After all those whackos started showing up, no one in the neighbourhood came right out and said they wished Lillian and Bobby would move somewhere else, but you could see most of us were thinking it.
I live a few blocks from Lillian’s place, on the other side of McCarren Park, and the neighbourhood became a circus pretty much day one after they found out where Bobby lived. Whole area was buzzing. First there were the reporters and the guys who wanted a soundbite for one of their blogs or tweets or whatever: ‘What’s it like living so close to the miracle child?’ etc., etc. I always told them to go fuck themselves, although there were lots of guys in the neighbourhood who saw this as a chance for their fifteen minutes. Assholes. Then came the UFO crowd. They were totally mondo bizarro, but you could tell most of them were harmless. They’d hang out outside Bobby’s building shouting shit like, ‘I wanna go with you, Bobby!’ but the cops cleared them out. They weren’t as tenacious as the religious whack-jobs. Those ones came in waves. There were freaking scores of the fuckers when the news broke about Lillian’s husband, a whole contingent who wanted Bobby to heal them–looked to me like they’d hired themselves a bus and driven down especially from Nutsville Carolina or wherever. ‘Bobby! Bobby!’ you could hear them shout, even after it got dark. ‘I got cancer, touch me and heal me.’ Those weren’t anywhere near as bad as the nasty ones, who’d hang around the park and harass people. ‘God hates fags,’ they’d shout, but what that had to do with a six-year-old is anyone’s guess. There were others that looked like they’d fallen straight out of a comic strip: ‘The End is Near,’ and ‘Have YOU been saved?’ on their T-shirts and placards. Soon it felt like I couldn’t step outside the apartment without running into one of them. You know the neighbourhood, right? It’s a mix, like a lot of Brooklyn, you got your arty crowd, hipsters, Hasidics, lots of guys from the Dominican Republic, but the nut-jobs stood out a mile.
Don’t get me wrong, much as it all got old really quickly, I felt sorry for Lillian. Most of us did. My girlfriend reported a couple of the nastier ones for hate speech, but what could the cops do? Those freaks didn’t care if they were arrested. They wanted to be martyrs.
That morning, I was heading to work, and for some reason, I decided to take the L train rather than the bus, which meant I had to walk through the park and on past Lillian’s building. In the early mornings, a lot of what my girlfriend calls the ‘hipster dad gang’ jog through the park while pushing their baby buggies, but the guy I saw hanging around the benches near the sports centre was definitely not a stay-at-home dad who dabbled in pop-up restauranteuring or whatever in his spare time. This dude was just sitting there, but I could tell something was off with him, and not just because of how he was dressed. It was a warm morning–not hot and humid like it sometimes gets–but muggy, and this guy was dressed for winter, long black army-style trenchcoat, a black beanie hat. I nodded at him as I passed by, but he looked straight through me. I tried to shrug it off, but when I reached Lorimer I just got this feeling that I should hang around, check what he was doing in the neighbourhood. For all I knew, he could just be some poor homeless guy or whatever, but something told me to be sure. I looked around for the cops that were sometimes parked outside Lillian’s building, but I couldn’t see them. I’m not a spiritual person or anything, but this voice inside me said, Neil, go get yourself a coffee, check the dude out, and then head to work. So that’s what I did. I grabbed a large black Americano from Orgasmic Organic and started on back to the park.
When I got back to Lillian’s street, I could see the creepy dude heading towards me, walking really slowly. That feeling came back, and I knew there was something seriously wrong with him. The street wasn’t empty, there were lots of people heading out to work, but I focussed on him and sped up my pace. The door to Lillian’s apartment opened, and an old woman with dyed red hair and a kid in a baseball cap stepped out onto the pavement. I knew it was them straight away. Whoever thought up that disguise didn’t use their imagination.
‘Watch out!’ I screamed. The next bit happened fast, but also like in slow motion, if that makes sense. The creepy guy pulled out a gun–I don’t know guns so I couldn’t have told you what it was–and just started crossing the road, ignoring the traffic. I didn’t think twice. I ran straight for him, flipped the lid off the top of my coffee, and threw it right at the fucker. Right in his face. He still got a shot off, but it went wide, hit a Chevrolet that was parked in the street.
Everyone was screaming and yelling, ‘Get down, get the fuck down!’
Next thing I know, this dude came out of nowhere–found out later he was an off-duty cop who’d just gotten off work–and shouted at the gunman to ‘drop his fucking weapon’. The freaky dude did as he said, but by then you could see he wasn’t a threat. He was blubbering and rubbing at his eyes and face. That coffee was hot and his skin was bright red. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the road and the cop kicked his gun away and got straight on his radio.
I ran over to Lillian and Bobby. Lillian’s face was ashen, and I was scared she was going to have a heart attack or a stroke or something. But Bobby, I don’t know if it was the shock or whatever, but he’d started giggling. Lillian grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. Seemed like seconds later the street was full of police cars. That freaky dude was hauled to his feet and taken away. I hope the fucker rots in hell.
That cop called me later, said I was a hero. Mayor’s office said I was looking at a civilian medal for bravery. But I did what anyone would’ve done, you know?
I didn’t see Lillian and Bobby around the neighbourhood after that. They went to that safe house, right? That’s what the old lady who lived in their building said. Lillian sent me this really cool email, saying as how she’ll never forget what I did that day. I teared up when I read it. The next time I saw them was on the news.