Chapter 8
Timothy's mother had allowed him to home school. Trips outside were a rarity now. Instead he spent his time at home, completing his schoolwork and his other studies in relative comfort. It gave him more time for the things that truly mattered to him, like reading classical literature and writing poetry.
One evening he decided to start his own blog online, but when he posted his poetry he noticed that a peculiar typo appeared after each line of the poem he was posting. The typo involved a lower case o and a semi-colon followed by a lower case p. The display made him think of a person sticking their tongue out and winking at him. Any attempt to delete it was fruitless. When he looked up the webmaster to complain, he read a blurb about going to the police for help against hackers. That was the only advice he could find about dealing with hackers. It didn't make sense to call the police about something that trivial, so he settled for posting his poetry with the typos.
The next day Sara and her friend, Patricia, entered the kitchen just before dinner was about to be served. Patricia was a cute brunette with a slim figure and entrancing eyes, which Timothy loved to stare into.
Nonchalantly, Sara complained, “Some creep pointed a gun at me today.”
“What!?!” exclaimed their mother.
“It was just a toy laser gun, but it was creepy.”
“That's dangerous. Police have been known to shoot boys waving toy guns around.”
“I wouldn't care if they did. He was a creep.”
“Oh Sara,” sighed Patricia. “You're so bad.”
“No I'm not. Those creeps were harassing us.”
Timothy's mother asked, “Were these boys from school?”
“No. I'd never seen them before.”
Timothy thought of his assailant and he asked, “What did they look like?”
“They looked like a couple of hicks.”
“Did one of them have a goatee?”
“Yeah, one of them did have a goatee.”
“That might be the guy who assaulted me.”
Timothy's mother said, “You see those boys again, Sara, you call the police.”
“I will.”
Timothy finished his food and left. From the living room he heard Patricia say, “I feel sorry for Tim.”
The statement annoyed him. Obviously she didn't pity him enough to date him. She had rejected him, when he had asked her out earlier that year.
The next day Timothy was sitting at the dining room table, studying at home alone, when he noticed a flash of light come from behind the glass sliding door leading to the backyard. A mean looking girl with a camera had just taken a picture of him.
Angry with the intrusion, Timothy rose from the table. The girl quickly departed from his field of vision. He opened the glass sliding door, stepped outside, and shouted, “Get off our property right now before I call the police!”
The girl was standing nearby with a taller boy, whom Timothy had never seen before. The ruffian was wearing a tank top, revealing a muscular body clad with cheap looking tattoos and his head was shaved bald. The fearsome skinhead pointed a strange device, which resembled a radar gun at Timothy and pressed the trigger.
“Ha,” laughed the girl. “Nimrod.”
“He's a plagiarist,” added the skinhead.
Timothy retreated inside and slammed the glass door shut. A subtle electric current ran down his spine, leaving his spinal column feeling metallic and immovable. At first he thought it might be his imagination, but his back stiffened when he tried to sit back down. The discomfiture sparked extreme anger, which impelled him to pick up the phone and dial 911.
“Hello. This is a nine one one service operator. What can I do for you?”
“There's a trespasser outside and he pointed a gun at me.”
“Is he still there?”
“I don't know. I came back inside and something started happening with my back.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don't think so, but the radar gun may have done something with my back.”
“A radar gun?”
The incredulous tone of her voice melted the metallic hardness into a frightening sensation, hinting at madness. “Well... A girl took a picture of me... And then when I went outside... Some guy with a radar gun... Well... he pointed it at me and when I went inside I felt something weird happen to my back.”
“Yes, I understand. The police will be by shortly. I'll stay on the line until they get there. How old are you?” The woman's voice sounded patronizing now.
“Fifteen.”
“Shouldn't you be at school?”
“I home school.”
The woman continued asking questions, which made it seem more like a psychiatric evaluation than an emergency call. When the police arrived, they reacted similarly to Timothy's story. The two harassers were long gone and the police officers seemed resentful and mistrusting.
Later that evening, Timothy approached Sara in the living room and he asked, “Do you remember what the gun looked like?”
“A weird laser gun.”
“Did it have a small round barrel like an ordinary gun or a large squarish barrel like a radar gun?'
“It was like a radar gun.”
“That's what the guy in the back yard pointed at me.”
“I hate them doing that to you.”
“Did you feel anything after he pointed it at you?”
“I felt creeped out.”
“Did you feel anything in your back?”
“Now that you mention it, I did feel something in my back. Those guys creeped me out.”
“Have you heard about anybody else claiming my poetry to be theirs?”
“No. Why?”
“The trespasser called me a plagiarist and somebody hacked into my blog.”
“I don't know why they'd do that.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I didn't mean it that way. I like your poetry, but I don't see why someone would bother going to all that trouble just for some poetry.”
“Maybe because they're mean.”
The next day Timothy was sitting at the dining room table, when somebody opened the back door into the laundry room. At first, Timothy assumed his sister must be home from school early with a friend,.
Then a sudden voice forced a spasmodic jump through Timothy's body. “Is Ariadne here?” The voice was frighteningly familiar.
Timothy turned around and saw the boy who'd assaulted him standing with the skinhead from the day before. “What!?!” exclaimed Timothy.
“You heard me, boy,” replied Clive. “We're here for Ariadne”
Timothy looked at the phone and thought of calling the police. The intruders would just flee and make him look like a crazy person again. He turned toward Clive and asked, “Who are you?”
“I'm Theseus.”
“And I'm Dionysus,” added the skinhead.
The mythological appellations disturbed Timothy. He knew exactly what these predators were implying. “Are you stalking my sister?”
“What makes you think that?” asked Clive.
There was an edge to Clive's tone that further angered Timothy. “You're perverts. Get out of my house right now or I'll call the police.”
“Like you did yesterday?” observed the skinhead. “You're not allowed to call the police.”
“They have better things to do,” Clive agreed. “You should already know that, Christmas.”
“My name isn't Christmas,” declared Timothy as he rose from the chair and approached the phone.
The two bullies grabbed Timothy before he could reach the phone and held him. The touch of their hands disgusted him to the point of retching. Then he shouted, “Let me go!”
“We're saving you from yourself,” said Clive. “We don't want your sister's heart-broken with you going to a mental institution.”
“What do you care!?!”
“We're going to be your sister's new boyfriends. She'll be our Ariadne.”
The words bit into Timothy's brain and caused him nausea with the thought. “You stay away from my sister!”
The two ruffians chuckled at Timothy's hysterical outburst. Then they let him go and walked back toward the laundry room. “Don't bother calling the police,” said Clive. “We serve them and they'll resent you thinking it's any of your business.”
Timothy balanced himself against the counter, hyperventilating with a quaking pulse, which reverberated throughout his body. Calling the police directly would be a mistake. Instead he called his mother.
There was little Timothy's mother could do besides helping him to file another report with the police and warning him about unlocked doors. That back door should have been locked, but there was no sign of forced entry.
Timothy did his best to warn his sister about the two ruffians. After hearing a detailed description, she was certain those were the two boys who had been stalking her. Her apparent indifference to the seriousness of the threat upset Timothy. When he tried to convince her that she only had to be careless once for them to ruin her life, she became offended and he backed off.
Later that evening, Timothy sat down at the dining room table and he wrote another poem, feeling violated with the idea that a plagiarist might claim it. He couldn't let the harassers take his enjoyment of literature as well. He had to continue writing.
Justice for Ariadne
The aid of Ariadne liberated
Theseus from a fate ignominious
To achieve other feats satiated
With his love for the flesh impious.
On that beach alone she cried, with swelling womb
As the dastard fled responsibility
To marry a virgin, unwilling to be doomed
Out of wedlock, enforcing the wedding fee.
If Poseidon weren't a scoundrel in heat as well
He would've conspired to send the ship ashore
On Circe's island with a sorceress in hell
Transforming him to ever be a pig and a boor.
Timothy chuckled at what he had written. Theseus deserved to be left alone without a partner at any rate, doing that to the mother of his child.