Chapter 5A: Oedipus calling

The end of a young story

From the outside, high school would have appeared a difficult adjustment for the twins and me.

The Smith financial status should have made things easy for the twins. Unfortunately, the student body was split, economically and socially, between those who 'belonged' and Smith Holdings kids.

The benefits package offered by Smith Holdings (the conglomerate Roger Smith left his wife and sons) included a tuition stipend for employees with children under eighteen. The stipend made private school an affordable option, but for parents who could already afford private school (or were willing to pinch pennies), it put the best schools within their price range. Ninety percent of the Smith Holdings kids would not have attended our high school without the stipend.

The kids with economically advantaged parents treated Smith Holdings students like invaders (even the ones who would have attended without the stipend). They held the twins responsible for opening the floodgates to the barbarism of their inferiors. The Smith Holdings kids also kept their distance from the twins, although without the venomous looks.

As seemed to be my lot in life, my social status made the twins feel like their situation was par for the course.

I was not wealthy, so the rich kids hated me; but not openly since in grammar school I proved dangerously capable of catching would-be tormentors alone. I did not bear the last name Smith, but I was not a Smith Holdings kid. Rachel and Roger's generosity made it possible for the school to offer scholarships, but the administration had nothing to do with choosing me for one of those grants. Much like the school supplies which auto-magically appeared for the twins and I at the mansion (Marisa's stuff always involved shopping trips), my tuition was paid with the same check that took care of the twins.

Swim tryouts made the situation worse (not that the twins and I thought no one talking to us was necessarily a bad thing). Three popular seniors were cut to make room for us.

The twins had an abundance of natural talent, and I entered the pool armed with the same training. No one could compete. The twins were my measuring stick when I set out to make the team. I came up short, but far ahead of anyone whom the water did not love as it did the twins. The other kids were good, just not in the same class.

In a school deprived of winning sports programs, the coach was not going to give up a winning season.

The three seniors were a part of the core in-crowd and drove a movement to keep the twins and me isolated. Even the most unpopular kids shunned us to avoid being caught in the fire.

The twins, being who they were, welcomed the excuse to collapse into themselves. Rachel seemed pained by it, more for me than her sons. For those few months, I only needed to look 'mopish' to find myself wrapped in the sweetest smelling hug I could imagine.

Our REAL swim coach cut our practices to five days a week believing that while practice could center us, it should not be our center. I sold the twins on making two of the practice days on weekends. We got to sleep in two school days, leaving me better able to handle my martial arts training.

To be honest, I was doing quite well (not that anybody who saw me at the mansion would have been able to tell).

Iris went to a public high school; she did not feel any peer pressure to keep her distance so I got sex whenever I wanted. My baby sister reinstated bedtime story reading with me when my stepfather got permanently kicked out.

The dumbass cheated on my mother during the 'rejuvenated' period of their marriage. My mother was far from devastated; she seemed almost embarrassed by the sympathy everyone gave her. The entire extended family tried to be as supportive as possible to make sure my mother had no reason to let him back into the fold. Having been present for the final blowout, I knew HE was never going to forgive her.

His mistress was a younger woman, out of high school on the technicality of having dropped out.

My mother set the stage perfectly. Aunt Esmerelda got Marisa out of the kill-zone by throwing a sleepover for her nieces and nephews. She tried to take Iris and me but the look in my mother's eyes when it was suggested glued our asses to the sofa.

The argument started out normally.

"I have to talk to you," my mother said as soon as he walked in the door. The ice in her voice was a dead giveaway she wanted to do more than talk. (Yelling--my mother was very good at yelling!)

"Can't you give me time to get settled?" he asked angrily, glancing at Iris and me. He tried to question us with his eyes; but having experienced the full power of my mother's lungs at one time or another, we were imitating the furniture. I even managed not to smile.

"Who is Omaira?" she said. Somehow, her voice got colder.

He went with the tried and tested techniques of ducking the questions, trying to delay any admission, and finally blaming her for his indiscretion.

The last was a mistake.

"So fucking what! I can go tell Rachel you were fucking her husband. Where would that leave your precious, little boy? He'd have to go to public school. Maybe he'd learn to be a man there, rather then spoiled baby you're making him!"

She laughed, the vicious laugh of someone holding a straight flush when others bet the table up. Iris and I stared at her with morbid curiosity. My mother smiled, making him squirm.

"Rachel seduced me," she informed him. "Roger was more of a man than she could handle, but a good woman doesn't leave the important things to chance."

The breath froze in my lungs.

"This little happy marriage thing, we've had since Puerto Rico," she said scornfully, "it's been the longest I can remember not fucking Rachel."

She let each word mark him before continuing, "I want your shit out as fast as possible! I have a lot of begging forgiveness to do into a very pretty blonde pussy."

I sat in the living room giving her words a lot of thought after he stormed. My reality had not been redrawn like that since I saw my uncle's hand on Iris's ass. I called the twins and asked them some questions. They nervously confirmed the affair between our mothers. I promptly fell off the couch laughing.

They would not let me off the phone until I gave them a full transcript of the argument.

"Oh!" Sean said.

"What?"

"That explains the noise," Patrick replied. I fell off the couch again.

The dumbass left and never set foot in our home again.

The situation in school could have gotten worse, but the three seniors decided on a direct approach. The twins and I won the main issue at our first competition, an invitational meet. The other teams were crushed under the juggernaut of three boys trained by a coach with Olympic aspirations.

The twins showed the first true sign of their potential; and I was the perfect straight man to their brilliance. Sean and Patrick had no equals in individual competition, but relays were our forte.

Our rotation became set in stone during the competition. Sean hit the water first; he loved breaking the other teams' will at the block and during his leg. The second never mattered to us, except that day it was another senior, a core member of the in-crowd. I swam third. Patrick was our anchor, and no matter the lead he always gave it his best.

The seniors we replaced knew they had lost, and it galled them. They confronted me after school with some of their friends in tow. My lack of reaction to their stupidity and threats only made them angrier. The twins slid around the crowd to stand by me.

My first memory was taking class in my godfather's martial arts school. The dumbass learned there were going to be problems when my uncles ignored his wishes and enrolled me in a school the second day I was in the States. Roger Smith trained Sean and Patrick, and after his death Michael, Roger's right-hand man, became their sensei. The twins did not spend anywhere near the time I did training, but they were born knowing how to fight together.

Sean looked at me and nodded towards the three idiots. I pointed at the one I wanted the pleasure of hitting. We moved around until we were opposite our preferred targets.

The seniors wanted a physical confrontation but on their terms. The twins and I did not have the mental framework to allow that. They would have backed off if the second leg of our relay had not shown up with the rest of the in-crowd.

The second leg wanted us on the team. He saw glory and that neither the twins nor I cared much for it, making him the only approachable star athlete in our school. He chose that moment to announce his newly revised opinion about the coach making the 'right' decision. It made it an issue of face for the three seniors.

The one I wanted took a swing. It was untrained, wide, and what I had been waiting for. I moved inside the arc of his power and countered with a short, crisp hook. He dropped. By the time he hit the ground, the twins had the other two down.

We looked around for more, but the finality of the sudden violence made everyone decide to become uninvolved.

The fight washed over; the principal was not going to touch three seniors and as many emerging athletes when no one would admit anything happened. The second leg smoothed things by elevating the three seniors to higher positions on the social ladder.

By summer, the mountain had moved to three very unlikely Muhammads. The twins and I entered a protective relationship with the future female leaders of the in-crowd. The girls got a valuable high school commodity, access to successful male athletes, effectively guaranteeing their status as the in-crowd. The twins and I got rabid xenophobes to guard our borders.

The day school let out, our swim coach announced we were going to work on correcting weaknesses in 'our' technique and smashing through some important plateaus.

As rough as he tried to make it, the sanity of a regular schedule made things manageable. I got up early for practice; afterwards had a sex session with Iris or took a nap or both; spent the afternoon with the twins or some of our female classmates or both; took my martial arts class; played with Marisa in a dumbass-free zone; and got laid before hitting the reset button on the day.

While not at the level of The Summer of the Aunts, it looked like it would be a good summer. Iris had become a more creative sexual partner, with a hunger matching mine. Sean and Patrick were waging a successful campaign to change the dynamics of our relationship with the girls in the in-crowd. They cast me in the supporting role of dark alternative to their angelically blonde presence.

The summer got darker in one moment of stupidity and became something to remember when sexuality entered the breach created by that instant. Many things in my life came into focus the first Tuesday of July.

The silence was the first thing I noticed when I entered the apartment. I had just experienced being shot down by a girl and had been looking forward to some baby-sister-to-big-brother worship to salve my ego.

Light filtered from underneath the door to my mother's bedroom. I put my workout bag down and walked up to it. Marisa was crying. My mother's voice shook while she attempted to comfort her. Iris sounded scared and angry.

I opened the door. They were sitting at the foot of the bed. My mother held a white towel to her head. Iris held a bawling Marisa. My baby sister had her arms out, pleading for my mother to hug her. The only response she got was mumbled and confused words.

Everyone looked at me when I stepped into the room. Marisa scrambled out of Iris's arms and jumped into mine. She buried her face in my neck and cried even harder.

"Stay!" I said to the other two females before carrying Marisa to her room. She did not know anything more than our mother had been hurt somehow. I whispered softly to her until she cried herself out and fell asleep.

Iris and my mother were holding hands when I walked back into the room. They watched me warily. Keeping quiet was a challenge since they knew I wanted to know what happened. I only needed my suspicions confirmed, so it was a losing proposition for them.

My mother babbled the story; still dazed from the incident, it was not very coherent.

Marisa wanted cookies to take on the visitation weekend with her father. My mother went to get the ingredients to make sure she would not forget later. There was a small store a couple of blocks away, and she decided to walk. On the way back, she passed my stepfather's favorite bar. He was standing outside with some of the locals.

It was the first time they saw each other since the divorce papers had been served. My stepfather made things difficult by filing for full custody of Marisa; my mother countered with a full accounting of abuses. She never made an official complaint, but Aunt Esmerelda, my mother's confidant, kept detailed records--with Polaroids (Esmeralda was my favorite aunt).

The dumbass confronted my mother outside the bar; his lover joined the fray. They screamed and yelled some very extremely unfriendly things, but my mother held her own. It should have been loud, mostly-meaningless noise, but Omaira was a fire starter. She egged my stepfather on, giving him the courage to be himself in front of witnesses.

He slapped my mother, and his bitch laughed. My mother decked him, which did not have much of an effect except in the eyes of the audience. With his ego bruised, he grabbed my mother and threw her down. Her head struck a fire hydrant. She lay on the concrete with his bitch yelling at her, before everyone walked back into the bar. No one helped her.

I walked to the phone and called for an ambulance.

"David, no! I'm okay!" my mother said, trying to get up. She had to lean on Iris to manage it. I called Michael, the Smith's man. My mother had been hired to be his secretary before our vacation in Puerto Rico. We were not back a month before Smith Holdings needed two new secretaries, one for him and one for his newly minted Executive Dominatrix of All Things Michael. She got mixed reviews for her job performance; with my mother organizing things, Michael had more time, but no one appreciated the sting of her whip when they tried to get past her with stupid bullshit.

He picked up on the first ring. It was on a line he thought only Rachel and her sons knew the number for. I told him who was calling and why. He asked a couple of questions and said he would meet us at the hospital.

My mother was becoming agitated about the fuss. I stared at her hard.

"Stop!"

She tried to stare at me down, but had been waiting too long to be successful. Iris and I guided her into the living room. I opened the door so the paramedics would not have to knock.

Iris stayed at the apartment in case Marisa woke up. Michael was waiting with a doctor when the ambulance arrived. He took me aside and asked more questions while my mother was led away.

Michael had been Roger Smith's protégé. At twenty-six, a lot of people thought he was too young to be in top dog at Smith Holdings. The twins and their mother were not impossibly rich, but no name except Rachel Smith appeared on any pink slip of a Smith Holdings company. Michael's conservatism was not considered the best leadership style for such a corporation; I understood why Roger chose him though. Roger pulled him out of whatever hole made Michael wear sadness like a coat of armor. Michael's loyalty to the Smiths went so deep his subconscious would kill him before he betrayed it.

Michael tried to distract me after his questions. He talked about Marisa knowing the place she had in my life. He loved her too; his wife did not want children, and he found a surrogate in my sister. Marisa had a MONSTER crush on him.

The doctor told us my mother did not have a concussion, but it had been close. Most of her reaction was emotional stress. He prescribed rest.

My mother was more coherent in Michael's car. He looked around our block unhappily when we arrived at the apartment building. As the mistress of Michael's corporate life, my mother could afford better but the divorce cut heavily into our ability to move.

In the living room, my mother sat down heavily, looking lost. Michael watched me and waited. I knew what had to be done. I kissed my mother and whispered I would be back. She protested, feminine instinct screaming what I was about to do.

"I'll keep him out of trouble," Michael said, stepping between us when she got up. She stared at him hard.

"A boy has to do some things to be a man," Michael said, guiding her back to the sofa. "I've met your brothers, so I know you understand."

He kissed her cheek, and turned towards me. I headed for the door, only to have Iris grab my hand. She whispered something in my ear. I did not need any more motivation, but Iris wanted a piece of what was coming for herself.

The cool summer breeze stoked the fire. Michael walked in his natural place on the right shoulder of someone with purpose. I needed a second after entering the bar to place the one I hunted.

His fire starter was laughing loudly and noticed us first. I waited for Michael to place the ones most likely to interfere. The bitch nudged the dumbass and pointed. They were the only ones who recognized me, but everyone else recognized Michael's job was to get me a clean shot. Space cleared as we walked up to the table.

"Is the big boy here to defend his mommy?" the dumbass joked for his playmates.

Tossing the flimsy table aside was the easiest method of getting it out of the way. He had been standing up, but my action caused a moment's hesitation. I buried a fist in his side. I took a step back and waited for him to recover. The anger had been brewing too long for it to be quick. I needed him to fight back, to understand there was only one possible ending to our story.

He threw a punch as soon as he caught his breath. My body registered the tensing of his muscles before he launched it. I twisted to absorb the impact and returned the favor as he pulled back.

I was shorter and not yet full grown, but he only had twenty pounds on me.

He threw another punch and had to absorb two. He became wary, realizing I wanted to drag it out. Even if he could get past the training, the anger he put in every cell of my body did not let me feel the pain. Not when I finally had him in my sights!

We traded, trying to hurt each other for a while before I heard a chair breaking behind me.

"Gentlemen, this is about the two of them. Please, do not make it about us."

The dumbass took advantage of my momentary distraction and rushed me. Unfortunately, it was impossible to stop the training instilled in me (Uncle Ovaldo's favorite story was how my godfather taught me the fun game of punching the toys hanging over my crib).

The training took over. A more compact one, freezing him in place, met his rush. His charge had been born of anger; mine was the first move in a sequence. We hit, and I bounced back kicking him just above the knee. I back-kicked him while he was dropping. The roundhouse kick had the added momentum of the spin, and the series ended with my right hand catching him flush.

I would have kept going, but Michael grabbed me. He turned and shoved me towards the door. The bartender and some of the patrons yelled about the damage. Michael stopped and let me go. I looked back. The bitch was making simpering noises over the dumbass as he stared hatefully at me. I tried to will him back to his feet so we could start over.

"That's enough, David," Michael.

"Are you sure?"

Michael looked behind him.

"Wait here," he said before walking over to crouch by the dumbass. They exchanged words. The dumbass was pissed, but Michael absorbed whatever was necessary to get his message across. Slowly, the conversation turned. The bitch showed surprise and stepped away from Michael.

I took a seat at the bar, recognizing when someone rubbed on the wrong side of Michael's loyalty. Whatever anyone else might think, Rachel believed Michael was more relaxed at the office with my mother running interference. Rachel rarely gave direct instruction on the running of her company, but Michael had been told anything that made his life better was an asset to the Smith family.

He talked until the dumbass nodded. Michael patted him on the head and walked back to the bar. He pulled out a checkbook and wrote one out, which caused the bartender to look around furtively. I doubted the owner would see any part of the money.

Outside the bar, I asked Michael how much the damage had cost. He stopped and looked at me, "Roger had plans for you, David."

I shrugged; no one knew about my deathbed conversation with Roger. Michael looked up and down the street, "They're very similar to the ones he had for me."

I was not surprised. He met my eyes and smiled, "I see some of what he saw in you. Rachel did not agree, but last summer she instructed me to move forward with Roger's plans."

I nodded again.

"If it works out, you'll pay a lot more than a few broken tables back to us. If it doesn't, we'll talk about how much you owe me."

"Okay."

"You're not going to ask what Roger wanted?" he asked.

"Something like your life, right?" I asked, meeting his eyes but not willing to betray Roger's final words.

He nodded.

"I think your wife's a bitch, but taking care of Rachel and the twins isn't a bad future."

He had not laughed that freely in a long time. We walked to the apartment building in the companionable silence of men raised in the image of the same father. He shook my hand before driving away.

Iris was flipping through channels when I walked in. I tried to sit down, but she stopped me.

"Your mother wants to see you," she said, pointing towards my mother's bedroom. She kissed my cheek before walking to our bedroom. I stood in the living room, considering whether or not I wanted to deal with my mother. I did not really have a choice though.

I opened her bedroom door and walked in. I thought she might have been asleep and walked over to turn the light by her bed off.

She sat up suddenly.

"David!" she said. She got out of bed, grabbed my arms, and studied my face. I had the bruises to be expected from a bare knuckles fight.

"Sit down!" she ordered. She had not interfered, so it was her due. I sat on the bed and watched her walk into the bathroom. For a rent-controlled apartment, the layout was fantastic.

She came out with a collection of first aid items, and patted my face with alcohol swabs. I winced when she bumped a spot on my side. She caught it and backed away immediately.

"Take the shirt off," she instructed. I was about to argue, not wanting to be half-naked in front of her, but she reached down to help. I gave in to the inevitable. She maneuvered me to a more comfortable position. I let her do what she wanted while my mind drifted to the fight.