Richard Montanari: The Killing Room

As Byrne crossed Twelfth Street, bunching his collar to the raw February wind, he considered what he was about to do. He had recently signed up for a mentoring program called Philly Brothers, a group loosely patterned on Big Brothers Big Sisters. This was his first meeting with the boy.

In his time on the force Kevin Byrne had taken down some of the darkest souls ever to walk the streets of his city, but this encounter scared the hell out of him. And he knew why. This was more than just a man reaching out to an at-risk kid. Much more.

‘Are you Gabriel?’ Byrne asked. He had a picture of the boy in his jacket pocket, a school photo from two years earlier. He decided not to take it out. If he did it would probably only embarrass the kid.

As he got closer Byrne noticed that whatever tension was in the boy’s shoulders ratcheted up a notch. The kid raised his eyes, but did not look into Byrne’s eyes. He aimed his gaze, instead, to a place somewhere in the middle of Byrne’s forehead. It was an old salesman’s trick, and Byrne wondered where this kid had picked it up, or if he even knew he was doing it.

‘They call me G-Flash,’ the boy said softly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, saying this as if it were common knowledge.

‘All right. G-Flash it is,’ Byrne said. ‘My name is Kevin. I’m your Philly-’

‘ Brother ,’ the kid said with a scowl. He put his hands into the pockets of the hoodie, probably to ward off any kind of handshake. Byrne found his own hand suspended in space, halfway between himself and the kid, and suddenly didn’t know what to do with it.

‘I already had a brother,’ the kid added, almost in a whisper.

Byrne rocked back on his heels, looked around, at the moment lost for words. ‘You made it here okay on the bus?’ he finally asked.

The kid smirked. ‘The bus go where the bus go. I was just on it, right? Not like I’m driving it.’

Before Byrne could respond, a PPD sector car, parked in front of Maggiano’s, a half-block away, fired up its lights and siren, taking off on a call. The only two people standing near the doors of Reading Terminal Market who didn’t look up were Byrne and the kid. Sirens were a big part of both their lives.

Byrne glanced at his watch, even though he knew exactly what time it was. ‘So, do you want to get some lunch?’

The kid shrugged.

‘What do you like to eat?’ Byrne asked.

Another shrug. Byrne had to do a quick remodeling of his own attitude. Usually, when he encountered this kind of wall, it was with a suspect. In those instances his inclination was to kick the wall, as well as the suspect, to the ground. This was different.

‘Chinese, KFC, hoagies?’ Byrne continued.

The kid looked back over his shoulder, his level of boredom nearing the red line. ‘They a’ight, I guess.’

‘What about roast pork?’ Byrne asked. ‘You like roast pork?’

Byrne saw the slightest upturn of one corner of the kid’s mouth. Nothing close to a smile. God forbid. The kid liked roast pork.

‘C’mon,’ Byrne said, reaching for the door handle. ‘They have the best roast pork sandwiches in the city in here.’

‘I ain’t got no money.’

‘That’s all right. My treat.’

The kid kicked at an imaginary pebble. ‘I don’t want you buying me nothin’ .’

Byrne held the door open for a few seconds, letting two women in. Then two more. This was getting awkward. ‘Tell you what, I’ll buy us lunch today. If we like each other — and there’s no guarantee of that, believe me, I don’t like too many people — then the next time we get together you can buy me lunch. If not, I’ll send you a bill for half.’

The kid almost smiled again. To cover it, he looked up Filbert Street, making Byrne work. The moment drew out, but Byrne was ready for it this time. The kid had no idea who he was dealing with. Kevin Byrne had spent the past twenty years of his life as a homicide detective, at least half of that on stakeouts. He could outlast a cement block.

‘A’ight,’ the kid finally said. ‘Whatever. Cold out here anyway.’

And with that Gabriel ‘G-Flash’ Hightower rolled through the door, into Reading Terminal Market.

Detective Kevin Byrne followed.

As Byrne and the kid waited in line at DiNic’s neither of them spoke. Despite the cacophony of sounds — the half-dozen languages, the rattle of plates, the swish of slicing machines, the steel spatulas scraping across grills — the silence between Gabriel and himself was profound. Byrne had no idea what to say. His own daughter Colleen, who was now in her first year at Gallaudet University, had grown up with so many advantages this kid had not. If you could call having a father like Kevin Byrne an advantage. Still, despite being deaf from birth, Colleen had flourished.

The kid standing next to him, hands still in his pockets, steely glare in place, had grown up in hell.

Byrne knew that Gabriel’s father had never been in the picture, and that his mother had died when the boy was three. Tanya Wilkins was a prostitute and a drug addict, and had frozen to death one frigid January night, passed out in an alley in Grays Ferry. Gabriel’s only brother, Terrell, committed suicide two years ago.

Since then, Gabriel rattled from one foster home to another. He’d had a few minor scrapes with the law, mostly shoplifting, but there was no doubt which way he was headed.

When they got to the counter Byrne ordered them a full sandwich each. The sandwiches from DiNic’s were so big that Byrne had only finished one by himself on a handful of occasions, but he ordered them one each anyway, instantly regretting it, acknowledging that he was trying to show off.

The kid’s eyes got wide when he saw that the huge sandwich was all for him — not to mention the additional bag of chips and a soda — but he went back to his pre-teen too cool for school posturing just as quickly.

They found a table, sat down, spread out, dug in.

As they ate in silence, Byrne tried to think of some kind of conversation with which to engage the kid. He imagined sports would be a safe topic. Both the Flyers and the Sixers were playing. Instead, he remained silent.

Ten minutes later he looked at Gabriel, who was already more than half done. Byrne had to wonder when was the last time the kid had eaten.

‘Good sandwich, huh?’ he asked.

The kid shrugged. Byrne figured he was at that stage. Byrne had been a shrugger at around thirteen or fourteen, everything posed to him a conundrum, every question an interrogation. Instead of exposing his ignorance on a subject, like most young teenagers and pre-teens, he’d simply feign indifference with a shrug. Times were different now. Eleven, it seemed, was the new fourteen. Hell, eleven was probably the new eighteen .

As they finished their sandwiches Gabriel pushed up the sleeves on his hoodie. Despite Byrne’s best intentions he scanned the kid’s arms, hands, neck, looking for tattoos or burn marks or wounds that might have meant an initiation into a gang. If ever there was a kid ripe for recruitment, it was Gabriel Hightower.

Byrne saw nothing. He couldn’t decide if this meant the kid didn’t need someone like him in his life, or just the opposite: that this was a pivotal time, a time when Gabriel might need him the most.

When they finished they sat in a fresh silence, one that preceded the end of their visit. Byrne looked down at the table, and there saw a small, beautifully folded paper boat. Gabriel had idly crafted it out of the paper in which the sandwiches were wrapped.

‘Can I take a look at that?’ Byrne asked.

The kid nudged it closer with a forefinger.

Byrne picked it up. The folds were precise and elegant. It was clearly not the first time Gabriel had made something like this. ‘This is pretty cool.’