Chapter 2

The building rested on pilings three feet off the ground. Around the edge of the building, the owner had put a wooden skirt to hide the bare underside of the building. In a corner created by a set of stairs leading up to the building proper and the wall, a couple of boards had been removed. The opening was the entry to Shadow’s current home.

Shadow liked staying there for one reason and one reason alone. That reason was the view that it afforded him. From the little opening, he could see up into a window of the building across the way. He wasn’t sure what kind of business it was, but he could occasionally see oriental women walking around topless in the window.

When he had been a kid, he’d heard that oriental women tended to be small breasted but the women in that building barely had the beginnings of breasts. Despite the small size of their breasts, Shadow took a great deal of pleasure in watching them. He had lost track of how many times he had jacked off while looking at the view.

This was as close to having sex with a woman as he was likely to get. His disfigured face chased away everyone. Even whores wouldn’t take pity on him regardless of how much money he offered. His ugliness forced him to live in the dark forgotten areas of the city. It was a lonely life and one that he thought to end many times. All that kept him alive was the memory of happy days spent with Harry. The man had talked to him and treated him like a real person. It gave him hope.

Shadow heard the screams and shifted so that he could see what was going on. One of the women had burst out of the door and almost ran into the dumpster. When she paused to get her bearings, an oriental man had come out and thrown her to the ground. For a moment he stared at the woman, only then realizing that she was probably only fourteen or fifteen years old at most.

The man had found something on the ground and started whipping her with it. Confused, Shadow had no idea what to do. The one thing he did know was that it was wrong to hit a young woman like that. A loud bang echoed through the alley and caught his attention. He stared in shock on discovering Harry standing next to dumpster striking it with his shepherd’s staff.

When the man stopped beating the girl to talk to Harry, Shadow moved out of his hiding spot thinking that he might be able to help the girl. Harry had once helped him and he felt that perhaps this was his chance to return the favor. The girl started to move and the man grabbed her by the hair forcing her back down.

Shadow moved closer in the hope of helping when the sound of a pistol shot ringing out surprised him. Horrified, Shadow watched as Harry fell into a pile of trash near where he was hiding. Forgetting completely about the girl, Shadow crawled over to Harry to check him out. There was blood, a lot of it, flowing from the center of Harry’s chest.

Hidden in the dark, he picked up the old man and carried him out of the alley. At the end of the alley, he spotted another homeless man and called out, “A guy back there shot Harry.”

The word spread like wildfire as Shadow carried Harry on out into the street convinced that Harry was dead. When Harry moaned, he realized his mistake. The old man was a lot heavier than he looked, but Shadow wasn’t going to let him go. Holding onto the Druid the best that he could, he ran up the street shouting to everyone, “They shot Harry.”

Shadow had no idea how far the clinic was from the warehouse district or how long it took him to get Harry there. All he remembered was bursting into the clinic shouting, “They shot Harry. Happy Harry has been shot. Help him.”

The effect of his words was as if an explosion had happened. Nurses, doctors, and others came from everywhere to take care of Harry. It reminded him of ants riled as a result of someone kicking over an anthill. In the center of the maelstrom, Shadow stood lost and alone as the medical personnel took charge. Once Harry had been whisked away, Shadow moved over to a wall and sank down in exhaustion as tears ran down his face.

A nurse nudged his shoulder and said, “Excuse me, but you need to get over to the waiting area. This is the middle of the doctors station.”

Shadow looked up at the nurse and asked, “Harry? Is he going to be okay?”

Seeing the tears running down his deformed face, the nurse took pity on him. She knelt down and said, “He’s in pretty bad shape. They’re doing what they can to stabilize him and then an ambulance will take him over to the hospital.”

“Will he be okay?”

“That’s for his Gods and Goddesses to decide,” answered the nurse with a sigh.

That answer wasn’t good enough for Shadow. The man that hurt Harry had to pay for his actions. He stood up and said, “I’ll be back to find out how he’s doing.”

“You need to stay here to talk to the police,” replied the nurse.

“No. There’s work to be done and I have to make sure that it is done correctly,” replied Shadow as he strode to the door with a purpose.

The nurse tried to stop him, but once outside the man disappeared into the shadows. She looked around confused and returned inside. Concerned about the man’s role in Harry’s shooting, she called the police to let them know that he had left and provided them with a description of the man.

Outside, Shadow made his way back to the warehouse district. This time he didn’t stick to the shadows but walked down the middle of the street. As he went, he called out to all the homeless that he saw along the way, “A man shot Harry in the warehouse district. Go there.”

A crowd of homeless men had gathered in the area, but no one knew the details of what had happened to Harry. Shadow went from group to group telling them the story about how the oriental man had shot Harry. The blood on his clothes gave mute testimony to his story. To each group, he said, “We surround the building and allow no one in or out. We don’t move, we don’t speak, and we don’t break the law. We just watch the building. If Harry dies, then every man in that building will die by our hands.”

The groups of homeless men and women nodded their heads in acknowledgment and agreement. Harry was one of them and to a person they all believed that Harry was the best of them. They would do their part to make sure that anyone who hurt him paid for it. Shadow sent a group out to get more people.

Going over to another group, he told them, “Keep the police away. Block the roads and the sidewalk. Don’t move, don’t speak, and don’t break the law. Just don’t let the police near here.”

After a couple of hours, there were almost a thousand homeless people, streetwalkers, and addicts surrounding the building. Everyone that was no one had showed up. Shadow was everywhere, organizing people and keeping everything under control. He didn’t care who saw him or what they thought of his appearance. The only thing that kept him going was that the man who hurt Harry was going to pay for his actions.

It was after midnight when Shadow noticed that a few people were moving out of place. He started to make his way over to find out what was the matter. Reaching the center of the disturbance, he found everyone in the area pointing at him. He went over to investigate with the expectation that it would be the police to take him away.

Suddenly, he was face to face with a red robed Druid. Frowning, he asked, “How’s Harry?”

“Harry is over in the bus,” answered the Druid.

Shadow asked, “Is he okay?”

“Yes. We need a distraction.”

Shadow thought about what kind of distraction a thousand people could provide. He asked, “How about we march on the building?”

“You can march, but don’t get any nearer than you are,” replied the Druid, “since we don’t want anyone to get in the way.”

“Okay.”

Shadow spent ten minutes setting it up. He got a wild idea that they would stomp a hundred steps and then they would shout Harry’s name a hundred times in the same cadence. If that didn’t attract attention, he didn’t know what would.

Standing in the middle of the crowd, as they stomped their feet in time with each other, was an amazing experience. It sounded as if a giant was approaching and the ground literally shook under his feet. When everyone started shouting, it sounded like a giant was shouting, “Harry.”

When the Druids had done what they were going to do, the word spread that they could stop. The man that had hurt Harry was in the custody of a Druid and that they would take care of him. As the crowd of homeless started to leave, Shadow found that he had little to do.

One of the homeless men handed him a half-empty wine bottle still wrapped in the paper bag in which it had been purchased. He said, “Finish it. You deserve a drink for all you did.”

Left holding a bottle of wine, Shadow decided it was time to return to his dark place. He had done all he could for Harry. He returned to his hiding spot under the building and watched the few homeless people milling around in the alley while sipping wine from the bottle. The wine sat heavy on his empty stomach, but he didn’t care.

After setting the bottle of wine down, he looked out from his hiding spot in time to see Harry exit the building with two oriental girls and a woman in a green robe. The other homeless men were with them. When the red robed Druid had said that Harry was okay, he hadn’t realized just how well Harry was doing. The man was walking around as if he hadn’t been shot.

Startled to see Harry in such good shape, he knocked over the bottle of wine. It rolled into the alley making a lot of noise in the quiet that had descended over the warehouse district. He listened in surprise as Harry called over his shoulder, “Goodnight, Shadow. Thanks for everything.”

Shadow, shocked at the acknowledgment, didn’t answer until long after Harry was gone. In a quiet voice, he said, “You’re welcome, Harry.”

An old boxcar, parked on the edge of a junkyard had become home for Shadow. The owner of the junkyard, a man nearly as ugly as Shadow, had hired him as a night watchman. The pay was bad, the hours were horrible, and the work was boring, but it was better than having nothing, doing nothing, and sleeping in a storm drain. At least he didn’t have to work hard to avoid people.

Shadow sat in the door of the boxcar, his legs dangling down and swinging, as he prepared his lunch. Pulling the top off a can of chicken salad, he sniffed it to check that it was still good. He dumped the contents onto a day-old hamburger bun. It wasn’t much of a meal, but it was better than some meals that he had eaten in the past. One of the advantages of working was getting to eat food that hadn’t come out of a dumpster.

He took a bite of the sandwich and washed it down with a swig of his beer. It was hard to believe that beer was cheaper than soft drinks in this area. A noise off to his right suggested that a customer was working his way through the assorted junk scattered around the area. Cursing his luck that he couldn’t even enjoy his lunch without being interrupted, he scrambled inside the boxcar.

“Shadow, I know you’re in there.”

The voice sounded familiar, but Shadow knew that it couldn’t be him. Curiosity won over his desire to hide. He stuck his head out the door and saw his visitor standing a few feet away from the boxcar. Emotions battled within as he asked, “What are you doing here, Harry?”

“I came here to ask a favor of you,” answered the Druid as he examined the old boxcar. He ran a hand along the surface of the boxcar as though his touch restored the past to him.

“Sure. What can I do for you?” Shadow ducked his head back inside the boxcar. It made no sense to make Harry ill by showing the man his ugly face.

“I’ve got a problem and you’re the one that I think can help me with it.”

“Anything you need Harry. What can I do?”

Smiling at the empty door, Harry shook his head in amazement that after all this time Shadow still hid from view. He said, “I’ll tell you about it as I take you there.”

“How long will we be gone?”

“For a couple of months, at least,” answered Harry with a smile.

Shadow paused to consider what Harry was asking him to do. The Druid wanted him to give up a job and his home without telling him any of the details about what he needed. Still, it was Harry doing the asking. It would be nice to travel for a couple of months with Harry again. He looked around his current home and started to pack up his belongings, meager as they were. “I’ll come with you.”

As Harry started the motor of the roach coach, he said, “Hold on. This here beast is about as graceful as a three legged dog humping a basketball.”

Wedging himself in the back of the truck where Harry couldn’t see him, Shadow didn’t need a reminder of just how bad riding with Harry was. After five minutes in the vehicle, he swore that it was worse than ever. On one occasion when the truck leaned over, he swore Harry could have reached out the window and touched the road.

Harry broke the silence when he said, “I really liked your home back there. Spent many a day in those in my time. Of course, they were moving when I was in them. When they stopped, that was when you got into trouble.”

Shadow replied, “It was nice enough, but it didn’t have a toilet.”

“You could have used a thunder pot,” remarked the old man. He had used many a bucket for that purpose over his lifetime. “Yep. Lots of folks get spoiled by flush toilets, but there’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned thunder pot.”

Wondering what Harry wanted, Shadow didn’t comment on the topic of conversation. He sat back waiting for Harry to tell him what favor he needed. When Harry didn’t say anything right away, he said, “You were saying.”

Harry said, “You know. There are some folks, in New York, who pay over three thousand dollars a month to rent a space about the same size as that boxcar. Can you imagine that? I sure can’t; not when there is a whole world for you to live in.”

“Are we going to New York?”

“Nah, just up the road here about three miles,” answered Harry.

Three miles up the road put them in the red-light district of town. The fact that Harry would have business there didn’t surprise Shadow. Harry helped people in all parts of town where bums, drunks, whores, and addicts lived. He was curious why the Druid would need his help in such an area.

After a minute of silence, Harry said, “People pay all kinds of prices to live in one place or another. Some folks will live in mansions in the middle of nowhere, preferring to pay lots of money for the size of the house and to not have neighbors. Others will crowd together like sardines, preferring to pay in a lack of privacy rather than in money.”