Our, my, the house was what remained of a three hundred year old prison hulk. It's black, heavy oak beams had aged into something harder than concrete, impervious to all that nature could throw at it. Abandoned, beached by the world's technological advances she sat at the head of the harbour, atop a dry creek, between a dense row of beech trees and the muddy foreshore. Standing on the shore, a mile south east, were the remains of a Roman cum Northman castle stripped of its stone about a hundred years ago. We could only be reached by one road, a road locally known as 'Dead Road' because at its end was the largest cemetery within a ten mile radius.
All the heroes of the national wars were buried there. Tom Tarpon, Lauren Munro and the great Admiral John Dean Peters whose huge statue had him seated, hand on walking stick and was, to all the kids from the house, the centre of a thousand games. Coupled with the other hulks, wrecks and the foreshore itself, the place was the greatest playground a child could ever want.
I have no real clues to my parentage, all records being lost in one of the bombardments of the city. Over the years a few drunks with wildly varying collections of teeth have shown up at the door claiming to be 'My old dad', the fact they all used the same phrase suggests to me they all cooked the plan up in the same shite tavern on Spice Island. I suppose you might think it strange that three men should all want to claim me as their own. But I was strong and carried a fifty pound blood bonus to whatever family would take me from the care of the city state. The overwhelming smell of stale beer and piss during clumsy, grasping attempts at hugs soon shot through any whimsical ideas of finding long lost Dad.
Thinking about it now I wonder what a father should smell of, gunpowder, steam oil or maybe bread or shaved pine. Kaiser always smelled of tobacco, Takis of oiled leather. All other men I have known smelled of expensive colognes. A couple of them actually had colognes that smelled of leather and tobacco, imagine that, paying money for a rare essence that smells common.
So I was born, given over to Nana, her full name is Wendy Jane Kivik. Nana must have stuck to her years before me, given by one of the dozens of kids she has raised over the years. She did it as business of course, but I never heard any charge of hers say she was mean or cruel in fact just the opposite, nothing but good.
Its strange but considering that I spent my entire life with her I know very little about her. Same with Kaiser, he was her long term partner in the business, definitely not like man and wife, something else, something older, deeper.
I heard that years before Kaiser had served under Nana, Wendy in a few of the local skirmishes, before he went off to the nationals . His face, neck and hands were his record they were covered in circular black tattoos about an inch across, each for a different battle, a citation for valour or for just being there. His life time testament to the fights he fought and survived.
When I was small I would poke each battle mark in turn and ask it's story. He would patiently tell me the tales he had proudly told a thousand times to any kid whoever asked. Wendy also had a few marks, but always kept them well covered. She had no tales she wanted to tell. Any enquiry would be breezily brushed aside with a hug and a 'go ask Kaiser'. So as you can imagine from an early age and in these surroundings I wanted to be a solider, more specifically a Berserker.
I had a habit of breaking things or taking things apart then breaking them. Nothing I did was malicious just, if the people, the place you live in has nothing, breaking anything causes everyone pain. So to the relief of all the family, as soon as I could I was out of the house doing my own training.
Kaiser was a Berserker, he said it was the only rank that would straighten a mackerel or split a spleen just by saying its name. So I was training to be a Berserker. I fought with every kid I came across. Read everything on the wars and hoarded every piece of shrapnel, bomb and shell casing, scrap of uniform, image and recording I could get my hands on.
But the wars, even the Nationals were long gone and the only mention of battles in the media came through the perfect teeth of politicals when talking of disagreements with colleagues. We as a nation, did not war, any more.
YOU ARE READING
Cheero the Hero
ActionCheero doesn't consider himself a hero but given he's a berserker with a rare habit for survival in a modern, twisted world, he just wants to tell his side of the story.
