Between Two Minds: Awakening

by D C Wright-Hammer

  If I had a choice in the matter, I would have stayed with Mr. Fredrick at the Gates Home for Boys, or just “Gates” as we called it. Some of the other guys there were rough around the edges, but I didn’t mind. It toughened me up. Most importantly, I had finally felt stable since arriving around a year and a half before meeting Mr. Reno. But part of me knew that I couldn’t stay there forever, and it was probably best that I went to a regular school and made regular friends. Still, I needed to know something before I left.

  “What happens if they find my parents?”

  Mr. Fredrick sighed. “Charlie…it is best that you focus on your new life with the Renos. You’ll be notified if any word comes of your folks.”

  Mr. Reno stood up and shook Mr. Fredrick’s hand, then motioned for me to follow him out the door.

  I threw on my winter coat and hurried along. “Bye, Mr. Fredrick.”

  “Goodbye, Charlie.”

  We walked silently through the old halls of Gates, and I tried to take in the building one last time. I wondered if I’d be back soon like Tommy. His last two sets of parents hadn’t worked out, and he was back after two months each time. It was something you learned to get used to being without your real parents. Sometimes grownups came into your life. Sometimes they left. Getting used to it didn’t make it any easier, though. It made it feel like everything in life was temporary, and while that was true on the largest of scales, it was tough to deal with as a kid.

  Approaching the front office, Mr. Reno gave some paperwork and his ID to Mrs. Simpson. She then pressed a couple buttons on the computer in front of her, and with a buzz and a click, the exit door across the way opened. One of the security guards came through and escorted us toward the parking lot. Cold air blasted us as we went through the doors. Snow had fallen a few days prior, so the trees and ground had a pleasant frosted look to them. The streets and parking lot had been recently plowed, so they were clear, but many of the cars in the lot still had a bit of snow on them. Not Mr. Reno’s. He had an old—really old—station wagon with blue paint and delightfully wretched wood paneling. It was in good shape, considering, and having known him for all of thirty minutes, the car made sense.

  He ushered me into the passenger seat. The car’s tan leather interior was very neat, hinting that it was recently detailed. There were bits of pine in the air from the older-looking Christmas tree hanging from the rearview. Then Mr. Reno assumed the driver’s seat, and all traces of pine disappeared. They were killed dead by his now intolerable cologne permeating the entirety of the close quarters. I would have outwardly gagged, but remembered Tommy telling me that it was best not to show too much emotion to new parents too soon. He said it tended to freak them out. So, despite my lack of oxygen, I persevered.

  Mr. Reno started the engine, and talk radio gently filled the car. Startling himself, he quickly turned it off. “Sorry about that, Charlie.”

  I was a bit disappointed because we didn’t get to listen to any radio at Gates, but nodded in acknowledgement as he drove us out of the parking lot. I immediately began to enjoy the ride. We weren’t allowed to go more than one hundred yards from Gates, so anything was better than the same old, same old. Still, after thirty minutes, the silence became awkwardly apparent to me.

  “What school will I go to?”

  “Orchard Elementary. We’ll be passing it on our way home.” His words were accompanied by the tiniest of smiles under his beard, undoubtedly happy that I wanted to talk.

  “Is it any good?”

  “It’s fine. We will get you settled in the next couple of days, and then enroll you.”

  “You don’t like football?”

  “It’s not that. Just been a lot more into baseball since my favorite team finally won it all—a while ago by now, I guess. But if you like football, that’s okay.”

  “Where’s your wife?”

  The smile he had during the last two questions disappeared. “You’ll meet her soon enough.”

  We merged onto the expressway, and the white noise that followed let the conversation naturally conclude. After driving for a little while, we finally exited to a town that could have been described as humble. It definitely wasn’t run down, but it sure wasn’t the rich city I imagined and hoped for. We drove through a quaint downtown area, then into a neighborhood.

  “There it is.” Mr. Reno extended his arm in front of my face, pointing to the school I would attend.

  “Not bad.”

  The building seemed recently renovated, which was reassuring, but it was also a fairly large school, which made me a little nervous. We turned down a small street and pulled into the driveway of a house that had to be a hundred years old but well cared for. Upon thinking that, I was instantly daydreaming about whether he had taken me through a time machine back forty or fifty years. Since that would have been before my parents were born, I imagined I could fix things for all of us, and my future self wouldn’t be in the position that I was in, and life would be great. But then, my ten-year-old brain began to hurt trying to work out all of the paradoxes associated with time travel, and thankfully, Mr. Reno interjected.

  “What do you think?”

  “Oh. It looks nice.”

  I prepared to open my car door when he stopped me.

  “Charlie, there is one thing I want to talk to you about before we go in.”

  I settled back into my seat and looked over to him.

  “You seem like a bright boy. You’re going to find as you get older, you’ll have to work for everything you want. I wanted a son, and so I put in the time, effort, and money to get you. Background check. Paperwork. And it was a lot of money. But I know it will be worth it. I know you’re going to work hard for me, and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, we’re going to get you a list of chores to start doing after we get your things in the house. I think it’s best you keep busy at all times, so at the top of your list will be shoveling the walkway leading to the garage.”

  Peering out of the car and around the house, I saw that all of the sidewalks were spotless except for the one he mentioned, like he had saved it just to give me a chore. But wanting to make a good first impression, I simply said, “Sure. I can do that.”

  Unknown to me at the time, that conversion would define our relationship for the next several years. There was always a roof over my head and food in belly, but he worked me like a dog. Just like that walkway, he would leave random chores for me—chores that he could have easily completed himself while doing other things around the house. But Mr. Reno consumed his own life with work, so it must have seemed logical to him to consume mine as well.

  One time in eighth grade, I tried to put my studies over my chores. “Do I have to wash the car today? I have a science test tomorrow, and I need to study.”

  As calm as he always was, Mr. Reno replied, “Yes, and you’re going to reorganize the garage after you’re done with the car.”

  “Again? I did that last week. It’s organized! I promise!”

  “Do you really want to have ‘the talk’ again, Charlie? You need to understand that work makes you stronger than any test ever could.”

  Worst of all, I had trouble reading the assignments, and didn’t understand why at the time. I knew the letters and words, but sometimes couldn’t quite recognize them. Still, I was fairly certain that I would have gotten by just fine had I been allowed to focus on my studies. It was then that my resentment for Mr. Reno began to grow.

  But the summer after eighth grade changed everything. After shoveling the walk on my very first day at the Reno residence, Mr. Reno introduced me to his wife. Mrs. Reno seemed nice enough, but she had a nasty cough. Later, she would tell me it was something she had caught while working in the city for many years. As a result of her sickness, she couldn’t do much around the house, and things only got worse from there. My
guess was that the medical bills had started piling up right around the time Mr. Reno took me from Gates. Those first few years, he worked overtime just about every night, and I had to do everything else around the house. I took care of Mrs. Reno as good as any kid could, and while my life was technically better than it was at Gates, I couldn’t help but feel like I had been sold into slavery. I even tried calling Mr. Fredrick a couple of times, but he always asked the same question.

  “Are you being abused or neglected?”

  “I don’t know. Not really. But something isn’t right. I feel like he’s working me too hard.”

  “You said the same things about us, Charlie. And his wife is sick, so give him a break. Now, please, only use this number if you are in real trouble.”

  So, I kept working for Mr. Reno, and Mrs. Reno kept getting sicker. It wasn’t until Mrs. Reno was clinging to life that Mr. Reno finally showed me a bit of his human side.

  “Don’t worry about washing the linens this afternoon.”

  It was clear that the anguish in his voice originated from deep within him. It was rare that he ever took anything off my plate, and as twisted as it was, it made me a little happy that his wife was dying. Regardless, he had trained me to always ask to do more if any of my chores were ever in question.

  “I’m happy to do it for you. I can even organize the basement when I’m done.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Charlie. You just relax.”

  Mrs. Reno passed away a week later, and we had a quiet service for her where only a few relatives and friends showed up. Her coffin could probably have been described as bargain. But shortly after she was in the ground, Mr. Reno revealed to me just how much he cared about her and about me. In turn, he also showed me just how flawed a man he was.

  “When Martha got sick, the doctors told us that it would eventually kill her. A few months later, when she took a turn for the worse, she told me her dying wish. It was to have a little boy around to help out with the house. She said it would be good for me to have someone like you around before she passed, but I think she mostly meant after.” Mr. Reno choked up a bit. “You probably hate me after all I’ve put you through. After all you’ve been through in life.” He cleared his throat. “Just know that love will make you do strange things. The way we…I treated you the last five years was all I could do to cope. I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  After that, the chores stopped coming. All the work I did to make the house immaculate was suddenly for nothing and it slowly withered to mediocrity and sometimes worse. I did as much as I could to keep it together while preparing for high school.

  Mr. Reno didn’t do much at all other than go to work. When he came home, he immediately headed for his study without as much as a greeting. He’d sit there for hours, reading books and quietly moping. There were a few nights where the moping wasn’t so quiet, and I was certain I heard him sobbing from across the hall. Seeing him become so fractured after losing the one he loved was difficult. But as the orphan he had exploited for years, I had no pity for him, even when I tried. I almost wanted to take joy in his suffering, but something inside me said that wasn’t right either.

  High school classes started that fall, and I welcomed the distraction from my depressing home life. The guidance counselor thought it might be good for me to get involved in some kind of extracurricular activity, so I took up drums with the school band. Even though I couldn’t read a lick of drum music, I was serviceable playing by ear. But shortly after, I met Sarah and joined the football team. As much as I hated him for it, all the work Mr. Reno had made me do had kept me in good shape, and I’d turned out to be quite the athlete. Even more surprising, Mr. Reno came to a couple games, and when my talent became obvious to him, he even complimented me.

  “That sport could actually take you places, Son.”

  It wasn’t long after that I introduced Mr. Reno to Sarah. Not that it mattered, but he seemed to think very highly of her. He said she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and that she might even be wife material if we stayed together through college. When she left for school and I got depressed, Mr. Reno had some interesting words of encouragement for me.

  “Charlie, the emptiness you feel since she’s been gone, the void that no one else can fill? Just be glad that you will see her again. Don’t take it for granted. Do whatever it takes.”

  His words could have been mistaken for romantic if I hadn’t experienced firsthand the insanity that he considered love. And despite how far he had come since the passing of Mrs. Reno, there was still a deep-seated rage within me for all the years of forced labor. It finally came to head upon receiving my final report card right before graduation. After one look, it was obvious what it meant for Sarah and me, and I nearly lost it at school. Begrudgingly, I was able to harness that immediate ire into a catalyst to be unleashed later.

  Entering his study that afternoon, I held the damn paper right into his dumb bearded face. “Look at this! You see this, old man? Do you see this? It’s bullshit!”

  Falling back in his chair, he tried to gather himself to read the report.

  Just when he was almost able, I threw it at him. “You said if I worked hard enough, everything else would take care of itself. You said I’d learn more from chores and school wasn’t important.”

  The paper fell onto his lap, and he finally got a look at it. “Oh. Charlie. I’m…I’m—”

  “Let me guess. You’re sorry?! You’re always sorry these days! Well, ‘sorry’ doesn’t get me into school. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t give me my childhood back. ‘Sorry’ won’t bring back your demented wife!”

  He began to nod as his expression shifted from shocked to morose. “You’re right, Charlie. You’re right. I was a horrible husband and a terrible father.”

  “No. You don’t get to call yourself that—‘father.’ You couldn’t have your own kids, and you sure as hell were anything but a father to me.”

  His tears kept flowing, and so did all of the anguish that had been bottled up in me for so long.

  “I’ve made up my mind. I’m enlisting in the marines. I’ll train. I’ll see the world. I’ll serve this damn country. Then I’ll be with the woman I love, and I’ll never speak with you again. I won’t visit. I won’t write. And some day, should I ever have kids, they will never know the name Mr. Reno and the bullshit he put me through! I’m changing my name back to…”

  At that moment, the strangest thing happened. Before I could finish my sentence, the lights went out and complete darkness overtook my ability to see anything. The sunlight that was literally just coming through the windows in the study was gone. That wasn’t how I remembered it, and it sure as hell didn’t make any sense.

  “Mr. Reno?”

  But I knew he wasn’t there. It felt like nothing was there except emptiness. Am I hallucinating in solitary again? Maybe they never let me out after beating up that bastard lawyer.

  But that couldn’t be the case because I specifically recalled getting out. Those damn guards roughed me up on the way back to my regular cell.

  Maybe this is hell.

  It would only be fitting that I would end up burning for all my sins. And after everything I put Sarah and the kids through, death seemed easier to deal with than living with so much regret. But there wasn’t any fire or brimstone around me either. Still, one thing was for sure; my grip on reality was slipping, so I needed to figure out where the hell I was and what the hell was happening.

  “Hello, -ello, -ello, -lo?” The echo was almost painfully loud.

  Flick!

  Like the opening of an old-fashioned play, a spotlight shined directly onto me.

  I spun around looking for a frame of reference, but as far as I could see, nothing else was lit and the blackness went on forever. Spinning around again, I kept looking for anything or anyone in the void. It got to the point where I would forget where I had begun as it w
as infinitely dark in all directions.

  Flick!

  Another spotlight? But where?

  Light was still only on me, so I turned around again, and something appeared in the distance. In spite of the sniper training I’d had, I squinted hard with both eyes to try to make out the target. It was blurry, but I was fairly certain it was a figure of some kind. I tried walking toward the figure, but the ground beneath me felt like sand. No matter how many steps I took, the figure was still the same distance away.

  “Hey, hey, -ey, -y!”

  My ears felt like they were going to bleed. Shouting was not going to work, but I was determined to make contact. That was when I remembered another piece of training from the service that just might help me out. Not sure why it dawned on me, I figured I would give it a shot. Lifting my right hand in the air, I placed my middle finger hard against my thumb, and with all of my might, I pressed down.

  Snap!

  The echo was loud, but bearable. Most importantly, the figure moved seemingly in acknowledgement of the sound.

  Snap!

  The figure moved again. It has to be hearing me!

  Snapping four times, then two times, I said hi in Morse code. It must have worked as I could see the figure raise what had to be his hand.

  Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Pause. Snap! Snap!

  It said hi back!

  “Friend or foe?” I snapped.

  “Friend.”

  Before I could say anymore, the figure began moving again, but bizarrely enough, the never-ending space made it difficult to know if the figure was coming toward me or actually getting larger in size. Squinting hard, the figure was finally getting clear enough to see.

  It was a boy! Or young man. But something was odd about him. His bottom half was much wider than I would have expected for such a small person, and it didn’t appear like his legs were moving at all as he approached.