Andrew Vachss - Another Chance to Get It Right

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Geofrey Darrow

cover illustration

Brad Anderson

cover colors

Tim Bradstreet

pages 5256

Frank Caruso

page 78

Paul Chadwick

pages 7, 9, 19, 59

Geofrey Darrow

pages 2643, 62, 72, 75, 76

Rick Geary

pages 2, 3, 1012, 16, 17, 22, 44, 45, 7982

Gary Gianni

pages 4851

Dave Gibbons

pages 2325

Warren Pleece

Page 47

Mike Richardson

editor

Jeremy Barlow

assistant editor

Special thanks to:

Carolyn Scheuermann book design

Amy Arendts cover design

DARK HORSE COMICS

Mike Richardson publisher

Neil Hankerson executive vice president

Tom Weddle vice president of finance

Randy Stradley vice president of publishing

Anita Nelson vice president of sales and licensing

_

_

pure summer blossom

tiny life-spark, sudden frost

waiting for full bloom

A bright fall day at the Bronx Zoo. I was standing outside the bear pit, waiting. The pit was full: black bears, Kodiaks, Grizzlies, even a pair of tiny Japanese sun bears. Cavorting in the sunlight, diving into the water, mock-wrestling for the sheer joy of it. Early in the day, peaceful and quiet.

A flock of children descended on me. Hard to tell their ages, maybe six, eight years old? All dressed in school uniforms, but no two alike. Their teacher assembled them at the rail to the pit, patient with their eagerness, watchful against adventurous spirits wandering too close to the bears.

The children watched the bearssome solemn, some animated. One little girl waved gaily. A little boy shouted something. The bears ignored them all, being themselves.

I was there on business. Private business. So I moved along the catwalk to the next pit. A solitary polar bear stood atop a barren peak of rock, her white pelt blending against the ice. She watched the newcomer, self-contained and uncaring. A tiny sound from one of the caves. A fluffy white cub emerged, called to its mother. The bears gaze turned malevolent, warning me to stay away. She charged down the slope to her cub, nudged him toward the icy water with her snout.

They swam together. Then she pushed him to the edge of the water, one massive paw lifting him to land. She drew the cub to her, licking him dry, icy eyes pinning me with a deadly warning.

Is she guarding the baby? A childs voice at my elbow. A little girl, detached from the school group.

Yeah, I told her, wondering how she knew. An oriental child, her face was tranquil with wisdom. A white boy stood at her shoulder, a black girl next to him.

My mother does that, she told me.

Mine dont, the white boy said.

I lit a cigarette. A blond girl tugged at my sleeve, pointing at the No Smoking sign. A handsome latino boy sneered at her naivete. I dropped the cigarette to the concrete, ground it out under my shoe. Looked over my shoulder, wondering when their teacher would come and collect them.

Are they dangerous? a little girl asked.

Sure, I said.

Im not afraid, a boy proclaimed.

Id like to pat the baby, said another.

Maybe you will, someday, I thought, glancing at my watch.

How come shes not with the other bears? a boy asked.

Because she has a baby. If the other bears came near her baby, shed hurt them.

Isnt she lonely?

She has her baby, stupid! a little girl answered for me.

So what? another sneered.

I listened to them squabble, so distinct and unique in their matching uniforms. A rainbow of colors, a depthless vat of potential.

They could beget to bebecomeanything.

A tug at my sleeve. Mister, do you have any kids?

I looked at the bear. I dont know, I told the child.

As I walked away, I heard her ask the teacher what the strange man meant.

What is the difference between an elephant and an alligator? the old man asked me. It wasnt a question, it was the way he taught. The way his ancestors have taught since the beginning of his tribe.

Ones a mammal, ones a reptile. One lives on land and visits water, one lives in water and visits land. One is a flesh-eater, the other a vegetarian. Neither have natural enemies.

But both are hunted, yes?

Yes, I see. The elephants for their ivory, the alligators for their hides. They have the same enemyman.

You do not see. I asked you the difference, not the similarity.

I told you many differences.

Yet you missed the essential one. The difference that separates them forever.

Is this a riddle?

Not a riddle, not a mystery. A truth you can learnif you listen.

Im listening.

The baby alligator comes out of the egg a perfectly-formed predator. It will not grow, it will only get larger, do you see? It learns nothing. From the moment of its birth, it fights to survive. If it succeeds, if it reaches its full size, it hunts. At birth, it is six inches long. In adulthood, perhaps six feet. The difference

can be measured. As a predator, it increases in power, in skill. But no matter what its fate, it will always be what it was born to be.

I understand.

Do you? Your work is with children. To work with children, you must know the child. The baby elephant cannot survive on its own. It needs nurturing, it needs protection. Without love, it dies. Depending on how it is raised, the baby elephant grows to be a work animal, a circus performer, a peaceful beast content to live in harmony with the herd, its family. But some elephants grow up to be rogues, dangerous to man. Depending on how they are raised, that is the key. You see the difference now?

Yes.

And so, ask yourself, are the children of men alligators, doomed to be what they will be from the moment of their birthor are they elephants, fated to be nothing specificand capable of anything?

Children dance. First with light and shadow, sound and smell. Born in liquid blindness, they reach out from the most elemental of needs.

The heart is the last to go searching.

Some touch silk, some fire.

Some master their environments and seek others.

Some are swallowed, cut off before full bloom.

And some bloom deadly nightshade.

_

On the upper tier of a maximum-security youth prison, I watched a gang of larger, older inmates approach a slightly-built boy. They surrounded him, pressing him back against the cold green cinderblock wall, making their ugly intentions clear. The smaller boy, a veteran of orphanages and detention homes, watched them warily, eyes unblinking as he memorized their faces.