Chapter 1: Trouble

"My name is Crossroads. I have lost my way, but I know the path I have to walk now, for years I was lost. I had no path but now I have found it. It had been staring me in the face all along. Goodbye dear light."

Last Words of Vincent Hemlock as he passed from this plane.

I was born Vincent Hemlock. I went through life not knowing where I belonged. I was always out of place. I never worried about fitting in as a person. I never really worried about that, Just being felt wrong to me. I would walk home and come to a place I didn't know, but I would still know the way home. It was strange, but I would always make it back home safely. I found out why eventually but it stills always throws me off. I mean we can be so much more, when you look at the scope of what we could really become if we were just pushed a little bit up the evolutionary ladder. It would make you laugh and cry, yet you wouldn't even understand why.

I remember the first time I told my parents I had gotten lost. My Parents told me I had a wild imagination. That I was just making it up. My father in no certain words called me a liar.

"Mommy, I got lost on the way home today. I was walking the way you showed me but it got fuzzy and a bunch of strangers showed up and I didn't see our house but I kept walking and I just followed the way you told me and I got here but I was so scared, Mommy. I don't want to see the strangers again, Mommy." The tears were pouring down my face as I buried my face in her shoulder nearly knocking her over in my urgency.

"It's all right, baby. Mommy is here. It's ok." She had this way of talking to me and stroking my hair. No matter how upset I was or scared I became her voice would make it better. I would forget everything and be safe and secure in knowing that she would be there when I needed her. "It was probably the lights playing tricks on you. It will be okay. I promise I won't let any of them hurt you okay?"

"Oh give me a break, the fucking brat is just a pussy. He can't even walk home in broad daylight. The little pansy probably runs from his own shadow. I'm just shocked that he doesn't use a night-light. Only damn six-year-old I ever met that ran to mommy because he got home all right." I knew he was in one of those moods again and was scaring me but I saw mommy's eyes and the way HE shut up when those eyes locked on him. He walked away mumbling to himself, but today we would be okay. Mom made sure of it.

For a little while I would get lost everyday, but each time I did I found myself somewhere new, yet familiar. I would see something new It was really fun, sometimes, more often than not it was worse. Eventually, Mommy told me that it was just make believe and if I didn't want it to happen then it wouldn't. How could I doubt her? She had never been wrong. I imagined it stopped and it did, just like that. She had been right. Well half right, it wasn't make-believe. I really did go to those places. A few years later though, it started happening again. By then I KNEW it wasn't make-believe.

I, turned to Mom once again, "Mom you remember when I was younger and I always said I was getting lost, even though I went the way you told me?" A look of fear crossed her face at that very unexpected question.

"Ye... Yes, I do dear. why do you ask?" She was struggling to hide her fear now and almost succeeding.

"I got lost again today. I mean I knew where I was but not like houses and stuff. It was because there was something there that reminded me of a story, I read. It was about a man who had went to sleep on his world and woke up in a world slightly different than the one he went to sleep in. Does that sound weird?" I turned to her for support but her soothing words never came as she rushed off to answer the phone, leaving me no closer to an answer.

I had never listened in on the other phone before, but in this case, I think I was meant to. "He is doing it again, Steve. He swears to me that he is getting lost, but now he says that he is going to a different world. I just don't know what to do. I know insanity runs in my family, but we never took him to meet his grandfather. How could he have the same thing as him? How can I tell my son that I think he is crazy?" The pain was thick in her voice as she nearly choked on the last question.

"We'll just see how things play out for a little while. I think that little prick is just looking for attention. and he overheard you talking about your father and thought it would be a good way to get you to spend more time hugging and babying him. He always was stuck up your ass, always running to you whenever something was wrong in the least little bit. I swear he got more attention from you than I did and I'm supposed to be your husband for god's sake. You are always making sure Vincent is okay, when was the last time you even made an effort to see if I was ok?" His words were a slap in the face to her. she had always made sure to take care of her family. She wouldn't have been able to live with herself if she had been a bad wife or mother.

"Now is not the time, Steven. I am worried about our only son and am afraid we may have to get him some help. Do you still work with the guy who saw my father? Is he still in the same building you work in?"

"Yeah, he is still here. Whoever heard of a shrink setting up shop inside a mall anyway? Sure, he is in the office section. He's the last office smack dab in the middle of an ice cream parlor and a masseuse parlor. I guess he figures it this way, though.

They stop for ice cream, feel bad about their weight, and stop to see him. He sends them out near the massage parlor where they get the deluxe package," he chuckled to himself as he said it, "Then, they come see him for the guilt they feel from it and hit the ice cream as an afterthought to a good session starting it all over again. The man is a lousy shrink, but a fucking marketing genius."

"Steven, now is not the time to be a smart-ass. Our child is not right and it is up to us to make sure he gets the best help we can get him. I don't want to hear another smart-ass comment come out of you mouth until you have set up an appointment with that doctor." the command was soft in her voice but the way she said it made it impossible to argue with her. "Do you understand me mister?"

"Yeah I understand. I understand that that little fucker is crazy as his dear Grandpa, and no matter how much money we spend, he will never be right. We ought to just pack him up and send him up there with good ole pa and see if they can't do something with him. After all he isn't OUR responsibility, he's the state's. Now that we know he is crazy."

"How dare you talk about your son like that you heartless bastard. I told you; you will treat him with respect. He doesn't need you giving him any more grief. I'm sure that he wants you to like him. You're his father and he loves you unconditionally, but instead of returning that love, you act like you always do. JEALOUS. Jealous of the men in my life!" Never once did I think that you would be jealous of your own son!"

The phone was slammed down hard while he was still muttering something that I won't repeat. She didn't care. She had the last word and he knew it. She walked into the living room and sat next to me on the carpet. She hadn't done that since I was ten, nearly six years ago. "Honey, have you gotten lost lately?"

"I don't get lost anymore. I know how to get home. What made you ask me that? I thought you didn't like hearing about it? Oh, I get it. You just want to know if I'm crazy right? When were you going to tell me my grandfather was still alive? Were you ever?" At first, I avoided her eyes, but after the second question, I looked her right in the eyes and wouldn't blink or move until she had to turn away from the pure hatred radiating from mine. In those few short seconds she was looking at me, she knew I was not crazy. She sent me to the doctor anyway. Anything to make her husband happy. After all with the trouble they had been having lately how much damage could seeing a shrink do anyways?

"Hello, Vincent, I am Mort Kurier. I believe I have talked to your grandfather. Your parents have told me that you seem to have a similar condition. Is this true?" He makes eye contact like he thinks he is supposed to do. Hoping to make me feel more relaxed I guess. I didn't take it very well.