"Oh, yeah, right, it was. But this, this creature has had something like that happen to him. The hair, the bone growths - ."
"What bone growths?" asked Reuben.
"He,s got huge bony hands, bony feet, bony forehead, you know. There are diseases that produce this kind of growth, and in his case he,s covered with shaggy hair on top of it. He,s isolated like the Phantom of the Opera, like the Elephant Man, like a freak in a carnival, like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man, and he,s out of his mind. And this guy has feelings! I mean intense feelings. You should have seen him standing there looking at Antonio. I mean he was just staring and staring at Antonio. And he put his own hands up, like this, oops, almost pulled out the IV, shit - ."
"It,s okay. You didn,t."
"He put his hands up to his head like this, like the sight of Antonio lying there dead - ."
"Stuart, stop!" screamed his mother. Her tiny little body squirmed in the chair. "You,re just going on and on and on!"
"No, no, no, Mom, I am talking to a reporter. This is an interview. If this guy did not want to hear about Antonio and what happened, he wouldn,t be here. Mom, can you get me another milk shake? Please, please?"
"Gaaaarrrrr!" said his mother and rushed out of the room on her spike heels. Beautiful body, without question.
"Now," said Stuart, "we can really talk, can,t we? I mean she,s driving me crazy. My stepfather beats the hell out of her and she blames it on me. Me. I,m the one to blame for his slashing her entire closet full of clothes with a box cutter, me!"
"What else do you remember about the attack?" Reuben asked. It was inconceivable that this ruddy, bright-eyed boy could die from the Chrism or from anything.
"Strong, unbelievably strong," Stuart replied. "And these guys stabbed him too. I saw that! Saw that! I mean they really stabbed him. He didn,t even flinch, man. He just tore them apart. I mean tore them apart. I mean we are talking gross, man. I mean we,re talking cannibalism here. They,re not letting witnesses talk to the press, but they can,t stop me. I know my rights under the Constitution. I cannot be stopped from talking to the press."
"Right. What else?" asked Reuben.
Stuart shook his head. Suddenly his eyes watered and he turned into a six-year-old right before Reuben,s eyes and started sobbing.
"I,m so sorry they killed your friend," said Reuben.
But the boy was inconsolable.
Reuben stood by the bed with his arm around him for fifteen minutes.
"You know what I,m really afraid of?" the boy asked.
"What?"
"They,re going to get this guy, the Man Wolf, and really hurt him. They,ll shoot him up with a machine gun, they,ll club him like a baby seal. I don,t know. They,ll really hurt him. He,s not a human being to them. He,s an animal. They,ll pump him full of lead the way they did Bonnie and Clyde. I mean they were human beings, yes, but they pumped them full of bullets like they were animals."
"Right."
"And they,ll never know what went on in the guy,s mind. They,ll never know who he really is or was or why he does what he does."
"Does your hand hurt?"
"No. But I wouldn,t know if it was on fire. I have so much Valium and Vicodin in me right now that - ."
"Gotcha. Been there. Okay. What else do you want to tell me?"
For half an hour, they talked about Antonio and his macho in-law cousins and how much they,d hated him because he was gay, and hated Stuart, whom they blamed for Antonio "becoming" gay; they talked about his stepfather Herman Buckler who paid the guys who,d kidnapped Antonio and Stuart, and wanted to kill and mutilate them both; they talked about Santa Rosa, about Blessed Sacrament High School, and they talked about what it means to be a really really great criminal lawyer, like Clarence Darrow, who was Stuart,s hero, and he would take the cases of the marginalized, the neglected, the despised.
Stuart started crying again. "Must be the drugs," he said. He crumpled up again like a little child.
His mom came in with the chocolate milk shake.
"You,re going to get sick, drinking this!" she said with a vengeance, slamming it down on the bedside tray.
When the nurse appeared, she discovered that Stuart had a temperature again and said Reuben