AFTER CURTIS LEFT I WATCHED some old Seinfeld episodes, then crashed, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. As luck would have it, that was the first time Caleb came after me during the night. He had trouble pinning me with his knees in the darkness, but he managed to slap my head a couple of times before going for my eyes. I got a knee into his crotch, pulled his hair, slipped from under him, ran across the room, and flipped on the lights. He was sitting on my bed rocking back and forth wildly and biting his fist.
I scrambled into my shorts, grabbed a T-shirt from the floor of the closet, snatched my running shoes, and made a run for it out the basement back door. I laced up my shoes by the side of the house, listening for Caleb’s footsteps.
I took off through backyards and down side streets. It must have been the middle of the night. House lights were out and the streets were empty. I ran a few miles, until I relaxed and felt ready to deal. When I finally returned, Caleb was focused on a van Gogh Starry Night paint-by-number beside the television set. His painting made the sky look like it was raining fire.
He didn’t even look up when I came in through the back door. “Sorry, Leo,” he said to me. He had calmed down.
“It’s all right, Caleb,” I told him. It was no use mixing things up now.
“God not punish you?” he asked me.
I was thinking God should be on my side, but I paused and thought about his question a moment. “No, Caleb. God not punish you.”
“Jesus love you?”
Where did he get this?
“Yes, Jesus loves you,” I told him, and headed back to bed.