After the wreck, I spent almost a year in recovery. The doctors spent the first few weeks of my recovery thinking that I would be victim to severe brain damage. I think I came back and hit them with quite a surprise. I didn't know I was smarter than I should have been, but eventually it came to my attention. Some of the nurses would play games with me when they had the time, and I'd almost always beat them. I thought I was just good at games. I had always been good at games. I played cards, marbles, Chinese checkers, English checkers, dominoes, and Chess. I think Chess was the only thing I ever lost at. I just didn't have the patience.
"Your patience may have been affected by the accident, Mihael. We can't say what all has been effected yet, but we know some things." The Nurse told me one night as I lay down after a particularly grueling match of Chess.
"What do you know?" I asked the woman.
"Well." She said, smiling, "We know that you are incredibly smart, and creative with your intelligence." Then her smile slipped away, "However, we think that the injury has also caused some personality defects." I was speechless. Trust me, that is rare, but I really was. Personality defects? Why? 'I shouldn't have to go through something like this' was all I was thinking as I fell asleep that night.
When Nurse Joanne woke me up that morning, an old man was standing with her. His smile was soft and kind yet, I didn't trust him. I felt as though his arrival was the mark of some great change in my life. Maybe he worked for the government and he was coming to take me to an orphanage where I would hardly be cared for. I grew up in high society because of my grandfather's businesses. I didn't think I was going to be allowed to live the way I'd become accustomed.
"Hello, Mihael. Shall we play a game?"
Oh, trust me, by that time I was exceedingly freaked. I didn't ever want to speak to this man, let alone play a game with him. So, unable to pass up a challenge, I tentatively agreed and got out of bed.
"I am Mr. Roger." The elderly man said, holding out his hand to me.
That, I must say, had to have been the most grueling round of Chess I had ever played before in my life. I never played Chess after that day, let me tell you. Mr. Roger was a phenomenal player with years of experience, and me, a simple novice and a child. O course, I was destroyed, but the game was long. I have never played a board game as long as that match. I'm sure that if I'd played with Near a time or two, I might have seen both ends of much longer games. However, we all know how things went with Near. I think I hated that shit the second Matt splattered blood over his white cotton pajamas, but that will be later, trust me.
Wammy's House. I had never heard of such a place. Mr. Roger had told me at the hospital that I qualified to be boarded there. The grimace on my face made him chuckle warmly.
Let me explain. Boarded, sounds like the word used to describe a prison. In any case, an orphanage was not much better. I would have never admitted it when I was alive, but now that I've really got nothing in particular to prove, I guess I'll say it. As far as orphanages go, Wammy's house was quite well accommodated. At the time, though, I was not up to the idea of living with a bunch of other kids for the rest of my life. So, I refused to go to an institute for the 'gifted'. Joanne explained that I would either be going there or to another orphanage somewhere. I don't remember why I chose the latter choice, perhaps I was just stubborn at the time or the massive heard wound I'd suffered had caused me to make bad decisions. I think I'll use the head wound excuse, it explains so many more bad choices I made.
I know you must be wondering what I did in a normal orphanage. Well, use your head. Clearly, I wreaked havoc upon my 'inmates' as you can call them. I did everything I could to screw with their heads. I didn't make a single friend at St. Patrick's School. I think this is where I became accustomed to the colour black. I was so good at fooling everyone that I think I just created an image of myself as a black ninja. Now, you have to remember that I was five or six at the time. Being a black ninja was the greatest thing in the world. Because of my history in martial arts, I felt that I could also pick fights. I won most of the time, but when the older kids started picking fights with me, I saw my share of black eyes and bloody noses. No, scratch that, broken noses. I had my nose broken twice in the five or six years I was a 'student' at St. Patrick's School.
Most of my time there, however, was spent in solitary. The Baker Act was greatly in effect there. If I did something really bad like almost injure a student, or picked a fight with a bigger kid, or just jumped up in our classes and screamed random shit at the teacher in a higher vocabulary level than I should have known, they'd confine me for seventy-two hours. I don't think they ever realized that leaving me with no one to distract me from my thoughts only gave me better ways to plan against them.
The funniest thing I think I ever did was scare the youngest girl in the abbey. Yes, I was raised by nuns for part of my life. In fact, I got the rosary I still wear now from her. I saw her coming down the hall one morning so I started violently twitching and screaming random religious statements backwards at passersby. You've never seen anything better than the looks on several nine or ten year olds faces when a kid they hate seems to be possessed right in front of you.
Well, she panicked. She pushed kids out of her way and came to me ordering the kids I'd already wailed on over the years to restrain me. I grabbed onto her robe and screamed "You compels Christ of power!" I flinched and screamed each time I uttered the name Christ. I could hardly stop myself from laughing when she attempted to exercise me right there in the hall and draped the rosary around my neck. I broke down screaming and threw her into a wall. Then I bolted as far as I could in the building until I came face to face with Mr. Roger. Well, no, I ran right into him and toppled to the ground.
He was glaring. He was glaring down at me! Then he grabbed onto my wrist and pulled me along.
"Whoa! What are you doing?"
"Mihael Keehl, you have no idea what kind of trouble you are getting yourself into here. You must come with me for you own good."
"Go with you where?" I asked in breathless bewilderment.
"Wammy's House. It's only right that you do." I pulled as hard a I could to get away from him.
"No! I'm not going to that freak school!" I shouted. He stopped and rounded on me holding my wrist even tighter.
"Face it, Mihael, you are a freak and this is the only place that will do you justice." Then he turned and continued dragging me against my will. I don't know how he was able to stop me from freeing myself, but I was dragged all the way out to a dark Bentley before he let me go.