The Charge by Chip Masterson ChipMasterson@yahoo.com Do not read if you are under the age of consent or offended by such things. If you think you might be, don't read it. I needed to earn a little money for the prom, that's why I accepted the job to babysit the Henderson brat. I never had much money and my girlfriend refused to go in my restored Cougar, which was in the shop anyway. I can't work because it interfered with football practice, and my training. A football scholarship is the only way I'm going to college. So this would be a little seed money toward a limo. My charge, Danny Henderson, is twelve going on six. He's always been a brat and nobody would sit for him, that's why the money was good. The Hendersons would be gone until after midnight so I knew I'd be bored stiff. When I got there he was already in his pjs so I got some chicken from the fridge and turned on HBO. It was Friday, so nothing was on. Danny sauntered in and threw down a newspaper. He'd done the crossword puzzle, even the French clues. "Those are supposed to be kind of tough," I said. "They are if you're a doofus." He started dribbling a basketball. In the house. Even though his technique was remarkable for a kid, I told him to knock it off. "I'm bored," he said with a yawn. "You wanna arm wrestle?" "I'll break your puny little arm, you punk." I flexed my 18-incher as proof. I didn't need to roll up the sleeve, the hard mound of my peak pushed it back. At 16 I could bench 315; I was up to 400 this year. "Aw, c'mon. I'm bored." He stretched, and pulled off his pajama top. I was impressed, though I didn't show it. Looks like he'd been doing his calisthenics in PE. You could see all the muscles on his torso, and his arms were pretty decent too. Not like mine, though. I'd worked years on mine. He lay down on the carpet on his stomach, his right hand held up in the air. "Please?" "Alright, kid, if it'll make ya happy." I got down and he grinned with glee, and banged his feet on the floor. "Let's go." I put my hand in his, looked him in the eye and said "Go." He little arm tensed up. He HAD been doing his pull-ups. "How many pull-ups you do, kid?" "Oh, about a hundred. Each arm." He squeezed his hand harder so I squeezed back, just to remind the little liar who's boss. "Is that the best you can do?" he asked. He looked up into my face with such insolence that I gave up being nice. I tensed my forearm to bring him down, but found I couldn't. He must have seen the look of surprise on my face because he grinned in a sort of "what's the matter?" way. I doubled my effort. Nothing. I looked over to see if there was a trick, something he was bracing against, but his torso was bare and there was nothing in the carpet. The muscles of his back worked and he squeezed hard enough that I winced involuntarily. "How much you bench?" he asked. "450," I said, by my voice was tense with the effort. I didn't understand. My big tanned bicep bulged but it couldn't budge him I looked at his bicep and it was round and hard and seemed to have pumped up phenomenally. "I did 450 last year. This year it's closer to six. Each arm." "Liar!" I said, and gave it all I had. My was back ached and my bicep began to tremble. His was cool and smooth. He tightened his grip and I could see the split as a head formed on his muscle. "I'm bored," he said, and yawned. He took my arm halfway down. I couldn't help but panic. Sweat broke out all over my face. He couldn't be beating me! No one in the whole school could beat me, and he was only in the fucking sixth grade! I lost my pride and grabbed his hand with my free hand, and pulled. That brought us back to the middle. "Ho, hum" he said. I yelped in pain as he slammed BOTH my hands to the ground. He wouldn't let go, either. I struggled to keep from crying with the pain, and he giggled. "What do you want, you freak?" I raged at him. "I want to kill you," he said, crushing my thick fingers. "But first I want to see you try to run away." With that he let me go. Furious, I sprung up and gave him a Tai Kwon Do kick to the chest. He staggered back a little but the shock traveled up my leg. I looked around for something, anything to hit him with, and took the basketball. With all my might I hurled it at him. He caught it in one hand! My mouth fell open as he reared back to return the volley, his bicep now a shocking baseball, but then he put his other hand on it. And squeezed. The sides of the ball flattened and for a moment it held this oval shape. He brought it to against chest, where his mounting pecs further dented it. All at once it exploded open, a huge rip tearing straight up it. "Next?" he said, dropping flattened ball. I ran into the kitchen. Grabbing the biggest iron frying pan I could find I swung it. "Stay away from me!" "Come on, do your worst." He walked closer. I hit him in the head with the pan and he went down. Or so I thought. I ran into the garage and found a thick steel chain and an open combination lock. I ran back in, pulled his sinewy arms behind him and wrapped the chain around his wrist four or five times. I set the padlock tight and caught my breath. I could explain later. My girlfriend had dropped me off so I grabbed the keys to Mrs. Henderson's ancient Buick and went back to the garage. I walked up to the door when I heard him laughing. "Wait, before you go, I want to show you something." He hadn't been knocked out by that blow, though his head had dented the iron pan. Fuck the door, I thought, I'm getting out of here. I climbed in the Buick and stuck the keys in. And looked in the mirror. His chest had broken into amazing striations, and it too had pumped up. His shoulders looked like melons and his triceps were huge for a kid. With a grimace he jerked himself free as a steel link zinged into the wall. "One more thing. This?" He pointed at the lock. "Uh-uh." He closed those wiry fingers around the lock and squeezed. Metal crumpled as his fist took it in, and he worked his fingers so that twisted bits of steel fell onto the pavement. I turned the key and gunned the engine. Nothing happened. I didn't move. I checked the parking brake and then a horrible feeling hit me in the stomach just as the wheels spun in a high, angry whine. The bumper groaned where he held it. I gunned the motor but the tires just burned, this kid was out muscling the car! With a laugh he let me fly through the door. I skidded onto the street and took off, turning left, then left again. I rubbed my punished bicep. Then I saw him walking toward me down the middle of the street. I skidded to a stop: how had he gotten there? I swung that boat around and turned the corner, then turned away from where he had been. At the next intersection he was there again! I turned away from him, then out of the housing tract. But he was there! I raced into an industrial area, and every time I turned, he was one step ahead of me. I turned again and saw him in the rear view mirror, then he blurred as he sped away from me. My mouth hung open. At last I came to a dead end by a factory, and heard him walking behind me, swinging that chain he broke with his bare hands and whistling. He hadn't chased me: he herded me. I left the car and ducked into the old tool and die plant. Once inside I found the main fuse box and threw the power on. Light sputtered and an electrical hum filled the air. I hid behind a stack of crates and saw him slide the huge steel door open, slam it shut behind him, and with his had still behind his back deform the steel to seal it shut. "I can hear you whimpering," he called. I bolted and hid behind a die press. He followed, and walked into it. He looked around with a "what is this?" look that was too fake. I thought of the end of "The Terminator" and found the switch. I turned that fucker on. He stood there, watching me, doing that come-on thing with his fingers. Then he sat down with those thin, brawny arms over his head. The die press reached him and I looked at the pressure gauge. It read 1000 lbs per square inch. It continued to read that as it got lower. He ducked his head a little so that it hit is shoulders. And stopped. His biceps ballooned as the pressure gauge rose. 1500 lbs. 1750. 2000 pounds per square fucking inch and it hadn't moved a centimeter. I looked back at him and saw him straighten his head up beneath the rising press. "HAVE I GOT YOUR ATTENTION?" he yelled. His face was filled with joyous determination, exulting in this test of muscle versus machine. At 3000 lbs the press began to whine, the supports creak. He was pushing it back up, his arms tense and hard and thick. Once it was back overhead his lats flared out to twice the width of his rib cage, which was expanding as he sucked in huge lungfuls of air. At 3500 lbs the press started to hiss, and he started to stand up. The electrical whine built and the lights dimmed as the industrial machine drank in energy to crush a 12 year old boy. The hydraulic hoses broke loose and writhed against the wall with the backed-up pressure that had nowhere to go so long as Danny kept exerting his kid muscle power. The gauge went red at 4000 lbs and he was in a squatting posture, his massive chest heaving and a smile on his face. With a high-pitched scream he rose to his full height, driving the screaming pistons up into themselves. The control panel burst into flames, the pressure gauge cracked, and Danny impossibly went up on his toes, and pressed the driving force back from his palms with his fingertips. 'YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! KID MUSCLE!" he screamed as the machine blew out above him. The hydraulic system ripped loose, spewing fluids into the fire that now threatened to destroy the plant. This kid could destroy us all, I thought as I found a fire extinguisher and put out the flames. The kid walked over and I stood before him, terrified. "I have to find a new place to play, that was the last one. When I was ten my father let me pull down the hydro lifts at an abandoned garage until I broke them. Then we came here." He held out his hand. Tentatively I took it, preparing to wince. But he only shook it. "I'm not really going to kill you. I was just joking." He laughed. "I'm going to have you babysit all the time from now on." He walked back to the door and unbent the metal to let us out. He looked back over his pumped shoulder and said. "My parents always let me have what I want. Race you home?" I knew I'd already lost. The Charge, Part II I hate that dork Scott but I had to help him pass Math 2 so he could stay on the football team, which was important I guess. Still, he kept the other jocks from picking on me so it wasn't so bad. He was just so goddam handsome and well- built that it, well, it made me angry. I don't know why. When he smiles and his face fills with that confidence, it makes me want to hit him. So it caught me off-guard when he asked me the other day to do him a favor. His usual cockiness seemed a little off. I gotta babysit this big baby on Friday but I've been doing it for weeks and I gotta get out. If you'd take care of it for me it'd be a great help. I'll set you up with any cheerleader you want." Well, okay," I said, wondering which cheerleader I'd pick. I really didn't want to, babysit I mean, but what the hell. It was almost time to graduate. It was time I got laid. I guess. But what was that other look in his eye, the one besides relief? If only I'd asked him about it. I still had my senior thesis in physics to finish so I could graduate with honors and I thought I'd do it at the Hendersons if I could get Donny or Danny or whatever to shut up and watch TV. Of course he had to nose around. Whatcha working on, braniac?" the 12-year old asked me. At least they said he was 12, but he looked taller, and somehow more filled out. Unified field theories, if that means anything to you." I felt very superior. I had after all read all of Hawking and had a pretty good grasp of superstring theory. Yeah, well you screwed up right there." And then he spewed out a string of equations so fast I couldn't keep up. He had to be parroting or even making it up but from what I could catch, it almost made sense. You've been watching way too much PBS, little boy." He then fixed me with those gray eyes and I felt something shift inside. Gee, Mr. Pukehead, you must be really smart. You go down to the college to show off your awesome braininess?" As a matter of fact I've already gotten Advanced Placement credit for my full freshman year's science courses. I have access to the physics lab there." I'm bored. Show me the lab. Please?" Well, there was an experiment I'd been meaning to run. I may as well do it tonight as anytime. All right, kid, saddle up." The brat was so giddy all the way over he kept bouncing up and down in his seats so hard I thought the shocks would break. We got up to the doorway when I remembered I'd forgotten my cardkey. Dammit. Sorry, I didn't say that. But we can't get in." Oh yes we can." Danny reached up to the panel where he card key went and his fingers gripped the upper corner. Before I could say anything, his fingers tightened like a claw. The muscles of his forearm ran like cables down to his T-shirt sleeve, which was pushed back by his swelling biceps. I guess I forgot to say stop," so entranced was I by the sight of all that muscle on this boy. The sleeve to his undershirt actually filled with his muscle and as I looked up, the steel plate--well, there was a slight bend in it. The kid was bending the steel plate back! I heard a slight grinding sound, which I realized was the screws being pulled out of the brick: the brick screw channels were breaking away! Soon the steel plate was bent even farther back and his other hand was braced against the wall. That sleeve too was stretched tight as triceps any 16- year-old would be proud of stuck out from the side of his arm in striated ridges of tensed rock. That seam split as his biceps bulged, ripped right up to the arm-pit, and he grunted once. A screech was forced out of the steel as it bent back past the point of no return. His fingers worked their way down the side and continued to peel the steel back, dragging screws out of brick and rolling the metal over itself like a wrapper. Then, he stood up and breathed. His chest now filled the shirt that stretched against his swollen back muscles and around his shoulders before falling uselessly down to his waist. My eyes were glued to the ripped sleeve as the other hand reached inside deftly pulled wires apart and spliced them back together. The door slid open. Voila," he said. And walked in like he owned the place. I'd never seen such a display of raw power, and from a kid! I followed him in as he swaggered down the hallway. What machine shall I break first?" L-listen," I said, maybe we'd better leave." He turned around and said Oh, we're not leaving. Not until I say so." I walked back to the door and reached up to grab the security phone. In one swift move he was there and ripped the phone out of the wall. Then, pressing his hand against the door, he began to drag it shut. I punched in the override code and then the open code on the doorpad and the door slid back into its slot. But then I heard a another ripping sound. I looked down to see his back pressed into relief against his t-shirt, and a split starting to open between his shoulder blades. I heard a whine and saw he had both hands against the door and was pushing it closed. I entered the open code again and the door locked and tried -- tried! -- to open. I could hear the hydraulic valves filling and pumping, but I saw a smile on his face as one hand reach around the end of the door and pinched it. The hydraulic groaning built and creaked as Danny hands worked the impossible. His other sleeve shredded and his fingers were actually pinching the metal of the door, compressing the steel! The door strained against his pull and opened a little more. He started thrusting his left arm into the door while his right hand squeezed and pulled against the mounting groan. With each thrust a small crease formed in the door that grew deeper and deeper as his pushes got harder and harder. With a final sickening screech the steel security door shuddered and stuck, bent into a V in its frame. Stop it!" I cried, and put my hands on his shoulders to pull him away but he was like iron, like some bronze statue come to life. The terrible groaning built until something exploded, cracking the brick wall in a zig-zag down the morter. But the door was useless: it was too closed to squeeze through and too horribly creased where his left arm had plowed into it. He turned to me, bathed in sweat and glowing with strength and life. It's you I'll stop next." He giggled, a high child's giggle that sent me running down the hallway to the elevator. I pushed the button as he started walking toward me and the freight elevator opened first. I got in and punched the top floor. The doors closed and up I went. I picked up the security phone but found it was dead; he must have done something when he hotwired the door. Below I heard the grinding of the inner doors being forced open. Then a jolt. He must be grabbing the cable. But the elevator has a load of 6000 lbs.! We continued to rise but I heard a soft sighing. I punched the top button again, and again, but the sighing rose into a creak as Danny put his back into it. I had to see this. I popped the top and climbed onto the roof of the car and looked below. Three floors below Danny had wrapped the cable around one hand and with the other was pulling! His feet weren't lodged under anything. His lats spread out like stealth bomber wings and he contracted his biceps into hard round peaks. The massive lift system began to labor against the counter-pressure, the weight that grew heavier and heavier with every foot the car rose. A loud crackling filled the shaft as winches and pulleys overloaded with the stress. Still the car tried to rise up but his forearms and biceps exploded with power. His body was now twice the width it had been and he was shaking and screaming a low, gutteral howl that rose to match the crying machinery. His face radiated with the hunt and roared over popping sound as bolts started to blow. I could feel the car trembling, still struggling to rise, but my stomach fell as the car sank! He drew breath into those pecs and hauled the cable in and the shaking car rattled on its track but sank down. Again he breathed, again those flared and again the striving car gave way. Foot by foot Danny struggled and strained and worked. I heard a screech of metal as some steel girder bent beneath the load Danny's arms were placing on the twisting cable. I was back to the second floor and got into the doorway, my thin desperate arms straining at the inner doors. Somehow, using my whole body I got them open and was through when the strain became too much. A final rending scream sent the entire carriage down into the shaft. A boom sounded as it landed, but not on the bottom: Danny had jumped into the shaft, down to the basement, and caught it. Shaking with relief that I wasn't on top of it, or god forbid in it, I heard his unbroken voice shout: Here's what you get for fucking with me!" With a snarl he shoved the car back up. I watched the carriage hurtle past me, the counterweights flying behind it and snarled cables rushing behind it as it flew up, up, up to the 12th story and hit roof with such force it lodged there. Now, where's my braniac?" I ran. The building was a maze and I knew I could hide out but I looked behind me and he was in the 2nd floor doorway, his chest heaving with pride. His t-shirt was now a series of rags hanging from the collar that stretched around his impossible neck, swaying over a muscled body I'd never seen the like of. Faster than a flash he was on me, tackling me and knocking the breath out of my body. These computers think they're so smart. I'll show them someday. But now my bloods up. Where's the cyclotron?" As soon as I caught my breath, I told him it was in the basement. Let's go then." With that that he picked me up and carried me across his shoulders back to the elevator shaft. I could feel the surging strength ripple across his shoulders as he held me in his iron grip, and then he leapt into the darkness. When we landed, his thick corduroys ripped along the seams as his thighs took the shock. Still holding me with one iron hand, he opened the doors with the other and pulled us both up. With one hand. I directed him to the giant machine as the steel of his muscles digging into my soft bony flesh. I explained the cyclotron could simulate up to 6 G forces. After what I'd just witnessed I thought I knew what he was going to try to do: stop it, or keep it from moving. 6 is all, huh? Let's see what I can do." With that he went down into the room. The end of the blade was so high he could barely reach it with his palm. He jumped up and slapped it. A hollow bong echoed through the chamber. Again he jumped up but this time hit it with both hands. A louder peal issued but nothing happened. He walked over to the hub. Climbing up on the mechanism he placed his hands against the blade and pushed. Rippling muscles shown through the rags as his back spread wider and thicker with the strain. Slowly the mammoth machinery started to move. Slowly the immense blade turned one revolution, then another. It started going faster, and faster, until the needle on the control board started to waver. And rise. By now he was riding on the blade and kicking with his feet, and the blade spun faster. The needle rose up to 1 G. Then he climbed down. The blade spun above his head but started to slow. He walked out to the end carriage rode, and jumped up again. He hit it. It spun back up to 1 G. It came around again and he jumped and hit it. Each time it came he jumped, and pounded his fist against the steel. The rhythmic booms echoed in the chamber and the needle rose to 2 G forces. By now it was spinning so fast his leaping was a blur. If it hit him coming around it would certainly kill him. But he kept a perfect rhythm, his quads now bursting his cords around his legs as he rose again and again to pound the machine faster and faster. 3 Gs. The whoosh it made grew louder and even through the gathering speed I could see the funnel forming where his hand hit the hardened steel. Boom. Boom. Boom. 4 Gs. 5 Gs. The entire spectacle was a blur but he continued with a lightning speed. It was now going too fast for him to sink and rise again so he did double duty: On his way up he struck it and kept going. It came around again as he fell, and he hit it again. It spun once above his head and he was off again. It was now whirling at 6 Gs, its maximum capacity. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. The needle of the gauge was now pressed against the far side, quivering. Boom. He was making it go faster. And faster. Faster than it was designed to go. Boom. Boom. Boom. BOOM. Now a slight wobble seemed to affect the blade. It must be up to 7 Gs. Maybe even 8. And still it went faster. I saw a hairline crack in the reinforced concrete around the hub, and an all-too familiar sound of steel beginning to warp under monstrous pressure. By now the carriage at the end of the blade was battered in, and he was working his way down the blade. Boom. Boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. The thick formerly straight steel warped into deepening crazy angles. Axles lost their lubrication and gears started to grind as the force grew and grew. The cracks around the hub spread and the inch-thick rebar beneath began to buckle. And bend. Boom. Boom. 9 or 10 Gs of force were turning this mighty instrument into his toy. With a final BOOM! Danny hurled himself up toward the control room where I was and burst through the glass. Just then the concrete shattered and the entire mechanism flew into pieces of twisted steel flew into the reinforced walls of the chamber. On and on it went, twisting around and raining shrapnel that battered the walls into broken chunks and dust. Danny was slightly bloody with some cuts, but radiant. I bet I got it up to 11!" he said as the tortured metal raged into pieces below us. Sirens sounded and I new the police would be coming soon. We've got to get out of here," I said. There are tunnels, right? There are always tunnels." What about my Hyundai?" He just patted his shoulder. Hop on. I'll get you home faster than that bucket of bolts. You can tell them some guy stole your car to come here, that he was a huge monster who overpowered you. He'd have to be bigger than you, right?" So I climbed on his shoulders and directed him through the maze. The Charge, Part 3 Little Danny Henderson turned 13 yesterday. I say "little" even though he's 5'7" and weighs 162 lbs. He really shot up over the summer. On his birthday he took the SATs. He said he was bored with school. So they prepared a special test for him, at his request. Actually, he made his parents pay to have the tests produced and administered. My SATs came in at 1060. I got into Cal State Long Beach on a football scholarship. That's the best I could do. Even with Danny coaching me; he was 12 then. He's 13 now, and in the time it took me to struggle through that fucker and score 1060, Danny completed two tests. One was a standard English version and one was a special test with each question written in one of 5 languages: French, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic and Sanskrit. He finished both tests in 21/2 hours and had time to come out and toss the football with me. My hand still stings from catching his passes. It took a team of experts (not the usual grad students) to score his tests. You know the results; he got perfect 1600s on both of them. He got offers from naive universities all over the world. I had hoped he would take one of them, the Sorbonne or Oxford or Harvard or MIT. The government has been trying to recruit him for some sort of special program. He called me over to his house one afternoon. "Catch!" he shouted as I walked up his driveway. I saw a blur and instinctively turned my football-toughened back to him, cringing. An engine block sparked and skittered down the concrete beside me, wires waving and leaving an oil slick behind it. He laughed and I turned around, ashen. "You loser, I wouldn't hit ya. I just wanted to see your face. But you turned around, you fuck." Danny laughed again. His voice had deepened along with the broadening of his shoulders. Still, his strength was deceptive, hidden inside his densely-packed muscle fibers and leveraged tendon-connection points on his iron bones. Iron that was still growing, expanding as the raging hormones surged through his hot-wired system. Oh, man, I thought. I hope to shit this is goodbye. "I wanted to talk about the future. You've been my good friend for a year now and I want to repay you." The sunlight twinkled off his eyes and golden, curly hair and I knew he was destined to be a major heartbreaker. My conquests in the backseat will pale before his. And he's only 13. "You gave me no choice to be your friend. You demanded it. And..." I trailed off. I was angry but I didn't want to get him angry. I really, really didn't. "And you're such a nice guy you just couldn't say no. That's what I like about you. You're an okay guy." He laughed again, his chest vibrating with the rich, booming sound. I don't care what anyone says about age. This kid was a man. A man someone melded with a kid. He was a total freak. "I wanna do something different. You know how I'm always breakin' shit." Breaking shit. I thought of the die-press he ruined in that old factory the first night I had to "baby sit" him. The cyclotron he demolished at UCLA that they still haven't solved. I remembered the night he took me to the old garage where his Dad had first "trained" him, the mangled hydraulic lifts, the twisted steel, the shafts bent over, the ruptured drums. He'd done that when he was 10 and 11. The way he wakes me up if my parents aren't home and I'm sleeping in some Saturday, exhausted from a game the night before. He goes to the corner of the house, where my room is, and lifting up the whole fucking house, shakes me awake. Thank Christ our house isn't bolted to the foundation, the damage would have been hard to explain. He doesn't lift it far, just a few inches, but he knocks stuff off shelves and I've had to tape everything down. My parents think I have an earthquake fixation, but it's not the San Andreas fault that scares me. Danny might yet show that little crack a thing or two. The things he crushed in his hands: pool balls, geodes. Ball bearings flattened by rolling them between his fingers. He could pinch a cinder block between his thumb and any finger and crack it. There was one night that had the city confounded. It was late and nobody was around this particular block. Danny was hyper, looking for some release, and at the corner his eyes lit up. Approaching a parking meter, Danny swatted it and listened to it ring, watched it vibrate on its solid post. Then he reached out and pulled on the meter and his arms swelled, his shirt pulling tight across his back. The meter held its ground until it suddenly gave three inches with a sharp wrench. Danny quickly moved a hand on top of the canted meter and pressed down; the two-inch steel pipe caved in at the giving point and with a cranking sound of overpowered metal the meter bent farther, and farther, until the meter itself sparked against the concrete and the thick steel was folded out and flattened about four inches above the sidewalk. I looked closer and saw small cracks radiating out from post that might have been there before, but weren't around any of the others. He shook out his visibly pumped arms, the muscles bouncing thickly, his sweet-acrid sweat filling the air. "Cool!" His blond head bobbed in approval of the steel post bent double before him, as if in worship. He worked his way down the street. Each meter gave a token resistance of hardened steel meeting iron muscle, and each meter made that cranking sound as muscle overcame steel's solidity. The network of cracks spread out into the sidewalk until they started to look like legs coming out of weird space creatures that can't support themselves under Earth's gravity-only it's Danny's gravity that's greater. He stopped after the last one and pondered. "How much money you think's in this thing?" he asked, squinting in the streetlight's orange glare. "How often to they empty them?" "Not often enough?" I ventured. "You got that." And Danny reached over and sharply wrenched the meter up a few inches. Squatting down, he put his hands around the meter and started to twist. The meter instantly put out a ticking sound but it wasn't the time hand, it was whatever someone thought would secure it firmly to the post. The ticking got louder and faster and something else went CLINK CLINK CLUNK. This must be the anti-twist mounting system breaking under Danny's strong fingers, gone white with the pressure. The housing was starting to warp out of shape in his hands but another obstacle was met, and Danny began to twist with his shoulders and back. A deeper series of pops made the coins inside jingle and Danny took a deep breath. His sweat hung in the air like musk; he reared back. A rasping sound tore loose as the pipe's thick threads stripped and the housing rattled off the twisted and gouged pipe end. Turning the meter housing over, he put his fingers into the hole and pulled. Small rips sounded from the seams of his T-shirt as the cotton stretched in ways it was never intended to stretch for boys Danny's age. A CHING sound came out of the housing and Danny's arms began to tremble a little. I reached out and felt his pulse; it poked along at 70 beats per minute, not much more than most people's resting heart rate. But the fierce tension he was placing on that cast iron housing wasn't normal. His fingers moved around, seeking the weakness with expert dexterity until I heard a hard crack and saw a lightning-bolt line widen from the top downward. Danny smiled and gave a firm pull and the iron sheared apart from his force. He reached down and peeled the iron back until chunks broke off in his hands, like orange peels. But the change was still inside a locked compartment, probably sealed with bolts. Danny pulled this out, wires pulling taut and snapping off, and held it in his hand like a heart. Then his fingers tightened, talon like, and trembled a little. The change rattled inside and soft creaking sound filled the air. The muscles of his forearm bulged like rocks attached to cables, and hardened beneath his skin. A trickle of sweat ran down from his armpit into the meshing muscles of his side. The mini-vault clocked and ticked and the tips of his fingers grew red. His face squeezed down as he poured his arm strength into that steel box. Finally he shook his head and pounded it against the concrete in frustration. The sidewalk cracked and caved in and the safe was flattened a little on that side but it still held tight. With a chilling look of vengeance, Danny took the safe in both hands and held it before his chest. Like he did with that basketball. He looked up, breathed in and out, and suddenly pressed inward. His t-shirt ripped instantly across the swell of his lats and the sleeves dragged up across his delts as his biceps forced them back. Instantly the steel vault creaked but his pressure built geometrically and I watched the steel shift and try to bulge, but his fingers held it in and squeezed it back into place, and his palms exponentially magnified their force and the tortured steel imploded, cracks bent inward past cracks and hunks of steel shattered inward and jangled with the coins that began to filter out through his fingers in a metallic rain. His palms still ground the steel into itself and the ball got smaller and his fingers closed around it and nothing could not escape. The implosion stopped and he took a breath, his collarbone rising under his shirt above thick slabs of pecs, and he crushed it inward again. Blood rushing and pounding in my ears drowned out the sound of steel and nickel and copper and silver scraping together as the sides continued to shatter and crumble beneath his power. His arms shook and he sucked in air between his teeth and raised his elbows. With one last savage grunt he squashed it into itself and let go. The ball of shattered and re-pressed steel and coinage fell with a dully ringing thud to the sidewalk and not a piece fell off, so tightly had the shards and coins been bent and fused into each other by this kid's muscles. "Well, it wasn't really about the money, was it?" I said as he smiled, panting. I checked his pulse. It had gone up to 80. Still lower than mine, at the moment. One hot Saturday he twisted off a fire-hydrant cap with his bare hand with a rusty scrape and before the water could burst out put his mouth to the spigot and plugged the hole with his tongue. I laughed and told him he'd be soaked when he stood up, and moved to the other side. He got that look in his eye and decided we'd both get wet. Placing his hands on other side, he pressed his legs into the concrete sidewalk. I heard a clinking sound, and saw little cracks radiating from his bare feet. Then his legs really swelled up and the eight bolts holding all that water pressure to the cement couldn't handle the pressure of this kid's muscle. The sound of deep steel snapping, of thick rusty nuts stripping off thick bolts was drowned out by the rumble and roar of water surging up and drenching us both. He pulled his tongue out and it was red with rust. The smell of cold water on hot pavement will always remind me of metal stripping metal in his hands. But Danny didn't like the struggle the hydrant put up. He held it up before him and said through gritted teeth, "You challenging me? You think you can take me?" And he put the hydrant under his arm and started rubbing the top, like he was giving it a noogie. But his arm pressed down on the iron casing and lat pressed into it. It made him angry, how dense and thick that iron was. He brought his free hand around and grabbed his own wrist, increasing the pressure of arm and lat and intercostal against stubborn cast iron. His arms trembled and his face grew red. Glaring with contempt and rage that made me colder than the water he gritted his teeth and flared his traps up behind his neck. His biceps and triceps spread out like across the helpless hydrant and his delt throbbed in impending triumph of muscle over metal. Nothing hollow in the center, however many inches of cast iron stand on either side of the tube, could long endure the fury of this hormone-crazed spoiled little brat. The brittle iron versus blood-pumping muscle? A dull clang rang out as the yellow iron split diagonally along it's length. I had trouble breathing as I saw it-no matter what he made witness, I never got used to it. Never. I was afraid he might continue to mangle the broken iron, play with it like it was mud. But he just dropped it to the ground and let the neighbors call the police. Nobody would believe them. That's how he got away with this shit. "Grab a couple of buckets & fill 'em with water," he said as I thought about these things. "You carry 'em. I gotta preserve my strength." And with that he headed out towards this vacant lot. The buckets he meant were big 25-gallon ones. I'm no panty-waist so I hefted them up on a pole across my shoulders. Still, 50 gallons of sloshing water can get to a guy. I was really sweating when I caught up to him. Danny was standing over a maple sapling he'd pulled out by the roots on his birthday. It was less than a year old so he yanked it out like it was a weed and stared at it awhile. I was feeling kind of cocky so I asked him, "Why'd ya go and do that for? It wasn't hurtin' you." "I want to try something," he'd said. But he just walked away. So he motioned for me to put the buckets down by the withering tree. The roots were limp and dry and the leaves had that seared look. He picked the sapling up in one hand and stuck it into the bucket of water. Then he took his shirt off. "My mom says I gotta stop ripping these up," he said with a kind of embarrassment. He cracked his back and I heard the vertebrae pop and snap. He twisted around (he could almost get 190 degrees now) and stretched. Again I marveled at how the thick cables of lean sinew ran down his arms and gathered together at his sweeping chest and flaring lats before spreading out again like giant fingers down his sides and sinking into his gladiatorial six-pack. I had to hate him. I've been pumping iron for years to achieve what I had and here was this 13 year old just bulging with strength I'd never achieve. But these thoughts were cut short. He put his two hands around the bole of the tree. Rolling his crackling neck around he straightened up and tensed his arms. They still looked kind of thin-- until he flexed. Then they doubled in size. But he wasn't squeezing the tree: he could have pulverized the wood with one hand. He had his fingers laced around the tree and his eyes were closed in strict concentration. I couldn't figure it out until I looked down at the bucket. I saw the muddy water was lower than when I put it down. A LOT lower. Danny's muscles were tense as tempered steel and he started to tremble. His chest expanded and heavy breath blew out his nostrils and his back swelled up like a balloon. What the--? Then a leaf fell off. The lower leaves were driest. Another one fell, and another. Soon all the curled, withered leaves were raining down and the bucket was full of wet muddy sludge. He swiftly moved it into the other, which immediately began to dip. The highest leaves, about ten feet off the ground, looked greener than before. I gasped. He was bringing a fucking tree back to life! Somehow he was pouring his living strength into that dying tree and giving it life. Finally that bucket was empty too and the tree looked honestly alive. The roots stood out in all directions. He picked it up in one hand--now holding about forty gallons of water--and took it over the hole where he ripped it up. He balanced it in the air while his foot reached in and dug back the dirt--did I mention his toes? I'll tell you about his toes sometime, he uses PVC piping and--but I'm getting off the subject. When the hole was cleared he planted the tree and packed the dirt firmly around the roots. And I mean firmly, that sucker wouldn't bend in a storm. "The roots'll take hold soon. I thought I could do that. Notice how I heal up real quick, and never get a cold or the flu? I've been feeling power just flowing out my muscles." He flexed his biceps in the sunlight and they rivaled that star's glowing power. Big, round, mature muscles bristling on a kid. Now I like pussy, I've said it before, but the way he looked at me gave me a funny feeling. Like he read my mind he said, "You like girls, don't you?" "Don't you?" I asked. At that at least I was still superior to him. For now, anyway. "Yeah, man, of course. But why limit yourself? I'm so horny I wanna fuck everything, old people, linebackers, nature. I wanna fuck a mountain and make it my bitch. God I'm horny!" "You just keep that thing away from me or I might get superhuman strength myself." I shook inside as I said it. Was it a lie? "I wouldn't hurt you, man, you're my bro. That's what I wanted to tell you. I'm not going away to school, I'm gonna go to Cal Tech right here. We'll be able to see each other all the time. After I'm done teaching those braniacs a thing or two." I felt a tightness in my chest as he walked away. I'd learned to joke with him about this stuff but it more than amazed me, it frightened me in a deep way. If he ever lost control... And he's just starting to hit puberty. By the time he's fully grown, he may be unstoppable. And by then, he'll be a lot more obvious. He won't be able to hide behind the "roving band of vandals" authorities credit with his acts of destruction. All too soon, it will become conceivable that he's at the root of all this. And by then, what can anyone do about it? It weighs on me, knowing. On the way home we passed the new parking meters going in all over town. Big flat steel locks ran around the vaults and steel sleeves had been fitted over the posts, doubling their diameter. All that new steel glinted in the sun, and Danny's eyes twinkled back in anticipation. I had a feeling it was going to be a late night tonight. END