Short Stories from Wing's Authors.

Hector

by

John Hudson Tiner

Hector came up out of the asphalt as if he had suddenly sprung from the street. His unexpected appearance late at night had its effect on the driver about to unlock his car. If Hector had been farther away, the man would have hastened his steps, got in his car, driven away, and pretended he had not seen him. But Hector was too close to be ignored.

Hector dressed in black and selected a vehicle parked along the curb on a black asphalt street. One streetlight still burned, but he found a place where the darker shadow caused by a lone tree fell across the street. He simply sat down at the edge of the street near the car and waited.

Hector positioned himself between the driver and the driver's door. He said, "I need some money."

The driver had been through the routine before. "I have some in the car. I'll need to get in to get it."

"Sure," Hector agreed and stepped aside. The man got in, fished out a five and two ones from the ashtray, and handed it to Hector.

"Thanks." Hector turned away and walked to one of the few fast food restaurants in the downtown area. He ordered a combo meal, and ate the hamburger and fries slowly, as he always did. He counted his money. He would have enough for breakfast, so he could sleep late, eat a breakfast without haste, and then be outside the high-rise office in time for the noon crowd to come out.

The workers he'd meet at noon were mostly happy professionals who earned an excellent salary as independent contractors. They knew Hector by sight but not by name. He'd smile, ask for money, and they would give it to him. If it were raining, he would stand in the rain with his collar turned up and look miserable. Sometimes he got double the usual amount.

Hector lived in one of the hidden underground areas of the city. More than a hundred years earlier a huge number of underground tunnels had been built, some for horse drawn trams for hauling coal from river barges. Others connected natural caves used for storage. During prohibition, tunnels had been enlarged or added. During World War II, lines had been extended more than twenty miles to connect the city with munitions plants and the airport. The entire city was honeycombed with these old passageways.

A few of the chambers still had electrical lines that connected to topside power grids, so electric lights burned night and day. Hector never cooked nor did anything to draw attention to where he stayed. He kept it clean, and in the morning he rolled up his bed and tucked it out of sight.

He was happy. He knew he had limited ability. Not only did he have a limited education, but he knew his mind did not function quite the way that others did. He could not grasp things as quickly. Yet, he had managed to exist and even thrive in his world.

In the back of his mind, he worried that his world might change. Mostly it changed because of construction—new baseball stadium on the north side, a casino on the south side near the river, a new underground section of the metro route. Deep foundations for each one broke into the many forgotten tunnels that were not on any blueprints. The unexpected passageways were unceremoniously concreted up. Each time it happened, it cut off an access to the city at ground level.

Because of his concern about losing his established routes, Hector had explored the tunnels, caves, and hidden passageways.

One morning in early spring, he awoke to the murmur of voices. They spoke in secretive whispers. Hector silently rolled up his blanket and put it away. He froze as they passed where he stood in a side tunnel. One of the men had a spray can of paint. He made a dramatic arrow sign with his hands. The paint can hissed, although on the wall Hector could see nothing but a faint smudge. Then the second man turned on something like a large flashlight and pointed it to the faint smudge. Suddenly it stood out in vivid detail—a bright orange arrow pointing along the rough wall of the tunnel.

The third man spoke. His tone said he was in charge. But Hector could not understand what he said.

Hector realized that the three men were up to no good. That was the phrase his mother used, up to no good. Hector's mother was a religious woman. He'd decided that he was a religious person, too, although he did not entirely understand what it meant. But he had through sheer determination memorized an abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments. For this feat his mother had given him a small, leather-bound New Testament. He still carried the book, although he could read not a word of it. He couldn't read at all, although he had learned the meaning of the major street signs.

But he knew these men were up to no good. Whatever they were doing would change his world, and he didn't like it.

After the three men had gone well past, Hector looked at the faint paint on the wall. He rubbed the spot but the paint did not come away easily. He found a rag and rubbed harder. Some of the paint smeared, but he could see that his efforts had little effect. He walked along the tunnel, going backwards to the arrows. The lights were out here, and he used a small flashlight. At every intersection, the faint smudge of the freshly painted arrows showed the right way to go.

Hector worked his way backwards along the route of painted arrows to their source. The tunnel opened into one of the large abandoned train tunnels that had been used to carry coal from barges that delivered it on the river. He followed the train tunnel and found a locked gate made of strong iron bars about fifty or so feet from the levee. He looked at the padlock. It appeared to be old and rusty, but when he looked more carefully he saw that it was a new lock. Someone had put grime on it to make it look old. He searched around and found an old padlock, well rusted but the metal bright where the hasp had been cut.

So, the old lock had been cut and replaced with a new one. The three men had a key to this one.

Hector traced back his steps and took a tunnel into a cool cave that once served as a storehouse for wine. He climbed to the subbasement and then out a window recessed near the ground. He walked along the alley and then into the sunlight.

At noon, Hector saw the man from the office building who usually gave him a five at lunch. Hector said, "I need to talk."

"Sure," the man said, as he always did, and handed Hector the five dollar bill.

Hector repeated, "I need to talk."

The man had been striding away. He stopped and turned. He said, "I've never heard you say anything except 'I need some money.' What do you want to talk about?"

Hector said, "Paint."

The man looked at him hard. "All right. You ready to eat?"

Hector said, "Yes." If the man would feed him it would not matter if he missed the money from the rest of the lunch hour workers.

"I'll meet you in the plaza," the man said.

Hector walked to the plaza and stood looking around. He wasn't sure he would know the man because so many people eating in the plaza looked alike.

The man found him. He handed Hector a cardboard carton and a clear liquid in a dark green glass bottle. "Spring water," the man said, "and gnocchi, do you like it?"

Hector said, "I want to talk."

The man said, "My name is Sonny."

Hector said nothing.

"You are supposed to tell me your name."

"Hector."

"We eat some, Hector, then we talk. Have you had gnocchi before?"

Hector said, "No."

Sonny said, "It's a potato pasta."

They ate silently. Hector finished the gnocchi first. He had not yet opened the bottled water. The man put everything but the bottle in the carryout bag and threw it in the trashcan. He looked at his watch. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Paint that glows in the dark."

Sonny said, "It's called fluorescent paint. You shine black light on it—actually ultraviolet light—and it glows. Have you ever been to the natural history museum? They have a display of fluorescent crystals in a dark room illuminated with ultraviolet light."

Far back in the mists of his memory, Hector did recall the glowing rocks. He'd gone there as a young child with a class, maybe in the third grade. He'd pushed the button by the display a few times and saw the rocks and crystals flash into brilliance. But it had been so meaningless to his world that he'd quickly forgotten about it.

Hector asked, "Can you wash the paint off walls?"

Sonny said, "Probably not, at least not easily. It's like other paint. Like all this graffiti you see. It takes a lot of effort. One way is to paint over it, but then you can see blocks of new paint. They never match. Why are you interested in fluorescent paint?"

Hector said, "I bring you some tomorrow. You tell me about it?"

"Sure," Sonny said. This time you bring the food. Here's a twenty."

That night Hector chipped away some of the paint. He put it in an empty plastic cup. He traced out more of the forward route that the men had marked. Finding the faint paint took time. Finally, he saw where they had broken down another door. They had done something to the hinges so the door could be opened from the outside although locked from the inside.

He stepped into the room. He recognized fresh construction. The new baseball stadium was above. He found a place where the paint had been put, not on the wall, but on the floor—a big round circle. Without the glow, it was too faint to be easily noticed. On his way back he found one of the spray cans. He took it with him the next day to meet Sonny. He bought two combo meals with soft drinks at the fast food place. He got to the plaza early and sat there waiting patiently.

Once again Sonny insisted that they eat before talking. Hector finished first. After Sonny finished, Hector gathered up the loose wrappers, cups, straws, and lids. They filled the paper bag almost as full as it had been with the food. He tossed the bag in the trash. He showed Sonny the flakes of paint and the empty spray can.

"Yes, fluorescent paint all right. See, the same color, orange."

Hector said, "I need cans like this."

Sonny said, "You can get them easily enough. This one came from a builder's supply store on Houston Street."

Hector said, "I need some money."

"Ah," Sonny said. "No more talk. That's more like the old Hector."

Over the next two weeks Hector succeeded in buying twenty cans of the same color of fluorescent orange paint, usually only one or two a day. Every spare moment he spent below ground. He even avoided the opening day baseball crowd, normally a great time for collecting handouts, so he could finish his work along the many tunnels.

That morning he heard others in the tunnels. They were angry voices, but still speaking in harsh whispers. Four men carried suitcases, and two other men carried tool bags. The suitcases looked heavy. The men carrying them stayed well spaced from one another, about ten steps apart, as if the suitcases should not come too close to one another. The two with the tool bags, who walked in front, appeared exceptionally nervous.

They whispered urgently to one another, pointing this way and that. Because of the florescent arrows Hector had added, they were thoroughly lost. Finally, one of the men with the tool bag uttered some words that Hector did not understand. The four men put down the suitcases, still maintaining the careful separation. They blundered away, heading generally back toward the river.

The two men with the tool bags put on headbands that had bright flashlights. They concentrated on opening the first suitcase. They positioned their heads to cast the light on the inner mechanism in the suitcase.

Silently Hector lifted the last suitcase that was far out of their sight. It was a surprisingly heavy suitcase. He grunted as he lifted it, but one of the men moved then and made a scraping sound, so he didn't hear Hector's grunt.

He carried it away from the two men with the bright lights and tools. He sat it down and went back for another one. He put it in a tunnel away from the first one. He retrieved the third one, and he was well on his way when he heard the two men yelling at one another. Finally, they marched away in disgust. He stayed out of their sight.

Hector came back after they left and hid the remaining suitcase. Over the next few weeks he managed to drag all four of them along the long passageway to the abandoned bunker under the World War II explosive factory. The bunker was small, and the four suitcases had to be put close to one another.

A few days later Hector was taken to the emergency room because he had fainted while panhandling outside a downtown office building. He was anemic, had lost some of his hair, and had bleeding gums. Tests showed that he suffered from radiation poisoning.

The resident said, "Probably broke into a hospital to get drugs and got some radioactive doses instead."

Hector spent the night in the hospital. He slept between clean sheets for the first time in twenty years. He dreamed of Sonny, the man who gave him talk as well as money. As he dreamed, he passed from this world to a better one. He never had to ask for money again.

Nor did he know that on the morning he had interrupted the men, overhead in the bright light of a beautiful spring day, the President of the United States had stood on the baseball mound and tossed out the first pitch.

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