Duel 23 – Childhood
*AUTHOR'S NOTE: I changed Mr. Slade, to Mr. Carter: to be Matthew's father. Since Sean Phoenix has been absorbed into Matthew, I need to make this change.
The Dark Duelists' victory of the Regional Championship sent a shockwave throughout America's dueling world. True, winning the Regionals wasn't the greatest success out there but it wasn't a mean feat either. People took notice. Though the Dark Duelists weren't the first team of humble beginning to navigate its way up a world where hereditary wealth and connections meant everything it was still a startling and unnerving display. Strangely enough, Yugi did the same.
The renovations JC made to the new warehouse was complete. The massive, lavish, and spacious headquarters now replaced their peasantry, dusty (and now torched) hideout. As Maya might say, notice the change in words. Speaking of which, it was once more through the grace of Dupre Esq. that Maya didn't have to pay for damages done by the riot. After all, what was Matthew's wealth compared to that of KaibaCorp's? Hereditary wealth and connections meant everything.
On the other hand a more subtle and profound change began to happen to the Duel Monsters game itself. Yukio and Maya's conquests with their striking and even bizarre anti-meta decks made a serious statement of what cards duelists could use to seriously compete, which in turn changed what it meant to be a duelist. Though Monarch and Chaos duelists still clenched tight to their hegemony small cracks appeared on their strongholds, which were soon filled by duelists open and eager to try new ideas.
The team was even interviewed in their new headquarters by NBC. The moment was a bit unnerving in how tense it was. The reporter wanted to especially talk to Yukio and Maya, the two big stars, but neither of them felt like talking. Yukio just kind of stared spaced out while Maya kept her head down. To make matters worse JC jealously wanted all the attention instead and kept trying to remind national TV of his authority and influence as team leader.
The interview didn't make a good impression. It just demonstrated another way JC hated how the tournament titles weren't his and how he became even more bossy than usual, tying the leash around Yukio and Maya tighter and tighter.
With a worried frown on his face, Yukio asked Maya, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Maya nodded, "I'm worried the team will go in the wrong direction, that JC will become Matthew and turn us into the Shining Crusaders 2.0."
"Maya, wake up!" Father snapped his fingers in front of Maya's face. "No daydreaming. This is a very important business dinner. You can't screw this up."
Maya rolled her eyes. Regional Champion she may have been, but she was still a frustrated teenager. A teenager can be immature every once in a while, right?
She unraveled her mind once more. Despite everything the team was satisfied with their victories… but she wasn't. She wanted to do better, wanted to somehow go deeper than this political garbage, which is what her team's feud with the Crusaders was all about. It was disappointing. She wished she could stand for greater and more meaningful things and somehow use her newfound power to make a lasting change.
The specter of Bakura appeared from nowhere. Congratulations! You graduated from being a slightly pathetic antihero into a full-fledged generic hero. How do you feel?
Maya playfully gripped her head, pretending to be losing her mind. "No. No. No. I did not just cross the line from anti-hero to hero. Nope. Nope. Nope."
Bakura laughed with the joke and added. It also seems you became a bit of a feminist icon, what with trouncing an abuser and saving his victim.
Maya sighed. "Yeah, imaginary devil friend. I don't like it so much."
I thought you cared about that sort of thing. Last time we talked those issues seemed relevant to you.
"Don't get me wrong. You know how important feminism is to me. It's part of my whole shtick as a dark duelist, but on its own it's too small and pale to fill…" She searched for the right word. "My totality?"
"Maya, we are going very soon to Mr. Carter's dinner. This is very important for my job and I want to be promoted. Do you hear me?"
You worry that JC will turn the team into another force of oppression, dogma, and cruelty, just like the Crusaders were. Knowing him, it's very likely.
Bakura was right. "Maybe I can move to Team Wunderland to escape JC's tyranny. It's a team that is very independent and equal with all of its members. There is no leader. Jiao Yi is the de facto leader but she has a very liaises-faire policy. Besides she's high half the time anyway. There I can flower more and do more of my own thing. This ideological war between the Crusaders and Dark Duelists is getting boring, and it's close to ending into a total farce. I wish I could see through the lies… all the lies… And see a more complete view, the way things really are."
"Maya, do you hear me? I will not tolerate your strange thinking or your antics for a single moment while over there!"
"OH MY GOD SHUT UP!"
As usual with the upper class, the terrain was lavish and spacious with rich color and refined marble. All insincere greetings aside – Maya's arm hurt where father punched her. – Mr. Carter introduced everyone to a special guest, none other than his son, Matthew Carter!
The two teenagers didn't even dare meet each other eye to eye. It was so jarring and awkward, to see each other like this, totally removed from the battleground. Nevertheless they shared their animosity. Matthew kept his usual air of cool and sophistication yet the icy death stare in his eyes was all too obvious. Maya's irritation scorched underneath and started building pressure. She restrained the impulse to jack him in the jaw and be done with everything.
To make matters worth, they were seated at table right next to each other.
"So, um, Mr. Carter," Father began awkwardly. "What new ventures were you planning with your company?"
Mr. Carter reclined back self-indulgently, perhaps a bit too much for polite company. "Overseeing stuffy artifacts was never my specialty, something my own father never understood, so I branched out to intellectual property and software. Nothing is more handy than a good team of lawyers I tell you!" The dinner party pretended to laugh. "I have been thinking of branching off my wealth to an expanding market: children."
"How will it work?"
"Children are certainly impressionable, hook one and you have a customer for life. I want to develop a search engine just for children, easy to use and with parental blocks of course, where children can find any cool toy or website for game for sale and but it. In turn, the search engine will keep a record of every movement the child makes to find out what things the child prefers and make suggestions based on that. What do you think?"
The grown ups all concurred that it was an especially splendid idea. Matthew looked completely disgusted and ashamed that creepy, venal man was his father. Maya didn't blame him. She coughed, *pedophile* before sipping some soup.
The dinner moved to the main course, and the grown ups kept talking and talking… a spiritual and intellectual void. Nothing but lies in linen. The conversation shifted to welfare and other government and social programs and by that time the snobbery, selfishness, and willful ignorance became unbearable. Maya was in no mood to behave.
When the subject of welfare came up again Maya entered the fray. Her voice was normally soft and deep but she now perverted it into being high-pitched, slightly shrill, and clipped with feigned delicacy. "Perhaps it would benefit all of us in this auspicious gathering to apply reasoning and gleam what wisdom our lofty intellects will give us. In these decadent times we are loathe to acknowledge the all-guiding hand of Nature, who has decreed that men are unequal and therefore be given different lots in life.
"Nature has decreed with her sacred laws the strongest, the smartest, and the wisest have authority and dominion over men and beasts. Those below could gain all of their wealth if only they made an effort for it, but sadly they lack the qualities to even do so. Therefore, we should not be moved to indulge them with one pennyworth for we only make them more indolent and insolent on us, and to deign them such favors takes away the guiding hand and reduces all of us to drones."
The grown ups were most satisfied with Maya's line of reasoning but looked puzzled, insulted, even disturbed They saw too much of themselves for comfort, but this soon passed and they all nodded in agreement.
All except father. He whispered aggressively to her ear, "Enough of your antics. You will not ruin this dinner. Do you understand?"
Matthew gave her a deeply suspicious look. "I'd listen to dad if I were you,"
Maya gave a sneering smile. "How's damage control going with the Crusaders? I heard there's a lot to clean up down there."
Matthew bore down on her with an icy stare stating all to clearly how much he wanted to kill her if he only had the chance, but Maya was unfazed. He couldn't believe she was the same brat he brutally owned at the beginning of the school year! He grumbled, "To actually have to duel to keep my career afloat."
"Having to work is hard, I know. But hey, you earned it kid."
A few servants, the best word for them, tinkled out what seemed to elevator music or jazz scrubbed whiter than crystal meth. The music was sweet, delicate, cloying, almost ashamed to exist. Maya let herself sink on the table, staring at a half-empty wine glass. The revolution was over. Music was put in her place where she belonged, reduced to background noise and entertainment, no longer a strong character that stood on her own. The piano once more became a harp turned on its side.
Father was in the middle of boasting about her? Yes. No. It couldn't be!
"Yes she is a straight A student on top of everything." Father smiled. "She even was a child prodigy but she'll never want you to know it! She can play the piano to expert levels and some viola to boot! She's also a great duelist. She just won the Regionals last weekend…"
What? Maya didn't know what to make of it. It was so bewildering! At home he never once spoke like that. His words were only cold and mean, but now he was proud of her, like she was actually worthy of existing. She didn't know how to feel. What she did feel was in a nebulous wilderness of shock, confusion, tenderness, and suspicion. Maybe he was phony this whole time. That would be more comfortable.
"Hey," Father nudged her sharply. "Be with us. Mr. Carter and the others would like to hear you play. I told him you can really play some Mozart or Beethoven piece. Don't disappoint them."
Now she was the servant, the circus girl to please them. Why should she? They never cared about music and what she meant or what she was saying. She was just to be bought and sold, and turned into a respectable woman. If she wasn't irritated then she was now. She would not give it too them. She would not turn music into their supermodel porn star.
She sat on the piano stool. All eyes were eagerly on her, especially father's eyes. She locked her fingers together, spread her elbows apart, and threw her arms on the keyboard with all her strength. The piano roared loud and deep, the terrible chaotic noise shaking everyone off their stupor, rubbing them the wrong way.
"That's my piece for this evening." Maya concluded and left for the bathroom.
She was hardly there for a minute when father burst in and ferociously hit her across the face. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He roared. "Do you want to get me fired and make us go broke?" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently and threw her at the wall.
Maya snapped. She lunged back at him, jacking him in the jaw and kneeing him in the chest. She had enough of this cretin who called himself her father! But father was simply bigger and stronger due to his age and height. He shoved Maya back into the handicapped stall, colliding her back against the wall. With a swift hit he pummeled her to the ground.
Maya coughed, "Just a word of advice, the next time you beat a child don't hit them in the face where people can see the bruises."
Father kicked her in the chest, shutting her up. "Get yourself cleaned up and behave. Or else." He stormed out.
Maya coughed a few times and painfully crawled up to see herself in the mirror. She was bleeding in her mouth, some of it dripping from her lips. She spat it out and washed her mouth, ignoring the sting. She straightened her clothes and hair, looking almost as if nothing had happened.
She sat at the piano stool again and played. First Mozart's variations of what is now known as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, then Beethoven's fantasy, a Mozart sonata she still knew by heart, and some rags from Joplin. Maya, disembodied and numb, watched her body function like a machine, pressing the right keys at the right time. She didn't involve herself. Her body played on its own.
The grown ups applauded her for the charming performance. She was their seal.
Father was nowhere to be seen. As soon as the dinner was over his false smile fell away and he revealed his full despondency. He ran away from Maya in despair and now she looked for him, darting and snaking her way through the city's streets and avenues trying desperately to trace the path he went. Where did he go!? Where did he go!? For hours she searched in vain.
She caught a trace of him in a shanty bar. She found him slumping, hand lazily grabbing a large glass. She nudged him gently a few times. "Dad, please. It's late. We have to go back."
He swung at her but so clumsily she easily dodged it. "You're a devil sent from Hell. You ruined everything, everything. What am I to do? I'm ruined." His cold blue eyes melted into tears. His breath smelled of booze. "You ruined my life the moment you were born. You only gave me shame and exile you little freak."
"Dad…" Maya tried to soothe him. "You'll be fine. Bosses don't fire people for misbehaving children. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
"You were never a good girl. Why can't you be a normal good girl who just did her homework and listened to me? Why can't you be normal for one second?"
"Dad… please." She kept reassuring him over and over again, his sadness bleeding over into her. She took his pain just as she always took his fear and rage.
He relented and sank unto her. He could hardly stand up, forcing her to drag him on the long way back home. She gently laid him to rest on his bed. He passed out instantly. She took from her room an old childhood drawing she made a long time ago with the endearingly bad and naïve craft of a child's art. It was about the three of them as a family. Red autumn leaves surrounded father and mother while Maya danced among snowflakes.
Maya put the drawing beneath father's hand. She curled into a ball on the floor near the bed and fell asleep.
Sleep. A tortured mess. Strips of moments splash, froth, ebb, flow away as the ocean's flow. Mother's hands are scarred. She says they were dipped in boiling water when she was young. First memory. – A wild child. Maya plays with friends in the Belgrade streets. She dips slugs in the neighbors' drinks after a rainy day, delights in their shock. She slyly sneaks away food from a market stand. Father tries to catch her. "Get back here you little harlequin!" Mother laughs. They all laugh.
– School is painful. She can't sit still. She hates it here. She stares out the window, daydreaming, her legs become itchy. She goes wild. The teacher wags her figure at Maya in front of father and mother, saying she needs to learn self-control. Maya bites her finger hard, making her shout. – Fun with friends. Maya visits cousins every summer. So much joy together outside, playing basketball, in a swimming pool, playing bootlegged video games.
– She plays her first notes on the piano. She is five. Father and mother smile in delight. The music speaks to her with simple childish words. She can only speak simple childish words. The music grows as she grows. She plays well and composes! She plays for recitals and even in the University of Arts. – Her friends dare her to climb the tallest tree she knows. She strains in fear but overcomes through struggle. Burning, light-headed triumph! She can't climb down. She falls all the way down and breaks her arm.
– Mother has lung cancer. She loses her hair, dark and rich. She grows feeble and dies after enduring great agony. Maya sees her take her last breath and the lights in her eyes fall forever into darkness. – Maya doesn't perform anymore. She is not her father's doll. She despises the shallow and patronizing adulation of grown ups. – Father hits her, mother dies, pain and grief silence her.
– Replacement. Freak. Unwanted. Grandfather yells at father. "How dare you marry a Muslim woman! They were killing us for centuries! You betrayed all of us!" Father follows his heart instead. Grandmother is silent, not daring speak. – Ever other Serbian is only nice. Racism almost doesn't exist. Cousins, uncles, aunts welcome mother and daughter in their homes. Mother and daughter return the favor. Good food, laughter, love, commitment. But America, a deep and dark swamp…
– War! The Bosnian conflict erupts! Everyone hides in the basement from the bombs. The smallest cousin, her hair falls off. Leukemia. Smarmy, bloated, decadent politicians sit in comfortable desks, wear silk ties, while Serbs and Muslims are slaughtered. War… Ugly war… Calamity to all… The "good fight" against the Crusaders… War…