Kid Detective
Another day, another crime. I start my morning the way I always do: a cup of Nesquik, black, hold the sugar. If I don’t keep these streets safe, who will? Gotta stay vigilant. With a kiss on the cheek from Mom, I slip on my fedora and make sure the door is locked behind me. I don't trust a soul but my own, and just barely. As I walk down the street, I greet my neighbors. Good people, most of them. But they don't appreciate how much I do for them. Sure they know me, they know my name, they just never take the time to get past the introductions.
“Hey kid detective!” It's Dale from down the street, he’s mowing his lawn. I hate being called that, it makes me feel small. So what if I’m nine, how many private detectives under double digits do you know? I command respect. I put a hand up in recognition. I pass a group of kids playing a game of pick up basketball on the street. My feet and hands ache, yearning to get in there. I open my mouth to shout out to them, to feel seen by kids my age, but instead what comes out is: “Get out of the street.” I wince at my own words. They sound like they came from a stranger. “It's not safe to play ball there!”
When I get to the crime scene, I lift the yellow tape and duck under, heading right over to my partner.
“Gomez, you bastard. What do we have today?”
“It's lookin’ like a double homicide from where we're at right now kid, but could uncover another body any minute.”
“Jesus. I wouldn't let my wife walk anywhere without me these days.” Gomez hands me the paperwork for the case but I can't read it. Couldn't stay in school past first grade so all words look the same to me.
“Alright, I’m goin’ in.”
I walk over to the bodies. They used to try and stop me. Said I was too young for all this to do me any good. But they know better now. Know better than to try and get between me and the law.
It's one of the worst scenes I’ve seen in my 9 years. Blood, yes. Guts, naturally. But the part that really stops me is how little I can identify in any of it. I fall to my knees, letting my little body go slack. My kid hands fumble around in the blood, searching. Searching for a weapon, a bone, anything. My fingers close around a knife, having to grip it with both hands because of how small they are because I am a kid.
“Got it,” I manage to choke out. I reach into my pocket and pull out my flask of apple juice.
“It's 10 in the morning,” Gomez protests. Pussy.
“Something to take the edge off!” I spit at him.
I'm the last to leave the scene that night – how it usually goes. Most kids need at least 8 hours a night, they say. Most kids are pathetic. The dark cold bites through my trenchcoat and I pull up my collar around my neck to protect the vulnerable skin. The most important part of this job, you have to remember, is to let every day start over again. Tomorrow I won't remember anything of today, and the day after that I won't remember anything of tomorrow. That's just how it goes. I don't have any concrete memories after turning five. Do I regret it? Of course not. Sometimes I wonder, I do, I would be a fool to try and say I didn't. How it would feel to be a normal kid. To go to birthday parties and play with toys and wear baseball caps. But that was never an option for me. I was made for this life, like it or not.
I walk into the house and hang my fedora by the door. “Hi honey,” Mom yells from the other room, “You hungry?” I can see dried blood under the corners of my fingernails. “Yeah Mom, I'm starving.”
