The Once Future King:
Part One: The Boyhood
An EVELMYS Story
Chapter III:
Just one big disappointment
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The clock was ticking four-forty-five, and dad always came home promptly at five-o'clock. There was never a day Nick could recall that his dad ever arrived early. He told Greg to get to his room and to look busy. He told him not to worry that he would take care of the horse, remove the tack, and set the horse free.
He watched Greg run away to the house maybe a few moments longer than necessary, but that boy still captivated him in ways he never understood.
"Going for a ride?" said dad walking up to the fence. There wasn't a bit of happiness to be found in the stern face of the judge who Nick called dad. His eyes told him everything, entire novels of information, and shivers trickled down his spine in response.
"I was just getting back," answered Nick rather dully.
"I know what happened today, Poncho. I know you got expelled again. I SWEAR IT BOY IF I SEND YOU TO ONE MORE FUCKING PREP SCHOOL AND YOU GET YOURSELF EXPELLED AGAIN IT WILL BE THE DEVIL TO PAY FOR THE WHIPPING I WILL GIVE YOUR ASS. Now, get to the house and do your chores, before I change my mind and whip you now," he instructed. Nick said nothing to the old man. His message was loud and clear, and it hurt Nick on so many different levels.
There was a time when Nick wanted to be just like dad. He wanted to be as tall as he was, as commanding and noble as he was. He wanted to have authority in the world just like he. But the older he got the more he saw his dad was nowhere near the noble knight mounted on a white galloping steed, lance in hand to save the princess. Now that he was older, and his eyes opened just a little bit further. Nick saw his dad to be a knight wearing rusty armor with a rotten disposition, a bully by all standards, and on top of all that, he couldn't even ride.
His head hung low as he walked towards the house. His eyes shut for a length of time and it was all he could do not to go insane. "Go do your chores, 'fore your dad gets a chance to crack that whip," said mother Jillian. It was Nick's job every evening to clean the house. Jillian was a really good housekeeper so there was little that needed to be done, but she had always managed to save a little for him. Nick always suspected that she always did it, to please her husband.
However, today there was a ton of things that needed cleaning and he largely spent the time on his hands and knees scrubbing the toilet. Hours passed and his hands were practically blistered from scrubbing the floor in the lounge for so long. When the dinner bell chimed, he shut his eyes and imagined himself somewhere else. He wasn't going downstairs to the dinning room to sit and eat docilely father. He was going downstairs to sit next to a murderous monster.
He was the last to enter the room and to take a seat as the maid placed his plate in front of him. His fork in hand, his mind elsewhere, he only pushed the food mindlessly to all four corners of the oddly square plate. In the corner at the small side table sat Greg, his brown eyes down, silently eating his dinner. For a brief second there, he would have given anything to exchange places with Greg. For that one brief moment, he wanted to be anywhere but here. He didn't want to be the son of the famous Judge Stokes. He wanted to be just Nick and adored for being whom he had made himself to be.
Unfortunately, for Nick, this temporary neutrality of communication had to come to an end sometime. Daddy dearest was now looking at him square in the eyes. "I hear you got kicked you of school today," said his father with an unwavering straight voice. "Boy, go to your room, I will call you down when it's time for you to go help the field hands," he instructed Greg. He promptly got up and left the formal dining room leaving behind half his food uneaten.
"I will take this up to him," said Jillian lovingly.
"You will do nothing of the sort," commanded Bill in a stern voice even Nick had heard only on some rare occasions. "You cater your love to that boy too much as it is." It was probably the truth, in Bill Stokes' opinion, but Nick had the suspicions that Jillian would bring him food when she was able.
"So," waited Bill rather impatiently, tapping his foot. "What is it?"
"I got kicked out, sir," said Nick rather reluctantly.
"So I hear son, but why this time?" continued Bill impatient for the answer.
"Because," was all Nick wanted to answer. He didn't want to tell the entire story on how it came about. The whole sequence of events was done completely out of spite and his hatred of his father. He hated how his father always had to know best. Nick hadn't wanted to go to these fancy schools filled to the brim with the world's snobbish, most spoiled little brats. He hated them, and they were all the same.
"That's not going to cut it," grumbled Bill who was now nearing the limits of his patience. The vein in his forehead was now pulsating as his face darkened to a nice unhealthy plum red. The look in dad's eyes could have murdered his son at that moment, but Nick didn't even flinch a single muscle. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction. To him it was a game of wills and he was not going to let his will be the weakest link.
"We spent a good deal of money to send you to that school…" The rest of the conversation beyond this point had been drowned out in the same form he used whenever his father got this angry with him. He didn't want to hear it. In fact, it was rather pointless to listen to him and the now mindless drabble said bitterly and angrily out of his mouth. All it did was to put him down and tell him how he had failed him and all the ways he was never good enough. His voice was still ringing in his ears when he finally left the dining room. His booming voice chipping all the love and caring Nick had ever had for his father away into a fine powdered dust now blowing in the wind.
It was "the speech" again, on how he had failed his father miserably. He looked to his mom to help him out, but she had no authority to do such things. She never did have authority to overrule the infamous Judge William Stokes, the most powerful man in West Texas, married to the wealthiest women ever raised in East Texas from the millionaire oil tycoon.
A few moments passed in silence before his mom entered the room and quietly shut the door. Her eyes were saddened, but her words sincere. "Don't worry about him," her kind voice softly filled the room with love and compassion. "He just wants the best for you."
"I know," Nick looked down, hiding the tears streaming freely down his face. Time and time again, his father told him that men don't cry, but Nick was an emotional person and he cried if his father wanted him to or not. In his father's eyes that somehow made him weak, or less than a man. It was as if he had been emasculated simply by fact he could cry at the drop of a hat. "It's just I'm never good enough." A statement, which Nick was sure, was true. "I just can't seem to make him happy. I 'm just not good enough to not let him down."
"You haven't let him down, sweetie," she cooed lovingly to him taking him into a tight hug. "You mustn't think that way," she tried in vain to convince him. Unfortunately, the speeches occurred all too often. Now, Nick believed his father's words, lies or truth, now it was ingrained in him that he was not good enough for his father, that he was nothing but a let down from day one.
"I'm not good enough to be his son," and he honestly believed it.
"He's proud of you," she attempted again.
"No, he's disappointed in me. I am nothing more than a disappointment."
The saddened face of his mother Jillian looked down upon her son in a very tender loving way. Though the love for her son ran deep, she was helpless to save him from this despair. If there was one thing she knew better than anything else, it was her husband and his wishes. She knew from day one that Bill would push his boys. He wanted them to be better, smarter, and more athletic than the rest of the boys in the world. He pushed them hard to excel in school and to get respectable careers, as he would call them.
Jillian stood there for a moment looking at her son with concerned eyes. She knew he spoke the truth; Bill was disappointed in him. Bill was disappointed in him for many reasons. The biggest reason in Jillian's eyes was that to Bill, Nick never pushed himself hard enough. He never wanted anything bad enough. Though, Jillian secretly knew, Nick aspired to be different from his father's wishes, but didn't have the internal strength to fight him, so he just gave in.
Her arms wrapped around him tight in her tender embrace sealed with a kiss. Even though she didn't say it, her eyes spoke the silent words clearly. She loved him and Nick knew and understood her love for him. To her he was always good enough, because she loved her son for who he was.
To Be Continued...
