contemplation {Sean}

“It wasn’t a fight,” Erik protested.

He dropped his head to look at the floor, still picking at his thumb, suddenly silent.

After a beat Erik thought Sean might be waiting for an explanation. “What was I supposed t’do? He’s the one who started sayin’ shit to me, I didn’t do nothin’ but sit there. I was mindin’ my own god damn business.” His southern accent was seemed stepped in the swamp he came from, and littered with the brand of cussing unafraid of authority. “He called me a schizo. And…” Oriel hadn’t gotten on him for being homosexual, not exactly. In fact, he’d gotten around to flirting, but Erik hadn’t taken it very nice – he took it as a teasing patronization, the kind people might use in the locker
(like when they opened their towel and flashed it, “You like this?” and then the whole place filled with unkind laughter)
and it’d set Erik off like a pipe bomb. “…he called me gay.”

Now his back hurt. Shapeshifting always did that to him, and he knew the ache would linger for days, four at the most. Erik knew he shouldn’t have done it. He knew it wasn’t up to the institute’s lofty standards, but part of him burned with vengeful justification; and if presented with the opportunity, he knew he’d do it again.

“I didn’t even bite him anyway,” he said.

He seemed pleased, at least, that Oriel wouldn’t get away with it all. Somehow he thought he would. When a guy fell off his chair and screamed like a little girl, people would usually consider him the victim.

Erik was a perceptive kid. He never did very well with grades, but he was well stocked in common sense, and he knew when he was getting analyzed. He wasn’t sure he liked it. Erik was a bit tight-lipped when it came to himself; he didn’t like talking ‘bout it none, not out of fear of hurt or a lack of trust, but because he knew his head was a scary place. It was courtesy to keep it hidden. Sean probably didn’t want to know where his inclination towards horror films stemmed from, or how he missed gutting fish, or the things he’d cut out of the Bible. Erik was new to the big wide world – having come from a town populated by, at most, twenty-six people – but he’d picked up pretty quick that he didn’t act the same way. Getting dragged out from the swamp and tossed into a city only to find that his parents were right, everyone he’d ever known had been right, he was strange and he was an outlier, made him think there was something inherently wrong in him. And there very well may have been. Erik had not established a single lasting relationship in any capacity since the three years he’d been here. There was Dominique, but he really only stuck around because he sucked his dick.

So a lot of the time Erik would give deflective answers. He never lied, not really – mostly because he was awful at it, and a whole bunch of stuttering and blushing never did him any good. Erik crossed his arms over his stomach protectively. He turned his head.

“He didn’t have no right t’say that t’me,” he said. “I don’t care what you say, I don’t care what th’ rules say, if he can sit there an’ talk that sorta shit t’me then I can do somethin’ about it. Ain’t no one else will.”

Erik paused. “Besides,” he said, “when’s anyone bein’ called gay a good thing?”

Erik nodded, but on the inside he had serious doubts about calling anyone to interfere with his business. Having a teacher settle one of his disputes completely ruptured everything he stood for, and to him, it wasn’t about what was right and what was wrong. It wasn’t even about the results. He wasn’t sure what it was, but the very thought made him inwardly flinch.

He thought he would’ve liked to hear those words from someone, but instead it just made something snap in his head. Erik’s piercing eyes stared out from under his brows, a snarl half-formed on his lips, his hands curling into the fabric of his shirt. “Well I guess you’d be outta a job if you did, wouldn’t you?” he said. “What th’ fuck’s that s’posed to do for me anyway? Are you plannin’ on sharin’ some of that enlightenment? You’re gonna pass it out like a bunch a’fliers?” He leaned back in his chair, unblinking, and set his feet up on the edge of the desk. “I guess I can go back an’ tell everyone at home that everythin’s alright now, Mr. Sean says he doesn’t think bein’ gay is a bad thing. That’ll fix it.”

It was times like this he realized being homosexual wasn’t really the reason he didn’t have anyone to talk to. It might’ve been some of the reason, but not all of it. Hell, it wasn’t even half. He just had a bone to pick with the world and it showed. Not exactly party material.

“Y’know the Bible says you should castrate yourself if you’re gay,” he went on. “I heard that from my mom. An’ I don’t know what it’d say ‘bout bein’ a…” he paused. “…a meta-person but they got their own opinions ‘bout that too.”

After his initial snap, Erik sat quiet. It was hard to tell if he was listening or not, though truthfully he was, but he didn’t look at Sean, nor lift his eyes above the level of the desk in front of him. His arms were still crossed, and his brow was deeply lined in a scowl. When he did finally show acknowledgement, it was a gentle scoff – a snort blown through his nose – and a turn of his head.

“Mister Sean, I don’t think you know,” he said. His voice was quieter, now, but still angry, and also a little desperate. “My mom doesn’t get out the bed. She can’t do anythin’, she leaves the stove on, she leaves clothes in th’ bathtub, she don’t shower…my dad, he works all day and comes home and he doesn’t have time to deal with my shit, says I make her worse. We have a room in th’ house we can’t go in no more ‘cause there’s all this mold in it.” It was the living room with a piano; Erik often wondered how they’d gotten the astute thing, since his parents always seemed strapped for funds. The decrepit instrument, once proud, was an apt metaphor. “We have t’go thirty minutes to town if we want anything. And these people…they’re people of God. Can’t fuckin’ trip without steppin’ on a cross. They got Mass and they got the processions and th’ whole deal, and the pastor, he’s the Father, an’ they’re all one big family an’ they’ll sing praises ‘til they pass the fuck out.” Erik was gesturing; his eyes looked glazed and far away, and his voice was coming out like a stream. Then he seemed to come back. He got a little angry again. “And for you t’think…for you t’think you can just go in there and tell ‘em…Mister Sean, you might be important here but where I come from, you ain’t” - shit, he was gonna say, out of pure habit, but thankfully he stopped himself – “nothin’.”

To Sean’s credit, Erik had never gone into this much detail about his hometown before. He ought to have mentioned it, of course, but probably only in passing or in muttered phrases, and never had he spoke of his mother’s mental state. Perhaps it was the confrontation with Oriel that had made him agitated – in any case, Sean’s well-intended offer had struck a chord this time, much deeper than it might have before, where he would’ve just dismissed it or wrinkled his nose at the prospect.

Erik sniffed loudly. He shifted in his seat. “Anyway,” he went on, a bit more subdued. “They ain’t like me much. Never did. And ain’t nothin’ changin’ their minds ‘less Jesus Himself came down from Heaven and told ‘em to shut up.”

He paused. “…An’ that’s just when I was th’ town fag, imagine how they think of me, bein’ a snake, too. The saints an’ the blessed don’t turn into snakes, everyone knows that.”

Erik just sighed. He showed Sean the top of his head, briefly, so that his hand could run up his forehead and through his hair; afterwards he let his elbow rest on his knee, temple resting against his palm. It was hard communicating to anyone who didn’t know it – who had lived in a place like Pilot Ridge – all their lives. There were no words to describe the small town ‘us-against-the-world’ behavior, how utterly impossible it was to break through that.

It was harder, even, learning to adjust in a bustling city against his will. Erik did not exactly know why he acted like he did, but to a third party it might be readily apparent. The boy was dramatically un-socialized and unfit for such an environment. Three years had done little to curb it, because he felt as if Hammel was dragging him along by his hair with his heels scraping against the floor the whole way. Erik had not wanted to go north. No matter the condition he lived in back at that swamp land, he had heavily internalized the paranoid, suspicious mindset, which had compounded two-fold with the effects snake shapeshifting had on his personality. It was hard to tell which influenced him the most, but it certainly seemed as if the odds were against him. Erik was a boy who constantly battled between nature and conscience.

“I’d love it if y’could, I mean, don’t get me wrong, but,” he said, looking up finally, “it’s just not gonna happen. You could try, y’know, if you feel like talkin’ to a brick wall.” Erik thought Sean would certainly get an exercise in futility. It was almost funny, imagining him talking to his pa.
He could hear him now. Ain’t lookin’ t’have a conversation with a fuckin’ yuppie priss, he would say, and then he’d hang up. (Erik had inherited most of his speech patterns from him.)
His mother wouldn’t answer the phone; she never did. And by some strange chance she would he wasn’t even sure she’d know what Sean was talking about, or maybe she’d start talking about him like he was a little boy again. Who was this, what did he want? Where was her son? What was he doing up there?

But he couldn’t be sure. Erik had not spoken to them in a long while. They didn’t make much of an effort, not even for birthdays or holidays, and while the number of phone calls had never been robust eventually they dwindled down and down to nothing. He didn’t know when their last correspondence was, but it had been over a year ago.

“I don’t think I’m ever gonna go back down there again anyways,” he muttered.

He hung his head and for a second he looked very tired. He knew what he said to be true; he wouldn’t and couldn’t go back. The sudden separation was painful. And here, now that he’d no past, he’d no future, either; Erik had never done well in school and he very much doubted he could get a job anywhere, much less even behave normally, and he’d no parents to fall back on and no close friends. Erik was living his life day by day. There were many times he felt dirty and washed up and threadbare. But time would not stop for him – he was getting older, and he could imagine his future as nothing but an unkind, impassable, frightening, utterly blank void.

Erik lifted his head. He blinked at Sean, holding his gaze with a pair of clear blue eyes. “Well, it’s your word against theirs, Mr. Sean.”

Erik would’ve liked to dismiss his religion entirely. They spoke of it as a salvation, yet the thing had done nothing but harm to him…still, Erik could never fully bring himself to. Deep inside he felt convinced there was a God, and that He was jealous and angry and vengeful, who had looked into his soul and brought out the form of the serpent in him: that vile seducer. This might have seemed self-absorbed of him. What reason did the Father of creation and the Devil have to war over his soul in particular? Surely there were others who were just as deserving for such an exaggerated punishment… But there it was, hanging in the back of his mind. It swung like a pendulum, constantly hovering between the mortal fear he’d been ingrained with, and the realization that an old man in the sky and a red-looking thing with horns and a pitchfork was really stupid. The conflict never got him anywhere.

He was surprised when Sean admitted he’d be better off without his hometown. He blinked at him, then looked down again. He didn’t know why, but he always expected the counselor to be one of those types who insisted that anything was possible, if they tried hard enough, or that any challenge could be overcome; Erik had heard so many declarations of acceptance and “positivity” from him that he thought Sean would tell him straight up to go back down south and face it again. After all, everyone had some good in them, right? Sean wouldn’t have been a counselor for so long if he didn’t believe that.
But Erik had known for a long time (even if it went un-admitted) that he would never receive closure from his parents, that he’d have to face his future as a virtual cast off. The thought was painful to him.

God, he wanted a smoke.

As he imagined the rough ashy smoke filling his throat, he became aware that Sean was saying something else. Immediately his nose wrinkled; Erik looked at him incredulously. “You’re either right ‘r wrong an’ ‘peace and acceptance’ got nothin’ t’do with it,” he said.

He might’ve had a point about the neuroscience thing, though. Erik didn’t know shit ‘bout that.

Then he paused, gripping his arms with each opposite hand. “Where’m I s’posed t’go after I graduate then?”