The following is an excerpt of:

Hiraeth: 

The Boy Who Dreamed and the Big Bad Wolf Which He Became

By Tex Batmart

If you haven’t been with us from the start, check out Chapter One here

Chapter Three

It seems as though a bit of levity may now be in order, for our tale grew slightly more somber than was necessarily intended. Have no fear, however, dear reader, for reality and relative chronology are on your side today. If there was a dearth of information regarding Mr. Batmart’s second year, then this author is quite literally at a loss for words to describe what little to nothing remains of the events which transpired during his thirty-seventh to forty-eighth months. Of course, failing reliable intelligence from this era, we may, once more, fall back upon our dearest servants, Gossip and Apocrypha (a pleasant lady of vaguely Greek origin), to help us to fill in the details. As was mentioned in Chapter Two, our hero did not earn the honorific of “the Terrible” until this period in his young life. And, as with all tales regarding the dangers of prepubescent Hubris, the path which he rode to his inevitable fall from grace was littered with small victories and a plethora of unintended humor.

It was during this most formative of years, when the young boy first learned how to curse. Like most skills which he would later come to treasure, this was imparted to him by his grandmother. It was a summer day, the sky blue above, and his grandmother had set him in her car so that they might depart for somewhere marginally more entertaining. Having secured the child in place, she lost control of the heavy door which she’d been holding ajar, and soon felt the fury of its full weight upon her ring and middle fingers as it casually swung back into place before she could think to extricate her hand. A quick exhalation, more reaction to her foolishness than toward the throbbing of her middle digits, and the word had cleared her lips and nestled upon the tiny ears of the young man strapped into his car seat in the back. For a moment, there was an oppressive silence, and his grandmother began to think that perhaps he hadn’t heard. But then, like the whisper of some demented angel, came a tiny voice, whose single word she found she could not bear to hear.

                “Damn, Grandma?”

She let out a sigh in hopeless resignation, trying with all her guile to conceal any reaction from the boy, that he might not see the power of this word.

                “Damn? Damn, Grandma?”

For the next few minutes, she tried to reason with him, explaining that it wasn’t really all that nice of a word (and then silently cursing herself upon witnessing the gleam within his eye as it dawned upon him that this new word was a word which they didn’t want him to know or say), and that his mother wouldn’t like it all that much if she heard him using it. That, of course, only inspired him onward, a cascade of sing-song epithets now parading out of his mouth. She finally gave up, and just ignored him for a while, at which point, she assumed that he’d lost interest. Truth be told, this new class of word intrigued him, but he saw that after so much repetition, it seemed to lose some of its efficacy. Well, that, and his mouth had begun to tire. A year later, an incident occurred involving this very word and his grandfather wherein he nearly caused a major vehicular collision, but that is a tale for another time.

Having been ambulatory for quite some time, and having also come to terms with the limitations of his toddling form, little Tex had decided that it was time to put aside the pastimes of his infancy and set about conquering the world. As with most of his plans for total conquest, it seems that he did not take fully into account the sheer mass of resistance which he was sure to face. It was logical to him (as it ever would remain) that he knew better than most everybody, and it would be far simpler, and infinitely less painful, would the universe just do him the simple favor of genuflecting at his uttered will.  And, while the universe itself may have been inclined to hand him the reins, it seemed that mankind most certainly did not share that same desire. More and more he was punished for demanding that which he felt must surely have been his (as he had seen it, and therefore wanted it), and frankly, that level of unending negativity was his own undoing.

Whereas he had been known, just scant months before, to be a personable sort of fellow, he now could barely be taken out of his own house, for fear that he might attack someone. Not with his fists, of course, as even the young man knew that he possessed not nearly enough upper body strength for it to be worth the expenditure of effort, but with his teeth, which were, though diminutive in appearance, just as strong as anyone around him, and his jaw capable of wielding them with preternatural speed and force. It wasn’t that he went out of his way to sink his teeth into random passersby, but if they were foolish or inconsiderate enough to violate the no-fly zone of his personal space (defined here, for clarity, as anything within his range of motion), he made sure that they wouldn’t be so flippant about it as to try again. This worked fine for the boy, as he had grown quite weary of interpersonal relations, but it was somewhat vexing to his mother, who was unable to remain a hermit and slave to his many whims.

But, like all good tales, this too came to an end when he finally managed to bite the wrong person at precisely the wrong time. His grandfather had warned him away from such an attack, and, out of thanks for having given him those delicious leather slippers, the boy had respected their uneasy truce. But one day, he decided that there was nothing so offensive to him as a rule which stood unbroken, and he marched solemnly upon his dear old grandpa. Again came the warning against an action which he could not hope to win, but little Batmart had girded up his loins, and committed himself to battle. He darted haphazardly within the giant’s reach and managed to land a clean shot upon his hand. Had he been a student of history, he might have drawn parallels to World War II, and the United States’ response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Had he been a more active listener, he would have heard the steely tone devoid of compromise in his grandfather’s warning. Had he been the master tactician which he believed himself to be, he would have delayed his potty training for at least another year.

His grandfather’s counterattack was as swift as it was precise, and, mere seconds after he had notched another victory upon the scored linoleum of the kitchen floor, he was handed his most decisive defeat. It would not be for another dozen years that he would have to face the shame of being on the losing team of such a one-sided victory, but in those wars, the stakes were raised, and all bans against chemical weaponry thrown firmly to the wind (I speak, of course, of the trials of adolescence, and first loves, wherein pheromones are finally introduced into the mix, acting as nerve agents on the minds of all young men). For a moment, he stood where he was, time having stopped in a moment of sheer shocked panic. His grandfather had never hit him! Never! It was completely out of character for the man, and, he told himself, there had been no way for him to have predicted it.

His defensive counter came into action just a moment later, sparing him the necessity of having to consciously call up tears. It wasn’t the pain which had caused the boy to weep, though he was certainly willing to admit that it was not a sensation which he cared for all that much. Nor was it the seeming betrayal of someone he had considered dear to him, for he knew grownups to be treacherous and disturbingly obsessed with carrying out injustices upon him such as bedtimes, broccoli and baths. In his mind, what had truly wounded him was that he hadn’t seen it coming. As the tears continued rolling down his cheeks, and his cries rose in pitch and harmonized with themselves as they bounced around the hallway at right angles, he tried his best to digest this utter failure. Perhaps he would have to find another way, he dared considering, in that dark moment.

An hour later, he had buried his failure deep inside, and, from all outward appearances, seemed to have forgotten the entire incident, save for a small flinch at the sound of his grandfather’s voice, or how he seemed to give everyone a wide berth as he passed by. Appeasement hadn’t worked, and even if it had, he knew that he simply didn’t have the requisite energy for it to be a seriously implemented strategy, nor had direct conflict seemed to work, either. If there was only some other way, he thought furiously to himself, some way to combine the two: launch an assault with the hostility of unadulterated aggression beneath the passive camouflage of acquiescence.

Around the same time, his mother had been forced to find a new prison to hold him while she was away, as his last warden had insisted that he leave, as he had developed a tendency to share intimately his frustrations with anyone around him, which, if allowed to continue, could cost the warden her precious license to operate her pre-Kinder hoosegow. The bitter sting of defeat still lingered in his mouth (as well as firmly upon his tender buttock), and he was determined to find a more sinister, and altogether safer method of attack. There were weeks of trial and error, and a seemingly unending parade of humiliations visited upon him, but eventually, he came up with a plan.

To read the next installment, click here

The following is an excerpt of:

Hiraeth: 

The Boy Who Dreamed and the Big Bad Wolf Which He Became

By Tex Batmart

If you haven’t been with us from the start, check out Chapter One here

Interlude: On Fatherhood

It has been observed by this author that the lack of a father does not necessarily preclude the healthy and otherwise normal development of a child, nor the does presence of said paternal force ensure that a child will turn out all right in the end. And, though his childhood was spent in the absence of his father, our protagonist did have many father figures from which to pick and choose. As we will see in later chapters, however, it was this void that he felt so keenly as child which helped to shape him into the man which he would later become. Perhaps it is for the best that he never witnessed the failure of his parents’ marriage, as walking through its aftermath was certainly more than enough. But one cannot help but wonder if it mightn’t have allowed him to lower his expectations, even if just a very little.

When the time came for his own attempt at fatherhood, he found himself spectacularly unprepared for the task at hand, though it had been one of the many goals to which he’d driven himself to attain. In those times, when his patience was long expired, and he seemed at the very precipice of tears, he would think back to the kind, and gentle natures of the men who’d helped him along, pleading with his memories for any sort of guidance. Ultimately, however, he came to understand that their successes had been predicated upon a sort of inexhaustible supply of good humor and delicate care, as well as a basic understanding of simple human interaction, something which he knew that he could never match, and so, instead of standing upon the shoulders of these great men, he fell silent in their shadows.

When he was a child, however, it was all much simpler for him. Without an understanding of complex human mating rituals, the nuance of “boyfriend” was beyond him, and so every man who wooed his mother was immediately interrogated as to whether he would propose to her. This, of course, was a natural reaction to the programs which he watched on television by his mother’s side, as well as an upbringing within the constructs of Traditional Family Values. It never occurred to him that these men might want something anything less than forever, because, even from an early age, he knew the words, “’Til death do we part.”

Of course, he also was quite interested in obtaining a younger brother, one whom he could command around the house and force to do his bidding, and, failing that, someone to fall back upon should the need for a well-placed scapegoat suddenly arise. He’d heard conflicting stories of how little siblings were most commonly generated, but, having ruled out extraordinarily large birds, and vegetable gardens, he deduced that it was something which required a mommy and a daddy, and of these two necessary ingredients, he had but just the one. In later life, he would brush aside his secret desire to have had a younger sibling, and instead insist that he had only been worried about the happiness of his mother. Alas, it is this author’s misfortune to relay that our hero remained an only child, his mother having never chosen to remarry (though he was to learn later that marriage wasn’t entirely integral to the production of the successive generation), and his dreams of brotherhood had to be transferred to his two best friends, both of whom were older (by a month or two), and also both called Dave.

To read the next installment, click here

The following is an excerpt of:

Hiraeth: 

The Boy Who Dreamed and the Big Bad Wolf Which He Became

By Tex Batmart

If you haven’t been with us from the start, check out Chapter One here

Chapter Two: Daycare Boogaloo

While for most children, their second year of life is tenderly referred to as the “terrible twos”, it has been noted that our protagonist did not suffer the same fate. Rather, it was at this point (and, according to some sources, only at this point) in his life, that he was outgoing, engaging, and otherwise extroverted. There has been some speculation as to why he postponed the outward stirrings of rebellion, but it is the opinion of this author that he preferred to keep his enemies off-guard, and had overheard somewhere of the strategy of homicide by pleasantry.

Ultimately, of course, he discovered that this friendliness gained him absolutely nothing beyond the expectation of continued good behavior, and by his third year, he had almost entirely abandoned this tactic, except in the most dire of emergencies, or when he really, really wanted something.

Records from this time are few are far between, but it was during his second year that he decided to liberate himself from the tyranny of diapers. It has been reported that it was most likely a combination of an attempt to emulate the older kids by which he was now constantly surrounded, and an extreme dislike of the discomfort of carrying on while trapped within the confines of a soiled and clinging diaper. Of course, the real reason he began to utilize the facilities was, in fact, a two-pronged method of attack: The first, of course, was to continue in his campaign to gain the (foolish) trust of those in some position of authority above him (or so they continued to believe).

The other was far more devious and subtle: by ditching the padded protection which his Pampers could provide, he would be able to lull the maternal unit into a false sense of security, a weakness which he could then exploit at a moment of his choosing, by declaring a state of gastro-intestinal emergency, requiring a complete and total cancellation of all plans which she might have chosen to pursue.

But, aside from laying the groundwork for eventual domination and subjugation of those wills weaker than his own, there were two events which he would carry with him far past the time when every other memory had long since faded into nothing more stories told around the fire at family reunions and other opportunities for his mother to use his life as nothing more than a tired and tried old punchline. The first of these was arguably the least important. As soon as he had potty-trained himself, his mother took him to partake in his very first swimming lesson.

He wouldn’t be able to retell much of this in future years, but the image of vaulted wooden ceilings somewhere in between a longhouse and cathedral, and being completely surrounded by a deep blue sea, pleasantly warm, but slightly off-putting in its aroma, stuck with him powerfully. He managed to find a center, within himself, of peace in his deepest terror. In future years, when this memory resurfaced, he would cling to it as some sort of proof of concept that such a state could be found once more, though he was never to wholly recreate it, no matter how diligently he endeavored.

The second memory, however, stuck with him much as flaming napalm is wont to do with skin. It was an afternoon. Overcast, if the memory is to be believed. The young boy, his life still measured by many in months, plays in the living room while the black and white television airs something which doesn’t terribly interest him. There is a knock upon the door. This, in itself, is not unusual, as his great-grandmother who lives next door is a frequent visitor.

He glances with the indifference of someone who has not known sorrow at his mother as she opens the curtain to see who is outside. He knows that momentarily, he and his mother will have a visitor, and he will have to be quiet, or pick up his toys, or have to perform some little song and dance (quite literally, I might add) to entertain whomever has decided to drop by. Aside from a moment of discomfort at the notion of an unplanned performance, he turns back to his toys, and tries his hardest to push the unpleasantries from his mind. But then something unexpected happens.

His mother slams the curtain shut, as much as fabric sliding upon a rod may actually be slammed, and scoops him to standing, pushing him quickly, though not entirely roughly, toward his bedroom door. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s never seen her act like this before. She opens the door and scoots him inside. He wonders for a moment if he’s done something wrong, as this timeout is coming from out of nowhere. She then speaks to him, “I want you to press yourself up against your door as hard as you can, okay?” She looks over her shoulder briefly, then turns back to him. “There’s a bad man at the door.”

She closes him in his room, and he does as he is told, listening for any clue as to what is going on. He cannot make out the words, but he easily recognizes his mother’s tone, for it is the same one which he uses when he’s trying to get something which she has no intention of allowing him to have. Only catching snippets as the sun begins to sink, he manages to make out “You can’t be here,” and “I’m going to call the Sheriff.”

Images of bandits in black hats began racing through his brain, for sheriffs still rode horses and all bad men were easily identifiable even in shades of grey. There was then silence, and the sound of the phone’s rotary being dialed. Now he could only hear his mother’s scared and broken tone as she was speaking to somebody.

Some time must have passed, as the sun had all but disappeared from behind the solid grey sky outside. He hears another knock upon his door, and then his grandfather’s voice. There is some more talk, quieter than the young child would have preferred, but his mother’s voice sounds calmer now. As he begins slipping through the cracks between boredom and sleep, a raised voice stirs him back to waking, “You can’t come here,” his grandfather booms, “The Sheriff is on his way.”

It is then that the boy finally succumbs to sleep, his anxiety having thoroughly exhausted him. When he wakes up again, there is no more talk of what had happened, and the only thing which he remembers for the next few years is an image of a man on horseback chasing after some villain of the week.

In the years to come, he pieces together the story of that day, mostly in surprised reaction to the fact that he can remember any of it in the first place. Since their divorce, his mother had gone to a judge to have a restraining order placed upon her ex-husband. Apparently, during the final months of their marriage (and the first months of our hero’s embryonic life), he had attempted to strangle her, trying to end both her life, and the life of their child which grew within her.

When he showed up on her doorstep that autumn afternoon, his mother did her best to send him on his way. Seeing that he wouldn’t leave, she then placed a call to her father so that she might not have to face this threat alone. By the time the child’s grandfather had arrived, his father had taken his leave. Later, though, he returned once more, and this time did not leave until the sheriff took him away.

The lesson which our young protagonist gleaned from all of this was that his mother considered his father to be a “bad man.” Of course, this conclusion would not be arrived at until he had reached the venerable age of ten years old, but even without all of the pertinent information, this incident would color and continue shaping him throughout his entire life, as he attempted to come to terms with who he was, and how to balance just how much of his father he might carry within him.

To read the next installment, click here

The following is an excerpt of:

Hiraeth: 

The Boy Who Dreamed and the Big Bad Wolf Which He Became

By Tex Batmart

Chapter One

Our story begins, as most stories do, on a storm-soaked December afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. Hang on. Statistically speaking, almost no stories begin like that. Nevertheless, our tale must carry on. I suppose we could go back a ways, and briefly tell of the love between a man and woman which endured nearly the requisite number of minutes for our hero to be conceived, but that is another tale entirely, and not one which this author is particularly interested in retelling. Suffice it to say, that when our hero came into this world, he did so into an already broken home, the vessel of a fading, jaded love which a bruised and beaten woman had infused with all her hopes and dreams for an uncertain future.

Our hero, of course, knew nothing of this, knew nothing much at all, save for the newly-gleaned understanding of the differences between dark and light, warm and chill, weightlessness and gravity, and a rapidly developing preference between the lot of them. Gone was the soothing rhythm of his mother’s beating heart. Gone was the safety and security of an existence at the center of his own personal universe. I am convinced that he never fully recovered from these losses.

Within an hour of residency within the nursery, he was returned to his mother under the pretext of having incited a neonatal revolution. Even minutes old, he didn’t take too kindly to disappointment. Life, such as it was, had been thrust upon him, and he didn’t much care for it, truth be told. No one had warned him that things would be so jarring, so cold and desiccating, for the first time in his brief (measured by the pulsing beatings of his heart) life, and as he filled his belly, and fell, troubled, into sleep, he had no idea what it was that he would do, or how he might come to repay these slights visited upon him during his moments of vulnerability.

For the first year of his life, he and his mother stayed with her parents, as she struggled to make sense of her own broken life. A failed marriage, single motherhood, and the shame of the necessity of returning to the house in which her parents had made their home (and lasting marriage, she bitterly chastised herself), did not sit well with her. For the child, however, it was a wonderland of near-constant attention from interesting people. What he loved more than anything, however, was a pair of leather slippers which had previously belonged to his grandfather. I say previously, because as soon as he could crawl, the child made his way over to them, and began to gum them into submission in a release of his frustration at having several bony protrusions slowly tear their way free of his still tender gums. His mother was always snatching away his slippers, but the child never failed to find them once again, as long as no one was looking.

It was during this time, that he made his first friend. Having grown tired of the removal of his playthings, and this new vocalization, “No!”, he came to befriend a flower-print couch which he was occasionally imprisoned upon. It never said much, but always seemed to be there for him, listening for hours on end, without interruption, as he practiced his nascent idiomancy. Oh, the tales of tiny victories and heartbreaking injustices which he imparted to his dual-natured cellmate and prison. Inevitably, however, his sentence was commuted, and he was separated from his friend and captor. Actually, as memory serves (though it rarely does), it was around the time when he had mastered his plan of escape that he was whisked away. Normally, he was allowed brief moments outside of his cell to exercise himself upon the pea green shag carpeting of the prison yard, but this time, he was taken somewhere new, somewhere his couch and confidant could never follow. Worse than that, he would soon come to understand that it would now be just he and his mother living together. The final indignity, of course, the event which would set him upon his path and remind him of cooed promises made moments after birth, was his enrollment in something he once overheard described as “daycare.”

To read the next installment, click here