebenezer,” the man continued. “You have no debt with me. You’ve been a good partner through the years. Just know that the debt your son now owes has nothing to do with you.”         

           The old man did not respond. He looked at his son.

           The thug turned to Ezekiel. “What is your name?” he asked.

           “Ezekiel,” Ezekiel said.

           The man smiled again. His teeth gleamed. “Zeke,” he replied.

           Ezekiel looked at the gun. It was still pointed at his father. If the man pulled the trigger, his father would be dead. On a whim, this grungy man could choose his father’s fate, and, by extension, choose the fate of his entire family.

           “What is my punishment?” Ezekiel asked.

           The man met his eyes. The man smirked at Ezekiel. “You bit my arm,” he said. “I think I deserve an apology.”

           Ezekiel looked to his father.

           His father nodded.

           “I,” the words came to him slowly, “I’m, ah, sorry.”

           “Okay.” The man let the gun droop a little, from his father’s head to his neck. “That was a good start,” he continued. “But I did not feel the emotion. I didn’t experience the remorse, the contrition.”

           Ezekiel swallowed. “If I—” He searched for the words. He did not feel contrite, but that gun was still pointed at his father. He swallowed again and continued. “If I ever wished to relive and redo any moment of my life, that moment I bit your arm is the moment I would relive, any way I could.”

           The man shrugged. He yawned. The weapon drooped until it pointed at Ebenezer’s belly. The thug glanced at the old man and then back at Ezekiel. “Try again,” he said as if he were bored.

           Ezekiel took a deep breath in. He tried to make his mind slow. He tried to make his body relax. Then he lowered himself to his knees. And from his knees, he brought his face low until it was touching the dirty floor.

           “I would trade my entire life. I would trade each day and moment. I would give up hope and light if only to express how sorry I am that I attacked you. I would do anything, anything to express my repentance. I would do anything possible to make it up to you.” He swallowed again and held his breath.

           The man did not answer. He did not tell Ezekiel to stand back up. He did not say, “Good, good,” in a victorious and mocking tone. He did not even snarl. He did not say or do anything at all. At first this worried Ezekiel. If he was not saying anything, then he must have disapproved of the apology. And if the man disapproved of the apology, his father was dead. And he would raise his gun and pull the trigger. But Ezekiel did not hear the gun. He heard breathing, and he waited. He waited until his breath became heavy. He waited until sweat dripped from his head and his face became covered in dirt. He waited until his knees and back ached and he started to feel dizzy.

           Finally, the man spoke.

           “Good.” It was a dull word.

           The word was followed by the explosion of the gun.