Saving the Children

Bob sighed, knowing what was to come, partially dreading it while another part of him relished in the global pettifogging. 

As the curtain spilled aside, Bob presented himself to the audience from stage left, never right (it was in his contract), and awoke to the applause from the audience. Scanning the crowd through the eye watering bright lights, Bob noticed fewer people than last time, which was fewer than the time before. Didn’t matter, if they knew the full story this crowd wouldn’t even be here, and an entirely different group would be showing up for a related but wholly different toned event. At least he would get a last meal out of that. 

Would they applaud more? Have to think about that. 

Bob (never Robert, also in his contract) raised his left hand over his head, as was his custom, and did a little running kick-punt with his right foot, like a cheap parlor trick version of Babe Ruth. The crowd swelled as their applause surged, just as they always did with his gimmick stutter step. The announcer was just winding up the introduction, providing the basic outline of the deed, as if the people in the crowd didn’t already know. He chuckled to himself briefly, imagining a few people in the back, realizing they were in the wrong event, huffing while they packed up to leave. I thought this was the motivational speaker. Wouldn’t be surprising, given the usual brain power of people who attend these fan club events. Morons. 

With an overly large nose, small beady eyes, and a collapsing chin, people usually didn’t notice him. A larger physique, mostly muscle turned to fat, and narrow arms with a shock of thinning mousy brown hair caused others to briefly scan and then immediately dismiss him as a nobody. Even now, after all the television and media attention, people who ran into him in every day life had to stop and think where they knew him from. 

Thank god for that - life was hard enough without being recognized every time he went to the grocery store. Bob continued to wonder how movie stars put up with it. 

Now, of course, the crowds loved him, and rightly they should. What was reported by officials and the news, and the articles, and the books, is exactly what should have happened. And these adoring crowds should love him for those spurious tales. His woeful features that disappeared him in the past, only caused adoration from his endearing fans, because in a subtle way, he looked like them. He could be them. 

Recounting the story was second nature to Bob now, he even mixed in the start of events, as people knew them, because it built up the tension. Bob had turned out to be a natural story teller, and after the first few live sessions, where because of nervousness he threw up both before and after the event (which didn’t exactly seem fair; what, precisely, was he throwing up the second time), he’d come into himself and found a fabulist lurking in his deep dark depths. 

“Those kids had been gone a long time - almost a week; too long, most thought. No one wagered they would be found, much less alive. The FBI had been called in after that first horrific and dread filled night of desperate searching, and even they had started to surrender. And the parents, you could see it in their eyes, when the television talk shows interviewed them on live tv, from right inside their home. Vacant eyes, they called it. The thousand yard stare, soldiers called it. The fire had gone out, the parents lives were empty shells, no hope remained. Devastated doesn’t begin to describe what it would be like to lose not just one child, which will crush any parent’s soul; but four. 

“The kids had been playing and lounging near their parent’s home in the country, by a creek, although the locals called it a river, even if the maps didn’t show it,” Bob chuckled lightly. Everyone wanted a legacy, in whatever form it took - wasn’t that always the case? “The parents were working inside, remodeling a craft room, and needed several hours to get the crown molding and paint just right. And as any parent knows, kids always get in the way at the worst possible moment. So the parents sent them out for the long afternoon, with dinner and chores scheduled when they returned. 

“They had grown up playing and splashing in that creek. With an even mix of boys and girls, just the right mix mom always said, there were always forts to build, wars to fight, tea parties to attend, airplanes to fly, and boats to build and sail - the place was teeming with unbound adventures. 

“When it was time to break for dinner, the father had come out to call them in, with chores lined up, and dinner being prepared. As calls went unanswered, the dad meandered out towards the creek, increasingly agitated with every step towards an as yet unknown horrific realization. By the time the creek was in sight, he knew in his heart something was wrong. The little ones might have run off on their own, but the older brother and sister kept them in line - with threats of parental retribution if they didn’t listen to rules they already knew, but as kids seemed predisposed to break, every chance they got. 

“Seeing the creek empty of life, and hearing no sounds nearby, the dad felt a dread creep up from within. He wandered up to the old tree house, broken and in need of it’s own refurbishment, to see if they might be there, finding only darkness in the descending twilight. 

“The father spent the entire evening and most of the night wandering through the woods with neighbors and friends hastily called in to help, shouting the children’s names, desperation increasing as his voice deteriorated into a hoarsely pathetic whisper. Finally the police were brought in. A young and smart deputy on duty, who took the initial call, recognized immediately he was out of his depth, and dialed the regional FBI office. A kidnapping team was dispatched that next morning. 

“Then a week went by. 

“Nothing was found. Not a dropped sneaker. Not a smear of blood. Not a misplaced handkerchief. 

“Nothing.”

“What happened next!” a devotee says, trying to urge Bob along with others firing off encouraging shouts and woos, as Bob enjoys an overly dramatic pause. 

“Then I was just minding my own business, walking down the street, hoping to make it home in time for Jeopardy”, Bob relates to the crowd. “When I heard a gunshot, or at least what sounded like a gunshot, coming from my neighbors old abandoned equipment shed. 

“I took off across the field, kitty corner to the road, right at the shed. Carl didn’t have a gun, and wasn’t the type to use it properly if he came into possession of one, so I knew something was wrong right away. How horribly right I was. I was so dreadfully wrong, too.” Bob shakes his head while looking down ruefully. The crowd eats this stuff up, he thought. “The shed was a large dilapidated rectangle, with two sides slouching out towards the ground, as if the wood knew where it came from, and yearned to return. 

“Carl had replaced the door, unbeknownst to me, and it wouldn’t budge when I tried the handle. I found out later that drunken do-nothing had done a complete remodel to that shed. I shook the handle fiercely while shouting ‘is everything ok?’. That’s when I heard the second gunshot, like a canon going off.” 

“What did you do then?!” shouted the same fan boy. It was amazing to Bob that he had groupies. Well, Manson had groupies after all. Bob chuckled to himself. The whole thing was just so funny. 

“Why, I gave that door a good ‘ol punt, just like back in high school” Bob answered, doing his little running kick pantomime again, almost careening off stage, cutting it close to give the crowd a visual thrill. It had actually taken Carl three kicks and apparently a big shoulder heave to pop that door off it’s lock, but what are details to a crowd anyways. Who knew that old drunk had it in him. 

“And that door popped right open, Bob continued, clucking his tongue briefly, fully in the moment now. As the door flew wide, Bob saw his neighbor Carl, facing away from him, a large caliber pistol in his hands, with two bodies lying face down on the floor, and two more on their knees, all with bags over their heads. The two on their knees were snuffling quietly. 

“All four were too small to be adults. 

“As surprised and terrified as I was, I managed to race across the room and tackle that scoundrel, and the revolver flew out of his hand. I didn’t know what to do next, but I knew those people on the floor were the missing kids, sure as I knew the sun would rise the next morning. I just hoped I could save them. 

“Carl was briefly stunned, and in that moment I knew I was no match for him physically; I had to get that gun. As we wrestled on the floor, I got in a lucky knee shot to the groin, and rolled over to where the gun’s path had ended, picked it up, said a small prayer that all the tv shows I watched had gotten it right, pointed it at Carl’s head, and fired. 

“The roar was deafening. But I shot again, not realizing I had screamed the second time, yelling out loud that I was sending him to hell.”

The crowd swelled at this point, living the moment themselves, knowing with the certainty of all onlookers, that they would have done the same thing. Never knowing that Carl had failed everyone in his life for the last time after that door burst open. 

“I got those two kids out of there as fast as I could, running up to the road, carrying one each over my shoulder. I knew they were too stunned to move.”

“I lucked out at that point, with a random motorist coming by almost the same moment I ascended the road bank with those two kids crying and screaming. God knows how far I would have walked to save them.” The crowds down here love any and all intonations of the lord, when they hear how he saved His angels. 

“The unlucky driver had phoned the police from his cell, with me sitting on the side of the road, leaned up against the back tire, holding the now catatonic kids in my arms. I was near tears myself.” He actually had been stunned, although for very different reasons. That had been too close. 

“When the police and paramedics arrived, I took them to the shed, where Carl and the two older children laid silently, with only a slight breeze reaching inside. Alas, only the two youngest Copper kids had been spared. The two oldest had been summarily executed by the killer.” 

Afterwords, Bob shook hands and signed autographs. People adored him for what he’d done, along with the humility he carried forward with each new telling of the story. For someone who had done nothing with his life, he would be remembered forever as the aw-shucks guy who Saved the Children - at least the little brats who couldn’t remember his face or recognize his voice. 

He was famous three times over now. The post-event media, the multiple in-depth articles, the New York Times best selling book, and the made-for-tv movie, had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. 

Bob certainly had enough to build a better dungeon than the one he’d been forced to improvise in his alcoholic neighbor’s shed. And this one would be sound proof.