In Character

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

Brandon Hayes was a man without airs. When he spoke, his voice was hardly audible. When he walked, his arms swayed slightly more than usual. In the privacy of his own apartment, Brandon often used his finger to scrape out the last contents of his favorite dishes. He owned more books than he could read and read more than he should.

As a child, Brandon was petrified of authority figures. He would cower when adults raised their voices around him. He had a guilty conscience that cast a pall over most of his childhood thoughts. In kindergarten, one of his few releases was on the playground. He loved to slosh around the pebble-filled surface, running, jumping, and sliding to a stop. He would fall to his knees, grip the rocks, and let them tumble out between his fingers. He would dig down four inches to the muddy bottom of the pit in search for treasure. Once, he zealously flung the rocks between his legs like a dog. A young passer-by was struck by a number of the tiny rocks. Unfortunately for Brandon, one rock made its way into her empty mouth. Shortly after tasting the salty chalkiness, the girl wailed in the direction of the recess monitor. Mrs. Flareghety, the sloth in the midst of badgers, slowly digested the girl's frantic explanation. Dumbfounded, Brandon stared at the interaction. Mrs. Flareghty called him to her side. Looking down at him with stern eyes, she said, "Did you throw rocks at Rachel?" Brandon was scared and willing to admit anything the monitor wanted him to if only he could be out of the situation. After he answered in the affirmative, a phone call was made to his parents. He was suspended for a day of class and grounded for a month. In his sparse room, he did not allow himself the pleasure of playing with the few toys he had. He laid on his bed, usually thinking confused thoughts about his own cruel motivations.

Time at home was not a treat for Brandon. When removing adhesive-coated bandages or strips of wax-coated paper from one's self, everyone knows the key to it is quickness. "Get it done quick." It is as though there is a sliding scale of pain that begins at 10 units say. You can feel 10 units for 1 minute or prolong the duration to 10 minutes and feel 5 units all the while. One might as well feel them all at once and move on.

If you pull slowly, you just feel it longer.

Sometimes in life, a circumstance sticks itself on us. Some bandages or strips of paper we cannot grasp. The hand of time slowly tugs at an even rate. Hair is pulled; skin is stretched. Never enough that the end will be reached, that we will become unstuck. No, it just tugs and tugs and only prompts pain.

Brandon Hayes's family was a slowly pulled bandage. His mother and father always fought and it always hurt him. It never changed. Brandon grew and they incorporated more topics to war with each other over. As a baby, they argued about who's turn it was to change his diapers. As a toddler, they argued about leaving windows open. As a child, they argued about credit card bills. As an adolescent, they argued about methods of laundering (Mr. Hayes thought Bounce sheets were frivolous). By the time he was a teenager, they could bicker about anything and Brandon overheard nearly all of it. He had a knack for blaming himself and entertained thoughts of his own demise in the hopes that it would allay his parent's mutual consternation. Oddly enough, the thought of him being spoken ill of after the fact kept him from every carrying any nebulous plans out.

The yellow and brown house he grew up in was not always a setting for sadness. His mother would let him lick the beaters after preparing baked desserts. His father would play catch with him now and again in the street in front of their house despite the fact that his own father never taught him how to throw. In the winter months, he would build an igloo every chance he got with the discarded snow that had previously covered the driveway. His mother was always boiling water for hot chocolate and Brandon was always burning his anxious tongue.

It was from this source of self-loathing and simple pleasures that he grew into the soft-spoken man his co-workers thought of as aloof. On a mild summer afternoon during his twentieth year, Brandon was walking home from his desk job twelve blocks away from his house. He passed under a series of fading awnings and crossed two quiet streets, when a peculiar sound reached his ears. A little boy was sitting down on the steps of a duplex, sobbing into his backpack. After scanning the area for other signs of life, Brandon approached the child.

"What's the matter?" Brandon asked softly after squatting to the boy's eye level.
The boys red-tinged brown eyes looked at him distrustfully. "Nothing."
"Come on now, there must be something wrong. Boys don't cry like that for nothing."
"None of your business," the boy quipped between sniffles.
The corners of Brandon's mouth fell. Stubborn child.