Hostage Zero

Harvey continued, “Anyway, if you’ve never been there, it’s hard to describe how something just breaks inside of you. I just wasn’t the Marine I thought I was. One day I was a damn good medic-and I mean damn good, even thinking of a way to use G.I. benefits to get to medical school-and then I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

He stripped the cap off his water bottle and took a long pull. “They called it PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s a great name when you’re using it on someone else. When it’s you, it just feels like ‘crazy.’ They sent me to Bethesda for a while, but then they drummed me out. I was fine with that, but what was I going to do for a living? I didn’t want nothin’ to do with the blood-and-guts business anymore, so I thought I’d try to help kids. You know, the future of the world?”

His bitter sarcasm triggered a humorless chuckle. “I took a job at a community health club in Braddock County, up near Brookfield.”

Jonathan recognized it as a neighboring county in Northern Virginia.

“I taught swimming, did some lifeguarding. Even taught first-aid courses. It was exactly the kind of gig I needed. Kids are basically, nice, right? They live in a world where the only violence is the stuff you see on TV. They’re refreshing to be around.”

Jonathan jumped ahead. “So, refreshing, in fact that you-”

A white-hot glare cut him in half. “You gonna listen, or are you gonna talk?” Harvey spat. “See, this is why it’s not worth explaining the facts to people. You see the label, and then everything just falls into place for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. And he meant it.

Harvey’s eyes held him for a while longer, testing. “All right. Well, the fact is that kids are shit, too. I had one, Amanda Goldsbury, a loudmouth punk maybe thirteen years old whose parents dropped her off every day in the summer at seven in the morning, and then picked her up at eight at night. Our job was to babysit her ass for the six-buck-a-day admission charge. She wasn’t the only one like that, but she was the one who was easiest to hate. She thought she was queen shit. She terrorized the other children, and she had no compunction about telling an adult to go fuck himself. You know the type?”

Jonathan smiled and chose not to say that he established a whole school for kids like that. They didn’t stay that way for long after arriving at Resurrection House, but most students arrived either as bullies or as victims of them.

“So one day, this girl gets in my face, and I told her what I thought of her antics. I mean I really told her. Embarrassed the shit out her in front of her buddies and victims.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Next day, five cops show up at the center and arrest me for second-degree sexual assault on a minor. She went home that night after I pissed her off, and she told her parents that I had fondled her in the locker room.

“The prosecutor, a first-degree prick named J. Daniel Petrelli, decided to make an example out of me. He got the press involved, somebody leaked my history of ‘mental instability’”-he used finger quotes-“and I was cooked. Everybody knows kids wouldn’t lie about such a thing, even though they lie through their asses about every other damn thing, and suddenly I’m looking at serious prison time. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard that child molesters are beaten to shit in prison by the other inmates. I wanted none of that.

“So I took the plea agreement that my public defender told me was a sweet deal. I pleaded guilty in return for no jail time, but I agreed to seek psychiatric counseling and to stay away from children forever. I also landed on the registered sex offender list.”

His eyes turned red as tears balanced on his lids. “And that, my new friend, is a life sentence in and of itself. There are no jobs to be had, and because you’re not allowed to be within two thousand feet of a school or a church or a playground, there’s no place to live, either. Not unless you got land in the country, which is really difficult when you don’t have an income.”

Harvey spread his arms wide, as if to say, Ta-da! “So here I am, hero of our nation, brought to nothing by single lie told by a single child who no doubt will one day be president of the United States.”

For a long while, Jonathan just stared, allowing the story to soak in. It was the oldest cliche that everyone accused of disgusting crimes was innocent in his own mind. Over the years, Jonathan had lost track of the number of terrorists and kidnappers who had stared him straight in the eye and sworn that they were the innocent victims of happenstance. The wrong place at the wrong time. Merely exercising their right to practice their own religion. Simply trying to help the victims. These excuses and many more abounded even as their victims’ blood congealed on their clothing.