Chapter 7: Something Special

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 soon enough. There was nothing so special about helping her, his mom, doped to the gills on psychotropics, get into bed. Or knowing to check on Ms. Penny's younger brother, Tony-Tone, when she was at bingo to make sure he didn't pass out with the needle stuck in his arm and get blood all over the sofa again.

He also knew that the art of pacing himself to stay up on a school night to watch a puking, pooping baby who's name he didn't even know while the grown folks celebrated drunkenly in the next room, was not all that special either.

Bealz had necessarily learned to become proficient at such things. Changing diapers soon after no longer having to wear diapers is commonplace enough on the Southside. At least it was for the likes of Bealz and thousands more just like him, crammed into similar spaces, living with similar circumstances.

Now, though, he was thinking that maybe his normal, outside of the commonplace for an eleven year old foster kid, had been quite different.

It was always easy enough to chalk his quirkiness, his penchant for staring into empty spaces, answering unasked questions, or marveling stupidly at the beautifully colored auras which lingered around some people's heads, to an overactive imagination. Or maybe just expected because of his mother's tainted, crazy-ass blood.

But all of that stuff had seemed real to Bealz. And most importantly, not really that big of a deal.

Like the time in the alley a couple buildings down from Ms. Penny's. He'd come upon a dead body. An old bag lady who'd maybe been out in the cold too long.

She had obviously been dead for sometime when she spoke to him. Sang to him, really. A sad song. A lament for a cherished, yet difficult life. She sang his name, except it was something that he could not quite understand, and called him 'young lord'. She thanked him for listening to her song and said goodbye.

He could see a mist, like a wispy breath in the cold morning air, steam up and out of her body.

Considering this now, Bealz wonders at how he'd just accepted it for what it was, didn't think that it was so unusual. Or even the least bit scary. He had just listened politely because he thought that's what he should have done.

Of course he kept stuff like this to himself, lest he be subjected to another couple of rounds of therapy meant to convince him of his imaginative brilliance and how it was a perfectly normal escape and sadly, likely an understandable reaction to life in such a traumatic environment.

How none of it was real. How it really wasn't anything so special.

Now, holding his mother's hand as she leads him hesitantly towards the edge of the clearing at the base of the hill where they'd arrived in the Incata, they stroll through the shin-high flowers that covered the valley floor and Bealz marvels at just how easily it is to adjust to a new reality. Especially since it had been peeking out at him the whole time. Showing itself through the cracks.

Looking up at his mother, he can't help but wonder at just how right she had been. They were in a whole different world and Bealz thought that it was pretty damn special.