Knights and Dragons

When I was young, my mama told me the story of St. George and the dragon. What she didn’t tell me was that dragons are real. They aren’t the winged beasts covered in green scales from the stories of old but ordinary-looking people dressed in designer suits and ties. They walk among us hidden in plain sight, taking, ravaging, leaving behind only the ashes of ruined lives. I lived with one.

I was twelve years old when I faced my first dragon. It was a hazy summer afternoon, too hot to go outside, too hot to do anything at all. The mayoral mansion, usually a hive of activity, was still and quiet. The only sounds to be heard were the dull clack of my father’s keyboard in the adjacent room and the rhythmic swish of my mama’s mop dragging across the floor in the hall.

I lay sprawled on my stomach on the library carpet, a book open in front of me. Before long, I was lost in a fantasy of brave knights, fair maidens, fearsome monsters, and epic battles. Angry voices rose from outside, jerking me out of the story. I recognized the voices instantly.

“You clumsy bitch, you messed me up on purpose!”

It was an accident, honest! I was just trying to clean-”

“Are you blind or just stupid? A house this size, and you can’t find anything to clean besides my office…”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, distracted but not distressed… not yet. Closing my book, I stood up and crossed the room to put on some music. With the volume up as far as it could go, the upbeat songs drowned out the sounds of my parents fighting, but they couldn’t drown out my thoughts. I paced the floor, my hands clenched into fists.

I knew how this would go down. Any moment, my mama would walk through the door with fresh bruises on her body, tears in her eyes, and a smile on her face despite it all. Every time I saw her like that, I died a little inside, yet I was too weak and powerless to stop it.

There was a loud THUD. Then it was quiet, too quiet.

***************************

The sight that awaited when I emerged from the library permanently burned itself into my brain. My beautiful, kind mother lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the marble staircase. Blood pooled beneath a wound in her head. Her mop was broken in half, and her bucket lay overturned at her side. Meanwhile, my father leaned nonchalantly against the railing as if nothing happened.

“Mama!” I cried, running to her side.

She looked at me. Her lips parted, but no words came. She reached for me with her last strength, her hand faltering halfway. I caught her limp hand in both of my own, pressing it to my lips. When she didn’t react to my tears splashing onto her skin, I knew she was gone.

I didn’t know how long I sobbed over her lifeless body. The next thing I knew, there was a knock at the door. My father pried me off her, shoving me against the wall. His icy eyes bore into mine.

“Stop crying like a goddamn girl! Stay calm if you know what’s good for you.”

Soon the house was crawling with cops. They tromped through the house, gathering evidence, taking crime scene pictures, stepping over my mother as if she were as insignificant as a loose stone in the street. Of course, my father knew how to work them. He played the part of the innocent bystander in the public eye, and the cops lapped it up like kittens to milk.

“I didn’t see what happened, Officer,” he lied, his face a mask of grief and shock. “I was working in my office and heard a noise. When I went to investigate, I found the poor maid like this… She must’ve tripped while mopping the floors.”

He didn’t acknowledge her as my mother or his lover; she was just the maid.

The cop nodded. “Thank you, Mayor Hart, I’m sorry you had to relive it… must’ve been quite a shock for you.”

“It’s alright. You’re just doing your job.”

A blond man caught my eye. He didn’t look like a cop. He wore a long coat instead of a police uniform. There was a pen tucked behind his ear and a notepad in his hand. “Mayor Hart, may I quote you for the newspaper?”

My father waved a dismissive hand at the question. The man’s eyes darted from my father’s face to my mother’s lifeless body. His eyes lingered on me for a long time, understanding dawning in them. “You’re her son…” There was no hint of question in his voice.

He bent so his eyes were level with mine, his eyes and his tone softening. “Is there anything you’d like to say?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could speak the truth, my father stood between the journalist and me. “No comment! Please… the poor boy just lost his mother. Hasn’t he been through enough?”

The cops murmured amongst themselves, some of them throwing nasty looks at the journalist. Undeterred, he uncapped his pen and scribbled something on his notepad. One of the cops brushed past him.“Mayor Hart, we’re going to need you to come to the station.”

A vein bulged in my father’s temple, and a flicker of anger appeared in his eyes, the faintest crack in his calm facade. “You - are you arresting me?”

“Not at all, Mr. Mayor. It’s just to take an official statement, a formality really.”

He followed the cop outside, leaving me standing alone with my mother’s corpse in the middle of the crime scene. That was the last I saw of her before the coroner wheeled her away. I’m sorry, Mama, I thought as I stared after her. I wasn’t strong enough to slay your dragon.

That day I made a promise to my mother. Someday I would slay the dragons of the world who prey on the weak and innocent, just like St. George.

The incident was all but forgotten soon afterward. A single mother working as a housekeeper wasn’t the type to stick in the public’s memory, and my father had ways of making them forget. The neighbors who called the police mysteriously moved within months. The cops in charge of the investigation either resigned or were reassigned. Everyone else was distracted by happier news; The honorable Mayor Hart adopted his poor housekeeper’s child as his own son.

The only person unwilling to let the story die was the blond journalist, but a defamation lawsuit put an end to his career. Imagine my father’s surprise when umpteen years on, I became a journalist in my own right!

*******************************

I sat at a table in the back of a crowded nightclub. After a long day of slaying dragons with my pen as my sword, I needed a break, or at least a change of scenery. The city had a serial killer on the loose, and I had a morning deadline to break the story. I sighed, pushing my glasses farther up the bridge of my nose as I pored over my notes. Some talentless band droned on in the background. Above the noise I could make out bits and pieces of conversations nearby.

“You shouldn’t go home alone tonight. There’s a killer on the loose…”

“I’ll be fine. He’s only targeting the rich neighborhoods…”

“Did you hear Governor Hart approved extra funds for our police…”

“I heard he’s bringing the FBI in…”

Sufficiently distracted from my work, I looked up. I leaned back in my chair, taking a sip of scotch as I watched the crowd. A good journalist never knows where he may find a good story, and the people were more interesting than the one I was writing. I watched them mill about, a mob of modern-day knights, dragons, and damsels, some indistinguishable from each other unless you knew what to look for.

One in particular caught my eye, a fat man in an ill-fitting suit and a cheap toupee that looked like a skunk curled up on his head. A dragon if I ever saw one. I saw the way he leered at the doe-eyed blonde in his arms, the way he held her too tight as they danced, the way she looked at him like a cornered animal… It was the exact look I saw in my mother’s eyes whenever she was around my father.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, my good man, May I cut in?”

He turned red, glaring at me, then at the girl. Through his incoherent stammering, I heard a few key words. “You owe me…”

As he turned away, the blonde stared at me with that frightened, deer-in-the-headlights look. For a moment, I thought she was going to run away. Finally she spoke. “Who are you? What do you want?”

I watched her expression change from scared to intrigued as I offered her my card. “Alaric Hart… like the governor?”

“No relation to Governor Hart.” Eager to get off that subject, I jerked my head toward the skunk-haired man. “Tell me, how ever did you get mixed up with a brute like him?”

She tilted her head, silently studying me. “Is this an interview, Mr. Hart?”

I laughed. “Not at all, only an introduction… and perhaps a dance invitation.”

She smiled faintly, placing a trembling hand in my outstretched one. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Hart.”

“Please, my dear. Call me Al.” She nodded silently, though she flinched as I pulled her closer. Her eyes darted nervously around the room, as if expecting something-or someone to jump out and attack.

In the course of one dance, I learned that her name was Nellie Warren, She was the manager of the no-talent band performing onstage, and the skunk-haired man harassing her was the nightclub owner. She didn’t tell me why, though I didn’t know if that was because she was hiding something or because the song ended before she had the chance. All she would say was that he was unhappy with the band. She disappeared backstage as the music stopped, and I lost sight of her for several hours.

****************************

The streets were quiet when the nightclub closed for the night. In the dim glow of the streetlights, I noticed a familiar blonde figure huddled in the alley behind the club. “Nellie? What happened?”

As she looked up, I saw the cut on her lip and the bruise darkening around her eye. Her clothes were torn and her makeup streaked with tears and rain. It wasn’t difficult to guess what happened. The real question was, who did this to her?

I already had a strong suspicion before she choked between sobs, “N-nightclub owner…”

I held her, letting her cry into my chest for as long as she needed. Anger boiled within me, but there was something else too… a fierce desire to protect this girl. I didn’t know where it came from; all I knew was I could not, would not let her end up like my mama!

“Shh...You’re safe now,” I whispered, stroking her hair.

Gradually her sobs subsided. She shook her head, looking up with those teary blue eyes. “Not for long… he’ll be back. If not him, it’ll be another one.” She sighed sadly. “When we started out, booking the band was easy. The clubs just wanted free publicity then. When the publicity ran out, they wanted money… and when the money ran out, they wanted me.”

I blinked dumbly, trying in vain to hide my shock. “You mean these nightclub owners have been hurting you in exchange for booking your band all this time… and the band has no idea?”

She nodded, averting her eyes. I touched her cheek, hoping that would persuade her to look at me again. “Nellie, look at me… these men will never hurt you again.”

That frightened look in her eyes was back. She shook her head. “You can’t promise that.”

“I can, and I do.” I helped her up, draping my coat over her shoulders. “Go on home, darling. It’ll be fine.”

She turned away with one last sad, almost longing look back. I watched her go until her shadow disappeared into the night. Leaning against the back alley wall, I waited. The skunk-haired owner staggered out the side door half an hour later, humming drunkenly.

Noticing me, he frowned. “Go home! We’re closed.”

I followed him down the street, uncapping my pen. “Actually, I was wondering if I could get a quote for the newspaper. What are your thoughts on the city’s recent crime wave?”

The poor fool never saw the knife hidden inside my pen until it was too late. He collapsed, gasping and gagging as he bled out. I wiped off the knife, placing it back in its hiding place, and walked away without so much as a look back.

In the morning, some unsuspecting soul would find the body. There would be another casualty of the killer, another dragon slain, and another headline to write.