“Happy biiiirrrth-day, dear Beeeeennnnnnnn! Happy birthday to youuuuuuuu!”

The obligatory cheer rose up in the cluttered kitchen and Ben sucked in a huge breath to try to blow out the candles spread across the massive-sized sheet cake.

Nick just stood in amazement as the handful of boys who had come to wish their friend a happy birthday gathered around the table, scooping up platefuls of cake, ice cream and chips. There were probably 10 kids here, including Ben’s siblings, and 3 adults. But for some reason, Patty had a full sized sheet cake…enough for the entire neighborhood. Again, Nick found himself questioning how these people lived.

No money for clothes, cleaning supplies, basic house maintenance, but yet, she provided a huge cake, gallons of ice cream, loads of hotdogs and bags upon bags of greasy chips. Few gifts were piled in the corner of his “room” and what presents were there were from his friends. Nothing from his mom. He supposed, you could count this retched excess of food as her gift.

Feeling a tug on his shirt, Nick looked down to see Liz, eyes dancing brightly and straw hair twisted every which way. She always could make him smile. And see the sunshine in this place. “Hey, Liz…you get some cake?”

“Nope, not yet…I want you to cut my piece.”

“Oh…okay.” Glancing at Solana, who had also been invited to the festivities, he approached the table, watching his steps to avoid grinding already spilled cake further into the linoleum. Not that it mattered, but…it just seemed the thing to do.

“Mom, Nick’s gonna get mine, okay?”

Without a word, Patty handed the knife to Nick and walked away, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and shooing the boys out back. Either the woman was one of few words or she hated him. Either way, he much preferred it when she wasn’t home.

“I want an end piece…lots of icing!”

“I figured that…”

“And no ice cream. Just cake.”

Sticking a fork in the top of the cake like a candle, he handed Liz her plate. “Take it out back. Lani? You want some?”

“Yeah…NOT an end piece, please.”

“I’m with you there…you can smell the sugar on this thing.” She held the plates for him as he slid the cake off the spatula like a pro. Unfortunately, the plates were cheap. And flimsy. And the cake wasn’t. One piece happily settled on its plate while the other took a tumble back towards Nick.

“Ho…shit…” Somehow Nick reacted quick enough that his hand got under the path of the falling cake and he caught it. Icing side down, of course. “Uh, I guess this one will be mine.”

“Nice catch. And yes. That one is yours.” Handing him his empty plate and a fork, she smirked. “Have a plate.”

“Gee. Thanks.” Nick plopped the cake bottom side down on the plate and did what any self respecting 22 yr. old man would do in a situation such as this. He licked his hand clean. Well, he tried anyway. Finally giving up on the job, he grabbed a napkin, his food and followed Solana outside with the kids.

“So do you come to many of the kid’s parties?”

“Eh, some of the-…” Solana stopped talking and started giggling. She wasn’t known to giggle. Just not her nature. Or was it?

“What!?”

“You have some…here, come here.” Solana reached up to Nick’s nose and wiped off a dollop of blue icing and swiftly licked it off her finger. “You’re just a big kid, you know that?”

“Is that a problem?”

She couldn’t help but smile and re-check his nose. Still a liiiiiitle bit of blue there. “Wipe your nose, you goof. It’s still blue.”

Stuffing a huge forkful of cake in his mouth, he wiped again and leaned in for one final check, mumbling around his food. “Do I pass, Mom?”

“Yes, little boy, you pass.” Shoving him back to a more comfortable distance, she went back to her cake, watching the other boys fling food at each other from their fork-shaped sling-shots. “This place is going to be a mess.”

“It’s always a mess. Who’s gonna know the difference?”

“Yeah, I know. Kind of frustrating to see, huh?”

“Yeah…I mean, there’s this…” he looked around to make sure Patty wasn’t hanging close…or any of her kids. “…huge damned cake. That thing had to cost her a fortune. Hotdogs, ice cream, chips, enough pop for an army, yet she can’t buy a bar of Dial and a box of Tide?”

“The system is messed up, Nick.”

“Yeah, I know it is, but Lani…if you had some cash and you could only get food with food stamps, wouldn’t you put a few bucks into basic needs like soap?”

“I would, yes…you would. But, their life is not ours.”

“That’s what’s more messed up than the system. Can’t blame it all on that.”

“No, you can’t. Just seems there more to do than anyone’s able to actually pull off.”

“One family at a time?”

“Well, it’d be nice, but…just never seems to work that way. More like one disaster at a time.”

They sat silently finishing their cake, both deep in thought about the state of this family, a method of helping them, and wondering if any attempts at help would even be noticed. Sometimes, it did seem futile. Made Nick wonder why Solana kept it up. Made Solana wonder why she kept it up. Then, they were reminded.

“Nick! Get off your fat butt and show us what you’re made of!”

They looked up to see Ben standing in the middle of the make-shift basketball court taunting his mentor with the basketball, an evil smirk and 4 friends willing to take him on. Whispering to Solana, Nick got up to meet his match. “They’re going to eat me alive.”

“Oh, goody…I love a good show of cannibalism!”

“Oh cool! A Super Soaker!” Ben pumped the water gun, imagining it to be filled with water and aimed it right at Solana. “Oh man…this is gonna kick a-…” Seeing his mother, he quickly filtered himself. “…butt. Thanks, Ron.”

“Twit’s lucky that thing’s empty.” Solana and Nick stayed at the back of the pack and just watched as the kids swarmed around the birthday boy, clamoring for just one more glimpse of the gift they’d brought to Ben. Nick was a bit nervous with his selection. He wasn’t supposed to buy them much, but just couldn’t let the kid’s birthday go without a small token.

“No kidding…hey, I need to ask you about my gift. Although, it’s a bit late now.”

“What’d you get him?”

“Well, I don’t wanna say, but I know we’re not supposed to spend lots of money on the kids. He’ll just get a little something in front of his friends and then I have a surprise for him.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“No…so, I kinda made it…well, I can take it back if they don’t take care of it.”

“Sounds good…I guess Ben’s going to have to answer if he can handle it or not.”

“Great…”

Turning their attention back to the party, Nick realized Ben had his ‘gift’ in his hand. Looking up to his mentor, they smiled almost a secret smile and Ben ripped into the paper, stopping when he saw a note on top of a stack of “Spider-man” comic books.

Shhh…don’t react to this note. This is just a hint at your present. I’ll give it to you when your friends leave or we have a minute alone. In the mean time, get excited about the books. I’m glad you liked the movie. Now you can read the whole story.

Ben smiled big and looked up to Nick to share it with him. “Thanks, man…these are cool!”

“Yeah, they are. Keep ‘em in the sleeves too, okay? They’re all autographed.”

Ben’s eyes bugged out. “Autographed?” Ben started sifting through the comics, finally seeing the marker squiggle on each one. “Oh man…by Stan Lee!?”

“Yep…so take care of them. I mean it.”

“Oh God…I will…I’ll find somewhere to keep ‘em nice.”

Solana leaned in and bumped Nick’s arm. “You done good.”

“Eh, that’s not all of it. But thanks.”

“He can keep them in my office if home doesn’t work out.”

“Okay…which reminds me…can, uh…can we go outside for a minute? I need to ask you something else.”

“Sure. Ben, Nick and I are going outside…I’ll just leave from there. You had a great party.”

“Thanks…and thanks for the new basketball.”

“Glad to be outside again anyway. I can’t take that house for more than half an hour.”

“Yeah, and as it gets hotter, it’s gonna stink worse.”

“Great. I won’t keep you; I know you’ve got a sitter and all.”

“You’re fine…that was real nice with the comic books, Nick. You know Stan Lee?”

“Yeah…we did a comic book with him couple years ago.”

“Oh, I remember that…I’d have to go to Burger King to get dolls for the girls at the center. We’d use ‘em as incentives.”

“Action figures.”

“Oh…perdóneme, señor Nickolas! Action figures…as I remember…yours had a uh, interesting stick….”

“Stop. God…every one of those had some sexual overtone to it, no matter how we tried not to make it that way.”

“Yeah, I bet you tried REAL hard.”

“ANYway…what I wanted to ask you…”

“Yeah, try to sneak out of it…Ninja Nick.”

“God, Lani…” If she only knew what she was doing to him. He had to shift to business mode and quick. Running a hand through his hair and looking across the street at the cluttered porch that fronted the house, he tried to regain his composure. “I’d like to take Ben out on my boat…take him to my house every once in awhile. I didn’t know if it was okay to do that yet.”

“What do you think?”

“I think I needed to ask you…I have no idea.”

“Well, you two do seem to be getting along well. That little memorization exercise really made an impact on him. Even though school’s out, I still catch him working on his 8’s and 9’s at the center.”

“No kidding? That’s great. And yeah, I feel better about stuff, but after the tire slashing, I’m still nervous to just let him loose in my house.”

“Then don’t let him loose. Give him strict guidelines as to how he’s to behave and if he doesn’t follow, you march his butt back home.”

“I guess it is that simple, huh?”

“Yep. I mean, at this point it’s up to you, Nick. I’ll trust your judgment.”

At those words, he stopped his meaningless staring across the street and found her dark eyes. She trusted him. Not only him, but his judgment. “Thanks.”

Now, could he live up to it? He suddenly had a great desire to try.