Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

Everything goes quiet. Mr. Devlin and Tufty have suddenly gone quiet. They must have heard the door bang. If there is a monster in the shed, it’s stopped moving. His money, his pack, his T-shirt, his address on Dovedale Road, he left them all inside with whatever made the scratching noise. Leon remembers when his dad was crying after the funeral, the look on his face. “I got no one, I got no one. I got no one.” Leon feels sorry for his dad. He thought his dad was being a girl, crying and leaving the tears on his face for people to see. If only it was his dad making the noise in the shed. They could go and get Jake together. But his dad didn’t like Jake even before he was born and if he wasn’t always in prison then his mom wouldn’t have decided to love Jake’s dad instead and she wouldn’t have had Jake and he wouldn’t have said horrible things to her and made her cry and then everything would be like it was.

Fire engines and police cars are wailing in the blackness but Leon can hear something coming close, soft and careful. He can hear footsteps and whispering and the only thing he can do is to creep back inside the shed. Castro is dead, he heard Tufty say. But what if Castro has climbed out of his grave and it’s him that’s roaming around the allotments? He hears feet on the stones. Deep voices, hoarse and quick.

They’re coming to get him. It’s the police who took Castro away. Killed him. Kicked him to death. They’ve come back. They’ve come for him. Leon pulls the door open. Crawls in. Crouches down in a corner, his sticky back against the rough plank walls.

They’re right outside. He can hear them breathing. Whispering. In the gloom, he can just see his backpack. He reaches his hand out. The door flies open.

It’s Tufty and Mr. Devlin. They shine their flashlights inside, all over like searchlights, and then the beams land on him.

“Fucking hell!” says Tufty. “What you doing, Star?”

“Ah, him!” says Mr. Devlin.

Tufty holds him by the upper arm and pulls him up onto his feet.

“What you doing in here?”

Leon looks away from the harsh light. He can see that his pack has burst open and Mr. Devlin’s baby’s head has fallen out. It sits on the floor looking out at Mr. Devlin like it’s alive.

Mr. Devlin picks it up, holds it against his heart.

“You? You took him,” he says. “When did you take him? Why?”

Tufty is still holding Leon’s arm.

“He’s my son!” shouts Mr. Devlin. “You stole him. He’s all I have.”

“What you doing, Star? You don’t do them things, you don’t take other people’s things, man.”

Mr. Devlin has the head cradled in his arms like the rest of the baby is still attached.

“How would you like it if someone took something from you?” he says. “Something precious. One of your toys.”

“Yeah,” says Tufty. “Come on, tell the man you’re sorry.”

Leon looks at Tufty and Mr. Devlin. Their faces look strange in the flashlight beams. They are devils. They are social workers and doctors and Carol’s boyfriends and his dad when he went to prison and the teachers at school that make him catch up and the owner of the candy shop and the man in the sports car and Tina and her boyfriend and Earring with his pen and fat policemen that trample on flowers and Crazy Rose and Sue’s mouth full of cake and dead Castro. Every face he has ever seen starts crowding into the shed. He can hear them breathing, thinking about what they will do with him in the long term and the short term, making scratching sounds on paper and whispering about how to get rid of him so they can get a dog. Leon pulls away from Tufty.

He bends down, picks up his backpack, and feeds his arms through the straps. Tufty stands in the doorway.

“Come, Star. Tell the man you’re sorry and I’ll take you home.”

“I’m not sorry,” he says.

He tries to push past Tufty.

“What?” says Mr. Devlin. “What did you say? Do you realize what this means to me? My son is dead. Dead, do you hear me? He died when he was younger than you are now. How dare you say—”

“All right, all right,” says Tufty. “Leave him. He don’t look right. Leave him, come, let’s go.”

But Mr. Devlin grabs Leon’s arm and pulls him backward.

“You’re not going anywhere without giving me my apology.”

“Leave him,” says Tufty. “You can’t see it’s late? What’s he doing out so late? Where’s your clothes?”

But Mr. Devlin isn’t listening.

“You need to have respect for other people’s things. He is mine. Not yours.”

“What you doing in here, Star?” says Tufty. “It’s too late for you to be out. Too dangerous. Where’s your top? Get dressed. I’ll take you home.”

Leon feels his teeth sharpening themselves against each other. He can hear the sawing in his temples, the grinding in his ears.

“I don’t care,” he says.

Both men speak together.

“What?”

“I don’t care,” repeats Leon.

“You can’t say that,” says Tufty.

“I don’t care!” he screams. “No one cares!”

“All right…”

But Leon hasn’t finished. He screws his fingers into tight fists and shoves his hand in the air like Black Power.

“No one cares about me. No one cares about my brother. I’ve got a baby as well. He’s my baby. He’s a real baby, not a wooden baby. But no one cares about that. I can’t see him. I keep asking and asking but you only care about yourself. Everyone steals things from me.”

Mr. Devlin shines his light up at the ceiling and the whole shed becomes bright. Leon knows they can see the tears on his face and he knows they will think he’s behaving like a girl but they’re wrong, as usual. He’s like his dad and he will leave the tears where they are and he won’t wipe them off even though they are itchy. Instead he slaps his chest with the palm of his hands.

“Why can’t I have my things? Everyone else can have theirs. People tell lies to me all the time. They pretend to care but they don’t.”

They are staring at him, listening, dead still. He slips the backpack off and holds it in one hand. His other hand fishes around inside.

“Anyway, I don’t care, because I can look after myself. And I can look after my brother. I’ve done it before. So I don’t care if I can’t go to the seaside.”

Leon can feel himself growing stronger. He can see they believe him. They look at each other and then back at him. He is tall. He’s strong and powerful, like Maureen said. And he’s been making plans for a long, long time.

“And I’ve got lots of money and all of our food so I don’t need your things and the head doesn’t even look like Jake anyway.”

Mr. Devlin opens his mouth but Leon slips the pruning knife out and slashes the air.

“No!” he shouts. “Don’t say anything because I won’t listen. No one listens to me so I won’t listen to them.”

It’s about time everyone realizes who they are dealing with. It’s nice to see that two grown-up men can be scared. The knife feels slick and heavy in his hand; he can see Mr. Devlin and Tufty stiffen because they’re scared, they can see how big he is and they know he will stab them if they get in his way. Leon swings the knife from right to left and both of the men back off.

“Easy, no, man,” says Tufty. “Easy, Star.”

“I’m in charge now,” says Leon. “And I don’t have to listen. I don’t have to take it easy.”

He keeps stabbing the air between them until Tufty backs away from the door.

“Wait, Star! Come on. Talk to me, man.”

Tufty is holding his hands up like he’s being robbed but Mr. Devlin takes a few steps away. The noise of the police cars and fire engines is loud and constant. There is shouting as well, far away, like a soccer match or a party.