by Michael Soll
“In case NaNas show up, we wanna be able to kill them.”
Spec stared at me for a long time. I could tell he was thinking, but he wasn’t saying anything, and then, after several moments, he asked, “What is kill?”
“You know, to make somebody die.”
“Why would you make somebody die?”
“Because if we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us.”
“Why would they kill us?”
“Because they’re evil.”
Another long moment of thinking until. “What is evil?”
Bryan gave an exacerbated grunt while James raised his knife and heaved it at the dummy.
“You know Spec, like good and bad. You and I are good. NaNas are bad.”
“Why --”
I cut him off because I knew what he was going to ask. “They were just born that way. And we were born good. Like when you help someone in need, that’s good. That’s right.”
“If NaNas are bad and they kill, that means killing is bad.”
“Yeah, you get it.”
“But we’re practicing to kill them.”
“Yeah, but it’s in defense. It’s okay to kill someone if you think they’re going to kill you.”
“How do you know they’re going to kill you?”
Bryan had had enough. He grabbed Spec’s axe and aimed it at the target. “Because they’re NaNas. They’re all bad. They all wanna kill us.” He flung the axe and hit the dummy directly in the leg.
“I did it! That one counted! Did you see that!?”
***
It was getting late and we were getting tired. As we headed back, Spec tapped me on the shoulder:
“Do you think I could see my friends?”
“Your furalzos?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen them since the auction.”
“But…I’m your friend.”
“You are.”
I was a little hurt by his desire to see his old friends. “Sure, let me see if I can set up a dinner.”
When we got home, I asked my father if we could have a party and invite Cotta and Kaolin’s families over for dinner. He seemed relatively enthusiastic about the prospect of having some distinguished constituents over at his house.
First, I walked over to the Wilkins where I was initially greeted by Cotta at the door. “Hello, sir, may I help you?”
“Hi, Cotta. Do you remember me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are the Wilkins home?”
“Yes, do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Would you like to make one?”
“I’m just inviting you all for dinner at my place. Thought you’d wanna hang out with Spec and Kaolin.”
Cotta nodded his head. “Yeah, I’ll ask them if they’re interested, and I’ll get back to you.” He smiled and closed the door.
I turned and headed over to Miss Washburn’s place.
I knocked on the door repeatedly, but there was no answer. I turned to walk away when the woman appeared.
“Can I help you?” she asked, stone-faced.
“Hi -- my father would like to invite you and Kaolin over for dinner tonight.”
“She’s not ready to go out in public yet.”
“Well, it’s not really public, it’s just our house. I thought it’d be nice for her to spend some time with Cotta and Spec.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She closed the door in my face and left me standing alone.
When I got home, my father told me the Wilkins had RSVP’d for the dinner, so the party wasn’t going to be a total bust.
I went upstairs and found Spec sitting on his bed which we had placed beside mine. He had an old history book in front of him, but I knew he couldn’t read; instead, he sat, staring at the pictures.
“Are you better than me?”
“What do you mean?” For a moment, Spec and I had switched places, with my asking him what he meant.
“Are you a better person than I am?”
“No. We’re all equal here. All humans are equal.”
He placed the book aside and looked up and down my shelves. “Then why do you have a bigger house than everybody else?”
“Well, because some people make more money than others.”
“If everyone’s equal, why do some people make more money?”
“Because they choose to do harder jobs. Like my father is mayor and serves the entire town. It’s a lot of pressure, you know? A lot of responsibilities. Mr. Johnson is just the janitor. All he does is sweep up after the students leave the school so he gets paid less.”
“What makes being mayor harder?”
“Well, not everyone can do it. You have to make it your life and put others before yourself.”
“Could Mr. Johnson be mayor?”
“He could try, but he wouldn’t get elected.”
“Why not?”
“Because the people wouldn’t vote for him and even if they did, he couldn’t do the job as well as my father.”
“Could your dad be janitor?
“If he wanted to, of course.”
“So your dad and the janitor aren’t equal.”
“I don’t think you properly understand the concept.” I laid out some clothes for Spec. “Cotta’s coming over tonight.”
He walked over to the closet and pulled out a plain shirt. “I thought I could choose my own clothes for tonight.”
“You don’t like what I set up for you?”
“I do.”
“Okay. I guess that’s good, right? You should be picking out your own clothes.”
***
The dinner went pretty smoothly. My father relished the opportunity of hosting a dinner for the Wilkins while I hesitantly sat in my chair and watched Spec and Cotta stare at each other, communicating telepathically.
“Don’t you love what I did with his hair! It’s so pretty.” The little girl patted down Cotta’s flattened hair which had several bobby pins.
My father smiled, “I should have you do my hair next!” It didn’t matter how young she was. Some day she’d be older and that day she’d be a voter and every vote counted. “Did you see Kat’s tea set?
“You have a tea set?!” The girl jumped from her seat.
Kat jumped up as well. “You wanna have a tea party!?”
“YES!” The two girls hurried out of the room.
My father turned to me: “Why don’t you and Spec show Cotta around while I talk to the Wilkins.”
“All right. Come on guys.” We led Cotta up to my room where he stood by the door as Spec and I got comfortable. “You can sit if you’d like.” Cotta ignored me and looked over at Spec and the two had a staring contest for a moment.
Spec smiled and put his hand on Cotta’s shoulder. “Are you olbreando?”
Cotta nodded. “It’s brelombed with crultins.”
Spec laughed and said, “Yeah.”
I chimed in. “So, Cotta, how are you liking the city?”
“It’s great, sir,” he said, politely but robotically.
“You don’t have to call me sir.”
“All right, sir.”
The three of us stood silently for a moment, waiting for the next person to speak. I guess it was up to me to continue the conversation. “I see you’ve acclimated well.”
Cotta smiled and nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve learned all about modern society as well as the history of the city. Would you like to hear it?”
“No, that’s alright.” He looked at me with sad piglet eyes, so I caved. “Sure. What’d you learn?”
Cotta took a step forward as if he were reading aloud in class. “Before the surface burst into flames, the great minds of the time built the underground cities and constructed the sustainable methods to survive that we still use today. Only the smartest and most talented were allowed to come below and live in the haven known as Newbury. When the solar flare incinerated the atmosphere, the elevator that led the genius survivors from the surface to the belo
w was forever sealed off.”
“Elevator? To the surface?” Spec’s eyes had widened. He listened intently.
I turned to him and responded the best I could, trying to remember my history classes when I was younger. “Yeah, everyone was taken in the elevator down below. An elevator’s a machine that moves people up and down. It’s behind the north district.”
“Is it functional?” he asked timidly.
‘Why would it be?” I said, “There’s nowhere to go but up and there’s nothing up but death.”
Spec looked past me, staring blankly at the wall. Silent until, “When people die, what do you do with the remains?”
“It’s not you, it’s we,” I corrected him.
He reiterated: “What do we do with the remains?”
“Well, we bury them of course,” I said, watching him closely.
“And has that always been…our...way? Even on the surface?”
“Yes, I believe so. Why?”
“Well, it seems that if the dead are buried, then only life could exist up top, since death is the absence of life.
“That’s not how it works.” I instructed him.
“How does it work?”
“Things are the way they are and not everything has a reason.”
Spec’s eyes wandered for a moment, and then asked, “Do you mind if I talk with my brother alone?”
“I thought I was your brother.” I retorted.
“You are. You’re both my brothers.”
I looked over at Cotta who stood silently, waiting for me to grant them their wish of privacy. And then, I cracked like my fractured ceiling. The dirt tumbled down and I caved in. “Okay.”
I left my room and took a seat outside. I couldn’t go downstairs because my father and the Wilkins were there. I could’ve gone into the game room but for some reason, I wanted to stay right by the door.
I know I shouldn’t be upset that he wants to spend some alone time with Cotta. I get it. I want to hang out with my friends alone sometimes. For some reason, though, it upset me. I think I’m just irritable. I’m just tired and full from dinner.
In all honesty, I didn’t want to leave the room. I mean it’s my room. He was being rude by asking me to leave, but I felt obligated to be polite. My father always stresses manners. “Never show them anger unless anger is what they need to see,” my father would always say. “If they want you to be happy, be happy.” He had become so well adept at masking his emotions that I could never tell what was true and what he thought should be true. It wasn’t weak showing your emotions, it was weakness not having control of them.
There are so many circumstances in life that are unpredictable. He could not foresee my mom’s death and when it happened, he was sad. Everybody expected him to be sad, so I guess I really don’t know if he was upset or upset because they assumed him to be. He knew he couldn’t control the events, but the way he appeared to feel was in his grasp and he was brilliant at knowing how people wanted him to feel. When they told him stories they believed to be funny, he would laugh. When they told him stories they believed to be sad, he would cry. And it wasn’t just outside these walls, it was within as well.
And so, even though I was annoyed with Spec, I couldn’t show it because he didn’t expect me to be annoyed. And as long as I lived up to his expectations, he would like me and we would be friends.
To have as much success as my father, I have had to thicken my skin. I can’t just have knee-jerk reactions. I need to clench my leg and only kick it when everyone expected me to.
But the problem with thick skin is that it leaves you impervious to the sharpest of pins. Everything becomes dull. I’m no longer feeling, I’m thinking about what I should feel. It seems like a good problem to have, to not feel that sharp pin, to not feel that prick, but without that sense of pain, there cannot be that sense of relief. Ultimately, the thickened skin leaves you numb, incapable of feeling the highs and lows of life. It leaves you rough like a rock and just as inanimate.
My father is a great man, by all standards, but I don’t know if I’d consider him a great human. I could stand in front of him and say the cruelest words, the most vicious things I could think of, but he’d stand there unaffected. If he appeared hurt, he’d just be acting that way because that’s how humans are supposed to act in such a situation, but deep down, beneath the flesh and organs, there was a lifeless rock.
I guess that’s the problem with being polite. When you’re constantly thinking of others and what they must be thinking or feeling or expecting, you wind up in this perpetual state of trying to please them. You see yourself through their eyes and you lose sight of who you are.
What’s taking them so long?
I walked back in and we talked about some superficial things until Cotta and the Wilkins left.
Spec and I got ready to sleep and we lay in our separate beds. I turned to him and asked, “Do you want to share the bed like we did when I first got you?”
“Is that what you want?”
“If you want to.”
He looked over and considered his options. “Sure, that’s fine I guess.” He got out of bed and lay next to me.
“If you want to sleep in your own bed that’s fine.”
“This is okay.”
He got on his side and I cuddled up next to him. I put my hand on his and kissed the back of his head. “Goodnight.”
I closed my eyes, and I could feel his warmth and my heart beating faster than it’s ever beat. I moved my hand up his arm and laid it on his chest. His heart was beating slow, nowhere near as quickly as mine.
And then, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
Caged:
The annual ball was a few days away and Kat needed a new dress, so she, my father, Spec and I went shopping.
Kat put on a vintage red gown, but she wasn’t pleased. She grabbed a pair of slippers and slammed them against the ground. “I hate red! You know I hate red, Daddy!”
Mr. Hamilton, the portly, middle-aged storeowner, laughed at her antics. “Well, we have something similar in blue. Would you like that?”
“NO! I hate blue too. Red and blue are ugly! I want green!”
My father shrugged and patted her on the head. “The girl knows what she wants.”
Mr. Hamilton scurried to the back of his store while Kat continued to pout. I noticed Spec’s disinterest so I asked my father if we could take a look around on our own for some clothes. My father consented and we went through the fashion district by ourselves.
One of the jewelry stores caught Spec’s eye, so I took him in to take a look. He stared longingly at a diamond ring. He moved the precious rock, examining it from different angles.
“I’ve seen this before. What is it?” he asked.
“Diamond.”He glanced down at the price. “What does it do?”
“It doesn’t do anything. It’s pretty.”
“Why’s it so expensive?”
“It’s rare.”
“What is rare?”
“It means there’s not a lot of it in existence.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because not everybody can have it. It’s unique and special. And I guess, if you own it, it makes you special by association.”
“Am I rare?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Me, Cotta and Kaolin. We’re different, so we’re rare.”
“Yeah, you are, I suppose. That’s why people were willing to pay so much for you, right?”
“But back home, there are lots of people like me, so I wouldn’t be rare there.”
“You’re home now. That’s just where you were born.”
He nodded. “Right.”
We left the jewelry store and went searching for some formal attire. I found a couple of nice suits and we were set for the ball. We walked passed Hamilton’s shop, and I could see my sister wearing a green, frilly dress, slamming her shoes on the ground and screaming, so we decided to walk
around the rest of the city.
We came across one of the animal pens and Spec asked if we could take a look inside, so we did. We went passed the pigsties and into the chicken coop where the hens were locked up.
Spec placed his hands against the cages. “They’re trapped.”
“They’re being protected.”
His eyes furled. I seemed to have hit a nerve with him. It didn’t happen often -- it was difficult for him to hide his emotions which is one of the reasons why I loved him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“They’re not being protected.”
“Sure they are. If they got loose, they could run away. They wouldn’t have any food. They’d die.”
“Or they could escape.”
“Why would they want to escape? They have food and safety here.”
He rubbed the cage’s lock. “Sometimes that’s not enough.”
“Do you feel that way with me?”
“Who gets to decide who should have a cage and who shouldn’t?”
“Whoever has the key.” It was a cold response. I didn’t mean for it to be, it was just the first thing that jumped into my mind. “You know, if you ever wanted to leave, you could. Nobody’s stopping you. But you have everything you need to survive here. And you have me.”
He nodded and looked around the room. “Everything in this city is so bright.”
“Well, the brightness let’s us see everything better.”
“Right. It helps you see things more clearly.”
I didn’t want to discuss the subject any further. “We should head back.”
Spec walked out in front of me. I lingered for a moment and stared down at the many cages filled with hens. They couldn’t move. But, they didn’t need to, did they? All they needed to do was lay their eggs.
***
It was the night of the dance and my family and I walked to the City Center where the ball was being held. Spec walked beside me, adorned in a shiny black suit and looking as handsome as anyone in all of Newbury.
My father was perhaps the most excited of all of us. He always looked forward to the times when he got to speak in front of the whole town and the annual ball was such an occasion.
He greeted every individual we came across with a large smile. He knew every person’s name, every person’s story. He would ask about their family and their jobs. They loved him; they all loved him. And if they didn’t, they acted as such, since that is what he expected from them. He treated them as if they loved him and so, whether they did or they didn’t, they appeared to and thus, everyone assumed he was loved by all, especially him.