If he doesn’t approach me, I’ll leave him alone.

Pete had been watching the boy for an hour now. The kid was blond, slight, couldn’t be more than twenty, couldn’t be more out of place in this bar, with its leather-skinned career drinkers bundled up in work shirts and steel-capped boots. The boy had blown in out of the cold a while back–blue-lipped, shivering, hands cupped beneath his armpits, his jeans and pink denim jacket scant protection against the blizzard raging outside. But it hadn’t taken long for the boy to regain his mojo. Shaking off the chill, he’d made for the bar, slid onto a stool like he owned the place. Unselfconscious, unconcerned at the glances–not all friendly–that were shot his way. Pete’s neighbour, a racist asshole who’d been knocking back boilermakers, started droning on about the Million Man March. Pete nodded along, but his eye kept being drawn to the boy, a magnetic pull that he’d given up fighting. Something had woken up inside him. Something had uncoiled, flickered to life.

If he doesn’t approach me, I’ll leave him alone.

Every so often the boy slid off his bar stool and weaved over to one of the tables, where he tried to engage the patrons in conversation. All he’d gotten so far, apart from a cigarette and a good-natured grope from a female barfly, were shaken heads and rude gestures. It was unclear what he was saying to the folks he approached–the bartender was into Kenny Rogers and was blasting that shit out loud–but he couldn’t be soliciting sex. This part of town would be the last place you’d come for that, unless you were blind or stupid. Could be that he was asking for a ride; could be he was asking for a handout.

‘Fuckin’ queer,’ a guy pinballing his way to the men’s room mouthed as he passed the kid, but it was a half-hearted jibe. It was late and everyone had reached the maudlin stage of the evening. There was no sense of suppressed violence here, and the boy had picked up on this. This time when the fellow he’d been hassling waved him away, the boy flipped him the bird, then sauntered back to the bar.

The tables nearest the door emptied one by one, and the bartender started upending chairs, nodding along to ‘Just Dropped In’. Time was running out. The boy made for the payphone. He dug out a clutch of coins, dropped them in, dialled. He was gripping the handset too tightly. He hung up, rested his forehead against the wall, shrugged, and then returned to his seat. The kid may be in trouble, but he still had that thing, that inner self-assurance that no amount of hardship could fully extinguish. That thing she’d had. It was in every fluid movement. Pete’s neighbour belched, slapped a dirty dollar onto the counter, then stumbled out.

The boy looked over, downed his drink. Caught Pete’s eye. Smirked. Hesitated.

If he doesn’t approach me, I’ll leave him alone.

The boy approached.