The Wasting

20-Panney

Tommy Thompson bounced the dirty tennis ball on the abandoned city street. It was dusk and unlawful to be out after dark. Since he was in no rush to go home, he took his chances. To an outsider it seemed as if Tommy had no tangible thoughts of his own. This never troubled him.  His mantra was, "If people don't expect much of you; they don't bother you."  Somehow, Izzy always saw through his facade. She had a gift for reading people and it scared him. Why should I care where some dumb girl is?

As he headed for 7th Avenue, he gave his ball one final bounce. Aloud he boasted, "I'm gonna bounce this fuzzy, green, awesome ball higher than anyone has ever done so in the history of ball bouncing!" He wound up his left arm and whack! It hit a crack in the sidewalk and went careening down into a FZ subway tunnel. "Man! Not my best ball! Okay my only ball..." He edged over to the opening, looked left and then right. "If it was my little brother I'd go down and save him. I guess..." He took one-step down. "My ball is much funner to play with than dumb ol' Devin." Two more steps... "It doesn't whine... or eat the last piece of bread..." Four more steps. "Or get all the attention from mom..." One more step. "Or..." A bony hand gripped his ankle. Tommy screamed like an adolescent girl, "A Flesh Eater! Don't eat me! Puleeease! I just want my little buddy!"

The unknown ankle biter simply said, "Shhh..." and its dirty hand held up the ball.

"You're not gonna eat me?" Tommy asked, placing his little brother substitute into his Mets jacket pocket.

"Why would I eat you? You smell bad." A small, dark haired boy peaked out his head and remarked, "Besides, I'm a vegetarian."

"You are not," Tommy protested.

"Am too," the boy spoke in a hushed tone. "I don't eat meat... or anything else for that matter."

"Oh..." Tommy was impressed and heart sick at the same time. "Well then you are more than a vegetarian, you are a nothin-atarian."

"Nothing-atarian isn't even a word dufus," objected the boy.

"True... but if you don't eat nothin' you'd be dead." Tommy headed back up the stairs.

The boy hobbled behind him. In the moonlight, Tommy could see the boy's thin face, sunken brown eyes and twisted spine. At first he could hardly bare to look at him. He appeared to be about four years old and yet spoke as a much older child. "How old are you kid?"

"Ten... and how old are you, whatever you are?" This skinny, twisted boy had spunk.

"Almost sixteen," Tommy said, eyeing the little boy. "Where are your parents?"

"Dead..." the boy tilted his misshapen head and waited for Tommy's reply.

The boy's dark eyes pierced through Tommy's heart. He didn't like what he was feeling. First, he had to tend to his best friend's dying sister and now this. Overwhelmed by the world's ills Tommy hung his head. All he wanted to do was beat the world's record in tennis ball bouncing.  All he managed to say was, "Man that stinks."

"Pretty much," the boy agreed.

"You got any other family?" Tommy asked hoping he wouldn't have to do anything further. 

"Nope," said the twisted boy with the big soulful eyes.

"How do you survive then?" Tommy was honestly curious.  His mother had told him just this morning, 'Until things change we are gonna have to make do on only breakfast from now on.'  He was starving.

"Well..." the boy fingered the iron railing surrounding the subway entrance. "This girl Bell used to sneak me down some food but something must have happened to her. She hasn't been down to see me in months."