Stuart Kaminsky - Deluge

Adam was ashamed. Adam was afraid. Adam did not want to go to the pet shop where he worked after school and on Saturdays. Adam loved animals. He had been grateful when his father's old friend Larry Beckerman had offered him the job. He wasn't grateful anymore.

Three weeks ago, after Adam had been working at the pet shop for two months, Mr. Beckerman had told him he needed help in the storeroom. A new shipment of cages had come in and had to be priced, labeled and put on shelves. It was a slow Tuesday night.

Adam was a small fifteen-year-old. Larry Beckerman was a tall, broad, muscular forty-eight-year-old father of three boys.

It began with Beckerman touching Adam's hand as he held up a cage to be labeled. Minutes later, when he was lifting a large cage, Beckerman reached over Adam's shoulder and ran a hand down his chest before reaching out to help with the cage.

Then, when Adam was washing his hands in the small washroom next to the storeroom, Beckerman came in, started to reach for a towel past Adam's face and then suddenly grabbed, both arms around Adam's chest. Adam tried to get away.

"It's going to happen no matter what you do," Beckerman whispered. "I won't hurt you."

Beckerman had kissed his neck. Adam smelled something on Beckerman's breath that might have been that morning's breakfast bacon.

"Don't scream," Beckerman said. "No one can hear you."

The caged animals chattered, mewed, crackled, cried and barked.

One of Beckerman's sons, Nick, was Adam's age. They had classes together, but they weren't friends. Nick was a jock like his two brothers. Adam wasn't quite a nerd, but he wasn't varsity material.

"Tell anyone about this and I call you a liar," said Beckerman. "I don't plan on doing anything that will leave evidence. Take it easy. Enjoy it."

Beckerman's hand slipped down between Adam's legs. Adam, through his fear and hyperventilation, felt something stir. And that was the beginning. He was drenched in sweat, fear and shame.

When it was over, Adam knew he couldn't tell anyone what Beckerman had done to him and what he had been forced to do to Beckerman, an old family friend, his father's college roommate.

Adam could have quit the pet shop, could have said he had too much schoolwork to do, that he was afraid his grades would drop. He could have, but Beckerman told him he had better not. He could have told his parents, written to his brother, told the police. But what if they believed him? Everyone would know what he had done to Beckerman. He would be be Adam the Queer, Adam the Queen. He would hear it, would know it by how everyone looked at him even if they didn't say it.

He took solace in the animals, the puppies and kittens, the cockatoo who said, "So's your old man," "Hold your horses," and "GI Jive."

And dutifully, maybe once a week- he never knew when it would happen- Beckerman would call him into the storeroom. Saturdays were safe from Beckerman. Too busy. But weekdays were different.

And then, one Tuesday, summoned to the storeroom, told to get on his knees, Adam took hold of Beckerman's hand and bit, bit hard as Beckerman, pants down around his ankles, struggled to keep from falling, screaming in sudden agony.

Adam tasted blood. Beckerman tripped.

"No more," Adam said.

"Get out," Beckerman had answered, lying on his back, his head resting against a small burlap sack of birdseed.

Adam had left. He told no one. Said he had quit. He dreaded the possibility of seeing Beckerman again, or anyone in Beckerman's family. But it was more than a possibility. Beckerman and Adam's father remained friends. Beckerman said he had been bitten by the cockatoo.

Adam grew quiet, too quiet, and distant. His parents were concerned. They said they wanted him to see a counselor. He said he was fine and made an effort to look and act fine. The effort was draining, the memories overwhelming.

Four weeks after he had bitten the hand that abused him, Adam wrote a letter to his brother. He could have emailed, but the email would have existed in cyberspace forever. He asked his brother to destroy the letter after he read it. Adam apologized for writing the letter, but he had to tell someone.

A month after he mailed the letter there was still no answer. One night Adam said good night to his mother and father, straightened his bookcases, cleaned up the clutter in his room, and made sure the blanket on his bed was neat and unwrinkled. Then he showered, put on a clean shirt, underwear and pants and hanged himself from a crossbeam in his room.

THE FOUND AGAIN SHOP on Ninth Avenue was a block away from a successful off-Broadway theater that specialized in small musicals.

The shop wasn't nearly as upscale as Gladys Mycrant had suggested, althought it certainly wasn't a standard resale shop. A sign in the window read: Wear Today What the Famous Wore Yesterday for 1/10th the cost.

There was only one customer, a young woman with an umbrella, who zipped through racks of clothing with a screech of hangers. Gladys had been standing at the back of the shop next to three tall mirrors. She was speaking to another woman, about Gladys's age, who also looked like a salesperson.

When Gladys saw Don Flack, she stopped talking, folded her arms and watched him approach.

"Doesn't look like you're too busy," said Flack. "Maybe we can talk now."

The other woman, dark, Mediterranean, Italian, Greek? looked puzzled.

"He's a policeman," Gladys explained. "My daughter was murdered this morning."

The other woman's mouth opened.

"I'd better talk to him."

"Yes. Yes. I'm…" the other woman stammered.

"It's fine," said Gladys. "Please."

Myra headed off in the direction of the lone customer.

"Mrs. Mycrant- "

"Gladys, if you are going to be polite and pleasant. Mrs. Mycrant, if you plan to be officious and threatening."

"Polite and pleasant," Flack said.

"Good."

"We don't know anything about your daughter," he said. "We don't know why anyone would want to kill her."

"I suppose it can't be a random killing," she said.

"Not during a rainstorm on the roof of your apartment building after she got a phone call and hurried out."

"No, not likely is it?"

"What can you tell me about her?"

"Patricia was smart, willful and hardworking when she had something to work hard at," Gladys said, meeting his eyes.

"She must have had some friends, people she knew, things she was interested in," he tried.

"She wasn't allowed to meet with the few people she knew."

"Wasn't allowed?"

"It was a condition of her parole," said Gladys. "My daughter was a convicted sexual predator, as you no doubt know."

"He walked funny. Like this," Dorrie said, demonstrating how the limping man had looked.

She had seen him coming down the corridor.

"He smiled at me like this," she told Mac, showing a sad smile.

"Was he young? Old?"

"Old like you mostly," she said.

They were sitting on the steps to the second floor. Dorrie was alone for the day with her ball, her toys, the television.

There was no school today. Her mother was working at Jack the Steamer's, six blocks away. Jack the Steamer operated one of a few dozen illegal shops that prepared meat products- hot dogs, gyros, souvlaki- for illegal pushcarts.

Jack the Steamer operated out of the back of Wargo's Electronics. Today the carts were not coming by. Even the most desperate pushcart men who had families to feed and no green card for other work couldn't see the point in getting swept away. Besides, who would buy knishes in a deluge?