Jace McDermott was half a block from his car when he felt the unwelcome pull. He knew there was nothing for it, so he turned back. He approached his old Camry and checked, clicking the door lock button three times, hearing the car beep three times in response. He checked, three times, to make sure each window was shut and to make sure the car was in park. “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good,” he said, looking around to see if anyone saw what he was doing.
So he set off again, toward work. He kept checking the time on his phone. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need to start until eight, but he tried to be there by seven thirty, so he could get coffee, check the news, and finish any unexpected conversations his co-workers would want to have.
A block from his office, he saw a group of boys, early high school age, pushing each other. Two of them were laughing authentically. The other was laughing, trying his best to look like he, too, was having fun. But he wasn’t having fun. He obviously, to Jace at least, wanted the pushing to stop.
Jace felt his heart skip. He felt compelled to step in. To tell the two boys to leave the other alone. He felt the tension that would follow with such a decision. The two boys trying to figure out how to respond. Would they be quiet and chastened? The third boy, a victim? Thankful that Jace had helped?
Or would the two boys be antagonistic? Would they turn their attention to Jace? They wouldn’t attack him, would they? Not play fighting, but for real? The sheer thought of that brought his heart rate to an even faster pace.
As he was coming close to a decision, to intercede or not, a man came out of the deli in front of which the boys were fooling around. He had rolled up some of the papers he used to wrap sandwiches and hit all three boys, telling them to “get the hell away from here.”
Jace was shocked. Surely, it was wrong to attack the boys? Basically children, after all.
The only person relieved, in the whole exchange, was the third boy, who immediately joined his friends in taunting the deli owner. The third boy went so far as to take the rolled up papers from the shop keeper’s hands and playfully slap him on the face.
As fast as this happened, it ended. The boys ran away, and the shopkeeper went, ranting, back into his store.
By the time Jace recovered his nerves and made it to work, he was only ten minutes early.
He felt off, unsettled, for the rest of the day.
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Note from Drew: I wrote this months ago. This week, at night, I’ve been watching The Third Man. Wonderful movie completely unrelated to this story.
Are you doing well, readers? Summer starts for me this week, and I’m putting together a list of goals for my writing on this site. Anything you’d like me to write about? Tell me in the comments.