First Draft Chapter 33

No, I didn’t loose any toes. It turns out they weren’t that sadistic after all. I got a nasty gash on the side of my foot, but that was it. Even that healed up in a couple of days.
The truth, even though I’m embarrassed to admit it, was that I fainted from fear. Although, in my defense, I like to think that there were other factors involved. For instance, the series of sleepless nights that proceeded the even I’m sure didn’t help. [Go back and make some nights more sleepless]. Nor, I’m sure, did the fact that I had been running at full speed from the moment I got up without a touch of food or drink. But, I would be lying if I didn’t say that in those last few moments of consciousness I truly believed my little toe was a goner. And beneath the fear for my own safety, was a fear for the safety of my friends, aggravated by the gunshots nearby. Both combined to send my heart racing.
For some reason or other, they had left me in the room after I had fainted. They had even put a pillow under my head, and draped a blanket over me, although I doubt this was done out of genuine sympathy. They probably thought it would be a funny thing to do, and made jokes the whole time about how they were giving the baby his blanket. The old table was not the most comfortable surface to lay on, but I do think that the pillow and the blanket helped to contribute to the extraordinary long time I slept for. Of course, when I first awoke I had no idea how long I had been sleeping. The room was with out windows and was pitch black inside.
As I came to consciousness and gradually began to realize where I was and what had happened to me, questions naturally arose. How long had I been here? Where were the men who used to be in this room? Where was Eurydice? Was I free to go?
I stretched my arms out. I felt slow and stupid from sleep, and I began to suspect then that I had been sleeping for a long time. My head felt heavy, as if it were surrounded by a dense fog. I tried to shake it off, but that only made it worse. I looked around the room to see if anything had changed, or if perhaps they had left a note for me. I didn’t see anything. It would have been too dark to read a note anyway. I approached the door quietly, and strained my ears to try and hear what was going on outside. The tavern didn’t sound loud and filled with voices like it did the last time I entered. Through the door I could hear no shouting or loud laughter. The sound of muffled voices came through the door, but the voices were few in number, and they sounded like they were having a normal pleasant conversation.
With a deep breath, hoping I wouldn’t run into anymore violence, I opened the door. The tavern was completely empty except for four people sitting at a table. Eurydice was the one I recognized first. She was sitting on the table rather then at it. Her legs were crossed, and she and the others were intensely interested in what was in the middle of the table. Had I been sitting on that old table, I’m sure it would have collapsed, but Eurydice was so small and thin that the table didn’t even appear to bend under her weight. As I neared closer, I recognized the others as the ones who had tormented me in the room. None of them were paying any attention to me, and I knew I should leave well I could, but I couldn’t resist the urge to confront them once more and settle everything.
I approached the table. Eurydice looked up at me, then looked back down again. I saw what Eurydice and the rest were looking at. There was a big pile of money in the center of the table, and they were dividing it up among themselves. Eurydice’s share was just as big as the others. At that moment I finally admitted to myself what I had realized a long time ago. Eurydice was one of them. I had known it form the moment I first saw her at the tavern. She looked too docile and calm to have been in any sort of trouble. I just couldn’t bring myself to admit it at first.
The leader was sitting with his back to me. I’m sure he heard my footsteps, but he chose not to acknowledge it. One of the men sitting across from him indicated me with a motion of his head. The leader turned around, and assumed a fierce face for my benefit. "Well, looks like he’s not dead after all, although I’ve known bears to hibernate for less time than you. Now get out of here and never come back."
That sounded good to me, but I felt obliged to give them one last warning. "She’s not safe here," I said, indicating Eurydice. "As long as she’s in the city, Angelo will find her eventually."
The looked at eachother. "He hasn’t heard," one observed.
"How could he have," said another. "He’s been asleep the whole time."
The leader smiled. The were all obviously in on some joke that I was unaware of. "I don’t think she’s in any danger from Angelo," he explained. "No get out of here."


Bright sunlight shone when I walked outside. I had past out yesterday afternoon, and slept for almost a whole day. Considering how much sleep I had lost the previous two nights, I suppose it was not too surprising that I would sleep for a long time. And yet it was an incredible amount of sleep. And what fantastic events I had missed while I was asleep.
While I was downtown looking for the merchant, the Strates began preparing for an assault on the barricades. David, Icarus, and the others would later tell me how chaotic things were inside. As soon as they saw the Strates get into formation and begin to march toward the barricades, panic swept over everyone. Several of the students began brandishing weapons of their own, and they prepared for a fight. Others began pleading for a non-violent confrontation. They said the Strates were just using an intimidation tactic, and wouldn’t shoot unless they were shot at. A fierce debate ensued inside the barricades, well the approaching Strates added a sense of urgency that caused many voices to be raised. The way Icarus tells it, the students almost came closer to fighting eachother then to fighting the Strates. Of course, Icarus is prone to exaggeration.
At this point, Pax jumped down from the protection of the barricade, and stood in front of the soldiers. Apparently in the confusion he was able to do this without anyone noticing, although once people realized he was exposed, they began yelling at him and begging him not to be a fool and to come back inside. Pax ignored their pleas, and without so much as looking behind him, he calmly walked forward to meet the advancing Strates.
Once Pax got within a certain distance of the Strates, and estimates of how far exactly he was vary depending on whom one talks to, the commander ordered him to stop. Pax stopped obediently, and spread out his arms to show he carried no weapons. Pax then gave an impassioned speech to the Strates. What exactly he said is unknown to this day, as he was outside of earshot of those on the barricades. Even if he had been close enough for them to hear, there was still too much shouting going on for anyone to hear Pax’s calm voice. Pax himself, when later asked what he had said, couldn’t remember a word of it. He said he was overcome with passion for his cause and for the lives of his friends that it was not him speaking, but rather something else inside him that spoke the words. The Strates remembered bits and pieces of it, but no one at the time thought to write it down, and so the exact words have been lost to history. I say all this to caution the reader, because since then Pax’s speech has been published many times and in many different forms, although I doubt any versions have made their way overseas. All written copies of Pax’s speech are fictitious. They are nothing more than the imagination of the writer.
Some of the Strates have been able to remember the general meaning of the speech, even if the details have been forgotten. Pax was imploring them to lay down their weapons, and not to shot their fellow human beings. He urged them to join the students in making the world better for all. I know. It sounds kind of corny, doesn’t it? But Pax was able to force the Strates to think about the People they were about to shoot. He described his friends and what they were like, and what they hoped for in the world, and why they were on the barricades, and how frightened they were. He made the students seem like real people, instead of just dissidents who deserved to be shot.
Why the commanding officer let Pax talk for so long is a mystery. I suspect, as most people do, that he had allowed himself to become caught up in Pax’s words, just like his men. He was intrigued by this brave, seemingly suicidal young man, and once Pax began talking, he couldn’t stop listening any more than his men could. At any rate, when Pax had exhausted his voice, and the inspiration inside him had at last dried up, the commander shook off Pax’s words like one waking up from a dream, and he remembered who he was and what was expected of him. He gave the order for his men to fire, but instead of the sound of gun shots that he expected to hear, he heard the clattering sound of his own men throwing their weapons on the floor.
Needless to say he was shocked. Perhaps he felt empty, or maybe exposed and naked. After all, a commander is nothing without men to command. Maybe he felt panic, or perhaps he was just outraged at Pax. At any rate, with shaking hands he pulled out his pistol and, without really taking the time to aim the thing carefully, he shot at Pax.
I’m not sure if he was aiming at Pax’s head or heart, but he missed them both. Instead, the bullet embedded itself in Pax’s shoulder. Pax would spend a lot of time with his arm in a sling as a result, but it wasn’t fatal.
Pax’s body spun around from the impact then fell limply to the ground. He fell so quickly that everyone, the Strates, the horrified onlookers on the barricade, and the commanding officer, all thought he was dead. The Strates quickly leapt forward and restrained their commander, wrestling his gun away from him in the process. Others noticed that Pax was beginning to stand up, and rushed to his assistance. He ended up being taken to the hospital by an escort of Strates, which must have been quiet a site to passerby’s who recognized him as a revolutionary.
And so the barricade was saved without a single death. That’s not to say the rest of the day was totally bloodless though. Flash sent in other groups of Strates to accomplish what the first one had failed to do. On the way they encountered some of their comrades who told them not to attack. Many of the new Strates became converted and refused to fire on the barricades, but not all. Pax was locked away in the hospital, and even if he had been present, it is doubtful he could have performed the same miracle twice. There were several skirmishes, not at the barricade but in the streets surrounding it. The skirmishes didn’t even involved the students at first, but pitted Strates against each other and then the citizens joined in to protect the students. The public was outraged after the massacre that occurred downtown.
Although none of the newspapers made any mention of the massacre, everyone knew about it. And everyone knew how it wasn’t just the workers who got shot, but anyone who happened to be there was shot at, whether involved in the protest or not. Flash had gone too far, and the citizens of Urbae, who had never really liked him all that much in the first place, but rather put up with him, became like a dry forest awaiting a spark.
The street fighting started by the barricades, but soon spilled all over the city, and little pockets of violence could be found everywhere. This, of course, explains why we heard gunfire outside of the Tavern. In fact, after I lost consciousness, some of the fiercest fighting took place in the slums, where resentment against the Strates was the greatest.
Some of the revolutionaries even creeped out to join in the revolution. Ares, Emma, Bernadine and others were seen running through the streets with rifles in their hand. Ares in particular always plunged himself into where ever the fighting was thickets, and it’s a miracle he survived the day.
Several people were killed on both sides of the revolution. Even a few students were killed. No one I knew. In fact, I can’t even remember their names right now, but for weeks afterwards people wore black ribbons on campus to commemorate the dead.


And me? I had slept through the whole thing. A revolution had happened, a tyrant had been over thrown, and a new government had been established all while I slept.
I often feel like I’m missing out on stuff when I go to sleep. This wasn’t true when I was younger. After all, what was there to miss out on back then? My father and Abel were the only other ones in the house, and I knew neither of them were going to do anything exciting if I nodded off to sleep for a few hours. I guess it was in the dorms that this mentality first took over me. The dorms were such a hive of activity, that no matter what you were doing at any particular moment, there were always at least ten other things you could be doing. This was true even late at night. When most normal people sleep, University students, for reasons I won’t even try to guess at, are just beginning to have their fun. There were always card games going on in the basement until dawn. The cave was open until early into the morning to accommodate the student schedule. And the various pranks and mischief that the University students are so famous for never begin to take shape until after midnight. The problem is that if one wishes to maintain an active social life, there simply isn’t any time to sleep.
Of course we all had to make sacrifices to get our sleep, and I was no exception. For most of my time at the University, I was an FJC Cadet, and I learned very quickly that if my body didn’t get plenty of sleep at night, it wouldn’t perform the way it needed to in order to avoid Zeus’ wrath the following morning. Needless to say I got plenty of sleep, but I almost felt guilty for it the following day when I would hear about all the fun I had missed. Things got easier once I quit FJC, but I still had to sleep sometimes, and when I did I knew invariably I would miss out on something. Often, my first impulse when I awoke was to question my friends and find out what had transpired in my absence.
Now, think of all I had missed this time. I had slept through the most historically significant event of my generation. Actually, considering that a revolution in Urbae was completely unprecedented, I might have slept through the most significant event in three hundred years. Once I awoke, and realized what had happened while I slept, I spent the rest of the day talking to my friends and asking them countless questions.
It was a nice arrangement and one not often reached in the dynamics of human conversation. They were eager to talk, and I was eager to listen. Icarus and David were very enthusiastic about the revolution, and they needed little prodding before they launched into their vivid tales. From talking to them and from talking to others I acquired much of the information I have just related in the previous section.
But after spending the whole day listening, there was one conversation I wanted to have in which I would be the one telling important information. I very much wanted to talk to Clio and Orpheus and tell them about my troubles with Eurydice. Mostly I wanted to tell them for the obvious reason that this information concerned them as well, but I also wanted to vent my frustrations about Eurydice to the people who were responsible for putting the two of us together.
Clio wasn’t in her room, so I went to Orpheus’ room and found them both together. Although I assumed they would want to hear about my adventures with Eurydice, they both seemed more interested in telling me about their adventures of the past couple days. I let them talk first in the hopes that they would be more attentive to my story once they got theirs out of their system.
Unlike David, Icarus, and the others, they didn’t have any good revolution stories to tell me. In fact they had stayed on campus while all the street fighting was going on. The University campus has always been a world unto itself, completely oblivious to what was going on around it. The revolution was no exception, and the campus was an island of tranquility in a sea of violence. In fact, while most of the city heard the crackling of gunfire, Orphues and Clio had occupied themselves trying to figure out what had happened to Eurydice and me. Clio knew from the brief conversation we had the previous morning that something was wrong, and she had alerted Orpheus to this. When they didn’t hear back from me, they began looking around campus and asking everyone where I was.
But, just when I was on the verge of interrupting them, they got to the interesting part. Eurydice had returned that afternoon. While I was busy grilling people about the revolution I had missed, Eurydice had gone quietly back to campus.
"Where is she?" I asked
"In her room, resting," Orpheus answered. "She had a rough weekend."
"She had a rough weekend? Did she tell you what happened?" Eurydice hadn’t been honest with them before. There was no reason to think she was telling them the truth now.
"She confessed everything," Orpheus answered. "We know the whole story. She told me how she had snuck off early in the morning, how you found her at the Bear Tavern, how they threatened you, and how you fainted and slept for—"
I wasn’t particularly eager to spend a lot of time on this last part, and so I quickly jumped in. "Did she tell you about Angelo’s wallet?"
Orpheus nodded. "She confessed that too>"
"Do you want to talk to her?" Clio asked.
Talk? Well maybe yell at her. "I might."
Orpheus stepped in. "She’s pretty tired tonight Jon. I spent all afternoon talking to her and getting stuff straightened out, and figuring where our relationship is at." I nodded passively. It was at that exact moment that I decided I wasn’t going to spend any more time trying to figure out the relationship those two had. It was too strange for me to comprehend.
"What about tomorrow?" Clio asked. "I think she wants to apologize to you Jon. She’s worried you might not like her."
Funny. She didn’t seem that concerned when they were about to cut up my foot. "Yeah, I can talk to her."
Orpheus yawned and stretched. "You know guys, I really hate to be rude and everything, but I’m really tired and like, it’s kind of late and everything…"
"Okay, we can go," Clio said, leaping up. I followed her out of the room, crestfallen that I never got the opportunity to tell my side of the story.
Orpheus was apologetic. "I’m sorry guys. It’s just that I’ve been up since early this morning and it’s been such a long day."
"Don’t worry about it," I answered, concealing my disappointment.
Once Orpheus shut his door, Clio and I began walking back to her room. "So you will talk to Eurydice tomorrow?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure."
"She really wants to apologize to you."
"I thought you didn’t like her."
Clio shrugged. "I don’t really. I don’t know."
She became quiet, so I gently prodded her. "Yes?"
"Well, it’s just that, I’m worried you’ll be upset at me for making you watch her."
"Um, I guess I’m a little upset, yeah." I knew it wasn’t really Clio’s fault. She didn’t know what Eurydice was going to do. Still, I had to find people to place the blame on.
She suddenly grabbed my arm and looked up at em with pleading eyes. "Please, don’t be upset with me. I didn’t know what she was going to do."
I patted her gently on the back. "It’s okay. I’m not really upset."
She grabbed my arm tighter. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry about it."
"What are you doing tonight?’
"Oh, I don’t know. I might find Hermes or something."
She looked hurt. "You don’t want to spend time with me?"
"Clio, do you realize how much I missed while I was asleep? I’ve got a lot to catch up on."
"But I haven’t seen you for days."
I paused while I considered what to do. "Okay, we can spend some time together." Clio hugged me joyfully, and we walked back to her room arm in arm.
Once Flash realized all was lost, he fled to the countryside, which was still under his control. Most of the high-ranking officials got out in time, including my father, which I was relieved about. The only exception was Angelo, and Angelo had no one but himself to blame for that. Even after it was apparent that the city would fall to the revolutionaries, Angelo could simply not bear the thought of the common rabble taking control. He stayed and fought as long as he could, and when even his own men fled for their lives, Angelo stayed on. The people were able to overwhelm him, and apprehended him without harming him. He was thrown into the very prison he had once overseen, and all his prisoners were set free. There he would remain until someone decided what to do with him, but for the present he was the least of everyone’s concerns. As for the hundreds of low-level officials and bureaucrats who populated the city, no one really seemed to care about them. They were allowed to simply switch allegiances from Flash to the revolutionary government, and continued on in the same capacity.
As for the structure of the revolutionary government itself, that was a subject of much debate. Although everyone seemed united in their opposition to the old system, no one could seem to agree on what the new structure should be. Letters were dispatched to Clodius, openly this time instead of through the underground, informing him of what had happened and urging him to return home at once to add his expertise to the formation of a new society.
In the meantime, the Young Clodians set up a provisional government that would temporarily officiate until a new government was created. They were able to assume power without too much disturbance. After all, they were the natural heirs of Clodius. Clodius, while no the first radical to ever walk the streets of Urbae, was one of the few who openly dared to speak out. But more importantly, Clodius, even at his young age, had written about the problems inherit in Fabulae’s society with incredible depth and insight. His books, or at least the copies that had survived, were required reading for anyone who cared about social and political change.
However the Young Clodians had more than one hero in their ranks. Pax, although still recovering in the hospital, was regarded as a hero among the people, especially among the former Strates he helped convert. (And, as these former Strates still retained their old guns, they were a powerful force to be reckoned with in the new society.) From his hospital bed, Pax gave his endorsement to the provisional government, and Rosa made sure everyone heard about it. Ares, to a lesser extent, was also a hero of sorts. Many people had seen his bravery, bordering on recklessness, as he plunged himself into the street fighting with no apparent regard for his own safety.
But the Young Clodians were greater than the sum of their members. They were the Vanguards of the revolution. Many people, especially in the lower class neighborhoods, had first heard of revolution from their pamphlets. They had helped to organize the workers into a revolutionary force. And of course, they had led the march and erected the barricade that started it all.
Rosa was elected by the Young Clodians as the head of the provisional government. Rosa began by publicly announcing that she would resign her post in two weeks time. It was all the time she thought she needed to set up the new government. She also appointed Varro, Julius, and Pax to various government positions she had designated for them. This was largely symbolic, and I think designed to create the illusion that the power was spread out among more people. In reality, none of the three could do anything without Rosa’s approval, and Pax was confined to the hospital for the first week after his appointment.
Classes were temporarily suspended at the University while everyone tried to figure out what was going on. Dionysius spoke in glowing terms about how the whole educational system in Urbae was going to be transformed. H wanted to se a system where students had more input, and students and professors would learn from each other. This would be true not only at the University level, but for school age children too, who under the present system were little more then prisoners of their teachers. All this sounded great to me, and was a cause I would readily have joined if I though there was hope for it, but I knew educational reform was low on Rosa’s priorities.
Anyway, the point is we all suddenly had a lot of spare time nobody knew what to do with. Emma organized some of the students into work groups. The point of these groups, as Emma explained it, was for a group of University students to descend on a run down part of town, and to clean and fix it up. This, Emma said, would have the duel benefit of simultaneously exposing the students to the realities of poverty, while showing the community the good will of the young people. It sounded like an okay idea to me, but the problem was we students possessed few carpentry or construction skills. At least I sure didn’t, and that was my excuse for not joining up, even though David and Icarus couldn’t wait.
I did end up going to see Eurydice with Clio. Eurydice didn’t seem particularly eager to see me. She mumbled an apology and did her best to avoid eye contact. The whole thing confirmed what I had suspected: Clio and Orpheus were the ones who wanted the apology. Eurydice couldn’t care less. Afterwards I again promised Clio that I wouldn’t hold her responsible for Eurydice’s actions.
Then there remained the matter of my brother. I hadn’t been too worried about him, because I had been assured, multiple times by several different people, that he had not been hurt in the revolution. Rather, he was alive and well. Still, I did not know where he was or where he was staying. I thought perhaps he was staying in our father’s house, and I biked out there to try and find him. He wasn’t there, and most of his stuff had been moved out. He still had another year before he was eligible to enter the University, but I wondered if he was staying with an older friend on campus. It turned out he didn’t have any older friends, but I eventually found out that he was staying with a school pal of his and his pal’s family. They lived downtown, not too far from where David’s folks lived. Once I obtained this information, I dropped by for a surprise visit.
I arrived in the afternoon, so all the adults of the house were gone for work. Abel’s friend opened the door. He was a tall kid. Taller than me, in fact, but thinly built. He had short black hair, which looked like it had been carefully combed, and then intentionally messed up. He had a sort of sneer on his face. I didn’t like him. But he did look familiar. I though I might have seen him on the barricades.
"Is Abel here?" I asked.
Evidently the kid knew who I was, because he turned and yelled into the house, "Abel, your brother’s here."
There was a pause from the inside that lasted longer then I would have liked, before I heard Abel call out, "okay, I’ll talk to him."
The kid beckoned me inside with a gesture. "Abel’s in the family room," he said, giving a point to the left. "It’s a small house, you should be able to find him pretty easily. I’m going out to do some shopping." As soon as I was inside, the kid left, shutting the door behind him. I wandered slowly down the hallway in the direction I was given. The house had kind of a musty smell to it, but it was a nice musty smell. The smell and shape of the place actually reminded me a lot of David’s house when we were younger.
I found Abel in the living room, reading a book. He looked up at me when I walked in. "Did Seth leave?" he asked.
"Who’s Seth?" I suppose it as a stupid question since my options were limited, but I had other things on my mind.
Abel rolled his eyes. "The kid who lives here."
"Him? Oh he went for groceries or something."
Abel let out a frustrated sigh. "I told him he didn’t have to leave when you came over."
"I didn’t hear you say that."
"No, I said it before you got here. I knew you’d come eventually. Everyone’s been saying that you’re looking for me."
"Did you not want to be found?"
The question seemed to fluster Abel. He put the book back up in front of his face, as if he were still reading it, but he still responded. "I don’t care. Do whatever you want to."
I jumped backwards in the conversation to avoid an awkward topic. "Nice of Seth’s parents to take you in." Abel rolled his eyes again, as if my comment was to dumb to warrant a response. "Have you heard anything from Dad?"
"No," Able answered curtly. "Why would I?"
"He’s alright you know. He got out in time with Flash." Of course Abel must have known this by know, but I was trying everything I could to get his interest.
"I wish he hadn’t gotten out," Abel said suddenly. "I wish they had caught him like they caught Angelo. I wish he was rotting in jail right now." I didn’t know what to say. Of all the possible responses he could have given me, I was not expecting this one. I just stood there dumbfounded. "Don’t look at me like that," Abel protested. "You don’t know what he’s like."
Now this was going too far. "I don’t know what he’s like? I don’t? What a ridiculous thing to say." I felt like if there was one thing I knew, it was what my father was like.
Abel shook his head. "No, you don’t understand. After you left for the University, it was just me and Dad at home." He looked back at his book briefly, then up at me. "I guess I never realized how good I had it in the old days. Dad spent so much time trying to get you to behave, he never really had time to worry about me. I was able to get away with just about anything. Then one day you went to the University and bam," Abel clapped his hands together, "my life gets changed overnight. All of a sudden I couldn’t get away with anything. Any little bit of trouble I got into at school, he knew about it. And he had plenty of time to yell at me. Worse than that, every time he got mad at you, he would yell at me."
"He would?"
"Oh you bet." Abel launched into an impression of our father. "Why can’t Jon pick something to study? He’s always changing his mind. And he never goes to church anymore. I raised that kid to go to church every Sunday. That’s what people do on Sunday. That’s why God made Sundays, so people can go to church. Abel, from now on you and I are going to church twice on Sunday. Blah blah blah blah blah blah." He imitated my father’s voice and facial expressions so perfectly that I had to laugh. As the sound of my laughter filled the room, a smile spread onto Abel’s face, although it looked like he was trying to fight it at first. "It’s true though you know," Abel said when I was done laughing. "A couple years ago he actually decided we were going to go to church twice on Sunday. I guess he was trying to succeed with me where he had failed with you."
"So what happened?"
"I was furious. I told him I didn’t see why I had to go to church twice when you weren’t going at all. He told me once I was old enough to move out of the house and attend the University I could make my own decisions, but right now I was going to do what he said. It turned into a huge fight every Sunday. Sometimes he won, and we went to church. Some weeks he gave up, and I got to stay home." I laughed again, imagining the weekly battles. Abel continued. "And then once you quit FJC it got really bad. He tried to make me volunteer for the Central Office, just like you did, but he wanted me to do it every day. When I refused, he didn’t speak to me for a week."
"What?"
Abel held up his hands to signify he was telling the truth. "No joke. He literally didn’t say one word to me the whole week. When I was in one room, he would go into the other. It was like he had given up on both of us, and just wanted to sulk."
"Now what about all the trouble he said you got into at school?"
"What? Oh that. That was nothing worse then you ever did." He paused. "Okay, maybe it was a little worse. It’s just that Dad was always checking up on me in school, and always asking for reports about me, so I had to do something to show him he wasn’t in control of my life. The more he would yell at me for acting out, the more I felt like I had to." I laughed again, and this time Abel laughed with me. I sat down in the chair opposite him. For some reason, Abel turned the discussion serious again. "He was really hurt by you Jon."
"I know."
"No, I mean really."
"I know." It was as if Abel had suddenly returned to his child hood role as the unwanted messenger, telling me all sorts of things I already knew and didn’t want to hear. Abel plunged into the details, although I would just assume not have heard them.
"After you quit FJC, I couldn’t even mention your name around the house without him getting upset. He had such a sad look on his face all the time, and he would spend a lot of time in your old room, just rearranging stuff." Abel became quit.
"You don’t really wish they had caught him, do you?"
"No I don’t. Not really. I was just talking earlier."
"I know."
We sat in silence for a while, then Abel spoke up. "Hey, I haven’t seen your room in a couple years. Have you made any changes in the decorations."
"A few."
"Can we go over there and hang out?"
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." And with that, we headed out to my place.