~2.11~

“The kids at the mall?” Larry repeated, chuckling. “What, you mean… with their baggy pants and their rap music and how they don’t have no respect for nothing?”

“No,” Nick said. “I mean, at the Mile Mall… haven’t you ever noticed how there’s always a bunch of kids there?”

“So? It’s a mall,” Larry said. “Kids hang out there. That’s what kids do.”

“What about school?” Nick asked. “What about family? You go there any time, and there’s always gonna be kids there.”

“You didn’t play hooky sometimes?” Larry asked.

“Didn’t go to school,” Nick grunted. “Night classes. GED.”

“I didn’t know that,” Larry said.

“Grew up on the east side,” Nick said. “I know this stuff, Art. I know it… you go to the Mile Mall any time of any day, and there‘s going to be kids there. Not sometimes. All the time.”

“I don’t spend a lot of time at the mall,” Larry said. “The wife drags me out every year to look at the Christmas lights, but… Christmas. There’s no school then. What else are kids going to do?”

“They live there,” Nick said knowingly. “In the mall.”

“I’m sure it seems that way,” Larry said. “Look, you just lost your daughter and I know that must…”

“You think I’m crazy?” Nick asked.

“I think you’re inebriated,” Larry said.

“You’re God damn right I am!” Nick said. “But I know what I’m talking about. Go down to the mall. Now. Anytime you like. Look at the kids, Art… look at them. Notice them. Count them.”

“Count them?” Larry repeated.

“Count them,” Nick repeated. “Nobody really notices them much, and when they do, they only see a few at a time. Because you go down to the mall at noon on a school day, and there’s a hundred kids there, your brain’s gonna go, ’What the fuck?’ So it tells you there’s only a few, as many as you can handle.”

“I think it’s time for you to go,” Larry said.