Heroes by Robert Cormier Page B

sweet …”
    Sweet young things
. Had he done it before? How many young girls had been invaded by him?
    I shake my head in dismay.
    “Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil. I love the sweet young things.”
    “That isn’t love,” I say.
    “There’s all kinds of love, Francis.”
    “Then, didn’t you know that we loved you?” I say. “You were our hero, even before you went to war. You made us better than we were …”
    He sighs, his lips trembling, and his voice trembles, too, when he asks:
    “Does that one sin of mine wipe away all the good things?”
    “That’s a question you should ask Nicole,” I say, my eyes measuring him. Until this moment I haven’t planned where I will place the bullet, whether to aim for that spot between the eyes or for his chest, his heart. It isn’t a question of aiming, really, not at this distance. Only desire. The desire to avenge what he did to Nicole and to the other young girls, now that I know about them.
    He waves his hand at me, as if dismissing the gun in my hand.
    “Know why I’m sitting in this chair, Francis? And barely stood up when you came in? My legs aregone.” He gestures toward the table and I notice for the first time the aluminum crutch leaning against the table. “No more dancing for me, Francis. No more sweet young things. No more anything.”
    “Am I supposed to feel bad for you?”
    “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, turning his eyes away from me. “If I wanted one thing, it would be to have you look at me again the way you did at the Wreck Center. When I was the big hero you say I was. But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
    I am tired of this talk, impatient to do what I’ve come here to do.
    “Say your prayers,” I tell him, just as I’ve rehearsed those words so many times through the years. I’ve decided to aim for the heart after all, to shatter his heart the way he broke Nicole’s and mine—and how many others?
    “Wait,” he calls out, reaching toward a small table next to his chair and a cigar box on the table. He opens the box and withdraws a pistol, like my own, a relic of the war.
    I flinch, my finger agitated on the trigger, but he places the gun in his lap, cradling it in his hand.
    “You see, Francis. I have my own gun. I take it out and look at it all the time. I place it against my temple once in a while. I wonder how it would feel to pull the trigger and have everything come to anend.” He sighs and shakes his head, then nods toward me. “So lower your gun, Francis, one gun is enough for what has to be done.”
    He sees the doubt in my eyes and, in a swift movement, removes the magazine from his pistol.
    “Empty,” he says. “You’re safe, Francis. You were always safe with me. So put your gun away. Whether you know it or not, you’ve accomplished your mission here. And you couldn’t have killed me anyway, in cold blood.”
    We stare at each other for a long moment.
    “Please,” he says, and his voice is like the cry of a small child.
    I lower the gun. I remove my finger from the trigger. My hand trembles. I put the gun back in my pocket.
    “Go, Francis. Leave me here. Leave everything here, the war, what happened at the Wreck Center, leave it all behind, with me.”
    Suddenly, I only want to get out of there. The aroma of the soup is sickening and the tenement is too warm. I don’t want to look into his eyes anymore.
    My hand is on the doorknob when he calls my name. I open the door but pause, making myself wait. But I don’t look at him.
    “Let me tell you one thing before you go, Francis. You would have fallen on that grenade anyway.All your instincts would have made you sacrifice yourself for your comrades.”
    Still trying to make me better than I am.
    I close the door, my face hot and flushed under the scarf and the bandage. The coldness of the hallway hits the warmth of my flesh and I shiver. It seems as if I have done nothing