Felixentric

Scene 10

"Are you kidding me?"

"It's not like I can stay with you!"

She kicked at the wall in the hallway. It groaned behind the toe of her heel. Luckily, she only kicked it once. "Don't make this my fault!" She had five too many siblings for another kid in the house. Three to a room. Two in one bed and one on the floor. There wasn't half a sheet left in that house for an extra body.

Felix grumbled. "What's so bad about him anyway?"

"Nothing!" she threw her hands up and screamed. "I'm just worried about you, okay?" She looked like a beast jumping out of the jungle in a story book. But before long, her raging hair took a turn to calm and she shook her head, her angry side falling away with her falling eyes. She looked more sorry now.

Outside, the streets were grey and the sun was debatably at its highest. "I haven't been here in a long time." Felix said this as a way to help him forget the previous problem. But it was also adding to his anxiety. "Almost four years..."

She looked at him with a funny thought between her eyes. "You'll be okay?"

He took a big gulp of air. "I just have to get used to it."

She touched her own, curly hair in a way to show she was thinking. "I have a project. It's about talking to people and learning about the city. Help me with it and maybe you'll be more comfortable by the time we're done."

He thought about it. In reality, he just wanted to give up and put a crown over his territory on Quinn's pull-out couch - maybe build a fort around the areas with blankets and cushions. But he also didn't like that he was feeling so hesitant. If he went along and struck the "worse-before-it-gets-better" chord on the piano of anxiety, he'd be happier in a week than ever before.

But he also wanted to more about the human culture. He wanted to learn about different ways to help them. He'd only get this from interacting - though, hopefully, at a minimum - with them. He reluctantly agreed.

Janette started leading him away and down the street. "It's to create a pinpoint presentation on how literature can affect society. The teacher wants something detailed and different, not just the general."

Felix didn't know much about literature, as he didn't read much. He read a little as a kid, but when Hale stopped bringing him books from the library, the passion quickly faded.

"There are a few things we could do." Janette was rummaging through her bag and smiled when she pulled out a newspaper. It was the one he'd already read in the ambulance. "One of my ideas was that we could do it on Quixotic."

He clenched his fists. "Why would we do our report on this crackhead?"

But J didn't seem to notice the anger in his tone. She shrugged, "He has more depth than what people realize. And I think he's a sort of figure of literature in his fighting technique and image."

No answer.

"Have you ever contemplated his name? For sake, he chose it himself, but there are so many theories as to what it means and I'm starting to think it has to do with his passion for poetry. Quixotic." She said his name in the way a person might kiss. She pushed out her lips and said every syllable with a certain slow speed. "Quixotic. It's a word that also means 'unrealistic' or 'impractical.' With first thought, you'd think the name is meant to be negative. But I have this theory that he might have chosen it for himself to express a sort of fiction in his reality - something with a positive connotation rather than a negative one. 'Too good to be true.' But he quotes Shakespeare in battle and sits on the tops of building to scribble in a journal. Other synonyms for the name are 'idealistic,' 'romantic,' or 'starry-eyed.' He brings a glittering life to his bloody work."