iamspenagain

It was midnight. Adam’s 16th birthday had arrived. He was not yet asleep. He and his friend Christoph were too busy having an enthralling conversation to sleep. Camping was too thrilling a concept for both boys for them to be tired now!

“Just last month,” Christoph was saying, “I went camping with my uncle. It was an incredible experience, the forest and the animals. And one day, the weather was clear enough for us to even see the mountains in the distance!”
(cont. from above)

***

Adam smiled excitedly. Next week, he was going camping for the first time with a youth organization his father had signed him up for. “Oh, wow, I hope this camp is like that. The older boys told me about lots of great things they do at these camps. Races and swimming and football and archery and everything, I’m very excited!”

“Hey, remember when we were playing football in the alley a couple years ago and Heinrich fell and scraped his knee?” Christoph laughed.

“Oh, yeah, and he was crying about it for almost five minutes until Herr Binder came out and wiped off his knees and put his cap back on for him! Still, I almost wish we hadn’t laughed at him so hard. He’s a good kid now, he’s helping me with my schoolwork on weekends.”

At that moment, the boys heard an unexpected commotion from the living room. “What did you say?” Adam heard his father exclaim. Both Adam and Christoph turned their heads to the door in confusion. “You’re what?” Adam stood from his bed and silently cracked open his bedroom door so he and his friend could better hear the conversation. “Listen, Elias, I think you should leave. Take your boy and leave.”

“But why?” Elias asked, confused. “Eduard, we’ve been friends for two years. Two years! Why would you allow this to affect our friendship? And what about the boys?”

“I don’t want my boy hanging out with your boy any longer!” Adam’s father had raised his voice considerably. “Had I known you were one of them, I would have never allowed you into this house! And I would have certainly not allowed my son to associate himself with yours!”

Adam and Christoph exchanged confused glances. “Why are they fighting?” Christoph whispered. “Weren’t they having a glass of wine together just a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on,” Adam answered.

From the living room, they heard Elias’s voice again, only slightly louder than before. “Why should it matter, Ed? Because they say it should? You don’t have to listen to them! You don’t have to -.”

“What was that, you son of a bitch?” Adam’s father yelled. Adam had never known his father to be an angry man. He had never been anything short of congenial to anyone before, and even when his son had gotten in trouble, Adam could tell the anger was only an act. “You dare speak of the government like that? They’ve done nothing, nothing, but help this great nation rebuild, despite constant interference from the likes of you! Get out of my home now, before I call the police!”

Christoph had begun to cry, but his soft sobs were drowned out by the retort of his father. “They’ve done nothing but create a frenzy! Where there was once peace and calm, there is a bloodlust brewing, and it’s the fault of people like you, Ed, who refuse to believe your own beliefs, who refuse to -!” His rant was cut short by a dull smack, followed by a loud crash.

“Oh, God, Adam, I think your father just hit mine!” Christoph stormed from the room to check on his father, a terrified look painted on his face. Adam followed more slowly, cautiously approaching one of the most horrifying scenes he had ever witnessed. Christoph’s father was hunched on the floor, holding his nose as it was profusely bleeding. Christoph, probably wisely, had opted to make sure his father wasn’t injured badly instead of offering his own voice in the argument. The table the two men had once sat behind was on its side, the wine that had once sat upon it already soaking into the carpet.

Christoph helped his father up. Elias looked at Adam’s father with a fierce hatred in his eyes. But beneath the hatred, Adam noticed something much more subtle. A sad disappointment escaped the blinding veil of anger, a disappointment much deeper than anything Adam had ever seen. Christoph’s bloodied father backed to the front door, opened it, and waked out, not taking his eyes from Eduard until he was out of sight.

Adam and Christoph stared at one another as if to ask, “What now?” Adam felt a brief pang of guilt struck at Adam’s heart, though he was unsure why; after all, it was his father raving about Elias being one of them, not Adam. After an eternity of silence, Eduard grabbed hold of Christoph’s arm and pulled him towards the door. Christoph offered a hint of resistance, not wishing to leave his friend, but Adam knew his head was cooler than that. “Leave, Christoph. I can’t help you.”

Eduard closed the door, shutting out both Christoph and Eduard, probably forever. He turned slowly to see his son, still in the living room, his face ghostly white. “I did the right thing, son,” he said shakily. “ The right thing. Now go to bed, please.” As he backed out of the living room, he saw his father pick up the wine bottle, the word, “riesling” visible behind his fingers, from the place on the floor between the spot of blood and the overturned table. Adam looked at his watch. 12:04. The fight had lasted only three minutes, yet Adam somehow felt this incident would have implications for the rest of his life.

***

It was midnight. Adam’s 14th birthday had arrived. He didn’t notice. He was too busy playing football in the alley next to his building. Typically, it was unusual for he and his friends to be out this late, but today wasn’t a normal day. Adam’s parents were throwing a house party, and had allowed the guests to bring their children so Adam could celebrate his birthday with his friends. This particular game of football had been going for a good two hours now, with only the occasional interruption from one of the parents, either to check on their well-being or to tell them to try and be a bit quieter.

Adam’s team was winning by quite a large margin, supposedly because the other team’s goaltender had trouble seeing the ball against the streetlight in front of him, though both Adam and his new friend Christoph suspected it was actually because they were forced to play with Heinrich on their team. “What a wuss,” they had agreed earlier. “It’s too bad Herr Binder had to bring him along. He must’ve thought we actually like him.” He was short, scrawny, and quite clumsy, known in school more for his intelligence than any kind of athletic ability. So it was really no problem for Adam to dribble past him and score another goal for his team. Even though he’d not touched Heinrich, he heard a thud from behind him, but he didn’t let the loud, infantile cries of pain detract from his celebration as the football bounced off the old sideways table they were using as a goal.

“Oh, hell, what’s wrong with you this time, Heinrich?” an older boy named Gustav complained.

“I hurt my knee-hee-hee!” Heinrich screamed through a stream of sobs. “It hurts! Oh, no, my new trousers -.” He let out another steady burst of childish sobs. “They’re ripped. And I’m bleeding! Ow, ow-how!”

“Oh, God, you’re such a baby,” Christoph said. “Come on, get up, you baby!”

Adam laughed. “Yeah, you’re not going to be a wuss forever, are you? You’re almost fourteen now, it’s time to grow up! Grow up, little boy!” He laughed again, partly to drown out Heinrich’s ever-louder crying.

At that moment, Herr Binder, Heinrich’s father, rushed around the corner, hearing his son’s cries of pain even through the thick windows and stone masonry of the building. He quickly jogged to his son’s side, pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket, and, kneeling, began to wipe the blood from his son’s bruised knee.

After a brief moment, he looked up at the rest of his children, his eyes filled with anger. “Why did none of you help him? You could do nothing but stand there and laugh at him? You’re all spoiled little children, rotten children!” But Adam saw something else in his eyes. A painful disappointment, directed towards the children he thought were his son’s friends. Adam had never been looked at that way before. A brief pang of guilt struck at Adam’s heart, and he knew why. He should have helped Heinrich. He should have felt compassion for the other child’s misfortune, even though he and his friends didn’t feel Heinrich was one of them. “I’m telling all of your parents what happened here, all of them,” Herr Binder said softly as he and his son stood. They began to walk away hand-in-hand, Herr Binder’s eyes never leaving the now-silent group of children. “We’re leaving. Couldn’t any of you have helped him?”

Christoph leaned over to Adam. Both boys were visibly shaking. “Adam, he’s doing the right thing, telling our parents,” Christoph whispered. “The right thing. I think...now we should go in and to bed, please.” Adam reached down and picked the ball from its resting place between the streak of blood on the ground and the overturned table. As he began to walk away, he glanced at his watch. 12:04. In only three minutes, he had gone from a victorious football champion to a poor, wretched soul. Feeling awful about himself, he vowed to be a better person in the future. Never again would he allow himself to hurt people like Heinrich. Never again.

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If I could, I would marry a Magnum bar.