Bealz, Prince Of The SouthSide

8 Watching the two of them walking down the hill towards the sparse woods that gradually thickened across from the valley floor, laying in wait, a well concealed hunter considers the best way to approach Bealz and Monique, knowing that they would be caught completely off guard. The boy's mother is a formidable warrior, possibly even Shujua'a-vri Nwamke, the female aspect of a Warrior Spirit. She had lit up the sky, so of course their arrival had been observed. The power she wielded in ripping open a portal, while sheathed in flame, was apparent and impressive. Soon after they arrived, though, when Monique had slid back into the weak, disheveled looking thing now shuffling through the lilies, that power had winked out. Snuffed like a candle flame. She was vulnerable. As the two slipped in between the tall, thin trees, the silent hunter, known, feared and celebrated throughout the Incata, falls in behind them, taking note and avoiding the other set of

7 For most of his eleven years, Bealz had been taught that he was nothing special. In this, he was just like all the other kids he knew or knew of in his neighborhood, which made up the entirety of his world and helped to shape his own opinions on the matter. Ms. Penny let him know that he wasn't special. The older, meaner foster kids who shuffled endlessly through the apartment, they let him know with words and fists and feet that he wasn't special. The teachers at school, the cops around where he lived, the foreigners who owned all of the essential businesses on his block, the news announcers who droned on ceaselessly in the background while Ms. Penny cleaned; they all let Bealz know that he was nothing special. His mother, though, she had always told him otherwise. She told him that he was special. It was nice to hear. And he really wanted to believe her. Just like most all kids, though, at least where he was from, he too had had to learn the truth

Many of the words and phrases used as names and descriptions have been drawn predominately from Swahili as well as several other African languages in keeping with the overall mythology that I am constructing around Bealz, Monie and Askauri's world. I have taken liberties with pronunciation and word formations, attempting to create a unique language structure for the Incata that honors its ties to Africa, as both represented within this fictional framework, and in its creative influence on me. Here's the list of words and phrases so far. I'll add to it as the story continues. The root words, unless otherwise noted, are Swahili: Belozi Bin Askuari = The Emissary, Son of Askauri Balozi – Consul/Ambassador Monique Felani-Kakua Binti = Daughter of Earth, The Undying Warrior Munyika (Shona of Zimbabwe) – Earth Fela (W. African) – Warlike Kokumo (an Oriki name) – Undying/This one will not die Binti – Daughter Askuari Bin Qwana = Graceful Warrior, So

6 Bealz's head swims sickeningly. He lurches to his hands and knees and vomits violently. His eyes water painfully, slowly adjusting to the sudden burst of a much too bright light. Sitting back on his haunches, he rubs furiously at his face, trying to clear his vision while his heart races with panic and his breath quickens. He'd just watched his mother kill Ms. Penny by touching her. Something else had happened, though. Something in his mother had changed. And then she had brought him here. Bealz knew where he was. Recognized it immediately. He'd seen this sky, smelled this air and felt the silken, golden grasses pressed down beneath him before. This was the Incata. A dreamworld that he could not believe really existed. This was supposed to be a mental trick, like the many different counselors used to talk to him about. A place for him to go, to escape into his mind when things got too bad out in the real world. But this was no dream

5 “Belozi,” Bealz's father thinks, head lain back on crossed arms. His feet were crossed, crowded and propped up at the foot of his bunk. “ Belozi Bin Askauri. He doesn't even know what his common name means.” To be fair, there were not many who knew the meaning of his name either. Real or common. Of course it was best not to dwell on it much, lest a stray thought leak out in the company of some unseen enemy. One's real name, when granted with purpose, served as a virtual link to one's essence. Askauri Bin Qwana. That was his name. It was the common name by which the State of Illinois' Department of Corrections knew him by, at least. His real name was too long to recite without a company of living griots to attend to the listener. Askauri. This is what his mother called him. What his people called him. He missed them, his mom, his people. One and all. Still, he thought again of the jest to be had back home at the idea of the

4 Someone was pounding on his head. Huge hammer blows. Staccato quick and resonate, echoing painfully round and round inside his head. Struggling to open his eyes to identify his attacker, bright red and silver splinters of light lacerate the back of his brain. Not hammers. A fist. Pounding impatiently upon the door to the bedroom that Bealz shared with four others; two snotty nosed temporary placement kids, a nine year old bed wetter and a cruel thirteen year old with a penchant for booger tipped wet willies. Sitting up and looking around confusedly, Bealz can see that he is alone in the room. A most unusual occurrence as it is, but there was also bright light streaming in through the bed-sheet covered window. Ms. Penny didn't allow any of the kids to come back to the apartment until the end of the day. Bealz hardly ever came back before nightfall. How did he get here? He struggles to remember the morning's course of events, drawing a blank

3 Bealz dreams. He knows he is dreaming. He usually does. And not just because his dreams had always been so intricate and confusing. It was because they always seemed so real. So familiar. As if he were not just looking through someone else's eyes, experiencing someone else's feelings and emotions, but experiencing them himself, as they happened. In a way, his dreams were more real to him than the real world. It was a place to escape the dusty, rat hair smells creeping through the thin walls of his daily reality. There were glimpses of darker things in his dreams, too, though. He'd seen Dakari there before. Except that he didn't look like a man then. Or not quite like a man. Bealz could see something else, some kind of dark, miasmic cloud where a man should be. It made him nauseous to look at it and Bealz knew then as he shrank back from the probing black cloud that roamed about, searching  around in his dream, that most all monst

2 Chicago sat atop the State of Illinois like a jaunty, precociously donned cap. Serving as the State's primary economic engine, amongst its greatest exports, its main contributions to the downstate economy, was a steady stream of bodies to fill the many prisons spread throughout the rural areas. And while this provided a financial boon for these sparse communities, it meant hours and hours of separation from the families left behind. It was hard enough to take the El to a real grocery store. Many of the kids around here, where Bealz lived, were just like him. Their dads were housed in prison units hundreds of miles away. They were basically left behind to figure things out on their own. Especially the boys. The girls tended to have more intact maternal structures within their families. Their main problem was dealing with the well-armed, dangerously confused preteen and teenage boys raised in a rape culture in the middle of an urban war zone.

1 Bealz was 11 years old. His dad had been gone, locked up since before he was even born. Bealz's mom never really said anything about him, his dad. She would just kinda start looking real sad and say stuff like, “I don't know, baby,” or “I wish I could tell you more, honey,” or “leave me alone, lil nigga!” Or something like that. Bealz was sad a lot. He didn't show it, though. At least not like they do in the movies and on tv. Like the white kids get to do. He couldn't act like that. Not where he was from. He often noticed the kids on tv. They had lawns and always had huge, over-sized boxes of colorful cereals that the Arabs down the street from him didn't have on the shelves and they had brand new bicycles and giant smiles. They also had moms and most of them even had dads. Bealz did too. Just not like theirs. Bealz's mom was around sometimes. He mostly stayed with his grandma, Ms. Penny, though. She was

Bealz was born out of a conversation I had with my son, a 6 th grade student with absolutely zero interest in reading. This is despite the fact that, over the last few years, I've presented him with dozens of different books and graphic novels and age and genre specific materials. None of it drew him in. He'd read this stuff, if I literally stood over him. It was never enough, though, to spark a flame of passion, to peak his interests, neither for the simple pleasures of reading and exploring the limits of his imagination, nor for any of the actual storylines, genres or characters. This then led me to consider the source. There wasn't much readily available nor recognizable within the realm of the mainstream that was geared towards kids like him. Kids who's interests and experiences differ so greatly from society's generalized expectations and assumptions. He could not find anything quite like himself or anything which spoke to his experienc