Chapter 9

Three months before the fight.

Friday evening

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-Part 1-

Clementine Clevenger had had to return back to Boomstone. "Business baby, but we'll be together again soon" was what she had told him before returning to her mining town. Watching her fly away was hard, but it was worth it every time she came back to him. "Who'd uh thunk it Baloo? A guy like me snaggin' a girl like her?!" he said aloud to no one. He looked around his place and realized that he had briefly forgotten where he was and that he was alone. "Baloo has been away for an awfully long time this time." He thought to himself. His mind had a habit of kidnaping a memory and going out for joyrides every now and then only to quickly return home once it had realized that it had wandered too far and had gotten lost. Wildcat felt lonely even though Clementine had only been gone for a little over a week, but then again, he knew where she was and what she was doing. Where had Baloo gone? Was this normal? Baloo flew delivery planes for a living and sometimes he would be gone for days at a time. But he wasn't usually gone more than a few days. Had his friend finally had enough and abandoned him?

Wildcat had just finished making himself some dinner. It wasn't much, just a quarter package of boiled hot dogs with ketchup and what was left of an old loaf of bread for buns. He cleaned his dishes, wiped down the table with his dish rag, returned to the sink and noticed his dishes were on the clean side of the sink. How odd that he would put them there before cleaning them. So, he cleaned his dishes, and then he naturally wiped down the table like he always did after cleaning the dishes, returned to the sink and noticed his dishes were on the dirty side of the sink. He could have sworn that he had already cleaned them. He started to clean his dishes again when he noticed that they were spotless. And then the realization had hit him. "Oh no, it happened again". He worriedly looked at the clock, "How long was I caught in a loop this time?"

Short-term memory loss, just another symptom of his's injury from the war. Sometimes he would get caught in a loop for hours, other times only minutes. That was one reason he loved having Baloo or Clementine around; they would speak to him and pull him out of those loops. Just two weeks ago she was here when he got caught in the same loop as this evening what with the cleaning of dishes and the repeatedly wiping down the table. Clementine was sitting in front of the fireplace waiting for him. She watched him and let it go on for two rounds before interrupting the cycle on the third. "Do you realize you already wiped down that table?" She would say to him with her western accent. "Any more and you'll start pealing the finish off the wood." Wildcat would turn red, smile, and make up some silly excuse that she would see right though. "I just gotta keep te house extra clean wit a lady here an all."

"Oh good, not more than a few minutes this time". He relaxed and realized that he still had the evening, but then he remembered what always happened in the evening. Wildcat placed his dishes away in the cabinet, made his way to the small living room of his quarters where Clementine was waiting for him in his memory, and sat down in his chair to settle down for the night. He looked around and saw that it was time for his nightly torment. He hated this time of day. The time between when work was done and dinner was over but before he went to sleep. He was alone, just like most nights since he had returned from the war. He liked it this way. Although the war had ended nineteen years ago, all the noise and drinking and excitement of the speakeasys and nightly party hideouts scattered throughout the city and in private residences, combined with his injury, manifested into a waking nightmare that put him right back in the flack filled skies or down below in the mudded blooded trenches of the front line. He didn't mind missing out on the nightlife; he had been a fresh-out-of-high-school-kid once and although his times out partying and drinking and having a good time mostly happened in Francia, those times had happened. He had lived them well and had no desire to return to them. Some nights, he had to admit, he had lived too well with some choice maidens to keep him warm that night in bed. But those were his days of being a soldier and those days were long gone. Now, it was only quiet evenings ahead of him, the only noise coming from the ghosts of what had been. The quiet helped, but every night without fail it was always the same thing; some were better than others. But some nights Wildcat still heard the rhythm of death unceasingly ring in his ears as the roars of fighter planes high above fought for dominance while the silent screams of the dead and dying down below filled the air, their deafeningly still cries reflecting off the steel hull of the old aircraft that made up his home; the echoes of imaginary distant cannons firing in the distance.

All was quiet when he heard what sounded like a loud gunshot. Immediately he dropped to the ground and took hold of his hammer like it was a sidearm. His right hand gripping the head, the handle showing to be the barrel in his mind, and he cut his fingers on the claw desperately trying to pull the hammer of the imaginary pistol back before dropping like a paratrooper back into reality; slowly regaining his senses just as a paratrooper slowly returns to the ground. He turned the hammer over in his hand so that he was holding it correctly and examined the minor flesh wound on his fingers before crawling to the front door of his residence, checking that the way was clear and opening the door. There he saw Rebecca walking rather fast, almost as if she was angry about something or at someone…

"Hayoh, Rebecca…"

-END Part 1-

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-Part 2-

Rebecca turned to the sound of her name and aggressively answered, "WHAT?! WHAT ELSE COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY WANT TO-DAY?!" Rebecca immediately felt sheepish upon looking at who had called her name. Wildcat had jumped at the response he had received. He was so innocent, wouldn't hurt a fly. "I'm sorry Wildcat" Rebecca said abruptly, clearly still up in arms about something, "What do you need?"

"Naw, its ok. Say, did you hear a gunshot out here?" Wildcat was holding his hammer and looking around, his eyes darting this way and that.

"Kit just slammed the door to the main building. I haven't heard anything else like a gunshot though." Rebecca pointed to the front door of Higher for Hire and Wildcat's vision followed the imaginary line from her finger to its destination.

"Oh, ok." Wildcat turned to look back at Rebecca with a smile on his face. Anything work related to get him away from his evening return-to-war always put a smile on his face. "Well, how are you?" he innocently inquired.

Rebecca let out a sigh, as if Wildcat had just asked the wrong question. "It's….I'm just…..I've been better." She did not have the patience for this right now, still, she did her best to be as polite as possible. Escape was just a nod and a casual wave as she dismissed the conversation, turned, and made her way to the street. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Well ok then. See you tomorrow." A confused Wildcat just stood there for a moment counting on his fingers before yelling to the woman in the distance, "You know tomorrow is Saturday?!" He shrugged when the only response he received was two arms raised up in the air just as suddenly as they were dropped back to her side.

Wildcat remained on the dock, hammer in hand on hip as he scratched his head with his other in contemplation. "So, does that mean that I WILL see you tomorrow?"

-END Part 2-

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-Part 3-

"…and they can go to bed hungry tonight. They can starve for all I care!" Rebecca's taxi cab turned the corner and began the final stretch toward her apartment, her thinking switched to what was on the agenda for the evening, yet what had happened at Higher for Hire refused to yield the floor of her consciousness to the more immediate demands presented to her. She could not help but play out a one-sided argument in her imagination as the light of the streetlamps cascaded through the windows of the taxicab, their beams swooping by on the floor one after the other out of tempo, keeping perfect rhythm with the song on the radio. She took a deep breath and exhaled just in time for the cab to come to a stop at her destination. The orange sky of the sunset greeted her as she made her way to the entrance of the building and up the stairs to her apartment. Normally she would take the elevator but tonight she felt the need to put in a small workout and soon enough she found herself unlocking the door to her residence; another day was over, useless, and spent.

Rebecca shut the door to her apartment behind her and turned on the lights. The ride home had given her the opportunity to mentally examine the events of tonight and had significantly calmed her down, but she was still rattled. Although she had left Higher for Hire for the night her thoughts were very much still there; the events replaying over and over in her mind. Though she didn't really have much time to think about it at present, she didn't have to worry about food, bath, bed, and laundry for anyone except herself tonight. So, Rebecca ever being the budding business tycoon and workaholic that she was, decided to jump straight into it; maybe there would be time for such thoughts once she finished. She set her bag and briefcase down on her desk, turned on the light, unclasped her backpack, opened her briefcase, pulled out her papers, and set mind to purpose.

One form after another, policies, procedures, deals, and arrangements; they were all turning into a blur. "Just one more and I'll call it a night" she had told herself for the umpteenth time, "and this time I mean it!" she tagged on to the end; whether she was lying to herself again or not remained to be seen. She picked up an envelope from The Department of Labor and began reading,

"Dear Ms. Rebecca Cunningham. We are sending you this letter as a follow up to the temporary employment forms you have submitted for a minor employee of your business entitled 'Higher for Hire Air Delivery Service' by the name of then 'Mr. Kit Cloudkicker'. It would appear that the information you had submitted at the time, as it was incomplete per the nature of a temporary submission, triggered a routine interior joint investigation between The Department of Labor and The Department of Public Safety and Census Records as is per our policy to make an effort to assist in the completion of and transition to full complete permanent legal employment records. The information you had initially provided and what was found in the results of our investigation was conflicting and yielded a double-positive. This has now made your submission invalid and must be corrected within ninety calendar days. At this time, we would request…."

Rebecca had stopped paying attention to what she was reading as soon as Kit was mentioned; skimming the rest of what she considered to be a routine letter on "auto-pilot". Fatigue and emotional discomfort had finally taken the field in the battle between professional-obligations and parental-roles-and-responsibilities. She turned her attention to the attached form, filled out the requested information to the best of her ability, folded up the letter from The Department of Labor and stuck it back in the envelope before realizing there was a return envelope. Upon fixing her mistake she then set the return letter with the rest of the outgoing mail to be sent off in the morning, rubbed her eyes, and yawned.

About an hour and a half after she had started, she had finished everything she needed to and given up on the rest. She licked the envelopes shut, packed her papers in their folders, and squared all her files away for what little she could get done over the weekend and the rest prepared for Monday.

It had been so long since she had worked without disruption, she had forgotten how quickly everything could get done when not having a child – or children – present that demanded her attention. In all the time she had been living here this had to be the first time she had ever been here alone; it was oddly liberating, at first. The couple times she went to the restroom while working she found herself habitually poking her head in Molly's room to check on her before remembering that she was not there.

After letting her mind rest a moment, she decided to see what adult treats she had in the fridge and to her delight, there was a single bottle of wine, "How long has this been in here?" She popped the top, poured herself a glass and walked back over to her desk. She set the glass in the corner, packed up her bag and briefcase and set them down on the floor. It was quiet, the only sound was that of the ventilation system and the slurping sip she took of the sweet Rosé wine.

Rebecca felt that she had had enough work for today and turned her attention over to the sofa for some relaxation on the other side of the room which was still littered with pillows and blankets from where Kit had been sleeping for the past week. She threw them in the corner of the room, leaned back, and looked around. She was still angry with that boy, but as she sipped her wine, she could feel herself begin to unwind. The place seemed empty and still, it looked different than normal, like she didn't belong. It didn't take long for her to feel off balance without having Lil'bit with her, much less Kit. She looked at the pictures she had placed around, when was the last time she looked at them and admired them and reflected on them instead of just passing them over as another piece of décor that adorned her otherwise packed routine? She poured herself another glass of wine and continued perusing her pictures she had had framed and put on the wall, savoring the sweet flavor in her mouth and aroma in her nose as it passed over her lips and down her throat. There was the picture of her holding Molly in the hospital on the day she was born. Up until that day she had spent her whole life thinking that the love of her life would be tall and handsome. As she stared at the picture of her kissing her newborn daughter on the forehead, she never imagined that the love of her life would be short and bald. She was thankful that the doctor had been willing to take that one.

Over there was the one of Molly and Santa, she was two years old then, going on three. That was a hard Christmas. Rebecca had just completed her first semester of her junior year in college and funds were running dangerously low. Still, she looked back on that time with fondness. She remembered that she had had to give chase after Molly who had run out of the apartment that Christmas Eve wearing nothing more than what God had given her to dance on the sidewalk in the first snow she had ever seen, flakes slowly falling all around her. Once she had caught her, she picked her up, held her close, and for a moment they both searched the sky, listening against the whispering silence of that holy night for the distant sound of sleigh bells. Rebecca laughed as the memory replayed in her mind, "It's a shame that she does not remember how magical that night was." Rebecca finished her drink and went to pour herself another glass, only thirty minutes in and already the bottle was nearly gone.

"Oh, I had forgotten about this one! I guess I should move these somewhere I can see them more." Rebecca picked up the picture off the fireplace mantle of herself and Molly on graduation day and returned to her spot on the sofa. They were both in their cap and gowns. She was holding her degree in one hand and Molly in the other and Molly was holding up her 'Certificate of Academic Recognition' from the university. Beside that photo was another photo, much like the first except it displayed the other child, a seven-year-old boy, who received such a certificate and his father who was in Rebecca's graduating class. Rebecca wiped her eye. She had fought so hard and struggled so much to get where she was now, to provide for her daughter and herself. Of all the things she sold to make ends meet over the years during her time in college and now, that camera was the one thing she was able to hang on to and looking back at all the pictures over the years, she knew she made the right choice.

And then Rebecca spotted a newer picture. But this one was not taken by her camera; it had been professionally done and was in color! She picked up the picture of Molly, Kit, Baloo, and herself and when she looked at it and all it contained, any anger she had had left inside of her immediately melted away. It had been taken near the end of their second day on their company trip to Wonder World in Calisota. The picture had been speedily snapped just before they had entered the 'Hoop-dee-Ha western restaurant and show'. Baloo was standing in the back holding Molly in his left arm, his right arm over Rebecca's shoulders. Molly was shyly smiling at the camera, her right shoulder against Baloo's chest, her hands clasped in her lap with her shoulders raised, she had stolen Kit's red and blue hat for the photo, its oversized fit on her noggin made just perfect for the moment. Rebecca's right arm was across Kit's chest coming from behind and under his right arm to under his left arm holding him tightly and lovingly, her left arm draped as much across Baloo's shoulder as she could reach, and Kit was in front of Ms. Cunningham and was leaned up directly against her, his arms up above his head and awkwardly trying to hug her, his hands attempting to make it around the back of her neck from the front while still looking at the camera, his head tilted slightly to the right and resting on his raised right bicep, he was standing on his left tiptoes while his right foot was raised slightly off the ground. His eyes were bright, and he had a smile on his face that she had never seen before. But she did not need to look farther than the caption on the photograph to know what it meant and why he had it. There, draped across the top in bold decorative western font, the caption read, "A family vacation to remember; 1937". Kit's smile was the smile of relief of achieving a dream. It was a shame that she had never taken the time to truly look at this photo before now; she had always been in such a hurry that she had missed the subtle complexities within it. She continued to examine the picture for further revelation and asked herself, "If I missed so much in this one picture, how much more do I miss every day?"

Rebecca held the picture and just stared at it. How happy they had all been two weeks ago. She thought about some of the things that Kit had said this evening and how horrible she had treated him tonight. He did have some good points, but then she considered how she had ignored them all and backhanded him a few times just for telling her the truth and being honest about how he felt. The action of slapping him was nothing more than what any parent would do to a child his age for mouthing off. But was he really mouthing off? She considered the reasons she slapped him and felt that she may have been in the wrong or at the very least that she had overreacted. She had, of course, spanked Molly on occasion when she needed an "attitude adjustment", but she had never backhanded her, there had been no need, and she had certainly never had to do anything of the nature to Kit. She knew how to parent a six-year-old girl, she had learned and adjusted as she had grown. But what about parenting boys? Had Kit been the same age as Molly, would she need to parent him differently simply because he was a boy? Would she have treated him differently had she raised him from infancy? For that matter, were baby boys even diapered the same?

Rebecca suddenly realized that she had just been pushed into the proverbial deep end of the pool. How was she to go about properly disciplining a twelve-year-old boy? She had just jumped ahead six years from the age range she was adapted to, switched to parenting the opposite gender which might make that jump now twelve years, and…and she suddenly felt like Baloo. Baloo, her soft-hearted friend who had flaunted the seriousness of becoming a parent and the gravity of being responsible for the life of another with reckless abandon. Baloo, her employed pilot and father to a preteen of whom she had once advised not too long ago that, "Kids do not come with instruction manuals." And of all the children in all the world, Kit was definitely one child who needed one. That kid had more in his past than most people have in their entire lives, and she had no idea what to make of it all or the fact that apparently Baloo had somehow, someway made parenting Kit seem easy even with the many bumps and bruises and occasional seldom storms that came along. Had she been too hard on him? Had she gone too far emotionally or physically? She had said some really hurtful things and even she had to admit that her snarky comment that downplayed Kit's rape had been massively out of line. She could not even imagine what such a violating experience would be like for her as an adult let alone how terrible it would be for a nine-year-old boy; this coupled with the fact that Kit had taken his fair share of thrashings in the past. She had seen proof of them herself in the marks and scars that littered his back and the permanent bloodstains that crisscrossed the interior of his favorite green sweater. She had called to report child abuse even; that was a day to say the least!

Suddenly, a note she had written and placed in the back of her mind had resurfaced and came to the forefront along with all the other factors she was thinking about. Rebecca recalled that back in the hospital Kit had addressed her as 'Ms. Cunningham' instead of 'Mom' for the first time since before the trip, it was something that had bothered her then that she had sought to rectify and had thought she had done successfully that night. Maybe she had. But just as it was possible to reopen a healing wound, it was possible that her actions over the past week and tonight had caused a greater rift between Kit and herself than she had previously assumed. Kit had had an acute meltdown at the hospital, but what kid, upon seeing the one person who made their life worth living on death's door, wouldn't? And when he had calmed down the only question he had had when they had left the hospital was when he could see his father again. Rebecca finished the last of her wine as her inebriated mind began to digest everything from tonight as well as the past week since Baloo had ended up in the hospital.

Tonight, Kit had called her by her first name; something he had never done before. He was always respectful in his speech to elders; well, usually. But he also wouldn't let people walk all over him. The more she thought about it the more she began to connect the dots in her head. Maybe she needed to start treating him more like a son instead of an employee. Sure, she had said that she viewed him as a son, but did she mean it? She used him as a babysitter all the time and her pay for the service didn't reflect how much of a help he actually was. Despite the validity of her priorities and her well intentions, she had been so worried about her finances and the finances of the business and her and Molly's living condition that she had neglected all of their emotional needs including her own, not just Kit's, and it had all come to a head. She was not sure at what point the balance of the tightrope between being a parent and being a boss she had been walking for so long so well had been lost but now she was dealing with the consequences that she had so desperately tried to avoid when she had bought the business. What was worse was that she had been doing this from the very start.

Ever since the day that Baloo got in that ambulance, she had not stopped working. Sure, the work needed to be done but upon further introspection, she realized that she had ran headlong into distracting herself from the issues at hand by burying herself in work rather than taking time to deal with the fact that Baloo was in a coma and would possibly never come out of it and, by extension, how that would affect not only her life but the lives of Kit and Molly as well. And then she thought of Molly. Molly had been so scared not of Kit, she now understood, but of her! She imagined how aggressive she must have looked from Molly's perspective. How much bigger she was compared to Kit and how menacing she must have looked knocking Kit to the ground and pushing him around and then how intimidating she had to seem coming over to her and dragging her halfway across the room. The more Rebecca thought about all of this, the more she felt she was failing as a mother, and the less she blamed Kit for telling her to leave; she had to even admit to herself a tiny bit of admiration for the boy for standing up to her. If he would protect Molly from her, how far would he go to protect her from anyone or anything else? She sniffed back her runny nose and wiped her fallen teardrop from the glass of the picture frame of their unorthodox-family portrait at Hoop-dee-Ha as she wondered.

Kit was such a good boy and all he wanted was to see his father, sleep in his own bed at his home, and go wander off with some of his friends, none of these things were by any means a big ask. Looking back, she was not sure why she had said no each one of the multiple times he had asked. She was not sure why she had dragged him and Molly all over kingdom come all week especially when he had even offered to take Molly with him to the Jungle Aces Clubhouse. The best she could conclude, she was afraid. She had already lost a friend; she did not want to risk losing her kids too. But what was more, she did not want to admit it; not to her kids and not even to herself.

And then she considered Wildcat. Nobody had told him yet. Ironically, that was probably a good thing, but she would tell him before the weekend was out. Better that he finds out from her than on his own, she just worried whether or not if he could take it or if he could even remember; at times he was basically a child in a grown man's body – not that that was his fault, of course.

Rebecca looked at the empty wine glass in her hand. "Worry, worry, worry. That's all I ever seem to do anymore." Her night had had the opportunity to be restful. She had started off right. A bottle of wine, a comfortable couch, pictures of loved ones, and the slow fade of twilight to a complete star filled night above the view of the city in her tower apartment and yet she had sat here worrying about what she had done and what she had failed to do. "I guess this is what every parent goes through with a preteen. Can't say that I was ready for it yet though."

She looked at the time, it was getting late. She hoped the kids had gone to sleep by now, but if they hadn't it was no big deal. They didn't have school tomorrow anyways. She looked back at the happy color photograph that contained, her daughter, the son she never knew she wanted, and the friend she was hoping against hope to not lose. She hugged it tight as she slowly passed out on her sofa.

"I'm sorry Kit, you didn't deserve any of that tonight."

-END CHAPTER 9-