S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Fifteen

"Get back here, boy!" His angry drunken father screamed at him as he tried to escape down the stairs. The boy was only ten years old and he had accidentally flushed too much paper down the toilet, and clogged it up.

"How am I supposed to do anything around here when you're always fucking everything up!?" His father screamed, chasing him.

He ran out the front door, and down the chipped-stone steps of his father's shabby rental house, and sprinted into the yard. He ran passed the dog kennel, the dog barked wildly when they ran past, at the man, not the child. The boy hopped the fence and into his neighbour's yard, hitting the ground, still running. He didn't want to get hit again, he was too used to it for the pain to hurt, it was wondering why his father took his rage out on him that hurt the most. He could never understand why he was such a "fuck up".

He hit the ground with both feet running, he knew if he could get away, when he came back, his father would have forgotten about the whole incident, and would be onto something else, likely a bottle of cheap whiskey. He might still be angry about something else, or he could be in one of his better, more sober moods, but at least he would be able to feel out the situation, and run again if he needed to.

The boy hopped four fences and ran into the woods nearby. His father had stopped chasing him at their fence but he didn't want to be asked what was going on by the neighbours again. He went to his spot in the forest nearby, that he liked to runaway to. There was an old pullout couch there. He had folded it back in, and built a fort over top of it, to cover it up from the rain as best he could. The couch was still damp and dirty, and mouldy, but it wouldn't soak him to sit on it. He sat, and pulled out a stash of matches, dry paper, crackers and some soda cans that he had buried in a box, just for these kinds of situations. It had been dug up a lot of times.

He looked at the small fire pit he had built, and there was still some wood left from his last stay there. It had only been a few days past when his father had gotten a call about him missing school, and decided to bust his lip open as punishment. The boy lit a small fire in the pit, and went to collect more wood.

When he got back he stoked the fire and opened one of his sodas. He pulled out his pocket knife and started carving a piece of wood he particularly liked from his search. He slowly carved, making sure the letters were as perfect as he could get them with his dull little blade. C-..A-..R-O-L. Carol. His mother's name was Carol. He barely remembered her.

What he did remember, was small bits of a better life. One where his father was a different man, and loved him as much as his mother. She had light brown hair, and hazel eyes. She had died when he was young. She was in an accident while going to pick him up from school. He remembered that. He remembered her funeral, and his father crying for weeks, ignoring everything else. That was when he started his drinking. He had only gotten worse since. His father blamed him all the time for it.

The boy curled up on the damp bed, and watched the last bit of light fade out of the sky. He wondered if things would always be the same. As bad as his father had gotten now, a part of him still loved the man, and he felt bad for him. He wished he could pull himself together. He fell asleep praying for the man who was probably at home cursing his name.

He was seventeen years old when he enlisted in the army and left his house. His father hadn't found his way, and he grew to hate him. His father continued to beat him until the day he enlisted. He only signed the parental consent for somebody of that age when he was drunk one day, and rambled that he was glad he was going, and hopefully somebody out there would be able to do what he should have done the day he was born.

He served, and focused that hate into becoming the best he could be. He was faster, and smarter than anyone who he trained with. He quickly earned a name for himself, and moved up the chain of command, but his demons ate away at him. He had dreams of his Mother's death. His mother would be driving, and he would be in the car with her. He wasn't when the accident happened but in the dream he was. He would forget about his entire life in the dream. He was a child again, and she was there, and he was always so excited.