JC: Harry and Shadow: Chapter 2

Posted: January 31, 2005 - 09:38:44 pm



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 acknowledgement 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 acknowledgement, 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 as that of your 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."

"I suppose so," replied Shadow not quite sure of the point that Harry was

making.

"Yes sir. You were willing to work for a man to live in a boxcar so that you

wouldn't have people around that could see you. I guess the price you were

paying for those living accommodations was loneliness."

Shadow didn't say a word about Harry's assessment of his situation. There was a

lot of truth in his words, but it wasn't a question of his willingness to pay

that price. That was the price imposed upon him by his ugliness.

After a few turns that nearly made Shadow lose his lunch, Harry pulled the truck

over to the side of the road in front of a little wood-framed house. With a

smile, Harry said, "We're here."

"I thought you were going to tell me about this favor," said Shadow curious

about what kind of a situation Harry was getting him into.

"Oh, I guess I did say something to that effect," replied the Druid with a smile

that suggested he had no intention of telling him anything until they had

reached this location.

"So tell me."

"A young lady had a rather misfortunate accident with a tanning lamp. She's

become blind and needs someone to take care of her until her eyesight returns,"

said Harry.

Shadow stared at the Druid wondering if he had suddenly gone senile. He

stuttered for a moment before he was able to say, "Are you crazy? Why on earth

would you pick me?"

"You don't mind the dark and she's scared of it. You don't like people to see

you and she can't see. She needs someone to care for her and you don't have

anything better to do. Sounds perfect to me," answered Harry as he opened the

door to exit the truck.

It was a frantic Shadow that followed Harry into the house trying to talk him

out of it. Shadow froze when he saw the young woman, nineteen years old, sitting

in a chair with bandages over her eyes. She was moving her head nervously from

side to side trying to figure out what was happening. Worried, she called out,

"Is that you Harry?"

"Yes, Ginger," answered Harry, "it's me. I've brought a guardian to watch over

you."

"Who is she?"

"It's a he. His name is Shadow," answered the Druid turning around to wink at

man standing behind him.

The woman reacted with a puzzled smile and asked, "You got me a seeing eye dog?"

"No, Ginger. It's a real live man."

Shadow took a minute to look at the woman. She was wearing blue jeans and a

T-shirt for some music group. It was hard to tell what her body looked like with

her sitting in the chair as she was. She had long brown hair that had been dyed

blond at some point in the past, but the hair had grown out so that she had a

brown streak along her part. The white bandages covered most of her facial

features.

Ginger frowned at the news that Harry had brought a man into her house.

Disturbed, she said, "You brought a man here to take care of me. Are you crazy?"

"I asked him the same thing," said Shadow pleased to know that he wasn't alone

in his assessment of the Druid.

She started at the sound of his voice and turned her head in his general

direction. It was as though she were trying to look through the bandages at him.

She said, "Don't give me that bullshit."

Although his companions might see it differently, Harry saw that things were

progressing exceptionally well, better than he had expected. Satisfied, he

walked over to the door and said, "Well, I'll see you kids later. I'll be back

in a month or so."

Shadow felt like he had been sucker punched. He didn't know anything about

watching over a blind person, much less a blind woman. He watched in horror as

Harry walked out the door and to the truck.

He called out to the Druid, "You can't leave us here like this!"

Harry waved to him as the truck pulled away leaving the two of them behind.

Shadow stepped out of the door hoping that this was just some kind of joke on

Harry's part. He watched hoping the truck would stop a little ways down the

street and that Harry would return to the house. It didn't take long before the

truck disappeared around a corner and was gone from sight. Shadow looked over

where the truck had been and saw that his possessions were sitting on the curb.

Stamping his foot on the porch, Shadow swore, "Shit!"

Ginger, unable to see what was going on, asked, "What's happening?"

He answered, "He's gone. I can't believe that he did that to me."

"Do it to you? What about me?" asked Ginger.

The young woman had just cause to be worried. From her perspective, her

situation was bad and was becoming worse. Earlier that day, she had become blind

and now she was stuck in a house with a total stranger. The only thing that kept

her from screaming her head off was the fact that the man had been brought there

by Harry. All the girls on the street knew about Harry and she knew he never

hurt anyone that didn't deserve harsh treatment.

Shadow looked over at the woman and thought about what Harry had done to him.

There was no way that he could leave now. If he left, the woman would be stuck

there alone without anyone to look after her. There was no way that he would do

that and Harry knew it.

He went out to the street and picked up his stuff from the curb knowing that if

he left it there for long it would disappear. Returning to the house, he sat

down in a chair and looked at Ginger with a frown on his face. She was twisting

around trying to understand what was happening. Her actions reminded him of how

helpless she was. Less than happy with his situation, he said, "Harry left."

"So now that you're alone with me, what happens next?" asked Ginger afraid that

she knew what the answer was going to be. This guy could rape her for the next

month and no one would know. She tensed expecting to feel his hands on her body.

"I don't know. I'm stuck here with you."

"I'm the one that's stuck here," grumbled Ginger. She knew men far better than

most women. As an exotic dancer, she saw the hunger with which men looked at

women. She knew men couldn't keep their hands to themselves. Stuck in the house

with a man only meant that it wouldn't be long before he started touching her.

"Why do you think I'm stuck here? I can't leave you alone and helpless."

His comment made her feel a little better, but the silence that settled in the

room unnerved her. Not being able to see made her feel very vulnerable. Not

knowing what Shadow was doing feed her imagination. For all she knew, he was

leering at her and undressing her with his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking. Is there anyone that we can call on to watch over you?" asked

Shadow.

"No, there's no one."

Ginger had family; her mother and stepfather were still alive. They were half

the reason she was in this bind. The woman who gave birth to her was a religious

fanatic. She felt that all problems could be solved through prayer, hard work,

and physical punishment. If a wife gave her husband problems, she deserved the

whipping she received. If a daughter gave the mother problems, then a whipping

was just punishment.

Her stepfather gave lip service to religion, but preferred to use religion to

his advantage. Honor your mother and father translated into thou shalt have sex

with your stepfather without complaining. Take it in the ass and thank him for

giving it to you. Complaining to the mother only brought additional punishment

upon her.

"Damn," replied Shadow.

Ginger said, "You don't seem very happy at watching over me."

The ugly man had no idea what he was supposed to do with this woman. Could she

eat by herself? Feeding her wouldn't be that tough. What if she needed him to

help her dress? That would be tough to do without getting excited. Was he going

to have to help her go to the bathroom? The idea disgusted him. The only up side

of this entire situation was that she couldn't see him and he didn't need to

hide his face from her.

"It's not that. I've got no idea what I'm supposed to do. I'm not a nurse or

anything like that."

"I'm blind, not ill," replied Ginger.

Ginger took a sip of her after dinner coffee and set the cup down while keeping

a finger on the cup. She said, "That's a good cup of coffee."

"It's hard to ruin coffee," countered Shadow.

The ugly man took a sip of his cup of coffee as he considered living in a real

house for the first time since he left his parent's place years earlier. It was

a lot more work since he had to keep it clean rather than just move when too

much trash accumulated. With Ginger being blind, it was important to keep things

off the floor. She had already tripped over a bra that had fallen to the floor.

"So how is it that you can come and stay with me for an unspecified time?" asked

Ginger.

"Simple," Shadow answered, "I live on the street and don't have any where else

that I need to be."

Ginger hadn't realized that Shadow was homeless although it was the kind of

thing that Harry would do. He'd been there for a couple of hours now and hadn't

done anything strange, so her curiosity was roused. She asked, "Why are you

living on the streets?"

The question that he didn't want to answer had been asked. He could lie to her

and get away with it since she was blind. She would never know the truth, but

that wouldn't be right. He answered, "I'm ugly."

"You're ugly?"

"Yes, I'm very ugly," answered Shadow moving as he spoke into a dark corner of

the room.

The answer didn't make sense to Ginger. Most of her audience at the strip club

was ugly. She had men grabbing at her naked body that were fat, bald,

hair-lipped, scruffy, smelly, and probably diseased. That hadn't put them on the

street. Some of them even thought they were good looking. She said, "I don't

understand."

"I'm a monster. People can't look at me. I can't get a job."

"You might be ugly, but so are a lot of people and they work," countered Ginger.

Even in her business there were a lot of strippers that weren't all that

attractive. They didn't make much money, but it was more than they could make as

a checkout girl in a discount store.

"Take half of a face, turn it purple, puff it up, and add some growths to it

here and there. Imagine that the other half of the face is pale white. Mix in a

little beard and that's what I look like. I'm probably the ugliest man alive,"

stated Shadow as though it were some great truth.

She couldn't imagine anyone looking like what he described, but was smart enough

not to argue. People had their own views of themselves. She'd seen strippers

with tits so huge that the weight of them hurt their backs. Still, she'd heard

them complain that their breasts were too small. There were tons of skinny women

that thought of themselves as too fat and died as a result of their attempts to

lose more weight. She thought it odd that people could starve to death

surrounded by food.

"Why did you leave home?"

Hearing the second worst question that he could be asked, Shadow sighed. There

wasn't a nice answer to it. He answered, "My mother thought she was the reason

that I was born ugly. She felt that somewhere on this planet was a person that

could turn her ugly duckling son into a swan prince."

"What's wrong with that?"

"The rest of my family hated me because of it. My brother and sister didn't get

presents on Christmas or for their birthdays. My dad couldn't even drink a beer

during the Super Bowl game. My mother spent every penny that my dad made on

every doctor, faith healer, and other quack that came to her notice. We flew

from expert to expert so much that I had my own frequent flyer card when I was

eight," answered Shadow.

There was so much anger in his voice that it shocked Ginger. She sat quiet,

considering what he had said.

There was no way that Shadow could forget or forgive the looks he used to get

from his brother and sister when he would return from another trip to a quack.

They blamed him because he was the ugly one that got all of mother's attention.

They blamed him when his mother pawned the television set so that she could take

him to a healer in Mexico. The blame turned to hate over time. Try explaining to

a seven-year-old kid that they didn't get a toy for their birthday because the

ugly kid had to see a doctor.

The day came when the family went crazy. It started with an argument with his

sister about some subject that he couldn't even remember. His brother stepped in

and started swinging. Once that boundary had been crossed, the brother couldn't

stop and continued as if he was going to kill Shadow. His father watched without

saying a word and even tried to prevent his mother from interfering, but nobody

could stop his mother from protecting the ugly one.

Shadow wasn't stupid. He knew that once the venom started to poison the family

it would never end. One day, his mother wouldn't be there and that would be the

end of Shadow. He left the house right after the beating, never to return. A

fifteen-year-old kid, bruised and battered, hit the streets with nothing but the

clothes on his back hoping only to survive.

He knew he was ugly, but didn't realize the full consequences of that fact.

People shied away from him. Managers of businesses wouldn't hire him because he

was too young and too ugly. He couldn't even suck cock for a living because no

man wanted a diseased looking face anywhere within reach of his cock. Survival

through criminal means was not possible since his appearance was too unique to

be able to hide from the law.

"Everyone in my family hated me, except my mother and she was killing me with

her love," said Shadow.

"Maybe now that they are older, they'll understand," commented Ginger. Even as

she said it, she didn't believe it. Norman Rockwell was a liar and painted a

world that didn't exist. Families didn't sit nicely around a turkey dinner

discussing all that they were thankful for; they fought and threatened each

other with the carving knife.

"Maybe they'll understand, but I'm not sure that I do," replied Shadow.

His mother, in trying to get him cured, had reinforced the idea that he was ugly

with every word and gesture that she made. The rest of the family accepted that

and re-enforced the idea. What else could he do but accept his families

judgement? For that, he couldn't forgive them.

He said, "I can never forgive them."

Ginger was quiet as she contemplated what he had said. There was no way that she

could forgive her mother and stepfather. To expect him to do it was the ultimate

in hypocrisy. After a minute, she said, "I'm not sure that you should."

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