The Tower

"Guess that doesn't leave me with much of a choice, does it?" he answered, and she started to smile. "Door locks behind you on your way out." He got up and left without even turning around to look at her.

"Without even turning around," she had sobbed to her friends later.

That was the last time he had spoken to her. And the next night seemed like the best night of sleep of his life.

He especially appreciated his solitude in the morning, like now, as he walked over and opened the blinds, letting in full sunlight. His bedroom, like the rest of the house, was sparsely furnished. Bookcases, filled with psychology and forensic pathology texts, faced his bed from the left side. A few pictures were arrayed on top of the shelves: Jade and Tony at a baseball game, Jade running the hundred for the UCLA track-and-field team, Jade at the batting cages. Next to them was a picture of a young boy with drooping features. It was an old snapshot with creased corners, and the small metal frame around it was greatly worn.

Jade walked over to his bookshelf and picked up the framed picture of the boy. He held it tenderly for a moment, then ran his thumb across his lip and set it back down. The normal scowl returned to his face.

After jumping into his Nike cross-trainers and a pair of running shorts, Jade mixed himself a fruit drink and swallowed it in a few gulps. The screen door banged twice behind him as he took off down the street, enjoying the fresh morning air.

His knees rose with his hands at the apex of his stride. His arms swung, relaxed, his elbows bent to perfect right angles, betraying his background in track and field. The sound of his breathing echoed in his head as he made his way through a network of streets, and he timed his step by it. He barely saw the trees and mailboxes as they whistled by; he kept his eyes focused on the ground, about ten feet in front of him.

Beginning to speed up his pace, Jade legged his way up a steep incline, driving himself against the slope. He reached a near sprint and the veins stood out against his thighs and calves. A silver chain danced against his neck as he ran.

He swept the back of his arm across his forehead and the diver's dial on his watch cut into his flesh. He didn't even notice the blood seeping out as his feet jarred on the pavement.

Turning the corner, Jade eased into a slower jog as he entered La Vista de los Arboles, a community park. Although it was in a bad part of San Jose, Jade stopped to stretch. He was accustomed to far worse places. The park was located on the edge of a gang zone, but Jade wasn't easily intimidated. Even gang members wouldn't want to tangle with someone like him.

He leaned forward against the fence to stretch his calves. He liked to stretch once he was well into a run. The park was a little under the halfway point of his workout, so it was a good place to break and loosen up.

A kid leaned back against the fence about twenty feet down from Jade, talking to a friend. He wore low-slung jeans and a sideways baseball cap, and he had a beeper latched to his front pocket. A cigarette was stuck awkwardly in the corner of his mouth underneath a bad teenage mustache. The smoke carried all the way up to Jade. He hated smoke.

The park was usually quiet this early in the morning, but as Jade glanced around, he noticed a group of boys gathered in the jungle-gym area, past the kid with the cigarette and his friend. The boys wore buttoned-up shirts, sweaters tied around their waists, and blue corduroys. They weren't quite in their teens, yet their faces had the early trappings of apathy. They looked very out of place.

Jade started to walk over to them. As he passed the smoker, Jade reached out nonchalantly and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. He broke it in half with a flick of his thumb and dropped it, never turning his head.

"Hey, fuck you, Homes!" he heard from behind him. "Yeah, that's right. You'd better keep walking." He heard the kid's hands slap to his thighs after he finished each sentence.

Jade approached the group of boys slowly. There were five of them, four sitting with their shoulders angled toward the fifth, who stood with one foot in the bucket of a swing. If you check the body posture, you can always find the ringleader, he thought.

The boy's thickly freckled face squinted up at Jade. He had reddish-brown hair flipped defiantly to one side. "Yeah? Whaddya want?" he sneered.

Jade sighed and shifted his jaw forward. "You kids from around here?"

"No," the boy replied. "Are you?" His friends guffawed, sinking their mouths into their hands to cover their giggles. Definitely private-school material, Jade thought.

"Look, you self-righteous little cocksucker," Jade said. The smirk on the boy's face vanished. "I don't really care where you're from. This is a dangerous park and you're gonna get hurt if you hang around here. What are you doing here?"