Chapter 3 The Khul
The Khul
Jace eyed Timmy Grace and Danny Wilson. The two boys were eleven-years-old, best friends, growing reprobates and they were lingering near the adult magazines.
Walter kept the porn mags by the AARP fliers and crossword books.
The last types of content that boys like Timmy and Danny would be interested in so they stuck out there like two sore thumbs.
The boys had already gone over to the aging refrigerator and taken out two soft drinks, a Cherry Coke and a Grape Fanta.
These were the only outward purchases. Timmy though had some Twizzlers that he’d stuffed in the back of his pants while Danny’s sticky fingers were trailing over the candybar section.
Jace was sure a few chocolate bars would end up in the extra deep pockets of his shorts.
Walter had caught them shoplifting bunches of times, but he didn’t want the cops called on them though, because he had a soft heart.
They were kids. Kids do stupid things. Just confiscate the stolen items and send them on their way were his instructions to Jace.
But while Jace had sympathy for Timmy, who lived at the edge of town in the trailer parks, he had none for Danny.
Their clothes told the story of their lives.
Timmy’s clothes were worn and had stains on top of stains.
Danny’s were not only clean and fresh, but were designer brands.
He could have afforded to buy the drinks and snacks for both of them with no problem.
But he didn’t. He took. And Walter wasn’t exactly rolling in dough.
Danny wandered to the end of the magazine rack and oh-so-casually tipped one of the adult magazines to the side so that it started to fall off of the rack.
He caught it adroitly and slipped it up underneath his t-shirt.
He bloused out his shirt to hide the evidence.
Then they both sauntered to the counter to pay for the drinks but nothing else they had secreted on their persons.
They must think I’m blind.
Jace was wearing his sunglasses indoors so maybe they thought he was.
Or asleep. Even though the Con-Ve was dimly lit, the shop windows were darkly tinted, and the counter was at the back of the store, it was still too bright for him that day.
The strange clouds he had glimpsed earlier were still there.
He’d caught sight of lightning in them every once in a while, but none of the needle shaped “ships” he’d imagined before.
Thankfully, they often obscured the sun, but what he really needed was a completely black room for his head to get better.
Right now, his headache curled around the back of his skull almost as if it were hugging his brain in a painful embrace. With the sunglasses on and keeping himself totally still, the pain was just a throb, instead of a skullcrusher. But the pressure was building.
There was a sense of anticipation in the air.
Everytime he looked at the clouds through the windows his heart would start to race and the bitter taste of adrenaline would be on his tongue.
He was in fight or flight mode. He tried to tell himself that it was the upcoming “fight” with the boys that was causing this, but he knew it wasn’t.
Danny arrogantly set his pop on the cracked counter and gestured for Timmy to do the same.
Timmy’s face was a little too blank as he set his pop there too.
Danny fished out his wallet. Jace was pretty sure he hadn’t had a wallet when he was 11.
He was positive that, even if he’d had one, that it hadn’t been stuffed with cash like Danny’s was.
Danny gave Jace a little superior smile.
I’m rich. You’re poor. I matter. You don’t, the smile seemed to say.
Jace’s parents weren’t poor unless you compared them to Danny’s. It irritated him that this little punk honestly thought that because his parents made more money than gods that he thought he could act like a dickhead to everyone.
“How much?” Danny asked.
“For what?” Jace asked back.
“The drinks, stupid.” Danny let out a disgusted snort. “Take off your sunglasses and maybe you’ll be able to see.”
Danny looked over his shoulder at Timmy and they both let out unkind laughs. Jace gave them a bloodless smile. He did not say anything though in return.
“How much for the drinks?” Danny asked again, rolling his eyes as if Jace were the stupidest creature in existence.
“Oh? Those?” Jace smiled more broadly even though it hurt.
“Yeah, what else?” Danny scoffed, and there wasn’t the slightest bit of shame that he was stealing.
Jace’s smile became sharp and he leaned forward on his stool towards the boy. “What else? Well… I thought you might want to know how much the two Twix bars were in your left pocket cost.”
Danny’s arrogance faltered slightly. “W-what--”
“Or the Jugs magazine that’s poking out of your left side like a really square tumor,” Jace continued.
Danny colored and guiltily clutched his side. The magazine crinkled. Timmy looked down at his feet.
“And let’s not forget the twin pack of Twizzlers that you have, Timmy, down the back of your pants,” Jace said without remorse.
Neither boy could meet his eyes. Danny, of course, tried to bluster.
“We got this stuff someplace else!” Danny cried.
“Yeah? Now whose stupid? Put all of it on the counter,” Jace told him and touched the countertop for effect. “Now.”
The boys shuffled their feet, but they reluctantly put everything they’d been hiding on the table.
Jace rang up everything except the adult magazine.
Every clunking sound of every key on the old fashioned register had his head clunking, too.
But there was something new. Something that had never been there before.
A low whine. An electronic sound. Almost like a loose wire.
Oddly, it reminded him of his dream of Gehenna.
His head never hurt in the dreams, but when Gehenna was about to connect to him, he had experienced something like this.
He found himself glancing over at the windows.
Had those weird clouds gotten bigger? Darker? He couldn’t say.
If only Gehenna existed. It’s weird, I miss her.
He finished ringing up, but he didn’t tell the boys the total.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Danny cried as Jace picked up his wallet from the counter.
“You’re paying what you owe. Not just for today. But for some of the other times you’ve stolen things from Walter,” Jace said as he took two twenty dollar bills and put them in the register.
“You can’t do that!” Danny whined.
“Yes, I can,” Jace said. “And I’m going to keep doing it if you even so much as take a free sample without asking from now on.”
Timmy lifted his head and there was a faint smile on his face as if he was glad to see his rich best friend get his comeuppance.
While Timmy had gone along with the stealing, Jace was pretty damned sure that he would have been happier with Danny paying for the food or not stealing at all.
Maybe Jace could convince Walter to let Timmy help break down boxes and some other small things around the Con-Ve so he had a little spending money.
“And since you are a smart little toad, you know that this is far better than me calling your folks,” Jace said simply as he put the money into the cash drawer and shut it with a heavy thunk. He grimaced as the sound caused his head to throb and the whine continued to grow.
Danny looked at him mulishly. “My parents won’t believe you.”
“Yes, they would. Because they know what kind of toad you are,” Jace told him.
Another flush told Jace that he was right. The boys took their paid for sodas and candy as Jace held onto the Jugs magazine. They stalked off towards the door. It was only when the bell above the door rang as they were leaving that Danny got the “last word”.
“Asshole!” Danny called at him before running away with Timmy casting a “sorry” smile back at him.
Jace just snorted. He would have shaken his head, but it would have hurt too much.
With a sigh, he stood up to go put the magazine back where it belonged.
He had to steady himself with one hand on the counter though as the buzzing in his head suddenly steeply increased.
He closed his eyes and prayed for this to pass.
Come on. Come on. Be okay. Retreat. Just retreat.
If he collapsed at the store, his parents would never let him work again.
They might insist he stay in the house full time, or worse, that he go back to the military medical facility like they had when he’d started puberty.
His hormones had played havoc with his already fragile system then and he’d been in the hospital for months. He couldn’t go through that again.
The ding of the bell at the front door forced him to open his eyes and turn his head. He hoped it wasn’t Danny and Timmy again. He really didn’t have the strength to deal with them. But he immediately saw it wasn’t. And a smile curled his lips.
“I thought I’d find you here today,” Sami said as she and her little brother George came into the Con-Ve.
He and Sami had met in high school during their sophomore years before he had to be homeschooled due to excessive sick days because of his headaches.
But she, unlike so many others, had continued to remain friends with him.
She’d always accepted his limitations without comment.
Never making him feel fragile or a freak.
They’d talk for hours, or she’d sit quietly while he rocked, trying to get the tinnitus to stop.
Her acceptance of him was so complete, unlike his feelings about himself.