“You’re lucky you aren’t getting fined,” he had told the blue-eyed boy.
“I’m not lost,” Jimmy indignantly had said.
Marino believed, with no evidence, that Jimmy Simpson was the leader of the pack, and soon enough Marino would catch the vandal in the act and snatch him up by the scruff of his neck. He would march the boy into his single-parent residence and enlighten him and his mother about detention homes and jail.
The first artillery fire hit at exactly 8 P.M., snowballs pelting the front of the house. Marino didn’t wait for a second round. Instantly he was out the front door, the enemy in sight. Jimmy Simpson was alone and no more than twenty feet from where Marmno stood on the porch. Caught in the act, the boy was too frightened to run. He froze, eyes wide with terror. Marino stomped down the steps, his heavy boots crunching through snow.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed.
Jimmy began to cry. He cowered, arms in front of his face, as if he had been hit before by people bigger than he was.
“I knew it was you!” Marino severely went on, and he had reached the boy by now “I’ve known it all along, you little scum bucket! What if you broke a window, huh?” Jimmy was shaking as he sobbed.
“I didn’t throw any at a window,” his small voice barely said. Marino had no evidence to the contrary.
“Yeah? Well, how would you like it if I threw snowballs at your house?” he gruffly said, his voice not quite as loud.
“I wouldn’t care.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Would not.”
“Well, your mother would care.”
“Not if you didn’t hurt anything.”
“You’re full of crap,” Marino said, peering through snow at the milky smudges of windows lit up in Jimmy’s two-bedroom brick home.
“You’re not nice to me,” Jimmy said, lowering his arms as fear began to leave hñn. “That’s why! You started it!”
Marino had to think about this for a minute, his balding head getting cold. “You mean that time I told you to get away from my pool?” Marino tried to remember.
The boy vigorously nodded.
“More than once!” Jimmy exclaimed. “And you give me mean looks when you pass me on the street in your police car.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do too.”
“Only when you litter.”
“That was one time! And there was chocolate all over the wrapper, and if I got it on my clothes, my mom would have gotten mad. So I dropped it by the road. So what!”
“What’s your mom doing now?” Marino asked, as he began to feel something deep inside that made it hard for him to hate this lousy little kid.
“Stuck at her sister’s house.”
“Where’s that?”
“I don’t knox~” Jimmy quietly said, staring down at his feet. “I know it’~s near the park.”
“Byrd Park?”
“The one with the lake and little boats. They sell cotton candy.” “She’s not coming home?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“She said her car’s stuck,” he said.
“So you’re all by your scrawny-ass self out here throwing snowballs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You eaten yet?”
“Not since lunch.”
“You like chili?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said.
“What about your mother’s sister? Your aunt, I guess,” he asked Jimmy. “She’s really my dad’s sister.”
“Should we call him?” Marino asked.
“No, sin I don’t know… He…”
Jimmy stared harder at his feet as snow frosted his hair. He was shivering in a denim jacket that was at least five sizes too big.
“Well, maybe you know your aunt’s number?” Marino said.
“Uh-uh”
“Well, you sure as hell should.”
“It’s somewhere, I guess.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of the cold,” Marmno said.
Chapter 6
They trudged through the yard and up Marino’s front steps. He called Jimmy’s house, and sure enough, no one was home. He left a message for Mrs. Simpson on the answering machine, saying that if it was all right with her, Jimmy would stay the night so he wouldn’t have to be alone.
“I got Dr. Pepper, if you want some,” Marino said, as he got ground beef out of the freezer.
Jimmy’s eyes lit up.