Chapter 1

Rice checked his surroundings again, it was a ground-in habit that his life experience had imbued within him, by now a foundational part of his personality.

It was a rare obsession for a fourteen year old, but even though he was from an upper-middle class family in a well off suburban neighborhood with plenty of cul-de-sacs and curving streets which dis-invited pedestrians by lacking sidewalks, nonetheless, he had the wariness of a wild animal in a habitat full of predators.

Rice didn’t feel at all safe in his home, nor at school where he had become a freshman since the previous month. He had a wariness that had saved him from the hazing that most other freshmen had endured, but his vigilance was constant nonetheless. His older brother had taught him relentlessly on how to avoid bullies and to not allow himself to be caught in vulnerable situations, and his older sister had long since disabused him of the wisdom of trusting others.

His mother was pretty much a non-entity, as his domineering father overshadowed any positive input he might have received from her, and since he wasn’t a successful jock like Brad, his father paid no heed to any complaints about the abuse his State wrestling champion brother inflicted as long as it didn’t end up needing medical attention, instead telling him not to be a pussy and to ‘suck it up, faggot’.

When his father was in the mood, he would ‘rough house’ Rice, slapping him around none to gently, but short of causing bruising or injury, all the while grinning and laughing as if it was just playful affection. Rice had to be careful with his defensive shielding, as anything that could be construed as ‘fighting back’ would earn him various punishments both physical and other wise.

He preferred his dad to his brother and sister, his brother Brad was much more overt when he could catch Rice unaware, and corner him with out witnesses. He would also be destructive of any thing Rice valued. His Sister, Vicky, would be more subtle, and pretend to befriend and side with Rice, only to turn on him viciously at the worst (best) possible moment, betraying confidences and breaking trust to devastating effect. She also had a passive aggressive way of humiliating Rice in front of any friends he brought home, which he hadn’t risked again since his sixth birthday party disaster.

Rice had no real friends, he wouldn’t want to inflict his family on any of them if he had. Rice didn’t feel safe sleeping in his bed, since locks were not permitted on interior doors in his house aside from the bathroom, but instead he had made up a hand made manikin to simulate his presence for the cursory bed-check, and slept lightly in various other spots from the garage to closets to the attic, rarely in his room.

So, he was constantly vigilant and aware of his surroundings, and he got a lot of exercise roaming the neighborhood until right before dinner, and then out in the yard until curfew. He was faster and more agile than Brad, so even if he was chased about the yard, he was rarely caught these days, even if Brad had a friend over (limited by decree to only one at at time).

If he was caught, he was pretty inured to pain and humiliation by now, and Brad was careful to not go so far as to require medical attention since the time their father had punished him for needing to call the ambulance for Rice.

As so often happens with children in uncertain circumstances, Rice also developed a sixth sense about people, their motivations or the level of risk they posed, and tried to avoid the sketchy ones. He had developed a general mistrust of even the kind ones courtesy of his repeated befriending and betrayals by Vicky, and the lack of protection from his mother, who was just also a survivor of a toxic home life herself.

Rice was on semi-permanent punishment chore duty, and was responsible for keeping the yard and outside areas immaculate, not that it prevented additional penalties from accruing as there was always some little detail that was unsatisfactory to his dad’s belittling expectation of perfection, which his mother also endured for the interior of the dwelling.

Semi-permanent as the chores had devolved to Brad only when Rice had been hospitalized, and reverted back to Rice the instant he had been sent back home. What had been an acceptable level of detail for Brad was inadequate for Rice, so his punishments were instantaneously inherited from his older brother’s efforts.

Rice didn’t have a cell phone, or, it was never really his since he was constantly being punished by having it withheld, but he was issued a pager so his father could demand contact, necessitating he call back from a pay phone within five minutes or show up on the carpet in front of his domineering dad within that time frame. He was only issued enough change for one call, and if he ever called home from away, it was almost a certainty he would be paged shortly afterward.

Rice wasn’t allowed free time enough to find any kind of employment, so to get money he grew four dwarf pot plants of a freakishly high CBD strain that was his own creation, (it was so mutant that it could hardly be identified as weed, except for the odor) in the attic who’s small access hatch was located in his closet. It was pretty safe, none of the rest of his family ever even considered the attic, nor the crawl space.

He sold the highly medical herb to gimps and spazoids who much preferred it to the drugs and chemicals pushed by the school’s medical office, for a token price that at least allowed him cash to call home, or for emergencies.