Deamons

Chapter 15 Angels are people too part 4

     Starke is locked behind bars now. He holds out his hand with the shoe laces. "Thou shall honor thy mother and father. You're just a kid you should know that. You see that is the problem with you. You don't know that. You probably want to tell your parents instead of them telling you. That is the problem with those boys your age. You want to tell the parents how it go. I like to tell you how it goes! If I got my belt on you, you would dance back to that momma and poppa and beg to be there kid. You think you can tell them how things is. You ain't nothing boy. You need to be begging for your momma and papa. Any boy goes against his parents ain't not good. A bad seed. You just sit in here until you're ready to call your momma and poppa and beg for them to have you back. I don't care if you shit and piss yourself in there. You will clean it. You will come around," he takes the shoe laces. "That so you can't hang your self-boy!" "I wouldn't do that. I don't want to go to hell," Starke says.

"What you say boy? You some kind of smart ass? You in hell know," and the police officer smiles for the first time. He goes over to the thermostat and turns it down to fifty-five degrees and shuts the heavy metal door behind him. Starke is all alone. He lays down on the cold solid metal bench. The entire room in painted in a vanilla cream color. He does not know hos long it has been or what will happen next. He starts to doze off on the bench. He is cold. His body shakes and teeth chatter. Just as he starts to really sleep the clang of the metal door opening again startles him. "You want your momma no spoiled candy ass." "No," he thinks they are not allowed to talk to him like that but what is he going to do? Who is he going to tell? He is a minor with no one.

He thinks of Craig's father. He could crush that man. If he knew the way they were treating him in her he would mess them up. But that was what he was avoiding, maybe he should call. He thinks of riding in the back with the dead. Wanting to be one. Death comes on whispering to him. "In me no one can touch you. These men cannot touch you. There will be no need for love, all will be useless. I can help you not feel no more." The he thinks of Kate and school. He just wants to be able to hold his head up. Be normal sometimes. He will pick up all the dead bodies they want. Just let him have some normal kid's life besides that.

The doors open and he hollers if Starke is ready to go home. It is a new man. Does not as mean but still a healthy level of disgust and judgement at hand. It feels colder too. Starke wishes he had his bag of clothes. His teeth have been chattering so long he does not even recognize that they are. He knows he is shivering though. His arms move so quick to create some kind of friction heat, he nearly punches his own face. He learns to sort of half sleep. Like a daydream on steroids. He can control this kind so it is nice. He sees the kind of life he would like. He sees himself many years in the future. That future self reaches back telling him he will be alright. Everything will be alright. The he sorts of loses it. He is not aware of it he only knows he has been so cold. His core temperature is dropping. He goes dark.

"Hey boy! Wake up boy!" a man is shaking him. He comes too more than waking up. Bewildered he looks around. Then it comes to him. He wishes it was a bad dream. The last time he awoke it was in a totally different environment. It is a different police officer now. A bigger man without the meanness in his eyes. Still his manner is not friendly. He is trying to push Starke along like livestock. "Come on boy, lets go. Time to go home," the officer says grabbing Starke by the arm and pulling him out to the office area to sit on the opposite side of his desk. As he walks in he shouts over to the dispatcher. "Who left him in there over night?" He hands Starke back his shoe strings. "I think it was Tony," the dispatcher answers. "Did he turn the heat down in there too?" he asks. "I don't know anything about that," the dispatcher answers. "I bet nobody does the stat just got turned down on its own. It was freezing in there," he says under his breath.

"What's your number boy?" Starke is exhausted. He does not know what time it is or how much time has passed. He just knows he is in a fog. He starts to tell him his phone number then stops. "Look boy I can just look it up. It's around here somewhere," he says. Starke gets it now. "I do not want to go home," he says. "What you mean boy. Why don't you want to go home? What your dad hit you a bit, your lucky for that. I wish more dads cared enough to hit their kids. You know how many kids I see come through here with know one that cares about them." "I don't want to go back there," Starke insists. "Well what do you want me to do with you then?" "Put me back there," Starke insists. The officer takes in and blows out a huge breath. He pushes his hat back on his head part of his hair falls over his forehead. There is a pause then he says, "Well come on then." He walks Starke back to the cage area saying under his breath, "Man I don't want to do this."

He does not take Starke's shoelaces. He does not even lock the door. Pointing to a door at the end of the lockup corridor he says, "Bathrooms right back there if you need to use it kid." Starke is scared. There is no one around that understands him. What a change from where he had been. It is much warmer in there now. The metal bench does not feel as hard. He is so tired he nestles in. Then the door from the office part opens back up. His heart jumps.

"Come on boy," the officer he just spoke to says. He sees his laundry bag at his foot as he gets up and heads toward him. "Where we going?" Starke asks as he throws his bag in the back of the squad car. "Sorry kid. You have to ride back there. It's regulation, but I am not going to cuff you so be good. No trying to run off."

The squad car pulls out of the station and makes a right. Starke's house would have been a left turn. He wonders if the officer made a wrong turn and thinks he lives in the wrong direction. "Sir may I ask where we are going?" "We are going where you want to go kid, Crownsville. You should have gone home kid. You won't fit in with the creeps there. You're soft. These kids are all street tough, thieves, druggy's problems with violence and worse. Watch yourself in their kid, don't turn your back on anyone. You're not a bad boy. I could tell that right off. I don't know what's wrong with you but you made a mistake going here, kid." Starke swallows hard. He cold again and so tired. He falls asleep again.

His bag falls out of the squad car whenthe officer opens the door. Starke was resting on it and falls hard on theseat. "Oh, sorry about that kid. Any way we're here come on." The officercarries his bag and Starke follows. Its dark out but he can see the house is nothinglike he expected at all. It is a big white forties style house. They go in andthe manager is yawning. He is a black man and Starke is expecting the scaredstraight routine. That is not the case though. He greets them with a big smile.The officer says a few words then is off again. That is, it. Starke expectedmore. The group home caretaker takes him over to a well-worn coach with poppedsprings. "Sorry, I could not get you a bed on this late off notice. We will fixyou up better tomorrow night," the man says. It is four a.m. Starke is sotired. "This is great sir," Starke says. "Sir, ha," the man laughs, "never beenknighted by the queen or an officer in the military. No sirs here. I will seeyou in a few hours and we will get you acquainted with the boys." He walksupstairs and Starke fights sleep, afraid of what the boys may do to him.