Amilcare's Pursuit Pt. 1

This is the first of two parts of this short story I now present to you. When faced with the question of whether or not to follow your nature, what do you do? This piece is meant to explore the darker choices made in that constant struggle between instinct and reason. Formerly titled "Brawlers in Twilight", it was changed for reasons you are free to speculate on!

It hasn’t been that long since I forgot what my name was. Each letter in it was erased with every tooth I knocked out, one punch at a time. Each dental piece clacked against the ground like the hammering and chick-chack of an old typewriter, spreading white-out over pointless memories. It was a gradual process that I ignored until it became too late: too late to do something about it and too late to mind an iota. I have lived life since those rough days as something strange, unknown and bizarre, without denomination or reason.

I am what others see and, up ‘till now, nothing else.

I live just the way things live: despised and ignored until someone finds them a use and purpose. What will I be called? A monster or a sick man? Either way I shall be pitied. Maybe that’s the reason I keep treading this life without any rhyme or reason. Conjectures bore me. Fleeing from them helps me stay sane. It helps me stay focused.

My past -excuse me for disappointing you- was something mundane and lacking of excitement. I lived my youth just as some of you already had. Back in those days my eyes expressed curiosity and vitality. Back then I probably wasn’t as indifferent and nonchalant towards living as I am now; in fact, life seemed boring and meaningless until I found my own reason to justify it, though I ignore why.

This raison d'etre was the desire to fight. Such an intense and wonderful thing overwhelmed me; in no time I was dangerous and a threat to everything and everyone around me. The scent of blood, sweat and dirt, together with that numb feeling that remains on struck fists, gave me an impression of disembodiment with the rest of the universe. In violence, I was. In pain, I existed.

I fought out of instigation, boredom, wrath, sadness, euphoria and cockiness; I fought as a favor, as a form of revenge, as an outlet for things in my heart that are no longer there. I fought and won plenty of times, though I slept more than just one nap on makeshift pillows of rough ground, tears, saliva and blood. I wasn’t invincible, but I was happy, ignoring where my love for this kind of behavior hailed from. I could have been a boxer or some other kind of athlete, I suppose, but I remember my excuse to avoid taking that decision was my sound refusal to domesticate or discipline myself: I loved being an animal.

My father -may he rest in peace- held on tight every day to the futile hope of me settling down or "getting straight" as he said, but I couldn’t stop even in the day of his funeral. I looked at his coffin through an eye so swollen it looked deformed. I bit my lip to avoid laughing throughout the whole service, but my cheek was puffing up and often drool trickled from my mouth. And yet, who cares? I had won, imposing my will upon the life I had endured to that day.

One or two months following the old man's death, I was failing school and my attitude showed no signs of changing. The school counselor swore, resting his hand on those books of teenage psychology of his, that all this had been the result of a misguided form of mourning, a cry for help, if you will. All that poured from those lips was utter trash. I loved fighting and that was the end of the story; nonetheless, as a result of all these events and an "evaluation" of sorts, I was diagnosed as being "different".

Fighting was such an integral part of me to a degree that I couldn't just let go. Thus, in spite of all unjust compassion and undue attentions, I was expelled from high school. I had been fed to the ravenous lions of adulthood with several years of anticipation. Moreover, all the bruises and cuts on my face continued being interpreted by the world as attention hogging, while to my mother they only represented facets of an ingrate child and the wounds the death of her husband left.

It was no surprise that she wasted no time giving me an ultimatum. It was a Sunday afternoon when she called me to the living room. Her voice had never been clearer.

“Pull yourself together or I’ll kick you out of this house.” She said, holding back the tears as if her eyelashes balanced lakes of tears.

I blinked a few times. My legs felt weak and something jolted up my knees and through my spine. Then all around me became darkness.

After blacking out and recovering my bearings, I appeared to be on a road I wasn’t familiar with, holding a tattered backpack full of clothes and other goods over my shoulder. Note by note I began to recall a horrible and desperate wailing and I knew, despite sounding like a wounded animal, that it was my mother’s; never did I bother to go back home and see what had happened in the old peach colored dining room. I only had to look at my hands a couple times and breathe with relief, aware that I hadn’t hurt her. No scars. No bumps. No blood. I would have noticed. I would have known.

Looking ahead, the world did not necessarily welcome me with open arms, but I still glared at it and ran head-on into its bosom. I was like an infant breaking back into the womb, always young and forever fearless.