Page 2 of Jester

“You have a reputation, asshole,” said one of them. “When Brody takes a boy away, they come back wrong.”

Though I didn’t dare show my fear, I was nervous about this new threat. I started thinking of ways to get locked up in juvie again. The head of the group home was a nice young woman named Risa. Until I heard about Marsden, I figured I might be able to get comfortable. With him coming, I changed my plans and started considering whether to punch Risa just to get sent away.

Before I set anything on fire or hurt the nice lady, Brody Marsden arrived. His dark eyes owned a cruel vibe. His arms and chest were thick with muscle. He looked like the kind of older guys I avoided in juvie. Many of them were heading straight from juvie to prison once they aged up. None of them had anything to lose.

Now, a guy like that was at the group home, looking to talk to me before I even did anything wrong.

I’d been so pissed to get hounded when I’d actually been following the rules. On my first night at the group home, Risa made us fried chicken and creamy mashed potatoes. It was the best food I’d had in my life. Yeah, I might have behaved for a good long time if Brody hadn’t shown up to fuck up my plans.

I was nearly as tall as him but lacked his muscles. I knew fighting Brody wouldn’t work. A man like him wouldn’t go down from a kick to the groin.

Though I considered running, he had arrived with several men who sat on their motorcycles in the driveway. I wouldn’t get far before they tracked me down.

Escaping to the backyard, I still figured I might jump the fence and head for the woods. I glanced back to find Brody casually following me. I saw the other group house residents spying on us from the upstairs windows. They were hoping for a show.

Brody’s nearly black hair had already begun to gray around the temples. I didn’t think he had been an adult long. He was thick across the chest and his limbs were like tree trunks. I hadn’t been scared in a long time, but this man terrified me. I felt his punches coming, even as he sat at a patio table and gestured for me to join him.

“What’s staining your thoughts?” Brody asked in a weirdly calm voice.

“I just want to be left alone.”

“That won’t end well for you. This world’s got a target on your back. You’re looking at an early death or a lifetime in prison. But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.”

No one had ever talked to me like Brody did that day. Sometimes, a CPS lady or foster mom might do the quiet, pity voice. However, most people spoke to me like I was already on their last nerve.

Brody’s tone held no pity, but he wasn’t angry, either. We were just talking like two men might talk. That’s why I didn’t lash out or take off running. I figured a beating might be worth hearing him out.

Brody and I talked for a long time. He asked questions about my family and all the shit I survived. I tried to act tough, as if nothing mattered and no one could hurt me.

But Brody has always had a way of breaking down a person’s resolve. He’d stare at you with his nearly black eyes, silently soaking in your pain, offering no judgment.

I ended up crying like a little bitch by the time we were done. Life was so damn hard. At fourteen, I was already tired of living. Nothing got better. People didn’t care. I wanted to get hard inside, so I wouldn’t care, either.

Instead, I bared my soul to Brody Marsden and started digging my way out of my miserable existence.

“I’m going to take you to my place, so we can talk more and you can meet my family,” he told me, and I instantly assumed the worst. “You can stay overnight or I can bring you back here tonight.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“No one loved me when I was a kid,” Brody explained, sounding resigned to the fact rather than angry about it. “I didn’t know what I was missing. Once I knew how it felt to be loved, I wanted others like me to get a taste of that good feeling, too.”

“Are you trying to save my soul?”

Brody chuckled and stood up. “No, I just figure life is short, so we might as well spend our time feeling good.”

I didn’t really believe him. Even after he listened to me blubber, I refused to trust him or anyone else. I’d been fooled by people’s promises before.

A few times during the ride to his house, I considered jumping off the motorcycle and running away. But I knew I was running out of options. If this group home didn’t work out, I’d be in juvie until I aged out. No one would want me as an adult when they couldn’t tolerate me as a kid. I’d end up in a cage for the rest of my life.

That’s why I kept my ass glued to Brody’s motorcycle and let him take me to his house where I assumed I’d be used and abused.

Back then, Brody lived in a small, boxy white house with his wife and young sons. Betty was a thing of beauty with shiny brown hair and soft blue eyes. She smiled at me like I wasn’t a dirty piece of shit stinking up her home. The dinner she made was as good as Risa’s chicken and mashed potatoes.

“Risa and I learned to cook in one of the foster homes we shared,” Betty explained as she had me help her in the kitchen. “Brody and I grew up without good meals. I want to do better for my boys.”

Betty just kept talking to me like I was a normal person rather than a tall, gangly, long-haired monster. She never even seemed scared of me. She also gave me a really big slice of apple pie for dessert and extra whipped cream. I felt like a real person when she focused her warm gaze on me.

By the time the sun set and Brody asked if I wanted to stick around for the night, I’d gotten a little too comfortable in their house.

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