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[COLOR=#dbf220][indent][sub][B]Location:[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]New Orleans[/I] - [I]17 Months Ago[/I][/COLOR][/sub][sup][right][b]Grifter #0:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I]Kid[/I][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][/color][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][color=#dbf220][sub][B]Interaction(s):[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]None[/I][/COLOR][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][b]Previously:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I]None[/I][/COLOR][/right][/SUP][/color][/indent]


In a hospital in New Orleans, things start for the former spook known to the world as Cole Cash. Where the air is sterile and the bedsheets sting. He’s hooked up to a machine that buzzes and beeps every time his heartbeats. He lays in his bed, curled into a fist, protesting death and how every breath is either hard labor or hard time. He can’t get over how he’s always either too hot or too cold. Yet, to him, it doesn’t matter why he was there. Why they had to pick shrapnel out of his chest or why he had to keep his hand in a cast.

Because his hospital roommate wears star wars pajamas and is 9-year-olds. Cole doesn’t have to ask him what he’s got. The bald head with the skin and bones frame tells it all. The kid’s name is Oscar. He’s got his Nintendo Switch in his bed and a stack of comic books by the side of his bed. A pillow from home and a few stuffed animals. Cole spotted an action figure in his hand, too. The staff at the hospital are doing what they can to make Oscar comfortable, he’s going to be here for a while after all.

Cole smiled the first time his eyes met with Oscars, and it felt like the biggest lie the conman had ever put into the world. He’s holding his breath towards Oscar, worried that the kid is gonna call him on his bullshit any minute. He’s scared of a 57-pound kid hooked up to a machine because maybe Cole’s got him pegged all wrong.

Maybe he’s bionic or some shit.

So Cole looked away. Like he was facing a Los Lobos Gang member with a rap sheet longer than the lines of shady politicians who had sent Cole on black-ops missions in the sandbox. Cole doesn’t know how to handle him to such a degree that he almost considers pulling out his pack and asking Oscar if he’d like a smoke.

His fears subside when he realizes that Oscar is all show and tell. Oscar tells Cole about the things he’s got. The comic books, the toys. Video games. How he’s really all about something called ‘Animal Crossing’ and Cole asked him if he was scratching out animal names from his hit-list, and Oscar just laughed. Oscar told him about the shotgun shell he had kept from that time his dad took him to the shooting range. About the crow's feet, he found on a field trip when he was six, and how it really freaked out the weird girl he knew. Speaking off, his stuffed teddy bear was from that weird girl.

It took Cole a day and a half to figure out that ‘the weird girl’ was Oscar’s sister, Maya. And it took Oscar about an hour after his family had left to realize he missed her.  His family stays well past visiting hours because for families like his, those rules don’t apply. Oscar tells him that the worst part about being sick is that you get all of the ice cream you could ever dream off.

Cole chuckles and says that doesn’t sound so bad.
Oscar tells him that the worst part about all of the ice cream you can eat, is realizing that there’s nothing else the staff can do for him. And those words coming from a nine-year-old boy hits Cole harder than a shotgun slug to the chest.

The kid never greets Cole with anything but a smile, there’s never real silence in the room and there’s no judgment from the kid towards the man who's got a laundry list of mistakes.


Cole does his best to distract Oscar with his own stories. While it’s hard to compress a 25-day siege of a Terrorist hideout, a firefight that led to the bust of 13 million dollars worth of heroin, or how he accidentally protected the president of Kaznia while being sent on a mission to kill said president.

He scrubbed the details, but his war stories kept the boy entertained. Cole explains battle plans and military strategy to him, he doesn’t have the fundamental skills to break it down for a child to understand, yet, Oscar seems to.

He explains that they called Cole ‘Grifter’ in the army and that when he was on overwatch, he’d have a spotter. That spotter was someone he’d call ‘Porkchop’. On the third day Cole was in the hospital, he and Oscar would steal extra pudding cups from the kitchen after dinner, where Oscar would watch out for Cole, planned like small military missions.

The games distracted him and it kept Cole from the question that’s been on his mind since the day he got there. Four nights into their stay, when Oscar can’t sleep. He asks Cole if he’s awake, and Cole wakes up. They talk. Mostly about the video games Oscar is playing, but in the end, they talk about how Oscar is doing, and Cole finally gathers the courage to ask him.

“Are you scared?” The man asks the nine-year-old boy, and without even hesitating, Oscar responds with a loud, solemn but forceful exclamation.
“Fuck yeah I am.”  Cole realizes that if a curse word would help this boy get through this, then Cole wants to teach him every curse word there is, in every language he knows. He wants to teach him to curse so much that the devil will be sitting beside them taking notes.


“Please don’t tell my dad.” Oscar says, gripping his blanket so tightly his knuckles turn white, his face almost breaking into tears and Cole nods. 

“Your secret’s safe with me, kid.” 

Oscar falls asleep with the game still on. 

Cole’s never seen someone like Oscar before. Someone who’s got so much patience, in spite of knowing they’re dying. And he tries his best to not remind him. 

Cole walks around, feeling better. He’s mostly healed now. And with it comes the sorrow. Cole will soon be out of here, going back to taking his life for granted and smoking too much. Lying to people who will kill him in an instant if they found out they had been duped.

And there’s nothing Cole can do to save Oscar, and he doesn’t quite know why, but this nine-year-old kid has implanted himself into his mind forever. His plight becomes a burden that grows on Cole in the time to come, and it grows into a shield that protects Cole from the challenges ahead.

Perhaps that’s why, 17 months later, Cole’s kneeling in front of a tombstone that reads “Oscar Matthew Jefferson”. Because Cole’s realized he needs some of that strength that a 57 pound 9-year-old boy possessed. 

He holds the red mask in his hand as a tear begins rolling down his cheek. He ties it behind his blond hair covering his face. He stands up, the green coat falling to his side as he looks at the gravestone.

“I will remember you, Kid.”