His father arrived in America by boat from Germany, like many others. He always said that, far from being comforted by the view of the Statue of Liberty while he landed on Ellis Island, he felt disgusted and desperate. That wasn´t true freedom, just one more way to the slaughterhouse. A deception that attracted people like flies and murdered them without regard. Tearing America apart from the inside had seemed a brilliant plan to him when he devised it in Berlin, but from theory to praxis there was a big step.
Everyone distrusted the Germans, their accent and background. If he wanted to destroy the United States he should begin by becoming a model citizen who would have completely forgotten his roots. His snowy skin color wasn´t enough to win the favor of the American fat cats so he had no choice but disguise himself. It was his gift, what he could do best. First he would have to change his surname to one that was nondescript, common. Unbearably American. Afterwards he´d think what was the next thing to do.
He achieved his goal five years later. He changed his gestures, his way of speaking and became extroverted and friendly with neighbors. He made friends with Wall Street brokers and trained in finance at the turn of the century. Finally he bought a house in Brooklyn and married a weak woman from Queens whose belly fathered their son for nine months. Steve was meant to be the future scourge of the country. Or so his father thought.
The hatred that his father breathed for his country since Steve could remember, wasn´t enough for him to become strong during his first years of life. That didn´t make any difference about the fact that Steve was the sickest boy in the whole neighborhood. In this way, the father became violent with him and his mother for having given birth to an unusable and mediocre child. The whipping with the belt became frequent and the blows and kicks began to disfigure the sweet smile of his wife until it became a permanent grimace of terror.
The child was a silent witness of his father's anger. Despite the mother's cries of entreaty, he never interposed and remained silent while the man punished her mercilessly. If he had had , his father would have killed him as he did with her three years later. Steve found him in the backyard of their house digging a hole deep in the ground. Next to the mound of mud and dirt, there was a sack of black cloth. From it oozed a thick dark liquid. The boy, with awe, approached his father and asked him:
"Father, what are you doin´ ?" The man turned and glanced at his son who made him take a step back terrified
"Manuring" answered the father while he was going back to work.
"What about momma? Where´s she?" asked the child dissatisfied with the enigmatic response of his father. He turned angry but a disdainful yellowed teeth smile appeared when he stared at his weak son.
"She's gone but believe me, son, isn´t going to bother us anymore."
What Steve didn´t know is that after his mother's absence He would receive all the beatings on his puny body. During his childhood he was forced to eat large quantities of meat, study through punishment, mathematics and mechanics and to endure physical and psychological torture that, in theory, should prepare him for the mission that would later be entrusted to him.
The father tried to drown him in the bathtub with this excuse to make him the poor boy stoically endured everything because he had already forgotten his mother, his tenderness and all that entailed being a normal child. Until that day when he turned ten and met the one who would later change his life forever.
He went out to the ramshackle porch of the house. His father drunk as tight as a tick, didn´t noticed his absence.
After swearing loyalty to a small banner of his room, a sinister skull with tentacles, the boy went down the stairsas stealthily as a cat and slid towards the entrance while the man snored with an empty bottle of bourbon in his he came out, the sunlight bathed his pale face and his warmth comforted him briefly.
"At least I´m not in Europe", he consoled himself. He may have felt the same hatred that his father had towards America, but at least mornings and sunsets weren´t covered in ashes and the fields and cities weren´t burning around him.
Suddenly, he felt that he was betraying his newly learned principles. It was the next scourge of the American nation. What the hell was he thinking?
"Are you a ghost ?"a singing voice of a boy said. Steve was startled when a boy of his own age but much healthier and more talkative crossed the entrance gate to the house.
"What?" Steve said puzzled.
"They say that ghosts live in this house. Are ya´ a ghost boy?" the stranger insisted with a smile. Far from being terrified, he was friendly. Steve, suspicious, frowned.
"Aren´t you too grown up to believe in ghosts?" he replied sullenly.
The impertinent boy raised an eyebrow.
"And aren´t you too grumpy to be the ghost of a child?"
"I´m not a ghost. I have flesh and bones and live with my father here."
"Well, I´ve never seen you before" the boy said with a shrug. He climbed the porch stairs and stood in front of Steve. He didn´t seem to understand the contemptuous look that the scrawny boy was directing him. Instead of retreating in fear, he began to move from one side to the other jumping gracefully on the creaking steps. "What´s ya´ name?"
"None of your business" Steve answered rudely.
"Do you want the other kids in the neighborhood to come here to see if you really exist or not? I'm a very popular guy, you know?" the other said with a boastful gesture.
" I´dont even care" Steve showed again his sour behavior.
Then that annoying guy showed a crooked grin and said with defiant mockery:
"What is it? ¿Don´t you want everyone to see your dad naked? When ghost don´t wear their own sheet to hide, they usually are in their own birthday suits."
He hit the bulls-eye. Steve jumped up and pounced on him.
"Don't you dare to talk about my father!" Steve shouted.
However, he failed his attempt to punch him in the face. That rascal was so agile that he managed to dodge it with a twist of his body and the weak guy fell down the stairs, bruising his knees and breaking part of his short pants. Angry, he turned to his new archenemy, who was laughing at what had happened, and snapped at him:
"Go away! Now!"
"But..."
"I said, go away!" Steve said angrier than ever. The brown-haired boy, bewildered by that exaggerated reaction, came down the steps and stood in front of the "ghostly" boy while holding out his hand.
"Easy, pal. It was just a joke" he said with a make-peace attitude.
"I don´t need your help" Steve replied rudely standing up and turning his back on the boy, hurt in his pride.
Then the other one stood in front of him and showed him a candy as an offering to make peace, with a toothy smile.
"I´m Bucky." he grabbed one of Steve's hands and gave him the candy. Steve didn´t have time to react and stayed in the place, skeptical. "They gave me this candy in Coney Island and now I give it to you. Don´t get mad, I was just kidding."
"What´s Coney Island?" asked Steve. Bucky stared at him wide-eyed.
"What?! Don´t you know what Coney Island is? What´s the matter with you? Don´t you go out? It´s the place where all the most wonderful attractions in the world are. I can´t believe you don´t know about it!"the boy said cheerfully.
Suddenly, he approached Steve and put his hands on his shoulders ignoring his reluctance to be touched by others and smiled with the purest and most benevolent smile he had ever seen. As warm as the sunbeams that made Steve feel better when he was on the porch.
"We can go there sometime! When´s your birthday?" Bucky proposed.
Steve, intimidated by the uncomfortable contact, lowered his head.
"Well, it is today..."
"No way! You should have told! That´s cool! Congratulations! How old are you already?"
"Ten..."
"And what are you doin´here?! Why aren´t you celebrating it with your friends?" Bucky asked surprised.
"I don´t have... friends" Steve said. He felt ridiculous and also sad keeping that conversation. "I need to go inside."
He got rid of the contact with Bucky willing to go back into the house but the young man held him by the wrist.
"Wait! You still haven´t told me your name."
"My name is Steve" he answered after a moment of thinking about whether or not to tell him.
"I live in the next street, on the 22B. Why don´t you come now?" Bucky said.
"I can´t. My father..." Steve said.
But before revealing the real reason why he couldn´t, a shadow darkened his face, he fell silent and with a gesture of his head said goodbye to the boy and entered the house hard, he leaned against the door and realized he still had the candy in his hand.
He looked at it carefully and thought he should hide it from his father at all costs. He climbed the creaking stairs and opened the door of his room to lie on the bed and look better at the light of his lamp the colorful candy wrapper. Something in his mind changed at that moment and he realized he had made a friend. His very first friend. American and son of a nation he had sworn to destroy.
"Bucky," he whispered to him and smiled. "What a weird name".