“Who the fuck are you?” Lance’s face contorted in anger.
“I’m your worst nightmare.” Brandon had waited fifty years to finally use that line on someone and couldn’t resist. “You know, I give Marcia credit. She nabbed a hot young stud, but damn she picked a dumb one.”
“You better shut your fucking mouth, kid.” He jabbed a finger at Brandon
“Do you really think you scare me, Lance?” Brandon stroked his non-existent beard, really playing up his role as an evil mastermind.
“You better tell me who you are,” Lance raised his fist, “before I knock that fucking grin off your face.”
“Look at me closely, Lance. We’re old friends? Why, you've told me all about your ‘genius’ plan for a chain of dog gyms?” Brandon smiled and shook his head. “Dognasitics—a stupid name for a stupid idea.”
Lance’s fist dropped, along with his jaw. “Oh, fuck no. It can’t be.”
“Oh. It can be, and it is.” Brandon did his best Dr. Evil, minus the pinky on the chin.
“You’re…you’re…Brandon.” Lance lost his concentration and let the snake wrap around his arm one too many times.
“Maybe you aren’t as dumb as I thought.” Brandon lowered his brows.
“I must be really high. That’s it.” Lance winced as the snake began to tighten around his arm, forcing him into wrestling it free with his other arm.
Brandon made a buzzing sound. “Wrong.”
“What the fuck? How?” Lance stare in disbelief.
“Magic, Lance. Dark magic. Magic that you cannot even comprehend.” Brandon strolled towards the aquarium containing three large mice and removed the lid.
“What are you doing?” Lance looked at him, still in shock.
“Oh, I’m going to give you a little demonstration of what I’m going to do to you if you don’t do as I say.” Brandon grabbed one of the mice and pulled it from the cage with his right hand. He turned and faced Lance.
With his left hand still behind his back, Brandon tilted the medicine bottle containing the minuscule amount of the remaining youth potion. The liquid ran down the inside of the bottle until he was certain the liquid had touched the tip of his gloved finger. He lifted the bottle, discretely tucking it into his back pocket. Bringing his hand around with his wet finger pointed towards the mouse’s mouth.
“Now, Lance. You will witness my power.” He squinted his eyes as if he were concentrating hard to make a spell happen.
“Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” He recited, knowing an idiot like Lance probably never read Shakespeare, much less heard of Macbeth.
With a quick motion, he pressed his gloved finger against the mouse’s nose, giving it just enough so the liquid would sink into the tiny rodent’s skin, and into its bloodstream.
After what seemed like an eternity, the mouse squealed loudly and began to shrink, its cries echoing off the walls of the small shed as if it were in agony. Brandon did his best maniacal laugh, although he felt sorry for the poor rodent.
Lance shook with fear and dropped the snake.
Brandon watched as a wet spot developed on the front of Lance’s gym shorts. The mouse continued to shrink until it was less than an inch long. It wiggled out of Brandon’s hand and fell to the floor. Choosing the wrong direction, the tiny mouse ran straight towards Candy, who eagerly opened her jaws and snapped it up.
Lance’s face was frozen with fear as Brandon stared him straight in the eyes.
“Now you’re going to go in there and finish your dinner. After everyone else goes to sleep, you’re going to get your shit and get the fuck out of here, and never come back.” He glanced down at Lance’s wet shorts. “And if you dare reveal my identity to anyone, you won’t be pissing your shorts next time, you’ll be pissing your diaper. Do you understand?”
Lance nodded slowly.
“Good.” Brandon paused and pointed towards the door. “Now go!”
Lance shuffled out the door, convinced that Brandon was Voldemort himself. Brandon anxiously waited for Lance to slam the door behind him before going into his own panic mode, hoping that he had not just made the biggest mistake of his life. What if Lance told Marcia—or worse, Cam—who he was? Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Shooting his head down to the boa constrictor slithering toward him, he yelped as he sprinted to the door. Slamming the door behind him, Brandon leaned against it and breathed.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now.” He mumbled to himself.
The next morning, Brandon’s cell phone rang. Still half asleep, he groggily reached toward the nightstand and picked it up.
“Hello.” He moaned, not fully awake.
“Dude! You’re never going to believe this!” Brandon immediately recognized his son’s voice.
“What?” Brandon put his hand on his head, trying to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight streaming through the window.
“He’s gone!”
“Who’s gone?” Brandon sat up in the bed.
“Lance! He’s gone. He packed up all his shit and left sometime in the middle of the night.” Cam couldn’t contain his excitement.
“Wow!” Brandon tried to sound surprised.
“Yeah, man. I can’t believe it. The douchebag is finally gone!”
Brandon laughed. “That’s crazy! I wonder why he left.”
He recalled going back inside after his little magic show and sitting at the table, watching a silent Lance glance up at him occasionally, eyes full of fear. Just for fun, Brandon would point at him with his index finger at random times for the rest of the meal. Tempted to quote more Shakespeare, he decided not to press his luck.
“I know, right!” Cam laughed. “He didn’t leave a note or anything, but he did take the money from my ski fund jar.”
“Damn, dude. I’m sorry.” Brandon didn’t think Lance would resort to stealing, but it just proved to him the type of person he was dealing with.
“Nah, dude. It’s totally worth it. I’ll get the money somehow.” Cam sounded optimistic.
“How’s your mom taking it?”
“She’s drowning her sorrows in a bottle of bourbon right now, but she’ll get over it.”
“Sorry, dude.” Brandon laid back down.
“Nah. It’s okay. I’m just happy he’s gone.” Cam paused. “What are you doing today?”
“Being lazy.” Brandon laughed, stretching his arms above his head and letting out a big yawn.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure,” Brandon replied as he casually rubbed his belly.
“My dad’s house. An estate sale company is coming next week to start pricing this stuff in the house for a sale. I need to go through his things to see if there’s anything I want to keep. If you’re not busy, I was wondering if you could help me. I just don’t want to do it alone.”
Brandon quickly sat up in the bed. “You want me to help you go through your dad’s things?”
“Yeah, man,” Cam replied. “Is that cool?”
Brandon cleared his throat, collecting himself. ”Sorry. I just didn’t expect that.”
“So, are you in?” Cam got back to the question at hand.
Brandon cupped his hand on his forehead. Going through his belongings from a life he was finally starting to leave behind made him anxious. He would have preferred Cam just burn all of it, but since his son asked, he could not refuse.
“Yeah. Sure, man. What time?”
“Ten work?”
“Yeah. That’ll work. I’ll meet you at his house.”
“Okay. Thanks, man, I appreciate this.”
“Sure, no problem.” Brandon lied.
Cam hung up.
Brandon pulled himself out of bed, slipped on a pair of old gym shorts, and dragged himself to the kitchen for his morning cup of coffee. As he entered the kitchen, he glanced at Tommy and Kathy sitting at the kitchen table, before making his way to the cabinet for an empty cup.
&nb
sp; “You’re up early.” Tommy peered at him over his laptop.
“Cam woke me up. He called to tell me that Lance left in the middle of the night." Brandon grinned evilly as he reached for the coffee pot. “He stole all of Cam’s ski trip money, but Cam said it was worth it. Fuck that guy. I hope he learned his lesson.”
Brandon turned to find Tommy squinting at him, practically staring into his soul from his seat at the kitchen table. Kathy was looking back and forth between her husband and Brandon, obviously picking up on the fact that something was going on.
“Did you do something?” Tommy asked, still staring at Brandon. “You look like the cat that ate the canary.”
Brandon gave a nervous one-shoulder shrug.
“You did do something.” Tommy jabbed an accusatory finger at Brandon. “What did you do, Brandon?”
Brandon sighed, accepting that he could not hide it from them since his poker face completely sucked when it came to Tommy and Kathy. “I had to guys. For Cam’s sake. Lance was verbally abusive to Cam, and it was just a matter of time before he came physically abusive. I had to somehow convince him to leave and never come back, so I used what was left of the potion to shrink a mouse, and scare him into thinking I would turn him into a baby.”
“Fucking hell, Brandon,” Tommy yelled. “You know how dangerous that potion is, even in minuscule amounts.”
“I know.” Brandon lamented. “But I had to do it for Cam.” He looked at Tommy, his eyes pleading with him. “I know it was wrong to do it without talking to you first, but I had to do it for Cam. I love my son, and I would do anything for him. He means everything to me. Believe me. I didn’t want to do anything crazy and not tell you guys about it first. But I’d do anything to make sure Cam didn’t have to live like that anymore—I just want him to be happy.”
Kathy’s smiled sympathetically but turned to her husband for a verdict.
Tommy went silent again for what seemed like an eternity, while Brandon held his breath, waiting for the hammer to fall.
Tommy sighed. “Come talk to us next time before you decide to take matters into your own hands.” He raised the lid of his laptop once again.
“So, you’re not grounding me?” Brandon asked, surprised.
“No.” He looked over the top of his screen. “Not that I’m condoning your actions, but…that was probably the most adult thing you’ve ever done for your son.”
Kathy turned back to Brandon, a wide grin blooming on her face.
Brandon looked at both of them, his emotions running high, contemplating Tommy’s words. He felt compelled to reveal his true feelings about Tommy and Kathy.
“I love you guys, too, you know?” He gave them both a gentle smile.
Kathy smiled. “We love you, too, Channing.”
She reached over and pushed the lid of Tommy’s laptop down, giving him the look that a wife gives a husband when he better respond with the right answer.
“What she said.” He looked at her and mumbled.
“Tommy.” She gave him a disapproving frown.
“I love you, too, Channing.”
“You called me, Channing.” Brandon smiled.
It was the first time Tommy had called him Channing when he didn’t have to.
“I know.” Tommy smiled. “It is your name. Isn’t it?”
“You bet it is!” Brandon’s face lit up.
Tommy looked him in the eye
“Nice job,” The corners of his mouth lifting into a heartfelt smile, “Son.”
Brandon sat on the porch swing of his former home, waiting for Cam. A warm feeling flowed from his heart and spread throughout his body, gave him an unfamiliar feeling of comfort he never had before. A feeling that he finally had someone looking out for him for once in his life. Tommy had called him ‘son,’ and he meant it. He already knew the mother-son relationship with Kathy was sealed, now Tommy had sealed the father-son relationship. He realized he could finally have parents who loved him for who he was, and not who they wanted him to be. It was unconditional love that filled his heart.
Brandon smiled, looked up, and spoke. “God. You gave me this new life for which I am eternally grateful, and I want it all, including loving parents.”
A sudden breeze whipped down the porch and blew the red baseball cap from his head.
Brandon laughed. “I’m glad you got my message.”
He kicked up his feet and started swinging. About that time, Cam drove up in his truck. Brandon hopped up and waited for Cam to join him on the porch.
Meeting him at the door, Cam pulled the house key from his pocket. “Hey, man. Thanks for coming.”
“Sure, man. No problem.” Brandon picked up his cap and slapped it back on his head.
Unlocking the door, Cam led Brandon into his former home of twenty years. Brandon glanced around, taking in the musty smell from being shut up for the past couple of months. Nothing had been touched since the night of his ‘suicide.’ Brandon shivered. The house no longer felt like his. It felt like it belonged to someone who had passed from this earth, taking all the memories held within the house with him, leaving only a shell. The house felt dead. It hit him how much he felt removed from the person it once belonged to.
“The furniture I don’t care about. It can go.” Cam interrupted Brandon’s thoughts as he scanned the living room before starting towards the hall.
Brandon fell in behind him as Cam bypassed door after door, heading to the room at the end of the hall.
“It’s here I care about.” Cam opened the door to Brandon’s former office.
Brandon stepped into the space that served as the museum for his most prized possessions. An old 1950s record player sat in the corner with a rack of albums. Doctor Who and Star Trek figures lined the tops of the bookcases. Shelves were filled with DVDs along with sci-fi novels and computer programming books. On the desk sat a desktop computer while scattered papers and various ‘geek’ toys covered the remaining surface.
“Woah. Your dad was quite the nerd, wasn’t he?” Brandon laughed, keeping up his ruse.
“Big time.” Cam chuckled. “Good Ol’ Dad. I never got his geek thing, just like he never got my sports thing.”
Cam strolled over and picked up a stuffed animal shaped like a bug from the desk. On the front of the bug’s t-shirt was the acronym “Y2K.”
“Like this. I don’t get it?” He dropped it on the desk, and it made a sound like breaking glass. He picked it up and dropped it again, and the sound repeated.
“It’s a joke.” Brandon walked over and picked it up. “In the early days of computers, memory was expensive. So, to save money, programmers stored only the last two digits of the year in their code. For example, 1988 became just 88 because it took less memory. When the computers all turned over to the year 2000, the computers recognized the digits 00 as 1900 instead of 2000. People thought all the computers in the world would go berserk on midnight January 1, 2000, and the world would be plunged into an apocalypse. Of course, it didn’t happen, as we all know,” Brandon dropped the toy, “but it became known as the ‘Y2K bug.’”
“Dude. Totally didn’t know that. Glad I have you on my quiz bowl team.” Cam smiled.
“Quiz bowl is cool.” Brandon smiled back; happy he joined the Franklin High Quizmasters.
Cam had impressed him with his knowledge of sports and history, while Brandon made the team well-rounded with his knowledge of music and geography.
Cam glanced around the room again. “I’ve got some boxes in the truck to start packing some of this stuff up. I think I’m going to keep his sci-fi stuff. The programming books can go. I know how much he hated programming, and would probably want me to burn them.”
While Brandon certainly didn’t believe in book burnings, he was willing to make an exception in this case.
“I’m with you there. Light ‘em up.” He joked. “I hate programming, too.”
Time passed quickly as they made their way from shelf to shelf. They talked about Quizmasters
and school. Brandon felt himself enjoying their time together, despite the unpleasant task at hand. The conversation finally came to a lull.
Sitting on the floor, stacking Doctor Who DVDs into a cardboard box, Brandon’s mind began to wander. His eyes focused on the leather office chair sitting behind the desk. A vision of the adult Brandon Daniels dressed in a black business suit, not paying attention to another soul-sucking teleconference, popped into his head. He watched him turn and gaze emotionlessly out the window as his depressed mind started planning his own death. The beaten down old man so consumed with misery that he believed ending his life was his only escape.
The sadness of this man overwhelmed young Brandon, forcing him to look away. Brandon looked down at his young body wearing a blue t-shirt, white shorts, and blue running shoes. This boy whose joy for life filled him with hope and indescribable happiness. This boy was Channing Burkhart. He was Channing Burkhart. That miserable old man was dead. Brandon felt a tear run down his cheek as he mentally laid Brandon Daniels to rest once and for all.
“You okay, Chan?” Cam stopped packing and gave Channing a worried look.
“Yeah.” Channing sniffled. “It’s just…all this is so sad.”
“I know.” Cam looked around the room. “Let’s hurry. I’m ready to get out of here.”
The silence continued as Channing worked faster, pulling books from the bottom shelf and placing them in the empty box next to him. Unable to handle the gloomy silence any longer, Channing got up and walked over to pull an album from the rack of records. Carefully pulling the vinyl from the sleeve, he placed it on the turntable and set the tonearm on the edge of the record. A couple of seconds later, James Taylor’s Shower the People began playing.
Cam, who was busy pulling action figures from the top shelf, stopped and looked down at Channing. “Why did you choose that album?”
“This album always makes me feel better.” Channing sat back down.” Why?”
“It’s just…this was one of my Dad’s favorite albums.” Cam went back to pulling down more toys.
“Your dad and I had the same taste in music, I guess.”
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