The lone streetlight was the only source of illumination in the otherwise dark, stormy night.  Mist swirled under the bulb as the rain was blown in different directions by a gusty wind.  There was motion as a heavily jacketed figure shuffled out from behind one of the dumpsters trying desperately to keep rain from running down his neck.  His head was down in an attempt to keep the water from trickling under his coat and was caught totally unaware as another figure glided effortlessly up behind him.  Harry, the neighborhood drunk, froze as a pale white light threw his shadow across the dumpster.  A figure dressed in green stood back, slowly running the light up and down Harry’s body.

It was two-thirty in the morning and other than the occasional drunk like Harry, nobody walked the streets for fear of a mugging, or worse.  The dumpster Harry stood next to was located at the edge of the lot of the only business in this part of town, a ma and pa grocery store that closed up shop early.  There were bars across all its doors and windows.  The corner of the lot where the two slightly silhouetted figures were standing was dark. All the other street lights had been shot out by kids with pellet guns as soon as the city put new ones in.  It was unusual that the one surviving streetlamp was still working, they usually didn’t last the week.

This area of town was filled with low-income apartments where a hodgepodge of disenfranchised people lived.  People who were down on their luck, single mothers with no other options, immigrants forced into working in slave labor markets struggling to stay above water and just the sort of people who migrated to these areas to feed off the weak.  All things considered, it was a place where people kept their mouths shut and didn’t want to know what was going on around them, hoping, beyond hope, that some day they would be one of the lucky ones who made it out of here.

There were the local punks who thought they ran the neighborhood, but even they had no more control over it than the other residents and therefore kept away from the streets at night as well. They chose to stay inside and get high, or trade bullshit stories with one another.  You could hear plenty of activity in the area, people fighting, screaming or crying, and even though it was raining outside the temperature was warm, almost cloyingly so, thus most residents kept their windows open to get what fresh air they could.  It was a sultry evening, even with the breeze that thankfully blew in from the north but there was a general unease about, even more so than on most nights.

Something was in the air and the people felt it, enough to make them all feel on edge and cranky.  There was more than the usual noise filtering through the night and Harry heard it like a far off dream.  What he couldn’t understand in his booze induced state was why his body had stopped working.  Try as he might, he couldn’t get anything to budge and he wondered if he had finally gone over the edge and swore he would give it up if he could just move again.  The half-filled fifth of bourbon sitting in the inside pocket of his jacket was the first thing he promised to get rid off if the man upstairs would just let him go.

In an apartment almost directly across from where Harry was making silent promises, there was a young man whose real name was unknown and unimportant in the larger scope of things trying real hard not to resign himself to the emotions churning in his head.  He was too loaded to be rational and the thought of what he had caused was weighing heavily upon his conscious.  He couldn’t let his friends see the turmoil going on inside of him or they would think he was too soft, and then he would lose his hold over them for he was the main drug dealer in this part of town.  He tried hard to keep up the facade but it was getting more and more difficult to do so as the night wore on.

Other than his penchant for selling drugs he wasn’t such a bad person.  He had more compassion than most dealers and actually believed he cared about the people around him.  It was just a business and one of the few ways to get out of the area, at least that’s what he’d thought when he started but now he knew he would stay because this was where the market was.  Too many people who lived here wanted to escape, and he was their candy man, making life a little more tolerable for those who had little to look forward to.  That was, at least, until earlier today.

Julio Ramirez was a bright twelve-year-old boy who had never touched a drug in his life.  He lived with his mother and younger sister in a small, two-bedroom apartment at the far edges of the neighborhood and had never met the Candy Man until today.  Julio was a dreamer, but he had talent, real talent, and his art teacher at school was working hard to keep him on the right path, but as with all young boys, some things just glittered more than others.

Julio ran into the Candy Man on his way back from the grocery store and liked what he saw.  The Candy Man was dressed up in fine clothes, had gold everywhere, around his neck, on his fingers and wrists, and just looked like money.  Julio was impressed with the fancy looking man and when the man spoke to him, he turned around in surprise.

“Hey kid, how’s it going?”

“I’m fine, sir, thank you for asking!” Julio answered because he was a well-mannered young man.

The Candy Man made it a point to know all about the residents in his turf and he had found out about Julio and his family, “Getting groceries for your mom?”

“Yes, sir, I am.” Julio answered again in his proper mannered voice.

“That’s a good son, taking care of his mom like that.  I think you deserve a reward.”

“Excuse me, sir?” answered Julio with a slightly confused look on his face.

“I like a boy who takes care of his mother.  You should be proud!  Not many kids nowadays give a rat’s ass about their parents, but you look like someone who really cares…I like that.  You see, I think moms are the most important people in the world, don’t you?”

“Well…yes, sir, I do,” answered Julio, still not quite understanding.

“Good, ‘cause here’s the deal.  I’m going to give you a little something to make you feel better, and then you come talk to me and I’ll see about giving you a job so you can buy better things for your mother and sister.  What do you think?  Sound good to you?”

Now Julio was really confused.  He thought he knew what the man was talking about, but not being as wise as most street kids were, he wasn’t sure.  The man seemed nice enough and he would really like a job to help his mom out, she was working two jobs and barely had time anymore for him and his sister but he was a little nervous about what the man meant.

“Sir, what can I do to make money?”

The Candy Man noticed the restrained eagerness in the way the boy asked the question and knew he had him, “We can talk about that tonight, after dinner.  You’ll just be helping me and you won’t have to leave the neighborhood.  Right now I want you to take this, it will help you understand what I’m talking about.”

He pulled out a little white tablet and handed it to Julio who reached out for it and looked up at the man with a worried, baffled look on his face.

“I’m not supposed to take pills!” said Julio.

“Ah, this is not your normal pill,” said the Candy Man.  “This will help you do all the things at home, and more, in a better way.  It will make you be better at what you do.  Believe me, I wouldn’t give you anything bad.  Trust me.”

Three hours later Julio was lying dead on a cold stainless steel table at the county morgue.  The initial report was drug overdose but was later modified to read that the boy had suffered an allergic reaction to the speed the Candy Man had given him.  People took notice of this one; the kid was known in the area as a prospect and had never been involved in anything to do with drugs.  His schoolteachers vouched for him and the news media had a field day with the announcement over the air.  His mother, incoherent with grief, sat huddled in her bedroom impervious to the group of family and friends around her.

She sat and thought over and over what she could have done to save him.  She remembered that he seemed different, more animated and full of energy than usual, but she just thought he was in a good mood.  It wasn’t until dinner that she noticed something was terribly wrong.  The kid couldn’t stop moving and his eyes started rolling in his head.  Soon he was jabbering incoherently and spittle ran down his lips.  Shortly thereafter, he fell forward onto his plate and stopped moving.  She called 911 but by the time they got there, it was too late, he was gone.

The Candy Man had seen the piece on the news about the mysterious death of little Julio Ramirez and freaked.  It had opened the local six o’clock news and he couldn’t hardly breathe while he watched it.  Even though the announcer didn’t have the exact cause of death, they knew it was drug related and the Candy Man knew that someone would be coming to talk to him.  Although he hadn’t yet officially crossed paths with the law, he knew that he was known for what he did.  And he also knew it wouldn’t take long for them to question him about it.  He was scared, scared of the law and scared about what he did.  The only way he knew to cope with it was to get heavily wasted, and that’s what he started doing as soon as the piece about Julio was over.

It wasn’t until he was pretty fried that the fear started to dissipate and guilt began to settle in.  He felt like shit.  Killed a boy.  Killed a boy just as if he’d pulled the trigger himself.  The Candy Man was beginning to feel remorse but an even stronger emotion starting to take over was the pathetic feeling of ‘Why me?  Why did this have to happen to me?’  He started getting pissed off about how he got screwed and how much it could upset his life and fired up another one.  All throughout the evening he kept smoking, and when that wasn’t quite good enough, he popped a few pills and cranked a few lines.