Chapter 19: A Story From the Past

I look at her, part in shame part annoyed that she could draw such a conclusion, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was acting like an asshat in the back seat. I was distracted, trying to think of a way out of our little problem. I’m not used to having people to care about, so you have to expect mistakes. We can’t afford mistakes. People your age do not stay together. People my age have no business with somebody so young, yet somehow, I wind up with 4 of you. I care about each of you enough that if one of you is hurting, then so am I.”

She wipes a tear from her eye and questions, “What do you mean; you don’t know what it is like to have people that love you? You’re in your 70s. Somebody had to love you in that time.”

She sees the pain in my eyes as I remember my past. I let her know, “You already know my family did not love me. In my first life, they were never thrown in jail. I continued to be abused for years. Throughout my entire life, there were only ever two people that loved me, and both refused to admit it. One girl, I was spending at least 40 hours a week with, usually much more than that. Every time she looked at me, I could see how much she loved me. I wasn’t the only one to see it, so I know I wasn’t delusional. By then, I was so socially inept that she refused to admit she loved me. She was in love with me but didn’t want to be. Same with the other girl. The only two people from my last life that cared about me didn’t want to.”

“I find that hard to believe. Look at all the undeserving people that are married or have a girlfriend. Even if you were socially moronic, there is no way that at least one person didn’t love you.”

“It is more complicated than that. I woke up early in this school year. Had I not, then I would have stayed in the school having the math teacher make the kid behind me punch me in the back of the head daily. Eventually, it got so that even some of the girls thought it was OK to hit me for no reason. They only stopped because of a few extraordinary things happened that made people fear me.

“It was about now that a kid that just moved to my village, from the Fort Grand, started getting into trouble. You know it was bad because he came to me for help. Nobody would even say hi to me, forget approaching me for help.

“His name was Robby. Robby was one of those life of the party kind of kids. Unfortunately, kids up there get into drugs early. He was a major drug addict. He decided to get help and quit drugs altogether. He inspired some of his friends to clean up.

“His drug dealer didn’t like that. Every time Robby went to school or into town, a group of goons would take him behind a dumpster or into a bathroom then kick the shit out of him. He was told they would quit as soon as he started buying drugs again. He was a 13-year-old kid for fuck sakes.

“I told him, ‘from now on, every time you go to town, you go with me. Between classes, you hang out with me. They will never touch you again.’ They didn’t. I wasn’t so lucky. At first, everything was going well. The dealer and his goons never got anywhere near Robby. They were afraid of what I would do to them if they did. That is when I found out about Robby’s friends that were trying to follow his example. The goons started beating them up too. I was only one guy and couldn’t be everywhere. I decided to hit the dealer where it would hurt. I would sit in the place where he usually sold drugs at lunchtime. The other kids in the school were afraid of me, so they stayed away, and the dealer lost a lot of business.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but there were actually two different drug dealers that sold drugs behind the tennis courts at the school. You would have thought Robby would have warned me that I was picking a fight with another dealer. They ended up putting a price on my head, which many different people tried to collect, but none could. I was used to daily gang beatings. What could one or two people do to me that 20 couldn’t?

“They eventually caught me, but only because I was betrayed. Mack was the closest thing I had left to a friend. Some people said we were best friends, but I knew better. Though, I didn’t expect him to betray me like that. One day, after school, some of Robby’s friends were attacked near the school busses, where everybody could see. I stepped in. Instead of helping me, the first chance they got, the assholes I was helping ran away. In the end, I faced five goons by myself. In quick succession, I knocked three of them down hard, and that gave me the opening to run.

“I thought I got away, or at least I did get away until Mack showed up. I would have run to the Sr. High School and caught the bus to the village there. It was on the other side of town, but I was a fast runner and could make it. Mack pointed out that it was too far, and the goons would be in vehicles looking for me. He offered me a place to hide, so I took it. We got to his place, and he refused to let me in. Mack went inside himself and made a phone call. By then, both sets of drug dealers knew I was in trouble, and they were looking for me.

“When I figured out what Mack had done, I took off running as fast as I could. It was no use. I turned a corner, and there was a large group of goons. I guessed there were about 20 of them. I turned and ran the other way. Unfortunately, I ran straight into the other dealer’s goons. It was another mob about the same size as the first.

“What is really sad is, Mack didn’t even take the money for my capture. He was a sadistic bastard that wanted to see what they would do to me once they caught me. He stood there and watched. At first, there was a dispute about who got to torture and kill me. Eventually, they just said fuck it, and everybody had a go. For more than an hour, I was beaten by a group of about 40 people.

“I don’t know why I did it, but every time they thought I was dead and were walking away, I would stand up and taunt them. I would tell them how I thought they were nothing but a bunch of pussies that couldn’t deal with one kid.

“Eventually, I wasn’t even capable of that. All this happened in an open field in the middle of town. The cops were corrupt and weren’t about to stop it. The dealers wanted everybody to see, as a warning not to stand up to them. Before I gave up, word had already spread around town and all the surrounding villages that I was dead.

“During the beating, you could hear people make comments like, ‘Holy shit, what is it going to take to kill this guy. I would have died a long time ago.’ I knew that in the odd chance that I was to survive, I had to make sure everybody was even more afraid of me than before. With every such comment, I drew strength.

“Eventually, it was all over. The goons had departed long before I woke up. I can’t say I walked to safety. It wasn’t even really a crawl. The closest I can say, I slithered, but even that isn’t quite right. It took all my effort to move.

“Two girls I knew found me trying to move down the sidewalk. One of the girls knew me well, but she couldn’t recognize who I was until she was 10 feet in front of me. I was that messed up. There was blood everywhere. Even the back of my shirt was soaked in it. The girls offered to help, but I told them, ‘You have to go. If anybody sees you trying to help me, they might try to kill you too.’ Even with the warning, the girls still wanted to help. I will never forget their faces. I did convince them to leave me be. Anybody that helped me would be at risk, and I didn’t want their blood on my hands.

“I couldn’t go to the hospital because they would call the police. I couldn’t go to the police. I went down a back alley where I knew nobody would see me. Then I knocked on the first door of somebody I thought wouldn’t turn me in. I still wouldn’t let them help. They phoned my mother and told her I had been in a fight. I went to their bathroom and took care of my injuries. They gave me a t-shirt, something to eat and drink. I then fell asleep on their couch.