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The first time Peter Spankoffski meets Hatchetfield’s resident homeless man, he’s six years old.
Sort of, anyway. He’s seen him before — asking for change in the grocery store parking lot, muttering gibberish and shouting in the alley outside Teddy’s work, swaying in place and humming outside of Beanies — he’s just never spoken to him. Or even gotten a good look.
The few times he’d approached Pete and his mother in public, she’d been quick to tug him to her hip, hissing a pointed reminder not to talk to strangers. She’d even told him, once, not to look the man in the eyes, which he couldn’t help but find weird, since she was usually reminding him to look everyone in their eyes, even when he didn’t want to. She’d always crossed herself when the man eventually backed away, murmuring prayers Pete couldn’t hear.
And if their mom hadn’t liked the man, Ted hated him. His back would go straight and stiff and his fists would ball up and he’d shout insults and words they both knew he wasn’t supposed to say around Pete. He’d even kicked him once — hard, in the side — when they’d left the mall and found the man curled up on the ground and leaning against the driver’s side door of Ted’s car.
No one’s ever said the man is dangerous, not really, but Peter’s smart, smart enough to know that if his mom and Teddy agree that he should stay away from someone, then he should listen. They never agree on anything.
Maybe that’s why, when the strange man in the brown coat attacks a goat right in front of Pete’s eyes, it doesn’t shock him quite as much as it does the other kids at the petting zoo.
There’s no warning, the poor thing doesn’t do anything to deserve it. One moment, it’s standing there, just a few feet away, watching Pete with its weird muddy-yellow eyes, like it’s waiting for him to give it a treat, or pet it, or something — and the next, a fast moving, adult-size blur tackles it to the ground full force.
Pete stumbles backward until he hits the wooden fence enclosing the barn. There’s a thunk as he collides - sharp and loud - and hot, stinging pain spills down the back of his head and into his neck.
The man thrashes in the mud with the animal, whose soft bleats shift quickly into loud, panicked baying. He’s shouting something, but between the way his voice slurs and the goat’s screams of distress, Pete can’t hear what he’s saying, and he’s not trying to understand, either, too busy flailing his arm wildly behind himself, trying to find the gate he came through. It might be easier if he turned to face it, but he can’t look away no matter how hard he tries, his eyes glued to the catastrophe even as they fill with tears.
“Teddy!” He’s screaming, he’s sure he is. His throat burns with the force of it, but it sounds distant and far away. “Ted!”
Then, two horrible things happen at once: there’s an awful snap noise that makes Pete feel suddenly sick, and the goat lets out a sickening, prolonged shriek.
The man whirls to face Pete, then. It takes him a second to recognize him, between the blur of tears in his eyes. They’re spilling over now, and Pete doesn’t even care if the other kids from his tap class think he’s a big baby. He’s never been as afraid as he is when the sort-of stranger looks at him.
The man’s eyes are huge, open so wide open it looks like they might fall out, his face twisted and scrunched and angry . The goat — which takes the opportunity to run away, still screaming and moving in awkward, stilted jolts — must have fought back hard. The man’s cheek is split open, and his nose is crooked oddly and dripping red, red, red, down onto that dirty brown jacket, smeared with mud and blood and straw. It mats in his beard, his mustache, his hair. His hat’s gone, lost in the muck, Pete notes, feeling suddenly dizzy.
His face changes fast, too fast for Pete to even begin understanding, and then he’s staggering slowly to his feet and taking an unsteady, lurching step toward him, slipping in the mud and collapsing back down onto one knee.
“S’okay,” he mumbles, stretching out a hand like Pete’s a small animal that might run away. He feels like a small animal — and he’d run away if he could, but the fence is pressing so hard against his back it hurts and his fingers have gone numb from scrabbling against the slats.
“No, no, s’okay, he’s gone, he’s… it’s safe now. Promise.” He takes another step, freezing in place when Pete chokes out another cry for his brother, making a small noise in the bottom of his throat not unlike the one the fleeing goat had made. Like something hurts. “Not gonna let him hurt you, Petey. Never.” He says it quietly, softly, like maybe the problem is his volume.
He looks like he might be about to move closer again, before his eyes focus somewhere above Pete’s head. Peter doesn’t have a chance to turn before he feels a hand fist tight in the back of his shirt. He’s hauled into the air with a scream, thrashing for one futile, hopeless second, before crashing almost painfully against a familiar warmth, his damp cheek pressed against a patterned tie he knows all too well.
Ted’s arms around him, Pete shatters, breaking into earnest sobs — awful, full-body things that steal his breath and make his stomach hurt. His hands twist into fists in Teddy’s shirt, terrified that at any moment he’s going to be pulled back, that the man will grab him, hurt him like he did the goat.
He’s aware, somewhat distantly, that people are yelling. One of them is Ted, he can feel the curses and threats rumbling against his own chest, but there are others. Maybe Ruth’s mom? He isn’t sure, and he has no desire to remove his face from the crook of his brother’s neck to check.
There’s arguing. Someone says something about calling the police. It’s all fuzzy in Pete’s ears, like there’s cotton balls stuffed deep down in them, so deep they touch his brain and make it fuzzy too.
Thankfully, Ted doesn’t put him down right away, and he doesn’t complain about Pete being too heavy, or too old, or having pointy elbows either. He just holds him, arms squeezing him so tight it almost hurts. Almost.
At some point he starts walking. Pete only notices because the yelling voices start getting quieter and quieter, until they’re replaced almost entirely by the sound of his brother’s heartbeat and the soft crunch of gravel as the petting zoo gives way to the parking lot.
Ted’s quiet for a long time, which is a little bit weird if Pete thinks about it, but also nice. He even rubs a circle or two on his back, and tucks his chin over the top of Pete’s head for a moment before trying to set him down on the trunk of the car. He resists with a little whine that he knows makes him sound like a baby but he doesn’t care.
“You gotta let me take a look at you, Petey.”
Ted’s voice is quiet and thin, the way it always is when he has to ask Pete to do something they both know he doesn’t want to do, like take his medicine or let him prick his finger to test his blood sugar. It’s the gentle voice for important things, and he doesn’t use it often, so Pete lifts his head reluctantly.
“C’mon,” Ted urges, using two hands to work one set of six year old fingers loose from his shirt, then moving on to the other, finally easing himself free enough to step back and look at him. Pete reaches out, grabs a fistfull of his brother’s tie to keep him close. Ted sighs, and looks kind of like he wants to complain, but doesn’t.
“He hurt you, kid?” His voice is still Gentle for Important Things, so Pete shakes his head. It doesn’t seem to satisfy his brother though, whose mouth presses into a tight line as he reaches out to tip Pete’s head this way and that, skimming his hands up and down his arms and legs without waiting for him to answer. Lastly, he runs a hand through Pete’s hair, freezing when he winces away with a whimper of pain.
“ I’ll fucking kill him.” His voice dips low, dangerous, the words coming out almost under his breath. It reminds Pete, suddenly and sharply, of the man who’d attacked the goat, and he stifles down a whimper.
“I hit my head on the fence.” He’s talking quickly, desperate to settle the fury he sees building in his brother’s expression. “He didn’t hurt me.”
He’d wanted to, Pete knows. He’s sure of it. Sort of. His head really hurts.
It seems to work, though. Ted’s jaw relaxes, at least. He holds up a hand, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Pete rolls his eyes. Just because he cried doesn’t mean he’s a baby that doesn’t know how to count.
“Three.”
Finally, Ted seems to relax. He sighs, looking between Pete and the entrance to the petting zoo a few times, before seeming to make up his mind about something.
“Alright, so here’s what I’m thinking,” He says after a long moment, “You and me, kid, hot chocolate with extra marshmallows, the good marshmallows, not the weird little pellet ones.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “And maybe we don’t tell mom and dad about this, yeah?”
In truth, Pete can’t imagine the sweetness of hot chocolate and marshmallows, not above the bile and metal taste that coats the inside of his mouth, but he nods anyway. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, with the sounds and smells of the petting zoo and the weird, icy feeling racing up and down his back.
It surprises him when, instead of stepping back to let him hop down, Ted picks him up again, squeezing him tight for a moment before opening the car door with one hand and setting him down in the back seat gently, like he used to when Pete had been small enough to need help buckling his car seat.
For once, being in the small backseat doesn’t feel cramped. Instead, it feels safe. For once, the smell of leather cleaner, and Ted’s cologne, and the cigarettes their mom doesn’t know about is as reassuring as it is overpowering. For once, the sudden blare of Ted’s annoying music when he turns the ignition is a comfort, finally drowning out the sound of goat screams, snapping bones, and distant, unfamiliar laughter.