Born Different (25 page)

“You alright
mate?” Dave offered casually.

“Day at the
seaside with the missus?” Johnny nodded behind them to where Grace
was standing.

“Yeah, that’s
right, me and Grace.” Gabe stared Johnny down with a look of so
many words. Yes him and Grace, after everything they’d said to
him.

“See you’re
still good at winning the teddies? Ha ha! At least you got someone
to give them to now. Sorry Gabe!” Frank smiled at Gabe and Gabe
knew that even if that didn’t make everything alright, they were
there for him now, when he needed them.

“So boys how do
you want to play this?” Dave took off his thick gold linked
necklace, Frank predictably jumped into one of his warrior poses
and Johnny puffed himself up taller, wider and bigger and he looked
at everyone in the threatening gang with a face that read like a
man who took no prisoners.

“Relax kids
will you. We’re just here to give Alistair back his box.” But Frank
and Dave stayed in position, mirroring their enemy.

Alistair walked
forward from his gang with a big rolled up bundle of twenty pound
notes in his hand. “You’re a bit late.”

“Better late
than never eh! Tell me Alistair, what’s in the box that is so
bloody important to you?” Johnny tried to use his words
carefully.

“Does it
matter?” Alistair looked like he was going to cry and the group of
people now in battle stance, ready to fight, were not quite sure if
what they were seeing was true and if it was, what to do with
themselves.

“No not really,
I just can’t imagine what is more important than money to you
Alistair.” Gabe looked at Johnny and wondered if he realised that
he would be wise to listen to his own words.

“That is
because you don’t know me Johnny. And you Frank, why are you
standing like that against me? What the fuck is that all about? Do
you hate me now?”

Frank stood up
straight and did actually cry. “No, of course not. I love you.”

“What the
fuck!” Dave and Johnny said simultaneously, suddenly more aware of
why Frank had been so adamant they gave the box back even before
Alistair had made them the cash offer Johnny couldn’t refuse.

Alistair
continued to explain himself. “That box that you took. Inside that
box are my good memories. My mum moved away, divorced my dad about
eight years ago. She got remarried and she wanted me to live with
her but I stayed with my dad, for the money, for the lifestyle.
This new guy had nothing, not a pot to piss in. I thought they were
idiots.

My mum had a
stroke, a year ago. She’s in a home. My dad doesn’t care but her
husband is lovely to her. He sits and he looks after her, does
everything when she can’t do anything for herself. He truly loves
her. I saw that love. She’s not going to make it, my mum.
And...and...
that
love, the love he gives her, the love she
gave me as a kid...that is what
is
worth everything. And I
fucked it up. I treated her like shit so that I could have nice
stuff. Now all I’ve got that is genuine true love is in that box,
the stuff from being a kid, photos, things she knitted, reminders
of my mum’s love for me.” Alistair broke down. He broke down as
much as any of them had ever witnessed a man break down. He was
broken, so broken that he no longer cared if all those people that
looked up to him, saw him cry. He knew it didn’t matter
anymore.

And for some
reason, to each of them for different reasons, the story broke
their hearts. They had thought that Alastair was someone else, they
hadn’t for one moment thought that his life was anything but
perfect.

“You can have
the box back mate, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Johnny looked and
sounded broken too, his posture had completely changed and he was
acting in a way that Gabe had never seen in him before, or not for
a long while anyway. What had life done to them?

“Look Johnny,
I’m out the game now. I’ve not really wanted to be in it for a
while. I was just working for my dad for the summer to save up some
money. I thought I’d move nearer my mum after school but then I met
Frank. I just don’t want what you want anymore Johnny. I don’t want
money above all else, I don’t want to fuck people up any more than
I have done. I’m sorry what the guys did to your dad, that wasn’t
supposed to happen, they got carried away, high on drugs,
pretending to be movie stars. Like I taught them to be. I’ve been
selfish and it’s made me so unhappy. I just want to get on with my
life now and rebuild it if that is at all possible. Clean slate,
make my mum proud of me, even if she will never perhaps know or be
able to tell me.”

Frank ran over
to Alastair and threw his arms around him.

Alistair had
never even truly admitted to himself his own feelings, let alone to
anyone else. He had wanted to tell Frank but had only succeeded in
pushing him away instead.

Alistair threw
the wad of noted at Johnny.

“Have it
Johnny, buy whatever you want, whatever you think will make you
happy. Get all the quick fixes you need, I’m done with them.”

Gabe took hold
of Grace’s hand and they walked away from their people. They walked
until they were out of view, and then they ran. They ran as fast as
they could, up stairs and up roads and past shops and down
alleyways until they couldn’t run any longer and they collapsed
into one another against the old walls of some unused alley way. A
dark and quiet space away from the bustle of the seaside town.
Grace was weeping and gulping for breath.

“Damn! I
dropped my teddies!” Gabe realised and Grace had to laugh a little
at the craziness of it all.

Up this close
Gabe couldn’t help but start kissing her again, gently at first.
Through Grace’s laughter and tears, Gabe kissed her wet mouth and
he kissed her tears away from her face and he kissed the tears that
followed as soon as they left her eyes. And she laughed as he
kissed the sides of her mouth.

Gabe couldn’t
help himself and he pushed her against the wall with the full force
of his body and she let out a moan, a moan not of pain, but of
pleasure. She held on tight to him, so tight that Gabe felt like he
could breathe her in. Gabe wished he could just melt her into him
so that she could never leave him and would always be a part of
him.

They stayed
here in the quiet of the back streets in a safe haven from the
crowds of pedestrians and holiday makers, kissing and necking and
touching each other until they had no more energy.

“Do you want to
go home or shall we camp out at our special place? We could go to a
supermarket and get some food and stuff?”

“Oh Gabe, as if
that is even a question!” Grace smiled at him but her eyes were so
full of sorrow.

“Are you still
sad?”

“Of course. Are
you not sad Gabe? Are you not upset that life is so shitty?
Everything is fucked up. Everyone is fucked up. No one knows what
the hell they are doing. Everyone is so brainwashed and unfriendly,
life is not celebrated as it should be. There is such inequality
when there is more than enough for everyone. You can paint but yet
you steal! And I know why, I understand. No fucker wants original
quality art as they’re too busy wanking on the internet or getting
pissed. You’ve got these lovely wings and yet you have had to walk
around all bandaged up and everything. In pain, sweating,
uncomfortable like constant self-flagellation. Everyone has all
their values mixed up and kids don’t stand a chance as the people
in charge of them, telling them what to do, are doing it all wrong
themselves! It makes me sad and angry Gabe. It’s alright for you,
you can do something, you got a talent and you can travel and do
what you want and I have to marry some rich guy and look pretty,
smiling all day. Spend the rest of my life not feeling quite good
or beautiful enough. Not allowed to have any real ambitions of my
own. And my parents? I might as well be an orphan. I’ve nursed mum
for years; wiped her arse, fed her, kept up all the lies. You’ve
got a mum Gabe, you don’t know what it is like. You think your
bloody wings are a burden? Ha, you don’t know the half of it. Try
pretending to be the perfect family whilst drinking all the time
just to cope with the everyday life nightmare of the reality of it.
Are you not angry Gabe?”

“I am angry
Grace, I am. You do not know how angry I am. But I’m not when I’m
with you. Hell, I’m the happiest man alive when I am with you. And
that’s a start eh! We can be angry, shit me I have been angry
everyday for as long as I can remember and look where it got me?
And what do we want to see in the world? Harmony, love, respect,
integrity, honesty, kindness...For people to support each other
rather than pull each other down. Truths over possessions. Everyone
living with peace in nature instead of having all this whimsical
want for tat! We can go on in just anger or we can...or we can try
and spread the love. Be the change we want to see in the world. Or,
I don’t know, we can just fly high up above all the others and see
the pretty patterns they make from a distance and say to ourselves
how sorry we are for them that they live their lives out that way.”
Gabe took her hand and he started skipping, out of their hiding
place and up the road.

“Hey everyone!
Look at me! I am the happiest man alive. I’m Grace’s boyfriend. Are
you feeling alive today?” Grace couldn’t help but laugh at Gabe. A
smile spread across her face and she skipped with him.

“Come on Gabe,
let’s go. Let’s get out of this freaky town, full of its staring
people that think we are mad.”

“We’re the sane
ones. It’s you lot that are insane. Hands up if you are happy and
free!” Gabe shouted out at the top of his voice at the throng of
shoppers and the people that just seemed to be hanging about.

The looks of
ignorance, feigned shock, confusion and denial that cracked the
general public’s social masks, the faces that they put on when they
left the house, amused Gabe today. Made him want to strip off naked
on the pedestrian precinct and do cartwheels. Gabe felt alive and
in this state he truly believed that most of the evil and traumas
were optional. That life gave us many that could not be avoided,
but all of the man made ones were unnecessary added extras.

Grace and Gabe
ran up the road holding hands with their arms outstretched like a
pair of birds flying up the walkways, scattering the seagulls in
their path. Past the sherbet sellers and plastic windmill merchants
and all The Middles that pulled contorted faces at the young
lover’s act of breaking the veneer of socially acceptable order of
their day.

Grace wanted a
drink, vodka or wine and wasn’t too fussed about food but Gabe had
bought brie, salami, bread and olives and some salad anyway. He
made her a plate of something to eat as she poured them both large
tumblers of white wine. Grace drank hers down straight and
immediately poured another. For such a hot day, the temperature had
dropped right down or they had caught too much sun as they both
shivered cold up on the hills where they were going to spend the
night.

“I didn’t know
about Alistair’s mum. It was going to be the last time I did
anything like that. I’m sorry.” Gabe knew that he had lied to
Grace, well had not told her the truth. She knew the most secret
thing about him but he had kept his illegal actions to himself.

“I wonder if we
ever really know anyone or everything about them.” Grace had made
the comment wistfully but Gabe thought that it was the truest thing
that he had ever heard.

Grace could see
that sometimes it took something shocking, something really bad had
to happen before people really started to change for the better.
Alistair losing that box had probably been the best thing to have
happened to him, to all of them, in the long run. No one knows what
they have got until it is gone, to realise that before it was too
late was the greatest gift.

“Grace, why did
you dad hit you?”

“Because he
doesn’t want me to run away. He wants me to stay and be part of
what he calls, ‘his regime’. But it is impossible, he makes up all
these rules while he breaks them all himself. And he changes the
parameters and lies so much, it’s hard to even figure out what he
wants. Even if I do reach a goal, there is no prize. He says he
will send us mad like Pavlov’s dogs!”

Gabe thought it
all made less sense as it was making more sense, so he just
proposed a toast.

“To us and…to
the future.” At this precise moment Gabe felt, perhaps due to the
little wars that had been fought and won, that he could do
anything. His mind was clear to all the possibilities laid out in
front of him. He could paint and sell his paintings online or get a
market stall and he could reach the world from his bedroom via the
internet. Europe, America, Los Angeles, San Francisco. He could set
up a website or join one of those that had everyone’s work on it.
There was a huge amount of competition. But so what? Even better.
He would just have to be the best.

Gabe felt now
that he could be the best, he could be up there with the greats.
Anything was possible, he could taste it, feel it. Gabe could smell
it in the air. He felt lucky and suddenly grateful.

He needed to be
strong, to save Grace from all the crap, from the living hell that
was her life.

He could even
teach art and travel. The world seemed to be opening up to him. His
mum would be ok. He would make her proud of him. Gabe felt strong
enough to take on the world.

“Hey Gabe, what
are you thinking about?”

“Oh you know,
the future...taking on the world.”

“Oh yeah and
what do you see in the future Gabe?”

“Ah, the
future…me and you in some little house with big glass windows in
the woods, in a warm county mind, not sure where yet. But still
somewhere with lots of greens and flowers. Somewhere tropical.
Somewhere I can paint, with my wings out. Eating delicious foods
and searching for the truths of life. And you doing all the things
you love and being famous and celebrated for them. And some nice
dinner in the oven. And a dog, a black dog.”