God, Help Jordan

This is a story that I just got done writing...and editing.  I just edited it right after writing it, so hopefully it's still good.  I present to you the story, "God, Help Jordan."

            I had just opened the door of the ones’ room at the daycare I was working at.  Lisa had left, so she wouldn’t be seeing her mommy walking through the halls and start crying.  I looked down the hall and right outside the wide glass doors when I saw something that scared me.  I quickly shut the door and turned to my co-worker, Lana.

            “Lana, what do we do in case of a shooter?”  Walking up toward the doors was a boy who looked about nineteen, carrying a pistol…and he didn’t look happy.

            “Why?”

            “I think there is one.”  I shut the door quickly and locked it.

            Her eyes widened and her face froze into a mask of terror.  “I don’t know….  We haven’t had a class about that yet!”

            That was one of the curses of not being a lead teacher.  “Okay….um…take the kids in the bathroom and lock the door.  I’ll clean up and make it look like no one’s here and then I’ll come in the bathroom too.”

            She looked at me skeptically.  “Is that really a good idea?”

            “Yes.  No.  How am I supposed to know?  There could be more shooters outside!”  That scared her enough so she quickly gathered all the little ones and went into the bathroom.  I heard the click as the lock turned.  “When I need in, I’ll say…um, ‘Matthew, 7:7.’  Don’t let me in unless I say that.  Only that.”

            There was no reply, but I hoped she’d heard.  I was terrified as I unlocked the door and picked up the toys from off the floor.  What would I say if he came in and asked where the kids were?  I wasn’t a liar.  Would I be able to lie to protect all the children in the bathroom?  All the kids that I loved as though they were my own?  My hands shook as I picked up stuffed animals, toy xylophones, and foam blocks.  I screamed at myself in my mind, telling myself to calm down.  The door swung open and I spun around.  The shooter was there.

            “Where are the kids?”  He asked menacingly, holding his gun toward me.

            I shook as I stared at him, I was so scared.

            “I said, ‘where are the kids?!’”  He thrust the gun at me, his finger tightening on the trigger.

            I did the only thing I could think to do.  I stalled.  “Whoa, whoa…hold on.”  My voice cracked, squeaked, and shook.

            His eyes narrowed.  “What do you mean?”

            “I mean c-calm down.  Wh-why do you want to know where the kids are?”

            He laughed humorlessly.  “I would have thought that would be obvious.”

            “Okay, so you…you want to shoot them?  You want to…to….”  I couldn’t finish.

            “I want to kill them.”

            I was still scared, but even less than I was scared, I was confused.  “But why?  What did they ever do to you?”  My confusion took away the shaky stuttering of my voice.

            His eyes narrowed.  “You should thank me.  I’m keeping them from going through my childhood.”

            “Say what now?”

            “My childhood was rotten,” bitterness filled his voice, “but I’m going to keep them from having that kind of childhood.”

            It was strange and odd, but suddenly I didn’t so much see him as an evil murdering man, I saw him as a confused hurt child.  I saw it in his eyes.  He wanted to protect these children, but he wasn’t doing it the right way at all.  But as I looked at him, since I saw a child, I started acting like I would toward one of my daycare children.  “Here, put your gun down.”  I patted the table.  “Put it right here.”

            “You’re going to call the police.”

            I held up my hands.  “I don’t have my cell phone on me and there’s no buttons for me to press.  Just put your gun right here, and I want to talk to you.”

            His eyes narrowed suspiciously, but shockingly, wondrously, he put his gun down.

            “Tell me about your childhood.”

            He swallowed and I saw a myriad of emotions cross his face.  “My father beat me.  My teachers made fun of me.  I had no friends growing up.”

            “And is this how you plan to make friends?”

            “I know what will happen after this.  I’m going to go to prison.  And I’ll have to stay there for life.”

            “So why do it?”

            He looked straight in my eyes, his green ones piercing into my blue ones, “I told you.  I want to save them from a childhood like mine.”

            I reached over and slid his gun closer to me.  He bristled up, but didn’t try to pull it back toward him.  “But don’t you realize that by killing them, you’re taking away their entire childhood?”

            “But they’ll have had a good one.”

            “What about their siblings?  The ones who don’t come here?  You’ll give them a painful childhood by taking away their brother or sister.”

            He looked down.

            “What about their parents?”

            He swallowed hard.  “Their parents probably don’t really care about them.”

            “Oh yes they do.  I work here every day after school and every day from ten to five during the summer and breaks.  I see kids getting dropped off by their parents and I see kids getting picked up by their parents.  I can tell that their parents love them and that they love their parents.”

            “What if their parents change their mind?”

            I reached out and put my hand on his arm, “They won’t.”

            “Mine did.”

            I looked at the ground.  “But someone out there will love you and they won’t change their mind.”

            “No one has ever loved me.”  A tear welled up in his eye.  “And I’ve lost hope that anyone ever will.  The only ones who have ever loved me have been book and movie characters.”  He turned his arm so his forearm was facing upward.  It was covered in harsh scars and wounds.  “And my knife.”

            I gasped.  Without thinking I reached out to touch his arm.  He winced as my cold fingers touched his wounds and scars.  The daycare worker and motherer in me came out as I quickly wet a washcloth and gently stroked his wounds with it.  He looked at me confused.

            “Why?”

            “Why what?”  I looked at him confused.

            “Why this?”  He gestured toward his arm.

            “You’re hurt.  You need someone to take care of you.  Now let me see your other arm.”

            He showed me his other arm, also covered in wounds and scars and I repeated the process.

            “Th-thank you.”  He whispered.

            “You’re welcome.  Please don’t do this.”  I gestured toward the gun.  “Please.  These children don’t deserve this.  Their families don’t deserve this.  I’ll be your friend.”

            “You don’t know how many people have said that.  They all left me.  I’m too much work, too strange.  I have too much baggage.”

            My heart broke for this young stranger sitting across from me.  “Well, not all of them had Jesus on their side.  And he’ll be your friend and love you too.”

            He laughed bitterly.  “I’ve been told that.  But then the people who tell me that abandon me and treat me like I’m dirt under their feet.”

            “Well, I won’t.”

            “They’ve said that too.”

            “Give me a chance.”

            He was silent.

            “My name is Izzy.”

            “Jordan.”

            “It’s nice to meet you Jordan.”

            We sat in awkward silence for good while, each of us wondering what we were supposed to say.

            “Please don’t shoot them.  Please don’t hurt them.”

            “I won’t.  You’re right.  They don’t deserve it.  No one does.  And you don’t deserve to be burdened with a person like me.”

            “I chose to be your friend, so that’s not up to you to decide.”

            “There’s only one person who deserves death here.”  He went on as though he hadn’t heard me.

            A knot grew in my stomach.

            He looked right at me.

            My heart stopped.  Something bad was about to happen.

            “Me.”  He reached for the gun and put his finger on the trigger, then put it to his head.

            I grabbed it without thinking and pulled it downward just as he pulled the trigger.  Immediately I felt a sharp, burning pain enter my chest and a scream tore out of me.  Jordan looked at me, shocked and in dismay.  He looked at his hand that held the gun, but I wrenched it away from him, pointed it toward the ceiling and pulled the trigger over and over and over again until all I heard were empty clicks, then I threw it down on the ground and grabbed both of his hands with mine.  I was shaking and I leaned into him to keep me upright.

            “I killed you….”  He was shaking too.

            There was blood everywhere when the police walked in.  They stopped, surprised to see me in the arms of the person they assumed shot me, but I shook my head.

            “He didn’t shoot me!  He didn’t shoot me!”  I whimpered.  Things got blurrier, but I still saw the paramedics come in and felt them lift me onto the stretcher.  I still saw the police handcuff Jordan.  “He didn’t shoot me!”  I told them again, but I didn’t think they heard me.  And then I blacked out.

            When I came to I was lying on a hospital bed, extremely bandaged, and with a sharp pain in my chest.  I was still alive.  I was sure I was going to die that day, but I hadn’t.  I grabbed the hand of the nurse who had come in to check on me.

            “Where’s Jordan?”  I croaked out.

            “Jordan?”

            “The shooter who was at the daycare.”

            Her eyes darkened and I could tell she was already judging him in a bad light.  “He’s in a holding facility until the trial next week.”

            I nodded.

            “They’ll probably ask you to be a witness.”

            “And I will say that he is innocent of shooting me.”

            “What about coming in to shoot up the place?”

            “He intended to.”

            “And then?”

            “Then he tried to kill himself.”

            She gave me an odd look.  “So he went from trying to shoot up a daycare to trying to kill himself?  Why did you get shot?”

            “I yanked the gun away from him.”

            “Why couldn’t you just let that scum die?”  She scoffed.  “If I was in your place, I would have shot him myself.”  Then she walked away.

            I sighed and realized that this slight movement caused pain to my chest.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jordan.  I wanted to be his friend.  He needed a friend, someone to show him they cared.  He was right about having a lot of baggage though.  I didn’t think he needed to be locked up in a jail.  I thought he needed to get some therapy though.  And get a strong group of people that cared about him.  I’d never been involved in any kind of shooting before and now I wondered if I’d been misinterpreting other shooters.  Maybe they were all like Jordan and thought they were protecting children from having horrible childhoods like them.  I thought about it…and decided that I doubted it.  A lot of them were probably psychopaths or sociopaths.

            I felt myself falling asleep, but before I did, I prayed, Dear God, help Jordan.  And I was sound asleep

©Katie Holm 2014