Butcher Boy

"Well, that’s what I’m aiming to discover," Pick said. "What kinda standards? Blake told me that in some countries, like Turkey, they don’t even hesitate. Someone do something like that, they’re publicly executed. No extendicating circumstances."

"Extenuating," Sara corrected him.

"Yeah. Anyway, supposing that happened? If I were the judge, I'd wanna know what got into those boys before I went to render'n any judgment. Judges ain’t God either, so I’d hafta throw the Bible out. No, I’d need the help of pure science. Sumthin that’s going help me crawl up under the scalp of those two freaks and take a look around." Pick paused in his analysis to rest his chin on his fists.

Sara put her fork down and looked over at Bobby hoping he’d register a reaction to any of this. Bobby adjusted his reading glasses and casually turned to the next page in the Sports section. Sara wasn’t sure if Pick simply wanted a listening audience or a debate on the topic. "Pick, something happen between you and those two?" she asked half holding her breath.

"Nah, Mama. Just turnin stuff over in my head, s'all. It ain’t nuthin," he muttered.

Sara offered to drive Pick to the grocer on his first day, but he insisted on walking the distance. "Hell, Mama. It's only a few blocks. Lemme show up looking like I'm my own man." Sara took a measure of comfort in hearing that. It demonstrated to her he possessed a sort of conviction having roots and better placed his head squarely upon his shoulders. This direction suited her idea of where she wanted her child to go.

Actually, the grocer was about ten blocks or so away, but Pick needed time to prepare. He started out wanting to formulate goals and objectives, but too many things jumped around inside his head. And, along with getting a new job, it was more than he could reason with. What he decided to do was to allow any new events to roll in over him and then see what happened next.

And, something did happen. Not two blocks from home he passed the Halfway House. Normally, there'd be no reason for him walk this direction, so he slowed down for closer inspection. A noisy squabble was underway on the alley side of the house. He quickened his pace a little to get a look at what was going on and stopped behind a hedge running alongside the alley to spy.

"Goddamit! That man raped me I tellya and all you can do is 'cuse me of lying! I cain't even press any damn charges now!"

She was a white woman of some indeterminate age-maybe 25 or even 40 years old. Her skin was burnt almost black by the sun and hung in leathery folds from underneath her muscle T-shirt and ratty looking shorts. Her hair looked like some magnetic force had squeezed it together and tried pulling it from her head as it spiraled some two feet up into the air. All of her worldly possessions lay strewn about her: a bedroll, a pair of filthy tennis shoes, a sack of what might have been laundry and a thick book with gilded pages that looked like a bible.

She screamed at a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Timmons whom Pick recognized from church. Mrs. Timmons oversaw the comings and goings-on at the Halfway House and was a stern-looking woman who rarely tolerated anything contrary to the teachings of the Lord Jesus. She stood erect in front of the distraught woman, frowning and with her arms folded.