Mr. President

You never really notice how screwed up your life is until you take a minute to really see what’s in front of you. The same old boring routine you have for yourself masks your overall life. Life seems to go by so fast that you start to forget what day of what month of what year it is.

Some people are born into wonderful lives, some get the shit end of the stick. My life started in the shit-hole, and that’s where it seems to be staying. I was only seven when my dad left me. Oddly, I was happy he was leaving my mother and I. He was the worst person you’d ever meet. He would cheat on my mom, drink all the time, and abuse the both of us.

He left, though, saying it was all my fault. I held on to that for a good fifteen years, and for the last five years hating his guts. Want to hear something ironic? He’s now the president of the United States of America.

I grabbed myself a bowl of cardboard flakes, with a lot of sugar, and watched the early morning news in my tiny, one bedroom, rundown apartment. Today the sun was finally out for the first time in a whole week without it raining. Thank goodness, too, if it rained one more time I’m pretty sure I would have lost it.

I laughed to myself, then left for work. I don’t have a car so I get to walk three blocks to get to the bus station. Another reason I’m happy it’s not raining today. The bus was crowded as usual, but I pushed a few people out of the way so I could get a seat for once, but there wasn’t any open.

Once the bus started moving again, I looked over and saw an old lady giving me a confused stare. I looked away, then looked back, but she continued to stare. “What?”

She stared even harder, “I think I know you.”

I laughed, “Sorry, I don’t think so. I’ve never seen you before.”

She still stared, “No, no, no. I definitely know you . Oh, I know. You’re the son of the president, right?”

I froze, I felt everyone staring at me. I always hoped I would never, ever, be seen as his son. I looked back at her and smirked, to make it look real, “I don’t think so.” What a lie. I wish I really didn’t know.

She scrambled through her purse and pulled out her glasses, “Yes, it’s you. Your name’s Connor, right?”

Time for another lie, “No, last time I checked it’s Ryan. Sorry, you have the wrong person.”

She looked down, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make a scene. It’s just that you look a lot like his son.”

I felt so bad for lying to her. I wanted to cheer her up, “Well, I can’t say I’ve heard that one before. I didn’t even know he had a son.”

It worked, she smiled, and so do I. I’m playing this out so cool. “Why, yes, he does. He’s around your age, but Berkman has no contact with him anymore. His wife divorced him, and took custody over Connor. Then she died, and he went into foster care without Mr. President even knowing it. What a poor man,” she looked down again.

Well, you’ve managed to find out that it’s President Berkman, the most important, and the biggest liar, in the United States. And a poor man indeed, for this fuck-head is surely going to hell.

I put back on my fake smile, “Wow, how do you know all of that?”

She looks back up with her own smile, “I like to do a lot of research before I vote, and I’m happy I voted for him.”

I’m not, “Oh, that’s really cool. I think I’ll have to start doing that from now on.”

The bus comes to the first stop, “You should. This is my stop, so it was nice meeting you.”

I move off to the side so people can pass me. “It was nice meeting you too.”

When she’s out of my way, I steal her seat before anyone else can. About ten minutes go by before I get to get off.

After I’m off the cramped bus I walk to the site where were building a new café, even though there’s one right across the street. Personally, I think there should be another library built, but what say do I have. I’m just a nobody. And a proud one at that! I’d rather people not know me. That’s why I’ve been shutting them out for a long time. Mainly since my mom died, two years ago.

Anyways, back to here and now. I manage to do my work through the pain in my right shoulder. Not sure what it is, or why it’s like that, but it’s been like that for as long as I can remember. It only happens when I work too hard, though.

Soon, the pain becomes pretty much unbearable. I stop for a break. A bunch of other guys are at the break spot also, talking and listening to the radio. To my dad to be more precise.

I grab a bag of ice and put it on my shoulder as they turn to look at me. I’m not good with names, especially for people who I could give two shits about. So, I’ll just describe them.

The fat one comes over and steals my ice and pushes me. I know, weird, right? I’ve never done anything or said anything to this dude, and we even work on the two separate sides of the site.

For awhile he doesn’t do anything at all, except stare at me in a really creepy way. Then, he spits at me, “What you a woos or somethin’?”

Him and his little buddies laugh. I’m not playing though. My shoulder is starting to feel like it’s on fire. “Did it really take you that long to come up with that? The awkward staring pause thing you did kinda ruined it, but the spit thing was a nice touch. Nice try, but pick on someone your own size,” I say pointing to my stomach. “Now, please give me back my ice.”

He stares at me again, “Why do you even need it?”

“None of your business.”

He starts to laugh again, “Then I guess you can’t have it.”

I just sigh, not wanting to play this game, and go back to the fridge to get more ice. Before I could, I was hit in the back of the head with the bag of ice, then pushed and I fell down on my right shoulder. Convenient, right?

I slowly stand up and turn to him, “What do you want with me?”

“Like you don’t know.”

Now this guy was beyond ridiculous to me. “Wouldn’t be asking if I knew big boy.”

He turns angry, well angrier than already, “You’re a cocky-son-of-a-bitch, aren’t ya?”

I can’t help but smile, “Guess so.”

He runs as quickly as he can at me. And trust me, for a chubby dude he’s really quite speedy. I quickly run in the other direction around him, towards a group of really buff guys. I stop at them, “Can you help me really fast?”

They stop what they’re doing and look at me. One of them says, “Yeah, sure. Were ya workin’?”

Pudgy dude catching up, “Oh, no. Actually I’m being chased by a fat dude and I need you to stop him.”

They smile and the one who talked to me pushed me, in the shoulder, “You got him.”

I had to get running again, “Not if he sits on me!”

I could hear them laughing, but I was serious. I’m super claustrophobic. Yes, I know it sounds like everyone says that. But I almost died one time from panicking from it. Because of my father.

Anyways, with everything happening to my one shoulder I make a stop, turn, and wait for chubby to catch up. Better to get this over with, right?

He finally catches up, sweaty and out of breath, “You…are…so gonna…die!”

I shake my head, “What did I do to make you so mad at me? I’ve done nothing!”

He punched me right in the face, “No reason. Just felt like doing it.”

He punches me in the stomach and I crumple over, “Why?” I fell to the ground and covered my face as he kicked me. Learned that the hard way. Guess from who.

“You’re so weak. Fight back!”

I opened my mouth to say something, but then the kicking stopped and somebody helped me up. I soon realized how badly my shoulder hurt.

I quickly made my way back to the freezer and grabbed myself more ice. I only had about two more hours then I could finally go home.

Now, that doesn’t sound that bad, but it’s not so easy when you have a shoulder that’s throbbing with pain, lifting heavy objects, and hammering for about two hours straight. Not a very exciting.

It took someone literally up until we had only ten minutes left to realize that I was in pain. Unfortunately, it was my boss.

He came up to me and spit on the ground. He’s a chewer, but yet again, I’m one of the two people here that doesn’t chew. He grabbed the two, seventy pound bags that I was carrying and put them on the ground. He spit to the side again, “What’s wrong with you?”

I wiped some sweat off my forehead, then realized it wasn’t sweat, it was blood. “Oh, I got into a little brawl with chub-” I paused for a second, “I mean I don’t know his name. I don’t even know why he was pissed at me to be honest.”

Another spit to the side, “So, he did that to your shoulder? I could are less about the blood, that’s nothing.”

“Umm, no sir. Actually my shoulder has been like this most of my life.”

“Okay, well go get that checked out. I don’t want you back here until I have proof that you got it looked at and you have an ‘okay’ from the doctor that you can work here again. I don’t want some dumb job like this to cost you your arm.”

“Okay, I’ll do that after work.”

“No, you will do it now.”

“But sir, we only have ten more minutes.”

Again he spits, “I don’t care if you have a second left. You’re going now!”

“Okay, thank you.”

I walked away to the sidewalk. Now I could either walk fifteen minutes there, or wail five minutes for a bus, then sit on it for, nobody really knows when, while I have people shoving me in the shoulder.

I quiver at the thought of that and decide to walk to this fricken’ hospital.

About halfway there I see some hippie/hobo talking to people about stopping the president. Instead of listening to him, the people just quickly walk away like he has some disease.

I walk over and stop to listen. I mean, I’m all in for stopping the president. And you already know why.

Seeing that I’m the only one listening, he turns to me, “I feel that the president has evil in him. I’ve had many dreams about this man. I feel like he has many dark, hidden secrets. And I’m afraid to see what comes from him. I know I’m old and going to die soon, but please join our club to stop him!”

Hoping that it’s not some made up thing I said, “Where do I go and at what times?”

He gave me a small piece of paper, “Call this number and you’ll get what you need from it.”

“Alright, thank you.”

“No, thank you!” He touches my shoulder and I get a shiver. Like something wasn’t right. I thought about it for about two seconds then turned and started again to the hospital.

While walking I took the card and read it. Instead of giving me the number, it said:

Call the operator and ask for Dr. Steven Berkins…

(They’ll know)

I slid the card into my back jean pocket and watched the scenery around me for the rest of the walk there. The cars passing by (slowly) honking their horns (constantly.) People running around in all different directions (dressed all fancy) and throwing out garbage (while completely missing.)

They all make you really hate this world in the city. The noise is the worst part. All different sounds mixed into one great, big ultra sound. I makes you want to run and scream. Makes you wonder what the hell you’re doing?

Anyways, I walk up to the hospital and hold the door open while people walk out. I walk a few steps in and I come to the front desk. The lady looks up at me and has the worst fake smile ever, “Hi, can I help you?”

“Yes, I have a hurt shoulder that I need checked out.”

She ducks down quickly, then comes back up and hands me a pile of paper and a pen. “You’ll need to fill this out.”

I took the pile and looked at it. There were at least a hundred questions. I turned to her, “I only have a hurt shoulder. I’m not dying from cancer or anything.”

“Yes, but we need to know everything we can.”

The funny thing about this in my world, is that I really don’t know a lot of these answers. Even though it is my own body. I looked at her again, “It’s a shoulder. I’m not dying. I don’t need to fill this out.”

I handed back the papers, “Then we can’t serve you here. Good-bye.”

Instead of being the smart-ass like I know I am, I just walked out. I went to the closest bus stop and waited half an hour for the bus to come, with the excuse of traffic jam. it’s an excuse that’s easily believed here, in the city.

Finally, I got back to my little apartment and threw the card on the end table next to my piece of junk couch. I took a shower, then sat on the couch, just staring at the card. It didn’t make any sense to me. I actually wanted to call, but I only got this card from a dirty hobo on the street. Who knows what the poor guy was on.

I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to call, right? I mean what could go wrong? The operator just simply say they don’t know Dr. Steven Berkins. Not a big deal.

I laughed to myself as I picked up the phone and dialed the operator. “Hello? How can I help you?”

I took a deep breath and looked at the card, “Umm, I’m looking for Dr. Steven Berkins.”

There was a pause, “How did you learn about this man?”

I paused, “I got a card from some hobo on the street. He was saying stuff about the-”

“Shh!” The operator interrupted me. “I’ll connect you know.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I waited about thirty seconds before someone picked up, “Hello, this is Dr. Steven Berkins.”

“Umm, hi. I got this card from some man on the street. He was talking about the president being some horrible guy. I was interested. I don’t like him so much myself, to be honest. I wanted to join this club or whatever this is.”

“I see and it’s a union, not some teenage club. This is the real deal. Before I say anymore, I would like to know why you are so fit on getting rid of the president?”

I paused. I didn’t want to tell him that I was his son. What if they ‘got rid’ of me too. “Well, honestly, I feel like he is only going to put this country to shame. I think if he stays, then, I don’t even know what ‘then’ is. I just feel likes it’s not going to be good. And you can tell by his emotions and the way he talks that, that man is full of bullshit! Lies! That’s all there is to him. I want to help put this man to shame.”

Dr. Steven Berkins laughed, “I like the way you talk, sir. I would be more than honored to have someone so into this union to be a part of this. What is your name?”

Shoot, I couldn’t tell him my real name. He would for sure put two and two together. I mean he probably studies the president day in and day out. “Paul Kinney.”

“Well, Paul Kinney, come to the back entrance of the abandoned building on Pearl Street tomorrow at eight. Understand?”

“Sure do. Thanks for having me.”

He hung up and I put down the phone. What the hell was I getting myself into? I’ve never been in a club, let alone an union. Something that is probably as serious as that shit gets.

I turned on my TV for the rest of the night and fell on the couch watching it. I guess you can’t call it watching. I was more just staring at it while I was off in a whole different world. Imagining better days. Okay, that was a lie. I don’t imagine things that can never come true, but I was imagining what the union would be like.

I was woken up from a knock on the door. I got up and rushed to it. I looked through the peephole and noticed it was my friend Jackson.

I opened the door, “Hey, what’s up?”

He helped himself into my apartment, “Man, I’m so glad you’re home.”

“What do you need?”

He sat down on the couch and stared at the ground. “Do you remember the time when me and my girl, Tanya, got into an argument and the CPS got involved?”

“Yeah, wasn’t that only a year ago? I thought it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

He shook his head, “It wasn’t. Well, not until the fucking president made it a law that even if there’s a small past record, and now future records with the CPS, your kids automatically get taken away, man.”“What are you talking about? When was this passed?”He started crying, “I didn’t even get to say good-bye to my little angel. They just got up and took her in the middle of the night. I didn’t even know until I saw her missing and read the note on my kitchen table. They snuck in, man. That’s not right. My baby girl is gone.”

He put his head in his hands and began sobbing. I sat down next to him and patted him on the back. “That’s not fucking right at all. They have no right.”

“What do I do? Raeanne was the only good thing going for me. My only reason to be alive. She was my life. Now she’s gone, and I didn’t even get to tell her good-bye and how much I love her. I can‘t even go see her. CPS told me I wasn’t allowed to. Man, you know, this is the first time I’ve ever had suicidal thoughts.”

“Don’t you dare even think about killing yourself. We’ll get this fixed. Everything will work out. I promise.”

“Man, I hope so.”