King Henry Short Pack One (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

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  Now his racism is wearing off on me!

  “Oh, it’s a comic store now,” King Henry explained. “But it used to be an antique store. Back before all them gangbangers shot it up . . . was about nine months ago, time flies, don’t it? Changed it up to a print-on-demand t-shirt place after that.”

  “Gangbangers?” Dad whispered in concern. “Shot up?”

  “No one got hurt; Tyson can tell you all about it, since he was there.”

  “What?” it was Mom’s turn to squeak.

  “It’s in the past too. Total misunderstanding! I mean, the guy in charge of all the gangbangers ended up being my brother-in-law, can you believe that? Plus, the guy that was actually in charge of the shooting is dead now . . . so, not like he’s gonna do it again from beyond the grave, is he?”

  King Henry gave a thumbs-up from behind their backs.

  Tyson almost electrocuted King Henry.

  On principle.

  James and Gertrude Bonnie both turned to their son for comment.

  “A complete misunderstanding,” Tyson managed to get out.

  It had been a misunderstanding . . . on King Henry’s part, because he started a fight with Hector Vega in the middle of a parking lot, Hector Vega who just happened to be guarding JoJo Price-Vega at the time. Hector Vega, who was now dead, accidentally killed by King Henry. King Henry had been ready for Hector’s uncle and JoJo’s husband, Horatio, to attempt to kill King Henry in revenge . . . but the King of the Coyotes hadn’t.

  That had both of them even more worried than if he had tried to kill them.

  What was Horatio Vega planning for them if he just let a family member’s death slide like that?

  “Exactly!” King Henry agreed. “Anyway, the reason I brought it all up is that even after the store changed to t-shirt printing and then the new one into comics—this latest one is happening because a water heater caught on fire and burnt everything up, innocent accident, right?—I still have this box full of teapots in storage. Some of them might have bullet-holes in them, but if you’d like I could bring them by and you could have the whole lot. Nothing I can do with them now, right? Ain’t like they got Spider-Man on them, is it? Just flowers and shit.”

  “Of course not,” Mom whispered, eyes wide over the unending deluge.

  “Dinner is still . . . uh . . . two hours away, King Henry. You’re very early,” Tyson said. “Very early.”

  “Yeah, well . . . I thought about what you said, about us sort of being a family now, what with us being in business together, so I thought it would be nice if we did some bonding instead of just some eating, ya know?”

  Dad finally detached himself from King Henry, heading for the stairs. “Nice to meet you, but I need to go back to my office and finish some numbers,” he said aloud and then murmured under his breath before disappearing, “And get away from you before I have a heart attack.”

  “Oh dear . . .” Mom commented, “Your father hasn’t looked that upset since Obama was reelected.”

  “Don’t start,” Tyson blurted before King Henry could start in with the black jokes.

  Dirt eyes glanced up the stairs where James Bonnie had exited and then back to Tyson. You could see the decision take place in them. That King Henry had had his fun, that the lesson had been learned about the great weakness that was manners, and the realization that he should stop himself before he went too far. King Henry Price very much hated bullies, and inside of that was the recognition that in fighting them, in mocking civilization, he often came right up to the line that crossed from teasing into malice. It was about the only aspect that he self-policed himself in.

  That moment in Tyson’s childhood living room King Henry came up to the line and decided enough was enough, best not to push any further. Best not to be what he hated most.

  But he could still stop right behind the line, couldn’t he?

  “So what’s for dinner, Gerty?” King Henry asked. “I’m smelling some apple pie for dessert, ain’t I? It homemade or frozen shit? They used to have the best homemade apple pie at school. Don’t think I’ve had any since I graduated.”

  *

  “Well, at least you stopped yourself,” Tyson said, half an hour later in his second-floor, childhood room with only King Henry present. Tyson’s mother was cooking the main Pad Thai course downstairs, while his father was probably wondering where he’d gone wrong as a parent in his office down the hall, next to his parents’ master bedroom. It was a large house, but not extravagant. King Henry would consider it ‘rich,’ but Tyson had never thought of it that way. Rich was a maid or a butler or a corvette at sixteen or your own credit card at twelve. The Bonnies were just middle class in his mind . . . but he could see how the boy who had grown up with nothing would see things differently.

  Unsurprisingly, even given the many curiosities in the room, King Henry had focused in on a Britney Spears poster tacked to Tyson’s wall. It might have just been a poster, but it still had breasts. Red latex covered breasts. “This thing is fucking terrifying on so many levels.”

  “I was ten when I bought it.”

  “I don’t think that’s an excuse.”

  “I figured you’d approve.”

  King Henry stared at the poster like it was a real person. “Something in the eyes reminds me of Isabel Soto.”

  “That was taken before the whole crazy sudden marriages and shaving off all her hair episodes.”

  “And the roast beef cooch; can’t forget the roast beef cooch.”

  Tyson paused before finally shuddering. “You can.”

  “Nope. It’s like seeing that Ring video. It haunts you until death. Roast beef cooch until the end of your days. Waiting for you around the corner. Then Death pops out of it.”

  This was a horrible mental image, made worse by Tyson having read every Discworld novel.

  “I’ve thought about strangling you or electrocuting you like four or five times already today,” he told King Henry.

  King Henry just shrugged like he had done nothing wrong, even though he had always done something wrong. It was a signature reaction: his shoulders barely moving, just too cool for school. Tyson could see him using it at the Asylum on the teachers and also imagine the teachers’ reaction to it. I bet Mr. Root hated it, Tyson thought before he caught himself.

  Root.

  That professionally dressed, quick-minded, very serious teacher who, if perhaps he wasn’t one of Tyson’s favorites, still had his respect. Tyson had learned a lot in Elementalism as a Weapon and Survival and Defense. Mr. Root had praised Tyson’s electro-barriers, but not his direct strikes. Keep on the defensive, Mr. Bonnie, you don’t have the surety of action required to strike someone down. Better to draw than to lose outright.

  And now, Root was . . . not a good person . . . a very bad person, in fact.

  He tried to kill my friend.

  No matter how weird that friendship might be.

  No matter if I want to electrocute that friend myself at this very moment.

  King Henry finally took a turn about Tyson’s room, studying every knickknack like it might explain some secret past of Tyson himself.

  My origin story? Tyson laughed inwardly.

  The walls were a light blue, so was the bed—a blue and white plaid comforter that hadn’t been moved for years except to be cleaned. The whole room was spotless. Had been when T-Bone occupied it too. Besides the Britney Spears poster there was another for Everquest and a third for World of Warcraft.

  My interests in life changed just a little bit once I found out about MMOs.

  Whether this was a good thing or not was up for debate.

  There was a computer of course. Ancient now—it ran on a single core, had only a DVD player, a single USB port, 2 whole gigs of RAM, and ran unsupported Windows XP. At least it’s not Vista. It was bulky and ugly and . . . well, times change, faster and faster, sleeker and sleeker as the years go by. One of the constant fights wi
th his parents as a teenager had been about wanting to upgrade that ancient beast.

  You’re not even here for two months a year, sweetie. We want you with us for family time, not stuck in your room for hours playing games with strangers. Maybe if you transferred to Bullard High we could give you a new one, but not when you’re gone for so long. Gertrude Bonnie was a fantastic mother . . . but she could guilt trip with the best of them.

  He had built and rebuilt an innumerable amount of PCs since . . . but that one had served him for seven years.

  Seven years of slowly degrading functionality.

  There was an LCD television on a stand, surrounded by equally ancient gaming systems, a DVD player, and a variety of movies stacked on top of each other. Systems so old I just emulate them now, movies so old I just stream them on Netflix now. The room really was a nice little time machine.

  It was always strange coming home for winter and summer breaks. It wasn’t like Harry Potter. No mysterious means of knowing if you were pooling anima or not. Just the threat of expulsion and the fear that your parents would . . . know. Some did, some didn’t. Tyson wasn’t sure what the Institution’s rule set on the whole question was based on, but his didn’t. Now that he was graduated he could tell them . . . that was his right, as long as he called the ESLED offices and informed them to update their files.

  They have files on my parents.

  Even his parents. Even though they weren’t mancers. Even though they didn’t share a single bit of genetic material with him and would be worthless at predicting future mancers. Although they say that’s not the reason some families breed true, that it’s something else.

  It would be an interesting experiment to run. Could a strong enough Dale or Daniels or Welf pass on the Mancy to adopted children? Or vice versa . . . could a Dale or Daniels or Welf raised away from their families fail to carry on whatever it was the Mancy used as a qualifier?

  They must have tested this by now . . . I wonder if I can find the results somehow . . . who could I call?

  “Must be nice to have your own TV in your room,” King Henry commented to bring Tyson out of his memories. “And a computer . . . shit, I’d have never left my room if I had a good source of porn like that. Was so poor I had to go old school and steal magazines from the ShopsMart.”

  “That’s . . . something I never wanted to know,” was Tyson’s only comment.

  King Henry opened the closet and found old clothes inside that were very much like Tyson’s present clothes. He had never understood style, only function, and when you’re as tall and large as he was, it was hard to accessorize.

  There was also a pair of huge plastic bins filled with various Lego pieces. The days before they were cool enough to have video games and movies and pop songs that get stuck in your head for weeks, showing your brain no mercy.

  “You were even more boring as a teenager than you are now, man,” King Henry said as he moved towards the window, apparently done with his inspection.

  “Thanks?”

  Despite the fact it was winter, King Henry threw open the window and peered outside, thick neck twisting as he tried to look down each side of the street at once. It was quiet out there, nothing ever changing, the whole area locked in suburban bliss, but King Henry kept studying something anyway.

  “Good thing you have me around now, add some character to your . . . character.”

  “Yes, character . . .”

  “You can call me an asshole if you want to.”

  “No, if only because you seem to want me to do it.”

  “I had reasons. I was trying to help. Mostly.”

  “You always have reasons. They’re not often good reasons, but you have them.”

  “I think it’s fair to say that our friendship is what you’d call . . . a fucking miracle of polar opposites attracting?”

  “I would say it’s our similarities despite our differences actually.”

  “We have those?”

  “Joy in anima experimentation and a quest for shared knowledge of the natural world? I was just thinking about if a strong mancer family could pass off the Mancy to an adopted child, would be an interesting test, wouldn’t it?”

  “Huh. Maybe. Boris Hunting probably already did it, but maybe.”

  “Or the other way around . . . if an adopted child loses their chance.”

  King Henry finally turned to study Tyson again, seemingly like he was deciding something more. “What’s it like?” he eventually asked.

  “I was too young to know different. Maybe if my parents had been mean, I’d have wondered, but . . . what more could I ask for?”

  “Well, great fucking parents or not . . . point stands, cuz we can’t exactly tell them the truth about our little partnership, can we? Unless you feel like finally opening up to them about all the lightning bolts?”

  Tyson’s anxiety shot up about twenty levels. Anxiety and also guilt. Guilt that these people had taken him and raised him as their own and he was lying to them. “If you say anything, then I’ll—”

  “Yeah, I got it. Exactly that, so we can’t tell the truth . . . again. So give ‘em an answer they can buy.”

  “I told my mother that something else is going on with our deal, but you made me sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t talk about it.”

  King Henry’s expression actually had a bit of contrition in it for once. “Oh . . . that would have worked better.”

  “Yes, very much yes,” Tyson snapped. “But, by all means, let’s go with your story since you’ve tried so hard to set it up as more believable than magic.”

  “Good . . . I’m really kinda partial to it.”

  “That you’re a drug dealer . . . and that I’m supporting you.”

  “I was thinking like a hitman or something badass actually, drug dealer is kind of too pawns all lined up to die for the king, ya know? Ain’t my style.”

  This is really happening, Tyson thought, I’m really doing this just to keep all the lies in place. “And how would I be supporting you?”

  “We don’t have to get that far into it, do we? Just have to let them go down one road and not the real one. Don’t think they’ll buy an NDA but we could still change it up and go for the gay lovers one. Know your mom was sizing me up wondering if maybe I’d be her future son-in-law.”

  Tyson thought about pushing King Henry out the window.

  It was only two stories.

  It wouldn’t kill him.

  Just hurt him.

  Nothing like a quick trip to the emergency room to stop an oncoming disaster.

  Just one little push . . .

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with you being my gay lover, man. If I was gay and didn’t have a super amazing, blond, six-foot-tall, hot, brilliant, self-motivated, half-Australian, badass girlfriend—”

  “If you finish that sentence, I’ll push you out of the window,” Tyson openly threatened.

  “See, if you’d hooked up with Yolanda last week then you could’ve brought her to family dinner instead of me.”

  “Yes, that would’ve been preferable. If only she wouldn’t have led off with the fact that she has herpes and I’d need a condom just to be safe, just imagine where we would be now.”

  “Come on, man. Should’ve thought of it as an adventure or something! I mean . . . Slush cures herpes, right?”

  “It . . . does?”

  “Yeah . . . I . . . uh . . . know a guy . . . who had it done . . . a couple times.”

  Tyson stared at him for awhile. “Are you talking about yourself?”

  King Henry turned back to the street really quick. “Hey, that spy van is still across the street. Think we should go check it out?”

  Tyson let the conversation change despite his morbid curiosity on how many STDs Slush could fight off and how King Henry seemed to be such an expert on it. “I doubt the vampires have a detail on my parents’ house just on the off chance you happen to stop by.”

  “Could be Weres.”

>   “Or the Lizard People,” Tyson deadpanned.

  “Who are the Lizard People?” King Henry asked seriously.

  Tyson supposed it had been that type of year.

  *

  James Bonnie began family dinner as he always did, with a short, quick, efficient Baptist prayer.

  King Henry worked his hardest not to sneer.

  Tyson wouldn’t call King Henry an atheist, he was actually rather sure that King Henry did believe in a higher power, perhaps even the Judeo-Christian God, but he also knew that King Henry’s opinion of that higher power was that the higher power hated King Henry Price, with a fierce passion that manifested in throwing misfortune and calamity in his path.

  Also does not approve of organized religion.

  .

  .

  .

  Also does not approve of organized anything.

  Then they ate Pad Thai.

  Mostly in silence.

  Usually, Tyson and his father would talk about the market or the economy or anything that could have come up in their businesses. Tyson would nod at his father’s advice because it was always good advice. Mom would laugh at the pair of them and chime in with her own anecdotes about the family or whatever neighborhood drama was brewing. In addition to his parents, Tyson also had adopted grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

  He stood out quite a bit in the reunion photos as well.

  Though his cousin Jeremy had started dating a Hmong girl . . . which had caused quite a stir.

  I’m the strangest person in my family, Tyson realized for the first time in his life.

  How did I make it this long without realizing that?

  Maybe it was because he had tried so hard to fit in that, outside of his skin color, for so many years he had fit in perfectly. Yet now . . . with King Henry Price eating Pad Thai in a chair next to Tyson’s mom, he realized that yes, he was the odd one despite all his efforts. In most families he wouldn’t even be close. Unless he was too normal. Just imagine if he’d been adopted by the Prices.

  Well, you’d have probably ended up in juvie a lot more than I fucking did, the King Henry inside of Tyson’s head laid it out, if you didn’t get fucking shot by some stupid ass hillbilly Visalia cop or sheriff or ya know, all the gang members who lived by our shitty house. Then you would have had to deal with dad belting you when he got drunk. Lot bigger than me; means he would’ve hit you harder. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he only hits his blood. Maybe the idea of whipping a black kid would’ve made him stop for once, all that white guilt making him come to his senses.