September 7, 1986 was probably the worst day for the world considering that was the day Ian Smitherstone was born. Ian is one of those types you find in dark alleyways, abandoned buildings, and parking lots selling stolen or home grown drugs to just about anyone willing to buy.
He'd been doing this since sophmore year in high school, and when he managed to graduate (Thanks to his mad skills at threataning pathetic socially outcasted nerds to do his work for him,) he moved from the Minnesota suburbs to the inner city. His main source of income was dealing, with the occasional stick-up of a pathetic run down convenience store and the one incidedent where he drunkenly used prostitution as another form of income, (but that's another story).
December 4 of 2006 was no different. Ian was standing outside in the cold St. Paul snow where he finished up his day with the usual menthol cigarette, his silent way of congradulating himself for another successful night. He had just gotten another few customers than usual, stupid high school kids, of course. There was a party at one of the preppie's houses tonight, and of course the desperate socialites HAD to come prepared. Ian always hated those types of parties, although he always was a bit of a recluse, so he never enjoyed people.
He sighed and a steady stream of heat filled the atmosphere from his lungs, evaporating from steam into the cold night air. He inhaled the last of his menthol and stubbed it into the snow. He glanced at his Kellog's box watch and read the time at 4 a.m. He ran through the list of names in his head of people who had payed him and decided to end his shift for the day. He dreaded the long walk home, and wondered why he hadn't caught the bus on Admiral. He shivered and waited at the curb for Teron.
Teron was Ian's roomate, a big guy sporting almost 200 pounds of muscle. It was because of this Ian hadn't attempted to kill Teron yet. Teron and Ian had a different approach on life. If Ian hadn't been so desperate, he would have never moved in to Teron's house.
The two walked in cold silence, until Ian's raspy cough broke the tension like a sharp, unexpected dagger. Teron took this chance to make friendly small talk.
"How much money did you make today?" He asked in a voice muffled by his winter coat.
"Enough," was all Ian replied.
The silence made Ian cringe.
"How is your new job working out?" he asked, swollowing his strong dislike for the person walking beside him. But, Ian reasoned, Teron was walking in the same direction and it was always good to have someone to walk with so you wouldn't get jumped.
"Good," Teron mumbled quietly, " It's an honest way to make a living." Teron quickly regretted his words.
Ian fought back his urge to snap at Teron for his remark. He grazed his busted lip with the tip of his tounge, a gentle reminder of the last time he threataned Teron. He swallowed his pride with some blood from the cut and reminded himself this was the man who took him in. Reluctantly so, but he did never the less.
Ian reached in his pocket for his daily profit. He handed the wad of cash to Teron, who came to a halt out of surprise.
"What's this, Ian?" he asked.
"My rent money." Ian gave a weak grin and went to cross Main Street.
Teron grabbed his arm to stop him. "Don't go yet, the light is green."
Ian laughed, jerking away hostally. "Nobody's coming, Teron."
Ian slowly walked out on to the empty road, iced over from that morning's rain and the weekend snow. He hesitated, then plopped on top of the snowy mush.
"See, Teron?" He laughed, "Its 4 in the morning, dammit! Nobody's coming . I could lay here all I wanted."
"Ian look out! A car's coming!" Teron screamed.
Ian jumped up and scrambled to the curb. The road was empty.
He laughed at Teron's joke and, flipping him the bird, rolled back on to the road. This time more out of spite than the last.
That's all that happened before it went black. Ian didn't even know if he could remember. He heard the squeal of tires before he sat up on the road, and then his eyes cemented shut. He could hear a siren. Or could he? Could he even think, where he was? Is this what death felt like?
Ian couldn't do anything. He tried to speak, but his mouth was wired shut. He tried to move, but it was if his whole body melted into the pavement. He saw everything. Not everything around him, of course. Everything that happened before it all began. As if he was watching his life horrifically being pasted before him on a movie screen. But it was real. He could see it surrounding him, flashing foward, in and out, in phases. And then all he saw was light.
This couldn't be from my memory. How can one remember the instant they are born?
Ian felt this thought emerge within him although he was too confused to put it in to words. He saw the bright light of supposed death turn into the white walls of the hospital room that housed his wailing mother. Penny. Her name stung like an open wound.
To his own shock, he could actually hear her like it was happening for the first time. He could feel her presance like he was a close friend. The scent of the 409 that drenched the floors burned his nostrils and made his experience that much more real. He saw the brisk cleanliness of the rest of the room. He winced as he saw liquid covered gloved hands of the doctor pull fourth his mother's second newborn child. His mother cried when she saw the baby clutched in her husband's hands with great anticipation.
"It's a boy!" Doug cried to his wife. He clutched Ian's twin sister, Katie, tightly with excitement.
"His name is Darrell." Penny siged happily.
"No, you got to name Katherine, I get to name him. It's Ian." Doug said.
"Ian's good, too. Ian Darrell Smitherstone, welcome to the family."
Doug kissed his wife on her sweaty forehead and smiled.
"We did it, kid." he laughed. Katie and Ian started crying.
Katie had been born 2 hours before Ian, who had a long delivery due to complications. Ian watched himself as a newborn, crying for the love and affection of his mother. She gave it to him. She always had. Even after a long and grueling pregnancy, she nursed Ian and kissed him, and even cried when the nurse came to take him away. Ian watched every second of it. It was more real than any of his family videos of the event or any story his mother told. He was there. Watching his own life like anyone else in that hospital room, standing there in awe at the sight of new life. Ian watched as they went home in the car some time later, and he couldn't take his eyes off of it. He didn't want to lose the sight of his family when it was this perfect. Before he messed things up. But it went black.
Ian didn't know how long it had been. Time wasn't even relavent where he was. Was he dead? He didn't know. And then a new scene in the movie reel of his mind played before him.
This time it was his first day of kindergarten. Ian smiled at an adorable 5 year old version of himself. He had watery blue eyes with tears streaming down his doll like face, the same messy black-brown hair and Indian features he got from his mother's side. He was wearing cordoroy overalls over a blue Smurf shirt and a pull up (just in case). He held a backpack in one jelly covered hand and his mother's shirt tail in another. She looked down at him, half embarrassed and half distraught.
Katie had settled in well, and was already fully in the classroom playing dolls. Her new friend Flora joined in as well. Katie had the same face that Ian had, with the same dark hair, pulled back in braids. Ian examined the room, barely seeing himself. He was paying attention to Flora, Ian's elementary school crush. She was the same here as a five year old as when he remebered her in his fourth grade science class. Mousy brown hair, green eyes hidden behind glasses and tanned skin form the neighborhood swimming pool. A tomboy edge about her, yet beautiful and delicate all at once. Ian smiled and looked back over at himself.
"But I don't wanna go to Mrs. Bailey's class, mommy! I wanna stay with you!"
Ian's mother smiled wearily. "I'll be back when the little hand is on the 3. See the clock? On the 3! I promise, sugar." She wiped the tears from her son's pudgey face. "Love you, honeybun." She waved to Katie and ushered herself to the car.
Ian reluctantly left his mother and plopped himself down on the ABC rug that centered the rug. He began to draw with a few other children near him. Mrs. Bailey walked up to Ian and smiled.
"That's a nice drawing Ian." she cooed.
"Thank you. It's my mommy." Ian said casually. "And that's my sister and me on a pirate ship."
"Oh! Very creative! Are there fish?"
"Yeah." Ian finished his picture carefully and folded into his overall pocket.
Two children wrestling in the corner distracted Mrs. Bailey. Ian recognized them as Jim Miller and Terry Bradshaw, the bullies who had terrorized him all throughout grade school. Apparantly they hated each other before they hated Ian. They were big boys from rough backgrounds. Thinking back, Ian actually pitied them. Jim's father drank, and Terry was abused in ways more than one before DHS put him with his grandma.
Ian watched morning recess then. The kids had groups, even back then. It made him sick how some of them got treated. One little girl named Rachel got picked on constantly because she drooled and still drank out of a bottle. She had been born early, and couldn't help that she had autism and God knows what else. Thankfully the poor girl got pulled after first semester. Now she just sat under the slide alone until Mrs. Bailey used the whistle to signal the children inside.
Ian loved that slide. He got in his first fight on that slide in second grade with Jim Miller over who was first in line. His first kiss with Flora was under that slide, a tiny peck that thier 6th grade teacher saw. They were in the office for all of U.S. History over that.
At that moment, baby Ian sat on top of that slide, savagely tearing down the aluminum surface with great speed. His new buddy named Greg and he was playing tag.
"You still wear diapers?" Greg had asked Ian disgustedly after the third trip around the swings.
"What a baby!"
"Im not a baby! My mommy says its for safety purposes!" Ian cried.
Greg let out a pygmy wail of a laugh. This made Ian cry. Mrs. Bailey came to the rescue and as punishment Greg got last choice on what he wanted during snack time. For some reason, Ian remembered this incident from his first day. He also remembered that nice teachers like Mrs. Bailey weren't going to be around to save him forever.
Darkness emerged, and then there was rain. Winter rain, the worst kind. Winter rain that got frozen as it hit you, and definently frozen by the time it hit the ground. Ian could tell it was December because it looked as if an elf had vomited on the outside of his house. His father always did get carried away with the lighting and wreaths.
His mother decorated the inside of thier Victorian fixer-upper no better. The stairway in the foyer was wrapped in tinsel, the wallpaper and furniature gleamed orange form the embers in the fireplace that whistled away happily in the very unformal living room, happily burning a fresh stack of logs. Rain drizzled on the bay window. Ian remembered how that window leaked. Blue duct tape lined the edges, a quick fix until his father decided to recognize the problem. The Home Depot grandfather clock ticked wearily in the foyer. It coughed out a signal that it was 3 o' clock. Ian heard voices in the kitchen. Coughing also shattered the silence. Katie was home sick, obviously, Ian thought, as he crept into the hunter green kitchen through the oak glass door that seperated it from the foyer. The maroon tiles on the counter gleamed from the fresh application of Lysol his mother sprayed so nobody else would get sick. The floor vent hummed away quietly, blowing the scent of the holiday cinnomon potperi that sat in the window sill.
Ian's mother was pacing on the phone, while a red-nosed Katie sat like a miniature adult at the counter, slurping at the watery tomato soup her mother quickly dummped from the can. Her feet couldn't touch the oak hardwood, so they brushed against the counter, showing her contentment.
"I know he doesn't stick up for himself as much as he should, Tom, that's why when he does it's so violent!" Ian heard his mother reason with his principle on the phone, as she did quite often after one of Ian's "meetings" with Terry or Jim.
"Well I don't see why your taking this out on Ian when it's them who start it all." Hi mother looked hopeless as she listened to the other end.
"Because Terry's grandmother is on the school board? THAT'S your excuse?!" Penny looked exasperated at this point. Katie watched her mother calmly, almost as if this was a daily routine and nothing to worry about. Katie always stayed stone faced and starry eyed in even the worst of times. Nobody else in Ian's family carried that trait, and Ian loved her dearly for it.
Ian's mother slammed down the phone, tears building in her eyes and dripping down her face, running her drugstore mascara with it. She looked at Katie, and hid herself with embarrassment as she plopped down on the barstool next to her daughter. Katie smiled and ran her fingers through her mother's silky black hair. Penny pulled herself toghether for the sake of her daughter and forced a smile. She kissed Katie's cheek.
"I suppose I should call your father and tell him what happened," Penny sighed.
A small fourth grade Ian stumbled into the kitchen, wet from the rain and bloody nosed from a fight. His jeans were muddy and his hands beet red, just like his face was from crying so hard.
"My poor baby," Penny muttered as she embraced her son with a warm hug. " Your principle called and told me what happened."
"Its not like he says!" Ian bawled, " He's a liar!"
"Oh honey hush now, no need to get worked up over it." Penny said, sitting Ian up on the barstool .
She ran a paper towel under the sink and wiped Ian's face clean. She got a towel full of ice for his bruise and a tissue for his bloody nose, and sat down beside her two children.
"Now," his mother began, "What happened?"
"They've been calling me names and telling all the girls stuff about me!" Ian yelped.
"Who hit first?"
Ian hung his head and smiled. "I did."
"IAN!!!" his mother hollered, "What did I tell you?"
"But mom, they were going to take my lunchbox! So then I kicked Jim in the balls."
"Don't say balls, Ian." Penny snapped. Katie giggled quietly enough for only Ian to hear.
Mr. Smitherstone burst in the door with incredible energy. The three in the room stopped talking out of shock.
"Hello, gang!" he called.
Ian burst into another fit of sobs.
"Tell father what happened." Penny snapped.
Ian told his father a revised version of the story, while his mother made her son chocolate milk in his favorite cup.
"Well just suck it up until we move, okay Ian?" Doug said with icy tolerance. "Once I get my promotion, I promise we'll move."
Ian just sipped his milk. That was ages away, he wasn't sure if he could wait that long.
Then the images slipped away from his mind, and he knew what happened next.
His new life began in St. Paul at the awkward age of thirteen. The house was nicer than the one he grew up in. White and overwhelming, like the rest of the homes lined up exactly like it. The family was unloading the rest of the moving boxes in the living room, with the exception of Ian, who was in his room, staring at himself in the mirror.
"Your ugly." He told himself as he poked angrily at his acne sprinkled face. "The girls at your new school won't even look at you."
He tugged at his clothes. They were all wrong for him. They didn't make anybody notice him. He just looked awkward and childish, like he felt. His hair stuck up in all directions, it's deep brown color bleached from the sun. Another reminder of how much he hated himself. Realizing this was getting him nowhere, he went downstairs to help his parents unpack what little they had left to do.
"Do you like the new house, Ian?" Penny asked him as he frustratedly tried to help.
"Sure." Ian snapped, trying to avoid conversation.
"You'll like Vanderbelt." she continued, trying to make Ian cheer up.
"And if you don't hurry you'll be late for your first day." Doug smiled, hugging his children as they attempted to wriggle free.
"Bye, Dad." Katie and Ian mumbled as they scrambled out the door to catch the bus.
"Bye kiddos."
The Vanderbelt Junior High School bus was exactly like something Ian saw out of a movie. It was larger than his old school's crummy buses, and held much more interesting people. Ian had never seen real goths at school before, only at the mall and once when he went to see Scream at the theater. But they were sitting on the bus, in all their bloody glory. Black draping them like a cloud.
The preps were the same as they had always been, robed in designer wear and dark sunglasses with straight faces, cheerleaders clung to each boy's side, kissing them intently.
Ian had no idea where to go. Katie had abandoned him, of course. She had made friends in the neighborhood already over the seemingly short summer. So there Ian stood, like starring in his own teenage horror movie. It was like one of those dreams where your terrified and you know it can't be real so you try to wake up but you can't. You are trapped there, in the world of your own making. Ian had begged his father for years to move, and now that he got what he wanted, he hated it.
He looked over longingly at Katie and her friends. They probably didn't even know he and Katie were related. She looked so much older in her skirt and tank top, complete with heels and heavy makeup. Ian was not much on the well groomed side, in fact, it was a miracle he even took a shower this morning. Or that week, even.
"Sit down, kid." the bus lady snapped. Ian had no choice but to sit in the only seat that wasn't crammed with students. The very back seat, which held a ver intimidating looking gothic boy who was smoking marijuana out of a pipe designed as a frisbee.
The boy looked very shocked as Ian sat beside him.
"You new here?" the boy asked.
"Yeah," Ian replied.
"Obviously," the boy laughed. "I'm Chuck."
"Hi, Chuck. I'm Ian," he replied.
"Don't call me Chuck," the boy snapped. "Call me Apollo."
"Apollo? Why?"
"The Greek god of the sun. All of my friends have names according to Greek mythology. You don't have a name, your not a part of the group."
"Oh." Ian felt very stupid around "Apollo". His confidence made Ian feel unwanted.
"I'll introduce you to them when we get to school, if you want. Obviously your not Mr. Popularity."
Ian wished he felt better about meeting more goths, but the way Appollo put his words made Ian feel even more stupid. He was not passing up the opportunity to meet new friends, however, so he quickly agreed.
Appollo then did the unexpected. He extended his hand to Ian.
"You've got potential, kid." Apollo smirked. "I noticed you at the mall the other day in Spencers with your hot older sister."
"She's only an hour older than me." Ian stated.
Apollo looked shocked. "Really? She looks like a freshman. Your in what, seventh?"
Ian nodded, while Apollo rambled on about how he was in eighth grade, but most of his friends were in high school. Ian usually was loud and outspoken, but for some reason he felt shy in his new environment.
The bus screeched to a halt in fron of the high school and junior high school buildings. Apollo drug Ian over to meet his friends. Ian was used to only about 200 students in the building. Here, there were at least 500 per grade. Each student belonged to thier own group, and were packed closely together, as if warding off outsiders.Then Ian saw them. The goths. How could you not? They stood out the most out of every group. They were the only ones that were different. The only ones who consisted of almost all age groups, and scarily enough, the only group that seemed inviting.
Apollo greeted them with incredible ease and intoduced them to Ian. The one that stood out as the ringleader stared silently at him.
"He's kinda preppy, wouldn't you say, Zeus?" A girl who hastily introduced herself as "Athena" said to the leader.
Apollo's girlfriend "Diana", who was a freshman, quickly agreed. "Yeah, go back to the suburbs, kid," she smirked.
Apollo jabbed her in the side and her smile quickly faded.
Zeus simply stared at Ian. It was obvious Zeus was at least eighteen, if not older. Sporting more than six feet of hieght, he towered down over Ian, as if warning the seventh grader not to cross his line. He had purple liberty spikes for hair, a trait Apollo had mentioned as Zeus's "trademark".
Apollo saw the look in Zeus's eyes, and could obviously read his thoughts.
"He's cool. I swear it."
Zeus laughed, as if facing a child. "What is your favorite band, kid?"
Ian went blank. "Uhh...does Simon and Garfunkel count?"
Apollo went red as the group gave them both a look of utter disgust.
"I promise you, he's got potential. I like him."
Zeus sighed as the bell rang for school to begin. "I'll think about it, okay?"
A girl looked Ian in the eye. Probably the most elagent girl he had ever seen. She looked about sixteen, with long black hair pulled up in a Victorian berret. A silky black blouse with a satin red sash draped her snowy white skin, while black denim jeans hid the rest. She smiled at him, swelling her full painted red lips. Ian melted.
"They'll like you." she reassured him. "I promise."
