Chapter Four
My Toxic Child
by
Samuel J. Bass
Sitting up with veracity his heart was a blitzkrieg, propelling this poor young boy to thoughts of death and heart failure, did glass enter my lungs? Posing this question to nobody but the sticky blackness shadowing the living room floor that he claimed as a bedroom, this poor boy received no answers. Thoughts poured into his head, questions without answers, answers only the medical profession could be of any help with. He felt blood pumping faster than normal, from the breathing? No, was it the thinking maybe? No, no, it was from the fever, this overwhelming fever and a broken heart created a toxic cocktail. His brain thinking a bit too loudly Sam asked himself, Am I dying?
In the only bedroom of his family’s dinky apartment in Dallas Texas he could overhear his mother indiscriminately making Ooohs and Ahhhs and Fuck me’s. Almost six years old, to Sam these words meant little to nothing at first due to his short list of vernacular, yet, there they were lingering above his halo, slapping him in the face with indignities. He didn’t know this adult world and his mother was all alone in her room and the fever made everything in the living room move. This toxic world was a frightening one to feverish Sam.
Presently his preferred world was only filled with true loves, the one and only he hoped to meet some day. The one to settle down with, so romance and equality could flourish, and he thought; I’ll be understood by that person I’m in love with one day and be happy ever after, and this scary world will go away.
Feverish as ever he slipped back into his subconscious. At times even without fevers his subconscious and conscious mind melted together so he was never truly sure what was exactly real, and what he had just created in the cloud nine where his head constantly resided on.
He thought he saw tooth-fairies once, sometimes thoughts of a struggle with some unknown dark force took over, sometimes the floor was lava and only his children books were safe to stand on while their second hand two-seater couch was a boat floating to safety away from a melting room. Sometimes the wall's roller designed milky white patterns became faces and animals and gained depth as the day's shadows grew ancient.
A few days later his fever broke and he was back to being his exuberant active self. The sickness was terminated and the youth would have no memory of past ails, a fortunate short term memory loss. That same day he requisitioned a parachute to float down from a one story high wall. The parachute was a plastic grocery bag and the one story wall was only half a story tall. Sam was wearing his kid goggles so there were exaggerations in his imaginations.
Down he went leaping without fear and almost sprained his ankle on landing, the Tom Thumb’s grocery parachute failed. Adding an additional one he tried again. On the jump bags filled with air making two blue humps on his skinny shirtless back. Seemingly in Sam's mind he floated slowly down with more ease than his first attempt exclaiming, I did it! But it's still not very good yet.
Coming back upstairs to their one bedroom, the only living space his mother could afford on a disjointed money flow, he sniffed the air, mom was cooking a cake for his birthday today. A carrot cake with white cream cheese delicious frosting. He was six.
Happy birthday Sam, my baby boy, my big boy! His mom was full of exclamations which he always felt were indulgently eccentric. Sam hated it when his mom called him a “baby,” but as often as he expressed a distaste for this term she hung it over him, never listening to his objections it seemed, or maybe mom didn’t care how he felt, or maybe both.
Gorging his appetite to death on carrot cake with his younger brother Daniel, there was no good reason not to eat piece after piece until there was almost nothing left. Sam and Dan rarely were able to attain sweet treats like this.
After cake, Daniel brought out the dolls, a gift mom was usually known for giving them. This had never seemed odd to Daniel, but Sam loathed them. Dolls are stupid, I hate them! Please, please get me a transformer, the Optimus Prime one, the red one, pallease mom! This outcry targeted at his mom was so strong that she forced herself against her better judgment to buy one before his birthday. Of course her better judgment was lacking sense and logic, so any better judgment she had, had been thrown out the window before Sam was born. She was a mother who didn't know how to be a mother to Sam, a child who was never able to be a child.
Thank you mom, love you. Kissing mom, Sam was wholly happy about saying this. Mom had gotten him a favorite toy, an Optimus Prime Transformer. He could have gone for a simple Spiderman or Ghostbusters toy, but Sam prided himself in not having to read the directions, reserving to figure it out on the fly instead. Transformers were cool because they were complex and manipulable; Spiderman was none of these things. This was a precedent he set himself up for, for the rest of his life. Figuring it all out for himself. Sam had no tangible heroes; only false marketable prophets were part of his life right now.
Playing with Daniel there was the death of a Barbie doll by the hands of Optimus Prime. Sam played the role well with sound effects and Daniel made a valiant effort to struggle into a Barbie death by laser beam. Ring... Ring... There went mom running for the phone again. No more birthday as a family, now he was alone with Daniel playing as if she had never been there to begin with.
Sam’s tough black cat Mitten had just then come back from adventures. They had found Mitten and his brother as kittens in a box at the local park. Taking them in Sam took great care of his friend Mitten; Daniel on the other hand abused his cat. Eventually this cat would run away from Daniel. Sam could hear Mitten at the door now, mew mew meow! Letting him in, Mitten barraged Sam’s legs with affection and left black hairs all over his plain shoes and white socks. Mitten was Sam’s best friend, his only dearest friend; he wished Mitten would live as long as him.
There it was again, the sounds of his mom on the phone, Oooh baby mmmmm yes I love that so much, fuck me, fuck me! It was the only way she paid the bills. Sam consciously knew this without too much passing thought, but he had started to loathe it all the same. Eventually he would hate the profession and have a hard time loving her for too long.
The apartment complex they lived in was huge and built on a slope. The slope was great because Sam had a bigwheel, a three wheeled plastic hotrod with a handbrake and when Sam pulled it on the downhill slopes of the parking lot, spinouts and donuts would take place at high speeds. This would eat up the rear hard plastic wheels until there were lines of wear eating holes through the middles. Sam didn’t care, all that mattered were the thrills of testing what he would later come to know as physics.
Using all the outlets available to gain outside access, Sam and Dan did their best to not be in the house, partly because of mom’s work and partly because they naturally were wild ones who needed the outdoors like Tarzan's kids would have. But in Dallas there were times of the year that wouldn’t allow this. It wasn’t cold or anything at this time, even though when winter did come the cold struck people like a frigid wet towel on their naked ass.
No, usually it was due to the heavy globs of rain which made any excursion a wet one in half a second. The rain was like walking through walls of tears pouring from, what Sam presumed to be God’s eyes as he cried upon him. Sometimes Sam reveled in the tears because he would cry with them; these usually came after a spanking from his mom. Love only came in aces from mom. From Mitten on the other hand, love came in spades.
A horrible moment for Sam was when Mitten had broken his foot. Most likely he was trying to be like Sam and jump from a two story high wall that was seemingly one story high to a cat. Mitten came home one day limping about like he had a thorn in his paw. Feeling extremely sad for his poor kitty they visited the vet in their old Chevy, a white jalopy of a car. Mitten hated being in any car. Mewing the whole way it was all Sam could do to keep him still in his box and comfort him so Mitten wouldn’t hurt his foot further. This wouldn’t be the last time the vet would see them. Mitten got damaged almost as often as Sam from their dangerous adventure
s, something which couldn’t seem to be avoided. It was part of their DNA to test the world, and test the world they did.
Mitten healed up nicely and was out having adventures soon enough. Sam had them too. Bloodied up adventures, a scraped knee here, and a bloodied elbow there. One adventure turned quite gruesome. Sam and the other apartment kids were playing dirtball wars.
The Texan earth was packed and when thrown in chunks it would blow up upon impact into a dusty smoke bomb. Sam was in a makeshift plywood fort with two other boys and they were fighting some other apartment kids who were without cover on the streets. Laughing until it hurt, Sam would hit a boy to give him a dirt nap, a volley would return. One of the volleys was not just dirt. Sam popped his head up at the perfectly timed wrong moment, for he was about to be hit with something hard. A rock had ninjaed itself into the incoming dirt ball en-route to his brain basket. Crrackk! It hit him square on the top of his head, Sam wasn’t sure if he could hear it or just felt the stone's wrath. Nevertheless, he was left in tears and bewilderment.
Blood was now trickling down his forehead, the other boys were stunned, all fighting stopped, and Sam wailed Mommm!!! Running home in shock, he stepped inside to find his Mom’s door shut and those same annoying strange sounds escaping the all too thin walls. Mommm I’m hurt, my head is bleeding! Stopping short the mysterious sexcapade his Mom was more than agitated, but upon seeing Sam’s head she lost her blind personal punishment vendetta, a combination of money and authority, and instead told her client she would have to talk later due to an emergency. Taking Sam into the shower she cleaned his head off with soap and water. The water at his feet went from dirty brown to bloody red and then to a misty reddish clear color. His lifeblood was going down the drain.
She covered his head with a cold wet towel and made him keep it there while she made him explain what happened. We were playing, throwing dirt balls at each other, one had a rock in it, sniff sniff, and it hit me in the head, sniff. Sam sniffling through the words, trying his best to talk through the lump in his throat, and at this point feeling much like the rock had gone through his head and lodged itself in his thorax. The rocky obstruction he now felt seemed to consistently make its way back into his throat in the upcoming years, until Sam just stopped crying about physical pain. Much later the rock would return to his throat replaced by tears of emotional pain. Eventually he found these tears would flow for all kinds or reasons, sometimes happening while not even knowing the where or why. Sam would just know and tears would flow. He discovered that many tears can be shed while understanding the world's injustices and beauties.
Healing up nicely within a week, a scar was leftover, just one of many to follow. Both inside and out. Sam sometimes asked the big questions at his most dire moments: Why am I here God? Why not just kill me? Why did you want me born into pain? Why couldn’t I have just not been born, it would make things so much easier.
Fighting with his mom critically one day, something that would start to happen on a daily basis, he professed to her for the first time: I wish I wasn’t even born, I hate you!
This statement came after a spanking, which had preceded an argument, and for lack of a stronger memory on the subject, an argument most likely made up of petty matters. Family arguments seemed senseless to Sam, because most of the time they were about nothing but illogical matters. Sam was never a bad kid, just highly curious. He even told mom that being a scientist was his future and there could be no better profession to occupy his mind. He had no idea there were many kinds of scientists, but Sam just knew he loved dinosaurs, robots, chemistry, and figuring out the complex galactic questions he thought up.
Unfortunately mom never really took him that seriously. Sam had to request books to read. Books meant for a genius six year old, because up until this time mom never had bought a book above Dr. Suess and Winnie the Pooh, a standard for his age group. He wanted chemistry books, astronomy books, dinosaur books and the like. Even if he couldn't understand the books now, there was a strong reserve in him that said he wanted to learn everything interesting. Sam was anything but average, yet he had no idea about this concept until his adult life. He thought that everyone had the possibility to think the big thoughts.
Every month during his life as a child mom would talk to him about money. She would talk to him since she had no one else to turn to who would listen like Sam could. Of course there were the clients over the phone, but all they wanted to talk about was sex and to be dominated. So she turned to her son, professing her struggles with money saying, I might not be able to pay rent this month so we might have to go back to living on the streets, its tough this month. Sam had started to think, it’s tough every month, when will it not be tough?
These woeful thoughts worried the poor boy to shreds. His mom had no clue about the damaging complex she was building into him, thus exposing him to being a sad adult before he could really be a child, let alone a happy child. Maybe it was better to be a sad knowledgeable adult in a kid's body than a happy naive adult-child. Mom didn’t seem to care much for the damage she'd done. It wasn't until Sam was closing in on his thirties did she apologize for being unaware and the bad choices, but even that was a struggle with reality on her end.
Reality seemed to escape his mom, it was as if logic and good planning had been thrown out the window and replaced with selfishness and chaos. She had left his father when he was almost three and Daniel had barely been around long enough to make out that he was alive. These brothers were two years and eight months apart. Sam had been born in New York, Daniel was born in California, these two worlds apart set the precedent for their adult lives, but peacefully for now Sam and Dan were friends.
When mom left his father Howard they had nowhere to go really. Mom would tell Sam that his father was abusive so she had to escape with them and felt that she didn't want her two boys growing up abusing women. That was her gospel.
Later Sam would come to realize his mom enjoyed arguments, getting in too deep and flaming fires for no reason, only to battle on for nothing but to forcefully triumph. She struck first and questioned her actions later, which was similar to an abusive boyfriend or husband that apologizes after giving his girl a black eye, yet later regresses and does it again. Much later Sam would realize that, yes his Dad most likely hit her, but she was most likely the instigator, the bully. Mom would bully Sam on a consistent basis even when he wasn’t aware of it. The money, the spankings, the yelling, the babying of Daniel; Sam had to take almost the full burden of manhood at six because she was on the phone consistently making sexual noises that haunted him. Also someone had to keep the house clean to help out mom and his brother was not the one to do it because he was a lazy son of a bitch.
Of course he had to do it perfect too, another complex she gave him. If it wasn’t perfect mom would yell at him to do it right and show him how to clean things completely. After a year or two of this he would do the job perfect just so he didn’t have to talk with her.
At six and a half Sam had a girlfriend named Penny who lived a few apartments away from him. She was a light brown haired, brown eyed pretty freckled girl, one year older than him. He loved her freckles and her smile. He even thought he loved her, although love was in a void to Sam since he had no idea what to do with it or how to appreciate it at six. Sam did what every little boy should do when they fall for a little girl; he did nice things for her. Sweet things, things that would make adults say, awwww, look at them, they are so cute together.
One time in summer, like clockwork the ice cream man came around with his jingle jangle tune attracting all the apartment kids just like when the Pied Piper of Hamelin had lured children in Germany. Penny and Sam were outside and bolted towards the tune with the other kids. Once the dashers were at the source of the tune Sam had found that Penny didn’t have enough to buy her own ice cream. Unselfishly Sam scrounged around in his pockets and with his last cent helped her buy her ice cream. She was so happy and compellingly kissed him on the cheek for his serv
itude. Blushing, he was happy too, even if the other kids made fun of him for it. They would sing the song, K I S S I N G, Sam and Penny sitting in the tree...
Sometimes life was grand for this young Romeo, but personal battles enveloped any positive grandiosity surrounding his life as if these battles were black holes eating stars. Even if this kind of life made Sam appreciate the little things, he would rarely have time to take account of them. A new battle would be around every dark corner.
During that summer some older kids in his complex who had started to form some kind of a loose gang. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had just come into famedom so every kid wanted to be a ninja. Sam barely knew about this movie since mom couldn’t afford the theater, hell they barely even had a TV to watch.
These bastards bullied Sam just about every time they saw him. This made playing with friends a matter of being in the right place at the right time in order to avoid the bully’s jousting. They would say hurtful things and make him run home for cover. He explained to mom one day what they had been doing and her advice was as sound as ever! You tell those boys that, sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me. He thought about this. Would this work? Trusting mom, a bad move in most cases he would later learn, Sam went out to the bully’s training area to face his demons with a metaphorical plastic sword made up of words.
It was a wide open grassy space surrounded by tall pale concrete walls. The leader was pretending to be Shredder by giving commands to his followers, making them punch the air sloppily. They wore loose fitting clothing and had funny homemade armor on them, much like the Foot Clan from the movie. Seeing this from his perch a story above them, Sam took a deep breath and gulped down the words, then feeling them rumble around unsettling his stomach he yelled down, sticks and stones may break my bones but your words will never hurt me!
The leader drew his gaze up on Sam; he was a tall blond haired juvenile and looked tough. He then proceeded to let out the loudest laugh Sam had ever heard; meanwhile all his loyal subjects followed suit laughing their asses off at him too. Mom was wrong, mom was wrong again. While thinking this, his eyes widened in a panicked stance at the looming threat growing before him. His two fearful blues now almost black from pupil dilation.
They had now stopped laughing and had started to chase him, but they were too far away and Sam was close to his apartment. Now they had a vendetta against him. Thanks a lot mom, now they will be looking to hurt me, he thought about this while pacing around the living room. Sam was right, they did want to hurt him now more than ever, just to prove him wrong and complete their power trips. Something that seemed to be a bully’s most sacred of goals in life.
Why did they want to hurt me? I don’t understand what I did in the first place to make them hate me so much. I just want to be liked, I just want them to like me, I just want friends. But friends would not come; Sam would spend the rest of his childhood with false friends and being a target of bullies just like the karate boys. The false friends he would encounter were worse than bullies, backstabbers waiting for the right sensitive moment to strike with cunning efficiency. The first false friend Sam would come to know was his mom. The worst false friend a boy could have. It only made it worse that she was naïve to her actions.
At home Sam kept this battle to himself. His mom was of little to no help when real life popped up its ugly belittling unshaven mug with beady hollowed-out eyes. The life Sam had to deal with was an abyss of hollowed eyes staring him down, breaking him down, and making suffering something an everyday normal thing.
Chipping away at his walls of solace, this suffering eventually broke the walls down so severely, that out of necessity Sam would learn to become a Phoenix architect who was always rebuilding and restarting. Luckily he would be wiser from these tumultuous experiences and make it a few steps further than he did before by learning from past mistakes. One day I’ll show yall, one day I’ll be better and stronger and faster and I'll take them all on. They won’t laugh at me then, afterwards they'll tell me how cool I was and how sorry they are. He dreamed on.
It was a beautiful summer early evening, bringing Sam a new sunset along with new troubles. Sammie my big boy I need you to watch your brother while I go out on a special date. His mom had set something up with one of her phone clients. Sam would be alone with his brother, and thus be alone with his internal worries. Leaving Sam to be the man of the house there was little to do and he just had to make sure Daniel didn't get in trouble. Sam had to be an adult, thrust into the position he was a confused boy who only wanted to save his mom. Would mom make it back?
He worried about this, but only for several moments, for now his mind was dreaming up new ways of taking care of him and his brother. How would I do it? I could go to Penny’s place, they might take us in. That would be a better life; Penny’s mom is nice and has a regular job. And for a moment Sam was content with his mom not returning. Trailing off to sleep his worried mind dreamed up a movie and then in the middle of the night he awoke to the apartment door closing. Knowing it was his mom from the sound of her shuffling feet, he went back to sleep content that the world had not been swept out from under his feet. It was a fearful notion, but and one Sam thought about regularly, in fact it was becoming a daily thought, a daily fear.
One time back when Sam was five, his mom had answered the door at their old apartments around ten PM while Sam and Dan were asleep and it was a very bad man who stood at the door. The man had somehow taken out a kitchen knife from its hiding place threatening to kill his mom with it if she didn’t have sex with him. Ushering his mom along, he then closed her bedroom door locking it and her with him. Fortunately Sam had awoken to some strange sounds and bad feelings.
Going to that ominous bedroom door of his mom’s he then knocked and called out to her continuously until she was able to answer. She came out with the man, safe, unscathed, and not raped. Sam saved his mom that night without even knowing it. The evil man left soon after they came out. It was the only time he had for his entire life, saved a piece of his mom. Not soon after this she moved them to the new apartments from the fear of a ghetto environment and what comes with it. She had been right in doing so and apparently knew how to make a few good choices.
Now that his mom was home Sam could sleep, she had not been killed or raped by a stranger. Sam didn’t know what she had done, but she was safe and that was all that seemed to matter at the time. This wouldn’t be the last time he worried his idea clouded head about her whereabouts and safeties.
Life carried on like this for several months. Avoiding bullies, using his Bigwheel like a drifting race car, and buying ice cream when the ice cream man song sang that sweet tune throughout the airwaves with the few dimes he could scrounge up. It was all so marvelous for several months. The apartment’s pool even opened in the summer so cannonball calls could be heard all around as if the kids were the French foreign legion at the battle of Waterloo.
The summers in Dallas are sticky sweet, moisture hangs in the air just like the mosquitoes that hung around Sam's legs. When he killed the mosquitoes by them with cat-like reflexes, it would leave wet blood that would mix in with his humid sweetened skin. Wiping it off he would just move on wondering why they loved legs so much. Little did Sam know that every ice cream he ate made them love him all the more, making his blood sweet with fats and sugar. One could even assume the mosquitoes recognized the ice cream man’s song as a dinner bell and acted on the chimes accordingly.
One day mom took him and Daniel to the movies, this was the first time Sam could remember a song. Playing on the car radio it was Madonna with “Like a Virgin” and he had no idea what she was saying. Yet he sang it all the same as if the words were clearly understood in his virgin mind. I can’t recall what movie I saw, but the song, the song he would remember for years to come. The chorus was catchy, “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time.”
All the kids would try to recite it and some would get it right. Sam would always acciden
tally make lyrics up as he tried his best to sing and understand just what the wild woman said. I’ll be so cool if I can sing it perfect he thought. That novelty eventually wore off because there were always other popular songs out, songs that Sam would never hear about until his friends made fun of him for not being on the up and up.
But just like bubbles these songs would pop in and out of fashionable existence, making remembering them unimportant when it came to understanding the grandiose design of American society. Something Sam always had a hard time grasping due to all the charismatic distractions of perpetual propaganda excreted out of the talking media heads.
The night, just like the day, was still hot with humid Texas heat making Sam wear just shorts at night. He was hard pressed to even wear shoes at this young age, opting for rugged bare feet to develop into something resembling soles of shoes. Sam even noticed he could walk on baked blacktops for several minutes without being in discomfort from the heat due to his calloused feet.
Tonight was something special for him. Sam was able to hang out in his mom’s room and watch a horror movie. This was a rarity since his mom kept the TV in her room and usually she was working the phone. The last place he wanted to be when she had a call. The movie was “Night of the Living Dead” an old black and white movie filled with cannibalistic walking dead people.
It was an impressive film for sure. Sam could barely hold on with eyes open watching these goryful horrifyingly-happy scenes. This would be the first movie he ever remembered watching and it would be the first time his mom would threaten to leave him.
Daniel also timidly was watching, but suddenly, and quite rudely about twenty minutes before the ending mom received a call. This meant everyone needed to shut up, and clear the room. Well the shutting up part didn’t happen. The client heard Sam and Dan, consequently hanging up. Sam couldn’t be happier, for now he could watch the rest of this highly enthralling movie. Mom on the other hand, was enraged!
Why didn’t you boys be quiet when the phone rang?! You know this is how I make money and if I don’t take every call we can be kicked out for not paying the rent! I just don’t know if I can do this anymore, this is too tough for me! I should just give you boys away to a foster home. I can’t take care of you!
Both Sam and his brother pleaded. No mom please don’t do that, we’ll be good, and we’ll be quiet next time. We’re sorry for messing up.
I just don’t know what to do, I can’t take this anymore and you boys are just too much to handle for a single mom. I’m just going to leave you because I can’t take this anymore!
Sam and his brother pleaded again. Mom no please don’t leave us, we love you mom please don’t be mad. We’ll be good and help more we promise!
Mom grabbed some belongings and left. Sam and Dan were distraught. Now all of a sudden in an explosive instant, life was inexpressibly complicated.
Questions ran through Sam’s youthful head. What will I do? How will I take care of Daniel? How will I get food? Where will I live? How do I survive!
No answers came, the only thing Sam could figure was again that maybe he could live with Penny and her mom while his brother would go elsewhere. Hours into the night he started to feel comfortable with the idea of mom never coming back. The shock had almost worn off by then. There would be no more yelling or fighting he thought. Also I could live with someone that has a normal life, a normal job, and eats normal food.
Before these thoughts and sleep could set in permanently for these lonely boys, mom was opening the door. She had left for about three hours and it was late into the night. Daniel would be the first to run towards mom, Sam slowly followed with some coercing from mom's smiling tearful red puffy face. It felt to Sam as if this was bedraggled encouragement. First time experiences are precious and this first was beautiful sadness for Sam. The comprehension of understanding he was all alone in the world and that he had no control over the loneliness another person could dispose on him was starting to sink in. It turned his heart inside out. He wished for his father, the person he last remembered loving him unconditionally and who never told him to shut up. The love he received from mom came with a hefty perplexing price tag filled with obscurities.
Eventually Sam's mom made enough money in her phone sex business to move into a three bedroom two story house a few miles from the apartments. Business was booming for her. Sam rarely saw mom, even though she was just in the next room upstairs.
Unfortunately he could always hear her, making this new life the old life, just with more stuff and more space to put the stuff. Sam had started to find that mom was a pack-rat; she would have stacks of old unread newspapers piled knee high. When Sam tried to rid the house of them she would get angry and say I'll read them one day so don't throw them out. Stack them on the game table. The table was long enough to sit eight and mom had bought it in the move. It was now a place for more stuff and no games. Although Sam would pretend to fly his Lego spaceships on the newspapers like they were landing strips.
Soon after those horribly lonely three hours of night Sam had endured at their old apartments, he found the only way to keep more peace in the house was to help out in every way he could. So he cooked, he cleaned, he watched Daniel, he fed Mitten, and then at random moments Sam would help mom by hanging up the phone quietly in the living room after she ran upstairs and picked it up in her bedroom. He would, in hanging up the phone, regrettably hear the wisps of his mom's voice as she spoke those sultry opening hellos.
Daniel would laugh it up and continue to be a little baby, an attitude he never lost. This always would make Sam’s life all the tougher. He had a growing feeling that nobody really seemed to know or care about the struggles of a naive little boy forced into being a man in a backwards world filled with intangible heroes.