“I’m not selling drugs.”
Silas sighed.
“Such principles.”
One of the men behind him laughed.
Leo tried to move toward the side door.
Another man blocked it.
Silas noticed the tool roll.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“Everything’s something.”
He grabbed Leo’s backpack.
Leo pulled back.
A man shoved him.
He hit the wall.
Pain moved through his ribs.
The confrontation became fast and ugly without becoming heroic.
Leo was fourteen.
They were grown men.
There was no winning.
They pushed him outside.
Searched his pockets.
One man found the Zippo.
“Hey.”
Silas took it.
Opened the lighter.
Closed it.
Opened again.
Then saw the engraving.
His expression changed.
Just briefly.
One of his men noticed.
“That’s club stuff.”
Silas turned it over.
BIG JOHN.
Leo swallowed.
“He gave it to me.”
Nobody laughed immediately.
“Who?”
“John Callahan.”
“Big John.”
“I fixed his bike.”
“He said I’m under his protection.”
The heavier man beside Silas shifted.
“Silas.”
“Maybe leave the kid alone.”
Silas looked at him.
“What?”
“I know that name.”
“So?”
“So this ain’t fifty bucks worth of trouble.”
Silas stared at Leo.
His pride took over.
“Kid stole it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Bullshit.”
“I fixed his Panhead.”
Silas crouched.
“You expect me to believe some Angel rolled through here and adopted a sewer rat?”
Leo’s face burned.
“He gave it to me.”
Silas slipped the lighter into his jacket.
“Not anymore.”
Leo lunged.
One man pushed him down.
Then somebody spotted the tools.
That was when the night became something Leo would remember far longer than the bruises.
“Nice kit.”
“No.”
Leo scrambled up.
“Don’t touch that.”
The canvas roll opened.
Tools spilled onto gravel.
Leo’s panic became visible.
Silas noticed.
Predators always noticed what mattered.
“Your dad’s?”
Leo went still.
Silas smiled.
That smile told him everything.
“Don’t.”
Silas picked up the old torque wrench.
“Please.”
The word escaped before Leo could stop it.
Silas looked almost pleased.
Then he damaged it against the concrete base of the old pump.
The sound was small.
Metal against concrete.
To Leo it felt enormous.
He shouted.
Tried to reach the tools.
Men held him back.
They damaged more.
Not every piece.
Enough.
The micrometer.
Several screwdrivers.
Sockets kicked into weeds.
Pliers bent.
Leo begged them to stop.
Silas did not.
When it ended, the men stood around the ruined tools breathing heavily.
Silas lit a cigarette with John’s Zippo.
“We come back Friday.”
He looked down at Leo.
“Fifty dollars.”
“And maybe now you understand.”
The cars disappeared.
Leo remained in the dirt.
Eventually he crawled toward the tools.
Picked up the broken torque wrench.
His father’s initials were scratched into the handle.
E.M.