Goodbye Daniel Fleet
Jeremiah’s back arched. Though the top of the desk pushed his head forward and down, he would strain his neck up to look out of the desk every few seconds. What was there to see behind the desk? Besides the bottom frame of a window and the soles of Hosea’s shoes, little else. But he did it despite the knowledge he would only see insignificance. The noise of the rest of the room was too enticing for him not to try to get a glimpse, and if the best he could do was the scattered and frantic shadow on the wall, he would take it.
Jeremiah thought he would be confronted with fear when he heard the muted thud of Daniel’s body meeting the man’s, but the youngest brother found something else rush through him. It was warm, a jitter. He would even call it a thrill, and like fear, it made his foot squirm back and forth. And that squirming worked its way up from his foot to his leg until his whole body shook. Jeremiah did not want to hide in this cramped cube. Jeremiah did not want to follow Hosea’s lead. He did not want to hide behind a desk. He did not want to experience that excitement from the slanted position of peering around a corner. Jeremiah’s body filled with energy. An animal inside him pushed him against the top of the desk. That animal wanted out of its cage. That animal wanted to bare its teeth, extend its claws, and roar.
Fear had been a cold liquid down his throat when Daniel’s feet pounded against the floor. Even as Jeremiah heard that first muted thud as Daniel’s body met the man, Jeremiah had pulled his legs up to his chest in fear. The three of them were cornered. Maybe they could find their way out of a window, but they would be chased by bullets as they did so. Then an image whispered in his ears and burrowed into his brain. He heard the roar of a crowd. Lights blinded from overhead. A tight fist extended from a muscled arm. The fist meeting the face sounded like a slap, and he saw the dark figure of a man stagger back as Daniel swung his arm from the side and hit the man’s cheek. The invisible crowd roared again.
The two fighters circled in Jeremiah’s mind, and as he peered through the tunnel of his imagination, he drew nearer and nearer until he was only a foot away from both, until he took the place of his brother, and he stared back at the shadowy opponent. He was aware of the danger, but he pushed any understanding of danger to the back of his mind. The electric excitement of the fight was a shock that overloaded every nerve ending in his body.
The muscles in Jeremiah’s back strained, but the most he moved was that excited shake. His legs pressed up against his face. His back arced forward, the exact opposite of that electric excitement. His body was not circling. His legs were not pushing him forward to action. His arms were not reaching out to strike. His body hunched forward like a man worn out from years of living. He was a once-sodden leaf now long-dried into a rigid arc. As the shuffles and slaps from the rest of the room filled his ears, Jeremiah grabbed the sides of the desk with his hands and began to pull himself out from under it. The urge to violence was too powerful to allow him to remain stooped and stationary. He did not think of his brother. Daniel had placed himself in danger, but Jeremiah moved because the violence filling his ears was as seductive as a steaming loaf of bread is to a starving man.
Jeremiah’s mind returned to that vision of an arena. His opponent was still shrouded in darkness. Jeremiah’s feet seemed to shuffle to the right underneath him. His fists floated in front of his face preparing for action.
“Jeremiah,” he heard the hiss. He felt pressure against his chest pushing him back, and when he looked up, the face of Hosea floated in front of him like a disembodied specter.
Jeremiah heard another hiss from his brother, but the word came out like static from radio speakers. Jeremiah’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Don’t make such an ass of yourself, Jeremiah,” Hosea continued. His hand remained on Jeremiah’s chest until Jeremiah let himself fall to the back of the desk. When Jeremiah no longer tried to pull himself forward, Hosea pulled his arm away, gave his brother a nod, and leaned forward until he was a few inches away from Jeremiah’s face.
“Daniel’s an idiot,” Hosea wagged his head as his words continued to hiss out. “What are you? Fifteen? Too young to die, Jer,” and another wag of the head made Hosea’s words slip to silence.
The electric excitement in Jeremiah’s body shrank back from his arms and legs until it was all centered in his chest and he began to shake. “Seventeen,” he thought. “I’m seventeen.” He wanted to hiss the words back to Hosea, but he held his tongue. He did not reach his arms out to pull himself forward. He turned his attention and germinating anger away from Hosea. He listened for the fight in the rest of the room. As the images of the arena filled his mind once more, his ears were not filled with the sound of fighting. He no longer heard shuffling feet. The slaps of fists hitting flesh had disappeared from the air. The grunts were gone and the curses as well. What was left in Jeremiah’s ears was heavy panting, and floorboards groaning as weight shifted from one foot to the other.
“Daniel Fleet,” the voice that filled the room seemed strained, pinched. It was an androgynous voice. Jeremiah assumed it was the voice of a man, but the smooth timbre of the voice reminded Jeremiah of an actress he had met only a few days after he had moved out of his parent’s house. She always had a cigarette in her mouth, and the never-ending cloud of smoke that was circulating through her lungs had given her voice a low mellowed quality.
“Do I need to ask who you are?” Daniel answered. His words were strained from him in a wheeze.
Jeremiah did not hear an answer from the other man. He heard not even a grunt. He only heard the slight hushing of shifting feet, and this hushing sound was followed by the metallic sliding and clicking of a weapon followed by a loud clack.
“Lyle Ansel can’t be that angry about ten thousand dollars,” Daniel said. Jeremiah thought Daniel tried to make his voice robust and confident, but the youngest brother heard a quiver in that voice. Jeremiah heard the worry. Jeremiah heard the fear.
Then Jeremiah heard a chuckle, just a quick noise from an unopened mouth. “It isn’t about the money,” that sweet masculine voice answered. “Mr. Ansel doesn’t care about the money,” that husky feminine voice continued.
Jeremiah heard a nervous chuckle from Daniel. The young man thought he was going to answer, but the man’s voice interrupted first.
“Mr. Ansel is a man of principles,” the man continued. “A thief,” the man grunted. “Well, a man can have a good reason for being a thief. A man can be hungry. A man doesn’t last too long without a roof over his head. But a liar with no reason for lying, a man who doesn’t keep his word. . .” the man paused. Jeremiah tried to listen for any hint of what was going on, but despite reaching out for any sound, he heard nothing, not even breathing.
This silence was interrupted by the muted sound of gunfire. Jeremiah heard it to his right. It was the slow booming sound of a shotgun or rifle. The roar would fill the air. A pause would follow. Another roar would fill the air. Another pause. Another roar. Until the final bellowing boom filled his ears and everything remained silent.
After the final boom was silent for a long moment, Jeremiah heard a sigh. Or maybe it was two sighs, both expressed together. He heard the sigh of Daniel, that all too familiar familial exasperation, and he heard a sigh that was foreign to him. He thought that second sigh expressed disappointment, but he was not sure.
To Jeremiah’s surprise, it was Daniel who was the first to speak. “You’ll be disappointed to hear that I called the police,” Daniel said. His voice was still filled with feigned confidence, but Jeremiah thought it would be good enough to fool someone who had never met his brother.
“And they’ve opened fire indiscriminately?” the man’s question was more a mocking than question, and his next words followed quickly. “I’m sure my men at the door are already in the processes of dealing with whoever you called.” As if in response to the man’s words, Jeremiah heard the rattle of machine gun fire fill the air. And then he heard that sickly sweet voice laugh.
“Well,” Daniel answered. Though he still tried to maintain that confidence in his voice, it was clear to anyone it was quickly deflating. “Why the Hell don’t you just shoot me then and get it over with?” he asked.
Jeremiah heard heavy boots move across the room slowly before the man answered. “When I was told to come here, I don’t think I expected such an idiot,” a man said. “But, then again, you’re the one who tried to hoodwink Mr. Ansel.” Jeremiah heard a chuckle from the other man. “Just a special kind of idiot,” the man continued. “Mr. Lyle is a fair man. If he promises something, he will deliver on that thing. And he expects nothing less than the delivery of others’ promises.”
“If he wants the ten thousand dollars, well, I’ll figure out a way to get it to him” Daniel replied.
Jeremiah heard a grunt. “No,” the man answered. “It isn’t about the money, not anymore. It is too late. Like I said before, Mr. Ansel keeps his word. You did not keep your word, and I am sure he would have sent someone after you if it was five dollars. Hell, he would have sent someone after you if it was fifty cents, a penny.” Jeremiah heard those heavy boots cross the floor again. “You lie. We break down your door. It is a simple arithmetic.”
Daniel laughed this time. “Well, I guess the barrel of a gun to the head helps people keep their promises. Clears the mind, as I am finding.”
Jeremiah imagined the man nod his head at Daniel’s answer. “You made a promise.” The head continued to nod in Jeremiah’s mind as the man continued to speak. “All he is doing is reacting to your unfulfilled promise. Can you imagine a world where a man’s word means nothing?”
Daniel muttered profanity. “A drug lord with a moral code,” and then he sighed. “Well, if you’re going to shoot me, shoot me. God damn, get it over with.”
A long silence followed Daniel’s words and Jeremiah wondered why. Finally, the other man spoke.
“Oh,” there was a giddy lilt in that single syllable. “I didn’t come here to kill you. No.” The man laughed. “I’ll shoot you if you try to escape, but it is hard to suffer if you’re dead.” Jeremiah thought he heard a wide grin in the man’s voice. “Others need to see your broken fingers, the bruises on your face. No. You don’t get the easy out of death. In a way, you get to work for Mr. Ansel too. You get to be a type of messenger.”
As the man finished speaking, another rattle of gunfire filled Jeremiah’s ears. This time, it was from his right, and it sounded like it was coming from inside the building.
“Klever, Alec,” the man barked. “Figure out where the hell that is coming from and why the Hell they’re still shooting,” and as soon as the man spoke, Jeremiah heard quick grunts in the affirmative followed by heavy feet shuffling out of the room.
“You,” the man continued. Jeremiah assumed these next harsh words of the man were directed at Daniel. “You and I,” the man continued, “We’ll be heading out to the car.” Jeremiah heard a quick grunt following these words. He expected Daniel to respond with something else, but Jeremiah’s ears filled only with disappointment as he heard the sound of feet thudding against the floor. The door did not shut as the footfalls faded in his ears, and after a few moments, the room washed over with silence.
“Damnit,” Hosea muttered. “Damnit, damnit,” he repeated, and Jeremiah watched as his oldest brother sat down from his strained crouch and let his arms sag at his side. He did not even look up at Jeremiah. He looked at the floor, and he followed a crack in the floor to the wall and followed the wall up to the window.
“They aren’t going to kill him,” Jeremiah answered. He knew they had taken Daniel, but he assumed they were going to rough him up a bit before sending him back into the world as an example. Is that not what the man had said?
“No,” Hosea answered, “They aren’t going to kill him, Jeremiah, but I’ve seen some dragged off to Lyle Ansel’s, and when they come back,” Hosea sighed. “We could end up feeding Daniel soft food for the rest of his life while he drools, groans, and shits his pants, if you understand what I am saying.”
An image of Daniel filled his mind. He smiled, but his eyes had lost all the sharpness of intelligence.
“Idiot Daniel,” Jeremiah looked at Hosea as the words quickly left his mouth. “No,” Hosea said. “I don’t think I would leave my worst enemy in the hands of that animal. God, and I thought the worst Hell I would run into in my life would be Iwo Jima,” Hosea sighed again. “We’re going to have to go after him. And we’re going to have to go after him quickly.”
Jeremiah nodded. He pulled himself out from under the desk and leaned his back against it as Hosea now was. He stretched out his sore legs. He looked up at the ceiling, and he let his head rest against the back of the desk. Did he feel that same excitement as before? Maybe a little, but now that the fight was over, the same fear as before began to creep its way in, and the energy was being sucked from his body as if a dog-sized leach had attached itself to his back.
“What do we do now?” Jeremiah thought. “Go after Daniel,” the words of Hosea echoed through his mind. “But how is that done?” he wondered. But he did not have much time to wonder. At first he thought it was the sound of the man and Daniel returning to the room, but after a few moments, he realized he did not hear two sets of feet on the ground. He heard three. One set was loud. He was sure this one wore boots. The other two were softer. If the man had returned with Daniel, he had brought a friend, but Jeremiah could find no good reason the man had to return to the room. Daniel would not have given either himself or Hosea up. Had the man dropped something? Was he looking for someone or something else?
Jeremiah heard a sigh. No. He would not have described it as a sigh. It was a grunt of frustration that was pushed forward from the back of the throat. The footsteps hushed. Jeremiah heard a sharp breath in, and then the room filled with another voice he did not recognize. This voice was far different than the man’s from before. This voice was deep, almost too deep to understand. It was a slow voice, and as the sounds of the voice filled the room, Jeremiah was sure he was hearing the voice of the stupidest person who had ever existed.
“Oooh,” this new voice grunted out. “Back,” the deep voice bellowed. “Back, are you here?” Jeremiah glanced at his brother Hosea. Hosea was not looking at him. Hosea had inched his way to the side of the desk and was trying to peer around it and into the rest of the room. “Where are you hiding?” The man’s voice did not bellow out this time. These final few words came out in a low grunt, and because of the dark timbre of the man’s voice, Jeremiah barely understood them. If he would have understood them, he might have stood up out of fear. Or maybe he would have only remained frozen where he now sat. He was not certain. But because of the effort it took him to pull meaning from those rumbling syllables, Jeremiah had enough time to realize that neither he nor Hosea were found. He came to realize that the man was so stupid, he assumed his leader, this Back or Bake or Beck—whatever he had said—had taken the time to hide for some reason. And when Jeremiah translated the grunting rumblings of this man into English and understood those animal noises, he almost laughed. A giddy feeling filled up his chest. A little sprite danced within him and ran its way from his stomach up to his throat, and he was forced to clamp a hand over his own mouth to stop noise from coming out.
Jeremiah heard a few shuffling steps from the doorway. He assumed the man was moving forward, moving farther into the room so as to be able to do a better search for his leader.
“I don’t think he is here,” another voice droned. And that voice lit up something inside Jeremiah. Though that voice came out in a tired, gravelly moan, Jeremiah knew the voice. It was a voice all too familiar: the voice of Isaiah. And something like annoyance or sarcasm or dark humor filled those words, because Isaiah had heard the same stupidity in that voice. Isaiah had heard that mellow stupidity as the man was barely able to form words, as the man rumbled out, as the man grunted in response.
Jeremiah nodded to himself. Daniel had called Isaiah and Ezekiel. Good. That was good. The gunfire that had pulled the other men out of the room must have been these two brothers. And now? Jeremiah did not know why they were in this room, but curiosity invaded his mind. He glanced at Hosea. Hosea was still peering around the edge of the desk. Jeremiah nodded to his oldest brother, but his oldest brother did not respond. He did not see him.
“Good,” Jeremiah thought, and he inched his way out from under the desk, moved to the other side, and inched and inched until he was able to see the door. And when he saw that, he almost swore. He clamped another hand over his mouth and quickly moved behind the desk again.
It was the same situation as before. “But it is different,” he thought. A single man pointed a gun at Daniel before. That man was clearly intelligent. Now, one man trained a gun on two, but where that man lacked in intelligence, he made up for in size. Neither Jeremiah nor his brothers were tall, but they were not short either. Next to this man, both of Jeremiah’s brothers looked like children. The gun in the man’s hand looked like a toy. The doorway was half a foot below his chin.
It was not that this man was merely tall. If he was tall, Jeremiah would have stared in wonder, but he was a broad man, twice as broad as Jeremiah himself. And Jeremiah knew if that man wanted to pick him up and break him in half, he would have an easy job of it. Jeremiah assumed it would be as easy as any other person fighting a child.
Jeremiah shook his head. “Damn, damn,” he thought to himself. One big, stupid giant with a gun stood between himself and two of his brothers being freed. Even if he wanted to attack this man as he had wanted to attack the other men as Daniel had, he would find himself springing up to action, charging the man, and his arms barely able to wrap around the man’s abdomen. And Jeremiah knew exactly how it all would play out. He would meet the man, but despite the speed at which he ran and the force he pushed into the man, he would hit a wall. He would fall back. The man would barely move, and instead, that man would look down, he would reach out a hand, and he would pick up Jeremiah’s entire body with one hand.
Jeremiah shook his head; he realized that would not do. He would end up on the floor or worse. Maybe the man would have enough wherewithal to bring up his weapon and start blasting. And Jeremiah would end up on the floor gasping for breath and in a pool of his own blood. Jeremiah shook his head, but he was broken out of his thoughts with a tight hand gripping his shoulder.
“Jeremiah.” His own name was loud in his ear, and when he turned to Hosea, he saw his oldest brother was inches away from his face. And Jeremiah knew Hosea was trying to be as cautious as possible.
Jeremiah nodded back to his brother. Why use words in this situation when a simple nod will do.
“I, uh,” Hosea drew back in hesitation. He lifted himself up slightly and turned his head to peer over the top of the desk. “I need you to attack him,” Hosea whispered back.
“Um,” Jeremiah felt his eyes tighten. He did not look up at his brother. He stared at a dark space on the wall behind Hosea. “Uh,” he whispered back again, and his previous thoughts filled his mind. And he wondered if Hosea was seeing the same thing as himself. Maybe if Hosea had asked before the man had left with Daniel. Jeremiah had a chance if he attacked that other man, but he had decided that brawn was more powerful than brains in this situation. If he attacked this man, he would die trying. And Jeremiah had a strong urge not to be killed by an idiot. He did not know the exact reason he had an aversion to this, but he already felt quick shame flow into him as he thought of his death by this man’s hands.
“A distraction, a diversion,” Hosea hissed back. “If we don’t do anything, they’ve got three of us, and we are going to have a harder time doing anything for Daniel with just us two left.”
Jeremiah nodded, not because he agreed that he would do as Hosea said but because he understood Hosea’s reasoning. Hell if he was going to risk his life and attack this behemoth, but Jeremiah also knew if he and Hosea did nothing, the future of his brothers remained uncertain. What would happen to them? Would all of them be dead in a week, or would these thugs simply break their legs, pin a note to their chests, and drop them off at home? Of course, one outcome was better than the other, but Jeremiah saw that neither was desirable.
“So,” Hosea continued, “I need you to attack when his back is turned. As you are attacking him, I am going to come from a different angle, and I am going to grab his gun. That is our one option. We’ve got to get his gun. Maybe if all four of us could coordinate an attack on him, we could take him down, but I am not sure. God damnit. He is a monster.”
Jeremiah nodded again. He was not agreeing he would participate in his brother’s plan. He thought if they took some time, they could come up with a better one, but Jeremiah knew they did not have much time. They had a couple minutes. Maybe they had only moments, and after those moments passed, they would not have such an easy opportunity in the future. He nodded again, as he realized that Hosea was probably right, and then he leaned against the desk, turned his head, and peered around the corner of the desk to see what was happening in the rest of the room.
“When I give the signal, we go as fast as we can,” Hosea said, but Jeremiah did not look at his oldest brother as he spoke. He gave him another slight nod and kept his own eyes fixed on the rest of the room. Jeremiah saw Hosea move to the other edge of the desk out of the corner of his eyes, and then after several long and painful moments, Jeremiah heard a hiss from his oldest brother.
Jeremiah let that hiss move through his mind for a long moment. He knew what his brother wanted him to do. He needed to create any commotion possible. The best commotion would be to jump on this man’s back when he was facing away from Jeremiah. And when that man was sufficiently distracted, Hosea would jump up to grab the gun. It was simple, wasn’t it? Everything seemed simple in the fantasy. Everything seemed simple when one was acting it out in one’s head or acting it out on stage, but when it came to reality, everything became more complex. That sticky path of reality got in the way. The outcome was not certain as it was in the plays or his fantasies. Anything could happen when he ran out to attack that man. Anything could happen, even the most unanticipated thing, and Jeremiah was not sure he liked that. No. Jeremiah did not need to wonder whether he liked that or not. Jeremiah did not like it. He hated the uncertainty. He wished he had never stowed away in Daniel’s trunk. He wished he was in his lumpy bed. He wished he was waiting at the side of the stage and hoping the director would get angry enough at the leading man (or anyone for that matter) to grab him and put him in to read lines for a scene or two. Anywhere but here.
Jeremiah heard another hiss, and he heard annoyance in this second hiss. Hosea had expected him to move the first time. Both of them knew they might only have one shot at freeing these two. And they needed to take it. They needed to take it, because not taking it meant this monster would be walking out of the room, and their brothers would be zooming away in a car to who the hell knows where.
Jeremiah did not hesitate when he heard the hiss from Hosea a second time. He pushed himself up from the floor. He did not worry about keeping his feet silent as he moved across the floor. They slapped the tile, and his voice came out in a heavy wheeze. And what he had predicted before was correct, at least in part. Pain branched from his shoulder through his chest when he hit the man. The man did not budge at all. He only grunted, and Jeremiah felt a strong hand reach down and grab him by the bicep.
Profanity filled Jeremiah’s mind as the man pulled Jeremiah off his leg, and Jeremiah felt a strong tug on his arm as the man lifted him up in the air and tossed him to the corner of the room. Jeremiah fell on the same arm the man had grabbed, and his head smashed against the wall as he fell, and he found himself finally on his back with his head spinning and looking up at the gray ceiling. A cry of pain started to fill his mouth, but the pain was too great, and that cry of pain was stifled by more pain, and he was only able to get out a slight squeak. After a moment, he heard more scuffles and swearing from the room. He hoped Hosea had better luck than himself, but he did not have much time to wonder before something heavy and hard hit him in the chest and made another quick squeak of pain fill him.
It felt like five minutes before the pain in Jeremiah’s body faded enough for him to pay attention to the rest of the room. By this time, the scuffle had left the rest of the room. Jeremiah heard heavy breathing, and accompanying this heavy breathing, he heard a rumbling laugh.
“Another,” the man’s rumbling, almost-incoherence said. “Boss, I’ve got another,” he called out.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremiah saw the towering man and a hunched Hosea. Of course Hosea had not been able to do anything. He was sick. He had not even been able to pull himself off the couch when they came in. If Jeremiah and Daniel had not picked him up, he would have already been hauled away by these men.
“Now, it is only time before he looks over here and sees me, and all five of us are tied up and tossed in the back of a van or in the river.”
Jeremiah sighed, and he waited for the inevitable. He stared at the ceiling, and he waited for the inevitable, but he never heard a rumbling yell from the man for him to get up. When he finally glanced over at the man, he noticed the man had his back turned. He was facing the door once again, and Jeremiah’s three brothers were standing in front of that door with their hands up. When Jeremiah followed that man up to his hand, he saw he still held a gun, a tiny little pistol in his hand, one that would have been huge in Jeremiah’s.
“We’re going to go out to the car,” the man rumbled and nodded toward the three. And as the man began to move forward, Jeremiah realized he had not been seen. Not only could the man not speak, it looked as if he had the inability to count either. Jeremiah’s brothers did not move at first, and when he looked at them, he realized they were not looking at the man. They nodded to the man that they would move, but they were looking at him. They were all looking at him with piercing eyes as if they were telling him to get up and do something and do it quickly.
Jeremiah squinted in confusion. “What?” he mouthed to his brothers, and their eyes moved with the same impatient annoyance from him to the ground in front of him.
When Jeremiah’s eyes followed theirs, his heat leapt. The man had a pistol in his hand, but before, he had carried a machine gun. He had lost that machine gun. That machine gun had flown through the air. It had hit him in the chest. It was lying on the ground. It was lying on the ground right in front of him.
“God damnit,” Jeremiah whispered. He did not care how loud that whisper was, because he was already reaching out a hand, he was already feeling the heaviness of the weapon in his arms, he was already jumping up to his feet.
“Yeah, I think it is about time to get out of here,” he called to the rest of the room.
Smiles lit up his brothers’ faces, but when the man turned to look, Jeremiah saw only confusion filling the man’s face.
“You might want to drop that gun,” Jeremiah pointed his newfound weapon at the man and craned his neck to look up at the man.
The man still looked at Jeremiah with confusion. His eyes glanced to the rest of the room, as if he were wondering where this boy had hidden. His eyes looked back at Jeremiah, and then they went down to the machine gun the boy now held.
“Drop your weapon,” Jeremiah said, and after a moment or two more of confusion from the man, the man nodded. He dropped the weapon. “Look at me,” Jeremiah felt a smile fill up his face. He felt giddiness fill up his chest. He could not help it. “You are my prisoner now.”