Fan Fiction
Bruised and Broken
Thomas Hewitt began life the way any normal person does by being born into a loving family. Some folks said that when you looked into his eyes you never could tell what he was thinking about and you certainly never would have realized the striking horror and depravity that lay dormant in his shattered soul. As a child he was notoriously large and as many large children are he was very clumsy, and insecure about himself, partly due to the constant berating he got from his uncle back at home, not to mention the fact that his face was malformed giving him a brutish appearance, a mistaken characterization because he was a gentle soul. When Thomas was just three years old his father's brother had fallen on hard times and was in dire need of some family help. He moved into the Hewitt residence back in the fifties and was, in Thomas's eyes the devil. He was a vile man who Thomas viewed as pure evil incarnate and was the opposite of everything he stood for. Thomas's uncle had fallen on hard times rather hard and laid an empty shell of a man drowning his days at the bottom of a bottle. Thomas remembered his first meeting with the creature whom he shared his blood with. It was late one night while Thomas was out playing in the cool night air on the porch when he heard the sound of a car pulling up on the gravel and dirt leading up to his house. Out stepped a man whom Thomas would for the rest of his life come to think of as the biggest reason of why the human race was evil. He just calmly exited his car and sauntered over to Thomas who was playing peacefully on the ground with a little toy car. His uncle just walked up calmly to him smelling of alcohol and tobacco and just stood there next to Thomas, who sat there bewildered and somewhat frightened. Finally he said, "Hey, you that little retard they been raisin? Well, answer me faggot!" With that he lifted his leather clad foot and brought it down on Thomas's car, then, calmly walked inside to greet his brother. After that Thomas's life was a living hell. His uncle made sure his home life was a nightmare and his large body and overall shyness took care of his school life. From the time he started school in kindergarten he was an outcast and the other children knew it. You could see it in his demeanor that he was something cast out and forsaken. He really tried to fit in and be normal but he was just met with ridicule and bodily harm. He didn't talk much because of his unusually deep voice, which made him hard to understand. The fact that he was so big and clumsy and reluctant to speak gave the other children as well as adults the impression that he was a fool. Day after day Thomas would just sit in his desk and just stare at the other kids and wonder what it would be like to be them. He sometimes dreamed that he were able to fashion a mask of them and go about the day as them and enjoy life. Thomas was also fond of the girls in his classes. They were so different from him that he often found himself staring at them while they weren't looking. When they turned to face them he would quickly look away. He could tell that they felt utterly repulsed by his stares. He longed to talk to them, because surely they weren't so mean and callous like the other boys, he hoped that they would be as kind as the angels they appeared to be.
This isolation and fascinations continued for many years until the sixth grade. This was the year he promised himself that he would make a friend. The year went by as it always did unmarked by anything of interest except the new game he inspired, "Target Practice". It was a cruel game made up by Johnny Myers a freckled faced kid in his class. The object was basically to pummel Thomas with rocks until they either got bored or he ran away. There he would be sitting at recess or after school and the rocks would just fly at him like painful rain. To make matters worse things were bad at home. His father had been involved in a car accident and lost both his legs. He was hospitalized in a coma for nine days during which his mother had suffered some kind of an attack which left her scared and confused. She would have horrible waking nightmares about starving to death now that her husband was unable to provide for her. This caused her to save food in random places and eat strange objects like pencils and dirt. Thomas was left to fend for himself with his uncle. His uncle would often see him come home with many bruises and cuts. He one time even tried to ask for advice, but he was told to, "Toughen up, faggot!" Even one time he remembers his uncle pinning him in a corner daring Thomas to punch him. Thomas would have loved to but being meek and afraid he just crumpled down and cried in the corner until his uncle let him out yelling, "Goddamn girl, never gonna be a man. Might as well go get your mammy's dresses so's I can dress you for prep school tomorrow!" Things got worse especially at school. As Thomas was walking home from school a group of six bullies attacked him beating him senseless to the ground. They beat Thomas until he was barely able to walk. Every time he tried to stand up they would just beat him right back down. That was when Thomas uttered the only words he would ever utter to a fellow child he asked simply, "Why?" To which Johnny Meyers replied, "Because!" The words stung Thomas straight to his heart and he was unable to breathe for a few minutes. The blows kept on landing but the feeling was numbed by the pure ice of the one callous word. Thomas eventually blacked out and the bullies, probably fearing him dead, took off. It was dark when Thomas regained consciousness and he limped his whole way home choking on tears and sobs. He had nothing to look forward to except his "date". That day, before his beating, he left a note for Sandy Williams a girl in his class. He didn't sign it but wrote to meet him after school in the woods by his house. Surely, he thought, that she would understand him, that she would be his crutch when he was fallen. The thought of his date and chance at companionship fueled his journey home. He trudged on feeling completely broken inside and out. His entire body appeared as one big bruise and you could even see fist prints in his face and was bleeding from the mouth where there lay one tooth now missing. When he arrived he found his uncle asleep on the couch and his father asleep in his wheelchair and his mother upstairs. He tiptoed past them careful not to disturb the sleeping devil, but a loose floorboard betrayed him. His uncle awake and sputtering took one look at him and was beside himself with laughter. He said, "Boy, maybe you should go put on a dress that way them bully boys'll think you're a girl and leave you be! Or maybe you should grow a pair and learn to defend yourself huh? C'mere" With that he grabbed Thomas in a headlock and dragged him over to the corner where his laundry and ironing board lay, he said, "Now defend yourself, little girl, c'mon! Do something!" It was clear that he was drunk and now he stood there holding Thomas in a headlock with one arm and in his other hand, a hot iron. He pressed the iron close to Thomas's face so close that he could feel the heat coming off it. "C'mon, Whatcha gonna do little girl, cry? Huh? Cry? Do something! Take me out yell scream do something!" He then pressed the iron hard onto Thomas's bruised and bloody face. The searing pain caused his knees to buckle and his arms to spasm. He flailed around hopelessly while his drunk Uncle held the brand tighter and tighter against his flesh. There were no words or screams that felt appropriate at the moment. Eventually, for the second time that night, Thomas would black out.
He awoke the next morning still in his living room, awaking where he fell, with a horrible ache all over, especially his head. He looked in the mirror to find a black and brown scar all over his face. His nose was melted and his lips were large twisted flaps on his mouth. Now he finally looked as ugly as he felt. Being that it was Saturday there was no school, but he didn't want to stay in the house so he went out to the woods. Today was his date and as noon rolled around he made his way to the clearing where he specified. He saw her standing there in a pretty dress looking at flowers. He knew he couldn't face her looking like he did so he watched her from afar wanting and wishing to be near her. He just wanted to reach out and touch her, just to smell her hair and talk to her. Finally working up the courage he tiptoed up behind her and carefully moved in. As he approached her he tripped over a log and fell directly on her. He tried introducing himself but the fall made him shriek. His lips had also been horribly burnt and mangled so all that came out was a horrible guttural squeal as he fell on her. With a start she took one look at him and screamed loud and shrill and bolted in the opposite direction screaming, "Monster!" He chased after her hoping to catch her and calm her down, but was unable to keep up. She finally tripped herself on a tangle of branches on the clearing floor. He approached her cautiously ignoring her fearful screams. He finally had his companion and she hated him too. Without even knowing him, she hated him. He just stared at her and tears welled up in his eyes. It wasn't fair. All his life he wanted a friend, just one friend to talk to and be understood. She was the good one. She was supposed to understand him and be kind to him, but she hated him too. He looked at her silently crying beneath her pleas for help, and palmed a large rock. He brought the rock down on her head six times, one for each year of his life, one for each bully that beat him yesterday. He brought the rock down until she stopped screaming and moving. He brought the rock down until the pain was gone. All the while he sobbed. This was the one thing he wanted more than anything and he was forced to destroy it. He realized that he was the problem. He drove everyone away, with his horrible disgusting looks and mannerisms. He looked at her and himself there in the clearing covered in blood, a broken angel. He walked home in quiet reflection barely able to comprehend what he did and why. He arrived home to see his uncle and father outside their home. His father was sitting in his wheelchair watching his uncle cut wood with an old gas powered chainsaw. He remembered looking at his father there in his wheelchair looking so frail yet strong and then seeing his uncle, a worthless shell of a man. There his evil uncle stood while his sainted father sat with no legs. Their truly was no justice and there truly was no God. Thomas then without warning did another thing he had never done before, he got incredibly angry. He ran and tackled his uncle down to the ground and wrestled the saw from his nicotine stained fingers. All the while his father just sat there staring at both of them, nary a smile on his face or a protest from his lips. Thomas wrenched the chainsaw away from him and brought it down right through his kneecap. Thomas then looked at his father who seemed to be on the edge of his chair, staring almost egging him on with his eyes. His uncle's screams of pain and for mercy were drowned out by the buzzing of the saw and the blood pounding in his temples. He neatly sawed off his right, then left leg, the gore just flying and spattering in his face. Thomas then stepped back to watch his Uncle flop about like a fish, wishing him all the pain he had caused. He then looked back at his father whose eyes appeared to say, "Finish him!" He then readjusted his grip on the saw and bore it straight into his uncle's midsection tearing it raggedly through his torso dragging up every bit of entrails he could see as well as the dirt underneath him. When he finally finished he turned to his father sitting behind him in his chair like a roman emperor watching a gladiator duel. His father then said, "Never, did like that sonafabitch, well it's better anyway that ya did that son, cuz he was a hurtin' man who just brought more hurt around with him." Since his accident he was prone to saying wild and crazy outlandish things. At that moment Thomas Hewitt felt even closer to his father than ever before and he finally realized how he could be happy. The answer was family. "Now what we gonna do with this here sonafabitch?" asked his father. The answer was right in front of Thomas all the time, it was family. Anything for family. Anything for family.