Hero (14 page)

“Your old man ate like this. Always. Starting in college. Never gained a stinking pound.” He winked. “You remind me more of him all the time.”

Zach kept shoveling in the pie and ice cream, thinking that Uncle John didn’t know the half of it.

It was late afternoon by the time they walked out of Clarke’s, but Zach still wasn’t ready to go home.

Neither was Uncle John, apparently. “Where to next?” he said.

“We walk.”

“Where?”

“My favorite place in the city,” Zach said.
“Anywhere.”

Anywhere turned out to be Central Park. Even on a knock-around day he felt himself being drawn there.

They gradually made their way east and north, passed by horse-drawn hansom cabs and bikers and joggers. The more they walked, the less they spoke, not because they’d run out of things to say, just because the quiet seemed to fit them right now, both of them letting the last of the afternoon just
be.

They were past the zoo, heading toward the 66th Street entrance, when Zach said, “Thanks, Uncle John. I’m done.”

Uncle John laughed. “Oh, you don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, Zachary. Because old Uncle John was done at about 59th and Third.”

“I thought I saw a look when the last hansom cab went past us,” Zach said. “Like you wanted to kick out that nice couple and jump in.”

“You know me so well,” Uncle John said as he laughed.

Then he wasn’t laughing, or walking. He’d stopped the same as Zach had.

Both of them staring at the giant.

HE
was the biggest person Zach had ever seen outside of an NBA game, dressed in a dark suit and old-fashioned brim hat pulled low over his eyes. His features were distorted, almost like he was wearing a mask. His hands alone were the size of basketballs.

There was no way for Zach to be sure what seven feet tall looked like in street clothes. But if this guy wasn’t all of that, he was close, and looked as if he weighed enough to shove Shaq out of the paint.

Zach looked around. Nobody else in sight. Like somehow the stage had been emptied for him again.

The man said to Uncle John, “The boy is coming with me.”

Uncle John stepped forward, trying to protect Zach. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. But this boy isn’t going anywhere with you.”

“I’m not leaving without him. I’m not like the others.”

“What others?”

“Ask the boy.”

“Zach,” Uncle John said, eyes not leaving the giant. “Do you know this man?”

“No.”

The giant said, “No games this time.”

“
What
games?” Uncle John said. Standing his ground. Head tilted back like he was looking up at a tall building.

“Leave us. Now.”

Then Uncle John shouted, “Run, Zach!” as he ducked and charged forward, driving a shoulder into the giant’s stomach.

The huge man didn’t flinch, or move, or even acknowledge that he’d been hit. He just shook his head, almost in disgust, grabbed Uncle John by the shoulders, lifted him as easily as he would a toy and threw him in an arc across the open field to his left.

In that moment John Marshall looked as if he’d been shot out of an invisible cannon, flying, before he landed at the base of a thick old tree with a truly sickening thud.

Then he lay still.

The giant reached for Zach, saying, “Let’s go.”

And without planning it, without even thinking about it, just on fire again, Zach Harriman was the one in the air.

He was the one flying.

 

He elevated like LeBron and then just hung there in midair in front of the giant, scissor-kicking him in the middle of his face.

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Let’s go.”

Still in the air.

Not for long.

Unlike Knit Cap, the giant fought back. He back-handed Zach out of the air like King Kong swatting airplanes. This time it was Zach hitting the ground hard.

In pain, a lot of pain, but trying to roll away.

He felt a huge hand on him then, felt himself being turned around as though he weighed nothing. There was blood on the giant’s face where Zach had connected with his nose.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” the giant said. “You’re not ready yet for someone like me.”

Then came these giant hands again, catching Zach on the side of his head. Zach went down.

The giant kicked him. Zach heard shouts, a siren slowly getting louder.

Then he didn’t hear anything.

ZACH
wasn’t sure what day it was.

Or whether he was awake or asleep. He just knew that sleep seemed much,
much
better right now, because sleep meant he wouldn’t be hurting nearly as much.

He was in New York Hospital, in a room overlooking the East River, in a wing named after his mom’s father. When he managed to open his eyes, which wasn’t often, he saw his mom. Kate was there a couple of times, too. And Uncle John. But he was never awake long before a doctor or nurse entered the room, took his temperature, gave him a pill to swallow, checked his eyes and told him to go back to sleep.

Even talking hurt, though one time Zach had said to his mom in a weak voice, “You should see the other guy.”

“I’m just grateful to see
you,”
she’d said. “You had a concussion, though what you’re feeling the most is two broken ribs. The doctors say those are going to hurt for a month or so, maybe more, no matter what they do for them.” His mom put a cool hand on Zach’s forehead and said, “Other than that, no permanent damage to my boy.”

Zach had closed his eyes again and let whatever medicine they were giving him take him until he was back to sleep again. He dreamed of his dad more than once, kept seeing his lips moving, knew that his dad was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t make out the words.

The dreams felt so real.

The next time Zach woke up, in the night, Dr. Vann was there.

“So how we doing?” Dr. Vann asked.

“A little less rap music inside my head.”

“Excellent.” He shined his small flashlight into Zach’s eyes, took his temperature again. “You’re a remarkably fast healer, my friend. Speaking of friends, I said your good-byes for the night to both friends and family. Miss Kate, by the way, thought she was getting ready to sleep on the floor next to your bed. I told her you’d be fine on your own.”

“And she listened to you?” Zach said. “Doc, you’re not just a healer. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Maybe I am. Now go to sleep.”

“I’m wide awake.”

Dr. Vann said, “Not for long.”

Zach closed his eyes. Maybe he would dream of his dad again.

 

“Zacman.”

It had to be a dream, had to be his dad talking to him. So at first he was afraid to open his eyes, afraid the dream would leave him, the way the good ones sometimes did right before you woke up in the morning.

“Zacman. I know you can hear me. Open your eyes.”

He turned toward the voice, groaning as he did, feeling the stab of his ribs.

He opened his eyes now in the half-light of the hospital room and saw that it wasn’t his dad talking.

It was Mr. Herbert.

He looked the same as he had out at Land’s End. Same jacket. Same old jeans. Same white hair.

Zach said, “How’d you get in here?”

The old man grinned. “You’ve got your ways of getting where you need to, I have mine.”

“I ran out of magic,” Zach said.

Mr. Herbert shook his head. “You’ve got all the magic you need, boy. More than you know and as much as your father. Yet let this be a lesson—you’re only fourteen. And you’re still human.”

“Had to be a better way for me to learn that.”

“No,” said Mr. Herbert, “this was
exactly
the kind of lesson you needed to learn to keep living. There’s a reason for everything, boy.”

“My head hurts too much to play this game,” Zach said. “What time is it, anyway?”

“’Bout four.”

“And you just walked past everybody and got in here?”

“Told you,” Mr. Herbert said. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“So you’ve got your own talents, too?”

“You’re the talent, boy. I’m more like your agent.”

“How lucky for me,” Zach said with a roll of his eyes, “you choosing me like this.”

“We don’t get to do the choosing, either one of us. Everything with a reason, everything with a purpose. But things are starting to speed up, which means you’re going to have to pick up the pace.”

Zach pictured himself reaching over and pushing his call button for a nurse, wondered if this strange man would simply disappear if somebody walked in on them.

But he didn’t reach. He was interested in what the man had to say.

“I kind of . . . facilitate things. I did it with your father when I found him on the street, and now I’m doing it with you.”

“What do you mean, when you found my dad on the street?” Zach said. “He never told me anything about that.”

“He was about your age,” Mr. Herbert said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That’s another story for another time.”

Now Zach made himself sit up, not caring how much it made his ribs scream.

“Another person worried that I might get ahead of myself?” Zach said.

“Lower your voice,” the old man said.

“The reason I’m lying here like Humpty Dumpty is because I’m
already
ahead of myself.”

“You’re still way ahead of where I thought you’d be, and that’s a compliment.”

“Pardon me if I don’t thank you.”

“No thanks necessary, really. The big thing now is getting you better. And I’m not talking about your health, boy. I mean we’ve got to get you better at being
you.”

The old man pushed his chair back, stood up.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Zach said, though they both knew he couldn’t do anything to stop him.

Mr. Herbert surprised him and sat back down. “You know,” he said, “there’s times, a look on your face, when I see the boy your father was. Or maybe it’s the man you’re going to become.”

Zach’s head was starting to throb again, more because of the conversation than the pills wearing off. But this was important.

“I get it by now,” he said to Mr. Herbert, “I get the little games you like to play with me, talking in circles, or riddles, or whatever it is you do.”

“They’re not riddles if you know the answers.”

“Stick it.”

It made the old man laugh again. “Now you
really
sound like your father.”

Zach closed his eyes. “Leave me alone,” he said.

“There will be a time when I’ll do that, when you’ll be on your own,” Mr. Herbert said. “But you’re not ready for that yet.”

“When was my dad ready?”

“He was older than you.”

“And when he was, you told him what he was up against?”

“I did,” Mr. Herbert said. “But when I first found him, when he was your age, I just told him about the life he was going to have, the wife and the son and all the rest of it. With him, there wasn’t quite the . . .
urgency.
He had a little time to grow up into what he became. What he was destined to be.”

The old man closed his eyes now, as if smiling at the memory of the young Tom Harriman. Then he snapped out of it.

“But like I keep trying to tell you: we don’t have that kind of time, Zacman. I just stopped by to make sure you were okay. It’s important you are.”

He got up, picked up his chair and placed it against the wall, walked across the room and put his hand on the doorknob. He stopped and turned around.

“You’re going to have to grow up fast, boy,” Mr. Herbert said. “Fast as you can move now.”

“And what happens if I don’t?”

“Simple,” Mr. Herbert said. “If you don’t, then they win.”

He held up a coin, what Zach knew instantly was a Morgan dollar, glowing in the dim light of the hospital room, and tossed it across the room.

Zach managed to reach up and catch it.

“Where . . . ?”

“You dropped it in the park, right after you got dropped on your head. I retrieved it for you.”

“You were
there
?”

“Sleep tight, Zacman,” the old man said.

Then he was gone.

ZACH
closed his eyes again. But not to sleep. He needed to think.

The door opened. The sound of a man’s footsteps. Zach was afraid to look.

“There he is,” said a voice.

Uncle John.

“Hey,” Zach said.

“Zachary.”

“What time is it?”

“Little before four,” Uncle John said. “Sorry to wake you. But this couldn’t wait.”

“Have you been at the hospital the whole time?”

“Went home for a few hours of quick shut-eye. But I had to come back.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Uncle John said, “When I told your dad I’d look out for you, I understood it was going to be a full-time job.” He rubbed his face. Even in the dim light, Zach could see that Uncle John hadn’t bothered to shave in days.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Been better,” Zach said.

“I expect that you have,” Uncle John said.

Zach managed a grin. “That wasn’t the kind of knock-around day I had in mind.”

“Really? Could have fooled me. You seemed pretty eager to take on that beast.”

“No more eager than you were. No more than you seem now, sneaking in to see me at four in the morning.”

“Needed to see you, Zachary. I’ve been worried sick.”

“What about you? Last thing I remember, you had just gone up against a tree and lost. Are you okay?”

“Not my finest moment,” Uncle John said. “My back wasn’t too grateful, and I had a whopper of a headache for a while, but I wasn’t hurt too badly.”