Chapter 42: Ain't No Crying On The Southside

XLII

Bealz had tried to keep up with the conversation. He wasn't sure, though, just what was going on. His dad and the smoothly dressed, smooth-talking man were discussing stuff, people and places, that had no meaning to him.

Soon enough, he wandered away, sauntered over to the balcony overlooking the Lakefront. Bealz popped in his earbuds and cued up some Kendrick Lamar.

He kept Kendrick and Chance the Rapper, mostly, in heavy rotation.

Looking out over Lake Michigan and back South towards his far distant neighborhood, out over a very short span of the city, Bealz can still see the fog of dust and debris from the building collapse staining the air and his thoughts drift back towards his mother for the millionth time.

He wishes that she could be here with him. It would be cool for her to see this place. He could imagine her laughing and smiling and dancing about amongst the opulence.

It would be cool to see her enjoy something nice for a change.

Bealz, himself, was still trying to wrap his head around all that had happened lately. He wondered if this is how she lived before he was born, when it was just her and his dad. He wondered if it was because of them that she had been forced to retreat to Ms. Penny's.

He couldn't really understand any of it, really. He had no idea how he was supposed to feel about it, though it did seem strange that he was so accepting.

Even still, it was hard to imagine that any of it was true. This was the stuff of a little kids' fantasy. A comic book origin story that made no sense, didn't fit into the grit and grime and misery of his Southside existence.

In all of his painful yearnings, Bealz had always imagined his mother, shaking free of her clouded confusion, and finding some way for them, along with, maybe, a nameless, faceless, father, to be happy together. To find themselves a home. He needed that. He needed for her to want that, for his dad to want that, too.

Bealz, though, wasn't quite sure what it meant, to be happy. A couple of days ago, it would have looked a lot like this luxury suite, the fancy clothes and all of the bells and whistles that went along with it.

Right now, though, happiness seemed like something a lot simpler.

Right now, he'd settle for something as free and easy as, maybe, a hug from his mother.

Standing on a balcony high atop an ivory tower in the center of the city, Bealz strains hard to see something recognizable against the distant skyline, something reminiscent of home. But home was a far far distant neighborhood, even if it was in reality, only a short train ride away.

Things were happening all around him that seemed so big, so scary. And since waking up in the alley behind Ms. Penny's apartment building, after his mom had whisked him away, something else was happening. Something inside of him was changing.

He was flooded with unfamiliar feelings, thoughts and emotions. He felt like his mind had been stretched to its limit, that something had been unlocked inside it, somehow, and he wanted, needed so badly, to talk to someone about it.

Something inside of him had been activated, perhaps by his exposure to the Incata, to the purity of the magics emanating from within the Source. Or maybe it was just from the emotional shock of what he had just been through.

Either way, he had begun to question everything. His reality, the least of which now included a father who had stepped directly out of his dreams, had suddenly become very fluid and confusing.

Trying hard to hold himself together in the time honored methods of the scared inner city black boys from his unyielding, unforgiving Southside neighborhood, he put on his best, most stoic, expression-less mask and desperately fought back the tears.

He yearned so badly for her that he could almost see his mother. Not really see her, see her. But he could feel her, sense her presence, her life's energy or essence or her breath, or something. He didn't know what it was, this projected space forming within his mind, but it allowed him to envision what felt like a physical image of her, to feel it. To know that she was scared, but alive.

Looking back into the room behind him, Bealz watches his father continue to talk animatedly to the dapperly dressed dude that looked kinda Idris Elba-ey. Sounded sorta like him, too.

Bealz knew that what they discussed was probably of the utmost importance. Save the world type stuff, and all. But he was really bummed out that his dad had spent all of three seconds acknowledging him after disappearing for two days.

Kinda sucked.

Bealz would have liked to talk to someone, anyone, about what was happening to him. But Ms. Penny was dead and his mom was off somewhere way south of the City, a radiant, persistent pulse throbbing like a headache in his brain. He knew that she was alright, alive, at least, but she was currently unavailable.

He watches inside as his dad grows more agitated, begins to pace about the suite, gesturing angrily.

In truth, Bealz wouldn't even know what to say to him. What or how to ask him anything.

Turning away to look back towards the place that he once knew as home, the place that he knew that he'd never likely return to, listening to Kendrick, Bealz does know, however, that just like most everything else he's had to learn in order to survive, he'll eventually have to figure it out for himself.