Emmet -- Chapter 1

chapter one



Emmett ran his fingers through his hair, twirling one of the shiny brown ringlets around his index finger and watching it morosely. He pushed it back behind his ear and turned his pseudo-attention to a hole in the upholstery of the bland couch on which he lounged. He frowned in distaste at the dull beige and industrial grey of the reception area.

The young blonde secretary bustled out of a back office, caught sight of him, and snapped at him to “get your filthy little feet off of that table! This is a financial firm, not a barn, young man!” then sat snootily down behind her little desk and began to file some papers with her nose in the air. Emmet rolled his eyes at her and put his feet up on the couch beside him instead. The secretary huffed exasperatedly but didn’t do anything.

It was another few minutes before the secretary’s phone began to beep. “Yes, Mr. Brock?” she said officially. “Mm-hm. I’ll send him right in.” She hung up the phone and turned back to Emmet. “You’re father will see you now.”

Emmet stood and reluctantly slouched off into an elevator, went up three floors, and let himself into one of the many conference rooms of the expansive and lucrative financial firm that his father owned--‘Brock’s Brokers’--his hands shoved deep into his pockets and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. The room was empty except for Josh Brock, Emmet’s father, who was sitting stiffly at the head of the long table, his back to a whole wall of glass windows which offered a spectacular view of the New York skyline.

Josh didn’t seem to notice the beautiful day or the bustling city, or, at least, he didn’t show it if he did. The thickset man, what with his walrus mustache flecked with grey and his sleek black hair with just a few grey streaks, silhouetted by the bright sunlight and shining metropolis behind him, was a very intimidating figure to most.

But not to Emmet.

Emmet grudgingly pulled out the chair opposite his father, a good ten seats away, plopped down in it, and glared at him. Josh sighed in disappointment.

“Emmet, Emmet, Emmet,” he said slowly, shaking his head.

“What, what, what?” Emmet imitated gravely.

“Another suspension?” Josh asked harshly. “This is your second this year and it’s only November! One more and you’ll be expelled, and then I’ll have to send you out to live with your grandparents in Nebraska. Nebraska, Emmet! Do you really want to live in Nebraska? Because that’s where you’re headed if you keep this up!”

Emmet waited for his father to stop ranting, just glaring. When Josh finally stopped yelling, he asked calmly, “Are you finished?” Josh pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger in exasperation. Not looking at his disobedient son, he said, “This behavior is really getting to be an issue.” Emmet made a disbelieving noise and leaned back in his chair, his arms and legs crossed. He stared at the metal table, waiting for his father to speak and sullenly watching the sun glinting off of it. He took a deep breath and looked at his son pointedly.

“Let me try to speak your language here,” he said tetchily. “I’m guessing you’ll know this quote, seeing as your nose seems to be buried in its source 24/7: ‘Three civil brawls, bred of--’ ”

“--an airy word. Yeah, I know. Don’t quote Shakespeare at me, Dad! What I do is really none of your concern, is it? And if it is, you don’t seem to take much interest in it unless you’re trying to change it to be exactly like you!”  Emmet said accusatorily.

“Not everything is about you, son. All of this misconduct has very adverse effects beyond the scope of your self-absorbed little mind. As a prominent businessman there is a lot of media attention focused on me,” Josh said, looking dignified and haughty. “So you can understand why I want you to behave. Not only is it for your safety and well-being, but for my reputation--”

“Yeah, because that’s what everything’s about, isn’t it?” Emmet spat, glaring at his father now instead of the table. After all, he thought, it wasn’t the table he wanted to feel the brunt of his anger.

“Yeah. Everything I do is against your reputation, your precious image. Just let me do what I want!” he yelled, uncrossing his limbs and leaning forward.

“We’ve had this sort of discussion before, Emmet, and we both know this is not what it’s really about--” Josh began with that condescending air of a parent who thinks he knows exactly what is going on in their child’s mind, as if he understood anything at all.

“No! This is about me, not Mom, not you, not Diana, not Katherine, not anyone except me! But you always try to turn the tables, make it seem like I’m to blame for everything. That’s what you’re best at, right? Blaming others?” Emmet yelled, standing up, leaning heavily on the desk. His father, though, remained in his seat, staring coldly at his son with a look of great disapproval on his face reminiscent of the cold steel of the metal table they were seated at. But even that held more warmth than Josh’s eyes.

“Emmet Hector Brock, sit down this instant, you are making a fool of yourself,” he said strictly. “Only the weak let their emotions control their actions. I learned the hard way when I was only a few years older than you--”

“You were on the top of your game, you had it all!” Emmet recited with dramatic sarcasm, sweeping his arm around at the conference room. “All of this was almost yours, and then you fell for Karen, the beautiful and rebellious young woman who stole your heart and took down your empire. You married her anyway and managed to build it back up again, but only by working hard, making sure your professional and personal lives stayed completely separate, and keeping your emotions in check. Yes, Dad, how many times have you told me that story? Too many! Just give it a rest!”

“Emmet, I am your father and I wi--”

“What? You will what? When will you realize that the more you try to control me, the more uncontrollable I become? You don’t fucking own me!”

“That is enough! You will not speak to me that way. I am your father and I demand a certain amount of respect,” Josh said, standing up and facing his son.

“You have to earn respect, Dad, and it has to be reciprocal,” Emmet said deliberately, looking his father dead in the eye. They stood that way, eye to eye across the huge table, for a moment or two, and then Josh sat down authoritatively, surveying his son through grey eyes that seemed to match perfectly the stainless steel table that reflected them.

“You’re grounded,” he said abruptly. “And if you have any more behavioral issues, if I get so much as one more call from your principal, you are going to Nebraska to live with your grandparents, is that clear?” Josh said firmly.

Emmet didn’t answer; he just turned his back on the table and stormed out of the conference room, ignoring the blonde secretary when she offered him a mint from the bowl on her desk, as was company policy. He stepped on the end of the skateboard leaning against the newspaper dispenser outside the door and it popped up into his hand. He carried it to the street and jumped on it, weaving in and out of the traffic-packed NYC streets. He took another look over his shoulder at the row of windows that marked the room he had just left. He shot a bird at it before speeding off.



“Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!”

“Get out of my room, Katherine.”

“Make me.”

“I will!”

“Too bad you can’t, ‘cause you’re grounded!”

“Shut up.”

“Ooh! I’m gonna call mommy and tell her you said a bad word!”

“That’s not a bad word, and she’s not my mother!”

“She is, too! And I’m your sister and you have to be nice to me.”

Emmet was lying on his bed, tossing a red and black hacky-sack into the air and catching it to ease his boredom. Katherine, his six-year-old step-sister, was jumping on the end of his bed, giggling like an idiot. They were home alone; he was being made to baby-sit her as part of his grounding. Suddenly, she jumped off the bed, yelling “Whee!” and ran out into the hall.

“I’m gonna tell mommy!” she yelled back at him, sprinting towards the stairs on her short little legs. Emmet muttered, “Shit,” before launching himself after her. He snatched her up just as she reached the edge of the stairs and held her up to his face.

“When are you ever going to grow up?” he hissed.

“I’m six years old,” she said simply. “I don’t have to grow up yet.” She squirmed until he set her down, keeping a firm grip on her upper arm, though, to prevent her from telling their parents.

“Listen to me, you little squirt,” Emmet said. “Do not tell your mom or my dad. Got it?”

“I promise,” she said, holding up the first three fingers on her free hand in a Girl Scout oath. “I will not tell our mom or our dad. Will you let go of my arm now?” Emmet released her, then cursed again as she took off down the stairs, giggling evilly at her little plot.

He made a wild snatch for the back of her shirt, trying to prevent her from reaching a phone, silently cursing his father for ever teaching her how to use it. His fingers hit her in the back, missing her collar and succeeding only in knocking her off balance. He could only watch as she tottered on the edge of the step, just out his reach, waving her short arms like a windmill, and then tumbled headlong down the stairs. It was all slow-motion in Emmet’s stopped mind as she tilted forward, slipping down the long staircase, and her scream was cut short abruptly when she reached the hardwood floor of the entrance hall below them.

“Katherine!” Emmet yelled, jumping over the banister and crouching by his little sister’s still form. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening to me,” he muttered, panicking. He picked Katherine up, shook her a bit, but got no response. He put a hand on her chest but it wasn’t moving. He replaced it with his ear but he heard no heart beat. “No! Katherine, wake up! Come on, squirt, you can do it!”

But it was no good. He put her gently on the floor and took a few shaky steps back, his breath coming in short gasps and tears welling up in his eyes. Okay, he thought, I just killed my little step-sister. What do I do now? I should call an ambulance. No, she’s already dead. That wouldn’t do anything except tell them who did it. Oh, shit! I’m so going to jail! No, I can’t go to jail, I could never survive in the big house. And what about dad and Diana? They are going to kill me. I should just leave, yes, that’s what I’ll do.

Emmet ran the stairs three at a time and flung himself into his room. He pulled a fully-packed duffle bag out from under his bed; he had been planning to run away for a while now and had packed this bag full of his dad’s old clothes three years ago. He threw it over his shoulder and grabbed his messenger bag from the corner. He checked to make sure the money was still in it, grabbed his skateboard, and sprinted back down the stairs.

He almost lost it when he saw his limp sister still right where he had left her. He looked away quickly and ran out the door, slamming and locking it behind him. Then he jumped on his skateboard and sped away in the direction of the subway station.

Emmet tore as fast as he could, his hair getting in his eyes and nearly making him run over an old lady with an armful of groceries. When he reached the station, he collapsed on a grimy concrete bench, mindless of the grimy man draped in a newspaper beside him, and put his head in his hands, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to overwhelm. As much as he tried to pretend he hated his step-family, under it all, he really did have a certain fondness for Katherine. Diana, as far as he was concerned, could take a long walk off a short pier, but she wasn’t dead.

He let the realization wash over him: He had killed Katherine. He felt dirty, ruined, contaminated. Part of him wanted desperately to turn himself into the police. Part of him wanted to die. Part of him wanted to just get on the subway and get out of there as fast as he could, get away from all of this grief and panic, a big part. Mostly, he wanted his mother back, his real mother. Since the latter was impossible, he settled on the second most compelling option.

He pulled himself together as quickly as he could, his mind still on an adrenaline rush, working overtime. Okay, he said to himself, where am I going to go? What exactly am I going to do on the run? Where am I going to stay? I’ll catch a subway to Manhattan and just go from there. He felt a little calmer when he had decided his next move.

Emmet stood and made his way through the crowd to the chart showing the routes and times of the trains. Ironically enough, the soonest ride to Manhattan was the K train. He shivered but pulled a five dollar bill out of his wallet. He bought a ticket and boarded the K train.

He sat nervously on an empty seat in the back. He looked around at the other people in the compartment. A man reading a newspaper, a woman that he wasn’t quite sure was actually a woman, an old lady with a patchy old coat and a bag full of cat food cans. Odd bunch, he thought, you meet some very strange people in NYC. Emmet had to scoot over some to allow a suave-looking young man with shaggy black hair to sit down beside him. The man gave him an appraising look.

“You look like a runaway, kid,” the man said abruptly. “What exactly are you running away from?” Emmet stared at him in terror. The man chuckled. “No, no, I’m not gonna call your parents or turn you in or anything. How do I know, you may ask? Because I, too, escaped my problems on the subway. You look just about as bad as I felt doing it. I’m Garret. And you?’ he asked, holding a hand out for Emmet to shake.

“Emmet,” he said, tentatively shaking the man’s hand.

“Hello, Emmet,” Garret said. “Would you like a place to stay for a while?” Another terrified stare. “I house runaways and homeless kids. It’s a comfy place, I think you’d like it better than a cardboard box in an alley.” Emmet gulped at the thought. Well, what other choice did he have? He nodded tremulously and shook Garret’s hand again.

“Well, that’s just great,” Garret said, clapping his hands together and smiling at the frightened teen beside him. “You’ll just love it with the other guys, they’re a good bunch. Each one of them’s got a good head on their shoulders, but they’ve all run into certain troubles. You’ll fit right in with them.”

Emmet gave a noncommittal grunt, wondering what he had just gotten himself into. He spent the rest of the journey staring out the smudged and gritty window at the concrete of the subway tunnel, clutching his messenger bag and skateboard to his chest and completely ignoring Garret as he described the place they were going.

“Well, it’s sort of in Skid Row, you know, down by Bowery Lane, but we got a pretty nice place set up. It’s a bit unorthodox for a shelter but it works and it’s cheap, practically free! That’s how I can afford to feed a bunch of rowdy teens, all the money I save by keeping them here. But they love it, and I think you will, too.”

Grunt.

“I sense you’re a bit preoccupied,” Garret said, looking over Emmet’s hunched and sullen posture. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“How do you know anything happened?” Emmet shot over his shoulder at the man. Garret shrugged.

“Just a hunch, I guess.” A sly grin slid over his face, making Emmet think twice about going with the guy, but at least he stopped trying to ‘connect’ with him. Emmet leaned his forehead against the window, his sigh condensing into fog in a circle from his mouth, partially blocking his view. Not that there was anything to see, other than the occasional lewd graffiti spray-painted there by a passing gang that had nothing better to do than mark its territory.

Another hour later, the subway shuddered to a stop in an underground station in the south of Manhattan, jouncing its passengers and jerking Emmet back to reality. He had been replaying the moment his sister fell over and over in his mind, trying to think of something he could have done to prevent it. You could have let her call Diana, he berated himself. Not tried to have stopped her, that’s what knocked her down. She can’t be dead, she just can’t. It’s impossible, completely incomprehensible; his mind was trying desperately to reject what all of his senses told him was true.

The train shuddered to a halt, and Garret tapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll take you to meet the others,” he said, beckoning for Emmet to follow him. Emmet sighed, threw his messenger bag over his shoulder, and followed the man off of train and out of the subway station.

They emerged on Bowery Lane, smack in the middle of Skid Row. People were flooding past them, jostling and sidestepping them in their rush. Many of them were already starting their Christmas shopping, trying to avoid the holiday rush and that mad dash for forgotten gifts. Emmet followed Garret through the crowd, trying not to lose sight of the man’s back.

He was lead to an old, decrepit, seemingly abandoned building with the word “THEATRE” in huge red letters at the top, some of them hanging crooked and the “R” still flashing on and off. Making sure no one was looking, Garret pushed open a small back door covered in graffiti and led Emmet through it.

“Hey, guys! Look who I picked up in the subway!” Garret called as he walked down a short hallway. They emerged into the dim interior of the theatre, still filled with dull red plush seats and matching curtain hung over a scuffed and dusty stage. Emmet hesitated at the entrance, staring around at the crowd of people, all of whom were congregating around him curiously.

“Back up, back up, let him breathe,” Garret said, herding them all back to the rows of seats. “This is Emmet, and I found him in the subway.”

“What’re you running away from?” a girl called, sauntering up to him, smiling at him, but the warmth and welcome didn’t quite reach her eyes. Emmet looked at her nervously.

“How do you know I’m running away from anything?” he asked defensively. The girl flipped her long auburn hair over her shoulder and put a hand on her hip, giving him a knowing look.

“I’ve been here long enough to see a lot of new additions,” she said. “I’ve seen that look before. You’re scared of something.” Emmet gulped and took a deep breath.

“Emmet, this is Ari,” Garret said. The girl held her hand out to him. It was slim with long fingers and clean nails. Emmet took it and shook it lightly. “Frank! Vince! Come meet the new kid!” Garret called, waving over two guys from a corner of the stage. They slid to a stop in front of him, looking inquisitively at him. “Emmet, Frank and Vince. Frank and Vince, Emmet.” Emmet shook hands with both boys.

“Hey, Emmet,” the boy Garret had dubbed Vince said amiably. “Don’t let Ari intimidate you; you don’t have to tell us what you’re running from if you don’t want to. We all have something in our past that we’re hiding from, or we don’t have anyplace else to go, or we just have all around sucky lives. You can tell us in your own time. You get close when you live together for a couple of months.”

“Come on, we’ll show you where you can stay and teach you the ropes,” Frank said, putting an arm around Emmet’s shoulders and leading him toward the stage. “All the beds and stuff are behind the curtain, where’s its warmer--it can get really cold in here in winter--but we have enough blankets and heaters and stuff to keep us warm enough. And we always have extras for new additions. This one can be yours,” he said, gesturing to a stuffed pad on the floor, heaped high with blankets and pillows.

“Looks comfy enough, I suppose,” Emmet said, dropping his bag and skateboard onto the pad. “Anything else I need to know?”

Vince and Frank looked at each other. “Well, there are a few ground rules. One: Respect. You need to give everyone the same amount of respect. There are consequences if you disrespect someone to a certain degree. A bit of fighting is allowed, but only to let off steam. He’ll stop it if you get out of hand, but a little chafing is inevitable when you live in such close quarters. There’s no stealing from each other--he doesn’t really care that much if you steal from anyone else--but the Theatre Kids have to stick together, we can’t piss each other off or we all go down. We live and work as a cooperative team, so hurt feelings don’t go over too well on the whole,” Frank said seriously, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Emmet thought he could detect a touch of bitterness in his voice, but wasn’t sure why.

“There are consequences if you break any of the rules,” Vince said. “Most of us don’t actually know what those consequences are. Garret just told us that we would be punished, no elaboration, and no explanation. But the mystery is effective. We don’t have rules broken very often.”

Emmet pondered this, his apprehension growing. Was this really the best place for him to stay? But, he thought, where else could he go? He bit his lip and turned back to the other guys. “Is that all I need to know for a peaceful incognito life here?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Frank said. “Anything else you need to know will come with experience, you’ll know when you’re ready, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Hey, Frank, don’t hog the new guy all to yourself,” said Ari, sauntering over and putting an arm around the boy’s waist. He threw an arm over her shoulders and smiled at her.

“Just telling him the basics, babe,” he said.

“Well, the others want to meet him, too. Come on, Emmet, come socialize,” she said, grabbing his hand and leading him toward a crowd of people slouched in the red plush seats. Ari didn’t notice Frank’s scowl, but Emmet did.

“This,” she said, gesturing to a girl with dark curly hair, “is Raphi.”

“Hi,” she girl said quietly, shaking his hand tentatively. She seemed to be a little shy. Emmet smiled at her and returned the greeting.

“And this is Bo,” Ari said, leading him over to a tall black boy with a bit of an afro starting.

“Hey, what’s up, new kid?” Bo asked, shaking his hand.

“Not much, I guess,” Emmet answered. Ari tugged on his arm and introductions were made to the rest of the group. They all seemed to be a friendly lot on the whole, but he couldn’t get over his apprehension at first. They had all done something, or had something done to them, that made them run away. There was something mysterious in all of their pasts. His was asked about a few times, but the others let it drop when they got no response from him.

Once everyone was familiar with the new guy, they allowed Emmet to wander back to his own little bedstead. He flopped down on it, letting his aching muscles relax from the strain and stress of the day. But as they did so, his hold on his emotions began to weaken as well. He felt tears well up behind his closed lids, but he fought to keep them in; He didn’t exactly want to make that sort of impression on what was now to be his surrogate family. He settled for curling up in a ball, his knees pressed to his chest, and hugging one of the blankets tightly around him, hiding his shaking form from the others’ line of sight.

Emmet stayed that way for a while, trying to hold back the flood he knew would eventually have to break free. He had been told by his therapist--his father sent him to Dr. Elyse once a week to try and prevent suicide attempts--that keeping his emotions inside was dangerous, psychologically and physically. He had been fairly apathetic and surly for many years now, ever since he realized that his father blamed him for his mother’s death, however subconsciously that may have been. He had stopped trying to please his father, to make him treat him with as much love and attention as his friends’ fathers treated them. Now resentment had taken over, all those years of striving forgotten, hated even. He stopped caring.

Now, Emmet knew he cared more than he wanted to admit. Katherine had been his stepsister for almost a year, and she had grown on him, as much as he denied it. She was a sweet little girl, always full of energy, and love. Maybe that’s why Emmet had tried to hate her: He knew she was loved by her mother, when he had never had that experience. His parent hadn’t taken the active role in his life, the playing and the affection. She had gotten all that he had missed out on, and he had tried to hate her for it, but all that love showered on her had made her pour it out as easily as she received it. She was just so loveable.

And now she was gone.

And it was all his fault.

Emmet buried his head under his pillow, letting a few tears leak out but biting back the sounds he wanted so desperately to utter. He cried silently, letting a tiny portion of his remorse, his grief, his fear, out through the tiny crystalline beads of salt water tracing intricate patterns down his face, twisted with the effort of not screaming from the agony of it all. No one bothered him, though they saw what he tried so hard to conceal. They shook their heads in sympathy, casting pitying glances at the quivering pile of blankets on the stage.

“Ari, do you know what happened to him?” Bo asked quietly, loafing in one of the plush red seats. “It must have been bad or he wouldn’t be crying already. Usually it takes a couple of days for the waterworks to set in.”

“He wouldn’t tell me either,” she admitted, sitting on the arm of Frank’s chair, playing absentmindedly with his hair. “He seems real cut up about it, though, so it’s got to be pretty bad.”

“Well, of course it’s bad,” Frank snapped at her. “That’s why he had to leave, isn’t it? Most kids don’t randomly run away for no reason. But I don’t think something happened to him, I think he did something,” he said, his eyes narrowed at Emmet’s now sleeping form. Bo and Ari exchanged uneasy glances. They had only seen Frank this way once before, and that hadn’t turned out well at all. They could tell this was going to be trouble.