In the Classroom

Chapter Twenty Five: A Knife in Madness

"Hello, good sir. Good evening," I said patronizingly to the filthy man crouching in the alleyway of the city. MJ and I had positioned ourselves on the roof of a building nearby, so it had been really easy to spot him. The man sprang up, surprising me, brandishing a thick kitchen knife. I looked over his body. Bruises and burns covered him. Ash coated the scraps of his clothes that were left, if they had not yet been burned away. His eyes were desperate and disconsolate, afraid and furious. They were already dead. He was too late to be saved. He was more brusque than the most vicious of wild beasts. I gave him a small smile.

"You needn't be afraid of me, my good sir. I come here with the promise of a new life," I told him. His gaze didn't waver. "That's what the bank told me! They gave me a large money so I could buy my Loretta a nice home—!! Now look at me! I'm poorer than the dirt under my nails! Don't you smirk at me, you bastard! I've had enough of your people—smiling at me because you have nothing to lose! Is it so wrong for me to want to care for my family?!" he snapped at me furiously.

I looked at him slowly, politeness fading off of my face. I gave him my small smile again. "And where is your Loretta?" I asked him. The knife clattered out of his hands as he pressed his palms to his face. I could see tears pouring from his eyes.

"G—gone...they—they took her....Gave her to a different family....I'll never—see her again!" he sobbed into his hands. "My—my wife insisted it was for the best...that I shouldn't try to come and visit—it would only make things awkward between her parents and I...." He glared at me. "Is it so wrong to wish for the best for the people you love—so much so that it lands you in the gutter?! Tell me an answer and I won't gut you right now!" he commands me. His eyes are mad, unable to tell the difference between a cop and a teenage boy.

"People are cruel. It's just how things are," I told him bluntly. His eyes fell back into despair. He turned from me, rubbing his hands together. He muttered to himself madly, his pupils wide and frantic. He began to cry again.

"Gone...never to see again," he whispered. He sunk to his knees and clutched his head in his hands.

"I don't want to live like this....I'd rather be dead!" he screamed at me. I looked at him. On the verge of madness, his heart was stuck in a rut of depression. Yet there was still a weapon at his side, abandoned but lethal. This man was the perfect pawn to my will.

"You know....mass murderers can face up to 21 years in prison," I said slowly. The man looked up at me incredulously.

"What the hell are you talking about, kid?!" he asked me malevolently. I smiled at him. "Prison has health care, food, bedding....you'll have a roof over your head and a full stomach. Prison wasn't meant to torture people, it was meant as a place for the mentally ill to seek refuge," I told him. I shrugged. "In a way, it's better than the asylum because they don't give you any pills...unless you need them."

The man glared flatly at me. "What's your point! Hurry up before I lose it and I kill you!" he snapped. I smiled at him. "Oh, just one kill won't guarantee your imprisonment for a decade or two," I told him. I glared at him, crossing my arms at him.

"Use your brain. You've got nothing to loose. Your wife and child are safely away from you. You have no neighbors to endanger. You have no home, no wealth, no food to go back to. Your friends have abandoned you." I raised an eyebrow at him. "If you have no where to go and nothing to eat, isn't prison sounding good in contrast?"

The man's eyes were confused. I picked up his knife and held the handle out to him, making sure not to let my fingers get in the way of the blade in case he took back the knife and cut me in the process. I noted its extreme sharpness with interest. I looked towards the building where my target was, ignorant of his death sentence.