Chapter 2 -- Friendship...

Chapter 2 – Friendship...



         I Don't know when I managed to fall asleep but the sound of Mrs. Finch's voice announcing it was breakfast time woke me up. I went back to my bunk to see how Jimmy was doing. He was writing on eight pieces of paper that he taped to the wall, There was an image of an eight-sided dice and above the image was the title “Time travel – the fourth dimension”. I never told him I was sorry but I'm glad that he is up to his old habits. We both skipped breakfast.



         “You know, Toby, you should try to make some friends. I know you want to be ' undesirable' to the outside world but you can still have some fun while you're here..” Jimmy's suggestion stuck in my thoughts as I returned to the commons room to solve a couple more incomplete Sudoku puzzles. I turned the corner and saw a girl working on a puzzle and mumbling under her breath. I walked straight through the room to the door leading to the yard.



         Why do I need friends? Better yet, who could I be friends with? My eyes slid over the dying grass to the basket ball courts. Disgusting, I've seen them strutting around like they own the place. Trying to gain the companionship of some of the girls in the commons room. That was the only place they could, after all, boys and girls are separated everywhere else. Just what is it about smelly armpits that girls find attractive? After instantly rejecting the thought of pursuing a friendship with those barbarians, my eyes slid past the weight piles that the older boys hung around and to the tables. Jimmy's group of friend's sat at one of them, silent. A strong breeze rattle the tall gates and rustled my short hair. A cloud dimmed the light covering the yard, but only for a few seconds. As the heat waves descended upon the yard once more, Jimmy excitedly ran out, waving some notes, and his posse followed him back in ready to face their next, even more impossible, challenge.



         I continued to pear around the yard. There was a group of kids in the far back corner trying to hide behind trees so they could flirt with the girls on the other side of the fence. Unsuccessful, they were escorted back in by Mrs. Finch's “helpers”. I quickly remembered why I made the original decision not to make friends here. Some of us were here without a choice, but most of us actually enjoy the “scum of society” lifestyle here.



         I turned to go back into the commons room just as one of the jocks walked by. My small arm brushed against his enormous biceps. His rough skin felt like sand paper. That's about all I had the time to think about what was going on before he pinned my spine to the corner of the building. He looked me directly in the eyes. The cold stare reminded me of the look in my fathers eyes when he yelled at my sister for leaving her dolly in the living room. She should have put it away he said. She was old enough to understand, he said. She was old enough to be punished, he said...



         One of the benefits of having smooth skin was that it was easy to slip my arms out of his grip. Just in time too. He flexed his neck and motioned to headbutt me. I tipped my head to the left and used my free hand to push his to my right. I heard his forehead crack as it slammed into the brick wall. The blood excited me.



         The wound must not have been too severe because the impact only stunned him for a second. Long enough for me to get loose. I would never have attempted to fight him head on but he looked at me again. Directly into my eyes. But this time, he wasn't my father. He had blue eyes. One drop of sweat dripped off the one that wasn't hiding behind the curtain of blood. It was her eyes. Her eyes after he was finished with her. I heard her last breath ring through my ears.



         My emotions raced, anger, hate, fear, even guilt. Adrenaline flew through my veins. My face must have been red. He made fists, like a boxer, and slowly circled me, closing in. He made on complete circle before he stood in front of me, at arms length now. I had often heard jokes, while I was back in school, about a “two hit fight”. They would say “It'll be a two hit fight, me hitting you, you hitting the floor.” He swung with his right hand. I blocked with my left arm knocking his fist to my right, exposing his face. It was a two hit fight. I jabbed him on the side of his head and heard another crack. This time, I could see part of his skull sticking out of his forehead as he lay unconscious on the ground.



         I was punished, sentenced to be isolated from the rest of the kids for 3 weeks. My only regret was that he survived. He stayed in the hospital for the rest of the time he would have spent at A. Schwitz. I think he faked most of his pain though. At least the pain he felt after his wound finished healing. Too embarrassed to come back and face his so called friends.



*



         Friendship... Funny word. There is no such thing as a true friend. There are friends who only want what you have and will only be your friends until you stop giving it to them. There are friends who only want to use you to get what they need. In a place like this that could be anything from a little extra food to a little extra protection. These kids get rough, last week was nothing. That is why I'm only here for two more weeks instead of in a much worse place. I should make some friends? Yea right....



         Isolation is fine with me. I don't have to worry about anything, or anyone. Time here moves too fast. That is, except the nights. Without the distractions of the outside world the nightmares come more frequently. The images become more vivid. The sounds are more terrifying.



         My mother tried to stop him from doing it. He just hit her into my grandmother's antique china cabinet. The dishes had been broken a long time before that night. Dad bought a shotgun and needed some targets. Grandmother took one of the dishes to the Antique Road Show to get it appraised. The entire set was valued at over seven-teen thousand dollars.



         The cabinet shattered, the final three thousand dollars my grandmother had disappeared. That's all it took, a piece of wood ended it right there. It was a very small piece, barely caused any external damage. Punctured her left atrium though. It was enough.



         “T. wake up...wake up T....” Anthony shrieked from the doorway to the isolation room. “You're having nightmares again T. wake up!”



         This isn't my first visit to the isolation room. One time, I was walking to my corner in the yard when a girl on the other side of the gate decided to yell “No, I will not give you fellatio through the fence!” I didn't even know what that was until after I got out of isolation and Jimmy was kind enough to fill me in. Anthony is “The Punisher” as the kids began to call him. Really, he is just the man in=charge of maintaining discipline. When I'm in here he usually talks about his issues at home, with the “..wife and the kids..” He has become accustomed to calling me “T.” I think he does it to annoy me. Every time he calls me T. I give him an annoyed look. It's the only way he gets a reaction out of me.



         I should tell him my stories. It would show him just how good of a life he has. That way I wont have to listen to his stupid complaints ever again.