Simon on A Rucksack Full of Rocks.
"This story is a work of fiction, as are the characters featured, but somewhere along the way, somewhere on my journey I have come across very similar events, so it is fair to say that A Rucksack Full of Rocks must be, at some point, a dramatisation. Either way it contains upsetting scenes, but one I hope some people learn from."
The kid, well teenager now so neither man nor boy, but either way, the kid sits on his bed and reads. He can sense it even before he hears it. His ears fill with the sound of his name being shouted up the stairs, from the voice down those very same stairs. It is like hearing a troll under the bridge.
He puts his book down, stands up and groans at it all, groans at the inevitability of what is about to happen. It is a shame that he doesn’t see that once this is all over, it will all be different. If he did see it, he would smile a bit more. He doesn’t see himself at twenty years of age, swinging a bat against a ball, dropping that bat and making the run that makes the people cheer. He will do though, he will see it, just not yet.
He makes his way down the stairs, the threadbare carpet picking at his feet as he becomes aware of the figure waiting for him. A man cast in a suit for credibility and respect, yet his actions will always prove otherwise and so the kid shrugs his shoulders. It is what it is.
The figure casts a big shadow over the boy as he passes him into the family room, and this amuses him. The name given to it. The family room. It is ironic in a cruel way, as many a time he has walked through here like a ghost, ignored by parents, mocked by siblings.
The big shadow follows him into the room and shuts the door. The effect of slamming it is poor, more of a waft than anything worth noting, because like the carpet, the door has no value. Not much anyway.
Of course, there is the chance for an explanation, but how does one explain a silly sibling rivalry? Stupid, childish words, thrown in petty anger? He tries though, but it is in vain. His siblings will deny it and they will be believed. His words will fall on deaf ears. There is nothing in the world he can say that will prevent what is about to happen.
The kid will transcend this though. He doesn’t know it now of course otherwise there is no point to this story. But he will. Years later he drives through the city centre after another successful day on the field. He will gulp in his success and be grateful for it because it wasn’t an easy road, but what success is? Again, it is what it is.
He sees the other three faces, mother and two siblings. Mother doesn’t meet his gaze, although in a few minutes, she will try, but it will be fruitless. Her attempts are as cheap as the carpet and door. She may regret this moment in the years after or she may not. Either way, it won’t make any difference to what happens after.
The big shadow grabs the kid, who by the way, weighs eight stone if he is carrying a rucksack full of rocks on his back. The big shadow grabs him by the throat and slams him into the wall.
“Tell it how it is,” he demands and the siblings yell, “Yeah tell it how it is!” And the kid tries, but who listens to words like his? No one in this room, that’s for sure. So, the inevitable becomes just that, the inevitable.
The first hit is taken by the left ear, but the stubborn kid shrugs it off. He has another one. This angers the shadow, the big shadow, who many years later on won’t even remember this exchange. He will sit alone at a bar, sipping tepid beer whilst a ball game plays out on the television below. He won’t even notice who is at bat.
The big shadow’s next hit is to the face and the kid hears the mother scream that there shouldn’t be any blows to there. No sir, not to the face, just the body. The kid looks over the big shadow’s shoulder and though his damaged ear won’t let him hear the words, he sees the mother’s mouth forming them, and he can guess what they are.
Afterwards, sitting alone with his ‘punishment’ he will count the gravity of those words. His own mother not stopping the madness but pleading for damage limitation.
Later on, the mother will seek her own new life, a life maybe in a church, maybe somewhere else. She will leave the big shadow when it’s too late, but…
The siblings laugh. One in truth, the other nervously. See, the kid is bleeding now, only through his nose, but it is still a disturbing sight for one sibling to see another’s blood pouring down their face.
That sibling will grow up to drive a taxi and be damn good at it. Real good at making fares and tips and going home to their own family. Maybe days out and why not? Little bit of this, a little bit of that. So why not indeed?
Nobody knows what happened to the other sibling. Just up and left a few years later after the incident in the family room, never to be heard of again, although that can’t have been the reason the sibling vanished. The family room incident was not a one-off. No, this was the regular in this household, certainly for this kid.
In the meantime, the big shadow throws a few half-hearted body shots before the mother eventually pulls him away. Time for a little shot of something, Mother tells the big shadow and reaches for the bottle.
The kid acknowledges his time in the family room is over and makes his way back up the stairs. He is hurt but not broken. Wincing in pain he picks up his book and returns to his page. He laughs at the funny bits, cries at the sad bits and goddamn it if he doesn’t wince at the hard bits. Things are as they should be.
Years later, not many years but some, he will be picked up. Spotted if you like. He will sign bits of paper with men in suits, men who will guide him to success and that’s okay. He will thrive, he will entertain, and his story will reach many. He will no longer weigh just eight stone carrying a Rucksack Full of Rocks, his Bag of Bricks is enough, just enough.
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