Kris stepped out in to the quad. He still adored that beautiful Mosaic of Jesus and all his little ones. Today, as most days, it glistened in the sun like a perennial promise. “Still,” Kris encouraged himself, “It’s still a brand new day. I still have a killer car, and there’s still time for a haircut.” He was almost out the gate and onto the avenue when Maggie caught him by the sleeve.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. She was all urgent and secretive. Kris didn’t know what to make of it. She pulled Kris into Paul Gomez’ room; the lights were off and nobody was home.
“What’s going on with you, Maggie?” She was freaking him out.
“I need a favor.”
“Ok. What is it?”
“There is a guy, Rhett Herron, you don’t know him, but you’ve seen him. Big guy, walks with a waddle. He’s got a missing leg. And he’s always got a bag with him. And I need to get my hands on that bag.”
“Why? Or more importantly, why me?”
“Rhett uses the gym here. He is there right now. I need you to go in to the locker room and get the bag.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Is this that huge guy, the military dude? The one who could probably kill me 15 ways with a spork?”
“Bingo!” said Maggie, “See, I knew you knew him.”
“Are you out of your tree, Maggie! I would do anything for you, but . . .”
Maggie cut him short, “Butbutbut, but nothing, Buddha-boy. This is it, Kris. Time to nut-up or shut-up. You want Truth? You want to protect the Donnie Gomez-es, and Susan Campbells, and the Tiffany Trammels of the world? You want to protect the little ewe lambs? Well, I need to know what’s in that bag.”
“I just want a stinkin’ haircut,” Kris sighed and rubbed his eyes in exasperation, “Ok, fine! Where do I go?”
Maggie was pleased, “You’re the man, Kris! I knew I could count on you. But you know, you wouldn’t need to ask me where it is if you went in there and lifted those things once in a while. But that is immaterial right now. Come on, I’ll take you. And you’ll need this.” Maggie handed him a large, flathead screwdriver, probably 10” long from handle to head.
“What is this for?”
“To pop the lock. Just put it through, and twist as hard as you can, and Bang! It’ll come right open.”
“What are you getting me in to, detective?”
Maggie led Kris to the Youth Building, across the indoor courts, and down a stair to where the weight room was. Directly across were the locker rooms. Maggie opened the door to the men’s changing rooms and literally shoved Kris in, “Knock ‘em dead, tiger. It’s the one with desert camo.”
The locker room was terribly outdated. Kris figured late 70’s. It was dark, wet. It was simply the underbelly of the building, with rotting showers and tilework. The lockers were not what anyone would recognize as such today, but were rather racks and stacks of lockable old wire cages, some larger than others. At least it would be easy to find the bag, Kris thought. He immediately spotted the distinctive tan splotches in a cage across the room.
Kris snuck up to the cage as if he was going to defuse a bomb. He looked around. Nobody. The only sounds were an industrial sized dryer tumbling linens for the church, and a loud slow drip of a showerhead dropping water into a deep puddle. His hands shook as he slid the shank of the driver through the loop of the Masterlock. He twisted. It was hard, but Kris popped the lock open. His heart was racing as he grabbed the bag. Kris instinctively looked about again and began to walk as quickly as possible towards the exit. He didn’t run because he wanted to look natural, inconspicuous. This might have made sense except for the two facts that, one, there was no one else in the room, and, two, walking as fast as humanly possible is anything but inconspicuous.
And so in this way he inadvertently slammed right into the human wall that was Rhett Herron. “Oh, excuse me, sir,” Rhett said politely. But then as they both took a step back, he noticed the panic in Kris’ eyes, which led him to notice the bag in his hands. A silent mutual recognition passed between them. “I don’t know who you are, or who you think you are, but you need to put down that bag right now.”
Kris had never truly understood the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” as he did in this very moment. “What do I do?” Kris’ brain asked, “If I try to keep this bag, Rhett will destroy me and take the bag anyway. If I give the bag up, I could be giving up vital evidence that could save an actual human life. What do I do?”
Rhett Herron was “raised right” as some like to say; He always exercised impeccable manners. But Kris had put himself in the category of enemy, and Rhett had but one simple and clear policy towards the enemy. Rhett summoned up his full size, which was entirely unnecessary, and calmly ordered Kris, “We’ve all done bad things, take your pick. Now, if you don’t give me that bag right now. . . I am going to break both of your arms.” The sentence was absent of any exaggeration or metaphor.
In that moment something became clear to Kris. The first step to be a good shepherd is a willingness to suffer pain for your flock. The next step to be a good shepherd is a willingness to inflict pain to protect your flock. Kris didn’t know what was in this bag, but if it could somehow prevent a monster from murdering another citizen of Sacred Heart, then he had to have it, at any cost.
Kris kicked Rhett’s prosthetic leg as hard as he could out from under the brute, sending the plastic foot and shin skidding across the dank floor. Rhett hollered in surprise as he collapsed to one side, landing hard on the floor next to an ancient bench. Kris jumped over Rhett and tried to make for the door, but Rhett caught hold of his pants leg and jerked him to the ground. Kris bashed his temple and elbow on the mildewed concrete. He sat up immediately and Rhett was already scrambling upon him. Kris swung the duffel bag around with all of his strength. The bag was soft, but substantial enough to slam Rhett’s head into the bench. Rhett yelled in what must have been excruciating pain as his head ricocheted off of the old pine plank. Before Rhett could recover, Kris repeated the maneuver, cracking his head once again on the bench. The soldier slid all the way down to the floor, and Kris was able to get one more shot in, this time knocking Rhett’s cheek into the large steel pipe that was bolted to the floor. Still Rhett held tightly to his leg. Kris took the long screwdriver like a dagger and stabbed it into the bodybuilder’s meaty forearm. Rhett yelled in agony and released his hold on Kris.
Kris bolted for the door. “I’m going to kill you!” Rhett screamed after him. Kris did not think he meant this metaphorically.
- - - - - -
Kris ran – ran with all his might out of the locker room, down the hall, out the building and across campus, clutching that desert digi-camo bag like he was fleeing Nazis with his last surviving child. Without thinking about it, he ran instinctively to Mary Pendleton’s office. He didn’t even knock, but burst in and slammed the door shut behind him. It was a good choice, because Maggie in fact happened to be there. “Close the damn shades!” he barked as he locked the door. It was the sixth curse word that he had said in seven years.
The two women, who had been reclining in meaningful dialogue, jumped into action. Mary pulled the shades down and locked the door. Maggie went to Kris. “Kris – what happened?!” Kris was a bloody mess: his pants were blackened from the locker room floor, his elbow was flayed raw, and the right side of his forehead had a serious gash running from his eyebrow to his hairline. He was completely jacked up on adrenaline and he paced back and forth in the tiny space like a great cat penned up in a zoo cage. “You did this, Maggie Kennedy! You! I think I really hurt Rhett Herron. I can’t show my face here again. He is literally going to kill me. Literally. I don’t know what I’m going to do. He is literally going to end my life. You did this.” He wagged a condemning finger at Maggie.
“You hurt Rhett Herron?!” Maggie was shocked, but also really impressed.
Mary retrieved a first aid kit. “Here, let me handle this. Sit down, Kris. You’re in a safe place. Sit down. Take that bag, Maggie.” These two women were no strangers to crises: they knew how to run triage.
They sat Kris down on the love seat, with Mary hovering over him on one arm. Maggie took up a station in Mary’s squeaky office chair. She spoke to Kris in the calmest, most reassuring tone she could manage, “Kris, let me hold the bag. It’s ok, Kris. Everything is cool, I promise. Let me just hold this for you.” Kris was still clutching the large duffel bag to his chest. Maggie delicately pried it out of his arms.
Mary cooed at him like she was doctoring a four-year-old as she went to work on the arm. He did not protest. “There we go,” she said in a low register, “Let Mary take a look. Oh, yeah, that’s good one. But we’re gonna get you all patched up, ok?”
“Mary,” Kris said, “I am a horrible, horrible human being.”
“Hush, son.”
Meanwhile, Maggie regarded the duffel bag as if she had just recovered the Lost Ark of the Twelve Tribes. She caressed the camouflage canvas, “You did good, Kris.” She spun around, dropped her precious cargo on Mary’s desk and got down to business. She pulled out a pair of slacks, rolled into a tight cylinder and dropped them on the floor. “No use for these,” she said. Shirt, socks, underwear, all got deposited on the floor, along with a copy of American Canine magazine and a bag of toiletries. “Oh, hey, this is cool.” Maggie pulled out what was apparently a back up foot. “In case he gets a flat,” she explained with a straight face.
Mary wrapped gauze around Kris’ forearm, “What are you doing, Maggie? This is really getting out of control.” She was very concerned.
“Hello, ‘ello, ‘ ello, what have we got here?” Maggie pulled out a ziplock bag full of syringes, and a short stack of manila folders that turned out to be medical records. “Jackpot!” she exclaimed, “Now I wonder what Mr. Herron would need a sack full of syringes for.”
Mary examined Kris’ forehead, “Oh man. Kris baby, you’re going to need stitches for sure. I can tape you up for now, but you’re going to need to go straight to the Emergency Room after this. Maggie, look in that side drawer and hand me that yellow pad.” Maggie was scouring the medical records. She found the pad and handed it to Mary without looking up. “Kris, I’m going to write you a prescription for some Darvocet. You are about to have the headache of your life, baby. Sorry.”
“You can do that?” Kris asked.
“I wear a lot of hats around here, babe.”
“Give him something to sleep, too. He’s been having bad dreams.” Maggie added as she swung about to face the others. She held up a file in her hand. “Is it significant that Mr. Herron experienced severe trauma to his genitalia during his last tour-of-duty?”
“This is really getting out of hand, Maggie. You shouldn’t be looking through that guy’s things. You’re going to end up hurting someone innocent.”
“You know,” Kris whimpered, “This day started out so good. All I wanted was a haircut.”
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