The scent of bacon and eggs filled the kitchen as she readied breakfast for her family. True to form, her second born was the first to enter the room, most likely due to him being awake long before even she rose from her bed. He had a tendency to do that, even on days off, since he was wired for early risings. Consequently, she knew that he would never make it to his more than generous bedtime.
“Hey Ma,” he said, his seven year old voice rising over the sizzling and popping of the bacon.
“Hey yourself. Good morning, son. How did you sleep?”
His eyes bright and alert, there was not even a hint of a yawn about him. “I slept OK. How about you?”
“Pretty good, thank you. Have any dreams?”
“Nah. But when I woke up, the man was there and we talked a bit before you woke up.”
She smiled at her son’s imagination. She often marveled at the creative spirit that thrived within him, and how he would make up stories and adventures with his toys, even crossing over the worlds of the different toys to have more adventures than ever. She wasn’t really alarmed about him describing “the man,” with the scar on the right side of his face, the sword on his hip, his chopped hair and perpetual stubble, as it could easily describe one of the characters from the many cartoons he watched and many more books that he read. His description of the “conversation” that he had with the man as the sun peeked over the horizon was full of details, and if she did not know better, she would have sworn that the man had actually, truly, and really been in the room with her son.
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His right hand subconsciously reached for the scar on the side of his face as he listened from down the hall. It had been ages since he had the pleasure of smelling bacon as it cooked, and hearing her voice — so young, filled with the promises of tomorrow. He knew that lingering was not a wise idea; if he was caught, that would be the very beginning of his troubles. Fortunately, he was able to make his exit discreet and quick. No one else in the house was up just yet, although the boy’s older brother would be awake shortly.
No, it was definitely time to go. He would catch up with the boy later.
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He removed the katana from his hip and placed it on the wall-mounted rack. The trip always took a lot out of him on all levels. All he wanted to do was take a nap, but he knew that it was not in the immediate future for him. There was still too much to do.
“What was that line from Robert Frost?” he asked himself. “Miles to go before I sleep?” Shrugging, he continued towards his desk, a modest conflagration of sheet metal that was held together with strategically placed screws and bolts. The cushion on the chair was torn, the padding bleeding out of the gash. As he sat, his eyes were drawn to the open book on his desk. The handwritten text flowed all over the page, the cursive dancing up and down, centered around each line. He made a checkmark in the upper right hand corner of the right page and turned the page. The next entry in the journal was before him and he focused his attention solely upon it.
I sometimes wish that we had never moved to this stupid town. Yeah, it sucked up north and the neighborhood was terrible. But coming down here, I thought I could start over and be left alone. Heh, stupid me. It’s the same thing all over again, and I have to make my name mean something again, just so the assholes will leave me alone.
We were walking home from the bus stop, and I had stopped to talk to my friend Adam about our Biology project. My big brother went ahead, and I was alone. That’s when the asshole got the drop on me. I was on the ground and he started kicking me in the ribs, laughing and threatening me. To be honest, it didn’t really hurt, but I was just annoyed by it. I just kept blocking my face, since I didn’t want my glasses to get broken. He just kept kicking and kicking and kicking… I got bored real fast, so I decided to mess with the guy: “You kick like a four year old.” So he kicked me harder — not that it hurt any more, so I said to him: “Now you kick like a three year old.” That’s when he reached down and grabbed the hair on the back of my head and said: “Maybe I’ll just go after your retard brother —”
Then he was on the ground, blood coming out of his mouth, and I was standing over him, my knuckles red. I heard one the asshole’s friends say: “Holy shit, lookit his eyes… Man, he’s nuts!” I just looked at all of them and said: “Don’t you ever go near him, or I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
That’s the stupid crap I have to deal with here. I’m 14 years old. Why do I have to start over in a new town with the same things I dealt with back home? I hate this stupid hick town, with these stupid assholes, having to fight again. At least back home, they finally started to leave me alone. Man, I wish Mom and Dad never moved us to this stupid place. I want to go back to my old school with my old friends…
He closed his eyes, visualizing the events from the journal and playing them out in his mind. That would be his next visit.
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It took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in the hallway. He had the layout of the house memorized, down to every last creak of the floorboards. The entire household was asleep, save for the boy. “No,” he corrected himself. “The teenager.” He took extra care as he passed by the master bedroom, not wanting to wake the parents. Fortunately, the sisters were light sleepers, so the only obstacle was the older brother. He was a light sleeper, easily roused. The trick was to slowly open the boys’ bedroom door, making sure to gradually allow the faint light from the hallway to enter the room.
All of his careful planning was for naught, however, as the teenager slipped out of the room that he shared with his brother and into the hallway. He froze as the youth stepped out not three feet before him. The youth, for his part, was not alarmed to see him; instead, his eyes widened in surprise and a smile lit up his face. The man relaxed, exhaling quietly, and he followed the teenager into the kitchen.
The youth, moving with the same quiet and stealth as the man, grabbed a couple of bowls from the cabinet and a tub of ice cream from the freezer. He served himself and the man in silence, and then led them to a sitting room, away from the bedrooms.
The youth spoke first, keeping his voice low. “Hey man, where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in… a while, I guess.”
The man laughed, “Not that long for me. Last time I checked in on you, you were seven. Your mom was making breakfast on a Saturday —”
“Bacon and eggs! Yeah!” They shared a muffled laugh for a moment. “So what are you doing here, man?”
The man did not look the youth in the eye, his gaze drawn instead to the youth’s right hand. “Hurts, doesn’t it…”
“Um…”
“It wasn’t a question, really. I read your journal entry, about punching the guy in the face. How are your ribs?”
The youth scrunched his face, partly out of confusion and partly due to annoyance. “Dude, I don’t even think the ink is dry on the page yet! That’s incredible!”
“Well, it’s had a little more time to dry from where I sit. So… you really hate this place…”
The youth nodded. “If it wasn’t for you, I think I would’ve lost my mind.”
The man replied, “Remember the night you moved in here? Your family finally had a house. Your brother got bitten by all of those massive mosquitos, and your mom gave him the Benadryl and sent him to bed. You unloaded the moving truck with your dad until you were exhausted. Remember that sense of pride?” The youth nodded, taking a bite of his ice cream. The man continued. “Or how about when your parents installed the better light fixtures in the kitchen? Didn’t it brighten the room?”
More nodding.
“See, that’s what you gotta hold onto, kid. This place… it doesn’t feel like home yet. I know it has been a few years, and I know that you’ve been struggling to fit in. I know you want to go home — we’ve talked about it a whole lot. I want you to remember how happy you were back there, OK? Can you do that?”
The man briefly thought that the youth’s head would fall off due to the wordless nodding.
“OK. But remember what the world was like — what your world was like — when you were seven. Everything was different, right? Well, now you have a chance to learn better how to defend yourself.” He put his bowl down and indicated for the youth to stand up. “Hands up. You know this game. Let’s do it.”
The youth raised his hands and took a stance, feet shoulder-width apart, right side recessed and left side exposed. He jabbed with his left, light and quick strikes which the man easily blocked. The youth stepped back, altering his stance to put his right side forward and his left side back, jabbing with his right this time. The man blocked and lashed out with a kick, which the youth blocked as easily as the man blocked the jabs. Silence was the name of their game, and they proceeded to exchange kicks and punches, maintaining proper footing and form as they sparred. The faint “swish” of their limbs and the quiet “slaps” of the blocks were the only noises to indicate that they were actually in the room. Several minutes passed, and the man was moving with great ease; the youth, for his part, was showing signs of exhaustion, although to his credit it was late at night for him. The man held his hand up to stop the youth, and they each took a seat.
“Feel better, kid?”
Another nod.
“Cool. So what do you want to do about this whole ‘living in a hick town’ thing that’s got you bothered? You gonna let it eat you up?”
A shrug this time.
“C’mon, you got more life in you than that. Think about it. Take a moment or two… more if necessary… I’ve got all the time in the world, kid.”
The youth, his breath caught and steady, responded after a few moments, “Well, I want to get things back to the way they were before we moved here. It sucked, sure, but at least I got all of them to leave us the hell alone. I hate that I have to start over with that. How do I stop it?”
“Not to dash your hopes, but remember this — people are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.”
The kid frowned, trying to place the words. “What’s that from?”
The man laughed. “Oh, yeah… um… Don’t worry about that right now. Just remember those words and when you hear them, then you’ll get it, OK? But people suck sometimes. I don’t want to kill your optimism or anything, but I just want you to be ready for what comes your way. You might not have to defend your brother so much down the road, but you’ll need to be able to stick up for yourself. It doesn’t end, but that doesn’t mean you give up, right?”
The youth returned to his original gesture, indicating his assent. “Can’t give up. Gotta keep going.” He looked up at the man, his expression earnest. “Is it worth it? Does it get easier?”
The man’s smile was warm and kind. “Yes, it is worth it. And no it doesn’t get easier — but you get stronger and better able to deal with it. So I guess, in a way, it does get easier.”
“Kinda.”
“Yeah, kid. Kinda”
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Again, he returned the katana to its home on the wall. The rest of his conversation with the kid seemed to put him at ease with not only the events of the day, but also with the fact that he missed his old life in his old home. He was glad to be able to help the youth, and he was more than certain that he would be seeing the rewards for it in the near future.
He did not realize how soon.
Sitting down at his desk, he clicked on the lamp and examined the page of the book. The last line he had read said, “Man, I wish Mom and Dad never moved us to this stupid place. I want to go back to my old school with my old friends…” But now, there was an additional line, written in different color ink but with the same hand. “Thanks for stopping by and talking with me, dude. Always good to know the future is brighter than I think it is.”
A smile played across his face. The words had not been there before he went to see the youth, but seeing them now made him know that he was making a world of difference.
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Just for a laugh, he grabbed another book from the pile, a specific one, and thumbed through the pages until he reached a certain date. “Tuesday… October 19, 2004… there it is.”
Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. I was watching “Scrubs” and Dr. Cox said this and I remembered that the guy said it to me almost ten years ago. Man! I mean, he knows stuff that he shouldn’t know, and he’s always been insightful. But that is some next-level stuff. It’s cool that he would give me some insight into the future like that. And it’s really cool when I get to make the connection.
There was more on the page, but he closed the book. It was time for a some rest, as he knew that he had so much more work ahead of him.
End of Part 1
