| |
Sara was becoming closer and closer to Aidan. When he looked at her, he never forgot that she could walk, proud and free like the road belonged to her. He no longer noticed her limp muscles or trembling chin, only her grace that disguised it all. She had become lovely in the real world because that was the way he saw her.
Albin would have given anything to be a man with hands that could clinch into fists so he could clobber Aidan. He had known Sara since childhood when he was learning nurses’ names in the hospital wing. Throughout the years, she had been a sister to him, his confidant, his light. Never once had he revealed his feelings for her. She was the only one who knew how to put him in his place and the only person he allowed to do it. Ever since Aidan’s arrival in their classroom, Sara had stopped teasing him, and he didn’t like admitting that he missed her comments steeped in irony.
He was in need of an ally in his battle. He often sought out Cosmo to vent about every single grudge he held against his rival. He was hoping for Cosmo to map out a revenge strategy that would keep Aidan sidelined for a long time. But all Cosmo did was nod his head methodically. A behavior he was exhibiting more and more, in the classroom where he used to enjoy displaying his genius, and also at home. His parents were behaving in a civil, but cold manner that didn’t bode well. He was convinced they no long said a word to each other when he wasn’t there. He blamed himself for having innocently started the conflict and was frustrated that he wasn’t in a position to resolve it. Cosmo tried to understand their travels so he could provide his father with something much more helpful than experiments: real proof. He was positive that the energy his father was experimenting with in the laboratory wasn’t the only necessary component. His ignorance meant that he had nothing to add and therefore had to watch helplessly as the divide between his parents grew wider. Consequently, he was distracted when he lent an ear to Albin’s recriminations against Aidan. Meanwhile, Albin continued confiding in him because Arthur was too distracted, and Titiana was too nice.
Yet, without their rivalry weakening, Albin and Aidan somehow came to appreciate each other or at least to recognize there was something worthy about the other.
The school periodically organized outings that were supposedly academic but were really a pretext to relax the rules that teachers were already having difficulty enforcing within their classrooms. One such excursion would be accessible to those with mobility issues, which was highly unusual. The field trip was set to take place at a historic theater on the outskirts of the city, and they would go by bus. They left on time, a rarity, and arrived at the doorsteps of the theater before opening hours. The students, having talked the chaperones into letting them explore the city, broke off into small groups and were quickly out of sight of their teachers.
Copying their schoolmates, the students from the class for outcasts headed down the main boulevard and ended up in front of an ice cream parlor. The flavors listed in the window display promised tastier treats than they were used to enjoying in the town of Sunnyville. In unison they decided to enter the tantalizing shop.
Aidan placed their orders. It was easier than having to watch the shopkeeper’s expression change from friendly to annoyed as soon as he heard their struggled speech. The scoops were generous and filled up their entire bowls, just as their wheelchairs filled up the tiny eating space that hadn’t been designed with accessibility in mind. They couldn’t take a seat at the comfortable booths the owner had installed for his customers. Resigned, they backed up against the far wall as a red-faced server awkwardly placed trays on the arms of their wheelchairs. They had to move more carefully than ever to avoid toppling the colorful and delicious melting ice cream.
They had barely gotten settled when some students appeared in the shop, also tempted by the unusual flavors and enormous scoops. It didn’t take long to catch sight of the mobility-challenged students who stood out against the narrow wall. Men, in a group, feel stronger and often sense an urge to prove themselves to their peers. The adults in the room, figures of reason and authority, were noticeably passive. The newly arrived students soon realized that no one would try to stop their usual tormenting comments reserved solely for the “misfits”. The adult bystanders looked away with expressionless faces, any vestige of civility or a duty to respond having disappeared. Faced with such liberty and tacit permission, the students stopped their teasing. One of them moved closer, a short, acne-faced teen wearing a dusty knit hat pulled down to his brows, a few strands of dirty blond hair sticking out. Following behind the pack as he entered the shop, he contrasted sharply with the respectable and well-behaved look that the others presented to the world. These same well-behaved guys encouraged the teen, Timmy, who had planted himself in front of Arthur and was taunting him as he dumped ice cream on his victim’s pants. For once, Arthur hadn’t been the one to knock over his own food. But this wasn’t very consoling.
They were cornered, blocked against the damp wall, and at the mercy of a bunch of amoral teens. No way of escaping. Albin took one look at the room and realized that not a single adult would come to the defense of strangers. Strangers in more ways than one. How much torture would the gang and their crazy thug inflict before someone rescued them? Their eyes brimmed with hatred, unveiled, a kind that had grown stronger with every passing day of being forced to coexist with these different people. This chance moment gave them freedom to express the depth of their repugnance. In a flash, a dozen frenzied teens descended on them, spurred on by Timmy’s crazed act. Albin and his friends both felt and saw a surge of anger on their faces. Their fears were confirmed when Timmy pulled a switchblade out his coat pocket, sneering as he flipped open the blade. He, too, felt the weight of the ensuing minutes; he could bloody up the misfits and ensure a swifter acceptance among the offspring of Sunnyville’s most respected families.
Aidan waited in suspense. In the past, he’d seen Timmy show off his steel blade but hadn’t believed he would ever use it. But Timmy proved him wrong when he leisurely pierced Sara’s cheek, waiting for the blood to trickle as Sara recoiled though unable to move away. A teen standing behind Timmy let out a whistle of disbelief and looked as if he were about to head out the door. The apparent leader of the group, a former friend of Aidan, gave the fleeing teen a look that called him to order. A look that said it was too late to back down.
Seeing the game had already gone too far, Albin chose an offensive tactic. He surged forward and crushed Timmy’s feet with his chair, no longer concerned about spilling his melted ice cream. The messy blob landed on Timmy’s cheap jeans, flooding him from waist to knees. The tray clattered to the floor, followed by the bowl, which shattered into tiny colored shards. Albin’s siege came to a halt when the pack of guys blocked his exit. The smile on their leader’s face wasn’t mean-spirited, it was bloodthirsty. Timmy, whose face was distorted by rage, lunged towards Albin and brandished his knife, sputtering about the thousand different ways he would get revenge.
Albin maneuvered himself another yard or so before being stopped. He was more vulnerable in his wheelchair than he had ever imagined. He knew he needed to act fast, overwhelm them with a force they would surely squelch since they far outnumbered him. No doubt they would stop him before he had time to run over more feet. All they had to do was deprive him of his wheels, and then he would be defenseless.
But Albin kept his courage. He had read native Indian legends and the rules about not being a coward when facing death. His military father had influenced his oldest son more than he would ever know. Deliberately ignoring Timmy, he looked over at the one facing him, a good student who never caused trouble except when outside of school, and then slowly rolled backwards. Without thinking, Timmy stepped aside, giving Albin the perfect opportunity to ram his chair against Michael so hard that the leader of their enemies fell down on his knees, a position that must have been humiliating. Albin’s attack was cut short when his newly branded enemy’s sidekicks realized he was defenseless without his wheel chair, so they flung him to the ground like a filthy sack of garbage.
They took out their frustrations by kicking and punching him, and tearing up his clothes. Their leader, back on his feet and ready for battle, looked down at what they’d done, and seemed barely satisfied. Meanwhile, Timmy was planning new knife tricks when Aidan moved in and looked straight at Michael.
Together, they had won multiple rugby championships, had gotten plastered for the first time, gone out with the same girls, sometimes double-dated. Aidan had a hard time recognizing this cruel, impulsive person who needed to prove to everyone that he was the strongest. Yet he would appeal to what might be left of their former friendship so that the situation didn’t get any worse than it already was. This was what he had hoped when he went over to talk to him.
Behind him, his new friends had turned paler than the ice cream they had stopped eating. Sara was trying to hold back tears, meanwhile Arthur, coated in a gluey mess of drying ice cream, was crying so hard his body was shaking. Cosmo look disgusted, much more than usual, by this display of human behavior, and Titiana stared into the distance, far beyond the inaccessible door.
How could Aidan convince his childhood friend who now despised him for being handicapped, to grant them what they surely deserved? Peace, or a semblance of it. He had no idea and hoped he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. But during the past several minutes, no one in the shop had seemed concerned about appearances.
When Aidan called out to him, Michael hesitated acknowledging that the wheelchair-stricken boy was worthy of his time. His attention wandered for several seconds, and then he gave Aidan a condescending smile. He had no interest in being distracted from what was unfolding before him, the prelude to a massacre.
He had shifted his attention again, and Aidan had to call out his name once more. Reluctantly, Michael turned to listen to him. Aidan spoke in simple words, trying hard to look him straight in the eye. And he tried especially hard not to look at the blood pooling out of Albin’s body, or at Albin’s eyes, panic-stricken yet painfully aware.
He forced himself to talk slowly so his message could make it past the thick layer of gunk blocking Michael’s brain and that was making him behave in such a way. Aidan asked him to let them go. Begged him would more accurate, because he had lost any sense of connection to this murderous creature.
“Michael, the game has gone a little too far, don’t you think?”
“What game?”
Michael spoke slowly as if in a hypnotic or violent stupor.
“I think it’s clear to everybody that we shouldn’t mess with you. So just please let us leave.”
Aidan couldn’t control his voice from shaking or from slipping into a plaintive tone as he spoke the last words. But Albin had just let out a groan between clenched teeth that had sent reverberations of cruelty throughout the tight space.
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave?
Aidan couldn’t tell if Michael understood the implications of what was taking shape.
“Albin’s bleeding, Michael. It could be serious. This has all gone way too far.”
“Albin?”
Of course Michael wouldn’t know the name of a misfit. Why would he? Aidan pointed to Albin with his chin, feeling helpless to save him.
“Oh.” Michael didn’t have anything else to add except, “and what about it?”
“Let us go, Michael. We won’t tell anybody about what happened here, but just let us leave. Now.”
Michael gave him another vague and condescending smile.
“And why would I do that?”
Their fate now rested in Aidan’s ability to reason with Michael. More than ever he regretted his accident and its consequences that had led him to this narrow room.
“Because we’ve been friends since elementary school. Because you live two houses down from mine, and that our fathers have lunch together every Tuesday. Because I introduced you to my cousin that you’re still going out with...because I’m positive you don’t really want to end up in prison for murder.”
Michael turned away from Aidan, but this time he seemed to be thinking. The minutes felt like hours, and the seconds stretched out like molten glass threads. Then begrudgingly, but also because it was necessary, he called off his bloodthirsty dogs. That’s when Aidan realized he’d been holding his breath during Michael’s silence.
Michael was even able to control Timmy. His birth right gave him that power, and he only had to shoot one icy look at Timmy to turn him into a frightened poodle. Reluctantly, and only because they had been ordered, the rest of his clan settled Albin back into his chair, looking disgusted that they had to touch him. They took care to avoid eye contact with any of Albin’s group. They had yet to feel ashamed, but that would come later. They then stepped out of the way for the slower-moving ones, staring fixedly at the floor where streams of blood flowed dark and incriminating. Customers as well as employees continued to ignore whatever didn’t concern them, skewing the respect for privacy a little further than necessary.
Aidan, the last to leave, was heading out the door when Michael called out to him.
“Aidan, I listened to you this time. For old times’ sake, for who you used to be. From now on, I don’t know you. And if you ask me for anything else, I won’t even hear you.”
Aidan exited, aware that things would never be the same as before.
When they had gotten a good distance away from the ice cream parlor, Albin winced from the effort and wished he hadn’t said no to the power wheelchair they’d offered him. They stopped at a small, well-worn plot of land inhabited by a few stray pigeons. Albin’s leg was broken, and the bone had pierced through the skin causing blood to flow through his jeans. He had a swollen face and a deep neck wound where his vital fluid was gushing out. And probably other wounds that weren’t visible, but he didn’t complain. They knew perfectly well that they would have to find their teachers, make up a story about Albin’s injury, and get him fast to a hospital because his break was serious. Sara’s cheek where blood beaded up into grass-like blades also needed medical care. But first they had to catch their breath.
Cosmo thanked Aidan, and the others signaled their approval—they didn’t have the strength to carry on a normal conversation. Except Arthur, who spoke in a frightened child-like voice.
“I’d rather be on Lalea. We would’ve been safe there.”
They nodded their heads, forgetting about the clawed monsters who roamed at night, the roads with the dramatic weather changes, and the innumerable unknown dangers. Lalea was becoming their dream haven, a long-lost refuge where children were heroes, and where they fit in.
As Aidan watched Albin pull at his jeans to adjust his leg into a more normal-looking angle, he realized how powerful he was, this guy that he’d viewed as an annoying, spineless puppet. For the first time perhaps since they’d met, he spoke directly to him.
“Albin, I’d like to say something to you. That was really brave of you to defend Sara. And to charge them like you did, particularly considering they were stronger and you were outnumbered. I’m not sure I could’ve done what you did. You should be really proud of yourself.”
What Albin said back is something he would never forget. That was when he realized misfits weren’t different from the rest of humanity. And that was when he stopped feeling superior to them.
“Just because we can’t hold our heads high doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to,” Albin replied.
He then thanked Aidan for his help, opening the door to their reconciliation. But it was his first sentence that had been the most important. Just because we can’t hold our heads high doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to.
