BeforeNote: I wrote this chapter while listening to Chopin's Prelude No. 4 in E Minor. I absolutely love that song, and I'm suggesting that you listen to it. Now, I'm not sure if that's the full title, since a friend downloaded it for me. But, if you've seen the movie The Notebook, that's where the song is played in a few scenes by the character Allie. Gosh I love that movie to bits. It's the only chick flick that I really like and can watch over and over again. Anyways, I'm done ranting about chick flicks. Enjoy this one :).
Mail remembers the feeling of his first high, when he was only six years old and his dad shot the heroin into his arm. He remembers feeling shocked and dizzy, and then the initial shock receded, and all he felt was pure bliss.
He was instantly hooked.
All he wanted everyday since that happening, was some of his father's 'black magic'. Mail would wake up in the mornings before school, walk quietly though the house in search of the druggie man, and hope like hell that he would get some. He would find his father in the kitchen, beer in his left hand, syringe in his right, already full, and he would stand quietly in front of the old man.
"So, ya want some today kid?" his father would ask, and Mail would nod his head enthusiastically. He would roll up his sleeve, stick out his arm, and a tourniquet would be placed on the upper part of the limb. Then, his father would stick the syringe into his awaiting vein, and Mail felt that peaceful bliss, if only for a few minutes.
Some mornings, the high would last for a few hours, and other mornings, like this one, it would only last for twenty minutes.
Mail didn't care how long his reality was altered, just as long as he didn't have to feel anymore.
The teachers at his school never noticed anything wrong with him. Maybe that was because they never payed any particular attention to the boy with tattered shoes, dirty shirts, and the knowledge quite like some super genius. The teachers didn't really like him because he was too smart. Perhaps, too smart for his own good.
Quite sad, actually. Only six years old with an unappreciated genius mind, a whore of a mother who left, and a drunken, druggie father. Mail had no one to turn to, nothing, to turn to, except maybe the promises of a blissful surreality.
So Mail followed in his father's drugged up footsteps, cherishing the bonding time when 'daddy' when stick the sharp point into creamy skin, and everything was altered and reality wasn't real and for a few minutes, Mail could forget that no one really loved him. He could forget that he was alone in this world, forget that no one gave a damn about him.
All of that changed one morning, though, when Mail walked out of the door for school after getting his morning fix. Standing by a black car at the corner of his street was an old man wearing a trench coat, expensive looking shoes, and a gentle smile gracing his other elderly features.
Curious, Mail walked up to the man and stared up at him.
"Good morning, Mail." the old man stated, and Mail gaped at him open-mouthed.
"My name is Watari, and I've been keeping an eye on your test scores at school for quite some time. Come with me, please, and I'll take you to school and have a talk with you and your principle." The old man, now known as Watari, told Matt. The child only nodded, and climbed into the backseat as Watari opened the door for him.
"Well, Mail is a good kid. He never gets into trouble, and he's very intelligent. Unfortunately, many here cannot see his talent, or they do, and fail to acknowledge it," the school principal told Watari in his office. Mail was waiting outside the door.
"I have noticed, however, that Mail has been acting a bit differently. His teacher has told me that sometimes he comes into class looking a little...disoriented, and wearing a wide smile on his face. His home life isn't all that fabulous. The mother was a hooker, for lack of a better word, and she left. The father is...well, he drinks and is a heavy drug user, but we have no hard evidence of that, so we can't have him put in jail"
Watari nodded at the principle, his gentle smile never fading. "I will talk to Mail about it, and I am going to talk to his father about letting him come with me. I wish to adopt him." he said, and the principle handed over Mail's school and medical records.
"Take care them, Mr. Watari." The principle said as a final statement, and Watari nodded. He took Mail by the hand from his seat by the door, and they drove back to Mail's house.
"Take the little fucker, it makes no difference to me." Mail's father had said to Watari, who didn't seem bothered by the man's choice of words for his own son. "He's only been a burden to me. Stupid kid takes my drugs for himself, and comes crawling back for more."
Mail, this time, was standing by the doorway in the kitchen. He didn't care that his father was implying that Mail was stealing his drugs. His father was the one who gave them to him after all, but none of that mattered anymore. Mail was going to be free. He would live in a better house with plenty of kids his age, kids who were as smart as he.
Life was finally going to be better for him. With that thought in mind, Mail went to his room to pack his few belongings.