Forty-five minutes passed that way. He hugged his knees to his chest, made himself small, tried to conserve body heat. His teeth chattered. Why was he wearing so little? But I was happy he was so stupid. Had he had a sweater or jacket on I’d never have seen the shirt. I’d never have had this chance.
Finally, he stood. Looked around sadly. Brushed off the seat of his pants. Turned to go. Stepped into the swing of my metal pipe, which struck him in the chest and knocked him back a step.
The shame came later. Then, there was just joy. The satisfaction of how the pipe struck flesh. Broke bone. I’d spent twenty years getting shitted on by this city, by this system, by the cold wind and the everywhere-ice, by the other workers who were smarter or stronger or spoke the language. For the first time since Thede was a baby, I felt like I was in control of something. Only when my victim finally passed out, and rolled over onto his back and the blue methane streetlamp showed me how young he was under the blood, could I stop myself.
I took the shirt. I took his pants. I rolled him into the water. I called the medteam for him from a coinphone a block away. He was still breathing. He was young, he was healthy. He’d be fine. The pants I would burn in a scrap furnace. The shirt I would give back to my son. I took the money from his wallet and dropped it into the sea, then threw the money in later. I wasn’t a thief. I was a good father. I said those sentences over and over, all the way home.
THEDE COULDN’T SEE me the next day. Lajla didn’t know where he was. So I got to spend the whole day imagining imminent arrest, the arrival of Swedish or Chinese police, footage of me on the telescrolls, my cleverness foiled by tech I didn’t know existed because I couldn’t read the newspapers. I packed my one bag glumly, put the rest of my things back in the storage cube and walked it to the facility. Every five seconds I looked over my shoulder and found only the same grit and filthy slush. Every time I looked at my watch, I winced at how little time I had left.
My fear of punishment was balanced out by how happy I was. I wrapped the shirt in three layers of wrapping paper and put it in a watertight shipping bag and tried to imagine his face. That shirt would change everything. His father would cease to be a savage jerk from an uncivilized land. This city would no longer be a cold and barren place where boys could beat him up and steal what mattered most to him with impunity. All the ways I had failed him would matter a little less.
Twelve months. I had tried to get out of the gig, now that I had the shirt and a new era of good relations with my son was upon me. But canceling would have cost me my accreditation with that work center, which would make finding another job almost impossible. A year away from Thede. I would tell him when I saw him. He’d be upset, but the shirt would make it easier.
Finally, I called and he answered.
“I want to see you,” I said, when we had made our way through the pleasantries.
“Sunday?” Did his voice brighten, or was that just blind stupid hope?
Some trick of the noisy synthcoffee shop where I sat?
“No, Thede,” I said, measuring my words carefully. “I can’t. Can you do today?”
A suspicious pause. “Why can’t you do Sunday?”
“Something’s come up,” I said. “Please? Today?”
“Fine.”
The sea lion rookery. The smell of guano and the screak of gulls; the crying of children dragged away as the place shut down. The long night was almost upon us. Two male sea lions barked at each other, bouncing their chests together. Thede came a half hour late, and I had arrived a half hour early.
Watching him come my head swam, at how tall he stood and how gracefully he walked. I had done something good in this world, at least. I made him. I had that, no matter how he felt about me.
Something had shifted, now, in his face. Something was harder, older, stronger.
“Hey,” I said, bear-hugging him, and eventually he submitted. He hugged me back hesitantly, like a man might, and then hard, like a little boy. “What’s happening?” I asked. “What were you up to, last night?” Thede shrugged. “Stuff. With friends.”
I asked him questions. Again the sullen, bitter silence; again the terse and angry answers. Again the eyes darting around, constantly watching for whatever the next attack would be. Again the hating me, for coming here, for making him.
“I’m going away,” I said. “A job.”
“I figured,” he said.
“I wish I didn’t have to.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
I nodded. I couldn’t tell him it was a twelve-month gig. Not now. “Here,” I said, finally, pulling the package out from inside of my jacket.
“I got you something.”
“Thanks.” He grabbed it in both hands, began to tear it open. “Wait,” I said, thinking fast. “Okay? Open it after I leave.” Open it when the news that I’m leaving has set in, when you’re mad at me, for abandoning you. When you think I care only about my job.
“We’ll have a little time,” he said. “When you get back. Before I go away. I leave in eight months. The program is four years long.”
“Sure,” I said, shivering inside.
“Mom says she’ll pay for me to come home every year for the holiday, but she knows we can’t afford that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “‘Come home.’ I thought you were going to the Institute.”
“I am,” he said, sighing. “Do you even know what that means? The Institute’s design program is in Shanghai.”
“Oh,” I said. “Design. What kind of design?”
My son’s eyes rolled. “You’re missing the point, dad.”
I was. I always was.
A shout, from a pub across the Arm. A man’s shout, full of pain and anger.
Thede flinched. His hands made fists.
“What?” I asked, thinking, here, at last, was something “Nothing.”
“You can tell me. What’s going on?”
Thede frowned, then punched the metal railing so hard he yelped. He held up his hand to show me the blood.
“Hey, Thede –”
“Han,” he said. “My... my friend. He got jumped two nights ago. Soaked.”
“This city is horrible,” I whispered.
He made a baffled face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean... you know. This city. Everyone’s so full of anger and cruelty...”
“It’s not the city, dad. What does that even mean? Some sick person did this. Han was waiting for me, and mom wouldn’t let me out, and he got jumped. They took off all his clothes, before they rolled him into the water.
That’s some extra cruel shit right there. He could have died. He almost did.” I nodded, silently, a siren of panic rising inside. “You really care about this guy, don’t you?”
He looked at me. My son’s eyes were whole, intact, defiant, adult. Thede nodded.
He’s been getting bullied, his mother had told me. He’s in love. I turned away from him, before he could see the knowledge blossom in my eyes.
The shirt hadn’t been stolen. He’d given it away. To the boy he loved. I saw them holding hands, saw them tug at each other’s clothing in the same fumbling adolescent puppy-love moments I had shared with his mother, moments that were my only happy memories from being his age. And I saw his fear, of how his backwards father might react – a refugee from a fallen hate-filled people – if he knew what kind of man he was. I gagged on the unfairness of his assumptions about me, but how could he have known differently? What had I ever done, to show him the truth of how I felt about him? And hadn’t I proved him right? Hadn’t I acted exactly like the monster he believed me to be? I had never succeeded in proving to him what I was, or how I felt.