As a boy I never really had much. The only money that would ever be spent would be on my dad's booze. I'd wander the streets of my shady town just to get away from home. I'd walk down the cracked and dismantled concrete to the corner store. Opening the aluminum door with a creak.
"Howdy, Vincent!" the clerk would call to me. He wasn't from this state, here it's a city of bandits and criminals. With the Mafia and the criminals roaming the streets I was lucky to make it home without a new scar, but this clerk, this overly joyous man, he was from down south. He came from Texas, far far from this putrid place.
"Hello sir," I would reply with my heavily accented voice. It sounded like those movies where the guys in the leather jackets would terrorize the men in the letterman coats. The bikers would speak like me and the letterman guys would talk like pristine American men. Their hair swooped back perfectly in a golden wave while the bikers hair was jet black with grease coating every inch of it. I wanted to be like them, to be tough enough to fight with weapons. I wanted to fight and win or at least win in mentality.
"Get into any trouble?" he always asked this. I would usually say no unless something big happened.
"Nothing so far," I'd reply with a smile.
"Good to hear!" he was so happy. So full of sunshine. Sickening. I grab a candy bar and slipped a dollar onto the counter. He'd give me my change and I'd thank him. This was our routine. If I ever came without a dollar he'd give me the chocolate for free. I liked him.
On my way home I hummed sweet songs that appear in my mind. They didn't really exist but my imagination was always on the fritz. The boys of the town would call me names, snake eyes, slither boy and my personal favorite, Viper! Though those names were often used to hurt me I always found them incredibly cool! I would always play with snakes as a kid, but here the people aren't big fans of snakes. They think they're the devil but I find them to be sweet. Those nicknames came from my love of snakes. And how I would always use them against me, but I built from it.
When I'd get home I would already be able to hear my parents arguing.
"He needs to be a kid for once, Markus!!!" my mother would yell. She never yells. My mother is one of the quietest people I've ever met. She usually hides behind my father in social situations, cowering in the back of the crowd.
"He needs to learn how to not be a coward!!!" my father would scream back. He was always screaming. Screaming at mom, screaming at me, screaming at life itself. I'm surprised his vocal cords hadn't ruptured yet. I could hear him hit my mom. She yelped like a puppy and hit the floor with a thud. I busted in the door, looking down at my mother crumpled on the floor.
"YOU!" my father growled, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN BOY?!" he picked me up by the front of my shirt. His breath reeked of whiskey, the smell burned my eyes as the hot air hit my face. I hadn't realized it but it was dark outside. The moon halfway out as the eerie glow of our porch light illuminated our steps.
"I've been out, trying to get away from hellhole!!!" I scream in return, my hands clenching his big disgusting mitts. His grip tightens as I struggle, the veins in his neck popping out. My mother trembles on the floor, crying. I kick my father's hand and he drops me, cursing. I crawl to my mother, holding her hand as she weeps. Across her face were a large red hand mark and a small cut on her nose. My father walks back over to me, grabbing me by my thick blonde hair. He tossed me across the room, going back to my mom and screaming in her face. I sat with a migraine against the wall. The sounds of my father were muffled, as my vision whirled in front of my eyes.
This is how many of my family nights would go. Very rarely would I come home to dad being asleep and mom without a new bruise. This went on for years until around my seventeenth birthday. My father had been bedridden for months now. With my newfound almost adulthood I was away from home a lot of the time with a group of kids I'd vandalize stuff with. There were about three and for the life of me I can't remember their names, but I do remember their faces. One was a tall frail ginger boy with dark speckles covering his entire body. His eyes were dark and shiny but he almost never spoke. There was also this short thin framed dark kid, with a buzzed head and a new black eye every week. He'd come with me to get away from home. His eyes were a bright crazy blue with small green accents. Lastly, I was joined by this pudgy pale kid. His hair was an unfortunate black bowl cut that he'd often cover with a Yankees baseball cap. He didn't really have a reason to follow me but he always did. We'd go around and terrorize girls and older citizens.
