7
PrologueSometimes people are born special. It is a natural fact of life. Danny Gridlock was very special. He knew this as truly as he had known anything in his entire life. He supposed it had all started when he has been about fourteen. His father, home from one of his drunken escapades, had banged through the door at around eleven that fateful night.
Danny, usually in bed by then, had been allowed by his mother to stay up because of his promising grades earlier in the week. Sadly, his father was too drunk to remember this.
His father aimlessly shambled into the living room. Not that there were many other rooms of course. They lived in a trailer, located in shitty old Southern Maryland, home of the blue crabs. The trailer had all of three rooms. You had to walk through the living room to either go right, toward the small connected kitchen, or go left, through the living room and in to the two roomed hallway.
As much as Danny hated it here, he knew there was no way his family was moving out of this dump. His dad had a shitty construction job, whose paychecks were used to pay for this shitty trailer, in shitty old Southern Maryland, home of the shitty blue crabs.
"Boy!" mumbled Paul Gridlock. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Ma-ma said-"
"I don't give a rats hairy ass what that bitch said!" Gridlock yelled. His aimless shamble had become more direct, like he knew where he was going with all too clear certainty.
Danny didn't like it one bit. He knew what that slob of a man was capable of. His fists were fast and hard, but left no bruises.
Suddenly the old television had lost all interest to Danny. He now watched his father warily from his spot on the floor.
"Now look here boy." Spat his father in disgust. He slowly edged closer and closer to Danny, and Danny noticed this with a growing sense of fear.
Paul Gridlock was the type of man who picked a fight where there was none, and that non-existent fight tended to be picked with his wife and son, and these no-fights also tended to happen after Paul had had a few too many beers.
Like right now.
Gridlock had finally reached Danny, and he braced himself for the inevitable blow. Instead he only got yanked up by his shirt, and pulled to his ugly fathers face.
God only knew how the two were related. Danny took after his mother almost totally. His dark hair, gangly shape, and even his slender fingers, he had all inherited from his mother.
Except his startling blue eyes.
Those eyes were all his own.
They had an eerie, dreamy quality about them, almost as if he could see something no one else could. Some found them spooky while others found them attractive. His father was one of the people who found them spooky.
Paul Gridlock pulled Danny so close to his face he could have leaned forward and given him a kiss right on the mouth. Instead, Danny just winced at the strong smell of alcohol wafting out of his father's mouth. This man is disgusting, thought Danny briefly and gagged.
"I'm about sick of you running around here like you can do anything you damn well please," growled that big ugly man.
"I didn't do anything wrong dad . . . I got good grades . . ." rasped Danny quietly. As much as he disliked, no, hated this man, he was also scared of him. Terribly scared. And his meaty grip on his shirt was starting to hurt.
"Good grades? Grades don't matter at all in the real world. You'll end up working a shit pay job just like the rest of us."
"Grades matter! Mama even said so!"
Paul Gridlock barked a cold, short laugh. "Mama this, Mama that. Come off it boy. Your mom ain't nothing and neither are you."
As if summoned, Marie Gridlock came stumbling out of the hallway, a sleepy look on her face. "Wha-what's going on Hun?"
Paul barked another laugh, this one just as cold as the other one. "Finally! The Queen of the Trailer herself!" Suddenly a dark glower replaced that dumb sarcastic grin on Gridlock's face. "Did you tell the boy that he could stay up?"
Marie, bathrobe flowing behind her, like some fuzzy pink gown, slowly walked to where Paul had Danny picked up. "Easy Paul. You've been drinking. Why don't you set Dan Dan down and come to bed? We can talk about this in the morning."
Dan Dan was what his mother liked to call ever since he had been born. Danny didn't really mind, she called him Danny in front of his friends and that's all that really mattered.
As she crossed the living room, Danny felt that meaty grip tighten. It was not a good sign.
"No. Actually we can't talk about it in the morning. I'm about sick of you sticking up for this worthless sack of nothing!"
Danny knew what was going to happen next. After all, it happened fairly regularly.
Gridlock let go of Danny's shirt and he hit the ground with a dull thud. Pain laced up Danny's backside but he just ignored it and got up. He began to watch his father with that wary stare again. Worry for his mother shot through Danny as if he had touched a light socket. It always happened whenever his father was about to beat his mother.
The pig of a man who was Paul Gridlock shambled over to his wife and pushed her. Hard.
The poor woman tripped over her bathrobe and landed on her back.
Paul walked toward her with a grim smile firmly planted on his face.
Marie tried to scurry away but he reached her before she could actually go anywhere.
His fists rained down like lightening and Marie had no hope of blocking all of them, yet she tried anyway. It was a terrible sight. One punch hit her in the nose, and before the blood could even start to gush out, another fist hit her in the stomach.
"Stop Paul! Please! Jus-just stop! Please!" squealed the poor woman in the pink bathrobe.
It was at that point that something inside Danny just snapped. No, not snapped. More like that something was blown off and went sailing in to oblivion.
"GET OFF OF HER!!" screamed Danny. Something in that scream that made Paul's fists stop and his head turn. In fact, it made goosebumps appear on his arms.
But of course, big man Paul Gridlock was not about to give in to his son, goosebumps or no goosebumps. He turned back to Marie, who was sobbing on the ground and hit her one last time in the stomach. Hard.
"Say what now you little dirtball?" growled Paul. While he turned to look at Danny, Marie took this chance to crawl away, blood gushing from her nose while her wretch of a husband was distracted.
"You heard me," growled Danny right back. "Get off of my mother."
His mother had managed to crawl away, which Danny supposed was for the best. It was about to get ugly.
Paul got up and slowly, and began to trudge toward Danny. There was something in Danny's eyes Paul didn't like, and he intended to beat it out of him.
Such hate for this man, this pig that called himself a father, filled Danny until he thought he would burst. Any trace of the fear Danny had once felt for this thing had been burned away by that hate. Now all that was left was that pure, angry, unfiltered hate. Suddenly, in some part of his head, Danny thought randomly "If this were Star Wars, I guess I would be falling to the dark side." He chuckled roughly on the inside and then his mind was back to what was happening.
"What did you say, you little maggot?" roared Paul angrily as he walked toward him. "I'll teach you how to talk to your Father and it won't be fun." His face quirked up into a savage grin. "For you at least." Finally he reached him.
Danny didn't even try to block the hit or run away. He just stood still and took it. The punch to the jaw jerked his head to the left and spit (along with blood) flew from his mouth while pain ripped through his face. In spite of the pain, Danny was determined not to fall down or cry. That would only make it worse. So he just stood in the middle of his shitty living room, eyes closed, in the shitty trailer, in shitty Southern Maryland, home of the shitty blue crabs, getting hit by his shitty no-good father. And boy did the hits fall. But Danny stood his ground as he was hit, over and over again. He knew when this was over; he would have more than a black eye.
Suddenly the rage boiled over the edge and something happened. Danny wasn't sure but he felt like he lashed out with his mind. There really wasn't any other way to describe it. Instincts took over; instincts Danny didn't know he had. He just drew on all that hate and rage and made it in to a kind of hot mental knife. And he lashed out with it. Danny felt that knife make contact with Paul. Not physically, but mentally. Paul stiffened suddenly, eyes going completely blank, and just fell down. No warning at all. He just fell.
Danny finally slumped to the ground and began to cry. He knew without looking that Paul was dead. He knew it as surely as he knew that his mother was crying in the other bedroom. He hadn't meant to kill him had he? He didn't think so. But somewhere deep inside a little voice was screaming, "You did it you son of a bitch! You meant to kill him! Hell, you liked it!" Andthe truth of it was, he did feel like he liked it, on some level. Not because he liked killing, but because he was glad he had made one of the many evil people of this world disappear. Yet he sobbed anyway, because he felt he had too. Danny looked up from his sobbing to see father's lifeless body staring up at him. Those pale brown eyes were utterly empty. They frightened Danny and he began to actually cry.
An hour passed in the blink of an eye and slowly Marie inched out of the hallway. She got one look at Paul on the floor and guessed what had happened. Paul had simply gone too far and Danny must have knocked him out by the luck of the devil himself. Then she saw Danny curled up in a ball sobbing. Danny wouldn't be crying like that if he had only knocked the bastard out . . .
She knew that Danny had done something horrible, but for a second it didn't register. Then it hit her like a brick in the dark. Danny had killed him. She didn't know how, she only knew that he had All of a sudden Paul's body looked just wrong. His head was lying at an odd angle, and his body looked as if it had never once been full of life. She had no idea how she could have that the body was just unconscious. Marie just broke down.
"Oh God. Oh Jesus," wept Marie. "What did you do Danny? Wha-what di-did you do?" She was bawling now. Sure, Paul Gridlock had been a real piece of work, but hadn't he always put food on the table and a roof over their heads? So what if he had laid a hand on them every once in a while? Wasn't it worth it? "No," she thought grimly, "It wasn't worth it. That man was a grease ball who had it coming." But that still didn't stop her from thinking about all the good times they had had. He had been a charmer, back in the day. Until he had started drinking. Then things had gotten horrible. He'd stay out all night, doing God knows what, then he'd come home and beat her. She had loved him so she just took it, but it hurt. God it had hurt so badly. But that wasn't even the worst of it. The man she had loved, changed. And some ugly, mean intruder had been the result. Some ugly, mean intruder living in her husband's body.
Danny sat up slowly trying to pull himself together. If only for his mother. "I don't know mom." He said slowly, hoping the deceit wasn't open on his face. "He was…was hitting me and just… fell over. I think he might be dead." The lie burned in his throat. Although he didn't know exactly what happened, he had a vague idea. And hedidn't think he was dead he knew it. But his mind was still trying to wrap around what had happened, so it wasn't as hard to lie, as it normally would have been.
His mother, his poor mother, in her ugly pink bathrobe could only cry and wail in answer.
Danny crawled over the corpse, toward his mother. She sat down on the floor with a thud, still bawling uncontrollably. Tears gushed down her cheeks, the same way the blood had gushed out of her nose when that beast of a man had hit her. Danny suddenly felt terribly sorry for his mother, his mother who had had to deal with that animal for over twenty years. Another thought suddenly occurred to him. "Well maybe I haven't fallen to the dark side after all." He smirked humorlessly. He felt the tears start to slide down his cheeks again, and that washed the smirk away.
Marie had sat down on the floor a small distance from the corpse, bawling her eyes out.
Danny's heart went out to his mother, and so did his arms. He pulled her toward him and held her head against his chest. She sobbed in to it loudly. Danny felt himself crying and thought about how he shouldn't cry because above all he had to be strong for his mother. He was all she had left now.
Danny held her close to him, until the crying had subsided a little. Then she pulled away and asked him again, "What happened Dan Dan? What really happened?"
Danny looked away for a second. He wondered if he should tell his mother about the mental knife, but he decided against it. She would think he was crazy. And Marie did not need any more grief. So he repeated his lie. "I don't know mom, he just fell over. I think he might have had a heart attack." This time the lie came easier and burned less. Somewhere a voice inside his head whispered, "Now you're a liar too. A lying, murdering, son of a bitch. I hope you're proud."Danny quickly pushed the voice away.
"Okay honey," said his red-eyed mother. "I guess we should call the police or something." Marie slowly got to her feet, helping her son up with her. She didn't blamer her son for what had happened. She thought that deep down inside she had known that somehow this would happen. That one day Paul would just go too far and Dan Dan would do something drastic. She staggered over to the phone and dialed 911. After Marie had explained what had happened, that Paul had been drunk and had had a heart attack. The police said they would be there shortly and just to hold on.
Danny had migrated over to the couch and was beginning to drift off into an exhausted sleep, when he thought back to what had happened to Paul. Danny had somehow turned his emotions in some kind of mental weapon. The worst part was, he had no idea how to control it. And that scared Danny more than his father ever could. Danny had nightmares that night. He dreamed of accidentally hurting his mother, and his friends. He didn't sleep well. Not at all.