Post by Kyle Shane on Sept 25, 2017 18:06:09 GMT -5
The car ride had been full of sullen silence.
He found himself at quite a few opportunities opening his mouth to say something, ask the kid if he liked Call of Duty or Yu-Gi-Oh or any of a million things, but it occurred to him that those were things he liked and he had no idea what an eight or nine year old boy these days would like, and there remained an awkward divide between them. All the way down to a little, out of the way spot in the backroads of Kentucky. This was the setup of a thousand horror movies, he knew. Distant father trying to reconnect with his son on a road trip while they're driving out into the middle of nowhere.
"So, were there - are there any girls you like at your grade - your school" he stuttered with none of his assured smooth delivery, and immediately kicked himself. And for the first time in eighteen miles, Johnny had looked over at him.
A round, pale face that mimicked his own, his mother's dark hair, and clear blue eyes that glittered with abject pre-adolescent smolder. His mother had been lost to him not even a month ago, and he was withdrawn. But he carried a bitter, spiteful world weariness to him that made him seem older. And he looked over with all of the disdain a child that doesn't like you can muster. "What are we doing out in the middle of Cornfuck county Kentucky anyway."
"Hey! Language" Kyle said by rote, because it was something he felt he had to say as a dad now although he really wasn't sure why, "And if you want to know, there's this Harvest Fest in the town of Hangtown, I thought we'd check it out, c'mon buddy, it'll be fun."
The little boy's small lips had pursed together, "That doesn't sound like fun." Kyle had started to say something, but he felt a rising prickling in the back of his throat and tamped it down. The constant sass was cute at first but he was trying and the kid just wouldn't play ball. And the irony wasn't lost on him that in his youth he had regarded his old man as an enemy, but was he ever as hard to reach as this? He let a snarl melt from his face and took a breath, thinking, Eric, I have a new appreciation for your patience.
The festival didn't improve the bonding experience. A few vendors had set up in a ring near the corn fields, and the two boys stood next to a well. "C'mon, son, eat your corn dog," Kyle pushed him, since the damn fair food was kind of outrageously expensive to buy. The denizens of the fair were looking curiously at the outsiders.
"No, it sucks," Johnny said, letting it drop to the ground with the piercingly blase disinterest that had categorized him so far. "This all sucks. This town is creepy and the old people keep looking at us."
"I just- will ya come on, kid, I'm trying here," Kyle growled. The boy shrugged, whatever. Kyle led him by the shoulders to the split-rail arch that led to the corn maze. "Look, this might be fun for a little while, right?"
The sun was setting and the corn rustled in the wind. As the light faded from the sky, the purple and orange overcast was giving way to night overhead. The entrance to the corn maze was lit by lanterns, and there was a kindly old woman, like the kind you would see at a church bake sale, selling tickets. He indicated the two of them, and she was quite cheerful as she gave them each a stub.
"Would you like a map, dear?" she said, an enigmatic smile on her face. "Wouldn't like to get lost in the corn after night falls."
His son turned his face up to glare at him, eyes screaming that this was terribly stupid. Kyle made a show of taking the map from the lady. "Yes, thank you. See, Johnny, when someone does something like this for you, you thank them. Come on, this is a learning experience." And he directed them into the maze.
It didn't take them long to get lost, all in all.
He was unfolding the map. He squinted. Some tiki torches had been set up on the paths, but trying to decipher this thing by the light of a torch was simply not happening. It was all too obtuse. He couldn't find his way through it. Through any of it. He wanted to yell, to curse whatever god had led him here to Cornfuck Hangtown Kentucky. More specifically, he wanted to yell out to what had led him here, to this moment of his life. Why had he even gone on this trip? He could delude himself that it was for bonding, but he had never felt less sure of his actions. This was a whole new arena for him to play in, one he felt woefully underequipped for. And Johnny sat on the muddy path in his shorts, poking a stick into it and drawing with the end of it.
He cursed. He cursed Isabel, for going and dying on him, and leaving behind this kid that combined the best of her and the worst of him. A kid he was in no way prepared to manage. He felt wholly unprepared for the concept of adulting and fatherhood, and it stoked indignation and anger deep within him. None of this was his fault. Why did he have to pay for it? He shut his eyes, and thought of him and Isabel, sitting on their hill.
"C'mon, kid, let's get out of this field," he said, roughly, bending down to grab Johnny's arm.
"Hey, let go!" his son barked, and pulled his arm back. That triggered Kyle's less sensible side and he pulled the kid to his feet, "I said let's go."
The two of them had an awkward little dance until the boy shoved him. "Get off me!"
Kyle bent down, a dark twinkle in his eye and he grabbed him roughly yet companionably around the shoulder "Listen to me you little brat, I have been trying all afternoon, but I don't know what you want. I try, and I try, but I can't fucking please you. There was only one person who knew you good enough to be the good parent, and she's rotting in the ground now." Johnny's face became slack with dismay and hurt. But still, he kept going on, savagely, not caring what damage he caused in the moment. "But you are going to listen to me because I am the parent now, like it or not. So now you're going to come with me out of this maze."
"No. I'm not going anywhere with you, you're a dickhole," Johnny said, pushing away. "And this corn field sucks and this road trip sucks, and the whole world sucks, and I just want her to come back... I just want her to..." his face crumbled, and he broke out in tears. "I want my mom."
And he ran off into the corn field.
Kyle stood, totally at a loss, in complete shock. Fuck. He was so rude to the little kid, and he knew he said all that shit intentionally to hurt him, because that was one of the nightmares, because that was one of the only parenting techniques he knew. Well, congratulations, shithead, you're Eric now.
The boy had fled laterally through the walls of the corn maze. Corn rustled and parted as someone cut through the thick stalks. He felt the cold drop of panic set in as he pushed stalks aside, and then he realized unless he went into the corn after Johnny he might never find him. Then what kind of father would he be? His first real outing trying to bond with the kid and he pushes him away and gets him lost in some horror show maze. Fuck. Fuck! He ran into the field. Strands and stalks whipped at him like vines, and he sucked in a breath again and again. His vision was obscured. The dark and the oppressive, ever cloying vegetation was on all sides, it was everywhere he could see. He was lost in a sea of harvest.
Fuck, he cursed, and now he really did want to cry out to the heavens. He turned this way and that, but as he had eschewed the carefully maintained rows of the maze for the middle of the field, he had no idea where he was now, or indeed if he was even on any beaten track. He couldn't detect bent stalks or the wake of where a boy about four feet high might have pushed through. He couldn't see anything.
And that was when the bearded horror pushed it's way through the rows.
"...Grimm."
The Hangtown Horror regarded him silently, with a kind of amusement and little malice. And he felt a rush of wanting to explain himself to him, this stone-faced specter, this harbinger of many complex touchstones in his life. Why he was here in Hangtown, how he had gotten lost among the corn, the little boy he was searching for. But he felt foolish and inadequate in the face of that gaze and thought maybe it was better to say nothing.
"People don't stay too long in the cornfields," the grim specter told him, simply, yet effectively.
"Yeah, right, thanks for that, Devil's Reject," Kyle said, snarking despite his heart pounding in fear. "You haven't seen a little kid running through the corn, have you? Small, snot nose, looks like me, possibly crying, never mind why..."
Grimm didn't answer. Instead, he turned shoulder, and he began to push his way back through the corn stalks.
"Thank you so much for your help," he grumbled, then a thought came to him, seeing as deep down he knew he might run into Grimm as the impetus for this trip, "You know we really need to talk about you and me teaming up on Trauma this week... partner!"
If Grimm paused fractionally, he didn't show any sign of acknowledgement as he retreated back through the corn. Kyle gritted his teeth, now wanting to lash out and put his fist into something.
He turned around, surveying the corn field. Night had fallen, and aside from the orange glow of a few tiki torches among the cut edges of the maze all was dark. He tried to fight back the despair he felt as well as the existential terror. He made a steadfast promise to Izzy that they would not get lost out in some stupid field. And as he scanned the rows of the maze around him, he perked his ears, and he listened. What he should have been doing anyway.
The kid wanted his mother. He was scared. And he was out there, alone.
At length, he heard the crying.
He moved in that direction, shoving stalks aside, and letting the corn snap back on him and hit him as he came through. He felt the warmth of mud splashing on him, and he smelled the oil from the torch. And there, in a little circular clearing, he saw him. He looked so lost, and so alone.
He felt his heart break a little, at the kid's tears. "I miss her too, kid," he said, with as much honest and heartfelt emotion as he could.
Johnny whirled, and the lost boy ran into his arms, embracing him in the first honest way that they had all trip.
"C'mon, kid," Kyle said, holding out his hand. At length, the trembling boy took it.
He found himself at quite a few opportunities opening his mouth to say something, ask the kid if he liked Call of Duty or Yu-Gi-Oh or any of a million things, but it occurred to him that those were things he liked and he had no idea what an eight or nine year old boy these days would like, and there remained an awkward divide between them. All the way down to a little, out of the way spot in the backroads of Kentucky. This was the setup of a thousand horror movies, he knew. Distant father trying to reconnect with his son on a road trip while they're driving out into the middle of nowhere.
"So, were there - are there any girls you like at your grade - your school" he stuttered with none of his assured smooth delivery, and immediately kicked himself. And for the first time in eighteen miles, Johnny had looked over at him.
A round, pale face that mimicked his own, his mother's dark hair, and clear blue eyes that glittered with abject pre-adolescent smolder. His mother had been lost to him not even a month ago, and he was withdrawn. But he carried a bitter, spiteful world weariness to him that made him seem older. And he looked over with all of the disdain a child that doesn't like you can muster. "What are we doing out in the middle of Cornfuck county Kentucky anyway."
"Hey! Language" Kyle said by rote, because it was something he felt he had to say as a dad now although he really wasn't sure why, "And if you want to know, there's this Harvest Fest in the town of Hangtown, I thought we'd check it out, c'mon buddy, it'll be fun."
The little boy's small lips had pursed together, "That doesn't sound like fun." Kyle had started to say something, but he felt a rising prickling in the back of his throat and tamped it down. The constant sass was cute at first but he was trying and the kid just wouldn't play ball. And the irony wasn't lost on him that in his youth he had regarded his old man as an enemy, but was he ever as hard to reach as this? He let a snarl melt from his face and took a breath, thinking, Eric, I have a new appreciation for your patience.
The festival didn't improve the bonding experience. A few vendors had set up in a ring near the corn fields, and the two boys stood next to a well. "C'mon, son, eat your corn dog," Kyle pushed him, since the damn fair food was kind of outrageously expensive to buy. The denizens of the fair were looking curiously at the outsiders.
"No, it sucks," Johnny said, letting it drop to the ground with the piercingly blase disinterest that had categorized him so far. "This all sucks. This town is creepy and the old people keep looking at us."
"I just- will ya come on, kid, I'm trying here," Kyle growled. The boy shrugged, whatever. Kyle led him by the shoulders to the split-rail arch that led to the corn maze. "Look, this might be fun for a little while, right?"
The sun was setting and the corn rustled in the wind. As the light faded from the sky, the purple and orange overcast was giving way to night overhead. The entrance to the corn maze was lit by lanterns, and there was a kindly old woman, like the kind you would see at a church bake sale, selling tickets. He indicated the two of them, and she was quite cheerful as she gave them each a stub.
"Would you like a map, dear?" she said, an enigmatic smile on her face. "Wouldn't like to get lost in the corn after night falls."
His son turned his face up to glare at him, eyes screaming that this was terribly stupid. Kyle made a show of taking the map from the lady. "Yes, thank you. See, Johnny, when someone does something like this for you, you thank them. Come on, this is a learning experience." And he directed them into the maze.
It didn't take them long to get lost, all in all.
He was unfolding the map. He squinted. Some tiki torches had been set up on the paths, but trying to decipher this thing by the light of a torch was simply not happening. It was all too obtuse. He couldn't find his way through it. Through any of it. He wanted to yell, to curse whatever god had led him here to Cornfuck Hangtown Kentucky. More specifically, he wanted to yell out to what had led him here, to this moment of his life. Why had he even gone on this trip? He could delude himself that it was for bonding, but he had never felt less sure of his actions. This was a whole new arena for him to play in, one he felt woefully underequipped for. And Johnny sat on the muddy path in his shorts, poking a stick into it and drawing with the end of it.
He cursed. He cursed Isabel, for going and dying on him, and leaving behind this kid that combined the best of her and the worst of him. A kid he was in no way prepared to manage. He felt wholly unprepared for the concept of adulting and fatherhood, and it stoked indignation and anger deep within him. None of this was his fault. Why did he have to pay for it? He shut his eyes, and thought of him and Isabel, sitting on their hill.
"C'mon, kid, let's get out of this field," he said, roughly, bending down to grab Johnny's arm.
"Hey, let go!" his son barked, and pulled his arm back. That triggered Kyle's less sensible side and he pulled the kid to his feet, "I said let's go."
The two of them had an awkward little dance until the boy shoved him. "Get off me!"
Kyle bent down, a dark twinkle in his eye and he grabbed him roughly yet companionably around the shoulder "Listen to me you little brat, I have been trying all afternoon, but I don't know what you want. I try, and I try, but I can't fucking please you. There was only one person who knew you good enough to be the good parent, and she's rotting in the ground now." Johnny's face became slack with dismay and hurt. But still, he kept going on, savagely, not caring what damage he caused in the moment. "But you are going to listen to me because I am the parent now, like it or not. So now you're going to come with me out of this maze."
"No. I'm not going anywhere with you, you're a dickhole," Johnny said, pushing away. "And this corn field sucks and this road trip sucks, and the whole world sucks, and I just want her to come back... I just want her to..." his face crumbled, and he broke out in tears. "I want my mom."
And he ran off into the corn field.
Kyle stood, totally at a loss, in complete shock. Fuck. He was so rude to the little kid, and he knew he said all that shit intentionally to hurt him, because that was one of the nightmares, because that was one of the only parenting techniques he knew. Well, congratulations, shithead, you're Eric now.
The boy had fled laterally through the walls of the corn maze. Corn rustled and parted as someone cut through the thick stalks. He felt the cold drop of panic set in as he pushed stalks aside, and then he realized unless he went into the corn after Johnny he might never find him. Then what kind of father would he be? His first real outing trying to bond with the kid and he pushes him away and gets him lost in some horror show maze. Fuck. Fuck! He ran into the field. Strands and stalks whipped at him like vines, and he sucked in a breath again and again. His vision was obscured. The dark and the oppressive, ever cloying vegetation was on all sides, it was everywhere he could see. He was lost in a sea of harvest.
Fuck, he cursed, and now he really did want to cry out to the heavens. He turned this way and that, but as he had eschewed the carefully maintained rows of the maze for the middle of the field, he had no idea where he was now, or indeed if he was even on any beaten track. He couldn't detect bent stalks or the wake of where a boy about four feet high might have pushed through. He couldn't see anything.
And that was when the bearded horror pushed it's way through the rows.
"...Grimm."
The Hangtown Horror regarded him silently, with a kind of amusement and little malice. And he felt a rush of wanting to explain himself to him, this stone-faced specter, this harbinger of many complex touchstones in his life. Why he was here in Hangtown, how he had gotten lost among the corn, the little boy he was searching for. But he felt foolish and inadequate in the face of that gaze and thought maybe it was better to say nothing.
"People don't stay too long in the cornfields," the grim specter told him, simply, yet effectively.
"Yeah, right, thanks for that, Devil's Reject," Kyle said, snarking despite his heart pounding in fear. "You haven't seen a little kid running through the corn, have you? Small, snot nose, looks like me, possibly crying, never mind why..."
Grimm didn't answer. Instead, he turned shoulder, and he began to push his way back through the corn stalks.
"Thank you so much for your help," he grumbled, then a thought came to him, seeing as deep down he knew he might run into Grimm as the impetus for this trip, "You know we really need to talk about you and me teaming up on Trauma this week... partner!"
If Grimm paused fractionally, he didn't show any sign of acknowledgement as he retreated back through the corn. Kyle gritted his teeth, now wanting to lash out and put his fist into something.
He turned around, surveying the corn field. Night had fallen, and aside from the orange glow of a few tiki torches among the cut edges of the maze all was dark. He tried to fight back the despair he felt as well as the existential terror. He made a steadfast promise to Izzy that they would not get lost out in some stupid field. And as he scanned the rows of the maze around him, he perked his ears, and he listened. What he should have been doing anyway.
The kid wanted his mother. He was scared. And he was out there, alone.
At length, he heard the crying.
He moved in that direction, shoving stalks aside, and letting the corn snap back on him and hit him as he came through. He felt the warmth of mud splashing on him, and he smelled the oil from the torch. And there, in a little circular clearing, he saw him. He looked so lost, and so alone.
He felt his heart break a little, at the kid's tears. "I miss her too, kid," he said, with as much honest and heartfelt emotion as he could.
Johnny whirled, and the lost boy ran into his arms, embracing him in the first honest way that they had all trip.
"C'mon, kid," Kyle said, holding out his hand. At length, the trembling boy took it.
